Death Knell (Juniper Grove Cozy Mystery Book 8)

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

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  Juniper Grove Mystery Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Garden of Death Cover

  From the Author

  More Books

  DEATH KNELL

  A JUNIPER GROVE MYSTERY

  KARIN KAUFMAN

  Copyright © 2018 Karin Kaufman

  Series cover design by Deranged Doctor Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  JUNIPER GROVE MYSTERY SERIES

  Death of a Dead Man (Book 1) — Out Now

  Death of a Scavenger (Book 2) — Out Now

  At Death’s Door (Book 3) — Out Now

  Death of a Santa (Book 4) — Out Now

  Scared to Death (Book 5) — Out Now

  Cheating Death (Book 6) — Out Now

  Death Trap (Book 7) — Out Now

  Death Knell (Book 8) — Out Now

  Garden of Death (Book 9) — Coming Soon

  CHAPTER 1

  I groped for the switch on my bedside lamp, flicked it, and stared at my alarm clock. Five o’clock in the morning. What on earth?

  There it was again—the sound that had woken me. Someone was pounding on my front door.

  Julia!

  I forced myself out of bed and headed for the stairs, grabbing my robe on the way. My sixty-something next-door neighbor was in trouble. That had to be it. The police had been called. No—an ambulance.

  As I reached the foot of the stairs, I struggled with my robe, punching at the armholes and finally jamming my hands into the sleeves just before I swung open my front door.

  “Holly?” I breathed. My thirty-seven-year-old neighbor from across the street looked fit as a fiddle and wide awake, her long dark hair pulled into its usual sleek ponytail. “Are you all right?”

  “Rachel, can you hear that?” She yanked on my arm, pulling me onto my porch. “It’s been going for five solid minutes.”

  “Huh?” The only thing I heard at that moment was a dawn chorus of sparrows flitting about my front garden.

  Holly put a finger to her lips.

  I tilted my head, demonstrating my earnest attempt to listen for whatever had sent Holly racing to my door. “I think I hear bells.”

  Holly nodded.

  A hint of light played in the sky, but it was a far cry from honest-to-goodness morning. At least to my sleep-addled mind. My alarm wasn’t set to go off for two more hours. “Where are they coming from?” I asked.

  “It has to be St. John’s. It’s the closest church, and those are church bells. Five minutes—six minutes now—without stopping. Even Peter heard them, and he sleeps the sleep of the dead.”

  “Do you keep your windows open? I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “We leave them open a few inches, starting in the spring.” She stepped to her left, in the direction of the bells. “Peter likes the fresh air. I’d rather keep the windows shut.”

  “Bells this early is kind of rude to the neighbors,” I said with a yawn. “Even on a Sunday. No church bells before seven, that’s what I say. If it was Easter, I’d understand.”

  Holly turned. Her expression told me I wasn’t grasping the significance of bells at that hour of the morning. “Something is wrong, Rachel.”

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “I don’t know. I just know something is wrong. My grandmother always said . . .” She hesitated, seemingly reluctant to finish.

  “Said what?”

  “Unexplained bells in the dark mean death.” She gave me a weak grin. “I know it sounds silly, but I heard it from her my whole childhood. And she told me stories of how the bells turned out to be true. She would hear bells at night, and at daybreak, she’d find out that someone had died.”

  “Bells just mean another angel got its wings,” I said with a smile.

  My humor went unappreciated.

  Holly Kavanagh didn’t have a superstitious bone in her body. She was a clear-headed, sensible businesswoman, owner of her own bakery, Holly’s Sweets, on Main Street. I’d known her since first moving to Juniper Grove eleven months earlier. But here she was on my front porch, grim-faced as could be, her arms crossed, her fingers digging into her sweater.

  “It’s going to mean someone’s death if they keep ringing like that,” I said. “Imagine how the folks living next to the church feel. Is someone pulling the bells? I mean, are they real bells or are they electronic?”

  Holly frowned. “That’s a good question. I don’t know about St. John’s.”

  “Because if they’re real bells, that means someone has been in the bell tower for the past six minutes, pulling on them.”

  Holly sucked in her breath. “Which means something really is wrong. They’re signaling for help.”

  “They’d call the police or fire department, Holly, not ring a bell. The church must have a telephone.” I twisted back to my door. “Coffee? I’m not going back to bed.”

  “No thanks, I’ve already had a mug. And breakfast.”

  “It’s your day off. Why aren’t you sleeping in?”

  “I get up at four-thirty on Sundays.” Again Holly turned her face to the sound of the bells. “That’s my sleep-in. If I get up later, it only makes it hard to get up at four on Mondays.”

  “Come on inside,” I said. “Let me get dressed, and then we’ll go take a look.”

  She spun back. “Yeah?”

