The Final Vow Page 6

  The sound of footsteps running across the loose stones on the pebbled path distracted her and she looked away from me. I took the opportunity to step out of her looming range.

  “That will be the EMTs,” she said with not a little bit of disgust in her voice. I knew she must be thinking of Chase. Their breakup had gone as well as my split with Eddie. Hard feelings on both sides remained.

  “Kelsey!” Chase sprinted toward us. His equipment bag beat a rhythm on his thigh as he ran. “Kelsey!”

  Detective Brandon’s lips curled into a sneer.

  Behind us, one of Brandon’s officers popped out of the trees. “Detective, whoever it was got away. Sonders and I lost them.”

  The detective scowled and went over to confer with the officers.

  My shoulders slumped. If I’d kept going, would I have caught a glimpse of whoever it was? If I had, I might have seen who’d done this to Vianna. Assuming, of course, that she’d been pushed.

  Chase pulled up short when he saw Detective Brandon. Then he saw Vianna’s body on the ground. He shot me a look and went straight toward Vianna. His job came first. I recognized the two other EMTs from events I’d gone to with Chase at the fire station, and also, unfortunately, from scenes with other dead bodies on Barton Farm.

  I swallowed. It sounded so much worse when I considered “bodies,” plural. Brandon was right. It would be a miracle if the Farm continued to stay open.

  I forced the thought aside and stepped back as the other EMTs joined Chase, kneeling on either side of the body.

  Detective Brandon told her officer to keep searching the trees for any sign of the person and then joined the EMTs at the body. I followed her. I was sure she noticed, but I didn’t care. I had to know what was going on too.

  Chase looked up at her and shook his head. “She’s gone.”

  From the odd angle of Vianna’s neck, her death was obvious from the start, but at the same time, it was almost merciful to have it confirmed. Her body was so broken; I couldn’t imagine the pain she would have endured had she survived. She might have wished she were dead.

  It was true that I hadn’t liked Vianna much. She was like an annoying fly that I couldn’t shoo from the house. But I didn’t want this to happen to her. I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone.

  I turned away just in time to see a wide man shuffle up the pebbled path. He wasn’t in a hurry. The beam of his flashlight bounced against the ground as if he were out on a quiet evening stroll. As he approached, I could see his luxurious mustache and sideburns, grown in the style of the Civil War’s General Burnside, whom he portrayed on the battlefield more often than not. In reenactments, Chief Duffy played both Southern and Northern generals based on the need, but Burnside was his favorite.

  Brandon noticed him coming, too, and her face fell into an even deeper scowl, as if that were possible. The chief was her boss, but she wasn’t happy about the arrangement. Everyone knew this, even Chief Duffy, who I suspected didn’t much care what Brandon or anyone else thought of him. I mean, the man had colossal sideburns. He had to have some serious self-confidence to pull that off in the twenty-first century.

  Brandon removed her cell phone from the pocket of her shapeless suit jacket. “I’ll call the medical examiner.”

  The EMTs backed away from the body and collected their equipment. There was nothing more they could do. It was up to the police, the medical examiner, and the crime scene techs now. Unfortunately, from past experience I knew the drill.

  “Kelsey,” Chief Duffy said, lowering his flashlight so that the beam wouldn’t hit me in the face. He was much more polite than his detective. “Dispatch said that you called in about another accident. This is turning into a bit of a trend, isn’t it?”

  “Not on purpose,” I said.

  “Dispatch also said you refused to stay on the line.” He waggled his busy eyebrows.

  “I wanted to get to the village as fast as possible,” I replied. “I called on the way.”

  He turned the flashlight off and slid it back into his duty belt. Unlike Detective Brandon, the chief didn’t mind wearing his uniform. I thought that it must remind him of the many period uniforms he wore during reenactments. “Isn’t there a big wedding on the Farm this weekend?” he asked.

  I raised my eyebrows, surprised that he knew this. Then it suddenly occurred to me to wonder whether the wedding would go on as planned under the current circumstances. The venue was vandalized and the wedding planner was dead. It couldn’t get much worse than that.

  The surprise must have shown on my face because Chief Duffy added, “Chase mentioned the wedding to me.”

  I glanced over at Chase, who was in what appeared to be a deep conversation with his EMT colleagues. I supposed that I shouldn’t be surprised that he’d told the chief about it—the chief was his uncle, after all. New Hartford was a small town, and everyone was related to everyone else somehow. It was the town’s most endearing—and aggravating—quality.

  Brandon nodded at Chief Duffy. “The techs and the ME are on their way. They’ll get here as quickly as they can. There was a shooting in Akron earlier tonight.”

  “You’re always on the ball, Candy.” The chief smiled.

  I was certain he was the only one on the force who could call her by her first name without getting punched in the mouth.

  “I’d like to interview Kelsey if I could,” she said.

  The chief took a step back. “You go right ahead. I’ll check in with Chase and the boys.” He strolled over to the EMTs, leaving me alone with a very irritated-looking detective. Lucky me.

  nine

  Detective Brandon narrowed her eyes and removed a small notebook from the inside pocket of her jacket. “So let’s go over everything from the top.”

