A Criminal Celebration in Hillbilly Hollow Read online

  “What did you do to him?” I demanded, eying the knife held so casually in her hand.

  Autumn waved my concern away. “I didn’t do anything to either Sheriff Tucker or his little blonde date. They never did come into the barn. They kept walking. But I knew you would check in here. I just had to bide my time and hope you came looking for him, which you did.”

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  “I’m going to kill you and then sneak back to the party. I’m going to hunt down Sheriff Tucker and tell him how worried I am about you. I’ll tell him all about how you were investigating Summer’s death and how you found some threatening notes from Doris Young, which you passed on to me. Don’t worry, I have plenty more where those first few came from, so if anyone finds the ones you had after your death, they’ll just assume you hung on to some of them for whatever reason. Probably because you’re so nosey.”

  “Tucker won’t believe your story,” I said, although I was very much afraid he might.

  She ignored me and continued talking. “I’ll tell the sheriff how you swore me to secrecy, saying you needed to find more evidence before you came to him because if Doris got wind of the fact she was a suspect, she might be able to wriggle out of the charges. Tucker won’t know the exact date Doris’s branding changed. When she tells him about it, he won’t believe her. It’ll sound like the desperate excuses of a woman caught out. He might even go so far as to assume the rebrand was to try and hide what she had done, although that might be a little bit too sophisticated for him to think up on his own. And the only person who could corroborate Doris’s claims about that date, you, will be dead.”

  She clucked her tongue in mock sadness. “Such a tragedy. I’ll tell the sheriff I hate to break your confidence, but I saw Doris skulking around the party, and when I looked for you to warn you, I couldn’t find you. I’ll play it so I’m worried enough to spur him into action. Your body will be found and Doris will go down for a double murder.”

  Watching the way Autumn’s fist tightened around the handle of the knife as she spoke, I thought desperately, trying to find a way out of this one.

  “What if Doris has an alibi? She could be with people who can tell the sheriff where she was at the time of my murder,” I said.

  I didn’t much like the sound of that. My murder.

  Autumn shrugged. “There will be a point in time where she was alone. The coroner will only be able to give an approximate window for your time of death, and Flower Power closes at noon on a Saturday, so there’s bound to be a space where Doris was alone. If it doesn’t match exactly with the coroner’s estimates, well, people will say it’s not an exact science. It must have been a little off. There won’t be any other suspects and the case will be closed and I’ll once more be free.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, she was right about pretty much all of it. That was exactly how it would go down.

  I swallowed hard as Autumn eyed me. Her body became taut and I knew she was getting ready to attack me. The time for talking her out of this had passed. Now it was time to fight for my life.

  Autumn ran at me, the knife in her hand raised. Unthinkingly, I reacted. One moment I was standing there, helpless and unarmed. The next, I had snatched up a shovel lying near my feet. Grandpa must have forgotten to put it away after his morning chores. I was grateful he hadn’t been his usually tidy self for once.

  I swung out wildly with my awkward weapon, the shovel head striking Autumn in the wrist. She let out a pained cry and there was a clanging sound as the shovel met the metal of the knife. With a flash of silver, the knife spun through the air and landed several yards away. Unfortunately, I had lost my grip on the shovel handle during my clumsy swing and now the tool sailed out of my hands and across the barn to land in the dust. It was farther away than the knife, too far away to recover.

  To my surprise, the injury to her hand hardly slowed Autumn down. She flew at me across the distance, barehanded now. I raised my own hands, deflecting a punch that Autumn aimed at my throat. My deflection only seemed to anger her further. She roared again, and this time, she didn’t try to punch me. She grabbed my throat and began to squeeze it, throttling me. I couldn’t breathe and I could feel myself starting to panic as I clawed desperately at her hands, trying to get them off me. She clung on for dear life.

  I kicked out blindly, landing a lucky shot on Autumn’s shin. She screeched in pain and anger and for a second, her grip relaxed. I took my chance and wrenched my neck from her grip, grimacing at the stinging pain in the skin there from the friction of her hands. As I pulled my neck free, I shoved Autumn square in the chest and she stumbled backwards.

