Sweet Revenge Page 8

  Mary grinned. “Everything.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was rather quiet in Mary’s house now that Tripp had headed off to bed. They had come across a box that afternoon that contained his videogames, and since the only television currently was in the living room, he had taken to playing loudly and aggressively for much of the evening. Mary realized very quickly that evening that she was going to have to see what she could do about either getting a television in his room or coming up with a fair rule about limiting screen time. She had no idea what sort of rules Tripp’s father had for him, and while she knew all of these sorts of things would be up to her as the adult in his life, she didn’t want to go too far off the path from what he was used to and give him something else to be upset about. It was a tough balancing act.

  There was a gentle knocking on the front door, and Mary scrambled to answer it. She had not informed Tripp that Preston would be coming by that evening as he had planned on coming by rather late, and she didn’t want to give Tripp another excuse to stay up even later. “Hey, Preston,” Mary said, smiling at him as he entered into the house, a file under his arm.

  “Sorry, I’m a little later than I said I was going to be,” he began as they made their way into the kitchen, each of them taking a seat at the kitchen island.

  “It’s all right,” Mary said. “You gave me time to read through my old recipes and pick out what I was going to try out tomorrow.”

  Officer Preston grinned. “I don’t suppose you have any more of that rainbow cake?”

  “I see you have a favorite already,” she said. “I think I might have a couple slices left.” She went digging through some of the dessert boxes that she and Tripp had brought home with them, and she eventually came across the one with the rainbow cake in it. “Looks like it’s your lucky day.” She put the box in front of him and poured each of them a glass of milk to go along with their late-night treat. After taking a couple of very satisfied bites, Officer Preston opened the case file and spread out its contents on the counter. “Well, you already know what I know,” Mary said. “So, what do you have for me?”

  “Well, for starters we have the photos from the crime scene,” Preston said, pushing some pictures in front of her to view.

  “Wow,” Mary said, uncomfortable with the bloody scene. Someone had clearly beaten the man senseless. However, apart from the obvious body injuries, she noticed something else. “Are those liquor bottles?”

  “That’s right. There were two of them found at the scene, completely empty,” he said. “They had Pastor Josiah’s prints all over them, and DNA confirms his lips had been all over them as well. They tested Josiah’s alcohol level, and it was off the charts. The man was heavily intoxicated when he was killed,” Preston explained.

  “Looks like Pastor Josiah’s rough day caused him to have a bit of a relapse,” Mary said.

  “I’ll say,” Preston said, shaking his head. “He certainly shouldn’t have been driving. This could be a case of road rage. Maybe he slammed on his brakes, and whoever hit him got ticked, but I can’t help but feel like this was not an accident. I think whoever hit him was trying to get him to pull over. My gut tells me that Josiah was targeted.”

  “I agree,” Mary said. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Someone went after Josiah because of what happened at the Brooks Day event. I say we take a look at our possible suspects. Hold on a second.” Mary stood up and went over to the counter by the kitchen sink. She dug around for a moment and pulled out a heavily worn journal before returning to her seat next to Preston. “This journal has been used and abused. I used to keep notes in it during my investigative journalism days. I came across it this afternoon while Tripp and I were doing a bit of unpacking… until we came across his videogames of course. Then the unpacking ended, and he was hooked playing videogames until I finally sent him to bed.”

  “Sounds about right,” Preston said with a laugh. “Teenagers…”

  “Don’t get me started,” Mary groaned. “Okay, so who do we have?”

  “Well, Jenna did just find out that her husband had a long-term affair,” Preston said. “That’s certainly motive. Not that I think she would have been strong enough to inflict the sort of damage I saw… and she’s a notoriously sweet lady. Hard to imagine her resulting to something this violent, but she’s a suspect nevertheless. The motive alone is just too clear.”

  “Okay, so Jenna,” Mary said, scribbling the woman’s name down. “How did the follow up with her alibi go?”

  “Pretty solid,” Preston said. “But it is her niece, so she could be lying.”

  “Would her niece be able to cause the sort of damage we see here?” Mary asked.

