A Wrinkle in Thyme

by Sarah Fox

  “Winnifred!” Evangeline hollered, scarcely even glancing at Krista and me.

  “She’s not here,” I said, relieved to hear that my voice sounded steady even as my legs shook beneath me.

  Evangeline directed her attention our way for the first time. “The party is tomorrow. She should be here getting ready.”

  “She has been,” I said in Winnifred’s defense. “And Krista and I have been helping.”

  “Winnifred’s at my grandmother’s place.” Krista’s voice quivered with fear, but so slightly that I hoped Evangeline wouldn’t notice. “My grandma just got out of the hospital, and Aunt Winnie’s cooking dinner for her.”

  Evangeline let out an exasperated huff, as if Winnifred had somehow greatly inconvenienced her. She took a few steps farther into the kitchen. I shifted to the side, but it was pointless. I could no longer hide the letters from her view.

  Her gaze landed on the old papers, but to my relief, she didn’t seem to take much notice of them.

  She rested her hands on her hips. “I hope everything is in order for tomorrow. I generously donated money to cover all the expenses. I don’t want the party to be a flop.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be.” My heart rate slowed as I realized that Evangeline didn’t seem to have any suspicions about what Krista and I had been discussing when she arrived.

  “Did you see the decorations?” Krista asked, sounding like she was desperate to make polite conversation. “They look great.”

  “They’ll do, I suppose.” Evangeline said without a shred of enthusiasm.

  She turned for the back door. “I guess I’ll have to phone Winnifred to make sure everything is in order.”

  She strolled out of the museum without glancing back.

  It took great restraint to keep myself from slamming the door behind her. I locked it as soon as I had it shut, and I watched out the window until I saw Evangeline drive off down the alley in her black BMW.

  Krista collapsed into a kitchen chair. “That was frightening. I was so afraid she might have overheard us somehow. She probably would have had a fit if she found out that we knew about her family’s secret.”

  I sank into a chair too. “I think we would have had to worry about more than just a fit.” I tapped the letters. “Jack said that Flora asked him how he knew the Oldershaws’ secret. He might have originally mentioned the secret to her in person, but I’m guessing he told her in a previous letter.”

  Three seconds ticked by loudly on the kitchen’s wall clock.

  “Hold on.” Krista caught on to what I was getting at. “You mean, he probably told her in the letters I donated to the museum? The ones that were stolen the night Jane Fassbender was killed?”

  I nodded. “When I made that phone call a few minutes ago, it was picked up by someone at Oldershaw Confections. It’s a local number, so it probably connects to the company’s office here in Wildwood Cove.”

  “And that was the last number Jane dialed before she died.” Krista put two and two together. “Jane told someone at Oldershaw Confections about what was in the letters.”

  “And shortly after, she was murdered.”

  Krista’s face paled. “We’re lucky to be alive! If Evangeline had noticed the letters here on the table, she might have wanted to kill us too!”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” I said. “My legs turned to jelly when I saw her.”

  Krista pressed a hand over her heart. “I’m so glad I didn’t know that she was a killer when she was here. I would have passed out.”

  “We don’t know for sure that she’s the killer,” I pointed out. “But she’s now one of the two likeliest culprits, in my mind.”

  “The other being her husband?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” When I picked up my phone, I realized that my hands were trembling slightly. “I’m going to call the sheriff.”

  While I did that, Krista put the kettle on, declaring that she needed a cup of peppermint tea to settle her nerves.

  I counted my lucky stars when Ray answered the phone. I didn’t want to have to leave a message about something so important.

  I tried my best to sound coherent as I told him about the newly discovered letters, what Jack revealed in them, and what I thought had happened on the night Jane was killed. I probably wasn’t as clear as I’d hoped to be, because Ray asked me to repeat a couple of things.

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he told me after asking where I was. “I’ll need to get those letters from you.”

  “See you soon,” I said before hanging up.

  Krista had found mugs and tea bags in one of the kitchen cupboards. She offered to make me a cup, and I accepted. My nerves needed settling too.

  “I’m going to tell Aunt Winnie what we found.” Krista pulled out her phone and started composing a series of text messages.

  I followed her lead and sent Brett a message, telling him what Krista and I had discovered. Then I got to my feet and paced across the kitchen, unable to sit still. I glanced nervously out the window, glad to see that the backyard was empty. At least it was still light out. It would be dusk soon, but for the moment, we’d be able to see anyone approaching the house from the back, as long as we kept an eye on the window.

  I couldn’t help but worry that Evangeline might come back. What if she realized that the papers we had on the table resembled the stolen letters?

  The kettle boiled, and Krista grabbed it after setting her phone aside. She brewed two cups of tea and set them on the table, but I didn’t touch mine right away. Even after the tea had a chance to cool, I couldn’t bring myself to take more than a sip or two. My stomach was too wound up in knots.

  I was about to check my phone to see if Brett had replied to my text when another loud knock sent my heart into overdrive again. This time, someone was at the front door.

