He unwrapped it from its leather pouch. “Did you make this?” He rolled out the necklace, and it sparkled in the overhead lights.
Dorothy inhaled. “Oh yes, one of my finest pieces. I thought it was buried with . . .” She glanced at Shauna.
“With my mother.”
The older woman’s nod was curt. “Obviously Lewis saved it for you. Which is wonderful.” The sour tilt to her lips gave lie to the words.
“He says he doesn’t remember what happened to it.”
The sheriff shot Shauna a stern glance. “Let me handle this.” He turned back to Dorothy. “She bought it from you?”
“No, her husband bought it from me for their anniversary. It’s worth more money now, I suspect. Many of the pieces I designed back then are collectibles today. I think it might fetch twenty-five hundred dollars at this point.”
The sheriff never took his attention from her. “Have you ever heard of a couple named Clarence and Lucy Glennon?”
Dorothy frowned and shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so. They are customers?”
“We don’t know. This necklace was found in their possession. They also happen to now be dead.”
Dorothy gasped and put her hand to her throat. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you, though. I haven’t seen this necklace in many years.”
The door behind them opened and a laughing couple staggered in, arm in arm.
The sheriff wrapped the necklace and put it back in his coat pocket. “Thanks so much, Ms. Edenshaw.”
Back outside in the stink of car exhaust, Shauna wanted to stomp her feet. “She’s lying. I know she is.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Why would she? This necklace doesn’t really seem to be related.” He studied her face. “In fact, I’m going to give you the necklace. It was your mom’s, and I think you’d like to have it.”
“I would.” Shauna’s eyes burned. Even if the necklace had nothing to do with the murders, she wanted to pursue this and find out what Dorothy knew about her family. What about Brenna? Shauna resolved to ask her dad about Dorothy. His manner had been evasive when he’d first heard her name.
The fire crackled in the fireplace, and the faint scent of wood smoke hung in Zach’s living room. The dogs curled at Shauna’s feet, and the cat had finally come out, as evidenced by Zach’s burning eyes. He sat beside Shauna on the sofa and went through the links that had popped up in his search.
“Look here.” He stabbed a finger at his computer screen to show Shauna. “Dorothy’s daughter’s name is Penelope.”
Shauna sat snuggled up in a fleece throw beside him. Wisps of hair had escaped her topknot and drifted around her face.
“Yeah. It doesn’t list a father in the birth announcement.” He stopped to listen. “Was that Alex?”
“I think it was the cat.”
He glanced around for the source of his runny nose and found that Weasley had curled up on the afghan in the armchair. He made a mental note to wash it. “You said Penelope seemed angry. Why do you think she seemed antagonistic?”
“She had this challenging look in her eyes, and though it’s a little too strong of a term, she almost had her lip curled in contempt. I’ve never met her so I don’t know what her problem was.”
“It might be something she heard from her mother about your family.” Would either of the women talk to him about the family? He didn’t think Dorothy had anything to add to the murder investigation, but maybe she knew something about what happened when Shauna’s mother and siblings died.
He’d like to give Shauna some closure on that, especially with that necklace popping up again. It was all such a mystery.
The house felt more homey with her and Alex in it. When it had been just him rattling around alone, Zach often looked for excuses to go out and do something. Now he was more than content to sit on the sofa with her and lean in to watch the way her eyes caught the light. Playing Go Fish with Alex was something he looked forward to. What was he going to do when they left?
The thought made him wince.
She must have seen it. “You okay?”
“Sure, just thinking about everything that’s happened.”
She pulled the throw around her neck and turned to stare into the fire. “I’m having a joint funeral for Clarence and Lucy on Sunday. Three o’clock.”
“You’re planning it?”
Shauna nodded. “There’s no one else. With Darla gone, I’m the closest thing they had to family around here. I called Clarence’s brother, but they’ve been estranged for years, and he wasn’t interested in attending.”
“That’s pretty cold.”
“I thought so too, but I didn’t argue with him.”
“Lucy doesn’t have any family?”
She shook her head. “Her mother died in childbirth, and her dad passed away when she was ten. She went into foster care then. I’ve never heard either of them mention any family except Clarence’s brother.”
“Do you know what caused their estrangement?” Could this brother have had anything to do with Clarence’s death? Zach was grasping at straws, but there seemed to be no good leads to the murderer.
“The brother was engaged to Lucy, and she broke their engagement to marry Clarence.”
“Whoa, that’s a hard one. But still, they’re family. You’d think he would have gotten over it years ago.”
She took a sip of the hot spiced cider beside her on the side table. “And if they’d lived near each other, maybe they would have, but he lives in New York. He’s a bank executive, always busy, and he never married. So they drifted apart and stayed that way.”
“Still, to hold a grudge even at their deaths seems pretty extreme. Did you tell the sheriff? He might want to look into the guy’s whereabouts when Clarence and Lucy were killed.”
She set her mug back on the table. “I can tell him, but I think that’s a dead end.”
“You aren’t paying for burial expenses, are you?”
“No, that will come out of their estate.”
Their estate. “Who’s their beneficiary?” Greed was a common motive for murder.
