6

After spending several fruitless hours trying to track down leads under the guise of researching the cold cases Hank had handed him, Tom headed home, hopeful a chat with his dad about Daisy’s will would yield better results. Tom bypassed the living room, stopping in his bedroom to remove his coat and secure his gun and take a moment to pray for wisdom first. If he’d taken the time yesterday, he might not have botched last night’s attempt.

Dad must’ve bought a new air freshener when he was out because the house smelled of freshly baked apple pie. Unfortunately, the uplifting aroma hadn’t altered the status quo. As usual, Dad sat in his recliner, TV blaring.

Tom glanced at the family photos lining the shelves and prayed again for patience.

When had the skin on Dad’s neck begun to hang like ripples on the shore? If he kept on like this, he’d be following Mom to an early grave. How had his sister not seen the signs? “Dad, can we talk?”

Dad pushed up his sleeves and waved Tom off. The veins bulging from Dad’s thin arms cast a bluish tinge to his skin that betrayed a frailty he’d rather die from than acknowledge. “If you’re going to lecture me about how I should live, save your breath. You’ve never loved a woman. You can’t possibly understand what it feels like to lose the best part of yourself, let alone know what I should do about it.”

Unwilling to reveal how deep Dad’s words cut, Tom moved to the window. “This isn’t about Mom. It’s about a case.”

Dad sat up. The recliner’s footrest clomped closed with a thud. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

Pleased by the sudden enthusiasm in Dad’s voice, Tom took a seat across from him. “You remember Daisy Leacock?”

“Sure. Five foot four, medium build, early sixties, curly white hair, always smiling, what about her?”

Tom closed his eyes. The police report–like description didn’t surprise him. After all, Dad had been a cop for over thirty years. It was the fact he didn’t seem to realize she was dead that made Tom cringe. Whether Dad agreed or not, he had cut himself off from the world. Only this wasn’t the way Tom wanted to point that out.

Tom shifted in his seat, uncertain how to continue. His palm crunched stray potato chips. Stalling for time in the vain hope that another option would miraculously present itself, Tom knocked the chips off the couch. When no lightning bolt speared through the ceiling, Tom took a deep breath and leaned toward his dad. “Do you remember the last time you spoke with Daisy?”

Dad’s eyes sparked. “I may have lost my wife. I haven’t lost my memory. She came here about a month ago on a personal matter.”

“About her will?”

“That’s none of your business.” The scowl on his face matched the one he wore whenever Tom broached the subject of Mom, and Tom’s patience careened out the window.

“Dad, if you’re withholding key evidence in a murder investigation, it is my business.”

“Crump’s dead?”

“Crump? Who’s Crump?”

Dad looked at him as if he were a few bullets short of a magazine. “Daisy’s nephew.”

Tom shook his head. His dad’s memory obviously wasn’t as good as he thought. “No, Dad, Edward Smythe is Daisy’s nephew.”

“No, son,” Dad shot back in the same patronizing tone Tom had used. “Smythe was an alias.”

Tom winced at how disrespectful he’d sounded. A microsecond later Dad’s words sunk in, and Tom’s apology balled in his throat. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me Smythe is a fraud?”

“Yup. A two-bit con artist who preyed on little old ladies by pretending to be a long-lost nephew. Didn’t Daisy tell you? The silly woman, she was determined to keep his secret.” Dad scrubbed his palm over his whiskers. “This’ll break her heart.”

Tom swallowed hard, unable to force out the words Dad needed to hear.

“I tried to warn her that his past would catch up to him,” Dad continued, “but once Daisy gets an idea into her head, it’s next to impossible to change her mind. She thought that if she put ‘Jim Crump’ in her will, instead of ‘Edward,’ then after her death he’d realize she’d known the truth all along and had loved and accepted him as her own anyway. How’d he die?”

Tom felt sick. He averted his eyes and found himself staring at Dad’s outstanding service plaque for thirty-five years on the force. Dad had loved being a cop. The enthusiasm in his voice at the prospect of discussing a case with Tom had proclaimed the fact loud and clear. A fact Tom had overlooked in all these months of trying to reconnect. If only the breakthrough weren’t the result of yet another death. “Dad,” Tom said, the word scraping his throat raw. “Crump didn’t die. Daisy did.”

The color drained from Dad’s face, leaving him as chalky as the outline of a murder victim. “Daisy? How? When?”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t know you two were friends or I would’ve told you sooner. She died two weeks ago.” Tom suppressed a fleeting urge to add, If you went out once in a while you’d hear these things. He’d learned his lesson.

Dad’s lips pressed into a tight line. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then slowly let it release. “Daisy had this Pollyanna idea that her unconditional love would soften Crump’s attitude toward God.”

“Her death was self-inflicted—a poisoning.”

Dad lifted his head. His composed cop mask was firmly fitted in place, his emotions compartmentalized to deal with later . . . or not. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“Daisy’s co-worker thinks she was murdered.”

“And you think Crump did it for her money.” Dad rose and paced the room. “He’s never killed before.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I had a buddy check his record, but I suppose that only proves he’s never been caught.”

“Why did Daisy come to you about her will?”

Dad opened the curtains and beams of sunlight chased the shadows from the room. “She wanted to know what I thought about the idea of including Crump. I told her it was her money, but that if I were her, I wouldn’t tell him—just in case. I guess she didn’t listen. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Unless she told the person who stood to inherit the bulk of her estate before Crump came into the picture.”

Tom’s chest tightened. Kate Adams. At least, according to Mrs. Crantz. Daisy’s lawyer had refused to divulge any information without a court order.

“You look like you don’t believe it. The top two motives for murder are always passion and money. Didn’t they teach you that in the FBI?”

