16
Loud electronic music was playing in Amelia’s room when I got home. I approached the door, but reconsidered. She was mad, and rightfully so. While I wanted to talk to her about what had happened, it would probably be best if I gave her more time to calm down. I didn’t want a fight. I was pretty sure she didn’t either.
I backed away from the door and retreated back downstairs. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t quite ready to talk yet either.
So, instead of having what would inevitably be a heated conversation, I decided to clean the room Toby and Leroy had recently occupied in preparation for Stewie’s upcoming stay.
There wasn’t a lot to do since the two older dogs hadn’t been too messy. The room did smell like beagle, but a quick mop of the floor and wash of the bedding, and you’d never know they’d been there.
I took my time, relishing the smell of cleaner. The floor, the blankets and pillows, all got deep cleaned. Even the food and water dishes got a thorough scrubbing. It took a good two hours for me to be satisfied, and by the time I was done, my back was barking and I had the beginnings of a headache. But at least the room smelled fresh, without a hint of dog.
Amelia was waiting for me at the dining room table when I left the room, carrying a bucket of dirty water. I took it to the bathroom, dumped it, and then stowed the bucket in the laundry room before joining her.
“Wheels needs some food,” she said. The cat in question was sitting at her side, purring. “I put the last in her dish when I got home.”
“All right. I’ll get it in a little while,” I said, sitting down across from her with a groan. I rubbed at my back, once more missing Ben to no end. He usually helped with the cleaning.
Amelia stared at me, chewing her lower lip. There was still defiance in her eye, but she didn’t seem angry anymore. That was good. In the shape I was in, I wasn’t looking forward to an argument.
“I filled the police in,” I said, taking the lead. “Detective Cavanaugh listened, but I think he already knew about Meredith’s money issues and Timothy Fuller’s hidden cash. If he didn’t, he does now, and I think he’ll look into it.”
“Good.” Amelia dropped her eyes briefly before meeting mine again. “He seemed like he knew what he was doing when he questioned me.”
A flare of anger shot through me, but I suppressed it. He was only doing his job. Still, every time I thought about him going to her school to talk to her, it made me want to give him a piece of my mind.
“Someone broke into Timothy’s house too,” I said. “It looked like they were looking for something. The place was a disaster.”
“Do you think whoever it was, was looking for the hidden money?”
“It’s likely,” I said. “Junior was pretty upset. He blamed me, saying I was trying to ruin him. That man has it in for me, and I don’t even know why.”
Amelia’s brow furrowed as she thought it over. “We were with Ms. Hopewell right before that,” she said.
“We were. But the break-in might have happened earlier. I don’t think anyone was at the house until shortly before I showed up, so no one really knows when it happened. It wouldn’t surprise me if the thief broke in last night.” Which meant, just about everyone could be a suspect.
We both fell silent. Amelia seemed to be chewing over what I’d told her, while I was sitting there, waiting for her to tell me how she got involved in Ben’s case. I understood why she did it, just not the how.
“Amelia, what’s going on?” I asked her when it didn’t appear as if she was going to speak on her own. “Why were you talking to Meredith?”
“I wanted to prove Ben’s innocence. Ms. Hopewell seemed like a legitimate suspect, so I figured I’d press her and see what she had to say for herself.”
“So, you decided to go alone?” I couldn’t help it; my voice rose, more in panic than anger. “Amelia, if she was Timothy’s killer, that meant you were walking into a bad situation with no backup. No one knew where you were.”
“You were there.” Bitterly.
“That was pure luck,” I said. “If I hadn’t seen you, you would have been all alone. What if something had happened? What if you were right and when you started asking questions, she decided to silence you?”
“Mom, I can handle myself.”
“I know you can, Amelia, but you shouldn’t have to. Why go alone when you could have called me? Or had one of your friends go with you?”
She reached down and ran a hand down Wheels’s back. The cat’s purr got louder. She rose from her place at Amelia’s feet and paced back and forth, soaking up the attention. The wheels seemed loud in the silence.
“I want you to be safe,” I said, calmly, lovingly. “Someone is out there right now, someone who killed a man. Nothing says they’ll stop at just Timothy Fuller. Any one of us could be next.” Not a comforting thought, but I hoped it proved my point.
“I know,” she said. “But I thought that since it was about money, I’d be okay. I bet whoever killed him, didn’t mean to do it.”
“I’m not sure you can accidentally stab someone,” I said. Especially in the back. “How did you even know about the money anyway?”
“I hear things,” Amelia said, not meeting my eye.
“You hear things? Amelia . . .”
“What? I did a little research, asked around. It wasn’t too hard.”
