by Kelly Rey
Eunice stepped forward to slap a business card into Abigail's good hand. "Eunice Kublinski, Esquire. Personal injury, wills and estates, improper imposition of curfew."
Good grief.
"A lawyer?" A smile stitched itself into Abigail's creases and folds. "You must be here to discuss the will." She turned and yelled, "Alston! Oxnard's lawyers are here!"
"No, we—" I began, but then Alston appeared, peering at us through thick black glasses. He was wearing khaki pants, a gray cardigan buttoned to his neck, and Nikes. The cardigan had a hole in the left elbow and the pants were dirty at the knees.
Frank Sinatra informed us it was quarter to three and there was no one in the place. I wished I was living in his world.
Abigail pointed at us. "Look, Alston, it's…" She faltered. "I'm sorry. I've forgotten your names." Interesting. She'd been in command until her brother had shown up, and suddenly she was feeble and uncertain. I didn't buy it.
"Eunice Kublinski," Eunice said, honing in on Alston with a vigorous handshake. "Attorney," she added. "My card." She whipped out another business card.
Where had the real Eunice gone?
I reached for Alston's hand. "I don't know if you remember me but—"
"You stood for her," he said with disgust.
How could he have remembered me? No one ever remembered me. Especially when I was in the orbit of people like Dusty Rose.
"I'm sorry for your loss," I said again. "May I talk to you for a few minutes?"
"About what?"
"We brought you doughnuts." Eunice shoved the box at him.
He lifted the lid. "There are no chocolate jimmies in here."
I frowned at Eunice.
"Chocolate jimmies are my favorite," she whispered.
Maizy grinned. As usual, she was having fun. She was also being suspiciously quiet. She was up to something, or soon would be. I knew the signs.
"Alston!" Abigail swatted him out of the way. "Don't be rude. The lawyers have come to tell us what we've inherited. Come right in." She took my arm and pulled me across the threshold. Eunice followed after a slight hesitation. Maizy skipped behind us like she had entered the gates of Disney World.
Abigail led us to a blinding sitting room with white drapes, white furniture, white floor, and a small electric fireplace. Through a rectangular cutout on the far wall, a galley kitchen was visible. A hallway branched off to our right with more white tiles and three closed doors.
Abigail dispatched Alston for tea and cookies and arranged herself onto one of the overstuffed chairs. I got the distinct feeling she was anything but fragile. But was she strong enough to shove Oxnard into the pool? Of course she was. Oxnard's own best days had been nearly a century ago.
"You must forgive Alston," she said. "It's been a trying few days. It's such a tragedy when one is taken so young."
Maizy snorted. I gave her a pointed scowl and she shrugged.
"Is that a real fireplace?" Eunice asked.
"Is that a Sony?" Maizy asked. "I bet Big Bang kills on that."
Abigail blinked and looked my way. Why did everyone do that?
Alston returned holding a tray with a teapot and mismatched cups and a plate of Lorna Doones. I was struck by his command of the room, even at his age. He must have been something in his younger days.
Eunice floated over to the teapot while Maizy stood beside me with her hands in her pockets, head cocked to the side, appraising the Stepford Thorpes as if she'd never seen old people before.
Abigail waited until her brother had poured tea and offered cookies. Maizy snatched up a half dozen cookies, stuffing them in her pockets, and drifted into the background.
"So about my brother's will," Abigail said. "He left us his house, didn't he?"
"Don't be crass, Abby." Alston settled in with a cup of tea.
"It should be ours," she shot back. "That vile woman shouldn't get a dime. She's stealing from us. That's our money."
I had to hand it to her. I didn't think I could talk back to Alston Thorpe. It only solidified my suspicion that Abigail was steelier than she seemed.
"Can I use your bathroom?" Maizy asked suddenly. Alston pointed and she galloped away.
"Oxnard was so proud of his house," Abigail told us. "He earned every brick of it. Do you know he started a lemonade stand one summer while all the other six-year-olds were frittering away their days playing?"
Slackers.
