Lie Down in Green Pastures (3 page)

"Can't say as I have."

"They get desperate enough they'll gnaw their own leg off to get free."

"Randall Kelly wasn't a rat," Mark noted.

"No, but he was in a trap same enough. What would you do to save your life?"

Mark turned and looked at the skeleton. "You mean would I gnaw my own hand off?"

"No need. All you'd have to do is dislocate or break one of your thumbs."

"Spend much time running from the police when you were a kid?" Mark joked even as he stared at the body. Jim was right.All Randall would have needed to do to escape was free one hand. If he had struggled hard enough he could have broken his thumb even if he didn't mean to.

"Why weren't you struggling, Randall?" he whispered.

True to her word Geanie returned just before lunch, freeing Cindy up to head to her meeting at O'Connell's Pub. She arrived a couple of minutes early and settled into a booth.The pub was authentic Irish, at least as far as one could get in California. She had always liked the food and every once in a while she would come in and watch people talking and playing darts. She didn't participate even though she was a pretty good dart thrower. Cindy was always too shy to get up in front of people and perform like that.

"One day," she promised herself under her breath as she stared longingly at the dart board. Of course, it looked much different than the one she had on the back of her bedroom door at home. This one didn't have a picture of her brother on it.
I wonder if I can even hit a board without using his face as a target?
she thought, smiling to herself.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting," Gary O'Connell said as he slid into the booth and took up position across from her.The real estate agent was in his late thirties with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and the world's cheesiest smile. She always wondered who had the wider, whiter smiles—movie stars or real estate agents.

They shook hands. They had met once before, at the office of the lawyer who had handled the estate of Marge Johnson, a church member who had died the year before and left her possessions to various church staffand members. To Cindy she had left a house.

While Cindy appreciated the gesture enormously, the house was too large for her needs and she was afraid of what the upkeep costs were going to be. Gary O'Connell had been the Realtor recommended to her.

"How are you doing today, Cindy?"

"Not bad, you?"

"I'm still in business so I can't complain. At least not too loudly," he joked.

She smiled. "I've been meaning to ask you. Any relation to the pub here?"

He nodded. "My brother Chris owns this place."

"Well, tell your brother I'm a fan of his corned beef sandwiches."

"Let me guess. You have them once a year."

"More like once a month," she said with a smile. "I told you, I'm a fan."

"I will be sure to pass that along."

"Thanks."

He gave her that cheesy smile again, then pulled a folder out of his leather satchel. "So, Cindy, let's get started. I've brought some paperwork for you to sign and we'll talk about the process and what you can expect from it and from me."

"Thanks, I really appreciate it," she said, taking the papers."I've never sold a house before. I've never even owned a house before."

"I'll do everything I can to make the whole thing as painless as possible."

"What do you think the chances of even selling it right now are?"

"I'll be honest with you, not great. Still, we'll do all that we can."

"It must be a difficult time to be a real estate agent," she said as she started skimming the papers.

"What can I say? It's a killer market. Last agent standing and all that."

"Well, good luck," she said, glancing up.

"To both of us," he smiled.

The waiter came over and Cindy ordered a corned beef sandwich.

"The usual," Gary said, relinquishing his menu.

"That must be nice," she said as the waiter walked away.

"What?"

"To go somewhere often enough they know you and know what you want to eat."

"But on the other hand, it really throws people offif you're in the mood to mix it up a little and order something else."

They spent the next forty-five minutes talking and eating.Cindy listened as Gary outlined his plan for selling the house.

"How long have you been in real estate?" she asked when he took a breather.

"Fifteen years. I've mostly done commercial, but the last year and a half I've been forced to branch out and now I do residential as well."

"One-stop shopping."

"That's me. Hurry, hurry, hurry, step right up and satisfy all your real estate needs," he said, mimicking a midway barker.

She couldn't help but laugh. When they were finally finished she made her way back to the church feeling optimistic about her chances of selling the house.

Geanie was clearly relieved to see her and Cindy soon discovered that word of the accident had spread and she spent the rest of the afternoon fielding calls. Several times she wondered how much worse it was next door where Jeremiah's secretary, Marie, was probably having to explain to every member of the synagogue just what had happened to their rabbi. She felt sorry for them both.

By the time Cindy left work she was exhausted. When she got home, she walked into the kitchen, grabbed a marker from a drawer, and put a big red X over the day on the calendar.She then flipped ahead to May. Eleven weeks remained on her countdown to her Hawaii trip that she had planned for Memorial Day weekend. Eleven weeks to paradise. Eleven weeks to vacation. Eleven weeks to lose those last few pounds so she could wear a bikini.

She sighed. The bikini was probably a pipe dream. Still, she forced herself to make a salad for dinner instead of eating her leftover pizza from the night before. Once finished, she found herself fidgeting, not really sure what to do with the rest of her evening. She was too tired to work on a project and too amped up to watch television.

She finally opted to call Jeremiah and check in on him.

"Hello?" he answered, sounding a little groggy.

"Did they miss me at the hospital?" she teased.

