First Mrs. Arlington’s key, now Burton Hemlocker’s medication bottle—these impulsive moves were not the actions you expect from your trustworthy obituary writer. And ignoring police warnings was not the kind of behavior that built a good reputation either. However, with Max alone at the Arlington pool house, I’d have to defy orders to stay clear of the estate in order to coax him to come home with me.
I parked in front of a forlorn-looking building. I was surprised that while I’d been busy filling water buckets the day I found Mrs. Arlington, I hadn’t noticed how far into the woods the structure went.
It was easy to see how hidden a vehicle tucked away on the wooded service lane would be. I pulled up behind what I gathered was Mark’s truck and could hear Max howling inside. I did as I was instructed by calling his name and telling him in a gentle but confident voice that all would be okay.
When I opened the door, a behemoth of a beast bounded past me and straight to the yard. Max was by far the largest German shepherd I had ever seen. All black and brown with huge pointy ears, he looked as if I could ride him like a pony.
Poor thing. I knew exactly how he felt as he took care of business. While he was busy sniffing and peeing, I entered the pool house. The segment where he had been held his bed, two bowls, and a chew bone. The rest of the room had a counter, sink, refrigerator, small cooktop—all things you might need as you lounged by the pool for the day. Adjoining this space was a hallway, and off it funneled several rooms, which turned out to be a bathroom with a shower as well as two changing rooms with hooks for clothing and shelves with stacks of towels, just as Brittany had described. Both rooms held blow-up beds. This was where Mark and Brittany had been hiding in plain sight. I retrieved Brittany’s duffel from its hiding place behind a large laundry basket and unzipped it.
Inside were the usual types of things you might expect from someone planning to spend a night or two away. Extra underwear, jeans, and a couple of T-shirts. The boots she had on the first day I met her were on the floor tucked behind the blow-up. Before sticking them in the duffel with her other belongings, I noted the size—eight. The blue sneaker wasn’t hers.
I carried the duffel along with Max’s things to the car.
Now all I had to do was convince the dog I was friend, not foe.
Max was suddenly behind me, sniffing, and I resisted stiffening, remembering Brittany’s instructions. “Put a smile on your face and speak to him happily. Offer your hand and give him a dog treat. He has excellent instincts about people.”
Winter Snow, failed amateur sleuth, died when the dog she was trying to rescue chewed off her hand …
I followed directions. Max wagged his tail. I gave him a pet, and sure enough, this formidable shepherd with his inquisitive brown eyes leaned into my hands. Like Brittany said, he was a marshmallow with people he trusted. Still, his size was off-putting.
Max climbed into the back of the Subaru without protest. I cracked the window halfway, and he seemed to enjoy the breeze on his face as I hurried us away from that dreaded place and the police checks, which I was sure would now be more thorough.
When I arrived at the Mamanasco cottage, my uncle’s car was already in the driveway. I inched past and put mine in the garage next to Brittany’s truck and shut the door so it wouldn’t be visible from the road. Inside, Uncle Richard and Brittany were chatting away as they prepared dinner, and Max beelined it for Brittany, suddenly making the kitchen feel small.
“Wow,” my uncle said. “You didn’t tell me he was a horse.”
“Where is Diva?” I asked.
As if on cue, a puff of white peeked in from the open door to the living room. Max zeroed in on her. Diva wagged her tail and approached happily, but Max’s instincts apparently didn’t apply to dogs. All hell broke loose as Max charged. Brittany tackled the large dog before he got to Diva, who sauntered forward anyway, oblivious to the snapping jaws. Uncle Richard joined Brittany, who was having trouble holding Max back, and suddenly the two of them were on the floor with the shepherd. I tried to grab Diva as she skirted his jaws, chose a butt sniff, and then rested innocently at my feet.
“I think we’re going to have to come up with plan B for Max,” I said.
“Horace will take him next door,” said Uncle Richard, out of breath as he tried to get off the floor while maintaining his hold. “Brittany and I already arranged it. I should have told you.”
I picked up Diva, carried her upstairs, and locked her in the bedroom, which I was sure I would later regret, especially as I could already hear her frantic scratches. Brittany and Uncle Richard took Max next door.
I made sure the chocolate chip cookies that Brittany had been baking were out of the oven and placed on a tray. Through the open door to the living room, I could see that the table was set, and a robust Brunello was breathing on the sideboard. At some point I would have to tell Brittany that Kip was joining us.
My uncle and Brittany had just returned through the sliders and were updating me on Max and Horace when the doorbell rang.
“Too early for our dinner guests,” said Richard, frowning.
I opened the Ring app I had loaded on my burner phone and stared.
“It’s Tom, the police officer who wants to question me about the fire,” I said.
Brittany looked like she wanted to run for cover.
