A Wedding and a Killing (3 page)

“Of course not.” Chelsea grabbed her by the arm and ushered her to the front of the sanctuary.

The reverend was instructing them each where to stand when one of the double doors leading into the sanctuary opened. A tall slender woman dressed in faded jeans, sneakers, and an oversized t-shirt stepped inside. “Miss Deborah, there’s a police cruiser out front. Is everything okay?”

“That’s mine,” David said. “It’s okay. We’re here for personal business.”

“I was just wondering,” she went on, “because there’s a big ol’ German shepherd sitting outside Eugene’s office and he doesn’t look happy. I offered him a dog biscuit from Edna’s jar but he’d have none of it.”

“What’s with the jar of dog biscuits?” Mac asked.

“Our office manager has a dog biscuit jar for canine visitors,” Deborah replied before turning her attention to the woman at the back of the sanctuary. “Thank you, Ruth. Everything is okay. I’ll be through here in a little bit and they’ll be taking Gnarly with them when they go.”

“Gnarly turned down food?” Archie covered her mouth with her hand. “That’s not like him at all.” She grasped Mac’s hand. “Something must be wrong.”

“Maybe he doesn’t approve of our getting married.” Mac asked the pastor, “Are you sure you don’t want me to leave him as payment for your services?”

“Stop it, Mac,” Archie admonished him.

Ruth stepped out into the fellowship hall and craned her neck to look out the window. “Edna just pulled in,” she called to them. “She’s great with dogs. She’ll be able to figure out why he’s so upset and make him feel better real fast.” She went off toward the foyer and business wing.

Seconds later, Gnarly’s barks could be heard in the sanctuary.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Mac told Deborah.

“That sounds romantic,” Archie retorted.

“I’m not the one who broke the mood,” Mac argued. “You did by insisting that we bring that beast hog with us to the church to get married.”

“Gnarly is not a beast hog.”

“He’s got a criminal record,” Mac said. “Just ask David. That dog is a canine delinquent.”

“Don’t drag me into your squabble.” David held up both hands in surrender.

Deborah interrupted, “This is why I insist on counseling before the marriage ceremony.”

“Oh, shut up,” Mac blurted out before he realized what he was saying.

There was an audible gasp in the sanctuary.

As if he feared getting caught in a cross-fire, David backed away from Mac. “Now you’ve done it.”

Deborah leveled her eyes on the couple standing before her. “I think we need to reschedule this ceremony. It just doesn’t seem right.” The pastor’s previously congenial tone had shifted to firm and commanding.

“Nothing about this is right,” Mac said. “Nothing has been right since I pulled into your parking lot and that animal trampled me.”

“Are you still mad about that?” Archie said.

“Yes.”

“Mac, you really need to learn to let things go.”

Gnarly’s barking had stopped, but Mac and Archie were too involved in their argument to notice.

“I took the afternoon off work to be here,” Chelsea said. “Are you two going to get married or aren’t you?”

“I know that I don’t want to get married to the sound of that in the background.” Mac jerked his head in the direction of the business wing.

Noticing that Gnarly’s barking and howling had stopped, David asked, “Sound of what?”

Abruptly, the double doors flew open and a woman came running in. Her face was stark white and her eyes were filled with shock. Once inside the sanctuary, she stopped. Her mouth hung open while she gazed wide-eyed at each of them.

“Edna?” Deborah asked. “What’s wrong?”

Clutching both hands to her chest, Edna sucked in several deep breaths.

Wondering if the woman was having a heart attack, Mac and David exchanged glances filled with concern.

David took a step forward to suggest the stricken woman sit down. “Maybe—”

Before he could finish, she uttered an ear piercing scream that reached all the way up to the rafters to bounce and echo throughout the church. Unable to form the words to communicate the meaning behind her scream, she pointed toward the office wing.

David and Mac were the first out of the sanctuary. In the fellowship hall, they found Gnarly at the end of the hallway leading back to the offices. Seeing that he now had their full attention, he turned and led them down the hall.

Now, the office door was open.

David ran inside, halted, and held out his arm to stop Mac who was directly behind him.

At first, the office appeared like any other with a desk, computer, phone, and calculator. However, there was a big difference where this one was concerned.

This office had a man lying in a pool of blood behind his desk.

Chapter Two

“Mac, we need to contain this scene,” David said.

Whirling around, Mac threw out his arms to block the doorway to keep Deborah and the other women from entering the office.

“Eugene!” Deborah cried out upon seeing her friend. “What—who?”

“You need to wait outside,” Mac ordered while gently pushing the pastor back into the hallway.

Understanding the need to keep any possible evidence free of contamination, Archie took Deborah’s arm to usher her down the hallway. “Let’s go to the sanctuary, Reverend. The best thing we can do for Eugene right now is pray.”

Leading Molly to the foyer with one hand, Chelsea held her cell phone to her ear with the other. “Spencer’s chief of police is already on the scene,” she told the emergency operator.

