I parked Rainwater’s SUV in front of Charming Books a half hour later. It felt strange to be driving such a large vehicle. My Mini Cooper could fit inside this car. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but after driving the Mini for so long, the SUV felt like a tank, especially since I didn’t drive often at all. In Cascade Springs, I either rode my bike, if the weather allowed it, or I walked. So I was relieved when I finally parked the car, even more relieved that it was in one piece and I hadn’t scraped his hubcap on the curb.
The hot flash that had overtaken me when I’d stood outside of Tattered Spine had all but gone away. But the nausea remained. I decided I would, for once, take Rainwater’s advice and go to bed.
I walked up the path to the front door of Charming Books. Everything was quiet and still. Holiday lights twinkled along the street.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. My Christmas wish was to put this nightmare behind us. It would be the first Christmas that Rainwater and I spent as a married couple, but instead of a quiet day together, we would be on the trail of a ruthless killer. It was someone who’d killed two people now, assuming that Roma’s death would now be considered a homicide, and had attempted to kill a third—Imogene. That was if all the crimes were committed by one person. I wasn’t so sure about that. It seemed to me that the deaths themselves were too different from each other. Roma Winterbourne had drowned. I shivered. I knew from my own experience that that death might have been an accident just like the coroner had said.
I would have thought it was an accident, too, on a cold and icy December night if it had not been for the signed first edition of Walden and the message written in pen on the palm of Roma’s dead hand. They stole my book. If it had not been those two things, I would have argued the death was an accident because it was so similar to how Colleen died almost nineteen years ago now.
Next, there was the attempted murder of Imogene Thoreau, who was formerly a Thorne. Someone had tried to poison her. If she wore a bracelet alerting people of a penicillin allergy, I just believed it was too far-fetched to even consider she would knowingly take penicillin. Someone had given it to her. Through the DNA test? It was possible. In any case, that person had known of her penicillin allergy. Was it someone who knew her well? It was also possible that it was someone who had seen her bracelet. I prayed that Imogene would recover. If she was lucid enough to tell us who gave her that test, then she could at least reveal the person who’d tried to kill her.
And finally, there was the successful murder of Heath Howell. That death was a shock indeed. Heath had been beaten so badly, I wished that I had heeded Rainwater’s warning and not looked at the body. I now would be haunted with those mental images of Heath bloodied and bruised for the rest of my life. It was something I knew would follow me into my nightmares.
Beyond the murder and the attempted murder, I couldn’t forget that the first signed edition of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden was still missing. Whoever had the book in their possession would have a tough time selling it now. We knew from the evidence underneath Roma’s nails that the book had been scratched. There would be obvious marks on the cover. As I had thought so many times over the last few days, when we did find the book, we would find the killer.
The porch light hummed beside Charming Books’ front door, and the sound seemed to be even louder in the quiet of a winter night. I wondered if Rainwater and I would ever get our honeymoon. It seemed to me that the events of the night were sure to cancel the trip completely, and, after this, there would certainly be other events in the village that would interrupt our lives. It was just the price of being married to the chief of police.
However, I did feel like we were close to the end of the investigation. My mind was on Imogene as I reached the door. I was glad that Rainwater had had the foresight to place a guard at Imogene’s door at the hospital. The killer, again, assuming that there was only one, wouldn’t have thought twice about attempting to kill Imogene again when they learned Imogene was still alive. The killer had successfully killed two other people. What was one more death to a person like that?
The key fit into the lock, and I stepped into the store. I reached for the light switch and turned it on, but nothing happened. I flipped the switch up and down a few times.
There was a tickle on the back of my neck, and I started to back out of the shop. I was sure it was all right, but after the last few days, I was jumpy. I decided that I would go back to Rainwater’s car and call the police department. Then, I would call Grandma Daisy and wait at her house until Rainwater got home. I hesitated because Faulkner and Emerson were in the shop. Shouldn’t I take them with me if something was wrong?
Before I could decide what to do, a disembodied hand yanked me into the store and covered my mouth. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. It was muffled by a cloth that smelled like cheap men’s cologne.