I gaped at her. Research ? Asked around ? “Should you be doing that?” I asked.
She shrugged, and then gave me a crooked smile. “At least we’re making progress, right?”
I wanted to tell her that we shouldn’t be doing anything at all, but held my tongue. While Amelia had confronted only one person, I’d gone and talked to nearly everyone involved with Timothy Fuller or his dog, Stewie. It’s kind of hard to yell at someone who was doing the same thing I was.
“Who is C. Chudzinski?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject.
Amelia’s smile faded. “How do you know his name?”
“I saw it,” I said. “I went into your room to see if you were there and it was on the shelf by the door.”
“You were snooping?”
“No.” Well, yes, but I didn’t want to tell her that. “I saw the card with his name on it, and I’m curious about who he is. I just want to make sure I shouldn’t be worried about him.”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “Mom, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Yes, Amelia, I do.”
She heaved a sigh, jaw firming like she was going to sit there in stoic silence until the walls fell down around her ears. I’d run into her stubbornness more than once, and was willing to wait her out.
She seemed to realize the same. After only a few seconds, her shoulders sagged, and she looked down at her hands.
“He’s just someone I know,” she said.
“A boyfriend?”
“Ew, no. He’s like three times my age.”
“So, he’s the man I saw you with earlier?”
She nodded. “I’ve met with him a few times. We were talking.” She looked up, met my eye with a hard stare. “Just talking.”
“Okay, you were talking. What about?”
“About Ben. About the case. He knows a lot about stuff like that.”
“Does he now?” The skepticism was thick in my voice. It wouldn’t be the first time an older man claimed to know things, just so he could attract a younger woman.
“Yes, he does,” Amelia said. “He’s a private investigator.”
That stopped me short. “He’s a what?”
“A private investigator,” Amelia repeated. “He was a guest speaker in one of my classes a few months ago. I enjoyed his talk so much, I stayed after to talk to him about it. We’ve kept in touch since.”
The worry that his motives weren’t pure was back, but it was overwhelmed by my confusion. “You hired a private investigator for Ben?”
“No,” Amelia said, sounding frustrated. She lifted both hands, dropped them heavily onto the table, before picking at her fingernails. “He’s sort of my mentor.”
“Mentor?” The confusion kept growing and growing. “What are you talking about, Amelia?”
She bit her lower lip, glanced up at me, looked away, and then looked up again. She was more than nervous; I could see the fear in her eyes, like she thought I was going to explode when she finally told me what was going on.
“Amelia,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I’m not going to be mad.” Or at least, I hoped not. “Just tell me why you’re talking to a private investigator.”
She took a few moments more to collect her thoughts. She licked her lips, rose, and grabbed a water from the fridge, before returning to her seat.
“Chester is a nice guy,” she said, speaking slowly, and carefully, as if she was thinking through each word before she said it. “He’s been in the business for a long time. I guess he’s helped the police solve a few big cases in his time, though these days, he mostly does small-time stuff, like checking on cheating husbands and things like that.”
I could imagine. There really wasn’t a lot of major crime happening in Grey Falls. I was surprised we even had a private investigator at all, to be honest.
“So, he gave that talk I mentioned, telling us about some of his cases, how he worked them, what went wrong. Stuff like that. It was in my criminal justice class.”
“You take criminal justice?”
She smiled. “I did. It was a really neat presentation and it sounded exciting, so I asked if we could talk about it some more sometime. We’d occasionally get together after class, but yesterday, we met early because he had somewhere to be that evening.”
Which was why she’d left so early. There was nothing nefarious in it.
“But, why?” I asked, still confused.
“I like it,” she said, growing excited as she spoke. “To piece things together, to find the clues, the patterns. It drew me the moment he started speaking. I’d been taking classes like that for a while, but it wasn’t until he gave his talk that I realized it was what I wanted to do.”
It took me a moment to realize what she meant. “You want to be a private investigator?”
She lowered her gaze, appeared embarrassed, or perhaps, ashamed. “That or a police detective.”
I sat there, dumbly, for a good couple of minutes as I thought it through. This seemed to have come out of nowhere, yet it sounded as if she’d been thinking about it for a long time. Not only that, but she was passionate about it. I could see it in her eyes, by the sound of her voice. This was what she wanted to do with her life.
How could I have not known?
Because she never talked about it, that’s why.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?” I asked.
“Because I thought you and Dad might be mad at me.”
“Mad at you? Why would we be mad at you?”
