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There was no use beating around the bush, so I got right down to business. “I want to thank you by offering you the truth,” I said. “And the truth begins with the fact that you’re all suspects in Brad Wyant’s death.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Gloria sniffed.

“You’re plum out of yer mind,” Chase hollered.

“I didn’t do it.” Jenny Tucker clutched her hands over her heart. “I wish I did. I swear, I wish I’d had the nerve. But I didn’t kill him.”

I shushed them by holding out my hands. “I kind of figured you’d all say that. But if we look at this thing objectively… well… there’s been a whole lot happening this week, and it’s taken me a while to figure out that some of it is related to Brad’s death and some of it isn’t. The trick has been getting everything sorted out. What it comes down to, of course, are those phony Geronimo buttons.”

“Told you the guy was a no-good snake in the grass,” Chase rumbled.

“You did,” I admitted. “But let’s not forget that the man who tried to swindle people here at the conference wasn’t Thad Wyant. I didn’t know him, but I’ve been rereading everything he ever wrote about the Geronimo button, and I think I can say this—Thad loved that button too much to ever part with it. No, it was Brad’s idea to sell phony buttons,
start to finish. What I couldn’t figure out, though, is why no one who paid him would come forward to ask for their money back. It didn’t click right away. Not until…” I swung around to face Gloria. “Not until this afternoon, when you accepted the first-place prize in the ivory-button category.”

Gloria’s shoulders shot back. “I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Everything,” I said, interrupting because I was in no mood for more deception and lies. “You said it yourself, Gloria, that afternoon when you were so upset about getting a measle on your tray. You said if people found out you’d been careless, that you hadn’t done your research and you weren’t the expert you pretended to be, you said they’d think less of you, that they’d stop inviting you to speak at meetings and conferences. That’s why you did it, Gloria. That’s why you stole the trays from the contest.”

Her jaw dropped. Her mouth opened and closed. “You can’t possibly know—” Gloria bit off the rest of what she was going to say.

But that was enough to confirm my suspicion. “You did it so you could switch out the bone button on your tray for an ivory button, so you wouldn’t be disqualified. You couldn’t stand the thought that anyone would see a measle on your tray.”

“Honestly!” This was Helen, so filled with outrage that her voice was shrill. “Cheating in a button contest. It’s unheard of!”

“It’s not like I hurt anyone.” Gloria folded her beefy arms over her ample chest. Her chins wobbled. “If anyone found out I’d made such a stupid mistake… I couldn’t let that happen.” She was not an attractive woman, and the gaze she leveled at the people gathered in the Button Box was anything
but friendly. “If any one of you opens your mouth and word of this gets out—”

“What are you going to do, Gloria?” Langston demanded. “Kill all of us, just like you killed Brad Wyant?”

“I never did.” Gloria leaped from her chair. She was nearly as tall as Langston and had at least a good sixty pounds on him, and I didn’t even like to think what would happen if things got to the smackdown stage. Good thing Kaz kept a level head and got up, gently putting a hand on Gloria’s arm and guiding her back to where she belonged.

“Well, I certainly didn’t kill him.” Langston picked a piece of lint from his impeccable gray pants and flicked it away. “Though I will admit…” When he reached into the breast pocket of his houndstooth jacket, his lips were as puckered as if he’d just bit into a lemon. He brought out his checkbook. “I’ve got the receipt for the bank withdrawal here. I’ll admit it, Josie. I was one of the people who agreed to buy the Geronimo button.”

I breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving. Finally, we were getting somewhere!

Rather than let anyone know how relieved I was that my little scheme was working, I kept my voice even. “I thought so,” I said. “But then, that’s because I know how smart you are, Langston. You knew a good business deal when you saw one.”

