By the time we got back to Aodhagan's for the interview with Lynette at Little Beans, it looked like another storm was rolling in, and I could only hope that the power held up until our video call was finished. Lucky met us at the door and followed us to Aodhagan's office upstairs. I'd never been in that room and had only ever been mildly curious what he kept inside. Had I looked, I would have realized he was a doctor much sooner. It was clear in the office. I eyed his diplomas while he set up the laptop for the call. He had another Gaelic name for his middle name, and I didn't even try to guess how it was pronounced. He'd gone to Harvard and Johns Hopkins. It was like a primer on how to be impressive.
Lucky jumped up onto the desk, knocking over a container of pens with a crash. What was it about cats and desks? I didn't even know cats all that well, but I knew they couldn't keep their paws off paper, keyboards, and coffee mugs. Aodhagan simply scooped up the container, put the pens back, and replaced it on the desk. He didn't even try to get Lucky off the desk. Maybe he knew more than I did about getting animals to do things. Lucky wouldn't do anything I wanted him to, and he hated me. Maybe he would have followed directions for Aodhagan. Or maybe Aodhagan knew it wasn't even worth trying.
Aodhagan gestured to the desk chair and sat down in the tiny rolling stool that all doctors had, even, apparently, when they were operating out of their home. We sat in front of the screen and waited for the moment when we could put the call through. Lynette's assistant was true to her word. We'd told her only that it was in regards to a large donation, and Lynette was right on time, smile on her face. She wore a denim button-up and red-framed glasses, and her blonde hair was pulled into a sloppy ponytail. I had the impression she'd come directly from working. I couldn't really evaluate the labor that went into taking care of hundreds of animals, but I could guess that it was probably a lot. A lot of money too, which was probably why she was there with bells on.
"Hi, Lynette?"
She nodded at Aodhagan.
"Hi, I'm Aodhagan MacFarley, and this is Helen Harding. We were calling because it's come to our attention that a man who recently passed away in Birdwell, Texas has left your organization a very great deal of money in his will."
Her head cocked. "A very great deal? Like, what does that mean exactly?" I could tell it was a cautious question. They probably needed money very badly. Their overhead must have been enormous. Her amped-up expression changed immediately as soon as Lucky walked in front of the screen. Her bright smile returned. "Kitty!"
Because he was Lucky, Lucky turned and hissed at the screen. She just laughed. I pushed Lucky on the butt until he decided to jump off the desk and get out of the way.
Aodhagan focused on Lynette again. "It means like in the millions."
Her gasp was audible. "But…why?"
"That's what we wanted to ask you," I offered.
She shook her head. "I don't know why anyone would never contribute to us and then give us so much. I mean, I've never seen a donation from a town called Birdwell."
Aodhagan leaned forward. "He's not from Birdwell. This is just where he died. He was from Dallas. Have you heard of someone named Carl Crowe?"
"No." Her eyebrows pulled together. "I don't think so. He certainly has never donated."
"Do you spend time in Dallas?" I asked.
She shook her head again. "No. I mean, I've been before for short trips once or twice but never for long, and I don't recall ever having met someone named Carl Crowe there."
"You should be aware that Carl has a large family who are likely to object to the will," Aodhagan told her. "We have it on pretty good authority this money is coming. Assuming you are the beneficiary, I would get yourself a lawyer if you ever want to see a dime of that money, because I have a feeling they're going to come at you hard once the will is officially read."
She agreed that she would, appearing wholly dazed. She didn't even react when Lucky jumped back up right before we hung up. Maybe that was just the hissing, though. When she was gone, Aodhagan sat back in his chair. "Well, there was no way to push her harder about whether she knew Carl or not. We can't even see her body language. I didn't get anything from that. Did you?"
I shrugged. "She looks familiar to me in some way that I'm not able to connect yet. I don't think I know her. I guess she just reminds me of someone else. I'm not sure who, though."
The recognizable sound of rain began to pelt the roof, and I glanced up wryly. Hopefully we didn't lose all power again tonight.
Aodhagan went to the window and glanced out as if he could read my mind. "The clouds aren't that heavy. Hopefully it will pass quickly."
I stood up and stretched while Lucky attacked my foot. I shook him off and followed Aodhagan to the window, cursing under my breath. Lucky followed, continuing to try to chew my Achilles tendon as I walked.
As soon as I reached the window, I immediately noticed someone walking. It took a long moment to recognize the form as one of the Crowe crew in the pale light of a mostly obscured moon. It was the unnaturally wide chest and tiny feet that finally made it sink in. "That's Glen Matson."
Aodhagan cocked his head, watching him walk. "Why is he wandering around in the dark in this weather?"
"Probably trying to escape the rest of the people at my house. That's what I would be doing if I were there."
Aodhagan turned. "Come on, let's go talk to him."
