Dying to Read (19 page)

Which suggested she also questioned Amelia’s judgment about the current man in her life. Everyone but Amelia seemed to have had reservations, to put it kindly, about good-looking Radford. “Did Radford get in on this investment?”

“I don’t know.” Krystal’s already perfect posture straightened in the chair. “That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought about it before.”

Cate saw something out of the corner of her eye. Did that doll move? No, of course not. Cate jerked her attention back to Krystal. “Did Scott also pressure everyone to invest?”

“No, not really. It was something he was handling outside normal office channels. A rather large minimum amount was required to get in on it, but Amelia said she’d persuaded him to make an exception for her friends, and we should take advantage of that.”

“That’s why everyone blamed her, not Scott, when the investment tanked? Because she was the one who pushed it?”

“Scott said that knowledgeable investors were jumping on it, but he warned us that any investment involved risk. He didn’t seem eager to let us in on it.”

“Maybe that was a clever sales technique.”

Krystal’s delicate eyebrows lifted. “You’re suggesting he knew all along that it was a bad investment?”

“I don’t know much about investments,” Cate admitted. The closest thing she had to an investment portfolio was an envelope of coupons for toilet tissue and buy-one-get-one-free at Burger King.

“Scott called each of us to tell us personally how sorry he was when the company went under. He seemed quite distressed about it.”

“How about Amelia?” Cate asked. “Did she feel bad that the investment she’d promoted lost money for everyone?”

“She went on and on about how sorry she was, that the company was just ahead of its time. Et cetera, et cetera.” A small gesture of Krystal’s manicured hand suggested a certain lack of faith in Amelia’s distress.

“Did she lose money too?”

“That’s the big question.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure this is any of your client’s business.”

Krystal moved slightly in the chair. Not really a squirm in one so elegant, but almost. Cate, afraid the woman might be about to end the interview, jumped away from the subject of investments. “I was quite fascinated by Doris’s unique . . . look. Does she always wear purple?”

“Not always. It is her favorite color, and she always wears at least one accessory in purple. But we managed to talk her out of painting her house purple.” Krystal’s lips twitched in a suppressed smile. “I could just see it. Like a square eggplant on that little lot.”

The comment suggested there was a certain amount of caring among the Whodunit ladies, in spite of the hostility Cate had felt that day at the house. And Cheryl’s comment about seeing them as piranhas ready to pounce on each other over a good quiche.

Krystal shook her head. “Poor Doris.”

Cate used the connection to edge back into the subject of investments. “She was the one who lost the most money?”

“Her loss might not have been an exorbitant amount to some of us, but it certainly was to her. I didn’t care to discuss details of my finances with the other women, so I didn’t ask for specifics about theirs. I do know she had her money in CDs, and she took it out to make this investment.”

“Doris didn’t seem like a person who’d invest in anything questionable.”

“The interest rates are so pathetic now, as you undoubtedly know, and Doris needed more income than what she was getting off the bank CDs. She loved her hybrid Prius. She’s really into the going-green thing. She recycles everything. So she jumped on the idea of a vehicle with an even more advanced engine and an alternate energy source. She said the first thing she was going to do with her profits was buy one of those cars as soon as they were available.”

“Instead she had to give up her Prius.”

“And now she’s driving that ghastly old clunker and having to watch every penny.” Krystal reached over and adjusted the doll’s skirt by a fraction of an inch. “You think Doris pushed Amelia down those stairs, don’t you? That she was so angry about losing all that money that she just lost control.”

“I’m not convinced Amelia’s fall was an accident,” Cate admitted. “Even though the police apparently think it was. There was something in the autopsy report that showed her mental faculties, and probably her balance, I suppose, were impaired by sleeping pills.”

“So she wasn’t pushed.”

“Do you think she was?”

“It had entered my mind, of course.” Krystal unexpectedly laughed. “Which only proves I read way too many murder and thriller novels.” She motioned toward the paperback with the lurid cover. “Knowing she wasn’t pushed is a relief, of course. We wouldn’t want to think our dear friend Amelia had fallen victim to foul play.”