“Go out the sliders and stay with Horace until he leaves,” I instructed her. “Richard, take her—make sure she isn’t seen.”
“I don’t want to leave you with this Tom fellow,” my uncle protested.
“He’s harmless,” I said, wondering if that was true. After they were both through the sliders, I crossed the house and opened the front door.
“Why are you avoiding my calls?” Tom demanded, taking an aggressive step into the foyer.
Upstairs, Diva was barking and scratching like crazy.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, scrolled, and saw that he had called several times. It had probably been while I was at Marietta’s house, when I’d turned off my ringer, something I always do so as not to be disturbed when I’m with clients. I explained that to him as I shoved the phone back in my back pocket.
Tom looked like he wanted to squeeze the life out of me, and his bare, beefy arms poking out of his red golf shirt looked like they could do the trick. He glanced over my shoulder toward the dining area, where the table was set.
“Having a party?”
“Just my uncle and a couple of his friends,” I replied vaguely. “Tom, is this visit official? Because if not, I’m pretty busy right now. And, as you can hear, Diva wants out.”
Tom bullied his way forward and sat down in one of the living room chairs. I followed but remained standing.
He ignored my question and said instead, “Looks like you’re having quite a few friends.”
I followed his gaze. I wanted to get him out of here before Kip arrived.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“It isn’t looking good for you—what with Mark Goodwin dead and you stealing something from his pocket. You should wrap up any work you have, because you’re going to be spending all your upcoming time trying to defend yourself.”
“I already explained,” I said. “I believe there is adequate proof that I was telling the truth about Mark locking me in the study and taking both my cell and the key. And speaking of keys, where is the key you took from Mrs. Arlington’s house the other day?”
Tom looked momentarily surprised. “I left it in the bedroom lock. There was no need to take it, remember?”
I hadn’t thought to look there, only in the bowl. I felt a little foolish and said nothing.
“What did Mark Goodwin tell you when you met him there at the house?” pressed Tom.
Despite the fact that this little dance we were doing wasn’t in my favor, no way would I mention the lost file or any of the other details I had found out from David Wysocki, Brittany, and Mark.
“Nothing that would help solve the mystery of why Mrs. Arlington needed her obituary by yesterday.” If Tom hadn’t gotten any information from Kip, I wasn’t going to tell him. “Mark hoped there might be some information in the files, but someone beat him to it. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?”
Tom frowned. “Why would I?”
I found that whenever there was a conversational lull at the cottage, the water became a refuge from any awkwardness. We had both turned our eyes in that direction, though Tom appeared calculating rather than at a loss for words.
“You’re hiding something,” he said finally. He abruptly stood and jabbed his finger toward my face. “I don’t know who you think you’re playing games with, but it isn’t going to work. I know what’s going on.”
I wished that someone would tell me what was going on. Tom’s thick finger continued wagging in my face, and he had grown red with anger. I thought the guy might have a stroke right here in my living room. I took another step back from his posturing and his coal-black manic eyes.
“Tom, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” I tried to coat my voice with calm. “Scoop told you about the phone calls from Mark Goodwin, and I think they prove I was telling the truth.”
“I want to hear for myself,” he said, dropping his eyes to the pocket where I had stuffed the burner. “Let me have that phone.”
I was surprised that he didn’t know that my personal phone, with my world of information stored inside, was now at the police station being tested for fingerprints. If his fellow police officer hadn’t trusted him with that detail, I certainly wasn’t going to share it. And I wasn’t going to tell him about the shoe Diva had carried around for days before Kip took that away too. What had Brittany said? Mrs. Arlington didn’t trust the police. Maybe it was a particular policeman that she hadn’t trusted.
“I need to check on Diva.” The upstairs racket had grown ominously quiet. What was she up to?
I backed away toward the entryway and staircase.
“I want that phone,” Tom said, closing the distance between us. He grabbed my wrist to hold me in place and pulled the phone from my pocket. It felt extremely personal and invasive, but this was no time to get my #MeToo ire up. The man had the upper hand.
“Give me the password,” he demanded as he squeezed my wrist tighter.
My internal debate was short. Tom was going off the rails.
I recited the password.
And then he surprised me by letting my arm go, pushing past me, and almost running out the door.
Great. For the second time in two days, I no longer had a cell phone. And even more upsetting was the fact that Tom could see any recent calls or texts, because he now had access.
When I was sure he was gone, I ran next door and entered Horace’s house through the back door. Richard, Brittany, and Horace were huddled in the kitchen with a much-calmer Max at Brittany’s feet.
“Quick, give me your phone,” I said to Richard. My uncle complied, and I texted Kip: This is Winter—Tom was at my house and took my phone. Don’t call or text to the burner. He texted Richard’s phone back immediately: Stay put—on my way.
