Murder in the Parish Read online

  MURDER IN

  THE PARISH

  Father Douglas Cozy Mysteries

  The Complete Short Stories Collection

  4 Book Box Set

  ***

  Murder and the Mechanic

  Murder and the Jewelry Box

  Murder and the Monk

  Murder and the Old Flame

  ***

  By

  CT Mitchell

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2018 by CT Mitchell

  Cover and internal design © Wood Duck Media

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without the permission in writing from its publisher, CT Mitchell.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. We are not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Murder and the Mechanic

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Murder and the Jewelry Box

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Murder and the Monk

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Murder and the Old Flame

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Book Reviews

  MURDER

  AND THE

  MECHANIC

  CHAPTER 1

  It was early morning on the outskirts of Hastings Point, New South Wales, Australia. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, which made the dew sparkle just the way Father Douglas loved it. There was something magical about seeing the fields stretching before him as he drove.

  The town he lived in was as picture perfect as he could ever imagine anything being, and he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. The coast was yet unspoiled and still void of the insidious tourist popularity that infected most resort towns in New South Wales. If he could have, he would have a camera going at all times in his head to record the way the sun shone off the curves of his 1967 Alvis convertible, as he drove along the coast, strong and beautiful and freshly waxed. Nothing set his day off better than his morning commute through town to Hastings Point.

  The ’67 was more than a mode of transport for Father Douglas, it was his one worldly possession and he took a fair bit of pride in it. The beauty, crystal blue with a creamy leather interior, never went a single day past its inspections and tune-ups. Every piece of it was in perfect condition, and Father Douglas smiled every time he looked at it. It gave him fond memories of his father, a wealthy UK land baron, who bequeathed his pride and joy Alvis to his only son.

  Checking the time on the watch also given to him by his father, he smiled at the fact that he was right time, just as he always was. He would be at the parish in two minutes. His glorious parish, where he knew every patron by name, as well as their story. It was home, and he loved each and every one of them like family. It wasn’t anything to speak of, really, in the grand scheme of things within the Catholic Church, but to Father Douglas, his parish was everything in the whole world.

  Suddenly, as he rounded the corner to pull onto the long road that would lead him to the parish, the car began to splutter. Father Douglas was panic stricken for a moment, he’d never heard it make a sound that was so out of line before, and he wasn’t really sure how to respond.

  When the noise stopped, he relaxed a bit and decided to take it to the mechanic later in the week. There was no excuse for a car to be behaving badly, and he would get it looked at.

  Moments later, the car coughed and spluttered again, causing the hairs on the back of Father Douglas’s neck to stand on end. His ears reddened, and he vacillated between frustration and a bit of anger at his predicament.

  Since anger wasn’t something he was willing to give himself to, he simply looked up to the sky and silently asked God for an easy explanation. Slowly and carefully, he pulled over to the side of the road.

  When he opened the hood, he was baffled, there was no way to tell what was wrong if one wasn’t a mechanic. He wasn’t even sure why he lifted the hood in the first place. He discovered soon, though, that it must have been God instructing him to open it, as sort of a means of communicating distress, because it wasn’t long before another car pulled up beside him.

  The driver, Giuseppe Rossi, was the local gardener and a good friend.

  “Need a lift to Alice’s, Father?” Giuseppe patted the seat next to him and reached over to open the passenger door, allowing Father Douglas to climb inside. Ten minutes later, back toward town, Giuseppe dropped Father Douglas off at the mechanic shop and let him know he’d see him on Sunday morning.

  “Alice?” he called when he walked into the lobby. The normal receptionist wasn’t at her desk, which probably meant she was out for coffee. Alice loved her coffee, and Myra, her assistant, always made sure to get it for her. It was Myra’s way of saying thank you for the steady work and being all around pleasant.

  When Alice didn’t answer, Father Douglas made his way to the back office, hoping maybe Alice had taken a break or was possibly doing some paperwork. When he didn’t find her back there, he wandered out into the workshop, where he saw her legs poking out from underneath a car. He squeezed in between the two cars that were up on the racks, and spoke to her again. It was unusually quiet in the shop since there weren’t any machines running, so there was no reason for her not to have heard him. He bent down to one knee and looked under the car. Alice was laying perfectly still, her hands flat out on the ground next to her.

  “Oh God!” he shouted, crossing himself. He hurried across the street to the neighboring pub to call the police, right after he found someone to move the car from over Alice’s unconscious body. In the pub, he spotted Detective Tom Sullivan having breakfast while reading the morning paper.

  “Detective,” he says quietly, placing his hand on Tom’s shoulder so as not to startle him. “There is a body in one of Alice’s pits at the shop. What would you like me to do, any way I can be of help?”