Clarence had told Zach the mortgage was paid off, and his place overlooked the water. The land itself would fetch half a million or more. Maybe closer to a million with its panoramic view out over Rainshadow Bay. And then there would be the insurance money for whatever the house had been worth.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure the sheriff knows if they had a will or not. They might have left it to the church. Clarence never talked about that kind of thing.”
Zach watched the cute way she pursed her lips as she considered it. The fleeting thought of kissing those lips passed through his mind, and he pulled away a few inches. What was wrong with him? He needed to get over this attraction to her and fast. The thought of stepping into Jack’s place was unacceptable.
“You need some help planning the service?”
“The pastor is handling it. I wanted to provide a space for friends to come and gather, to remember what they meant to us. They already had plots together in the cemetery, so I didn’t have to worry about picking anything out. They’d even done all the prearrangements for their funerals.”
She yawned and kicked off the throw, then stood and folded it. “I think I’ll go read for a while. Hopefully, we’ll be out of your hair soon.”
He watched her slim form walk away from him, and a sense of hopelessness swept over him. Once the killer was caught, she’d be walking out the door forever. That day wouldn’t be a happy one for him.
Chapter 17
Customers crowded the aisles at Wagner’s General Store for their annual sale on fall flowers. It was a crazy day to shop for new jeans for Alex, but Shauna hadn’t had a choice. His old ones were beginning to look like high-water pants. She navigated the shopping carts and people back to the children’s section and grabbed three pairs of jeans, then headed for the checkout.
She bumped her cart into another on the way out the door. “So sorry
.”
It wasn’t until the woman turned that she recognized Kristy Gillings. An attorney, Kristy didn’t dress the part in her generally wrinkled khakis and oversized sweaters. Her gray hair was usually messy, but she had the reputation of being one of the best lawyers in the area. She’d drawn up Jack’s will and had been helpful after his death, but seeing the woman always brought a hard knot to Shauna’s stomach. She didn’t like to relive those days.
Kristy stopped and smiled. “I tried to call you a little while ago and got your voice mail.”
“I didn’t hear my phone, but it’s loud in here. Is everything all right?”
Kristy’s blue eyes twinkled. “I think you’re going to say things are more than all right. Do you have time to come to my office right now?”
The office was just across the street, so Shauna nodded. She parked her shopping cart at the front door, then walked with Kristy. The Victorian building had been redone in Painted Lady colors, and the interior boasted fresh gray paint since Shauna had been here last.
Kristy led her past the receptionist to the spacious back office that had huge windows overlooking a park by the bay. She shrugged off her ratty blue cardigan. “Have a seat.” She dropped into her black leather desk chair.
Shauna perched on the edge of the seat across from the gleaming black desk. “What’s this all about?” She thought she’d paid all the taxes due after Jack’s death, but what if there was a bill outstanding? Or what if the mortgage was about to be foreclosed? She’d gotten it caught up, but it was possible the bank had already started proceedings.
Kristy opened a folder and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “I have Clarence and Lucy’s wills here. You are their only beneficiary.”
The words didn’t make sense to Shauna. She sat blinking at Kristy until the words coalesced in her head. “You can’t be serious.”
“You were an equal beneficiary with Darla until their daughter’s death, and then they changed their will. Everything goes to you.” She slid a paper across the desk. “Here is a list of the assets.”
Shauna couldn’t bring herself to take the paper. She didn’t want to benefit from losing such dear friends. “Why would they do that?”
Kristy shrugged. “Seems simple enough to me—they loved you.”
“I-I loved them.” Her throat was so tight Shauna could barely whisper.
Kristy nudged the paper closer to her. “It’ll take some time to settle part of the estate. The house was insured for six hundred thousand, but the land is worth over at least twice that. They had some stocks as well as cash in the bank. All told, you stand to inherit about two million dollars.”
Two million dollars.
The breath escaped from Shauna’s lungs, and she shrank against the seat back. “That can’t be possible.”
“Barring anyone contesting the will, of course, but I don’t foresee that. They had no close relatives.”
Shauna gathered her wits. “Clarence’s brother. I contacted him about the funeral, but he’s not coming. They’ve been estranged for a long time.”
“Well, he could possibly choose to contest it, but he wouldn’t have any grounds. They were both of sound mind and in good health. Their wishes will stand any kind of court judgment.”
Shauna still couldn’t take it in. She could pay off her mortgage and her helicopter, but it felt wrong to be happy about that when her friends were dead. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Probate will take a few months. I have some documents for you to sign so I can open probate and settle it all.” Kristy lifted more papers from the folder. “We can take care of that now if you have time.”
Even as she numbly went through the motions of reading and signing the paperwork, she forced back tears. What would people think when they heard this news? Would they think she had finagled her way into their hearts for money?
It was going to take some time for Shauna to wrap her head around the news. She parked in Clarence’s driveway and got out under a spectacular sunset that painted the sky in glorious bands of red and gold. Her eyes burned, and the lump in her throat refused to go down no matter how much she swallowed.
