by Amy Lillard
He whistled low and under his breath. “That’s some rocks.”
It sure was. The necklace looked like something Marilyn Monroe might have worn in the “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” scene. It consisted of single strand of stones that circled and swirled at the center with teardrop-shaped sapphires dangling in the space each loop created.
And it was obvious that no one in Sugar Springs save the Lilly-Whitneys could have afforded a necklace like that. If it truly was made from real gemstones.
“We don’t know. It could be rhinestones,” Arlo reminded them.
“We should try using it to cut a piece of glass,” Camille said.
“Absolutely not,” Arlo said as Fern started toward the front window. “Glass cuts glass. You may not use that on my window. Please and thank you.”
“I can take it down to Henry Wilson and see what he knows about it,” Fern said.
They had already decided that if anyone in town sold the necklace to Weston, it was Henry Wilson at Wilson’s Jewelry Store. Whether Wilson would remember it or not was another matter altogether.
“If nothing else, someone there should be able to tell us if the diamonds are real or not,” Fern continued. She looked ready to do just that, rush outside and down the block without giving a thought to the questions the other jewelry store employees might ask.
“And where are you going to tell them you got it?” Arlo asked.
Fern shrugged. “I don’t know. Somebody’s got to be able to check it.”
“Rumor was that Mary Kennedy stole the necklace from the Whitneys and used the money to disappear,” Helen reminded her.
“But the journal we found suggested that Weston planted the necklace in Mary’s car so he could claim her a thief afterward,” Camille added.
“Then Mary didn’t have any money if she only stole one necklace,” Fern said. “As I got this one right here.” And she didn’t have to remind them all that it had been underwater for nearly fifty years.
“There’s some interesting stuff here,” Sam said, ignoring their chatter while perusing the wet parchment in front of him. “What I can read of it.”
“And that would be a lot easier if they were dry,” Helen hinted.
“Mmhmm,” Sam continued, drawing closer to the papers on the table.
“The hairdryer?” Helen repeated.
“Oh, right.” Sam jumped up, startled, and crossed over to the door that led upstairs. A few moments later he returned with a hairdryer.
“Do I need to ask why you have a hairdryer in your office?” Arlo asked.
Sam handed the device to Helen. “If you want,” he said. “But I’ll not give away all the secrets of the trade.”
“What should we do about this?” Fern asked, her voice raised to nearly a yell to be heard over the roar of the hairdryer. She held up the necklace.
“Put that down,” Camille said. “You don’t want any customers over here.” Though Camille’s voice was almost as loud as Fern’s.
“Why don’t we discuss that after Helen gets the pages dry? After all, there may be a clue in there.” Arlo bit back a sigh. What was she saying? Once again, the ladies had sucked her into their vortex of mystery solving.
Helen shut off the hairdryer, though the pages were nowhere near complete. It was obvious to Arlo that she was ready to join in the discussion.
“Then I think we should take everything down to Mads,” Arlo continued.
Helen shook her head as if disgusted. “Why would we take it to Mads? He doesn’t care a thing about Mary Kennedy.”
“If you hand him these items, he would probably consent to reopening the case.” Arlo looked at each of her book club ladies in turn. They looked back at her, then at one another.
Finally Fern spoke. “Probably?”
“I’m not sure I like those odds,” Camille said. “Sam?” She turned to the resident PI.
“I don’t have a dog in this fight.”
“But you do have a learned opinion. What do you say?” Helen asked.
“As a law-abiding citizen of Sugar Springs, Mississippi, I would tell you that you should take any and all evidence of any crime to the chief of police.”
“Well said.” Arlo smiled at him.
“But,” he continued, “I don’t believe that Mads is interested in solving the case of who killed Mary Kennedy. There’s no one around much who cares about the case at all.”
Judith Whitney was the only one who had any sort of connection to Mary Kennedy’s disappearance. If half the rumors in town were true, Judith was the reason Mary Kennedy had disappeared to begin with. The other half believed that Weston was responsible. And still more blamed Mary’s husband. Now Weston was gone, Mary Kennedy was gone, Jeff Kennedy was gone. There was no one around to care much one way or another if a killer or kidnapper was brought to justice.
“You are not helping,” Arlo said. She shot him a stabbing look.
“I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to be.” He grinned at her.
Arlo shook her head. “Now you know.”
The rat had the audacity to chuckle. “You know these ladies are going to do what they want regardless of what you or I say.” He had lowered his voice so that only she could hear.
“I do, but I swear they’re out to make the gray before we’re done.”
“They don’t seem to talk about books much,” Sam commented.
“They talk about Missing Girl all the time.”
Helen switched the hairdryer back on as Fern and Camille perched on the couch and waited for the pages to dry. Dan the grocer came in the shop to get a coffee, and Sam pulled Arlo a little closer to the door to the third floor so they could be heard over the drone of the hairdryer.
“And they still believe that Mary Kennedy and the girl in Missing Girl are the same?”
