“They certainly are. They’re also quite wet.”
“If you’re lucky, Dep will sit on you.”
Blinking, Dep emerged from underneath the shrubbery.
Brent turned that boyish grin on me again. “Maybe I’ll just stand here and drip.”
“The chairs under the pergola are almost dry.” Like the table they matched, my outdoor dining chairs were cast aluminum, painted gray, and too smooth for water to have collected on them.
I ran upstairs, grabbed a beach towel from the linen closet, and trotted back down. Expecting Lois, I opened the front door. She was trying to ring the bell while hanging on to a plate that was almost completely hidden by a fudge-covered layer cake.
“Is it your birthday?” I asked.
“It’s nobody’s. Well, it has to be somebody’s, plenty of somebodies’, but no one that I know. I just felt like making one. Where’s Brent?”
“Outside. His pants are wet—”
“What?”
“He hosed himself off after examining Dep’s tunnel.”
Those blue eyes brimmed with laughter. “That explains it. Sort of.”
“Bring the cake outside.” I slung the towel around my neck and gathered cutlery, plates, napkins, and a candle. Outside, I gave Brent the towel, set the almost-dry patio table, and lit the candle.
The cake looked almost as fudgy as the icing. Lois cut it in generous slices. We sat down, and Brent wrapped the towel around his lower legs. “I hope no one wants me to jump up and chase a criminal,” he deadpanned.
I gave him a fake serious look. “You’ll be surprised how quickly I can whip that towel away.”
“Ooh!” Lois said.
Ignoring her, I praised the cake.
Brent warned, “Lois, I’m going to ask a personal question. You don’t have to answer it.”
It wasn’t a normal lead-in to asking for a recipe. Had he given up waiting for her to confess that she hadn’t shown him that photo of Randy smiling beside his packed car?
Lois flicked a glance at me, and I could have sworn I saw amusement in it. Remembering our jokes about frilly undies hanging in her front window, I couldn’t help smiling.
“Okay,” she said.
“Do you have a will?” Brent asked.
The amusement died from her eyes. “Yes. You want to know who my beneficiary is, don’t you?”
Brent shifted in his seat as if more than the wet jeans made him uncomfortable.
Lois put down her fork. “I might as well tell you, since you’ll find out anyway, and it’s who anyone would guess. Everything I own goes to Randy. But I’m not a wealthy woman.”
Brent just stared at her.
She leaned back and folded her arms. “I’m not.”
With both thumbs, Brent rubbed his temples. “Do you know what Randy’s current financial situation is, Lois?”
“No. He used to live hand to mouth, but he might have put some money away working on that ranch out in Wyoming. He knows if he starts running low, he can borrow from me, interest-free.” She glared at Brent.
I read sympathy in the way he leaned slightly toward her.
Slowly, she defrosted. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t tell me. Did Georgia will anything to me?”
Brent didn’t answer. He glanced at me. I thought I saw a plea in his eyes.
I stood. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”
Lois put out a hand to stop me. “Don’t go.” Candlelight glittered on tears welling in her eyes.
I squeezed her shoulders and sat down again.
“I’m sorry, Lois,” Brent said. “Georgia must have loved you very much.”
“Best friends. Closer than some sisters. We were all each other had, that and our two boys, her son Matthias and my great-nephew Randy.” Lois wiped her eyes. “Are you saying I’m in her will?”
“Very much so,” he confirmed.
“But she wasn’t wealthy, either. Both of us would have given Randy nearly anything. Randy wouldn’t kill. Not for money. And if I didn’t know that Georgia had named me in her will, how would he know?”
I thought, if Randy was not Georgia’s direct beneficiary, he could have signed as a witness to Georgia’s will.
Brent pushed his chair away from the table. The chair’s metal feet screeched on the flagstones. He winced. “Sorry, Em.” He turned back toward Lois. “I have another question for you, and again, you don’t have to answer. I just need some background.”
Lois pinched her lips together.
