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

  Grace clucked. “That ugly, awful place.” She rested the carafe on the table and wiped her hands on her apron. “Bert and I first heard about it when we moved here, before we opened the Buffalo.”

  “It’s a great example of an early-twentieth-century mansion,” Liz said. “There aren’t many like it in Colorado.”

  “I’d like one less.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s an old, foul place. The grounds are lovely, but the house itself should be torn down. And why is it called Sparrow House? There’s not a sparrow to be seen. No self-respecting bird would go anywhere near the place.”

  Anna laughed. “So you’ve been inside?”

  “Bert and I took a tour of it about a year before he died. It was every bit as ugly as I’d heard. And worse.” She narrowed her eyes, looking intently at Anna. “I can’t tell you what’s wrong with the house, I just know there’s something very wrong. Everyone does.”

  The loathing in Grace’s expression took Anna by surprise. Bert had been dead seventeen years, yet her tour of Sparrow House with him was still sharp in her mind. She wasn’t making the sort of verbal digs that seemed mandatory when Elk Park residents spoke about the place—she meant every word. And time hadn’t softened her opinion.

  Anna did a quick calculation. “You were there when Matthew Birch was alive.”

  “I didn’t see him when we took the tour, though people said he never left the house. He was probably hiding in one of the rooms we weren’t allowed to see. I heard he was sick for years before he died.”

  “Hepatitis C,” Liz said.

  “You do know your Birch history,” Anna said. “That could come in handy.”

  Grace swung to the door as a couple entered the café and strolled toward the counter, their eyes on the blackboard menu on the wall. “He should have gotten out of that house and into the sunshine,” she said. “I want you both to watch yourselves up there.” She paused, looking sternly at them both, then with a tip of her chin—driving home the point—she hurried back to her counter.

  Liz chuckled. “I love Grace.”

  Many of Anna’s own impressions of the mansion, brief as her visit with Paxton had been, echoed Grace’s. The place was ugly—the sort of ugly that was hard to describe. You could talk about the tattered furniture, the cold marble entryway, or the wooden mallets on the mantel, but it was all these together, and the trifles—cracked crown molding, old paint—that gave the place a time-trapped, ruinous look. A look that bred rumors of murder.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Liz said. “You’re not letting what Grace said get to you, are you?”

  “I was just thinking about Kurt Ellison, the man they say was murdered there. Paxton said his neck was broken. I’d never heard that before.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “The place gave me the creeps.”

  “It’s old, Anna.”

  “It’s decaying. There’s a difference.”

  “We won’t be alone. The Birches live there.”

  “That professor from DU, the one you wrote about, is staying overnight too. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  Liz took a gulp of coffee, emptying her cup. “Mmm. Denver wanted the Birch Papers for its manuscript collections. Getting them was quite the coup.” She studied the bottom of her cup as though willing coffee to rise from it like water from a spring. “Hey, I know. Bring Gene.” She smiled broadly, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

  “Sure, in between his work at Buckhorn’s and trips back and forth to Loveland.”

  “You haven’t seen him much lately.”

  “Only on Sundays. Unless I stop by Buckhorn’s during the week. If he’s not there, he’s in Loveland.”

  “He can’t stay with his sister’s family, I guess.”

  “He felt bad about living with them all January. He doesn’t want to put them out again, and I can understand that. Still . . .” To her horror, Anna realized she was pouting. Teenaged, lip-pursing pouting. And Liz, enjoying it all, was still grinning. “Knock it off, Liz.”

  “You love him.”

  Anna’s head jerked. “It’s a little soon for that.”

  “Soon? Dan and I married seven months after we met.”

  “It’s different when you’re twenty, thank goodness.”

  “You talk like you have one foot in the grave.”

  Anna took a last sip of coffee and reached for her purse strap. “I’m walking down to Buckhorn’s now so I can tell Gene about Sparrow House. Can I pick you up at your house in an hour?”