  “All right,” I agreed. There was no point in arguing with her. She was just doing her job, and she was very good at it. I was willing to give her that.

  “Tell me exactly what brought you over to this side of the Farm so late at night. Did you just happen by when the victim fell from the window?” She sounded dubious.

  I frowned. The last thing I wanted to do was embroil sensitive Jason in this police investigation. He’d been in others with Detective Brandon at the helm, and they’d not gone well for him. At the same time, I couldn’t lie. “Jason, my farmhand, lives in a trailer on this side of the Farm.”

  She made a note in her notebook. “I remember that.”

  Of course she remembered that. She forgot nothing. I’d give her that too.

  “Anyway,” I went on, “he saw a light in the steeple from his trailer and decided to check it out. By the time he reached the church, Vianna had fallen out of the window. He ran to my cottage to tell me.”

  “Why didn’t he call the police first? That’s what he should have done.”

  “He panicked. It’s not often you find a dead body.”

  She arched her eyebrow. “That’s not the case for you, though.”

  I pressed my lips together. I didn’t see any reason to reply.

  “Where is he now?” she asked after a beat.

  I shivered and crossed my arms over my chest. It was a warm summer night. I guessed that it was close to eighty, which was hot for this late at night in northeast Ohio. I suspected my proximity to Vianna’s broken body was making me cold. Then again, the chill could have been from Brandon’s icy stare. “He’s at my cottage with Hayden,” I said. “I told him to stay there while I went to see what was going on.”

  She made another note. “I’m going to have to speak to him.”

  I nodded. I knew there was no way around it. Jason would just have to be able to handle the detective’s questions. Maybe she would allow me to be there when she questioned him. I wasn’t holding my breath that she would.

  “Chase”—she said his name with something close to resentment—“identified the
victim as Vianna Pine. He said she was a wedding planner.” Her jaw tightened and she was barely able to get out the words.

  I wondered if she thought that Chase knew the wedding planner’s name because he and I were getting married, which we were not. We’d only been dating for a few months, and after my disastrous divorce, I was taking this new relationship at a snail’s pace.

  “Do you know the victim?” she asked.

  I nodded. “She was planning a wedding that’s supposed to be in the church here on Friday.” I glanced up at the broken window and the strand of glowing twinkle lights that swung lightly back and forth in the breeze. “It was Eddie and Krissie’s wedding.”

  She looked up from her notebook. “Your ex-husband’s wedding?”

  I nodded.

  “Your ex-husband was getting remarried here on Barton Farm?”

  I nodded again.

  “And you were okay with that?”

  No, I wasn’t okay with it, and Detective Brandon must have known that. Instead, I said, “It’s what the Cherry Foundation wanted.”

  “Ah!” A smile curled on her lips. “And what was the wedding planner doing in the church’s bell tower at night?”

  I pointed at the dangling string of twinkle lights. “Putting up those lights, I would guess.”

  “Why? And why was she doing it in the middle of the night?” She made more notes.

  “It’s a long story.”

  She glanced up from her notebook. “A woman is dead, Kelsey.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I dropped my arms. “Krissie wanted lights in the steeple for the wedding. I said that we couldn’t do it because it was a safety issue. The bell tower is old and unstable. Candles are also out of the question due to the fire hazard. I wouldn’t let her install the lights and reminded her that the contract both Eddie and Krissie signed stated that no changes could be made to the historic buildings.”

  “But she went ahead and did it anyway.” Brandon tapped her pen on the edge of her notebook.

  I nodded. “From what’s happened, I can only assume that’s the case. I’m sure that Krissie wouldn’t take no for an answer from Vianna about the lights, and Vianna thought it would be better to break the Farm rules than to face Krissie’s wrath.”

  “Krissie’s wrath?” Brandon arched one of her perfectly formed eyebrows. Given that the detective went a long way to hide her natural beauty when she was on the job, her perfect eyebrows must have been her one vanity.

  I rubbed my own brow, knowing that I might have just made a mistake. I didn’t want Krissie to sound vindictive. At least, I didn’t think I wanted her to sound like that. I didn’t want Krissie to be considered a suspect, not really. “Maybe wrath was a poor choice of words. Krissie knows what she wants, and she gets what she wants.”

  “Including Eddie?” Brandon asked.

  I frowned.

  “So your theory is that Vianna busted through the window when hanging lights and fell to her death?”

  “That’s one theory,” I said.

  “You have others?”

  “Or … ” I paused. “Or she was pushed.”

  “By the person you saw running into the woods?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think that person was up in the bell tower. I saw movement in the tower right after I found the body.”

  “What kind of movement?” Her voice was sharp.

  “A shadow that was certainly big enough to belong to a human. I called out to the person, or whatever it was, and he ran off. I took off after him, but realized that might not be a good idea.” I saw no reason to tell the detective that I’d fallen while in pursuit of the shadow. “Then you and your officers showed up.”

  “Him? Did you get a look at the individual? Was it a man you followed into the woods?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t see the person at all other than the shadow of him or her. I’m using ‘him’ in the generic sense.”

  “Can you describe this shadow you saw?” she asked.

