A truth for a truth, p.1
A Truth for a Truth, page 1
part #5 of Ministry is Murder Series
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Praise for the Ministry Is Murder Mysteries
A Lie for a Lie
“Ms. Richards delivers another absorbing tale filled with both humor and suspense. I can’t wait to read more!”
—TheRomance Readers Connection
“A jewel of a book.”
—Follow the Clue
“Richards’s Ministry Is Murder series combines her skill for creating heartwarming relationships with her keen sense of mystery plotting that plays out effortlessly in the hands of her clever sleuth. Great pacing and character development lead readers through the discovery of clues and questioning of suspects until they uncover the killer alongside Aggie.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Part of the joy of reading Richards comes from her quirky and fully rounded characters.”
—Gumshoe Review
Beware False Profits
“The heroine seems so natural as a sleuth that the audience will find her investigations believable . . . She makes this a fine small-town Midwest mystery. Fans of intelligently constructed cozies will thoroughly enjoy Beware False Profits.”
—Midwest Book Review
“I must say that I love this mystery series . . . If you enjoy testing your wits with a good mystery on cold winter nights, pick up this gem. Author Emilie Richards writes intelligent whodunits with some colorful characters.”
—Huntress Book Reviews
Let There Be Suspects
“Charming.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“A lighthearted study in dysfunctional family dynamics, Let There Be Suspectsis an answered prayer for fans of the cozy mystery.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“A great storyteller, Richards writes a humor-filled murder mystery that works . . . She develops enough suspects and action to keep readers turning pages. She plays fair and lays the clues for the astute reader to solve the crime. This reader looks forward to more adventures with Aggie.”
—Gumshoe Review
“A charming cozy, full of memorable characters, suspense galore, and the unsinkable Aggie who is at her clever best when solving a mystery.”
—MyShelf.com
“Aggie is a fun character . . . A well-crafted mystery with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing to the end. I highly recommend this book and the whole series.”
—The Best Reviews
“I love her sharp, quirky voice, her rich and crazy characters, and I love that she’s mixed murder and mayhem with the church. . . . A delicious Christmas romp into the murderous minds of those that live in and visit Emerald Springs, Ohio. You’ll want more of Emilie Richards.”
—Armchair Interviews
“Satisfying . . . There are quite a few humorous moments in the novel, but there’s a poignant side as well.”
—The Mystery Reader
“Zany characters add sparkle to this engaging cozy, where mystery is never in short supply . . . Witty and entertaining.”
—Romantic Times
Blessed Is the Busybody
“A well-crafted story with both humor and mystery. Emilie Richards has a writing style that reels the reader in with her first words. Aggie is a fun character . . . Any of Emilie Richards’s books are keepers on my shelf!”
—Romance Junkies
“A delightful cozy that stars an amateur sleuth who feels as if she swims upstream against the tide . . . All comes together in this fine Ministry Is Murder thriller.”
—Midwest Book Review(five-star review)
“An absolutely delightful mystery that fans of Emilie Richards and anyone who enjoys light mystery will adore . . . This novel takes a clever and unexpected turn at its conclusion. It also marks the beginning of a new mystery series involving Emerald Springs. I think Aggie is just getting started with her sleuthing and if future adventures are as well written as this one, we are in for a treat.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“An enjoyable read . . . Any new book by this gifted author is cause for celebration.”
—The Mystery Reader
“Fun and suspenseful.”
—Fresh Fiction
“A cozy mystery with style. Aggie is adorable and her sleuthing efforts will fill the reader with admiration—as well as chuckles . . . Ms. Richards’s characters are particularly vivid and all have interesting little twists that make them memorable and very real . . . A lighthearted and endearing read with a great deal of flavor and wit. If you are a fan of Dorothy Bodoin and Jan Karon, or an avid Murder, She Wrote viewer, then Blessed Is the Busybody is just the book for you! Great work, Ms. Richards!”
