“I was pretty sure what the gift had to be even before I read that note,” I said. “I knew it had to be so important that Uncle John Ward wouldn’t trust the mail, and it had to be so important that, even after all this time and all that had happened, Small Bill would come back to Byerly to make sure it was delivered. It had to be an engagement ring. The ring that Clara is wearing, now.”
“It wasn’t fair!” Clara shouted. “The boys always liked Daphine better, and I know that Ed would never have married me if Daphine had ever given him the time of day. But when he brought me my ring, I knew he really loved me. Me! I didn’t mind it when he talked to Daphine all the time, and offered to help out with her yard and all. I had my ring, and I had Ed. Then Ed died, and I found that letter. Ed never bought me that ring, never bought me anything. Do you know how that felt?”
I said, “Maybe I could understand your not giving Aunt Daphine the ring back, and maybe I could understand your resenting her for it. But I can’t understand blackmail and I can’t understand murder.”
“Oh my Lord,” Aunt Daphine whispered. “It was you, Clara?”
Clara smiled, and it wasn’t pretty. “When I first looked at that letter, all I thought about was that the ring wasn’t meant for me. Then I realized what it meant, that Daphine was never married. That she had been lying all those years, and that Vasti was a bastard. You lied, Daphine.”
“Yes, I did,” Aunt Daphine said.
“All this time everyone in Byerly thought you were so wonderful for raising your daughter alone, and for starting this shop and all. And it was all a lie,” Clara said. “I didn’t have anything. All I had was the ring, and it wasn’t even mine! You owed it to me. When Ed died so sudden like that, there wasn’t any money. You owed it to me, every bit of it.”
“So you blackmailed her,” I said, wanting to draw her attention and her hate away from Aunt Daphine. “You worked with her every day, and you could see what it was doing to her, and you still blackmailed her. And you kept her ring.”
“It’s my ring!” Clara shouted. “I won’t give it up.”
“Is that what you told Small Bill Walters when he came to see you?” I asked, and she looked away. I turned back to Aunt Daphine. “When Junior searched Small Bill’s hotel room, she found a Byerly Gazette from the Wednesday before he died. At the time she figured he picked it up in town, but then we found out that he had a subscription. It was mailed to him Wednesday afternoon, and he received it Friday. Do you remember what was in that paper? It took us a while to spot it. That’s when they ran that full–page ad for Arthur, the one with a picture of Arthur and Vasti, his parents, and you. It’s a wonderful picture of all of you holding hands, and looking proud. And your finger is as bare as it can be. That’s the first time that Small Bill realized that you never got the ring Uncle John Ward had trusted him to deliver.
“He came to Byerly to try to find out what happened. He probably already knew that Ed was dead, since it would have been in the paper, so he went looking for Clara. Maybe he didn’t immediately suspect that Clara had the ring, but when he asked her if she knew what had happened to it, there it was on her finger.”
“That Small Bill thought he was so smart,” Clara spat out. “He said he was an old war buddy of John Ward Marston’s and gave me that phony name, but I knew he was Small Bill Walters all along. He threatened me, said he was going to take my ring away, but I wasn’t about to let him. I found out where he was staying, and I went to his hotel Sunday to talk to him some more. He was leaving, so I followed him up to the mill and through the hole in the fence and up to Burt’s office. When I caught up with him, I told him that if he told my secret, I’d tell everybody his. Then he tried to play rough, tried to grab my hand and take my ring away from me. Only I had my gun in my purse and I pulled it out. He shouldn’t have grabbed for me like he did. I didn’t mean for him to get shot like that, but he kept reaching for me. Even after the first shot.” She shrugged her shoulders. “After the second shot I could see that he was dead and there was nothing I could do, so I left.”
I hope I never hear anything so awful as that woman casually admitting that she had shot a man twice. “What about Dorinda? You killed her, too, didn’t you?”
“She was here when Small Bill came looking for me,” Clara said. “When they put that picture of him in the Gazette, she remembered seeing him with me and she threatened to tell Junior Norton. She said she’d keep quiet but only if I’d give her my ring.” She clenched her fist around the diamond ring.
“So you shot her,” I said.
“I had her meet me here at the shop and after I made sure that no one knew that she had come to see me, I pulled out the gun.” She shrugged again. “She should have known that I would shoot her, too, but she didn’t think that I would do it. She wasn’t as smart as she thought she was.”
“What about Richard?” I said coldly.
At least Clara had enough decency left to look embarrassed. “I felt bad about that, but I didn’t know what else to do. I thought that you and he might be trying to pull something, so after I picked up the money, I hid and saw him start to pack up and leave. It was getting dark, so it was easy for me to come around behind him.”
“Didn’t you check to make sure he was dead?” I said, making myself keep my voice flat despite my anger.
“I should have, but I was afraid someone might have heard the shot. He didn’t move, so I went on.”