  “Possibly. Strong young girl,” Preston said. “But I don’t know if she would kill Josiah for her aunt. Leave Jenna on there for now.”

  “Okay, and I would say Kristin is also a suspect,” Mary said. “Something more could have been going on between Josiah and her that’s not so far in the past. I feel like it’s weird to choose to come out about the affair so long after it was already over and done with. She told me that she just snapped because of the way Jenna had spoken to her. But I don’t know if I really buy that just yet. She obviously is jealous of Jenna, and maybe it was a sort of if I can’t have him, no one can sort of mindset.”

  “All right, so far we have two elderly women as potential violent murder suspects,” Preston said. “I’m just not sure how I feel about that. It’s very unlikely.”

  “If one of them was angry enough, maybe it’s a bit plausible,” Mary said. “But I have to agree with you. Even with Josiah being as intoxicated as he was, I imagine he would have put up at least a bit of a fight. I’ve seen both Jenna and Kristin since the murder, and neither of them looked like they had any injuries.”

  “That’s a good point,” Preston said. “But if they surprised him, or if he got hurt when the car rear-ended him, that would have deterred his ability to fight back.”

  “How much of a deterrence would it really have been?” Mary questioned. “Enough for him to not be able to get in a single swing?”

  “If it’s him verses someone with a weapon, maybe, depending on how much reach the weapon had. I just don’t know of anyone else who would have gone after him like this. Who would have this much anger towards him over an affair they weren’t directly affected by?” Preston questioned. “I just can’t imagine Jenna being able to swing a bat or a crowbar hard enough to inflict this sort of damage, and Kristin is not much more physically built than Jenna.”

  “It’s not like Josiah was a particularly athletic man either,” Mary said.

  “But he was healthy, especially given his age,” Preston said. “Just because he was on the other side of the hill doesn’t mean that a bat swung by an elderly lady should have shattered his bones like this. This was some serious power, very strong swings.”

  “So, you really don’t think either Jenna or Kristin could have done this themselves?” Mary asked to confirm, and Preston nodded. “Then, what about relatives? Do they have any relatives that are perhaps a bit younger that might would have pulled this off?”

  “Josiah and Jenna didn’t have any children – she was barren,” Preston began. “Outside of Jenna’s niece, they don’t have much family left. As for Kristin, she’s been a bachelorette most her life. Her ex-husband lives in California, and as far as I can tell, he’s still in that area. She has a son, but he’s in Canada, and I do know that for a fact. I checked out his social media pages, and he was out backpacking with a group of friends in Toronto during the time of the murder.”

  “Okay, so the chances of them having anyone angry enough to want to kill Josiah for them is also highly unlikely,” Mary said. “Looks like we need to either study them and see if they would be capable of doing something like this themselves or see if we can expand our suspect pool a bit to someone who could actually physically pull this off.”

  “Maybe it was someone who watched Kristin’s video and jus
t got really upset because Josiah was supposed to be their moral teacher.” Preston suggested. “Maybe they thought of Josiah as a public figure who fell from his carefully planted pedestal. It could have really upset someone if they had looked up to Josiah.”

  “You know…” Mary began, thinking back to the day of the Brooks Day Festival. “I do remember Pastor Michael getting really upset about the video. He was the one who made Kristin turn it off. He was pretty irate, I’d say.”

  “You think Pastor Michael would have tracked Pastor Josiah down and murdered him over the fact that he had an affair almost twenty years ago?” Preston questioned.

  “I mean, maybe.” Mary said, scribbling down Pastor Michael’s name in the journal. “Think about it. Pastor Josiah ran the church before he did. No doubt they knew each other well. I’m sure in some way that Pastor Josiah was a mentor of Michael’s. He probably grew up listening to his sermons before taking over the church for him. His idea of who Pastor Josiah was probably came shattering down with that video. I imagine it was very devastating. He was very angry at Kristin for showing it, and imagine how this makes his church look too? It is going to affect the reputation of not just Pastor Josiah but of Pastor Michael’s church. It makes him look bad in a way.”

