That arrested her attention. “What? Art’s in the hospital?”
“Has no one told you?”
“Who would tell me?” Fawn scrunched her mouth up. “I’m just the one doing all the practical work now that Mom is gone.”
“You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself,” Sissy reprimanded. “Art has been in some kind of accident. He was found battered and wandering the beach half-drowned. He’s in the ER in Tillamook and he’s asking for you.”
Fawn picked up a lightweight windbreaker, then let it fall again. “Maybe he wants me to bring him something to wear.” There was a hopelessness in her voice.
“Did you and Art get along?” Taylor asked.
“We hardly had time. Mom had barely met him before they became inseparable and then suddenly married.”
“Were you and your mom close before that? I don’t mean emotionally, I mean did you speak often, get together often, that sort of thing?”
“We used to, but she got so busy when her online sales took off.”
“The quilts?” Taylor asked.
“Mostly the clothes. She’d always been a quilter. We used to do that together.” Fawn picked at the cuff of a frayed corduroy jacket.
“She grew distant before she met Art?”
Fawn nodded. “She loved business. Making money. New ideas. She was always full of new ideas. I don’t think I was fast enough for her. I couldn’t keep up.”
“So, she sort of went her own way?” As Taylor asked questions of Fawn, Sissy was flipping through the pages of a three-ring binder. Taylor wished she had the binder. Like the deceased Reynette, Taylor also preferred business.
“She wasn’t really on her own. She had Hannah.” Fawn’s voice got softer and younger and sadder as she spoke.
“And you were left out?”
“Me and Monty had the shop, and she’d call to check in on us, or to come take the best stuff out to sell, or to let Hannah come take the best stuff out.”
“Hold on, your mom and Hannah took your best stuff to sell online?”
“Yeah, she said it was all the same business, but it wasn’t really. The online shop cut our profits pretty badly.” Fawn tossed the jacket to her feet. “We’ve been trying to save for a house.”
“I hear you.” But did she? Ideas of Monty and Fawn helping themselves to the till to stash money and Hannah catching them swirled around her brain.
“She wasn’t paying you enough.” Sissy slammed the binder shut. “Minimum wage? Did she really think that was okay?”
“Thrift shops are non-profit.” Fawn’s voice was resigned. “But we could have had a raise if we’d been able to make more.”
“Hannah made more than you,” Sissy charged.
“I know.” Fawn kicked the jacket away. “I made minimum wage, but Monty was on salary.”
“Why Monty and not you?” Sissy asked. “Why would your mom pick him over you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t give me that.” Sissy rolled her eyes.
“Sissy…” Taylor didn’t see how bullying her cousin was going to help.
“I’m not as smart as him.”
“Don’t give me that either. You’ve always been very bright.”
“I don’t know then, okay? I’m not great with numbers and I couldn’t keep the books. I tried for a long time, but I always made a mess of it. So, I handled the inside, the store stuff, and he handled the finances. He never made mistakes, so she made him the manager. I don’t know why I make mistakes and he doesn’t. I just do.”
“Did you fight with your mom about that?” Taylor asked.
“A long time ago, but we got over it.”
“Why does she pay Hannah more than you?” Sissy asked. “That’s not right.”
“Hannah brings in more money than me. And she doesn’t make as much as me and Monty make together.”
“Is that what your mom said?”
“No.”
“It’s really stupid. Who told you that?”
“I said I wasn’t smart.” Fat tears filled Fawn’s eyes.
“Stop with that. I say you are smart. Who told you that it was okay to pay Hannah more than you because you and Monty made more together than she did? You should make more together, you’re two people. You should make more than twice what she makes because you’re family.”
Taylor didn’t correct this common business misconception. She could see why Hannah made more. Hannah was sharp and hardworking. Fawn seemed to be a mess. Taylor certainly wouldn’t have offered her top dollar to work at Flour Sax.
“I guess because I was going to inherit…” She scrunched her mouth up in consternation and looked at her aunt. “Maybe she thought we didn’t need much money now because we’d get all the businesses when she died.”
“Do you?” Sissy demanded.
“Monty says we won’t get anything now that she’s married. Husband’s get it all.”
“Is Monty a lawyer?” Sissy made her opinion of Monty clear in her tone of voice.
“He knows. His dad died.”
“You need to talk to a lawyer. Second marriages might be different than first marriages. Businesses are definitely different than regular bank accounts, and anyway, Art and Reynette were hardly married any time at all. Surely he doesn’t get everything.”
She shrugged. “What does it matter? Mom is gone. I’d rather have her than any business on Earth.”
Taylor choked a little. She knew exactly how Fawn felt.
Chapter Fifteen
“Come over for dinner tonight. Bring Ernie.” Grandma Quinny’s call was a command, not an invitation, but her voice was cheerful. “We’re having duck. Not one of ours though, don’t worry. Grandpa Quinny’s always wanted to roast a duck.” After a long day of driving back and forth to the coast, of dealing with a traumatized, broken family, and of being treated like Sissy Dorney’s personal detective, the last thing Taylor wanted was this.
