“Yes, ma’am.”
She stared at me. “Well, why are you still standing here?”
Miss Ruth opened the door and peeked out. “I knew I heard voices out here. Hello, Coop, dear.”
I swallowed. “Umm…I just had a question for Miss Ruth. But I can come back later—”
Miss Ruth waved at hand at her sister. “Oh, don’t mind Miss Sourpuss right now. She just needs her afternoon nap.”
I was clueless why adults liked afternoon naps. Must be something that comes with age.
Miss Meriwether harrumphed and walked back inside.
“I was wondering, Miss Ruth, if I could have the photos back I showed you this morning? It’s just, you know, they belonged to Gran and I have so little of anything that’s hers…”
Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, Coop! I…I don’t know what to say except that I—I don’t have them anymore.”
“Sure you do. I accidently left them with you at church this morning.”
She shook her head, her brows pinched together in worry. “They’re gone now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh no, no, no,” she moaned. “I am so sorry.” She took a deep breath and placed both hand on my shoulders. “I burned them.”
“You…you wh—you burned them?” I stared in stunned silence.
She stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “I—I figured after learning what they meant—about your grandmother—that you’d want to get rid of them. And, and so did I! Tabby was my best friend, and she didn’t needed to be remembered for stealing. That evidence had to be destroyed. I had no idea you’d want them back.” She grasped both my hands. Her eyes searched my own. “I am so sorry. But you understand, right? Will you ever forgive me?”
Disbelief chewed away at my insides. How could she have destroyed them?
“Coop?” Miss Ruth’s voice sounded thin but full of worry all at the same time. “I’m sorry.” She opened the door to go back into the house.
I nodded and turned to walk away but stopped and swiveled back. “Miss Ruth?”
“Yes, dear?” She looked over her shoulder.
“Are you sure that was Gran’s handwriting?”
“Yes, dear. I asked Meriwether. She wouldn’t lie about something like that.” She shut the door.
Chapter 34
Most of the clothes had been dumped out on the living room floor. A few unopened boxes or bags remained. Things were being tossed into larger boxes marked “pants,” “sweaters,” “dresses,” “shirts,” “shoes,” and “random stuf”—spelled with one f, which meant Justice had done the labeling. A sweater, pitched by Liberty, landed at my feet. “Not quite the same as a baseball, but it’ll do,” she said with a grin.
I picked it up. “You’re not gonna believe this. Miss Ruth burned the photos.”
Liberty’s jaw dropped. “Why would she do that?”
“Yeah,” huffed Beau. “That doesn’t look suspicious at all.”
Justice gathered a bunch of pants in his arms and dropped them in the pants box. “I still have the negatives. We’ll print new ones.”
I breathed in a sigh of relief and told them what Miss Ruth said about the photographs.
Beau wrinkled his face. “I’m not buying it.” He chucked a pair of shoes into a nearby box. “Maybe Miss Meriwether wanted her sister to think it was Tabby. What if ol’ Meriwether was the crook, and she was just covering her tracks? It’s not like Tabby can defend herself or anything. And, after all, Miss Meriwether has always droned on and on about how little money she has. If anyone were going to filch from the memorial fund, it’d be her and not your ridiculously rich grandmother.”
“She wasn’t rich after Doc gambled away all her money,” Justice pointed out.
“Dude.” Liberty stopped and stared at him. “Whose side are you on?”
“What’s that saying?” asked Justice, grabbing a shirt. “Money is the root of all evil?”
“No.” Beau faced him. “It’s the love of money is the root of all evil. It’s from the Bible.”
We all turned and stared at him.
“What?” he said. “I read.”
But his words poked a memory. “Hold on. What did you just say?”
“I said, I read.”
“No, before that.”
“The love of money is the root of all evil?”
“Yes, that! Wait here.” I dashed off to Justice’s room and found Gran’s diary in with my overnight bag and hurried back. I flipped to the entry I’d read the night before—the last one she ever wrote. “Listen to this. ‘Such a struggle, but I’ve decided. Tomorrow the truth comes out. Why does the love of money turn good people bad?’” I closed her journal. “At first I thought she was talking about Gramps’s gambling habit. But,” my pulse quickened, “what if this was about finding the fake ledger instead? The dates on the ledger and the diary entry are the same.”
“Hmm.” Beau chewed the side of his mouth. “If she decided she was going to tell the police what she’d found and told the thief her plan, that’s a strong motive for sure.”
“Hold on.” Liberty scooped up an armful of shirts and peeked over the pile at me. “Maybe we should figure out what we know for sure before we get carried away. Grab paper and a pen, Coop. We’ll sort clothes and tell you what to write.”
“Why can’t I write and Coop sort?” asked Justice.
“Because you can’t spell worth a lick,” said Beau. “Do you think we’re stupid?”
Liberty turned to Justice. “Don’t answer that—it’s rhetorical.”
He reached for his dictionary.
Moments later, I was sitting on the sofa. I grabbed a book to put under my paper. “Okay, talk to me.”
Liberty held up a pair of jeans large enough to fit all four of us. “We know someone was stealing from the church, and Tabby also knew about it.”
