Page 61 of Murder Will Out
She’d earned a little smugness. “Jodie, you’re the best. I can’t even—thank you.” He paused. “That short guy still treating you okay?” he asked. “If he ever doesn’t, I’ll arrest him for jaywalking, I’ll sit outside his house and look menacing, whatever you need, you know it.”
Jodie laughed. “Of course I know. But yeah, David—who’ssix feet tall, by the way, which hardly qualifies asshort—is great. In fact”—he could almost hear her beaming through the phone line—“we have a little David or Jodie coming along in about five months, so I think we’re both all in.”
“You’re—Jodie, that’s amazing! Congratulations to both of you.” He was glad things had worked out between the two as he pushed down the tiny hollow thread of sentiment that rose unbidden.
“Thanks, Nick. Hey, gotta go—but let me know how this comes out, okay? I’m curious now.”
“You bet, Jodie, and—” But she had hung up.
So Jodie was having a baby. He was happy for her. Really. Very, very happy.
Nick brought his crime board file up on his second monitor—he was old-fashioned enough to still call it a crime board, but twenty-first-century enough to use an app rather than a physical piece of cork on the wall—and studied it for the hundredth time that day.
Susan Davis. Geralt Talbot. Naomi Talbot. Hank Ramsey. And, if Willow Stone was right, Effie Cameron. And the attempt on Patricia Ramsey.
This break in Geralt Talbot’s murder investigation was running through him like a shot of adrenaline as the noose began to close in. He didn’t know yet who it was closing around, but the more people it excluded, the fewer were left inside. It was looking less and less likely that one person could have been responsible for the entire string of violence on the normally peaceful little island. On the other hand, he had a hunch if he could nail down one guilty party, the others—if there were others—would fall into place.
He studied the screen. Every piece of evidence, big and small, still pointed to Naomi Talbot and Hank Ramsey as coconspirators behind Geralt Talbot’s death, and likely Effie Cameron’s and Susan Davis’s as well. She had the access; he had the motive. In this light, even the attempt on Patricia’s life made sense: Naomi had been at the bar; Hank owned a long-term parking and car rentalfacility off the island with its own service department. Maybe, once Patricia had crafted whatever genealogical gymnastics Hank needed, the conspiring pair wanted her out of the way as quickly as possible so they could be together; if Hank’s Cameron claims had seemed a little dubious, Naomi’s position as spouse of the last Cameron would bolster his, and Hank’s station in the town would give Naomi a little more island clout. If this were true, their deaths had probably saved Patricia’s life.
But someone had killed them. Which suggested that either there was a third conspirator, or they had not been responsible to begin with.
For some reason, he found himself wanting to tell Willow Stone what he’d found, how the bottle she had absentmindedly picked up might be the break their investigation needed, how they were now that much closer to finding Geralt’s killer. But he pulled his hand back when it twitched toward his phone to call her.
He couldn’t comment on a continuing investigation. Even if he just wanted to hear her voice.
His email dinged; he clicked on the message and downloaded the deep background check reports on Hank’s, Geralt’s, and Naomi Talbot’s employees and household staff.
It was going to be a long evening. He poured another cup of bad coffee and started reading.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It took three tries to find the key that opened the Cameron House back door; Willow slipped inside out of the rain and wind, through the shabby old kitchen, and into the foyer.
She was beginning to get accustomed to the mansion’s shifting moods; today, with no sunlight to filter flickers of magic through the stained glass window above the grand staircase, all was cold and dim, like a sepia photograph. The only sound was the whine of the wind outside and the persistent tapping of raindrops on the roof; within the thick walls, all was still.
Willow hesitantly moved through the rooms on the first floor, looking for any sign of movement or presence. Kitchen, sitting room, dining room… all was completely quiet.
In the rear corner of the house, Willow came upon a cozy modern bedroom suite she had not noticed before, completely unlike the rest of the antique-laden house.This was Sue’s room, she realized in a rush; her godmother had avoided the grand bedrooms of the mansion and instead claimed this simple space for herself.
Willow smiled at how characteristically Sue that choice was.
A layer of dust had settled over the space in the weeks sinceSue’s death, but Willow could still appreciate the quiet, contemporary elegance of the space. She suspected from its location that the room might have begun life as part of the food storage and preparation area of the house, but if so, it had been thoroughly remodeled since then. It held a Mission-style bed, with a pair of simple chairs in one corner; a gorgeously carved desk sat against the wall, strewn with books and papers. The contents of the bookshelves lining the walls were varied and eclectic, important-looking leather-bound first editions and historical texts sharing space with the tales of Avonlea and Narnia and Pern that Willow had loved as a child. The novels of Abel R. Douglas were there too, with one conspicuously bare spot whereWidow’s Walkwould have gone.
This room feels like Sue, Willow thought.
Reluctantly, she left the comfortable room behind. Finding the key on the first try, she turned the handles to the French doors of the library. The latch gave way with a familiarthonk; she stepped in and turned on the light—but this room, too, was deserted. Willow peered into alcoves and corners, giving second and third looks to the chairs and couches to make sure they were as unoccupied as they first appeared.
They were. Today, the once-haunted mansion felt like no more than an empty old house.
Willow climbed the wrought iron spiral staircase in the corner, carefully making her way into the shadowy section above and past the massive fireplace where Willow had first met Joel and the Misses Drummond. There were bookshelves up here too, stretching into the dim recesses of the second floor; on the other side of the library would be the second-floor corridor, Willow remembered—a long stretch of bare wall.
Or maybe not fully bare. On this side, the wall was not flush; the corner bookcase protruded slightly from the others. Willow grinned. Of course the Camerons would have more than one entrance and exit to the library. Once she knew what she was looking for, the little switch was easy to find. The corner bookcaseopened inward on silent hinges, releasing Willow into the shadowy corridor behind it.
From the end of the hallway, a faint sound drifted to Willow from the other side of the stained glass double doors—a brief murmur of voices, a whisper of music. Willow hesitantly opened one of the heavy doors and slipped inside.
She stood in a small octagonal chapel. Frescoes of biblical scenes, and more stained glass, lined the walls. To Willow’s delight, a tiny tracker-style pipe organ sat nestled in a corner. Her fingers itched to see if the ancient instrument would still play, but she restrained herself—the slightest movement could crack old leather bellows into dust or disrupt families of music-loving rodents that might have made their homes in the depths of the instrument.
For an instant, as though in response to her thought, a current of air seemed to move through the little organ, breathing through the old pipes, wheezing out a few notes of a melody she almost recognized. Out of the corner of her eye, Willow caught a glimpse of a man and woman standing by the altar, smiling at each other as a clergyman wrapped his stole around their joined hands. She whipped her head around, but they were not there. Now she was looking at a casket, too small to be an adult’s… laid atop it was a single crow-black feather.
