Wanda stood. “It’s such a lovely day. I’m going to have iced tea. Anyone else want one?”
I raised my finger; Rob did the same. Wanda strolled into the kitchen. I whispered, “What’s the plan?”
“No plan. I’m going to tell her we know.”
I leaned closer to him. “She was the talk of the station this morning.”
I jumped as Wanda came back into the room with a pitcher of iced tea. “What’s all the whispering about? You two look as guilty as kids who took the last piece of chocolate.”
Rob took the pitcher from her and poured three glasses. “It’s about last night.”
I stuffed a potato chip in my mouth and stared at my lap.
Wanda selected a half sandwich and set it down on her plate. “What about last night?”
“We saw pictures of you online with a new man. And he didn’t look like a recent acquaintance.”
I retrieved another chip from the bag and ate it.
Wanda’s gaze fixed on me. “Stop that. Take a sandwich and eat real food.” She passed me the platter.
I slid an egg salad onto my plate, shook a few chips out to join it, and then passed the platter to Rob. Wanda took a bite of her turkey sandwich.
Rob stared at his mother. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I hate the internet.”
He put half a roast beef hoagie on his plate. “That wasn’t the kind of conversation I thought we might have.”
“It’s intrusive.” She dabbed her lips with a napkin. “What do you want me to say? I have a new friend, yes. He’s very nice.”
I placed my sandwich back on my plate. “If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you known the gentleman?”
She glared at me. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we met a few months ago when Richard and I were in the Bahamas. Mac was there for a refresher course on some type of dog disorder. Richard had gone to bed early, and Mac and I found ourselves next to each other at the blackjack table.”
Rob’s mouth dropped. “You play blackjack?”
Wanda smiled. “You must think I’ve led a very sheltered life. I like to try new things. A well-rounded person is more appealing.”
“You sound like you’re a product to be bought.”
Her head tilted. “Not bought, dear. That’s so vulgar. I prefer to think of myself as someone who can be appreciated.”
I interjected, “Let’s get back to the matter at hand, shall we?”
“Yes. Mother, don’t you realize how bad this looks?” Rob gulped the tea.
“What on earth do you mean?”
“The money Richard left is a great motive for killing him. Now the police have another. A new man. They could say that you wanted to leave Richard. Did Richard have you sign a prenup before you married him?”
“Of course. We both signed one. I wanted to protect my assets too.”
Rob put his head in his hands.
I said, “Don’t you see? Richard’s dying means you inherit the money and are free for the new man.”
Wanda sat back in her chair. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
✽ ✽ ✽
I craved a latte the next morning, so I swung by Delightful Bites. Diedra was in line. As she got her coffee, she walked past me. I waved, “Good morning. In the mood for coffee too?”
“Oh, hello, Merry. She held up her cup. “It’s so good here. I keep thinking that I should make do with what we have at home, but today I decide to live a little.”
The line shifted forward, and I kept pace. “Do you have a few minutes?” I motioned toward the tables. “We could sit here.”
“I do.” She moved to a café table with a view of the street.
I purchased a latte and a luscious looking raspberry-filled French braid pastry. At the coffee station, I took a packet of sugar and two forks. I set the pastry on the table between us. “I’m hoping you’re going to share this with me.”
“This is my lucky day. Raspberry is my favorite.” She picked up one of the forks and took a bite. “Delicious. The pastry is so flaky and buttery.”
I poured half a packet of sugar into my coffee and stirred. “I much prefer my coffee in a real cup.”
She lifted her paper cup. “Either way it’s good coffee. Thanks again for taking us to the church event. It was fun.”
“I can’t believe Rob’s mother kept the bunny she won. I thought for sure she would have given it to one of the kids there.”
“I think she wanted to bask in her win.” She gave me a half-smile. “After all, the boys didn’t do very well.”
“Do you and your husband have children?”
“Oh, yes. We have five. And ten grandchildren. They are the light of my life.”
“Five kids. Sometimes I have difficulty managing one.”
She stirred her coffee. “They had their moments to be sure, but I wouldn’t have traded one of them.” Her voice cracked. “Not a one. Our oldest daughter died a few years back. It was like losing part of myself.” She slid her cup away. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
I touched her arm. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“It’s the reason we moved. Too many memories.”
“She must have been so young.”
“Only thirty. She and her husband left our house to drive home. There was a curve. They didn’t make it.” Diedra looked me in the eye. “They weren’t drinking, although the police suspected they were at first. They found that they were going a bit fast. Forty-five in a thirty-five mile an hour zone. But the real problem was their brake lines. They’d been cut, and no one was charged.” A tear escaped and trickled down her cheek.
✽ ✽ ✽
Rob stopped by the office after work. “Want to go out?”
“Where’s your mom?”
He sighed. “She was with the police again, answering more questions. Tonight, she’s with the new beau. She wants me to meet him this weekend.”
I kissed his cheek. “Hopefully he’s nicer than the last one.” I pulled my purse from my desk. “Jenny’s at the Twilligers’ tonight. Where do you want to go?”
“Fiorella’s?”