“Will there be any record of texts sent prior to your getting the throwaway phone?” asked Richard.
I was pretty sure the temporary phone recorded only the messages I’d received since I’d acquired it. There wasn’t much I could do about the calls to and from Kip. At least I’d never set it up for email. “I do want to warn David Wysocki—just in case.”
“Warn him of what?” asked Brittany, who I could see was visibly shaken.
“Mrs. Arlington did not trust the police—maybe it was one policeman in particular,” I said. “Tom doesn’t know about David and Bitsy, and David has my number.”
Though I doubted David would call me after our confrontational visit, I thought we should err on the side of caution.
“I’ll warn him right now.” Brittany pulled out her cell to make the call and fiddled. “The service here is pretty bad.”
Uncle Richard led her to the deck, where she could get more bars, and I followed, Horace and Max at my heels. Max was suddenly yowling, his version of a bark, and I looked over to see Scoop lounging on my deck next door.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Scoop called as we all traipsed across the grass to join him. Feet up on an outdoor ottoman, he was relaxing in one of the chairs, a can of Heady Topper in his hand. Diva crouched in her usual spot near the open slider door.
“When I arrived and no one answered, I let myself in,” he said. “Then I heard all the noise upstairs and got worried. Diva was going crazy, all drool and panting, so I let her out. She’s okay—the bedroom, not so much.”
By now we were all on the deck, including Max, who seemed to know that Diva wouldn’t come out despite lingering by the sliders with her tail wagging like a fast-beat metronome.
I filled everyone in on as much as I knew and then plopped down into the chair next to Scoop. I could almost taste the chilled, hoppy, slightly bitter IPA, but since COVID, no one took a sip of anyone’s drink anymore.
Scoop noticed my longing look. “I brought more.”
I declined, and we all settled around on the deck to wait for Kip. It took some persuading to convince Brittany that Kip was a good guy. When he breezed onto the deck, she still looked ready to bolt.
“Are you okay? What did Tom do to you?” There was no hug from Kip this time, though I could feel his intensity as he searched my face.
I relayed the entire encounter.
“He’s in this thing up to his eyeballs,” said Kip. “I just can’t figure out how.”
“Tom knows Marietta well enough to be sharing information about the investigation,” I said, explaining that Marietta knew about the ransacking. “She even knew about Brittany disappearing.”
“Me? How would she know that?” Brittany asked. “Aunt Lottie told me not to tell a soul, and I didn’t. Only David and Bitsy knew. And, of course, Mark and Burton …” Her voice choked as the loss of her friends hit her again.
“It wasn’t public knowledge,” said Kip. “Why would Tom confide in Marietta Hemlocker, and why would she even care?”
“Maybe Marietta is the owner of the blue sneaker,” I said.
Kip looked at me and then cast a sideways glance at Brittany’s feet. I shook my head no.
“There’s something else,” I said. “Brittany, is there some reason why you would be the beneficiary of Burton Hemlocker’s life insurance?” I asked.
All eyes turned to her. To my surprise, she put her hands up to cover her face, as if she thought by doing this she couldn’t be seen.
Scoop put down his Heady Topper and moved his chair close enough to reach over and pull her hands away. “We can still see you, you know,” he said, and he gave her a comforting smile.
She turned her pale face toward him and said, “I can’t do this.”
Scoop kept one of her hands in his and gave it a squeeze.
“I’ll help you,” he said.
Scoop asked questions, the way a good reporter does. He didn’t push or threaten, just became her friend, and in a low, quiet voice, Brittany began explaining.
“He was always talking about my future. I didn’t understand it. He sounded like my parents—they wanted me to go to college like my brainiac brothers. But Burton said there were different kinds of smarts and that I just had to find mine.”
Brittany turned pleading eyes toward Scoop.
“Burton was right,” he said. “You just have to find a way to use the gifts you were given.”
Such wisdom from such a young kid, I thought as Brittany continued. “It turns out that I have a knack for electronic devices. Burton said it was like I could speak French when no one else in the room could. He said I spoke computer. That’s how he described it, and he wanted me to go to school for it.”
I thought back to the day I’d first met her when she couldn’t even figure out how to turn off Mrs. Arlington’s driveway alarm. She hadn’t seemed techie to me.
Brittany appeared to read my mind, because a small smile reached the corners of her mouth. “Only Burton, Aunt Lottie, and Mark knew about my so-called talents. I didn’t even tell David, Bitsy, or my parents. Aunt Lottie was adamant that I act like a ditzy assistant. She didn’t want anyone else to know that she had taken any special interest in me. I got so good at the acting, I was beginning to wonder if maybe I should ditch the IT idea and become an actor. Aunt Lottie and Burton quickly discouraged me from that, though. They said succeeding in that was like winning the lottery.”
