“My mind is officially blown,” Jason said.
“Maybe Gregor is the result of too much cleaning. In fact, I’m pretty certain that I once read that people who clean obsessively eventually end up overweight and addicted to video games, living in their parents’ basement.”
“Hilarious, coming from the woman I saw eat a sugar packet she found in the bottom of her purse.”
Lacy didn’t have a comeback for that; she hadn’t known he saw her, but she was desperate. Her body was screaming for sustenance, and by sustenance she meant anything with high fructose corn syrup as a prime ingredient.
“Why are we searching his room if we already know his secret?” Lacy asked.
“Because people who have one secret tend to have more,” Jason said. “And because we’re searching everyone and everywhere. Never take people at face value, Red. Every person I have ever arrested has sworn to me that they’re innocent.”
“What if they all were?” Lacy asked, trying to get a rise out of him.
“You’re cute,” he said, not taking the bait.
They made quick work of the room because everything was so neat. They could open a drawer and see to the bottom without having to rifle through. There was nothing under the bed, nothing on the floor of the closet. The room was institutionally clean and impersonal.
“I guess that’s it then,” Lacy said when they finished. “We’re done. We searched everywhere except Aunt Enid’s room, and that’s sort of impossible to do when she’s always in it.” Plus she was Aunt Enid; she was
old.
Lacy felt oddly disappointed. Had she been expecting to find a clue that screamed, “Pick me! I’m the murderer?” Maybe. Life was rarely that simple, though, and whoever murdered Hildy was probably smart enough to get rid of the evidence, if there ever was any.
“We’re not quite done,” Jason said.
“Are we going to search Aunt Enid’s room? You want me to create a distraction? I could take off my hat and lure the monkey out. She goes where the monkey goes.”
“No, no one is provoking a monkey attack.” He paused and shook his head. “There’s another of those phrases I never thought I would say in life. I wasn’t talking about
Enid
’s room. We’re going to search Hildy’s room.”
“Hildy’s room?” Lacy repeated, lowering her voice to a hiss. “But it’s been sealed by the police.” They stopped short in front of Hildy’s room. The door was covered by a strip of yellow police tape. Lacy darted nervous looks around the hallway.
“It’s okay, Red. I’m a police officer. I know how to get in.” He reached out and lifted the piece of yellow police tape, letting it flutter to the floor. “There. Don’t tell anyone that I showed you the secret ritual.”
She still looked reluctant, so he opened the door and tugged her inside. “Could we be arrested for this?”
“You, maybe. I would get a free pass as part of the code, the brotherhood, the fraternal order and all that.”
“Really?”
“No. We
could
be arrested, but I doubt we will be. Now start looking.”
Unlike Gregor’s uncrowded, pristine room, this one was stuffed with knick-knacks and souvenirs. Hildy must have been the human equivalent of a squirrel, hiding her possessions in her room for further inspection. Lacy took two steps in and stopped short, stifling a gasp. On the dresser lay her unopened bag of chocolate. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Jason was on the other side of the room. He seemed preoccupied by his search, so she lifted the bag of chocolate and coughed loudly to cover the sound as she tore open the bag.
She was on her third chocolate when he caught her.
“Lacy!”
She jumped, spinning even as she shoved the remainder of the piece she had been working on into her mouth. “What?” she asked, trying hard to cover the fact that her cheeks were full.
“You’re eating evidence,” Jason said.
“It’s my evidence,” she replied. “What would the police want with my chocolate?”
“They would want to know that Hildy is the one who took it, which means she also most likely took your scarf.”
“Why would she take those things? And what does it prove? It’s not as if she strangled herself with the scarf.”
He drew in a breath and scanned the room. “If I had to guess, then I would say that Hildy took a lot of things. I think the answers we’ve been seeking lie in here, only I have no way to tell what they are. I would bet everything that she stole something from every member of the house. But how are we to know what’s crucial evidence and what’s not?” He ran his hand through his hair, tousling it to perfection.
Lacy twirled the rope of her sock monkey hat, thinking. “So you think she stole the scarf and chocolate from my room and someone came across her when she was leaving, meaning that it was a crime of passion because whoever killed her didn’t bring the murder weapon—Hildy was already carrying it.”
