Chapter & Hearse (28 page)

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A CRAFTY KILLING

Coming February 2011 from Berkley Prime Crime!

Ezra Hilton
lay sprawled at the bottom step of the staircase, facedown in a puddle of his own congealed blood. He’d probably broken his long, proud nose when he hit Artisans Alley’s carpet-covered concrete floor, Katie Bonner decided. She wondered if McKinlay Mill’s funeral director could make Ezra look presentable for a viewing.

Katie took a ragged breath and cursed her practicality. But that would be what Ezra would’ve wanted. At least, that’s what she
thought
he would have wanted.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” asked the lanky, uniformed deputy, Schuler by the nametag on his breast pocket.

“No. But I guess that’s to be expected. Mr. Hilton was my husband’s business partner. My business partner, now, I guess. My husband died in a car accident last winter,” she explained unnecessarily. She didn’t add that they’d been separated at the time. It was still too painful to revisit those memories.

After putting two fingers through the left leg of her panty hose that morning, Katie knew it was going to be one of those days. She’d had no idea it was going to be
this
bad. Not that the death of a seventy-five-year-old man should have come as a shock. But Ezra had been such a lively old coot. And dying so soon after Chad . . .

“Did Mr. Hilton have any enemies?” the deputy asked.

“Enemies?” Katie repeated. “Ezra? Of course not.”

The deputy looked toward the cash desks at the front of the store. “The cash register’s empty. The drawer was open when we got here. Do you know how much would’ve been in the till?”

Katie blinked, open-mouthed. “No. We could run the total, though—”

The deputy caught her by the arm before she could move more than a foot in that direction. “We’ll wait for the tech team to dust for prints.”

“Oh, of course.” Then it dawned on her just what the deputy was saying. “You can’t think someone—” She had to swallow before voicing the impossible. “—that someone killed him?”

Schuler looked back down at the dead man. “Looks like blunt trauma to the back of the head,” he said without emotion. “The M.E. will have to determine the time of death.”

Katie looked down at the still form on the floor and the rusty patch of dried blood staining the snowy hair on the back of Ezra’s head. Tears stung her eyes and a lump rose in her throat. “Robbery?” she ventured.

“Most likely,” the deputy agreed.

Katie had to take a shaky breath before she could speak again. “Thursdays are typically slow in this business.” Not that she knew from personal experience. Her late husband had told her that on more than one occasion. “There couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred dollars in the drawer.”

“People have been murdered for a lot less,” Schuler said. “The side door was unlocked. Could someone have had an appointment with Mr. Hilton after hours?”

“I don’t know. I have a regular job. I’m not part of the day-to-day routine here at Artisans Alley. I was on my way to work when I saw the patrol cars in the lot and figured I should stop in to see what was up.”

Schuler nodded. “Is there any chance Mr. Hilton kept an appointment calendar?”

“I could look,” Katie said and took a step to her left, in the direction of Ezra’s office.

Again Schuler held her back. “We’ll wait until our chief investigator gets here.”

Katie’s gaze returned to the still figure on the floor. Ezra dying peacefully in his sleep wouldn’t have been a shock, but murder? Katie searched the pockets of her suit jacket, found a balled-up tissue, and wiped her nose.

She wasn’t the only one who needed a hanky. A woman older than she sat on a Victorian horsehair sofa in the dreary, cluttered booth across the way, wiping away tears as she answered another uniformed deputy’s questions.

“Did she find him?” Katie asked, with a nod in the stranger’s direction.

Schuler nodded. “Do you know her?”

Katie shook her head.

“Her name is Mary Elliott. She says she’s the co-owner of the tea shop across the Square.”

Though her face was twisted with grief, the woman conveyed an aura of mature elegance that her pastel blue jogging suit couldn’t disguise. The shoulder-length blonde hair in a loose ponytail at her neck accentuated the firm lines of her neck and chin. She had to be at least twenty years older than Katie’s thirty, but she carried it well. Two spilled cups of take-out coffee stained the rug near Artisans Alley’s side door. The woman must have dropped them upon finding the body.

