by Неизвестный
“If it was murder,” Fiona reminded him. “She may have just passed away. People do that sometimes. Besides, I didn’t dislike her as much as you think. I think we actually began to get over our differences. Was she good at stocks and shares and what have you? Was she a good student, Jonah?”
Miranda thought she could detect a certain edge to Fiona’s question. A certain hidden meaning.
“She had a command of the basics, Fiona. She wasn’t exceptional, but very few are in this business. Some of my students are good, some are not so good. To be honest I do not get particularly involved with them beyond advising them. They are just my students after all. I only mentor them, and Lea Maroney was no different.”
Jonah began to turn his chair a little by degrees and very quickly he noticed Miranda standing there. The look on his face clearly indicated that he knew she might have overheard.
“Do you need anything, Miss Wylder?” his tone was so sharp that Miranda actually flinched. For such an elderly man, he had a true presence about him.
“Oh, erm… well, I was just hoping to ask you about Lea. I just heard you telling Fiona here that she was a student.” She did her best to mimic the same tone Fiona had used.
Before he had a chance to answer, Fiona smiled at them both and quickly scurried away, clearly not wanting to talk about it.
Jonah stared after her before turning his attention back to Miranda. “To be perfectly honest with you, Miss Wylder, I would sooner not speak about somebody who has just recently passed away. I’m still rattled. You understand.”
“Oh yes, of course,” Miranda said respectfully. As she began to make her way towards the door of the dining room, Miranda was aware of Jonah Keaton’s eyes upon her the entire time.
For a moment, she considered trying to follow Fiona to see if she could speak with her further, but she’d most likely pushed her luck with that as far as it was going to go. In the end, though, she decided she needed to do some snooping of her own.
Stepping close to Sapphire, she whispered, “I’m going to go see what I can find out. Keep your ears open.”
Sapphire nodded, putting her thumb and index fingers together by her ear and then popping them open. Miranda loved her kooky friend.
The officer left stationed in the room by Jack called to her as she roamed close to the doors at the far side of the room. She smiled sweetly and said she was just heading into the attached kitchen to get a drink of water. The police officer’s eyes narrowed and she had the quick idea to ask if it would be all right if she made some coffee for everyone. The officer looked very grateful for that. It was going to be a while before the ambulance arrived to take the deceased to the hospital, he explained, and some coffee would be wonderful.
Holding her smile in place, Miranda pushed through the set of double doors that led from the dining room. Of course she was hoping to explore more than just the kitchen. If she was lucky there would be a doorway from here to the hallway as well.
Apart from a few unwashed pans, the kitchen was exceptionally clean and tidy. Casting a quick eye over the surfaces, she could see nothing of note. Hurriedly, she made her way over to a large trashcan and, lifting the lid, she peered inside. On top of a mountain of coffee grounds and some tomato skins was a balled-up piece of paper. Gently taking it out of the trashcan, she unraveled it to find a note written to Morgan Dale.
“Morgan, please see that you exclude peanut products from the menu for the next few days for the sake of…” The rest of the message was unreadable as the paper was wet.
There was no name signed on the note. Whoever had written it would remain a mystery, at least for a while. Maybe she could find some handwriting samples. Jonah, perhaps, or Algernon. Or Fiona, for that matter. It obviously wasn’t Sapphire’s writing but then she hadn’t considered Sapphire a suspect to begin with.
Taking some paper towels from the holder by the sink, Miranda carefully wrapped the paper to protect it for possible fingerprinting before popping it into her bag. She knew Jack would want to see it.
Looking up from her bag and about to move away from the sink to head back to the trashcan she caught sight of something moving outside of the kitchen window. She quickly moved closer to the window to get a better look outside just in time to catch a glimpse of someone wearing white scurrying away into the bushes and out of sight.
“Very suspicious,” she muttered to herself. She would have to tell Jack about that soon.
Miranda turned back toward the trashcan, to see if there was perhaps anything else she might have missed. Peering into it, she noticed a small pill bottle barely visible amongst the trash, under where the note had been. Using another paper towel, she took it out and held it up to the light. It contained some small blue pills but the label had been torn off. She tried to think if she recognized them. Not Viagra, certainly. She’d had a boyfriend once who… well, that wasn’t important. She just knew what that looked like and these were the wrong shape. They were oval capsules. Maybe Jack could identify them.
She was betting Jack had never needed to use that type of medication in his life.
Biting her lower lip to stifle a smile over that thought, she looked back in the trash. Nothing else there. She took another look out of the window but there was no one out there now either. She wondered who it was that had been out there. Someone up to no good she was sure.
Taking a last look around the kitchen, Miranda stared down into the pots and pans that had been neatly stacked ready for washing. In the bottom of a large baking pan she found a congealed blue lump, like a powder.
Could it be from one of the pills?
If it was, she had to save it as evidence. If it got washed somehow before anyone could look then what she was looking at would disappear. Glancing around for a safe spot to put the pan she decided to pop it in the oven. No one was going to be baking anything anytime soon.
