Stitch Me Deadly (25 page)

Devon glanced at the maître d’, who’d been leading them to their table. “We need to get to our table and stop holding this man up. We’ll talk with you soon.”

“Take care,” I said.

Mom shook her head. “Those two are strange ones. I guess they make a good couple after all.”

I merely rolled my eyes and dug into my tilapia again. We needed to finish our dinner and get to the airport.

 

 

That evening while Angus wrestled a rubber bone filled with peanut butter up and down the hallway, I sat propped up in the bed with my laptop, trying to find out what had happened to Ivy Sutherland. I logged on to a genealogy site and did a search for
Ivy Sutherland of Kansas
. After nearly an hour of searching, I found a woman named Ivy Sutherland who had married a man by the name of Halstead. Ivy’s husband was listed as Baker . . . not his profession, but his name. Baker Halstead. That was an unusual name.

Ivy and Baker Halstead had two children, Ella Louise Halstead and Devon Reed Halstead.

My heart suddenly began trying to beat its way out of my chest. Ella and Devon were Louisa Ralston’s grandchildren? Could that actually be true? And if it was true, could Ella and Devon have orchestrated Louisa’s death in order to get what they felt their mother had deserved all along?

I grabbed the phone and dialed Ella’s cell phone number.

“Hello,” she answered in an almost tentative voice.

“Ella, it’s Marcy Singer.”

“Is anything wrong?” she asked. “You sound upset.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were Louisa Ralston’s granddaughter?”

There was a click, and the phone went dead. I immediately tried to call back, but the call went directly to voice mail. I was sitting there debating on whether to call Riley or Ted or to gather more information about Ella and Devon. I decided to gather information first. After all, I didn’t have very much time left on the site’s free trial period.

Ella had been married to John Redmond, but they had divorced. Devon had not been married as far as I could tell. There was a death record for Baker Halstead, but I was unable to find one for Ivy Halstead.

When the doorbell rang, I instinctively glanced at the clock, and Angus began barking. It was after nine o’clock. Grateful that I hadn’t gotten ready for bed yet, I slipped on my shoes and went downstairs to open the door. Angus was right on my heels. I peeped through the keyhole to see Ella and Devon standing on the front porch. I opened the door.

“I’m sorry I hung up on you,” Ella said. “I simply couldn’t try to explain things to you over the phone. And I wanted Devon to be with me when we spoke to you.”

Devon nodded. “Hello again.”

“Hi.” I stood back and hesitantly invited them in. I normally would’ve put Angus in the backyard, but I didn’t this time. I was probably the only person in Tallulah Falls who knew Ella and Devon were Louisa’s grandchildren. I wished I’d called Ted or Riley as I’d originally thought of doing. Then at least if Ella and Devon killed me, someone would have known the truth.

Ella, Devon, and I walked into the living room. I sat on the chair, and they sat side by side on the sofa. Angus came to lie by my feet.

“Where do we start?” Ella asked her brother.

He shrugged. “I can start.” He turned to me. “We didn’t know our mom was Louisa Ralston’s daughter until after Louisa Ralston was dead. We suspected, but we weren’t sure.”

“Why didn’t you talk with Mrs. Ralston?” I asked.

“We wanted to be sure,” Ella said. “That’s not something you merely spring on someone because you think she
might
be your grandmother, especially when she’s wealthy.”

“Yeah,” said Devon, “she probably had so-called relatives crawling out of the woodwork. We’d look like any other gold diggers if we didn’t have proof that she was our biological grandmother.”

“I’d been searching for Momma’s birth mother for several months,” Ella said. “And my search finally led me to Tipton-Haney House. The Sutherlands—although we loved them very much—hadn’t been forthcoming with information about the adoption. All we knew was that Momma had been born in Oregon.”

“When Mrs. Ralston died in your store,” Devon said, “Ella called me.”

“I was scared, Marcy. I thought people might think I’d had something to do with her murder.”

I nodded. “I understand that. But why didn’t you tell
me
?”

“I was still so new to Tallulah Falls,” Ella said, “I didn’t know who I could really trust. And I knew that if I began telling people I was Louisa Ralston’s granddaughter, they’d think I was either lying or trying to cash in on her estate.”

“And despite what you think of me,” Devon said, “that’s not what we’re trying to do.”

“Not at all,” Ella said. “We just wanted to know her. I felt like I knew her already because I’d read so much about her. My heart ached for her when I realized how she’d been done by Edward Larkin.”

“Did you find him?” I asked.

Ella nodded. “He died in a work-related accident in the fifties. He was in construction, and he fell off a scaffold.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Why did you go to such lengths to deceive me, Devon?”

Devon looked sheepish. “I wasn’t as deceptive as you probably think. I really am a journalist, and I was at the prison attempting to talk with the businessman I told you about. It was just a fluke that I ran into you and your mother there.”

“I wish you guys had been honest with me from the beginning,” I said. “Is your mother still living? Do you realize she is entitled to a trust fund Mrs. Ralston set up for her several years ago?”

Ella nodded. “Yeah, Mom is living, but she has terminal cancer. She’s in a hospice house at home in Kansas.” Her eyes welled with tears, and Devon put his arm around her shoulders.

“We wanted to do this for her,” he said. “We wanted her to be able to make contact with the mother she never knew.”

“And the really terrible thing,” Ella said, sniffling, “is that Mrs. Ralston wanted that, too. She’d actually been looking for Momma until the day
she
died.”

I ran my hands down my face. “You have to come forward, guys. You have to.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Ella said. “All that really matters is finding out who killed our grandmother and why.”

“I think I know the why,” I said. I explained to them about Sunshine Manor and the fraudulent children’s home. “If your mother doesn’t come forward to claim that trust fund, the money will revert to Sunshine Manor, and whoever killed her will get the money he or she was after.”

