"A Murder In Milburn", Book 3: Death In The Library (7 page)

“You gave him the money?” Maria gasped. “But I don’t understand. Why would he come here with Katya then? That was Reynold’s condition.”

“Oh, I know it was. Petyr told me all about it. We laughed together. We decided that the best way to show Dad his place was for both of us to rebel at once. I and Petyr had a heart-to-heart not too long ago. It was he who told me that I should quit, rather than suffer by staying on.”
 

“I’ve always admired him for the way he stood up to Dad. I’ve always been afraid to do it myself because somewhere deep inside I believed Dad when he said I’d be a failure without him. But when I met Petyr, he changed my mind. He said that he was a failure too - his business had failed, after all - but he wasn’t ashamed. He was still happy because it was his own choice to take the risk.
 

“Petyr told me that the freedom to make your own choices was the biggest thing in life, something that money couldn’t buy. He sparked a fire in me with his words. He told me that nothing would compare to the happiness I felt when I finally stepped out of Dad’s shadow. He helped me make up my mind.”

“I didn’t know this,” Maria said with a frown. “Any of this.”

“Well of course you didn’t. We took great pains to keep it a secret,” Johann said.

“I still don’t understand why he came here, then,” Maria said.

“He came here to announce his desire to wed Katya,” Johann said. “It’s a significant life decision, and he wanted to do it right. He wanted to be brave enough to face father down. The other reason he came was so that I could face father and tell him I wanted to quit too. We would do it together on the Fourth of July. Independence Day, the ultimate way to celebrate our independence. We thought it was cute and symbolic.”

“This is terrible!” Maria said. “There’s been some horrible mistake.”

“Yes! There’s no way Petyr could have done it. Those were my shorts, I tell you,” Johann said. “The police should have realized their mistake by now.”

“They won’t have.” Maria said. “Because Petyr confessed.”

“He did
what?
”
 

“Petyr admitted to killing Reynold,” Maria said. “Why would he do that? If he wanted to confess he should have done it immediately. Why the delayed action? That’s what I don’t understand.”

“Why
would
he do confess if he’s not done it?” Johann said, baffled. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s clear enough,” Nora said. “There are several reasons he would do it.”

“I can’t even think of one,” Johann said.

There was a long pause, as Nora scrolled through her smartphone.

“Answer me!” Johann said angrily.

“Sorry. I was Googling something. But don’t you see why he’d do it?” Nora asked. “But maybe Maria can tell you.”

There was a hiss and a boom outside. By now used to them, the party ignored the firecrackers and focussed on Nora.

“Petyr loves you very much, Maria,” Nora said. “He left you and Johann behind when he ran away to Portland, but he’s always felt very guilty about it. Like he betrayed the family. Hasn’t he, Katya?”

Katya nodded. “He has.”

“Well when he was arrested, he thought maybe it was Johann who did it. He looked at you, Maria, and he thought about how you’d feel if you found out it was Johann. With the shock and emotion, he decided that he’d rather confess himself.”

“That’s not possible!” Johann sprang up.

“Or maybe,” Nora said. “Maybe he thought you did it yourself. Maybe he thought you’d been the one to kill Reynold. That after years of suffering psychological abuse at his hands, you’d snapped. You were the one who handed Johann the basket of mushrooms today afternoon. You’re the one who later bought them to me. I think Petyr thought that somehow, you’d decided to murder his father on the spur of the moment, but accidentally implicated Johann! After all, you were insisting that it was a suicide when it couldn’t possibly have been.”

“It’s a horrible lie!” Maria cried. “I would never have hurt Reynold! I loved him.”

“But she’s right. Why did you insist on calling it a suicide?” Johann asked.

“Because I thought it was one of you!” Maria said. “It had to be. What possible reason could Katya or Lila have?”

“Ah.” Nora smiled. “That’s an interesting question. What could their motive possibly be?”

All eyes were on her again.

“Katya, let’s see… Katya could have many motives. Reynold could have told her that she would never marry his son. She could have been afraid that he wouldn’t agree, and decide that he needed to be removed from her path.”

“Nora!” Katya sounded angry, and betrayed.

“But that’s not what happened,” Nora said. “Lila killed Reynold.”

“What!” Lila sprang up. “How dare you say something so horrible!”

“Oh, it’s horrible, but you aren’t calling it a lie,” Nora said.

“Johann, it’s about time you threw her out of here!” Lila said.

“Is it?” Nora asked. “Johann, I think it’s about time you called the police!”

“I’m going to go ahead and do that,” Johann said grimly. “But first, I’d like to hear out this awful accusation you’ve made, and then I’ll probably call them to have you thrown out!”

“It’s the only logical solution, isn’t it?” Nora asked. “Lila is the one who suggested mushroom gathering in the first place. When your father latched onto it, she made it sound like it was his idea. After a childhood in France where she went mushroom-foraging, Lila is one of the only people here who could know which mushrooms were poisonous. She has a degree in biology too. A good understanding of chemistry also, I assume.”

“But Lila never went near those mushrooms!” Johann said. “Petyr was the one who plated the dish. Mother was the one who bought them to you. Katya had a chance when she went out to help mother with the dishes, and afterwards too. But Lila never went near them!”

“Yes,” Nora said. “Which in itself is slightly suspicious. Lila made it very clear that she never went near that plate. It’s true. She didn’t.”

