Steeped to Death, page 16
That made me sick to my stomach, but she was right. When Eudora was alive, simply taking the deeds would have been meaningless because she’d have been able to contest ownership. I, on the other hand, had no idea about the ownership of these buildings, and if someone had gotten the deed on their own property, I’d never have known that it had really belonged to me. Detective Martin was just hypothesizing, but her theory seemed too reasonable to be ignored. Eudora was the kind of person who would want to help Ox, even as she declined to return the properties to him.
What an absolute mess this was. “I definitely need to clear some things up with the lawyers tomorrow. I’ll let you know if they can offer any additional insight.”
“Please do. Do you mind if I keep this for the time being?” She held up the photo.
“Not at all.”
I stood up to leave, but she put a hand on my wrist to stop me. “You said Dierdre and her friend were planning to break into your house on Friday?”
I’d almost forgotten about that part in the midst of all the revelations we’d just been discussing. I nodded.
“And you’ll be at work that day?”
“I will be.”
“How would you feel about having some short-term houseguests while you’re away? I’d very much like to see the look on Dierdre Miller’s face when I catch her red-handed in the middle of a break and enter.”
A small grin tipped up the corner of my mouth. “I think that could potentially be arranged.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
It was almost eleven o’clock when I left the police station, and part of me questioned whether it would be a good idea to call Rich so late. I didn’t want to seem like I was propositioning him, which I worried a late-night call might suggest. We’d just had dinner together for the first time earlier that day, and I’d been so weird about things that I wondered if we’d ever have a second one.
Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone and apologize to him for being so weird at the diner—without explaining the whole witch part of things—and also ask him if he’d heard anyone chatting behind my shop tonight. I worried if I left my questions until morning, he might have brushed aside any memory of hearing anything.
Sooner was always better in terms of something as fickle as memory.
Plus, Rich seemed to burn the midnight oil as a part of his job. I had a very good feeling it was typical for him to be awake at this time of night.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket I dialed his number, which he’d given me during our walk to the diner. It rang a few times, and with each subsequent ring I started to feel more and more guilty about calling, when on the fourth ring he picked up.
“Don’t you have an early shift, Phoebe Winchester?”
“Keeping track of my schedule, Rich Lofting?”
“Ah, see. I knew you’d get used to calling me Rich. Though, admittedly, it was a bit of a kick to hear Ricky again after such a long time.”
“I can keep calling you Ricky, if you want.”
“I do not.”
“Rich it is.”
“Wonderful. To what do I owe this late evening call? Everything okay at the store?”
It hadn’t even occurred to me that he might think I was calling for his help with the shop, but come to think of it, it was nice to know there was someone living so close in case something did happen that I might need help with.
“No.” Then it occurred to me that yes, something had happened at the shop, which was why I was calling him. “Actually, yes—er, maybe? I’m not sure. Look, I’m like two minutes away, do you think you could meet me in the parking spot behind the shop?”
“Color me curious with the yes-no-maybe routine. I’ll be right down.” He hung up without saying goodbye, and when I pulled into the space behind the store a moment later, he was sitting on the back stoop, a shawl-neck black cardigan wrapped around his shoulders.
Before I could get out, he climbed into the passenger seat. “I should have brought my jacket—it’s crisp out there.” He held his hands up to the heating vent on my front dash. “All right, what’s up with your maybe-sort-of issue? Store looks good to me.” He gestured toward the dark, locked shop. “I’d hear if the alarm went off, you know.”
“I didn’t think about that, but it’s good to know. Is paying attention to my alarm part of the deal Eudora cut you on your rent?”
“No, it was more of a friends and family thing we had going.”
“Fair enough,” I chuckled. “Have you been home all night?”
“Mostly. Ran to Lansing’s after our meal to get a few things I needed, but home after that. Why?”
I gave him an abbreviated version of what had happened when I’d returned to the shop after my visit with Honey. It was hard to tell what was going on with him—I couldn’t see his expression because of how dark the car was—but from the dim green glow of my dashboard light, he seemed to be deep in thought.
“I mean, I was watching TV in the living room, which is over Main, so if they were talking at normal volume, I wouldn’t have heard much. I don’t recall seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary.”
“Did you hear anything out of the ordinary the night Ox died?” I suddenly wished very badly I’d thought to grab a Truth Be Told scone to offer him before asking. I trusted Rich, or at least I wanted to. But a small part of me still couldn’t fully let my questions go.
Rich’s smile was tight. “No, because I wasn’t home when it happened. Which I already told you.” He let out a long sigh. “Let me tell you something about Carl Bullock, okay?”
