Лейганн Доббс - A Whisker In The Dark

“You mean the secret book with the treasure map?” Mom asked.

“No. There was a secret book, but it wasn’t about treasure. Earl was embezzling from the company.” I looked at Earl. “Weren’t you?”

Millie snapped her fingers. “Of course! I should have known. I thought it was odd that Earl and Arlene always dressed to the nines given that the company was having trouble.”

I pointed toward Earl’s feet. He was wearing fancy Italian loafers. “It really was your shoes that Paula saw running away from the pond, wasn’t it?”

“Stupid Paula. Leave it to her to be passed out right in my getaway path,” Earl said. “I chose that pond area because I knew no one was over there. No witnesses.”

I shifted to the left, still trying to surround him. Millie was over on the right but unfortunately my mother appeared oblivious to the plan. She was shuffling from foot to foot and looking a bit uncomfortable.

“That wasn’t the only flaw in your plan,” I said. “Oh, you almost had us fooled. I mean, who would suspect you had a reason to kill Bob, especially after you burned the real accounting ledger in your fireplace.”

I smiled at the look of surprise on Earl’s face. “Yeah, the maid found the evidence and we have it safe and sound at the guesthouse for the police.”

Earl looked skeptical. “What? There must only be a few small scraps left. Nothing that would prove anything except that I burned some paper with numbers. By the way, you should look into getting a new maid. That one’s work leaves a bit to be desired.”

I ignored his comment about Flora. It’s not like it was anything I didn’t already know. “You made another key mistake, too.”

“What? Picking a guesthouse with you three nosey people at it?”

“Well that too, but when you brought the Nikes down to prove that it wasn’t your shoes that Paula saw, you made a big error. I worked out that you put that dirt on them not from outside, but from the plants in the conservatory. But you messed up.”

“How?”

“You only put dirt on the tops! If you’d really been wearing them, the dirt would have been clumped into the treads and have fallen out on the table, but dirt only came off the sides. The actual spot where the soles had been was clean.” And that explained why the doily had not been dirty. Turned out Flora’s reluctance to clean most things provided a key clue to catching the killer.

“And now we have the murder weapon,” Millie said, pointing at the shovel. “I would say your cheese-sculpting days are over. You might as well just give up. Play nice and you might get a reduced sentence. I’ll just call the sheriff and tell him—”

“Not so fast!” Earl pulled the gun out of his pocket and waved it around. “I’m not going to jail.”

“Now, Earl, be careful with that thing. You don’t want to go to jail for multiple murders.” Millie glanced over at me as if to ask what our plan was now. I didn’t have one other than not getting shot.

“Why not? If I’m going for one anyway, how much time can it add?” Earl laughed. “But I’m not going for even one. Too bad you’re all so nosey. I had the perfect setup here, especially once that skeleton was discovered. I mean, who gets a chance to frame a ghost? And if that didn’t work, I could always let your maid take the rap.”

“Well, that’s not going to work. Not once they get this shovel to the CSI lab and find your fingerprints and Bob’s blood on it,” Millie said.

“Not gonna happen. If only these stupid cats didn’t dig it up. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing they did. I’ll need something to dig the hole to bury your bodies in.”

Mom raised her hand. “Can I go to the little girls’ room?”

“No. You won’t need to worry about that soon.”

My heart stopped as he stepped toward my mother, pointing the gun at her head.

Meroooo!

A blur of black-and-white shot toward Earl’s gun arm. Nero!

“Ouch!” Earl shook his arm, but he didn’t drop the gun.

My mind whirled with indecision. Should I lunge toward the gun? Go for his knees and knock him down? He was still holding the darn gun!

There was a rustle in the bushes behind him. A thick branch appeared, crashing down on Earl’s head. He crumpled to the ground.

Behind him stood Flora. She looked down at Earl’s still body.

“Guess I lied about another thing,” she said.

“What?” Millie asked.

Flora nudged Earl’s arm with her toe. “Looks like this old bird really does have the strength to clonk someone over the head.”

Millie hugged her. “You saved the day.”

“Ahh, it was nothing,” Flora said.

“Thanks, Flora. I gotta make a pit stop.” Mom ducked behind a shrub.

Nero and Marlowe trotted over to me and rubbed against my ankles. “Thanks, guys.” I picked them up one by one and buried my face in their fur. When I put them back down, they trotted over to Millie. It didn’t escape me that they’d come to me first.

“I better call Seth before Earl wakes up. He is alive, isn’t he?” asked Millie.

“Yep.” I’d already done a visual check to make sure he was still breathing.

“That’s a relief. Didn’t want Flora to be accused of murder again.”

Mom reappeared from behind the bush and I noticed that while Nero and Marlowe were sticking close by, the other cats had disappeared. I guess they didn’t want to hang around and take credit for discovering the murder weapon. Just like Millie had always said, there was more to the cats than met the eye—and not just Nero and Marlowe.

Millie dialed. Then she made a face, her eyes squinting and her nose wrinkling. She turned in the direction of the guesthouse and sniffed the air. “Say, do I smell something burning?”

Twenty-Six

“Josie, this is the most delicious apple-pecan bread I’ve ever tasted!” Annabel Drescher stood in front of my table chewing noisily on one of the tiny loaves of bread.

I’d burned another test loaf when we’d been busy capturing Earl. But I’d finally nailed the recipe for the bread, and fifty-four miniature loaves were stacked in a pyramid in the middle of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse display table at Oyster Cove’s 250th town celebration. The tent and streets were crowded and the mood was festive.

From inside the tents, which were nestled on the lush green grass of the town common, shaded by stately oaks and maples, one could see the quaint shops that lined Main Street in one direction, and the sparkling blue ocean in the other.

The Oyster Cove Chamber of Commerce had outdone themselves decorating for the festivities. A large banner with an image of the town two centuries ago hung across the street. Various food vendors and carnival games had been set up on the other side of the town common across from the shops, which all had sparkling clean windows and vibrant awnings. Baskets overflowing with colorful flowers hung from the fancy wrought-iron lamp posts that lined the streets. The air was spiced with the scent of popcorn, the sounds of laughter and the cry of an occasional gull.

“Thank you. Josie is a fine baker.” Millie sat proudly in the chair beside me. It was generous of her to give me credit since she was the reason they were so delicious, but I wasn’t about to argue.

Annabel took another bite and leaned across the table, glancing over at Stella out of the corner of her eye.

“Much better than Stella Dumont’s custard… that tasted sour,” she whispered.

“I knew it would,” Millie muttered under her breath.

“Lucky for Myron he gave me that loan for my travel agency instead of giving one to Stella,” Annabel said.

“Yeah, lucky.” I felt bad for suspecting her. It turned out she really hadn’t lied about Flora. Flora really had gone there with numbers, except they weren’t longitude and latitude, they were accounting numbers which had correlated with a longitude and latitude in the Caribbean Sea. Annabel had no idea what the numbers really were though and had just made an assumption that Flora wanted a vacation. She hadn’t dug up treasure to renovate her travel agency, she’d gotten a loan.