The last thing I wanted to do was go out and get wet to talk to yet another member of that group today. It had been a long day, it was dark and cold, and I was exhausted. But the chance to talk to one of them without an audience really was worth it. I followed him downstairs and watched him grab up an umbrella on his way out the door. I assumed it was for us, but it turned out it wasn't. We just stood there getting soaked while Aodhagan offered the umbrella to Glen, who took it gratefully but suspiciously.
"I thought you might need this."
He nodded. "Thanks. I didn't expect the rain when I left."
"Is there a lot of tension over there, what with the murder and all?" I asked, hoping I sounded casual. Really, I was just super uncomfortable, getting progressively wetter.
Glen nodded very slightly.
"We were up in Dallas this morning. Someone mentioned you used to be a doctor. That's a big job change," Aodhagan offered sympathetically. "I also used to be a doctor. Sometimes I miss it now that I'm a nowhere sheriff and mayor. Are you happy with the change?"
Glen seemed momentarily confused about something Aodhagan had said. It could be that we had gone to Dallas at all—it could have been the fact we knew he'd once been a doctor and in the perfect position to stab someone between the C3 and C4 vertebra. Finally, he shook his head.
"Sometimes. Sometimes I miss it. I got burned out, though. I was making myself sick. You know how it is. That life eats at you."
Aodhagan nodded conspiratorially, even though I knew that Aodhagan most certainly did miss being a doctor and felt like hanging around being and not being a doctor at the same time left him bored, restless, and feeling like he was offering nothing to the world at large.
"Is it better working in accounting?" I asked.
He shrugged. "It's okay. My father and all my uncles and brothers are accountants. It seemed like the most reasonable way to go when I couldn't deal with the hospital anymore. They have a big firm in Dallas. I could have worked there."
I cocked my head. "Do you regret going to Crowe? I mean, from the interviews we did today, it sounds like a hot mess."
He seemed to find that funny, his guffaw was louder than the rain in my ears and the echoes off the umbrella. "It's a horrible place to work, but compared to twelve hours of life and death a day, it's frankly a walk in the park. The Crowes are terrible people. Don't let anyone lie to you about them. Especially Carl. He was a real piece of work. And he was a pervert."
"Yeah, we heard about some of his…" I searched for the right word. I decided to use Vi's. "Proclivities." I wanted to ask him about the creepy repeated name in his notebooks, but I couldn't think of a subtle way to bring up our snooping, so I just decided to go for stuff that didn't involve admitting going through his luggage.
Glen's mouth pressed. "Not everyone was having sex with Carl, but he would have sex with anyone. And I do mean anyone. His family deserved better."
"Were you?" Aodhagan asked.
It took a moment for the question to sink into Glen's brain. "Lord, no. I couldn't even stand the sight of Carl. The way he treated his family, he should have been shot." He paled. "I mean, figuratively. Look, Carl wasn't a man I liked. I never would have been intimate with him either physically or emotionally, but I think most everyone else not related to him was fair game."
I assumed Glen meant that no one who was young enough was immune to Carl's advances. Others had told us where Carl's real interests lay.
"Why didn't you like Carl?" I asked, seeing my chance to sort of hone in on why he'd written Carl's name a million stalkerish times and then crossed them out with excessive violence.
Glen shook his head, glancing off into the distance. "Carl lied, stole, abused people. He didn't care about anyone or anything. He wasn't a hard man to hate."
"Did you kill him?" Aodhagan asked.
To my surprise, Glen laughed heartily. "No, of course not. Not that, I suppose, I would tell you if I did. But I didn't. I'm not surprised someone did, though."
"Who do you think killed him?"
Glen licked his lips and hesitated, and I could tell he was struggling with his answer. My guess was he didn't want to give it. "I think it was Faith. The way he treated her was unacceptable. He acted like she was a second-class citizen. If I were her, I would have had some festering hatred in my heart after a lifetime of that."
"Do you think she was strong enough?" I asked. That was the real question.
"Maybe. Probably not. But she had the most motive in my opinion. Jackson stood to lose if the sale goes through or if Carl stopped him from marrying Faith. I think all his future plans are wrapped up in having controlling shares if he and Faith combine their shares. If Carl sold Faith's shares, which she would have let him do because she'd let him do anything, Jackson would lose his chance. Maybe he did it."
"So you knew about the sale?" I jumped on the suggestion.
Glen nodded. "Of course. I'm the head accountant. It was up to me to present the financial pros and cons of a sale."
"Is the company solvent? Why was Hilton-Hill interested?"
Glen's mouth pressed. "Oh, it's solvent. They definitely have money to burn. I'm very good at my job and very good at cutting excess spending. Hilton-Hill also buys successful investments upon occasion."
"Anyone else seem like a likely suspect?" Aodhagan asked, bringing the topic back to murder.
