by Amy Lillard
“Her?” Daisy’s voice raised with disbelief. “I’d never even heard of her before we got here. Why would he leave anything to his high school sweetheart?” The last words were spat out like poison.
“Because she is the mother of his son,” the lawyer said.
Daisy dropped back into her seat.
Inna braced her elbows on the table in front of her and massaged her temples. Arlo suspected it was a lot of news to digest in one sitting.
“Is this true?” Inna asked.
“Yes.” Chloe whispered the word, her tone apologetic. She had never wanted anything from Wally and most likely didn’t want this. But she loved her family and she would accept it to help them. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
“Has there been a DNA test? We don’t know that she’s telling the truth.” Daisy scoffed. She turned to Chloe, the girl-next-door gone and in her place a scorned and bitter woman. “Who are you?”
“That’s enough,” Mads said before anyone else could move. He was on his feet, that lithe grace taking him to the space between Chloe and Daisy. “It’s common knowledge around here that Jayden Carter belongs to Wally Harrison. One look’ll tell you that.”
“You didn’t even give him his father’s name?” Daisy’s voice had lowered in volume but was as shrill as ever.
Chloe sat back, still stunned. She placed her hands in her lap, the cuffs clanking as she did so. “He didn’t want anything to do with Jayden. Wally signed all his rights away even before Jayden was born.”
“There. That settles it.” Daisy turned back to the lawyer.
The man gave a light shrug. “You are welcome to contest any part of this will. But I can tell you that what you received is legally acceptable to the state of New York and despite any agreements between Miss Carter and my client, he is entitled to leave the remainder of his estate to anyone he chooses.”
Arlo reached over and squeezed Chloe’s hand.
“It’s obvious,” Daisy said. “That’s more reason for her to kill Wally.”
Inna shook her head. “That is a mean thing to say.”
Daisy grabbed her purse and jumped to her feet. “Say what you want. And enjoy your new computer and desk. Oh, and telling your own story. That should be a bestseller.” On that note, she stormed from the room.
“I really don’t understand,” Chloe said. Her voice was quiet and small, so unlike the vivacious Chloe that everyone in Sugar Springs knew.
“Me either.” Inna pulled a slim cigarette case from her purse and a matching gold lighter. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it up.
“You can’t smoke in here,” Arlo said. It was her teenage home, after all.
Inna exhaled, blowing smoke halfway across the room.
Arlo released Chloe’s hand and plucked the cigarette from Inna’s fingers. She took it into the kitchen and tossed it into the sink. She ran water over it, then returned to the common room in time to hear Inna say, “You see how she acts. She is guilty of something. I know not why you don’t arrest her.”
“Daisy?” Arlo asked.
“Da, the wife. She is not as innocent as she looks.”
They had all received a firsthand enactment of that fact. But as much as Arlo hated to admit it, the evidence pointed to Chloe, and now with this revelation of his will, she looked like she had even more to gain from Wally’s death. And that damning earring.
Arlo sat next to Chloe. “Is that all?” she asked.
“For the most part. I’ll have some papers for you to sign in a day or so, Miss Carter. Until then, good day.” He placed all his papers back into the folder and loaded it all into his briefcase before nodding to them. He started out the door but snatched a cookie off the side table on his way out. Arlo couldn’t blame him. Helen was nothing if not a good baker.
“Well, that was interesting.” Helen smiled at everyone as she breezed back into the room. The book club had been across the hall the whole time, most probably listening with the door of the living area open so they could hear what was going on inside the common room.
“Congratulations, Chloe.”
Arlo could tell by the stunned look on her friend’s face that she didn’t know how to respond.
Mads stepped forward and grabbed Chloe by the arm. “Come on, girl. It’s time to go.”
She nodded and stood. “Thanks for bringing Auggie to me,” she said to Arlo as Mads started to lead her from the room.
Inna stood, cigarette case in hand. “How do you say? It’s been fun and real but not really fun?”
“Close enough,” Arlo said.
“Is okay to smoke outside?” Inna asked Helen.
“Yes, there’s an ashtray on the porch. I just ask that you don’t leave anything burning and move to the side if someone wants to come in or go out.”
“Da.” Inna nodded, her earrings catching the light as she turned.
“Wait,” Arlo called.
Mads and Chloe stopped at the door.
Inna turned around. “What now?”
Arlo could barely see the earrings she wore through the strands of her dark hair. She could only see the right one with any clarity, but she could see it well enough to know. It was exactly like the one she found in Chloe’s bungalow.
“Nothing,” she said. “I forgot.”
Inna rolled her eyes. “Crazy Americans.” She tucked her hair behind her left ear, giving Arlo full view of the hidden diamond. It was the same. The. Same. But Inna had two.
She ducked out of the common room, leaving the “crazy Americans” staring after her.
“Did you see that?” Arlo tugged on his sleeve. “Mads? Did you see her earrings?”
“I suppose,” he grumbled.
“They were just like the one I found in Chloe’s house.”
“Inna had both of hers,” he said.
