Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3 Read online

  “I’d better find Jason,” Monica said. “Thanks again for the ride.”

  “Hang in there.”

  Monica strode to the store’s back entrance and disappeared inside, never once looking in Darlene’s direction. Anna refused to acknowledge Darlene’s presence in the parking lot and fixed her attention on the window defroster on her dashboard.

  In an instant Darlene was at the Jimmy’s front bumper. She raised her fist and brought it down on the hood, a look of fury on her face. She hit the hood again and Jackson issued a deep growl.

  Anna rolled down the window and stuck her head outside. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Darlene lurched for the passenger door, opened it, and raised herself to the seat, her eyes on Anna. “You are asking for it, you are so asking for it. How—how dare you?” She sputtered and stopped, her words swallowed by her wrath.

  “What on earth are you babbling about?”

  Darlene brought her hands together, squeezing them. Her eyelids drooped a fraction of an inch and her lips parted. She breathed deeply. “You’re after two of my employees now?”

  “I’m not after anyone. Grow up.” Darlene had left the door open and wind and snow whistled through the Jimmy from the door to Anna’s open window. Blast, it’s cold, she thought. “If I want to talk to someone, I talk.”

  “You’re interfering. You’re not welcome.”

  “My thoughts exactly when you hopped into my car. You don’t think you’re being a little rude?”

  Darlene reached for the green-beaded necklace at her throat and faced Anna straight on. “You were determined not to like me from the very start, weren’t you? From the time we met. I’m different and you can’t handle that. You’re so damn judgmental you can’t deal with me or anyone like me. You’ve got to change me or destroy me. It’s the same old story, down through the ages.”

  Anna laughed, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. Classic Darlene, she thought. This was what she did. She turned the tables. She went on the chase—then howled that she was being pursued.

  “Open up to the universe,” Darlene said. “Don’t be so negative and provincial.”

  “Provincial? It’s your world that’s tiny, Darlene, not mine.”

  “There’s a whole wide world out there, universe on universe. Drink it in, savor it with all your senses.”

  Anna didn’t think she could listen to much more of this. Where did Darlene come up with this stuff? Her conversation was a strange mix of witch, occult, and new age psychobabble. Wind cut through the Jimmy again, and snow dusted the dashboard where Darlene sat.

  “Don’t you want to explore?” Darlene continued. “Walk in the land? Fashion your own path? Don’t you understand the divinity is within you?”

  A smile grew on Darlene’s face. A deliberate blossoming. She was beckoning, Anna thought. Ready to wrap her welcoming arms around the convert. The woman had ping-ponged from burning acid to sweetest honey in the space of a few seconds.

  “Anna, the universe is not judgmental.”

  “I am. Get out of my car.”

  Darlene’s face fell, sagging like wet clay. She jumped down from the seat and swiveled around, facing Anna, grabbing hold of the door handle. A second later a cold serenity returned to her face. Her lips curved upward and her eyes bore in on Anna. Then in one silky, swift movement she backed away from the door and slammed it shut.

  20

  “Light has come into the world.” Pastor Mark paused as six congregants walked down the church’s two aisles, lighting candles. Those candles lit new candles until everyone held a white taper candle, its flame turned amber by the glow of a red foil bobeche. “In Isaiah we read, ‘A light has dawned,’” the pastor continued. “And Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

  A woman in the front row stood, mounted the podium steps, and faced the congregation. Anna realized she had seen her once before, in the church parking lot, when the woman had turned to look through the Jimmy’s windshield at her and Jazmin. Anna smiled. So that was it. The woman had probably been at the church rehearsing, and here Anna had almost talked herself into believing she was one of Darlene’s spies. She had been well and truly mau-maued, in spite of herself.

  Liz nudged her. “What are you smiling about?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Oh come, all ye faithful,” the woman sang. With the second verse, the congregation rose and joined in, their voices swelling into one, filling the church. Young and old, voices off key and smooth as ivory, so simple it broke your heart. Jesus, the king of angels. The light of the world in the midst of darkness.