"Just Daisy. I mean, Carl kept stealing all of her inventions. She'd make something—he'd reject it. Then he'd make basically no changes and then present it to everyone. He'd never give her credit. I mean, designing appliances isn't Daisy's job, but she's top-notch. Better than anyone in R and D. If I were her, I'd be pissed."
"Well, it's getting crazy out here, and you'd better be getting home," Aodhagan pointed out, like we weren't also getting ridiculously soaked standing in the rain shouting this conversation. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to us for a bit."
Glen nodded and said goodbye, taking Aodhagan's umbrella as he trudged back toward my house. We watched him for a long moment before running back to the house. It took nearly an hour for us to cycle through the shower and redress in warmer clothes. It was feeling way too domestic and intimate wearing the clothes Aodhagan had given me when I came out in sweatpants and a giant flannel to find him cooking dinner. And that wasn't great. Because I liked it a lot, and liking a more romantic relationship with Aodhagan would just lead to him being ruined somehow, because that seemed to be what I did to every guy I dated. I would prefer to know there was at least one really decent guy left in the world.
"I'm going to call Daisy and ask her about the inventions that Carl stole," I told Aodhagan, slipping into the banquette. "It might not be important, but we didn't know about that when we talked to her earlier."
Aodhagan set a frying pan of tomato and basil pasta with pine nut sauce on the table and joined me. "You never know. But do you have her cell number?"
That was a problem. I didn't. I wasn't familiar with any of their numbers, and I wasn't sad about that. This was not a group of people I wanted to be friends with. An idea finally came to me. "No, but I can just call my landline. Maybe someone will answer?"
I had no idea if they would, but it was worth trying in my opinion. The phone rang fifteen times at least before someone picked it up. I didn't have an answering machine, because did those even exist anymore? If they did, I wasn't sure where to get one. I only had a landline because so many elderly residents of Birdwell refused to call a number without a Birdwell prefix, and then they just showed up at my house instead. And no one wanted that. No one was me. I didn't want that.
I recognized the gruff voice as being Glen's, so I knew he'd at least made it home despite the storm. "Can I talk to Daisy?" I asked without identifying myself. I didn't want anyone wondering why I was calling. It was possible Glen would recognize my voice since I'd just talked to him, but if he didn't, I wasn't going to help him along.
He didn't seem remotely interested in who was calling or why they were calling at a random house they were staying in. "Yeah, hang on."
I waited while Aodhagan served the food. Finally, I heard Daisy's voice.
"Hello?"
"Hey, this is Helen Harding. When I spoke to you earlier, there was something we forgot to ask you." I decided to leave out the part where we hadn't even known about this earlier. It left fewer questions to answer about where we'd gotten this information.
"Okay." She sounded hesitant and a little put out. I honestly couldn't blame her. I also would have been irritated if I were in her shoes.
"We understand that Carl was in the habit of stealing appliance ideas from you and refusing to give you credit."
There was a long silence on the other end. I wished I hadn't phrased it the way I did. I'd left her the opportunity not to respond. That was an amateur mistake that, as a professional who interviewed people on a regular basis, I shouldn't have made. Finally, she spoke.
"Where did you hear that?"
I shrugged, even though she couldn't see me. "Around." I wasn't sure if it mattered that Glen was sharing that information, but I wasn't about to out him if it did. "Is it true? Do you know if he was in the habit of doing the same thing to others?"
She cleared her throat. "Carl made a habit of not asking. I was not necessarily against sharing my inventions with Carl, but he never spoke with me before taking it to production."
"What about patents?" I asked. I didn't want to directly ask how much money she was losing through Carl's actions, but I was willing to bet it was at least enough to be annoyed.
"We never discussed patents," she said stiffly. "They became intellectual property of Crowe."
"That sucks," I told her plainly. "Did he do it to the others, too?"
Daisy sighed audibly. "I'm not aware of that. I'm sorry."
I thanked her and hung up, the smell of Aodhagan's food making my stomach grumble. "She says she isn't sure if he stole anyone else's inventions. She seemed mostly exasperated that I called and less angry about Carl's actions, for whatever that's worth."
"I wonder how many patents Carl has filed in the last, say, five years. We should have Jamie check that tomorrow."
I agreed it seemed like a good idea, but I probably would have approved of whatever it was because I just wanted to start shoveling food into my mouth hole.
It had been nearly a year since I'd slept in Aodhagan's sister Jane's old room. I didn't know Jane. I knew only that she was his younger sister by around a decade, that she was also a psychologist much like my father, and that she was a writer, also like my father, though she wrote psychological thrillers and not self-help books. I also knew that she had terrible taste in bedding and curtains. Unless this Laura Ashley catastrophe was her parents' doing. Either way, every time I slept in her old bed, I felt like I was being strangled by tea-dyed cabbage roses and mint stripes.
