The Eleventh Hour Read online

  It just wasn’t who he was. He’d found the love of his life, and he didn’t want to move on.

  “So she chased you for three weeks and then gave up when she found out she couldn’t get you. Interesting.”

  “I don’t know if it’s that interesting, Poppy. I think she might have been a lonely woman in her forties who just wanted some company. No crime in that.”

  I took a drink of my beer and thought about the crime that had occurred. Geneva had been after my father until someone else came along. Maybe my father had seen her mystery lover around her one of those nights.

  “Dad, was Geneva always alone with you? There was never anyone else here when she came in to see you every night?”

  “No, just the two of us. Well, no that’s not true. Once or twice there were other people here. I think Candy Skerritt was still in the bar one time, and the usual characters were here too.”

  Tipping my glass up, I drank the last of my beer and handed my father the empty glass. “Thanks for the drink, Dad. I better head home. I’ve got an early day at The Eagle tomorrow.”

  “Anytime, honey. I want you to promise me again that you’re going to stay safe while you do this with Derek.”

  I spun around on my barstool and stood to leave, just like I used to do when I was a little girl and it was time for me to go because my father had to open the bar. He came toward me to give me a hug and squeezed me tightly to him.

  The feel of his arms holding me always made me feel safe and secure. Ever since I was young, just a hug from my father let me know I everything would be all right. I may have been all grown up and out on my own, but his expression of how much he loved me never failed to bring a smile to my face.

  “I promise, Dad. I’ll be fine. You know me.”

  He leaned back away from me and gave me a skeptical look. “That’s supposed to make me feel good about this?”

  True, I did have a long history of getting into trouble. Well, scrapes would be a better description of what usually happened. But I never really got hurt, so he had nothing to worry about.

  I cradled his face in my palms and smiled up at him. “You worry too much, Dad. Remember, this is Sunset Ridge.”

  “Where one of the most important people in town has just been murdered.”

  He never missed a beat.

  “Well, then feel better because your daughter is smart and she’s going to solve this case.”

  He kissed me on the tip of my nose and sighed. “Just like your mother. Don’t forget not everyone is as kind and good as you are, Elizabeth. There are bad people in this world, and at least one of them killed Geneva and likely may still be here in town. This isn’t some tawdry gossip story you’re used to working on. Whoever killed Geneva isn’t above hurting someone like you. Remember that.”

  “I will, Dad. I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself.”

  The look on his face told me he didn’t believe that last part. Kissing him goodnight, I left the bar and headed home as night began to fall. The news that Geneva Woodward had been interested in my father still rambled around my brain, but even more intriguing was the idea that around the same time she was pursuing my father, if Shelley was right, there was another man who was pursuing her.

  Had he been the one to take her life?

  By eleven the next morning, I was behind my desk at The Sunset Ridge Eagle after a night of tossing and turning what I knew about Geneva Woodward over in my mind at least a hundred times. My father’s news had made me rethink the kind of person she’d been. If she had taken an interest in my father, then maybe she wasn’t all stone and ice behind that snobbish façade she presented to everyone.

  But my job as the social events writer for the town’s newspaper called, and even though I was eager to investigate the case further, my responsibilities trumped my curiosity. So the mystery of who killed Geneva had to wait a few hours while I did my part in the rat race.

  My assignment this week focused on the Founders’ Day Festival that would take center stage in town in June. A yearly celebration of all things Sunset Ridge had to offer, the newspaper planned to focus on the town’s humble beginnings as a stopover point for troops between Baltimore and Philadelphia in the Revolutionary War period, its modern day claim at being the perfect town close to major cities and fresh country air while offering a safe, suburban environment for everyone, and everything in between.

  My editor had stressed repeatedly how important this series of articles would be to the town, but I had to wonder how the claim to being a safe place to live would stand up under the reality that a murder had been committed and the victim was one of Sunset Ridge’s most prominent citizens.

  I hadn’t heard from Howard yet about any of these issues, so either he was in complete denial or didn’t know. The latter reason was just as likely as the former since he’d become a new father three months ago. It had made him a slightly happier person, but his work had definitely suffered from this newfound joy at home.

  Not that Geneva’s death would change anything about the Founders’ Day celebration necessarily. The main focus of the event was always the great history of the area, and it would be that again this year. The planning committee, which doubled as the self-appointed town decorating committee for major holidays, would see to that.

  Comprised of four women, the Founders’ Day Planning Committee, as they demanded they be called, oversaw every moment of the upcoming event. From what buildings in town would be decorated to the order of the procession in the big parade, the four ladies on the committee ruled with an iron hand. Each year they dealt with any number of residents who wanted to introduce something new into the event or change the parade route to help their business, and always the answer from the women was the same.

  Delivered in a handwritten note, each dissenter was told, “No. We have always done it this way, and we will continue to do it this way.”

