Fish Fry and a Murder Page 12

  “Tell me, Barron, how did you know the account was frozen?”

  “What? What account?” he asked.

  “Rob’s bank account.”

  His cheeks went pink. “I didn’t know his account was frozen. I just know that my money is frozen,” he said slowly.

  “Sarah said you knew. She said you came to her house and asked for money. She said that you said your money had been frozen, and you were unable to get to it, but that’s odd that it would be frozen at the same time Rob’s account had been frozen. Why do you think that is?”

  He stared at me a few moments and then smiled. “My dear girl, I think you’re mistaken. Let me go get my account statement. You sit right here,” he said.

  “Did you do it, Barron?” I asked him before he could stand up.

  He narrowed his eyes at me and stood up. “You’re something else, aren’t you? You don’t give up. What if I did? What if I went out onto the lake and hit him on the head with an oar?” he hissed. “I’m an old man. No one will believe it and there’s no proof.” He turned and left the room.

  My phone vibrated, and I pulled it from my pocket. “Cade, I need you at the boardinghouse. Barron is the killer,” I said when I answered it. I got to my feet and peered into the kitchen, but Barron was gone.

  “Don’t tell me you’re there now,” he said with a groan.

  “Do you even need to ask?” I said. “He just confessed. Hurry.” I hung up and put the phone back into my pocket and hurried down the hall to find Barron.

  When I got to his room, the door was open, and it was empty. The hallway ended at a back door and it was open a crack. I ran to it and pulled it open. Barron was running across the snow. I was surprised at how far he had gotten in so short a time and I ran after him.

  “Barron!” I called. He didn’t look behind him. I watched as he ran across the backside of the property. “Barron!” I screamed when he suddenly disappeared from sight.

  Chapter Twenty

  I stopped in my tracks, my breath coming hard and heavy. I took one step, then another, then I broke into a trot, my eyes scanning the snow. If Barron was a magician, he was a good one. He had just pulled a disappearing act.

  My feet slipped on the frozen earth before I saw the downward slope of the ground. The weather had turned warm several days earlier, and the snow had begun to melt, but yesterday the weather had turned frigid again making the ground a mass of slippery ice.

  I lost my footing and landed on my behind, but it didn’t stop my slide. I screamed and scrambled for purchase, but the ice was solid. The gaping hole that had suddenly appeared in the ground beckoned me and I screamed again. My foot hit a bump in the ground and I slid to a halt. I carefully looked over my shoulder. I estimated I was less than ten feet from the hole. I couldn’t see how deep it was from where I lay, but Barron wasn’t making any sound so I assumed it was deep.

  Gingerly I moved, rolling over onto my belly and pushed myself a few inches up the slope. The ground was slippery, and I said a silent prayer that I wouldn’t end up in that hole. I didn’t know how long it would take Cade to get here, but I thought it would be too long. My hand slipped as I tried to find something to grab hold of.

  I decided it might be best to lay still and wait for Cade. I glanced over my shoulder again. “Barron?” I called. There was only silence in return. The cold made me shiver, and I wondered if I could keep my balance long enough for Cade to get here.

  “Rainey?” I heard someone say. I carefully looked up. Annie stood twenty feet from me.

  “Don’t come down here,” I warned. “It isn’t safe.”

  “I’ll get Gordon,” she said and turned and ran in the direction of the boardinghouse.

  The seconds felt like hours as I dug my fingers into the ice to try to get a better grip. The ice felt like fire on my bare hands. From where I lay, I couldn’t see the house. The angle was too steep and I couldn’t risk craning my neck to look up. My body shook from the cold and from holding my muscles stiff to keep from slipping. I bit my lower lip to keep from crying.

  “Rainey, hold on,” I heard a voice say after what seemed like an eternity. I carefully moved my head to look up. Cade was there with a rope.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Would you like some more tea?” Annie asked me.

  I shook my head. “I think I just want to go home and take a hot shower.” I pulled the blanket that was wrapped around me tighter and leaned in toward the fire. I didn’t know if I would ever get warm again.

  Cade appeared in the parlor doorway and I smiled. He walked over to me and put his arms around me. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

  “Take me home so I can take a hot shower,” I suggested.

  “I’ll call Stormy to come get you. I’ll be here awhile.”

  “What happened to Barron?”

  “The fire department is sending someone down into the hole in a harness to see if they can retrieve his body,” he said, not letting me go.

  I winced. “Annie said the hole was an abandoned well they found last fall.”

  “I know. Gordon said he was going to see about filling it in with gravel and sand, but it snowed before he had a chance. He was planning on having it done as soon as things thawed out.”

  I nodded. “I feel terrible,” I said. “I didn’t intend for this to happen.”

  “Don’t. I was just looking through Barron’s room and I found ATM receipts from a lot of different banks, as well as Rob’s wallet.”

  I sighed. “That’s what I thought. I swear, if I thought he was going to run, I never would have come over here. I just wanted to ask him some questions.”

  “I know. I’ll have to finish up the investigation, but obviously, he killed Rob,” he said. “I’ll need an official statement from you.”

  I knew Cade was trying to make me feel better, but it wasn’t working. I never would have wanted things to turn out this way. “Believe me, he killed Rob. I don’t understand someone that’s so cold-blooded. I don’t think he had any remorse for what he’d done. He was so focused on the money.”

  “He made a lot of withdrawals from that account, so if he felt bad, it still didn’t prevent him from taking the money.”

  I sighed. “When I asked him if he killed Rob, he said, what if he had gone out onto the lake in the rowboat and hit him in the head with an oar? He said no one would believe an old man would do that and there wasn’t any proof.”

  “We were still waiting on the DNA from the rowboat, including what looked like blood on one of the oars. I’m pretty sure we do have the proof, and a judge wouldn’t care one bit if he was old,” he said.

  I nodded. “It’s a sad affair when one family member kills another.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I don’t want to lose you. You have got to quit getting into trouble,” he said.

  I looked at him. “Maybe I should have made that my New Year’s resolution.”

  “Haha. Yes, that would have been nice. For now, I’m calling Stormy. I’ll come see you as soon as I get free, but it will probably be tomorrow.”

  I nodded and shivered. I never wanted to see ice again for as long as I lived.

  Author’s Note

  I don’t think Rainey will ever be someone that likes the outdoors, but she’ll bravely face the cold if it means she can spend more time with Cade. She may complain about it, but she loves Cade. (She just doesn’t know it yet.) 

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