Could Brittany be acting now? She was so darn believable and appeared so vulnerable that it was hard not to want to reach out and wrap my arms around her and say, You are safe.
“So, the day I came to meet your aunt, you knew you could turn off the driveway alarm from the inside,” I said.
“Sure, but Aunt Lottie was terrified that someone might sneak up on us, so I thought it might be better to see if I could fix it from the outside to make sure it would still be operational.”
“What about the insurance policy? Did Burton tell you he was going to do that?” I asked.
“Yes, and my aunt told him not to do it. She said she would take care of my education, but he was insistent. He said this was for after I finished school because he planned to still be around for my graduation.”
Brittany blinked away tears, and Scoop swiped at his own eyes. He was a softy when it came to bleeding-heart stories.
It occurred to me that all the answers to our questions might be revealed if only Diva could talk. She sat watching, her intelligent eyes traveling back and forth between speakers as if she were intent on a tennis match. Kip did pretty much the same thing. I wished I could read both their minds.
Scoop continued to prompt Brittany through her story, everything from the time she arrived at her aunt’s estate until today.
“There must have been a trigger point that made your great-aunt want you to leave,” said Scoop.
She hesitated before answering. “One minute we were all about planning a reunion, and the next minute she was like, ‘You have to go home.’”
Brittany looked down at her hands, then picked at lint on her jeans. She was holding something back. I made a mental note to press her later about it.
I asked her about her walks with Lottie and Burton, and it was the first time she visibly relaxed. Her dark eyes sparkled as she described the path they’d created through the woods between the two houses.
“It was pretty messed up, although it was getting better, because Mark was weed whacking it and trying to even it out for them,” she said. “It was still filled with stuff—protruding rocks and roots that might trip someone. So, I started walking with them. If Burton wanted to come over, he’d text, and I’d meet him at the edge of the path and walk with him. If Aunt Lottie wanted to go there, I’d walk with her. Burton always insisted on walking her home, and so I would again go back with him. I’d watch from the edge of the path until he got inside. At first it seemed silly to me, but then one day my aunt did trip, and I was there to help. It got so routine that both always wanted me with them.”
“Did they visit each other a lot?” I asked.
“Enough. A couple of times a week, and some weeks almost every day. They were good friends.”
“And what about Mrs. Hemlocker?” I asked. “Did you see her much?”
“I never met her,” Brittany said. “Mostly, I would watch Burton from the edge of the path until he got inside, and then I would go back to my aunt’s house. I did get to see Burton’s library once or twice, but that’s in his car barn. His wife was never around.”
That explained why Marietta wasn’t familiar with Brittany, though one would assume that Burton would have mentioned her. On the other hand, because Lottie wanted Brittany out of the limelight, Burton might have kept their interest in the girl a secret.
“Where was Mark on all this?” Kip asked.
“Mark kept his distance from people,” said Brittany. “He was what you’d call a loner. He encouraged the friendship, though. Like I said, he was working to make the path safer. Why is any of this important?”
“Because something happened that made your great-aunt cancel all your family reunion plans and send you away. And it happened recently,” said Kip.
Again, Brittany looked away. She studied her fingers, then the lake, and finally went back to lint picking on her jeans before saying, “I can’t think of anything.”
“How was Burton’s health?” I asked, remembering the pill bottles.
Brittany shrugged. “He was old and frail. He was always saying that Marietta complained about his pill planner being so full that it was hard to close the little compartments.”
Pill planner. I hadn’t seen one of those in his room.
Kip studied me with that What are you thinking? look he had.
“Be right back,” I said.
I went inside, gave Diva a little pet, retrieved the pill bottle from the car, and returned to the deck.
I held up the little plastic container of pills and relayed my story about the remaining bottles in the cabinet.
“There was no visible pill planner that I could see,” I added.
“You actually stole medication from the Hemlockers’ cabinet?” asked Kip, and predictably, along came the brow rub.
“I just borrowed it,” I said. “It was an impulse.”
Kip shook his head and sent his eyes skyward.
“So you think Marietta wasn’t giving Burton his pills,” said Uncle Richard, who appeared to see nothing unreasonable about my theft. Maybe this was a family compulsion and I came by it naturally.
Tears escaped Brittany’s eyes, and she did nothing to wipe them away as the implications of the filled bottle hit home.
Kip looked resigned as he took the bottle from me and studied it. The one I had taken had a June expiration and was filled to the brim with little white pills. I explained about the July and August bottles also being full.
“I think it was Marietta, with the pill planner, in the bedroom,” said Scoop.
Brittany smiled.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What if Marietta was filling the planner with vitamins or some other placebo? Could that be what Mrs. Arlington learned? Maybe Marietta pushed Mrs. Arlington down the stairs to shut her up and then killed Mark Goodwin because she assumed that he was in the know.”
