The Final Vow Read online

  Laura shrugged. “I’m only trying to help. It’s my job as your best friend, remember?”

  “That reminds me, best friend. Shepley said something odd yesterday.”

  She raised one of her eyebrows. “Odder than normal for Shepley?”

  I nodded. “He said that because of the wedding I was letting other things around the Farm fall through the cracks, and that people are talking about it.”

  She stared at me over her coffee cup. “You were talking to Shepley? No one talks to Shepley if they can avoid it.”

  “Maybe he’s right.” I thought of the missing artifacts. The artifacts had certainly fallen through the cracks.

  Laura waved away my comment. “That’s just Shepley trying to stir up trouble and make you worry. Everyone knows this wedding wasn’t your idea, and you’re doing a wonderful job managing the Farm and the wedding.” She paused. “At least you were until the wedding planner fell out of the window.”

  “Gee, thanks. You really know how to make me feel better, Laura.”

  She smiled. “It’s what I’m here for.”

  There was a knock on the door, and without waiting for an answer, the door opened. Benji stuck her head inside. “Kelsey, the police are here.”

  I swallowed. “Here we go again.” I stood up, leaving my coffee on the desk.

  Laura stood too. “At least dealing with dead people is become second nature to you. You’re a pro. You got this.”

  For some reason, I didn’t find that all that encouraging.

  We followed Benji through the visitor center to the main room, which was where we greeted our guests when they first arrived on Farm grounds. Detective Brandon stood in front of the large mural we’d commissioned over the winter, which depicted the six generations of the Barton family who’d lived on the land—from the first arrival of Jebidiah Barton in 1805 to the final descendants who’d donated the land to be turned into a museum. That museum idea didn’t happen overnight, however. Many years went by and many dollars were spent to make Barton Farm, the living history museum, a reality. It wouldn’t have happened at all if it weren’t for Cynthia Cherry and her foundation.

  The detective turned to Laura and me, and I noticed that Benji was standing a little off to the side, fiddling with her radio again. The only reason I continued to notice this was because Benji wasn’t one to fiddle. My confident assistant usually gave off the air that she was in control. That’s what made her so great at her job.

  “Detective?” I asked. “Are you here to tell me if we can open this morning?”

  She scowled. “Yes, and you can.” She didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that she wasn’t happy about it.

  I felt a smile forming on my lips until I heard her say “but.”

  “But,” she said, “the church is off limits, as you know, and also the area where the deceased hit the ground.”

  I winced when she said this. The memory of Vianna’s broken body was still too fresh in my mind.

  “It will be roped off with crime scene tape.”

  “For how long?”

  “That’s yet to be determined,” the detective replied.

  My wince grew stronger. I didn’t like the idea of Farm visitors seeing crime scene tape and asking questions, but I supposed it couldn’t be helped unless I decided to close the village side of the Farm. And I didn’t want to do that. The Farm was always in need of money, so I couldn’t afford to do anything that might drive guests away.

  “I understand,” I said. “Thank you for allowing us to open.”

  She raised one of her perfectly formed auburn eyebrows at me. “It wasn’t my decision.”

  I was sure that it wasn’t. Despite my plans not to get involved, I found myself asking, “I heard that Krissie Pumpernickle was taken to the station last night for questioning.”

  She frowned. “Who told you that? Chase?”

  I swallowed. Did every conversation have to be so prickly with this police detective? I was guessing that the answer to that was yes, especially where Chase Wyatt was concerned. “No, I didn’t hear it from Chase.” I made a point not to tell her that Chase was with me when I heard that news. “Eddie told me.”

  “Interesting,” she mused. “Yes, we brought Krissie in for questioning.”

  “Why didn’t you question her at her home? I didn’t have to go to the station, and I’m the one who found the body.”

  Her eyebrow shot up again. “Would you have preferred to have been questioned at the station? I can arrange that in the future.”

  Now it was my turn to frown.

  Brandon pulled a tiny notebook out from the inside pocket of her jacket. “Krissie wasn’t cooperating. I thought if I took her to the station, she’d be more forthcoming.”

  “And how did that go?”

  She glanced up from her notebook and stared at me. “How do you think?”

  I smiled. I could imagine. I would have given up a month’s salary to see Krissie being taken to the police station.

  Brandon snapped her notebook closed. “As far as we know, she was the last person to see Vianna alive, and according to reports, they had quite a row at the dress shop while Krissie was having her final fitting. Krissie threatened Vianna a number of times during the argument.”

  That would have been after Krissie met the drunk Abe Lincoln. I grimaced. I’d forgotten about the inebriated reenactor up to that point. He was something else I would have to deal with.

  “According to what reports?” I asked. “Who told you there were threats?”

  “That’s confidential police information.”

  I arched my brow at her. “Oh really.” I was helping with Krissie’s wedding, so I knew who her dress tailor was. It would be easy enough to find out who might have overheard the argument. I mentally added that to my To Do list.

  Brandon glared at me as if she knew that I wouldn’t give up that easily.

  “Krissie has been awful to everyone since the moment we started planning the wedding,” I said. “I don’t really think an argument with Vianna qualifies her as a murder suspect.”

