by Rickie Blair
“But you recognized him?”
“Yeah. I mean, he was a lot fatter and a lot older but I knew who he was.”
“Why did he have to die? Because he wouldn’t adopt you?”
Zuly thumped the flashlight on the coffee table, and her voice rose. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a kid and lose your home. I never knew my father, and I’d just lost my mother. That was bad enough. But when they took me from my school, my friends, my home—they took my identity. I wasn’t a person anymore. I was nobody.”
I knew what it was like to lose a mother, but at least I’d been an adult when it happened to me. “I’m sorry, Zuly. That must have been—”
“Spare me the fake tears.”
From the floor, Boomer whimpered. Zuly switched the flashlight to her other hand and reached down to rub his ear.
“Why did you kill him now, after all this time?”
Zuly tipped her head to the side in surprise. “I didn’t kill Oskar York.”
“Are you saying it was an accident?”
“I’m saying I wasn’t there. I didn’t do anything to him. Yeah, I wanted to. I’m not denying that. But I didn’t.”
Irma cleared her throat. “Verity—”
“Don’t,” Zuly snapped. “Don’t you dare.”
Irma pressed her lips together.
I glanced from one to the other—Zuly, defiant as always, and Irma, with her strange half-smile.
“Then tell me this. How did you rig the crossword puzzle?”
“It was easy,” Zuly said. “I worked out the new answers, then changed the clues in the wallets we left around the village. I knew that would do the job.”
“Which was?”
“Point the finger at the real killer, naturally.”
“And that was?”
“Noah Butterfield.”
At this, Irma’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.
“Then why add Rick Armstrong’s name?”
“That was a smokescreen. What do mystery writers call it? A red herring?” Zuly chuckled. “Although, I guess nobody eats herring at Lucky Lentil.” She laughed again, then her expression darkened. “Henri didn’t know about the changed clues. I never told him.”
“Did you attack him?”
Zuly shrugged. “It helped deflect suspicion from the gallery.”
“And us,” Irma added.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” Zuly said. “Noah’s the killer.”
Irma stared at the floor.
“Why would Noah kill Oskar?” I asked.
“Because he wanted Oskar’s money.”
“Noah said Oskar had no money.”
“That’s not true. That old man had plenty of cash. And if he’d only agreed to give it to us—”
“Zuly.” Irma placed a warning hand on her shoulder. “That’s enough.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said flatly. “Isn’t the real truth that you two wanted Oskar’s money? To pay for the gallery opening? And he refused to hand it over?”
Zuly’s eyes flared, and her voice rose. “He could have remortgaged that old house to fund the gallery. And he should have, in return for abandoning me. I deserved that money. But he wouldn’t give it to me. And you know why?” Spit flew from her mouth as she yelled, the flashlight swinging wildly. “Because Noah Butterfield told him not to.”
She flung the flashlight across the room, and it clattered off the wall. Zuly leaned forward, dropping her head into her hands. “Oskar deserved what happened to him. I’m glad it happened.”
“Let me get this straight. Oskar’s death was an accident?”
She straightened up. “Must have been.”
“Then what about Mickey Doig? That wasn’t an accident. The police found wool fibers in his exhaust pipe.”
Glancing down at the scarf looped around my neck, I saw no need to admit I’d found the fibers. Or that I knew they were navy.
Zuly frowned. “That was a slip-up on somebody’s part.”
“Are you saying you killed Mickey?”
“I’m not saying anything of the kind.”
“You had nothing to do with Oskar’s death—or Mickey’s?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why are my hands taped behind my back?”
“She has a point, Zuly,” Irma said quietly. “Maybe we should—”
I twisted around to stare at Irma. “Why didn’t you refinance your own house to pay for the gallery?”