I nodded as if I understood, but there was no way that I could understand this woman. Aunt Daphine’s eyes were wide in horror, but Aunt Maggie had no expression at all.
Clara looked around at us and asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“What do you think?” Aunt Maggie said. “We’re going to put you in jail! Which is where you damned well belong!”
“You can’t!” Clara said, looking around wildly. “If you do, I’ll tell about Daphine and John Ward.”
“You just go right ahead and tell,” Aunt Daphine said firmly. “I might have forgiven you for keeping the ring, after all these years. I might even have forgiven you for blackmailing me, Clara, but you killed two people. You tried to kill Richard. Do you really think we’ll let you get away with all of that?”
I was relieved that Aunt Daphine had been the one to say that. I knew that it had to happen that way, too, but I was glad it had been her decision.
“And after you spread your dirt,” Aunt Maggie said, “you’re going straight to jail. We in Byerly are going to forget you even exist, and you’re going to be there for the rest of your miserable life. If you’re lucky, you’ll get the death penalty. If not, there’s no telling how long you’ll last in there, with all the drug addicts and thieves and whores. And murderers.”
I had never heard Aunt Maggie talk like that, and even though it was directed at Clara, I felt chilled to the bone.
Clara took a couple of sobbing breaths, and then said, “I suppose you’ve already called the police.”
“Junior Norton is waiting inside,” I told her. Now that she had confessed, I didn’t try to keep the revulsion out of my voice.
She nodded. “I better go get my purse.” She started shakily toward the back.
I was going to let her go, because I knew there was no back door, but Aunt Maggie held an open hand out in front of her. “We’ll take that ring back now,” she said matter–of–factly.
Clara looked right pitiful taking it off, and I almost felt sorry for her. Then I remembered how little feeling she had shown when talking about killing Small Bill and Dorinda, and about trying to kill Richard. She hadn’t even asked if Richard was alive or dead. After that, I just felt sick to my stomach.
She held the ring up to look at it just for a second, then placed it carefully on Aunt Maggie’s open palm before walking into the back room.
It wasn’t but a few seconds later when we heard the gunshot. I knew that I should go see, but I couldn’t make myself move. Aunt Daphine started to go, but Aunt Maggie shook her head a
nd went back there herself. When she came back, she was nodding grimly. She said, “She’s dead.”
“I thought that you got her gun,” I said.
Aunt Maggie ignored me. To Aunt Daphine she said, “I think this is yours,” and held out the ring.
Aunt Daphine stared at it for a minute, and then reached out and took it. “Maybe I shouldn’t want it after all that’s happened,” she said slowly, looking down at it, “but John Ward’s dying wish was for me to wear it for him. Small Bill died trying to get it to me.” Then she slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand. “John Ward meant it for me and I’m going to have it.”
I had expected Junior to come running when she heard the shot, but instead she took her time. When she came into the shop, she didn’t speak to us, just went into the back room for a few minutes.
When she came back out, she said, “I should have known. Miss Burnette, I thought you were going to get the gun out of her purse.”
“I must have checked the wrong purse,” Aunt Maggie said evenly. “There wasn’t any gun in the purse I looked in.”
Junior nodded. “I see. What would you have done if she had tried to shoot one of you?”
“I could have handled her. Besides, there wasn’t but one bullet.”
“In this gun you didn’t see?” Junior said.
Aunt Maggie nodded.
“Did Clara tell you why it was she was intending to shoot herself?” Junior asked.
“She confessed to killing Leonard Cooper and Dorinda Thompson,” I said.
“Did she say why?” Junior asked, scrupulously polite.
I looked at Aunt Daphine, and she looked at Junior. “Blackmail,” I said. “Dorinda saw Clara with Cooper, and guessed that Clara had killed him. She said she’d tell you if Clara didn’t pay up.” That was true, though not the whole truth.
“And why did Clara kill Leonard Cooper?”
I hesitated, and Aunt Maggie said, “Who can tell?”
“I notice that Clara isn’t wearing that diamond ring she was so fond of,” Junior said speculatively.
Aunt Daphine started to answer, but Aunt Maggie said, “She gave it to Daphine, Junior, and I’ll swear to that in court if you want me to.”
Junior shook her head. “It probably won’t come to that. If we can match the bullets from her gun with the ones that killed Leonard Cooper and Dorinda Thompson, that will most likely close the case. I have a hunch the town council, especially Big Bill Walters, will be happy to leave it at that.” She looked Aunt Maggie in the eye. “Miss Burnette, you know that Clara would still be alive if you had done like you said you were going to.”
Aunt Maggie said, “Well Junior, you know as well as I do that law isn’t always the same thing as justice. For everybody in town to hear about Daphine’s private affairs isn’t my idea of justice.”
