Criminal Crumbs

by Jessica Beck

  “After talking to Celia earlier in the kitchen, I can say with certainty that there’s no way she’s going to ever sign anything like that, Grace. She wants her sister out of her finances. I don’t know if it’s wise or not, but that’s really none of our business. That’s between the two of them.”

  “Put it back, Suzanne. It’s not a clue about the attempts on Nicole’s life. All Celia has to do is refuse to sign it, and it’s a moot point. We shouldn’t be snooping in her stuff.”

  “Sorry,” I said as I put the paper back where it belonged. At least I hoped that I did. Would Nicole notice if I hadn’t gotten it exactly right? Chances are we were okay, given the random pattern of paperwork I’d found.

  “There’s nothing else here,” I said finally as I put the last bag back in its place.

  “That’s enough, don’t you think? With what we’ve found, we have reasons to suspect Dina, Georgia, and Janelle. That was our final grouping of suspects anyway.”

  “I just wish we knew who fabricated that sales report,” I said.

  A moment later, Nicole asked us from the doorway, “What exactly are the two of you up to, Grace? Suzanne, would either one of you care to answer me?”

  The real question was how long had she been standing there, and exactly how much had she seen and heard before she’d spoken to us?

  Chapter 15

  “Are you finished with your search so soon?” I asked her, stalling for time. “It’s a pretty big place. We didn’t expect anyone to be back this early.”

  “Clearly,” Nicole said, with Celia standing just behind her. “Were you going through our things just now?”

  “What? No. Of course not. I can’t find my lip balm,” I said. “I was searching my bag, and Grace was looking in hers for some I could borrow.”

  “No worries. I always carry a few spares,” Celia said as she stepped forward and offered me a tube. “This dry air just kills my lips, too.”

  I took the offering, applied a healthy amount to my lips, and then handed it back to her. “Thanks so much.”

  “Keep it. I’ve got more in my bag,” she said, which I knew for a fact was true, since I’d been the one who’d searched her things. That overabundance of lip balm was about the only thing out of the ordinary that she’d brought with her.

  “Excellent,” I said. “I take it you didn’t have any luck finding Hank.”

  “We didn’t, but who knows where he might be? For all we know, he might be hiding right under our noses, and we could have missed him, though I find it highly unlikely. You saw the way he was lying on the ground. There’s no way he’d survive that fall.”

  “I’m afraid that I probably have to agree with you,” I said, “but we still had to look. Funny, I wouldn’t have pegged Hank as the heroic type.”

  “He certainly never displayed it while we were dating,” she said, “but I knew that deep down, he still must have cared for me. Why else would he have sacrificed himself like that?”

  “Since you’ve slept on it, do you have any new ideas as to who might have tried to shove you over the hillside last night?” Grace asked. “I know for me, sometimes things come back to me after a good night’s sleep.”

  “I wish I could come up with something new, but it’s still all just one big blur,” Nicole said. “I’m deathly afraid that whoever did it is going to try again, though, especially since we’re so isolated up here now.”

  “Don’t worry, Sis. I’ll watch your back,” Celia said.

  I wondered if she’d still feel that way if she knew what her sister was about to try to get her to sign, but I had no way to ask her without revealing that we’d been snooping in Nicole’s things and had stumbled across the extension.

  A moment later, Dina, Georgia, and Janelle came up from the basement. They all looked dusty and tired from their excursion. “The next time search parties go out, we get the upstairs,” Georgia said. “That place was filthy.”

  “No sign of Hank, then?” I asked her.

  “Did you hear a scream, Suzanne?” she asked sarcastically.

  “To answer your question, no, we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary on our search,” Janelle supplied.

  “How can we possibly say that, since we don’t know what passes for ordinary around this gothic castle? It’s a wonder they haven’t filmed a horror movie here by now.”

  I decided to let her complaint pass for what it was: just another opportunity for Georgia to display her displeasure with the situation. She was in good company as far as that went. I wasn’t particularly happy to be stuck at the lodge with a killer, either.

  “I’m getting hungry,” Janelle said. Then, almost apologetically, she added, “Not that your donuts weren’t delicious this morning, but I need something a little more substantial for lunch.”

  I’d scanned the supplies earlier when I’d been gathering donut ingredients. “I suppose I could make us all sandwiches,” I offered.

  “How about grilled cheese?” Dina asked. “I don’t mind grating a batch of cheddar for you.”

  “With ham, too,” Georgia said.

  “There are massive bags of chips in the pantry. I saw them when I was helping Suzanne earlier,” Celia added.

  “I suppose that I could get the drinks,” Nicole offered.

  “I’ll get plates and linen napkins,” Janelle said. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we all eat in the kitchen? There’s an island in the middle with enough stools to easily fit all of us. The dining room seems so stuffy.”

  “I’ll help you with the place settings,” Georgia said. It was next to the least she could do, but I didn’t mind, since it was the only way that we’d all be together. She looked at my best friend and asked, “What are you going to contribute, Grace?”

  “I’ll be by Suzanne’s side the entire time offering moral support,” she said with a grin.