Embarrassed to witness the other woman’s flood of emotion, Katie brushed a piece of fuzz from her drab gray wool skirt, the pleated one that always made her feel pudgy, and studied the toes of her scruffy sneakers. She’d change out of them once—if ever—she made it to work.

Shouldn’t she be crying, too? Ezra was her business partner, for God’s sake. But she couldn’t break down. At least not yet. She’d shed far too many tears in the last year. Instead, Katie rummaged through her purse for a peppermint. She unwrapped it, popped it into her mouth, and immediately crunched it, the sharp, sweet flavor instantly delivering what was to her, comfort. She tucked the wrapper into her pocket.

Outside, a car door slammed. A man appeared in the open doorway, carrying what looked like a big green tackle box. He had to be the medical examiner, Katie realized, and he was closely followed by a plainclothes cop, his badge pinned to the lapel of his raincoat. Was that a lab team and a crime photographer behind them?

“Do you need me?” Katie asked Schuler, glancing down at Ezra’s polished Florsheims. “I’ll need to make some calls in the office. And I’ll look for Ezra’s calendar, too.”

“Oh, no,” the deputy warned. “You’ll have to make your calls from another phone. This entire building is now considered a crime scene. We don’t know if anything else was taken.”

“Okay. I’ll be in my car—the blue Ford Focus in the lot.”

Again Schuler nodded, and left her to confer with the other police personnel.

Katie turned, hugging herself against the morning chill as she headed back to her little sedan. She really should call her boss, Josh, first, but decided against it; she wasn’t up to an argument. Why couldn’t he have gone to Syracuse on business today and not yesterday?

Katie settled herself behind the car’s steering wheel, grabbed the small address book from her purse, and hunted for attorney Seth Landers’s name. As McKinlay Mill’s only lawyer, Seth knew just about everyone in the village. He’d handled the legalities when Chad bought into Artisans Alley, and he’d advised Katie after Chad’s death. Katie and Chad hadn’t filed any paperwork on their separation. Maybe she’d been in denial, hoping they’d reconcile. It hadn’t mattered in the long run.

Katie dialed the lawyer’s number, grateful she’d taken her cell phone from the charger before starting out this morning, and got through to his secretary, who quickly transferred her to the lawyer.

“Seth, I’ve got some bad news. Ezra Hilton is dead.”

“Dead? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said calmly. “In his sleep?”

“No! A robbery at Artisans Alley. It looks like someone snuck up on him from behind, hit him over the head, and killed him.”

“Good grief.” She heard him take a breath. “When did this happen?”

“Probably last night. One of the other merchants in the Square found him.”

“Katie, did you know Ezra named you executor of his estate?”

“Me? But I hardly knew him,” she cried.

“You were his partner,” Seth said.

“On paper only.” Executor of Ezra’s estate? She exhaled, raking her fingers through the hair curling around her collar, the enormity of that responsibility only just beginning to dawn on her. She reached into her purse for another peppermint, unwrapped it, and crunched. “Is there anyone I should notify? Any relatives?” she asked around the shards of candy.

“Just a nephew in Rochester. If you want, I can take care of that for you.”

“Yes, thank you.” The last thing Katie wanted to do was dump that kind of news on some poor, unsuspecting survivor. “Did Ezra leave any”—she closed her eyes and swallowed—“funeral instructions with you?”

“I’ll have to pull his will from the files, but I think so. I’ll call Mr. Collier at the funeral home to make sure.”

“Thank you,” she breathed. She looked through the car’s windshield, taking in the rambling old wooden structure that was Artisans Alley. “What should I do about the Alley?”

“You’re already a limited partner, so there’s nothing to keep you from conducting business as usual. The estate still has to go through probate, but it’s in your best interest to keep Artisans Alley open—if that’s what you want.”