  “You don’t think she did it?” Brandon asked.

  “I don’t,” I said with reluctance. “Look how Vianna’s death has impacted her wedding. Krissie is selfish. Bottom line, she wouldn’t do anything that could potentially damage her dream wedding. There’s just no way.”

  Brandon wasn’t convinced. “People do many stupid things in the heat of the moment. Trust me. As a cop, I’ve seen it too many times before.”

  “Was a crime even committed?” I asked. “Maybe Vianna fell from the window.”

  Brandon shook her head. “It seems very unlikely. It would take a lot of force to bust through the wooden slats like that, even though the wood was old and brittle. My working theory is that she was pushed or thrown through the window. Since you saw someone running away from the scene of the crime, that theory works.”

  I shivered as I thought of someone tossing Vianna out the bell tower window. She was a tiny woman—just like I was. She could be picked up and thrown. Even so, the person would have had to be extremely strong or lucky (or unlucky, depending on his or her intentions) to make her break through the window like that.

  “Is Krissie under arrest?” I asked.

  “No,” Brandon said, as if she wasn’t happy about this either. “I let her go. I didn’t have enough to hold her, and she’s not the only suspect.”

  “Oh?” My ears perked up at the news.

  “It’s early in the case. Of course, there’s more than one suspect. We have to keep our minds opened to other possibilities until the evidence leads us to the right conclusion.”

  I wanted to say that when Cynthia Cherry’s nephew, Maxwell, was murdered on Farm grounds last summer, Brandon hadn’t been too open to other suspects when it looked like I was the killer. Maybe she�
�d changed her tactics in the last year. Or maybe she just didn’t like me.

  “So, like who?” I asked. “Who are the other suspects?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question. It was like a compulsion on my part to always know the who, when, where, and why. Not to mention that the murder—if it was murder—had taken place on my Farm.

  Detective Brandon frowned, but to my great surprise, she said, “Life in Vianna’s company wasn’t all happy vows and wedding cake tasting. There are real signs of relationships beginning to unravel there.”

  I was about to ask the detective what she meant by that when there was a crash behind us and I found Benji staring at the ground. Her radio lay on the hardwood floor in half a dozen pieces.

  twelve

  The radio’s internal wires were exposed, and pieces of black plastic were scattered every which way. As with the fate of Humpty Dumpty, no amount of Super Glue was going to put that radio back together again.

  Benji dropped to her knees, and her hands trembled as she gathered up the pieces of her broken radio.

  I squatted beside her and handed her one of the tiny pieces closest to me.

  “I’m such a klutz,” she mumbled.

  I studied her. Most of her face was hidden from my view by her braids, which fell over her cheeks while she worked. Benji wasn’t a mumbler. Benji wasn’t one to get rattled from a broken radio. There was something more to this than the radio.

  Her hands continued to shake. “I’m so sorry. Think this radio is a goner.”

  The radio was, in fact, a goner, but I didn’t much care about that.

  “It’s no big deal, Benji,” I reassured her. “There’s an extra radio in my office. Go get that one.”

  She met my gaze and looked as if she might cry. I would have known then that something more was definitely going on with her even if I hadn’t already suspected it before. In the years that I’d known her, I’d never seen Benji cry. Not once. Not even the time that Mags, the oxen, stepped on her foot and broke it. Benji had sworn a blue streak, but she hadn’t cried. And that would have been a time to cry. I knew I would have.

  Detective Brandon cleared her throat and I looked up. The detective loomed over us, so I hopped to my feet. I was still at a height disadvantage by a good eight inches, but at least I didn’t feel like a bug under a microscope any longer.

  “I’m heading over to the village to see about the crime scene,” Brandon announced. “I have some officers over there securing the area so you can open the Farm at the normal time. I’ll also be questioning Jason, your farmhand.”

  “I need to be there for that,” I said.

  “I have to check in with my officers, and then I’ll interview him after that. You can come over and observe, if you like,” she said unconcernedly.

  “I do like,” I said.

  The detective nodded and turned toward the sliding glass doors that led out onto the Farm grounds. Benji stood up with the broken pieces of the radio in her hands.

  I gave the detective the brightest smile that I could muster, which was just at half wattage. “Thanks. That’s much appreciated.”

  She merely grunted and marched out of the visitor center.

  When she’d gone, I turned to Benji. “What’s going on?”

  Her dark brown eyes were huge, and she paled. “I have to tell you something,” she said in a low voice.

  “Clearly,” I said. “What’s gotten into you?”

  She scanned the visitor center. The only other people in the room were Laura, Judy, and Hayden. Hayden was telling the two women a story that featured Frankie burying my reading glasses in his litter box. I knew the story might take a while with Hayden as narrator, so I said, “Tell me.”

  She took a deep breath. “You see, I’ve been—”

  “Kelsey Cambridge.” A stern voice interrupted our conversation. “We need to talk to you.”

  I turned to see Henry Ratcliffe and a late-middle-aged couple come through the doors into the visitor center. How many times had I told Judy that we needed to keep all doors locked until the Farm opened? We needed to keep out both visitors who arrived too early and people like Henry.