“They feel Wally made the changes to the story to make it fit better into fiction, but otherwise, yes, for all practical intents and purposes, Mary Kennedy is the missing girl.” Not that it mattered. There were enough changes to the story that it hardly resembled the original. Only to three little old ladies who had lived through the time themselves.
Sam tilted his head from one side to the other as if weighing the theory balanced against itself. “I suppose it could’ve been.”
“I don’t see how they can even prove it. And I would much rather go back to talking about To Kill a Mockingbird than getting kicked off the Lillyfield property by security. Again.”
“Live a little, Arlo. You used to like having a little fun. When did you turn into such a stick in the mud?”
She pulled back, a little offended from his words. “I’m not a stick in the mud.”
“So, where’s the girl who broke into the school with me and replaced all the cans of whipped cream in the lunchroom with shaving cream?”
A small bit of laughter escaped Arlo. She tried to hold it in, but she couldn’t. “That was funny.”
“I still can’t believe they didn’t notice the difference until they started eating it.”
“People always see what they want to see, right?”
He nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He smiled down at her, and Arlo got that warm, fuzzy feeling again.
“Eureka!” Helen shrieked as she turned off the dryer. She held a paper high in the air.
Fern and Camille were on their feet in an instant.
“You are not going to believe this.”
Sam gestured for her to go first, and he trailed behind her as she looked over to where Helen stood in the reading nook.
“What is it?” Fern asked. “What is it we’re not going to believe?”
Helen held up the paper toward them triumphantly. She pointed to the greeting at the top of the page.
Fern and Camille both squinted and leaned closer to the paper trying
to read what was there.
“My dearest M,” Fern said. “But I can’t read the rest of it.”
Camille adjusted her glasses. “Are you sure that’s an M? It looks a little like a J to me.”
“It has to be an M,” Helen said. “If it was a J, it would mean that the letter was written to Judith. Why would Mary have a love letter that Weston wrote to Judith?”
“Are you sure it’s Weston Whitney’s handwriting?” Fern asked. “That’s very important for our case.”
“Why are you so sure it’s a love letter?” Arlo asked.
“No adventure,” Sam said close to her ear. That was the second time today that someone had basically called her boring. What was happening to her? Being a homeowner and a business owner…was it making her… No, old wasn’t the word. The ladies in her book club were elderly. Was her life making her…boring?
“This one’s typed.” Helen held it up so they could see it. Most of the words were smeared, including the name half of dearest and whatever else Weston had wanted to say to his dearest.
“This one’s not.” Camille pointed to one in the center of the table. “More than one. Most of them here are handwritten, in the same handwriting as Weston Whitney’s journals.”
“Here’s the receipt for her room,” Fern said. “Single occupancy. But that’s about all I can tell.”
Arlo started to say something else about them minding their own business, but Sam calling her boring once again rose in her thoughts. She didn’t want to be boring. And she supposed that if the book club was analyzing fifty-year-old papers found in the glove box of a once-submerged VW Beetle, then they weren’t at the mansion in the way of the real investigation—who killed Haley Adams.
Other than the ones that were typed, it was the same handwriting. Though some were not signed, the ones that were seemed to be in the worst shape of all. Sometimes Arlo could make out sincerely; sometimes there was nothing at the bottom of the page but a smear. There were at least thirty pages in all, different sizes and shapes, and all worse for wear from their time in Lillyfield Lake.
“I know someone who knows what Weston Whitney’s handwriting looks like,” Helen’s eyes sparkled in that way they did when trouble was brewing. Every time she got that look on her face, Arlo suspected she needed a hobby. Other than the book club and trying to solve mysteries that might not even be mysteries at all.
“You do,” Arlo said. “You have three of his journals.” But the ladies weren’t listening.
“Judith Whitney,” Fern said with a firm nod.
“Righto.”
* * *
“I still think you should have brought the necklace back,” Arlo said later that afternoon.
When Jayden had arrived at the bookstore after school and got his snack and started his homework at the coffee bar, Arlo decided it was better to get the ladies out of the bookstore and out of earshot of the impressionable youngster.
“We will,” Fern said. “Just as soon as we finish our investigation.” She knocked on one of the large double doors of Lillyfield mansion. She seemed to think about it a moment, then rang the bell for good measure.
Arlo started. “What are you going to do? Take her fingerprints?”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Helen shot her a look. But Arlo was not about to be dissuaded. She may have agreed to come here to the Whitney mansion with them again under the guise of bringing food to poor Mrs. Whitney, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try everything in her power to talk these ladies out of harassing the residents and staff of Lillyfield.
“We brought food,” Camille said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
“Most people make it themselves at home,” Arlo said. “Not buy it at the grocery store bakery and put it in their own pan so it looks like they baked it at home.”
Fern scoffed. “What difference does that make? We needed to get out here quickly, and we needed to have an excuse. There you have it.”
“I still don’t think they’re going to let you in. They’re going to take one look at the four of us, take the cake, and then shut the door in our faces.”