“Dear friend Amelia” might express affection in words, but it came out with all the warmth of an ice cube down the back. The piranhas were coming out to play now?

“You said something about it being a ‘big question’ whether Amelia had lost money like the rest of you did on the investment.”

“We’re pretty sure she was getting a . . . I suppose it might politely be called a commission on anything the rest of us invested.”

“But it might be called something else?”

“A kickback. For every dollar she talked us into investing, she got a kickback.” Krystal didn’t sound so casual now about the money she’d lost.

Losing money was no doubt enough to make all the Whodunit ladies unhappy. But then to find out Amelia had
made
money on their losses. Maybe that took the unhappiness to the anger of murder. However, there was a point of logic against that.

“But why would Scott give Amelia a kickback when he didn’t even want to let the Whodunit ladies in on this investment anyway? Could they have been in on something together?”

“You’re saying Amelia and Scott may have had a deliberate plan to defraud us?” Krystal touched a hand to her chest. “That’s a very serious accusation!”

“I’m not accusing,” Cate said hastily. “Just, uh, thinking out loud. Of course, another thought is that maybe Amelia’s financial situation wasn’t as plush as everyone believed, and Cheryl talked her husband into helping her aunt out with a schedule of commissions.”

“I never saw much evidence that Cheryl was all that concerned about Amelia’s welfare. She’s so busy trying to hold on to that husband of hers that she didn’t have much time for Amelia.”

“They have marriage problems?” Cate hadn’t seen any signs of discord. Scott had, in fact, seemed quite solicitous, determined to get the cat back if that was what Cheryl wanted.

“He’s younger, of course,” Krystal said, as if that made for obvious suspicion. “There are also rumors Scott has a roving eye. Of course, that may simply be malicious gossip.”

“Malicious gossip among the Whodunit ladies?”

Krystal waved a hand, dismissing the question. “Of course, we may simply have been wrong about the kickback thing. I’m trying to remember how it first came up . . .” Krystal stood and paced to the window. “It was Texie who said it, I think. Yes, definitely Texie.”

“Where would she get that kind of information?”

“She said at the time that she had a ‘confidential source.’ But she may have just made it up because she wanted to cause trouble for Amelia.”

“Because of Radford.”

Krystal’s genteel laugh came out more of a bark this time. “Maybe someone should have pushed Radford down a flight of stairs. We were a much happier group before he came along and caused trouble.”

“At this point, do
you
think there were kickbacks involved?”

“At this point, what does it matter? Amelia’s dead.”

“Scott isn’t. Maybe you should go to the police. Aren’t kickbacks illegal?”

“Look, Miss Kinkaid, I’m planning a trip to Connecticut to visit my sister in a few weeks. I am
not
going to get stuck here in some long, drawn-out court case concerning Scott Calhoun’s business dealings. Which were probably perfectly legitimate anyway. At this point I’m thinking Texie did just make up the whole thing about kickbacks.”

Krystal suddenly yanked the book out of the doll’s hands. “I have a lovely spring outfit for Camille. I don’t know why I haven’t changed her into it before now. I always keep her up to date with the seasons. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to unpack her spring things right now. You can show yourself out?”

“Of course. I did want to ask—”

“I’ve already given you more time than I have available.” Krystal lifted her arm and made a point of looking at the gold watch on her left wrist, as if dressing Camille was more important than bad investments. Or murder.

“Well, thanks for your time.” Cate found herself giving the doll a little good-bye wave as she left the room.

As she drove home, Cate felt more confused than ever. She didn’t have Uncle Joe’s talent for detecting evasiveness, and separating the good guys from the bad ones seemed to be getting even more difficult. It occurred to her that Krystal herself wasn’t above suspicion. She could be considerably angrier with Amelia over the investment loss than she was letting on.
Kickback
had enough venom in it to stock a viper’s den.

The next couple of days were taken up with getting started on the new cases for Uncle Joe. One involved a client in Seattle who, in doing genealogical research on her family, had discovered she had several relatives in Eugene. She wanted photos of their homes before she contacted them. Apparently she didn’t want to claim relatives who turned out to live in old trailers with wheel-less cars on concrete blocks in the yard. Cate took three photos, all of satisfactorily upscale houses, printed them out with the computer, and mailed them to her.

