Trial by Twelve Read online

  Praise for Trial by Twelve:

  “A SATISFYING NOVEL, where plot, characters and setting blend into a compelling read. Heather Day Gilbert knows how to keep readers turning pages. Tess is one of those rare-to-me characters I’d like to have as a real-life friend.”~Janet Sketchley, author of the Redemption’s Edge series

  “Trial by Twelve confirms Tess Spencer, the Glock-toting mountain mama of Buckneck, West Virginia, as one of my favorite amateur sleuths and Heather Day Gilbert as a first-rate mystery writer. This second book in Gilbert’s Murder in the Mountains series ups the ante on the first: the stakes are higher, the tension runs deeper. Best of all, Gilbert kept me guessing until the end.”~Karin Kaufman, author of the Anna Denning mystery series

  “HEATHER GILBERT BRINGS a fresh new voice to the mystery genre. I love the spunky Tess Spencer and her small town values. The first two books of this series are filled with plenty of suspense and the kind of characters that keep me coming back for more.”~Ron Estrada, author of Now I Knew You

  “BURSTING WITH ATMOSPHERE and suspense, Trial By Twelve is a fast-paced who-done-it filled with quirky characters and surprises at every turn. Once again, Heather Day Gilbert has brought small-town West Virginia to vivid life, combining new characters with old favorites. Fans of Miranda Warning will find Trial by Twelve a satisfying sequel, and readers new to the series will discover a favorite heroine to root for and grow with.”~Sally Bradley, author of Kept, the 2014 Christian Manifesto Lime Award winner for Romantic Fiction and the 2014 Grace Award winner for Romantic Fiction

  Other Books by Heather Day Gilbert:

  Miranda Warning, Book One in A Murder in the Mountains Series

  Trial by Twelve, Book Two in A Murder in the Mountains Series

  Out of Circulation, Book One in the Hemlock Creek Suspense Series

  Undercut, Book Two in the Hemlock Creek Suspense Series

  God’s Daughter, Book One in the Vikings of the New World Saga

  Forest Child, Book Two in the Vikings of the New World Saga

  The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

  Indie Publishing Handbook: Four Key Elements for the Self-Publisher

  Trial by Twelve

  A Murder in the Mountains

  Novel

  2

  Heather Day Gilbert

  Trial by Twelve

  By: Heather Day Gilbert

  Copyright 2015 Heather Day Gilbert

  Cover Design by Jenny Zemanek of Seedlings Design Studio

  Published by WoodHaven Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations in printed reviews and articles.

  Series: Gilbert, Heather Day. A Murder in the Mountains series; 2

  Subject: Detective and Mystery Stories; Genre: Mystery Fiction

  Author Information: http://www.heatherdaygilbert.com

  Author Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/Q6w6X

  Table of Contents

  Endorsements

  Other Books by Heather Day Gilbert

  Copyright Page

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

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  Cousin Nelma’s Banana Pudding Recipe

  Author Bio

  Sample Chapters of Guilt by Association

  Dedicated to my brothers, Jon and Stefan

  Computer whisperers, supportive readers, and always ready to share your time—

  I may be the shortest, but I’ll always be your protective big sis.

  “It is better to be tried by twelve than carried out by six.”

  1

  THESE LETTERS MAY BE hard for you to read, but someday you will ask who your father was. I have to explain why things turned out this way.

  I didn’t want a child. Your mother did, and I did whatever she wanted. I’m sorry to say but the woman is a shrew. I know that only begins to explain things, and it’s not an excuse. But she drives me to the brink. I look in your eyes and I see some spark of me, and that’s the spark I want to keep alive. When you turn sixteen, I hope to take you on a long-distance hunting trip, to understand why I need to get away periodically.

  In life, we have chances for freedom. These trips are mine, and maybe someday they will be yours. “Follow your bliss” is the way of Buddha, and it’s what I’ve committed to doing…for both of us.

  EVERY DAY I HAVE THE same lunch: a tuna sandwich with lettuce and tomato on wheat. By the time I get to it, the lettuce and tomato have sufficiently sogged up the bread. I add to that a bag of sour cream & onion chips and a Cherry Coke from the vending machine, then throw any notion of healthiness to the four winds.

  “You pregnant again?” Charlotte peers over the appointment desk at the Crystal Mountain Spa, where I’ve laid out all my food items.

  “Nope…you have a problem with my menu?” I wink up at Charlotte, and she flutters her exotic eyelashes, two kisses of coal dust sweeping her high cheekbones.

  “No judgments from me, Tess.” She motions to her own lunch: a bag from Wendy’s that doubtless contains a cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate Frosty.

  I shove my lunch back in my tote. “Hey, let’s go outside today. A breeze in July—not often we get weather like this.”

  She nods and stalk-walks to the side door, her long-legged gait the opposite of my own. My dear husband Thomas has informed me that I can’t walk without natural hip action. The more I slow to adjust my walk, the more my hips determine to swing of their own accord.