“The office door was locked,” Edna was blubbering to them. “I didn’t know anyone was in there and I was showing the dog because he wanted in—”

Because he knew someone needed help,
Mac thought.

Now quiet, Gnarly sat at attention outside the office door. His tall pointy ears stood erect. His brown eyes bore into Mac’s blue ones. The German shepherd cocked his head at his master.

Mac could almost read the thoughts Gnarly directed toward him.
When are you going to learn to listen to me, Dummy?

“Mac,” David called out from where he was checking the victim, “he’s alive! I got a pulse! Chelsea, tell them that he’s alive! We need EMTs ASAP. He’s going to need airlifted. Get my medical kit out of the back of my cruiser!”

While running to help David, Mac called out to the women, “Seal all exits and entrances in the building! No one is allowed in or out except the emergency crews.”

“Is there anyone else in the building?” Archie asked while leading the pastor and office manager back to the sanctuary.

She stopped to listen to the police and ambulance sirens growing nearer by the second. They sounded like they were driving right through the doors when Chelsea slammed them open in her rush to take David’s emergency medical kit to him. In sync with her master’s pace, Molly ran by her side. The kit only provided the essentials. Archie hoped the EMTs would arrive quickly.

“The only other person who should be here is Ruth,” the pastor said. “She takes care of our building’s maintenance.” She was holding Edna, the church’s office manager, who was fighting to keep from completely breaking down. A relatively young woman in her early forties, Edna had long lush dark hair and big brown eyes.

As if in response to her name, Ruth ran into the fellowship hall. She was carrying a filthy cleaning rag. “What’s going on?”

“Someone has attacked Eugene,” Deborah said.

Ruth stood motionless. Her face was blank while she appeared to be computing the information. “Are you serious? I mean … who? Why would …” she stuttered. “Was it robbery? How did they get in? The building was locked up when I came in this morning.” She turned to look down the hallway leading to the classroom.

“Was Eugene already here when you came to work this morning?” Archie asked.

“I come in through the back door.” Ruth covered her mouth with her hand. “I do leave it unlocked because I have to go in and out emptying trash.” Tears came to her eyes. “Oh, dear.”

“Ruth Buchanan and her daughter live in the caretaker’s cottage on the other side of the church grounds,” Deborah said. “She walks over on the path along the lake and comes in the back door. I live in the pastor’s house on this side.”

“I’ve been cleaning the Sunday school classrooms,” Ruth said. “I was running the vacuum cleaner so someone could have come in without me noticing. I didn’t even know Eugene was here until I heard the dog barking after I put the vacuum cleaner away. That was when I looked out the window. I saw his car over under the tree. He doesn’t really come in that often during the week.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Deborah nodded her head in agreement. “He only came in today because of the holiday weekend.” She choked. “Who would do this?”

“Had to be robbery,” Edna said.

Going to Ruth, Archie took her by the shoulder. “We need to go into the sanctuary.”

“We need to pray for Eugene and the emergency crews,” Deborah said. “That’s the best thing we can do right now. They all need our prayers.”

The church erupted into further chaos when the front doors at the entrance flew open and Chelsea escorted emergency crews inside and down the business wing to the office. As if to announce his role in the discovery of the crime, Gnarly bounced by the entrance and barked at each responder coming inside.

When the EMTs waded in to tend to the man lying in the pool of blood behind the desk, Mac and David backed out of the office, while still trying to stay in eyesight of the office’s interior. Both tried to commit to memory the layout of the scene as best they could.

Saving Eugene’s life was the emergency crew’s priority. Not disturbing any possible evidence was secondary.

Lurking off to the side in the office doorway, Mac didn’t notice that Spencer’s deputy chief of police, Arthur Bogart, also known as Bogie, had arrived on the scene until he heard his deep voice ask for the details of what had happened.

Startled by a note of anxiety in Bogie’s usually calm tone, Mac turned away from where the EMTs were lifting Eugene onto the gurney.

The tall, silver-haired deputy chief possessed the solid, muscular built of a wrestler. His muscles weren’t simply for show. On more than one occasion, he had pinned law officers half his age who had mistaken his hair color for a sign of weakness to the mat.

Glancing up and down the hall, Bogie’s eyes were wide. “Who would do a thing like this?” he asked before David could utter a run-down about the situation. “Who is it? Edna Parker? She’s—”

“It’s Eugene Newton,” David said. “He was counting the church offering.”

“Eugene?” Bogie rubbed his hand over the top of his gray head. “Oh, no, poor Eugene.”

“Are you a member of this church, Bogie?” Mac asked him.

“Been for five years,” Bogie said. “I started coming after Ol’ Pat’s funeral service was held here. Best, warmest folks you’d ever want to have as friends. This is ludicrous!” His question to David betrayed a hint of his anger over the crime. “What happened?”

“Three gunshot wounds,” David reported to him. “One looks like it grazed his scalp. Another went through his right shoulder. Then there is a third right in the forehead between the eyebrows.”

“And he’s still alive?” Bogie’s eyes were wet. He swallowed.

