The Unkindness of Ravens

  THE UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS

  A Greer Hogan Mystery

  M. E. HILLIARD

  For Mark

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not exist without the help and encouragement of many people. Special thanks to my husband, Mark, who encouraged me to attend my first writer’s workshop; my agent, Julie Gwinn of the Seymour Agency; agency intern and author assistant Lauren Ash; and beta readers Lisa Pellegrino and Connie Novak. Nothing is created in a vacuum—constructive criticism and suggestions on everything from plot to word choice are invaluable as a novel is being written. For this kind of help, I credit Lorin Oberweger and the staff and students at Free Expressions Breakout Novel Intensive Workshop Orlando; Jason Sitzes, Carol Dougherty, and the staff and students at the Writers Retreat Workshop San Antonio, and the staff and volunteers of Killer Nashville 2019. Many thanks to you all.

  Chapter One

  Growing up, I remember liking Trixie Belden better than Nancy Drew because she got into more trouble. Plus, Trixie had a better boyfriend than Nancy. Jim Frayne was much hotter than Ned Nickerson. I’m not convinced Ned Nickerson was anatomically correct—I always pictured him looking like a Ken doll. Jim Frayne had red hair and a working-class background, but turned out to be related to an eccentric millionaire, and came into a pile of money at an early age. He was a prototype Nora Roberts hero—well-mannered, financially secure, comfortable in a tux, but still able to fix things around the house and radiate alpha maleness at the drop of a hat. Jim was the beginning of a lifetime of crushes on blue-eyed redheads who looked great in Levis and opened doors for me. I might envy Nancy’s wardrobe allowance and covet her convertible, but I was a Trixie girl at heart.

  Trixie and Nancy were part of the reason I ended up a librarian. It was my second career. Circumstances were such that at the age of thirty-seven I had needed a change. A big change. So, I went to the place where I always felt safe and happy—the library. More precisely, library school. Armed with a master’s degree, I could spend my days ferreting out information without actually having to deal with bad guys. I was a girl detective with a laptop instead of a roadster. I spent much of my time in charge of the reading room, sitting at the reference desk, answering questions and pimping books to readers eager for something novel. Even on those days when the computers and copier were at their most uncooperative, requiring knowledge that two years of graduate school had failed to impart, I was still queen of all I surveyed.

  When I’d arrived for my job interview at the Raven Hill Public Library the previous October, I had spent a few minutes staring at the building in awe. It had such a Gothic, Jane Eyre feel that I expected to see the first Mrs. Rochester glaring at me from an upstairs window. I knew that Raven Hill Manor had been deeded to the village for use as a library decades before by the last of the Ravenscroft family. The result was a brooding exterior that greeted new arrivals with some suspicion. The resident ravens were icing on the cake. While I had yet to meet any of the Ravenscroft family ghosts, I remained hopeful. Now that I had six months of employment behind me, I thought of it as my home away from home.

  The interior of the manor was like any old house, with inefficient heating and temperamental wiring, and inexplicable noises that echoed through its high-ceilinged rooms. Nonetheless, it retained an air of shabby gentility. Retrofitting the place as a library had resulted in odd nooks and crannies and strangely repurposed artifacts. Some village residents found this outdated and irritating, while others felt it had a quirky charm. I was in the latter camp. The place was full of small mysteries and historical oddities. Nothing was as it first seemed in Raven Hill Manor, and I loved that.

  I planned to take advantage of the first sunny day in an exceptionally rainy spring by having lunch on the roof terrace. I used the old servants’ stairs, working my way up and away from the busy reading room into the areas used only by the staff. The worn wooden banisters always warmed and hummed beneath my hand, releasing the scent of lemon polish. Not today, though. Today the wood remained cool beneath my fingertips. I felt no happy hum. The place was unnaturally still. No dust motes danced in the watery sunlight. The expectant silence was broken only by the occasional protesting squeak from the wooden floor beneath my feet.