—Roundtable Reviews
Praise for the Other Novels of Emilie Richards
“Multilayered plot, vivid descriptions, and a keen sense of time and place.”
—Library Journal
“Richards writes with rare honesty and compassion and has a keen eye for detail. This is a beautiful, heartwarming story that will find its way onto many shelves.”
—Romantic Times
“Richards pieces together each woman’s story as artfully as a quilter creates a quilt, with equally satisfying results, and her characterizations are transcendent, endowed with warmth and compassion.”
—Booklist
“Richards’s ability to portray compelling characters who grapple with challenging family issues is laudable, and this well-crafted tale should score well with fans of Luanne Rice and Kristin Hannah.”
—Publishers Weekly(starred review)
“A flat-out page turner . . . reminiscent of the early Sidney Sheldon.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Unforgettable characters and complex relationships.”
—The Romance Reader
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Emilie Richards
BLESSED IS THE BUSYBODY
LET THERE BE SUSPECTS
BEWARE FALSE PROFITS
A LIE FOR A LIE
A TRUTH FOR A TRUTH
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
A TRUTH FOR A TRUTH
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / October 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Emilie McGee.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-18900-9
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
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BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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For Michael, who isn’t Ed,
but still understands both Aggie and me perfectly.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Bill Peters, whose knowledge of the inner workings of churches and his willingness to share what he knows was invalua ble for this novel.
1
The Reverend Godwin Dorchester always claimed that he wanted to die in the pulpit, hands lifted toward the heavens, gaze riveted on whatever parishioner needed his message the most. Godwin, better known as “Win” to his congregations, thought his last breath ought to be put to good use, seeing as none would follow, and his chance to change the world would be over with one dramatic flourish.
Personally I’m hoping to use my final exhalations to say good-bye to the people who love me, but then I’m not a minister. I’m only married to one. And my husband Ed, Win’s successor to the ministry of the Consolidated Community Church of Emerald Springs, Ohio, is young enough that dying breaths aren’t high on his list of things to worry about quite yet.
In fact, right now my husband is worrying about Godwin Dorchester’s memorial service. In half an hour Ed will raise his own hands and fasten his gaze on somebody in Win’s honor. Because Win did not die in the pulpit. He died taking out the garbage. And according to Hildy, his wife of almost fifty years, the last thing Win said was “911,” which was neither inspirational nor effective. Win was dead before he did a nosedive into the garbage can and found eternal rest on a biodegradable trash bag.
“Doesn’t that strike you as some kind of divine retribution? Dying facedown in a garbage can?” My good friend Lucy Jacobs stopped slathering hummus on slices of whole grain bread at my kitchen table, and pointed her knife toward heaven in emphasis.
Lucy was helping me put together a tray of sandwiches for the reception following Win’s memorial service. She slathered, then I covered her handiwork with slices of cucumber, grated carrot, and alfalfa sprouts. Assembly-line cooperation comes naturally to us, because Lucy and I flip houses together. Compared to installing drywall, sandwiches are a cinch.
“First, Unitarians aren’t big on divine retribution,” I told her, though the fine points of theology are usually not part of our conversational repertoire. “So I’m not reading anything into the way Win died. But if I did believe in a God who points fingers and yells ‘Zap,’ I’d think he had it in for me. For the last week Hildy has told me every single detail of Win’s final moments, over and over, including everything else in the garbage can.”
“You have to learn not to listen so well.”
“That’s not the half of it. When she finishes, and I’m trying to rid my mind of those images, I get these impromptu whispered conferences about how I can become a better minister’s wife.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. One of the things I love most about Luce is her complete lack of interest in joining our church. She’s a nominal member of a Reform synagogue, but she thinks organized religion is an oxymoron. To Lucy, Aggie Sloan-Wilcox is just an unexpected bargain she happened upon one day in a long checkout line at Kroger.
She went back to work, plastering hummus with a vengeance. “Better minister’s wife? Exactly what are your shortcomings?”
