“You were pretty brutal with David,” said Kip, once we had belted in and started back toward Ridgefield. “Are you always so accusatory? The poor guy looked like he might blow a gasket.”
“I think Brittany is Alice’s granddaughter. Even if David doesn’t need the money, maybe Brittany does. Or maybe the enemies David mentioned reemerged, making Brittany hightail it out of there. Either way, she might have some answers.”
“No picture, no last name—how will we ever figure out if Brit and Brittany are one and the same?” asked Kip. “We don’t even know how to reach Alice’s family, and I doubt David will help.”
“I have an idea,” I said, and pulled out my phone.
I plugged Wysocki into my Facebook and Instagram. It was a reach, because Alice’s daughter had married and probably taken her husband’s name. Still, some people wanted to be found by old friends and listed their maiden names.
I sighed. That was not the case here.
I then tried Lottie Arlington, David Wysocki, and finally Bitsy Wysocki. I got a hit with Bitsy on Facebook, although none of the photos on display included the Brittany I knew. Frustrated, I stopped searching.
And then it hit me.
“What was I thinking? Alice never married. I’ll search for her obituary and see if there’s a next of kin listed. At the very least, we could contact the funeral home, which would have a death certificate.”
“Good thinking,” said Kip.
I hoped that Alice’s obituary was as thorough as those I wrote. While Wysocki turned out to be the Polish version of Smith, I was able to eliminate many names because they didn’t fit Alice’s profile. It finally came down to one midwestern woman who’d died five years ago at the age of sixty-eight.
I clicked on the obituary and scanned.
Alice is survived by her daughter, Alicia (John) Bennett, and grandchildren, John Bennett II, James Bennett, and Brittany Bennett …
I went back to social media and began scrolling through the hundreds of Brittany Bennetts. I plugged in Alice’s midwestern hometown to narrow the search. More scrolling, and then suddenly there she was. The pretty young face with lots of ear piercings and an edgy haircut. Mrs. Arlington’s assistant and grandniece.
“Bingo,” I said triumphantly.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Mrs. Arlington’s assistant Brittany is Alice Wysocki’s granddaughter,” I said. “Brittany Bennett is family.”
Kip reached over and squeezed my hand.
“Great work.”
“Kip, when we get back to Ridgefield, why don’t we stop at the Arlington house and see if Brittany or Mark Goodwin has returned.”
“Bad idea. Entering her home unofficially would be trespassing. Besides, Tom already thinks I’ve gone rogue on him.”
“Is that because Tom doesn’t really believe I heard anyone in the house, and you do?”
Kip sighed. “It’s also something else. He’s acting a bit weird over the whole thing.”
“What do you mean?”
Kip explained how Tom had pushed hard to get the house-checking beat. “He’s acting proprietary—not wanting anyone else to take over. He also insists that there was no evidence that anyone would want to hurt Mrs. Arlington and that she tripped on the stairs while she was alone in the house.”
“I know what I heard, and I know what I saw. You saw it too. Mrs. Arlington would never have tossed her files in the drawer that way. Plus, didn’t you say her office had been locked earlier? When we returned, it was unlocked. Does he think I did that?”
“Probably. I think Tom was originally willing to overlook his suspicions because he had a thing for you, but now he’s shifting blame in your direction. Tom has some anger issues, and you seemed to have triggered them.”
“How mad could he be? He gave my name to Marietta Hemlocker so I could write Burton’s obit.”
Kip did the hand-to-brow thing.
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t figure out when Tom would have told Mrs. Hemlocker to call you. Tom did cut out of work early, but there wasn’t much time between then and when we met at Gallo. When I called to say I was running late, he was already at the restaurant.”
“She could have texted him,” I said. “Plus, there was that short window between work and restaurant.”
“Maybe, but then why wouldn’t he just say so when we had dinner? It seems like he would have wanted to impress you with the recommendation.”