“That’s exactly what it was.” The look Langston threw around the circle wasn’t exactly condescending. After all, he depended on button collectors for his livelihood. It was more perceptive and just a little sympathetic. “I wasn’t as enamored of that button as the rest of you. But then, I don’t have buttons in my blood. When the man I thought was Thad Wyant contacted me and asked if I was interested, I said I was. I gave him my money, but I never got the button. He
was supposed to show it at the banquet on Monday night, and he didn’t want anyone to be suspicious. We were going to meet on Tuesday morning, and he was going to turn the button over to me then.”

“And you were going to sell it to the first person you found who would up the ante.”

In response to my comment, Langston gave me one of his sleek smiles. “Like you said, Josie, it was business. I might have been angry at the man for ripping off my booth, but I wasn’t going to let that stand in the way of turning a pretty profit.” He sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “That doesn’t mean I killed him.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t.” Yeah, I was laying my cards on the table. At least some of them. When it comes to strategy, I’m not as hopeless as Stan thinks I am when he beats me at his monthly poker games. Maybe that’s why Stan sat up and gave me an eagle-eye look. “Langston wouldn’t have killed Brad on Monday,” I said, not so much for Stan’s benefit (because I was sure he’d already figured it out), but for that of the rest of my guests. “For him, it was all about business, and he wanted the button. Langston was the buyer Brad had listed as number two, and you heard what he said; he was supposed to meet Brad on Tuesday morning. He wouldn’t have killed Brad before he had the button.”

“Can I get my money back now?” Langston asked. “Tonight?”

I put him off with a smile. “We’ve got a couple more things to take care of first. Like how Jenny here had every reason in the world to hate Thad Wyant.”

“Jenny?” Her eyes squinched for a better look at the woman sitting across the circle from her, Helen leaned forward. “You’re Beth Howell.”

“She was registered for the conference as Beth Howell,”
I explained. “Her real name is Jenny Tucker. She’s Donovan’s mother. Thad Wyant was Donovan’s father.”

Just as I expected, there was a collective gasp from those seated around me. “Jenny was outside the ballroom the night of the banquet because she was following the man she thought was Thad. She wanted him to admit that he was Donovan’s father. And Donovan…” I glanced his way. “When he saw his mother out in the lobby, he was curious. Then the next day, he heard the news about the murder, and put two and two together. He thought she actually might be the killer.”

“Well, that explains it then, doesn’t it?” Helen slapped her hands on her thighs. “We know who did it, and we can be on our way. It’s a busy night, Josie. You know that. There are a lot of people to say good-bye to and a lot of plans that need to be made for next year. You know…” Helen sat up a little straighter. “I’ve been asked to chair the conference in Phoenix. I’m sorry, Josie, but the truth is the truth, and there are people here at the conference who are convinced I’m the only one who can handle a conference this size. You know, without so many…” She chose her words carefully. “Without so many mistakes being made.”

“The mistakes, yeah, we’ll get to those. For now, though, I think it’s important to point out why I don’t think Jenny did it.”

Jenny’s hands curled into tight little fists. “I didn’t. I wish I did. But I didn’t.”

“Of course you didn’t. If he was going to pay you for all those years of missed child support, you needed Thad to be alive and kicking. Once you found out he was dead…”

She hung her head. “I hoped there would be an estate. That Donovan could get part of it. Thad owed him, after all. He was Donovan’s father, and he owed him.”

“That’s why you pretended to be part of the housekeeping staff and searched Brad’s room.” Of course, Jenny knew this, but I mentioned it for the benefit of everyone else. “What were you hoping to find?”

Her shoulders were so slim that when she lifted them, it was barely noticeable. “DNA,” she said. “You know, so I could get it tested.” When she looked up at me, Jenny’s gray eyes sparkled. “I hit the jackpot. You know, those cardboard cards with the buttons on them.”

