That’s what happened after several weeks without exercise—he was getting soft and needed some conditioning. Also, walking in the high country had a wonderful way of clearing his head. Up above the rest of the world, he was able to see connections that hadn’t been obvious before, and Evan was a great believer in connections. Find the missing links and you were well on the way to solving the case—if he was going to be given the chance of future involvement. Evan kicked at a pebble and sent it skidding across the wet street. Then he tucked Bronwen’s books under his jacket and plodded up the hill to the schoolhouse.
He was about to open the gate to the school playground when he heard his name being called and sighed as Mrs. Powell-Jones came bearing down on him, her unbuttoned cardigan flying open like the wings of an avenging angel.
“Constable Evans! Stay right where you are. I wanted a word with you, urgently.”
Evan was in no mood to be forbidden to see Bronwen again. “I’m taking Miss Price the library books she wanted,” he said quickly.
“It’s not Miss Price I’m concerned about. It’s Betsy Edwards,” Mrs. Powell-Jones said.
“Something’s happened to Betsy?”
“To her immortal soul, if we’re not careful. I was speaking to her not an hour ago, and what I heard has appalled me, Constable. Absolutely appalled me.” She pushed a rain-sodden wisp of hair from her face. She wasn’t wearing any kind of raincoat and her pea green hand-knitted cardigan was giving off a strong odor of wet sheep. “I had my doubts about this so-called healing center since I first heard about it,” she went on, wagging a finger at Evan. “Pagan spirituality indeed! As if pagans can have any spirituality. But now I’ve had a chance to question Betsy thoroughly and what I’ve heard is worse than I feared. Did you know there is Druid worship going on at that place? Betsy says there is actually a Druid priestess who holds her ceremonies there. No wonder someone has been murdered. The Druids were a most bloodthirsty sect, you know. They went in for human sacrifices. It must be stopped, Constable Evans. Stopped now, before it’s too late!” She thrust her face into his, peering at him with her sharp, pale eyes. “I take it that the police will be shutting it down, after what has happened?”
“I don’t know, madam,” Evan said. “I’m just the local constable. I don’t make the decisions.”
“Then I shall call your superiors immediately. And if the police don’t close it, then steps will have to be taken. We Christians have a moral obligation. I’ve told young Betsy that I forbid her to go there again.”
“She has a good job there, Mrs. Powell-Jones,” Evan began, but the minister’s wife peered into his face again.
“A good job, you say? No good can come of cavorting with the devil, you must know that. You must stop her, Constable Evans, before it’s too late. Good day to you.”
She stalked back to her house, her shoes making an unpleasant squelching sound as she walked. Evan watched her go, then pushed open the schoolyard gate.
“Goodness, you’re soaked,” Bronwen greeted him from where she was sitting, wrapped in her eiderdown in the armchair by the fire. “Were you caught in the downpour when you were on your bike?”
“No, I got caught by a belligerent Powell-Jones,” Evan said. “I’ve been told to close the Sacred Grove immediately, or else steps will be taken. And she’s forbidden Betsy to go there again.”
“Oh, dear.” Bronwen managed a weak smile. “I wouldn’t like to be the people at the Sacred Grove if Mrs. Powell-Jones gets her teeth into them.”
“So how are you feeling?” Evan crossed the room and gave her a little kiss on the forehead. “You’re sitting up. That’s a good sign.”
“I hope it is. I still feel as weak as a newborn kitten.”
“You need building up again.”
“Not Mrs. Powell-Jones’s calves foot jelly, please.”
Evan smiled. “I’d offer to make you some soup, only my cooking doesn’t seem to agree with you too well.”
“Don’t say that. This obviously wasn’t anything to do with your cooking. Just an unluckily timed bug, as the doctor says.”
“I hope so. But most bugs I’ve seen don’t linger on as long as this. I’ve got you some new library books, by the way. I hope you approve of my taste.”
“In women at least.” She gave him a weak smile, reached for the books, and let them flop onto the eiderdown beside her.
Evan gave her a worried glance. The hands that took the books from him seemed frail and transparent as alabaster and belonged to an ethereal creature, not the Bronwen he knew.
“So what’s the latest excitement from the Sacred Grove?” She patted the arm of her chair and he perched beside her. “Has Betsy had any more psychic dreams and found any more bodies?”
“Plenty of excitement,” Evan said. “It turns out that Randy Wunderlich’s death wasn’t an accident. It looks as if someone drugged him so that he was asleep when the tide came in.”
“What a horrible thing to do!” Bronwen shuddered. “Any suspects?”
“Plenty, it seems,” Evan said. “He wasn’t very popular with several residents of the Sacred Grove, and one of the maids said he argued with his wife a lot too.”
“So what do you do next?”
“Me, nothing, I expect. Hughes will no doubt bumble his way through, insulting everybody, unless he puts Watkins and his partner on the case.”
Bronwen reached out and touched his hand. “You know you’re cleverer than any of them, and they know it too. What are your thoughts so far?”
Evan shrugged. “It could be any of them. His wife took sleeping pills, but not the same kind as were used on him. Betsy took him a cup of coffee that could have contained the sleeping pills but she doesn’t know who poured the coffee.”
