by L A Dobbs
"That's right. But Melody came to get the prescription."
Betsy shook her head. "No, I don't think so."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
Betsy looked around the pharmacy to make sure no one else was near before she turned the screen so Sam could see it. She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the signature. "Someone did pick up Margie's pills that night, but it wasn't Melody. It was Margie herself, and now I distinctly remember it because she was using that walker, and she could barely make it from the front door. It was sad because just a week earlier she didn't even need the walker."
Sam stared at the signature. If Margie had picked the pills up herself, then Melody had lied about being at the pharmacy the night her father was killed.
Theories circled like vultures in Sam's head as he drove back from the pharmacy. Either Melody had gotten her days mixed up, or she'd lied. What if instead of saying she was at the pharmacy and had seen Brian at home to cover for Brian, she was really trying to cover for herself? What reason would there have been to lie other than not wanting Sam to know where she was? Could she have been at the cabin? Did she know about Tommy? But how? Images of her holding the mail came to mind, and he wondered again to what address those DNA results had been mailed.
As he drove down Main Street, he passed Weatherby's antique store, and it hit him. Why hadn't he thought of it before?
If Mike had been selling the family china, what better place to do it then Weatherby's, and if one of his kids suspected, they might have gone to the store to find out.
Mike could have easily taken a few flow blue pieces out of the china cabinet. Margie would've been too sick to even notice they were missing. But Melody might have noticed.
He pulled over in front of the antique store and headed in. The bells over the large oak door tinkled as he stepped inside. Clara Weatherby smiled at him from behind the counter. Her snow-white hair and wrinkled face gave her a grandmotherly look, but Sam knew underneath she was a shrewd businesswoman.
"You ready to start that collection now?" Clara asked. She encouraged everyone in town to collect something. It was good for business, but it was also a fun hobby. She loved scouting around various antique stores, auctions, and estate sales to find just that perfect piece that someone could add to their collection.
Sam wasn't the collecting type. He had a cabin full of antiques and family heirlooms from his grandparents, which he treasured, but he was more of a minimalist himself. He didn't need a lot to make him happy. And, besides, most of his time was spent on the job, not sitting at home looking at a bunch of fancy collectibles.
"Not this time. I'm actually here on police business."
A perfectly plucked gray brow slid upward. "Oh?"
"I've got a suspicion that Mike Donnelly might've been selling off some of his family belongings."
Clara's eyes darted to a display case in the back of the room, and Sam saw the flow blue china in it. "Flow blue china, right?"
Clara nodded. "The pieces he had weren't that outstanding, not like the ones your grandma always refused to sell me. But with Margie being sick and all, I didn't have the heart to tell him, so I just paid him some money and let them bring them in. I figured he had bills. I know how expensive hospital stays and treatments can be."
"And was Mike the only one that knew about it?"
"I should say so. Margie would've been mad if she found out. The china had come down from her family. That's why I keep it back in there. I made the mistake of putting some in the window, and I nearly blew it."
"What do you mean?"
"It was about a month ago. Mike had been coming for about a month before that and bringing select pieces. Some of the flow blue, and he had some silver too." Clara glanced toward the big display window that looked out onto the main street. "I had put some of it in that window when I saw Margie and Melody pull up over across the way. That was back when Margie still got around pretty well. Anyway, I realized I made a big mistake. I didn't know Margie would be coming into town anymore, and if she saw that in the window, she'd flip. I didn't want to cause a problem with her and Mike, so I rushed over and took it out and put it in the case. I'd save it for her kids, but you know kids these days... they don't appreciate this old stuff. Better to sell it to someone who will be happy to own it."
"Did Margie or Melody see any of it that day?" Sam asked.
Clara sighed. "Thankfully not. I got it all out of the window before they came by, and they didn't come into the store, so I think I dodged a bullet there."
"And none of the family ever came in asking about it?"
"No. As far as I know, Mike's secret was safe from them."
Sam got back in the Tahoe and drove to the police station. What if Clara was wrong? What if Melody had seen the flow blue china and recognized it? On one of his visits to the Donnelly house, the china had been out on the dining room table, and Margie and Melody had been cleaning it. What if Melody recognized it in the store window from across the street and didn't want to upset her mother?
And what if she went to confront her father about it that night and discovered the truth?
Chapter Thirty
Harry and Jo were still at the police station when Sam got back. Jo was filling out paperwork, and Harry was regaling Reese with tales of one of his investigative exploits.
Harry broke with Reese and trailed Sam back to the squad room area. "So what did you find out?"
Jo looked up, amused. "Yeah, what did you find out?"
Sam gave in. He needed to talk this out, and Harry wasn't going to leave. Besides, one more brain noodling on this might help.
"Melody lied. She didn't pick up the prescriptions from the pharmacy that night. Margie picked them up herself," Sam said.
Harry nodded sagely. "Interesting."
"Well, Brian and Tommy didn't lie." Jo leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the desk. "Both of their alibis checked out. They couldn't have killed Mike."
"Do you think Melody did it?" Harry asked.
Sam went over the corkboard where they'd pinned up all the information on the case. Notes, pictures, everything they had. Lucy followed and sat at his heels.