“I know but—”
“Those are not my earrings,” Chloe interjected. Some of the stupor over inheriting the lion’s share of Wally’s fortune had worn off and she was getting back to herself. “You know I don’t have that kind of money.” And like Arlo, the money she did have was wrapped up in Books & More.
“How does Inna have that kind of money?” Arlo asked. She had pondered Inna’s salary for what little she claimed to do for Wally, but sheesh.
“She has two of them,” Mads repeated.
“Maybe she has two pairs.”
“You were just questioning how she had money for one pair, and now you think she has two?” He shot her an incredulous look.
“Maybe the second pair belongs to Daisy. I’d bet anything Wally bought his wife and his mistress—oh, I’m sorry, assistant—the same earrings. Daisy could have pushed Wally out of the third-story window and lost one. She wasn’t wearing diamonds today because she doesn’t have the pair anymore.”
“Just because she didn’t wear them today doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have them somewhere else.” He shifted, and she could tell that his patience with the whole ordeal had come to an end.
“You know Wally would do something sleazy like that.”
“Don’t forget her breakfast in the morning.” Mads nodded toward Helen and escorted Chloe from the room. Arlo followed uselessly behind.
In the doorway of the living area across the hall, the book club ladies watched with sad eyes as Mads took Chloe away.
“It was that Daisy,” Fern said vehemently. “She likes to pretend that she’s something, but she’s a farm girl under all that makeup and fancy clothes.”
“A farm girl that would know death cap mushroom poison takes a while to do its deed,” Helen said.
“Nobody said Thursday’s attempt with the coffee was the first time.” Camille gave an elegant shrug.
Arlo shook her head. “I checked it out, and it doesn’t take a lot to kill a person. Half a mushroom c
ap, according to the internet.”
Camille whistled low and under her breath. “That ain’t much,” she said in her best imitation of a Mississippi drawl.
“You’re telling me,” Helen agreed.
“But it can take up to two weeks,” Camille explained. “That’s why people die from it: misdiagnosis. You see, they get sick, sometimes days after eating the mushrooms. When they go to the doctor, they think they have the flu. They get fluids and start to feel better and all the while, the toxins are destroying their liver. By the time that shows up, it’s too late.” They stared at her with incredulous gazes. “What?” Camille shrugged. “I looked it up on Google.”
“Maybe Daisy was tired of waiting for her inheritance,” Fern mused.
“Or maybe someone wants us to believe it was her,” Arlo countered. “But why give him the poison, then push him out the window? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Don’t forget whoever it was put the mushroom in the coffee Chloe made,” Helen pointed out.
“Right.” Fern nodded.
“So they wanted Chloe to look guilty?” Camille asked hesitantly.
“Maybe. Or maybe they are trying to keep the attention off themselves,” Helen explained.
That sounded more logical, but who in Sugar Springs stood to gain from Wally’s death?
Unfortunately, that one was easy: Chloe. But Chloe hadn’t known that to be the case until today.
15
The bell over the door rang out its gentle warning that someone had come into the bookstore. By now Arlo had gotten used to hearing the footsteps in the floor above as Sam organized his office, but she wasn’t able to stop herself from looking up and expecting Chloe to walk in the front. A girl had to have hope.
“Hi, Frances.”
The police station secretary shot her a strained smile as she lugged Chloe’s cat crate, along with its yowling occupant, into the store. “Mads said he was sick and tired of this ‘damned cat shedding all over the place.’ His words, not mine.”
Arlo cast a quick glance toward the floor above. “I’m not sure I have a place for him yet.”
“Then he said you had to come get the litter box and it had better be before three.” She hoisted the carrier onto the side table next to the reading nook. “I’ll bring it as soon as I can.”
And he hadn’t said any of those things to her when she brought by Chloe’s breakfast not two hours ago. Arlo peered into the carrier. “What have you been up to, buddy?”
Auggie hissed.
“Get him outta here,” Faulkner screeched, followed by, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Auggie hissed again.
It was looking like a fun morning. And since it was almost noon when the book club ladies were supposed to arrive, the party just continued. And she was four days in to her ten-day reprieve Mads had given her. Almost halfway with no good leads on who really killed Wally. Nothing concrete anyway.
A large boom sounded from the third floor.
Arlo looked up, wondering if the sound was lethal or merely echoed since it was raining in from above.
“Fire in the hole,” Faulkner squawked. He was sitting on top of his cage, as if waiting for her to release Auggie.
“Should we go check on that?” Frances asked.
Arlo shook her head. “It’s just my new tenant.”
Frances gazed at the wooden ceiling above. “You got ghosts moving in? I always heard this place was haunted.”
“Tell me one building in this town built before the turn of the twentieth century that doesn’t have a reported ghost,” Arlo said.
“Good point.”
“That’s Sam Tucker. He’s setting up shop on the third floor.”
“I heard about his mama.” Frances shook her head. “Sad business, that.”
Arlo nodded. Sam’s mother had always been good to her, even after Sam left town and broke Arlo’s heart in the process. Why was it always the good ones that seemed to go first?
