Good Buy Girls 05 - All Sales Final (25 page)

She thought about what she knew about Ruth Crenshaw. Always a bit odd, Ruth had worked at the historical society for as long as Maggie could remember. She had never married or had children. She had lived in her family home her whole life, staying to take care of her parents as they aged. As far as Maggie knew, an occasional shopping trip to Dumontville was as far as Ruth had ever ventured from home.

Could it be that Ruth’s mother Violet held the key to what had happened to Jasper Kasey? They had been engaged and in the diary, she talked all about her plans for a big wedding and how exciting it was to be marrying a pilot. What had happened? Had Jasper thrown Violet over for Ida? Had she killed him and put his body in the Dixon house to frame Ida? Was that what had been written in the missing pages?

Did Ruth know what her mother had done and was she trying to hide it? Ruth’s devotion to her parents might cause her to try and hide something shameful in their past, but it was hard for Maggie to believe that she would harm Maggie in the process. Then again, if her mother had killed her fiancé, the family could be prone to violent behavior.

Maggie left the town green and walked down the side street where her new home sat nestled amidst the other historic homes of St. Stanley. She liked this street. It was wide and lined with trees, the houses had big front yards and most had wrought iron or white picket fences. She thought about the garden she wanted to plant and the porch swing she planned to have installed. Spending her days here with Sam would be lovely, assuming they could evict their ghost and deal with Ruth.

Maggie walked up the gravel drive. She liked the sound of the crunch under her sneakers. A lilac bush in the corner of the yard was heavy with blooms and she could smell its sweet bouquet in the breeze. She paused, wondering if they could use the front yard for the wedding, but she doubted any of her new neighbors wanted a pig roast in their line of sight.

She climbed the steps to the porch, checking for a trip wire just in case. There was nothing, which made her shoulders fall back down from around her ears. She hadn’t even realized she’d been that tense until she felt herself relax.

She checked the door. It was locked. She paced the length of the porch but nothing seemed amiss. Her
phone buzzed and she looked at the display to see a text from Sam. He was running late but would be there in ten minutes.

Maggie sat back down and began to listen to the crickets. She glanced at the tall trees in the yard, anticipating a light show from the fireflies that seemed to enjoy flitting through the branches.

She remembered when her daughter used to catch jarfuls of the bugs and she’d let her keep them just until bedtime but then they always let them go. It had been magical to watch them fly back out into the world. She wondered if she would feel that same sense of freedom when Ruth was caught and her house was specter free.

She opened her purse and pulled Violet Crenshaw’s diary from it. She had just a few minutes before it would be too dark to read. She knew she had told Sam she wouldn’t go inside the house but surely putting on the porch light would be okay.

As she rose from her seat, she glanced along the side of the house and noticed a glow coming from one of the basement windows. That was odd. She was sure that Sam and the officers had shut everything off when they left the basement and as far as she knew he hadn’t been back.

She walked over to the window just above the ground. She peered in through the dirty glass and her breath caught in her throat. There was a light on in the basement, but more importantly, she saw Ruth Crenshaw.

Ruth was sitting on the dirt floor with her hands and feet tied in front of her and a gag tied around her mouth.
Maggie didn’t pause to think about what she was doing; she banged on the window, bringing Ruth’s attention to her.

Ruth’s eyes went wide and she shook her head wildly back and forth as if warning Maggie away. Maggie tried to pry open the window to let Ruth know she was coming, but she couldn’t get the old painted frame to budge.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Sam’s number. He answered on the second ring.

“He—” he began but Maggie interrupted.

“Ruth, I found Ruth,” she said. She stared at Ruth through the window as if afraid to take her eyes off of her for a second.

“What? Where?” Sam demanded. “Maggie, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m at the house,” Maggie said. “She’s in the basement.”

“Where are you exactly?” Sam demanded. Maggie heard a siren over the phone and knew that Sam was racing to get to her.

