A Killer Collection (20 page)

Tiptoeing over to the small box
stuffed with paper, Molly picked it up and carefully peeled back the folds of
tissue. She saw the face of a clay rabbit peering up at her from its white
nest. It had been fired, but never glazed.

The little rabbit, with its winking
eyes and long, perky ears smiled up at her. She delicately traced its incised
whiskers and felt the curve of its graceful hind leg. She stroked the two front
paws and ran her fingertips lovingly down its arched back.

"Hello," she whispered
to the pottery.

Carefully tipping the rabbit
upside down, she searched for initials. What she saw made her suck in her
breath in a great gasp.

"Jack Graham. Kiln #43."
She looked back into the rabbit's eyes and exhaled in awe. "My Lord.
You're a piece from the missing kiln."

She cradled the clay rabbit in her
hands, cupping its body as if it were a tiny sparrow fallen from the nest.

Suddenly, the silence in the room
seemed to lengthen. The twitter of mockingbird’s in the yard and the buzzing of
honeybees and cicadas faded. Molly held the rabbit against her and felt the
life throbbing within the clay. She sensed its journey through the riverbed,
saw the spinning wheel slick with water, the potter's hands, and felt the night
curl around it as it dried in the summer air. A strong feeling of protective
enveloped her. No one would take this piece from her. It had a story to tell
and she would listen to its wordless tale.

"Poor thing. Have been in the
dark for a long time? Don't worry, that's all over now. You're coming home with
me."

And then, in a house that had
seemed completely empty moments ago, a piercing scream shattered the silence.

"Nnnoooooooooo!" echoed
a man's voice. The elongated syllables were filled with pain.

Molly sprinted into Bunny's wing,
the rabbit clutched tightly in her hand.

At first all she saw was the
estate’s gardener on his knees, rocking back and forth and sobbing ‘no’ over
and over. As Molly reached out to touch him, to comfort him, she saw Bunny.

Bunny was laid out on the sofa as
if she had swooned, her yellow blouse torn through the center of her chest
where a bullet had bit through the fabric. Blood was splattered in thin
droplets all over the white sofa and wall. Dark red liquid had dripped from her
back and pooled onto the hardwood floor, forming an oval stain. The gardener
was kneeling in it as he held Bunny's limp hand and wailed.

A pink pillow lay at Bunny's feet,
its fibrous filling scattered over her legs and the floor. Whoever had killed
Bunny had shot her at close range through the pillow. It had been blown apart
by the force of the bullet.

Molly blinked, unable to believe
what her eyes were telling her. She stared dumbly at the red blood pooled by
her shoe. Bunny was dead, right in front of her. She took a step back, shaking
herself out of shock.

Her first action was to stop the
gardener from screaming. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

"What's your name?" she
demanded firmly.

The man turned his coffee-colored
eyes to her. She almost flinched when she saw the agony reflected in his face.
"I am ... my name is Emmanuel."

"Come away, Emmanuel,"
she said gently, tugging at his arm to get him to stand up. When he wouldn't
budge, she pulled him harder. "We have to call the police. Please. Come
with me."

Mindlessly, the grieving man stood
and followed her. His loud sobs had turned to weeping, and Molly instinctively
put her arm around his waist and propelled him to the kitchen. After calling
the police and reporting the murder, she put the kettle on and searched in the
cupboards until she found packets of tea.

"I'm sorry," she said a
few minutes later as she poured Emmanuel a strong cup of tea. "Drink this,
it will help calm you down. Do you think you can you tell me what
happened?"

Emmanuel took a deep sip and
looked at her as tears ran down his cheeks. "I don't know. I just... found
her. Someone shot her. I was outside and I didn’t hear anything." He shook
his head. "I loved her, but they will think I did it. I am the gardener! A
foreigner! They will think it was me, that I—"

"No one is going to assume
you shot Mrs. Staunton," Molly cut him off before he became hysterical.
"Do you own a gun?"

"No," Emmanuel replied
tonelessly.

"Well, that's a good start in
proving your innocence. Were there any guns in the house?"

"Mr. Staunton owned some old
shotguns. All his stuff is gone now though."