  I wasn’t exactly sure when I’d volunteered to be the head chef around the lodge, but at least I knew I could trust whatever I made. My specialties might not match the chef’s or even my mother’s, but I should be able to keep us fed until help arrived.

  If it ever did, that was, and if anyone but the killer was left alive at the Shadow Mountain Lodge by the time they got there.

  Lunch was good, even if I made that observation myself. The grilled ham and cheese sandwiches were tasty, with buttered bread toasted on a griddle I’d found in the kitchen, and it served its function perfectly, warming the ham as it melted the cheese, all the while giving the bread a good toasting. Nicole found sodas for us, Celia retrieved chips, and the kitchen island looked almost festive with the fine china on it. Georgia and Janelle had gone all out on the presentation, and I felt it was almost too fancy for the common food we ate. Still, given the circumstances, it turned out much better than we had any right to expect.

  Until after the two pies I’d found were nearly completely consumed.

  The period in which Georgia and Janelle were cooperating was clearly over when Georgia asked, “Are you going to eat two pieces of pie? I haven’t had any yet.”

  Janelle put down the serving fork holding another healthy slab of cherry pie. “I’m sorry. I thought you were finished.”

  “I’ll just bet you did,” Georgia snapped as she grabbed the pie and placed it on a plate of her own. “That’s your problem, Janelle; you’re too greedy for your own good.”

  “I said I was sorry,” she complained. “What more do you want from me?”

  “I don’t know, why don’t you try admitting that you tried to rig the contest for Nicole’s job in your favor?”

  Janelle blushed a little from the accusation. “Hank found just as many shortcuts in your report as he did in mine.”

  “Isn’t that water under the bridge at this point, ladies?” Nicole asked, trying to play the part of peacemaker.

  “With all due respec
t, nothing’s set in stone anymore, Nicole,” Georgia said.

  She looked surprised by the statement. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Now that Hank’s gone, don’t you think the home office is going to reexamine how you got that job in the first place?” Georgia asked her.

  “It’s actually quite simple. I earned it,” Nicole said icily. Had Georgia hit a nerve just then?

  “So you say,” Janelle replied. Were the two of them back to being allies again? It was enough to make my head spin, but I knew better than to interrupt them. Something valuable might come out of their squabbling if I just kept my mouth shut.

  Unfortunately, Grace didn’t have the same plan. “It’s interesting that we’re discussing sales reports. Suzanne and I happened to find something besides footprints on our walk this morning,” she said.

  I tried my best to signal her to drop it, but she either missed my clue or, more likely, chose to ignore it.

  Janelle asked her, “What are you talking about?”

  “Yes, I’d like to know that as well,” Nicole added.

  Georgia, for once in her life, was silent, but Dina wasn’t. “Since I haven’t been outside since we got here, I’d like to hear that myself.” She was the only one who’d been planning to stay at the lodge out of all of us, though she hadn’t chosen a room by the time we all joined up in the main reception area. Her bags had been intermixed with ours, thus allowing our earlier discovery. Hopefully Grace wouldn’t bring that up, too, but I couldn’t be sure at that point.

  What choice did we have now but to show them what we’d found? I walked over to the bulletin board enclosure and took out the report we’d uncovered, leaving Dina’s waiver and forgery attempts in place. As I tried to hand the sheet to Grace, I said, “Go on. Show them.”

  “Show us what?” Nicole asked.

  “Give it to her instead, Suzanne,” Grace instructed me, and I did as I was told.

  Nicole’s reaction was heated and instant. “This is all a lie!”

  “What is it?” Georgia asked. Was she playing innocent, or did she really not know?

  “It’s a report stating that I falsified my numbers as well,” Nicole replied.

  “Don’t worry,” Grace said. “It’s clearly a fake.”

  “How can you tell that?” Janelle asked. Was it a matter of personal wounded pride that she’d botched the attempt at fabrication, or was she sincerely curious? I wasn’t getting anything from these two women.

  “Look at the numbers in the last column,” Grace said.

  Nicole smiled for the first time since she’d learned that the report had surfaced. “The numbers don’t align. I missed that myself. Where did you find this?”

  “In the Fir cottage,” I said.

  Nicole turned to Janelle and Georgia. “Which one of you did this?”

  “It wasn’t me!” Janelle snapped.

  “Don’t look at me! I didn’t do it, either!” Georgia answered nearly as quickly. She turned toward Janelle. “So that’s what you were hiding when I came inside our cottage yesterday.”

  “I didn’t hide anything,” Janelle said. “Where did you find that?”

  “Hang on a second,” I said before Grace could supply the answer. This might be the wedge I’d been waiting for to break things open a little bit. “Georgia, exactly where did you see Janelle hiding something?”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Janelle insisted, nearly screaming this time.

  “Please be quiet and let her speak,” Nicole said.

  “I don’t know. It was somewhere around the beds. Was it under a mattress?”

  Close, but no cigar. If Georgia had hidden it herself, she could be playing dumb with us. Then again, if she was innocent, that might be all the direction she could really give us.

  “Sorry, but no,” I said.

  Janelle took my statement as full vindication, something I was nowhere near ready to award her. “See? I told you that I didn’t do it.”