“He didn’t talk to anyone the night it happened, that’s for sure,” I said. “She could have called him before we went to Gallo or maybe the next morning before she called me, though it was really early. Something else is bothering me. She sure knew a lot about Mrs. Arlington’s fall.”
“Like what?” asked Kip.
“Like that I found her and that she was still in a coma,” I said. “Where did she get all the information so quickly?”
Pelting rain saturated the ground, and trees continued to uproot around town, dragging the restoration timeline further into the future. Still, little by little, Eversource was chipping away at the damage, and at day four, many households had power. As we pulled into my driveway, the generator buzz told me mine wasn’t one of them.
“Kip, do you have power?”
“My landlord has a generator,” he said.
“Where do you live?”
“In a garage apartment on New Street,” he replied, referring to the appealing road close to the town center dotted with a number of vintage homes, many of whose owners had turned extra space into income-producing apartments.
I lured Kip inside with the promise of leftover fried chicken, and I also heaped his plate with potato salad, adding two chocolate chip cookies for dessert. We carried trays of food into the living room, where we had a full view of the smoky sky melding into the stone-colored water. When lunch was over, I had an overwhelming urge to ask him to stay longer. Instead, we said goodbye with the promise of sharing any new information we found.
While cleaning up lunch remnants, I rolled around the idea of sending Brittany a friend request, then nixed it. It might scare her into hiding.
Mrs. Arlington had painted an unflattering picture of the girl. Maybe she had become wary of her. Brittany could easily have snuck back into the house and either pushed her great-aunt down the stairs or scared her into the fall and then left her there to die.
What in the house, particularly the study, would Brittany be searching for? Something about her family? A copy of the will? And why would Brittany need to sneak back into the house if she had access all the time? Nothing was making sense.
Maybe Diva had been trying to point her furry little paws at Brittany by depositing the sneaker at my feet. I raced upstairs to the dog’s bed. No sneaker. I looked in all the spots she liked to curl up, but all I found were strands of fur, reminding me that I needed to buy her a brush.
I called Uncle Richard. “Does Diva have that blue sneaker with her?”
“She wouldn’t leave home without it. Personally, I think it’s gross and I’d like to toss it, but she’s very protective.”
“I think it might have something to do with Mrs. Arlington’s accident,” I said, and explained my thoughts.
“So, you think someone snuck into the house while the lady was asleep to rifle through her files?” asked Richard.
“Maybe,” I replied thoughtfully. “More likely the intruder came to search the files, took off her shoes for quiet, and then Diva hijacked one of them. The intruder, who we have to assume was a woman, if the shoe has anything to do with it, was searching for it when I showed up.”
“People don’t usually look for lost shoes in file cabinets,” he said.
“Her shoe could have gone missing after she rifled the files,” I said.
“And then you interrupted, so she hid,” said Richard.
My head was spinning, and I needed a break. After disconnecting, I wandered into the train room, where I studied the scenes. A few trees had been added to the cemetery, giving it a strangely calming effect. As soon as I had time, I would contribute that cottage I wanted to build.
I dusted engine wheels and placed the cars back on the track. I then rearranged some of the tiny vehicles poised on the town streets. The small antique Ford Sedan was now traveling over the mountain pass that paralleled the train track, and I imagined excited children in the back seat waving at the passing caboose.
A short time later, I was back in the living room rereading Mrs. Arlington’s papers. Now that I knew a little more about her, it was hard not to read selfish into her motives. How had she convinced Roth Arlington to marry her, and where did Henry Harmless fit in?
According to David, Lottie was all about Lottie. Did the altruistic actions she described in her life story hide her true motives of greed and deception? That was probably what David would say. And yet, his depiction of Leocadia Arlington didn’t jive with my instincts about the person I’d met just days ago.
At the very end of the obit Lottie had drafted, there was a handwritten scribble, one I hadn’t noticed before. I squinted yet couldn’t read the faint writing. I retrieved a magnifying glass from the kitchen junk drawer and studied the writing. In the margin near next of kin, it read: Henry Harmless (?)
