That woke up Harry.“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Susan, he couldn’t have made more than forty-five thousand a year at the bank, if he made that. Banks are notoriously cheap.”
“I know. They also called in his accountant and double-checked his IRS returns. He was clever as to how he declared the money. Mostly he identified the gains as stock market wins, I guess you’d say. Well, the accountant reported that Ben said he’d get his records to him but he never did. He figured he’d alerted Ben plenty of times. If the materials weren’t there, it was Ben’s problem come audit day. Assuming that day ever came.”
“Funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“He didn’t cheat on his income taxes but he must have been cheating somewhere. Actually, it doesn’t sound like cheating. It sounds like payoffs or money-laundering.”
“I never thought Ben was that smart.”
“He wasn’t,” Harry agreed. “But whoever was in this with him was, or is.”
“Smart people don’t kill.”
“They do when they’re cornered.”
“Why don’t you come into town and stay with me?”
“Why?”
“You know what Cynthia Cooper told us about Blair. I mean, about his girlfriend.”
“Yes.”
“He seems awfully smart to me.”
“Does your gut tell you he’s a murderer?”
“I don’t know what to think or feel anymore.”
Harry sat up in the bed.“Susan, I just thought of something. Listen, will you come over here tomorrow morning before I go to work? This sounds crazy but I found a little possum—”
“No more of your charity cases, Harry! I took the squirrel with the broken leg, remember? She ate my dresses.”
“No, no. This little guy had an earring in his nest. It’s kind of bent up, but well, I don’t know. It’s a very expensive earring, and he could have picked it up anywhere. What if it has something to do with these deaths?”
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning. Lock your doors.”
“I did.” Harry hung up the phone.
Mrs. Murphy remarked to Tucker, also on the bed,“Sometimes she’s smarter than I think she is.”
40
Simon heard Harry climbing the ladder. He anticipated her arrival, since she’d put out delicious chicken bones, stale crackers, and Hershey’s chocolate kisses last night.
Mrs. Murphy sank her claws into the wood alongside the ladder and pulled herself into the loft before the humans could get there.“Don’t fret, Simon. Harry’s bringing a friend.”
“One human’s all I can stand.” Simon shuttled farther back in the timothy and alfalfa bales.
Harry and Susan sat down in front of Simon’s nest.
“Do you charge him for all this?” Susan cracked.
“If it isn’t nailed down, he takes it.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.
“I only take the good stuff,” the possum said under his breath.
“See.” Harry reached in and retrieved the earring.
Susan held the object in her palm.“Good piece. Tiffany.”
“That’s what I thought.” Harry took the earring, holding it to the light. “This isn’t yours and it isn’t mine. Nor is it Elizabeth MacGregor’s.”
“What’s Mrs. MacGregor got to do with it?”
“The only women out here on this part of Yellow Mountain Road are me, you when you’re visiting me, and formerly Elizabeth MacGregor. Oh, and Miranda drops by sometimes but this isn’t her type of earring. It’s more youthful.”
“True, but we have no way of knowing where this came from.”
“In a way we do. We know that this nest is home base. At the largest, a possum’s territory is generally a rough circle about a mile and a half in diameter. If we walk north, east, south, and west to the limit of that perimeter, we’ll have a pretty good idea of where this earring might have come from.”
“I can tell her,” Simon called out from his hiding place.
“She can’t understand but she’ll figure it out,” Mrs. Murphy said.
“Is that other one okay, really?”
“Yes,” the cat reassured him.
Simon peeped his head up over the alfalfa bale and then cautiously walked toward the two women. Harry held out a big peanut butter cookie. He approached, sat down, and reached for the cookie. He put it in his nest.
“What a cute fellow,” Susan whispered. “You’ve always had a way with animals.”
“’Cept for men.”
“They don’t count.”
Simon shocked them. He reached up, grabbing the earring out of Harry’s hand, and then dashed into his nest.“Mine!”
“Maybe he’s a drag queen.” Harry laughed at Simon, then remembered one of those odd tidbits from reading history books. During Elizabeth I’s reign in England only the most masculine men wore earrings.
They were still laughing as they climbed down the ladder.
“Well?” Tucker demanded.
“We’re going to have to make a circle following the possum’s territory.” Harry thought out loud.
“Let’s run over to the graveyard and see if they follow,” Tucker sensibly proposed.
“You know Harry—she’s going to be thorough.” The cat walked out the barn door and Tucker followed.
The two women, accompanied by the animals, walked the limits of the possum’s turf. By the time they swept by the cemetery, both considered that it was possible, just possible, that the earring came from there.
Susan stopped by the iron fence.“How do we know the earring doesn’t belong to Blair? It could have been his girlfriend’s. There could be a woman now that we don’t know about.”
“I’ll ask him.”
“That might not be wise.”
Harry considered that.“Well, I don’t agree but I’ll do it your way.” She paused. “What’s your way?”
“To casually ask our women friends if anyone has lost an earring, and what does it look like?”
“Well, Jesus, Susan, if a woman is the killer or is in on this, that’s going to get—”
Susan held up her hands.“You’re right. You’re right. Next plan. We get into the jewelry boxes of our friends.”
“Easier said than done.”
“But it can be done.”
41
Frost coated the windowpanes, creating a crystalline kaleidoscope. The lamplight reflected off the silver swirls. Outside it was black as pitch.
Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert, snug in Porthault sheets and a goose-down comforter, studied their Christmas lists.
Little Marilyn checked off Carol Jones’s name.
Fitz looked over her list.“What did you get Carol?”
“This wonderful book of photographs which create a biography of a Montana woman. What a life, and it’s pure serendipity that the old photos were saved.”
Fitz pointed to a name on her list.“Scratch that.”
Little Marilyn, Xeroxing last year’s Christmas list as a guide, had forgotten to remove Ben Seifert’s name. She grimaced.
They returned to their lists and after a bit she interrupted Fitz.“Ben had access to our records.”
“Uh-huh.” Fitz wasn’t exactly paying attention.
“Did you check our investments?”
“Yes.” Fitz remained uninterested.
She jabbed him with her elbow.
“Ow.” He turned toward her. “What?”
“And? Our investments?!”
“First of all, Ben Seifert was a banker, not a stockbroker. There’s little he could have done to our investments. Cabby double-checked our accounts just to make sure. Everything’s okay.”
“You never liked Ben, did you?”
“Did you?” Fitz’s eyebrow rose.
“No.”
“Then why are you asking me what you already know?”
“Well, it’s curious how you get feelings about people. You didn’t like him. I didn’t like him. Yet we were nice to him.”
“We’re nice to everybody.” Fitz thought that was true, although he knew his wife could sometimes be a pale imitation of her imperious mother.