“Yes,” Jason said. “But look at all this stuff. We could maybe go through it and figure the meaning behind every item if we had a few months and a few more helpers. But how are you and I supposed to tackle this in the next few hours?”
“It does sound hopeless when you put it that way. At least we can tip off the police, tell them Hildy was the one who stole my scarf and chocolate, tell them she probably stole things from everyone.”
“How? By admitting that we searched everywhere and broke in here? I can tell you exactly how that conversation would end—with us calling a lawyer.” He shook his head. “Let’s poke around a little more and see if anything jumps out at us.”
Not literally, I hope,
Lacy thought. The room was filling her with a gloomy sense of foreboding, as if Hildy was there watching them rifle through her treasures. What in the endless pile of possessions had been worth killing for?
“After this weekend, I am ready to give away my money and join a convent,” Lacy said. She was sickened by all the materialism. Riley, Robert, his relatives who blatantly panted after Aunt Enid’s money—it was too much. Money brought out the worst in some people, a fact she had never noticed before she had so much of it.
“Yes to the first idea, no to the second,” Jason said.
“Does it really bother you so much?” Lacy asked. “It’s just a number on a bank statement. It doesn’t mean anything to me. It hasn’t changed me.” She paused. “Has it?” Had she become like the people she had just judged?
“It hasn’t changed you,” Jason assured her.
She noticed he didn’t address her other question. Apparently her inheritance did bother him. Would she give it up if it meant the difference between being with him and not? No. Not because she was so attached to the money, but because she wasn’t willing to change herself for any man. The only reason she would ever give up the money was if it began to poison her and the people around her, the way the money in this family had done.
“I didn’t ask to be a millionaire, and I’m trying to do the best I can with it. But it’s who I am now, and whomever I’m with will have to accept it. Even if it hurts his misplaced pride.”
“Well, you told me,” Jason said. “May I take this opportunity to point out that my resistance is not the issue between us?”
“Well, you told me,” she said, hands on hips.
They stared each other down until Jason began to chuckle. “It’s impossible to take your indignation seriously when you’re wearing a monkey hat and chocolate smears around your lips, Red. Let’s finish our search because this room is giving me the creeps.”
Lacy turned away, rubbing furiously to get the chocolate off her lips. If only there was something she could do about the hat. The sooner she got out of this nuthouse, the better. She had lost whatever dignity she had in Jason’s eyes, if she ever had any to begin with, which she doubted.
They rifled through the vast pile of possessions as best they could. It was too bad that Hildy had settled for being a blackmailer because she could have had a future in the curiosity business. Lacy found one drawer of a bureau stuffed with geodes and arrowheads and another loaded with Depression-era matchbooks. Hildy had been a collector of everything, from junk to secrets.
“Did you find anything interesting?” Jason asked.
“Yes, but nothing relevant. I need to wash my hands. I’m not sure what that last thing was that I touched.”
“Let’s have a meeting in your room and recap what we know,” Jason suggested.
“Sounds good,” Lacy agreed. She clutched the bag of chocolates to her chest like a mother cradling a newborn, and they left the maid’s strange, crowded room.
They were silent as they walked to her room. Once safely inside, Jason locked the door and sat on her bed. He waited for her, watching while she shook another chocolate from the bag and unwrapped it. The first three, eaten so quickly, had done their work; her bloodstream was once again roaring with sucrose. The fourth one she could eat more slowly. She sat and nibbled a small bite, closing her eyes to focus on the smooth texture of the exquisite chocolate.
“Geez, Lacy, do you have to look like that when you eat it? You’re making me jealous of a piece of candy.” He grabbed the bag from her and set it on the stand beside the bed.
“Sorry,” she said, though she didn’t mean it. “You start while I finish eating. What do we know?”
“Nothing,” Jason said, his tone flat as he rifled his hair again. “Gregor makes movies. Chuck and Sue are weird. Bob and Rita’s relationship is rocky. Prince Charming and the wicked princess tried to out-stupid each other in the ring-buying department. You and I didn’t kill her for sure, and that’s it.”
Lacy finished the chocolate and turned her head away to lick her thumb. “Don’t forget that Hildy was most likely blackmailing all of them. She also stole things, weird things. What did she hope to gain by stealing my scarf and chocolate?”