  Her arms pinwheeled frantically as she fought to keep her balance. It was a fight she lost and she fell to the ground with an “oomph” sound. I hoped she would stay down long enough for me to get the upper hand, but she bounced straight back up again, fire in her eyes.

  Worse, her hands were no longer empty. While she had been on the ground, she had located her sharp knife again.

  We stood facing off against each other, panting, each waiting for the right moment to strike. I looked around frantically for something I could use as a weapon to defend myself. There was nothing close enough to be useful, so my eyes were drawn to the barn door. Autumn had moved away from it as we circled each other. I was confident I could outrun her. I just had to get to the door and run back to the party, screaming at the top of my lungs.

  I turned and sprinted for the door. I heard Autumn’s gasp of surprise, heard her feet running behind me. She was surprisingly fast and as I reached out for the door, seconds from freedom, I felt her hand clamp down on my shoulder.

  Autumn spun me to face her. Her fist clutching the silver knife rose in the air, prepared to strike down at my heart. But just then, I saw a flash of white behind her shoulder. For a second I thought it was Molly, but then I realized I could hear the barn owl hooting in alarm from somewhere much deeper in the barn. The flash of white flew to the ceiling, and as Autumn’s knife lowered toward me, a large rafter fell from above.

  As I heard the rafter tearing loose, I knew without any doubt what that flash of white had been. The ghost of Summer Martin was protecting me from her murderous sister.

  “Thank you, Summer,” I whispered.

  A flash of white light in the corner of the barn told me she had heard my thanks, but there was no more time to think of Summer.

  I turned my attention back to Autumn, to the rafter that was falling, seemingly in slow motion, towards her. She had raised her head slightly and dropped her knife, seeming frozen to the spot. She could see the rafter coming, but she was too late to do anything to stop it or even to move out of its path.

  It struck Autumn’s head with a sickening cracking sound, narrowly missing me as I jumped backward instinctively.

  Autumn’s knees buckled and she crumpled to the ground. Her eyes closed and a trickle of blood ran from her forehead.

  My heart was racing. I threw myself on the ground beside her and dragged the rafter off of her. I pushed two fingers against the side of her neck, feeling for a pulse. Relief flooded me when I found a strong, steady pulse in her throat. She was just unconscious.

  I could make my escape now. I stood back up, but as I headed for the door, it sprang open. Tucker and Betty Blackwell stood in the doorway. Their eyes went from me to the unconscious Autumn and back again.

  “I told you that Autumn girl was bad news,” Betty said triumphantly.

  “Looks to me like Autumn is the one injured,” Tucker said gravely, moving to kneel beside the woman on the ground.

  “You know as well as I do that Emma wouldn’t have hurt that girl unprovoked,” Betty scoffed. “Tell him, Emma.”

  “Actually, I didn’t hurt her at all. A rafter fell from the roof and hit her,” I explained.

  “See. I told you,” Betty said.

  “She was trying to kill me at the time, though,” I added. “With that knife.”

  I pointed to w
here the knife that had nearly ended my life glittered on the dusty ground nearby.

  Tucker’s eyes widened in shock. “Maybe you can explain while we wait for an ambulance,” he said. “It doesn’t look like the knock on her head was too bad, but we’d best be on the safe side.”

  I waited while he pulled out his cell and called the nearest hospital.

  When he got off the phone I said, “I’ll tell you everything, but before I do, what are you two even doing here?”

  “You seemed to have been gone awhile and I was concerned about you,” Betty said. “So I came to look for you. I didn’t anticipate something like this, though. I thought maybe you’d fallen or something.”

  “And I was on my way back to the party. My date got a call to go in to work and I walked her to her car. She couldn’t get parked out front so she was on the road that runs down the side of the farm. I took a shortcut,” Tucker said.

  That explained where he was heading and why he had cut across the field.

