Poison and Party Hats, page 29
She couldn’t hide her disdain for my cousins, so I wondered how accurate her account was, or if she was just happy to trash-talk because she didn’t like them. I already knew from Norman Peters that the town’s impression of a person could be wildly different from the truth, so I had to take what she said with a grain of salt.
Besides, until I came back to Shongoloo, she probably said the same things about me. People around here didn’t take kindly to anyone who might wear designer clothes or have dreams of traveling abroad. That was enough to get you funny looks, so could I really trust her judgment?
Bad investments and money problems would explain why the twins were so upset about the inheritance, though. The money from the shop or the sale of the house might be what they needed to get out of their hole—assuming there was one.
Ollie abruptly plopped down in the grass, his back legs splayed out behind him while he panted hard enough to shake the dandelions in front of him.
“I think that means the walk’s over,” I said, silently thanking Ollie for giving me a way out of this conversation. Christie seemed like the kind of person who’d happily talk my ear off all day.
“I’ll bet he’s thirsty, aren’t you, Ollie?” Christie cooed, bending down to pet him. “I’ll keep an eye out for vandals and tell the others too,” she added with a wave.
Back at the house, Ollie went straight for his water bowl, but I stopped in the living room, the hairs on my arm prickling. Something felt off. There was so much stuff everywhere that I’d never know if something was moved, but I got the distinct impression that things were not exactly as I’d left them. Did I really leave all those cabinet doors open after pulling things out?
Calm down, I told myself. It was just leftover jitters from the night before. The longer I stayed in Shongoloo, the more paranoid I got. I’d been running myself ragged, my brain constantly in overdrive; it was bound to take a toll eventually. I needed a reboot. Some brain-off relaxation time. There was still so much to do that it felt wrong to take time for myself, but I knew from experience that pushing myself past my breaking point would only be worse in the long run.
I also knew what Aunt Eliza would say. When I was still applying for schools and under the pressure of constant deadlines for the first time, I nearly threw in the towel. I’d expected way too much of myself, and when I couldn’t meet my unreasonable expectations, I took it as evidence that I wasn’t cut out to be a writer. Eliza didn’t try to talk me down from the ledge or tell me I was wrong—I could be just as bad about digging in my heels and doubling down as she was—she only had one suggestion for me: take a pajama day.
Just one day of sitting around in my pajamas, watching bad movies and being a couch potato. If I still felt like I wanted to quit after that, she’d promised she wouldn’t stand in my way. Surprisingly, it had worked, and that pajama day was only the first of many that got me through journalism school. It’d been years since I had one. Part of me felt like I’d outgrown them. But I could almost hear Aunt Eliza in my ear telling me not to give up yet. Take a pajama day.
“Fine, you win,” I said to one of her pictures on the wall. “Just for you.” She smiled back at me, and I quickly choked back tears, pulling myself away before I could get overwhelmed.
I took a quick shower to rinse off from my walk with Ollie, then put on my coziest pajamas. If someone had told me a couple of weeks ago that I’d be putting my pajamas on in the middle of the afternoon, I never would’ve believed them. It felt nice, though. It felt empowering to see the sun still high in the sky and be able to say no, that’s enough. Today is over. Maybe this town was starting to change me more than I realized. Was lightening up such a bad thing?
With a big bowl of extra buttery popcorn, I took my favorite spot on the couch and found a fluffy romcom to mindlessly watch. Ollie immediately jumped up next to me, trying to snuggle against my leg. I gave him a nudge toward the opposite side of the couch. “Go over there. I don’t want your hair in my popcorn.” He went to the other end, then started pawing at one of the throw pillows until it tumbled over the arm and onto the floor. Finally, he circled in the same spot until lying down with a heavy sigh.
Such a drama queen.
Twenty minutes into the movie, I realized I had no idea what was going on. There was nothing wrong with it—the premise sounded cute, the acting wasn’t terrible, and it had decent reviews—I just couldn’t focus. Despite my intention to turn my brain off, it kept whirring. I couldn’t stop questioning why I was still here.
Sure, I had plenty of plausible reasons, plenty that served as perfectly good explanations, but none that rang true. I could tell myself I was sticking around to solve Eliza’s murder, but according to the sheriff’s office, there was no murder to solve. Were Julian and Deputy Boudreaux right about me looking for trouble where there was none? I’d been reporting crimes and digging into cold cases for so many years that it was all I knew. And when you were a hammer, every problem looked like a nail, right?
As the movie went on in the background, Ollie inched his way to my end of the couch, bit by bit. He thought he was sneaky, waiting until I wasn’t looking to scooch over a little more. He had to press his luck, though. Once he was close enough, he tried resting his head in my lap.
“Too far,” I said, nudging him back.
Maybe I was just hoping there was a mystery here because it was a good distraction from facing the reality that my beloved aunt was really gone. If Eliza’s death wasn’t suspicious and I kept poking and prodding, trying to make it something more, I was going to make myself a laughingstock. Who’d want to read my articles then?
Was this really the case I wanted to stake my career on?
