The Demise of Tom Hendry (A Wild Cove Mystery Book 3) Read online

  LAURA GREENE

  THE

  DEMISE

  OF TOM HENDRY

  A WILD COVE MYSTERY

  Copyright © 2020 Laura Greene – All rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Also by Laura Greene

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  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  It’s noon, and blood has stained her yellow dress. She wanders unseen at first, dazed and confused, stepping out into the sun of Wild Cove as the red liquid drips from her hands and knees. It is only a matter of time before someone finally sees Lila Hendry; only a moment until the town will despair once more.

  Two streets away, Sheriff Jane Scott is driving in a patrol car with Deputy Morris. The sun is high in the sky, with springtime slowly but surely making itself known. The people of Wild Cove are out, thankful that the harsh winter, which saw the abduction of Susan Dern, is now a distant memory. When Jane first arrived in Wild Cove she thought it was too quiet, too peaceful. Between her exposing the crimes of her predecessor, Sheriff Williams, and being under the continual scrutiny of Agent Ross and the FBI, Wild Cove has become somewhat notorious in her eyes – a place to protect from all that is malevolent and violent in the world.

  It is a peaceful Friday, Jane just gave a talk at Wild Cove High School but it did not go exactly as planned. Now, in the patrol car with Deputy Morris, she turns off of Main Street and heads up Samson Hill, grumbling under her breath.

  “It wasn't that bad, Sheriff,” says Deputy Morris, trying his best to be supportive.

  “I've had murder cases go better than that,” Jane replies. “When did kids become so rude?”

  Deputy Morris bites his lip and tries not to laugh. “I think they've always been like that. Don't you remember what it was like to be a teenager?”

  “Sure,” says Jane. “But we didn't have social media, so if something bad happened it wasn't posted everywhere for everyone to see. You know I'm trying to build some sort of authority here; how can I do that when kids pull off a stunt like that?”

  Jane was giving a talk about drugs from the stage at the school theater, when someone lowered an inflatable pig wearing a sheriff's uniform from the overhead canopy. It dangled in the air from a solitary piece of rope, the perpetrator of this prank remaining unseen behind the stage. Jane didn't see the pig at first, but when the auditorium suddenly filled with laughter, she turned around to see it swinging above her.

  “Pigs can fly!” one of the kids shouted from the crowd. Principal Russell ran onto the stage and apologized profusely, yelling at the kids in the audience to put their phones away. Needless to say, within minutes the video of Jane and an inflatable Pig-Sheriff swinging around behind her had gone viral.

  Meanwhile, Deputy Morris is trying his best not to laugh while Jane vents about it in the car. “It wasn't that bad.”

  “I mean, I was trying to tell them about Timothy Williams and the drugs he was dealing a while ago. Two people died and they put an inflatable pig up on stage with me?”

  The deputy looks down at his phone. He's already seen the picture online, which is now displayed on his screen. He can’t hold in his laughter any longer. “I can't wait for Jack to see this.”

  “Jack... Don't remind me.” Jane gives a sideways glance at the image on the deputy's phone. “Maybe we should just stop talking for the rest of our shift.”

  “What's so bad about Jack? I thought you two were going strong?”

  Jane sighs. “It's partly because of Jack that I'm so stressed.”

  “Oh, why's that?”

  “Jack's parents are flying into town to meet me, and I have a bad feeling about it. He says they don't hold back on what they think, especially when it comes to who he is dating. I just want it to go well.”

  “The Macreadys?” says Deputy Morris. “I remember them from when I was a kid. They owned a convenience store on Mayflower Avenue. Sold it a few years back and retired to Florida. Yeah, it's hard to see how Jack came from that family.”

  “What are they like?” asks Jane, almost not wanting to know the answer.

  “Terrible people. You're in for an awful time,” says the deputy, giggling to himself. “At least you won't have an inflatable pig floating over your head when you meet them.”

  Finally, Jane sees the funny side and starts laughing as well. “This town is going to be the death of me...” She says this as a scream filters across the street from where they are.

  Standing there in broad daylight is the petite figure of Lila Hendry, daughter of Wild Cove's most famous resident, Tom Hendry. Her yellow dress is flowing in the spring breeze, fluttering above her pale white knees. Her blond hair rests comfortably on her shoulders, and yet her deep blue eyes are filled with tears. Dark splatters of what Jane instinctively realizes is blood are smeared across Lila's dress. Her knees are coated and glistening red, and the pale skin of her hands struggles to penetrate the bright crimson blood which covers it.

  Jane pulls over and leaps out of the car. Lila wanders out onto the street, straight into traffic. She is clearly in the grips of confusion.

  “Stay right there!” yells Jane, rushing out across the road and putting her hands up to stop the cars hurtling towards her.

