Sliding down the roof, Emory grasped at anything but found nothing until his fingers hooked on the gutter. He looked down at his feet dangling over the walkway between the house and the pool.
Virginia came running into view. “Emory! Hang on! Where’s the ladder?”
Emory shouted down, “Other side of the house!” The gutter creaked. “Hurry!”
While Virginia raced around the house, Emory heard the clang of heavy metal on hollow metal and felt a vibration in his hands. He looked to the right and saw the axe had slid from the roof into the gutter. The handle pointed away from him, but the foot-long, curved blade was mere inches from his fingers. “Crap!”
Emory looked down and tried to calculate a trajectory to the pool. Maybe if I push off the house. He placed the soles of his shoes against the wall and contemplated jumping. I need to wait for Virginia.
The gutter, however, had other plans. The brace to his left began to pitch, allowing the section to which he clung to droop under his weight.
The axe inched toward his fingers.
Okay, I need to move. He dropped his feet, causing another droop in the gutter.
The axe grinded closer.
Emory scooted his hands left, faster and faster.
The gutter continued to angle down, speeding the axe on its screeching path to Emory’s fingers.
“Now or never!” Emory raised his feet to the wall, but they just kicked air. “What?”
“I’m here!” Virginia yelled, running while dragging the ladder.
“I’m not going to make it!”
Emory felt something tighten around his waist.
The gutter brace snapped!
Emory’s fingers slipped, but he didn’t fall.
The axe completed its journey down the gutter and fell to the walkway below – just missing Virginia.
“Help me out here, kid!” grunted George Henry, his hands vise-gripped around Emory’s belt from Blair Geister’s office window.
Emory grabbed the window ledge and, with the gardener’s help, pulled himself through the opening. He dropped to the floor, panting. “Thank you.”
George grinned at him and coughed in his face. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Emory pushed himself to his feet as the gardener continued coughing. “Are you?”
The older man coughed out an answer. “Yeah.”
Virginia bounded into the room and grabbed Emory. “You idiot! You were supposed to wait for me.” She glanced at George. “Thank you.”
The gardener tipped an imaginary hat. “No problem. I better get back to work.”
Once the gardener left, Emory said, “I wonder what he was doing in here.”
Virginia laughed. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, you klutz.”
“It wasn’t my fault. I slipped dodging an axe.”
“What? You mean that axe that almost hit me? Where did it come from?”
“Someone threw it at me, over by the gargoyles. I didn’t see who. But listen to this.” Emory stepped over to the sofa to sit. “I know how Blair Geister died.”
Virginia joined him on the sofa. “You found the switch the wire led to on the roof?”
“It wasn’t a switch. It’s attached to a lightning rod.”
“What? Someone installed a lightning rod to kill someone? That’s an awful lot of trouble to go through.” Virginia grabbed Emory’s forearm. “Hey, do you think maybe Tommy Addison tried to help Blair get out of the bed, and that’s how he died?”
“If so, that means Juniper lied. She said he was on the lower level when he died.”
“Why would she lie about that?”
“I don’t know. Fortunately, we now have definitive proof Blair Geister was murdered, so Juniper should support our continuing the investigating.”
“You can prove Blair was murdered?” Jeff asked from the doorway.
“You managed to miss all the action.” Virginia jumped up and headed toward him.
“What did I miss?”
“I’ll let Emory fill you in. I have to check on something.” Virginia patted him on the chest and whispered something in his ear before leaving.
Jeff plopped on the sofa beside Emory. “What’s your proof?”
“I found a metal pad under one of the posts of Blair Geister’s bed. It was connected to a lightning rod on the roof.”
“Seriously? Well, that’s elaborate.”
“Virginia actually said she could’ve wired the bedroom in under an hour. Of course, that didn’t include installation of the lightning rod on the roof.”
“Ah.” Jeff smiled. “That’s what she was talking about.”
“What do you mean?”
“You climbed on the roof and almost fell off, didn’t you?”
“Did you see me?”
“No. Virginia told me to take it easy on you, so I figured something must’ve happened. You have become quite the danger-prone Daphne.”
“I have not!”
Jeff started counting on his fingers. “You drank drugged water—”
“Which you gave me!”
“You fell off the Godfrey Tower.”
“I was pushed!”
“And now you almost fell off this roof.”
Emory threw his hands up. “Someone threw an axe at me! How is that my fault?”
“Who would throw an axe at you?”
“Someone who didn’t want me to find the lightning rod.”
“You’re saying whoever killed Geister is after you now, putting you in more danger.”
“Fine. But I could say the same thing about you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“In the short time I’ve known you, you’ve been in two car accidents.”
Jeff waved off the statement. “Neither of which was my fault.”
“You got tazed, tied up, suffocated and almost blown up—”
“Because you didn’t blow out all the candles.”
“You provoked a knife-wielding bully and almost got your throat slit.”
“That was just fun.”
“You were caught breaking into someone’s home and ended up in jail.”
“All right!” Jeff held up his hands in surrender. “Enough. I guess we’re both danger-prone Daphnes. What does that make Virginia? Fred? Shaggy? Velma?”
