After ice cream on the steps of the sheriff’s department, Grady told Rhonda to take me to Tweety’s cell. I could tell he didn’t exactly want me rooming with her, but space was limited, and he probably felt she was the better option over Freddie.
We barely made it into the building before I heard Tweety shout, “What’s going on? Is Kit Kat okay?”
“No change,” Rhonda shouted back.
“She knows?” I asked.
Rhonda nodded.
“Erica, is that you?”
“It’s me.” I walked down the hallway.
“Oh for the love of—”
“I know.” I held up a hand once I got into view. “Okay? You don’t have to say it. I know.”
“I told you to stay out of this.”
“I know!”
“Well, come on in,” Tweety said, stepping away from the bars. “But I get the bed.”
I glanced over to the one cot against the wall then looked to Rhonda.
“I’ll find you something,” she said, turning her key in the lock. “At least a sleeping bag.”
“Thanks.”
“You want to shower? I mean I have to watch you and everything, but—”
I put up a hand. “Let’s hold off on that for a bit. I just want to sit down.”
“Rhonda, hon,” Tweety said. “Get Erica and me some drinks, would you? Something with a bite. We’ve got things to discuss.”
“Sure, I—wait,” she said, wagging a finger. “Fool me once.”
Tweety dropped herself heavily down onto the cot, making the springs groan. “Worth a shot.”
I sat on the floor on the other side of the concrete room.
Tweety’s watery blue eyes trailed over me. She looked tired. “What have you been doing? Wrestling pigs?”
“I wish,” I mumbled. I looked over to the little table in the corner. Pretty sure that wasn’t standard prison decoration. Neither were the cans of soda on it, the celebrity magazines, the half-eaten bag of chips, the prescription bottle—Tweety had the diabetes, go figure—or the box of takeout from the Dawg. “You got a pretty nice setup here.”
“No chitchat,” Tweety said, cutting the air with her hand. “Spill. Why are you here?”
“I—” I cut myself off and looked up at the ceiling, but that only made my eyes well up. The entire night suddenly seemed … nuts. “I … Freddie and I, we dug up Mr. Ramsbottom’s grave, well, memorial site.”
Tweety’s face went slack. Then she blinked a few times.
“Again, I know, okay?” I said, looking out the bars to the blank wall of the hallway. “I don’t need your judgment too.”
Suddenly Tweety snorted. My eyes shot back to her. Yup, arms crossed over belly, body bouncing up and down—then the eruption of laughter. I shook my head and looked back out the bars.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” she said, wiping tears from her the folds of her eyes. “I mean, how did you even dig it up?”
“Backhoe,” I said flatly, picking at a flaked bit of concrete on the floor. “Freddie owns a backhoe.”
She laughed even harder at that.
After a few more minutes of hysterics, Tweety calmed down and said, “I wish Kit Kat had been here for that.” She shook her head. “Jesus, Erica.”
“I know.” I let out a hiss after the flake of concrete I was picking jabbed me underneath my fingernail. I brought it to my mouth. “I know.”
“What were you thinking?”
I rested my wrists on my knees and turned my palms to the ceiling. “Mr. Carver, Otter Lake’s old librarian, told us there was a rumor that Mr. Ramsbottom left Hemlock Estate to Kit Kat. He said there might be evidence in the memorial coffin.” I put air quotes around “coffin.”
Tweety’s face hardened. “I see. And what exactly did you find in the coffin?”
“Mr. Ramsbottom.”
Her eyes widened again and she burst out into more laughter. “He’s not supposed to be in there!”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, looking away. “We found a letter too. Turns out he didn’t leave Hemlock Estate to Kit Kat.”
“No kidding,” Tweety said through the laughter. “I could have told you that.”
My eyes snapped back to hers. “Except you haven’t been telling me much of anything.”
Tweety’s laughter died pretty quickly, and it was her turn to look away.
“Nope,” I said, dropping my hands between my knees. “Mr. Ramsbottom didn’t leave anything to Kit Kat.” I inhaled deeply. “Didn’t want to leave anything to his daughter either.”