  By the time I reached the small anteroom that led to the attic stairs, I heard nothing but my own labored breathing. Vowing to get more exercise now that spring had finally arrived, I stopped to catch my breath. I turned the knob of the final door. It stuck. Thinking the wood must have swollen from all the wet weather, I braced myself and pulled. It opened with a groan and an exhalation of cool, damp air.

  A body landed at my feet.

  The air compressed around me, sucking the breath from my lungs. A convulsive shudder rolled through me. I stared down at the broken thing in front of me. Twilight shades of gray and black drifted across the scene.

  A man’s dark hair and pale skin, stars of broken glass across the midnight blue of his tie.

  No.

  I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. In, out, and again.

  I looked down once more, and the room came back into focus. Not a man, a woman. A woman I knew. Joanna Goodhue, president of the Friends of the Library and the closest thing I had to a friend in Raven Hill. My mind raced, denying what I saw in front of me and searching for a rational explanation. CPR dummy? No, it’s Joanna. She’s slipped and fallen, but she’s okay. But she wasn’t okay. I had to acknowledge what the primitive part of my brain had known instantly.

  Joanna was dead.

  I knew I should check for a pulse, or breathing. Something. Anything. Just to be sure.

  I reached down, knowing what I would find.

  White fingers, red-tipped, reaching out, hesitating, and then contact. So very still, and cool.

  Cold. There was nothing where Joanna’s pulse should be but a bone-chilling cold. I snatched my hand back so quickly I lost my balance. I grabbed the door to keep from falling backward, pulling it and the body, toward me. Then I saw the blood.

  I scrambled away, putting as much space between me and Joanna as I could. I landed against the windowsill and stared at the ceiling, trying to think straight.

  I needed to tell someone. Call an ambulance. The police.

  This could not be happening. Not again.

  I didn’t kill the guy. I swear it. He was alive when I left him.

  My husband’s death was case closed, as far as the police were concerned. But here I was, with another body, my thoughts whirling and scattering.

  I had to do something.

  “Cell phone,” I said out loud. My cell phone was in my lunch tote, right where I had dropped it.

  Next to the body.

  I could do this. I pushed off from the window, focusing on the lipstick red of my bag. I grabbed it and scuttled back to the sill. I pulled out my phone and paused.

  If I dialed 911, there would be sirens and flashing lights around the building in no time. In any emergency, we were to clear the library immediately. I looked out the window at the parking lot. We had a good crowd. I might be able to buy some time to pull myself together before I had to talk to the police.

  I dialed the library’s main number, turning my back on the ugly tableau in the stairwell.

  “Raven Hill Village Library—Circulation. How may I help you?”

  Mary Alice. Thank God. The woman could think on her feet and was unflappable.

  “Mary Alice, it’s me, Greer. I have—um …” A dead body at my feet. “I have a situation, and I need you to send Helene up. I’m okay, but she needs to hurry. Third floor. Attic stairs. And keep everyone else away.”

  There was a brief pause, and then, “Okay, honey, I’ll send her.”

&
nbsp; I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window and waited. It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of hurried footsteps. As I turned, Helene Montague, Library Director, stepped into the dim room.

  “Greer, what—?” she said, and stopped as she looked past me.

  “Joanna Goodhue. Dead.”

  Saying it out loud made it horribly real. I turned. The surreal, nightmare quality of the scene dissolved and I saw only Joanna, impossibly still and silent. I gulped for air and put my hand over my mouth. Helene looked at me and without a word reached past me and unlocked the window. Pushing it up, she spun me back toward it.

  “Breathe through your mouth,” she said.

  I stood inhaling the fresh spring air. I could hear Helene moving behind me. Then she used her own phone to call Mary Alice, giving instructions to close the library. After that she called the police.