  “I’ll be ready. Wait.” Liz held up a finger. “I told you I have something for you.” She put her purse on the table, unzipped it, and extracted a bright yellow envelope. She slid it across the table.

  Anna stared.

  “It was sent to my website’s post-office box.” She tapped on the address. “But to you.”

  Anna picked it up.

  “A banana yellow envelope,” Liz said. “Naturally I thought it was hate mail.”

  Anna stuck a finger under the flap, tore it, and extracted a single sheet of matching yellow paper.

  “Who’s it from?” Liz asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does it say?”

  “And she worked like a genealogist works.” Anna held the letter so Liz could read the single typed sentence.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea.”

  5

  Anna walked down Summit Avenue toward Buckhorn’s Trading Post, a block west of the Buffalo. She slowed as she approached the shop, smiling at the sight of her advertising poster in the window. Gene couldn’t have hung it in a better place, and the bright turquoise frame he’d found for it last December made it hard to miss.

  Memorial Day, the official start of tourist season, was two weeks away, but already people were flocking to Summit and to Rocky Mountain National Park a few miles to the west. Maybe her poster would catch a few eyes and her business would pick up over the summer. The only thing keeping her afloat these days were small jobs coming through her website. Could she find the burial place of a great-grandmother, did she know if a certain William Brewster was the William Brewster of the Mayflower. What she’d needed was a big project. And she’d found it.

  The bell over the door jingled as she entered the store, and Gene, in the center aisle unboxing greeting cards, looked up and grinned as she walked toward him.

  “Hey, Mr. Westfall.” She felt a smile, broadening with each step, wash over her face.

  “Hey.” He leaned close and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “Customers,” he said, tilting his head toward the front of the store.

  “Discretion,” she replied. Gene was an old-fashioned gentleman. His discretion, his kindness, and the effort he made to do what was right when no one was watching—they had drawn her to him from the beginning. That and the fact that his good nature smoothed her rough edges.

  “Where’s Jackson?”

  “You and Grace. All you care about is Jackson.” She hitched her sliding purse strap back onto her shoulder. “Jackson’s at home. I’m about to pick him up, which is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got a job.”

  “That’s great! The kind you’ve been hoping for?”

  “Better than I hoped for.” She was beginning to feel the excitement of what lay ahead. Records no one had searched in decades or longer, a largely undiscovered family tree, most or all of the documents gathered in one delicious library. In other words, a genealogist’s dream. She told Gene about the job, why the Birch family needed it done quickly, and that she and Liz would be staying several nights at the house. He didn’t flinch.

  “You’ve heard of Sparrow House?” she asked.

  “I have, but I don’t know much about it. Just that it was built about a hundred years ago, it’s about half an hour north of here, and some nut used to live there. The Birch family has always
owned it, right?”

  “Yes, it used to be called the Birch mansion.”

  “So why do they call it Sparrow House?”

  “That’s the question of the day. I’ll have to ask Paxton Birch.”

  A mop of familiar-looking orange hair rose from behind a display stand. “Did you say something about Sparrow House?”

  “Jazmin, hello!” Anna said. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  Jazmin Morningstar—by birth Hayley Todd, the name she’d abandoned in favor of her wiccan name—stepped around the stand, a price-sticker gun in her hand. “Sorry, I couldn’t help hearing.”

  “You know about Sparrow House?” Gene asked.

  “Everyone does,” Jazmin replied. “It’s a creepy place, even for me.” She sniffed and scratched at her nose. Black nail polish again, Anna noticed. This time embellished with silver stars on both thumbnails. She kept hoping for red, green—anything but black. Jazmin’s nails, unknown to Jazmin herself, were Anna’s barometer. Was Jazmin still in the world of wicca? Still close to her neopagan friends? Black. Or was Gene, the man who had decided out of generosity to take a chance on her and hire her, having an influence? Red, green, anything else.

  “How is it creepy?” asked Gene.