I then filled them in on the prenuptial agreement and the suspicions of Burton’s son.
“There could be other clauses in that agreement, like giving Burton the best care and so forth,” I said. “Marietta did say that any hint at impropriety would set Burton’s son on the warpath.”
“Did Marietta sound desperate enough to kill to protect her inheritance?” asked Kip.
“One minute she was lamenting her poor husband, the next railing about wasting ten years of her life,” I said. “Grief does do strange things to people, so I couldn’t tell you if she would murder for money.”
“Why did she stay with someone she didn’t love?” asked Brittany. “Burton was such a sweet man. How could anyone harm him?”
“She stayed because, as she put it, where else could you earn that much money in ten years?”
Brittany’s face contorted as if she had just taken a shot of vinegar.
Kip was pacing now, lost in thought. Horace and Uncle Richard headed into the kitchen to see about dinner. Max made the rounds on the deck, receiving numerous pets, all the while keeping his eye on the door, where Diva solemnly watched.
“Whoa, Scoop, what are you doing?” Kip asked suddenly, noticing Scoop busy scribbling away on a pad of paper.
“This entire evening is off the record,” I reminded him. “You can’t write any of this.”
“Yet,” he said. “I can’t write any of this yet. For the moment, I’m just trying to create a timeline. Think about it. Marietta might have been holding back the meds for months—maybe even right after their ten-year anniversary last January.”
“How do you know their anniversary was last January?” I asked.
“If you would read your emails, you would see that I researched the Hemlockers and that was the date of their ten-year celebration,” said Scoop. “They had a huge party at their estate—lots of conversation in social media about vaccination requirements and so forth.”
I sighed. I hadn’t gotten to my emails yet.
“We should probably consult his doctor,” I said. “Marietta might have killed him from neglect or duplicity.”
“He was tired all the time,” added Brittany. “Aunt Lottie wanted him to go for a complete checkup, but he always waved her off.”
“Stop,” said Kip, holding up his hands. “This is a lot of speculation. Full pill bottles prove nothing. For all you know, his docs might have changed his prescriptions and these are the old ones.” And then Kip turned to me. “You have the most vivid imagination for doomsday scenarios of anyone I’ve ever met.”
“You sure got that right,” injected Scoop. “She thought I was in danger and kept warning me to watch my back because of the note with a box of kittens left on my doorstep. I was living in fear, locking doors and windows, and looking over my shoulder.”
“When someone tells you to mind your own business, you should look over your shoulder,” I said.
“Turns out that the kittens were strays found at Village Square,” said Scoop, ignoring me. “The guy who dumped them on my doorstep grabbed a box from the recycling bin. The note was already in there.”
“How do you know all that?” I asked.
“If you read the Press, you’d know that I wrote a story about the kittens and needed more information to suitably place them. The guy got in touch.”
“And he didn’t write the note?” I asked.
“No, it was a note written to the Nosy Parkers, and they had tossed it out with their other recycling, including the box.”
“How can you be sure it was their box that the guy grabbed?”
I was feeling all eyes on me, and my cheeks flamed with embarrassment. And yet I felt justified in worrying about my friend. That note had been in all caps, like it was shouting at him.
“There was still an address label on the box,” he said with a shrug. “I called them, and they said they get those kinds of notes all the time. They just toss them.”
“Well, thanks for keeping me informed. Here I was worrying about you, and you had the mystery already solved. Did the Nosy Parkers know who was telling them to mind their own business?” I asked.
Scoop gave a head shake and said, “Narrowing that down would be akin to finding Waldo.”
“Well, you could have told me,” I said.
“It’s not my fault that you’re paranoid or that trouble seems to follow you,” said Scoop, blowing me off.
Kip ignored our squabble and turned to Brittany. “I want to ask you a couple of questions, and I want you to think long and hard about the answers.”
Brittany visibly shrank away as she reached for Scoop’s hand.
“He’s a good guy,” Scoop said quietly. “Your great-aunt trusted Winter, right?”
Brittany nodded.
“Winter and I both trust Kip,” he reassured her.
Brittany nodded and waited with wary eyes.
Kip edged closer to her and leaned forward, hands on his knees, as if talking to a child.
“Tell me exactly what you remember about your great-aunt’s conversations with Burton,” he said. I felt a twinge of jealousy at realizing that this quiet, gentle tone wasn’t the one he used with me.
Brittany turned her eyes to the water as she reviewed things in her mind. Then she slowly began.
