Marriage and Murder (Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Book 4) Read online

  Suddenly Rebel ran over to the back door of The Crush and stopped, standing stone still with his hackles raised and looking through the open door into the interior of the store. Lady was standing right behind him. He turned his head around as if to say to the little yellow lab, “Don’t go any farther. Stay where you are.”

  “What’s going on?” Mike said. “What are you two dogs doing?” Kelly walked up next to Mike and started to enter the store. Rebel blocked the door. “Rebel, move!” Rebel didn’t budge.

  Mike turned to Kelly and asked, “How do you get this ninety pound dog that’s made of steel to move?”

  “Been my experience, you can’t. And if he’s stopping us from going in The Crush, we better see if there’s a problem. Why don’t you just step over him?”

  As Mike stepped over him, Rebel began growling, followed by Lady. Both dogs seemed deeply agitated, and their deep growling quickly increased in intensity. Kelly tried to step over Rebel, but he was too big. As soon as Mike walked through the door, he stopped and looked down at the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “No. Everything is definitely not okay. Jesse’s been shot, and I’m sure he’s dead.”

  “Oh no! I’m coming in.” She firmly put her hand on Rebel, and the two of them walked through the open door, followed by Lady whose growling had turned to yips. The dogs smelled the blood that had pooled around Jesse’s still form where he lay on the floor, a large bullet hole clearly visible in his chest. Kelly’s legs started to buckle under her, and she felt faint. She knelt on the floor and began to sob uncontrollably, tears rolling down her cheeks. She vaguely heard Mike’s voice and made out the words, “Murder, Jesse, The Crush,” as he spoke into his phone. Moments later she felt his strong hands lift her up and guide her to a nearby chair. “Take it easy, sweetheart. Put your head between your legs, and breathe deeply. You’ll feel better in a minute or two. Rich and some of my other deputies will be here shortly. Rebel, Lady, stay with Kelly. Stay.”

  The two dogs obediently went over and stood next to Kelly, trying to protect her from whatever it was that was threatening her, although there was nothing they could do about the sadness she felt engulfing her.

  The sound of sirens filled the parking lot within minutes as several sheriffs’ cars skidded to a stop behind The Crush. Car doors slammed shut, and heavy footsteps kicked gravel up from the parking lot as a number of uniformed deputies rushed from their cars and came through the open door. The room was soon filled with the men and women whose job it is to do the police work that always needs to be done at the scene of a crime, especially if the crime is murder.

  “Rich, secure the entire building and parking lot as an active crime scene. No one goes in or out without approval from either you or me. Jeff, Nita, you two know what to do. Get every bit of DNA evidence you can. Dust every surface for prints. This one’s personal.” He turned to Kelly, “We may have just had one of the shortest honeymoons on record. One of my men will drive you and the dogs back to the house. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

  A short time later, the country coroner pulled up behind The Crush. He had to physically move his large belly away from the steering wheel in order to get out of his car. “Mike, I was right in the middle of Sunday brunch with the family. Some really good fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy,” he said, licking his lips, his heavy jowls wagging. “Just had my first bite when I got your call. Dang, I wish killers would for once at least wait until I was through eating before they decide to kill somebody.”

  “I rather doubt whoever did this was worrying much about the coroner having to be called away from his special Sunday brunch,” Mike retorted sarcastically. “Would have saved you the trouble of coming, but as you know, it’s state policy. The county coroner has to examine the body to confirm that the victim is dead. Seems kind of stupid in this case. It’s pretty obvious. One quick look at poor old Jesse is enough to know he’s dead.”

  Mike stood beside the coroner as he quickly examined Jesse. “Well, what do you think?”

  “I think he was killed within the hour. His body is still warm, and if he’d been dead for more than two hours rigor mortis would have started to set in, and it hasn’t. Looks like he died from a gunshot to the chest. There’s no exit wound, so when I do the autopsy, I’ll be able to recover the bullet. I’ll send it to the state police lab, and they’ll have their ballistics expert determine the caliber. I’ll tell them to give you a call when they know something. It will probably take a couple of days.”