I hopped into his car. He turned on a jazz station for the short drive.
I slid into the booth, and we ordered. “I have news.” I filled him in on my conversation with Diedra.
“So you think that Richard ordered a hit on them?”
“The story matched the one Kathy told me. I googled the story. Diedra’s daughter’s married name was Peabody.”
“Same story and same name.” He sipped his wine.
“Plus their brakes were cut. And they lived in Lancaster. Same town. Gotta be the same people.”
“I agree.” Our food arrived, and I pushed my stuffed shells around the plate. “It’s so sad to think of their lives being cut short. And by someone we knew.”
“Let’s get this to go. You don’t look like you’re making much headway, and maybe we’ll be more in the mood to eat later.” He motioned for the waiter, who took our plates back to the kitchen and returned with a large bag.
I put the bag in the oven on low heat when we returned to my house and held up another container. “They gave us three cannolis.”
He unscrewed the cork from a wine bottle. “That was nice of them.”
“It was.”
The smell of garlic and tomato sauce filled the room. My stomach growled. “I guess I am hungry, after all.” I took the food from the oven and put it on the table. “Let’s eat.”
Rob speared a sausage. “I got a call from Mother’s lawyer. The police want to talk to her again.”
“That can’t be good.”
“It makes me nervous.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Patty texted Thursday night: “Are you home alone?”
“Yes. Out back.” The sun was on the wane, and a warm breeze caressed my face.
A few minutes later, Patty unhooked the gate and rushed into the backyard. “
Kids are in bed, Patrick’s watching sports, and I have news.”
I waved toward the house. “Get a glass of wine. And one for me too, while you’re up.”
She scampered up the steps and returned with two extremely full glasses of wine. I raised one eyebrow. She handed me a drink. “So I don’t have to bring out the bottle.”
I smirked. “Sound plan.”
She sat at the edge of her chair. “I got a job.”
I set my glass down. “That’s great. Where?”
“I’m going to design the new Shades of Gray store.”
“So Caroline finally sold it.” I kicked some dirt off the paver by my feet. Caroline’s sister, Amanda, had been killed last year, and Caroline had inherited the building.
“She’d been talking to Amanda’s assistant, but that fell through. Two sisters bought it. April and Sandy Poole. Caroline remembered that I had been doing some initial design work for the assistant, so she recommended they look me up. They liked my initial plans and hired me.” A grin split her face. “We’re going to the happy hour on Friday at the Pickled Herring. I would appreciate it if you and Rob would show up to welcome them to town.”
I raised my glass. “To the best interior designer in town.”
She touched her glass to mine. “Thank you kindly. But that’s not all my news.”
I raised my left eyebrow. “There’s more?”
She pushed my shoulder. “You have to keep this under your hat, but Patrick took one of those DNA tests—you know—the ones that show where your ancestors came from. He was torn. He loves his adoptive parents so much; you’ve met them. They’re sweet. He was afraid it’d upset them. They urged him to do it, but it was only when I pointed out that our kids should know where they came from that he agreed. So I got a kit for his birthday last month.”
“Did he send it in?”
“He did. And he just got the breakdown back. His ancestors were from Northern Europe. The biggest percentages were from Ireland-England, and the next highest were from Germany-France.” She paused to take a breath. “Isn’t it cool?”
“It is.” I studied the wine in my glass. “So did he discover any long lost relatives?”
She took a sip. “He hasn’t logged in yet. He has to opt-in to be able to find his relatives.” She leaned back in the chair. “Of course, any relatives would have to do the same. I don’t want to get his hopes up, but I wish he would go online to see what they have.”
“I guess you’re going to have to give him some time to get comfortable with this.”
She sighed. “I suppose so. Well, that’s all my news. What’s been going on in your life?”
“Let me see if I can sum it up for you. Wanda has a very public new beau who’s a veterinarian she started dating before the demise of her husband, and not surprisingly the police want to talk with her again.” I sipped my wine. “Oh, yes. And the Greens?”
She nodded.
“They moved to Hopeful from Lancaster, where Richard lived, and where Richard had their eldest daughter and her husband killed.”
Her mouth dropped. “That’s terrible. What a horrible man. How’s Rob handling all this?”
“Every time he turns around, his mother throws another surprise at him. I think he doesn’t know what to believe anymore. He’s starting to feel like a top that never stops spinning.”
“What do you think?”
“We’re accumulating suspects.”
She stood. “In my experience, people who love animals are generally good souls. And now, I need to return home.” I kissed her cheek, took her empty wine glass, and made my way back into the house.
I put her glass in the dishwasher. About to dump the rest of my wine in the sink, I hesitated and then downed it. Nothing like a little pick me up during the workweek. I flipped the deadbolt and toddled up to bed.
Chapter 10
It was after five when Rob and I walked into the Pickled Herring. Patty waved to us from the far side of the bar. “Over here.”
We made our way to where she was standing. I said, “It’s crowded in here tonight.”
Patty nodded. She held her hand toward the two striking strawberry blondes on her left. “This is April and her sister, Sandy.”