Ella sighed and looked at her brother. “What do you think?”

A muscle worked in his jaw while he considered what to do about the situation. “I don’t want whoever killed our grandmother to profit from her death and get away scot-free.” Suddenly his face brightened. “Revealing ourselves to the world might be the perfect way to draw out the killer hiding behind Sunshine Manor.”

I
called Riley and put the phone on speaker. I apologized for calling so late, but when I explained what was going on, she was glad I had.

“The commission from this case might cover Baby Kendall’s first year or two of college,” she said with a laugh.

Riley agreed to represent the Halstead siblings in their attempt to claim Ivy League’s trust fund. She didn’t think there would be much trouble getting the trust fund, even without their mother present for any legal proceedings—Ella already had her mother’s power of attorney, due to her health. But like Ella and me, Riley was worried about the repercussions of ticking off Mrs. Ralston’s killer. Devon seemed gung ho to have the killer “bring it.”

“Have you fully thought this out, Ella and Devon?” Riley asked. “This person has already killed twice for this money. I’m guessing that racking up two more bodies won’t weigh too heavily on his or her conscience.”

“It’s a risk we’re willing to take,” Devon said.

“I’m going to call Ted Nash as soon as we hang up,” I said. “He’ll be able to advise us about security measures and might even be able to offer some help in that area.”

“That’s great, Marce,” Riley said, “but don’t go completely renegade with regard to the Tallulah County cops. They don’t need to be blindsided with this. Even if they tell you it’s stupid, advise them of what we’re doing.”

“What
are
we doing?” Ella asked.

“You’ll come into my office tomorrow morning first thing. I don’t have any appointments until after lunch. Bring your proof of identity and claims to Mrs. Ralston’s estate. I’ll need to schedule DNA testing. Does either of you have a problem with that?”

Both Ella and Devon said they did not.

“It would be better to test Mrs. Ralston’s DNA against your mother’s DNA,” Riley said, “but yours might be a close enough match. We’re going to announce that in a press conference at around eleven thirty tomorrow morning. I’ll have my mom—er, my secretary—send out an event release first thing tomorrow. The two of you need to be with me at my office as I announce to the press that long-lost relatives of Louisa Ralston have come forward to claim a trust fund Mrs. Ralston left to their mother. I’ll say that DNA tests are being conducted but that we are confident, based on the evidence we have, that everything will go forward and that these siblings will inherit from the grandmother they never knew.”

“There’s your personal-interest piece, Devon,” I said. I kind of regretted it as soon as I said it, but I figured he’d had it coming for quite a while.

Riley laughed. “Oh, it’ll be a personal-interest piece, all right. You’ll get your fill of reporters and gossipmongers. We’ll take no questions but promise to keep the media informed as the story develops. Then we’ll call an end to the press conference, I will return to my office, and the two of you can exit out the back.”

“I’m a little scared,” Ella said. “Whoever killed our grandmother and Mr. Gray is going to be gunning for us.”

“But that’s the point, El,” Devon said. “We’ll draw that person out. No way are we gonna let ourselves be poisoned. We’ll be on our guard. It’ll be okay.”

“As your attorney, I must advise there is some risk involved here,” Riley said. “Ella, you are absolutely correct in that you’ll be bait to draw out this killer. And just because poison has been the weapon of choice in the deaths of Louisa and Adam doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t have a gun or won’t try to run you over with a car or whatever. If you’re having second thoughts, tell me and I’ll ditch the press conference.”

“No,” Ella said, taking a deep, steadying breath. “I want to do this.”

After we spoke to Riley, I called Ted.

“Ted Nash,” he answered in his professional, no-nonsense detective voice.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s Marcy . . . and you’re on speaker.”

He chuckled. “Why am I dreading this conversation before it even begins? Who else am I talking with?”

“Ella Redmond and Devon Reed,” I said.

“This ought to be good,” he said.

Ella, Devon, and I explained everything to Ted. It was a jumbled mess at times with us talking over one another, but we got the main points across. Devon and Ella were Louisa Ralston’s grandchildren; they stood to inherit the trust fund Mrs. Ralston had set aside for Ivy; and they and Riley were going to hold a press conference tomorrow to make sure Mrs. Ralston’s killer knew all this.

When we finished, Ted was silent.

“Are you there, Ted?” I asked.

“I’m afraid so,” he answered.

“You aren’t going to try to talk us out of this, are you?” I asked.

“Would there be any point?” He heaved a breath. “All right. Here’s how we’re going to do this. I’m going to get in touch with Detectives Bailey and Ray of the Tallulah County Police Department as soon as their shift starts tomorrow morning and prepare them for that interview. I’ll put in a request for extra security on all of you. Devon, stay put.”

“Stay put where?” Devon asked.

“Preferably with Ella to conserve manpower,” Ted said. “I’ll ask the TCPD to put some men on you, too.”

“What about Riley?” I asked.

“Her, too,” he said. “We have to be sure to cover all our bases when dealing with this nutcase.”

That night before I turned in, I phoned Mom and told her the latest. Then I called Angus and had him get up on the bed beside me. Plotting to bring a killer out into the open makes a girl want an enormous dog by her side.

It didn’t take long after the press conference for the repercussions to start. Sadie was the first to pop into the Seven-Year Stitch.

“Do you believe it?” she asked. “Blake and I just saw on one of the TVs we have on at the café that Ella Redmond and Devon Reed are brother and sister and that they’re Louisa Ralston’s grandchildren.” Slack-jawed, she flopped onto the sofa. “Unreal. Riley Kendall called a press conference and announced it a few minutes ago.”