Make Haste Slowly Read online

  MAKE HASTE SLOWLY

  Book One of the Short Creek Mystery Series

  By

  Amy Rognlie

  Make Haste Slowly

  Published by Mountain Brook Ink

  White Salmon, WA U.S.A.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Mountain Brook Ink, nor do we vouch for their content.

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Blackaby, Henry, Blackaby, Richard. Experiencing God Day by Day, copyright 2006. B&H Publishing Group, Nashville. Used by Permission, all rights reserved.

  Goudge, Elizabeth, The White Witch, copyright 2016 by Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Shillito, Edward. Jesus of the Scars. Public domain.

  Thomson, Francis. The Hound of Heaven. Public domain.

  © 2017 Amy Rognlie

  The Team: Miralee Ferrell, Nikki Wright, Cindy Jackson

  Cover Design: Indie Cover Design, Lynnette Bonner Designer

  Mountain Brook Ink is an inspirational publisher offering fiction you can believe in.

  Printed in the U.S.A. 2017

  Contents

  Quote

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sneak Peek at Book Two

  Author Note

  Book Discussion Questions

  “We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear," he said. "Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek.”

  ―Elizabeth Goudge, The White Witch

  Dedication

  Dedicated to the memory of my two earthly fathers,

  Thomas Lee Burns

  (1942-1970)

  and

  Salvatore “Sam” Spano

  (1938-2015)

  I can’t wait to see you again. Thank you both for your unwavering love for God and for providing me with a solid foundation for my faith and my life.

  You loved me well.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Danny Rognlie, Jan Spano, Vicki Burtchell and Autumn McMurry for reading my manuscript, giving helpful feedback and cheering me on the entire way.

  Thank you to my husband, Greg Rognlie, for the endless supply of chocolate and encouraging words.

  Thank you to my students (you know who you are) for your excitement and enthusiastic encouragement that spurs me on to continue both writing and teaching writing.

  Thank you to my Heavenly Father, who is the Giver of all good things.

  Chapter One

  It all started on July 1st, exactly four days before my thirty-sixth birthday. I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary, especially since I’d moved into town a few months earlier—who knew it was my birthday? But here it was, an oversized gift bag on the back doorstep of my florist shop.

  The pugs strained at their leashes, but I held them firmly. No telling what that bag contained. And I had to be cautious, especially since I could see that a hand was still clutching the package.

  Edging closer, I was momentarily relieved to discover that an arm and a body belonged to the gift-bearing hand. I jumped and stumbled back. A person was lying under the crepe myrtle tree next to my porch. A man. Middle-aged, maybe.

  Dear God.

  I glanced toward the small church next door, but I wouldn’t get any help from that direction. Mona would never be there this early, for sure, and I didn’t see the reverend’s white pickup yet, either.

  I could call 911, but what if I was overreacting? What if it was simply a bum who had found a quiet place to rest? I peeked again at the…body, and decided I wasn’t overreacting. My knees were about to give way, and I definitely needed my inhaler.

  Punching in 911, I retreated to wait in my van. It didn’t take long.

  Three hours later I sat on my steps, this time relating the morning’s events to my best friend, Mona. Mona’s ever-present cloud of perfume hovered around us in the humid morning, and the pugs, Purl and Intarsia, lounged nearby in the shade of the pecan tree, their eyelids drooping.

  Mona settled her ample self on the step next to me. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me, Callie.”

  “I did call you.”

  Mona snorted. “Yeah, after all the excitement was over. Who was it? Was he dead?”

  I understood Mona’s angst. After all, it’s not every day that one finds a body next to one’s porch—especially in this town. Nothing exciting ever happens in Short Creek, Texas.

  “It wasn’t anyone I recognized. All I remember is he had brownish-gray hair that was trimmed close around his neck and ears, like he had recently gotten a haircut.” How had I remembered that? I shuddered. “Sheriff Earl and a deputy got here first. But they made me go into the shop while they searched for his ID and stuff. Todd and his crew didn’t seem to know him either.”

  If the volunteer fire department squad didn’t know the guy, then no one would. Todd Whitney and his men knew everyone.

  Mona mulled that over for a minute. “What about the bag? What was in it? Did you keep it?”

  “Nope. They had the bomb-sniffing dogs out here and the whole bit. I guess they decided it wasn’t explosive, so Todd took it to the station and said they’d release it to me after they had a chance to look at it.”

  I pictured the large gift bag. Bright yellow with race cars—not exactly my style. But still, it had looked benign enough. Who knew what it might hold? Was it important enough that someone would die trying to get it to me? Or was the stranger’s death only an unusual coincidence? I couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Let’s forget about it for a little while.” I stood and stretched my legs, careful not to look at the flattened spot of grass under the tree. “I don’t know about you, but I need a cup of tea.”

