I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. This ought to be good. I wondered how Aunt Dot was going to explain it.
She appeared unshaken by Kevin’s question. “Ack, I’m an old lady and you never know what’s in store. What if I would cross over on this visit? Without a little planning,” she motioned toward Abby, “my poor niece here would be left to make the arrangements on her own. Sister always says plan for the worst and it never happens.”
Humph, pretty thin excuse if you would have asked me, but Kevin seemed to accept her logic. I suppose he thought her merely eccentric.
Changing the subject, he glanced at the bundle of plants drying overhead. “What are those, Mrs. McDonald?”
“Herbs. I like to grow my own. They—”
Aunt Dot interrupted. “She uses them for healing. We—”
She broke off when I nudged her foot under the table. “Abby’s a master gardener,” I said before Aunt Dot could start blabbing secrets. Uncertain as to how much Kevin knew about our family, I had no intention of letting her give any more information away.
“Umm,” Kevin said as he pushed his plate to the side. “Ray mentioned that you’ve also helped the police with their investigations.”
I exchanged a look with Abby. How did we explain that away?
“No,” I exclaimed. “Not really. We’ve had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Jeez, my excuse sounded as lame as Aunt Dot talking about planning her funeral.
“You’re not unofficial private investigators?” He sounded disappointed.
“Oh gosh, no.” I assured him.
“That’s too bad.” Kevin sagged a little in his chair. “I’m afraid the police aren’t going to solve Ray’s murder. I was going to ask if you’d look into it for me…” His voice dropped. “I don’t have much money, but I’d pay you whatever I could,” he finished, his voice rising on a hopeful note.
“No, no, I’m afraid Aunt Dot misled Mr. Buchanan when she related some of our experiences to him,” I said in a rush.
“This kind of thing should be left up to people whoknow what they’re doing .”
I stressed the words as I gave Aunt Dot a steely look.
She suddenly found something very interesting about Abby’s tablecloth and ignored me.
“But the investigation isn’t moving forward,” he argued. “The longer it continues, the less chance Ray’s killer will be brought to justice.”
“Don’t worry, Kevin. Sheriff Wilson is good at his job,” I said, trying to reassure him. “He’ll make an arrest.”
“If only I’d stayed home that night.”
“You live in the apartment above the business, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes. It’d been Ray’s until he married Mrs. Buchanan.” His face twisted with distaste. “She said living above a funeral home gave her the creeps, but she sure didn’t mind the money the business brought in.”
“Was this Mr. Buchanan’s second marriage?” Abby questioned.
“Yes. After his divorce, he tried one of those online dating sites. That’s where he met Mrs. Buchanan. And once she got her hooks into him, that was it.”
“I don’t mean to be personal, but I take it you don’t care for his widow?”
He made a derisive sound. “To be honest? No. She’s caused trouble between Ray and his sons from his first marriage, she went through money like no other, and was always pressuring Ray for more.” He halted for a moment. “I question how committed she was to Ray.”
My eyebrows shot up after a quick glance at Tink, who sat soaking the conversation in and then said, “An affair?”
Kevin’s gaze slid to Tink and back again. “There’ve been rumors.”
Aunt Dot leaned against the back of her chair and watched Kevin with narrowed eyes. “Young man—” she began in a frosty voice.
“Did her husband know?” I asked before she could finish.
“He never mentioned it, but I think he’d heard them, too, and chose to ignore them.”
“Kevin,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “have you told Sheriff Wilson any of this?”
He dropped his head. “No. I didn’t want to falsely accuse anyone.”
I chewed the inside of my lip. I’d heard of women wanting to do away with their husbands, but embalming one alive? Pretty cold.
“Do you know if she has an alibi for his time of death?”
“Supposedly she was home waiting for him. He’d stayed at the funeral home to go over the books.” He shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, the medical examiner has had trouble establishing the exact time due to the way Ray was killed.”
He didn’t need to say any more. I got the picture, and it was an unpleasant one. Since the body was preserved, there wouldn’t have been any decomposition to indicate how long he’d been dead.
Pursuing that line of thought, I asked another question. “Would she know how to work the equipment?”
“Even though she’s always avoided coming there, probably. It’s not that hard. And she’d been a nurse when Ray met her, so she’d have knowledge of anatomy.”
“I’m sure Sheriff Wilson’s uncovered all of this,” I said distractedly as I went over the possibilities in my mind.
Motive? A boyfriend and maybe a nice fat life insurance policy with her as the beneficiary. Means? That was obvious—the equipment was on site. But Mrs. Buchanan
wasn’t a very large woman. How would she have restrained Mr. Buchanan long enough to hook him up to the machine? Maybe the phantom boyfriend helped her? Maybe she’d knocked him out first? Hmm, but then she’d have to find a way to get him on the table. Opportunity?
I shook the thoughts away.No, Jensen , I told myself,You are not going to get involved. Plus, you’re beginning to sound just like Aunt Dot—no more TV for you!
Seventeen
“Kevin’s nice, isn’t he?” Tink commented when we arrived home later that night.
“Yes, he is,” I replied, following her into the living room.
“Abby and Aunt Dot like him, too, don’t they?”
I thought about our conversation with Kevin, and I remembered Aunt Dot’s reaction when he mentioned Mrs. Buchanan’s possible affair. Her voice had gone cold and she didn’t seem as friendly to him as she had in the beginning. Maybe she didn’t approve of discussing illicit romances in front of a teenager?
“I don’t know about Aunt Dot, but personally, I feel sorry for him. It sounds like his future is pretty undecided right now.”
“That would suck,” she said, falling into one of the wing chairs. “Wait until Nell hears that we had dinner with him. She’ll die. Don’t you think he’s hot?”
