Murder Under the Covered Bridge (2 page)

Jonathan's finger's loosened the strings of her corset. “I think we need to see a little more cleavage.”

“Jonathan!”

“Come on. She doesn't intend to distribute this calendar you're making, does she?”

“Goodness, no. None of us would have agreed to participate if she had. This is just for us.” She affected a Southern accent. “It's supposed to be a surprise for our gentlemen friends.”

Jonathan kissed her bare shoulder. “Not to worry. I'll still be surprised when I see Charlotte's sexy side.”

She gave him a quick kiss on the lips to stop him from taking this any further. “This outfit is so scratchy I'll be applying hydrocortisone cream like it's body lotion for weeks.”

They heard the echo of footsteps in the bridge. “Francine and Jonathan, you're still in there, aren't you?” Joy called out in her chirpy voice, the one Francine tolerated better in the afternoon. At half past nine in the morning in the middle of the Roseville Bridge where they could theoretically be discovered at any moment, the voice was grating.

“We're here,” Francine answered. “Where did you go?”

Joy stuck her head in the carriage so she could look at them as she updated them. “False alarm. We thought we heard a car coming, which would have completely shut this photo shoot down. I stationed Charlotte out there in case.” The bridge had only one lane, a quaint remembrance of
long-gone
, gentler days. Since there was no other way across Big Raccoon Creek, an oncoming car would have forced them to hook up the horse and pull the carriage out. The Roseville Bridge was one of the
less-visited
bridges, quite a distance from the center of the Festival in Rockville, but they still needed to rush to get the photo shoot done.

“I'm not trying to be difficult,” Jonathan said, “but I already talked the owner of the horse and carriage into opening early so I could get this here for the photo shoot. I don't want to return it late.”

“This is the perfect time for an old cliché,” Charlotte cracked. “Jonathan, hold your horses.”

“What are you doing here?” Joy asked her. “I thought I stationed you at the front.”

“The lights make it toasty warm in here.”

Joy removed Francine's coat from the camera and dropped it on the dirty bridge floor.

Francine winced.

“Since you're here,” Joy said to Charlotte, “move that light a little to the left.” She looked through the lens of the camera and flicked into “director” mode. “Jonathan, I need to be able to see your boots in the picture. Spread your legs a little more. Are your pants unbuttoned? I can't tell from this angle. Francine, prop yourself a little higher above him and open that corset more. We want to see more … eager flesh. And smile, for heaven's sake. This is forbidden love. You're supposed to be delirious with anticipation.”

“She's delirious, all right,” Charlotte muttered.

“I heard that, Charlotte,” Francine said. “Shouldn't you be guarding the bridge?”

“Marcy's doing that. I talked her into it.”

That must've been some talk
, Francine thought. “But what about the other end?” While the intersection of Coxville Road and County Road 350W was the busier end, it was always possible cars could come from the Coxville Road side.

“That? It's a gravel road, for heaven's sake. We'd hear someone coming a mile away.”

“We'd still have to move for them,” Francine argued. “There's no quick way around the bridge. They'd need to go through it.”

“Quiet!” Joy said. “All the more reason to get this finished.”

Joy began snapping photos. She took the camera off the tripod and moved around, photographing Francine and Jonathan from a variety of angles and making them shift positions. She gestured to Francine. “I need passion. Remember, you're Victoria. You're the one who instigated seducing your coach driver. Jonathan, could you look like you're enjoying it more?”

“Of course,” he said dryly. He tossed the blanket aside. “Though I think he and Victoria were fifty years younger than we are when they were doing it in a carriage.”

Francine bent down and gave Jonathan a long, sexy kiss. “You mean you're not aroused?”

Jonathan pulled Francine down on top of him. “Joy, step back from the carriage. I'm confident we can give you what you're looking for.”

Joy's camera clicked away. “I like your attitude. Francine, could you come up for air? We need to be able to see your heaving bosom.”

“My heaving bosom? Do you need for my thigh to quiver too?”

“Let's see Jonathan's manhood,” Charlotte joked.

“Let's not,” Jonathan said. “And Charlotte, get back to guarding the front of the bridge.”

