“Were you with Russell the entire time?” I said.
She continued to keep her gaze on Russell. “What did you tell Kathleen?” she said.
I repeated the question. “Were you with Russell the entire time?”
Finally she shifted her attention to me. “The fact that you’re asking me that question tells me that you know that I wasn’t.”
Russell put his fork down. He put a hand on Eugenie’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I overheard you and Kassie arguing and I didn’t want the police to think you could have killed her and when you didn’t have an alibi I said we were together all night but I’m just not very good at lying.” The words all came out in a rush.
Eugenie looked . . . surprised. “My dear boy, you told the police we were together to give me an alibi?”
He nodded.
“I thought you did it to give yourself one.”
“Okay, hang on a minute,” I said. I pointed at Russell. “You gave Eugenie an alibi because you’d heard her fighting with Kassie.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you didn’t kill her.”
“Heavens no,” she said. “I didn’t have to resort to murder to get rid of her.”
“We’re coming back to that,” I said. I gestured at Eugenie. “You thought Russell had said he was with you to give himself an alibi.”
“Yes. I have one.”
“You have one?” Russell exclaimed.
I rubbed the space between my eyes. I had a headache.
Eugenie took a sip of her tea. “It’s not one I’d like to share with many people but I do have it.” She reached over and patted Russell’s shoulder. “Honestly, all you had to do was ask me. I would have told you.”
“Tell us now,” I said. “Start with explaining what you meant when you said you didn’t have to resort to murder to get rid of Kassie.”
“This isn’t something I want spread around,” she said.
“I’m not planning on doing that,” I said.
She exhaled slowly. “You know that I’ve lived in Canada for quite a while but I grew up in London.”
Both Russell and I nodded. I wasn’t sure where Eugenie was going.
“One of the reasons I left London—left England all together—was so that I could live my life on my terms.” Her long fingers played with her cup.
Russell frowned at me. He seemed as confused as I was.
“Eugenie, I’m not really sure where you’re going with this,” I said.
“Have you heard of Hamilton House?” she asked.
“If you mean the plumbing supply company, then yes. I have a big, deep Hamilton House bathtub in my bathroom.” It seemed as though I actually heard a tiny click as my brain made the connection. “You’re one of those Hamiltons.”
“Yes,” she said.
I glanced at Russell, who hadn’t made the connection. “Thomas Hamilton invented the little flapper piece that lifted up and let water into a toilet when you flushed it.” All the odd and obscure things I’d been asked to research over the years meant I was really good at trivia night.
“Okay,” he said slowly, clearly still lost.
I shifted my gaze to Eugenie. “Your great-grandfather?”
She nodded.
I turned back to Russell again. “That invention was the beginning of one of the largest plumbing supply companies in the world.”
Eugenie cleared her throat. “The biggest, actually.”
“So what you’re saying is you’re rich,” Russell said. “Are we talking Tony Stark rich?” He was referring to the billionaire character in the Iron Man movies.
“Nothing like that,” she said. “But I do have more than enough money to relieve Elias of any financial obligation he might have to Sean Sullivan, Kassie’s father. So as you can see, I had no reason to hurt anyone.”
“And what about your alibi?” I said.
She looked around the restaurant and then leaned forward. “Again, Kathleen, this is something I’d prefer to keep as private as I can.”
“I understand that,” I said. “And I don’t plan on sharing what you tell me with anyone, although I think you need to share it with the police.”
“I should have done that from the beginning,” she said. She hesitated for a moment. “I was in a smoking club in Red Wing.”
Russell’s eyes grew wide. “You smoke?” he exclaimed.
Eugenie looked around to see if anyone had heard him but no one was paying attention to us. “Cigars,” she said. “No cigarettes and none of that silly vaping. It’s just that it doesn’t go with my image.”
Smoking didn’t go with Eugenie’s image and fast-food pies didn’t go with Richard’s. At least the “hot” yoga made sense given what I knew about Russell. I had no doubt everyone’s new alibis would check out.
I picked up my coffee and took a long drink. I knew Ruby would be devastated, but it was looking more and more like Elias had killed Kassie.
chapter 15
Marcus showed up the next morning with a mint chocolate chip cupcake for me from Sweet Thing. All of the alibis had checked out. Eugenie, Russell and Stacey were in the clear.
“Thank you,” I said. I would have kissed him but we were standing just inside the library door.
“Did you bring enough of those to share with the class?” Mary asked from the circulation desk.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Marcus said, bringing a cardboard box with the Sweet Thing logo on it out from behind his back. He set it in front of Mary with a flourish.
She smiled approvingly. “Nice work, Detective Gordon.”
He smiled back at her. “You’ll notice two of them are mocha fudge, which are your favorite.” He caught my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
Mary watched him leave. “If I were you I’d get some rope and tie—”
Still holding the little bag with my cupcake, I put my hands over my ears. “I’m not listening,” I said, heading for the stairs. Even with my ears covered I could still hear her laughing.
It was a busy morning at the library. I gave a class of fourth graders and their teacher a tour and was pleased by how many of the kids were readers. Keith King dropped off some information about a program he thought the library might qualify for that would give us a thirty-percent discount on the new computers we needed.
“I’m still looking for other options,” he said. “I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Harry stopped by before lunch with a couple of prices for security cameras. I looked at the numbers and shook my head.
“I know,” he said. “That has to be out of the library’s budget. How do you feel about a jerry-rigged temporary solution, just until we catch whoever keeps putting stuff in the gazebo?”
“Jerry-rigged suggests it’s not going to cost a lot of money,” I said. “I like the sound of that.”
Harry squeezed the brim of his Twins baseball cap. “Probably just the price of a few rolls of duct tape, I’m thinking.”
I smiled. “I like that a lot. What do you have in mind?”
“You remember when Mariah was doing that project for school and she put together that drone?”
I nodded.
Harry’s daughter had done more than just put together a drone. She’d figured out how to attach a camera and fly the drone. She’d also recorded footage that gave a potential murder suspect an alibi. What she hadn’t done was tell her father or anyone else what she was up to.
“Well, it turns out Uncle Larry was giving her a little help.”
Harry’s younger brother, Larry, was an electrician who liked to tinker with anything electronic. It struck me that maybe he’d be able to come up with a way to keep our computer monitors working.
“I hope you don’t mind that I talked to him about what’s been happening down here,” Harry said. “He thinks he might be able to rig some kind of camera along the roofline at the back of the building. It won’t cost you a cent. Larry has a workshop full of junk and after what happened with Mariah, he figures he kinda owes me.” He grinned. “Might as well take advantage of it.”