Another loud smack came down from above, followed by a muffled voice, a man’s shout. The words were indistinguishable, but the tone unmistakable.
“What kind of business is he setting up?” Frances asked.
Arlo thought about it a moment. “Now that you mention it, I’m not sure. He said he was working as a private investigator.” She let her voice trail off. How much PI work was there in sleepy little Sugar Springs?
Frances shrugged, apparently thinking the same thing. “Maybe that’s what he was talking to Mads about the other day.”
“Maybe,” Arlo mused. Was it normal or vain that she thought she had been a topic in that conversation? She would have to ask Chloe. When they got her out of jail, of course.
“I guess I’d better be getting back. Those phones aren’t going to answer themselves.” Frances turned for the door.
Nor the crossword puzzle supply its own answers.
“The litter box?” Arlo asked.
“I’ll bring it ASAP.” Frances gave a little backward wave but didn’t bother turning around as she left Books & More.
“Come on, buddy,” she hoisted the carrier off the side table and ignored Auggie’s low growls as she jostled him. “Let’s go see what’s up with Sam.” Hopefully he was ready to make good on his promise to care for Chloe’s angry orange beast.
* * *
One thought kept coming back to Arlo as she climbed the steps to the third floor. Well, two really. Had Sam been talking to Mads about his PI business in Sugar Springs? And had the killer walked these very steps with Wally that fateful Friday morning?
She set the cat carrier on the small landing and knocked on the door. A scraping sound came from inside about the same time, so she knocked again. “Sam?” There was a crash. “Are you okay in there?”
The door swung open and Sam stood there looking a tad disconcerted and even more sweaty. “Arlo!” And then there was the surprise. “What are you doing here?”
She nudged the cat carrier, and Auggie growled. “Chloe’s cat.”
“Oh yeah.” He breathed out as if he had been holding his breath since he had opened the door.
“What’s wrong?”
He scoffed. “Nothing.”
Arlo planted one hand on her hip. “Now why don’t I believe that?”
He sighed. “I’m trying to get moved in and getting everything organized has been a bit of a challenge.”
“I see.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “So why do I get the feeling you’re looking for other clues as to what happened to Wally?”
He straightened, his expression going completely blank. “You don’t trust Mads to have gathered every bit of evidence?”
“So you’re not denying it?”
“Arlo, seriously?”
“Who are you working for?” she demanded.
“Are you going to bring in the damned cat?”
“Are you going to tell me who hired you?”
“When does the cat get fed?”
“Employer?”
“And the box. Does she go in a litter box?”
“Daisy, right?”
“I’m not telling you. There is such a thing as client confidentiality.”
“I knew it!” She pointed a finger at him in triumph. “I knew you were investigating Wally’s death.”
“Sure.” He waved a hand around, but it seemed less like an admission and more about getting her to be quiet. “Now am I keeping the cat or not?”
Arlo shot him a grim smile. “Oh, you’re keeping the cat, all right. You promised.”
* * *
“So someone hired Sam to investigate Wally’s death?” Helen asked that evening over a late supper. The regular meal at the inn had already been served and cleaned up. Now it was time for a girl powwow.
“And he said tha
t?”
“Well, not in so many words, but he didn’t say he wasn’t.” Arlo checked the doorway to make sure Inna or Daisy hadn’t suddenly appeared. “Are you sure the girls are out for the night?”
Helen nodded. “That’s what they said. Something about getting dinner in Memphis. They won’t be back for hours.”
“Okay.” Still, Arlo was a little reluctant to talk about this without knowing exactly where Wally’s two women were. “When do you think Mads will release them to leave?”
Camille set the basket of cornbread on the table between them and took her seat next to Fern. “Hard to say. But at any rate, I’m sure they’ll be here until after the funeral.”
“Funeral?” Arlo asked.
“Well, more of a memorial service. Wally wanted to be cremated.” Fern took up a piece of cornbread and slathered it with butter.
“So Daisy can take him back to the city,” Helen said.
Arlo stared at her godmother. “You knew about this?”
“Of course I did. His widow and his assistant have been staying here for almost a week.”
“I’m just surprised. I didn’t realize Daisy had shared that fact with you. Has she said anything else that might be useful?”
“You think that’s useful?” Helen asked.
“Not really,” Arlo admitted. “But something else she said might be.”
Camille shook her head sadly. “All they talk about is going back to New York and getting mani-pedis.”
“You know what I think,” Fern said.
“Yes,” Helen and Camille said at the same time. Their voices held notes of resignation and finality.
“What?” Arlo asked. She grabbed her own piece of cornbread.
“I think we should go into their rooms and see if they have another pair of those diamond earrings.”
Arlo frowned. “What would that prove?”
“Fern wants to snoop in their rooms and see if she can find anything to incriminate one of them,” Helen said.
“Or both,” Fern added. “I wouldn’t mind seeing both of them take the fall.”
“I suppose they could be working together,” Arlo mused.
“Absolutely.” Fern gave an emphatic nod. “Maybe they decided to kill Wally together and take his money, then they found out that Chloe was going to get most of it.”