Camille snickered. “Take the cake. If we were at the store, that’s what Faulkner would be saying.”
It was true, but Arlo couldn’t acknowledge it. She knew what Camille was doing, trying to get her off track so she wasn’t concentrating on getting them out of the mansion before they even got in.
Suddenly the door in front of them opened, and a small maid stood there. She wasn’t the one they had met before—Sabrina—and Arlo once again wondered how many maids were working there total. And if perhaps this young woman took Haley’s place in the household. The young woman looked hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure she should have opened the door in the first place.
Great. Just the kind of girl to be manipulated by these book-reading amateur sleuths.
“Hi,” Helen gushed, stepping forward even though it was Camille who held the cake. “We are concerned friends and neighbors of Mrs. Whitney, and we wanted to come by and offer our prayers and well wishes. Just to check on her, you know?”
The girl nodded mutely.
“May we come in?” Helen asked. She still used that keeper of the inn voice that was strong and friendly. The young girl was no match for its power.
She stepped back so they could enter the house.
Arlo had no choice but to file in behind the three ladies.
The mansion looked pretty much the same as it had when they had been there before. The only differences were that the tricolored gladiolus had been changed out for two shades of purple ones, lavender and grape, and someone had placed a bust of Beethoven on the table closest to the door. Last time they had been there, the table had been devoid of decoration. Well, its decoration had been moved, leaving only a dust ring as proof that it had ever been there. Most likely it had been the statuette of the young girl with flowers behind her back, the same object used to kill Haley Adams.
Arlo pulled her thoughts back into line. She wasn’t there to do anything about Haley’s murder. She was supposed to keep the book club ladies from aggravating Judith Whitney and ending up in jail. That was the only reason.
“Hi, love. I’m Camille. These are my friends—Arlo, Fern, and Helen. Did you work with Haley?” Camille must have been reading her mind, though Arlo would have never asked the question outright.
The girl swallowed hard. “I did.”
“She was a nice girl, that Haley,” Camille continued.
“Yes.” The one word was so quietly spoke it was almost drowned out by the ticking of the grandfather clock.
“We brought this cake. We just wanted to check in and see if there’s any more information about Haley’s murder, she was such a sweet gir—”
“It was me,” she said, cutting through whatever Camille had been about to say next. It was more than obvious that the knowledge had been a great burden to the young maid. “I was the one who saw them arguing. Dylan and Haley.”
“You don’t say?” Fern asked. “Was it a bad argument?”
The girl cast her eyes downward and gave a short shrug. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember?” Camille asked.
“It was just an argument. I told the police that.” But she looked everywhere except at four of them. Arlo glanced up and caught Helen’s narrowed gaze. And she knew her onetime guardian was thinking the same thing she was. The young girl was lying.
But why?
Chapter 19
“Just an argument,” the maid continued. Her voice grew shakier with each word she said, as if she had started to regret saying them at all. “Maybe it was that day. Maybe the day before, but it was just an argument. The kind boys and girls have when they’re dating. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Before anyone could utter another word, the maid disappeared down one of the many corridors, leavi
ng them standing at the foot of the staircase. Cake still in hand.
“Do you think we should just go on up?” Camille said.
“Of course,” Fern said. “Judith’s got to be up there somewhere. The third floor is a ballroom, and the fourth floor is the attic, so surely all we have to do is cover the rooms on the second floor.”
Piece of cake, Arlo thought. It was just twenty or so of them.
“I don’t know,” Helen said. “I think that would look a little suspicious.”
And surely land them in jail.
“Let’s go,” Arlo said. She started for the front door when different voice stopped her.
“I’m sorry,” a girl’s voice interrupted. “Was no one here to greet you?” She seemed distressed by the very idea. It was Sabrina, the maid who had let them in before, that same day when Haley had been murdered.
“One of the maids let us in, then she just left us here,” Helen said. “We came to see Judith. We’re friends of hers.”
“Really?” the girl said. And Arlo wondered if she recognized them as well. Maybe. Maybe not. It had been a pretty traumatic day. “I didn’t think she had any friends.”
Arlo wasn’t sure what to say that, so she didn’t say anything. But she could tell Fern was dying to ask more.
“Can you take us to see her?” Helen asked.
“Of course,” she started up the staircase, hooking one arm over her shoulder to motion them to follow behind. “I remember you from before. The day Haley died.” Sabrina’s voice lost its happy edge. She stopped in the middle of the staircase and turned to look back down at them. Her brown eyes were clouded with sorrow. “It’s just so sad.”
“I agree,” Fern said.
“And then that Andrea.” She made a face.
“Who is Andrea, love?” Camille asked.
Sabrina flicked one hand in no particular direction. “She’s the other maid.”
“I take it that you two don’t get along?” Fern asked.
“No,” Sabrina said simply. Then she turned back around and trudged the rest of the way up the gleaming staircase. When they got to the landing, she waited on them before heading down one side of the hallway. “She didn’t like Haley at all, and I think she’s lying.”