  “Greer.” Helene was back at my side. “I need to check the attic entrance in the archives and then help Mary Alice secure the building. I want to make sure no one comes up. Can you stay here and wait for the police? Will you be all right?”

  “I’ll be all right enough. We don’t have a lot of options. I’ll wait right here.”

  She gave me one last searching look, then disappeared back into the darkness of the stairwell. I closed my eyes and tried the measured breathing I’d learned in a long-ago yoga class.

  No good. The scene on the landing seemed burned onto my eyelids. The sight of my husband’s lifeless body kept swimming up out of the dark pool of memory, superimposing itself over Joanna’s. Blonde, brunette. Blue eyes, brown. But Danny’s wounds seemed somehow worse. Vicious.

  Maybe that was it. Danny had been murdered. His death had looked violent. The scene around him had spoken of rage. I could be overreacting now, seeing more than was there because I somehow expected to see it. Joanna could have fallen, hit her head, and broken her neck. The door was stuck. Could the impact have killed her? Possible, but something niggled. Something was off.

  Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to figure it out standing here with my eyes closed. In my previous, corporate life, I’d been known for my cool, analytical thinking. Now I was behaving like the heroine in a Victorian novel having a fit of the vapors. Time to put on my big girl panties and deal. I hadn’t spent my entire life reading mysteries for nothing.

  I turned around and moved toward the stairway, stopping near the body. Trying to remain dispassionate, I studied Joanna. Greer Hogan, girl detective, on the job. Joanna was lying half on the landing, half on the floor of the old box room between the two stairways. Her legs were still on the stairs, her head on the floor at my feet. Clotted blood matted her carefully highlighted blonde hair. There was a dark smudge on her bright blue Raven Hill hoodie, and another where her head must have rested against the door. I followed the line of her body up into the dim stairwell.

  On the best of days, the old servants’ stairs were not well lit. Each had a single bulb at the top and bottom landings, with a long stretch of darkness in between. At the moment, I had nothing more than the light from the window behind me, and some filtered sunlight from the attic above.

  I could see the stair just above Joanna’s feet, and then nothing until the top few steps and the short, spindled railing that separated the stairs from the attic, where a window on the upper landing provided some light. I leaned sideways, craning my neck. Objects were scattered at the top of the stairs, some wooden toys, an old-fashioned spinning top, and what looked like a doll’s leg sticking out from under something large and dark.

  What was that? I reached automatically for the light switch and stopped. I had to leave things as they were. The light was off. I pulled my hand back slowly.

  If the light was off, how had Joanna gone up to the attic? Must have been during the day, or for some reason she turned the light off at the top. Why? I studied the scene on the upper landing, trying to make out what the shapeless dark thing was. I was reaching for my phone with its flashlight app when I heard a gentle creak above my head and froze. A few seconds passed in silence. Maybe I had imagined it, that sound where no one should be. And then once again, the slight protesting noise of an old floorboard in the attic above.

  An electric zing of fear shot through me. I eased back, out of sight of anyone who might look over the stair rail. I managed one deep breath before I heard a clatter behind me. I whirled to see Helene, followed by two people I didn’t know. Helene was flanked by a tall, solidly built man with salt-and-pepper hair and a younger blonde woman, who eyed me with some suspicion. The police had arrived to find me standing over the body of a dead woman, and they did not look pleased.

  “I heard something,” I said, pointing at the ceiling. It was both the truth and a good excuse for stepping all over the crime scene. The woman went into high alert, almost vibrating with energy. She motioned me back, moving across the floor to take up the position I had just vacated. As she leaned forward to look up the stairwell, I heard the man ask Helene, “There’s another way up, isn’t there?”

  Helene nodded.

  “Anything, Jennie?” The blonde officer leaned back, shaking her head.

  “The other entrance is in the archives. I’ll show you,” Helene said.

  “Take Officer Webber. I’ll stay here with Ms …?”

  “Hogan,” I replied. “Greer Hogan.”

