“And I understand from your friend here that you’re an innocent bystander.”
“Not as innocent as I’d like,” Astrid said, glaring at Dylan, who was cowering in the corner like a frightened puppy. “Ellie was right. There’s something wrong with you. And I was too stupid to listen to her. At least I followed my own instincts and never let things get too physical.”
I saw Dylan’s wife relax a bit at that. Would she forgive him? I had the feeling she had before. And probably would again, though shame was rolling off her in waves. I ached to give her a dose of betony, lavender, and geranium oils to make her feel better—and give her the strength to leave the jerk once and for all.
However, she wouldn’t thank me for butting in right then.
“Come on,” she said flatly. “You’re coming home.”
Dylan hesitated, then scurried past Astrid without looking at her.
“Sorry,” his wife said quietly as she followed him out to her car.
“No, hon. I’m sorry,” Astrid said.
We watched them drive away from the doorway. “You’re the one I should tell I’m sorry,” she said.
I waved that away. “Nah. Besides, it could be worse. He’s just a cheat. I was afraid he was a killer.”
She made a funny sound that I thought was a sob. When I looked at her, though, I saw she was laughing. At first it was silent, and then it bubbled out like seltzer. Soon we were both whooping and snorting, stumbling inside and shutting the door so the whole town wouldn’t see us making a spectacle of ourselves.
Finally, we ran down and sat grinning at each other in the tiny waiting room.
“That felt good,” Astrid said.
I nodded. “It feels like forever since I laughed.”
“I think Eureka would have liked it.”
“I think so, too. And speaking of Eureka, I stopped by to talk to you for a reason.”
Her eyebrows went up.
I told Charles Bettelheim’s story one more time, and then filled her in on Odell’s fake alibi and his desire to write Eureka’s book now that she was gone.
“He’s at the library doing research,” I said, and then told her about the trap I’d set. “Lupe’s in.”
My friend gave a firm nod, all trace of humor gone. “I’m in, too.”
CHAPTER 25
MAGGIE left soon after I got back to the shop. A few customers came in and browsed. I greeted them but otherwise left them alone. I was thinking about that evening. About facing a killer. At least I wouldn’t be alone.
I called the clinic to check on Ritter. Dr. Scott said he was doing well, but I detected a note of concern in her voice.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said.
“It’s not anything to worry too much about.”
My heart beat a little faster.
“He doesn’t seem to be regaining the memory of what happened as quickly as I thought he would. I’m sure he will, though. It’s just that it doesn’t usually take this long.”
“When can he come home?” I asked.
“This evening. His sister is going to come get him in a few hours.”
“Okay, good. Can I talk to him?”
“Sure. Let me transfer you.”
When he picked up, Ritter sounded like his old, strong self, and I nearly wept with relief. What was a little memory problem, after all?
“I hear Thea’s going to take you home in a while.”
“Thank God. I want a shower and some sweat pants like you wouldn’t believe. You want to come over and watch a movie or something? I know it’s not much of a date, but . . .”
“Oh, Ritter, I can’t. Not tonight. I’m so sorry.”
“You have plans,” he said, sounding defeated.
“Well, sort of.” I debated not telling him what my plans were, but that wasn’t the kind of relationship I wanted for us. “We’re setting a trap to catch Eureka’s killer tonight.”
“Excuse me, but you’re doing what?”
“At the museum,” I said. “And I don’t know how long it will take for Odell to show up.”
“The professor?” he asked.
“We think he killed Eureka to steal her book research. Maggie broke his alibi.”
Another long silence. Then a strange sound.
“Are you okay?” I asked, alarmed.
The sound morphed into laughter. Not as hysterical as Astrid’s and mine had been earlier, but still genuine mirth.
“You are something else, Elliana Allbright. I’m so glad you’re in my life.”
“So you’re not mad at me?”
“Well, I’m coming with you, of course.”
“Oh, no. You’re going to stay at home with your sister. And I’ll let her know to keep an eagle eye on you.”
“Elliana—” he began.
“I’m no wilting violet,” I said. “I can take care of myself. But if you’re really worried, Lupe will be there, all official with her police training and weapons and all.”
“Hrm.”
“I promise to text when it’s all over.”
He gave a little snort. “It does make me feel better that Detective Garcia will be there.”
“Good.”
“But, Elliana?”
“Yes?”
“If you get hurt, I’m going to be really mad.”
“Then I won’t get hurt,” I said.
* * *
• • •
ASTRID and I stopped by the Juke Diner for dinner. I couldn’t remember eating a better hamburger. Then we headed to the library, where Maria was waiting for us. Lupe showed up soon after.
“Thanks for helping us,” I said to her as we gathered by the side door of the library.
She pressed her lips together. “If this works out, I’m golden. If something goes wrong, I could lose my job.”
Astrid and I exchanged looks that said we both regretted dragging Lupe into this.
She noticed and held up her hand. “I know you two. You’d do it anyway. At least I’ll be on the inside with you.”