She applied for a job with a local plant nursery, but they were not favorably impressed with her past experience, which consisted solely of weeding her dad’s garden years ago. And she didn’t even confide in them that she’d pulled up all the young radishes because she couldn’t tell them from weeds. But she did find a new site on the internet on which to leave her résumé.

Mostly she tried to decide what to do about Kyle and the coming weekend. She discussed it with Rebecca. She prayed about it.
Hey, Lord, straighten me out here. What am I supposed to do?
She even asked Octavia’s opinion. But she received no helpful instructions anywhere. Octavia even stalked off, dragged Rowdy to her cat bed, and slept there that night. Apparently she specialized in PI problems, not advice to the lovelorn.

The following morning, Willow called. She wanted to bring Cate some things she’d gleaned from Amelia’s closet. Cate was not particularly interested. She murmured something about a report she had to write for the files on the genealogy woman and added, “I don’t think I could wear anything of Amelia’s anyway. She was rather larger than I am.”

“Amelia was always intending to lose weight, and she had this whole section of skinny clothes in her closet. I think she had this fantasy of getting back the figure she had when she was twenty or something. I also found out what Radford was doing here that day and why he and Cheryl were so furious with each other.”

Which did interest Cate.

 14 

Cate gave Willow directions to the house, and she arrived in less than twenty minutes. She came to the door lugging a cardboard box. The first thing she said was, “You know what? I forgot that sack of cat food. But I did bring chocolate chip cookies.”

She tilted the box, and Cate caught the plastic bag of cookies before it hit the floor.

“Octavia can wait for the cat food,” Cate said. “She isn’t going hungry.”

The well-fed feline sniffed at the clothing when Willow spread it on Cate’s bed. Cate wondered if she recognized Amelia’s scent. Did cats have sentimental thoughts about the past? Maybe. Octavia picked out a fuzzy sweater and curled up on it.

Even if the clothes were from Amelia’s “skinny” wardrobe, they were still too large for Cate. But there were a few items she could actually use. A cashmere scarf with metallic strands. A chain belt with a length that adjusted to Cate’s waist size. A loose muumuu thing in a tropical pattern, one size fits all, that Rebecca might be able to use. Cate set them aside to keep.

“And then there’s this!” Willow pulled a last item from the box, a blonde wig, the hair long and tousled.

“I’m not going to wear that!”

“I know. I just brought it along to show you because I was so astonished when I found it.” Willow giggled. She tossed it on the pile of discards.

Cate boxed up everything except the sweater Octavia had chosen, and set the box aside to donate somewhere. Then at the last minute she rescued the wig. Who knew when a PI might need a blonde disguise?

“Have Cheryl and Scott given everything else away?” Cate asked.

“Not yet. The closet is still jammed with stuff. Actually, they haven’t been around much the last few days. I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to get a chance to eavesdrop on them.”

“But then you did.”

“Oh yeah. I got an earful. I tippy-toed up to Amelia’s office when they were in there. Carrying my can of window-cleaner spray and a roll of paper towels, of course, so I could look all innocent if they caught me.” Willow made a mischievous little gesture of spraying and wiping in the air. “But they were much too engrossed in arguing and worrying about Radford to notice me. Ply me with a Pepsi, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Cate felt uneasy about listening to Willow’s eavesdrop information. Although it probably beat walking into personal encounters with hostile gun toters. She got Pepsis from the refrigerator, and, taking the cookies along, they went out to sit on the webbed lounge chairs in the backyard.

“Okay, Radford was there about an engagement ring he said he’d given to Amelia. Two carat, emerald-cut diamond in the center, two diamonds on each side, white gold setting.”

“Expensive!”

“He told them he and Amelia were supposed to get married in a couple months, but, under the circumstances, he wanted the ring back. Cheryl told him she’d never seen any such ring. He accused them of having the ring and cheating him out of it. They accused him of making up a story about a ring and trying to con them.”

“Con them how?”