As the end credits rolled, I got an email from Alicia—there was now an official offer on the shop, and she needed a response from me. I sighed, staring at the screen for a long time. Ollie army crawled across the middle cushion, nosing at the popcorn bowl, giving me those sad, pitiful eyes.
“Think the universe is trying to tell me something?” I asked, flicking a piece of popcorn his way. He inhaled it in a second, then turned back on high alert for another. This offer could be my ticket out of here. I could wipe my hands of this whole affair and be on my way.
But would I be able to live with myself if I did?
Chapter 18
I watched three more movies on my pajama day, but by the time I dragged myself to bed, I wasn’t any closer to a decision. It wasn’t until the light of a new day that I felt any sort of certainty about my choice.
Whether or not there was something criminal about Eliza’s death wasn’t for me to decide. Even if I did ‘solve’ it, it wouldn’t matter if the police and prosecutors didn’t think there was a crime. And I didn’t want to think about how long it could take to make any progress on that front considering how condescending Boudreaux had been so far. All the while, I’d have my life on hold, my job figuring out how to replace me, and this town making me forget who I was.
Enough was enough. This was a job for the officials. I had to make Deputy Boudreaux see my side of things, one way or another. And once the sheriff’s office took up the case, I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about selling everything and going back to New York. And I was sure if I laid all my notes and evidence out for him that he’d at least consider it.
With a foot in the door, I could convince anyone.
I paced back and forth in the kitchen while rehearsing what I planned to say. “Here goes nothing,” I muttered, tapping the call button. The person who answered the main line put me right through to Deputy Boudreaux’s desk, and when he picked up, he almost sounded happy to hear from me.
“Miss Layton!” he answered, awfully cheerful considering how our last encounter went. “Haven’t had any more trouble, have you?”
“I ... uh ... no,” I stammered, caught off-guard by his exuberance. “I wanted to talk to you about—”
“Have you had lunch?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Lunch,” he repeated. “I haven’t had mine yet. If you want to talk, I’ll be at Speedy’s in ... about fifteen minutes.”
I was so confused by this new attitude from him that I was speechless for a moment. Was this some kind of trick? What was he getting at? Briefly, I was annoyed that he stopped me from giving my practiced speech, but after considering it, I figured it would be a lot harder to brush me off if we were face to face. “All right,” I finally said, forming a new plan of attack.
Ollie was asleep, and I prayed he would stay that way and I could run over to the diner by myself. I didn’t plan to be gone long. Before I left, I printed off my notes and theories, tucking it all away in a yellow envelope. I didn’t think it took me fifteen minutes to gather everything and get to the diner, but Deputy Boudreaux was already there, in one of the booths with a cup of coffee in front of him.
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and marched right over, braced for a difficult conversation. My butt had barely touched the seat when my mouth started going. “I’ve been looking more into the night of Eliza’s death, and I’ve found a number of things that I think warrant a second look from law enforcement. Based on the coroner’s report and things some of the witnesses have said, I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as you’ve been saying, and—”
“I agree,” he said, shutting me up real fast.
“I ... you ... what?” He’d been fighting me every step of the way, butting heads with me, and now all he had to say for himself was I agree?!
“I’ve spoken to Serena about her findings and talked it over with the sheriff. We’re opening a case. I’m still waiting on fingerprints from the paint can I found in your yard the other night—is that for me?” he asked, reaching over to take the yellow folder out of my hands.
“My notes,” I said, dumbfounded by the quick about-face. “I thought they could help.”
He nodded, flipping through them with a thoughtful expression. “I’m happy to take them, but you need to leave this to me now,” he said.
I didn’t appreciate his superior tone, but I knew to quit while I was ahead. I was getting what I wanted, and that was all that mattered. I was more than happy to leave the investigation in his hands—I’d been trying to do that all along, he just didn’t want to do anything—and I could rest a lot easier knowing the sheriff’s office was taking it more seriously.
“Happy to,” I said, standing. “I hope you find whoever did this.”
“Will you be going back to New York, then?”
“Looks that way. There’s someone interested in buying the shop, so that’s another thing taken care of.”
He nodded, drinking his coffee. “Town sure will be a lot quieter without you.”
I didn’t know if he meant that as an insult or a compliment, but I wasn’t interested in following up. With any luck, I’d never have to speak to Deputy Boudreaux again.
Leaving the diner, I made my way back to the Dip & Clip to get things prepped for the final sale. The moment I opened the front door, Darla poked her head out from the back. She must have been waiting for me because she hurried right out, her face pulled into a concentrated frown.
“Is it true?” It was more of an accusation than a question. “Are you selling the shop?”
I hadn’t told anyone other than Deputy Boudreaux, and somehow the word was already out. Had the news spread that fast? It didn’t seem possible.
“There’s an official offer on the shop, and it seems very likely that I’ll accept it, yes. But you shouldn’t worry. I’m sure the new owner will keep you on. Your job’s safe.”
Darla scoffed, folding her arms over her chest. “Easy for you to say. What do you even know about this buyer?”
That gave me pause. “The offer didn’t come with their biography or anything,” I said, clearly deflecting.
