Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 04 - With This Ring (3 page)

“I did hear, though, even though no forced entry was detected, the back door leading out to the rear deck was hanging open when Mr. Steiner’s neighbor went over to check on him. She hadn’t seen him all morning and his newspaper was still on the front lawn. Howie delivers his paper about five and Thurman usually retrieved it around seven to read with his morning coffee. He was an early riser and followed a pretty standard morning routine. After coffee, he generally went for a morning run, his neighbor told us. She noticed he didn’t go out for his run early this morning either. The elderly neighbor, Mrs. Bonnie Bloomingfield, also noticed his kitchen blinds had not been raised, something Thurman did soon after rising each morning. Mrs. Bloomingfield sounded a little confused and befuddled at times, but her story was pretty consistent so we felt she had her facts relatively straight,” Wyatt said.

“I’m sure she was still very shaken up by the entire incident,” I said.

“Oh, of course she would have been. But, anyway, by this time the old gal was sufficiently worried,” Wyatt continued. “Mrs. Bloomingfield hurried over to the pastor’s house to find the minister prostate on the floor and not breathing. Even with no medical training and highly distraught, she knew it was too late to resuscitate him. She called nine-one-one just before noon and Nate estimated the time of death at around five a.m. Nate does that by jabbing a—”

“I know, by jabbing a thermometer into the victim’s liver. That’s a memory I still can’t erase from when Walter Sneed died in our parlor last October,” I interjected. I shuddered at the vision his words brought on. “I still can’t believe my very own daughter opted to become a coroner’s assistant. I don’t know how she can do and see the things she does on a daily basis and sleep at night. How can she look at cadavers with axes embedded in their skulls and not toss her cookies?”

“I don’t know about axes embedded in people’s skulls, but I’m sure she does witness some awfully disturbing things at the morgue,” Wyatt said. “I guess you’d grow accustomed to such sights after awhile and not let them affect you emotionally or physically. I’ve seen a lot of blood and guts by being called to the scene of accidents, and I’ve had to teach myself not to let myself become emotionally involved. I couldn’t have handled this job if I hadn’t learned to do that, and I’m sure Wendy has learned to switch off her emotions too.”

“I guess so, but I can’t even glance at road kill without getting nauseated. What in the world could Wendy possibly have against teaching first-graders how to read and write, and, of course, keep their pants on in class? The most severe injury she’d likely encounter is a crayon stuck up one of her students’ noses. You know, she did minor in elementary education in college. She could have taken a much different path than the one she chose to take.”

“Well, Lexie,” the detective said, “I know it’s hard to imagine why she selected the career she did, but it does seem like an interesting position, and she does appear to thoroughly enjoy her job. She’s always totally enthused when she tells me about a case she’s involved in.”

“I know. That’s what bothers me. She enjoys it too much for my taste.”

“And,” Wyatt continued, as Stone sipped at his coffee and listened to the conversation without speaking, “I’m sure she makes a better income in pathology than she would teaching. Teachers are like police officers, often unappreciated and always underpaid.”

“We appreciate you guys, Wyatt. And her income is beside the point. I still find it a gruesome way to make a living. But enough of that! Let’s get back to Mr. Steiner.” I could only be sidetracked for a certain amount of time. My wedding was in jeopardy. Rescheduling it at this point would be a strategic nightmare, but we couldn’t possibly get married while the cause of the pastor’s death was still up in the air. Once he was put to rest, we could find a replacement for him and carry on as planned. And putting the dear fellow to rest shouldn’t take more than three or four days, at the most. I was still fairly confident the wedding could go ahead as scheduled.

“No other news about Steiner’s death?” Stone asked Detective Johnston. He had put his empty coffee cup down on the kitchen table, and taken the empty cookie plate to place in the sink. He absentmindedly ran a dishtowel across the top of the counter to wipe up an invisible spill. I could tell he was operating on autopilot. It was likely he still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact the pastor was dead. Thurman Steiner had always been such a vivacious, energetic man.

“That’s all I know,” Wyatt said. “The wide open door is odd, but it could still be a coincidence at this point. He could have been just about to go out and get the paper, and it’s quite possible the door has no bearing on Thurman’s death. The coroner detected a good-sized lump on the back of Thurman’s head, but thought it could have been the result of falling to the floor. His body was lying in close proximity to the kitchen counter, and he could have struck it with the back of his head as he fell to the ground.”

Wyatt added another two teaspoons of sugar to his cup of coffee, and stirred as he continued. “He most likely had a heart attack. That’s what seems to kill most guys his age. The Bloomingfields had known him for years. Bonnie’s husband, Harold Bloomingfield, told the detectives that Thurman had to have two angioplasties performed when he was a few years younger, and a stent put in a couple years ago, so he’s had a history of heart trouble in the past. He started his running regimen after the placement of the stent as part of his cardio rehab. According to Harold, Thurman’s cardiologist encouraged him to get as much exercise as possible and to limit his fat and cholesterol intake. And Thurman wasn’t old by any means, but he was beginning to get up in years, you know. His eyes were bloodshot, Nate noticed, but he could have suffered from allergies or just been extremely tired.”

“No, he wasn’t old, but he was no spring chicken anymore,” I said. “He mentioned a few weeks ago he’d be celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday in mid-May, which is just about a month away now. He’d made a humorous reference to signing up for social security and Medicare in last week’s sermon. Well, it’s a shame he’ll never see that first social security check. He was such a congenial and thoughtful man.”

