Deathtoll (Broslin Creek Book 8) Page 4

  “Kate?” He was begging, and he didn’t care.

  “That was Captain Bing.” Her voice rang hollow, twisting his guts. “Betty died.”

  He needed a second to place the name. “Your neighbor? Betty Gardner?”

  Betty was a nice old woman with no family. She used to be a nurse at West Chester Hospital, then at the Broslin Free Clinic for another decade after retirement. These days, her volunteer work at church was her life. Everybody loved Betty, including Murph.

  “What happened?”

  “She fell and hit her head.” Kate shoved her phone back into her pocket, her fingers trembling. “I have to go home,” she said in rush. “I have to make sure her place is all right. I want to check that she doesn’t have anything on the stove, or any windows open, or…” She huffed out a quick breath of air, paused, a lost look in her eyes. “I don’t know. I just feel I should be there and do something.”

  “I’ll drive you. Come on.”

  She swallowed. “Thank you.” Tears sprang into her eyes. “Can you really leave right now?”

  “I was taking a break from the paperwork anyway.” He hurried alongside her as she took off toward her office, the gravel crunching under their shoes. “You have any appointments you need to cancel?”

  “I’ll cancel them while you drive. Let me grab my bag from my desk.” She looked at her scrubs. “I should change too. I won’t take long.”

  She never did. She could be ready in the morning as fast as Murph, and Murph had learned his morning routine in the US Army Reserves. She didn’t wear makeup. No gel manicures, she kept her nails trim, a necessity for her job. No fancy hairdo unless she was going somewhere special. No fancy clothes either. Most of the time she either wore jeans or yoga pants with one of her soft cotton shirts that molded to her breasts, something Murph didn’t need to think about just then.

  He always figured her minimalism originated in the years she’d spent shuffled from one foster family to another, with nothing but a few changes of clothes stuffed in a garbage bag. He liked her as she was. Plain when it was convenient, knock-out gorgeous when she did dress up, making his heart go bang-bang-bang.

  Although, to be fair, she could make his heart beat faster just by looking at him.

  “I can’t believe Betty is gone.” She gripped the tan messenger bag on her lap once they were on the way. “I talked to her this morning. She was supposed to come over for tea and cookies tonight, after work.”

  “I didn’t know you were close.”

  “She made it easy to be friends with her. She was always like, How are you, honey? How was work? Or, I baked you some cookies. I thought, if I had a grandmother that’s what it would have been like.” Kate blinked and looked out the side window. “It probably sounds stupid, but those interactions were so nice. Just…” She shook her head. “I was looking forward to running into her outside every day.”

  Murph understood. Kind of. Mostly, he just heard that Kate was lonely. So why wouldn’t she come back to him?

  He tamped down his frustration and kept that question to himself. As he passed a slow-poke farm truck, he asked her something else. “How old was Betty? Eighties?”

  “Eighty-four. Healthy, other than her diabetes, and she controlled that with her meds. She had so many good years left.” Kate rubbed a couple of tears away with the back of her hand. “I don’t understand how she slipped. I raked the leaves from her walkway this morning. I should have told Emma to check on her.”

  “Sometimes, people her age fall. It’s not your fault.”

  Kate remained silent. If her stricken expression was anything to go by, she was digging herself into guilt.

  To pull her back, Murph asked, “How is Emma?”

  “In between jobs. She was dating her boss in LA. Apparently, against company policy. They got caught. Guess which one of them was fired?”

  “That sucks.”

  “It does.”

  Was Emma moving to Broslin? Moving in with Kate? And then what? Murph’s gut tightened. Kate was just never going to come back to him?

  “It’s good that you two have a chance to catch up.” He forced a less selfish perspective. He could be happy for Kate. He knew how much family meant to her and how hard it’d been for her to be away from them.

  He wanted to say I miss you, the words pushing against his teeth to force a way to freedom. But he’d promised to give her time and space, so he clamped his mouth shut. The conversation he wanted to have with her could not be had right then. Not the time.