“Odell just left,” Maria said. “He asked me if I knew anything about a diary, and I acted like I had no idea what he was talking about. He looked relieved. Then I mentioned that the police were talking about confiscating the entire contents of Heritage House and closing it down until they solved Eureka’s murder. He didn’t seem to like that idea.”
“I bet not,” I said. “He needs to see what’s in the diary for himself. Nice job, Maria.”
She grinned. “Thanks.”
“Finish closing the library, then go home and lock your doors,” Lupe told her.
“I have every intention of doing just that,” the librarian said with a nod.
Lupe looked at Astrid and me. “Okay, angels. Let’s do this.”
* * *
• • •
THE museum was a lot colder than I’d expected. There was only the one chair, too, and the floor was hard as, well, as a floorboard. We sat for what seemed like hours, quiet as mice, phones on silent. Finally, I flicked the screen on long enough to check the time and saw we’d been there less than forty minutes.
I sighed and shifted into a more comfortable position.
A loud snapping sound startled me awake. Across the room, I heard a rustle as Lupe moved. Rolling to my feet, I backed against the wall where she’d told me to stand earlier.
The padlock rattled as it was pulled through the hasp. There was silence for several seconds. I tried not to breathe too loudly, but it was hard since my heart was going a million miles a second.
The door slowly creaked open, and a tall figure stepped into the room. The door closed again, and heavy footsteps crossed the floor. The narrow beam of a penlight split the darkness. From where I stood, I watched it play over the desk and empty
display cases.
There was a click, and suddenly the entire room was bathed in the light from the overhead fixture. Odell Radcliffe stood blinking like a bat, his face the picture of confusion.
“Gotcha!” I said.
Lupe sighed. “Ellie.”
But I was grinning too hard to care. My plan had worked!
Astrid strode out from the alcove by the restroom where she’d been stationed and came to stand by me.
“What is the meaning of this?” Odell boomed.
“Odell Radcliffe, you are under arrest for the murder of Eureka Sanford,” Lupe intoned.
“Murder?” He sounded stunned. “That’s ridiculous. I . . . I adored Eureka.”
I asked, “You’re here for the diary, right?”
“Of course I am.”
That stopped me, but only for a couple of seconds. “And you killed Eureka for her research? So you could write her book.”
He sidestepped Lupe’s handcuffs and peered at me with a baffled expression. “Young lady, I haven’t the slightest clue why you say such a thing. Eureka was my friend.” He hesitated. “Earlier today you implied you didn’t want anyone to know she broke into that time capsule. I thought it was so no one would think less of her. Well, I’m sorry, but if you truly knew Eureka Sanford, you’d never think less of her for being a brilliant, curious woman in search of the truth—even if she did cut a few corners in the process. She did break the seal on that old butter churn, and when she discovered what was inside, she called me in Berkeley. That was eight days ago.”
His eyes bored into mine, and I found myself unable to look away.
“She was so excited! She asked me to come to Poppyville to see what was in the butter churn—it wasn’t a time capsule at all, she said. It was evidence of a long-ago murder. She wouldn’t give me details, however. Wanted me to see for myself.” He licked his lips. “She wanted to collaborate with me on this writing project, she said, and thought I’d like Poppyville as much as she did.” He sighed wistfully. “I’m retiring at the end of this semester. She suggested I might want to move here, so we could work together. I liked the idea immediately. Perhaps I even dared to hope for more than a working relationship.”
Lupe snagged my gaze as she said to him, “We can figure all this out at the police annex, Dr. Radcliffe. At the very least, you entered this building illegally.”
“Ellie, I don’t know about this,” Astrid murmured in my ear.
I nodded my agreement. My mind was racing as I reevaluated everything I’d learned. The more he spoke, the more I believed Odell Radcliffe hadn’t killed Eureka Sanford—or tried to kill me.
Then who had? Warren and Trixie, as Lupe thought?
No.
Odell’s alibi had come from his daughter. Shy Haley with the big glasses and sad wardrobe, but smart enough to be pursuing a PhD at Berkeley.
I’d assumed she’d lied about where her father had been the night Eureka was killed to protect him. But what if she’d lied to protect herself?
But why on earth would she kill Eureka?
And then I realized Odell had just given me the answer. “Hold on a moment, Detective Garcia,” I said. “Odell, you were at the Roux Grill on Wednesday night, right?”
He nodded.
“So, when your daughter said you were with her—”
“Daddy, there you are!”
I turned to see Haley had silently pushed the door open and stepped into the museum.
“I was afraid you might decide to come here.” She smiled at Odell, then transferred it to Lupe. “This was just a little mistake, Detective. Don’t worry. We’ll just be on our way. In fact, we’re leaving town this evening.”
Odell blinked, as if that was news to him.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Ms. Radcliffe,” Lupe said, though she put her handcuffs away. “Your dad broke and entered. I can’t just let him drive out of town.”
Haley stepped farther into the room. “Oh, pshaw. Of course you can. This isn’t the big city, after all. He hasn’t harmed anything. And wouldn’t you rather avoid all that paperwork?”