  “Deep thoughts?” Charlotte holds the door until I reach the stone-paved porch that encircles the log cabin-style spa.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it light. My mom…it’s hard seeing her that way.”

  Miranda Michaels, Charlotte’s mother, is one of my best friends. Her insight helped me stop a killer a couple winters ago. But since then, she’s had another heart attack and her health has rapidly deteriorated. And now a private nurse stays with her round the clock. We all know it’s a matter of time.

  Thank goodness Charlotte took a one-year leave of absence from teaching pottery at West Virginia University. She’s camped out in Miranda’s old house, which has shaped up nicely with more than a little elbow grease. Having Charlotte nearby has only cemented our friendship. I dread the day she decides to return to Morgantown.

  When the sun hits our faces, Charlotte bursts into her customary three sneezes. Not one, not two, but always three sneezes for the sun. I snicker.

  “I have no clue why you find that so funny.” She curls into a faux leather chair. It’s nothing but class for the Crystal Mountain Spa.

  “Because you’re literally allergic to sunlight, that’s why.” I perch on the stone wall, so I can better observe any wildlife in the ferny forest just beyond. “But getting back to your mom…does she know who you are?”

  “Not anymore. But funny thing: she was calling for Mira B
rooke the other day. She knows…”

  Charlotte’s voice cracks and I look back to the woods, knowing we’re both on emotionally fragile ground. Miranda stayed lucid enough to understand Thomas and I named our firstborn daughter, Miranda Brooke, after her last June. We call her Mira Brooke. I take comfort that Miranda was able to hold her namesake in her thin arms at least three times before she lost her strength. But no amount of hoping can restore the Grande Dame to full health now.

  The spa masseuse, Teeny, peers out the door at us. “How you doing, Charlotte?”

  Teeny is a man with a wildly inappropriate nickname. He looks more like someone who should try out for the Mr. World contest. But he answers to nothing but Teeny. He also has a burning crush on Charlotte that will never in this universe be reciprocated.

  “Doing good.” Charlotte angles her legs and body away from Teeny, a clear sign he needs to give up.

  He doesn’t take the hint. “Your muscles feeling tight? I’ll give you fifty percent off a half-hour neck and back massage.”

  His deep-set eyes fixate on her, as if he’s unaware his co-worker is sitting right here.

  I clear my throat, dropping the final scrap of tuna sandwich in my bag. “Pretty sure Dani said you shouldn’t do that, Teeny.”

  He lumbers out on the patio toward me, like a Saint Bernard noticing a rabbit. “Do what?”

  Our boss, Dani Gibson, has made it very clear that Teeny can’t cut discounts or hit on possible clients. Sadly, Teeny is the best masseuse around and he can get away with anything he likes.

  “That. What you just did. With Charlotte.”

  He wags his head back and forth slowly, like a pendulum. A new thought hits him.

  “Tess, did you see the backhoes? They drove in this morning. Out back.”

  I feel like I’m talking to my brother-in-law Petey, who’s only fourteen. “No—why are there backhoes here, Teeny?”

  “Dani wants a pool. I mean we have the indoor pool but it’s time for an outdoor one, she said. They were digging this morning before you came but they stopped early.”

  He shakes his head, befuddled, and heads back to his massage room. Apparently he has radar for when Charlotte enters the building, because he rarely emerges any other time.

  Charlotte stands, peering around the side of the patio. “Another pool? Where does your boss get her money?”

  “Well, you know this spa charges top dollar. I’d say there’s not another spa like this in three counties.”

  “Yeah, full of incense and crystals…it’s a wonder anyone from Buckneck darkens the door.”

  I secretly agree with Charlotte. The success of Dani’s spa is astonishing, as no one in our small town seems inclined to get their energies balanced or to catch up on the latest in chakras. The only thing I can figure is that Dani snagged the best and brightest masseuse, hairdressers, and nail technicians for miles around. I only took the job because I wanted part-time hours and I’ve been a receptionist before. Correction: Administrative Assistant.

  We polish off our food in the sunlit, hazy silence. This is what I love about Charlotte: we don’t have to talk. We can just be.

  A clattering of high heels sounds on the flagstones. Dani, an enigmatic mix of nature-lover and trendy fashionista, rushes our way.

  “Tess? I’ve been buzzing your desk for the past half hour! What are you doing? You need to be manning the phone!”

  “I’m on lunch break. Remember? I get one hour?”

  “Well, not today.” She nervously pulls her long blonde hair into a makeshift bun, a tribute to her California surfer-girl roots. “I need you at the front desk. I’m afraid this will leak to the press.”

  I stuff everything in my bag, standing. “What are you talking about?”

  “The bone.” A sigh wracks her body, belying her well-disguised forty-plus years. “They found a human bone out back.”

  2

  BOWHUNTING ISN’T SOMETHING that comes naturally to everyone, and I understand your hesitation to develop this skill. Also, it is such a long trip to my special hunting grounds in wild and wonderful West Virginia. My great-grandpa is the one who owned the land I hunt, before the coal mine took it over. Now that mine is defunct. Riches are fleeting. I hope you learn that sooner rather than later. Your mother never will.