Irma lips twitched in that half-smile again. “I told you why. I already have a mortgage—and a second mortgage. The bank refused to give me a third, since I can’t meet the monthly payments as it is.” She clenched her fist, tapping it absently on the sofa cushion beside her. “You don’t get it. Zuly’s work deserves to be seen, to be praised, to be purchased. But since Henri couldn’t get funding for the gallery, our work on the marketing campaign was useless. We had to find another source of funds. So… I went to see Oskar York.”
“Stop.” Zuly rose to her feet. “Don’t say anything else. Please, Irma.”
Irma waved a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t make any difference. Verity won’t be telling anyone. I knew of Oskar’s connection to Zuly. She told me about it years ago, when we shared a room at our foster home. One of them, anyway.” Her voice dripped with disgust. “Do you have any idea how many times we were shuffled around, like garbage? How many homes we lived in? Oskar abandoned Zuly without a second thought.”
“Oskar York was unwell. Mentally,” I said. “I’m not sure his actions were entirely voluntary.”
Zuly snorted and turned her head away.
“As for the money,” Irma said. “He did have money, but he gave most of it to Mickey Doig.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Oh, he didn’t do it voluntarily. Mickey was a thief, just like Henri said. He stole quite a lot from that house during his weekly visits to walk Boomer. Not only that, but where do you think most of Oskar’s trash came from?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mickey collected junk, absolute garbage, and sold it to Oskar for cash. He convinced the old man he could resell it at a profit. As if.” She snorted. “When I went to see Oskar, I took Zuly’s shoebox of photos with me. I thought if I reminded him what he’d done to her, I could shake loose some of his cash. But I was wrong. We had a huge fight. He screamed at me to get out, that I was only after his money. That I was a conniving… a conniving…”
“I get the drift,” I said. “Then what happened?”
Irma drew a deep breath and exhaled heavily, shoulders slumping forlornly. “I’m a year older than Zuly. When she arrived at the foster home, I was used to that life. But it was all new to her. She cried herself to sleep every night over the photos in that shoebox. It made me angry that her uncle had done that to her. When it would have been so easy to take her in and give her a home.
“I came back to Leafy Hollow as an adult to live in my parents’ house. Noah had rented it out occasionally on my behalf, but the rent money barely paid for the maintenance that old place required. And there was a mortgage on it, naturally.”
“Noah probably skimmed money off the top,” Zuly said with a scowl.
Irma patted the sofa repeatedly, pursing her lips, before continuing. “When Oskar called me those names, all those memories welled up inside me. The nights I spent listening to a young girl cry. The string of foster homes, one after the other. The artwork that wouldn’t sell. The foreclosure notice… and then, on top of it all, the gallery that was supposed to turn everything around was never going to happen. I tried to explain that to the old man. I tried. He laughed at me. Then he told me to get out.”
Irma gripped the fabric of the sofa until her knuckles turned white.
“I was angry. I lashed out, and ended up hitting a stack of magazines. It fell over before I could stop it. That toppled the next stack, and the one after that, and then…”
She shook her head. “I knew he was dead,” she w
hispered. “And I was glad.”
Zuly awkwardly wrapped her arms around her friend.
I would have offered them both a tissue, but my hands were still tied behind my back.
Impatiently, Irma pushed her away. “I was in such a hurry to get out of there, I forgot about the shoebox. Hours later, when I’d calmed down, I went back for it in Henri’s car. That’s when I saw Mickey leave the house with it under his arm. I assumed he’d report the body. And possibly hand those photos over to the police.” Irma rubbed the back of her neck, sighing heavily. “For two days, I paced the floor, expecting the police to come for Zuly. Instead, she got a message from Mickey, asking for money.”
“What did he want money for?”
“That photo of her and Oskar, taken when she was a child. Zuly was Oskar’s only heir. It wouldn’t have taken much digging to discover he abandoned her. That she was living in the village under an assumed name. That she knew where Oskar lived. And that he died in suspicious circumstances.”
I had to admit it looked a bit dodgy.
“But what does any of this have to do with me?”