“Easy for you to say in the heat of passion and with all those warm lights pointed at you. It's cold out there. If the Rock Run Café on the hill opened earlier than eleven o'clock, I'd be up there getting a cup of coffee.” Charlotte didn't budge.

Joy continued to look through the lens of her camera. “That's good, Francine. Push yourself up over Jonathan a little more. Good shot of your boobs. And let's see a little more hunger in your eyes.”

“For heaven's sake, I'm not going to eat him.” The words no sooner left Francine's mouth when she realized what she'd said. She laughed, a little embarrassed at first, but then it rolled into a satisfied chuckle.

“That's perfect!” Joy's camera continued to snap photos. “Loved that look of surprise when you realized what you said, and then the wide eyes. Now give me determination. Show me you want this as much as he does.”

“Glad you're almost done,” Charlotte cracked. “Because otherwise I'm going to have to leave my post and hope there's a vibrator in those woods down by the creek.”

“Charlotte!” they exclaimed in unison. It echoed in the bridge.

In the instant that followed, they heard shots.

And not the kind Joy was taking.

two

Marcy's feet echoed in
t
he expanse of the long bridge. She was inside and running toward them. “Someone's shooting. What do we do?”

Francine could hear the horse snorting and whinnying, clearly distressed. They had it tied to a tree near the creek bank. She hoped it was okay.

Jonathan tried to maneuver between Francine and the carriage door. “Get on the floor!” he ordered. “What's happening out there?”

“Some guy is running for his life through the cornfield. He's being shot at. He's headed toward us. At least, he was.”

More shots rang out. Francine tried to count them. Six, maybe seven total. It was difficult to tell because some of them came so quickly on the back of another. Rifle fire, she guessed.

“Two shooters,” Charlotte said.

Francine nodded.

Jonathan bounded out of the carriage, fastening the buttons on his shirt. Francine put her hand on the carriage door and tried to get out. Jonathan reached in behind her and grabbed something from his stash of regular clothes just as they heard another shot. He squatted down. Then he moved to edge of the carriage and peered out from around it.

Despite problems with her leg, Charlotte had grabbed hold of the rear of the carriage and eased herself onto the dirty floor of the bridge. Francine stepped out and sat beside Charlotte. She could feel Charlotte trembling and hugged her. Marcy, who had thrown herself down when Jonathan ordered it, now crept toward them.

Two more shots fired. They came directly through the window in the bridge. One of them went through the back side of the bridge, splintering the board it hit. The second took out a light stand, shattering the box. The light fell to the floor.

The women screamed.

What seemed like an hour went by, but Francine guessed it was only a few minutes. There were no more shots.

Jonathan, keeping low, worked his way to the window in the bridge.

Francine whispered, “Be careful.”

He lined up on the left side of the window and took a quick peek, then ducked below. He did it again. No reaction. He crept under the window and repeated it on the right side. Again, no reaction. Slowly he stood up, keeping out of the line of sight from anyone who might be able to see through the window.

“I can see the cornfield and the creek bank. There's a pretty steep
drop-off
from the bank to the creek.”

Marcy blinked back tears. She tried to wipe the tears away with her hands, but her hands were dirty, leaving dark streaks on her face. She wiped the dirt off on her clothes. “Can you see if the guy is being chased? I saw cornstalks behind him rustling like there was a second person. Those shots had to come from somewhere.”

“I don't see any other movement in the cornfield. The man being shot at must have fallen down the bank. He's lying by the creek almost directly under us. He's not moving.”

Charlotte grabbed her cane and leveraged herself to a standing position. She beckoned the other women. “C'mon. I have to see what's going on. This could be another murder.”

Murder was the last thing Francine wanted to hear, but she, too, was curious. She and Marcy took Charlotte's circuitous route around the carriage while staying out of direct view of the window. When they were all next to Jonathan, they could see what he was talking about. The man's lower body had landed up to his knees in the waters of Big Raccoon Creek. His upper body was on the bank, his face turned away from them.

“If we don't get to him soon, he's going to be dragged into the creek,” Jonathan said.

“He's unconscious,” Francine noted. “He won't survive if he slips into the water.” She surveyed the photo shoot. The video camera was missing. Joy was missing. Her heart skipped a beat. “Joy?”