  “How long is Emma staying?”

  “Just a week.”

  If they hadn’t run into each other at the grocery store that morning, when would Kate have told him that her sister was visiting? Never?

  Kate stared straight ahead, out the window, studiously keeping her eyes away from him. “Why does the stone carving on Broslin library say Broslin Creek Library?”

  “It’s the original name. Mayor…” Murph clicked his tongue. “Can’t remember his name. My grandfather used to talk about him… Mayor Campbell. Held office in the thirties. Biggest tightwad you’d ever seen, according to Gramps. He proposed to have the town’s name changed from Broslin Creek to Broslin to save money on signage. Also, we had a couple of factories in town back then, and the creek was a travesty, the water polluted to a sludge. Apparently, Mayor Campbell didn’t want to draw attention to it.”

  Murph tried to think what else he might remember about the guy, but couldn’t come up with anything. He wanted to keep talking to distract Kate from the terrible news she’d just received, but all he could think to say was come back, come back, come back. The words pulsed through his heart with every beat.

  “Maybe it’s inevitable,” she said after a stretch of silence, her tone pensive. “Rebirth requires paring back, cutting away parts that don’t work.”

  Like hell, he thought, if she meant cutting him away.

  She lifted her phone. “I’d better let people know we’ll be rescheduling.”

  She took care of business with her usual efficiency, calling five patients by the time Murph reached her street.

  The neatly lined-up sixties-style ranchers were nearly identical, differing only in the color of their front doors—red, green, or blue—and the siding—white, blue, or brown—set back about thirty feet from the sidewalk. Murph had gone to school with kids whose parents had lived in the neighborhood.

  It was a nice area. Good value. He’d actually thought about buying something here once he and Kate were ready to move out of their apartment at Hope Hill.

  An ambulance was pulling away from the curb in front of Betty’s house, so he parked in the spot it vacated, between two police cruisers. “Is Emma home?”

  Kate scanned the street. “I don’t see her rental. She was going to drive to the Philly Art Museum today.”

  “Too bad. I would have liked to say hi to her. There’s Bing.” Murph nodded toward the captain out front, but Kate was no longer paying attention.

  Her stricken gaze followed the ambulance, tears rolling down her face. “Do you think Betty is in there?”

  Murph almost reached for her, but then caught himself and dropped his hand onto his lap. “I can catch up on paperwork tomorrow. I’m going to stay here with you. All right?”

  She slipped out of the car without responding, in a haze of shock and grief.

  He hated seeing her upset like this, especially when he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  He caught up to her and nodded at Ethan Bing by the pair of weather-beaten rocking chairs on Betty’s front stoop. “Captain.” Then he nodded to the policewoman who stood next to the man. “Gabi.”

  He got twin nods in turn.

  Gabriella Maria Flores had been hired from Philly while Murph and Kate had been away, so Murph didn’t know her as well as he knew the rest of the PD. From what he’d heard, she was a damn good cop, tough but fair, knew how to get the job done, a credit to the PD. The best shot on the team, according to Bing. And Bi
ng was a fair enough guy not to say that just because she was family to him now, married to his brother, Hunter.

  Kate stopped in front of the captain and visibly shored herself up, straightening, stiffening. “What happened? When did she fall? How long was she out here in the cold?” Her voice broke. “I told her a million times to keep her cell phone in her pocket.”

  “Let’s go inside your place where you can sit down. I’ll give you a full update.” Bing took her elbow and walked her across the lawn.

  Murph followed them over.

  Gabi headed for her cruiser. “I’ll start entering the report into the system.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a few more pictures,” Bing told her, waiting for Kate to find her key. “And check on Tony Mauro, would you please? He looked shook up earlier.”

  Kate stopped with the key in the lock, paling another shade as her gaze snapped to the house on her other side. “Betty and Mr. Mauro were close friends. I need to make sure he’s okay.”