“Sam, she’s tied up. Ah!” Maggie gasped as the lights in the basement went out. “The lights just went out. I’m going in.”

“Maggie, you can’t,” Sam yelled. “You don’t know what’s happening.”

“I know Ruth is tied up in the basement and it just went dark,” Maggie yelled back. “I have to go in.”

“Wait for me!” Sam said.

“What if she gets killed?” Maggie argued.

“She won’t,” Sam said.

Maggie could hear the doubt in his voice and she
knew he was thinking the same thing she was. She had to go in.

“I’ll stay on the phone,” Maggie said. She used her key to unlock the door and pushed it open.

“Maggie.” Sam’s voice was a low, growled warning.

Maggie ignored him. She listened to the house, trying to determine if anyone was near her. She couldn’t hear anything.

“Ruth! Sam and I are here!” she shouted, hoping that whoever had tied Ruth up had heard her and opted to run rather than face her and phone Sam.

“Maggie, don’t go in there,” Sam said. He sounded frantic.

“I have to,” Maggie whispered. “You know I do.”

She heard him emit an anxious exhale on the other end in unspoken reluctant agreement.

Maggie stepped into the house, keeping close to the wall. She reached for the light switch that she knew was to her right. Her fingers had just found the switch when a loud
thwack
rang in her ears and a burst of pain exploded in the back of her head. Before Maggie could flip the switch and see who had hit her, she was out cold, falling to the floor in a heap.

Chapter 27

Pain, insistent, relentless, throbbing pain, roused Maggie. She blinked and for a moment she was sure she’d been blinded as complete darkness was all she could see. But then, a faint line in front of her alluded to light and she stared at it until her eyes adjusted and she could make out the bottom of a door.

She sat up and stretched her legs out, but she hit a wall. She reached out with her left hand and hit another wall. She could feel another at her back and she knew she was in a closet. But where? Was she at the house? She turned her head and it throbbed, clearly resistant to being moved.

She reached out with her right hand, trying to feel in the darkness for anything that would give her a clue as
to where she was. Her fingers closed around a scratchy fabric.

A muttered oath made her jump, making her head pound even harder. The scratchy fabric was on a body, but whose?

“Who are you?” Maggie demanded. She cringed against the throb in her temples.

A muffled answer made her realize that whoever it was was gagged. Ruth! She’d seen Ruth bound and gagged in the cellar. It had to be her.

“Hold on,” Maggie said. “Let me untie you.”

She felt around in the darkness until she found Ruth’s head. She followed her hair until she found the knot for the gag, and she tried to untie it. It was difficult in the dark. Whoever had tightened the knots had done a heck of a job. Finally, Maggie got the gag loose enough to slip over Ruth’s head.

“Ruth, is that you?” she asked.

“Yes.” Ruth’s voice wasn’t much more than a rasp.

“Where are we? Who did this to you? Why are we bound in a closet?”

“Mary Lou,” Ruth said.

“What? Is she in danger, too?” Maggie asked.

“No, it’s her,” Ruth said.

“Mary Lou did this?” Maggie gasped.

“Shh,” Ruth hissed. In a whisper, she continued, “I don’t know where she is.”

“Do you know where we are?” Maggie whispered. “Are we in my house?”

“Sort of,” Ruth said. “She dragged us into the tool shed
at the back of the property. I think this is some sort of closet. I hope there aren’t any spiders. I hate spiders.”

The cramped space did have a particular musty odor like mushrooms blended with cedar. Maggie thought it smelled familiar from the tour of the shed she and Sam had taken a few weeks ago.

“How did she get us here?” Maggie asked.

“She carried me and she dragged you,” Ruth said. “I heard your fiancé roar up, but Mary Lou just shut and latched the door.”

“Oh my god, Sam is going to go completely mental if he gets to the house and we’re not there,” Maggie said.

“Why would he care about me?” Ruth asked.

“Because when I saw you through the basement window, I called Sam to tell him you were tied up down there,” Maggie said. “He was on his way when I went into the house to help you and got clobbered on the noggin.”