“By trying to make the estate reimburse him for a ring that never existed.”

“Is that possible?”

“Who knows? Radford is sleazy enough to try something like that. But I wouldn’t put it past Cheryl to claim the ring doesn’t exist even if she found it somewhere. But I can’t imagine that if Amelia had such a ring, she wasn’t flaunting it.”

“You never saw it?”

“No. Amelia had mentioned we’d be throwing a big party soon, though, so maybe she was managing to keep the ring under cover until she could have a big unveiling at an engagement party.”

“So maybe it’s a question of who’s trying to con whom.”

But another thought unexpectedly jabbed Cate. She didn’t want to distrust Willow. She liked her look-alike. But Willow had been known to dance around the truth, and now there was another missing ring. Could Willow be letting Cheryl and Radford feud over the ring . . . and she had it?

“And you didn’t want me to take this job and miss all these soap-opera doings.” Willow socked Cate with a playful punch on the shoulder.

“They aren’t saying anything yet about how long the job will last? Maybe you should start looking for something else before this one ends. Cheryl will probably give you a good recommendation letter to add to those you already have.”

“About those letters, I’ve been wanting to tell you . . .”

“I have copies, if you need them.”

“Actually, I kind of . . . wrote those letters myself. I didn’t want to bother Beverly when I had to leave there in such a hurry because of Coop. Then it just seemed more efficient to do the others myself.”

Phony reference letters.
Efficient.
Sometimes the truth seemed to get ever more flexible with Willow. Although flexibility with the truth seemed to be everywhere, not only with Willow.

“I may not stay until they sell the house anyway,” Willow said. “I’m thinking I’ll go down to Florida and stay with Grandma for a while. A long time ago we talked about opening a little café or coffee shop together.”

“That’s a wonderful idea! The way you can cook, you’ll make a fortune.” And a continent between Willow and Coop would be a smart move. “How soon?”

“I can’t leave for a while. I have to collect some money I have coming first.”

“You mean a paycheck from Cheryl?”

“Not that. Big money!” For a moment, with the sparkle in Willow’s eyes, Cate thought she was going to share some exciting information about the money, but then she turned cagey. “I just have to wait a few days.”

“This doesn’t have something to do with Coop, does it?” Cate had never been convinced Willow’s feelings for Coop were quite as dead as she claimed.

“Coop? What makes you think I’d ever want anything to do with Coop again?”

Okay, maybe what she’d been thinking was unfair. “Maybe because I’m, um, thinking about getting in touch with the guy I was engaged to once. Actually, he got in touch with me.”

She paused. Was she being foolish for even hesitating about seeing Kyle again? Kyle was no Coop. He had his flaws, sure. The Cappuccino Conflict had been about as mature as five-year-olds squabbling over a rubber duckie. Even more immature was the way the original argument had escalated into arguments popping out about everything from where they should live after getting married to who their friends should be, Kyle’s new car and Cate’s old one, even which TV shows they should watch.

“What did he have to say?”

“It was his mother who called me. He wants to see me this weekend.”

“He had his
mommy
call?”

Mitch had sounded derisive, as if this were something no real man would do. Willow just sounded incredulous. Cate had doubts about this herself. But now she found herself responding with the same defensiveness.

“I see it as a thoughtful gesture,” she said.

“Yeah, I guess it could be. So are you going to get back together with him?”

“I’ve met this other guy. Although we’re kind of . . . on the outs.”

Willow swung her legs to the side of the lounge chair so she could face Cate. She clapped her hands. “Cate, I had no idea you had such an interesting love life!”

“It’s not a love life. It’s just a couple of guys I know.”

“This guy who wants to see you, he’s the one you thought God intended you to spend the rest of your life with?”

“Yeah. Kyle Collier.”

“And the other guy?” Willow asked.

“Mitch Berenski. I met him at Beverly’s. He was painting the inside of her house. Beverly thinks he’s God’s gift to women. Me in particular.”

“How come she never produced a guy like that for
me
?”

The thought occurred to Cate that if Willow hadn’t left the job working for Beverly, maybe she would have met Mitch. “Well, he acts like I’m some kind of incompetent, helpless female. Always thinking he has to jump in and rescue me.”