  CHAPTER 2

  With a jerk, Detective Sullivan dropped his fork to his plate and stood, throwing his jacket expertly over his shoulder in one movement and heading for the exit. “Have you called the ambulance, yet, Father?”

  “No sir, not yet. I wasn’t really sure what to do first. I don’t even know if she’s alive, she just kind of looks like she’s sleeping.”

  Nodding quickly, Tom took his phone out of his pocket. Father Douglas listened as he called the station and instructed his constable to get an ambulance to the garage as soon as possible.

  Between the two of them, Tom and the Father managed to work the lift well enough to raise it up so the emergency workers could better access Alice’s body. The poor woman was pale as a ghost, and completely motionless, and it sent chills up Father Douglas’s spine.

  Once the car was moved, and the gentlemen heard the sounds of the sirens in the background, Father Douglas moved closer to Alice’s body and reached down to take her hand. Tom asked if he cou
ld feel a heartbeat, but Father Douglas shook his head and crossed his chest again. Just as Detective Sullivan was preparing to tell the Father to move away from the woman’s body, the man knelt beside her closely and read her last rites. Not wanting to interrupt what was clearly going to happen whether it was protocol or not, Tom stepped back a little, called the forensics scientist, and hurried the ambulance as well. Dr. Jane Russell, the regional forensics scientist, arrived at the shop half an hour later.

  When the scene had been cordoned off, the detective and the Father crossed the street and returned to the pub. Tom nodded to the waitress and she tipped her head before disappearing into the kitchen. When she returned, she was carrying what was left of Tom’s breakfast, which she had warmed up for him.

  “Happens a lot,” he told the Father, picking up his fork. “That’s why I keep coming here; she takes good care of me.”

  “Can I get you something, Father?” she asked, but Father Douglas just shook his head.

  “Now, Father. We’ve been good friends since university, yes?” Tom asked. “So we know each other’s jobs pretty well. Even though we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, I know how your job works and you know how mine works. So…I’m going to have to ask you a few questions now.”

  Father Douglas shifted in his seat and listened as best as he could to the detective and his questions, though he was more concerned with Alice’s dead body than he was with listening to himself recounting what had happened that morning. Eventually, his eyes wandered over to the bar and his mind wandered back to the shop where he’d seen poor Alice’s body laying lifeless on the concrete floor.

  “What’s bothering you, Father?” Tom asked at long last.

  “Oh, I…I’m sorry, Detective. I just…I was just thinking that it’s rather odd that Alice would be changing the oil on a car herself.” He met Tom’s eyes with great purpose as he spoke the last few words. “She’s the main mechanic, and usually leaves those tasks to the boy these days.”

  “Oh yeah, the aboriginal boy, Surfer Sam. Yeah I guess you’re right, but maybe he called in sick today.”

  “I’m convinced that the boy wouldn’t hurt a fly, but it is a bit curious that’s he’s not around the day his boss is murdered.”

  “True, true. And you know Alice,” Tom said, putting nuked eggs in his mouth and speaking while chewing through them. “She doesn’t usually work alone. She’s funny like that, always telling me that it’s never safe to work alone. That anything could happen. That woman had a pretty level head on her shoulders, and it kind of pisses me off that she’s not around now. It’s not fair, you know?”

  “Yes, exactly. I had expected to see Surfer Sam first, this morning. My car broke down on the side of the road and I was going to see if one of them could either fix the old girl on the spot, or tow me back to the shop. I knew there was a chance she wouldn’t even be here, because unless there’s a fair in town or something, if things are slow, she usually closes up shop pretty early on Sunday’s.”

  “Noooo….don’t tell me that old bird finally dropped dead?”

  “You watch your tongue, Detective,” Father Douglas laughed. She’ll be around longer than any of us, you’ll see. Unlike these old bodies we have, she was built to last.

  CHAPTER 3

  Still pensive and unsettled, Father Douglas left with the publican, John Simmons, to give him a lift back to his car. Kindly, Tom called the garage nearest Hastings Point and asked for a tow truck to meet them at the vehicle. When they got back to the Alvis, the tow truck driver popped the hood again and took a look at the engine. Tinkering around a bit, the man kept grunting and humming quietly to himself.

  “Can you turn the engine on for me, please? We’ll see if it turns over.”

  As instructed, Father Douglas turned the key and the Alvis roared to life, much to everyone’s surprise. Embarrassed, Father Douglas grabbed his coat and went to get some cash to pay the driver.

  “My apologies, sir. I didn’t mean to have you waste your time.”

  “No worries, mate. You’re not the first person to experience this kind of break down and you won’t be the last. Sometimes it’s something to do with the petrol. Water can get in it, or water can be put into it on purpose as a prank, and as soon as it reaches the engine, it stalls. This car is a real beauty, Father. But water can bring any car to its knees for a while.”