  Helene gave a brief nod and the two women left. I resumed my place at the window, leaning against the sill on legs that had begun to tremble.

  “Sam O’Donnell, Ms. Hogan,” he said, walking past me. He stood unmoving in the center of the room, carefully studying the scene. Without turning, he said, “You found her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Recognized her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Know her well?”

  I hesitated.

  He turned his head and raised an eyebrow. “Ms. Hogan?”

  I didn’t want them to associate me too closely with Joanna, but I didn’t want to break one of my cardinal rules: Never lie about anything important. My relationship with the victim of an unexplained death was important, especially to the police at this point in their investigation. So, appear forthcoming, but stick to the facts.

  “We first met in college. I was her RA. Then we lost touch. We reconnected a few years ago on Facebook. The job here threw us together again. So, we were friendly, but I can’t say I knew her really well. I’m not on the mommy circuit, you know? Besides, I’ve only been here since October.”

  “Right. Thought I recognized the name. You’re the new librarian.”

  Which was how every village resident I’d met had referred to me since the day I had arrived, and would until I left. Or passed away quietly at the reference desk, as my elderly predecessor had done. But O’Donnell seemed satisfied, for the moment at least. He turned back to Joanna’s body. I edged closer, straining to hear any activity in the attic. Was Webber there yet? Was anyone else? I was leaning toward the door when O’Donnell’s radio chirped. I jumped. He turned and raised an eyebrow.

  “Was there something you wanted to tell me, Ms. Hogan? Anything you’d like to discuss?”

  I wanted to know what was going on in the attic, but he wasn’t going to let me check, and it wasn’t in my best interests to have a lengthy chat with him at this point. Someone else would know if they found someone. Helene, certainly.

  “Um, no, I’m fine. Really.”

  He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Good. Go downstairs, Ms. Hogan. You’ll find an officer in the main hall. We’ll need to talk to you when we’re done up here. And please don’t discuss this with the rest of the staff.”

  I fled.

  Chapter Two

  An hour later I was in the staff room, having been deposited there by a young and nervous uniformed officer. The room was part of the original manor kitchen. Running the length of the building on its lowest level, the old kitchen had been divided in two. The front half, with its enormous fireplace and a row of small, hi
gh windows, was now used for book discussions and meetings. And today, for corralling witnesses. Except for me. Apparently, I was the star of the show and so was stashed in the back half. Used by the staff for lunch and breaks, it had been retrofitted with modern kitchen appliances donated by the Friends of the Library. The furnishings were odds and ends from elsewhere in the building, creating a Food-Network-meets-the-Addams-Family ambience. The only windows were at the back, the largest being the door to the former kitchen garden, permanently fastened shut. I leaned against the frame and kept an eye on the comings and goings. Sequestered I might be, but I was armed with a powerful curiosity and a smart phone, and used both.

  I started with O’Donnell and Webber. Neither had a social media presence, which I chalked up to departmental policy. Not surprising, but I’d hoped to find something that would give me some idea of what I was dealing with. I moved on to Joanna. Facebook and Instagram. She didn’t tweet. I ran through the Friends of the Library pages, looking for anything that would help me make sense of her death. She was so vivid, her energy endless. It seemed impossible that she was gone.

  I was so lost in my thoughts that I jumped when the hall door opened. Mary Alice slipped in, closing the door quietly behind her.

  “Anything going on out there?” she asked.

  “People coming and going. I don’t recognize most of them.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t. I would, but I’ve been shut up with the rest of the staff next door. If I have to listen to Dory’s wild speculations for another minute, I’ll scream.” Dory Hutchinson was another member of the Circulation staff. She was a lifelong village resident, knew everyone, gossiped freely, and supplemented what legitimate information she had with the products of her vivid imagination. By contrast Mary Alice, who knew almost as many people, listened far more than she talked. She was observant. Both would be good sources of information, though I’d have to take what Dory said with a grain of salt.