The Way of the Wicked (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 2) (25 page)

Cooper laughed. “You make it sound like he should expect the Chinese water torture treatment. It’s just dinner.”

“Oh, no, it’s not,” Ashley said seriously. “When you’re over thirty and you bring a steady boyfriend over to meet the folks, it’s never
just
dinner.”

• • •

The workweek sped by, and though Cooper expected to hear from Investigator Rector, he never made contact. According to the
Times-Dispatch,
no one had been apprehended for the three suspicious deaths of the senior citizens as of yet, but police were busy interviewing Door-2-Door volunteers and employees.

The buoyant mood Cooper had experienced on Tuesday slowly gave way to gloom. As the days passed, Nathan had become increasingly distant, and though Cooper knew he was struggling with the mounting number of angry Big Man customers and had yet to speak to Tobey Dodge, his coolness toward her was hurtful and confusing. Worst of all, his reticence to make weekend plans with her made her feel like their entire relationship was on shaky ground.

“I don’t think I can schedule anything until this situation is resolved,” Nathan said, finally responding to her repeated invitations on Friday evening. “According to the background check I purchased, a Tobey Dodge from L.A. doesn’t exist. I’ve shut the website down temporarily, but I’m out of my league here. One of the Big Man clients is a lawyer and he plans on filing a civil suit. We’re going to meet for coffee Saturday afternoon so I can find out what’s wrong with the product and figure out where I stand.” Nathan sighed. “These folks want their money back, and I’d like to get paid for my work, too.”

Cooper didn’t see why Nathan’s afternoon appointment should preclude him from coming to her house for dinner, but she sensed that cajoling him into meeting her family might not generate the casual, relaxed atmosphere she’d been hoping for. It also bothered her that his professional problems could transfer to his personal life to such an extent that he could barely be civil to his own girlfriend.

Is this the way he handles job-related stress?
Cooper wondered unhappily and then headed to her parents’ kitchen in order to tell Maggie that their special dinner was off.

“Oh, Grammy will be so disappointed,” Maggie said and then eyed her daughter keenly. “Is everything all right between you and Nathan?”

“It’s fine. He’s just tied up with a big project right now. Maybe next weekend will work better.” Cooper made a hasty escape before her grandmother could give her the third degree, knowing she’d never be able to hide the truth about Nathan’s inexplicable coolness from Grammy.

Back in her apartment, she cooked a quick dinner of macaroni and cheese with a side of green beans and went to bed early. Lying in the darkness, she prayed that the weekend would bring about the end of the Door-2-Door killer’s reign and a resolution to her problems with Nathan.

• • •

The volunteers were not their boisterous selves Saturday morning at Door-2-Door. Conversation was stilted and the kitchen echoed with nervous whispers and the sounds of soft jazz coming from the radio near the front door. The radio had always been on, but the energetic noises emanating from the volunteers usually eclipsed all other sound. Not today, however.

Cooper packed coolers with Brenda. After her partner dropped a lunch tray on the floor for the third time, Cooper placed a hand on Brenda’s arm and whispered, “You doing okay?”

Brenda’s eyes welled. “No, I ain’t! I got called in to talk to the police in the middle of my shift. I told the boss all about it but he’s been lookin’ at me sideways since then—like I might’ve actually hurt helpless old folks!” She gripped the tray and tried to control her voice. “I almost worked today to make up the hours, but then I started thinkin’ and do you know what I thought?”

Cooper shook her head.

“I thought I’d look guilty if I didn’t show up this mornin’. This is a mess, I tell you! I ain’t been sleepin’ right. I’ve been frettin’ about Darik. What if he hears about all this? I don’t want him to know that his mama’s on the cops’ short list.”

“I doubt you are,” Cooper said, hoping to soothe her agitated friend. “What kind of questions did they ask?”

“All kinds of stuff. How I felt about the elderly. Did I take any prescription drugs? Where was I Friday night last week?” She sighed. “Praise Jesus, I was at church. We had choir practice and then a fried chicken supper. A whole bunch of people saw me.”

“They asked all of us the same questions,” Penny chimed in as she wheeled a cart of fresh lunch trays over to them. “Unfortunately for me, my alibi is pretty weak. I ate a bowlful of popcorn in front of an Audrey Hepburn movie Friday night and then went to bed.”