“All we wanted were the photos. We would have left you alone, Verity. But just now, in my house, you remarked on the ‘startling resemblance to a person we both know.’ It was only a matter of time before you figured out what happened to Mickey.”
“You killed him because he was blackmailing Zuly. He thought she killed Oskar.”
“Obviously,” Irma said.
“Leave her alone,” Zuly said.
I ignored her. “But Irma, if you hadn’t done that, the police would have assumed Oskar’s death was an accident. If you’d left Mickey alone—”
“Don’t you get it?” Irma screamed, her face contorted in anger. “The money Mickey took from Oskar should have gone to Zuly. She was his heir. And Mickey took it all.” She glared at me, her expression black. Then her face relaxed, and that shy half-smile was back. “We have to wrap this up before the lights come back on.” She rose to her feet. “It won’t take long, and it will be painless. Mostly.”
Great. I’d been twisting my wrists for the past twenty minutes with nothing to show for it. Duct tape was hard to dislodge without a sharp-edged tool. There were knives in the kitchen, but I doubted the girls planned to walk me out that way. Boomer’s teeth were sharp, but he’d already proved he was useless at tackling would-be killers. In fact—I scowled at him—he was pawing at Zuly’s leg, hoping for another treat. “Traitor,” I hissed under my breath.
“Let’s get her out of here,” Irma said, stooping to pick up the flashlight.
“What’s the plan?” Zuly asked. “Whack her first, then drag her out? Or make her walk down the road, and whack her there?”
All this talk of whacking was making me nervous. “Girls,” I said. “This is never going to work. You don’t seem to have any kind of feasible plan. Preparation is the key to successful operations. If I was doing this—”
“Shut up,” Irma said, brandishing the flashlight menacingly.
I shut up.
“It’s only a matter of time before that chestnut tree beside the road comes down,” Zuly said. “If we leave her body underneath, it will look as if it fell on her. Boom.”
“I like that. It’s simple.”
“But she should have her parka on. And boots. Otherwise, it might look suspicious if she’s found out in the cold without winter clothes.”
“We can put her boots on later, but the coat might be a problem.” Irma studied me as if she were a window dresser, I was a mannequin, and the biggest shopping weekend of the year was coming up. “We can’t put it on with her hands taped behind her back like that.”
Inwardly, I brightened. These idiots would have to cut my bonds, and the moment they did, I’d take them both out. Mentally, I scanned my repertoire of Krav Maga moves, searching for the most painful.
“We’ll do it later. After she’s dead.”
No help there, then.
“Mrack?”
I turned my head to look down. The one-eyed General languidly swished his tail.
“Mrack?”
Catching his eye, I jerked my chin a few times in the direction of my assailants, who were ignoring the tomcat while discussing their options for gutting me and stringing me up—or whatever their latest plan was. “Get ‘em,” I mouthed silently at the General, jerking my head again, remembering an earlier attack of his that had handily distracted an assailant.
The old boy gave me a curious look, pointedly turned his gaze on the dog—as if to say, you made your bed, lady—turned, and walked away, tail held high. If I got out of this in one piece, I was definitely changing his name.
“On your feet,” Irma said, grabbing one of my arms while Zuly yanked on the other to force me up. We walked to the front door three abreast. Irma threw open the door.
A gust of wet wind swept in, making me narrow my eyes. Without boots or a coat, it would be deathly cold outside. I might not last long enough to be killed by a falling tree. Or whatever the current plan was.
“Zuly,” I said. “You haven’t killed anyone. Yet. Stop this before it’s too late.”
Irma rapped me on the head with the flashlight. “Get moving.”
I grimaced, wishing I could rub my scalp. If I survived this, I was going to have one heck of a headache. I stepped on to the porch, cringing as my stocking feet sank into cold, wet snow.
“Wait a minute,” Irma yelled over the wind, yanking me back. “Cover her mouth with duct tape. Otherwise, she’ll scream.”