They looked at each other and agreed. “Velma.”
Emory smiled and relaxed into the sofa. “How’s Bobbie?”
“Eating now. I think she just missed me.”
Emory rested his hand on Jeff’s. “I might’ve too. Just a little.”
Jeff acknowledged the statement with a micro-smile before changing the subject. “One thing I don’t understand. Wouldn’t Blair Geister, world-famous architect and construction tycoon, have noticed a lightning rod on her house?”
“Lightning rod?” Eden stopped in the hallway as she walked by the door.
Emory pointed up. “I found one on the roof.”
Eden stepped into the room. “Blair installed one on every house she’s ever owned. Wouldn’t move in before it was done.”
“Seriously?” asked Jeff. “I thought those were only for tall buildings.”
Eden rolled her eyes. “Most definitely overkill, but you can understand why.”
Emory looked at Jeff and turned back to her. “Why?”
Eden smirked. “I assumed you investigators would know everything about Blair. My cousin, Adrick – Blair’s little brother – died when we were kids after being struck by lightning.”
Jeff muttered, “Oh wow.”
“Their parents took them on a family trip to Gatlinburg, and they stayed at an antique cabin in the mountains. It was Adrick’s birthday, August 2nd. Story goes, Blair had claimed the loft bedroom for herself, leaving Adrick to sleep on the couch. Their first night there, the mist turned to rain, and the lightning came. Blair caught Adrick in her room. He was scared of the storm and didn’t want to sleep by himself, but she wouldn’t have it. She sent him back down the little metal ladder from the loft. He had only descended a couple of feet when the lightning struck. Tore right through the ceiling and hit the ladder.”
Jeff asked, “Did he die?”
“Not right off. He held on for a few days and then just faded away. Of course, Blair blamed herself for the longest time. She was in therapy until around thirty. I guess it did help her get over the guilt. Kept the fear, though.”
“That’s horrible,” said Emory.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t explain why the lightning rod was hooked up to her bed.”
Eden’s face contorted in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Emory replied, “That’s what killed her and almost killed you last night.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Lightning rods are connected to a grounding system. If it had been improperly wired, she would’ve died long before now.”
Jeff said, “Then someone must’ve rerouted it from the grounding system recently.”
Eden turned away from them. “Blair was murdered. And now they’re trying to kill me!”
Virginia knocked on the front door to Edgar Strand’s house. “Mr. Strand!”
She heard a growl coming from the side yard, between Edgar’s house and the fence he shared with Blair Geister. She poked her head past the corner of the house. Scattered over the narrow lawn and house-hugging jasmine were shards of flat glass. She heard a voice from above and tilted her head upward to see one of the windows to Edgar’s office – the room he said he could no longer use because of Blair Geister’s gargoyles – was now broken.
She heard Edgar yelling from the broken window. “Damn demons taunting me! Tearing at my life!”
“Mr. Strand!” Virginia ran to the back of the house and found an unlocked sliding door.
As soon as she entered the living room, she heard a gunshot. She jumped but hurried up the stairs, slowing her pace as she ascended. Through the second-floor railing, she detected motion. He’s not dead!
“Mr. Strand.” She left the final step and turned toward the office. She peeked inside and saw Edgar Strand in blue flannel pajamas and matching robe, aiming a rifle out the broken window.
Before Virginia could speak, he fired another shot, blasting half the face from one of the gargoyles on Blair Geister’s roof. She plugged her ears. “Mr. Strand!”
“Who’s there?!” Edgar swung the gun toward the doorway.
Virginia yelped and ducked behind the couch. “It’s Virginia Kennon. We met the other day.” She lifted her head so he could see her face.
“You. What do you want?”
“First of all, for you to put that gun down.” Virginia rose to standing as he lowered the barrel toward the floor. She stepped from behind the couch, hands up midway. “Mr. Strand, what’s going on here?”
“It’s over.” He nodded to his desk.
“Do you mind if I look?”
“Everyone’s going to know about it now.”
She went to the desk and saw unfolded court papers under a light bottle of Jack Daniels. She didn’t have to move the bottle to see the word Divorce at the top. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s because of her!” He turned around and fired another shot at the gargoyles. “She was the worst neighbor ever! Drove me so crazy, my wife couldn’t take it no more.” Edgar steadied himself with the gun as he dropped to a seated position on the floor. “Lost my wife. My view. My peace. Lost my axe.”
Virginia glanced over at the hooded mannequin and saw it no longer held an axe. She pried the gun from him and placed it on the couch before joining him on the floor. “Mr. Strand, I’m sorry. I promise, if you stop shooting, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure all that ugly over there goes away.”
“You can do that?”
“I have some pull with the person who’s running things now. I really believe she’ll do the right thing.”
Edgar took her hand. “Thank you.”
“Now, is there anyone I can call for you? I don’t want to leave you alone like this.”
He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his robe. “That’s okay. I better call the reverend myself. I don’t want him to think I’ve moved on to another woman already.”
Virginia laughed and gave him a parenting stink-eye. “Okay, you take care of yourself.” She headed for the door but stopped to say, “No more guns. Or axes.”