  Mona glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to get to work. The phone will be ringing off the hook, and you know the boss.”

  I grinned, picturing Mona’s “boss.” Blond, single, and thirty-something, Reverend Houston Gregory made for the most interesting parson I’d ever known. I attended one of the other churches in town, though, so Handsome Houston and I were acquainted more as neighbors than anything.

  Mona shoved a brown paper lunch bag into my hand, ending my visions of Houston Gregory. “Put this in your fridge for me. The one at the church is broken. I’ll be over at noon.” She headed toward the hedge that separated the church’s parking lot from mine, then turned to give me a stern look.

  “Don’t open the mystery bag without me!”

  I si
ghed. In the last few hours, my life had once again gotten way more complicated than I would have ever wished for. I wrestled open the door of my shop, C. Willikers, and unhooked the girls from their leashes. It was already ten o’clock in the morning, and I hadn’t even tidied up the store yet from last night’s successful Knit, Sip and Gab session.

  The landline was ringing, the plants needed watering, and the dogs were staring at me. Why hadn’t I opened the blinds yet so they could sleep in the square of sunshine? they were likely wondering. Pugs need their after-waking-in-the-morning nap, after all. Giving in to the two pairs of brown and beseeching eyes, I obediently opened the blinds.

  The sun flooded in through the large bay window, illuminating the dust on the bookshelves. Had I forgotten to dust again? I glanced at the little plaque that Mona had given me the other day—a large, wooly sheep with the words, “You can touch the dust, but please don’t write in it.”

  I sighed again. Owning my florist/book/knitting shop was turning out to be a much bigger deal than I had imagined. After what I’d been through the last few years, I was basically looking for peace. Forget peace. I’d settle for normalcy. So when Aunt Dot suggested I purchase her house and move here to Short Creek, I took her up on it.

  I’d always thought it would be fun to own a yarn store or a florist shop. Or both at once. I had pictured myself sitting serenely, surrounded by shelves and shelves of gorgeous yarn, knitting up a storm while I chatted with other likewise serene knitters. Plants and flowers bloomed around us in glorious profusion, while birds sang outside the window, and—

  “Ha!” I said out loud. The dogs jumped, then stared at me again.

  Life in general, it seemed, hadn’t turned out quite how I thought it would. Take my name, for example. One would think that a woman like me would have a lovely, romantic name like Sophia or Charlotte. I would have even settled for Anastasia or Jacqueline. But instead, I got Calendula. Calendula! Of course, such a name needs to be shortened to something a little more livable, so Callie it is.

  I guess it fits me, in a way, since I’m not exactly a supermodel. I have never been able to figure out what to do with my stick-straight, mud-brown hair, so I let it be what it is—straight and brown. At least I’m not too tall or too short, though I could stand to lose a few pounds. And I tried wearing contact lenses, but they weren’t worth the pain. I’ll stick with my glasses, thank you very much. Besides, they help hide the little wrinkles that are forming around my thirty-something eyes—and the pugs don’t care what I look like.

  But now this! What if the stranger lying under my crepe myrtle was a…a murderer or something? Or maybe he had come to warn me of imminent danger. My heart started to pound.

  “Stop it, Callie!” I whopped the feather duster against the counter.

  Cut it out, now. I had read my share of Nancy Drew mysteries, so I knew how these things worked. The corpse would turn out to be the little old man from down the street, who just happened to have a heart attack under my tree. No mystery; no foul play. The real mystery was what was in the bag. And that probably wouldn’t turn out to be much of a mystery either. And maybe the bag wasn’t even meant for me. Maybe—

  The landline rang again, and I decided I’d better answer it this time. The dust would have to wait. I tripped over the dogs as I grabbed for the phone.

  “Good morning, C. Will—”

  “Hey, Willie. Sheriff Earl Markham down here at the city offices.”

  Had he called me Willie? I pulled the phone slightly away from my ear. Sheriff Earl was not a quiet man, especially when he was wound up about something.

  “Sheriff Earl. I’m glad you called—”

  “Y’all can come down and get this package whenever ya want, ’cept don’t come down at suppertime.”

  See? Exactly as I thought. The gift bag was no big deal.

  I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the city offices a minute later. In Short Creek, everything was a minute away.

  I poked my head into the receptionist’s office. “Hello?”