  “It’s haunted,” Jazmin said matter-of-factly.

  “No, seriously,” Gene said.

  Jazmin shrugged. “I’m just saying.” She tore a sticker from the end of the gun and began toying with it, rolling it in her fingers like a miniature cigar. “Everyone knows it’s haunted.”

  “Have you been there?” Gene asked.

  “Last Halloween. And my friends and I might go up there in June to celebrate midsummer’s night.”

  “The shortest night of the year,” Anna said, trying to keep her voice even. Every time she stopped by Buckhorn’s, she received confirmation, nail polish aside, that Jazmin was still involved in wicca. In fact, the girl took extra care to let Anna know that, asserting her independence in flippant ways.

  But at least Jazmin was free of the influence of her old friends at What Ye Will, the now-closed witchcraft and wicca store on Summit. The store, which had been rented to a western clothing company in February, had been renovated and was scheduled to open in a week, just in time for Iowans in need of cowboy boots.

  Gene broke into what was quickly becoming an awkward silence. “Do you know why it’s called Sparrow House?”

  “Sparrow’s the ghost’s name,” Jazmin said flatly.

  “What ghost?”

  “The ghost of the woman who was murdered there.”

  “No,” Anna said, shaking her head. “It was a man.”

  Gene’s eyebrows shot up. “A man was murdered there?”

  “This was way back in 1970, at some meeting of radicals, and the police said it was an accident.”

  “Nope, that’s not it,” Jazmin said. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” She scowled and put a hand on her hip. It was the old Jazmin, defensive, contrary, and, in her teenage mind, wiser than Anna could ever hope to be.

  “Jazmin, I just talked to Paxton Birch, and he told me all about it.”

  “Yeah, well, not everything he didn’t.”

  Gene looked toward the register for customers waiting to check out. Seeing none, he turned back to Jazmin. “Tell us, then.”

  “It was Paxton Birch’s mother who was murdered. She’s Sparrow.”

  Anna drew in her breath. “I’ve never heard anything about his mother being murdered.”

  Jazmin snorted. “Hi, welcome to my house, my mom was murdered here.”

  Gene laughed in spite of himself. “You have a point.”

  “But still . . . ,” Anna began. “Why wouldn’t he say something? He wants to prove the man killed in 1970 was murdered, so—”

  “He was murdered,” Jazmin said. “Him too. At least two people and maybe three were murdered in that house.”

  “Who’s the third?” Anna asked, maintaining her even tone with great difficulty.

  “Sparrow’s mother. She was killed in the house too.”

  “Oh, come on,” Anna said. She’d heard enough. Jazmin was taking her flights of fancy to new heights. Her story of the murdered Sparrow became even less believable now. Rumors—fires stoked by the gullible and by those who had a stake in fomenting fear—had swirled about the house for decades. One murder—now two, three. All the more fun for tour guides at the mansion or neighborhood kids at Halloween.

  Jazmin folded her arms across her chest and rapped the side of the sticker gun against one arm. “You asked. If you don’t want to believe me, fine.”

  Why did every conversation with the girl end badly? Anna wondered. Jazmin had been given a new start in life—working for Gene, selling her artwork directly to the public—but she didn’t have an ounce of gratitude in her. Or maybe she did but she couldn’t risk showing it. She was eighteen, after all. It wasn’t a generous age.

  “Yes, I did ask, and I’m glad you told me. I just find it hard to believe that both Paxton Birch’s mother and grandmother were murdered in that house. That’s three murders in one house, no arrests.”

  Jazmin sniffed again. “They were clever. A couple of the victims were pushed down stairs and got their necks broke.”

  “The police said Kurt Ellison fell down the stairs.”

  “Look, I’m just telling you what everyone says,” Jazmin countered. “Why would they lie?”

  “Hmm.” Gene rubbed a finger and thumb along the dark stubble on his chin. “I can think of a couple reasons off the top of my head.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Anyway . . .” Jazmin returned her attention to the sticker gun. “I have to get back to work.”