Beside me, I heard Astrid draw in a breath. She was starting to suspect what I had already figured out.
Maybe Lupe was, too. But neither of them had seen how Haley and Odell interacted like an old married couple, finishing each other’s sentences without thinking. It had been just the two of them since Haley was a little girl. For all I knew the only interruption in their twosome was when Odell and Eureka had been an item years ago.
Astrid and I had thought Haley needed to claim her independence from her father. Perhaps we’d had it the other way around.
“What did you think about your daddy moving to Poppyville after he retired, Haley?” I asked.
Startled, she transferred her attention to me. “Now, Ellie. Why did you trick him into breaking the law like that? That wasn’t nice at all. He only wants to continue the work dear Eureka started.”
“Which I imagine you’re fine with,” I said. “As long as he stays with you while he does it.”
Odell frowned at his daughter. “What is she talking about?”
“Nothing, Daddy!” She gestured toward the door. “Well, if we have to go to the police station before we go, let’s get it over with, shall we?”
“Did you break into Eureka’s house before you killed her, or afterward?” I asked her.
She blinked. “What a silly question.”
“Why did you lie about where your father was the night of the murder?”
The blood drained from her face, but she rallied. “I didn’t lie. I was in my room in our suite that evening. I had a headache.”
I looked at Odell. “You agreed to her giving you an alibi. Why?”
He made a face. “Well, after she said that to the police, I didn’t want to contradict her. After all, it didn’t really matter. I knew I had nothing to do with Eureka’s murder.”
“So you didn’t go along with it because you knew your daughter had killed her?”
He stared at me. “What?” The word came out thickly, but his eyes shifted to the side as he, too, started to put things together. Suddenly, he gave a Haley an incredulous glare. “What did you do?”
“Daddy . . .” She faltered. “I didn’t . . . no. How could you think such a thing. Don’t let this woman”—she glared at me—“cloud your thinking.”
“You left fingerprints at my house when you poisoned the wine,” I said.
She looked smug.
“Not on the bottle. On the back door.”
Fear flickered across her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But she didn’t sound so sure of herself now.
“Oh, Haley,” Odell said, the sorrow on his face making him look a decade older than he had only moments before. “Why would you kill Eureka?”
“I didn’t . . .” She trailed off, drawing her ratty old cardigan closer around her.
Their eyes were locked. She knew he knew.
“Daddy, you were going to move here for that woman! That horrible woman. God, she hated me. Laughed at me when I tried to tell her what a terrible writing partner you’d make.”
He gaped at her. “Why would you tell her that?”
“So she’d let you stay with me in Berkeley! Daddy, I can’t move here with you right now. I’d have to leave my teaching position, give up everything.”
“I’d never ask you to move here,” he said. “I thought it would be good for you to be on your own.”
“Good for me! I gave up everything to keep you company. My whole life!”
“But I encouraged you to leave the state for college,” he said, utterly bewildered. “I didn’t need you to stay with me forever.”
“Ha! Of course you did. And I gladly made that sacrifice, Daddy.”
I wondered if r
ationalizing a fear of striking out on her own qualified as hindsight bias. I felt bad for her, though. She really was a frightened little girl at heart. Maybe she could get therapy in prison.
“But killing Eureka!” Odell said, astounded. “How could you?”
“I didn’t mean to! I went to talk to her, but she was leaving. She laughed at me. Said to ‘cut the apron strings’ and let you go. So I followed her here, and after she’d been here a while—I wanted to let her calm down a little—I tried again. But she wouldn’t listen! We struggled.” She pulled the cardigan closer, and I wondered if she hadn’t been wearing it for three days straight to cover bruises from grappling with Eureka. Her arms had been bare at the ceremony on Wednesday afternoon.
“We struggled, and, well, things got out of hand, Daddy.”
“You hit her over the head with a mining shovel,” Astrid grated out. She wasn’t feeling sorry for Haley at all now.
“Well, yes,” Haley admitted.
“You . . . you . . . ,” Odell spluttered.
“And then you stole all the items from the time capsule,” I said.
“Well, yes,” she said again. “I was kind of upset, you know, but I kept thinking to myself that if Daddy could write Eureka’s book, then maybe he wouldn’t be disappointed about not moving to Poppyville.”
We all stared at her.
Haley continued. “She was in a hurry when she left her house—wanted to get away from me, I guess—and didn’t arm her alarm system. When I got a really good look at the stuff that had been in that stupid butter churn, I realized there had to be something else. Something she’d taken. Something no one else knew about, and so it wouldn’t be connected with her death. It had to be at her house. But when I went inside, I couldn’t find anything. Not a dang thing that looked promising.”
“So you grabbed her laptop and ran.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t really telling anyone this story except her father. Her eyes were locked on his face, which was a study of horrified realization of what his daughter had done. “I was back at the hotel before you returned, Daddy.”
Marigolds for Malice Page 23
