Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

“His and Greta’s.”

“That was fast.”

“I don’t question. I just appreciate.”

Digging Up Trouble

235

“Was Russ murdered? Did he have hallucinogenic mushrooms in his system?”

“No. His reports were clean. He died of a heart attack.

Plain and simple.”

Surprisingly, my inner voice didn’t have anything to say.

“Not so simple if I’m going to be charged with his murder.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m not? When did this happen?”

“The prosecutor’s office decided that since you weren’t perpetrating a crime when Russ had his heart attack, they wouldn’t charge you.”

I slumped back in pure relief. “And Greta?” I asked.

“What about her tox reports?”

“Ever hear of a death cap?”

“The mushroom?”

“Highly toxic.”

“Someone poisoned her with a death cap?”

“It was in the soup she’d eaten for dinner. Evidence collected at the scene supported the findings.”

I remembered seeing the Growl soup bowl in the trash, little bits of mushrooms clinging to its sides.

“We’re interviewing people at Growl, seeing if anyone remembers Greta coming in. So far no one does.”

In a flash I saw that Growl bag, the fisted hand that held it.

“You won’t find anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Russ brought that soup home the day he died. He’d been feeling sick, came home early from work, had a Growl bag in his hand. He brought the soup inside the house, came back out to yell at me and very inconveniently drop dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure he died.”

Kevin sighed. “About the soup?”

236

Heather Webber

Sometimes it was so fun to play with him. “Not one hundred percent. But it’s too much of a coincidence and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Yes, I know. It’s a commandment.”

“Don’t mock my commandments.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You know what this means, right?” I asked.

“What?”

“That soup was meant for Russ. Not Greta. Someone had been trying to kill him, but the heart attack beat them to it.”

After a pit stop at the parish rectory, I headed toward the Grabinskys’ house. All the way there I hoped I was wrong about Noreen. I liked to think I had a good sense about people, and she’d struck me as the decent sort.

The sort that needed a makeover, but a decent sort nonetheless.

Even though Kevin had warned me to mind my own business and let him handle Noreen, I couldn’t let it go.

I’m not sure why, so I just accepted it as a character flaw.

It was all there, plain as day now that I knew what I’d been looking for. Noreen had access to the Grabinskys’ typewriter; she knew what was going on at Growl; she hated Russ. She’d been working the morning he’d gone home sick.

Perfect time to poison his soup. Above all else, she had loved her sister and wanted her to be happy.

By having her backyard redone. By getting rid of a jerky husband.

How much had Greta known? Had she been in on it all along?

I checked my dashboard clock. Almost noon now. Was Noreen waiting for that money transfer? To leave town?

Digging Up Trouble

237

Emergency vehicles lined the street in front of the Grabinsky house. Paramedics roamed the yard. Patrol officers were roping off the sidewalk to keep gawkers at bay.

Meredith Adams stood along the fringe. “What’s going on?” I asked her, not having a good feeling about this at all.

She stuck her nose in the air, sniffed, and said, “This neighborhood was perfectly respectable until you came along.”

Yeah, it was all my fault. “So, I shouldn’t buy the Lockharts’ house?”

Her eyes went wide, her mouth dropped open. “You wouldn’t.”

“I might,” I lied.

She turned on her heel, stomped away.

A body covered with a white cloth was being carried out of the house on a stretcher.

It was a lumpy body. Potato-shaped. “Oh no.”

Weaving and bobbing my way through the crowd, I finally found Kevin. He pulled me aside, to a quiet corner of the driveway. I handed him the blackmail letter and he slipped it into a plastic evidence bag.

“Suicide,” he said. “Left a detailed note. Couldn’t live knowing she was responsible for Greta’s death. She knew Greta had successfully blackmailed Hathaway and thought she’d try her hand at it with Bill. She knew about the mushrooms. Left us names and dates to help put him away. She ad-mitted to putting the death cap in Russ’s soup. She hoped his death would look like a heart attack brought on by the makeover. That no one would be suspicious. That there’d be no autopsy. She hadn’t counted on Greta being so grief-stricken.”

“So Greta didn’t know about the makeover?”

“Apparently not.”

“Who was the money for?” I asked.

238

Heather Webber

“Greta’s daughter. To pay off HOA’s fees.”

“What’s going to happen to Bill?”

“The prosecutor’s building a case against him.”

I looked over to the Lockhart house, saw Lindsey on the front porch. I thought back to why I’d taken on the makeover in the first place, just to learn more about Kevin’s first wife.

I’ll admit I was still curious, but it was time to let the past go. For good.

“You have a place to stay tonight?” Kevin asked.

“My mother offered.”

“That desperate?”

“Getting there.”

“I better get back.” He walked away, then stopped. “We never did find those pictures Greta used to blackmail Dale Hathaway. You don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”

“Not a thing.”

One of his eyebrows rose. He nodded once and disappeared into the Grabinskys’ house.

I made a stop at the truck, then worked my way through the crowd over to Dale Hathaway, who was sitting on his front porch.

“I can’t believe it,” he said.

“It’s terrible.” And rather ironic since Russ went and died on his own, making all the blackmailing and murder plans for naught.

“Where’s Kate?” I asked.

“At the doctor’s.”

“Oh no—she doesn’t have that flu, does she?”

He beamed. “No. Just a checkup. We’re having a baby.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” He looked down at his hands, then back up.

“I’m being arraigned on Monday.”

“The breaking and entering?”

Digging Up Trouble

239

He nodded. “With a plea deal, I’ll get probation.”

Ana would probably have him in my office by the end of next week looking for a job.

I slipped the pictures out of my pocket, handed them to him. “An early baby gift.”

His light blue eyes widened. “Where’d you find them?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Why not give them to the police?”

“Noreen’s suicide note all but seals the case. There’s no need to have these pictures passed around the squad room.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” he said.

“No need.” I stood. “Just keep loving your wife.”

“That I can promise.”

I looked up, saw Kevin standing in the Grabinskys’ driveway watching me.

After a second he turned and walked away.

I rolled over in bed, answered the persistent ringing of my cell phone.

Under other circumstances I’d have let it ring, but with Tam being so close to delivery and Mr. Cabrera still under observation, I couldn’t ignore it.

A warm hand reached out, rubbed my bare back as I answered. “This is Nina Quinn.”

“This is Josh Drake,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

Josh Drake? Who was Josh Drake?

Lips pressed against my spine.