“Hey, Superman was a rescue-type guy. Sounds good to me. Coop rescued me once, when I got mad at him and jumped off the edge of a dock into the river.” When Cate frowned at that comment, Willow shrugged. “Maybe neither one of them is right for you. Maybe God has in mind someone else entirely. The world is full of men.”

“But why would he send Kyle back into my life if he didn’t mean for us to get back together?”

“Maybe he sent the guy back so you could let go of something you should have let go of a long time ago. Like I dyed my hair jet black for a while. I thought it was so dramatic looking, kind of Cleopatra-ish. I kept it that way until Coop told me I looked more like Davy Crockett in a bearskin cap.”

Cate got a little tangled in a story that combined Cleopatra and Davy Crockett, and she was uneasy with these frequent mentions of Coop, but the hair fiasco did point out that you could hang on too long to something that was wrong to begin with. Mitch had sensed an “unavailability” about her. She’d wondered herself if she’d dated those guys from Creeps-R-Us because her subconscious was stubbornly holding out for Kyle. Now Kyle was back . . .

Did God want her to grab onto him again?

Or let him go for good?

Did God have some plan for her with Mitch?

Or was Mitch just a speed bump in her life?

“Would you rush to get Kyle back if this Mitch guy wasn’t in the picture?” Willow asked.

Cate mentally eased Mitch out of the picture. But maybe he was already out. Actually, he’d never been that much
in
. So, did she want to see Kyle this weekend? Well . . .

“I’m not sure I should be taking advice from you,” Cate muttered.

“Well, thanks a lot!” Willow scooted around and leaned back in the chair. “Here I’m trying to use my vast experience to help you, and you don’t even appreciate it.”

“Sorry.”

“But you could be right. What do I know? It’s not as if anything in my love life is going down in history as the Romance of the Century.” Willow sighed and grabbed another cookie. “Or even Romance of the Week.”

“Maybe you’ll meet someone wonderful down in Florida.”

“Hey, you think?” Willow’s blue eyes brightened. “I’m not sure I can tell a creep from a wonderful guy, though. I’ve been wrong more often than right. But I still don’t think you should rush back into anything with Kyle.”

“And you base this on . . . ?” Cate challenged.

“Maybe it’s a message from God to you through me.” Willow tilted her head and stared at the overhead leaves. “Or maybe it’s more like Grandma and one of her sayings: ‘Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,’ and this is one of the times I’m right.”

Maybe she’d call Mrs. Collier this evening. Or she could play Kyle’s game and have Rebecca call him.

And say what?

Before she left, Willow stopped by the bedroom to give Octavia the kind of roughhouse petting she liked. Willow said she’d call when the coast was clear and Cate could come pick up the cat food.

Later that afternoon, Octavia perched on the desktop in Uncle Joe’s office while Cate was looking through the file on the next assignment he’d given her. The cat moved over to the phone, looked at it expectantly, and a second later it rang.

“No way,” Cate said, not realizing she’d already picked up the phone when she said, “Coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” an unfamiliar voice on the other end repeated.

Cate decided not to explain that she was talking to her deaf cat, who had this uncanny ability to—

Then she broke off that thought. No uncanny ability involved. Just coincidence. So now, in her most professional manner, she said, “Belmont Investigations, Cate Kinkaid speaking.”

“This is Roger Ledbetter, from Winkler, Ledbetter, and Agrossi, Attorneys-at-Law—”

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Belmont isn’t currently accepting new clients, but if you’d like him to contact you later—”

“No, it’s you to whom I need to speak,” he said.

Cate hadn’t dealt much with lawyers, but she recognized a voice of authority when she heard one. A voice ominously pinpointing
her
. Cheryl had done what she’d threatened. She’d called in the big legal guns about Cate’s refusal to return Octavia.

“You’re Amelia Robinson’s lawyer?”

“I am executor of her estate, yes. I understand that you have in your possession a certain white cat by the name of . . .” Pause while Mr. Ledbetter rustled papers. “Octavia.”