  “I didn’t really think about that. Okay, so Pastor Michael could potentially be a person of interest then,” Officer Preston said in agreement. “There was a lot of people there that day and many who were there have attended Pastor Josiah’s church over the years. I suppose anyone could have decided to go all vigilante on us.”

  “This isn’t really helping much, is it?” Mary asked, closing her journal. “I mean, it just doesn’t seem like we have any real leads.”

  “Not yet,” Officer Preston admitted. “But hopefully together, we will be able to figure something out. I don’t know what it is, but something about you tells me that you’re going to be my good luck charm during all of this.”

  Mary laughed. “Oh, really? What gives you that impression?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” he said with a smile. “It might just be the baking.”

  Mary shook her head. “Okay, well, I don’t know about being a good luck charm, but I am willing to help. So, let’s start by following up with Jenna and Kristin – maybe see if you can get their phone records pulled to see if they could have called anyone. Maybe one of them hired someone to take out Josiah for them? They are certainly the only ones with the most clear-cut motive. After we look into them, we can turn our attention to people of the church, like Pastor Michael, or anyone who attended it who might have looked up to Josiah—even anyone who might have gotten hurt after learning of the affair that was also at the Brooks Day event?”

  “I think that sounds like a pretty good game plan to me,” he said and then grinned at Mary. “So, what are the chances you’ll send me home this evening with a to-go box of some of your sweets?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hurry up, Tripp!” Mary called up the stairs. It was early the following Sunday morning, and Mary and Tripp had been invited by Cindy and Hannah to visit their church. Seeing as how Pastor Michael had made it onto Mary and Preston’s suspect list, Mary had decided that this was a good opportunity to not only meet people in the local community but to also gauge Pastor Michael a good bit.

  Tripp came burling down the stairs looking quite dissatisfied in his church outfit she had picked out for him. It wasn’t too bad – cream colored slacks, a light blue button up, and a dark blue tie. “I can’t believe you’re making me wear this,” he groaned, wiggling his feet into his dress shoes that he claimed pinched his toes.

  “You’re acting like I’ve forced you into some sort of suit,” Mary said as she reached out to fix his hair. However, he jolted back and gave her a don’t-you-dare sort of look as he smoothed his hair down himself. Mary rolled her eyes. She herself was modeling a nice summer dress and pantyhose, a rather unusual attire for her, but she wasn’t sure what to expect as far as typical attire at this very traditional looking Southern Baptist church they were about to attend.

  They headed out to the car. After arriving at the church, they ended up parking in one of the usual spots they took when going to the shop. The church itself was only a few doors down from the shop. It sat up right on the corner on a slight, very subtle hill. Cindy and Hannah were waiting out front for them, and because of Hannah’s chair, they had to go around back to a side entrance since the front was steps. “You look like a dork,” Hannah said to Tripp, and Tripp looked quite embarrassed by her taunting. Hannah was in a light lavender-colored dress and had her hair tied up in a tight ponytail; she looked rather cute.

  “Is this is where you usually go to church?” Mary asked.

  “Sometimes,” Cindy said. “It’s the church I grew up in. I grew up listening to Pastor Josiah, but lately we’ve been travelling a bit to a more modern church. Mostly for Hannah because we like the youth group. But after everything that happened last weekend, we thought it would be a good idea to come back here for a Sunday.”

  Mary watched as Cindy helped Hannah by picking her straight up out of the wheelchair, placing her in a pew on the second row, and then proceeding to fold up the chair, and stuff it away in a corner. Tripp sat down by Hannah on the end, and Mary and Cindy scooted past them to the center of the pew – Mary on the far interior of the pew next to Cindy. “So, when you say you have been attending a more modern church, what do you mean?” Mary asked, as people continued to trickle in.

  “Something contemporary,” Cindy said. “Like with a live worship band. I love coming back here sometimes though – it’s fun singing out of an old hymnal.”