"And there won’t be any
gunshot residue on your hands either. Did you see anyone around the house this
morning?" Molly asked. "Any cars come down the driveway?"

Emmanuel tried to concentrate.
"I was working by the tennis court most of day. I can't see much from back
there and I was using the hedge trimmers. They are very loud.

All I know is Bunny was expecting
someone to pick up, uh, el conejo."

Molly didn't recognize the Spanish
word. "The what?"

"The rabbit." He gestured
at the pottery figure standing on the kitchen counter.

"I came to collect it."
Molly sighed. "No other cars?"

Emmanuel buried his face in his
hands. Molly thought he would begin crying again, but he suddenly looked up at
her with dry, bright eyes. "I did see one! I don't know cars, but it was
white."

"And big, more like a van
instead of a car?"

"Si, yes, higher than a
car." He raised his hand up.

At that moment, the police burst
into the front hall. An officer strode into the kitchen and asked to be shown
the body. Remarkably calm, Molly directed Emmanuel to stay put and led the
police As she explained her presence to the officer in charge, a Mr. Bennett,
Emmanuel was led through "I tell you!" he moaned. "I loved her!
I did not kill her!"

"Will you need an
interpreter?" the second one asked unkindly. Emmanuel ignored him.

Bennett quickly intervened,
warning his men to keep their mouths shut before turning curious eyes to Molly.
"I thought you were just picking up a piece of pottery. You sound like you
might have an idea who the killer is."

Molly thought about the
threatening voice mail and shivered. Then she grew angry. How dare someone try
to scare her? She would make them sorry. If the called was the murderer, Molly
would help put the villain behind bars.

She returned Bennett's gaze and
surprised him by saying, "Not just an idea. I absolutely know who the
killer is."

~~~~~

In what seemed like a hour later, Bennett ordered a
junior office to pick up the person Molly identified as suspect. He then warned
the other cop to meet him back at the station. He told Molly she would have to
come to the station as well to fill out a report.

Holding Emmanuel with gentle
firmness by the arm, Bennett gave orders to the forensic unit and to the
coroner before escorting Molly and Emmanuel to his car.

"Bennett!" an officer
called after him. "Let me swab those two for residue."

"Me, too?" Molly asked.

"We have to check for gun
powder. It just rules you out as suspects," Bennett replied and nodded at
the officer. "Go ahead, Frank."

Both Molly and Emmanuel's hands
were swabbed. Frank shook his head and turned away to help his crew unload
equipment.

"No traces on either of
you," Bennett explained, holding open the car door.

At the small police station, Molly
was given a tepid cup of coffee and some stale cheese crackers while she went
through her statement. There were only two interview rooms as most of the
building was comprised of offices and holding cells so Molly and Emmanuel were
seated at tables next to one another. Bennett sat across from Molly and asked
questions as another officer took notes on a pad.

She calmly explained her reasons
for being at the Staunton resident as well as how she knew the identity of the
killer. The only thing about the experience that unnerved her was the presence
of the tape recorder on the table.

"Just try to ignore it,"
Bennett suggested, watching Molly stare at the spinning disks inside the
recorder.

As she was in the middle of
describing the voice mail message she had received, an officer led a petite
woman clad in a black pantsuit into the station. When the woman's angry gaze
fell upon Molly, she lurched free of the man's grip, grabbed a stapler off the
nearest desk, and ran straight for her.

"You fat, nosy bitch! I'll
kill you too!" Susan Black screamed.

Bennett leapt up and intercepted
Susan’s raised hand in a quick, fluid motion. Susan fumed and struggled beneath
his iron grasp, her eyes never leaving Molly's face. Her hatred twisted her
features into an ugly mask.

"It was MY money! MINE! I
deserved it for sleeping with that disgusting bastard! For keeping his stupid
secrets! I deserved it ALL! And you, you interfering little BITCH...!"
Susan was dragged away; spitting and yelling every obscenity Molly had ever
heard until the doors leading to the cells clanked behind her.

Bennett sank back into his chair,
took a sip of coffee, and grimaced.

"Absolute swill. Please
continue with your statement, Miss Appleby. I plan to our real suspect calm
down a moment before I ask for her side of the story." He smirked.
"Though that might take quite a while."