  Gene stopped her from leaving. “Have you decided about going to the Loveland art show on Saturday? I’d value your opinion.”

  Jazmin gave a noncommittal shrug but had trouble hiding her pleasure at being asked. “Yeah, sure, I’ll go.” As she walked away, she swung the gun in the air, a gesture that somehow portrayed both nonchalance and giddy excitement.

  Gene turned to Anna. “There’s a show in Loveland for Colorado artists. I thought we’d see if there’s anything we could sell in Buckhorn’s.”

  “Good idea. I think Jazmin’s happy to be asked.”

  Gene’s mouth twisted into a smile. “It’s hard to tell.” He took another look at the register. Two customers flitted nearby, inspecting the cottonwood Christmas ornaments, making final decisions, retracting them, then returning for another look. “Listen, before you run up to Sparrow House, I wanted to tell you I may have a buyer for my house.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “The agent called this morning. She’s showing my house in about”—he raised his wrist to check his watch—“half an hour. Say a prayer. I’ve got to sell it this time.”

  “To stop making that ridiculous commute, if nothing else.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if it sells? Where will you stay?”

  “My sister said I could stay with her family while I house hunt, but I don’t think she realizes how hard it’s going to be to find a house in Elk Park. The population’s nine thousand, so there’s, what, maybe three thousand houses tops?”

  “Someone has to be moving in the next month or two.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  Anna wanted to ease his worry by telling him he could stay in the spare bedroom at her house. She’d wanted to tell him that since February, when he began commuting from his house in Loveland to Buckhorn’s over icy Highway 34. But he wouldn’t have accepted her offer then, and she knew he wouldn’t accept it now.

  She’d even given him a key to her house, in case he had an emergency of some kind and she wasn’t at home, but he’d never once used it. Not once. It was that gentleman thing.

  “What are you smiling at?” he asked.

  “Nothing, nothing.”

  “OK, listen, I want you to be careful at that house.” He glanced at the register. “Can you wait?”


  “Yup.”

  While Gene handled customers at the register Anna browsed the ornaments. Roger Westfall, Gene’s father, had been busy over the winter. There had to have been a hundred carved ornaments hanging in the aisle, each one a little different—angels, crosses, bells—but each tied with a white ribbon. Roger had carved ornaments for Buckhorn’s when he ran the store, but never so many. His heart attack just before Christmas last year—a mild one, he liked to remind everyone—and his subsequent retirement had elevated his production to new levels.

  “That’s what retirement allows you to do,” Gene said as he sidled up to her. “Which one do you want?”

  “All of them.”

  “Seriously, Dad said whichever one you wanted was yours and you should choose now before the tourists take all the best ones.”

  For a moment she couldn’t take her eyes from his. Light brown, hints of green. Dark lashes, skin crinkling when he smiled.

  “Don’t cross him, Anna.”

  Turning her attention to the ornaments, she quickly caught sight of a leaping deer, the only such ornament in the aisle. How had Roger carved the delicate legs in flight? She lifted the ribbon and held the ornament aloft. “This one. It’s beautiful.”

  “Good choice. Let me wrap it.”

  “You don’t need to, I’m heading right home.” She gently slipped the ornament into the outside pocket of her purse. “Tell your dad I said thank you for Christmas in May.”

  “Now about Sparrow House.”

  “Yes?” He was concerned about her. Unnecessarily, she thought, but his concern warmed her.

  “You don’t know these people, Anna.”

  “They’re just stories.”

  “Sometimes stories get started for a reason. Are you taking Jackson?”

  “Of course.”

  “Give me a call every night.”

  “I will.”

  “On my cell phone, not my landline. I might be working here late for a while.”

  “How late?”

  He shrugged.

  “You work too hard.” She’d worried about him all winter—his voice ragged, the skin below his eyes dark with exhaustion—and although with the coming of spring he was looking more rested, signs of fatigue were still there.