Poisoned Pie (Pineville Gazette Mystery Book 6) Read online

  “William will be fine,” Mary assured Loretta, pretending to offer compassion and understanding. She patted Loretta’s hand. “Okay, what happened next?”

  Loretta explained to Mary how she had been taken up to the attic. “I…suppose we should go up to the attic?” Mary nodded, and Loretta led the way. When she reached the attic Loretta’s mind jumped into gear. She waited until Mary stepped into the attic, and then, without warning, spun around and attempted to punch Mary right in the face, hoping to knock the woman unconscious. After all, Loretta MacNight was known to have a mean punch.

  Mary was taken off guard. She stumbled backward, barely missing Loretta’s punch, and nearly toppled down the attic stairs but managed to catch her balance at the last second. Loretta quickly grabbed Mary’s right arm and slung her away from the attic stairs. Mary went flying forward and crashed over a couch. Loretta quickly slammed the attic door closed, looked around, spotted an old wooden cane, and went for it. Mary, still a little dazed, crawled to her feet just in time to see Loretta grab the cane.

  “Loretta, you’re already in enough trouble,” she pleaded.

  Loretta stared at Mary with fierce eyes. “I was ordered to kill you,” she snapped. “If I don’t kill all of you…my parents die. I’m sorry, Mary…it has to be this way.” And with those words Loretta charged at Mary. Mary ran away from the couch and managed to reach the wardrobe closet. “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” Loretta begged. She swung the wooden cane at Mary’s head. Mary ducked out of the way and slipped behind the wardrobe closet. Loretta gritted her teeth and gave chase.

  Unwilling to die at the hands of Loretta MacNight, Mary ran back to the front of the wardrobe closet and waited. As soon as Loretta appeared she grabbed the woman’s right arm and with a loud cry of hope, managed to send Loretta flying into the wardrobe closet. Loretta crashed into the closet with such force that the closet toppled over and crashed onto the attic floor. Mary quickly slammed the doors shut and sat down on them. “Mary…let me out!” Loretta screamed.

  Mary took a minute to catch her breath. Then she simply locked the doors on the wardrobe closet before Loretta could break free and then, using all of her strength, set the closet back upright. “Loretta MacNight, you should be ashamed of yourself,” she scolded Loretta. “Here I am trying to help you and in return you try to kill me? Shame on you.”

  Loretta couldn’t believe Mary had outsmarted her. She dropped the wooden cane and began beating against the closet doors. “Let me out this instant!”

  “I’ll let you out once Sheriff Mables arrives,” Mary informed Loretta. “You get comfortable in there.” Mary looked around the attic and sighed. Boy, what a night, and she hadn’t even talked to Brent Presley yet. “Okay, John, you always told me to think smart…so now what? How do I get Brent Presley to walk into a trap?”

  “I think I know.”

  Mary spun around, and to her relief, she saw Wilbur. Wilbur looked at the wardrobe closet and then focused back on Mary. “I’m not such a big fool, Mary,” he said and then told Mary about the message Loretta asked him to deliver to Brent Presley.

  Wilbur wasn’t exactly thrilled to be standing at the cold front door that belonged to Brent Presley, but what choice did he have? He knocked on the wooden front door speckled with snow, stepped back onto the brick porch, and waited.

  A minute later Brent opened the front door just enough to be able to see his visitor. He had spotted Wilbur walking up the front walk and decided to see what the man wanted. “Yes?” he asked in a hard voice. “What do you want? It’s late.”

  Wilbur wasn’t a scaredy-cat. As a young man he had tangled with the toughest kids in town. Some fights he lost and some he won. The important thing was proving that Wilbur Johnson wasn’t a coward. “Loretta MacNight asked me to deliver a message to you. I ain’t exactly happy to be doing her a favor, not after the way she treated me, but…well, I’m kinda sweet on her,” Wilbur barked back.

  Brent studied Wilbur with careful eyes and then studied the dark night. Loretta MacNight was supposed to be trapped in a wardrobe closet. Brent decided it would be wise to see what situation was forming in the dark night. “What’s the message?”