Seth’s tone on that last part of the sentence gave her pause, but she plowed on. “How long will probate take?”

“Anywhere from six months to a couple of years, depending on the complexity of the estate.”

“Swell. Do I have to remind you I’ve already got a real job?”

“Now you have two,” Seth said.

“What should I do next?”

“Can you sign the Alley’s checks?”

“Yes. Ezra added my name to the bank accounts and I signed a signature card right after Chad died.”

“Then you’re in business. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to Ezra’s accountant, too.”

“Thank you, Seth. I already feel better just talking to you.”

“I’m glad to help in any way. Where can I reach you?”

“My cell phone, and maybe Ezra’s number at Artisans Alley, if they let me back in. I won’t know until later today.” She gave him the numbers.

“I’ll get back to you on what Ezra wanted in the way of a funeral. Knowing the old man, I’ll bet he set that up in advance. He was very much a no-nonsense kind of guy.”

“If you say so,” Katie said. She’d barely known the man.

Seth said good-bye, and Katie folded the phone closed. Before she could put it away, she noticed a solidly built woman with short-cropped gray hair and oversized glasses charge across the parking lot, heading straight for her car. Katie cranked open her window, trying not to prejudge a woman who would willingly go out in public dressed in a garish purple polyester pantsuit left over from the seventies.

“I just heard Ezra Hilton died,” the woman barked. “Are you the new owner?”

“Uh—I guess so,” Katie answered, startled by the newcomer’s directness.

“Edie Silver,” she said, extending a beefy hand. “I’m a crafter. I crochet and paint, and I make the most gorgeous silk flower arrangements you’ll ever see, if I do say so myself. Will you be renting booth space to crafters? Mr. Hilton never would.” Her voice vibrated with disapproval.

“I don’t know.”

“If crafters are coming in, I want to be at the top of the list. Take down my name, will you?”

Dazed, Katie pawed through her purse to find a small spiral notebook and a pen, and then dutifully copied down the information.

“When will you be making a decision?” the woman badgered.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll call Artisans Alley in a day or so for your decision.” With a curt nod, Edie stalked back toward the fringe of the crowd that had gathered in front of the Square’s tony wine and cheese shop, The Perfect Grape.

Katie stared after her, appalled. Ezra’s body had only been discovered within the hour and already the vultures were circling. She placed her phone in her purse and nearly jumped as a slight, well-dressed woman—on the high side of fifty—suddenly appeared in front of her still-opened window.

“Am I disturbing you?” the woman asked and bent low, the remnants of a Brooklyn accent tingeing her voice. Her dyed-black pageboy emphasized her pale face.

“Uh . . . no,” Katie said.

“I’m Gilda Ringwald.” She offered her hand. “I own Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets, across the Square.”

Katie took it, surprised at the strength of the woman’s handshake. “I’m Katie Bonner. Have we met before?”

“Briefly. At dear Chad’s wake. Such a nice young man,” she said and shook her head, her expression somber.

Those days after Chad’s death were a blur, but Katie did remember writing a thank-you note for a lovely gift basket filled with luscious chocolates and fattening cookies that had arrived at the apartment.

“The whole Square has already heard about poor Ezra’s passing. Naturally, we’re all in shock. He was the Merchants Association’s driving force, you know. I don’t know how we’ll manage without him. I expect you’ll be in charge of Artisans Alley’s affairs, won’t you?”

“For now,” Katie admitted.

“You’re not going to close the Alley, are you?” Gilda asked, an edgy note coloring her tone.

“For today, at least. Long term . . . I don’t know.”

Gilda nodded over the roof of Katie’s car. “There’s already a crew from Channel Nine rolling tape. I’ll speak to them on behalf of the merchants.” She sighed, clasping her hands. “Ezra would’ve jumped at the chance for this kind of publicity. For the Alley and the Square, I mean.”