"He made eighty dollars that summer. What a head for business." Her expression hardened. "Of course, that was before he forgot what family means. The fool."
Oh, boy. I got the feeling Abigail's definition of family involved the transfer of money. I wondered when Oxnard had moved from lemonade into adult diapers. Not important. I still knew nothing I hadn't already known except that the Stepford Thorpes lived in Sterility City and success had gone to Oxnard's head. Big surprise.
I suddenly realized Maizy was still gone.
Eunice cleared her throat and tipped her head the tiniest bit in the direction of the hallway. One of the three doors was slightly ajar. Well, that was just great. Now we'd have to keep Alston distracted so that Maizy didn't get caught. I wasn't good at calm distraction.
"Where did you go after the ceremony?" I blurted.
See?
Abigail blinked, her rose-tinted reverie interrupted. "What does that have to do with our inheritance?"
"Just part of the process," I said.
"Process," Eunice agreed.
"What would the world do without its paperwork?" I added.
"Paperwork," Eunice agreed with a "what can you do?" shrug. I was starting to wish she'd pass out again.
"I don't understand," Alston said.
I opened my mouth to answer, but Eunice beat me to it. "In order to open probate, we just need a bit of information for our files. It will make everything move more smoothly in the end. Res ipsa loquitur."
I was pretty sure she had no idea what that meant.
"Oh," Abigail said. "Of course." She nibbled on a cookie and thought. "Well, I can't say I remember exactly where…do you remember, Al?"
"We came home," Alston said flatly. "We watched the news and went to bed." He looked steadily at his sister. "Don't you remember?"
"Oh," she said again. "Oh, yes. Of course." She smiled at Eunice. "Does that help?"
"Was it just the two of you?" I cut in. "Did you have any of the guests staying with you?"
"It was," Alston said, "just the two of us. I hardly see why that matters."
A little thing called alibi. I stood and Eunice leaped to her feet beside me. "Thanks for your time," I said. "We'll be in touch."
"But I want to know about our inheritance," Abigail said.
"We'll make sure you get everything that's coming to you," Maizy told her. I hadn't even seen her come back. She beamed at me.
I knew that smile. It meant that things were about to get worse.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"You have to stop doing that," I told Maizy when we got back in the car.
"What?" she asked innocently. "Doing good deeds and spreading sunshine?"
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah," I said. "That."
"You wouldn't say that if you knew what I found." She held up a pink glob.
"What's that?" I asked.
"That," Maizy said, "is a detective's best friend. Well, next to his gun. And his surveillance equipment. And his handcuffs. And maybe his stun gun. And a good telephoto lens."
Probably all those things were in my trunk at that very moment. Maizy had a habit of using my trunk as her personal armory. I never knew what she'd stashed in there. Served me right for not cleaning out my car more often.
I caught a familiar scent when she waved the glob in my face. "That's Play-Doh," I said.
"I love Play-Doh," Eunice said. "Can I have a sniff?"
Maizy stuck her arm between the seats. Eunice practically stuck her nose in the glob, sucked in a giant breath, closed her eyes, and said, "Mmm."
> "I know what you mean," Maizy told her. She took a big whiff and held it out to me.
I pushed it away. "And this helps us how?" I asked. "Abigail probably uses it for therapy."
"I use it for impressions," she said. She shoved the pink glob in front of my eyes to show me the distinct impression of a key. "Can we stop at a hardware store?" she asked. "I want to get a key made."
"That doesn't sound legal," Eunice asked.
"Of course it is," Maizy said. "People get keys made all the time. It's only illegal if I use it to break and enter. Of course, if I have a key, I'll only be entering, right?"
I glanced at Eunice in the rearview mirror.
"That sounds right," she said, nodding.
"How do you know it's the key to their house?" I asked.
"Keen intuition," Maizy said. "Also, they had all their keys hanging on hooks and labeled. This isn't rocket science."
Especially the way we did it.
"I hate to disappoint you," I said, "but we're not going to break into the Thorpes' house."