  Hunting is an art, and a reprieve. I should feel guilty for traveling so far, for so many years, but I won’t. I could either leave home for a season and regain some feeling of control or stay there and shrivel into a shell of a man. You don’t deserve to see me that way. You deserve a father who can teach you how to control emotion by releasing an arrow, right into the heart of your prey.

  This first trip will turn into a success, I just know it. The best things in life come to those who wait.

  CHARLOTTE FOLLOWS ME inside. I charge straight through the halls, toward the pool entrance in back. To put a lid on this breaking news, I need to know what news has broken.

  Three construction workers stand near their trucks, looking equal parts pale and enthused. I walk up to the one not wearing a hard hat, figuring he’s the boss.

  “What happened?”

  He looks me up and down, and Charlotte jabs my arm with her elbow to let me know I’m being ogled. I point to him deliberately with my left hand, my wedding band and diamond catching the sunlight.

  “I was talking to you. What’s going on?”

  His gaze sharpens, but he doesn’t ask me who I am. Sometimes I can produce this authoritative effect. Thomas calls it my “commander vibe.”

  “It’s like this, lady. We was digging this morning, right around sunrise. Me and my crew, we work hard, you know? And then Jack—that’s him, right there with the overalls—he shouts that his shovel hit something hard. Course, we don’t want to accidentally break no pipes, you understand.”

  I nod, knowing this guy is on a roll.

  “So I said to stop and he stopped. Went over to check and lo and behold, there’s this long thing in the dirt. Kinda deep…‘bout five feet under. Ben got in there and pulled on it. Good thing he was wearing gloves because wouldn’t you know, it was a bone! Weren’t no dog bone neither. This was an arm bone, I’m pretty sure. Had some scraps of fabric on it, and the bone looked a little leathery.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “Well, lady, we just dropped it back in the hole. Waiting on the cops or something now. Could even be the FBI! Sure does take them a while to get up to the top of this mountain.”

  I nod, stepping toward the hole. Sure enough, a long, brownish bone lies on top of the scooped-out pile of dirt. “Thanks for your help,” I say, turning back to the spa.

  Given what this guy has told me, I have good reason to man those phones. I imagine Tawny Creeden, the local hard news reporter—if there is such a thing in Buckneck—will be trekking her way up here as soon as word gets out.

  Charlotte falls into step easily at my side as we wend through the dim-lit indoor pool area, past the nail room, and the sleek ebony-accented salon, where several hairdressers peer out windows, ignoring clients.

  She talks in a hushed voice, like she’s in a cathedral. “What do you think? Is that a human bone?”

  “It’s so long. It has to be…and I think I saw fingers.”

  Charlotte shudders. “How would that get there? Maybe this used to be a cemetery?”

  I doubt it but don’t want to assume the worst, as I’m wont to do. “No clue.”

  Back at the front desk, I settle into my chair, wishing for a strong cup of coffee. Charlotte grabs her purse. “I hate to go, but Mom’s nurse needs to give me a report on things today. Will you drop by some night this week for cinnamon rolls and decaf?”

  “Will do, if Thomas isn’t working late.” I hate asking my mother-in-law Nikki Jo to babysit, since she does during the days I work.

  “Keep me posted. And I know you, Nancy Drew. Don’t poke around too much.”

  “Who, me?”

  During the next hour, I follow Dani’s instr
uctions and re-book appointments for next week. I speak softly into the phone, trying to console the ladies in their rescheduling pain.

  Several times, Dani flits from her final henna job to my desk, her blue eyes asking the question she doesn’t.

  I fill her in each time. “No police yet.” I’m astounded at the apparent lack of concern on the part of the Buckneck police. I contemplate calling Thomas at his law office, since he sometimes eats lunch with the local cops, but I realize that would only make Thomas drop everything and travel up here at breakneck speed. And if he knows, Nikki Jo would know. And if Nikki Jo knows about this bone…the whole town would know. Nothing against my mother-in-law, but that prayer chain is a powerful thing. Even if the poor person has been dead for fifty years, that bone would be cause for a prayer vigil. And I might get fired, which I really can’t afford.

  A man in camouflage strides through the double doors—definitely lost. He’s almost past the desk when I stop him by rolling my chair over and flinging out an arm.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  He turns. I’m struck by his dark eyes and thick salt-and-pepper hair and beard. “Yes, ma’am. You could.” He pulls a badge from his pocket. “Detective Tucker. Buckneck P.D. I’m looking for Danielle…Gibson?”

  As if on cue, Dani taps out to the reception desk. Her eyes are wide as she meets the detective’s intense gaze. “I’m Danielle, the owner. Call me Dani.” She extends a hand, and Detective Tucker takes it in both his own, like a father comforting a child. Like he’s absorbing her nervousness.

  “Show me the bone.” A man of few words, wearing camo like a hunter in the middle of the day. I wonder if Thomas has met this character.

  Dani walks him toward the back as the phone beeps again. I pick up quickly. “Crystal Mountain Spa, how may I help you?”