I knew that whoever was holding me fast was a man, but I was taller than him. I tried to use that to my advantage. I stomped onto the man’s instep like Rainwater had taught me. It did little other than make him jerk since he was wearing boots. However, it gave me enough space to elbow him in the stomach and jump away.
My hip connected with Faulkner’s perch by the front window and sent it crashing to the floor. I would have thought the crow would protest, but I heard nothing.
I went to the door, but the man jumped in front of it. I ran back to the birch tree and the stairs. Now that my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I gasped. “Hank!”
He glared at me. “This is all your fault. All of it. If you had just bought that stupid book when Roma had come here to sell it to you, all these people would still be alive. You’re the reason they had to die. You were too caught up in your own wedding to do the right thing.”
“Hank, you’re the killer?” I rubbed my forehead. “Why?”
“I needed the money. Money that I never got thanks to you,” he spat.
“Why, Hank? Why did you need the money that badly that you would steal for it?”
He glared at me, and I was afraid that I might have pushed too far. Then, his shoulders drooped. “Abby’s treatments are so expensive. Insurance won’t cover everything. I don’t want her to miss a treatment because I couldn’t pay the bill.”
My heart broke for him, but at the same time, I reminded myself that he killed a man with his bare hands.
He balled his fists at his sides. “Don’t look at me like that.”
I blinked. “Like what?”
“Like you feel sorry for me,” he snapped. “I have been doing an excellent job taking care of my daughter.”
I raised my hands as if in surrender. “I know that, Hank. I would have never said differently. I know how much you love Abby.”
“I love her more than that ridiculous woman loved her book. This all start because of that stupid book. I wish I had never seen it.”
“Do you have the book?” I asked.
“It’s right there. I left it for you as a present. I was just about to leave, but then you made the mistake of coming in. That’s your fault.”
I didn’t exactly go in. He pulled me into Charming Books, but I wasn’t going to squabble with him over that small detail.
“Why did you bring the book here?”
“I knew you wanted it.”
Things started to fall into place in my mind. He was here the day Roma had come to try and sell the book to me, and I had seen him speak to Roma outside on the sidewalk. He also knew Heath because he made deliveries to his store. He was in all the right places.
Hank began to pace. “I shouldn’t have come here. I could have left. They would never have attached me to the case. Now I have to get rid of you too.”
I shivered. “You wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Imogene is still alive. She’s about to tell the police. She will tell them your name.” I didn’t know if that last part was true, but I had no qualms about lying to a killer.
All the color drained from his face. “What?”
“She’s alive. Your plan didn’t work. She’s still at the hospital, but the doctors are optimistic that she will make a full recovery.”
He rubbed the side of his face so vigorously that his cheeks turned bright red. “No, no, no. I had to do it.”
“You had to kill Imogene?” I asked.
“I didn’t kill her,” he snapped. “The only person I killed was Heath. I didn’t mean for it to go that far. I—I lost my head. I was blinded by rage. I thought he had made me kill a person. What else could I have done when I knew he was trying to frame me for murder?”
“I think you should start at the beginning,” I said as calmly as I could. I wasn’t feeling anything close to calm inside though.
“Heath had asked me to keep an eye out for interesting books. He knows that I deliver to a lot of bookshops, libraries, and antique shops on my route. There have been times when I have helped him acquire a book. He’s paid me handsomely for that service.”
“When you say acquire, do you mean steal?”
“It doesn’t matter how I get them,” he said dismissively. “Everyone knows that the kind of books that Heath sells aren’t for reading. They are to be placed on a bookshelf and admired from afar. They are signs of status and wealth. I think it’s a terrible waste of money, but who am I to judge how rich people do their business, especially when I can profit from their vanity?
“When Roma came to your shop and I overheard what she had to sell, I knew that Heath would want to buy it, no questions asked. When I met her on the sidewalk, I told her about Heath and suggested that she sell her book to him. I knew that if she sold it, Heath would give me a nice finder’s fee. She said she would. I thought that would be the end of it, and I would go into Christmas with a little extra money in my pocket.”
“It wasn’t the end of it?” I guessed.