He was also the only minister at the only church we’d attended in Rockdale. Who could I get to officiate our wedding on such short notice? I was dead-set against marrying in front of a justice of the peace. It just didn’t mesh well with my religious views not to be married by a man of the cloth. Who planned a perfectly respectable wedding and didn’t have a perfectly respectable minister officiating at it? Would the powers that be find a temporary replacement for the pastor in the next ten days? Probably so. I couldn’t imagine Sunday service being canceled, even with the presiding minister’s sudden death. But would this replacement be willing to step in and fill Pastor Steiner’s shoes by officiating at our wedding ceremony? That remained to be seen.

Somehow, I thought, things would work out and we wouldn’t have to postpone the wedding and have a last minute change of plans. I tried to think positive. This sad turn of events would probably cause very little disruption in my life, short of having to find another minister to replace Pastor Steiner, and my sorrow at the loss of a friend and mentor. I would find out soon enough that I couldn’t have been more dead wrong.

Chapter 2

Late that Friday evening Wendy called me on my cell phone. I was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. I’d just loaded up and started the dishwasher and was wiping off the counters when my phone rang. One of the services our all-inclusive inn boasts is offering two meals a day, breakfast and supper, instead of just the standard morning meal, as the term “bed and breakfast” implies. That was only one of the many things that made our establishment exceptional and tend to stand out from the rest. We paid special attention to details and those efforts paid off in the long run. We took
accommodating
to a whole new level, hauling guests to entertainment venues, restaurants, and businesses all over town. We held receptions, parties, reunions, and even an occasional wedding on the premises.

Ours wouldn’t be the first nuptials to take place at the Alexandria Inn. Stone had built the gazebo in the flower garden off the back patio to accommodate the wedding of Cornelius Walker and Rosalinda Swift, two former guests at the inn. They were members of the local historical society, who’d spent opening night here at the inn, the night Horatio Prescott, III, was killed in his suite. Despite Prescott’s untimely death, Cornelius and Rosalinda had opted to return to the inn for their nuptials, and we continued to encourage such occasions.

For me, the meal service was the toughest part of the accommodations we offered. As hard as we tried to pamper our guests, my cooking sometimes lacked finesse. I’d become accustomed to cooking for one, which usually involved pouring Raisin Bran into a bowl and adding milk. But I was definitely improving, and it was still too early in the season to employ a housekeeper and chef. I tried to only prepare dishes that required four ingredients or less, and four was pushing the outer limits of my cooking prowess. But as the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and I was getting a lot of practice these days.

I’d just finished serving our guests a slightly dried-out barbecued brisket with roasted garlic potatoes and succotash, along with a Mississippi Mud cake for dessert. The latter was made from an old family recipe that had been handed down for several generations. In front of the guests I referred to it simply as a chocolate cake, so as not to have our guests take offense at my choice. My cooking, at times, could be offensive enough without any help from my great-great-grandmother.

As I wiped off the glass top surface of the stove, I listened to Wendy jabbering on the phone. As usual, she was bombarding me with the same questions I’d been asking myself. She, too, wondered how we’d be able to carry off the wedding with the sudden, unexpected demise of Thurman Steiner. However, she didn’t use the word “demise,” I suddenly realized. She’d used the word “murder.”

“Murder?” My ears had perked up at once, and I was no longer interested in discussing the wedding plans. I stopped wiping down the stove and began paying closer attention to what Wendy was saying. Had she really meant to imply the minister had been intentionally killed? How could a third murder cross our paths within a single year? It seemed to me we were involved, in some form or fashion, with every murder that took place in this small, suburban town. Three homicides in one year was a lot for a town of this size. Rockdale was situated just east of St. Joseph, Missouri, which, with a population of around 75,000, was ten times larger. St. Joseph had everything that a person couldn’t find in Rockdale. It was also where Wendy worked as an assistant to the county coroner, Nate Smith.

“Did you say murder?” I asked again. I threw the soiled dishrag into the sink, and grabbed my coffee cup. Then I plopped down on a chair at the table, anxious to hear all the juicy details.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding, Wendy! Who could possibly want to hurt Pastor Steiner? How did you determine he was murdered?”

“First of all, we found a contusion and damage to the temporal lobe of his cerebral cortex and—”

“The what?”

“The temporal lobe is located beneath the Sylvian Fissure on—”

“Layman’s terms, Wendy. You’re talking to a former assistant librarian, not a brain surgeon.”

“We found bruising on the brain in the area behind his left ear. It appears to have been caused by enough blunt-force trauma to knock him out, but not kill him. Had he lived, he might have experienced seizures, impaired memory, and other problems, with the brain damage he sustained. At first we deduced the pastor might have hit his head on the kitchen counter as he collapsed to the floor. However, after closer inspection, he appears as if he’d been struck with something heavy and solid, as a means to disable him. But it’s not what we determined the C.O.D. to be,” Wendy said.

“The C.O.D.?”

“Cause of death. The autopsy shows that Pastor Steiner died from pulmonary distress, or asphyxiation. He was asphyxiated after he was knocked out.”

“Does that mean he was strangled? Was that the ultimate C.O.D.?”

“There are no obvious signs of strangulation. It doesn’t appear as if he were choked. No bruising around the neck, or ligature marks of any kind. It seems more likely he was smothered, with a plastic bag over his head, or perhaps a pillow even,” Wendy said. “As you know, Thurman was a small man, despite his good physical condition. He could be easily overpowered by someone intent on killing him, particularly if taken completely by surprise.”