Tom chose to ignore the criticism in Dad’s tone. He’d never approved of Tom “renouncing” his country to work in the States, simply because a quirk of circumstances had led to him being born south of the border instead of in Canada. But this time, Tom suspected Dad’s rant was a displacement of his own frustration over his role in this unhappy drama.

“I only just learned about the will. There was no paperwork in Daisy’s house naming a lawyer or mentioning the existence of a will, and Edward claimed not to know about such things.”

“Well, he wouldn’t. Would he? But now that you know, find out who didn’t want Daisy to change her will.”

Kate. But despite all his people are rarely what they seem tirades, Tom couldn’t picture Kate spiking her best friend’s tea. Crump, on the other hand, sounded exactly like the kind of slime who would stoop to such a plan. “Getting answers won’t be that easy. The case is closed. And Daisy’s lawyer isn’t talking.”

“Well, in my day, I investigated a case or two behind the captain’s back.” Dad picked up a photo of Mom from the end table. His finger trembled as he touched the image, his lips curving into a smile. The kind of smile that hinted at a special memory they alone had shared. He set the photo down and turned that smile to Tom. “Yup, more than a case or two, and my defiance usually landed me in a heap of trouble. But I don’t answer to the department anymore.” He rubbed his palms together. “Tell me what I can do.”

Kate coasted into Daisy’s driveway behind Edward’s late-model, mint-condition Porsche Boxster and tried to forget Julie’s intimation that someone with such expensive taste in cars might need all the money he could get his hands on. Kate shook the ridiculous thought from her head. He’d had the car before he’d ever wheeled into Port Aster.

The curtain in the neighbor’s front window shifted, and Kate made a mental note to have a chat with the woman. She could stop in after she collected Daisy’s journal. Kate climbed out of her car and followed Edward to the front door.

The pansies along the pathway were perkier today. Edward must have watered the flower bed. More evidence of his innocence. Someone who took time to water flowers wouldn’t stoop to murder to make a few bucks.

A sudden wave of melancholy swamped Kate as she stepped into the house. Never again would Daisy bustle out of the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits. Kate’s gaze skittered over the room in search of a safe place to land, a place that wouldn’t fracture her tenuous hold on her emotions.

“So,” Edward asked as he shut the door, “what clues have you uncovered about my aunt’s death?”

Kate stopped at the end table a few feet into the front room and fiddled with the petals of an African violet. “I’d rather not say just yet.” If her roommate thought her theories were far-fetched, she’d rather not know what Edward thought of them until she had the proof to back one up.

“Oh?” The deadbolt clicked. From the shadowy entranceway, Edward’s eyes speared her. “Why’s that?”

Kate edged around the table, putting it between them, even as she reasoned that he’d locked the door out of habit, nothing more. “I wouldn’t want to falsely accuse someone.”

Edward took a step toward her, and she scrabbled for some tidbit of information that would appease him. “I . . . I think I’ve figured out which student Daisy confronted about the plagiarism. Does the name Gordon Laslo sound familiar?”

Edward’s gaze lifted to the ceiling and his lips moved as though he was repeating the name to himself. “Gord, yes, I think that might have been the guy.”

“Good. Well . . .” Kate sidled toward the window as Edward rounded the sofa. “Uh, I still haven’t tracked Gord down, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.” If the nosy neighbor was still watching the house, she might—

Kate’s leg bumped a wicker plant holder. The schefflera plant teetered.

“Grab it.” Edward lunged, hand outstretched, but Kate caught the plant a second before it would’ve smacked the floor.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so jittery.”

Edward took the plant from her with a sympathetic smile. “No apology needed. Daisy’s death has us both upset.” He placed the plant back in its stand and studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment. “I’ll get those journals for you now,” he finally said before disappearing down the hall.

“Yes, thank you.” Kate pressed her hand to her chest and willed her heart to slow.

Within moments Edward reappeared with a stack of floral-covered books.

“That’s them!” Kate clutched the books to her heart. “Thank you, Edward. This means so much to me.” A wealth of wisdom graced these pages.

A twinge of guilt pinched her stomach. Daisy might not like anyone reading her most private thoughts. But how else would Kate learn what danger Daisy had gotten into and who might have wanted her silenced?

“I’m not sure if you’ll find anything in them,” Edward said. “But I’m glad to help. I found something else downstairs I think Daisy would want you to have.”

“Oh?”

“Wait here. I’ll go get it.” Before Kate could argue, Edward trotted down the basement stairs.

Her trepidation forgotten, Kate walked over to the fireplace and smiled at the photo on the mantel of her and Daisy celebrating graduation. Daisy had filled the void left by Mom’s passing. With Daisy gone, Kate truly felt like an orphan.

Her legs grew warm. Why would Edward light the fire on such a beautiful day?

Kate opened the fire screen. A few half-burned pages lay among the smoldering embers. The handwritten pages were lined like the pages of a notebook.

A swirl of smoke reached into Kate’s throat and cut off her airway. She snatched a scrap of paper from the edge of the firebox—the same floral paper that covered Daisy’s journal.

Edward.

Kate slapped the fire screen closed and whirled toward the door. In her hurry, she knocked over the poker stand. The brass implements clattered onto the brick hearth.

“What happened?” Edward shouted up the stairs. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes. I’m fine. I . . . I just remembered I have a meeting and I’m late.”

Footfalls bounded up the stairs. “Wait!”

Kate fumbled with the deadbolt. She just bet he wanted her to wait. Clutching the journals under her arm, she used both hands to twist the latch. Come on. Open. She glanced over her shoulder as Edward hit the main floor at a run.

His gaze skittered over the toppled fire poker and skewered into her.

With Julie’s you-could-be-next warning blasting in her ears, Kate wrenched on the door with one last heave.