  I shook my head again. “I’ve got nothing. It was just a shadow.”

  “Like Peter Pan’s shadow?”

  “I didn’t imagine it, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “It very likely was the killer. You do realize how stupid it was to run after a possible killer.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Candy, can you come here a second?” Chief Duffy called her over to the body.

  In the time that we’d been talking, the medical examiner and the crime scene techs had arrived. One of the techs set up floodlights on tripods. The bright lights washed Vianna’s body and face in a garish yellow glow and made her injuries appear even more gruesome.

  “Wait here,” Detective Brandon ordered me. “I have more questions for you.”

  I had no doubt that she did. As I watched her and the chief consult with the medical examiner, I felt that knot in my stomach tighten a little bit more. Another death had happened on the Farm. Another murder, most likely. I knew it was murder from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I knew it. What would it mean for the Farm? I’d been lucky so far with the other murders. The Cherry Foundation had been very forgiving about those crimes, but looking at Vianna Pine’s crumbled and broken body under the lights, I couldn’t help but think that this just might be the death that would close Barton Farm for good.

  Chase and the other two EMTs were walking in my direction. Chase headed straight for me. One of his colleagues said, “Don’t be long, Wyatt.”

  Chase gave his friend a thumbs-up sign and then took my hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said automatically.

  He cocked his head. “Is that true? Or is this Kelsey trying to be tough?”

  “I have to be tough,” I said, allowing my gaze to meet his warm brown eyes.

  He smiled, but it was a smile with a hint of sadness in it. “Not with me you don’t. I wish you’d remember that.”

  I opened my mouth to say something in return, but nothing came out. I couldn’t be vulnerable, not even with Chase. My life had made me tough, and it was who I was. My mother’s death and my divorce had formed an impenetrable wall around my heart, which Chase had diligently been chipping away at over the last year, but the wall was still there. I doubted it would ever disappear completely.

  “Wyatt!” one of the EMTs yelled from the pebbled path.

  “I have to go. My shift ends at midnight. I’ll come to the cottage as soon as I get off.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’ll be—”

  He cut me off with a kiss, and it wasn’t a peck on the mouth either. I pulled away.

  “Chase,” I hissed. “You can’t kiss me in the middle of a crime scene, and you’re on the clock.”

  He grinned. “Why not? My uncle is chief of police, and he doesn’t care.”

  I looked over his shoulder and saw Detective Brandon glaring at us both. That was why not.

  ten

  It was close to midnight when Tiffin and I stumbled through the front door of my cottage. The police and the medical examiner and his team had gone, taking Vianna’s body with them. I closed the cottage door behind me and leaned against it, afraid of what tomorrow would bring. I knew Henry from the Cherry Foundation would not welcome this news.

  There was also the issue of keeping the Farm open tomorrow. I was hoping the police would only cordon off the church and let the rest of the village remain accessible, but as of yet, no decision had been made. The chief said he would let me know in the morning. And morning was just a few short hours away for me. I awoke at five every day during the high season to check and recheck that the Farm was ready for the onslaught of visitors.

  Tiffin sniffed around the room. Maybe he was making sure the place was secure after the last few hours we’d had. Jason and Hayden weren’t on the main floo
r. Tiffin ran to the foot of the stairs and looked up.

  “Okay, boy,” I said. “You can come with me to check on them.” Usually Tiffin was relegated to the main floor because upstairs was Frankie’s domain, but I knew the dog wouldn’t be able to rest until he saw with his own eyes that his boy was all right.

  Tiffin and I crept up the stairs. The door to Hayden’s room was open just a crack. I pushed lightly on it and it swung inward. When I peeked inside, we found Hayden asleep in his bed with his right arm flung over his face. Frankie was on his pillow and opened his one good eye, appraising us.

  Jason lay on a blanket on the floor, also asleep. He was using Hayden’s dinosaur stuffed animal as a pillow for his head. He faced the doorway, as if he’d positioned himself to be ready to protect Hayden if the need arose.

  I felt my face soften as I watched the two boys sleep. Brandon had agreed to talk to Jason tomorrow. She’d wanted to question him tonight, but I’d been able to convince Chief Duffy that tomorrow would be better, and he’d told his detective to wait. That gave me the time I needed to warn Jason about the oncoming interrogation. I saw no sense in waking him now, though. That could wait until tomorrow too.

  I tiptoed into the room and around Jason’s sleeping form. Under Frankie’s close observation, I gently lifted Hayden’s arm from over his face and tucked it under his superhero sheets. He sighed in his sleep and his pink lips curved into a smile. I wished I knew what he was dreaming about to put such a peaceful expression on his face. I knew my dreams that night would be far less pleasant. I kissed his forehead and tiptoed back out of the room.

  Tiffin whimpered in the hallway. I left the door open a crack, as it had been before, and went back downstairs.

  I’d just reached the main floor when there was a light knock on the cottage’s front door. Tiffin ran to the door with his tail-less rump wiggling happily. I figured it must be Chase.

  When I opened the door, Chase stepped inside and wrapped his arms around me in a hug without saying a word. Then he kissed me.

  “Hayden and Jason are upstairs,” I said as I pushed him away.