  “Why don’t we sit down in your kitchen for a second first?” the captain suggested.

  Murph caught up with them, noting every detail about Kate’s new place. The freshly mulched foundation planting was neat and trimmed, the front stoop clean swept. Kate had painted the front door a cheery green and decorated it with a fall wreath of yellow leaves and orange mini pumpkins. Below that stood the house number, carefully painted in black.

  She hadn’t been living there long, but she’d already given the house plenty of loving attention, including an oversized welcome mat.

  She made better everything she touched.

  Murph caught the thought, acknowledged just how far he was gone. But, honestly, so what? He wasn’t seeing her through rose-colored glasses. She was a nurturer, the very reason why her patients at the center thrived under her care. She was consistently one of the highest-rated therapists on the team.

  “May I?” he called after them from the doorway.

  “Of course.” But her eyes didn’t quite meet his.

  Murph stepped inside. As he closed the door behind him, he tamped down his feelings—and he had plenty—about her living apart from him, about the fact that it was his first time visiting.

  The interior had been completely renovated by the previous owner, no sign of old carpets or linoleum. Hardwood floors, light gray kitchen cabinets with white tile backsplash and granite countertops, appliances all next to new. There went his chance to offer to help her fix up the place.

  “I’d say she fell an hour or two ago,” Bing told them as he pulled out a chair for Kate.

  The two of them sat at the table, while Murph stayed standing on the imaginary dividing line between the living room and the kitchen, placing himself between Kate and the front door. He acknowledged the protection reflex and didn’t worry too much about it.

  Kate clasped her hands together on the table in front of her. “Who found her?”

  “Lilly Corrigan. Lives two streets over. She was walking her dog off leash. The dog ran between the houses and started barking. Miss Corrigan ran after him, saw Betty, couldn’t make her come around, called 911.”

  “Did she suffer?” Kate’s voice broke on the last word, and Murph had to work at staying still.

  “I wouldn’t think so.” Bing rubbed his palm over the tired lines on his face.

  He had a soft spot for Betty Gardner too. Everybody at the PD did. Betty and a few of her friends had organized the fundraising for a new police cruiser a couple of years back, when the township couldn’t come up with the money in the budget.

  Kate dropped her hands onto her lap. “How did it happen?”

  “The best I can tell right now, she slipped, fell, and hit her head on the outside basement entry.”

  “Why would she go back there?”

  “Taking out garbage, most likely. She was right next to the recycle bin.”

  Kate blinked away her tears. “I can’t tell you how many times I offered to help with that.”

  “You and others.” Bing nodded with sympathy.

  They sat in silence for a moment. Then Bing asked, “Do you know who’ll be making funeral arrangements for her?”

  “I’d think Linda, her friend from church. They had power of attorney for each other. We were just talking about it last week. I told Betty I was going into the office supply store in West Chester to restock the cabinet at work, and she asked me if I could pick up a three-ring binder for her because she was organizing her legal papers.”

  “You know Linda’s last name?”

  “Betty said it, but… No. Sorry. It’ll probably come to me later.”

  “No worries, I’ll find her. I can call her pastor.”

  “He’ll know. Or one of her other friends at church will.” Kate wrapped her arms around her middle, her features tight. She was fighting damn hard to keep it together.

  Murph fought just as hard to keep from going to her. When it became too much, he backed out and went in search of Gabi. If he were to help anybody, he needed to do more than look longingly at Kate.

  A turn in the weather had put a nip in the air, the sky gray.

  Other than a flock of gossipy Canada geese honking their hearts out overhead, rushing south, the street was quiet. Neighbors who were at home had probably been over already, talked to Bing, then returned to their kitchens to call everybody they knew with the news. By now, most of Broslin would have been alerted to Betty’s accident—just the way small towns worked.

  “Hey, Gabi.” Murph found her snapping pictures between Betty’s house and the neighbor’s on the other side, where the garbage bins stood. “How’s Hunter?”