~~~~~

By dinnertime, Molly was luxuriating in the scalding
water of Clara's hot tub with a large mojito near at hand.

Clara hovered nearby,
uncharacteristically ruffled by her daughter's depiction of the day's events.

Finally, Molly scolded Clara until
she settled into a nearby lounge chair, making room for her favorite cat, a
twenty-two-pound apricot-colored tabby named Tiny Purr. Clara began sipping
rapidly from a crystal tumbler filled with Crown Royal and water.

"Doesn't look like you've got
much water in there, Ma," Molly teased.

"Hah! You're lucky there's
even any ice in here. I don't know how you can settle for a tutti-frutti drink
at a time like this. Poor Bunny! And my poor baby! You must be fit to be
tied!"

"You know sugar makes
everything all right for me. I'm tired, but at least this mystery is almost
solved," Molly said as she sank deeper into the warm water.

"Oh, there can't be anymore
surprises left. Susan killed them both. She must have! She was at the kiln
opening and she hated both the Stauntons," Clara said with finality.

"We'll see what Officer
Bennett comes up with. Now ... look in that box." Molly pointed to a side
table. "That's the piece of pottery I went to pick up."

Molly watched as her mother lifted
the rabbit from the box. Her own feelings of discovery were mirrored on her
mother's face as her jaw slacked with shock.

"Kiln #43! I can't believe
it!"

"Isn't he beautiful?"
Molly said proudly.

"He is. He's wonderful."
Her mother looked at her. "So there
was
a surviving kiln load. But
what happened to the rest of the pieces?"

"I don't know. I need to find
out more about Jack Graham."

Clara held the rabbit up
triumphantly, her worries vanishing like the ice in her drink. "Well, you'll
have the chance next weekend."

"How?"

Clara produced a postcard, which
she had been using as a bookmark and smiled widely. "Jack Graham is having
his first kiln opening in two years. It's a small, private affair for a select
group of friends and collectors."

"How did you get your hands
on an invitation?" Molly asked.

"Donald, of course."

"That man is a wonder,"
Molly said.

The two women sat in silence,
admiring the pottery rabbit that basked in the glow of the waning summer sun.

Once her cocktail was finished,
Molly dried off and picked up the clay piece, gazing at it with maternal
tenderness. Crickets sang and a few fireflies began to burn in the purpling
sky.

"Only one question remains.
If that kiln wasn't supposed to exist, how did George Bradley get a hold of
you?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Cliff. It's rain, dead leaves, dust, all my dead
ancestors. Stones

Do tell, Miss Marple. Was Susan Black really wearing gold
lame shoes when she was arrested? I have a bet with Francis over this fashion
detail." Clayton leaned a hip clad in suede jeans on Molly's desk.

She tried to remember. "Yes,
I think she was."

"Lord have mercy! Who does
she think she is, Faith Hill? Now I owe Francis a dinner at Cafe Luna. Damn.
Oops, time to dash." Clayton jumped up and scurried away as Matt came out
of his office carrying a huge bouquet of wildflowers.

"These are for you." He
smiled and laid them on her desk. "The hero of the hour. Or... er...
heroine of the hour. Feel up to going to lunch?"

"Absolutely. Thank you."
Molly's stomach rumbled in anticipation. "Let's go," she laughed.

Later, seated at a cozy table at a
small, Italian eatery, Molly told Matt all about her visit to Bunny's.

"How did you know the killer
was Susan Black?" Matt asked as they buttered slices of warm, crusty
bread.

"I saw her car at the
auction. A white Mercedes SUV. I wondered where she had gotten the money for
that car, the pottery, and her clothes. She has no regular job that I know of.
I guess George-Bradley had treated her quite well when they were together and
she didn't want to stop living the good life."

"But didn't you say they’d
been broken up for awhile?" Matt asked, twirling spaghetti in meat sauce
around on his fork.

"Yeah, but there was that
thing Bunny whispered in Susan's ear about the car ride in the backwoods. I
guess I'll never know everything Bunny said or what was in that letter, but it
was enough to get her killed."