“That may be true,” Junior admitted, “but it’s the law I swore to uphold.”
“I know you did, Junior, but I didn’t. I’m the oldest in my family, and I’ve got to look after my folks the best I can. I didn’t do anything that I can’t live with.”
All Junior said was, “I better call the crime scene people.”
While Junior was on the telephone, Aunt Maggie gave Aunt Daphine a thick envelope. “That’s the money you left for Clara yesterday. I found it when we were searching Clara’s house. I suppose the rest of it is gone for good, but at least you’ve got this much back.”
“You didn’t tell Junior about the money,” I said.
Aunt Maggie shrugged. “I don’t see that Junior needs to know anything about it, do you?”
I shook my head. “I guess not.”
We were there for several hours after that, of course, answering questions and signing statements and such. But eventually Junior let us go, and I headed for the hospital to check on Richard.
Chapter 40
“How do you feel about it all?” Richard asked when I finished telling him the tale that afternoon at the hospital.
“I’m just not sure,” I said. “Maybe I should be sorry about Clara killing herself, but I’m not. Not after what she did to Aunt Daphine, and Small Bill Walters, and Dorinda. And to you.” I reached over to touch him, just to reassure myself that he was all right. “I don’t doubt that she got what she deserved, but I couldn’t have made the decision Aunt Maggie did. I hope I never have to.” I shrugged. “It’s over now, anyway, except for the clean–up.”
“So did the doctor say how long they’re going to keep me in here?”
“At least through the end of the week.”
“Great. Just the way I wanted to end my vacation.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “You should count yourself lucky. I’m the one who’s going to have to spend every waking moment repeating all of this to the rest of the Burnettes. And I’m going to have to talk to Burt Walters to tell him that Aunt Maggie and Aunt Daphine know about his brother. And he and I are going to have to come up with something to tell Michael Cooper. And I’m going to have to track down Joleen and try to explain how her mother tried to blackmail Clara. And I’m going to call your boss and explain how one of his professors got shot. And most important, I’m going to have to try and mend fences with Junior. You get to lie here in this nice comfortable bed and read Shakespearean scholarship.”
“You’re absolutely right,” he said solemnly. “Next time, I’ll let you take the bullet.”
Normally I would have hit him with a pillow, but under the circumstances, I settled for a long kiss. “There’s not going to be a next time,” I said firmly. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
Getting things sorted out was even more of a pain than I had expected, but I lived through it, even when Hank Parker cornered me for an endless interview.
Somehow Aunt Daphine’s secret stayed a secret, and so did Small Bill Walters’s. There was lots of speculation as to why Clara had shot Cooper, but Junior just kept telling people that all she cared about was who. Why Clara did it wasn’t Junior’s business.
There was some talk about Clara giving her ring to Aunt Daphine, but since she didn’t have any children, I guess it wasn’t considered all that odd. After all, people said, you don’t expect a murderer to be rational, especially not when she’s about to kill herself.
Come Tuesday, Arthur won the election by a landslide. Of course, that meant there was something else Richard got to avoid: the party Vasti threw to celebrate. As for me, I enjoyed it. Partially because I like noisy parties and partially because I was tickled to death that Arthur had won. But the main reason was because of how proud and happy Aunt Daphine looked when she stood there next to Vasti and Arthur, and how every once in a while she looked down at the diamond ring on her finger.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Toni L.P. Kelner is the author of the Laura Fleming mysteries and the “Where are they now?” series. She has also co-edited, with Charlaine Harris, a series of New York Times bestselling fantasy-mystery anthologies, including Many Bloody Returns; Wolfsbane & Mistletoe; Death’s Excellent Vacation; and the forthcoming Games Creatures Play. Her short stories have been nominated for the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Derringer, and she has won the Agatha Award. Under her pseudonym Leigh Perry, she writes the Family Skeleton mysteries.
ALSO BY TONI L.P. KELNER
SKELETON FAMILY MYSTERIES
(writing as Leigh Perry)
A Skeleton in the Family
LAURA FLEMING MYSTERIES
Down Home Murder*
Dead Ringer*
Trouble Looking for a Place to Happen*
Country Comes to Town*
Tight as a Tick*
Death of a Damn Yankee*
Mad as the Dickens*
Wed and Buried*
ANTHOLOGIES CO-EDITED WITH CHARLAINE HARRIS
Many Bloody Returns
Wolfsband and Mistletoe
Death’s Excellent Vacation
Home Improvement: Undead Edition
An Apple for the
Creature
Games Creatures Play (forthcoming from Ace)
“WHERE ARE THEY NOW?” SERIES
Curse of the Kissing Cousin (originally published as Without Mercy)
Who Killed the Pinup Queen?
Blast from the Past
*available as a Jabberwocky ebook
THANK YOU FOR READING
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Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 02 - Dead Ringer Page 24