“I don’t know. There’s no explaining irrational behavior, a lesson I learn a little more each day.” He took her face in his hand and started to wipe a smudge from the corner of her lips before changing his mind and kissing her instead.
There was no prevarication in Lacy’s response. She circled his neck and drew him close, kissing him with as much fervor as she had eaten the candy. The combination of Jason and chocolate was potent, and she was a goner. He overbalanced and they toppled back against her bed, but the kiss didn’t lose momentum. If anything, it gained it. At least until someone rattled the door handle a few times.
“Lacy, it’s Riley. Why is your door locked?” She pounded a few times for good measure and then tried the handle again as if she thought Lacy had been hovering on the other side, just waiting to unlock it for her.
“What are the chances that she’ll just go away?” Jason whispered, his lips working softly against hers as he spoke.
“I know you’re in there, and I’m not going away,” Riley said.
“Not good,” Lacy whispered. She disentangled her arms and legs and stood, taking a step toward the door before thinking better of it and turning back. Jason had sat up, too. He held out his arms for her, but she bypassed him and grabbed what remained of her candy, tucking it under her pillow for safekeeping.
“I’m going to pretend that didn’t just happen,” Jason said. “There’s only so much damage my ego can stand.”
Once the chocolate was safely out of sight, she cupped his face in her hands. “If it hadn’t been imported chocolate, I would have gone for you first,” she said.
“You’re sick,” Jason said.
“Hello-o, I’m still standing in the hallway,” Riley announced.
Lacey finally made it to the door and flung it open. “Oh, hey, Riley,” she said, bumping her hip against the door to strike a casual pose. “What’s up?”
Riley leaned in and sniffed before peering over Lacy’s shoulder at Jason, eyes narrowed. She stepped inside and Lacy closed the door.
“I thought I was supposed to create some sort of diversion so you could go on a fact-finding mission, but you’ve been in your bedroom eating chocolate and making out with your boyfriend. Which, by the way, is just weird, Lacy. You’re twenty six. Have some dignity.” She spun and crossed her arms over her chest, scanning her from head to toe as she awaited Lacy’s defense.
“Good diversion tactic, sending Bob and Rita to their room while we were there,” Jason said. “Stellar work, thanks.”
Riley barely inclined her head in his direction. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to my sister.”
“No, you were talking down to your sister who is a grownup and doesn’t need your permission to live her life.”
That finally forced Riley to give him her full attention. “Are you ever not in cop mode, Buzzkill? And who elected you Lacy’s defender? If she’s really the grownup you say she is, then she can take care of herself.”
“I have a low tolerance for injustice, and your family dynamic is rife with it,” Jason said.
“You don’t know anything,” Riley yelled, stamping her foot.
Jason didn’t reply, but there was a triumphant gleam in his eyes as he leaned back, bracing his hands on the bed. Lacy walked over to try and keep a tether on him. Nothing good was ever gained by provoking Riley. She never forgot a slight, and she always sought revenge. She started to perch on the edge of the bed, but Jason put his arm around her, urging her into his lap—a transparent attempt to provoke Riley. Riley snorted in disgust.
“Was there something you wanted to discuss?” Lacy asked.
“No,” Riley said. “I came to tell you dinner is ready, but apparently you can live on love and chocolate.” With one imperious toss of her hair, she left the room, slamming the door behind her.
“It’s a wonder any doors survived at your house,” Jason mused.
“Now that you mention it, Dad had to change the hinges a lot.”
Jason gathered her close, tucking both arms around her until she was curled into a little ball. “This is so frustrating,” he said.
“You get used to her,” Lacy said.
“I’m not talking about Riley. Believe it or not, she’s not the first spoiled diva I’ve ever encountered. I’m talking about this situation. We don’t have enough time or resources, and the detective is going to come back at any moment to interview you, or worse. I hate being on the civilian side of things.”
He buried his face in her neck, and she ran her fingers absently through his hair. Being on the outside of an investigation was new to him, but it wasn’t new to her. That meant that she had the home-court advantage. It was time for her to take matters into her own hands and end things, but she couldn’t tell Jason what she was going to do because he would flip out. He would try to ban her from doing what she intended; maybe he would even hold her prisoner in this room until the detective came for her. While that might have some interesting implications, it would do nothing to help their case.