  I spent the next couple of minutes hastily telling Tucker everything that had happened and everything I had found out since Summer’s death. Well, everything except my ghostly visitor’s appearances. When I had finished, Tucker sighed.

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Emma. I do believe you. You know that, right?”

  I nodded, waiting for him to go on.

  “But the notes alone aren’t evidence that Autumn set Doris up. They’re evidence that Doris was set up, but there’s no proof Autumn is the one who wrote them. It could have been anyone who knew enough to wait until Autumn was out of the office before sneaking in and planting the notes.

  “I know you said she admitted everything to you, but she’s unlikely to confess it on the record. And it looks like she came out of your fight a lot worse than you did, so I can’t even hold her for assault.”

  “Then what happens now? She just gets away with it?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” Tucker replied. “I’ll find the evidence. It just might take awhile.”

  I sat down heavily on a hay bale. Autumn had pulled off her crime perfectly. There wouldn’t be any evidence; she was smarter than that. She could claim the knife she had attacked me with had been brought into the barn by me, and it would only be my word against hers. And she wasn’t going to have whatever tool she’d used to cut Summer’s brakes lying around her house with brake fluid on it. She might have the rest of Doris’s notepad, but she would have the sense to destroy it as soon as she was home from the hospital. Tucker wouldn’t be able to search her property without a warrant, and by the time he got one, it would be too late.

  Just then, Autumn moaned from the ground, ending our discussion. She sat up slowly, her hand going to her head.

  “What happened?” she asked groggily.

  “A loose rafter fell from the roof and caught your head,” Tucker said, moving back to her side. “If you feel like you can walk, I’m going to get you out to the front driveway. The ambulance should be pulling up any minute to take you to the hospital so they can check you over for a concussion.”

  Autumn ignored that last bit of information. “Why are you all looking at me that way? Emma has been talking, hasn’t she? Even after I almost killed her, she has to have her ugly little nose in, doesn’t she? Well, let me tell you something. It’s her word against mine. And there is absolutely no proof that I faked those notes or that I murdered Summer.”

  “Actually, I beg to differ,” Tucker said, standing up. “Your confession in front of witnesses aside, I have an idea that knife on the floor is going to be covered in your fingerprints and no one else’s.”

  Autumn began to struggle in Tucker’s grip then, but he cuffed her easily. I guessed it was a lucky thing he was in uniform and prepared for anything, even at a wedding reception. He pulled out his cell phone again.

  “This is Sheriff Tucker out in the barn on the Hooper farm. I need urgent back up. I have a murderer on my hands.”

  Within minutes, several deputies appeared. They dragged Autumn away kicking and shouting. I had an idea that ambulance Tucker had called wasn’t going to be needed. She certainly seemed to have got her strength back now.

  “I’ll get you for this, Emma. And you, old lady, you had better watch your back too.”

  “I am an old lady,” Betty said. “And a lady is more than could ever be said for you.”

  She turned to me, while Autumn’s threats faded into the background as she was dragged away.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s go back to the party. Don’t let this ruin the most special day of your life. Her words and behaviour have proved her guilt to anyone who may have doubted it. The sheriff never did, and for what it’s worth, neither did I.”

  I smiled at Betty as we began to walk back to the reception.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And you were right earlier. I never should have hired a wedding planner. You would have been the far superior choice.”

  “And you wouldn’t have had to worry about any of your guests getting murdered either. Maybe worked to death, but not murdered.”

  It felt strange to be laughing so soon after I was nearly killed, but it felt good too. Betty and I were still laughing as we rejoined the party, to be met by an anxious Billy.

  “What’s going on? I saw Tucker and a lot of other cops coming from the barn,” he said.

  “It’s a long story. Why don’t you grab Betty and I a drink and a big slice of our cake, and I’ll explain everything,” I said.

  12

  The party was still going at full swing at nine o’clock when it was time for Billy and I to leave for the airport, and I had a feeling it would still be going for a good few hours after we left. The band was playing and everyone was back to having fun, the misadventure of earlier forgotten, for the most part.