  “Thanks, Leo. Sorry for interrupting your Sunday brunch. Since you’re probably through here, you can have your assistant take the body to the morgue, and if you hurry you might even make it back home before dessert is served,” Mike said. His words were met by a scowl from the overweight coroner who told his assistant he was through examining the body, and it should be taken to the morgue after Mike’s men finished getting whatever evidence they could from it. He turned on his heel and waddled out to his car.

  Mike spoke to one of his deputies who then walked over to where Kelly was seated and said, “Mrs. Reynolds, I can take you home now.” Kelly stood up and gestured for Rebel and Lady to follow her. Rebel refused to move. “Rebel, come,” she said. He stood rock solid still and looked in Mike’s direction.

  “Mike, Rebel wants to stay with you, and just like in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme ‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men’ aren’t going to get him to move. As strong as he is, it would take all of your men to get him in the car. I think you and your deputies all have more important things to do at the moment, so just let him stay here with you. He probably feels he needs to be here to protect you.”

  “Okay. I’ll take him with me when I leave.” He walked over to her. “I know how much you liked Jesse and his family. I’m so sorry. When we finish here, I’ll drive over and tell them the sad news.”

  “No. If you don’t mind, I’d like to have your deputy take me to his mother’s house, and I’ll tell her now. It may be hours before your work here’s finished, and I got to know the family pretty well when I took some food out to Jesse’s father when he was terminally ill. Jesse was divorced and lived above The Crush. His mother and sister live only about a block away from here. I don’t want them to hear about this from someone else, and you know how fast word travels in this little town of ours.”

  Kelly stepped through the rear door of The Crush, her heart heavy with grief. She’d only taken a few steps when she saw something glittering on the ground. She knelt down and picked it up, noticing that it was a small decorative pin with the Arabic numbers “07” on it.

  When this is over, she thought, I’ll do a little research and see if I can return it to its owner. As she and Lady followed the young deputy to his patrol car, she slid the pin into a side pocket of her purse, intending to examine it later.

  *****

  Kelly rang the doorbell of Jesse’s mother’s well-kept modest two-story Queen Anne style home with white columns and a wrap-around porch. Seconds later a small white-haired older woman wearing a flowered apron opened the door. “Why, Kelly, how nice to see you. It’s been a long time, dear. Please, come in,” she said, giving Kelly a hug as she entered the hallway.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Allen. I’m afraid I have some bad news. Why don’t you sit down?”

  “What’s wrong? She asked, pushing her glasses up the ridge of her nose.

  “Please, sit down. It’s Jesse…”

  Mrs. Allen interrupted her, “Has something happened to him? He was just here for lunch. I’m cleaning up the dishes right now.”

  Kelly put her hand on Mrs. Allen’s arm and gently guided her into a chair that was next to where she was standing. “Yes, something has happened to him.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Mrs. Allen, Jesse was murdered a little while ago. Sheriff Mike and I found his body at The Crush.”

  A large, plain-looking middle-aged woman suddenly ran shrie
king into the room. Celia Parsons wore her grey hair cut in a short bob and wasn’t wearing any make-up. “I just walked in through the back door and heard that. What are you talking about? My brother was here earlier. Momma called me over at the Historical Society and asked me to join them, but I couldn’t get away because we were having an important meeting. Why are you doing this to her?”

  “Celia,” Kelly said to the sour-faced stern-looking woman who had sat down in a chair next to her mother, “you know I wouldn’t lie to you or your mother about something like this. Believe me, I would rather be just about anywhere else on earth right now, but I didn’t want you to hear this terrible news from someone else.”

  “Tell me everything,” Celia said, crossing her arms over her ample bosom and sinking back into her chair as if her gesture would negate whatever she was going to hear from Kelly in the next few minutes.