  The street is busier than usual. Tourists have started to frequent Wild Cove again as the weather improves. Two cars screech to a halt, but Lila stumbles forward at the noise as a third car – a red Toyota – heads straight for her. The driver of the car slams on the brakes too late, and as the car skids across the concrete leaving trails of smoking rubber behind it, Jane leaps forward, pushing Lila to the ground. The corner of the Toyota clips Jane's side and she tumbles over the hood, slamming against the ground.

  Onlookers rush onto the street to help. A tall man in a suit, who is only passing through Wild Cove on his way to a business meeting in Fairsville, picks Lila up off the ground as Deputy Morris reaches Jane.

  “I'm okay...” says Jane quietly. “I'm just winded.”

  The driver of the red Toyota, an unhealthily thin woman named Margaret Ashley, steps out of the car, beads of sweat dripping from her forehead. “Sheriff, I'm so sorry, are you...”

  “It's fine, Margaret.” Jane straightens her uniform and pats Deputy Morris on the arm for helping her to her feet. She starts walking with a slight limp, over to where Lila is.

  Lila looks dazed, as though she’s unsure of what is happening. The man in the black business suit still has his arm around her. “Where are you bleeding from?” he says assertively, his voice loud and forceful.

  “That's not her blood,” interjects Jane as she stands in front of them both. “It's drying, and a wound bad enough
to produce that amount of blood doesn't stop. Lila... Whose blood is this?”

  “Dad...” she whispers, and faints.

  The man in the business suit stops her from falling to the ground, the blood smearing over his clothes from her dress. He will not make that meeting any time soon.

  After checking Lila's pulse, Jane gives her a gentle shake. She opens her eyes slowly and then, as though the realization of what has happened to her father is finally sinking in, she lets out a distraught cry and can’t stop sobbing.

  “Morris,” says Jane after comforting Lila, “call an ambulance. I'll take the patrol car and check on Lila's dad.”

  Getting into her patrol car and turning on her siren, Jane's stomach sinks. Given the amount of blood on Lila's dress, Jane knows that something truly awful has happened to the girl's father; perhaps something fatal.

  It takes less than two minutes to drive around the corner to the open gates of Tom Hendry's home. The gates are ornate, made of iron, and are painted blood-red, with ominous metal ravens sitting along the railing. Those gates mark the entryway to Conwell House. It is a large country mansion which was once owned by Gerald Conwell, an influential newspaper owner who retired to Wild Cove each summer in the 50s and 60s, only to be pulled back into his newspaper empire with regularity. Some people just can’t let go of their professional ambitions, which for him proved his undoing – Jack, still a student of local history, told Jane all about it one night, about how Gerald Conwell took his own life in the woods surrounding the house decades ago after his empire crumbled.

  Not many people wanted to buy the house after that. Superstition was alive and well, but Tom Hendry bought the home eventually from Gerald Conwell's estate and it suited him. He even played up the stories of the grounds being cursed. Tom has a flair for the dramatic; one of the reasons he is such a successful writer.

  Jane's car drives along the winding path, which cuts through a ring of woodland surrounding the house and its wide, expansive green lawn. The towering red sandstone house, with its countless white latticed windows, is the perfect centerpiece to the scene. In every way it is a house of murder, of intrigue, and of a writer gone mad.... Or at least one who likes to play the madman occasionally, much to the glee of locals.

  The patrol car stops on the white gravel just at the front of Conwell house, where a large white-gray fountain cherub is spouting water into an equally white-gray marble basin. If this were not a life or death moment Jane would stop to marvel at the grotesque face on the cherub, but as she rushes through the large, open doorway into the dim light of the old building, the smell of blood overwhelms her senses.

  “Tom!” Jane shouts, unsure where to go in the large, echoing house.

  No reply comes. Jane pulls out her revolver and then instinctively lunges up the austere staircase which leads up through the spine of the house. A draft is coming from that direction, and is carrying on it the metallic smell of human blood. Three floors up and the stairs terminate in front of an imposing oak doorway. The door is shut, but from the slimmest of cracks between the door and the floor red blood is seeping out, fingering its way onto the top of the stairs.

  “Tom!” Jane shouts again. “I'm coming in!”

  The door is heavy, and with a hard push, it gives in and opens. In front of Jane is the most horrifying sight she has ever witnessed in her ten years of law enforcement. She finds Tom Hendry hanging from the ceiling of his office by a long cord, which is tied to his feet. Tom's body has been cut across the stomach, the insides are gushing into a white bowl on the floor under where his head is swinging slightly. The bowl has filled to the brim and is now spilling over onto the white-cream carpet, staining it forever. To Jane, it is as though one of Tom Hendry's very own crime novels has been brought into ghoulish being.