This was a surprise statement because I didn’t think Rich was going to give me anything I didn’t already know, especially not after I’d essentially grilled him as a suspect. “My friends in the PD, the ones who shared his name, they also told me why he spent so much time in prison. And it was exactly what you’d imagine for a guy breaking into your shop, Phoebe. Larceny. Grand larceny. Fraud. Writing a ton of bad checks. He wasn’t a great guy. And while I don’t think he deserved to die, I think you’re reading too much into all this. Bad people work with other bad people, and things go wrong. I know you want to be able to turn this into a grand scheme that has something to do with Eudora, but I think it’s just dishonor among thieves.”
I’d been considering asking him about George Bullock and what I’d learned about Eudora tonight, but after his little speech I was pretty sure he might think I was just trying to further insert myself into the investigation.
“If it was your store, you’d be thinking about it too,” I said quietly.
He reached across the seat and took my hand in his, surprising me. “I’m sorry. I think that came out more harshly than I meant it to. All I’m trying to say is that guys like Carl run with a bad crowd, and chances are he just trusted the wrong person. I think this is just a robbery gone wrong.”
“Then why were they talking about breaking into my house?” I asked, unable to let that part of the conversation go.
“You said one of them was Dierdre, right?”
“I’m almost totally sure.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but that might not even have anything to do with the murder. In all likelihood, your aunt had something Dierdre thought belonged to her, and she’s not going to let it go until she gets it back. You said you told Detective Martin?”
“Yes.”
“Then you did the right thing. Phoebe, I know this isn’t what you want to hear because you want to help solve this, but let Detective Martin do her job. Dierdre Miller is a pain in the butt, but she’s not a killer.”
At least that was something he and I agreed on at this point.
The problem was, that only eliminated one person in town from my list of suspects.
I’d thought talking to Rich would put my mind at ease about what I’d heard behind the store, but much like my earlier conversation with Honey, I was only left with more questions.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I could barely sleep the entire night. Every time I would start to drift off, I’d dream I was in the spider’s web again, only this time the spider had Dierdre’s face, and as I struggled to get free of her hold, she used one of her long legs to steal the deeds from me. All the while Rich’s voice was in the background, telling me not to worry about it.
After the third time I woke up, sweating and panting for breath, I decided there wasn’t much point in trying to sleep anymore. It was three in the morning, and my alarm was scheduled to go off at six. I definitely had no intention of going for another early run, especially not after what had happened last time.
Not liking the lingering feeling of the dream, I turned on almost every light in the house, which of course announced to Bob that it was time for breakfast. He headbutted my legs vigorously as I entered the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine.
“No, it’s too early. If I feed you now, you’re going to be starving by the time I get home from work.” Or at least starving in Bob’s terms.
He parked his big furry butt next to his dish and blinked at me with his large yellow eyes, giving an exaggerated yawn.
“No, not yet. You need to wait a couple of hours at least.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then turned and walked out of the room, as if he had no current use for me if I wasn’t going to feed him, and how dare I awaken him from his beauty sleep under false pretenses.
“Well, excuse me, then,” I grumbled.
Phoebe, you’re having conversations with your cat.
Sure, might not be a great sign, but better to talk to a cat than to talk to myself. Probably. Right?
I started the coffee pot brewing, and once I had a full cup, I made my way back into the living room, drawn by an unknown gravitational pull toward the shelf of photo albums. I didn’t recall ever seeing them as a child, but maybe I’d had no interest then in my aunt’s life before me, or what she did in the town when I wasn’t there.
Eudora and I had had an incredible relationship, and she had been like a second mother to me, but I was beginning to realize there were entire chapters in the story of her life that I had no awareness of at all.
Having flipped through the most recent album, I decided to go back to earlier ones. Starting with 2001, I pulled out the book and began to flip through. It held different variations on the same annual traditions I’d seen in other albums, and nothing that seemed out of place or unusual.
Until I found a photo of Leo and Rich sitting on the porch of Lane End House. It was similar to the one taken in 2000 that featured all three of us, but this time around it was just the two of them, both young teenagers, mugging awkwardly for the camera.
Odd that they would have continued to hang out here without me.
Though maybe not. After all, they did live in town and know Eudora well. Maybe it wasn’t that unusual at all. She did offer the illusion of adult supervision while allowing kids to mostly function as free-range individuals. As long as you were home before dinner and didn’t do any serious damage to yourself or the property of others, Eudora considered any activity fair game.
I remembered the one summer we’d built an insane fort out in the woods behind Eudora’s property. It had proper walls and a roof, and we’d spent hours there every summer, making up stories and acting out scenarios that might have been a little babyish for us, but we were still so committed to our childhoods at that point.
I wondered if the fort was still standing. It likely wasn’t in great shape, but we’d put a lot of effort into it, and it had held firm for years. I would have been shocked if Eudora had torn it down. She loved hanging on to things that had emotional resonance, even years after their intended function was gone.
Part of me yearned to put on boots and go look now, but a more logical center of my brain reminded me how insane it would be to wander into the woods in the dark to look for a fort that might not be there at all.