“Where’s Madge this morning?” Bryant asked.

Penny handed him a tray filled with sandwiches and red apples. “She’s under the weather. Having to go to the police station really upset her. I’m going to drop by her place when I’m done here. The poor thing. It’s bad enough that her daughter’s in trouble again. It’s just too much for her to handle at once.”

“Her daughter?” Quinton gathered several sandwiches into his hands. “The one living in London?”

Nodding, Penny looked aggrieved. “She was fired from the play she was in. Apparently, she went onstage after taking some kind of drug, botched all her lines, and was booed by the audience. Madge is just devastated, so the timing of all this . . .” She gestured around the kitchen. “It’s been a very rough week for her.”

“I think we’re ready, people!” Anita clapped her hands with forced enthusiasm. “Let’s load our cars! I’ll take route twelve with Eugene serving as my navigator. Now, I know we’re short-handed today and some of us are making two trips, so let’s get rolling.”

“Do you want us each to drive our own routes to save time?” Nathan asked. He’d been packing alongside Erik and hadn’t exchanged half a dozen words all morning. But while Erik wore a secretive smile, Nathan looked tired and cross.

His question made Anita instantly anxious. “No, no. You go with Erik, Nathan. We’re not changing our partner routine now. Trish, will you help Penny out? Most of you will have to manage two short routes since we don’t have Madge. Is that all right?”

The volunteers nodded and quickly loaded their carts. Nathan didn’t even glance in Cooper’s direction as he slipped on his navy blue barn coat and headed out into the brisk air.

“Care to tag along with me today?” Warren asked Cooper with a shy smile. He had a few crumbs clinging to his beard, undoubtedly from the coffee cake in the lobby.

Cooper pointed at her own chin. “I’ll need to vacuum you off first.”

“Oh, sorry!” Warren reddened. “I can’t help it. I love the food they give us every week. Don’t tell anyone, but that’s why I volunteer.” He whispered, “I don’t want to help anyone—I just want free cake and cookies.”

Cooper felt Nathan’s eyes on her. “Sounds like you were deprived as a kid,” she teased Warren as they loaded a wheeled cart with coolers. “My mama must’ve baked a million cookies while I was growing up but I’m still not tired of eating them. The thing about living in the country is that it’s easy to exercise. If you walk to the mailbox, you’ve done a quarter mile just like that.”

Warren nodded. “You’ve got that right. Seems my chore list is never-ending. Still, when I was a kid, Grandma Helen baked the world’s best pies and we had fresh eggs for breakfast every morning, so don’t start crying for my sad childhood yet.” He pushed open the door to the outside. “Ladies first. Especially beautiful ones.”

“Thank you.” Cooper smiled, hoping Nathan had overheard the compliment.

Together, they loaded coolers and Sunday food boxes into Warren’s spotless Corolla. Their route consisted of ten stops, at which all of the clients recognized and welcomed Warren warmly. He had a gentle demeanor that clearly put them all at ease, but he was also very efficient. He put their meals away, gave them instructions regarding the contents of their Sunday food box, and then, if they had any, inquired about their pets. He never left a home without ensuring that the dog or cat in residence had fresh water and a bowlful of food.

When one owner, a Mrs. Tilden, began to weep because she was out of dog food, Warren assured her that he’d brought extra supplies just in case.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised the old woman and jogged out to his car. He popped the trunk, grabbed a large Ziploc bag filled with kibble and two cans of moist dog food and returned to Mrs. Tilden’s kitchen. Her canine, a mixed breed named Buddy Boy, began to thump his tail on the floor as Warren replenished his empty bowls.

“Go on and eat now, Buddy,” his owner directed and the dog sprang toward his dinner.

Warren seemed pleased to watch Mrs. Tilden’s pet devour his meal. He then brushed a few of Buddy’s hairs from his pants and said good-bye to Mrs. Tilden.

“I don’t know what we’d do without you, dear!” she called after Warren, a grateful smile on her face.

“Do you have a dog?” Cooper asked Warren on the way to their next stop.

“No. I’d like one, but Grandma Helen’s afraid of them now. She didn’t used to be. We had all kinds of dogs on the farm when I was a kid.” He glanced in Cooper’s direction as they paused at a four-way stop sign and she noticed that his eyes seemed sad.