I fingered the thumb drive and was about to plug it into my computer when my cell rang with a number I didn’t recognize.
“Is this Ms. Snow?” asked a heavily New York accented voice.
“Who’s calling?” I geared up to respond to the potential spam with one of my usual quips.
“Sondra Milton,” the woman said in a nasal reply. “I’m Mrs. Roth Arlington’s attorney. I’ve been instructed to call you about her obituary.”
I was momentarily disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to have a little scammer fun, and then it sank in. Mrs. Arlington had been serious enough to contact her attorney to make sure I met my deadline.
“Yes, she wanted her obituary done by today,” I said. “Although I was hoping to have a few more days to breathe some life into it, especially because I recently found some of her relatives and I’d like to include them. And of course, I’ll have to add details of arrangements at a later date.”
“Skip any additional next-of-kin detail. Lottie was specific about that. Can you deliver by today? Oh, and I’ll need your billing info.”
Maybe I could pick Sondra Milton’s brain about her client. Before I could change my mind, I blurted out, “What do you know about Henry Harmless?”
“Henry was a dear friend of hers,” replied Sondra coldly. “Is there a problem?”
“There’s a reference to him in Lottie’s notes,” I said.
When Sondra remained silent, I continued, “Look, there’s some chatter about his relationship with Roth Arlington, and I don’t want to fuel the local gossip. The last thing I’d want to do is turn the obit into a soap opera—I’m wondering if I should leave his name out.”
“Lottie was very confident in your abilities. I’m sure whatever you include will be worthy,” End of subject. “In the meantime, she authorized payment before her fall, and it is stipulated that I have the obituary in hand before I make the disbursement.” Attorney Sondra Milton then gave me a figure that startled me.
Temptation tingled my fingers. That was enough to accelerate my New York City plans.
“As much as I appreciate it, I’m afraid that is much more than I usually charge,” I said. “If I had a little more time to fill in the gaps, perhaps I’d feel I was giving more value, but right now I can’t accept that much money from her.”
“Admirable, but isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder? I’m sure that Lottie would find the obituary worth every penny. Trust me, Ms. Snow. Lottie always did her homework. When she called me Tuesday evening, she instructed that I send this amount if you delivered the obituary by Friday at midnight.”
“Did she say why Friday?”
“No, and I too questioned the sum, and she was insistent,” said the attorney. “Lottie was legendary when it came to her sixth sense about people, and after she met with you on Tuesday, she said she knew her instincts had been spot on.”
“She was so alone in that big house, so I asked her to come stay with me until her power was restored. I have a generator. When I couldn’t reach her the next day, I decided to bring her warm tea as an excuse to check on her. That’s when I found her.”
“Well, there you go. She knew a good person when she met one. By the way, where is Diva?”
“My uncle and I are caring for her, though I keep looking for someone to take her—if you have any ideas, let me know.” And then I had another thought. “Do you know who the beneficiary of Mrs. Arlington’s estate might be?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Maybe that person could take Diva.”
I thought back about how defensive Lottie’s brother had been when I asked the same question.
“And maybe a bit curious about who would benefit,” I admitted.
“Curious, or suspicious that someone might have a motive for getting rid of her?”
“So, you have your suspicions too,” I suggested.
“She’s been acting odd lately. Not that she didn’t always act a little different than most people, but she was in such a hurry to put things in order. It was almost as if she was in a race against time.”
“And yet she has a puppy only a few months old,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like someone who knew just a short time ago that she might need an obituary so soon.”
“I don’t understand it myself,” said Sondra. “Now about that deadline.”
A wave of panic set my heart fluttering. It was already one o’clock.
Despite Sondra Milton’s insistence that I leave out additional next-of-kin references, I thought I should include Brittany and her family.
“I’ll have it to you by midnight,” I said. “I’ll leave the service specifics blank to be filled in later.”
“That won’t be necessary. I have those details for you,” she said. “Lottie died an hour ago.”