Лейганн Доббс - A Purrfect Alibi

“Okay then, a little change in plans might be good.” Myron looked confident in his new plan. “Hmm… I think I’ll use Gail’s vendetta against Victor here.” Myron kicked Victor who let out a miserable groan.

“What do you mean?” Gail asked.

“Don’t think I don’t know about that,” Myron said. “It’s too bad that everyone will think that you became so obsessed with him that you burned down the guesthouse.”

Millie’s hands flew to her face and she gasped. The cats meowed. I felt a little disturbed at the prospect myself. Not just that it was my home and how I made my living, I was getting quite attached to the place.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Myron continued. “It won’t be a total loss… except for all of you perishing during the fire. I’ll put a nice big hotel or some condos here. I did notice a good spot for a pool where that old barn is.”

So he had been scoping out the grounds! Though I guessed that was only a secondary reason for him being out in the yard earlier. “But that’s not what you were doing outside earlier today, is it?”

Myron nodded at me as if approving of my skills of deduction. “Nah. I guess I can tell you now since you won’t be able to tell anyone. I was hiding the speakers that made the ghostly noises.”

“Why?” Millie asked. “I thought you didn’t want ghosts to be associated with the guesthouse?”

Myron narrowed his gaze on Millie. “Ha! That’s where you got it wrong. I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

Esther stepped out of our little circle toward Myron. “It won’t work, Myron… I told the police the truth.”

Myron stared at her as if trying to decide whether or not to believe her.

“That’s right. I have the proof of what really happened, and I got it from your very own bank.” She stood a few feet from him, hands on her hips. Apparently she didn’t care that the gun was pointed directly at her. “I did it for Jed.”

The cats seemed agitated at this pronouncement and paced around her feet as if trying to protect her.

“Liar!” The gun wavered in Myron’s hand. “The bank tellers only said that Victor was there getting old coins. He was planning on putting on quite a show.”

“Figures,” Gail muttered.

Esther shook her head. “Nope. I was there too and now I know the truth.”

“I doubt that,” Myron scoffed, but he was starting to look nervous.

“What truth?” Millie whispered. “How is Myron mixed up in this?”

“The papers…” I whispered to Mom and Millie.

“Papers?” Millie asked.

“The ones Esther had from the bank. You gave me the clue, Millie. You said it was a good thing that Thomas Remington opened the bank when he did because he would have been out of a job with Jed’s death.”

“Yeah, but how could a butler afford—” Millie’s eyes widened. “Oh… the treasure!”

“What are you whispering about back there?” Myron demanded.

“Esther’s right,” I said. “We know the truth about the bank. It’s no use. Let us go and the police will go easier on you.” I wasn’t really sure if that was true. In fact, I hoped they wouldn’t go easier on him, but I always heard them say that on TV and it sounded good.

Myron made a face. “I was afraid this would happen. You and your mother and Millie are so nosey. What papers are you talking about?”

“Turns out your pride was your downfall,” Millie said. “You had to display all the history of the bank and old Thomas’ journal papers. That’s how I figured it out. The timing wasn’t right for him to raise that much money!”

I frowned at Millie. Did she just say that she’d figured it out? I guess it wouldn’t matter much who actually figured it out if we didn’t find a way to get out of this.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Myron asked. “Those papers don’t prove anything and, since no one else will think to look at them, I don’t think anyone else will put two and two together.”

“Not just the papers,” I said. I didn’t want Myron getting any more confident than he already was. The best course of action was to get him feeling uncertain and then he’d be distracted and we could use that to our advantage. “It was also that pen.”

He turned the gun toward me. “Pen?”

“Yeah, the carved ivory pen you left here that day you viewed Ed’s work on the ballroom. You had it retrofitted for modern use by Agnes Withington, didn’t you?”

“It’s an antique and I wanted it to be of use. So what?”

“Yes, it is an antique. In fact, I saw it in an old etching, but it wasn’t Thomas Remington who was using it. It was Jedediah Biddeford. So it made me wonder… how did the pen come into your possession?”

“Thomas must have stolen it!” Mom said.

“Yep, and if he stole that, he probably stole Jed’s fancy shoes with the buckles too. Isn’t that right, Myron.”

Myron’s confidence was faltering. This was my chance! Millie could take it from here, so I whispered in her ear. “Cover me and keep him talking.”

Millie maneuvered herself in front of me and I backed up, slowly receding into the dim shadows. Myron was too distracted to notice when I slipped behind the server, crouching low so he wouldn’t see me making my way to circle around behind him.

“So what if Thomas stole some things from Jed? He deserved them, working as a butler all those years for a pittance. He didn’t have any nice clothes and he needed to look presentable when he opened the bank.”

“So you put the buckle and the note on Madame Zenda to scare people off.” Mom paused, then added. “But why use the Oyster Cove Guesthouse letter opener?”

“To scare people off, of course.” Myron wiggled the fingers of his free hand in the air. “Make people think the ghost did it because he didn’t want anyone in his house.”

“That’s why you kept coming over,” Millie said. “You weren’t checking on the progress of the renovations, you were checking to see if anyone had figured out the real truth. And maybe you were a little afraid that someone really had been talking to Jed’s ghost.”

“Ha! I ain’t afraid of no ghost. But I did have to make sure no one found out the truth,” Myron said.

“So you tried to scare us off with those ghost noises,” Mom said. “How did you do that?”

“Remote.” Myron sounded pleased with himself.

A large box blocked my path and I moved it slowly so as to make no sound as I thought back to when we’d heard the noises. Myron had seemed frightened, ducking behind Mom and Millie… or so I’d thought. Now I realized he’d actually been hiding back there so no one would see him work the remote.

“But where did you put the recorder that made the noises? We looked everywhere,” Millie said.

“Oh, I bet that’s what he was doing out by the barn!” Mom answered.

“That’s right, too bad you figured it out too late.” Myron’s voice took on a sinister tone and my heart pounded as I wedged myself in between a marble-topped bureau and a Victorian sofa with most of the horsehair stuffing exposed.

“But why?” Mom asked. “Everything happened three hundred years ago.”

“Because if they knew the bank was started with stolen money they could take it away. The heirs, those cheesy guests you had here a few weeks ago, might try to get the money back. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out the real truth…” Myron was starting to sound manic.

I quickly pushed another box out of the way and suppressed a sneeze. My quest was stirring up a lot of dust and I wasn’t making much progress, I just hoped I’d get behind Myron in time to do something.

“The real truth?” Millie sounded confused.

“That’s right, its worse than stolen money!” Esther’s voice had a triumphant ring to it and I popped my head up over a cherry Chippendale server to see that she’d broken from the group and was standing a few feet from Myron, her hands fisted on her hips. She looked round at the corners of the ceiling and projected her voice as if speaking to someone other than those of us present in the room. “Myron’s ancestor, Thomas Remington, killed Jed and put him in the wall. Then he dug up Jed’s treasure and used it to start the bank.”