“You take really good care of her. Even if she can’t tell you that all the time, she’s grateful.” She smiled at him. “Do you have any help? Your parents? Siblings?”

“Whoa! You sound like that police investigator who interviewed me.” He laughed. “Are you wearing a wire inside that leather jacket or something?”

Cooper was embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’ve always been lousy at small talk. It couldn’t have been too much fun to have been interrogated by the cops and here I am doing the same thing.”

“But hopefully for different reasons. Like you just want to get to know me,” Warren said and shot her a playful grin. “At least that Rector guy wasn’t nasty. He was really polite, actually, and he didn’t ask me anything unreasonable, considering what’s going on. Background stuff, mostly. And where I was last Friday night.”

“I hope your alibi is tighter than Penny’s. She’s worried because no one saw her. She was home watching TV.”

Warren nodded. “That’s what half of America does most nights. I was lucky, because Friday night is bingo night and I took Grandma Helen to the community center to play. She doesn’t always know what’s going on during the games, but she smiles like a kid at the circus when she hears those tiles being spun around. We go at least once a month, so people recognize us.” He wiped his hand across his forehead in a dramatized gesture of relief. “I was never so grateful for bingo in my life.”

“Maybe the police are overlooking something. I keep thinking that there’s no way it’s a Door-2-Door person.” Cooper sighed in frustration. “When I consider the people I’ve met, well, you’re all too nice.” She looked at him as he pulled in front of their final delivery stop. “You’ve been there almost a year, so you’ve stood beside the same people week after week. Doesn’t it blow your mind that someone could be a murderer?”

Warren parked and then dropped his eyes to his lap. “I really hope the police are wrong. That’s all I can do is hope.” He looked at her, his face pinched and drawn. “Because the other possibility is too hard to accept. This could be the end of Door-2-Door. People will stop donating and others will be too afraid to volunteer. Without gifts of money and time, this organization can’t make it.”

“And hundreds of clients will suffer.”

“Hundreds,” Warren repeated softly.

They delivered meals to their last stop quickly and then drove back to headquarters in gloomy silence. As the square building came into view, the gray walls facing the parking lot were highlighted by flashes of blue. Three Henrico County police cars and a pair of City of Richmond cruisers had parked in a fanlike pattern within steps of the front door.

Warren, whose face had gone pale, seemed to freeze behind the wheel at the spotlight across from Door-2-Door.

“They’re bringing someone out,” Cooper breathed. “I can’t tell who it is, though. We’re too far away.”

Warren pressed the accelerator and they pulled into the parking lot. Cooper jumped out of the Corolla just as one of the police car’s rear doors slammed shut. A dozen uniformed officers obscured the vehicle. Rector was there, too. He gesticulated briefly to several of his men and then walked briskly toward a black Mustang.

Cooper looked at the scene Rector had left in his wake. Most of the Door-2-Door volunteers had completed their delivery routes and now stood on the front steps, their eyes wide with shock. Trish was clinging to the rail at the bottom of the loading ramp, her gaze fixed on the police cruiser.

Cooper ran up to her and demanded, “What happened?”

“I just don’t believe it,” Trish murmured dully. “They’ve arrested Erik.”

“The police think
he’s
the killer?” Cooper was astounded.

Trish nodded numbly. “There’s been another murder. A woman named Vera. She’s not a Door-2-Door client, but she was given food from here.”

Vera? The name sounded familiar. Cooper turned her attention back to the parking lot. The policemen had dispersed and were driving away, blue lights still ablaze.

“Violet!” Cooper exclaimed. “Vera is Violet’s sister! There are three Vs. Violet, Vera, and Velma.”

Trish stared at Cooper in horror. “He murdered his own fiancée’s sister?”

“No.” Cooper rejected the idea immediately. “No way.”

Trish put her hand on Cooper’s shoulder as Warren joined them on the ramp. “I overheard a policeman talking to Lali. Vera was found dead in her chair. Just like the others.” Trish spoke reluctantly. “Her watch was taken right off her wrist. It was the only valuable thing she owned.”

“And she was poisoned?” Cooper asked. She struggled to understand how Erik could have gained access to a woman living in a center with round-the-clock care.

“They think it was in her milk carton,” Bryant said. “It looked like it had been opened a bit and then resealed. Lali’s been asked to review the dietary records of all the victims to see if they were milk drinkers.”