It took too long to fall asleep, and then as soon as I was finally down, I woke to the sound of a loud bang. I assumed it was, like the last time I stayed with him, some neighbor who thought it was okay to wake Aodhagan up in the middle of the night to ask him some question about stuff that might or might not actually matter. It was kind of just how things worked in Birdwell.
Just in case, I got out of bed and peeked into the hallway. Aodhagan was also standing in his doorway, looking vaguely confused, which told me he'd been asleep longer than I had and it probably wasn't the door. That was a sound he would recognize. Which did leave the question, if it wasn't the door, what was it in the middle of the night?
Aodhagan glanced at me and then back downstairs. The noise did seem like it had come from the front porch, but there were no repeat bangs. I could hear something out there. It sounded like something scraping maybe. It was probably some drunk man. But maybe it wasn't. As if we were both spurred on by some invisible cue, we stepped out of our rooms and crept downstairs, him in the front and me bringing up the rear.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we paused, huddled together. Maybe I was afraid—maybe I just wanted an excuse to rub up on him without admitting I wanted to. The world would never know.
His eyebrows pulled together as we listened in silence. There was definitely a noise out there, but I couldn't figure out at all what it was. It sounded a little like a giant Rice Krispies treat with a shuffling now and then. Finally, Aodhagan moved, suddenly pushing me behind him and heading to the kitchen. He came back with his fire extinguisher and used his shirt to turn the door handle. He threw open the door, and the Rice Krispies noise got louder. The entire porch was on fire. The noise we had heard was clearly the glass vase on his porch exploding, since I could see the pieces all over the floor near the door.
"Call 9-1-1," he ordered, taking an indeterminable moment to get the extinguisher started. I did as I was told as Aodhagan sprayed the flames, which were spreading eagerly. His entire house was made of wood, and the fire department was located at least half an hour away. I didn't need him to tell me how bad this could be if he couldn't get the flames under control with the extinguisher.
I explained the fire to the operator and then again to the fire department in Tallatahola. They wanted a lot of information that I struggled to give them between flashes of hysteria as Aodhagan moved farther out onto the porch to fight more flames. Eventually that extinguisher was going to run out of powder, and then he was going to be in trouble. And I couldn't lose the thought that it was possible someone had started the fire to draw us out of the house so they could pick us off one by one. It was always on days like this that I regretted my job as a true crime author and all the paranoia that came with it. It was possible the fire was natural or some kind of accident, but of course that wasn't where my mind went first.
When I'd managed to convey all the necessary information to the fire department, I hesitantly looked out the door and found the fire on the porch was halfway out. Unfortunately, so was the fire extinguisher foam. It was sputtering, but Aodhagan was clearly determined to get every drop. The porch was definitely still alight. I bit my bottom lip, staring around and desperately looking for something that I could use to help. I remembered suddenly that the hose was attached to the side of the house immediately on the other side of the wall. If I was very stretchy, I could probably reach it. I stared around wildly. I couldn't see any shoes. Mine or Aodhagan's. I picked my way across the foam-covered porch as fast as I could, considering the situation. It was hot, slimy, and there was glass on the porch because of course there was.
I ignored the fact I was cutting my feet and hung over the side of the porch, reaching for the hose. I heard Aodhagan yelp, and I decided to pretend I wasn't freaking out and just keep my eyes on the goal. It took a couple of tries leaning against a porch railing I wasn't at all certain was going to hold to get my fingers around the tip. Luckily, Aodhagan was the type who kept his hose neatly rolled on one of those gears attached to the siding. It slid easily while I stumbled backward and fell on my butt on the wet, slick, smoking wood. I scrambled back to my feet. I realized Aodhagan was behind me. He grabbed the hose and thanked me briefly before returning to the other side of the porch. I climbed partially onto the railing, praying it held, and used the chain from the porch swing to stabilize myself. Of course, it didn't stabilize particularly well.
Hanging like some kind of trapeze artist off the side of the porch, I was finally able to get my fingers around the handle for the hose. The handle was rusted. I gritted my teeth, spewing an unladylike stream of obscenities, while I struggled to get enough leverage to turn the handle. Finally it turned. I slumped in relief as much as I could, considering I was dangling off a now structurally unsound porch and hanging off a swing chain like a demented sloth.
Aodhagan's shout of relief when the water came was worth it. It was still raining ridiculously hard, and I could only hope that it was helping to stay the flames, given that it had clearly been raging for some time before the vase had exploded and alerted us. The hose didn't work as well as the extinguisher had, and Aodhagan was still struggling to get the fire under control. It was on top of us now, burning the bottom of the porch ceiling, but hopefully it would fail to completely take, given how wet the wood was. But it was enough that even the bottom of the ceiling was flaming. We were in trouble, and I knew it.