“Burton was proud of the fact that he only needed a cane to walk the path,” she said. “It was as if he was trying to convince us and himself that he was feeling better. But we all knew it was because Mark had made the path smooth enough to navigate. Aunt Lottie humored him and brought her own cane with her, though she didn’t really need it. She told him that they both had to take care of themselves and that they would both start with blood workups. I remember because she said he looked pale, like he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. It stuck with me, because if you got COVID, oxygen levels were the major thing everyone talked about during the pandemic.”
“Good,” said Kip, smiling at her. She gave a timid smile back.
“Do you think your aunt suspected that Burton wasn’t getting his medication?”
“Maybe,” she said slowly, and then nodded. “Now that I look back, yes.”
“Would she have confronted Marietta?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but it was around that time when she told me she was worried about Burton that she weirded out. She made me cancel the reunion and told me to start packing my bags.”
“Marietta and Burton are the official key holders for the Arlington house,” I said. “Maybe she snuck over last Tuesday night, when she thought Mrs. Arlington was asleep, so she could retrieve whatever proof there might be of her neglect. She might not have known yet about the super-smart Great Pyrenees puppy who might alert her owner to danger.”
“It would be good if we had Mrs. Arlington’s day planner or calendar,” said Scoop, warming to my theory.
“Her calendar is digital and not in her cloud. She was paranoid about things rolling around in heaven, as she put it,” said Brittany. “Anyway, she was old school and kept her calendar on one device only—her iPad.”
“So where is that iPad?” asked Kip.
“She usually kept her iPad in the sunroom next to her chair. Was that room destroyed in the fire?” Brittany asked.
“Most of the downstairs damage was confined to the living room, entry and staircase,” said Kip. “Whoever ransacked the house probably did a pretty good job of searching the whole place before they started the fire. I personally did a run-through and didn’t see any electronics.”
“Winter, you’re looking a little flushed. Are you okay?” asked Uncle Richard, who had returned to call us to dinner.
My lie detector was apparently in full bloom. At some point I was going to have to admit my sunroom subterfuge—yet another example of my tenuous relationship with the law. Not yet, however.
“Just hungry,” I murmured.
Richard poured a Lewis pinot noir that had been breathing on the high-gloss sideboard. He was known for his wine collection, and this one apparently didn’t disappoint. I stuck to a glass of Rombauer from an open bottle in the fridge, and Brittany opted for sparkling water.
Scoop ate like he hadn’t seen food in days, gave an apologetic smile, and dug in for seconds. After helping to clear the dishes, he yawned, stretched, and begged off for the night. Brittany walked him to the door and rapidly retreated upstairs. Max, who was Mr. Confident after establishing himself as alpha dog, trotted home after Horace. Richard hovered for a few minutes, asking what I would do about my phone. I promised to call him tomorrow after my visit to Verizon for yet another burner. That left Kip and me to wrap up.
“I think Diva is toying with Max,” Kip said as he loaded the last of the dishes into the dishwasher.
“What do you mean?” I asked as I poured hot water into two cups and dropped a chamomile-with-lavender tea bag into each.
“She’s just biding her time, letting him think he’s in charge, and then, boom. Next thing you know, he’ll be following her around, trying to please her,” he said.
I handed him his mug, and he followed me outside, where we settled into lounge chairs. The Sturgeon Moon was a few days into the wane but still bright enough to illuminate the contours of the lake—the Cliffs, the craggy shoreline, the pale strip of beach between splashes of light from the houses. The windless night left the water itself smooth as glass, and the moonbeams were like camera flashes on a dark mirror.
“Interesting,” I said, just as Diva showed up next to the door.
I patted my lap and said softly, “Come on. Don’t be afraid.”
She stayed put.
“What were you trying to tell me about the shoe?” asked Kip.
“Brittany is a size eight. It would be like one of Cinderella’s stepsisters trying to squeeze into the glass slipper.” It triggered a thought. “We should get Marietta to try the shoe on.”
Kip sipped his tea and looked out at the lake in thought.
“I mean, if the shoe fits—” I added.
“It would be more like Cruella, or Ursula from the Little Mermaid,” he finished.
“You know your Disney,” I said, amused.
“I like movies with happy endings,” he said, and looked away shyly.
After Kip left, Diva and I climbed the stairs for the night. She opted to slip into Brittany’s room—or, I should say, I opted for her to sleep there. My room was sufficiently torn up from her earlier frustrated escape efforts, and I was not in a happy-with-my-dog mood. By the time I cleaned up and crawled into bed, though, I was already missing her.
An hour later, alone, tormented by a million thoughts that kept me from sleep, I knew there was one more thing I had to do and do it soon. The question was, should I tell Kip that I planned to sneak back into the house to get Mrs. Arlington’s iPad?
It would jeopardize his job if he knew and didn’t report it. And if I told him, he’d have to go through channels and convince someone that it was important. All of that. And then Tom might find out. He might tell Marietta. And if Marietta had some part in this, she had a key to the house and might get to the iPad first, assuming there was something she was searching for.
