by Amy Vansant
“Right. And Lyndsey had already left.”
“Yes, you both agree on that.”
“So you’re saying the second injuries came later?”
Carter nodded. “Whether they came later or you just missed them the first time, they didn’t come from a fall.”
“But there was no one there except—” Mina gasped. “You think I killed him?”
“Didn’t you say you were the only person left in the house at that point except for the girls?”
Mina pounded her fist into the center of her chest. “The girls wouldn’t do something like that!”
Carter stared until Mina realized she’d just fought to narrow down the suspect list to one.
Her.
Panic twisted like a tempest in her heart. “And neither would I! It’s impossible!”
“Why is it impossible?”
“Because”—Mina stood, her whole body shaking—“I’m his sister.”
Carter scowled. “You’re his sister and you’re his maid?”
Mina swallowed, finding it hard to keep her voice from screeching. “When my husband died years ago, Kimber took me in.”
“And turned you into his maid?”
“I had to make money somehow, and I was someone he could trust. It worked for both of us.”
Carter nodded slowly, as if deep in thought, before cocking one eyebrow. “So if you’re his sister. Doesn’t that mean you’re in his will?”
A swirl of black filled Mina’s eyes and she felt her knees buckle before everything went dark.
Chapter Seventeen
Carter heard chatter behind him and turned to see the twins walking toward the riding ring.
“Girls, could you come here a minute?”
Payne and Gemma stopped and stared at him.
“Why?” asked Payne.
“Because I need to talk to you.”
Behind him he heard Mina moan. She’d fainted but he’d caught her and placed her back in her chair. She’d awoken almost immediately, and he’d stepped inside to find her a glass of water. While she sipped, he’d debated whether to take her back to the station for questioning in his car, or call an ambulance. He was sure she didn’t need one, but it felt prudent to make sure she didn’t file some kind of lawsuit against him in the future.
When he spotted the twins, he’d put his debate on the backburner.
He beckoned and the girls walked to him amid a torrent of eye rolling.
“What?” asked Payne. Gemma tilted to the side to peek around him at Mina.
“Is she okay?”
He nodded. “She’s fine. Let me ask you. The night your uncle died, do you remember seeing Mina come downstairs to find her phone?”
Both girls nodded.
“Do you remember what she said?”
“She said she needed her phone and that Uncle Kimber had fallen,” said Gemma.
“And that was it?”
“Yes.”
Payne glared at her sister. “No, it wasn’t.”
Carter scowled. “Which is it?”
Payne continued to glare at Gemma. “You left. I talked to Mina longer.”
Gemma shrugged. “Then I don’t know anything about that part.”
“What did you talk about?” asked Carter.
“She asked if I’d seen Lyndsey.”
“Had you?”
“No. I asked what was wrong with Uncle Kimber. Like, how he was hurt.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she thought he’d hit his head.”
“Where were you during all of this?” asked Carter, turning his attention to Gemma.
“I went back to my room.”
“You didn’t go upstairs to see what happened while the others were talking?”
“No. We’re not allowed upstairs.”
Carter turned and looked at the house. “Is there any way upstairs other than the main staircase?”
Gemma crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”
“Well, there is,” said Payne, again, seemingly disappointed in her sister.
Gemma’s cheeks colored. “Oh, right. The maid stairs.”
Carter glanced at Mina. “What are the maid stairs?”
Mina lifted her face from where she had it buried in her hands. “What?”
“The maid stairs. Where are they?”
“There’s a door in the hall behind the kitchen across from Gemma’s room.”
“What are they for?”
“They used to be for getting the hired help to the second floor without them traipsing up the grand stairs, but we haven’t used them in years. I don’t even fit in there.”
“We used to play on them all the time. It was like a secret passage,” said Payne, her eyes lighting at the memory.
Gemma nodded. “That was when we were little. I forgot about those.”
Carter motioned to them. “All of you come with me. Take me to the stairs.”
Payne led the way, with Gemma and Mina trailing. She led Carter through the kitchen and around the corner into the hall, where she opened a door on the left. Inside rose a narrow set of stairs. The door at the top was closed, making it too dark to see to the end. Carter pulled a small flashlight from his belt and shone it to the top. Something low and squat sat at the top of the uppermost stair.
“What’s that?” he asked, shining his light on it.
Mina leaned in to see. “I don’t know.”
Carter looked at the girls. They shrugged.
Carter sighed and eyed the steps. “People in the old days must have hired tiny maids,” he muttered, before mounting the stairs as best he could. He turned his feet sideways to fit on the steps and crabbed to the top.
With his light he studied the object at the top of the stairs. It looked like a rabbit. He knocked on it with his knuckle to find it was made of iron. A dark, thick substance covered the hind-end of the statue.
“Can one of you throw me up a kitchen towel or something?”
Carter waited and a moment later Payne tossed him up a kitchen towel. He used it to turn the knob at the top of the stairs and open the door. Peering through, he found himself looking at the hallway outside Miller’s bedroom. He shut the door again and used the towel to pick up the rabbit and bring it back down. It was heavier than he’d imagined.