Maizy rolled her eyes. "Did you forget already? It's not breaking if I have a key."
"I didn't forget," Eunice said. "I've got a really good memory."
"Don't help her," I said. "We have no reason to go back there."
"Yeah, you're right," Maizy said. "Unless you consider finding out if they've made some million-dollar bank deposits lately to be a reason."
We stopped for a red light and I glanced at Maizy. "Hey, how many rooms did you go into?"
"How many were there?" she asked.
"Three, not counting the living room and kitchen."
"Then three," she said.
I sighed. "Did you find anything other than a key?"
"Let me think." Carefully, she tucked the Play-Doh glob into her hoodie. "Ben-Gay, bran, bifocals, and No Flows. Lots of No Flows."
"Is that it?" I asked. "Think about it."
"Well, there was this." She whipped some papers from her hoodie.
"What is that?" Eunice asked. "That's a legal document."
"It's a power of attorney," Maizy said. "Abby was Oxnard's medical and financial power of attorney. Or at least she was."
"So what?" Eunice asked.
"So it means Oxnard trusted her enough to make life or death decisions for him." I thought about it. "I need to see Oxnard's will. He asked Howard to draft a revised edition. I'd like to see what the changes were."
"That's easy," Maizy said. "You work with Howard. Just go look at it."
"It hasn't crossed my desk yet," I said. "And I don't want to scrounge around his office for it." Howard might bite me. I bit my lip, thinking. "She was furious about the idea of Sybil stealing her inheritance."
"Maybe that was her grief talking," Eunice said. "She's a poor old woman who lost her brother. I think it's tragic."
Maizy snorted. "You have a lot to learn about human nature."
"That's an awfully cynical perspective," Eunice told her.
"That's what happens when you ride the mean streets," Maizy said.
"I wouldn't know about that," Eunice said. "I'm from Montana."
"The thing is," I cut in, "I'm not sure I trust them. Alston remembered me. I didn't even speak to him at the wedding, and he remembered me. And I think Abigail was just pretending to be feeble-minded once he came into the room."
"So what are you saying?" Eunice asked. "You think that they killed their own brother?"
"That's what she's saying," Maizy told her. "Try to keep up."
"Only thing," I said, "why wouldn't they bump him off before he got married, not after?"
"What difference does it make?" Maizy asked. "He had a will, right?"
I nodded slowly, thinking. "But he did meet with Howard about revising it."
Eunice tapped me on the shoulder. "That's part of what I wanted to talk to you about. Howard asked me to draft the revised will, and I kind of lost his notes."
Oh, boy.
"The Thorpe will?" I asked.
She bit her lip. "I wanted to do it," she said. "I planned to do it. I just can't tell Howard."
And now Oxnard had gone and died, a newly married gazillionaire with an old outdated will, making who knew who the beneficiary.
"Don't worry," I told her. "Maybe the revisions weren't that important."
Her face lit up. "You think so?"
"Of course not," Maizy said. "You'll probably lose your job."
"She's not going to lose her job," I said. "Howard will understand."
"Sure he will," Maizy said. "Howard's a really understanding guy."
Eunice was toast.
I heard a giant sigh from the back seat. "I have to redeem myself," Eunice said. "Maybe we can find ourselves a nice five car pile-up on the way home."
"That's looking on the bright side," I told her.
* * *
"You want me to do what, now?"
He was a large man, with a barrel chest and a beer belly and a round, ruddy face and giant meaty hands that were presently holding Maizy's Play-Doh key impression. His name tag said Sal. His expression said No way.
"We need you to make a key," Maizy told him. She pointed. "Using that."
"Why do you need a key?" he asked.
"Because I can't walk through walls," she said.
I nudged her in the back. Because I was standing behind her. Because Sal was a little intimidating. Eunice was standing behind me, peeking over my shoulder, giving Sal a hopeful once-over.
"I mean," Maizy said, "I lost my key, and I need a replacement, and you have all those." She nodded toward the thousands of keys on display behind the counter.
