When Paisley returned, she set our drinks along with the Amish Bible Cake on the coffee table. Matilda thanked her. “This is a beautiful house. Have you lived here for long?”
Paisley nodded. “We moved here soon after we were married, almost thirty years ago.”
“You must have been married awfully young,” Matilda said.
Paisley chuckled. Matilda’s comment obviously pleased her.
“That’s a long time to be married,” Eleanor said. “I think if I had been married to a man that long, I would have murdered him.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. I quickly looked at Paisley. She too was shocked but soon covered her expression. “Well, I can’t say I haven’t thought about it from time to time,” she said with a chuckle. “Digby can be irritating at times.”
I wondered if she did know about his affair with Gemma or whether she simply suspected it. Or maybe she did know, and she had been the one who killed Gemma. I realized she was drinking brandy, given that she was drinking from a brandy balloon. Gemma had been killed by shots. I wondered if she had been doing shots with Paisley.
Paisley changed the subject. “We do produce gift baskets of the goat products,” she said. “I’ll just pop outside to our storage room and bring back one for you.” She put down her drink and left by the French doors overlooking expansive lawns. I watched as she walked out to a small wooden building.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Matilda shook her head. I realized that we hadn’t seen Digby since we had been in the living room and clearly, Matilda was afraid he would overhear if we said something. Instead, I said, “Isn’t this a beautiful house!”
“Yes, it is indeed.” Matilda stood up and walked over to a dresser against the wall and then walked back to her seat. Paisley wasn’t away long. She returned with a big basket covered in clear cellophane wrap and sporting a huge purple big bow. “I can donate this,” she said. “Will this do?”
“It absolutely perfect,” I gushed. “Thank you so much. That’s very kind of you.”
“Not at all,” she said. “You said your sister is Amish?”
I nodded. “My twin sister, Rebecca, has the Amish cupcake store in town.”
“So, you were raised Amish?”
I nodded again. “Yes. I left the Amish when after my rumspringa. I never rejoined the community.”
Paisley nodded. “It was actually an Amish lady who got me involved with goats.”
That got my interest. “Oh, really?”
She nodded again. “I can’t remember her name. I was a child at the time and she had become friends with my mother. This wasn’t in these parts, mind you—we lived in Ohio. She had a little milking goat, and she showed me how to milk goats. That’s what got me interested in goats. I was actually showing a Saanen when I met Digby. He was already heavily into breeding Alpines, so I just kind of fell into breeding Alpines too.”
“Ah yes, well, it’s very kind of you to make the donation,” I said. “I’m sure everyone in the goat community is shocked by Gemma Calhoun’s death.”
Before Paisley could say respond, Matilda added, “It was a lovely funeral service, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.” Paisley’s expression gave nothing away. “Gemma was very dedicated to her goats. I wonder if they’ll ever find out who murdered her.”
I thought that a strange thing to say. “I’m sure they’ll find out sooner or later,” I said. “The police generally do solve murder cases in the end.”
She shook her head. “No, not always. I watch those unsolved crime shows on TV, and even if they think they know who it is, they often have trouble proving it.”
“Yes, I like watching those shows too,” Matilda said. “Who do you think murdered her?”
Paisley looked surprised. “I don’t know.”
“But you must have thought about it,” Matilda pressed her. “People like us—that is, people who like those crime shows on TV—have analytical minds, don’t we? I’m sure you have your suspicions.”
Paisley seemed to be considering Matilda’s words. After a brief silence, she said, “I wouldn’t like to say anything bad about anybody, but I do suspect her son, Horatio. He and Gemma had a rocky relationship, and he inherits everything. And he wasted no time getting rid of her goats. I heard he sold them for a pittance. That would have upset Gemma. That’s probably why he did it.”
“Yes, it does seem suspicious,” I said, “but why murder her at a goat show? Surely, he had plenty of opportunity to murder her somewhere else.”
Paisley adjusted a blue and white cushion behind her back. “But then it would point suspicion to him if he murdered her at her home.”
“Did you see Horatio at the goat show at all?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No, but if he murdered Gemma, then he would have been hiding from everybody.”
“Somebody needs to look into that man’s alibi,” Matilda said.
Chapter 16
I had tossed and turned all night. I was still concerned about Rebecca leasing the apartment to Aaron Alexander, although Rebecca seemed entirely unconcerned.
I tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen. I enjoyed the morning solitude with a fresh pot of steaming coffee, and the years of awaking before dawn when I was Amish had stayed with me. Now I didn’t have the chores, but I still enjoyed that hour of the morning when everything was quiet. It seemed as though I was the only person awake in the whole world.
Alas, the peaceful solitude did not last long. Matilda burst through the door and slammed a newspaper in front of me, causing my coffee to jiggle. She jabbed her stubby finger on the paper. “Look at that!”
I took a sip of coffee before looking at the paper. Baby born with six legs might be alien, was the blaring headline. I was entirely confused. I looked up at Matilda. “What’s this about?”
Matilda sighed and stabbed her finger on the paper again. I looked down at the photo. “It’s obviously photoshopped,” I said.
She planted her palm on her forehead. “Not the photo, Jane! Look at the name! The name of the journalist.”
