Motion for Malice (27 page)

Maizy nodded. "I'll come by after school and help you get started." She powered down her tablet and stuck it in her bag with a sigh. "I hate this. How did we get here?"

What I hated was the feeling that we must have missed something along the way. In my gut, I knew that no stranger had killed Dorcas. She'd given too many people too many reasons to bash her in the head with her crystal ball. Which meant it had to be one of the people we'd suspected all along. But who? And what had we missed?

"Our chances were always slim," I reminded her. "We're not trained detectives. We did our best."

"Are we giving up?" Her voice was small and sounded disappointed.

"I can't think of where to go next," I said. "Can you?"

She was quiet for a moment. "I can look for Aunt Pittypat."

I shook my head. "What's the point? If she's real, Tippi's off the hook. If she's not, we don't know where they went anyway."

"I don't want you to go to jail," she said stubbornly. "You're my best friend."

I blinked, surprised and touched. Before she could see me getting teary, I told her, "Brody Amherst doesn't know what he's missing."

"Yeah, he does." She grinned. "I told him yesterday."

Maizy was going to be just fine.

It was getting dark by the time I'd dropped Maizy off at home, and it had started to snow. It made me almost glad I was done with chasing down suspects. I looked forward to tucking myself under a blanket and parking it in front of the television for the night. I didn't want to think about anything but sitcoms and game shows for a few hours.

Then I remembered I was supposed to have dinner with Curt. I was shocked to realize I didn't really want company. I wanted to eat cereal in solitude, and not healthy cereal either. Something sugary and bad for me, something that would put me back on familiar ground and make me stop feeling like a failure who ate cereal for dinner.

Decision made, I pulled over to the curb and shot Curt a quick text.
Rain check on dinner?
His reply came fast.
No problem. Held up in Newark anyway. Everything OK?

Talk about a loaded question. Everything wasn't okay, but I didn't want to dump my inadequacies on Curt. It wasn't his problem I'd run into a brick wall. Not until I needed bail money, anyway. I sighed and wrote back.
All good. Just need some bonding time with Ashley.
I shut off the phone and slid it into my bag. There. Now the night was wide open for Cap'n Crunch and Bert Convy.

*   *   *

Around eight o'clock, just as Steve Harvey was signing off on
Family Feud
, my doorbell rang. Gently, I transferred Ashley from my lap onto the recliner, where she curled up in a ball and went back to sleep. Life was good for Ashley. I was smiling when I went to open the door, surprised to see Dorcas's sister, Deirdre, huddled on my stoop. "Can I come in?" Her voice was muffled behind the scarf wrapped around her face. "I'm afraid to go back to Weaver's, and I don't know anyone else in the area."

She didn't know me, either, but I could hardly leave her out in the cold. I held the door for her, and she came in, unwrapping herself as she moved. I pointed, and she followed me into the kitchen, hanging her things on a chair and taking a seat. Her face was pale and she was shaky, whether from the cold or fear, I couldn't tell.

I filled two mugs with hot water and put them in the microwave. "Tea or hot chocolate?" I asked her.

"Tea would be great." She rubbed her hands together and blew on them.

After two minutes I brought the mugs to the table along with a teabag for her and packet of hot chocolate for me. After I'd set out sugar and milk, I sat across from her. I still didn't know what had brought her to my door. "How did you find me?" I asked.

She anchored her teabag in the mug with a teaspoon. "It wasn't so hard. You've been all over the papers lately."

And they said no one read newspapers anymore. I felt heat creeping into my face. "Weren't you planning to go back home?"

"I was." She sighed. "But Weaver convinced me to stay a while longer." She looked up at me with Dorcas's eyes. It gave me a start. "He's afraid of his brother," she said bluntly. "He doesn't want to be alone with him. Honestly, neither do I. He's got such a temper."

My breath caught in my throat. "But I was told Seaver went back to New York."

"Were you?" She fished the teabag from her mug, laid it carefully on a napkin, and spooned sugar into her tea. "Who told you that?"

I shook my head. "Doesn't matter." A chill crept up my spine, making me shiver. "I don't trust Seaver," I blurted out.

