Murder Comes by Mail (35 page)

Maggie did hear the other person then. Panicked sounding. Maybe a woman’s voice. Maybe not. “I can explain.”

“You can explain it to the sheriff.”

“Wait!”

Mrs. Harper didn’t wait. Her heels clicked purposely on the floorboards as she moved away. The other person rushed after her.

A shriek. Thumps. The whole upstairs seemed to shake as the bumps kept on. Then it was quiet. Too quiet.

Maggie lowered the trapdoor and scooted away from it. She waited. Down below, a door opened and shut. Not on the third floor. On the first floor. Somebody leaving the house. Maggie counted to one hundred slowly. Once. Twice. Still no noise. Maggie peeked out the window. Mrs. Harper’s car sat in the same place in the driveway.

What if the woman was hurt? She might have fallen. Something had made all that noise. Maggie couldn’t just stay hidden and not help her. It didn’t matter whether she liked Mrs. Harper or not.

She took a deep breath and squeezed her hands into fists to keep her fingers from trembling. Her breathing was too loud again.

You’re fifteen, Maggie. Stop acting like a scared three-year-old.

The trapdoor creaked when she lifted it. Maggie froze for a few seconds, but nobody shouted. She put her foot on the first rung of the ladder, but then climbed back into the tower room to hide her notebook. She’d never worried about that before, but nobody had ever come into the house while she was there until today.

She spotted a crack between the wallboards and stuck the notebook in it. When she turned it loose, it sank out of sight. Well hidden. With a big breath for courage, she climbed down into the room where she stood still. All she could hear was her own breathing.

With her foot, she scooted aside the broken lamp and went out into the hallway. She made sure to step over the squeaky board.

The silence pounded against her ears. She’d never been afraid in the house, even though people said it was haunted. People had died there. Miss Fonda told her that, but that didn’t mean they were hanging around now. Maggie didn’t believe in ghosts. She really didn’t, but right that moment, she was having trouble being absolutely sure.

“Mrs. Harper, are you all right?” Her voice, not much more than a whisper, sounded loud in Maggie’s ears. She shouldn’t have said anything. If Mrs. Harper had followed the other person outside, Maggie might slip away without anybody knowing she was there.

A little hope took wing inside her as she reached the top of the stairs. Hope that sank as fast as it rose.

Mrs. Harper was on her back at the bottom of the steps. She wasn’t moving. At all. Maggie grabbed the railing and half stumbled, half slid down to stoop by the woman.

“Mrs. Harper?” Again her voice was barely audible, but that didn’t matter. The woman stared up at Maggie with fixed eyes.

Maggie had never seen a dead person out of a casket. She wanted to scream but that wouldn’t help. Nothing was going to help.

She should tell somebody, but how? She didn’t have a cell phone. Not with her family struggling to buy groceries. Maybe the other person did. The one who had chased after Mrs. Harper to keep her from calling the sheriff.

But that person must have walked past Mrs. Harper and on out the door without doing anything. Maybe worried like Maggie about getting in trouble. Afraid like Maggie.

Maggie stood up. It wasn’t like she could do anything for Mrs. Harper. The woman was dead. A shudder shook through Maggie, and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She could leave and nobody would be the wiser.

A chill followed her down the stairs. Her feet got heavier with every step. Whether she got in trouble or not, she couldn’t leave without telling somebody. When Maggie spotted the white cell phone in an outside pocket of Mrs. Harper’s handbag beside the front entrance, it seemed the perfect answer. She didn’t even have to unzip anything. She gingerly picked it up and punched in 911. The beeps sounded deafening in the silent house.

“What’s your emergency?”

The woman’s voice made Maggie jump. She must have hit the speaker button. She didn’t want to say anything. She thought they just came when you dialed 911.

The woman on the other end of the line repeated her question. “Respond if you can.”

Maggie held the phone close to her mouth. “She can’t. She’s dead.”

“Who’s speaking? What’s your location?” The woman sounded matter-of-fact, as though she heard about people being dead every day.

Maggie didn’t answer. Instead she clicked the phone off so she couldn’t hear the questions. She started to put it down, but then she remembered some of those police shows on television. She pulled her sweater sleeve down to hold the phone while she wiped it off on her shirt. Her fingerprints were all over the house, but nobody would be suspicious of that since she helped her mother clean there. The 911 voice didn’t have to know who Maggie was. That wouldn’t help Mrs. Harper.

Maggie propped the phone against Mrs. Harper’s purse. The police would have caller ID. They could find Mrs. Harper easy enough, since her car was right out front. But Maggie didn’t want them to find her too.

She slipped through the house and outside. Her hands were shaking so much that she had to try three times to get the key in the hole to lock the back door.

When she turned away from the house and looked around, she didn’t see anybody. Not even Miss Marble. She ran across the yard and ducked through the opening in the shrubs.

She didn’t think about whether anybody saw her.

Acknowledgments

Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to write stories. Over the years, dozens, perhaps hundreds of characters have marched through my head, pulling me along to tell their stories. But a story needs more than a writer. It needs readers to let those characters spring to life in their own minds. So I thank each of you who went on this suspense-filled mystery ride with Michael. You make my storytelling complete.

I am forever grateful to the Lord who gifted me with an imagination to come up with stories and then gave me the ability to write them down. That’s a thank-you for each and every day.

Thank you also to my editor, Lonnie Hull DuPont, who stands ready to make my stories better with her insightful comments. Barb Barnes’s careful line-by-line editing has made me a better writer. Erin Bartels has a way of pulling out the best words for the back cover to entice a reader, while Cheryl Van Andel and the art department wrap my stories in a great cover each and every time. I’m thankful for the whole team at Revell and Baker who help make my stories into books and then get those books in front of readers. You’re the best.

I’m also fortunate to have a wonderful agent, Wendy Lawton, whose middle name must be Encourager. An agent ever ready to go the extra mile for her clients while also praying for them is a blessing. Thank you, Wendy.

And of course, I have to thank my husband, Darrell, and all my family for their support and understanding over the years. I dedicated this book to my two sisters, because here in our hometown they have to continually put up with being asked, “Are you the one who writes the books?”

A. H. Gabhart
is a pseudonym for Ann H. Gabhart, the bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels for adults and young adults.
Angel Sister
, Ann’s first Rosey Corner book, was a nominee for inspirational novel of 2011 by
RT Book Reviews
magazine. Her Shaker novel,
The Outsider
, was a Christian Book Awards finalist in the fiction category. She lives on a farm not far from where she was born in rural Kentucky. She and her husband are blessed with three children, three in-law children, and nine grandchildren. Ann loves reading books, watching her grandkids grow up, and walking with her dog, Oscar.

Ann likes to connect with readers on her Facebook page,
www.facebook.com/anngabhart
, where you can peek over her shoulder for her “Sunday mornings coming down,” or walk along to see what she might spot on her walks, or laugh with her on Friday smiles day. Find out more about Ann’s books and check out her blog posts at
www.annhgabhart.com
.

Books by A. H. Gabhart

Murder at the Courthouse

Murder Comes by Mail

Books by A. H. Gabhart

The Outsider

The Believer

The Seeker

The Blessed

The Gifted

The Innocent

_______

Words Spoken True

_______

Angel Sister

Small Town Girl

Love Comes Home

_______

Christmas at Harmony Hill

THE HEART OF HOLLYHILL

Scent of Lilacs

Orchard of Hope

Summer of Joy

www.AnnHGabhart.com
Ann H Gabhart
@AnnHGabhart