How could they have done this for her? They’d never even hinted at it. She stood against the yellow crime-scene tape and stared at the burned ruins of the house. The charred beams and timbers still reeked of soot, and she flinched as the memory of that night filled her head. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand.
Who had done this to Clarence and Lucy? What could be worth their lives?
Tires crunched on the drive behind her, and she turned to see the sheriff’s car roll to a stop. Everett got out and studied her face before taking several steps toward her.
“Any news, Sheriff?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Just missing them, remembering the good times.” Her voice quivered, and she pressed her lips together.
He propped a booted foot on a blackened truss. “They were good people. I wish I could tell you I know who did this, but I’ve got so little to go on that I’m not sure I’ll ever solve it.”
She had hoped for answers. “Are you coming to the funeral on Sunday?”
“Yep. The killer often shows up, and I want to check out attendees. Maybe some of their family will show up. I still haven’t tracked down their heir yet.”
“His brother is the only living relative, and he’s not coming. They’ve been estranged for years.”
He lifted his black brows. “Hmm, maybe he’s their heir. Do you have his name? I want to check him out.”
The need to talk moved up her throat. “They left me everything.”
The sheriff pulled his foot off the beam and straightened. “They left you their estate?”
She nodded and stuffed her hands in her pockets. “I had no idea until today. Kristy Gillings tracked me down and told me about it. It seems unreal.” Shauna glanced up at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?” His expression had gone somber and calculated.
“You were the last one to see both of them alive. And you stood to gain from their deaths.” He sighed. “Look, I don’t think you had anything to do with the murders, but my lead detective is not going to be so sure. And the state boys are helping us on this, so I’m guessing you just moved to the top of the suspect list.”
“But I didn’t know anything about it until an hour ago.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Go home, Shauna. Don’t talk about this to anyone. I don’t want their suspicions to misdirect the investigation.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “When do you think I can go home? I’ve been at Zach’s for five days already. If you don’t think you’ll ever find the killer, I need to decide what to do. I can’t stay at his house forever.”
“We are still sifting through evidence at your house. There’s a lot of destruction, which makes for a lot of debris to search. We should be done in a couple more days.” He frowned and zipped up his jacket against the wind stiffening off the ocean. “I don’t want you to go home just yet. Give us a few weeks to see if we come up with a suspect.”
She nodded and didn’t argue with him. “I’ve got to pick up Alex.”
No matter what the sheriff said, she had to get on with her life sooner or later. It seemed clear neither the sheriff nor the state police would be able to do much to help her. They had no clues and no real direction, so what was she supposed to do?
She got in her truck and pulled away. It wasn’t until she turned onto the road to Marilyn’s when a thought struck. Once the will was executed, she’d be able to hire all the security she needed.
Chapter 18
Shauna had been quiet all evening, but Zach hadn’t wanted to push her on what was wrong.
She stepped back into the living room after she put Alex to bed. “I think I’ll go to bed too.”
He patted the sofa beside him. “Tell me what’s on your mind. You haven’t said two words since you got home.�
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She bit her lip and looked away. For a long moment, he didn’t think she was going to explain her mood, but she finally shrugged and came to sit on the sofa beside him.
Apollo immediately leaped onto the sofa and put his head on her lap. She stroked his ears, and he practically melted into a black puddle. “I still can’t believe it.” She paused and looked up at Zach. “I’m Clarence and Lucy’s only heir. Kristy says the estate will be worth about two million dollars.”
The shock of her words took a moment. He blinked, and a warm rush of joy rolled up his chest. “Shauna, that’s great! I always knew they loved you, and no one deserves a streak of good to come out of this any more than you do.” He leaned over and brushed her cheek with his lips. She always smelled so good—a mixture of lemon and some kind of herbal scent in her shampoo or lotion. Her skin was incredibly soft under his lips, and he quickly pulled away before she noticed he’d like to linger.
“It feels wrong to benefit from their deaths.”
“They wanted to take care of you. I’m not surprised they did this. You won’t have to worry about money any longer.”
“The sheriff says I went to the top of the suspect list. I was the last one to see both of them alive.”
“I went with you to see Lucy,” he reminded her. “Try not to worry. They’ll take a look at you and realize you had nothing to do with their deaths. They’ll check out your alibis for both time frames.”
“I suppose, but it feels weird to know anyone might think I’d hurt them.” She yawned. “I’ve got to get to bed. I have an early-morning flight.” She nudged Apollo’s head off her lap and rose. “Thanks for caring.”
The living room felt lonely as soon as she left. Zach should be heading to bed himself, but he grabbed his laptop and scrolled through more links of information about Dorothy Edenshaw. He read half a dozen interviews with her about jewelry design, then read another on her views about women in the art field. When nothing there gave him any new information, he stopped and yawned.
The fire was out, and it was time to go to bed, but he couldn’t make himself close the computer. He could search for information on Darla. Shauna’s revelation about her death being a murder had rocked him. Nothing online indicated that she’d been murdered, just a dry rendering of the discovery of her body in a field of lavender. A small news article a week later mentioned a drug overdose, and that was it.
The View from Rainshadow Bay Page 12