"You lost your key," he said, "but you happened to have an impression of it?"
"You can't be too careful," she said.
Sal glanced past her to me. I looked away toward a very intriguing Roomba display. I liked the idea of a robot doing my cleaning for me. Then I saw the price tag and figured I could live with a little dirt.
"I got a daughter," Sal said.
"That's nice," Maizy told him. "So about that key."
"She's about your age," he said. "You're what, sixteen, seventeen?"
She got still.
"Last weekend," he said, "my daughter, she borrowed my car."
"Not sure where this is going," Maizy said.
"She didn't have a key to my car," he said.
"Technically speaking," Maizy said, "you don't always need a key. You can hot-wire a car in less than ninety seconds if you know what you're doing."
"She didn't hot-wire it," Sal said. "She had a key made, and she drove it away. And it's the last car she'll drive before she turns eighteen." He held up the Play-Doh, then brought his fist down on it and smashed it into a pink pancake. Then he handed it back to Maizy and walked away.
"Your logic is flawed," Maizy called after him. "That's not a car key." She shoved the pancake back in her pocket.
We looked at each other.
"You think he's married?" Eunice asked.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I spent the weekend in the usual way: sleeping and watching the Game Show Network and a Munsters marathon on TV Land. When I got home Monday night, I found papers wedged between the storm door and the frame. One was a bill from a florist for Sybil's white roses. A twisted part of me wondered if she'd recycled them as funeral flowers. The other was Lizette Larue's final invoice, with Past Due, Please Remit stamped in red on its face, underlined with a bright blue slash of marker. With a yellow exclamation point.
I had no idea who'd left them, or why they'd left them with me, but I dropped the papers on my kitchen table and put a mug of hot chocolate in the microwave. While I was waiting, Curt knocked on my door in faded jeans and a blue chambray shirt, untucked and open over a fire engine red T-shirt. "So you had a visitor pretty early Friday morning," he said when I answered it.
I gestured for him to follow me into the kitchen. "I hope we didn't wake you up."
"Nah," he said. "I got up ea
rly to watch the sun rise over the driveway."
I made a face at him. My level of maturity was a real source of pride.
He grinned. "I heard her climbing the stairs and knocking."
"Sorry about that. I wasn't expecting her. It was the new lawyer Howard hired."
"Yeah?" Curt leaned on the counter. "What's she like?"
"Her name is Eunice Kublinski," I said. "And I'm not sure. She seems a little unsure of herself." When she wasn't passing out business cards to old fogeys. And that driver waiting for AAA on the side of the road who hadn't believed she could sue her car manufacturer for a flat tire.
"Good trait for a lawyer," Curt said. "Got anything to drink?"
I opened the fridge. A moth flew out.
He sighed. "So how did it go with the zombies?"
I told him about Abigail and Alston and their lack of a real alibi. "Which suggested they maybe didn't go right home at all," I said. "But that they stuck around to kill Oxnard."
He was staring at me. "I'll pretend I didn't just hear that Maizy plundered the home of two senior citizens."
"That's not fair," I cut in. "She didn't plunder it. She just took advantage of Eunice being there to slip away and look around. Like she does."
"Eunice went with you?" he asked.
"We didn't plan it that way," I said.
"And yet," Curt said.
I sighed. "Are you going to stand there with your feelings hurt, or are you going to help me?"
"I can do both," he said.
"There's more." I told him about Bitsy's defunct business and shabby outdated home. "Why would she lie about something like that?"
"Embarrassment?" Curt said.
"Maybe." I thought about it, "It sure seems like Oxnard was a loyal friend, especially since they seemed to have so little in common as adults."
"They must have had something in common for her to be invited to the wedding," he said. "Unless he was just a sentimental fool."
I could give Oxnard the benefit of that doubt for the moment. "What about Abigail and Alston? They obviously lied to us."
"How do you know they lied?" Curt scrubbed his hand across his jaw. "Maybe Abigail thinks it's none of your business where they went."
I frowned. "I like my theory better."