Hot? Oh yeah, that meant attractive. Sometimes talking to a teen was like speaking in another language. “Chillin’ with your bros”—spending time with friends. “You’re straight up” is a good thing. “You’re lame” isn’t a good thing. Evidently in Tink’s eyes Kevin was “straight up” and not “lame.”
“Kevin is a nice-looking young man.” I stressed the word “man.” “And he’s several years older than you.”
“Duh,” she said with a roll of her eyes, even though her face tinged pink. “It’s not like I have a crush on him, or anything.”
I chuckled as I sat on the couch. “It’s okay to have crushes, just don’t act on them.” Lifting a shoulder, I grinned. “I had a crush on my girlfriend’s older brother.”
Surprise registered on her face. “You?”
“Don’t be so shocked. I was your age once, too. I dated in high school.”
“Humph,” she said, as if the concept of me having a life as a teenager was new to her.
My eyes locked on her face. “Enough about Kevin, let’s talk about you and Aunt Dot instead.”
“You’ve already grounded me,” she groused as she plucked at the arm of the chair.
Leaning forward, I clasped my hands on my knees. “Tink, what you did was really wrong, and I don’t understand what you hoped to find.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, sitting forward. “I found a map.”
“A map? What kind of map?”
“Not like a treasure map or anything. It was in with a bunch of stuff about fishing.”
Fishing? I remembered Buchanan’s funeral, the hat, the lures.
Tink continued. “The map had little X’s on it, marking streams and rivers. There were also notes with dates and numbers and names of fish.”
Buchanan not only loved to fish, he sounded organized about his hobby.
“He’d actually taken the time to write down where he fished and what he’d caught?”
“Yeah.” Tink chuckled. “Can you believe that? From the map, it looked like he did a lot of fishing around Roseman State Park.”
“That’s not unusual. Roseman is a popular fishing spot. I think they catch catfish, walleye, and bluegill out at the river.”
“Mr. Buchanan sure did. From the dates, he went out there two or three times a week.”
Tink was distracting me from the original subject—a lecture onnot snooping in people’s private papers. Maybe I wasn’t the most qualified, given some of the things I’d done, to be the one to deliver such a talking-to, but I wasn’t going to let it stop me. If she brought up any of my experiences, I’d fall back on the old “Do what I say, not what I do.”
“Forget about the fishing, and let’s get back to what you and Aunt Dot did…” My voice trailed off when I saw the scowl on her face. “Tink, you need to be careful—”
“We didn’t break any laws,” she said defensively.
“I’m not too sure about that one, but that’s not what I meant.” I stopped again, uncertain how to continue. I didn’t want to frighten her, but she needed to be aware of the rumors.
I took a deep breath. “Bill stopped by the library. He told me there are stories going around that you have inside information about Buchanan’s murder—”
“I don’t,” she exclaimed, interrupting me. “Just those creepy dreams.”
“I know that, but people in town are saying that you do, whether it’s true or not.”
She shoved back in the chair. “That’s crazy.”
“I agree, but it’s not like we can take out an ad inThe Courier announcing that you don’t know anything. And your little trick this afternoon, visiting Buchanan’s, isn’t go
ing to help quash the rumors.” I nibbled on my lip. “Someone killed Mr. Buchanan, and if they believed you knew something—”
“They might come after me,” she said with finality.
“Yes, that’s why going to the funeral home wasn’t a smart move. We all need to stay as far away from the investigation as we can.”
“But what about those dreams and the skull T.P. found?”
“Bill’s going to have to deal with the skull and figure out that one without our help.” I let out a long sigh. “And the dreams…I don’t know what to do. Abby and I have talked about it.” I hesitated. “We might try a séance.”
Tink’s face blanched. “I don’t like that idea.”
“Don’t worry, we certainly wouldn’t force you to do one. Abby only brought it up as an option.” I gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, sweetie.”
She gave me a doubtful look.
“Right now, though, my main concern is your safety. I don’t want you going off by yourself—you stick close to Abby or me,” I said, shaking a finger at her. “Be alert to your surroundings, don’t let any strangers approach you—”
“I know, I know,” she replied in a weary voice. “They talk about this stuff at school.”
“Then remember what they’ve said.” Satisfied that she took me seriously, I changed the subject. “Did you borrow money from Abby today?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you spend it?” I asked, sitting back against the couch and letting Queenie jump on my lap.
“Yeah,” she said with a small smile.
“I’d better give you the money now, so you can pay her back when I drop you off in the morning.” I motioned toward the hallway. “I think my backpack is by the door.”
She shoved out of her chair and crossed to the hallway.
I smiled to myself as I stroked Queenie’s black fur. Tink got the message. She was a smart girl. She’d outfoxed her aunt Juliet when Juliet tried to keep her doped up. I scratched Queenie’s ears. I swear, she and Aunt Dot were quite the pair, and if the situation hadn’t been so serious, one would have to admire their nerve and resourcefulness.
Looking over my shoulder, I wondered what was taking her so long. My billfold with the money was in the front pocket of the bag.
“Tink, did you find the money?” I called out.
No answer.
“Tink,” I called again.
Silence.
I moved Queenie off my lap and went to find her.
She sat in the hallway with her back against the wall. Her knees were drawn tightly to her chest, and her blond head rested on them. Lady and T.P. lay by the kitchen door, staring at her.
I looked down to see papers scattered across the floor.
Taking a step toward her, I reached out my hand. “What’s wrong?”
She lifted her head. Tears ran down her face and terror filled her eyes. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she shrieked, and scrambled to her feet.
I grabbed her arm before she could dart up the stairs. “What on earth is wrong?”
Jerking away, she whirled on me. Anger had replaced the terror in her eyes. “You weren’t going to tell me about the letters, were you?”