“No, it was not. She thought Heath hadn’t offered her enough money for the book. She said it was invaluable. She refused to sell and walked. Heath was furious and told me that if I could convince Roma to sell the book to him, I would get three times my usually finder’s fee.”
“So you spoke to her again by the river.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I know what you’re suggesting, and you’re wrong. I was there along the river the night Roma died. I’d thought that she might want to speak to you again about the book at your wedding reception. I’d spotted her at the wedding, so I guessed that she would be at the reception too. I was right. What I hadn’t guessed right was that there would be another person there trying to get her hands on the book.”
“Imogene,” I said.
He nodded. “But I didn’t know her name at the time. She and Roma were at the river’s edge fighting over the book. They were literally yanking it back and forth between them like two cartoon characters playing tug of war. Finally, Imogene pulled it from Roma’s grip. Roma scratched the book trying to keep her hands on it. When Imogene had gotten it away from her, Roma fell into the river. She hit her head. Imogene ran away. She didn’t even stop to see if Roma was alive. She might have been, but she was unconscious and she drowned in the river,” he said with no emotion at all.
I gasped. “You mean that all this time Imogene has been claiming that her book is missing, she actually had it?”
He nodded. “I saw it with my own eyes in her cabin. She told me that she lied about not knowing where the book was because she was afraid the police would take it as evidence related to Roma’s death. She made a big fuss over it so that they would look for it and stay away from her.”
Imogene was right. Rainwater would have most certainly taken the book.
I glanced around the room. The only light came from skylight above the tree, the porch light through the windows, and the security light by the kitchen door. One thing I knew for sure was that Faulkner wasn’t in his favorite spot in the tree. He would have been clearly visible in the skylight. Emerson was MIA too. I took this as good signs. The animals were hiding, which meant they were safe. That also meant I didn’t have to worry about them to get away from Hank. Assuming I could do that, of course.
As far as I could tell, Hank had no weapon on him. He hadn’t pulled a gun or a knife. But he had killed Heath with his bare hands. It was a terrifying way to die, but he would have to catch me before he could do that to me. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen. All I had to do was get out the back door of Charming Books, which meant I had to run through the kitchen and get past the cranky old lock that I hated so much. Sometimes it took me three whole minutes to unlock that door. He’d surely catch up with me by then. I had to distract him enough to give me more time to escape. I might not get three minutes’ worth, but every second counted.
I promised myself I would replace the locks on that door as soon as this was all over.
“I told Heath what I saw down by the river,” Hank said. “And that Roma was dead. He asked me to tell Imogene about him. He didn’t care much that Roma was dead, but he was still very interested in the book. If he couldn’t buy it from Roma, he would buy it from Imogene. I did as he’d asked me.”
“Why?” The question practically fell out of my mouth, and I wished that I could grab it and shove it back in.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Were you not listening to me before? My work for Heath was very profitable in the past. I had no way of knowing that this would be any different.”
“But you had to see it was different. A woman was dead.”
“Because of an accident caused by a squabble between two old women,” he snapped.
I almost argued with him over it, but I could see he was becoming more incensed. Since he’d beaten Heath to death because he’d lost his cool, challenging him on this point didn’t seem like the best idea I had ever had.
In a quieter voice, I asked, “What happened when you told her about Heath wanting to buy the book?”
“She said she would never sell it, and that’s when I learned her crazy story about being related to the author. I didn’t care if she was related to him or not, but it was clear that she wanted someone to believe her. I reported this back to Heath, thinking this would be the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t,” I said.
He scowled. “No, it wasn’t. He told me to talk to her again and deliver a message.”
“What message? And why didn’t Heath just talk to her himself?”
“When she found out that he’d wanted to buy the book, she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. She didn’t want anything to do with me really, but at least she would talk to me.”
“What was the message?” I asked again.
He balled his fists at his sides. “That Heath could help her. He said that he could get a lock of Thoreau’s hair that would prove once and for all that she was his descendent. He said that he knew another collector who had a hair wreath that was made of the four Thoreau children’s hair that could be used to compare to her DNA. She just needed to take the DNA test. In exchange, she had to give him the book.”