I shook their hands. “It’s nice to meet you.” They looked to be in their late thirties and were a tad overdressed for the local pub. Their clothes were beautiful. April wore a lovely form-fitting coral dress with a white jacket, and Sandy wore a cobalt blue dress with a tricolored sash around her narrow waist. “I love your clothes.”
April laughed. “It’s a bit much for the venue—” her hand encompassed the bar “—but, it’s good advertising for the shop.”
Sandy chimed in, “Everyone is so welcoming. We can’t wait to show people our clothes.”
“When is the Grand Opening?” Rob handed me a glass of wine.
April turned to Patty. “It depends on when our designer will be done.”
“One month, maybe sooner.” Patty raised her glass.
“One month,” we echoed back, as we lifted our drinks.
Patrick wandered in from outside. He kissed Patty on her cheek and signaled to Ann for a beer. She put it on the bar by his elbow. I made my way to his side. “Exciting stuff!”
“Yeah. It’s great that Patty got this job.”
“I was talking about the DNA test.”
He swigged his beer. “I’m still not sure how I feel about it.”
“Don’t you want to know if you have long lost relatives?”
“What if I find out they’re all like Rob’s mother?”
Rob sidled up and poked him in the ribs. “Hey. Enough about my mother.”
“Sorry.” He gave Rob a rueful grin.
“Why are we talking about mothers?”
Patty, April, and Sandy moved closer to the bar. Patrick said, “I took a DNA test. I have to go to their website and opt-in if I want to see my relations.” He laughed. “What are the chances a relative did the DNA test and opted-in? I don’t know why I’m so worried.”
April said, “They have free wifi here, and you have a smartphone, right?”
Ann wiped the bar nearby. She pointed to Patrick’s phone. “The password’s frenchfry.”
Patty pulled Patrick’s face close to hers. “You don’t have to do this.”
He shook his head. “There’s probably nothing to it. I don’t know why I’m dilly-dallying.” He picked up his phone, tapped in the website address, and logged in. “Okay, I’m checking the box to opt for more information.” His finger hovered over the box.
The gathered crowd shouted, “Do it!”
And he dramatically clicked. A second later, he pulled the phone to him, blocking our view. His grip tightened, and he paled.
Patty grabbed his arm. “What is it?”
His gaze met hers. “I have a brother.” He sank onto the bar stool. “I have a half-brother. He’s younger than me, and he lives in Idaho.”
✽ ✽ ✽
I tipped the pizza delivery guy and brought the box to the kitchen. Rob took it from me and placed it on the trivet in the middle of the table. “What were the chances of that happening?”
“Patrick finding out that he had a brother?” I opened the box and slid a slice of cheese on my plate.
Rob pointed to one with sausage. “Yes. And for him to find out about it in a bar. It must have been tough to have all of us staring at him when he found out.”
“We’re all friends.” I leveraged a spatula under the piece he wanted and deposited it on his plate.
He sprinkled Italian seasoning. “Not all of us. There were new people there.”
“April and Sandy?”
His mouth was full, so he nodded.
“Okay, then new friends.”
Jenny bounded in the back door. “Ooh. Pizza.”
“I thought you had dinner out.”
“We ate early, and I’m still hungry.” She retrieved a plate from the cupboard, waltzed over, and too
k a piece with sausage.
Rob said, “Hey. Those are mine.”
“You weren’t going to eat them all. Besides, sausage is fattening.” She took a large bite.
“You’re starting to sound like my mother.” He slid another piece on his plate.
I turned to Jenny. “What did you do after dinner?”
“Talked to Dad.”
My mouth dropped. “How did you talk to him?”
“On Jacob’s PC.”
“You do know your father’s a fugitive? You could get into trouble.” I pushed my half-eaten slice away. “You could get Jacob into trouble.”
“That’s why we went to his house. Jacob’s IP address bounces all over the world. There’s no way they could trace it.” She lifted another slice from the box. “He doesn’t do anything bad with it; he’s a part-time hacker.”
“I’m not sure that being a hacker, either full- or part-time, is a good thing.”
She looked down her nose at me. “Anyway, Dad and Arianna love Brunei. He said the seafood is yummy. And he got a job. He’s working for one of the money management firms investing for expats.”
My ex-husband Drew was a swindler of the highest magnitude. He and his fashion-model girlfriend moved to Brunei just ahead of the Feds arresting them. They chose Brunei because it didn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States. I groaned. “Why on earth would they hire him to handle money with his history?”
“I’m going to assume he didn’t tell them, and they don’t have access to U.S. databases.” Rob pushed his plate away.
I turned to Jenny. “You need to promise me something.”
She paused, slice mid-way to her lips. “What?”
“You can’t help your dad. And you can’t take money from him.”
Her eyes widened, and she put the slice down. “What about school. How are we going to afford college?”
“We’ll manage. You don’t need to worry. You need to keep your grades as good as they are and your hands clean. I don’t want him to ruin your future. And I don’t want to have to clean up after him again.”
“I guess. But what if he needs me? He’s still my dad.”
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