“And we know she was going to talk to that person the same day she died,” said Beau.
“How do you know that?” asked Justice.
Beau pointed to the journal next to me. “Because she said ‘the truth comes out tomorrow,’ and that was her last entry. She died the next day.”
Justice was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to talk to the person. Maybe she meant she was going to go to the police.”
“Good point, Jus,” said Liberty.
“All right, so she may not have talked to the police, but she was going to tell someone the truth.”
I wrote fast.
“Umm… She was killed with arsenic.” Liberty shuddered.
“And she ate Earl’s muffins,” added Justice.
I stopped scribbling and looked at him. “Yeah. But they didn’t kill her.”
“I know. But it’s still a mystery why anyone would eat them.”
Liberty threw a bathrobe at him. He grinned and slipped it on.
“Another thing is by the time Earl arrived, the place was a wreck, and she was already dead,” I said.
Beau held up a duffel bag. “What do I do with this?”
“Open it?” suggested Justice.
Beau dropped it on the floor and unzipped it, but instantly whipped his head back with a grimace. “I think we got someone’s nasty gym clothes by mistake.”
I snickered. “Might want to set that outside.”
He held the bag at arm’s length and walked to the front door. “If arsenic smelled this bad, your gran would’ve noticed it for sure. I read it’s a pretty nasty way to kick the bucket. Especially if you’re given a megadose. Lots of flailing around, loss of muscle control, and spasms. I bet that’s why the place was such a mess.”
My hand was cramping I was scribbling so fast. At least I could read my handwriting…sort of. “What else? Anythi
ng?”
“Well,” Liberty rested a hand on her hip. “Practically everyone in town had access to some form of arsenic.”
“And we know who didn’t do it,” said Justice. “It wasn’t Earl or Burma—”
Beau shut the front door and turned to me. “And we know it isn’t your grandma’s handwriting in the ledger.”
I added the last comment, then set the paper and pen down. “We have a lot of stuff on this list. Now we gotta figure out how it was done. Forget our old theories about revenge or wanting Gramps to remarry. I think the real motive was silencing Gran before she could turn the thief in. We find the thief, we find the killer.”
“Dude, time to get off your butt.” Justice flung something across the room. A streak of orange flew through the air and landed on my head. “Make yourself useful. You can talk and sort at the same time.”
I pulled off whatever it was and started to throw it back at Justice but stopped. “Where did you find this?” I held up the dress.
“Why? You like it? I don’t think it’s your size,” said Beau.
Liberty snorted.
“We’re standing knee-deep in donated clothes from the whole town, and you wanna know where one dress came from? Give me a break,” said Justice.
“It’s important.” I grasped it and hurried over, making my way through the mounds of clothes scattered all over the floor to where he stood. “This dress belonged to Gran. I recognize it from a picture I have of her. Which box did you find it in?”
Justice looked at the boxes and bags opened all around his feet. “I don’t know. It was from one of these. I remember seeing shoes in the same box. What’s the big deal anyway?”
I held up a pair. “Were these the shoes?”
“Or these?” asked Liberty.
“Sorry.” Justice shrugged. “They all look the same to me.”
Beau bent down and pulled a pair of black shoes and a slip of paper from a box. “Looks like the dress came from the stuff Miss Meriwether gave you.” He read from the paper. “One green dress. One winter coat, wool. Four pairs of shoes, size eight. One orange-and-white dress.”
“Her tax receipt!” I took it from his outstretched hand.
“Why is the dress important?” Justice’s face scrunched in confusion.
I ran my hands through my hair. “I don’t know, but I feel like it is. That was Gran’s favorite dress, which was missing from the rest of her belongings after she died, and it was in with Miss Meriwether’s things. Doesn’t that seem suspicious?”
Beau shrugged. “How do you know it’s your grandma’s dress? Maybe Meriwether had the same one.”
I shook my head. “Not this kind—it was awfully expensive.” I flipped the dress to the front and looked at the buttons. A G and R intertwined with each other. I tried to remember what Mama had said about the designer. What was his name? It was foreign-sounding. Gustavo? Gianni? Giovanni… That was it! Giovanni Rue.
“Maybe Tabby gave it to her?” suggested Liberty. “People do that, right?”
“But Gramps said this was her favorite. She wore it on their honeymoon. I don’t think she’d just give away a dress that cost over a thousand dollars. Do you?” I sighed. “I don’t know how it fits in with the murder, but something tells me it’s important.”
“Is it just me, or does everything seem to lead back to Miss Meriwether?” asked Beau.
Mr. Gordon, who’d been outside cutting the grass, walked into the living room with raised brows.
“It’s more organized than it looks,” said Liberty.
He frowned and sniffed the air, then under each arm. “What do I smell?”
“Decades-old mothballs and sweat,” said Beau. His eyes widened. “I—I don’t mean you, though…sir. I found a gym bag earlier.”
Mr. Gordon chuckled. “Y’all almost done? I thought I’d do something special for dinner—”
Justice whimpered.
“—and get pizza.”
Justice exhaled.