“What then?” Johann asked.

“I was fooled because you overturned the table in your rush to reach your father,” Nora said. “In the hurry, you made all the plates crash to the ground, so that none of us could properly look at them, and the police had trouble with the forensics too.”

“Well?”

“The thing is, that poison was never in the sautéed mushrooms I created,” Nora said. “It was in the iced tea.”

Johann gasped.

“Lila made the iced tea. Lila served you all. How easy would it be to slip some mushroom powder into Reynold’s iced tea? She made a grave error though. She assumed we’d have lunch immediately.”

“Why is that an error?”

“Those mushrooms take at least two hours to act,” Nora said. “If we’d had lunch immediately, Lila’s plan would have worked. It would be appear that the sautéed mushrooms had killed him. But because you fought with your father, Johann, we delayed lunch for two hours. By the time he sat down to eat, the mushroom powder had been digested, and he died on the table. Now, the delayed action is a fact that the police haven’t thought of yet, but will soon. Especially after I tell them about it.
 

“I didn’t think of it either, until Maria said something about how she delayed actions, and regretted it. The phrase delayed action led me to Google, which led me to realize that
the poison was never in the plate!
After all, why would anyone start the dishwasher before we’d even had lunch? It was almost done when you kicked it, remember Johann? Why was it started? It doesn’t make sense, unless someone wanted to wash away the poison from the glasses!”

With a scream, Lila sprang at Nora, but Johann held her down. Struggling and cursing, Lila clawed at him, still trying to escape. Nora shut her eyes, but Maria acted. She punched Lila right in the jaw.

The three gaped at the matriarch, who stood over a now-unconscious Lila with a gleam in her eye.
 

“I never liked her one bit,” she said. “Reynold should never have forced you to marry her, Johann!”

“Why did she do it, though?” Johann said sadly. “I just don’t understand.”

“If you’d quit, Lila would lose the luxurious lifestyle she’s used to,” Nora said. “She understood that there was no way she could dissuade you. I have a feeling that you’d have divorced her if she tried. Your marriage was weak enough already. The best thing, then, was to get rid of Reynold and pin it on Petyr. You’d inherit everything, and she’d live the golden life she was used to.”

Johann nodded, his eyes filling with tears once again.
 

“She almost got away with it. That’s the scary part. I would have been chained to her all my life!”

“We’re all free now,” Maria said. “The truth has that power.”

*****

Chapter 10

Katya and Petyr were married two months later, in a simple ceremony in Portland. Nora served salmon and roast leg of lamb to the forty guests gathered there. Johann, as best man, made a touching speech about how marriages that were built on a bedrock of truth and love would last forever, while Maria cried softly in the corner, tears of happiness.

There was much laughter as Katya and her father did a little dance as they came down the aisle, and a little sigh from the women when Petyr said his vows. The intense look of love he gave Katya had every woman swooning. Harvey, who’d come as Nora’s date, was rather a hit on the dance floor, when he did the tango with Katya’s great-grandmother, a grand old lady of 97 years.

As they finished up that day, Katya gave Nora a big hug, and with tears in his eyes, so did Petyr.

“Don’t think that we forgot who helped bring this about,” Petyr said. “If it wasn’t for you, Nora, my life would be a mess.”

“Anytime,” Katya said with emphasis. “Absolutely any time you want us, just give us a call. We’re both going to be grateful to you forever.”

“Yes,” Petyr agreed. “We mean it now. Anything you want to ask of us, any favors we can do you, feel free to ask. We owe you the world.”

“Well, there is one favor you can do me,” Nora said with a smile.

“What’s that?”

“Live happily ever after. You’ve earned it.”

The End

*****

Happy 4
^th
of July!
 
I hope you enjoyed the story!
 
If so, catch up on the rest of the books in this series
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Continue on for a note from Nancy McGovern…

One More Thing…

If you would
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Please continue for a note from the author…

A Note From Nancy

I love the 4
^th
of July!
 
I always have!
 
And when my husband and I started dating 20 years ago and I met my future sister-in-law, whose birthday is on July 4
^th
, it became even more fun & meaningful!
 
Since that time, we have gotten together for a family camping trip & firework extravaganza over the holiday weekend each year.
 
It’s 2-3 days & nights of sleeping on a rock-hard ground, living without running water & eating junk food…and I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

Unfortunately, for the first time in those 20 years, we were unable to have our annual get-together this year.
 
So, to prevent myself from getting too bummed out about it, I decided to use the holiday as the basis for another story.
 
That way, I could keep myself busy over the weekend submitting the book to promo sites, answering emails and checking my Amazon dashboard every fifteen minutes to see how the book is selling!

So, I want to thank you for picking up a copy of the book and helping to brighten those visits to Amazon!
 
If, when you finish reading it, you’d drop me a line to let me know what you think of it
or
post a review to Amazon, I would be
even more
grateful!
 
It will be such a nice distraction during my “lost weekend”, when I would otherwise be pining away for my tent and a bag of Lime-Flavored Tostitos!

As always, I am so appreciative of your support and I really hope you like the story!
 
And I hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!

Enjoy the fireworks!

Nancy McGovern

p.s. If you missed any of the full-length novels in this series, you can get them on Amazon by
CLICKING HERE!
 
There is also another novella, a Prequel, called
Dying To Be Cool.
 
You can see that one by
CLICKING HERE!