When six AM came, Diva was making noises in the next room, so I dragged myself from bed and I stuck my head in. Brittany was leaning against a pile of rainbow-colored pillows, a matching comforter tucked up to her chin. She looked reluctant to move.
“This is so much better than those blow-ups,” she said with a bright smile. She looked so childlike that it was hard not to see why Mrs. Arlington, Burton, and Mark had risked their lives to protect her.
“Stay in bed,” I said. “I’ll take Diva out.”
“I don’t mind taking her,” she said as she pulled herself up and stretched. “I like our early-morning walks. That was the thing about Diva my aunt hated. She didn’t like to have to get out of bed until half the morning was over.”
“Let’s go together.” I didn’t want to chance that Tom might be watching the house. If he and Marietta were the bad guys, which I was beginning to believe, they might think Brittany was also a threat. That prenup could be the motive for everything that had happened, including Mark Goodwin’s murder. Which could put Brittany next in line.
Brittany wanted to pick up Max for the walk. I thought it was too early to tap on Horace’s door, and besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with dueling dogs. As we walked by, however, a groggy Horace opened the door, and Max came bounding out.
“I’ve got this,” hollered Brittany.
“We don’t have a leash,” I said as the dog beelined happily toward her.
She gave Max lots of hugs and pets while I stood by uneasily, shielding Diva.
“He won’t need one,” she said confidently.
“What if he tries to snack on her again?” I asked, indicating the small furball now pressed between my legs.
“He won’t; he has established himself as superior,” she said. “It’s that organic thing that dogs do.”
And she was right. Diva was content to be on the leash while Max trotted ahead, checked things out, and then retreated next to Brittany as if he were a scout reporting back. If Kip was right about Diva, however, Max’s reign would be short-lived.
“Do you have a key to Mrs. Arlington’s house?” I asked as we walked.
By this point I had no idea if the doors to the mansion were locked or not, but I knew without a doubt that I had to get that iPad.
Brittany stopped, and both dogs sat at attention, picking up on her body language as she eyed me suspiciously.
“You aren’t going back there, are you?”
I felt the color rising in my cheeks. “I hid her iPad under the cushions of one of the chairs in the sunroom. If I could get it, we might find whatever secret your great-aunt had. It might tell us what happened to her and who killed Mark.”
At the mention of her friend, Brittany gave Max an extra massage behind those pointy ears.
“He was trying to help me,” she said thoughtfully. “He knew Aunt Lottie was sending me away to protect me, and when I came back to check on her, he insisted that I return to David and Bitsy’s house and wait there until he found out what was going on. But I had to stay to be there in case Aunt Lottie needed me. Plus I was worried about Diva, and I knew I could help him with Max. After she died, we talked a lot about whether he should bring you into his plan to go back inside and search. He decided we needed someone on the outside we could trust, and we decided it was you.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Simple,” said Brittany, “Aunt Lottie trusted you.”
I digested this. The two of them held Leocadia Arlington in such high regard that they were willing to risk everything based on her trust level.
“Did he tell you what he was searching for?” I asked.
“Proof that she was up to her old tricks and that she knew something about someone,” said Brittany. “He was convinced that there was something in her files. I told him to look in the book club folder. My aunt never let me see those files, which made me wonder what was so important about them, but her memoirs had details about her past, and I figured they must have something to do with what happened to her.”
“I’ll go over there this morning and get the iPad. I’ll then go to the Verizon store and get another phone and get back here as soon as I can. You can get into the iPad, right?” I asked.
Brittany shielded her eyes from the rising sun before answering. It was going to be another sizzler, from the feel of things. “Her iPad and her iPhone were rarely out of her sight, and while I had access to her computer, I didn’t have passwords to those. I do know the way her mind worked. We’ll just have to hope she used the same types of passwords on those devices that she did for her computer and house alarm.”
“With the power now restored, will the alarm be on?” I asked.
“Not unless someone set it,” she said. Brittany gave me the password and instructions on how to turn it off, just in case. “I’m pretty sure the driveway alarm will be working.”
An hour later, I was on my way back to the Arlington house with Brittany’s key in my pocket. I opted for the service entrance and parked out of sight, snuggling my car into the woods behind the pool house. For good measure, I turned the Subaru around so it would be facing in the exit direction in case I needed a quick getaway.
I left the keys on the dashboard and hugged the wooded landscape as I made my way to the house just in case there were still investigators inside.
It was another picturesque morning, with a clear blue sky, and I could already feel the heat rising off the grassy carpet—it was going to be a steamy one. There was still enough dew to dampen my sneakers, and I debated taking them off before entering the house. With all the damage from the fire and so many people traipsing through, I doubted anyone would notice my footprints, so I left them on.