  Anna felt her throat tighten. She felt her eyes fill with tears and she blinked to keep them from spilling. Lord, where’s my light? she thought. Thirty-six years old and her life was over. Oh, she missed Sean. For two years pain had been her constant companion. Pain, she had learned, was patient. It waited. It hunted. It lingered where it was least welcome. At night, waves of pain left her gasping, soundless, unable to speak or even cry.

  For two years Sean had been her rising and her going to bed, her joy, sorrow, and anger. And now the world was a needlepoint. Sean. Emptied of meaning but for him. He was alive, but he was not here. She would never touch him or feel his arms wrap around her again. Not here.

  Did he watch her? Was he watching now? Was her grief causing him pain? She couldn’t bear that. And it was the worst of insults to the Giver of all good gifts. The One who had brought him to her unexpectedly, in an old adobe church in New Mexico.

  Anna blinked again and focused on looking around the chapel, singing without thinking. Every chair was filled, all three hundred of them, and a dozen people who couldn’t find chairs stood along the side walls.

  The Davises’ five-year-old daughter stood on a chair two rows up, singing her heart out, and at the end of the first row a man rocked back and forth on his heels to the music, his left hand in his coat pocket, his right gripping a candle. He rocked back again and Anna saw his face. Gene Westfall.

  She hadn’t noticed him in the darkened church. He was a vigorous singer, throwing his body as well as his throat into the song. Somehow she’d thought he would go home to Loveland for Christmas, but of course he wouldn’t. His father was still in the hospital, and Gene was probably working every spare minute at Buckhorn’s, trying to keep it going with only one employee, and his sister temporarily doing the bookkeeping.

  “Song’s over, you can sit now,” Liz said, tugging on Anna’s jacket.

  Anna looked around. She was nearly the last one standing. She dropped into her seat.

  The pastor lead prayers for several congregants, including Gene’s father, then gave the benediction. Anna blew out her candle. She had to check on Jackson, who was in the Jimmy in the parking lot, asleep on a heating pad last time she looked, and after that she planned a silent visit to What Ye Will via the woods behind the store. But the church was warm, the people in it were her friends and neighbors, and she didn’t want to leave.

  Grace leaned toward Anna. “What are your plans for tonight?”

  “Nothing much.” Anna knew Grace would worry if she told her about her real plans. “I’m pretty tired,” she added, deflecting an invitation to Grace’s house, where her relatives, most of them widows, were going to gather for Christmas Eve rum and eggnog.

  “I forgot to tell you about the commotion in the Buffalo two days ago.” Grace took her gloves from her coat pocket and waved them for emphasis. “Gene Westfall came over to pick up your poster for his window, and Tom Muncy was in there getting coffee. Gene called him ‘Councilman Muncy’ and said he had some apologizing to do.”

  “To Gene?”

  “To you, silly.” She poked her fingers into her gloves. “He said the word ‘slander’ several times—like I did to Darlene—and said the only way to even begin to set things straight was to apologize to you, fast, and to pay for your poster. He sai
d his sister was a lawyer and she was ready to sue for you, free of charge. You should have seen Muncy’s face.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I was right there, heard the whole thing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Muncy so timid. He usually walks around like he runs the world, but he was quaking. Did he ever apologize to you?”

  “He did. He paid for my poster, too.” Just as Anna had suspected, Tom’s invitation to the Bear Paw hadn’t been his own idea. But she would never have guessed that it was Gene’s.

  Two days ago, Grace said. Anna thought back. That was the day Gene’s father had a heart attack, the day she bulldozed her way into his store, demanding to know what was going on with her poster. Anna removed her glasses and kneaded the bridge of her nose. Gene hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t stuck his chest out and taken credit. He’d just quietly stood for her.

  “You’re not very talkative tonight. You are tired.”

  “Yeah, I am.” Anna gave her eyes a rub before slipping on her glasses. Thank goodness the church was dark. She couldn’t explain what she was feeling. A man had stood up for her, protected her. How long had it been since that had happened?

  Liz nudged her with an elbow. “Have to go. Sure you won’t spend tonight with Dan and me? My aunt and uncle are joining us.” She nudged Anna again, mischief in her eye. “My uncle likes to read ‘The Night Before Christmas.’ How can you resist?”