Tweety’s eyes snapped back to mine.
“Turns out, this letter was to his lawyer. A letter saying he wanted to change his will,” I said, studying Tweety’s face.
“Well?” she asked.
“He wanted to leave Hemlock Estate to the town.”
Tweety held my eyes for a moment then made a scoffing sound before looking away.
“I wonder why he’d do that?” I asked, picking some grave dirt off my wrist. “Must have been pretty upset with his daughter. I thought Hemlock Estate was meant to be a legacy thing.”
Tweety flicked her eyes to mine but said nothing.
“I’m thinking maybe he didn’t like her choice of fiancé?”
She didn’t even look at me this time.
“I mean, from what I hear, Mr. Masterson, Mick, was a little rough around the edges back in the day.” I tapped the air with a finger and squinted. “Not exactly the type of guy Mr. Ramsbottom would want for a son-in-law.”
Tweety shook her head, face still turned.
“But I also heard that Mrs. Masterson, back then Olivia Ramsbottom, wasn’t the type of girl to take no for an answer. What Olivia wants, Olivia gets.”
Tweety huffed a dry laugh.
“Would have given her a pretty good motive to murder her father if that’s what actually happened.”
Tweety whipped her face back around. “It was a heart attack. Everyone knows it was a heart attack.”
“Come on, Tweety.” I shook my head. “I know that you didn’t kill Mr. Ramsbottom. I know that you didn’t kill Mr. Masterson. You are not a murderer. But what did you do?”
She pinched her lips together a moment then said, “You sure about this letter? You read it yourself?”
“I’m sure. I did.”
She ran a hand across her lips.
“What? Just tell me what you’re thinking. What this means to you.”
“Nothing,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
I sighed. “Really?”
Tweety shot me a withering look.
“Fine. At least tell me what Mr. Masterson wanted with you that day.”
Tweety’s face twisted into confusion then dropped. “You mean, at the fair?”
I nodded even though her reaction kind of begged the question of how many different days I needed to ask her about.
“Dumb old dog wanted to run away with me.” She chuckled faintly. “Said his whole life had been a lie. That the money wasn’t worth leaving me.” She shook her head. “At least I think he said that. He was having trouble staying awake. I didn’t realize…” Some emotion crossed her face, but it was too quick to read. “Can you believe that? After all these years?”
“What did you say to him?”
A devilish smile broke out across her face. “I told him to go f—”
“Whoa!” I shouted, holding my hands up.
She shrugged and then sighed through her nose. “I really did love him back then. Figured out pretty quick he wasn’t who I thought he was, but it was hard to let go of the … dream. Guess it still bothers me a bit.” She shook her head and looked off again. “Now that I think about it, despite all that stuff, what I said to him … well, they probably weren’t the best last words to give to a man.”
I raised my eyebrows and nodded. “Probably not.”
“But in fairness, I didn’t know he was dying.”
“So why are you confessing?”
Her eyes flicked to mine. “I’m old, Erica,” she said before taking a long pause. “And I made a promise a long, long time ago. I’m not about to break it now.”
I threw my hands in the air. “You’re killing me. What promise?”
She held up a finger for me to wait. “Rhonda?” she called out.
“Yeah?”
“You got this jail cell wired for sound?”
“What? You mean, bugged?” Rhonda called back from down the hall.
“Yeah.”
“No. I mean … why?” A moment passed. “Maybe. I mean … shoot. No.”
“Thanks, Rhonda,” Tweety turned back to me. I watched her swallow then lick her lips. “I’m going to tell you this, Erica, because maybe then you’ll see why you need to back off. But it doesn’t leave this room.”
I nodded.
“I made a vow to protect my sister.” A small shudder ran over her. “My mother made me promise her on her deathbed.”
“But what are you protecting Kit Kat from?”
She rolled her head back and forth against the concrete wall, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Herself?”
“Tweety, what are you saying?”
“It was Kit Kat who killed Mr. Ramsbottom all those years ago.” She stopped for a moment then added, “And I’ve been trying to cover it up ever since.”