  Murph had gone to high school with him. Both of them had done tours in Afghanistan, although not anywhere near each other.

  Gabi rolled her eyes. “He’s refinishing the basement. Brace yourself. We’re about to have a man cave.”

  “Yeah? Tell him I can help, if he needs another pair of hands…”

  “You can tell him at Finnegan’s tonight. You going?”

  “I guess.”

  He had no illusions that Kate would let him stay with her. And, because Emma would be there, he was mostly okay with that. Kate wouldn’t be alone, at least.

  “One slip and that’s that.” He looked around in the narrow space, pictured Betty, the fall, then dying alone. “She deserved better.”

  Leaves covered the ground, most of them newly fallen. From where he stood, he could see the pile Kate had started in the backyard. The brick walkway was mostly clean, passing by the outside basement entry that had a cement block frame and double metal doors.

  He shook his head at the blood on the cement block. Betty’s kind, smiling face floated in his mind. “A damn shame for something like this to happen.” He turned to Gabi. “Mind if I go inside the house?”

  She raised an eyebrow without lowering the camera, focused on what she was doing. “Miss police work?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Front door is unlocked. Go ahead.”

  Murph hurried back across the recently cut lawn to Betty’s front door. He wanted a peek before the captain came back outside and told him to mind his own business.

  A country-blue hooked rug protected the slate tile floor in the foyer, a small hall table to his right, with a mirror hanging above it.

  Betty’s house was identical to Kate’s in design, but here, original finishes had been kept, from the worn brown carpet in the living room to the checkered orange linoleum in the kitchen, the fridge in avocado green. Nothing out of place. Certainly nothing that would have given Murph pause back in his Broslin PD days.

  The place wasn’t a crime scene, but he pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his fingers as he opened the cabinet under the sink. An empty pill box sat on top of the garbage in the plastic bin, label side up. Over-the-counter sleeping pills. He didn’t touch it.

  He walked around until he found another garbage bin in the laundry room, this one for recyclables. He didn’t touch that either, merely ob
served the four carefully rinsed yogurt cups that lay on the bottom, two peach flavored, two blueberry.

  Murph walked out not knowing much more about Betty Gardner than when he’d walked in, but he knew this: She hadn’t died taking out the garbage.

  Chapter Five

  Asael

  Asael looked through the peephole of his room at the Mushroom Mile Motel.

  Past the abandoned front parking lot, a row of houses sat quietly on the other side of the road, their inhabitants at work. Beyond those houses, nothing but unspoiled Pennsylvania countryside. Nobody in sight.

  The squeaky-voiced cartoon that had been playing for hours in the next room would not quit. From chairs scraping the floor, from children shouting now and then, Asael knew exactly where each of the three kids and the two adults sat over there. He could take them out through the wall. Five bullets. But that wasn’t why he’d come to Broslin.

  And, in any case, he’d checked out already. They would no longer bother him.

  He reached for the doorknob and stepped outside, right as the damn maid tootled around the corner of the building.

  “Oh, hello there!” She wore a crisp yellow uniform and an entirely unwarranted, ridiculously toothy smile—the epitome of small-town cheeriness. “I’m Maisy.” Her blonde ponytail swung as she stopped in front of him. “Everything all right, hon? You let me know if you need something.”

  He gave a curt nod. He’d asked for a room with outside entry, specifically so he wouldn’t have to run into people or walk by the receptionist every time he went in and out. The damn place was crawling with nosy employees.

  “Where are you from?” this one wanted to know. Then, without taking a breath, “Here for the Mushroom Festival?”

  Small-town people. Everybody’s damn business was their damn business. He reached back for his suitcase.

  “Oh, you’re leaving early.”

  “Got offered the guest room at a friend’s place.” Asael walked around her.

  “Oh, okay. Maybe I’ll see you at the festival!” She kept up that cheerful-to-the-point-of-grating tone that someday someone should choke out of her. Again, not Asael’s job on this trip.