“Uh-huh,” Darla answered, unimpressed. “Do me a favor and at least look into this person, would you? Eliza would care about whose hands it ends up in. You should too.”
I hated that she’d found the shortcut to my guilty conscience. I didn’t want anything to jeopardize the deal going through, but I also couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Eliza’s legacy fall into the hands of someone who wanted to tear it down or ruin her reputation. “I’ll ask the realtor,” I said, pushing past Darla to the office.
When Eliza left me all of this, did she know it would be such a pain to deal with?
She probably didn’t expect you to sell, a voice in the back of my head said. That didn’t help with the guilt that was bubbling up in me. Surely she couldn’t have expected me to keep the grooming business, right? She knew me better than that.
Alicia texted me back pretty quickly with the name of the prospective buyer, and I forwarded the information to a friend of mine at the magazine who was a wizard with background checks. He could work on that while I combed through Eliza’s paperwork one more time for something I’d missed.
A few hours later, my friend sent over a huge file that took ages to download. He went so much deeper into the background check than I would’ve even known to go. And lucky for me he did. The mysterious buyer Alicia had found was the head of an LLC that’s only purpose seemed to be acting as a legitimate front to a shady business. One that pointed right back to my loan shark pal. It was a pretty good reason to back out of the deal, even if I didn’t know what the angle was.
Eliza didn’t have trouble with money. That much I knew.
And I also knew who did.
The light bulb in my head clicked. The loan shark wasn’t Eliza’s problem, he was the twins.’ They were the ones up to their eyeballs in bad investments, according to Christie. If they’d gone to Eliza with their problems, she would’ve helped them. Was that why she was selling the house?
The pieces were starting to come together, but there was still one big, gaping hole I couldn’t reconcile—if Eliza was selling the house to pay off the twins’ debt, why would she cut them out of the will?
Chapter 19
Alicia was disappointed that I wanted to turn down the offer, but she was adamant she could find another buyer in no time. I appreciated the can-do attitude, but I told her there wasn’t as much of a rush. I wasn’t sticking around to wait for the sale anymore. I’d made up my mind to go back to New York as soon as possible, and I wasn’t going to let anything change my decision.
Which meant I really needed to get a move on with packing and sorting Eliza’s things. I wouldn’t be able to sell her house if it was still full of her stuff. There was so much to go through, it felt like I’d never reach the end of it.
Ollie didn’t help matters either. In the back of Eliza’s closet, buried behind long-forgotten boxes, he found an abandoned squeaky toy. The moment he squeaked it, it was like he’d reunited with a long-lost friend. He ran through the house with it, squeak-squeak-squeaking the whole way, then he brought it to me and dropped it at my feet.
“Why can’t you keep playing by yourself?”
He nosed the toy closer until it touched my foot, wet and cold from his saliva.
There was no way I was picking that slimy thing up. “Why don’t you go outside?” I tried, leading him to the door. He didn’t need me to open it with the dog door there, but sometimes he needed a reminder that he could go out. He wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. “Go on,” I said, gesturing to the dog door flap.
I frowned, brows furrowing. The corner of the flap was curled up, not closed all the way. The hairs on my arm stood up, and I rubbed my hands up and down them to get rid of that familiar uneasy feeling that someone had been in the house while I was gone. Ollie felt something was weird too, staring at the dog flap with his hackles raised, his lips curling back to bare his teeth. I took a look around, trying to put my finger on what was off. Nothing was missing that I could tell, not that I’d know it with all of Eliza’s things strewn everywhere. But if someone had come in, I doubted my neat piles would’ve remained intact.
Maybe I should’ve put cameras on the house after the vandalism incident. At least then I could prove to myself that I was just being paranoid. I wasn’t going to be here much longer, though. The unsettling feeling could be a problem for the next owner to deal with. I bent down and pushed the flap open for Ollie and he darted out, forgetting all about his apprehension.
As I worked my way through Eliza’s belongings, I shifted my focus from all of the personal things over to what I thought could easily sell. I knew that most of her things would likely wind up being donated to thrift shops and shelters, but Eliza was an avid collector of all kinds of things, and I didn’t want to give away something valuable without doing the research on it first. Once all these sales were finalized, I was going to have a hell of a tax bill with Uncle Sam, and I figured any extra dollars I could write off from donations would be worth the time it took to do a few Google searches.
In her lighted curio cabinets, there was everything from small crystal figurines to incredible hand-blown artistic vases. In the cabinets below, there were full sets of delicate china that I knew would fetch a pretty penny. And then I saw something that made me stop what I was doing, my heart jumping to my throat.
The dust rings under some of the china sets didn’t match up with where they were. They’d been moved—very recently. Was it a coincidence that the out-of-place things just so happened to be the things worth the most? Or had someone been in this house, scoping out the valuables?
The partially closed dog flap popped back in my mind, along with Ollie’s weirdness about it. The dog door was just high enough that someone could probably reach through and unlock the back door if they were really motivated. But if someone had come through the back, that meant… Ollie! I jumped up, hurrying to fling open the back door. Just as I feared, the gate was wide open. How could that have happened unless someone had been in the backyard?
