Jackson and I managed to find an hour to sit down for omelets. Emily wasn't kidding about the abundance of eggs. I ended up with two dozen, enough to hard boil a few for the dogs. They were excited.
The front door opened. "I'm in the kitchen making the world's biggest omelets," I called to Jackson.
"What if it's not Brady?" Edward asked. "You could be inviting a complete stranger into the house."
"Then I'd make them an omelet because I still have a lot of eggs. Maybe I should have invited Henry over for dinner."
"Brady is already one guest too many," Edward drawled as Jackson entered the kitchen.
"Missed you too, Gramps." Jackson walked straight over and gave me a peck on the cheek.
"Please, none of that. I'm standing right here." Edward was in a particularly ornery mood.
"I beg to differ, Gramps. To be standing you need to have both feet touching the floor." Grand, Jackson was also ornery. It should make for an interesting omelet feast.
"Even if my feet were touching the floor, I'd still be taller than you," Edward said.
Jackson walked over to him, stretched up as tall as his body would allow and tried to do the silly hand from head to head measurement. "I think I'm taller even standing two inches lower than you."
"Whoa, did I just land in the hallway of a middle school?" I asked. "Stop measuring each other. You're both taller than average. There. And now I'm playing the middle school mom trying to placate everyone's silly ego."
"He started it," Jackson said.
"And the middle school drama continues." I slid an omelet onto a plate. "Sit and eat. We don't have that much time. I've got to get back to Minnie's for my story, and I want to hear how your interview with Harris went." I'd decided not to mention anything about Minnie going to see her sister the day Donna died or the plant dye on her hands or the fact that she seemed to be strong enough to pull fencing and troughs out of a shed even if she was struggling with her breathing. None of it mattered because, thankfully, Minnie had been sitting with her knitting group the night Donna died so her alibi was solid.
"Harris was with friends at a bar all evening. His friends corroborated the story so he couldn't have been at the Thornbridge Monday night." Jackson picked up the salt shaker. "I can't seem to make any headway on this case, which leads me to believe that the captain's hunch might have been right. Maybe it was just an accident."
"But what about the marks on Donna's arms? What about what Thomas heard?"
"Unfortunately, we don't know how she got those marks, and I can't use Thomas's information. I'm stuck in a hole on this one. It was definitely plant stain on her arms, probably not too unexpected considering she'd been cutting produce all night. The lab thought it might be from beets. I asked Carlton and he said beet salad was on the brunch menu."
I sat down with my omelet. I had to admit, I'd done a pretty stellar job cooking them. "Sounds like you've given up on this case already."
"Not exactly. I'm going to head back to the hotel tomorrow, talk to the few staff members who were there that night. Maybe someone heard or saw something they hadn't thought of the first time I talked to them. After all, everyone was in a state of shock during that first interview. And I'm going to talk to Maribel, the kitchen assistant, again. She is in line for that chef's job so there's motive."
I added a little salt too. The omelets weren't perfect but close to it. "I think these are the best omelets I've ever made. Could be because the eggs literally just dropped from the chicken's—" I stopped. "Never mind."
"Good call."
"Speaking of fresh eggs and chickens," I said, "Maribel was at Emily's farm getting eggs for a frittata she was going to make for her chef tryout. Sounds to me like she has a good alibi. She said she left at six to attend a birthday party. Of course, you'll want to corroborate that with her friends, but it didn't sound like a lie."
"Unless she pushed Donna into the freezer before she left," Jackson suggested. He took the last bite of his very large omelet.
"You might try chewing your food," Edward commented. He'd vanished but I knew he was still hanging around.
"At least I get to chew food. And boy that was a delicious omelet. Shall I describe it to you, Gramps?"
"No, you shouldn't," I said. "Concentrate. Maribel said she'd washed all the produce for Donna to cut before she left. The kitchen was cleaned up, so Donna was alive and well and cutting fruits and vegetables when Maribel left. Besides, Thomas heard the scuffle late at night, long after Maribel was gone."
"Good point only, once again, I'm stuck thinking of this investigation mostly through the eyes of a ghost. I don't know why this one is so frustrating. I suppose it's because people who don't actually exist but who have far too much say about things are always getting in the way." He said it into the air.
I stared at him making sure to put on my most annoyed expression.
"What?" he asked, innocently.
I shook my head. "Nothing, nothing at all. I've got ice cream for dessert. Some of Emily's homemade butter pecan."
"Hmm, sounds like the perfect complement to these omelets."