  “It’s a strange one,” Wilbur told Brent and shook his head. “Here goes.” Wilbur cleared his throat. “‘I liked my wardrobe closet but needed some fresh air. If you want to join me, meet me at midnight before I decide to take a walk.’”

  Brent narrowed his eyes. “Is that it?”

  Wilbur nodded his head. “That’s it,” he said, glancing around at the snow, and then he shook his head. “I walked all this way to deliver this message…Loretta better be happy ’cause I’m freezing,” he told Brent and then simply walked away into the snow and went home carrying a hard conscience.

  Brent watched Wilbur vanish into the snow and then slammed the front door closed. He marched into a living room designed like a 1920s castle. The room was hard, uninviting, and filled with items that brought to mind cruel knights raiding innocent villages. Brent stormed over to a stone fireplace and stared into the hot fire.

  “So you escaped,” he hissed. “I was foolish to leave you unattended. I was foolish to form a partnership with your daddy.” Brent snatched out a cigarette from the gray suit he was wearing and lit it. “The pie eating contest was supposed to work to my advantage,” he said through a puff of smoke, as he began pacing around the living room. “Months of careful planning…all down the drain…but it’s not over. I’ll get my money, Loretta. I know you’re attempting to pin Kent’s murder on me…to make me look like the bad guy in the eyes of the law. You’re going to lose.”

  Brent took a drag off his cigarette, tossed it into the fireplace, and then checked his gun. “Let’s go see what you’re doing,” he said. He grabbed his coat and walked out into the snowy night, aiming his body toward Loretta’s house. Thirty minutes later he was peering through the back kitchen window. He spotted Mary sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.

  “I’ll enter through the attic again,” he whispered. Fighting snow away from his face, he slithered off to the side tree he had climbed before. The tree was icy and dangerous but Brent knew he had to get back inside the house unseen and unheard. He forced his body to maneuver up the tree, one slippery limb at a time, as the icy winds ripped at his frozen face and the heavy snow bit at his eyes. After about ten minutes of careful climbing up and up, Brent scaled a thick tree limb and managed to make contact with the roof of Loretta’s house. The roof was at a slant, forcing Brent to drop down to his knees and crawl upward toward the attic window.

  As Brent made his way toward the attic Mary was making her way upstairs. Mrs. Owlton had called Mary the moment Brent began climbing the side yard tree. “Okay,” Mary whispered, “it’s time to catch myself a shark.” Mary rushed into the attic, ran to the attic window, and pressed her body up against the attic wall. She was holding a baseball bat she had located in the attic. “No fancy games…just one swing and…home run.”

  Brent, unaware that Mary was waiting for him, reached the attic window. Upset at being forced to crawl around in the snow on a dangerous roof, he slid the attic window open and gratefully eased his upper body into the attic. Then he heard a voice say, “Hello.”

  “Huh?” Brent asked in a shocked voice. He raised his head just in time to see Mary swinging the baseball bat she was holding at him. The last thing Brent remembered before falling off into a dark, cold world was Mary’s fierce face.

  “Simple plans work the best,” Mary said in a relieved voice. She dropped the baseball bat, grabbed Brent’s unconscious arms, dragged him the rest of the way through the attic window, and tied him to a heavy green sitting chair with some strong rope she had found in an old box. With Brent secure she searched his coat, located a deadly gun, and nodded her head.

  “Okay, now it’s time to get Loretta,” she whispered. She studied the gun, examined how to aim it properly, and finally walked over to the wardrobe closet. “L
oretta,” she called out, “I’m holding a gun in my hand. If you try anything funny I’ll be forced to shoot you, do you hear me?”

  Loretta stood very still and listened to Mary. She had heard the attic window open, the sound of the howling winds, and then Brent’s voice. Next she heard a loud thud and then a bunch of other noises she couldn’t quite make out. “Mary—”

  “I have Brent Presley tied to a chair and I have his gun,” Mary warned Loretta. “Mrs. Owlton has been informed to call the sheriff at a designated time that I will not say. Now, I’m going to open this closet and let you out. When I do you are going to sit down next to Brent Presley and start telling me the truth. If you try to run I’ll be forced to shoot you…please don’t make me.”

  Mary drew in a deep breath, carefully unlocked the doors attached to the wardrobe closet, and stepped back. A few seconds later the doors slowly opened and Loretta appeared.