"You shouldn't," she said without hesitation. "He knows you're looking into my sister's death. I think you could be in danger."

"What do you mean?"

"You suspect him, don't you?" She blew on her tea and took a sip. "He seems to think you do."

Suddenly I couldn't sit still. Did Seaver know where I lived, too? Clutching my mug, I got up and moved into the living room, surprised to find Ashley had abandoned the recliner and was nowhere in sight. I bent to refold the blanket left rumpled in her wake, glancing out the window as I straightened.

A black SUV was parked at the curb. Seaver had found me.

My heart rate skyrocketed in a millisecond. I couldn't swallow, and spots danced in front of my eyes.

Deirdre started laughing.

I spun around, and she was close behind me, way too close. Breathe-down-my-neck close. Worse, dowdy grieving Deirdre was gone, replaced by a maniac with hard glinting eyes.

"Look familiar?" Even her voice had changed. It had a cutting edge to it now. "You've seen it before."

"That's Seaver's SUV," I said.

"Nice try. Now try Seaver's been driving my SUV." She grinned at me, the sort of grin an alligator gives a gazelle at the water's edge.

Suddenly I knew what I'd been missing. I'd been so fixated on Seaver being the SUV's owner that I'd completely glossed over his mention of Deirdre driving over the bridge to get to her sister's house. Yet Deirdre had claimed to have made plans to fly home. Such a small anomaly, I hadn't given it any thought. Now I wished I had. Now I'd like to have another fifty years or so to give it some thought. I only hoped I had that long.

"You weren't here to support Weaver at all," I said, unable to keep the accusation out of my voice. "You didn't even ride in the funeral limousine with him."

"That had nothing to do with Weaver," she snapped. "I refused to ride with his idiot brother, always poking and prodding into my plans. My plans were to get the money out of Oak Grove and disappear."

The money Seaver must have taken. Naturally Weaver would have known it was there.

I took a step to the right, putting the recliner between us. "That was
you
in Oak Grove?" My voice had shot up a few registers. I sounded like a cartoon character.

"That was me." She sounded proud of it. "Thanks for coming along when you did. But you almost came too soon." She shook her head. "As it turned out, your timing was perfect. For me, if not for my dear departed sister."

I stared at her with equal parts horror and rage. "You killed your own sister?"

"Was that wrong?" She rolled her eyes to the ceiling in mock consideration. "What are you supposed to do when your sister fails to make distribution of your parents' estate and blows your share, your
million dollars,
on idiotic mall huts?" Her jaw muscles were flexing, her nostrils flaring. She looked like a feral animal.

So it
was
about money, after all. "But Dorcas made plenty of money," I said. "Couldn't she have paid you back in time?"

She snorted. "How naive are you? The psychic business was
my
idea, not hers. I was the brains behind Destinies with Dorcas."

It seemed to me that the brains could have found a more lucrative location. Unless Deirdre had planned to kill her sister all along and had deliberately picked the studio because of its lousy location. That thought was too horrible to consider.

"My little cash cow didn't appreciate anything I did for her," Deirdre muttered. "I have a lifestyle to maintain, and she was planning to go straight and get a
job."

"And leave Weaver for Artemis Angle," I muttered.

Deidre's eyes widened slightly. "Have you
seen
Artemis Angle? I'd give my left leg to be with that hottie."

I'd
give her left leg for her to be with that hottie. I was pretty sure I could get away from a one-legged nut job, no problem. Right now, the recliner was between her and me, but she was between me and the door. Which left me no option but to keep yammering until an opportunity to escape presented itself. "Why try so hard to frame me?" I asked. "It might have gone unsolved. Murders do sometimes, you know."

"I'm counting on it," she said frostily.

Whoops.

"The least you can do is tell me why," I said. "I've been through a lot because of you. I lost my job because of this."

"Don't be such a baby," she snapped. "I wanted a patsy, and you were there. No one would ever believe that Weaver would kill his wife. That man was born spineless. But I knew as soon as I saw you what I would do. And you made it so easy for me. Thanks for giving me the photo op, by the way. I got a lot of mileage out of that."

"Not as much as you wanted," I said with venom. "I wasn't arrested."