  “That must be the sheriff,” Krista said, already hurrying toward the front of the museum.

  “Hold on.” I scurried after her. “Ask who it is before you—”

  Too late.

  She’d already unlocked and opened the door.

  Richard Hobbs pushed his way into the foyer, an antique pistol aimed right at us.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Evening, ladies.”

  Richard’s voice sent a shiver of fear along the back of my neck.

  He took a step toward us. Krista moved back and bumped into me. She clung to my arm as Richard shoved the door shut with his foot.

  “Isn’t she a beauty?” he asked with a nod at the antique pistol in his hand. “I bought her especially for Wild West Days. Good thing I got some ammunition for it too. Turns out it’s good for more than just a prop.” He let out a brief chuckle that only heightened my fear.

  “What’s this about?” I wondered if there was any chance that we could bluff our way out of this.

  Richard’s cold smile dashed any hopes of that. “Let’s not play stupid. I know you found more letters from that thief, Jack O’Malley. My wife called me, wanting me to run an errand for her. She mentioned that she saw you with some letters right here in the museum. It drives me crazy when she tells me every detail of her day, but this time it actually came in handy. As soon as she told me about the two of you, I decided to hotfoot it right on over here.”

  I knew we had to keep Richard talking. Ray might not arrive for another ten minutes. Somehow Krista and I needed to delay what was coming until he could get here.

  I fought to keep myself from panicking. “Why do you care about the letters?” I asked, my voice steadier than I’d thought it would be.

  Richard frowned. “That’s none of your business.”

  “If you’re going to kill us, why not tell us?” Krista said, with only a slight tremble to her voice.

  I gave her arm a grateful squeeze. I was glad for the help with ke
eping Richard occupied.

  Instead of answering Krista’s question, he waved the gun toward the corridor. “Go down the hall. To the office.”

  We had no choice but to obey. I wasn’t keen on taking my eyes off the gun, but we turned around slowly and made our way toward Jane’s office. I couldn’t help but feel we were walking to our final stop. Somehow, we had to make sure that didn’t turn out to be the case.

  “When Jane called Oldershaw Confections on the night of her death, you answered, didn’t you?” I guessed.

  “You know even more than I thought,” Richard said from behind us as we entered the office.

  I wondered if I’d made a mistake, but I was pretty sure he’d already decided to silence us permanently before I’d mentioned the phone call.

  “And it’s a good thing I answered,” he went on. “I almost missed the call. It came as I was getting ready to leave the office for the gala. If Jane hadn’t reached me that night, who knows who else she would have blabbed to.”

  “Why did she call you?” Krista asked as she and I slowly turned around to face Richard and his pistol again.

  “She was hoping to get Evangeline, but my wife was already waiting for me out in her car. Jane said she wanted to give Evangeline a heads-up before some damaging information got out. Like she was doing us a favor.” He practically spat out the last word.

  “So you decided to silence her and get rid of the letters,” I said. “And Jane’s phone, so no one would know she’d contacted you.”

  “I met her at the museum and tried to buy her silence. When that didn’t work, I did what I had to do.”

  Krista and I stood with our backs to Jane’s desk. Richard had stopped one step inside the room, blocking the route to the door. Not that we could have made a run for it with the gun pointed right at us.

  “And then you broke into Dolly Maxwell’s house the other night to look for more letters.” I knew I was right about that.

  “If you hadn’t interrupted me, maybe I would have found them,” Richard said. “Then we could have avoided this whole mess. Unless,” he added as an afterthought, “you found them somewhere else.”

  “You attacked my grandmother!” Anger had replaced some of Krista’s fear. “She’s a frail old lady!”

  “And it pained me to do it.” Despite his words, Richard didn’t sound the least bit sorry. “But she stood in my way, and I had interests to protect.”

  “You mean your wife’s wealth and the reputation of her family’s company,” I said.

  He glared at me. “You see, that’s exactly what I was afraid of. I figured that scoundrel O’Malley might have spilled the secret in more than one letter. I was right to get over here on the double.”

  “But you’re still too late,” I said. “We’re not the only ones who know what’s in the letters.”

  Richard smirked. “A likely story. But I highly doubt it.”

  “It’s true,” Krista said. “And the cops are on their way here as we speak.”

  “Plus,” I added, “the police have the records for Jane’s cell phone now. They’ll know Jane called Oldershaw Confections shortly before she died.”

  The first crack in Richard’s confidence showed, but only for the briefest moment. His expression hardened. “No more chitchat.”

  My heart broke into a gallop, but I fought to stay calm. “If you shoot us, the neighbors will hear the gunshots.”

  “Maybe.” Richard didn’t appear concerned. “But maybe not. Haven’t you heard the racket from the park? They’re even firing off blanks every time they do that stagecoach robbery performance. If the neighbors are home, I doubt they’d think twice about a couple more shots, even if they do sound a bit closer than the others.”

  There could be some truth to that. The realization tightened the knots in my stomach.