She refused to look up as she spoke. “You and Dad and Ben are all involved with animals. You have the rescue. Dad’s a veterinarian. Ben’s probably going to be a vet too. I felt like I was letting you down by not following in your footsteps. You always ask me if I want to help out. Dad asks if I want to come in and help sometimes. I was afraid that saying no would make you hate me.”
“Oh, honey, you aren’t letting us down. And we definitely don’t hate you. Actually, I’m proud of you.”
“You are?” she asked, skeptically.
“I am.” I stood and rounded the table to wrap her in a hug. She squirmed briefly before giving in and accepting it. “You’ve found your calling,” I said, releasing her. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Even if it means I don’t help out much with the animals?”
“Even then,” I said. “I’m happy if you’re happy.”
“I am.”
“Then there’s nothing to be angry about.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced, and we still had to break the news to Manny, but I was pretty sure he would be just as thrilled about her finally finding a direction for her life as I was.
Of course, there was one caveat.
“As happy as I am for you, Amelia, I don’t think you should be looking into Ben’s case.”
“Why not?” she asked, stubbornly crossing her arms.
“Because you are related to him. The police won’t be able to use whatever you bring them.” Well, I’m sure they could, but it would be with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“If it’s true, then they’d have to.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s risky.”
She pouted, and I knew that no matter what I said, she was going to do whatever she could to help Ben. A warm, fuzzy feeling filled me then because I knew I’d raised both my children right.
“What do you know about the case?” I asked, partially giving in. I had to admit, I was curious as to what she’d uncovered. And while I didn’t want her going to Detective Cavanaugh with anything she discovered, I had no problem doing it for her.
Amelia sat up, entire demeanor brightening. “Not much, yet,” she said. “But I’ve been working on it. Chester says that these things take time sometimes, and that you just have to keep pressing. I’ve only got bits and pieces right now, but I’m sure I’ll be able to use them to get to the truth.”
“Okay, tell me what you have.”
“You know about the Ms. Hopewell thing. She’s short on cash, and might lose her house. If the rumors of Mr. Fuller’s money are true, then she had every motive in the world to go after it.”
“But to kill him?”
“If he refused to give it to her, she might have gotten angry. Or she thought she could find the money before the house was sold. She just needed the old man out of the way, and opportunity to search the place. If she was the one who broke in, she could have done it last night, and then faked everything we saw today.”
“And then there’s Junior,” I said. “When he showed up to care for his dad, he could have messed up her plans.”
“Exactly,” Amelia said. “And Timothy Jr. isn’t exactly rolling in dough either.”
“He’s broke?”
“Mostly.” She gave me a satisfied smile. “Apparently, his wife, Alexis, came from a rich family, who disowned her for marrying a man they believed beneath her. She has expensive tastes, and expects him to support her. Junior doesn’t have that kind of money coming in.”
“So, he thinks he can get his sick, dying dad to give it to him.”
“But when he tries . . .”
“The old man says no.”
“And with Ms. Hopewell already trying to find the money, Daddy would only get in the way.”
I thought about it. Both of them were likely suspects, and if both of them were hurting for cash, it could very easily motivate them both. Meredith feels she’s owed, as does Junior. They clash. And they’re both on a time limit. Once Timothy is sent to the home, the house would go up for sale, and if it sold before they found the money, it might be lost forever. If he died, then the house would be stuck in limbo until everything was sorted out.
But in that scenario, Timothy’s death benefited Junior the most. Once Timothy was gone, Meredith wouldn’t have a reason to go back to the house. Junior could go through it at his leisure.
Did he hasten his father’s demise along, just to be rid of Meredith? And was that why the murder took place in the barn? If it happened in the house, then the place would be locked up as a crime scene, not to mention searched. He couldn’t afford to let anyone else find the money, not with the stipulation in Timothy’s will that everything should go to Stewie.
“Then, who went through the house?” I asked, thinking we might be on to something. “The place was trashed and Junior seemed pretty upset about it.”
“Both Ms. Hopewell and Tim Jr. had reason to,” Amelia said. “Though, at this point, I think Tim Jr. is the more likely suspect.”
“Junior called the cops,” I said. “Why would he do that if he was the one who wrecked the place?”
“Maybe he was trying to scare someone else off ?”
Yeah, but who?
Amelia didn’t know much else, but swore to me she was on it. When she went to her room, presumably to make a call to Chester Chudzinski, I let her go with a warning to be careful. I wasn’t going to stop her from doing what she loved, but I also didn’t want her getting hurt.
But she had given me something to think about. It was sounding more and more like Timothy had died because of his secret stash—if it even existed. And if it did, was it now currently in possession of the man or woman who killed him? Or was it still tucked away, hidden in a house that would soon pass on to someone else who didn’t even know it existed?