Thirteen

I gasped. “I had no idea.”

Brenda nodded. “Oh, the things we do for family. Her parents didn’t approve of Seth. Addi pretended she wasn’t dating him anymore, but she saw him on the sly. She broke it off about a year ago, but his death is hard for her.”

“I can imagine. Poor Addi. I wish I had known. I might not have blurted the news about his death the way I did.”

“You can’t blame yourself. Not many people knew. Just her closest friends. She kept the relationship very quiet.”

“I think I owe her an apology.”

“Nonsense. One can’t know everything. Especially not with the way people lie and keep secrets.”

I gazed at her, taking in her pale blue eyes. “Is that wisdom you learned as a teacher?”

“That’s wisdom I learned from life.”

At that moment, just when I thought we were having an interesting conversation, Fritz bolted through the front door, followed by the judge, who had his stick with him but walked surprisingly well without actually using it.

“Judge Barlow!” I exclaimed. I was about to ask what I could do for him when I realized that his eyes were locked on Brenda, and she was fixated on him. “Judge Barlow, this is Brenda McDade. Brenda, Judge Barlow.”

“I’d have recognized you anywhere. A bit older definitely, but you still have that same brave face,” said the judge.

Brenda’s laugh came out more like a bark. “Brave is an overused word where I am concerned. One does what one has to. There was no bravery involved in what I did.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, young lady. I’ve known men twice your size who stood by and watched as someone was attacked. How is your father?”

“He passed a few years ago. To be honest, I think he never quite recuperated from Wallace turning on him like that.”

“It’s understandable. To have one’s own son attempt to take one’s life is something no parent would ever overcome. It’s bad enough to go through that with a stranger, but when it’s your own child, well, that’s horrific. I understand Wallace roams freely among us again?”

“I’m afraid so. I don’t see him often, mostly when he wants money. I won’t have him living at the house. But when your name is Wallace McDade and you’re a convicted felon, for attempted murder no less, no one wants to rent you an apartment. So I bought him a little house out in the country where there are no neighbors close enough to complain. He can charge most of what he needs on a credit card that I pay, which also serves to give me a clue about what he’s up to. I check it every day just to see where he is and what he’s doing.”

The judge looked at Fagan. “Is that your dog?”

“He is! He always lets me know when Wallace comes around.”

The judge sniffed. “You should get him a fellow like Fritz as a friend.”

Brenda bristled. “I dare say Fagan would come to my defense if necessary.”

I didn’t doubt that he would. But probably like the judge, I didn’t think he could take a grown man down like a trained German shepherd would. Fritz had politely greeted Fagan and Trixie, but then he sat next to the judge, carefully watching everything that was going on in the lobby.

“I miss the years when he was locked up,” said Brenda. “They were so freeing. I could sleep with all the windows open and the breeze wafting in. Now I’m always looking over my shoulder, closing and locking every possible entrance.”

“You fear for your life?” asked the judge.

“I don’t like to think about it in those terms. But he has proven his ability to disconnect from logic and integrity. I cannot trust him. I don’t understand the way Wallace’s mind works. It clearly goes places that I cannot begin to imagine.”

“Is he under the care of a psychiatrist?”

“Allegedly. He needs to be in a facility, but no one can get him to go. That won’t happen until he kills me. And then everyone will ask why he was allowed to be free.”

Clearly dispirited, the judge nodded, as though resigned to Brenda’s reality.

“I hope you’ll be at the gala,” said Brenda.

“The correct thing to say is that I wouldn’t miss it. But I loathe being hit up for favors by all those phony types trying to figure out whose back to scratch to advance their own interests. A tiresome waste of time if you ask me.”

I was a little taken aback by his response and held my breath, wondering how to cushion that blow.

But Brenda smiled at him. “I’ll see you there, then.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. As she walked away with Fagan by her side, the judge said, “I admire that young woman. She’s quite remarkable.” He watched her for a moment before turning to me. “I am concerned that the fire in Dovie’s shed may be a message from the person tormenting me.”

In the well of the grand staircase, anyone could listen in or overhear our conversation. I led him outside to the porch where we could speak privately. When he was settled in a rocking chair, I asked, “Were you and Rose speaking about Dovie’s shed recently?”

