“How do you figure?” The question came from a middle-aged woman with bushy red hair sitting to his left. There were distinct frown lines around her mouth. She took a long drag on an unfiltered cigarette.
The blond man glanced up. “If I’d gotten there five minutes sooner, maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Maybe she’d still be alive.”
“Did she give you a physical description of her attacker?” The question came from a young man in his early-twenties seated to the right. He spoke with a British accent.
“Nope,” said the blond man succinctly. “For the past week or so, she had the feeling somebody was following her, but she never knew who it was.”
“I think we all know who was responsible.” The elderly woman rose stiffly out of her chair. She walked over to sink, filled a kettle, and put it on the stove to boil.
The other three stared at her in shock. Anger flashed in the middle-aged woman’s eyes. “Those bastards!”
“Take it easy, Maddie,” soothed the blond man. “We don’t know for sure it was them.”
The woman called Maddie snapped back at him, “Then who else?” She ground out her cigarette and immediately lit a new one. “What the hell was she working on? Didn’t she tell you anything about it, Griffin?” Her sharp eyes focused on the Brit.
“No, nothing,” the young man whispered with regret. “Perhaps if she had, I might have helped her or persuaded her to stop.”
The elderly woman shuffled toward the cupboard over the sink. “There’s still the matter of her sister,” she observed quietly. “Poor child, as if she hasn’t lost enough already. This is too cruel.”
“Does the kid know anything?” The blond man at the far end of the table asked.
The woman at the sink turned around to glance at him mildly. “Do you think you could find that out for us, Erik?”
Erik sat up straighter, alert now. “What do you want me to do, Faye?”
The kettle rumbled to a boil. The old woman rummaged around in the cupboard for cups and saucers. “I think you should follow her at a distance. Keep out of sight, but let us know immediately if anything unusual occurs.”
She went over to the stove to switch off the heat. “Griffin, it might prove useful to know what Sybil’s latest recovery was.”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed. “I’ll look into it immediately.”
Faye was now spooning loose tea into a porcelain pot. She paused to consider. “What could they possibly want of ours? What, to them, would be worth killing for?”
Chapter 3 – Prayer Meeting
In the silent hour just before dawn, Abraham Metcalf was standing in his study, scrutinizing the spine of a volume of sermons on his bookshelf. His study was the size of a public library and his home the size of a medieval castle. It needed to be. He was the head of a very large extended family. Despite the barest glimmer of light in the east, Metcalf was expecting a visitor. Fully dressed in a black suit, he cut an impressive figure. His mane of grey hair had been swept back from his forehead and trimmed just long enough to reach the top of his collar. His moustache and beard had been shaped into a precise goatee. Despite his seventy years, he possessed a muscular build and ramrod-straight posture. His eyes were a frosty shade of blue. They bore a fierce expression under bristling white eyebrows suggesting very little escaped his notice or gained his approval.
A timid young man tapped lightly on the door. “A visitor to see you, Father.”
“Send him in.”
A man wearing a Stetson hat advanced into the study.
Metcalf turned to face him. “Hats off indoors, Mr. Hunt,” he instructed curtly.
His visitor smiled lazily and doffed his hat. “Thank you kindly for remindin’ me. My momma, God rest her, would pitch a fit if she seen me forget my manners like that.”
Metcalf sat down behind his massive oak desk. He did not invite his visitor to seat himself. He studied Hunt in silence for several seconds. The younger man did not flinch under his gaze but stood grinning, his stance relaxed.
“I don’t see the key in your hands, Mr. Hunt.”
“No need to stand on proper names now, is there? How about you call me Leroy, and I’ll call you Abe?”
“You may call me Father Abraham if you wish,” Metcalf offered stiffly.
“Sorry, boss, but you ain’t my daddy. Don’t rightly know who he was, come to think on it.”
Metcalf’s face remained impassive. “I don’t see the key, Mr. Hunt.”
Leroy Hunt shrugged off the implied rebuke. “That’s cuz I encountered a bit of trouble in obtainin’ said object.”
Metcalf had picked up a letter opener and was examining it intently. “Define trouble,” he commanded.
Hunt selected one of the chairs in front of Metcalf’s desk and sat down. “Well, sir, it was like this. That gal you set me to followin’ had herself an unfortunate accident. We got into a tussle. She fell and bumped her head, and now she’s dead.”
“Dead!” Metcalf echoed in disbelief.
“That’s right, boss. Not to rise again til Judgment Day.”
“Dead,” Metcalf repeated somewhat less emphatically.
“Yup, dead,” Leroy concurred, smoothing the wave in his hair.
The older man considered the problem in silence for several moments before he spoke again. “You did manage to search the shop at least?”
“That I did. I spent a half hour pokin’ around before somebody called the cops. I had to high tail it when I heard them sirens, but I was through lookin’ anyhow. That key you set such store by couldn’t be found for love or money.”
Metcalf stood up and towered over Hunt. “I’m most disappointed in your report, Mr. Hunt.”
Leroy chuckled. “I guess if I was you and I wanted that key so bad, I’d be a bit down in the mouth too, boss.”
“I hardly think this occasion calls for levity, Mr. Hunt.” Metcalf’s eyebrows bristled in disapproval.
Hunt