"True." Her mouth puckered. "That's why I had to keep piling on. The police can be so dense." She giggled wildly. "You really did your best to help me out, you know. When I saw you going into Destinies, I just knew you had to touch something there and leave fingerprints. And of course I knew you'd find her body. Then when you introduced yourself at the wake, and your name appeared in the paper, well, what else could I do. You practically volunteered for the job. No hard feelings."

No hard feelings?
No hard feelings?
This woman was certifiable. There was nothing
but
hard feelings. Along with some terror. A lot of terror. Breath-stealing terror.

Deirdre reached casually into her pocket and pulled out a choker chain and leash. Chandler's leash. "Thank God your conscience finally led you to suicide," she said blandly.

"I'm not committing suicide," I told her.

"Of course you're not." She smiled serenely. "Not without my help." And she whipped out an ugly looking little gun.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no…

I heard a faint clicking sound coming from the foyer and my heart lifted. That sound could only mean one thing. Seconds later, the doorbell rang, and someone sneezed.

Deirdre's head snapped toward the foyer, her lips tightening.

"Jamie!" It was Wally. Wonderful Wally, with his phony tattoos and awful dye job and passing knowledge of criminal law. "I know you're in there, I see your car in the drive. Let me in. I'll just be a minute!"

Not if I could help it. If I had something to say about it, he'd settle in for a two-week stay. I looked at Deidre. "It's my boss," I told her.

"You don't have a boss," she snapped. "You've been fired."

"Well, he won't go away," I said. Fingers crossed. "And if he keeps yelling like that, someone is bound to call the police."

She looked at the door uncertainly. "Fine. Let him in. But do
not
try anything funny."

No chance of that. There wasn't a single funny thing about this situation. She jingled the choker chain in my direction when I passed, a grim reminder that I'd better get this right.

Wally was shaking and sneezing and sniffling on the landing. Because Wally was wearing only a hoodie sweatshirt and a pair of baggy cargo shorts. The hair poking out from under the hood was an uneven mix of blond and brown. His nose was bright red.

"Get in here!" I yanked his arm, and he stumbled inside. "Why are you dressed for spring? Don't you know it's snowing?"

"I'm being cool," he said. His teeth were chattering. "Sherri likes cool."

"Sherri likes alive and breathing." I pulled him into the kitchen. "We've got to warm you up. Sit down."

Wally hesitated when he noticed Deirdre behind me. "I didn't know you had company." And he sneezed once.

"She's not company," I snapped. "She won't mind if you warm up for a while." I glared at her. "Will you?"

"Of course not. I'll even help you." Pleasant, frumpy Deirdre was back. She followed us into the kitchen, taking a seat in the chair closest to the doorway. "What can I do?"

She could drop dead. I bit my lip hard. Probably not a good idea to say that aloud, what with the gun and everything. I peeked over at her. No sign of the gun, or the leash and chain. She looked like any other dowdy housewife slash head case.

"You could try to put the top up on my 'Vette," Wally told her, sniffling. "If you wouldn't mind."

"Aren't you cute," Deirdre said without a trace of a smile. "But I'm not going anywhere tonight."

I turned to stare at Wally. "You're driving a convertible Corvette with the
top down?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was going to impress Sherri." He shrugged. "Then it started snowing." He sneezed again.

Geez. This guy was my savior?

"I think it's stuck," Wally said. "I called AAA but they're kind of backed up, what with the weather."

"No problem." I slapped a mug of hot water in front of him. Very hot water. So hot he'd have to wait awhile for it to cool to drink it. "Have some hot chocolate."

"I can't have chocolate," Wally said. "I'm allergic to it."

Of course he was.

"I just need your opinion." He stuck his leg out and dug around in the pocket of his shorts. The tiny rose tattoo sticker was gone. In its place was a larger black trident. Finally, Wally was getting the idea. Hopefully it wasn't too late. He opened his hand over the table and a half dozen diamond engagement rings fell out and lay sparkling in the overhead light.

Deirdre sucked in a sharp breath.

I sighed. "Wally, what did you do now?"

He looked confused. "I bought six rings. I'll take five of them back. Which one do you think she'd like the best?"