I crept across the stone patio, peeked through the windows to make sure the crime teams were cleared out by now, and unlocked the back French doors—the same doors where I’d watched Diva skirt the pool to avoid water on the day I discovered Mrs. Arlington at the bottom of the staircase.
At least the patio doors didn’t squeak, although the noise from the lock was significant enough to rattle my edgy nerves. I had fingers crossed that no one was inside the house, because this was not the quiet entry I had planned.
The smell permeating the house made me gag. The odor was akin to what you might find in a dumpster filled with rotting food. Inside the wide front-to-back hallway, I stood still and listened as I took in the scene. Charred furniture was piled atop what had once been a lush carpet. Everything was smoke stained and water damaged. Surprisingly, the structure was still in place, a testament to the FD’s expertise in knocking the fire down before it could get inside the walls. An old house like this wouldn’t have fire stops between floors.
I heard nothing and as I hurried toward the sunroom, I glanced into the living room where most of the damage had been confined. With much of the fabric disintegrated, there were now only skeletal remains, all charred black and sooty. Oddly, the curtains, though limp and streaked gray, were still hanging. The sooner I got out of this creepy house, the better.
Just as Kip had said, the sunroom had escaped fairly unscathed, except for the overpowering odor now settling in. It made me sad to think Mrs. Arlington’s beloved home would probably be torn down and the land sold off in parcels for development. I wondered again who the beneficiary of her estate was. I hadn’t heard a word from Sondra Milton, Mrs. Arlington’s lawyer.
The iPad mini with its black magnetic cover was right where I’d left it under the cushion of Mrs. Arlington’s chair—the one where she’d sat when I interviewed her. I opened the cover, and surprisingly, there was still a charge, though not much. I quickly abandoned the idea of trying a few passwords, because the tomblike setting of the empty mansion was giving me the willies.
Somewhere in the distance of the house, I heard the now-familiar ding-dong of the driveway alarm. I grabbed the iPad, and as I was replacing the seat cushion, I bumped the side table. Before I could grab hold of the wobbling piece, it toppled over, shattering a vase as it went. In my efforts to save the table and what I hoped was not a Ming, the iPad slid out of my hand to the floor. In a flash I was down on hands and knees, frantically picking away the glass, sliding it discreetly under the chair and out of sight as I reached for the iPad. Finally, tablet in hand, I rose, hurried across the room, paused, and listened. Nothing.
And then, just as I crossed into the hallway to exit through the patio doors, I heard the unmistakable click of a key turning in the front door. There was no time for anything but to rush into the living room, the closest room adjacent to the hallway.
As the front door opened with its familiar squeak, I cast about for a place to hide. I zeroed in on the fireplace. No, I thought. I’d had enough of fires.
As the door shut, I tiptoed across the room and slid behind the panel of drapes that pooled onto the floor, old-style. They smelled so bad that I thought I might begin coughing or sneezing, so I held my breath. Whoever had entered went straight into the sunroom, and I debated slipping back into the hallway and out the doors. Then I remembered the noisy clicks the lock made when it opened and the mess of debris from destroyed furnishings I would have to navigate. I cursed myself for not leaving the door ajar. Whoever was in the sunroom would have plenty of time to chase me down the lawn if they heard me exit.
So I waited, frozen behind the drapes, terrified that my gagging might erupt into vomiting. I closed my eyes and practiced the techniques I had learned over the years to manage a panic attack. I couldn’t exactly imagine myself on a sandy beach with a balmy breeze. Instead, I managed a quiet room with a dead-bolted door.
A few moments later, when the heavy-footed intruder crossed the hallway and entered the living room, I had my breathing under control, though not so much my racing heart. He stayed only long enough to recognize that there was nothing left in this room to salvage. If he headed toward the curtains, I would leave the iPad on the windowsill and emerge empty-handed to confront him.
My plan proved unnecessary, because he moved on down the hallway, and judging by the sounds of rattling crystal, the search was now in the dining room.
I slipped out from behind the curtains, quietly exited into the hallway, where I picked around anything my feet might crunch, and with my hand on the doorknob of the French doors, waited. Sure enough, more noisy rattling as the perpetrator investigated another cabinet. I opened the door, raced down two steps, and sprinted toward the pool house.
Once there, I glanced back and was shocked to see a man barreling in my direction. And that man looked a lot like Tom. I wasn’t about to wait around to find out for sure. Instead, I used my significant head start to get out of there and fast. Thank goodness I’d left the car pointed in the right direction, because a quick getaway was exactly what I needed.
As I fishtailed it away, I could see my pursuer rounding the corner to the pool house and heading straight for Mark Goodwin’s truck, which was still parked on the service road. I said a silent prayer that Mark hadn’t left the keys inside.