Brent apparently took it as assent. “When did Randy leave Fallingbrook for Wyoming?”
“Five years ago. I don’t know the exact date, but it was about this time of year.”
“Why did he go?”
“He had this offer to work at a ranch. He loves animals, especially horses.”
“Did he have the offer before he left?”
“Yes. For him, it was a dream come true. But he almost didn’t go.”
Brent picked up his fork and seemed to study it. “Why not?”
“He didn’t think he should leave me.”
I sat on my hands, which was probably an odd way of preventing myself from leaping into the conversation, but it worked.
Brent turned the fork and examined its back. “Didn’t you go away about then, too, Lois?”
“Yes. The art department at the University of Wisconsin offered me a teaching position in Madison. I hated to leave Georgia, but she knew I’d always wanted to share my love of painting with others. I thought there might be better job opportunities for Randy in Madison. He was at a disadvantage here where so many people remembered the trouble he’d gotten into as a boy. They wouldn’t know what a hard worker and considerate person he is. But when I asked him if he wanted to come with me to Madison, you should have seen the relief on his face when I told him I wouldn’t need him there. He’d already been offered the job at the ranch, so it turned out well.” Her voice became quieter. “It turned out for Randy and me, but I should have asked Georgia to come with me. She’d probably still be alive if I had.”
Brent said quietly, “We can’t know things like that, so there’s no point in torturing ourselves by second-guessing.”
“Except we can’t help it,” I muttered.
“True,” Lois said.
“Mmp.” Brent asked Lois, “Was Randy living with you before you both left Fallingbrook?”
She ducked her head. “No. I’d told him he could stay with me after he graduated from Fallingbrook High, as long as he didn’t drink and didn’t get into fights, but he did both. I kicked him out.” She raised her head. “Tough love, you know. I should have done it sooner. He stayed out of trouble from that day to this.” She glowered at me. “He has. I’m sure of it. He got his act together, and he didn’t have to come back and live with me. He was managing on his own.”
I nodded toward my kitchen, bright and welcoming beyond the darkened sunroom. “He told me he was renting this house when Alec and I bought it seven years ago.”
“It was this one?” Lois asked. “I didn’t remember what street it was on. Though I think in those days, he had a roommate or two to help pay the bills.”
“They kept it neat and clean.” I threw Brent a glance. I know that doesn’t prove he’s not a murderer, Mr. Super-Detective Brent Fyne. A niggling voice in my head reminded me that Randy had implied he’d been renting this cottage by himself, but according to Lois, he’d had at least one roommate. Her version sounded more plausible for someone living “hand to mouth.” But if she was right, he’d let me believe the wrong thing. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it was a sign that trusting everything he said might be foolish and could be dangerous.
Brent asked Lois, “What made you come back?”
“It was only a five-year contract. And I’m seventy-two, and wanted to paint full-time again.” She quirked a corner of her mouth up. “That is, when I’m not sitting in Deputy Donut with the Knitpickers. Painting is a solitary activity. It’s good to get out
and talk to people. I enjoy being with Georgia’s friends.”
Brent asked her, “Why did Randy return to Fallingbrook?”
“He knew I was coming home. The two of us have a strong bond, and I’m sure he’s afraid I’m about to need help, even more than the lawn care he’s been doing and the snow clearing he will be doing. I suspect that he was coming back to keep an eye on both me and Georgia. Plus, he wants to return to school and work toward a career, in law enforcement if he can. He has this great need to serve others. And although he never said so, I think he left a sweetheart behind in Fallingbrook, and he’s come back because of her, too.”
If Lois and Randy were as close as she claimed, why didn’t she know for sure about this so-called sweetheart? But I didn’t butt into Brent’s interview, and he didn’t ask her about the possible discrepancy. I was sure he’d noticed it.
And so, apparently, had Lois. “I don’t ask him about his love life, and he doesn’t ask me about mine.” Winking at me as if thinking about frilly undies, she stood up. “I should go. Shall we split this cake three ways?”