  Anna smiled. “I think I’ll pass. Anyway, I’ve got plans.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Anna said her good-byes to Grace, waiting until she had stepped down the aisle for the door before looking back at Liz. “I’m paying Darlene a visit tonight. She’s having her anti-Christmas party, and I thought maybe I’d drive by, roll down the window, sing a few Christmas carols.” When she saw the disapproving look on Liz’s face she added, “Want to come?”

  “Actually . . .” Liz pivoted. Dan was talking to the pastor. “If it was any other night,” she said, turning back, “I’d do it. I wouldn’t tell Dan because he’d kill me for messing with Darlene, especially at night, if you know what I mean, Anna, but I’d do it.”

  “This is downtown Elk Park. Nothing’s going to happen.” Anna knew she was being lectured. It was a mystery to her how Liz, who was two inches shorter, managed to look down her nose when she was in lecture mode. Maybe it was the hair, upswept and tied back in one of Liz’s ever-present hairclips, managerial looking.

  “I know you’re angry about Jackson and Sean’s mandolin, but remember what Detective Schaeffer said about not letting anger screw up your thinking. Don’t do anything crazy.”

  “I won’t. Merry Christmas.”

  “And remember my Bible study on Joshua starts the first week of January. Crossing the Jordan, the battle of Jericho, Rahab saving the spies—it’ll be fun.”

  “Right.” She gave Liz a hug, then Dan, and decided not to mention that Tom Muncy thought Darlene had something to do with his wife’s death. She brushed aside the thought herself. Tom had behaved irrationally since Susan’s death and appeared to be permanently irrational when it came to Darlene.

  “Rahab and the spies,” Anna mumbled to herself. She took a step for the aisle then wheeled back, bending low to retrieve the church bulletin from the floor by her chair.

  “I’ve got it,” she heard. She saw fingers near hers and raised her head, hitting something, hard. “Oh, shoot, shoot.” She laid a hand across the back of her head and straightened. Gene Westfall stood six inches away, massaging his forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have let you get it. I saw you go for it.”

  “That’s okay.” She gave the back of her head another rub. It seemed to her that every time she met this man she came away feeling like a complete fool.

  He dropped his hands and stared down at the floor. “It’s still down there.”

  Anna laughed. “Don’t move.” She scooped up the bulletin, folded it, and stuffed it in her jacket pocket.

  “Did I hear you say ‘Rahab and the spies’?” Gene asked.

  “Did you? I was talking to myself. My friend’s doing a Bible study on Joshua.”

  “That’s a nice bulletin, by the way,” Gene said. “The pastor said you ran them out on your computer.”

  “I don’t normally, but our usual printer raised his prices two weeks ago by 25 percent. The church didn’t have time to look for another printer before Christmas. Stupid of our old printer, really. They thought they’d make more money doing that, but all they did was lose what money they were making from our church bulletins, and lose a good customer.” She bit the inside of her lower lip. Just stop. Stop babbling.

  “And thanks for including a prayer for my dad.”

  “You’re welcome.” Anna starting edging for the door, her trip to What Ye Will on her mind. Gene fell in alongside her. “I wanted to thank you for your pep talk on mau-mauing,” she added.

  “You shine a light and the bullies run like roaches. Usually.”

  They exited the church and headed for the parking lot, Gene shoving his hands into his coat pockets. “I’ve been thinking about the visit you were paid you last night. About the chant. What did you say it sounded like?”

  Anxious to check on Jackson, Anna kept moving toward her Jimmy. “I didn’t get most of it. It sounded like gibberish to me. All I remember is the name ‘Hecate,’ which is obvious, then this chant of ‘crumb’ at the end.”

  “Are you sure you heard that right? ‘Crumb,’ I mean.”