It seemed that all the possible clues here had been found. Another quick look around discovered nothing else out of the ordinary. She was thinking like the detective from her latest crime novel and wondering what else he would do.
Oh right.
She put the pot on for the officer’s coffee.
Chapter 4
Sure enough, there was a side door from the kitchen that led to the hallway. Knowing the kettle would take a minute or two to boil she dared to slip out into the hall. That way was Jonah’s study, so that meant this way—
Algernon Keaton careened straight into her, knocking her to the floor.
Rubbing her sore shoulder, she glared up at him. “I’m not so sure that was an accident,” she accused him.
“I don’t have time for this,” was Algernon’s terse reply. Without even offering to help her up, he began to stride away.
“Hey!” Jack Travis was there now. Miranda got the impression he’d been stalking after Algernon, and that maybe that was why Jonah’s son was in such a rush to get away. “Keaton, you knock a lady down and you don’t apologize? I don’t think so. Not where I come from.”
“And where would that be, exactly, Detective?” Algernon said it with his chin out and his nose in the air. “I come from wealth, and I come from a place of importance.”
Miranda’s jaw dropped to hear him talk like that. Jack, on the other hand, just smiled and stepped closer. “I’m just plain folk from back of Bourke,” he explained, spreading his hands wider, using a term that meant he was from someplace far, far away from here. “But I know which end of a dog bites, and I put my pants on one leg at a time just like you do.”
“Good for you,” Algernon quipped.
“Why don’t you go back to the dining room like I instructed you to,” Jack told him, with another step closer. “After you apologize to Miranda, that is.”
It took a moment, during which Algernon sized Jack up from scuffed shoes to very serious eyes. Then he sniffed and looked down at Miranda on the floor. “It was an accident, Miss Wylder, but I apologize anyway. I wouldn’t want to be accused of having wo
rse manners than someone who was just plain folk.”
With an arrogant smirk, he headed off back to the dining room where the others were.
It was Jack who put his hand down to help her. He pulled her back on her feet with ease. “Are you all right, Miranda?”
“Apart from a bruised ego, yes.”
To her surprise, he placed a kiss on her cheek, very near the edge of her ear. It sent tingles along her spine. “You’re a tough lady. You can handle it.”
“I liked the way you defended me from that jerk,” she said. “I guess not all men can be as chivalrous as you.”
“Aw, shucks, Ma’am,” he said in a horrible imitation of a Texas drawl. “Just doin’ my job.”
“Uh-huh.” She found herself leaning against his chest, feeling his heart beat against her hand. “Speaking of your job, sir, did you look at Lea’s body?”
“I did. There’s puffy red splotches around her mouth and her tongue is swollen. I’d say she was definitely poisoned.”
That fit with the note she had found. Peanut allergies could be lethal if the victim wasn’t careful. “And did you get anything from Algernon or Morgan Dale?”
He shook his head. “Algernon is sticking to his story. He was in the sitting room, they were all sharing some soup and bread, and then Lea dropped dead to the floor.”
Which would prove to be a great alibi, if they couldn’t find anything to disprove it. “What about Morgan?”
“Well, that’s a different story.” Scratching a finger against his neck, Jack shrugged. “He wasn’t in the closet when we opened it up.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“It’s the truth, I swear it. I had Algernon open the door for me and there was no one inside. That’s when we noticed the back wall of the closet was off center. Turns out there’s a hidden passage in there. Can you believe it? This place is practically a castle to begin with, and now we’ve got secret passages! Anyway, he’s gone.”
Miranda was stunned. Their chief suspect had slipped out from under their noses. Now they’d have to track him down and where in God’s name was Kyle? Wasn’t he supposed to be watching that round man to make sure stuff like this didn’t happen in the first place—
Behind her, in the kitchen, the kettle began to whistle.
“What’s that?” Jack asked, his hand twitching toward the inside of his jacket where Miranda knew he wore his gun.
“It’s okay, big guy,” Miranda told him. “I put a kettle on for coffee.”
“Didn’t I tell you to stay put with the others?”
She gave him a wink. “One thing you’re going to have to learn about me if we’re going to continue dating, Jack Travis, is that I rarely follow orders.”
“I’m beginning to see that,” he admitted. “And I can’t say that I don’t like it. Well, come on. I’d like some coffee myself.”
Just as he motioned toward the kitchen, a blue streak came racing up the hallway. Kyle, finally back from the errand she’d sent him on. She stared at him, acutely aware of the handsome detective next to her watching her every move.
“You won’t believe what just happened I can’t wait to tell you this because you’re never going to believe it yourself!” he stumbled over his words.
Then he saw her face, and the way she kept flicking her eyes toward Jack.
“Oh, right, right,” he said, a lot more slowly. His hands came up to pat the air. “It’s all right, it’s okay, I’ll do both sides. Ready? You would say, where on Earth have you been, Kyle? To which I would say, why, I was following our suspect down a dark tunnel through the bowels of this very house, Miranda. Then you say, wow, what a great job you did! I would then thank you profusely and protest I was just doing what came naturally to a ghost who could follow him around unseen until he finally stepped foot outside…”
Miranda’s eyes widened.