I looked at the paper, and then the penny dropped. “Horatio Calhoun-Blye!” I exclaimed. “He’s a journalist!”
“I think that’s giving him too much credit,” she said, “but now we know he works for this newspaper. Obviously, the paper can’t be taken seriously.”
Eleanor walked into the room and sensibly headed straight for the coffee pot. “Yes, and it looks as though he has an alibi.”
I was almost disappointed. “An alibi?” I repeated. “Are you sure?”
Matilda shook her head. She poured some coffee into a bowl and then broke some stale bread into the bowl. I had never gotten used to the idea of coffee soup, but Matilda seemed to enjoy it. “We can’t be certain of anything,” she said. “It’s dangerous to be overconfident. That sort of thing can get you killed.”
Eleanor sat opposite me and slipped her coffee noisily. “He was doing a story out of town, supposedly at the same time that Gemma was murdered,” she said. “That’s what we are investigating today.”
I got up and poured myself another coffee. After I sat down, I said, “Let me know what you find out.”
The sisters exchanged glances. “What you mean?” Matilda said. “You’re coming with us.”
“But I have to work,” I said.
“But you said Rebecca is shutting the shop at midday today to get ready for tomorrow’s fundraising market,” Matilda countered. “Come on Jane, no more excuses. The three of us will investigate the suspect’s alibi.”
I knew when I was beaten. “Okay, but how do we investigate his alibi?”
“I’ve found the newspaper’s YouTube channel.” Eleanor spun her iPad around and showed me. A news reporter was standing by some fields pointing to road construction. She said the new road was going to bypass local businesses in a nearby town, and the businesses were all worried they’d lose their income. They had staged a protest.
When I fi
nished watching, I looked up. “Well, there were no aliens thankfully, but I don’t see what it has to do with Horatio.”
“He’s at twenty-five seconds,” Eleanor said. After I shot her a look, she added, “You can see Horatio in the background at twenty-five seconds, directly behind the journalist.”
I watched the video again. “Yes, it’s definitely him for sure,” I said, “but this footage could have been taken before his mother was murdered.”
“That’s what we have to find out,” Matilda said. “We’ll look into it some more and you can then collect us directly after you finish work.”
“Where will we go?”
“That’s precisely what we have to research. When you finish work, we’ll be ready to go, and we’ll tell you where we’re going then.”
I sighed. “Okay, but are you sure we can’t leave this to Detective Stirling now? After all, he hasn’t questioned you again.”
“No, not yet.” Matilda dropped her spoon into her bowl of coffee soup. “We can’t afford for him to look too much into our backgrounds.”
“Matilda!” Eleanor exclaimed.
“What backgrounds are those?” I asked her. I often wondered about their backgrounds, considering they were knowledgeable about all sorts of obscure matters and were even skilled in martial arts.
“Never you mind,” Matilda said. “If we wanted everything about us to be known, then we would tell everybody. As it is, we need this murder solved, and the sooner the better.”
I held up both hands in a gesture of defeat. “Okay. I’ll collect you after work.”
“And don’t hang about,” Matilda said. “Get back here as soon as you can.”
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully. When we shut the shop, once more I waited for Rebecca to drive away in her buggy to make sure she wasn’t left alone with Aaron Alexander, who was still high on my list of suspects.
I drove home, hoping I would have time to have a nice cup of hot meadow tea and put my feet up for a while, but Matilda and Eleanor were already waiting on the front porch for me. They hurried down the stairs to the car. “Let’s go,” Matilda said. Before I had a chance to ask where we were going, she told me. “We’re going to that town that was in the newspaper.”
“Did you find out anything else?” I asked them.
Matilda was the one who answered me. “We found out that Horatio has been working for that paper for some years now, and while it is a sensationalist newspaper, we sometimes do serious stories. His story on the road closure hasn’t hit the paper yet.”
“That’s right,” Eleanor said. “I actually called the paper. I pretended to be one of the storekeepers and asked when the story would be published, but the lady said she didn’t know anything about it. She said I would have to wait until it came out.”
“I also called the television station and asked them when it was filmed, and it was indeed filmed the very day that Gemma was murdered,” Matilda told me.
“So how far away is this town exactly?”
“An hour and a half.”
I gasped. “But that’s a three-hour round trip! And I’m having dinner with Damon at six.”
They both chuckled, and then Matilda added, “Then we had better not waste any time in that town. We’ll just question people and leave. We can always go back another day if we need to follow up.”
“So, what exactly do we need to find out?” I asked her.
“In the video, Horatio was standing next to a man,” Matilda told me. “I did a reverse image search and found he owns a shoe store. We’ll question him and see if Horatio interviewed him. Leave all the talking to us.”
“But what if the store closes early today?” I asked her.
Eleanor, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to me, said, “No. They’re staying open longer hours because they’re worried about the road closure. It was all in that video you watched.”
I was worried this was a wild goose chase, and I was also worried I wouldn’t have enough time to go back and get ready for dinner with Damon.
I was also concerned that the shoe store man wouldn’t want to speak with us.
