Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 04 - With This Ring (2 page)

Andy, who was a little older than Wendy, had just moved back to the area from South Carolina to become a rancher and part-time pilot. He wanted to be closer to Wendy, whom he’d become attached to, and also near Stone, with whom he’d always been extremely close.

Andy looked more like a movie star than any movie star I’d ever seen photos of—tall, dark, handsome, blue eyes and perfect white teeth. He was even blessed with the same type of warm, loving personality his Uncle Stone possessed. I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have as my future son-in-law. But first I had to get his uncle to the altar.

For the wedding I’d decided to wear a nice silk knee-length dress in muted shades of pink because, after all, it was both of our second marriages. Stone would wear his black pinstriped suit jacket over a brand new pair of creased blue jeans. After the short Protestant service, two nicely decorated sheet cakes, one vanilla and one chocolate, would be served with a cranberry flavored fruit punch. There’d be bowls of nuts, butter mints, and other refreshments at the reception on the courtyard patio between the back porch and the gazebo.

Stone and I had purchased matching wedding bands, made of Black Hills Gold, to exchange. Mine had inset diamonds in the middle and smaller inset rubies on either side. The bands were etched with a floral pattern in two-toned gold. The modest stones in my ring were designed to represent our April and July birthstones. We’d also written vows to recite during the ceremony. They were simply worded heartfelt declarations of our love for one another.

It wasn’t slated to be an ultra fancy affair, but it wouldn’t be a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants affair either. The invitations were mailed out, the cakes were on order at Pete’s Pantry, and the lily and baby’s breath flower arrangements had been selected. I’d even had my nails done, and my short brown hair permed and highlighted. I looked hot—or, at least, as luke-warm as it’s possible for me to look at a half-century old. It’d been nice not to turn fifty all by myself the previous month. I’d celebrated a lot of lonely birthdays since my first husband, Wendy’s father Chester, had passed away from an embolism when Wendy was just seven years old.

As far as I could tell, all of our little wedding duckies were in alignment, standing at attention in a perfect little row. Our one little symbolic extravagance was our arrangement to have a pair of doves released after the minister pronounced us husband and wife.

The wedding was to take place in just ten days at the Alexandria Inn, Stone’s bed and breakfast establishment in Rockdale, Missouri. We intended to close the inn down while we enjoyed a honeymoon in Jamaica; snorkeling, visiting tourist attractions, taking in the local cuisine, culture and traditions, and drinking margaritas as we soaked up the sun on the beautiful beaches.

Our plans were rock solid. We didn’t think anything could go awry and upset our special day. We were more than ready for our wedding day to arrive. We felt we could finally sit back and relax, convinced everything would go off without a hitch. That’s when we got the message on our answering machine. Thurman Steiner, the minister at the Rockdale Baptist Church who was scheduled to unite us in holy matrimony, was dead. Found in the kitchen of his home, deceased of unknown causes.

* * *

Stone Van Patten and I, Lexie Starr, had been together since we met on the East Coast the previous year. He’d come to my assistance when Wendy was abducted. I’d welcomed his help and grown to love him in the process. Stone, a retired jeweler and volunteer police officer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, had moved to the Midwest to be closer to me.

Stone had gotten the idea of owning a bed and breakfast after we’d stayed at the Camelot Inn in Schenectady, New York. Turning an old historic mansion in ill repair into a thriving B&B had been a labor of love for both of us. It was a challenge we both enjoyed. We’d lost a lot of blood, sweat, and tears making the Alexandria Inn an establishment we could take a great deal of pride in. It was a huge undertaking, as the inn and its grounds encompassed most of the block we lived on.

Having been a widow and on my own for over twenty years, I was now going to sell my home in Shawnee, Kansas, and give up my volunteer service at the small local library in my former neighborhood. It wasn’t going to be a big adjustment for me, as I’d been practically living at the Alexandria Inn, which Stone had named after me, for quite a few months now.

