Софи Райан - Telling Tails

“It certainly gives his wife a motive for his murder,” Mr. P. pointed out.

“And his sister for that matter.”

Rose shook her head. “No. Nicole was home. Remember? She told us she was signed into the hospital computer doing some kind of online training.”

I nodded. I did remember. I looked at Mr. P. “I’m guessing you checked.”

He nodded. “She spent two and a half hours doing an interactive refresher on medication protocols.”

Rose sighed softly.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I know it sounds foolish,” she said, “especially because at first I was so certain Leesa had killed her husband, but I was hoping I was wrong.”

“I know,” I said. “So was I.”

I went out to the garage and gave Mac a quick update on what I’d learned from Channing Caulfield.

“So what happens now?” he asked, wiping his hands on an old rag.

“There’ll be an autopsy on Leesa Cameron, and unless it turns up something, the police will close the case. The only woman in Jeff Cameron’s life aside from his wife and his sister was Chloe Sanders, and she has an alibi.” I put my hands on my head and gave it a shake. “I don’t want to think about this anymore right now,” I said. “Show me what color you decided to use on the chair.”

Mac showed me the deep cranberry red he’d chosen for the rocking chair and then we took another look at the two wicker chairs and agreed they would need a second coat of paint.

When I went back inside I found Avery at the workbench with her stack of postcards and a pile of mat board. “Do you know where your grandmother is?” I asked.

She looked up and gave me a blank look. “No.”

“Is she picking you up?”

She shook her head. “I’m going over to Charlotte’s to help her move some boxes in the garage, and then we’re making pizza.” She took the top mat off the pile, made a face at it and set it to one side. “Did you try her cell?”

“I did,” I said. “I got her voice mail.”

She looked at me again. “Yeah, she says she’s been going to a bunch of meetings and then she doesn’t answer her phone.”

“You don’t think she’s telling the truth?”

Avery shrugged. “If she’s going to a meeting, how come she never has any papers with her?” A sly grin spread across her face. “When she went for dinner with Mr. Caulfield I thought maybe they had a thing, you know?”

I did know, and there was no way there was any “thing” happening between Liz and Channing Caulfield. “I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head.

“Yeah, Nonna said they’d be ice skating in hell before that happened.”

I smiled. “I’ll keep trying her.”

Rose and Mr. P. drove home with me at the end of the day. I was in a crabby, unsettled mood. Something was niggling away in the back of my brain, something I had the feeling I’d missed from the morning. It was like having a line from a song running over and over in my head but being unable to identify the song.

And I still wanted to talk to Liz. Avery had said that her grandmother had been going to a lot of meetings. I thought about seeing Liz and Michelle together outside McNamara’s. Was one of those meetings with Michelle?

When I unlocked the apartment door, Elvis immediately went for his cat tower, sprawling on the top platform as though he’d had an exhausting day. Part of me felt like doing the same thing. Instead I dropped my things, got a glass of orange juice from the fridge and tried Liz one more time. This time she answered.

“Hi,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get you. Channing Caulfield called me this afternoon.”

She made a sound of frustration on the other end of the phone. “I told him to call you if he couldn’t get me and I forgot to tell you that. I’m sorry, kid. I was at a meeting.”

“Do you have a few minutes right now? I’ll come tell you what he said.”

“I have all the time in the world and a half dozen of Glenn McNamara’s lemon tarts.”

“I’m on my way,” I said. I stuffed my phone in my pocket and grabbed my purse. “I’m going to Liz’s house,” I said to Elvis.

He lifted his head, made a “mrr” of acknowledgment and dropped it again.

Liz lived in a beautiful two-story house on a large lot in what she sometimes referred to as the la-di-da part of town. She’d made a pot of tea and set out the lemon tarts. We sat at the kitchen table and I told her what Channing had told me.

She used a knife to cut a tart in half. They were her favorite treat. “You’re not serious?” she said. “The money sat unclaimed for more than sixty years?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what he said.” I swiped at a dab of lemon cream filling on my plate with one finger. “What I don’t understand is why Catherine Hennessy didn’t tell her grandchildren about the money. And I’m assuming she didn’t just because we haven’t found any evidence that she did.”

Liz indicated the tray of tarts. “Have another one.” She took a sip of her tea. “As far as not telling her family about the money, I understand that. I’ve told Avery and her cousin, Derek, that I’ll pay their tuition when it’s time for college, but they have to figure out how to pay for everything else, and if they’re waiting around for me to die to get their hands on my money, they’re going to be waiting a long time because it’s all going to charity.”

“You’re tough,” I said.

She shrugged. “It’s been my experience that if people think they can get a free ride, they’re a lot less likely to work for something.”

“Why didn’t you tell us why you were having dinner with Channing? Or that you were having dinner with him?”

She reached for her tea, turning the cup slowly on the saucer. “Because right after I invited him I decided not to ask for his help. It felt as though I was using him—dinner with me in exchange for information.” She gave me a wry smile. “It’s an age-old transaction, but it made me feel uncomfortable.”

I’d known Liz all my life and she could still surprise me. “So what happened?”

“Channing had heard about what had happened to Rose. He offered to look into Jeff Cameron’s background. I told him he didn’t have to do that just because I’d invited him to dinner. There was no quid pro quo going on.”

“And?”

“And he’s a damn sneaky man.” She couldn’t keep a smile from pulling at the corners of her mouth, so I knew she wasn’t really angry. “He said there definitely was no quid pro quo because he’d arranged to take care of the bill and since I hadn’t paid for dinner I didn’t need to feel bad about accepting his offer of help.”

“I think he sounds like the perfect man for you,” I said, smirking at her.

Liz dipped her head in the direction of her plate. “I would throw one of those at you if it weren’t a waste of a perfectly good lemon tart.”

I laughed. “You’re going to have dinner again with him, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Smarty-pants, I am,” she said. “And this time I’ll be buying dinner.”

I got up, got the teapot and refilled our cups. “Was your meeting Emmerson Foundation business?” I asked.

Liz nodded, cut one of the tart halves on her plate into two pieces and ate one of them. “It took a little longer than I expected. Like I said, I meant to tell you that I’d told Channing he could call you, and it just slipped right out of my head.”

I sat back down, added milk and sugar to my tea and leaned back in my chair, hands wrapped around the cup. “Avery said you’ve had a lot of meetings lately.”

Liz wasn’t one to prevaricate. “So it was you Friday, sitting in the line of traffic behind that moving van. I thought it was, but I wasn’t sure.”