Abigail, up close, looked tired. What she’d been through had aged her. There were dark circles under her eyes and her face was pale. She was no longer as beautifully dressed as she’d been at the last funeral. This dress was black but without style. More like something her secretary, Carmen Volker, would have chosen for her.
“So much . . .” Abigail started to say as they moved to a quiet corner of the room. “I can’t imagine what’s happened to my family.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her head. When she could speak again, Jenny saw tears.
“I think I might need your help. I know you are working with Ms. Zola.”
Jenny had no idea what to admit and so said nothing.
“You mentioned that she’s a writer. I would have loved to talk to her . . . before . . . all of this.” She motioned around the room. “My entire life . . . I’ve gotten along best with creative people.”
“We’ll set up a time and . . .”
Jenny was waved to silence.
“Please listen,” Abigail said, her voice very low. “I need to talk to someone. I will call you.”
Behind them, Carmen Volker wove her way through the gathered people. She touched Abigail’s arm to let her know she was there, then whispered something in her ear. Abigail’s face cleared of emotion as she listened.
To Jenny, she finally said, graciously, in her normal voice, “It’s been lovely talking to you, Jenny. Thank you so much for coming.”
Carmen took Abigail’s arm and pulled slightly. “Alfred is trying to get your attention.”
“Abigail,” Alfred called from where he stood with a group of people. “Times up on that, dear. We have important people waiting.”
Jenny went back to where her group stood watching, away from the others.
“What did she want?” Zoe asked.
“I told you we should call her. Too bad she was dragged away by that . . . that ‘frumious Bandersnatch,’” Zoe hissed though gritted teeth.
“Or ‘a Borogrove who lives under sundials and eats only veal.’” Jenny came up with a line she’d read the night before.
“Stop studying, please. You’ll never know as much as I, and really, is this the time for a competition?” She narrowed her eyes, then clucked at Jenny.
“You’d better get to her without those two around,” Tony leaned in to say.
“I’ll call her tonight if I don’t hear from her first,” Jenny said.
“Give the poor soul at least until tomorrow,” Dora said. “Let’s not forget, she’s burying another of her brothers today.”
They were shushed when a minister stood and raised his hands for quiet.
Tony went home. The others sat in rockers in the twilight of the Weston’s porch. Zoe held a happy Fida on her lap and the brass key in her open hand. The tarnished key glinted strangely when the light of the moon caught it just right.
“What could this fit?” Zoe asked again and again.
“No idea. But even knowing what kind of thing it fits, how will you ever find the exact box or locker or whatever it goes to?” Lisa asked.
“I’m afraid the box was put somewhere in my house to make me look even more guilty. I’ll bet the police found it today.” She looked glum. “I can see the Perry Mason moment at my trial when Ed walks in with some funky box and holds it up for everyone to see the body parts I keep there.”
“Zoe, we have no idea what that key is to.” Lisa plumped a pillow behind her head.
“Look at what’s happened so far. I feel like a—” Zoe stopped to think of an appropriate image.
Jenny groaned. “I don’t want to hear any more of this tonight, okay?”
“You be quiet, Jenny Weston. I’ll say exactly what I need to say. Nothing more and nothing less.” Zoe spat the words at Jenny.
“And just what were you saying, dear?” Dora asked.
“I was going to say . . .” Fida leaned up to lick Zoe’s chin. “I feel exactly like Alice trapped in Wonderland. It’s as if someone is trying to snare me in my own book. Now here I am, arrested by the Queen of Hearts . . .”
“Is that Ed Warner?” Jenny asked, a gleam in her eye. “I never pictured him as—”
“Quiet, please,” Zoe ordered. “Let’s be serious. I have a brass key someone left for me—attached to my darling dog. The key might as well be sitting on a table way above my head for all the use I have of it. So the first question is, what or who does this key belong to?”
“And don’t forget the two men dead in close proximity to you.” Jenny joined the game. “One by a bullet. One by a hoe.”