"Everything I've got is circumstantial. Just because she didn't pick up the medication at the pharmacy doesn't prove she was at the camp."
"What's her motive?" Harry asked.
"Mike was selling off family heirlooms to provide money for Tommy. Melody might have caught on to that. When we were at the house, I noticed some empty spaces in the china cabinet, and later on, Margie and Melody were cleaning that china. Melody might've noticed the pieces were missing."
"Her motive would be even stronger if she intercepted those DNA test results and knew she had a half brother that would inherit one-third of Mike's estate," Jo said.
"That would be motive enough given what was in the will," Harry said. "If Mike died before Margie, then only Melody and Brian would inherit. Mike's will gave everything to Margie, and Margie's will gave everything to her children, and Tommy wasn't one of her children."
"On the other hand, if Margie died first, which seemed inevitable, her wealth would go to Mike, but then when Mike died, everything would go to his issue. The three children. Melody and Brian would lose out on one-third of their inheritance," Jo said.
"But the Ritchies said they only ever saw the family cars at the camp that day. Mike's car was there, but maybe another family car was also there," Sam pointed out.
"Melody's car?" Harry asked.
"That's the thing. They didn't see Melody's car, just Mike and Margie Donnelly's cars. But their camp was past the Donnellys', so they wouldn't see everyone who visited the camp. They didn't even see the white Jetta, so we can't count that for anything."
Harry had taken a seat at the empty desk they had reserved for the new hire. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at Sam. "But Brian suggested Melody might've lied about going to the pharmacy to cover up for him. It seems plausible. And killing your d
ad because of an inheritance..." Harry shook his head. "I know that happens, but we're not talking that much money here, and it seems a little far-fetched given the case. Does she seem like the kind of crazy person that would do that?"
Sam shook his head and stared at the corkboard. "No. That's what's bugging me. It just doesn't add up."
Lucy whined and scratched at the wall underneath a picture of the Donnellys' driveway they'd taken the morning after the murder.
"The bicycle tracks!" Jo said. "When we were at Melody's, her husband said something about her bicycle."
Harry shook his head. "Why would Melody ride a bicycle all the way out there? Where does she live, and how long would it take her?"
"Well, she might've taken the bicycle so that nobody would see her car there. But she lives in the newer section of town, and that's a pretty far ride." Jo twisted her mouth and shook her head. "Maybe her husband did it. He didn't seem to like Mike very much."
"Or Brian. He rides a bicycle since he lost his license," Harry said.
Jo shook her head. "There wouldn't have been enough time to attend the AA meeting and cycle out to the camp."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "You think Melody knew about this other kid and told the husband, then he killed Mike so Melody wouldn't get gypped on her inheritance?"
"That doesn't seem likely. Sam's right. This doesn't add up. Even though she lied about being at the pharmacy, it might still have been to protect Brian. She's done that her whole life. And we don't know that she noticed the flow blue was gone or even found the DNA test results." Jo started digging through the pile of papers on her desk. "In fact, I have that DNA test right here. Maybe it says..." She whipped out a piece of paper with a red-and-gray logo. She frowned, then she held it up to Sam. "That letter didn't go to Mike's house. It went to Tommy, so if Melody knew about him, she didn't find out because of the bill."
Lucy whined and scratched again.
Sam looked closer at the picture, and suddenly, he knew what had been bugging him. "Shit. I don't think Melody was the killer. We've been barking up the wrong tree."
Harry leaned forward. "How so?"
"Look at this." Sam tapped on the picture. "I thought these bike tracks looked a little weird, but I assumed they were tracks that were coming and going. Now I see the spacing is too perfect. Too parallel. These aren't bike tracks--they're walker tracks."
Lucy's tail swished back and forth rapidly. "And now I remember, when we visited Margie those times, Lucy was very interested in sniffing the wheels on the walker. Lucy knew the whole time that it was Margie."
"So the tracks prove that Margie was there, but they don't prove that she killed Mike," Harry said. "She could have visited at any time. It was her camp, too."
"Not the tracks alone, but it all adds up," Sam said. "What if Margie knew Mike was selling off the flow blue and got suspicious? Mike had an affair with Tommy's mother seventeen years ago--do you think he could've hidden that from Margie? Wives know these things. Maybe she suspected the affair, but when Tommy's mother left, she might have thought she'd been wrong. I mean, she had her own family to think about, and with Tommy's mother gone, why pursue it?"
"Wait a minute! When we looked at that ATM footage of Mike getting the money from the ATM, the brown Taurus was on a side street. We thought Mike had driven it there, but he always drove the black truck. What if it was Margie in that car, spying on Mike?" Jo said.
"She might've figured out something was going on with Mike, and if she followed him and saw him meeting Tommy, she would know exactly why," Sam said. "Maybe she went to the camp and confronted him. At first, we had assumed Mike took the gun with him because he was expecting a fight, but what if it was Margie that brought the gun?"
"And now Margie is lying on her deathbed." Jo's eyes were dark with sympathy. "How can we go in and accuse a dying woman of murdering her husband?"