  “Where was it, then?” Janelle asked us.

  Grace looked at me, and I nodded. “It was tucked behind one of the headboards,” she said.

  “Which one?” Georgia asked.

  “Who had the bed farthest from the front door of the cottage?” I asked.

  Janelle’s face went ashen as Georgia crowed, “She did.”

  “Well, that was the headboard where we didn’t find it, so it must have been yours,” I told Georgia.

  How quickly her victory turned to ashes. “Do you honestly think that means that I did it? Do you really think that I’m stupid enough to hide something that might incriminate me in my area and not someone else’s?”

  “We haven’t figured out just how stupid you are yet,” Janelle said smugly, clearly pleased with her shot at Georgia.

  “Really? Is that how you want to try to spin this?” Georgia asked, whirling toward her roommate.

  “Ladies! Enough!” Nicole silenced them, frowned at the report for a moment, and then folded it twice before tucking it into one of her pockets. I wanted it back, but it probably wasn’t the best time to ask her for it. I’d get it later if I could find a way to justify making the request. I had a feeling that it had yielded its last clue, but I never knew with these things. “I believe it’s time we retire to the reception hall. It’s getting a bit chilly in here, wouldn’t you all agree?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the air temperature or the interpersonal relationships, but either way, she was right. “Who is going to do dishes?” I asked. “I cooked, so I’m exempt.”

  I waited for one of them to dispute my right, and from my resolute expression, they must have realized that asking me would be in vain.

  “I’ll do them,” Dina said. “After all, none of this really concerns me. You all go on in, and I’ll be along shortly.”

  I expected everyone to accept that offer, but Nicole wasn’t interested. “No, I thought we agreed. We stay together from here on out.”

  “I suppose I could pitch in,” Celia said.

  I’d put a pot of water on full heat when we’d started eating, so at least we didn’t have to wait for that. The resort must have had some kind of massive reservoir tank built overhead, because without electricity, there was no way to circulate the water.

  Once the dishes were finished and put in the drying rack, we all headed out to the main room of the lodge where we’d spent the night before. I threw another log on the fire, and then I settled down on the couch beside Grace. If anything was going to happen, I wanted her to be close by when it did.

  Everyone else took seats as well, with the exception of Nicole. She stood facing us, with her back to the fire. “It appears there are secrets here that need to see the light of day. I say we all put our cards on the table. After all, the only person who has anything to gain by silence is the killer. Are we agreed?”

  It had been cleverly handled. Now no one could withhold information without putting a target on their backs. “Come now. Who wants to go first?” When no one spoke, Nicole smiled a little ruefully. “Very well. I’ll get the ball rolling. I know some of you have reason to want to see me lose my new position, but don’t you agree that killing me seems a little drastic? Which of you really feel as though you have any reason to want me to die?”

  I got chills as she asked the question, and I doubted that I could have handled it that calmly if I’d been the one standing in front of that group.

  “We all know that Celia had a reason,” Dina said. When Nicole’s sister stared at her in disbelief, Dina continued, “Don’t try to deny it. You’ve hated having to ask Nicole for every dime you spend. If she were out of the way, your obstacles would all be gone.”

  I nudged Grace, and when she looked at me, I shook my head slightly. We could supply something of value here, but I wanted to see what the others might say first.


  To my surprise, it was Celia who spoke up first. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Dina. We had that conversation on the drive up the mountain. Nicole is worried about my best interests, so she asked me to extend the conservatorship. I declined, and she accepted my answer. Everything is fine between us. Right, Sis?”

  Nicole nodded. “I showed the paper to Celia, explained my reasoning, and she refuted every point I made. It was all very civil. In less than seven days, she gets the entire amount of the residual trust, and I couldn’t be happier for her. After all, managing it has been one headache that I can do without.” She paused as she looked pointedly at Janelle and Georgia. “Besides, we all know that I have enough to do as it is with my new job.”

  Janelle had the decency to look away, though Georgia continued to stare at her without flinching. If she’d been the one to fabricate that sales sheet, she was not being the least apologetic about it.

  “Now who else? Anyone? Come now.”

  “I know it may look as though I wanted you out, but I never would have tried to kill you,” Janelle said.

  “Oh, and I would?” Georgia asked. “Seriously? You wanted that job just as badly as I did. I have to hand it to you, Janelle. I didn’t think you had the brains to come up with that frame job.”

  “That’s because I didn’t,” Janelle protested.

  Georgia grinned at the statement. “Does that mean that you didn’t do it, or you weren’t smart enough to think of it? Which is it, dear?”

  “Let’s not get off track,” Nicole said, and then she stared at Dina before speaking again. “Would you care to share with the others what happened between us?”

  Dina at least had the good sense to look flustered. “I keep telling you, it was all just one big misunderstanding. I thought you said high risk, not low risk, when you invested that money with me. I’m sorry you lost most of your life savings, but it wasn’t my fault. I can’t be held responsible for what the market does.”

  Nicole wasn’t buying her explanation, and I felt that this was a good time to bring out more ammunition. “Is that why you packed a waiver of liability with you?” I asked Dina.