Zoe ignored her. “A letter,” she went on, her pretty face balled up in worry. “A letter that came from me but didn’t come from me, since I didn’t send it, was found in Adam’s house. If I did send the letter, how did I get it in there? There was no envelope with a stamp. I’m not in the habit of breaking and entering. Still, someone had to write it since it wasn’t me who invited Adam to visit at dawn. That someone, as I’ve said before, has to be the killer. He or she would be the only one expecting to run into Adam in my yard at that time of night. He or she was the one who laid the trap. Now, the next question is, who is he or she?”
Jenny thought her head was going to explode. “Does all of this have a point we haven’t looked at already?”
“My point is, I didn’t do any of the things I’m being accused of, so it must be someone else. Somebody alive—since the Cane boys are dead. Somebody with a grudge against both of them, even though they had a grudge against each other. Someone who has chosen me as dispensable since I’m rather odd all the way around.”
“Not all the way around,” Jenny said.
Dora hushed her. “There is nothing odd about you, dear,” she said to Zoe, and Lisa the Good agreed. “Okay, maybe not odd but . . .” She thought a while. “Unique. Will that do?”
“So,” she went on, “It could be Abigail who is doing all of this, or someone she’s directing. She’s the only family member left. Still and all, I don’t think the woman has the meanness for it, even though everybody says she stole the family fortune from her brothers. Which brings me to—”
“This is Lisa’s last night home,” Jenny interrupted. “Could we talk about something other than cruelty and death?”
“No,” Lisa demanded. “I want to hear what Zoe’s come up with. I’m just so sorry I have to leave and can’t help anymore.”
“That’s all right, Lisa,” Zoe nodded to her friend. “I’ll call you as soon as the story’s worked itself out and we know for sure I wasn’t the one who did the killing.”
“I know that already,” Lisa scoffed. “What I want to hear is who is doing this to you. And why.”
“Can we talk about the key again?” Dora said from a chair closest to the outside door.
Jenny rolled her eyes.
“Taped to Fida’s collar. What we have to look at is where Fida has been.” Dora said as Zoe lifted the fluffy dog to look deeply into her one bright eye.
“She won’t say.” Zoe set Fida back in her lap with a tremendous sigh.
“We could beat it out of her,” Jenny suggested.
“She was missing those two days,” Dora said, ignoring Jenny. “I wonder who took her.”
“Probably the person who killed Adam,” Lisa said.
“But why? And why take her out to Aaron’s house?” Dora was into the puzzle with all her might.
“And why tape a key to her collar?” Zoe put in. “Maybe it was Aaron?”
“Or Adam,” Lisa offered.
Zoe stuck a finger into the air. “As I remember, I stepped on a roll of duct tape on Aaron’s floor when we found his body. You remember, don’t you, Jenny?”
Jenny shook her head. “With a body and all that dog crap on the floor, I wasn’t watching out for duct tape.”
Dora rocked back and forth, ignoring all of them. “As I see it, somebody knew you’d find Fida at Aaron’s house and wanted you to have the key. Everybody knows you’d keep searching for Fida until you found her. Whoever murdered the men knew Aaron couldn’t show up for his brother’s funeral because he was dead, which would, of course, send people looking for him. You’d get Fida back. And with her, you’d find the key.”
Zoe sat up. “Who else could it have been? Maybe there was time between when Fida was dropped off and when the murderer came back to kill Aaron. He must’ve sensed something. Had to find a place for this.” She held up the key in a Sherlockian moment.
“All we need to do is discover what this key opens,” Dora said as if she’d solved the crime.
“I vote we concentrate and figure out who committed these terrible murders,” Zoe went on.
“Why are we voting?” Dora asked, distress in her voice.
“Who called a vote?” Jenny demanded.
“I’m going to bed,” Lisa said and got up, leaving the last three gathered to think deeply until nothing came to anyone and they followed Lisa’s example, all going off to bed.