  It was this group of women I had to meet to write my series of articles. Although I knew each of them separately and had spoken to a couple of them in the past for write-ups on Founders’ Day, this would be the first time I had the opportunity to speak to the formal committee.

  I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Mrs. Joseph Scanlon, whose first name I had never learned even though I’d known her since I was a little girl, was the unofficial chairwoman of the planning committee. Married to James Scanlon for nearly forty years, she was almost sixty and looked like she’d slaved away for every day of those years, despite the fact that she hadn’t worked since sometime during the Carter administration. Her eyes had been grey for as long as anyone had known her, but now they matched her steel grey hair, an aged version of the long brown hair she’d had as a young woman.

  She knew my mother and often came by our house when I was a child. I remembered each time she visited she’d bring brightly colored cookies she made especially for me that looked like fruit but always tasted more like chemicals. And every time she made a point of telling me how much care she’d taken to make them just right. By the time I was a teenager, I was convinced she was trying to kill me.

  Only one of her fellow committee members, the Widow Dunn, acted older than Mrs. Scanlon. That she insisted on being called by such an archaic title baffled me, but that’s the way she required the world to address her.

  The Widow Dunn. She sounded like some dreadful character from a horror film involving missing children.

  Her actual name was Arlene Dunn, which sounded far less frightening and didn’t make me feel like I’d taken a trip back to the eighteenth century every time I had to address her. In her late forties, she looked far younger than the committee’s chairwoman and loved to brag about how nature had taken so much from her but had left her with a beautifully smooth face untouched by wrinkles and lustrous black hair without a single grey strand to be found in it.

  Everyone in town knew she dyed her hair. It was impossible to not know. The shade of black she used had never occurred in nature, other t
han in permanent markers, and the color made her resemble an older version of Snow White more than anything else. Her vanity knew no bounds, though, so no one had bothered to say anything to her about her boast in years, even though she continued to make it any time she had the chance.

  Her husband, Andrew Dunn, had been one of the wealthiest men in Sunset Ridge and twenty years older than her when they married. After less than ten years of wedded bliss together, he passed away at the age of fifty-one, leaving her a widow of barely thirty with his fortune and three sons under the age of ten to raise. Since then, she’d demanded everyone in town call her the Widow Dunn as she waved her wealth around to get her way, no matter who was put out.

  Joining them was my former English teacher from junior year at Sunset Ridge High School, Eileen Matthews. The youngest member of the committee and not even forty yet, she was consistently overruled by the other women every time she wanted to inject some new idea into the celebration. A replacement for her mother Evelyn, who had been forced to step down from the committee three years ago after having a stroke, Eileen Matthews seemed an unlikely addition to the group, but she stayed, nonetheless, even though she had little effect.

  Unmarried, she was devoted to her career teaching teenagers the proper way to read American literature. She’d taught my favorite class of all four years in high school, and while I enjoyed seeing her when we met on the street from time to time, she seemed a little less chipper and bright since her mother’s illness.

  And finally there was Mrs. Eleanor Girard, the First Lady of Sunset Ridge. Technically, the former first lady because her husband wasn’t the mayor anymore since last year’s election that sent him out of office after twelve years, she refused to relinquish the title now correctly held by the current mayor’s wife, Christine Sanders. She’d been told by a number of very prominent people in town that it was inappropriate to continue calling herself the First Lady, but that hadn’t changed her mind.

  If anything, it had made her more insistent on keeping the title. She’d walk up and down Main Street with her flash of red hair falling onto her face as she waved to people and waited for everyone to address her as First Lady. So that’s what people called her. Most understood that she had never accomplished anything on her own, so letting her run around town calling herself that did few people harm, even if it did make her look foolish. In Sunset Ridge, it was a matter of respect mixed with a heady dose of letting someone keep their illusions because if she didn’t, she’d have little more than a sham marriage and a nice house to lay claim to.

  These were the people I had to spend my time with to write my article and make my editor happy. After three missed meetings because of one or another issues the ladies had come up, today was the day the five of us would meet. The Widow Dunn insisted the meeting take place at her house since it was, as she had bluntly said to me on the phone, “the finest of the four homes it could be held at.”

  Her need to put on airs seemed unnecessary since their usual place for the bi-monthly meetings of the decorating committee was the back room of my father’s bar, but I assumed she wanted to show off some new piece of artwork or another set of expensive china to make her fellow committee members jealous. So off to the Widow Dunn’s house I went to be on time for my one o’clock meeting.

  If I was lucky, they’d have something to say about the murder victim that could help me figure out what had happened to take Geneva from this earth. If I was really lucky, they’d be their usual nosy selves and point me right toward the killer.

  Chapter Five

  As I approached the Dunn house, I saw it was located only one block away from Geneva’s house. Perhaps the widow would know something about who may have been visiting her before her death. Climbing the stairs to the wide porch on the front of the large older home, I promised myself if I could, I’d direct the conversation to the story everyone in town was talking about and see if I could learn something more about Geneva’s nighttime visits.