Downstairs in the hall near the back door, it was easier to tell the rabbit was made of iron. He took a better look at the rust-colored stain on the cottontail end. A few hairs trapped in the substance caught his attention.
Mina gasped. “That’s Kimber’s doorstop.”
“It may be what killed him,” said Carter, setting it on the kitchen counter. He pulled the radio from his shoulder and called for another car.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to need to bring you all in.”
“What?” screeched Payne. “I have things to do.”
Mina’s eyes widened and she glared at Gemma. “You disappeared.”
“What?”
“Where did you go when I came down to find the phone?”
“I told you, I went back to my room.”
“The room right across from this door?”
Gemma’s eyes flashed with what looked like fear and anger. “You’re crazy. You’re the one who was with him. Don’t blame this on me.”
“I was talking to Mina the whole time so I didn’t do it,” said Payne, whose initial annoyance had shifted to haughtiness as she watched the suspicion shift to her sister.
If a glare could kill, Gemma struck her sister dead. “Thanks for the backup.”
Payne shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“But I know I didn’t do it,” said Mina, turning to Carter. “I know.”
Carter pulled the cuffs from his belt. “Mina, you have the right to remain silent.”
Mina began to wail. Payne released one loud bark of laughter and then covered her mouth when Carter turned to look at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “This is just lik
e on television.”
“It’s not funny, idiot. We’re next,” said Gemma.
Payne winked at Carter and held out her hands. “Ooh. Cuff me.”
Carter felt his cheeks flush.
Chapter Eighteen
Charlotte answered her door to find Sheriff Carter standing on her doorstep. She glanced at her fit watch. It had just turned ten.
“Sheriff Carter, what brings you to FrankLand?”
Carter took off his hat and held it at his waist. “Good morning, Miss Charlotte. I’m sorry to bother you but things are getting interesting over at the Miller Estate and I think you’re about to be involved.”
Charlotte took a step back, using one leg to push Abby farther away from Carter. “Come in. Ignore her, or pet her, she just wants attention. She won’t hurt you.”
Carter gave Abby a quick scratch behind her ears as he entered and Charlotte led him into the kitchen. She moved a mug on the counter into the sink.
“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” she mumbled before turning to face him. “Do you want coffee?”
He removed his hat. “If you have some.”
Charlotte nodded and opened a drawer to find a coffee pod. “Mariska got me one of those one-person pod thingies. I’ll run it through for you.”
“Mariska?”
“Oh, sorry. You don’t know her. I’m used to everyone knowing her. She’s like my adoptive mother. She lives across the street.”
He nodded. “Frank told me something about that. He said he sorta adopted you?”
Charlotte chuckled. “The whole neighborhood did, with Mariska in the lead. Long story short my parents died, and left me here with my grandmother, who also ended up dying. The neighborhood arranged it so I could stay and not be thrown into the system.”
“Lucky girl.”
“I was.”
A silence fell and Charlotte suddenly felt self-conscious. She scrambled for something to say.
“Milk?”
“Black.”
“Of course. Big bad sheriff would take it black, wouldn’t he?”
Charlotte smiled to keep from cringing. Why did I say that? That might be the dumbest thing I ever said.
If Carter thought she was a weirdo, he didn’t let on. He chuckled as she turned to hand him his coffee.
“So what’s this about the Miller Estate?”
She realized she’d given him the mug that said I got high on Pike’s Peak on its side, a gift from Mariska after a trip to Colorado. Sheriff Carter held up the mug and cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Do I need to arrest you?”
“Gift from Mariska. I’m not sure she got the joke.”
“Hm.” He took another sip and then put down the mug. “I’ll let it slide this time.”
He smiled and winked and Charlotte hastened to make herself busy throwing out the used coffee pod. She felt like he was flirting with her. It probably came naturally to him. He was a strapping, handsome sheriff in uniform. He probably had the ladies swooning everywhere he went. If she had to guess, he was close to forty, which would make him a good ten years her senior, give or take, but not so old it might not cross his mind to flirt a little.
“Single pods,” he said, as she dropped it in the trashcan. “You live here alone?”
She nodded, cognizant it was a stretch for him to leap from the pod to her living status. A coffee pod maker didn’t mean she was alone. She’d never seen a machine that made multiple pods at the same time. Mariska had a pod machine and she had Bob.
His reason for the leap was obvious.
He wants to know if I’m single.
“I have a boyfriend,” she blurted a little more forcefully than she meant to.
My god, I sound like a spaz.
“I mean, I live here alone but I have a boyfriend.”
Oh much better. He didn’t ask if I had a boyfriend.
“Of course you do.” Carter opened his mouth as if he was going to say something else and then scowled, seeming to think better of it, and cleared his throat. Charlotte suspected it was his old-fashioned southern gentleman fighting with his modern-day workplace rules. If he’d said, Of course you do, a good lookin’ gal like you, it wouldn’t have been professional. He’d probably had to take a sensitivity class at one point. It maybe hadn’t entirely worked. For one, he needed a woman to follow him around and smack his nose with a newspaper every time he called someone little lady. The idea of a personal nose-smacker made Charlotte smile and she turned away to keep him from seeing.