“Yes. It has been an eyesore for many years. Your aunt Birdie started a squabble and upset Dovie by informing her that she would bring it up with Liesel. And since Birdie has a family connection to Liesel through you, she claimed she wouldn’t even have to do it at a board meeting. She could go straight to the mayor.”

Aunt Birdie was a pill. There was no way around it. I had seen her kinder side, so I knew she had a heart, but she could not help bossing people around. She thought she was an authority on everything and everyone. She was the first to point out anything she thought was a transgression on my part, like being born out of wedlock to her teenaged sister, which was utterly absurd, as I was the result, not the cause. But I had discovered that she had plenty of socially inappropriate infractions of her own. We’d had a few run-ins when I moved back to Wagtail. She didn’t like that I stood up to her. But I wasn’t about to cower and be her little servant. It was beyond me why she hadn’t realized that people would like her more if she didn’t try to rule the world and everyone in it.

“That almost sounds as if someone was trying to please Aunt Birdie. She has her nerve. And what Dovie may not know is that there’s no love lost between Oma and Birdie. They tolerate each other, but if I wanted to accomplish something, Aunt Birdie is the last person I would send to Oma with a request.”

“Small-town politics,” he muttered.

It was actually family politics. Aunt Birdie, my mother’s sister, had made no secret of the fact that she was jealous of my close relationship with Oma, my father’s mother. But what he’d said worried me in a whole new way. “Are you suggesting that Aunt Birdie had something to do with the fire at Dovie’s house?”

“I have no evidence of that.”

I had dated a lawyer before moving to Wagtail, so I knew perfectly well how cautiously legal types selected their words. I understood exactly what he was saying. He meant she was his top suspect. But I saw a problem with that.

Aunt Birdie was quite adept with her computer. She wrote columns for antiques magazines and corresponded quite well with email. But there was a limit to her technical ability, as I could attest, having been called to her house several times to update her computer and fix her phone. “I seriously doubt that Birdie is knowledgeable enough to plant any kind of high-tech listening device in your house.”

The judge’s eyes opened wide. “She’s a very intelligent woman.”

“You’re pretty smart, too. Do you think you could arrange to listen to conversations in someone else’s house?”

He grumbled incoherently a bit. “You may have a point. But she could hire someone. That’s what I would do. There are plenty of people in this world who will do unsavory things for a little bit of pocket change.”

He had me there. “Why would she do that?”

He glanced at me like I was daft, and a red blush crawled up his cheeks. “Single men my age are at a premium in this town.”

I had to bite my lip to keep from grinning.

“Well, if the person listening to you is Aunt Birdie, then you have nothing to worry about. She may be unkind, but she’s not violent.”

“No one is violent—until they get caught.”

What was that supposed to mean? “She’s ornery and cranky and expects everything to be done the way she wants, but she has never harmed anyone.”

The judge heaved himself out of the rocking chair, which prompted Fritz to jump to his feet.

“That fire last night was violent on more than one level,” said the judge.

I understood what he meant. “I seriously doubt that Aunt Birdie had anything to do with that. She’s disagreeable, not stupid.”

“I certainly hope you’re right about that.”

Trixie watched the judge pick up his cane and walk down the stairs without so much as a wobble, with Fritz by his side, matching his pace.

Trixie turned to look at me as though she was thinking what I was—Did he really need that stick? “It’s not our problem,” I said to Trixie. “Maybe he just likes the look of strolling about with a stick.”

He crossed the plaza, looking just about as grouchy as Aunt Birdie. Heaven help us all if those two ever got together as a couple.

I opened the door, and Trixie ran inside, wagging her tail. We went straight up the grand staircase and turned right toward Seth’s room. The door was open. I stepped inside.

Dave was there alone, looking out the French doors.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“He didn’t bring much with him. I’d like to keep the room sealed until we get the results back from the medical examiner. Is that okay?”

“Sure. Can we leave the yellow crime scene tape inside the door so it doesn’t scare our guests?” I asked.

He picked up the room keys in a gloved hand and held them out to me. “One other thing. Can you tell me who is in Play?”

The room key in his hand hung from a bronze fob embossed with the word Play.

I was stunned. “I never touched it or looked at it because I didn’t want to mess up fingerprints. I just assumed they were the keys to this room.”

“So, who is in Play?”

“Louisa.”