When we arrived in town, I was surprised to see the stores were quite busy. “The publicity has obviously done them some good,” I remarked.
Eleanor leaned across me and pointed. “Park over there. It’s not far from there to the shoe shop.”
I did as she asked. Fortunately for us, there were no customers in the shoe store. The man we had seen in the photo was there. His face lit up when he saw what he no doubt thought were three customers walking through the door.
Matilda spoke first. “Hello, Mr. Larkin?”
He nodded.
“I’m afraid we’re not here to buy shoes. We’re following up on an alibi. We’re from the Birtwistle Detective Agency, and we’re here to ask questions about the alibi of Mr. Horatio Calhoun-Blye.”
“Oh yes, that man from the newspaper.”
“So, he did interview you?”
The man nodded. “Yes, I already told the police that.”
“Detective Stirling?”
The man nodded. “Yes, that was him. He gave me the third degree.”
Matilda afforded him a warm smile. “We don’t actually work with Detective Stirling,” she said. “If you wouldn’t mind going through things again with us, that would be a big help.”
“Sure, I’ll help while I don’t have any customers.” He looked pointedly at the door.
“So, you do remember Mr. Calhoun-Blye interviewing you for his newspaper?” Before the man had a chance to respond, Matilda added, “Do you remember the exact time he interviewed you?”
“Sure I do. It was exactly at eleven. I put a sign on my door saying I would be back at eleven, and he started questioning me at eleven, which worried me. I thought I might get back to the shop to find angry customers.” He shrugged. “But when I got back, there was nobody here, so I could have spoken with him longer, after all.”
“Thanks, you’ve been very helpful,” Matilda said.
We walked out of the store and stood on the pavement. “Then Horatio definitely can’t be the murderer, I suppose,” Matilda said sadly. “That’s an ironclad alibi if ever I’ve heard one.”
“What if Horatio was in it with somebody else, somebody who looks like him?” I said.
Matilda said, “Give me your iPad, Eleanor!” Eleanor did as she asked, and Matilda disappeared back inside the store. She emerged a few moments later. “I showed Mr. Larkin one of the profile photos from Horatio’s social media, and he is absolutely certain it was the same person. He even got Horatio’s height right.”
My spirits fell. “Then it wasn’t him. Horatio was the one with the strongest motive. The funeral was rather lavish, though,” I added. “If he murdered his mother, you wouldn’t think he would spend so much on her funeral.”
Matilda waved her finger at me. “To the contrary, that’s exactly what a murderer would do, spend more money on their victim’s funeral to throw the police off the track. Still, it can’t have been him.”
“Then who was it?” I said.
Chapter 17
I was glad it wasn’t raining for the market that day. Rain hadn’t been forecast but then again, that didn’t mean much. I sat in the kitchen and sipped my coffee. Only Mr. Crumbles was with me. I had given him his breakfast and he was now licking his paws.
“There you are, Jane,” said Matilda’s booming voice from the doorway.
“Where else would I be?” I said with a chuckle.
Matilda walked into the kitchen to make her breakfast. “Asleep in bed and snoring your head off like Eleanor. Couldn’t you hear her? Or did I only hear her because there’s a common wall?”
“I do not snore!” Eleanor yelled from the doorway.
“Coffee, Eleanor?” I said to stop the argument. “I’m glad it’s not raining today.”
“Yes, it would make the investigation so much more difficult.”
I handed E
leanor a cup of coffee. “What do you mean?”
“Sloshing around in the rain, of course.”
I sat down and took another gulp of coffee before continuing. “No, I mean how can we possibly investigate today? I doubt the suspects will even be there.”
Eleanor fed Mr. Crumbles. “I’ve already fed him,” I said.
“But he looked hungry,” she protested.
I simply shrugged. Eleanor took a seat at the table. “Now let’s see who we have as suspects. Our main suspect is Horatio, although he has an ironclad alibi.”
“Perhaps he deliberately set up that alibi, and he was in it with the person who did the actual poisoning,” I said.
Matilda nodded and tapped away on her phone.
“What on earth are you doing, Matilda?” Eleanor asked her.
“I’m emailing myself a reminder to look into his assignment,” Matilda said. “Jane made a good point. But if Jane is right, then who could Horatio possibly be in partnership with?” She slurped her a coffee soup, causing Eleanor to grimace.
“Francis?” I offered with a shrug. “He did sell her the goats and cheaply at that.”
“But she wouldn’t have admitted that he sold them to her cheaply if she was his accomplice,” Matilda said.
Eleanor sneezed, excused herself, and then said, “Why not?”
“Because it would throw suspicion onto her,” Matilda said.
Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t see why.”
I walked over to the countertop to fetch the coffee pot. I poured myself another cup and looked out of the kitchen window. The first rays of sunlight were making their way over the horizon. I reflected on the fact this used to be my favorite time of day before Matilda and Eleanor decided to be such early risers. Maybe I should make coffee and take it back to my bedroom from now on. Then again, I figured Mr. Crumbles would seek me out and scratch on my door because he was used to getting his breakfast early, and if there is one thing a cat doesn’t like, it’s not being fed on time.
“Jane!”
I turned around. “Yes, Matilda?”
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