  I forced a smile onto my face. “Henry, it’s so good to see you,” I lied through my teeth. “I was just about to call you.” More lies.

  By the way Henry’s eyes narrowed, I suspected he knew it.

  Benji adjusted the broken pieces of her radio in her arms. “I’ll grab that new radio and run over to the village to make sure everything’s secure before the guests arrive.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Can you go be with Jason when the detective questions him, in case I can’t get there in time? I want to be there, but”—I glanced at Henry—“this could take a while. Jason will need the support.”

  She nodded. “Sure. I won’t let the detective eat him alive.”

  “Thanks,” I said, relieved. Benji wasn’t one to go out of her way to help Jason. She insisted on calling him “Barn Boy.” It’s not that she ever said it directly to him—that would be bullying, and I’d never stand for it—but she was fond of using the nickname when it was just the two of us despite the many times I’d told her to stop.

  Whatever Benji had needed to tell me would have to wait. I watched her disappear in the direction of the administrative offices to get the new walkie-talkie. As much as I wanted to go with her and be there for Jason, I knew it was better if I stayed back and dealt with Henry head-on. I hoped I’d still have enough time to check the grounds before we opened. I trusted Benji, but I wouldn’t be completely satisfied that the Farm was ready for business if I didn’t give it a once-over myself.

  I turned my attention back to Henry Ratcliffe. Some would describe the man as a silver fox. He had lush silver hair brushed back from his perfectly tanned forehead. In his heyday, I supposed, he’d been a catch in the yacht club scene. Not that there were any yacht clubs in New Hartford, but had there been, Henry would have been their king in the 1980s. Now he was a retired attorney who was doing his very best to stay in control by taking on the leadership of the Cherry Foundation’s board of trustees.

  I knew the couple he was with, too, and I can’t say I was thrilled to see them that early in the morning. Krissie’s mother, Teresa Pumpernickle, was an older version of her beautiful daughter, but with her hair cut short and larger jewelry choices that even I could identify as expensive. The diamond on her ring finger alone must have been worth the Farm’s entire annual budget, including salaries and benefits for the employees. The man, who was the same height and width as his wife, was Krissie’s father, Heath Pumpernickle. Although I’d met Krissie’s mother before, this was the first time I’d ever seen her father outside of photos.

  I didn’t know where Mr. Pumpernickle stood on the wedding, but Teresa, the mother of the bride, was a huge fan of it and had wanted to be involved from the moment Eddie and Krissie announced their engagement. Unfortunately, her daughter had told her to butt out. Krissie believed that this was her wedding, which of course it was, but she wanted no input on the planning from her mother. As Vianna had discovered, it was Krissie’s way or no way. Still, she gladly accepted money from her parents to pay for the wedding of her dreams; it was only their opinions that were not welcome.

  “Kelsey,” Henry began, in the dour voice I assumed he’d mastered in the courtroom. Outside of a court, it sounded both pretentious and overplayed, but then again, maybe that was the persona that Henry was going for. I wouldn’t put it past him. “Kelsey,” he repeated, “I assume that you know Mr. and Mrs. Pumpernickle.”

  I held my hand out to them. “I’ve met Teresa, yes. Nice to see you again. I’m sorry about what has happened.” I found myself apologizing even though Vianna’s death wasn’t my fault; it was an automatic reaction from years of dealing with the public. Take the blame and they’d get over it faster. Blame them and it would never end.

 
Teresa took my hand in both of hers. “Isn’t it just awful? We so hope that you can help us. If anyone can clean up this mess, it’s you.”

  “This mess? Are you referring to the wedding?” I tried to remove my hand from her grasp, but she held it fast.

  “Not just the wedding, although we have every intention of going forward with it despite this complication,” Heath Pumpernickle said.

  Complication? Was that how Krissie’s parents viewed Vianna’s death, as a mere complication?

  His wife nodded. “Every intention in the world. Eddie is such a wonderful man and a perfect match for our daughter. We want to see them together in wedded bliss.”

  I wondered if the elder Pumpernickles remembered that Eddie was my husband once upon a time and the father of my only child. Either they’d forgotten or were oblivious to how a comment like that would make me or any reasonable person uncomfortable. Krissie’s mother still held tightly to my hands, and I gently yanked them free.

  This wasn’t a conversation to have in a public place. I glanced around the visitor center. Even though Laura, Judy, and Hayden were the only ones nearby, I thought it would be best to find a more secluded place to talk this over. “Why don’t we go somewhere a little more comfortable to discuss this?” I suggested.

  I didn’t bother waiting for them to agree or disagree as I led them through the glass doors onto the Farm grounds. To the left of the visitor center, there were a number of picnic tables. We usually used them for school groups eating their lunches. I stopped at the first picnic table and gestured for them to take a seat.

  Henry arched his brow. “Is this supposed to be more comfortable?”

  “It’s better than standing,” I said. “But if you prefer to stand, that’s up to you.”

  “It’s fine,” Teresa insisted as she perched on the edge of the picnic bench. Her husband took the seat next to her and looked as if he was about as thrilled with the accommodations as Henry was.