Лейганн Доббс - A Whisker In The Dark

Josie whirled around, her eyes zoning in on the blue Yale mug. Her hand shot out and snatched it from harm’s way.

“Bad kitty. Now if you broke that Carla would be—” And then Josie’s eyes widened. She glanced at the mug, then back at Nero. Their eyes locked and in that instant Nero knew Josie had finally gotten the message he was trying to send.

“Finally,” Marlowe said as she jumped onto the counter to join him.

Movement outside the window caught Nero’s eye.

“Isn’t that Harry and Stubbs out there in the shrubs?” Marlowe asked.

Nero craned his neck to see further. The tortie was right. The two cats were pacing back and forth and looking over at the guesthouse. “It is them… it looks like they’ve found something important.”

I stared at the Yale coffee mug in my hand. Myron had gone to a fancy college, had it been Yale? Is that why Myron had been at the gazebo when Bob was killed at the pond? He was working with someone else. Carla. Hadn’t Doris said that Carla wasn’t very bright because she’d been lurking around near the gazebo?

Maybe that’s why Stella had said something about Myron not deserving treasure. Maybe she had her sights set on Myron and saw him with Carla. Had Bob known about Carla and Myron and threatened to tell on her? But would that really be worth killing him over? Maybe it would if treasure was involved.

Myron and Carla were around the same age. If Myron had also attended Yale, it was possible they knew each other, but I had to find out for sure.

But first, I had to get this apple-pecan bread in the oven.

I sliced off another piece of quiche for Ed and sent him off to the west wing, then chopped the pecans and apples and mixed eggs, oil and vanilla, setting everything aside while I mixed together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon. I combined the wet ingredients with the dry into a thick batter and poured some into one of the tiny loaf pans and shoved it in the oven, then set the timer for ninety minutes after double-checking the directions for cooking time on Millie’s recipe. I wasn’t going to let it burn again!

I quickly got the breakfast trays together. The guests would be down in ten minutes but usually I could find Doris wandering around downstairs. If I could get her aside privately I might be able to find out when Carla went to Yale. I knew that Myron had gone after we graduated high school, so if Carla attended in the late 1980s it was possible they knew each other. I didn’t want Carla to overhear the question though, so I had to catch Doris before Carla came down.

I rushed over to the parlor. No sign of Doris. Maybe she was in the back sitting room? Nope. The conservatory? Nada. Darn. I was coming back down the hall when I saw Earl staring at the door to the west wing. It was open, likely because Ed was moving tools in. I could hear Ed inside setting things up.

“Can I help you?” I asked Earl.

He turned around, his face white as a sheet. “Look, Jedediah’s ghost has left the door open! He’s coming for the rest of us!”

“Hardly,” Ed’s voice came from inside. “I’m just coming back to shut it. Had my hands full with my tools.”

“That’s just the carpenter, Ed. Besides, why would Jedediah be coming back to kill you? Nobody got the treasure, right? And the curse was that he was gonna do away with anyone who had his treasure.” I steered Earl away from the door as Ed shut it from the other side.

Ed was supposed to keep the door shut so that guests didn’t wander onto the worksite, and he was very good about it. I glanced down. There was no gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. If the cats had batted a nail from this wing into the conservatory, I was sure they would have had to bat it under this door. The other exits were too far away. But there was no gap to push it through, so if the cats hadn’t moved the nail, then how did it get into the conservatory? Had Ed lied about being in there? Maybe I needed to expand my suspect list to include Ed, but right now I had to focus on finding out about Carla and Myron.

Earl frowned. “Yeah, but somebody killed Bob.”

“Are you sure that had something to do with the treasure?”

Earl’s eyes narrowed. “I thought so. This place might not be safe with a murdering ghost around.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Not only was the notion of a murdering ghost absurd, I sure as heck didn’t need him spreading that rumor around town.

“I’m sure the police will find out that whoever killed Bob was no ghost.” Or, more likely, my mother, Millie and I would.

Earl didn’t look convinced. He glanced down at the mug in my hand. “Is that Carla’s mug?”

I’d almost forgotten I was carrying it. “Yeah. I washed it out and was returning it to the dining room so she could have it for her morning coffee.”

“Thought so. She acts like that thing is the Holy Grail, for crying out loud, brings it everywhere. It’s kind of embarrassing. You should see her at the office. She has a fit if anyone touches it.”

Maybe it wasn’t so bad that I’d encountered Earl in the hallway. He’d probably know what years Carla went to Yale. And the conversation about the mug was the perfect opportunity to ask. Not to mention no one else was in the hallway to hear us.

“I guess it’s quite an accomplishment to graduate from Yale though, right?”

Earl shrugged. “I guess. I went to Stanford.”

I nodded. “That’s a good school too. Are you older than Carla? Were you guys in college the same time?”

“I’m a few years older. Graduated in 1987.”

I did the math. Myron and Carla would have been at Yale at the same time. It was possible they’d worked together to kill Bob… but why?

“Is breakfast ready?” Earl asked, startling me out of my reverie.

“Almost. Go ahead in there and I will get everything set up for you.”

I rushed back into the kitchen after putting the mug on the sideboard where Carla liked it to be placed right next to the coffee urn, which I noticed with approval Flora had already set to percolating.

I rushed back into the kitchen, gathered the breakfast items together and walked them out to the sideboard.

I hovered in the doorway, watching everyone eat contentedly, if not a bit solemnly. They were shoveling in the quiche. No one complained about the lack of pancakes. Had one of them killed Bob?

My eyes drifted to the Yale mug. That mug could be the key to uncovering what really happened. But I still wondered if Paula had really seen Flora. Maybe Paula was in on it with her sister and Myron and they were trying to point the finger in Flora’s direction. And what about Ed? I didn’t dare mention my suspicions about him to Mom and Millie, they’d known him for years and would defend him as they had Flora. I didn’t want the killer to be Ed either. Myron and Carla were much better suspects in my book.

The crunch of tires on gravel pulled my gaze to the window. Mom and Millie were here and I couldn’t wait to tell them what I’d discovered.

I heard the kitchen door open and then Millie’s voice. “Josie is something burning?”

Twenty

I rushed in to the kitchen to see Millie rescuing the loaf pan from the oven. She put it on the counter and waved the smoke away, then sniffed.

“Oh, it’s the apple-pecan bread.” Then she sniffed deeper. “I think it needs more cinnamon. How long did you put it in for?”

“Ninety minutes just like your recipe said.” I gestured toward the timer on the microwave still ticking down. “It still has ten minutes.”

Millie looked at me as if she felt sorry for me. “Josie, that time was for a full loaf pan. You have to reduce it for the smaller pans.”

Darn. Who knew that you cooked things for less time when they are in a smaller pan? I probably should have. Lucky thing I’d decided to start small with my experiment and I still had some of the batter left. Besides, we had more pressing matters to discuss.