  Mary cringed, not sure how she felt about hymnal music. She doubted she would be as familiar with any of the songs compared to these lifelong church goers. While Mary took her faith seriously, there was a certain familiarity that Southerners seemed to have that she lacked with the church lifestyle. It was a part of their daily lives in a way Mary wasn’t quite used to. A small group of five people dressed in choir robes stood up front as a woman greeted people, welcoming them to church. She told them where to find their hymnals, though most people had already gathered them from the back of the pews in front of them, and informed them of what hymn number to turn to.

  They stood, Hannah an exception, and proceeded to sing a song Mary was thankful she was familiar with – Amazing Grace which was followed by How Great Thou Art. When the second song came to an end, Pastor Michael stood up in front of the church. “Amen! Amen, how great a God is He,” he began. Pastor Michael had them all turn to the Book of Joshua, where he began the sermon discussing King Saul, the first king of Israel. Mary admittedly was having a hard time focusing. For one thing, her own personal Bible was still in a box packed up somewhere, and the King James Version Bible she now held in her hands that she had gotten from the back of the pew was difficult for her to follow. Pastor Michael, though a bit young himself, had a very old preaching style that made Mary understand why Cindy and Hannah had joined a more contemporary church.

  “Saul was selected not by God, but by the people,” Pastor Michael was saying. “Now this does not mean that God was not in full control. God was the Lord of His people. He chose to give them what they wanted, and that was to be like other nations and have a king. But what the people seemed to forget was that they already had a king! And that king was God!”

  There were a few excited “Amens!” from the small church crowd goers. Pastor Michael continued for several more minutes before reaching his next big point he wanted to make that day. “You see, what I’m wanting to really get into today, folks, is leadership. What it means to be a Godly leader, and what it means to be a leader with a heart after God. Jeremiah chapter three, verse fifteen tells us that God will send us leaders after His own heart who will lead us with knowledge and understanding. But what does that mean? Saul, at first, triumphed as a leader. But God turned his heart cold. Saul started listening to the people rather than God. Saul started to le
t the world tempt him. Saul feared the people more than he feared God. What causes a leader to falter? What causes a leader to lose sight? It’s that – it’s when they fear man more than they fear God!”

  Once again, there were a few more “Amens!” from the crowd.

  “We all know a few leaders – leaders in our nation or even right here in our own community – who are guilty of running astray. Guilty of great sins. Guilty of turning their backs on the God they promised to serve,” Pastor Michael preached, and he seemed to be making some sort of transition. Mary sat upright a bit. There was a seriousness to Pastor Michael’s tone that seemed to supersede the intensity from before. He was making eye contact with people in the crowd in a way that made Mary want to put her head down and hide. Pastor Michael spoke firmly as he continued, “You see, I’m guilty of putting my faith in a leader much like the people of Israel put their faith in Saul. I put my faith in a man I wrongly thought was somehow above a great sin. I put my faith in a man other than God or Jesus Christ. And, I think we’ve all felt the sting of that this week.”

  Mary’s jaw dropped. Pastor Michael was, without a doubt, calling out Josiah. Josiah had just been killed a week ago, and here Pastor Michael was preaching a whole sermon on the man. It was painfully obvious, and looking around, Mary could see that several church members had started to fidget in their seats. Pastor Michael didn’t seem to care. He continued, “We put our faith in a man who raised up this building – not in the man who raised up the Lord’s church! We put our faith in a man in our community, and he has disappointed us. He has disappointed me! We put our faith in a man. Therein lies the problem. We put our faith in a man: not God! And now, God has used a terrible tragedy to stir us. We must ask ourselves, what are we going to do now?”

  By the time the sermon was over, Mary doubted there was a single person in the crowd of people who did not know exactly who Pastor Michael had been talking about. In fact, a small handful of elderly church members had gotten up and left in the middle of the sermon after he started bashing “the man” that the church had wrongly placed their faith in. Mary completely understood the point that Pastor Michael had been trying to make. Their faith needed to be entirely on God and not on men, as men always disappoint, but it had gotten increasingly distasteful the more the man spoke. Pastor Michael was angry. His fury had been painfully clear in the sermon.