  No one appeared, so I wandered through the office into the volunteer fire department. Maybe Todd, the department captain, was still on duty. I knew him from church, sort of. Really, I only knew his name, but—

  “Got yer stuff right here, Miss Willie.” Sheriff Earl shuffled in through the door, a box in his hands. “This here box was inside the bag. Careful, though. Not real sturdy. Bottom might fall out on ya.”

  “It’s Callie.”

  “Say again?”

  “My name is Callie, not Willie.” I took the open box from him and glanced down inside. I couldn’t tell what was in there, because the contents were hidden by the gift bag that laid on top. From the looks of it, Sheriff Earl and his boys had opened the bag with about as much care as a German Shepherd tearing into a new bone.

  “Sorry, ma’am.” He pushed his glasses up farther on his nose. “Guess I got yer name mixed up with the name of your store. Kind of the same, ain’t they?”

  I met his suddenly intense gaze with a bland smile. “Well, they both have two of the letter ‘l’ in the middle.”

  Right.

  But he couldn’t know the story behind the names, could he?

  “I’ll need ya to set down right here and tell me everything that happened this morning.” He motioned to a battered office chair.

  “Again?” I felt sick to my stomach. “I already told you all I know.”

  “Well, now, we gotta rule out all the possibilities, ma’am.”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think this backwater, bowlegged sheriff was calling me a suspect. It was going to be a long day.

  I drove the six blocks back to the shop after Earl’s interrogation, more shaken than I’d like to admit. How did finding a body under one’s tree make one a murder suspect? God, have mercy. I half-groaned, half-prayed. I didn’t have the strength to go through something like this again. It felt like history was repeating itself. I thought I had put all of that behind me but—

  He had somehow found out about the case. That’s the only way he could have known the connection between my name and the name of my store. When I moved down here to Texas, I decided to make a clean break of things, which is why I had gone back to using my maiden name. I didn’t have anything to hide, exactly. Simply wanted a new start to be a new start. But I didn’t want to forget completely, so that’s why I named the store “C. Willikers,” since that was my name for almost a decade.

  But somehow, the weaselly little sheriff had learned information about me.

  Callie Willie.

  My husband, Kev, had teasingly called me that until eventually, it had gotten shortened to Willie. Even some of my friends used the silly name. But no one here knew that.

  Or rather, no one here should know that.

  Why would a sheriff in Short Creek, Texas have a reason to know about my past?

  And why would he practically tell me he knew about it?

  I had to get a grip. Focus my mind on something else. I blew out my breath.

  The mystery gift, now a plain brown box devoid of its garish bag, stared at me from the passenger seat. I really, really wanted another peek inside, but I had promised Mona that I wouldn’t open it without her.

  Mona has been my best friend since I moved to Short Creek a few months ago. The fact that she is twenty years older than me and married doesn’t seem to matter. Mona is a spunky gal, as my Aunt Dot would say, and she attached herself to me the minute I arrived in town. Literally.

  The little town of Short Creek, Texas, still surrounded by corn fields and horse pastures, is a far cry from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. I had been shocked at how much lower the housing prices were here. Back home, I had barely been able to pay my mortgage on my decent school social worker salary. And despite being only eight miles from the nearest city, Short Creek had managed to retain its small-town feel. It currently boasted four churches, two schools, two gas stations, a post office, a donut shop—because no self-respecting
town in Texas could even be called a town without a donut shop—a dollar store, a barbeque joint, and one traffic light.

  I had safely driven a large U-Haul all the way from Columbus, Ohio, alone, only to be rear-ended by Mona as I arrived in Short Creek. We’ve been friends ever since.

  I pulled up in front of my shop and sat there, letting the air conditioning run while I gathered myself. Mona stuck her head out of the side door of the church, waving and grinning as if I’d arrived from starring in a TV show or something. I knew she’d be over to inspect the contents of the mystery gift before I could even open my van door.

  Sure enough, by the time I reached the door of the shop, she was bustling across the church parking lot as fast as her short legs could carry her. Houston, the pastor, trailed behind her, appearing more rattled than his usual unflappable self.

  I wedged the box under one arm and held the door open with my foot.

  “Callie!” Houston looked me over, as if appraising my mental state. “Mona told me about your…uh… excitement this morning.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I guess you could call it that.”

  “Are you okay? That must have been such a shock.” He used the voice I assumed he usually reserved for ministering to desperately ill parishioners. “I imagine it was difficult to—”

  “Well, open the box! I’m dying to know what’s in there!” Mona burst out.

  I groaned. “You didn’t say that.”

  “What?”

  Houston’s eyes met mine above Mona’s head. We both knew from past experience that it wasn’t worth explaining. Or rather, trying to explain.