Neither Brent nor I hesitated. In the kitchen, she cut off rather large wedges for Brent and me and left a sliver on the plate for herself. We wrapped them all.
“I’ll walk you home, Lois,” Brent said. “Is it okay if I leave my piece of cake here and pick it up later, Em?”
I pretended to think about it. “I’ll have to come along, or I might have my cake and eat yours, too.” I removed his jacket from the closet. The heater had dried it.
He put it on. “Thanks, Em. That’s nice and warm.”
“What is?” Lois demanded.
“His jacket,” I answered.
She opened her eyes extra wide. If Brent hadn’t been looking at me, I’d have made a rude face at her.
We left Dep sitting on the stairs to the second floor and went out onto the porch. Brent watched as I dead-bolted the door.
At Lois’s, he again checked her back door and downstairs windows while she and I waited just inside her front door. Lois didn’t seem to mind. Maybe she wasn’t worried about what a detective wielding only his phone as a flashlight might find inside her home. I really, really wanted to ask her about the photo of Randy standing in front of his packed car. Instead, I mentally urged her to tell me about it. I thought she might do it while Brent was out of earshot, but she stayed quiet, probably listening, as I was, to Brent’s progress through the back of her house.
He returned to us and held up a thumb. “All clear.”
He and I left. After a half block, I could no longer hide my disappointment. “I thought for sure that Lois would remember to tell us about that photo of Randy with his car.”
“Do you think she forgot?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you think she’d have told us about it last night if she was planning to tell us at all?” His gentle voice prevented him from sounding critical, of me, at least.
“I suppose so.”
He probably understood that I wasn’t happy about it. “I know,” he said. “She seems like the sweetest person imaginable, but it could be an act.”
“One thing she told us turned out to be true. Misty warned me that Lois might have made up being Georgia’s friend, since I’d never heard that from Georgia. But if Georgia wrote Lois into her will, that proves they were friends.”
“Georgia willed everything she owned to Lois.”
“When did she write that will? Not before Matthias died, I’m guessing.”
“A couple of years later.”
“So, it was when both Randy and Lois were gone from Fallingbrook.” I reached for a falling leaf and missed. “It could be a coincidence that both Randy and Lois left town shortly after Matthias’s death—”
“Murder.”
“Okay, murder. They left town shortly after his murder and returned shortly before Georgia’s.” We turned onto the street that connected Lois’s and my streets.
“In police work, we’re skeptical about coincidences.”
“And I’m skeptical about Mrs. Jierson’s story about the car she and her husband supposedly saw in Georgia’s driveway. Why would a murderer park in the victim’s driveway where his car could be easily seen and identified?”
“It was seen, but not very well identified. They didn’t get the license number.”
“But they probably could have. Any passerby probably could have.”
“Let’s hope we find someone who did. But to answer your question about why someone would park in plain sight—criminals aren’t always clever. And I know you’d like to prove that your friend’s great-nephew is innocent, Em. You want to suspect that the dentist and his wife made up the story about the car because they murdered Georgia. At the same time, you want me to believe that Honey Bellaire left that car in Georgia’s driveway while she murdered Georgia, and then drove it to the mall where the post office and Dr. Jierson’s office are. Those two scenarios are mutually exclusive.” He zipped up his jacket as if he were chilly.
We turned onto my block. I explained, “They’re two different possibilities. I think the one about Honey Bellaire murdering Georgia, driving around Fallingbrook to find a car like hers, and then throwing suspicion on Randy is more likely than one or both of the Jiersons killing Georgia and then making up seeing a strange car in Georgia’s driveway.” I was cold, too, and glad I wasn’t wearing wet clothes. Luckily, I was almost home. Brent could warm up in his SUV.
“Your Honey Bellaire theory is not bad. I can’t quite pick it to shreds.”
“Thanks.” He wasn’t the only one who could speak in a deadpan voice.