  “Neither of us are going to rest until we find out why those bells are ringing.”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel. I had to tell someone. Peter said I was making something out of nothing, but they were driving me crazy. I kept hearing my grandmother’s words.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You know I love a good mystery.”

  Holly followed me into the house, making her way to my kitchen while I headed up the stairs. Back in my bedroom, I threw on a light sweater and a pair of jeans, then laced up my hiking shoes. I ran a brush through my hair—an exercise that always, inevitably made my limp brown hair even limper—snatched my phone from the nightstand, and trotted back down the stairs.

  Holly was at my back door, holding out my car keys. No coffee for me.

  We climbed into my Forester and drove east on Finch Hill Road. Several blocks later I swung left onto Maple Street, and half a minute after that I was at the curb in front of St. John’s. In our little town of twelve
hundred souls, nearly everything was a two- or at most five-minute drive from my house on the west side of town—the side of town that nuzzled the velvet foothills of the Colorado Rockies.

  The bells were still ringing when we got out of my car and walked to the church’s double doors. If someone was inside, working on silencing them, they were having a difficult time of it.

  “Are you here to turn them off?” a woman called out as she strode across the lawn. She wore fuzzy white slippers, and the hem of her pink nightgown peeked from under her knee-length coat. “It’s about time.”

  “Sorry, but no,” I shouted back. I yanked on one of the door handles. Then the other. Both were locked. Then I peered through the stained-glass cutouts in each door, straining to see movement inside. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s here yet,” I said.

  “No one’s answering in the church office,” the woman said, raising her voice above the din, “but someone called the police.”

  I glanced back at the woman. “They did? Over bells?”

  She tugged at her coat collar. “It wasn’t me. It must have been someone at the cottage.” She pointed at the stained glass. “Back there, on the other side of the church graveyard. That’s where they are. I could see the flashing police lights from my bedroom. I guess they’re trying to contact the pastor.”

  “That’s probably it,” I said, looking at Holly. Her expression was doubtful. And truth be told, I was doubting my own words. Cops didn’t leave their emergency lights flashing over ringing bells or a pastor who didn’t answer his office phone.

  The woman waved wearily, said, “Off to bed for me,” and headed back in the direction she’d come from, shuffling off through the dewy grass.

  Holly and I set out across the lawn for the back of the building. The church grounds were bordered by stands of junipers and low-growing shrubs, so although I’d driven past the church many times, I’d never noticed a graveyard or any building behind it. It was a new world, full of shadows, spring flowers, and the scent of pine trees.

  I saw lights pulsing red and blue, reflecting off granite headstones, and then, as Holly and I walked into a tiny clearing, I saw a Juniper Grove Police SUV and squad car. Two cars, both with lights flashing. This was not good.

  I halted, assessing the situation. Four women, one of them draped in a throw blanket and all of them wearing robes, were huddled at the front of what I supposed was the cottage, and a capless Officer Derek Underhill was speaking to one of them. She nodded her head, he nodded his, and he motioned for her to sit on a low stone wall in front of the cottage. She complied, wrapping her blanket more firmly about her shoulders.

  “That’s Sophie Crawford,” I said. Though the bells were still ringing, I kept my voice low. “The woman with the red hair talking to Underhill. She’s head librarian at the Juniper Grove Library. She’s helped me with research.”

  “I know her too,” Holly whispered.

  Another car came into sight, creeping slowly up the drive and pulling up to the squad car. I counted seven cars now, and except for the SUV, they were bumper to bumper on the drive. “That’s the coroner,” I said. How many times had I seen that van of his? “The ambulance will be a couple minutes behind him. You were right, Holly. Something happened.”

  The coroner spoke briefly to Underhill and then Sophie. She tilted her head at the cottage, and without speaking to or looking at the other women, the coroner slipped through the front door.

  A minute later Chief Gilroy appeared from behind the cottage. He marched to his SUV, popped open the cargo door, then strode purposefully toward the graveyard, a crowbar in his hand.

  “James,” I called as he neared. He slowed and gave me an upward chin salute before moving on. He was a quiet, almost reserved man, and never more so than when on the job.

  “He’s not surprised to see us,” Holly said.

  Daylight was breaking, sending shafts of light slanting through the junipers, promising warmer hours ahead. “I’m going to talk to Sophie.”

  We started once more toward the cottage. Hearing our shoes crunch on the gravel drive, Underhill, who had been hovering attentively over Sophie, turned. “Where did you two come from?”

  “From the church,” I replied. “We heard the bells.”

  “Rachel Stowe?” Still clinging to her blanket, Sophie rose from the stone wall.

  “I thought that was you, Sophie. What happened?”