“Yeah, the cards.” This had confused me from the moment we found the cards in Donovan’s suitcase. “If they were in Brad’s suite—”

“Why didn’t the cops find them?” Jenny laughed. “Sometimes, the cops don’t know everything. Back when I first met Thad, back when things were going… you know, when they were going well for us… we were at a button conference, and we went back to his room one night. The first thing he did was go over to the air conditioner and start fussing with the carpet right under it. The day he checked in, see, he’d made a slit in it, and that’s where he kept his extra money. He told me it was something his mama always did when the family traveled together. Said it was one place nobody would ever look if they came to rob the room.”

“Which explains how Brad knew the hiding place, too.” I nodded. “And that’s where—”

“Where he hid those button cards. Sure.” Jenny laughed. “At first, I thought I could sell those buttons, but then I realized there was something even more valuable on one of those cards. A little spot of Thad’s blood.”

“Only if you’d had it tested, you would have found out it wasn’t Thad after all,” I reminded her.

Jenny frowned. “Son of a bitch cheated me, even after
he was dead. Cheated my son out of everything that should be his.”

“And if Jenny had killed Brad…” Like I said, Langston was smart. He’d already figured out exactly what I was going to mention next. “If she was after DNA and she killed him, she could have had all the blood she wanted. I mean, she could have soaked up some of his blood with one of those hand towels that must have been in the linen room where they found the body. She wouldn’t have needed to go through his room, looking for DNA.”

“Exactly!” I acknowledged his shrewdness with a smile.

“I still don’t see…” Helen made a move to stand up and head for the door.

“About the mistakes, yeah.” Since I planted myself right in front of her, there was really no place she could go, and she plopped back in her seat.

“Everything that went wrong at the conference—that’s what got me thinking. That is, after Donovan here showed me what he’d caught on camera the night of the banquet.”

“Not the killer!” Chase shot up like a shot.

“You don’t actually believe anything a man like that filmed.” Helen tsked.

Gloria narrowed her eyes and sent a death look in Donovan’s direction.

“Actually, what Donovan showed me has nothing to do with Brad’s murder. Not directly, anyway. It has everything to do with what’s been going on at this conference to discredit me.”

“You mean purposely?” Helen’s cheeks paled, then shot through with color. “No one would ever do a thing like that! We love you, Josie. You know that.”

“I know there was only one person dressed in pink the Monday of the conference.” I gave Helen a level look. “It’s
clear,” I said. “Or at least it was once I took a really good look. There you are, Helen, in the background of the shot Donovan took right before the opening ceremony. You’re unplugging the microphone, and my guess is you did it for the same reason you called and cancelled the salads and the milkshakes. The same reason you misplaced some of the nametags the night of the cruise. You wanted to go down in the history of the International Society of Antique and Vintage Button Collectors as the best conference chair ever. You wanted to be invited to head next year’s event. And you couldn’t do that, not if you didn’t make me look incompetent.”

“Well, I never!” Indignant as all get-out, Helen got to her feet and headed for the door, and when Kaz made a move to stop her, I signaled him to back off. “After all I’ve done for this group,” Helen wailed. “After all I’ve done for you, Josie. To think that you’d think I was that kind of person!” She sniffled, pulled a lace-edged hankie from her purse, and touched it to her nose. “I’m leaving.”

“Yes, of course. You’re free to go.” I made sure I stayed as calm as I was able. This was the big moment, and I didn’t want to give anything away. “You can all go now,” I said, glancing around the circle at my guests. “Only there’s one thing you need to know before you do. Brad Wyant was a creep who’d come to rip off as many people as he could, and he found four people to sell the phony Geronimo button to. Only what you don’t know…” I drew in a breath. “What you all need to know,” I told them, “was that one of those buttons was the real thing.”

Chapter Twenty

“I
T DIDN’T WORK.
” N
EV AND
I
WERE BACK AT THE HOTEL
, in that alcove with the soda and the ice machines, and I leaned my head against the wall. It was nearly two hours after we’d left the Button Box and nearly an hour and a half since we’d been standing in the alcove, and I wasn’t feeling any more upbeat about what happened back at the shop now than I was when my guests walked out. “We didn’t get anywhere. I accused Helen of the most awful things and—”