“And she agreed to this?” I asked.
“Not at first. It took several days to talk her into it.” His eyes darted around the shop. “The woman is insane. All she talks about is this long-dead author. He is her whole life.”
“How did she get the test?”
“I was to give it to her, which I did earlier tonight. She gave me the book. That would have been the end of it if Heath had paid me.”
“He wouldn’t pay you?” I asked. I took two small steps in the direction of the kitchen. Every inch I moved closer to freedom, the less likely I was to get caught.
“When I gave him the book, he said that he wouldn’t pay me for it because it wasn’t as valuable with the scratches on the cover. I told him that he had to pay me. He refused. I threatened to call the police.” He took a shuddered breath. “He told me that I shouldn’t do that because then I would have to answer to killing a woman.”
“Heath was the one who put penicillin on the cotton swab?” I asked.
“Yes, and he made me deliver it. He said that he couldn’t have Imogene coming back looking for the book when she learned that he didn’t have any Thoreau DNA. He’d had to get rid of her, and he framed me for the murder as an insurance policy.”
Two more steps toward the door.
“I went into a blind rage then. I don’t know what happened after that. When I realized that Heath was dead on the ground, I knew I had the blood of two people on my hands.”
One more step.
“What are you doing?” His voice was sharp.
That was my cue. I bolted toward the back of the shop and through the kitchen. I hit that back door with a thud. My hands fumbled with the lock. The dead bolt was stuck. I couldn’t get it to move.
I screamed as I was yanked back from the door by my hair. I felt like it was being pulled from my scalp by the roots. He let go of my hair, wrenched my right arm behind my back to a breaking point, and marched me back into the main room of the bookshop.
He tossed me onto one of the sofas like a ragdoll. I was taller than him, but he was strong. I remembered how many heavy boxes of books he could carry at once. He loomed over me, and I kicked at him. I wasn’t going to make this easy.
He pulled my feet across the floor, and my head connected painfully with the hardwood boards. I saw stars. I was too dazed to fight him off. Right when I thought he would hit me just like he’d hit Heath, there was an awful screech.
In my dizzied vision it looked like a whole flock of crows were descending on Hank simultaneously.
But it was just one crow. And Faulkner was mad. Hank cried as the crow dug his talons into the top of his head.
It gave me enough time to get to my feet. In my dazed condition, instead of running out the door, I ran up the spiral staircase, planning to lock myself in the apartment and call for help.
Hank managed to knock Faulkner away, and the crow cried in pain. I almost turned around to go back and save him, but at this point, Hank was running up the stairs after me.
I made it to the top, and the apartment door was unlocked. I always left it unlocked after hours.
I just touched my hand to the door when Hank grabbed me by the arm again. Emerson screeched this time, jumping from one of the children’s bookshelves. Hank screamed and covered his head. I kicked him toward the staircase. To my amazement, the steps disappeared before my eyes. It just a sheer drop to the floor below. I grabbed Emerson, who was teetering halfway over the edge, and held him fast.
Hank fell and screamed all the way until he hit the floor below. The stairs reappeared. The tree shook as if dusting itself off, and a handful of birch leaves fell to the floor. One landed on Hank’s unconscious face.
The front door burst open, and Rainwater, Officer Wheaton, and what appeared to be the entire Cascade Springs police force rushed inside. They all pulled up short when they saw Hank on his back on the floor.
“Violet!” Rainwater yelled.
I leaned over the railing in the children’s loft with Emerson clinging to my chest. Our hearts beat in tandem. “I’m here.”
“We were rushing here to tell you Imogene woke up and said that Hank gave her the test. The test was from Heath. Since Hank was the only one who wasn’t dead or in the hospital, we assumed he was dangerous.”
“I sort of figured that out,” I said.
He stared at the man at his feet. Hank groaned and rolled to his side. I was glad to see he was still alive even after everything he had done.
“I can see that. Is there anything else you figured out that you haven’t told me yet?” He looked up at me. The light from the skylight reflected in his beautiful amber eyes.
“Just that you should have married me sooner,” I said with a smile.