“I'm down here at the far end,” she answered. The camera sat on her thin shoulders. “Do you think it's safe to go outside? I want to find out who came running out of the cornfield.”

Francine noticed that Jonathan now held his handgun. He moved in Joy's direction. “Let me go out first,” he said.

Francine had had mixed feelings about the fact her husband owned a gun, something she had discovered at the end of the Friederich Guttmann Incident. That he'd kept it secret all these years was disturbing, but on the other hand, he was so adept with it that it made her feel more secure. Still, she didn't like guns.

Despite Jonathan's orders, Joy went out ahead of him. “Whoever was firing on him seems to be gone.” She looked into the LCD screen of the camera. “The man in the water might be dead. The
close-up
shows blood.”

Francine put the white blouse back on over the corset and tried to button it up. She found her hands were shaking. She fumbled with the buttons as she moved to follow Jonathan.

Big Raccoon Creek ran high thanks to a rainstorm the day before. “The waters are pulling him in,” Jonathan said. “I'm going down there.”

“There's no cell service here!” Marcy's voice was shaky. Francine looked back to see that she was fiddling with her phone.
Marcy the publicist would think of that
, she thought. Marcy gave Francine a helpless look.

She waved her out. “Go up to the Rock Run and see if there's anyone up there yet who can call for help. If not, check at a nearby house.”

Marcy sped out the opposite end of the tunnel and headed toward the restaurant.

Francine joined Joy at the top of the creek bank. Joy was filming the scene. Charlotte trailed Jonathan as he headed for a clearing where he could climb down to reach the unconscious man.

“Charlotte, stay where you are!” Jonathan ordered. “It's too steep. I'm not even sure I can make it myself.”

Francine thought he sounded pretty sure of his own abilities, though. He made eye contact with her and motioned her back inside the bridge. “I think it would help if you watched from the window. You'll have a more direct view from there if I need advice.”

Francine was a retired nurse. She knew he meant advice in treating the victim. She hustled toward the bridge only to see that Charlotte was still hobbling after Jonathan along the upper bank.

Francine used her “urgent voice,” the one that usually worked on her best friend. “Do what he says, Charlotte! Your knees can't possibly negotiate that decline.” Charlotte gave her a pouty look but fortunately did what she asked.

Francine found herself being slowed by the
high-heel
boots.
How did women ever walk in these things?
She made it back to the carriage without falling over. She unlaced the rented shoes and threw them in the carriage, trading them out for tennis shoes. She rushed to the window. She stuck her head out in time to see that Jonathan had successfully navigated his way to the creek. He slipped along the muddy bank, his feet sinking partway into the water.

She found herself gripping the sill.

Jonathan reached the fallen man. He bent over and examined him. “It looks like he hit a lot of brush on the way down,” he shouted up to Francine. “He has cuts and bruises on his face. I've got to stop him from going farther into the water, but I'm worried he might have hurt his neck.”

“Can you tell if he has a pulse?”

Jonathan put a finger to the man's throat. “He's alive but not responsive. I don't see any gunshot wounds, so I think he escaped that. I know I shouldn't move him but I can't hold him in place until the medics get here. I don't have enough stamina. I've got to move him to drier ground.”

“Do what you have to. Try to keep his head stable if you can.”

Jonathan put one hand under the man's neck and gripped him tight around the belt. He slowly moved backward until the man was on drier ground. He sat in the muck and gently set the man's head on the ground so it was stable.

“Nice work!” Francine let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

She heard footsteps rumbling through the covered bridge and turned to see Marcy jogging toward her. She slowed as she got to Francine. “The manager was at the café,” she said, gasping for breath. “He called 911. Rosedale's Fire Department is responding, but it might be ten minutes before they get here. It's a volunteer force. They're also sending the Parke County Sheriff's Department because of the shots, but the nearest sheriff is in Rockville.” Rosedale was the closest town, just a few minutes away; Rockville was the county seat and a good ten minutes away.

Marcy continued out of the bridge to where Joy had set up the camera to film. Francine followed and picked a spot next to Charlotte.

Jonathan kept looking into the face of the man. He used his free hand to explore the pockets of the man's coat. “Well, this is interesting,” he called. He pulled something out of one of the pockets and held it up so they could see it. “It's a vial of something.”

