A Murder Among Friends. Ramona Richards

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СКАЧАТЬ walked on, relishing the feel of the spongy ground under her boots. How she adored this land! Leaving her job in New York, she’d moved here and fallen in love with the land and the dream. Now she lived full-time in the lodge house, overseeing the care of the cabins and their temperamental inhabitants.

      Maggie looked up through the dancing leaves as the sun played in patterns on the ground and her face. She sighed, feeling some of the tension ease away. It had been this way almost from the beginning. The comfort she had felt when praying about the job had opened the door; the peacefulness of the location and the constant demands of her job were a great combination. She felt at home and content, and the proximity to Aaron had allowed her finally to put her feelings for him in perspective.

      Aaron, who lived with Korie in an old Victorian down the road from the lodge house, stopped in twice a day to check on things. He liked being involved with his dream and his writers. His writers.

      She frowned as she pushed aside an overgrown bush next to her favorite trail through the woods, a few of the dried branches breaking as the bush snapped back into place. Aaron’s arrogance hadn’t always sat well with “his” writers, but they couldn’t argue with the success that came from being here. All of the residents—past and present—had achieved far more success financially and artistically than they had before their time at the retreat. They may have battled Aaron, but his edge became their driving force. So why would anyone want to kill him? Why did she—Maggie shook her head, unwilling to acknowledge the thought that hung at the back of her mind. Instead, she went over the events of last night’s dinner, trying to pull anything forward that might answer her questions.

      Was he leaving—or coming back—when he died? It had not been a pleasant night. Aaron had been angry. In fact, he had been angry a lot lately—at her, at his wife, at—

      No, she told herself again. Maggie knew what she had done was wrong, but it was for the right reasons. I know what they would think. Besides, what’s done is done. Still, her conscience nagged at her. Tell him. Maggie took a ragged breath. Her mother used to say that your conscience was God’s finger on your back, poking you in the right direction. And God never gets tired.

      Her mother. Aaron. Lil—Tears clouded her eyes again, the grief unstoppable this time.

      Maggie had found Aaron when she had taken out the trash for the night. Why didn’t I hear anything? I must have been in the kitchen cleaning up. Maggie stopped, unable to see for the tears, unable to walk from the weakness in her legs. All that blood! She sank down next to a tree and drew her knees tight against her chest, then leaned her head on them and sobbed. The grief she had been trying to restrain for the past twenty-four hours poured out of her in lung-wrenching gulps that seemed endless. Oh, dear God, help me! The sobs ceased only when her nose became so clogged that she started to choke and cough. She grabbed the bottom of her skirt and started to wipe her face with it.

      “Here, use this.”

      Maggie gasped and snapped backward, hitting her head against the tree. Her screech echoed through the woods as she jerked and stared up through tears at Fletcher, who was calmly holding out a handkerchief to her. He tipped his head sideways in apology. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

      Maggie stared at him, still shaky, and rubbed the back of her head. “How did you find me?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

      He waved absently behind him. “I’ve known moose who left less evidence of their passage.” He shook the handkerchief at her again. “Go ahead. It’s old, but it’s clean,” he said.

      She hesitated a moment, then snagged the soft worn cloth, wiped her face and eyes and blew her nose. She peered briefly at the smears of makeup on it. “Great. Now I looked like a sleep-deprived raccoon.” She crushed it into a ball, then peered back up at the man she’d only known as a New York City cop. “What do you know about moose? You’re a city boy,” she said.

      He nodded. “For fifteen years. But I grew up in Verm—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I need to ask you some questions.”

      “Read the police report. I told them all I know.”

      He sat down in the leaves next to her and she frowned, scooting away. “I did,” he replied.

      Maggie twisted the handkerchief viciously. “I really don’t want to go over this again, okay?” Her voice was harsher than she intended, but she didn’t apologize.

      Fletcher was silent. His eyes seemed focused on something in the distance. After a few moments, he said softly, “He was my friend, too.”

      Over her head, Maggie could hear a squirrel chewing on a nut. A breeze brushed the branches around them lightly, and the remaining leaves whispered to her. Maggie turned her head slightly to look at Fletcher. He seemed totally comfortable sitting here next to a tree, even in his business suit. He sat with his long legs crossed, guaranteeing the most stains per square inch on his pants, but he didn’t seem to care. Maggie suddenly remembered a description that Aaron had written about Judson MacLean.

      Judson was a man who always surprised people. He caught them off guard. With his size, with his intelligence, with his wit. And with his ability to ferret out information from the least likely of suspects.

      Aaron had been right about that part. Fletcher was a large man, tall with a lean figure that belied a personal strength. Sitting here, even without speaking, Fletcher had taken charge of the scene. And what surprised Maggie was both the ease with which he did that as he sat with a woman who was virtually a stranger—and the odd twinge that ran deep in her gut. Don’t start liking him, girlfriend, she cautioned herself. He’s not here because he wants your company.

      “Is that why you’re doing this?” she asked. “Because he was your friend?”

      Fletcher looked directly at her, locking her in his gaze. “Partially. Are you grieving only because he was your friend?”

      Maggie’s eyes widened, and she felt her anger building again. “Am I a suspect?”

      “So you don’t really think it was an accident.”

      Anger flashed through her, a raw combination of grief and the denial she so desperately wanted to hang on to. She stood up, tossing the handkerchief into the woods. “Aaron fell! And you will not try and convict me in my own home!” Turning on her heels, she started back toward the lodge.

      He called lightly after her. “Yes, Maggie, I will.” She stopped but did not turn. “If you’re guilty.”

      Fletcher watched her stomp away, unaffected by her anger. She was fighting against the truth too hard, as if she knew someone had killed Aaron, yet she didn’t want to believe it. He released a deep breath. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction to the murder of someone you love, but there were more facts that bothered him than just her behavior. According to the police report, she’d found Aaron, but she had not called the police. The groundskeeper, Tim, had called them after he’d found Maggie next to the body. Fletcher wanted to know why Tyler Madison, the local police chief, had blithely overlooked that. The amount of blood indicated Aaron had died on the steps, but the body had been moved, rearranged to make it look like a fall. Taking a deep breath, he stood up and pulled a small brown paper bag from his coat pocket. He stepped over a few broken branches and lifted his handkerchief by one corner, bagging it carefully. DNA, he thought casually, can be handy to have around.

      As he turned to go back to the lodge, he could still hear Maggie crashing in the leaves. “Maggie Weston, you are most definitely СКАЧАТЬ