Written into the Grave

A vague smile flashed across her features. “My sculptures helped me deal with a lot of bad things in my life. They’ll have to help me deal again.”

Vicky nodded. “I was here with Marge Fisher about a donation for the lighthouse auction. You were going to make a sea-related something or other.”

Gunhild nodded. “It’s done. It’s in the shed.” She nodded in the direction of the dark wooden building with the bright roses in front of it. “I could show it to you.”

Vicky said, “In a few minutes when we’ve both calmed down, all right?”

Gunhild leaned her elbows on her knees and closed her eyes. “I don’t remember your name. You have to forgive me. I met so many new people when we came to stay here for the summer. I don’t remember all the names.”

“Vicky Simmons. I run a store in town.”

“Oh, yes, British home decoration and books and cookies.” Again there was that half smile. “My mother-in-law loves fudge. I wanted to get fudge for her at your store. She’s coming over, you see. This weekend.”

Her face tightened. “I don’t know how I can ever tell her. Her only son.”

Vicky swallowed. “It’ll be hard on both of you. You can support each other.”

Gunhild made a sound between a strangled sob and a huff. “My mother-in-law …” She fell silent and sat with her eyes closed, looking so alone that Vicky’s heart ached for her.

“You …” She looked for tactful words. “You married Archibald at a later moment?”

“Yes, I’m his second wife. We met in an art gallery where my work was on display. Archibald wanted to buy something and he asked for my advice what to get. I tried to sell him the most expensive piece, of course, as I knew he had money and I needed to live off something. He was so charming about it. He said he’d take it if I agreed to dinner with him. I did. I was flattered that he wanted to talk to me at all. I was unknown then.”

Vicky studied the woman’s beautiful face. She had that kind of quiet but haunting beauty of the classic movie stars. Her features were strong and smooth, suggesting she had a mind of her own. Goodridge had probably found it fascinating that she was an artist, a creator with a gift for making something as lifelike as the horse right behind Vicky’s back. He looked like he could run off any moment, tossing his powerful head.

Gunhild said, “We had a whirlwind romance. We married within months after our first meeting. Some people thought it was too soon, but we knew it was right. We knew each other.”

Gunhild snapped her eyes open. Up close Vicky saw how intensely blue and captivating they were. Gunhild said, “Today we should have celebrated three years. And now he’s dead.”

Her face contorted a moment. “He’ll never come home again.”

Vicky patted her arm. “If you feel up to it, we’d better move inside and have that tea now.”

Gunhild shook her head. “No, I want to show you the donation for the lighthouse auction. Please let me show you something that … Archibald saw finished. He told me exactly what he thought of it. He always did. He looked at everything I made and gave his opinion. He was …” Her voice died down.

Vicky helped her to rise and followed her to the shed. Made of dark wood, it had a narrow door that was flanked on one side by the climbing roses in deep pink. Gunhild caught one in her palm a moment and inhaled the scent.

Vicky wondered if Archibald Goodridge might have picked such a rose to take in to his wife that evening as they sat down to celebrate their anniversary. Now he’d never do anything again.

Gunhild opened the door of the shed. “This is quite my little treasure trove.”

The light was dim inside because there was but one small window, but Gunhild flicked a switch at the door, and bright white light came down from above. It illuminated two benches along the walls of the shed. One bench held several sculptures, the other gardening tools. In the back was also a lawn mower in fiery red. Vicky was surprised it even fit through the narrow door.

Gunhild smiled and pointed at the sculpture of a jumping dolphin. The animal seemed to emerge from the rock and jump high into the air, celebrating life and freedom.

Vicky wanted to say it was beautiful and Gunhild had an amazing talent to create real-life art, but the words got stuck in her throat as she realized that Goodridge was dead.

Gunhild seemed to sense the same thing because she moved away from the bench with sculptures and fingered the gardening tools on the other bench. The silence hung heavy in the small shed.

“You have a lovely garden,” Vicky said quickly. “I can never get my roses to blossom quite as yours do.”

“You must take some home,” Gunhild said. “Let me get you some.”

“No, I didn’t say it to—”

“Just let me do something, please.” Gunhild went for the wall where a large beige wall covering hung, with pockets holding several types of scissors and shears. It looked like a craft project, devised for this practical purpose. Apparently Gunhild was creative in different ways.

She pulled out a pruning tool so violently the whole construction came down off the wall. The metal tools clattered to the floor, and Gunhild gasped, shrinking as if the sound shook through her body. “Oh, how stupid of me.”

She squatted to pick them up again, her hands shaking.

Vicky came to her to lend a hand. “Be careful. Those tools have sharp edges. Let me do it for you.”

Then Gunhild gave a little scream. She pointed at something on the floor amid the shears. It was …

A gun.

Chapter Four (#ulink_81610d22-a5d5-5c2c-aa67-f96e8c3499ca)

“What’s that doing here?” Gunhild said in a shaky voice.

“Don’t touch it,” Vicky responded quickly. “It might be important.”

She grabbed Gunhild’s shoulders and pulled the dazed woman to her feet. “We have to go inside and call Cash at once. This could be …”

Gunhild shrieked and staggered backwards, stepping on Vicky’s foot. Vicky suppressed a cry of pain. Tears shot into her eyes at the sharp stabbing through her foot. She bit her lip as she led the distraught woman out of the shed.

Then she froze.

On the lawn a few yards away from the two of them stood a young man gazing at the both of them. He had a broad, earnest face with dark eyes and black hair, which fell in a lock over his forehead. He wore jeans with dirty patches on the knees, an old T-shirt with a faded quote and sneakers.

“What’s up, Gunhild?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

“Of course not. I’m just …” Gunhild straightened up and wiped a hand across her face. “I’m fine, Trevor.”

Vicky held her breath. Trevor Jenkins was the last person she had expected to turn up here this morning. The alleged killer staring at them with an expression she could not quite place. Had he come to find out if the murder was already known around town?

Had he put the gun among the shears in the shed?

But why? It was a place he, as a gardener, had access to. It would immediately point in his direction.

Did he not understand that?

Or was that what he wanted?

If he had written that piece for the Gazette, maybe he was sort of … indulging in his role as killer?

“We’d better go in,” Gunhild said and turned to the house.