Taylor had finally made it home, and was holed up in her bedroom, listening to the half dozen calls she had ignored through the day. She let the rest of her grandmother’s voicemail play and considered it against her other offer.
John Hancock, the handsome banker Taylor had seen a few times over the last nine months had texted an impromptu dinner invite.
John Hancock was smart and uncomplicated. He liked to go to movies on opening nights and to eat at nice restaurants. He wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, but when they were out, he treated her like she was the best girl in the world.
A new restaurant had opened in Sheridan, and he was in the mood to try it, if Taylor was.
She was. For sure.
A night out with someone who wasn’t overly concerned about her family or her housing or murder sounded like a million dollars. She wondered if she could send Grandpa Ernie over to the Quinn Grandparent’s house for dinner without her…Another call came through and interrupted her reverie.
“Taylor…” Belle’s voice had a surprisingly mature sound. “I’ve been talking to Cooper. What’s going on with his aunt’s murder investigation?”
“That is the last thing I want to talk about. I just spent the whole day driving to the coast and back trying to make head or tail of the thing.”
“I hear that man she married is dead.”
“No, he’s not.” Actually, Taylor hadn’t heard the latest. Maybe he was.
“Hurt, then.”
“Yeah, something bad happened to him. What’s up, Belle, what do you need?”
“I need you to help my friend. He’s a wreck.”
“Why’s Cooper a wreck?” Not that death was easy for anyone, but Taylor had a hard time imagining this boy doubled over in grief because of the death of a great aunt. Didn’t seem natural.
“He’s had to talk to the police three times and Aviva has had to talk to them five. He’s scared.”
“He exaggerates.”
“Do you not realize he spent several days helping Art and Reynette move in?”
“I didn’t know that, but even so, what does it matter?”
“This is a case of poisoning that couldn’t have happened at the café, right? But Cooper had access to her food and drink for long enough. Or that’s how the police are making him feel. Please help him.”
“I’m doing my best, Belle. I promise. But hey, since you’re on the phone, let’s talk Thanksgiving.”
“You’ll pick me up on the way to the Kirby’s, right?” Belle said it like it was a given.
Taylor wanted to discuss the matter and their feelings over it, but Belle was just on it, like it made perfect sense for Belle, Taylor, and their Grandpa to eat at Belle’s bio-parent’s house. “Yeah…what should we bring?”
“I’m in the middle of a couple of huge projects over here, can you just call Colleen and work that out?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks. See you Thursday morning.”
“Sure, of course. Hey, Belle…”
“Mm hmmm?”
“Love you.”
“You too.” Belle hung up.
Taylor’d have to tell Grandma Quinny they weren’t going to her place for Thanksgiving. She didn’t want to do that in person. She didn’t think she could pull it off.
She texted John that she’d love to try the new place out in Sheridan, then called Grandma Quinny.
Voicemail seemed an even worse way to tell her they wouldn’t be at the family holiday dinner, so she just said she had plans for tonight.
Ellery had left for the evening, but Sheridan wasn’t far away. Grandpa Ernie would surely be fine for the length of one dinner out.
Grandpa Ernie grumped a bit but claimed he didn’t need a sitter and Taylor had better go on dates or she’d never get married.
Taylor set him up with a tray of snacks and the remote control and promised she’d only be three hours.
John arrived promptly at seven. Shorter than Hudson, but taller than Clay, he made a nice impression on Grandpa Ernie in his well-cut suit.
“Banker, right?” Grandpa Ernie said after huffing a few times into his full mustache.
“Yessir. Investments and planning.” He offered Grandpa a firm handshake. “Good to see you again.”
“Always good to see a man who knows how to dress for a lady.”
Taylor was also holding a small bouquet of rusty colored mums John Hancock had brought for her. “Let me put these in some water and we can go.”
John H sat on the sofa and chatted with Grandpa Ernie while Taylor found a small vase.
He offered her his arm when she rejoined them in the living room, and they walked out to his vintage Mercedes. “I like that Ernie Baker.” John was calm and chatty as he opened the car door for Taylor. “In full disclosure, my brother owns this restaurant, so you have to pretend you like it no matter what.”
“Younger brother, right?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Your parents wouldn’t have named their second son John Hancock. That’s the kind of stuff you pull on a first and first only.”
“Unless you’re George Foreman.”
“Good point!” Rain fell on them in a soaking heavy mist. She ducked into his car and he shut the door against the weather with a satisfying click.
Sheridan, Oregon was a nice enough town about the same size as Comfort, right between Willamina and McMinnville. The kind of place Taylor drove through often enough, but rarely stopped at.
Hancock’s was a pub in the British style, in the middle of the downtown strip, sandwiched between two rival pizza shops. The comforting warm aroma of roasting beef enveloped them as they entered.
The room was filled with round pub tables and private booths. Settles lined one wall and what could only be called an inglenook flanked the other side of the room. The bar felt like a movie set and it was a movie she’d love to be in. Stairs led up to what must have been rooms for rent. An honest and true “public house.”
They got comfortable in one of the high-backed private booths and a waitress in a disappointingly American uniform of polo shirt and khakis brought them menus and took their drink orders. A whisky-ginger for her and a Coke for John since he was driving.