  Eileen Matthews met me at the door and walked with me toward the very opulent sitting room where the meeting was to be held. As we made our way there, she talked about the weather and how her students were doing, but I had a sense she wanted to talk about something else. Just before we reached the room, she gently grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

  “The women are in rare form today, Poppy. I won’t be surprised if you get very little out of them for your article. But if you need more information after today, feel free to call me.”

  I looked at her, surprised at what she’d said, and asked, “Is there something wrong with the committee members?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “No. I just don’t think with what’s going on in town lately that you’re going to get much from them but gossip today. I might be wrong. Who knows? Just remember you can get the information from me later, if you need to.”

  As she walked away to take her seat in Arlene Dunn’s sitting room, I hoped I’d hear more about Geneva than the Founders’ Day celebration or their plans for every holiday they planned to decorate the streets of town for. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as bad as I’d initially thought.

  The four women sat in burgundy upholstered chairs set up in a semi-circle and all aimed at a single similar chair I was supposed to sit in. I hadn’t taken two steps into the room before the Widow Dunn extended her arm and pointed toward the lone empty seat.

  “Sit down, Miss McGuire. It is still miss, isn’t it?” she asked in the voice of a police interrogator.

  I did as instructed and pressed a smile onto my lips. Still miss. As if being a single woman in her early thirties in the twenty-first century was cause for some kind of gossip. As my cheeks began to ache from forcing my smile, I couldn’t help but think if I lived in a bigger city I wouldn’t have to field questions like this.

  “Yes, it is, ma’am.”

  “It really is getting down to the wire concerning that, isn’t it, dear?” she asked, not even bothering to hide her disgust at my choice of still being unmarried.

  The Widow Dunn had apparently decided it was the eleventh hour for this single girl and her chances for happiness. How nice of her.

  Quickly changing the topic, I glanced at all four women. “Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me today to talk about the Founders’ Day celebration and the wonderful plans you have for decorating our beautiful little town.”

  Mrs. Scanlon spoke first to begin our meeting, as was customary since she was the chairwoman. Returning my smile, she waved her hand in front of her, as if to dismiss the formal tone of my introduction. “We’re all friends here, Poppy. You remember how I used to visit your mother when you were just a little girl? I used to make my fruit cookies especially for you.”

  “I do. I love thinking back to those days.”

  And the way your cookies always tasted like you were trying to poison me.

  “Your mother would be so proud of you, dear. You were the light of her life.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that, Mrs. Scanlon.”

  “I bet your father is looking forward to some grandchildren, Poppy,” the Widow Dunn piped up.

  And there it was again. Still miss and no grandchildren for your dear father. Clearly, I was a total failure as a daughter. An unmarried, childless failure.

  Taking out my notebook and pen, I crossed my legs and completely ignored Arlene Dunn’s jab. “So I know The Eagle’s readers are dying to know what wonderful things you ladies have planned for Founders’ Day this year.”

  And that’s all it took. One carefully chosen word with the correct emphasis placed on it and they were off to the races.

  Wide-eyed and eager, the First Lady jumped on the idea of dying and said, “I can’t believe we’re going to sit here talking about pie eating contests and balloon colors instead of talking about what’s on all of our minds. Geneva Woodward finally ran into someone who didn’t think she was town royalty.”

  The other three ladies’ mouths dropped open as they stared in silence for
a long moment at Eleanor Girard after her snipe at the dead woman. Her remark wasn’t very politically correct, but that wasn’t surprising. I couldn’t remember when the First Lady truly acted the part she loved to claim as her own.

  Covering her mouth, Mrs. Scanlon erupted into nervous chuckling. “I’m sure Poppy thinks we’re just dreadful, but the truth was Geneva wasn’t the person she pretended to be.”

  My ears perked up at this second swipe at poor Geneva. Maybe now we could all get our focus off my still being a single woman and where it should be.

  On the dead woman they clearly all wanted to gossip about.

  I wasn’t sure I should ask any questions regarding Geneva, so I kept my mouth shut and waited in the hopes that the four women in front of me would be exactly what I’d always known them to be.

  They didn’t disappoint.

  “I don’t see any point in pretending simply because Miss McGuire is here. I’m sure she knows there was always something phony about Geneva Woodward.”

  With a simple smile, I let the Widow Dunn know there was no reason for any pretending just because I was there. If they only knew how eager I was to hear what they had to say.

  “See that smirk? Our young friend here knows what we’re talking about. I mean, can you imagine how many people Geneva offended acting the way she did? Walking around like she was some kind of special princess. I’m surprised she didn’t get herself a tiara.”

  The other three women around her nodded their heads in agreement, and Mrs. Girard continued the character assassination with an attack a little more personal. Smoothing her bright red hair, she tilted her chin up to mimic how Geneva often looked as she appeared in town.