“Who’s going to hear her?” Zuly shouted.
“Just do it,” Irma hollered back.
We returned to the cottage long enough for Zuly to slap tape over my mouth. Irma stood over us with the flashlight, watching.
“We can’t hit her with that thing,” Zuly said. “It will leave the wrong kind of marks. We need a branch.”
“There are plenty outside. They’re falling off the trees like hammers.”
Outside, a loud crack, followed by a swish and a thud, announced the arrival of yet another deadly implement.
“After that, we’ll leave her on the road. The snow will cover everything up.”
By the time we reached the end of the driveway, my teeth were chattering under the duct tape and my non-duct-taped skin was raw from sleet splattering against it. My socks were stiff and frozen, cutting into my feet like razors.
“That way,” Irma yelled, pointing with the end of the flashlight.
We set off toward the massive chestnut that leaned over Lilac Lane. The partially uprooted tree was tilted even more menacingly than when I’d given it a wide berth on my walk home.
The power line beneath it sagged and creaked under its thick casing of ice. The hydro pole nearest the tree was leaning. I noticed a crack running up its side.
Irma pointed again, this time to a two-foot length of broken branch on the road. “There’s a good one.” She studied me, almost as if she were assessing the size of my head. “That should do it.” Irma handed Zuly the flashlight before setting off at a trot toward the branch.
I considered making a run for it. But in which direction? My feet were so numb I could barely walk. Zuly would whack me over the head before I made any progress.
A flashing blue light reflecting off the snow caused me to jerk my head around. A snowplow was thundering down the road that led to the subdivision over the hill. It was nearly a block away, and heading in the other direction, but it was the only chance I had.
I hobbled in that direction, my feet slabs of ice and my hands tied behind my back. Even though I couldn’t wave or shout, the driver would see me if I got close enough.
“Get her,” came a muffled shriek from behind me.
I darted and swerved, but in the end, a simple rap with the flashlight knocked me off my feet, ending my escape attempt. Groaning, I tried to lift my face out of the snow.
“Get up.”
I struggled to my feet. With Zuly at my ba
ck, I slogged toward Irma’s position under the giant chestnut.
Horror-struck, I halted.
A smirking Irma was waving the broken branch at us. Completely oblivious to the tree toppling above her.
It took only seconds, but those seconds were the longest of my life. The chestnut slowly toppled over, its roots soundlessly ripping out of the ground, until its trunk smacked onto Irma’s head. Her neck snapped back at a strange angle, and she crumpled soundlessly to the ground, arms drifting out to the sides as she fell into the snow, pinned under a massive branch.
The tree’s collapse stretched the power line taut. The cracked hydro pole leaned, but stood its ground, halting the line mere feet from the snowy ground.
Beside me, Zuly raised a hand to her throat and made a strangled sound, inaudible over the wind. Then, with an anguished scream, she darted forward. “Irma!”
I threw myself at her before she could reach the live wire. We hit the ground with a thud.
Zuly—struggling to get out from under the dead weight of a duct-taped woman with frozen feet—finally gave up. Helplessly, she reached out an arm toward her friend.
A gale-force gust roared up the lane, breaking off more branches. The hydro pole split with a loud crack.
We froze, unable to breathe, staring as the power line broke and plunged to the ground. It snapped and cracked like a circus whip around Irma’s body.
There was a loud pop and a flash of light.
And Irma’s parka burst into flames.
Epilogue
Three weeks later…
It was with great surprise that I stepped aside on the threshold of the 5X Bakery to let the proprietor of Lucky Lentil step out.
“Talk to you later, Emy,” Rick Armstrong called over his shoulder before nodding at me. “Verity.”
I nodded back, mystified. “Rick.”
After watching him cross the street to his restaurant, I stamped my boots on the mat and continued to the counter, where Emy was already pouring me a tea.
“There you go,” she said, handing it over. “Chocolate croissant with that?”