“This weather, right?” Taylor ran her fingers through hair that had gotten soaked in their short walk from car to Hancock’s.
“Good night to pretend we’re in England. Bad night to go out for Hawaiian food.” When John Hancock smiled, his eyes always seemed to be laughing.
“Good night for German food, bad night for Mediterranean,” Taylor agreed. The menu had several heavy, beef-based dishes that sounded like they would fix all her problems. The steak and kidney pie tempted her, but she wasn’t sure about eating kidneys.
“Good night for smorgasbord, bad night for barbeque.”
“Ooh. I don’t know. Is it ever a bad night for barbeque?” Taylor looked up at him, batting her eyelids. It was so easy with John.
The waiter came back with their drinks. Taylor was brave and ordered the steak and kidney pie. John went with toad-in-the-hole.
“What prompted your brother to do this?” Taylor gazed around the pub that almost felt real.
“We’re trust fund babies.” He spoke apologetically, though there was a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t usually advertise that, but you seem like the kind of woman who can take the news without going crazy.”
“Obviously.” Taylor waved her hand as though she and luxury were old friends.
“Henry aged into his money and wanted to invest it in a business and the community.”
“Does he have a restaurant background?”
“Management side, but yes. He’s been in hospitality for the last ten years.”
“And when you came into your money, you chose banking?”
“These trust funds of ours aren’t all that much. Kind of like Belle’s, actually. Enough that you have to make some tough decisions, but not enough to get your own reality show.” He referred to the trust fund he had helped Taylor establish for her sister with the money from a very generous life insurance policy. Half a million was set aside for Belle which she could access for school and school alone till she graduated. Then, there were other restrictions on it till she came of age. It had been a relatively painless way to split their mom’s assets equally after she had learned Belle had never been legally adopted and wouldn’t inherit anything.
“What inspired him to go all out English on it?”
“Many, many, trips back to mother England. He met a girl online a few years ago and went back to see her a lot. Ended up falling for the country, but not the girl.”
“So, trust fund. As your parents are both alive, there must have been some old money somewhere along the line, if that’s not a wildly nosey thing to say.”
“It is, but that’s okay. I’m the one who brought it up. We’re old money in the pioneer sense. A wagon train ancestor bought lots of land in the Portland area and the family managed to hold onto it till the 1990s.”
“Imagine the trust funds if they’d held onto it another twenty years.”
He gave a mock sigh. “If only.”
“So, did you have to share it with like a million cousins?”
“Nope just my brother and sister. We’re the last of this line.”
“That’s good. No one to try and murder you for the money then….” Taylor had murder on the brain of course, but the weather outside and atmosphere inside was very Poirot. Adding a trust fund inheritance to the mix just made it worse.
“We’re very lucky we like each other. Well, not my sister. She thinks we’re both a waste of space. She’s an Instagram influencer.”
“Gosh.”
“That’s about right.” He laughed. “She gets lots of free diet food. She doesn’t need to diet, which is why they send it to her. If they sent it to someone who needed it, the world would know it doesn’t work.”
Taylor didn’t like the sound of a skinny young girl with lots of free laxatives and appetite suppressants. “Do
you worry about her?”
“I try not to. She’s dating a college basketball player—he’s a few years younger than her. I like to think he can handle her.”
“Better your sister than mine.” Taylor held her hands up in surrender. “I worry enough about Belle and she’s just at college. Plus, she’ll be seventeen any day now which isn’t even all that young for college.”
“But it is young for being half-way done.”
“True. Ug. Sorry. Little sisters don’t make good date conversation.” Taylor sipped her drink, sweet, but not too sweet. Strong, but not knock her out. “Murder doesn’t make good date conversation either, but it’s on my mind. A friend asked me to help her figure out what happened to her aunt.” Taylor took a moment to give John the details of Reynette’s death.
“I’d heard of that. I’m sorry for your friend Sissy. Must be hard.”
“Yeah. I keep thinking it can’t really have been murder. I mean…aspirin overdose…No one thinks she took any, but who doesn’t take aspirin? And if you never take it, maybe it’s easier to overdose on.”
“I’m no chemist, don’t ask me. I’m just a money guy, so I’d say follow the money.”
“There’s a lot of it to follow. A lot of dollar trails with her different businesses. And getting married fast means the situation with the heirs has changed. Can’t have been her kids since they won’t get anything now.”
He shook his head. “They’ll get half. A spouse only gets it all if all the deceased kids are his and hers. If the widow or widower has step-kids from the marriage, those kids get half the estate.”
“Oh really?” Not that it changed the murder, but Taylor sure thought Fawn would be glad to hear that her years of working for a pittance wouldn’t have gone entirely to waste.
“So, who would kill Reynette for half her fortune? Husband or kids?”
Taylor crinkled her nose. “No one. Everyone loved her.”
“I bet your first instinct is right and it’s not murder at all. She probably had a bad back from all that quilting and didn’t want to admit it.”
Her heart fluttered a little. She liked a man who agreed with her. Especially if it got her off the hook for solving a murder.
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