I’d miss working at the library. Books were a passion of mine, and helping others at the library had given me something interesting to do in my spare time. I’d put in three or four hours at the library several days a week, when time permitted. If and when business slowed down at the inn during the winter months, I planned to volunteer at the small local library in Rockdale. Might as well put my experience as a library assistant to good use.

But the house I owned in Shawnee had become a nuisance. Fortunately I employed a lawn-service company to take care of the yard, but the rest of the responsibilities of home ownership fell to me. Keeping up on home maintenance while living over an hour away at the inn was difficult. I worried a gas or water line might break while I was away, or the refrigerator would stop working and all the food inside would spoil.

The routine duties around the house kept me running back and forth from Rockdale to Shawnee every few days. I could kill a houseplant by just looking at it. Forgetting to water the plant for a week or two at a time had a tendency to seal its fate. I’d been systematically moving the houseplants, one at a time, to the Alexandria Inn.

I’d canceled the morning paper delivery, but mail piled up on the floor inside my front door—bills, sales fliers, magazines, and even an occasional chain letter. I’d recently filled out a permanent mail forwarding form at the post office, and brought my one surviving houseplant to the inn to place on the window ledge over the kitchen sink. Life would certainly be a lot easier for me when I stopped commuting back and forth between Shawnee, Kansas, and Rockdale, Missouri. I loved the Alexandria Inn as much as Stone did, maybe even more because it’s what had brought him here from the East Coast. And the bed and breakfast that had inspired it, Harriet Spark’s Camelot Inn in Schenectady, held special meaning for us. It’s where we first met and fell in love.

Despite the fact that two murders had occurred in the inn during its first year of operation, the magnificent structure had accommodated many guests and was nearly always full. At the time of both murders, the inn had received a lot of press and media coverage, so I don’t know if our booming business came about out of morbid curiosity or because of our outstanding service and hospitality, but I really didn’t care. As long as Stone’s endeavor was successful, that was all that was important to me. I wanted him to be as happy as I was. I wanted him to have no regrets.

I’d already called Wyatt Johnston, a dear friend and local police officer, to ask him to stop by this morning. I wanted to see what he’d heard about Pastor Steiner’s death, and I now found him sitting in the kitchen sharing a cup of coffee and some oatmeal cookies with Stone.

Wyatt always seemed to dwarf my kitchen chairs and I often wondered how they held him up. He was an imposing man, probably over six feet, five inches tall, and built of solid muscle. He towered over Stone, who stood about five feet, ten inches and weighed just a tad too much for his height. But I weighed a tad too much for my height too, and misery loves company. Wyatt, on the other hand, didn’t have one spare ounce of fat on his large frame. Both Stone and I had become very fond of Wyatt in the previous months. I listened in now as he spoke to Stone.

“I just finished notifying the family, which is always the toughest part of my job as a cop. Fortunately, I don’t have to do it very often,” Wyatt said. “I also notified several elders of the church, and they were all devastated. Perry Coleman, who you know is also the organist at the Rockdale Baptist Church, started sobbing uncontrollably. I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t expected such an intense reaction to my news. The elders were pretty much all inconsolable though. It’s obviously a very tight-knit group. However, Perry did assure me he’d let the rest of the congregation know about the loss of their beloved pastor. I was happy to pass the torch on to him. However, the way the grapevine operates in this little town, I’m sure they’ll all know about his death before Perry can announce it at church Sunday.”

Stone nodded, thoughtfully. “Yes, it will be plastered all over the local television news today, and across the front page of the Rockdale Gazette by tomorrow morning.”

“I’ve already spoken with the paper’s lead reporter, giving him what little information I’m allowed to release at this time. The reporter caught up with me while I was notifying Steiner’s next of kin.”

“Both responsibilities have got to be tough for the police force,” Stone said. “You guys don’t always get the credit you deserve. I don’t know if I could notify people of the death of their loved ones. I’d probably start sobbing uncontrollably too. I guess I’m just too soft hearted. Fortunately, as a reserve police officer in Myrtle Beach, I was never asked to do any next-of-kin notifications. I usually just rode along with full-time officers as a backup. I got enough taste of it, however, to appreciate what you see and do on a daily basis. My experiences heightened my respect for police officers, and other first responders. It’s the kind of occupation where you have to love what you do, or you couldn’t possibly do it effectively.”