“Any time, Em. Unfortunately, we can’t charge on guesses.”
I held up an index finger. “You might be able to after you review the surveillance videos from the post office.”
“We have videos from some of the businesses on Packers Road. I’ll try to get around Passenmath’s decrees that we look at the ones north of Georgia’s first. But you might not like what we find.”
“A video showing Randy, you mean? You won’t find that.”
Boy, it was easy to bait him into making one of his noncommittal grunts.
He came inside with me and picked up his wrapped cake.
When he reached for the front door knob, Dep blocked the door. “Meow.”
“Stay,” Brent told her.
I laughed. “She’s not asking to be let out. She’s trying to keep you in.”
He looked down at the cat. “Sorry, Dep, but after everything I learned from your two servants this evening, I’d better go to work.”
I picked Dep up. “I should have waited until morning to tell you.”
“You did the right thing. I’ll just pass it on to whoever’s on duty tonight. Those DCI agents are keen.”
He reached toward me. I braced myself, ready to back away, but he merely gave Dep’s head a knuckle-rub. “See you, Em. See you, Dep.”
As I locked the door behind him, I shouted, “Thanks for dinner!”
I wasn’t sure he heard me until the answer came back from the other side of the door. “Any time.”
San Remo pizza, beer, and a chaser of fudge cake. Not, perhaps, the most balanced of meals, but I’d be willing to repeat it about, say, three times a week.
Chapter 23
The next morning at Deputy Donut, I was tempted to ask Lois to go to the fire safety presentation with us so that Oliver and I wouldn’t look like we were on a date, but I restrained myself. Halfway through the morning, though, Lois beckoned me to the Knitpickers’ table. She didn’t need another blackberry fritter or a refill of the day’s special coffee, a rich, dark roast from Sumatra. She nudged the Knitpicker next to her. “Tell Emily what you were telling me.”
The woman put her knitting down and paused, taking a dramatic, deep breath. “Georgia had an argument with people in her neighborhood. Georgia wanted Fallingbrook to put in sidewalks so that children could walk safely to the school bus stop, but the denti
st who lives across the street from her led a faction claiming that sidewalks would lower their homes’ resale values. He said it would look like just another city block.”
Not with those wide, expansive lots, it wouldn’t. But all I said was, “The anti-sidewalk folks must have won. There are no sidewalks on that road.”
“The town fathers are still making up their minds. And now, without Georgia to lead the pro-sidewalk coalition, our elected officials, who have been leaning toward the anti-sidewalkers, might support the dentist and his friends.”
Lois tapped a knitting needle on the table. “And remember the way the dentist’s wife hesitated crossing the road, like she was nervous? And her question was strange. Not ‘what’s going on?’ but ‘Did something happen to Mrs. Treetor?’ ”
The knitter on her other side nodded. “I noticed that particularly.”
I had, too, but Mrs. Jierson had claimed, believably, that she’d guessed after seeing the six Knitpickers and me hugging one another and wiping our eyes, and then seeing Misty arriving in a police car.
I patted Lois’s shoulder. “Thanks for telling me.”
At noon, the Knitpickers left. Scott and Oliver must have been preparing for the presentation. They didn’t show up for their afternoon coffee break. Maybe Randy was helping them. He didn’t come in, either.
After Tom and I finished tidying up for the evening, Dep and I walked home. I grabbed a quick meal of raw veggies and sliced cheddar, and then drove to Taste of Fallingbrook. I was kind of hoping that it wasn’t open, but it was. I parked in the lot behind the store and walked around to the front.
Misty was driving a cruiser past Taste of Fallingbrook. She stopped and lowered her passenger window. “What’s up?”
I waved toward the grocery. “I promised Fred Aggleton that I’d shop here.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Check the best-before dates.”
“Okay. Are you working tonight?”
“No. Want to get together?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure you’ll want to go where I’m going.”
She waved her hand in front of her face as if clearing cobwebs. “Huh?”
Survival of the Fritters Page 17