Sam sat in the chair and scrubbed his hands through his hair. "Good question. This would've been so much easier if Thorne was the killer."
Harry stood and clapped Sam on the shoulder. "Well, son, police chiefing doesn't always come easy. And now it sounds like you guys got yourselves a dilemma. In my experience, sometimes you have to choose between justice and doing the right thing. So what are you going to choose?"
Chapter Thirty-One
Sam and Jo stood at the Donnellys' front door with heavy hearts. He had a duty as chief of police to follow through on the investigation, but if his suspicions were correct, he didn't know what he was going to do about it. Still, he had to find out the truth. He had to hear from Margie's mouth if she was at the cabin that day. They still didn't have enough evidence to prove anything, but it all added up.
Melody answered the door, her eyes red and puffy.
"Come in." She sounded resigned as she held the door open.
"Mom's taken a drastic turn for the worse. The doctor said it won't be long now." She stood in the living room, her arms wrapped around her middle as she stared at Margie, lying in a hospital bed that had been set up near the window. Margie's breathing was shallow, her paper-thin skin as white as the sheets that were tucked around her.
Sam glanced at Jo. They wouldn't be getting a confession out of Margie now.
"I'm real sorry about that," Sam said.
Brian sat in the chair beside Margie, holding her frail hand. He nodded briefly at Sam and Jo and then moved his attention back to his mother.
Sam felt like an interloper. They had no business being there, even if it was part of their investigation.
"So have you found out what happened to my dad?" Melody asked.
"We're making progress. We just wanted to come and ask your mom a few questions, but..." Sam's voice drifted off. "We'll leave you alone now." He turned toward the door.
"Oh, wait..." Melody crossed the room to a small table and picked up a lilac-colored envelope. She handed it to Sam. His name was scrawled in shaky letters on the front.
"What's this?"
"Mom wrote it yesterday in one of her more lucid moments. She sealed it and made me swear not to look inside. Said if you came by to give it to you and for you to read it here."
Melody stepped back to her mother's side as Sam slid his finger under the flaps of the envelope. He pulled out a letter on matching lavender paper, written in the same shaky hand as his name on the envelope.
Jo looked over his shoulder as he read it.
Chief Mason,
You might have already figured this out. If not, I fear you are close. I know my time is near, and it won't do any harm to tell the truth. I want you to know for sure so you don't blame either of my kids... but maybe you'll take heart on a dying woman and not tell them. I don't want them to remember me as a monster.
I was the one that killed Mike. But the bastard deserved it. I knew about his affair with Judy Kendler all those years ago. But with two kids of my own, I chose to look the other way. And when she left town, I thought it was all in the past. Even when she returned a few years ago, I didn't catch on about her son.
But then shortly after she died, Mike started to act strange. Sneaking around. And that's when I noticed some of the family silver and flow blue china was missing. So I followed him one day and saw him meeting with that boy and giving him money. That's when I knew what he was up to.
I didn't have the time or energy to fight about it, but I figured Mike would try to include Tommy in everything, and I had to do something to protect my children's inheritance.
So I followed Mike to the cabin that night, and I shot the bastard with his own gun. Then I put the gun under him so it would look like he shot himself. Why couldn't you have just believed my suicide story? It would have been better for all if you had. But now that you seem hell bent on investigating, I'm afraid you might misinterpret the clues and accuse Melody or Brian. So I leave you with this confession. It's up to you what you do with it.
Sincerely,
Margie Donnelly
Sam was holding the confession for Mi
ke Donnelly's murder in his hand, but it didn't make him feel as if justice had been served. What was he going to do now? Arrest a dying woman?
He glanced up at Melody and Brian, bending over their mother, their faces creased with grief. Neither one of them had had anything to do with this, and apparently, neither one of them knew about Tommy. What good would come of making it known that their mother had killed their father? It would only add to their despair. Harry's words about choosing between justice and doing the right thing came back to him. Mike's killer was getting a worse punishment than any normal course of justice would bring.
Melody looked up at him, her brows tugging together. "What was in the letter? Anything important?"
Sam tapped the letter against his leg. He glanced at Jo. They didn't need to exchange words. He knew she was totally on board with what he was about to do. "Kind of. It lays to rest some of the questions we had about your father's death."
Brian jerked his head up. "You know who did it?"
"Well, that's the thing. Turns out your mom was right in the first place. She said your dad was very upset about her prognosis. But because the vultures had contaminated the crime scene, we got some of the evidence wrong. Nobody killed your dad. He killed himself."
The looks of relief on their faces were worth it. They'd already come to terms with their father's death, and having it be ruled a suicide as opposed to murder was actually much easier for them to deal with now, especially when the murderer was their own mother. Sam didn't know what he was going to do to persuade the medical examiner to look at the evidence in such a way that it could be ruled a suicide. It wasn't as if they had evidence to the contrary--it was simply that the vulture damage had made it impossible to get the evidence they needed to prove it was a suicide. Sam knew he could finagle things to get the verdict he needed.
Margie sighed. Her eyes fluttered but didn't open. It was as if it were a sign that Sam had done the right thing. Sam and Jo turned toward the door. "We'll leave you alone now. Sorry for your losses."