“Too numerous to mention.”
“Try me.”
I layered and sliced as I weeded the casual indictments—clutter on the kitchen counters and matted leaves in the flowerbeds—from the more serious.
I began as graciously as I could. “First, you have to understand Hildy really does believe she’s helping.”
“Helping whom?”
“She’s hard to dislike.”
“I’m having no problem so far.”
“You haven’t even met her.”
“For which I’m properly grateful.”
I looked up. “Hildy and Win moved to Emerald Springs a month ago and rented a house for the next year to see if they wanted to spend retirement here. You might have met her if you’d been around more, Luce. Not off traveling to who knows where.”
Lucy didn’t look up. All I could see was a mop of red curls falling over high cheekbones and a long, graceful neck. “I told you where. I was in California. San Francisco, then Monterey.”
“Where” was really unimportant. Lucy had been missing for almost ten days. I had my suspicions about “whom” she’d been with, but Lucy would tell me in her own good time if she and Kirkor Roussos, Emerald Springs’s hottest police detective, were now an item.
And did I ever want to know!
“Well, it seems I’m not doing enough to enhance Ed’s career,” I said instead. “I’ve kind of, well, you know, made a name for myself in our fair city.”
“I’m guessing she’s not worried about you flipping houses.” Lucy looked up. “Not that there’s much to worry about along those lines.”
In theory Lucy and I are still in business, but we recently completed picture-perfect renovations on a house that we haven’t been able to sell again. Any profit we’ve made on our flipping venture is draining away on those mortgage payments, due to a miserable economy. We’re more or less in a holding pattern now. I hold the want ads looking for new employment opportunities. She holds copies of our bank statements and moans.
I shook my head. “Not the houses, no.”
“Well, I suppose tracking down murderers is a bit outside the usual wifely duties,” she said.
Of course Lucy had nailed the other thing I’m known for in Emerald Springs. For some reason little ol’ minister’s wife me is a homicide magnet.
I slapped a piece of bread in place with a satisfying squish, then I hacked away mercilessly until I realized I was creating enough bread crumbs to track Hansel and Gretel to India. I stopped, blew a strand of hair off my face, and tried to keep my tone cheerful.
“There are no usual duties. I’m married to a man who chose to become a minister. I haven’t signed any contracts, pledged any oaths, taken any vows. Nobody’s paying me. This is the twenty-first century. Minister’s partners come in all genders, sizes, and persuasions. I can do whatever I want, be the person I really am.”
“So, you’ve explained this to her?”
I scrunched up my nose in answer, because she had me there. Okay, I’m a wuss. Despite everything, I can’t drum up any animosity for Hildy. How do you tell a well-meaning do-gooder to find another project, without mortally offending her? And now that her husband is lying in a casket, and she’s coping with the new reality of widowhood, I’m even less apt to confront her.
I took the next hummus-laden slice. “Hildy thinks she’s helping me. She thinks encouraging me to find my inner Hildy is her legacy. She was a minister’s wife for more than forty years, five of them here, although that was fifteen years ago. ‘Minister’s wife’ is how she thinks of herself, the first thing on her personal identity list—probably the second and third, too. In all the years of their marriage, she never took a job. She was sure she had a calling to help Win.”
“Win what?”
I knew she was being purposely obtuse. “Help her husband. Win is her husband.”
“With a name like Godwin, settling on Win shows a certain lack of conceit. He could have gone by God.”
“Win was God to a lot of people.” In fact Ed had privately expressed concern that Win might spend his retirement trying to prove he was still the only real minister of our church. It does happen.
Lucy finished, using up her tub of hummus and loaf of bread in the same instant. She’s the only person besides my sister Vel who could pull this off. Under the wild corkscrew curls, behind the gleaming jade eyes, is a realtor who can figure exactly how much money a potential buyer should spend on a house, and a friend who can assess how much advice to give before a friendship starts to wobble.