  The man chuckled and took one last look at the car before driving away. No doubt the man would have loved the test drive after the repairs were made. The mechanics probably would have fought over it.

  Puzzled, Father Douglas slipped into the driver’s seat. Why would anyone be tampering with his fuel? The driver mentioned that it had happened before, and it sounded like he meant recently. If someone was messing with the petrol deliveries in Hastings Point, he might have to pull the old bicycle out of retirement. He hadn’t ridden that thing since he’d first moved here, all those years ago, but he’d heard it wasn’t too hard to get used to it again. He certainly wouldn’t have his beautiful car ruined because of some stupid pranking children.

  Besides fuel, though, who would want to kill Alice? She certainly didn’t have any enemies that he could think of, and mostly kept to herself. She was a family woman, and enjoyed time with her friends as well. Alice Grimshaw really was living the dream. She had a great job that she really loved, and made just enough to get by. There was little for extravagance, but she didn’t need it, she was always content and happy. Pulling out onto the road, Father Douglas drove slowly as he thought about who might have wanted to harm Alice.

  Back at the station, Detective Sullivan was drowning in paperwork. Alice Grimshaw’s death was certainly adding another dimension to this whole fuel tampering problem. The reports were flooding in. Everyone spoke of their petrol being laced with water. Everything was doubled, as well. Every complaint was actually two complaints because not only were the citizens calling in about their cars…and quite upset, mind you…but the local garages were also calling in every single time they had to clean out one of the affected cars. It was beginning to do Detective Sullivan’s head in.

  Just as Tom was about to send off for the local labs to rally together and figure out what exactly was being done to the petrol, Dr. Jane Russell came in with the autopsy report on Alice Grimshaw. Turns out, Alice had been done in by a blow to the back of the head with a large, blunt object. Probably a wrench or the like, probably something they’d find in a shop like hers. Dr. Russell estimated her time of death somewhere between five and seven that morning.

  Detective Sullivan was far from happy. Surfer Sam’s absence was really starting to bother him; he hadn’t been able to reach the boy all day. Of course, if he’d been there during Alice’s bashing, then he surely would be on the run out of fear. He likely wouldn’t be able to be reached for days, if not weeks, the poor thing.

  Although if he had only just popped in to work as normal this morning, and then come across his boss’s body, then he may have gone to the Elder to ask for advice. Either way, Tom made it his next bit of work to find the boy. He needed to see what happened to Surfer Sam before anything else happened.

  A few minutes later, he was on the phone with the local aboriginal community’s Elder and was told some interesting news. Apparently, no one had seen the boy since he’d left his house that morning. Given the circumstances, though, the Elder assured Detective Sullivan that he would organize a group of men to track him down straight away.

  CHAPTER 4

  Since he couldn’t possibly drive the Alvis as it was, with spoiled petrol, Father Douglas phoned the mechanic from Pottsville to tow his pride and joy to the garage there. This morning was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, though Father Douglas knew it was all in God’s grand plan. He might not have understood it, but he enjoyed going with the flow as much as possible when things did take a strange turn now and again. While he waited for the Pottsville tow truck, Father Douglas phoned Detective Sullivan and asked him for an u
pdate on the case.

  “I don’t know how much information you’re allowed to give me, Detective, but I’d love any details if you can release them. I’m just sitting here waiting for my car to be towed and have nothing else to do. God has created some really grand beauty around here for me to look at, but my mind has been wandering to Alice again and again…..So I thought I’d give you a ring.” Father Douglas leaned on a nearby tree. Where other people would have likely leaned up against their car, Father Douglas took great pride in his car, so he didn’t dare rest on it on the side of the road. After all, he’d just waxed her.

  “Well, Father, until I find Surfer Sam I can’t really do much of anything at all. Whoever did her in is likely in the wind by now, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and do nothing. That boy is the only one who could have seen anything at all, except for you of course, and unless you’re fibbing to me, which kind of goes against your entire profession, then he’s the one I need to talk to. I have a call in to the Elder and he’s putting out a hunt for him as we speak. That’s really all I know for now.”

  “Very well, very well,” Father Douglas said, rubbing his hands nervously. “I know I’m not on your list of people to call, so I don’t expect any updates or anything. If I call in to the station later, will I be able to find anything out? I don’t really watch the news much or read the paper, but I supposed I could wait like a normal citizen if I needed to.”

  Tom thought about it for a moment. He didn’t see any problem with letting the Father know what was going on, as long as he had some free time that is, and he let the Father know as much.

  “Well thank you kindly,” Father Douglas said. “I’ll be praying over the case. Oh also, Tom…I think the two cases may be linked. I just wanted to be one to say it out loud in case it hadn’t been brought up.”

  “Which two cases, Father?” Tom asked, curious.

  “The petrol being tampered with and Alice’s murder. I think they’re related.”