“We’re almost done,” Liberty said. “Can you drive us to the police station so we can drop it all off?”
Mr. Gordon nodded. “Load the truck while I’m in the shower. We’ll grab the pizza on our way back home.” He turned and left.
“Leave the dress,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s evidence.”
“What about Miss Meriwether’s list?” asked Beau.
“We have to turn that in for Tick to sign.” I took out my phone from my pocket. “But I’m photographing it first. That way they can’t deny they ever had the dress.”
Chapter 35
I turned like a rotisserie chicken all night thinking about Miss Meriwether. My brain wouldn’t turn off. When I finally did fall asleep, my dreams were filled with dresses, fake ledgers, and one enormous llama. Everything made sense except the llama. But I had a theory—about the case.
I filled Justice, Liberty, and Beau in as we walked to school Monday morning. “It goes back to the idea that things aren’t what they seem to be. From the beginning we’d assumed whoever killed Gran also staged stuff to make it look like she ran off. But now we know that’s not what happened. It was two different people. One who killed her, and another who buried her—Earl.”
Liberty tossed her baseball in the air and caught it. “So maybe the murderer wanted the body to be found?”
I nodded. “I think Gran called Miss Meriwether, told her she knows she’s stealing and she’s going to turn her in. All Miss Meriwether had to do was poison her with the rat poison she already had, then wait for Gramps to come home from the clinic and discover her body. She was probably hoping Gramps would be arrested for the murder. Then, not only would she not have to worry about the theft from the memorial fund being discovered, but she’d also get revenge for Gramps dumping her sister.”
Justice nodded. “Smacking two mosquitoes with one slap.”
“What about the dress?” asked Beau.
“I’m still working on that, but I have a hunch it ties in somewhere.”
“There’s only one problem,” said Liberty, catching her ball.
“What?” I asked.
We jogged across the street to the schoolyard.
“Tabby was killed during the day, and Miss Meriwether would’ve been at school surrounded by students. There’s no way she could’ve snuck out and killed Tabby.”
“That’s where you come in,” I said.
Liberty looked sideways at me. “How?”
“When you’re in the library this morning, I need you to look up something.”
“What?”
“We know Gran died March 24, 1977. Find out when spring break was that year,” I said.
“You thinking school was out the same week Tabby died?” Beau asked.
“I’m hoping.”
Liberty shrugged. “That should be easy. The library has a copy of every yearbook starting from like, forever ago, and they always include the school calendar. I know that ’cause I’m always reshelving them. People like to look through them and make fun of the teachers’ pictures.” She snorted. “You should see Coach Iseminger’s photo—his toupee was sliding off just as they took his picture.”
“Then what will you do?” asked Justice.
“Not sure,” I said. “I should probably tell Tick about the ledger photos. He’s going to be super mad I didn’t tell him earlier, though. Mama will flip too. Let’s just say goodbye now, because I’ll be grounded until I’m twenty-one.”
Liberty whistled.
Justice looked over his shoulders as if he was making sure no one was nearby. “What about the ledger photos? Want me to print off another set?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And put them in a safe place,” said Beau. “Those could help your gramps. A good lawyer can make an argument that the handwriting introduces ‘reas
onable doubt’ that he’s the killer. Someone else had a strong motive for wanting your gran dead besides him.”
“He didn’t want her dead,” I grumbled, climbing the school steps.
Beau looked at me. “You know what I mean.”
* * *
“Hey, Tick.” I swallowed and gripped the phone. The afternoon sun poured into Justice’s room, but the heat engulfing me had more to do with nerves. “Before I say too much, in my defense, I didn’t know I was interfering at the time, so please don’t arrest me.” The words seemed to trip and fall over each other as I spewed the out.
“What are you talking about?” said Tick.
Taking a deep breath, I told him all about finding Gran’s camera with the film and how Justice developed it—twice. And about discovering her diary mixed in with Dad’s books. I kept talking so he wouldn’t have a chance to yell.
“What was on the film?” asked Tick.
“Mostly boring stuff from the church—stained glass windows and flower arrangements, that sort of thing, except for a couple.” I explained the images of the last two photos on the roll. “It looked like someone was stealing from the church.”
He listened without interrupting as I shared Gran’s last diary entry and how it had the same date as the church ledger. “I don’t think her death had anything to do with Gramps’s gambling.”
I told him how Miss Meriwether told her sister it was Gran who’d done the bookkeeping. “But that’s a total lie, because Gran was left-handed. One look at her diary will prove that—’cause of the smears. And there’s no smears in the ledger.” I gripped the phone tighter. “Plus, it doesn’t even look like her writing.”
There was silence on the other end. I didn’t know if he was angry with me for keeping all of this information, or if he was just thinking.
“Tick? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the photos or the diary. But we have a theory. I think when Gran was photographing things at the church, she came across the ledgers. Justice developed another set of the pictures at school today. Check your phone—I’m sending them to you now.” I hit the button and sent them, then continued where I left off. “Maybe she recognized the handwriting—but I reckon Miss Meriwether killed Gran to keep her from going to the police. If we could just look at her bank account or—”
Coop Knows the Scoop Page 18