For some reason, I felt like finding it might give me the answer to why Leo and Rich were both acting so suspiciously since I’d been back. Sure, Rich had been a perfect gentleman on the surface, but the coat and his self-directed investigation of the murder were both still raising a lot of questions for me, especially since he seemed so determined to keep me from asking more questions. Sure, he was a private investigator—and a former cop, but he had to know it looked a bit weird to poke his nose into a murder that had happened at his back door.
Not that I wasn’t also sticking my nose where it didn’t belong …
These men had been my friends once upon a time, but a lot had changed over the last twenty years. We’d lived different lives and become complicated and messy adults. These men weren’t the same boys I’d known when we had been younger. I certainly wasn’t the same.
I put the photo album back on the shelf and found another. This one had pictures of a trip Eudora had taken to Darjeeling that year, with her posed in front of beautiful mountain vistas, the fog clinging to the green hills like a smoky shawl. The mighty Himalayan mountains looked small and unimposing in the backdrop, but I knew later in the album there would be photos of her trek to Everest Base Camp.
Before that, though, were images she’d captured of women picking the early buds of the famous Darjeeling tea. She’d written a note next to a close-up of the buds that read First flush. I remembered that after the trip, she’d wanted to tell me how much she’d learned about the process of picking the tea buds through various seasons and how it changed the flavor of the resulting teas, but now, years later, I couldn’t recall any of that wisdom.
I continued to flip, relishing the photos of Eudora bundled up against the elements. Her cheeks pink, and the hair sticking out of her beanie was touched with frost, but behind her were the most incredible mountain vistas imaginable.
People teased her about only going as far as Base Camp, and not climbing the whole mountain, but she would remind them that some dreams are smaller than others but just as valid. She had no interest in risking her life or paying tens of thousands of dollars just to say she’d done something.
For Eudora, the real trip had been to Darjeeling, to learn about the tea and its cultivation. Everest just happened to be nearby, so she thought she’d check out one of the world wonders while she was there.
It was a very Eudora way to experience the world: tea first, always.
Just flipping through the book brought me an unexpected amount of peace. For the time being, however short, it felt like Eudora was still here, and none of the mess I was going through now was really happening. She’d walk in any minute, give me a big hug, and tell me she would take care of it, because that’s what Eudora did.
She took care of things.
I was almost disappointed that Honey had told me that the things I felt were just memories, not Eudora’s actual ghost. If anyone was going to haunt this house, I had hoped it might be my aunt.
The album passed into the summer months, and once again, to my surprise, there was a photo of Leo and Rich on the porch. They were starting to fill out more, and this time they weren’t sitting on the steps. Leo leaned awkwardly against one of the porch pillars, and Rich’s long limbs were draped over the porch railing. They both tried to project a too-cool-for-this air, but weren’t quite settled enough in their teen bodies to be able to pull it off without looking a bit silly.
I pulled the photo out and looked at the back, wondering if there might be a clue as to why the portraits kept appearing and why the boys kept hanging out here without me.
The only thing written on the back was Leo and Ricky, Summer 2002.
I closed the album and put it back on the shelf. I was sure if I went through them, the pictures would continue for who knew how long. I supposed, at the very least, it made sense why Rich would turn to Eudora for a place to stay when things went south with his wife. growing up, he’d obviously been closer to her than I’d ever known.
And if that was the case, then could he really have been involved in the murder of someone else she’d known?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
There was no way I’d be able to stop at the lawyer’s office before opening the store, so I would need to wait until Imogen arrived before begging off on a quick break. Likewise, the grocery store was closed when I drove by, meaning I couldn’t go in and grill Leo about why there were so many photos of him in my aunt’s albums, and why he’d been acting so strangely last night.
Perhaps it was for the best, because I could take time to formulate a better line of questioning than just “Hey, why are you being such a weirdo?”
Taking that approach would probably get me shipped out of town pretty quickly, and in spite of everything, I did really want to fit in here.
I also wanted answers, though.
Amy immediately noticed the change in my mood when I went in to get the morning pastry. “That’s a mighty dark cloud hanging over you.” She started to make me a latte without even being asked. I probably looked even worse than I felt, considering my limited and uneasy sleep last night.
“Amy, who do you pay your rent to?” The question tumbled out of my mouth without my being able to stop it. I should have kept my cards close to my vest, but I truly did trust Amy, and I didn’t think she had anything to do with the plot to take the deeds away.
“Well, it’s an automatic withdrawal from my business account on the first of every month to a company that manages most of the businesses on the block. I’m sure Eudora’s lease is set up the same way. It’s probably all been automated to come from her business finances.”
So, Amy clearly didn’t know it was Eudora who owned her building. Interesting.
“What’s the name of the management company?”
“Mountain View Management.”
“And you said they own most of the places nearby?”
Amy gave me a strange look, but said, “Mm-hmm. You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?”
