Лори Касс - Booking The Crook

Stewart picked up his coffee mug, then set it back down. He put his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a sugar packet. “Has anyone tried this? It’s maple-flavored sugar. A company north of town started making it a few months ago. I’m not a huge fan of sugar in coffee, but this stuff is—” He glanced at me. “Minnie, are you okay? You look a little funny.”

“Fine,” I said vaguely. “I was just . . . thinking.” But I’d looked funny because the sugar packet Stewart was holding in his hand was a twin to the one I’d found the night before in Rowan’s house. I gestured. “Where did you get that? It sounds like something Kristen should be using at the restaurant.”

“Christmas present,” he said. “Don’t remember who, though. My best present was from my son. He gave me this amazing new kind of hat that no one around here has. It’s a wool felt fedora with earflaps I can fold down. What’s revolutionary is the design. Four-and-a-half-inch crown height is typical, you see, and it’s brilliant to make it lower for winter, when the winds are stiffer.”

“Sounds cool,” Josh said. “My brother and his wife gave me a set of kitchen storage containers.” He rolled his eyes.

Mr. Goodwin asked Josh about purchasing a new tablet, a conversation that Stewart joined in, and Holly and Kelsey started talking about their respective children. I let the voices wash past me and thought about three things.

Cousins.

Sugar packets.

And poison.

Chapter 6

The walk home that night was, physically, far easier than the morning trip. It hadn’t snowed all afternoon and the plows had been busy. Mentally, however, I was having a hard time.

Land Aprelle as a killer? Not a chance.

Stewart Funston as a killer? Not a chance.

Hugh Novak? I’d never heard anything against him other than Neil’s diatribe, so I inched his name toward the “not a chance” side of my mental spreadsheet.

I wanted to shy away from imagining scenarios in which any of the three might have wanted to kill Rowan, but I took a deep breath of cold air and went at it.

Land. A builder turned handyman/caretaker; had thick gray hair with a streak of white straight down the middle. Years ago, he’d fallen off a ladder, been knocked out, and hadn’t woken up for three days. Afterward, he was fine except for that white streak of hair. He also was clean shaven in summer and grew a bushy white beard in winter because, with the addition of pillow stuffing and a costume, he transformed from a guy who hardly talked to the area’s best Santa Claus.

Maybe that was why I was having a hard time imagining him as a killer. But I also had a hard time seeing him in a shouting match with Rowan, and that had apparently happened. Could Land have killed Rowan because of an argument? Or should the question be, what kind of argument could have led to murder?

Hal Inwood’s favorite motives were money or love gone wrong, with the most powerful motive being a combination of the two. Could Land and Rowan have been having an affair? Could Land have been stealing from the Bennethums?

I had no idea and had no idea how to find out. Hal and Ash knew about Neil’s suspicions, though, so they were most likely looking at Land, no matter what Neil thought.

On to Stewart Funston. Who, unbeknownst to me, was a cousin of Rowan’s. I made a mental note to ask my aunt about the Funston family tree. No, wait. Stewart had said his mom and Rowan’s dad had been siblings and I’d never known Rowan’s maiden name. Another note went onto my mental list— librarian, start your research! —and I carried on with my cogitating.

What reason could Stewart have to kill his cousin? Using the second of Hal’s classic motives, love, was too impossibly icky, but some other kind of love could be at play. Could there be some weird competition for parental love? Was it possible that either Rowan or Stewart had been raised in the other’s family and was harboring resentment for not being treated as full family? Possible, but why would that kind of anger come into flower now, so many years later?

The other reason was money. Rowan and Neil seemed comfortable enough, but there was no ostentatious display of wealth. No big boat, no fancy vacations, a house they’d owned for years, and two kids in college.

I blew out a breath, creating a soft ball of steam that disappeared as quickly as it had formed.

Hugh Novak. Since I didn’t know the man, I felt myself wanting him to be the best candidate on my very short list. It was intellectually lazy and morally reprehensible, and I was ashamed of myself the moment I realized it. Yet there it was.

I let myself in the front door and called out my normal greeting. “I’m back!” From upstairs came a sleepy “Mrr.” Eddie was in serious winter mode, and unless I shook his treat can, it was unlikely he’d venture off my bed anytime soon.

As I began to divest myself of outerwear, I almost hoped that Aunt Frances was out. Though she was the best aunt ever and I loved her dearly, I could feel a mood descending, a mood with a capital M. It would pass, but a night on the couch with Eddie and Netflix might make it pass even quicker.

“Hello, Minnie. How are you this evening?”

“Oh, hey, Otto.” I glanced behind my aunt’s fiancé. “Where’s the beloved relative?”

“Someone called about selling some bird’s-eye extremely cheap and she was out of here before I could figure out why she could possibly want bird eyeballs.”

I laughed and my mood started to evaporate. Maybe human companionship was what I needed, not a burrowing in. “It’s a relatively rare kind of hard maple that looks swirly.” I glanced around and found some. “Like this.” I pointed at an end table’s drawer front. “See? Swirly. And please don’t ask me what causes it because I have no idea.”

Otto nodded and tapped the end table. “Did you know that your aunt doesn’t want to take any of this furniture across the street when we get married?”

“No, but I’m not surprised.” I spread my arms wide, gesturing at the room. At the entire house. “This furniture has been here for years. Decades. Taking away even one piece could change the magic recipe.”

“You sound like Frances,” he said.

I flopped down on a couch. “Well, there are reasons for that. And I’d name some, but you just sounded the teensiest bit grumpy, so I won’t.”

“Thank you.” He sat on the couch across from me. Even in jeans and a zip sweatshirt, he still looked as if he’d stepped out of a magazine advertisement for what the elegant senior gentleman should look like. “I recognize that Celeste will need the bulk of the boardinghouse furniture, but I think not taking anything is a mistake.”

“Why’s that?”

“I want the house across the street to be our home. Ours together. I don’t want her to think of it as my house, a place she just happened to move into.”

Smiling at him fondly, I said, “If she changes her mind about marrying you, I wouldn’t mind being second choice.”

“Dear Minnie. Rafe Niswander would have my guts for garters.”

I laughed at the English expression. “Then we’ll have to leave things as they are.”

“Except for the furniture,” he said. “I fully expected to donate half my furniture to the church’s resale shop. She needs to bring something from the place she’s lived in for so many years.”

“Does Eddie hair count?” I picked a few examples off my sleeve.

Otto, sensibly, ignored me. “Could you talk to her? Tell her I’m thinking of our future, that I don’t want her to resent living in a house that doesn’t feel like hers. Please?”

It sounded as if he’d already made his arguments and that she’d already rejected them. Still, he had a point. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll talk to her. But I can’t promise it’ll change her mind.”