  Those closest to me had been told what happened, but the rest of the guests were simply told that there had been an accident in the barn but everyone was fine now. The rest they would learn in the next morning’s paper. Or more likely from my grandma and Margene Huffler after Billy and I left for the night. I was sure Betty would keep them in check and not let the story get too out of hand.

  I’d told Billy everything, and he had been more relieved that I was safe than mad that I was investigating a murder through our wedding. He had just shook his head and made a comment about how I was unpredictable but he loved me just the same.

  My grandparents had been informed of the damage in the barn and I had taken my grandma aside and told her the truth about the rafter, including the part about Summer’s ghost. She and Billy were the only ones I told about that. Grandma would tell Grandpa and he would be the only one she would tell; she was a gossip, but not when it came to anything associated with our family. Billy insisted he would pay for the repairs to the barn, but my grandparents wouldn’t hear of it.

  Tucker had come back to the party at that point. He told us that Autumn had been released from the hospital with no concussion and she had been officially charged with Summer’s murder and my attempted murder and had made a full confession.

  I felt a little guilty for suspecting Doris for so long, but Autumn was clever and she had led me expertly down a path that had felt like the only one at that time. I didn’t think Doris would ever find out that she had been a suspect of mine, and if she ever did, I just had to hope she would understand why.

  I had told Suzy a version of the truth; a version that didn’t include ghosts or investigations. Just that I had stumbled across Autumn and she had snapped, confessing to killing her sister and then trying to kill me too. Suzy had been shocked and had pulled me into a tight hug.

  As she hugged me, she whispered in my ear. “I know there’s more to this, but I’m not going to press you for it. Just know that when you’re ready to tell me, I’m ready to listen and I won’t judge you.”

  She had then held me out at arm’s length and, with tears in her eyes, told me that marriage suited me.

  Billy and I made our wa
y around all of the guests, thanking them for coming and hugging them all goodbye. Finally, I got to my grandparents and hugged them each in turn. Billy had just taken my hand in his and started forward a step when I heard a bleat from behind me. I gasped. Snowball. How could I have forgotten her?

  I dropped Billy’s hand and crouched down in front of Snowball. I scratched her chin and behind her ears and she bleated softly, rubbing her head against my knees. It was almost as though she knew I would be away for awhile, and that even once I returned, everything would have changed.

  “Emma? We really do need to leave if we’re to stand any chance of catching our flight,” Billy said.

  I planted a kiss on the top of Snowball’s head and stood up. I gave each of my grandparents another quick hug and we walked to the car, the guests following behind us. The luggage was already loaded in the trunk and we got into the car, Billy holding my door open and closing it behind me once I was seated. He went around to get in beside me and quickly doubled checked the glove compartment, making sure we had our passports and tickets. When he was sure everything was in place, he turned to me and smiled.

  “Well, we really did it,” he said.

  “We really did.” I smiled back.

  Our guests lined the driveway. As Billy drove down the road, they threw birdseed at the car, waving and shouting for us to have a good time. I waved back and blew kisses. I watched them in the rearview mirror as they shrunk and then they were finally out of sight.

  As we drove to the airport, I found myself focusing on our honeymoon. It was going to be so fun and relaxing. After the whole Summer thing, it was exactly what I needed: a few weeks with no ghosts and no drama. Just me and Billy soaking up the sun and enjoying each other’s company.

  The ghosts and the investigating and danger could get exhausting at times, but even though I was looking forward to a break from it all, I knew I wouldn’t change a thing about my life now.

  While we were gone, I would miss this town and its assortment of characters, particularly my grandparents, Suzy and Brian and little Emma Rose. And of course Snowball. And although I was filled with excitement for this new adventure, excited to see a new part of the world with Billy beside me, I knew that when the time came to come back home, I would be excited about that too. For all of its eccentricities and the way trouble somehow seemed to search me out here, Hillbilly Hollow would always be my home. That was just how it was meant to be.