  Richard took a step closer to us. Krista and I tried to back up, but there was nowhere for us to go with the desk right behind us. I searched my memory, trying to recall if there was anything on Jane’s desk that I could use as a weapon. I didn’t think there was the last time I’d looked, and if I so much as glanced over my shoulder now, that might prompt Richard to shoot us sooner.

  “I really am sorry to have to do this,” he said, “but there’s no other way around it. I tried to tie up all the loose ends earlier. I even managed to keep my alibi sealed tight. If you two had minded your own business, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  The comment about his alibi brought me a new understanding.

  “You’re the driver who hit Tommy Park.” I felt certain I had that right. I’d previously discounted the idea, but Richard had just told us that he and his wife had driven to the charity event in her car, the black BMW, rather than his red Ferrari.

  Richard narrowed his eyes at me. “What makes you think I was involved in that?”

  “You had to leave the gala to kill Jane, right? And there was a risk that someone could have noted your absence.”

  “But they didn’t.” He sneered. “They were all so focused on my wife making her ridiculously long speech. She never knows when to stop.”

  “But you were worried about the photos,” I guessed.

  “All right. So I was. That pesky photographer kid snapped a photo of me as I came back into the banquet room. I didn’t want anyone seeing that picture or noticing that I was missing from most of the other photos. They might have started poking holes in my alibi. So I took steps to make sure that wouldn’t happen.”

  “You intentionally ran Tommy down and stole his camera. Taking his phone and wallet made it look like a regular robbery and prevented him from calling for help.”

  Richard glared at me. “You’re a smart woman.” It didn’t sound like a compliment.

  “But you weren’t smart enough,” I said. “Tommy uploaded the photos to his cloud before leaving the gala.”

  “So my wife told me. I was worried at first, but luckily a couple of women mostly blocked the view of me returning to the gala. And Evangeline never even noticed that I was absent in all but a handful of the photos. She’s always so focused on herself. She didn’t notice that I left right after the gala either. She was too busy chatting with the caterer and the last guests to leave. I got the kid’s camera and went back to the banquet hall without her realizing I wasn’t there all along. Sometimes I think she forgets I even exist.”

  He sounded sorry for himself, but I didn’t have an ounce of pity for him.

  He squared his shoulders. “Enough chatter. I need to get back to Wild West Days. I don’t want to miss out on my chance to ride the mechanical bull.”

  He pointed the gun directly at my heart.

  A shadow shifted out in the hallway.

  There was a blur of movement followed by a sharp crack.

  Richard’s eyes widened for the briefest of moments. Then he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

  I stared at him, trying to register what had happened.

  “Aunt Winnie!” Krista practically threw herself across the room and into her great-aunt’s arms.

  “You’re unharmed?” Winnifred asked as she hugged Krista.

  “Yes.” Krista pulled back, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  “Marley?” Winnifred checked with me.

  I managed to find my voice. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “My mother always thought it was frivolous of my father to have this silver-handled cane commissioned,” Winnifred said, as calm as could be. “I think she’d take that back now, if she could.”

  She smiled at the cane she held by the shaft. For the first time, I noticed a smear of blood on the silver handle.

  Richard still lay unmoving on the floor. Blood seeped from a wound on the back of his head.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Woodcombe,” I said with heartfelt gratitude. “You stopped a murderer and saved our lives.”


  Her blue eyes were bright as she smiled at me. “It’s Winnifred, remember?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “How did you know we were in trouble?” I asked Winnifred the next evening.

  The museum’s reopening party was in full swing. Twilight had descended over Wildwood Cove, but the lights and lanterns Patricia and I had hung the day before lit up the backyard. People mingled, chatting with friends and neighbors while enjoying the delicious finger foods that Diana the caterer had provided for the event.

  “I didn’t until I opened the back door of the museum and heard Richard’s voice,” Winnifred replied.

  She held a flute of champagne in one hand while her other hand rested on the handle of her cane. It was a plain mahogany cane rather than the silver-handled one—the sheriff’s office still had possession of that one.

  Ray had arrived on the scene moments after Winnifred did, and the three of us hadn’t had a chance to chat since.

  “I’d just set Dolly’s dinner on the table when I received Krista’s text message,” Winnifred said. “I was so eager to get a look at the letters myself that I decided to head over to the museum right away. When I realized Richard was there…After reading Krista’s text, I knew there was a good chance that Jane’s killer was either him or Evangeline. And what innocent reason would Richard have to visit the museum that evening? None that I could think of. So, I decided a bit of stealth was in order.”

  “Thank goodness you did,” I said.

  Krista put an arm around her great-aunt and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “You’re our hero.”

  I smiled. “I second that.”

  “I’m just glad I showed up when I did,” Winnifred said.

  I thought back over everything that had happened. “There’s one thing that still doesn’t quite make sense to me. I overheard Jane and Evangeline arguing about the plans for this party. When Evangeline suggested she might go over Jane’s head to get what she wanted, Jane threatened her. She said she knew something about Evangeline, something to do with the Sea Spray Cottage Resort in Port Angeles last fall.”