“Oh,” he said to her, “I didn’t tell you that part yet, did I. Well, it’s true. Morgan Dale isn’t even in this house anymore.”
Miranda turned to Jack, trying to quickly think of some way to tell him how she knew the vital information that Kyle had just given her. Then she saw the look on his face. He was regarding her oddly, which probably made sense considering she’d just been staring at empty air for two solid minutes. At least, from his point of view she was.
“Let me explain…” she started.
“It’s okay, I think I get it.” He surprised her by looking back up the hall, nearly straight at where Kyle was floating. “I’m pretty sure I know the secret you’ve been hiding. Anything you want to tell me?”
“Oh so much,” she said, realizing she hadn’t told him about the medicine bottle or the note or the baking pan yet, either. “It’s not fair though, if you get to figure out my secret and I don’t know yours yet.”
He shrugged, and gently guided her into the kitchen. “I thought a little mystery made a relationship more interesting. Let’s get this kettle off the stove before we burn the house down and then I’m going to call for more officers to assist us, and you can fill me in on the snooping you’ve been doing.”
“I do not snoop!” she protested.
“Yes, you do,” he disagreed.
“Yes, you do,” Kyle said at almost exactly the same time.
Miranda was helpless against the two of them. The men in her life—alive and dead—were going to drive her crazy.
Chapter 5
By the time the other officers had arrived Miranda had told Jack about the note in the garbage and the pills, too. He’d taken both of them for evidence, remarking that he was glad she knew the basics of police tactics so that when she did stick her nose into his cases at least she could collect evidence the right way.
Then she told him that she thought she saw someone moving around in the bushes right outside of the kitchen window. He looked at her very dubiously, but he nodded and added that to the list of things he asked his fellow police officers to check out.
As Jack began giving orders about collecting everyone in the house into one room again, Miranda slipped away once more, with Kyle floating in hot-pursuit.
“And what are we doing? Should you not be in the dining room being kept safe by your handsome detective?”
“I’m just having a look around, Kyle. And he’s not my handsome detective.”
“Says you,” Kyle teased.
“You and I are going to have a conversation when we get home,” she promised him. “If nothing else we need to work out some hand signals or something for when we need to communicate in front of other people.”
“What? I thought I performed brilliantly back there.”
“Oh, sure. You took minutes to give me a single bit of information that should have taken seconds, leaving me standing there looking like a fool, but you certainly did get the job done.”
“There, see?” he said proudly. “Even you admit it.”
That was so not what she meant, Miranda thought to herself. “Look, if I see anything that worries me, I’ll run back the other way. This house is full of secrets and I’m going to find them out. Especially now that we know for sure Lea was murdered.”
Taking the same corridor that led away from the kitchen, Miranda went further on, taking a random turn here and there. After they had been looking for only a few minutes, Miranda stopped in her tracks.
“What is it?” Kyle whispered, even though as a ghost he could have shouted and no one but Miranda would have heard it.
“I can hear voices.” She strained to listen harder. “They’re coming from one of the rooms down there.”
Once they had made themselves sure which room the conversation was coming from, Kyle looked at her with a grin.
“Now you’ll see how useful I can be. I’m going to pop my head in through the door.” He began to chuckle. “And I mean that quite literally.”
He pushed his body into the door and through, with just his backside and his long legs hanging out. Then, almost immedia
tely, he pulled himself back into the hall again.
“I bet you wish you could do that,” he said brightly. “I mean, for a nosy amateur sleuth like you, this would be such a boon.”
“Will you be serious? What did you see?”
“For one thing, I’ve just seen a very shirtless Algernon Keaton.” Kyle grinned. “I’ve got to say, he is quite a beefcake. There’s not an ounce of fat on the man.”
“Try to concentrate, lover boy, will you?”
“No worries. He’s not my type. He’s that kind of good-looking which is sort of cheesy, you know? Like a male stripper or something.”
“Kyle, that is not what I was expecting you to concentrate on. Tell me what’s happening in there!” Miranda hissed in a whisper.
“Oh, he’s trying to flirt with Fiona, that attorney,” Kyle said, almost as if that was an afterthought. “I don’t think she’s interested.”
Sure enough, Miranda could just hear the edges of a brewing argument.
“You can have all the attention you want,” Algernon was telling Fiona, as if he was such a great prize. “All you have to do is just convince the old man to do what I want with the will. That’s what you’ve come here to speak to him about today, isn’t it? He’s fiddling with his damn will again, and I want to make sure it comes out in my favor.”
“What your father chooses to put in his will is his business, Algernon,” Fiona said in a clipped tone. “Now, please for the love of God put your shirt back on.”
“Look, Fiona dear, there’s a killer on the loose in this house. I can protect you far better than my father ever could. All you have to do is just play nice.”
“I’m getting sick of this, Algernon. You try every time I come to this house and, if you don’t stop, I will tell your father.”