  “There…go sit there.” Mary pointed her eyes to a wooden chair she had placed next to the green sitting chair Brent was tied to.

  Loretta quickly examined Brent and then locked her eyes on Mary. Would Mary actually shoot her?

  “Don’t test me any further than you have, Loretta. I was willing to be your friend but you betrayed me. I see you as a threat now and nothing more.”

  Loretta knew Mary was speaking the truth and that the woman was fed up with her. If Loretta tried to run Mary would most likely shoot.

  “Okay…okay,” Loretta told Mary in a scared voice, “stay calm, Mary…I’ll go sit down.”

  Mary stepped back and allowed Loretta room to sit down in her assigned chair. Once Loretta was seated she grabbed some rope, walked behind the chair, and ordered Loretta to place her hands behind her back. To Mary’s relief Loretta obeyed.

  “Sit very still.” Mary hesitantly set Brent’s gun down onto the attic floor and began tying Loretta’s hands behind the chair she was sitting on. Loretta didn’t attempt to fight or escape. The truth was, Loretta was scared stiff. She had tried to murder Mary and now Mary had a gun. Even if she tried to escape while Mary was tying her hands together, Loretta knew she wouldn’t get far. Mary had every right to shoot her and Loretta was not interested in dying.

  “Mary—”

  “Hush,” Mary ordered in a harsh voice as she finished tying the woman’s hands together. When the task was complete she grabbed Brent’s gun, walked a safe distance in front of her captives, and studied the situation with a calm mind. “Okay, Loretta, I have come to realize that you are the mastermind of this little operation.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mary. I’ve already explained that my parents have been—”

  “Loretta, enough with the lies,” Mary begged. She lowered Brent’s gun and stared at Loretta in pity. “I actually believed your story, Loretta. I actually believed your parents had been taken hostage. I believed the entire tale. But then I was told by a very dear friend that your daddy has been spotted in Pineville, free as a song.”

  Loretta felt her heart sink. So the gig was up, or so it seemed. “Okay…okay, Mary,” she said in a voice that was half angry and half defeated. She pointed her eyes at Brent, who was sat slumped over in the sitting chair. “My parents were never taken captive. I made up the story.”

  “Why?”

  “The man who died today…his real name is Kent Connors. He was my…we were due to get married.” Loretta made a sad face. “Kent and I were engaged to get married…and then I discovered the truth. All Kent wanted was my daddy’s money.”

  “Keep talking,” Mary ordered Loretta, hoping to discover the real truth herself.

  “I…was in love with Kent and believed deep down he was in love with me. It didn’t matter that he wanted my daddy’s money…I still wanted to marry him. Kent…Mary, he agreed to marry me if I helped him get all of my daddy’s money.” Loretta lowered her eyes. Tears began to fall. “Kent and I created a dangerous plan. You see, it’s true…I do know the missing numbers to all of the bank combination locks…only…those numbers are all I know. I don’t know the other numbers. Daddy made it that way.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, Mary, of course you wouldn’t,” Loretta complained, “and honestly, I didn’t either…at first. Daddy didn’t give me the missing numbers until after I met Kent.” Loretta looked up at Mary with confused eyes. “Why? Why did Daddy do such a thing, I asked myself. Daddy never said. All he told me was that he trusted me to protect the missing numbers while he and Mother took a trip to Brazil.”

  Mary studied Loretta’s eyes. “Brazil?” she asked and then put two and two together. “You and Mr. Kent Connors created a scheme to get all the numbers from your daddy, right, Loretta?”

  Loretta sighed. She felt miserable. “Kent traveled to the location in Brazil my parents were going to visit.” Loretta confessed. “Our plan was for him to take my parents hostage, force the numbers from Daddy, and then leave them tied up at a hidden location just long enough for Kent to travel back to the Tennessee and steal all of the money. Only…my parents never showed up in Brazil. Instead…” Loretta pointed her eyes at Brent. “Brent came into the picture. He pretended to know all about the plan Kent and I created and offered to help us. I…Mary, Kent was still in Brazil when Brent arrived at my home. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Mary pulled up a wooden chair and sat down to rest her legs. “Your daddy knew all along, didn’t he, Loretta?” she asked. “Mr. MacNight somehow found out about Kent Connors and his plan to steal all the bank money, right?”