  “Just a sec.” She unlocked the Jimmy’s door, poked her head inside, and felt Jackson’s ears to see how warm they were. Ears were dogs’ thermostats, according to her vet. Jackson was toasty, and happily sleeping among his blankets in his second favorite place in the world. She shut the door and turned to Gene. “It sounded like ‘crumb’ to me. As in ‘bread crumb.’” She paused, remembering. “Sort of. Maybe it was a little like ‘cromb.’”

  Gene yanked at the knot in his tie until he’d loosened it. He clearly was not a man who liked to dress up. “I think I know what they were saying.”

  A gust of wind blew an icy spray of snow across the parking lot. “Tell me in my car,” Anna said. “It’s freezing.” She got in behind the wheel, shut the door, and started the engine.

  Gene settled into the passenger seat, twisted back to give Jackson a scratch behind the ears, then faced Anna. “After you told me about them driving by your house chanting, I did a little research. Remember I said I’d heard your husband play?”

  Anna nodded.

  “I saw him at a pub in Fort Collins. He was playing Celtic music that night, and a young guy tending bar started telling me about Celtic mythology. He had an unusual tattoo on his forearm, a half-dragon, half-worm kind of thing. I asked him what it was and he said, ‘Crom Cruach.’”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Crom was an old Irish deity, maybe three, four thousand years ago. A fertility god or sun god. Some people think his worshipers sacrificed their own children in front of his golden idol. He’s usually represented as a dragon-headed worm or snake. Didn’t you say one of Darlene’s employees is a druid?”

  “Yes, Rowan.” Anna turned on the heater. Cold air flowed from the vents, striking her feet and legs.

  “The druids worshiped Crom. What do you want to bet this chant was Rowan’s idea?”

  “That could be.” Anna leaned back on the headrest. That made sense to her. Rowan coming up with an idea like that would please Darlene, and Darlene was perhaps the only person Rowan wanted to please more than Jazmin. There were at least two people in the car in front of her house last night. Maybe Darlene supplied the Hecate and Rowan the Crom. Maybe they even believed in the deities whose names they were chanting.

  Anna sat bolt upright and reached her hand around to the back of her neck. “Rowan had a tattoo here of a yellow snake. It was wrapped around a Celtic knot, and the snake looked like it was coming out of the ground.”

  Gene ran the back of his for
efinger under his chin. “Tattoo artists can’t do gold, you know. Yellow is as close as they come. And Crom is sometimes shown rising from the ground—a worm-snake.”

  Anna grimaced. “Oh, Rowan, what have you gotten yourself into?” She turned up the heater as warmer air began to flow.

  “Looks like we’ve got a devotee of Crom Cruach in Elk Park.” Gene smiled, making light of it, she knew, for her benefit. “Now that’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d say.”

  Anna gazed out the windshield. How did a boy raised in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, end up worshiping an ancient Celtic snake god? What had happened to him? Did he believe such a thing existed and had power, or was it all fun for him?

  Jazmin’s attachment to Darlene was understandable. Jazmin was a lonely girl and Darlene was her surrogate mother. Such a girl would embrace almost anything Darlene believed in. But witchcraft was too demanding, too stringent, and wicca, the new age craft, was not only more fun but in its difference to witchcraft bore the tiniest bud of rebellion, a necessary response to any mother, even a surrogate one.

  Anna’s heart sank for both Rowan and Jazmin. Two young adults, still children in so many ways, pulled from the real light of life into the darkness of such ugly nonsense. It was a waste of their youth.

  She turned back to Gene. “I wonder what they thought they’d gain by chanting ‘Crom’ outside my house. They couldn’t have thought I knew what they were saying.”

  “Maybe they thought you’d figure it out. Or maybe Rowan honestly believes in Crom Cruach and was calling on him. Though Crom was as likely to devour his servants as his enemies.”

  “Oh, nice.”

  “My guess is Rowan doesn’t believe in Crom but he was hoping he could make you think he does. It’s crazy enough to inspire a little fear.”

  “He does seem to think he has me rattled. He’s an intelligent guy. Smart, clever, but not a deep thinker.”

  “Hence the attraction to oak trees and snake gods.”

  Anna laughed. Gene’s voice was neutral, but he was trying and failing to keep a straight face. She liked a man with a dry sense of humor.