"They did, but I covered for you."

"Glad to hear it. Are you okay?"

"Nothing some aspirin and a few days won't fix."

"Good. I was worried about you," she admitted.

"Did you hear anything more about the other driver?"

"No."

Her phone beeped in her ear. "Can you hold on a sec while I see who's trying to call?"

"Sure."

She pulled her phone away from her ear and looked at the caller ID.

Mark Walters.

A chill danced up her spine. Why would he be calling except to tell her that she was right and there was another killer on the loose?

2

J
EREMIAH, IT'S MARK ON THE OTHER LINE. CAN I CALL YOU BACK?" CINDY asked, forcing herself to take a deep breath.

"Sure," Jeremiah said as she switched over.

"Hi, Mark."

"Hi, Cindy. How's the rabbi?"

"Fine," she said, flushing slightly. She didn't know why the question made her uncomfortable.

"Figured as much. Listen, we need to ask you some followup questions. You at home?"

"Yes."

"Great. See you in five minutes."

Cindy hung up and briefly debated calling Jeremiah back.Before she could, though, there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find Mark and Paul standing there, faces grim.

"That was a quick five minutes," she said as she gestured them inside.

"We were parked out front," Paul explained.

"Let's sit down," Mark said.

They took seats around the kitchen table and they both pulled notepads out of their pockets. Cindy wrinkled up her nose. Both men smelled of smoke.

"It wasn't just a heart attack that killed Dr. Tanner, was it?" she asked, her mouth dry.

"We don't know much at the moment but we're trying to rule out possibilities," Mark said. "We are, however, fairly certain that he was dead or unconscious when the accident happened."

"Of course he was dead. Jeremiah said so," she replied.

"That may be, but I'm not sure how much Jeremiah actually saw rather than imagined. That was a nasty accident," Paul commented.

Cindy felt anger rising in her and it caught her offguard.Why should she feel suddenly so defensive over them doubting Jeremiah's account of the accident? Was it because she had relied on his conclusion when making the decision to call the police in the first place?

She took a ragged breath and asked, "How do you know the driver was dead or unconscious, then?"

"The accident investigator," Mark said.

"He found something?" she asked.

"More like he didn't find something. Skid marks. Dr.Tanner never once hit the brakes during the entire thing."

"And had he been awake he would have been pushing the brake pedal as hard as he could," she said.

"That's the logical assumption," Paul said. "So, we want to go over the accident with you again and ask you some more questions about Dr. Tanner."

"Anything I can do to help," Cindy said.

She felt like all she did was repeat herself for the next half hour until she'd told the story from her point of view a dozen times. Finally they shifted topics.

"Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt Dr.Tanner?" Paul asked.

Cindy shrugged. "He was a kind man, well thought of, but I don't know enough about him to be able to answer that. I'm guessing that's a question for his family."

"Anyone at the church know him better?" Mark asked.

"Joseph Coulter sits on a board with him."

"And just which board would that be?"

"The GPNC Board. The board was created to oversee use and care of the Green Pastures Nature Camp. The camp is about an hour-and-a-half drive from here and was created by several churches and non-profits in the area years ago for use as a camp and a retreat. Kids go there to summer camp from all over the area. Adults go to religious retreats."

"I'm familiar with it," Paul said. "They were both on the board?"

"Yes."

"Anyone else at the church have close ties with him?" Mark asked.

"Dave Wyman, the youth pastor, relied on him to drive the bus to camp whenever it was needed. He took the news really hard this morning."

"Ah yes, Wildman. Heck of a nickname for a youth pastor."

"Anyone else?" Paul asked.

"Not that I know of. If you want, I could set up an appointment with Pastor Roy—"

"No, thank you," Mark interrupted, visibly wincing.

Cindy remembered the first and last time Mark had tried interviewing the head pastor and the look of utter frustration on his face when he left Roy's office.

"Okay, I think we're done here," Paul said, snapping his notebook shut and putting it away.

He stood and Mark followed suit. Cindy rose reluctantly to her feet.

"I've got a question for the two of you. I know you're not smokers, so why do your clothes smell like smoke?" she asked.

Mark grimaced. "I'm sure you'll read about it in the papers tomorrow. We were investigating an accident. An environmentalist got caught in a planned burn to clear out undergrowth before the dry season."

"That's terrible! How does that involve you, though? You're homicide detectives."

"Anytime somebody finds a body like that we get called.Strictly routine," he said.

She noticed that he didn't look her in the eye when he said it. "You've always had a terrible poker face," she accused.

He shrugged.

After the detectives left she called Jeremiah back, but it just went to voicemail. She hoped that meant he was getting some rest. She flopped down on the sofa and turned on the television.

"And next up on the Escape! Channel is Kyle Preston's newest show
Dare Me.
See the first part of Kyle's journey as he attempts to go over a waterfall in a barrel."

She clicked the TV offin disgust and headed for her bedroom.Once there she began throwing darts at his face on her dartboard. The picture was actually a better one of him. He looked serious and intense, like he actually was contemplating what an idiot he was for always putting himself in such danger.