“I love my job. I really do,” Wyatt assured him. “Some days are fun, some are exciting, and some are tough and frustrating. But there’s other days, when tragedies are involved, that are just plain sad.”

“Oh, I can imagine.” Stone sat his coffee mug down, while Wyatt stuffed an entire cookie in his mouth. He chewed about three times and swallowed. I felt as if it were only a matter of time before Stone would have to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. At 5′3″, I wasn’t tall enough to get my arms around Wyatt’s waist, but I’d seen Stone successfully perform the maneuver on a previous guest at the inn. When the guest started choking at the dinner table, Stone had popped up like a jack-in-the-box, and had his arms wrapped around her mid-section before I could even lay my fork down. He’s a good man to have around in a crisis, I thought. He’d saved my bacon on more than one occasion.

“Good afternoon, Wyatt,” I said, as I poured myself a refill from the fresh pot of Folgers I’d just brewed. I’d waited for a lull in the conversation because I hadn’t wanted to interrupt. “I agree with Stone, Wyatt. I couldn’t do any next-of-kin notifications either, and you should be commended for taking on a task of that nature.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly volunteer. It was a duty assigned by the chief.”

“Yes, but I’m sure he knows how well you handle a situation like that,” I said. “You have a kind and empathetic personality. So how did his family members take the news?”

“They were all shocked, of course,” Wyatt replied. “But none of them sounded nearly as devastated as the elders did. Of the family members, I’d say Steiner’s oldest son, Teddy, took it the hardest. He held his head in his hands, crying, and saying, ‘Oh, no, what am I going to do now?’ as if he didn’t know how he could go on living without his father. I lost my dad several years ago, so I know how Teddy felt, but as usual, I didn’t know what to say to him in response.”

“Oh, Wyatt, I’m sure you handled it as well as anyone could be expected to. And hey, thanks for stopping by. We, too, are naturally deeply saddened by the news of Thurman’s passing. He was not only our pastor, but also a dear friend and mentor. In fact, he was scheduled to perform our wedding ceremony next Saturday.”

“I didn’t know him well, myself, but he seemed like a really good guy the few times I had an occasion to talk to him. Veronica and I have always attended the Methodist Church north of town. She talked me into going there when she moved back here from Salt Lake City last fall. I’d never been one to attend church before that, but I’m enjoying it.” As Wyatt finished talking, he held out his coffee mug toward me for a refill as I swung the carafe his way. I poured his cup partially full, the way he liked it, and handed him the carton of half-and-half and the sugar bowl. He liberally added both to his cup. He liked a little coffee in his cream and sugar.

After expressing his gratitude, Wyatt grabbed another cookie and consumed it, again in one bite. For the buffest guy I knew, Wyatt could sure pack away the food. I figured he must do jumping jacks in his sleep to burn off the calories and stay so amazingly fit. Either that or he had a tape worm the size of a fireman’s hose.

“Refill?” I offered Stone. He nodded and murmured his thanks. He liked his coffee black, like I did. Stone still seemed pretty shell-shocked by the news of the pastor’s death. He turned and held his cup out toward me like an automated robot.

I was just going to ask Wyatt for an update on the progress of the crime scene investigation when Stone did it for me. “Any idea what killed Thurman? He appeared to be in amazingly good health. He mentioned in one of his sermons about having run several marathons in this last year alone.”

“I thought he looked remarkably fit for his age, too, but his body was just discovered a couple of hours ago, so the investigation is still in its early stages. Until Nate Smith and Wendy finish the autopsy, we really have no clue exactly what happened to him. I assume the body is already at the morgue,” Wyatt said.

“Yes, it was Wendy who left the message on our recorder this morning,” I replied. “She called from work. Stone was mowing, and I was planting some spring flowers in the planter along the back porch when she left the message.”