  “Something terrible.” Her face went momentarily blank, as though she were fighting to make sense of the awful event that had drawn the police to her home. Seconds later, tears welled in her green eyes. “My friend Lauren Hughes is dead.” She let go of her blanket with one hand and gestured vaguely toward the cottage.

  I quickly scanned the scene before me: the gray two-story cottage; the sky-blue front door; pink and white rose bushes tumbling over the stone wall, some in bud, some just beginning to bloom; the other three women, standing now in their own little group; the wooden sign on the wall near where Sophie had sat, on it the words “Wild Rose Cottage” in shades of green and blue.

  “She fell out of a second-story window in the back,” Sophie said quietly.

  I stared.

  “During the night, onto the concrete patio. I thought I heard a scream, so I got up . . . and I found her. A few minutes later, those bells started.” She put a hand to one ear. “They won’t stop.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Seconds later, the bells ceased. The silence that followed was almost palpable. I had a feeling that Gilroy had introduced his crowbar to the church doors.

  “Thank goodness,” Sophie said, letting her hand fall to her lap. “I never thought church bells could be so unnerving.” She turned to Underhill. “Officer, I need to make coffee.”

  “Go ahead, but everyone needs to stay in the kitchen,” Underhill replied.

  “And Rachel,” Sophie said, her tone pleading, “you need to come inside.” The three women ten or so feet away from us must have known her far better than I did, so why ask me? Sophie had been a great help to my research, but we weren’t close by any means.

  Holly sat down next to Sophie. “Was your friend the same Lauren Hughes who subbed at Grant Middle School?”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Lauren is, or was, my son Caleb’s favorite teacher, even though she was a substitute,” Holly said. “He loved it when she subbed. She encouraged his interest in astronomy, of all things. Caleb even saved his money and bought a telescope for Christmas last year. He’s going to be heartbroken.”

  “This is my friend Holly,” I said, a little late with my introduction.

  “Will you come inside too?” Sophie asked. There was that pleading tone again.

  “Yes, I want to know what happened. What to tell my son.”

  I asked Underhill if he’d mind us staying—he was Chief Gilroy’s senior officer, after all, though he’d grown far less authoritative toward me in the months we’d known each other—and he agreed, provided we remained in the kitchen with the others.

  I watched Holly follow the others through the cottage’s blue door, hanging back so I could ask Underhill about his first impressions of the scene. While he’d grown less officious, I’d grown more inquisitive—and bolder in my snooping. But Underhill and I were friends now, and most of the time he didn’t mind my investigative nature. Anyway, he knew there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  He leaned sideways and whispered, “There’s a little blood on the window frame and sill, and more of it on the shingles outside the window.”

  “Like she was being pushed out and fought back?”

  “It’s also possible she fell and grabbed for the window, though I think she had too many scratches on her hands for that. A couple broken nails too. She was clawing. And there’s too much blood on the shingles. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “You don’t think it looks like an accident.”

  He shrugged and headed inside the cottage.

  Sophie was already making coff
ee in the kitchen when I joined Holly and the others at the farmhouse-style table in the adjacent dining area. The table was littered with cell phones, crumpled potato chip bags, empty ice cream cartons, and bottles drained of their wine—at a glance, almost two bottles a person.

  One of the women drew a stack of four paperbacks across the table and stared sourly at their spines. She appeared to be a few years younger than Sophie, maybe in her late twenties. Freckles peppered her nose and cheeks, and her light brown hair was long, thick, and expensively highlighted.

  I had always felt—quite irrationally—that freckles, like dimples, belonged to open, approachable people, so I introduced myself and asked what the book was, since they all appeared to have the same cover.

  “It’s our monthly club book,” she said. She took the topmost book and slung it down the table at me. “It’s a murder mystery called Penelope Falls. I’m Tyra West.”

  I angled the cover my way. On it, an artist had drawn a young woman in midair, plummeting to earth from a second-story open window. I nearly gasped.

  “I see I’m not the only one who thinks it’s weird,” Tyra said.

  The woman seated in the chair opposite mine crossed her arms and exhaled. “It was an accident, Tyra.” She turned her attention to me. “I’m Mariette Shipley, by the way. And your friend”—she threw a forefinger at Holly, sitting to my left—“I know you. You own the bakery downtown. Is that right?”

  “Yes, I’m Holly Kavanagh.”

  “I’m sorry we’re meeting under sad circumstances. I love your bakery. Oh, I could have your Danishes every morning.”

  “Here we go, people,” Sophie said, carrying a tray of blue mugs to the table. She set it down, gently pushed it forward, and took a mug for herself. “Cream and sugar, spoons if you need them.” She sat at the end of the table nearest the kitchen, crossed her legs, and pushed her long red locks from her forehead. She must have risen only fifteen minutes before me, I thought, but though she still wore a robe, her eyes and skin were bright and clear, her hair nearly regal looking.