The Graves of the Guilty (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 3) by Ellery Adams Read Free Book Online

while Cooper closed her eyes and tried to imagine what the policemen were saying to one another as they examined the corpse.
    “When they come in, offer them coffee,” Cooper whispered to her sister. “Remember—no matter what they imply by their questions—that we’re on the same side. We all want to find out what happened to that poor man.”
    Frightened, Ashley nodded. She spent the following minutes chewing on her fingernails. Finally, when the ticking of the mantel clock remained the only sound in the room, she suddenly jumped up and announced her plan to call the maître d’ at Morton’s.
    “There has been an emergency at our home,” she said calmly into the phone. “Please tell Mr. Love to call his wife immediately.”
    That done, Ashley was the picture of composure by the time the officers reentered the house to inform her that a homicide investigation team was en route. She nodded gravely and then offered the pair coffee and Magnolia’s Marvels oatmeal raisin cookies. By the time three more policemen arrived, including a man dressed in a charcoal-colored suit, Ashley had covered the kitchen island with a hearty spread, including oven-warmed croissants, slices of cheddar and Havarti cheese, thick slabs of Virginia ham, small bowls of mustard and mayo, and of course more of Maggie’s cookies.
    When the front door opened again, letting in a fresh burst of needle-sharp air, Ashley was too busy refilling coffee cups to realize that her stupefied husband had arrived. He was in the company of a burly, commanding figure Cooper hadn’t seen for over a year.
    “We meet again, Ms. Lee.” Investigator McNamara took Cooper’s outstretched hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “I believe your brother-in-law and I pulled in at the same time. Does Mr. Love know what’s happened here?”
    Shaking her head, Cooper shrank a little beneath McNamara’s penetrating stare. She noticed that his thinning salt-and-pepper hair was cut very short and that he needed to shave. A few of the hairs on his chin had already turned white and the skin beneath his eyes was bluish and puffy due to years of broken sleep and too much caffeine.
    “You have a knack for discovering dead bodies, Ms. Lee.” McNamara didn’t smile, but his saddle-brown eyes softened and Cooper relaxed.
    “It wasn’t me. I just—”
    “Why don’t you show me to your garage, Mr. Love?” The investigator cut off Cooper’s protest but gave her a brief smile before following Ashley’s stunned husband deeper into the house.
    “The garage?” Cooper heard Lincoln say and had to hold her sister back as a shout of shock and horror reverberated throughout the kitchen.
    “McNamara had to do that, Ashley. He needed to make sure Lincoln was just as surprised as you were to find a body out there.” She squeezed her sister tightly. “I know it’s hard.”
    Lincoln entered the kitchen and sank, ashen-faced, into one of the chairs.
    Ashley flew to him and put her arms around his neck. “Do you know who that is?” she whispered.
    “He might work at one of the dealerships. He looks familiar, but I can’t be sure.” He rubbed his eyes, as if trying to obliterate the image of the body, and then gently extricated himself from Ashley’s embrace and walked to the sink to pour himself a glass of tap water.
    The night seemed interminable. McNamara and his partner, Investigator Wiser, interviewed Cooper, Ashley, and Lincoln separately. Wiser, who was in his late twenties and had a mass of tight brown curls, brown eyes, and the beginnings of a beard, did most of the talking while McNamara watched, occasionally making notations in a pocket-sized notebook.
    Cooper’s testimony was the simplest, and after she’d reviewed her statement two times, McNamara said that she was free to leave. It was after eleven o’clock and Cooper was exhausted. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed, but she was reluctant to leave her sister. She’d seen how Ashley had sent one pleading