“The office door was locked,” Mac reported. “I heard the woman who found the victim say that.” He nodded toward a cartridge resting on the floor next to the victim’s head. “The killer left the shell casings behind. The weapon must be a semi-automatic, which ejects the cartridges.”

“Those will help ballistics to match it up to the gun,” David said, “if we’re lucky enough to locate it.”

“Does Eugene have family?” Mac asked the deputy chief. “What do you know about him?”

“Eugene is a nice, stand-up guy. His wife, too. Marilyn. She’s awesome.” Bogie whacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Oh, man! His wife. We need to call Marilyn.” He gazed back into the office.

“Robbery can’t be the motive.” Mac pointed through the crowd to the desk behind which the church trustee had been shot. Neat stacks of dollar bills and coins were organized along the desktop. A bank money bag rested next to the calculator.

“So someone came in, shot him, and then locked the door on their way out,” David said, “and left hundreds of dollars laying behind.”

In a low voice, Bogie said, “No one would want to hurt Eu—Chip!” His dark eyes sparked. His face grew hard.

“Who?” David asked.

“Chip Van Dorn,” Bogie said. “Former church member. A year ago, he took a swing at Eugene out there in the parking lot—Sunday morning—right in front of me. I put a stop to it real fast. The church didn’t want to press charges.” He pointed at the man being wheeled out of the office. “Chip swore then that if he had a gun he’d blow Eugene’s brains out.”

“Why?” Mac asked. “What were they fighting about?”

Bogie shrugged. “Church didn’t really want to talk about it. Chip and his wife never came back again. I remember she was one of those real quiet docile type of women—the type who usually end up marrying loud mouth idiots like Chip Van Dorn—he was moodier than a woman with PMS. He always seemed to be ranting and raving about one thing or another.”

David started to tell Bogie to locate their first suspect, but found that the deputy chief was already writing down the name in his notepad.

“There’s one suspect,” Mac said.

“One is all we need,” Bogie said. “It takes only one homicidal psychopath to ruin the lives of a lot of good people.”

“I don’t believe this,” Archie whispered to Chelsea while watching the reverend and the two members of her staff huddled together—praying for the trustee who was fighting for his life.

“Neither do I.” Chelsea stroked the top of Molly’s head.

While the three women comforted each other, Chelsea and Archie sat on the steps leading up to the pulpit where less than an hour before they were preparing for a wedding ceremony. Laying down between them, Gnarly licked Molly’s ears. When she didn’t seem to properly appreciate his affection, he would whine and paw at the white German shepherd clad in her service dog vest.

“Actually, I guess I should believe it,” Archie said. “I mean, with the life Mac and I lead, how could there not be a murder at our wedding?” She sighed. “I feel terrible.”

“He’s not dead yet,” Chelsea said. “Miracles do happen. He could survive. When I was in that car accident years ago, I was in a coma for days. At one point, they didn’t think I would make it.”

“No,” Archie said, “that’s not what I meant. But it’s what I should have meant.” She looked up at the distraught women. “There’s a man fighting for his life. He has friends and family, and here I am upset because of a stupid marriage ceremony. At least Mac is safe. We’ll be together tonight. That man’s family may not have him. I can be so selfish sometimes.”

Realizing she had misunderstood Archie’s meaning, Chelsea’s lips formed a pout. She reached across the dogs to squeeze Archie’s hand. “That’s completely understandable. You’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. And don’t worry. You two are going to get married. It’s going to happen. Maybe not today, but certainly—I mean, this church is booked for your wedding on New Year’s Eve.”

“We want to get married now,” Archie said.

“Why?” Chelsea’s eyes grew big. She covered her mouth with her hand. “You aren’t preg—”

“No,” Archie said more harshly than she wanted. Standing up, she smoothed her white dress over her flat stomach. “Do I look pregnant?”

Through the double doors, she saw Mac, David, and Bogie enter the fellowship hall from the business wing.

Exhausted from their prayer vigil, the three women separated. Sobbing, Edna sat in one of the cushioned pews. Glancing at the police on the other side of the glass doors, Deborah ushered Ruth to the other side of the sanctuary and spoke to her in low tones.

“What’s that about?” Archie asked.

“What’s what about?” Chelsea asked her, but Archie was already on the move.

“Hey, Ruth,” Archie called to her while approaching the two women, “what time did you come in this morning?”

“I was just asking her,” the pastor replied. “Ten o’clock.”

“You heard Gnarly barking, but you heard no gunshots?” Archie asked her.

Ruth was nodding her head. “I was putting the vacuum cleaner back in the supply closet when I heard the barking and came to this side of the building to see what was going on.”

“Normally, the church’s front doors would be open and the building unlocked and open for business,” Deborah said, “but Edna’s sister and mother were visiting from out of town, and she took this morning off. That’s why she came in so late.”

“So if business had been as usual today,” Archie turned to where the church’s office manager was sobbing in her seat, “Edna would have been here …”

“And Eugene shouldn’t have been here at all.”