“What's in it?” Francine asked Joy, who was seeing it in
close-up
view.

“Something clear and liquidy. Looks like water to me,” Joy said.

“Can you find his wallet?” Francine shouted to Jonathan.

Jonathan laid the vial to the side and carefully eased the wallet out of the man's pants. He opened the wallet
one-handed
and flipped to the driver's license. “I have some bad news, Francine. I thought he looked familiar but I didn't want to say it until I was sure. It's your cousin William.”

“William?” Francine's voice cracked. She was concerned, but she could hardly believe what she'd heard.

“Is this the cousin you were telling me about?” Charlotte asked. “The one who owns the funeral homes around here? Weren't you going to visit him this week?”

“William is a cousin of sorts. He and his wife, Dolly, own a string a
nursing
homes, not funeral homes. He lives in Montezuma, which is about fifteen minutes up the road. I hadn't talked to him yet, but I did plan to visit.”

“What do you mean by a
sort-of
cousin?”

“He's not a first cousin. His grandfather Earnest and my grandmother Ellie were brother and sister, which means my mother and William's father were first cousins. Don't ask me what version of cousins that makes us.”

“What's he doing out here in the outerlands of Parke County this early in the morning?”

Francine glared at her. “I don't know. What are
we
doing out here in the outerlands of Parke County this early in the morning?”

Francine no sooner asked the question when her hand flew to her mouth in realization. What would
they
tell the Parke County deputies about this? Her immediate reaction was panic. She looked at the horse pulling at the rope holding it to the tree. Their bucket list item was sure to be discovered.

But the more she thought about it, the more perfect Joy's story for the Indianapolis news station seemed as a cover. They were out here celebrating a moment of Francine's family's past. The rented stagecoach and the 1920s clothes all fit into a neat little spin they could make. Even with their reputation as the “
Skinny-Dipping
Grandmas,” no one would suspect what the photo shoot was really all about. She was glad the segment was only for local news too. As long as the story about William didn't generate too much curiosity, Joy wouldn't be asked to do a
Good Morning America
segment on the Covered Bridge Festival. It was way too tame.

But then there was Marcy. Marcy the publicist was the loose cannon in the whole scenario.

“You know what this is like?” Marcy said. “This is just like when you found Friederich Guttmann's body in Alice's shed.”

Charlotte craned her neck toward Marcy. “Indeed, it is. Maybe we're just magnets for dead bodies.”

There was no mistaking the twinkle in Charlotte's eyes, but Francine wanted to put a stop to this idea before Marcy got too excited. “It is
nothing
like that. He's just unconscious. And we've already recorded a segment that has us covered.” She explained herself.

Joy spoke without looking up from the camera. “That is
not
what you argued for last time, Francine. Last time you argued that we should tell the authorities the whole truth. And what are you worried about? Look how well it turned out.”

“It didn't turn out so well for Alice,” Francine said.

In the aftermath of their
skinny-dipping
episode that ended with the discovery of a dead body, Joy landed the job reporting on the adventurous activities of senior citizens, Francine was a guest on Dr. Oz's show about senior fitness, and Mary Ruth went on to become a contestant on the Food Network's hit show
Chopped
. But the husband of their friend Alice was discovered to have had a
long-ago
affair that produced a child, and they were now separated.

“I know it's been a rough time for Alice and Larry,” Joy said, “but they're on the road to getting back together. And Alice
loves
the idea of having a stepson. There's nothing wrong with saying we were doing a photo shoot here. We can tell them we were doing it for a
Good Morning America
segment. I'll clear it with the producers as soon as we're out of here.”

Francine eyes opened wide in alarm. “We don't have to tell them about the
calendar
, that's all I'm saying. Let's just stick with the notion that it was a photo shoot.
Good Morning America
doesn't have to be involved.”

Charlotte surprised her by agreeing with Joy. “Even if it got reported, it would all be fine. It's not like we got buck naked. The photos were tastefully done.”

Francine looked down to see how Jonathan was doing. She found he was examining something else besides William's wallet. “What's Jonathan got?” she asked Joy.

“I don't know. Looks like it might be a book. He found it in the other back pocket in a plastic bag.”