“Please, sit,” she said, motioning to her kitchen table. She took a seat across from him.
Carter took a sip of his coffee and then locked his gaze on hers. For some reason, it made her face twitch.
“So anyway, I’m here to let you know Ms. Powell wants to see you.”
“Who?”
“Mina Powell.”
“Oh, the housekeeper. I didn’t know her last name.”
“Turns out she’s a little more than a housekeeper. She was the deceased’s sister.”
“His sister?”
He nodded. “I’m sure I had the same look on my face when she told me. It’s a little weird. But she said her being the maid was how they both liked it. I guess she got a place to stay and he got a housekeeper.”
“That explains why she was the only one allowed upstairs. She’s family. Why does she want to see me?”
“Probably because I brought her in this morning. I’m holding her.”
“For what?”
“I want to talk to her about the murder of her brother.”
“It was definitely murder?”
“It’s looking more likely. You’ll see the autopsy when you stop by the station.” He leered a little, as if access to the autopsy was some sort of bait.
Charlotte ignored the come on. “But what about Lyndsey and the puppies? The earring. I didn’t even get to tell you about the mask.”
“All still possible. But Mina admitted she told Lyndsey to take the dogs during a panic.”
“What panic?”
“Lyndsey went upstairs and found the old man dead. When she heard Mina coming she panicked and hid. Mina found her, panicked some more and sent her away with the dogs.”
“What? So Lyndsey did take the dogs but she didn’t kill Miller?”
Carter shrugged. “I questioned the girls, too.”
“The twins? They’re involved now?”
Carter shrugged and took a gulp from his inappropriate mug. “TBD. It’s a bit of a free-for-all at the moment. Anyway, Mina’s a crier and she’s driving everyone at the lockup insane. Maybe you could get down there and see her. Calm her down. She mentioned she wanted to see you.”
Charlotte scowled. “Sure. But she understands I’m not a lawyer, right?”
“She thinks you can put the record straight. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t mind that either. Less work for me.” He laughed and stood. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“No problem.”
“That’s pretty much it. I appreciate the favor.” Carter shook her hand and headed for the door.
“How did you know where I live?” she called before his hand touched the knob.
He turned. “I was down this way and thought I’d stop in and catch Frank up on everything. When I mentioned Mina moaning about you, he told me you were right across the street.” He walked out on the landing and turned, smiling as she followed him to the doorway. He flipped on his hat in a fancy, end-over-end way and winked again.
The man needs a wink intervention.
“Bit of a shock to find you here. You look good for your age.”
There it is. Charlotte pictured her imaginary instructor smacking him on his nose with her rolled newspaper and smiled. “Thanks.”
Carter headed to his cruiser, which sat parked at the curb in front of Charlotte’s house. She followed him outside and stood in her driveway. She was about to head back inside when she noticed four women heading down the sidewalk towards her. She
recognized them as members of the Morning Death Squad, whose sworn duty was to make sure everyone woke up each morning. If someone’s blinds remained closed too long, they’d knock on your door to make sure you hadn’t died during the night.
Everyone needs a hobby.
“Morning, ladies.”
The women’s gazes bounced from Charlotte to the cruiser and back again as Carter pulled away, their expressions masks of disapproval.
“He came to tell me about someone who wants to hire me.”
“Mm hm,” said the brunette.
Charlotte scowled. “He wasn’t here long.”
“But long enough maybe,” muttered another.
Charlotte rolled her eyes and snatched her paper out of the driveway. “Goodbye, ladies.”
She marched back into her house as the ladies strolled on their way.
Nosey ghouls.
Charlotte got dressed and headed for Carter’s station. The sheriff wasn’t there but his deputy set her up in a room with Mina Powell. The woman looked as though she hadn’t slept in a week. The red rims of her eyes practically glowed.
“I’m so glad you came,” said Mina.
“Sheriff Carter told me you wanted to see me.”
“I do. I want to hire you to find out who killed Kimber.”
Charlotte perked. A job!
Be cool. First things first.
“Do you have a lawyer?” she asked.
“Yes. I’ve got the family lawyers already working on that end of things.”
“Good. I’m a hundred dollars an hour plus expenses. Is that okay?” Charlotte suffered a twinge of guilt. She charged less when she thought potential clients couldn’t afford her services, but the Miller house seemed capable of covering what she thought her hourly rate should be.
Should I feel guilty asking what I think I’m worth for once?
Mina didn’t blink.
A wave of giddiness swallowed Charlotte’s guilt. She felt so legit.
“Okay. Tell me what’s going on. Take it from the top, when you found Mr. Miller.”
Mina took a deep breath. “The night Kimber died, I found him on the ground and then heard a commotion in the puppies’ room. Lyndsey was in there. She looked like she was hiding.”
“Did you ask her what she was doing in there?”
“Yes, because she’s not allowed upstairs. No one is except me. Kimber wanted it that way.”