  Loretta squeezed her eyes closed. “Mary, you don’t understand how it is!” she nearly screamed. “My daddy isn’t the man people think he is. Daddy is…dangerous….and cruel. My only chance was to alter my story…decorate my words in places…and make it seem as if I were the victim. I had to kill Kent…and place all the blame on Brent. It was the only way to save myself from Daddy.”

  “What do you mean?” Mary asked.

  Loretta kept her eyes closed. “Mary, please…I’ve said enough.”

  “You haven’t said nearly enough,” Mary warned Loretta. “You killed a man and that is serious business.” Mary ran her left hand through her hair. As she did, John appeared in her mind. “Oh, my hair is a mess and, darling, you’re due in town tomorrow,” she whispered.

  “What did you say?” Loretta asked.

  Mary lifted her head. “Loretta, you better tell me the truth…the entire truth…because I’m the only person you can trust right now. I have no intention of ever trying to become your friend again, but I will try to help you.”

  Loretta didn’t know what to do. She was now a fly caught in a spider web. What harm would it do to spill the beans? “Mary, Daddy is a thief,” she confessed. “He never intended to go to Brazil. That was a lie to force Kent out of the country while he activated his own plans.”

  “Own plans?” Mary asked.

  “Mary, each of Daddy’s banks….is missing money,” Loretta explained in a careful voice. “Daddy…I was told to rob the banks or die.” Loretta closed her eyes. “I was informed to involve Kent…but I couldn’t….I just couldn’t. I loved him…” Loretta began to cry. “Brent Presley, the monster sitting next to me…he had plans of his own…plans to deceive Daddy and take all the bank money for himself. When Kent returned from Brazil…oh, he was furious. All he cared about was that he would never see all that money. And it was then that I knew he would never love me…it was then that I knew he had to…die…they all had to die.”

  Mary watched Loretta cry. She felt pity for the woman. But what could she do except keep seeking the truth? “A friend of your daddy’s delivered the combination numbers, didn’t he?” Mary asked. “And you hid those numbers, didn’t you? Brent Presley didn’t steal them, did he?”

  Loretta slowly opened her eyes. “I have the numbers,” she confessed. “I took them and told Kent that Brent Presley stole them. In fact, I put a fake package with newspapers in it on the porch for Brent to take, told him s
ome story I can’t even remember—that’s what Mrs. Owlton saw. I knew she always looked out her window and she would have told that to Kent if I needed to back up my story. Anyway, I told Kent that Brent took the numbers, and that was when Kent agreed to my poisoned pie idea. It was the only way, Mary…I had to kill Kent…he had to die.”

  Mary still wasn’t sure why a man like Brent Presley had agreed to be in a pie eating contest. She was certain, however, that Mr. MacNight, the missing pawn, was somehow responsible.

  “Loretta,” Mary said in a tired voice but then stopped when Brent began to wake up. Mary glanced at Loretta, saw the woman tense up, and waited for Brent to open his eyes. It was time to match stories and get to the bottom of the truth…and then go face the deadliest shark of them all: Mr. MacNight himself.

  8

  Brent’s eyes fluttered a bit and then slowly opened like the top of a sardine can being peeled back. At first his vision was blurry. All he saw was a fuzzy image standing in front of him surrounded by other fuzzy images. Then his eyesight began to clear and Mary’s face materialized. “What…is this?” he asked as pain shot through his head.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Presley,” Mary said in a cautious voice, keeping a safe distance from the sitting chair Brent was tied to.

  “What is…” Brent tried to move his arms and legs but quickly realized they were tied down. Unfortunately for him, Mary had taken courses in rope tying as a young girl and knew how to tie the best knots in town. Brent was tied tighter to the sitting chair than a tick on a hound dog. Still, Mary kept a safe distance from him. “What is going on?” he demanded.

  Mary pointed to the gun she holding. “I caught you breaking through the attic window with this gun, Mr. Presley. Sheriff Mables is going to be very interested in knowing why you decided to carry out such a dangerous act…a criminal act, mind you.”