  “All I know is that Mike and I drove to The Crush a little while after noon to personally thank Jesse for everything he did for us at the wedding reception yesterday. The back door was open, and we found Jesse lying on the floor. He’d been shot once in the chest and was dead.”

  At the word “dead,” Mrs. Allen began rocking furiously back and forth and sobbing at the same time. Kelly could hear her mumble something that sounded like “It’s not fair. First Herbert and now Jesse. The only two men in my life I ever loved. Who could do something like this?”

  Celia got up from her chair, walked over to her mother, and put her arms around her. “Momma, we’re going to be okay. I promise. I’m here with you. At least he didn’t have to suffer from some disease like Daddy did. We’ll be okay.”

  She turned and faced Kelly. “Does the sheriff have any idea who did it?”

  “Not to my knowledge. No one was there when we arrived, and I didn’t see anything that looked like a clue as to who might have killed him or why, but Mike and his staff may have found something by now. I just don’t know.”

  “Well, for starters you might tell them to find out where Sophie Marchant was about lunchtime. Might be the first and probably the last person the sheriff would have to interview about Jesse’s death. Wouldn’t put anything past that French foreigner. I hate her.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Kelly said.

  “Sure you do. She’s that fancy-schmancy French woman who owns the big ugly house on the south side of Cedar Bay up on the cliff overlooking the bay, the one who wears expensive scarves and French perfume and has that soft voice and that stupid little French accent. She lives in Portland and uses the house on the weekends,” she harrumphed.

  “She was always going in The Crush asking my brother about this wine or that wine and could he recommend a good Oregon Pinot Noir, something that was comparable to a French Rhone. Makes me sick just thinking about her and her high falutin ‘I’m better than you’ attitude. That’s one of the reasons why I’m president of the Historical Society. We’re trying to preserve Cedar Bay and keep people like her and that monstrous modern looking glass house of hers out of our wonderful city. She never would have gotten permission to build that ugly house if I’d been president of the Historical Society at the time it was approved by the Planning Commission. Anyway, she was always mooning all over Jesse when she was in the store. It was disgusting.”

  Mrs. Allen had been listening in and following the conversation. “Celia, you know Jesse had strong feelings for her. Several times when you weren’t around, he told me he was in love with her. He even said he was thinking of marrying her. She’s not that bad. He brought her over to dinner once, and she was real nice to me.”

  “You’re just saying that to protect Jesse. If you ask me, she’s a classic example of a woman who has real loose morals, if you know what I mean,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “All you have to do is look at her, and you know what I’m saying is the truth. Poor Jesse, he went for her line of garbage, hook, line and sinker. You know what those French women are like. I tell you she doesn’t belong here in Cedar Bay.”

  “I really need to go now,” Kelly said. “Would you like me to call Dr. Burkhart for you, Mrs. Allen? He could probably give you something to help you get through the next couple of days.”

  “No, Kelly. At my age, one becomes familiar with death. It’s just that no mother should outlive her son. Somethin’s not right about that. Goes against God’s laws. I’ll be okay. Don’t you worry none. I’ve got Celia here, and with her love and support I’ll get along.”

  “Here’s my phone number if you need anything. I imagine Sheriff Mike will want to talk to both of you in a day or so. Again, I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news, but I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”

  “Thank you,” Celia said. “I think Momma needs to lie down for a little while, but mark my words, the sheriff needs to talk to Sophie Marchant before he wastes his time with anyone else. You tell him I said that.”

  “I will,” Kelly said, opening the door and walking out to the waiting patrol car where Lady was standing in the front seat watching for Kelly’s safe return. While she waved goodbye to Celia, she made a decision to try and find out if Sophie Marchant was staying at her big house on the cliff this weekend.