“You shouldn’t have come in,” Ruth criticized.

Maggie wanted to say
Really?
but she held it in, knowing that Ruth had probably had a much worse day than she had.

She heard Ruth shift and it occurred to her that the poor woman’s hands and feet were still tied.

“Here let me help,” Maggie said. Again, she felt her way around in the dark until she found the rope that was tied around Ruth’s legs. It was tight and her fingers ached as she tried to pry the knots apart.

“I don’t understand why Mary Lou would do this,” Maggie said. “She said you were—”

“Crazy?” Ruth guessed when Maggie stopped in mid-sentence.

“Well, yeah,” Maggie admitted. She felt the rope give way and she swiftly unwound it from Ruth’s skinny legs.

“I’m not,” Ruth said.

It was clear from her sharp tone that she was irritated. Maggie couldn’t really blame her. The crazy one, Mary Lou, had played them all, setting up Ruth to look like the nutter that she actually was.

“But why?” Maggie asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Because Mary Lou’s father William Sutter is the illegitimate son of Jasper Kasey and Penelope Sutter,” Ruth said.

Maggie gasped again.

“I know,” Ruth said.

Maggie began to work on the knots around Ruth’s wrists. “But Jasper was engaged to your mother.”

Ruth sniffed. “Not for long. My mother got Jasper Kasey’s number and broke off the engagement. Apparently she found out about his relationship with Penelope Sutter and that he had gotten her pregnant.”

“But then he was with Ida Dixon,” Maggie said.

“My mother tried to warn Ida that Jasper was a philanderer but Ida refused to listen. She was in love,” Ruth said.

“How do you know all of this?” Maggie asked.

“I’ve been piecing it together since you discovered the skeleton,” Ruth said. “Some of it was in my mother’s diary and some of it came from other sources.”

“Mary Lou gave me your mother’s diary,” Maggie said. “But there are pages missing.”

Ruth let out a curse. “So that’s what she’s trying to do. She wants to make it look like my mother is the killer when it was really her grandmother.”

Maggie untied the last knot and Ruth shook her hands out and rubbed her wrists.

“How do you know Penelope killed Jasper Kasey?” Maggie asked.

“Because it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Ruth said. “The Kasey family was from Dumontville and they were loaded. The Sutters were poor. Marrying Jasper would have changed Penelope’s whole life. How could she not be angry that she was pregnant and he ditched her for Ida? Penelope must have killed Jasper in a rage and then buried him in the Dixon root cellar as the ultimate revenge.”

“But why is Mary Lou trying to cover it up now?” Maggie asked. “It’s not like she’s going to jail for a crime her grandmother committed.”

“Family honor,” Ruth said. “It makes people do crazy things.”

“What do you think she plans to do with us?” Maggie asked.

“At a guess?” Ruth asked. “Kill us.”

The words hit Maggie in the chest with the weight and force of a boxer’s gloved fist. Oh hell no.

“That’s not happening,” Maggie said.

She rose up on her knees and began to feel for a
doorknob. When she found it, she turned the handle only to discover it was locked, naturally.

“Be quiet,” Ruth hissed. “If she hears you, she’ll come for us.”

“We’re all the way in the backyard, she won’t hear us. And even if she does, good,” Maggie said. “I’m in the mood to kick her behind.”

Her headache was easing, probably because rage and terror were pushing it out of her skull.

“Well, if you’re going to be so pigheaded, let me help,” Ruth said. “But be ready in case she’s waiting for us.”

Ruth muscled Maggie over and began to work on the lock. Maggie knelt down on the floor and tried to peak under the door. She got an eyeful of grass for her trouble and not much else. The light outside the door was weak, as if coming from a distance, probably the house.

She heard Ruth huff a breath and then she heard a click and the door swung open.

“Ha!” Ruth said. In the dim light, Maggie saw her shove a hairpin back into her hair. Impressive.