  It takes a lot to shock Jane, but she has to leave the room and catch her breath. She can only think of the horror that Lila's fragile mind has been subjected to, seeing her father strung up like that.

  From the top of the staircase, Jane looks down at the lobby. The white marble floor beneath bears the words, “Nevermore”; no doubt Tom Hendry's favorite quote from Edgar Allan Poe's ‘The Raven’. It seems fitting, as too does Jane's description of what she has found when reporting to Deputy Morris over her radio. “It's a slaughterhouse,” she says, walking back out into the spring sun, hoping that somehow it will melt away the memory of the terrors inside Conwell House.

  Chapter 2

  The trip to the Wild Cove Hospital is not one Jane has been looking forward to taking. This is the part of the job she hates the most. Speaking with a victim's family is something that weighs on Jane's conscience. Though she is required to investigate a violent death, it often meant a subtle approach of offering condolences while also trying to discover if the family has any information that will lead to the arrest of the murderer.

  Tom Hendry's death is no different. While Deputy Morris and a forensics crew sent over from Fairsville are evaluating the crime scene, Jane is walking down towards Ward D of the Wild Cove Hospital. After being greeted by a rather imposing nurse with pulled-back hair, Jane is led to a separate room where Lila Hendry is being kept.

  Jane's heart goes out to Lila. She is only 24 and is known around town as a timid person. She usually sticks to the grounds of Conwell House, only occasionally walking through the streets of Wild Cove to dip her toes in the bay on a warm day. Attention is not something she pursues, unlike her father, despite being a strikingly beautiful girl.

  Now, that fragile innocence has seemingly been shattered. She will have to live with what she saw for the rest of her life. No one should have to see their loved one strung up as Tom Hendry was, thinks Jane as she enters the room. Sitting by Lila's bed is the concerned figure of Lila's brother, Charles. On seeing Jane, he stands up and offers his hand.

  "Hello Sheriff, I don't believe we've had the pleasure. I'm Tom Hendry's son, Charles." His refined accent is an unusual diversion from the way most in Wild Cove speak.

  Jane shakes Charles' hand. It is a firm handshake, and she is immediately taken aback by his athletic and chiseled looks. He has a strong chin with wavy, sandy hair and deep-blue eyes. To Jane he looks like something straight out of a romance novel, and his gentle smile almost makes her blush. This is not like Jane Scott but deep down she is a romantic soul, and she cannot control being attracted to Charles.

  Clearing her throat, Jane smiles with concern and then says, "I'm so sorry about your father."

  A flicker of deep hurt washes over Charles' face, before his gentle smile once again rules supreme. "It's okay. I'm still trying to process it. Right now I'm just focusing on looking after my sister." Charles then does something unexpected. He leans in towards Jane and gently gives her a hug, before pulling back and saying, “That's for saving her life. I hear you pushed her out of the way of a car?”

  This time, Jane does blush. “That's okay. It's my job.”

  “Of course,” nods Charles in reply.

  "How are you, Lila?" asks Jane.

  "I can't believe it…" is all she can say at the moment, shaking her head, the tears still rolling down her silken cheeks.

  Jane sits in an empty chair by Lila's bed and rests her hat on her lap. "I know this is going to be hard, Lila. But understand that everything I am doing is for the good of you and your family. I'm going to have to ask you and your brother a few questions so we can try and get to the bottom of who killed your dad."

  Lila nods, but her pale demeanor makes Jane worry that she might be pushing too fast and too hard. "Perhaps you, Charles, can answer my questions when Lila's unable to?"

  "I suppose you want to know if Dad had any enemies? I've read enough of his murder mysteries to know how this goes," says Charles.

  Jane opens her notebook and takes out a small pencil to jot down her thoughts with. “Well, did he?”

  Charles shakes his head. "Other than a few people in the publishing industry, Dad pretty much got along well with everyone. I mean, he
could be hard sometimes, but not enough for anyone to actually kill him!"

  "What about your dad's demeanor in the last few days? Was there any hint that he was afraid for his life?"

  Lila begins to cry into her hand. Charles sighs deeply. “If only we'd taken it more seriously...”

  “Taken what more seriously?” Jane finally feels like she is getting somewhere.

  "Dad received a couple of letters a few weeks ago. It wasn't unusual for him to receive threats from his fans. I mean," hesitates Charles, "when you spend your life writing murder stories and detective fiction, you're going to attract people who operate in that world. Usually, it's just fans taking his words too seriously. But I never thought they'd take it literally...”

  “Do you still have the letters?"

  Lila speaks through the tears. "They should be in Dad's writing desk. He always keeps things like that so he can draw on them for later stories.”