  A few minutes later she said to the young deputy, “Thanks for the ride. You can just drop me off and go on back. I need to run a couple of errands anyway.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Almost immediately after the deputy sheriff dropped Kelly off at her home, she and Lady got in her minivan and headed south from town. Five minutes later Kelly spotted a road that led off the highway and up to a large glass and wood house on the cliff overlooking Cedar Bay. She’d never met the owner of the house, Sophie Marchant, but she remembered a few years earlier how the town was buzzing about the large home that was being built overlooking the bay. She also vaguely remembered that there had been talk that it was too much house for a single woman, and the modern architectural style wasn’t compatible with the majority of the homes in Cedar Bay, most of which had been built in the early years of the 20th century.

  Kelly pulled into the circular driveway and parked. She walked up to the front door, noticing that she could easily see the bay and the ocean by looking through the expanse of glass on the front of the house which was repeated on the back side of the house. A red tile roof gave the house a distinct Mediterranean look which seemed out of place to Kelly, as the Oregon coast was almost always rainy and overcast. She rang the doorbell and the door was immediately opened by a beautiful 40ish looking woman dressed elegantly in a grey cashmere slack set with a maroon scarf casually thrown over her shoulder. Small pearl earrings and a matching necklace gleamed against her olive complexion and auburn ringlets.

  “May I help you?” the woman asked.

  “My name is Kelly Conner, oops, Kelly Reynolds, now. I was just married yesterday, and I’m not used to my new married name. My husband is the county sheriff.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of you. You’re the owner of Kelly’s Koffee Shop, aren’t you? I’m Sophie Marchant,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “Yes, that’s who I am. May I come in? I’d like to talk to you for a few moments.”

  “Please. I see a dog in the front seat of your van that seems to be watching everything you do. Would you like to bring him with you?”

  “If you don’t mind, yes, and it’s a her.”

  She returned to her minivan to get Lady, and the two of them walked into the house.

  “What a beautiful little girl,” Sophie said, holding out her hand so Lady could sniff it. “Would you mind if I give her a treat? I have a dog of my own, so I always keep treats on hand. Unfortunately I had to leave Amelie in Portland this weekend.”

  “Of course. I’m sure Lady would love it. Thank you very much. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. I understand that you were acquainted with Jesse Allen, the owner of The Crush.”

  Sophie jerked her head up from where she’d been giving a treat to Lady. “Has som
ething happened to Jesse?” she asked in a soft voice with a heavy French accent.

  “Yes. My husband and I discovered his body earlier today. He’d been killed, apparently the victim of a vicious murder.”

  “Mon Dieu. Non. I don’t believe it.” Tears began to stream down her cheeks. “What monster could possibly do this? Why would someone do this? Did you know we were thinking of getting married? Mon Dieu.”

  “I am so sorry. I’m a friend of Mrs. Allen’s, and I didn’t want her to hear about her son’s death from the town gossips, so I went to her home a little while ago and told her. That’s when she mentioned that you and Jesse were quite close. I thought it might be better for you if I came to your home and told you personally rather than getting a call from some stranger or seeing it on television.”

  Sophie sat down on one of the cream-colored couches in the large room that overlooked the bay and the late afternoon incoming fog which soon would reach land. She struggled to keep her composure and began to speak in her accented soft voice, “I met Jesse when I first came to Cedar Bay. I usually brought my own wine with me when I drove down from Portland, but the weekend I met him I had forgotten to pack it, and I do enjoy a good wine, so I stopped at The Crush to buy a nice bottle. There was an immediate attraction between the two of us, and from then on, whenever I came down for the weekend we would get together. We began to really care for one another. I’m divorced, and he’s divorced. Neither of us has children. The only problem we had was his ex-wife. I never met her, but from what Jesse told me she wanted them to reconcile, and she was extremely jealous of anyone she thought might be interested in him. Evidently she said a lot of bad things about me, although I’ve never met her.”

  “I’m surprised he told his ex-wife about you,” Kelly said.

  “I don’t think he did. I understand his ex-wife and his sister, Celia, remained good friends after the divorce, and I believe Celia was the one who told her about me.”