by Louise Lynn
“I figured SEPOA would have ties with the animal centers here.”
“Ah, that would make sense. Not yet. But I'm working on it. Maggie White is a hard woman to please.”
This time, I snorted despite myself. “Yes, she is. But she has a good, honest heart.”
“So I am told.” Wyatt grinned and took a small sip of his tea. “Was I right in hearing that you brought muffins with you…?”
He eyed my purse, licking his tightly pressed lips. His blue eyes glinted in the sunlight pouring through the wide windows. I blinked at my purse.
“Two, to be exact. I figured you'd appreciate them. Oh, and I also got you this. It’s from Ivy, too.”
Once I had brought out the bag of muffins, I presented the wreath. This one I had purchased from the store. Matthew had been an exception, and giving away gifts wasn't exactly my idea of gratitude.
Wyatt paused, before reaching for the wreath. I’d expected him to take the muffins first. I knew that I would have.
“Beautiful…” He regarded it as though he recognized it. “From Ivy, too?”
My heart skipped a beat. I left my tea on the coffee table and kept a hand inside my purse. I could feel the cold can of pepper spray press against my clammy flesh. I wrapped my fingers tight around the object.
“It is. What I don't think is beautiful is lying, Mr. Edwards.”
“Come again?”
“You’re the one who bought Jenny Walker’s house.”
A deafening silence stretched between us. I held my gaze, though, not breaking contact with him.
He dipped his head and rubbed at his temple. “Yes,” he answered flatly. “I bought their home. And I also know why you are truly here today, Olivia.”
He stood up from the sofa and I flinched, slowly pulling out the spray.
“You suspect me of killing the old woman, don't you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Don't ask me that. Ask the detectives once you hand yourself over to them. But if I had to deduce why, it was because you wanted their house.”
He circled around the table, inching closer to me. As if by instincts, I stood up and yanked out the pepper spray.
“Don't come any closer,” I warned him.
Wyatt stepped back and raised his hands. “Olivia, please listen to me. I didn't do it. I know why you'd think I did and it's why I kept quiet about buying the Walker’s house. I knew as soon as people found out, they'd be accusing me of murdering her left, right, and center. Hear what I have to say. Please?”
I regarded him through narrowed eyes. After a beat, I nodded, and Wyatt sat down. He pointed at the sofa again, which I was reluctant to accept. I stayed standing, gripping the spray, and Wyatt continued with a heavy sigh.
“I purchased their home six months ago. I had planned to move to San Bas around that time, but there were delays with the escrow. While Jenny Walker had already signed the documents, her husband had been reluctant to settle. The house, of course, was in her name, so he could do little to prevent her. She had been wanting to move from San Bas for a long time. I don't know what finally made her do it, but the morning after she signed the deed, Matthew showed up at my office in a fit of rage. He had demanded that I shred the document, but as I explained to him, I hadn't forced Jenny to sell her home. I had simply made her an offer and she accepted.
“Well, Matthew would have none of it. For weeks I received phone calls, vile messages, and even threats, urging me to pull out. But being a lawyer, I was familiar with this kind of approach, and I refused to entertain them. I had agreed with Jenny a total of six months’ notice before I moved in, which I felt was fair, under the circumstances. The woman had been ecstatic, and things seemed to be going well.”
He sipped at his tea and crossed a leg over his knee, as if I hadn't just threatened to blind him. I lowered my hand, but kept standing.
“All of a sudden, the death threats from Matthew came. I had contemplated pressing charges, but instead, I decided to decrease their notice period. I reduced it from six months to two. Their silence was my answer, however. While the escrow had been signed and all I had to do was move in, I felt it was poor taste to evict them from their own home. So, I came to San Bas, met with my realtor, and happened to encounter Jenny outside of Maritime. What I didn’t expect was for her to defend her husband’s despicable threats. She had decided to back out of the deal.
“I had explained that wasn’t possible, and that the house was now in my name. She was giving me no other option but to physically evict her and her husband from the house.” Wyatt paused to lick his lips. “Next thing I knew, Jenny Walker had died that very day I saw her. When I had gone to express my condolences to Matthew, I’d received nothing but hostility and his utter refusal to leave the premises at the beginning of January. I had been sympathetic toward him, but I will admit that my patience was wearing thin.”
With wide eyes, I digested all the information. I had seen Wyatt before Jenny had died and he’d talked about moving to San Bas permanently.
“Then… The aquarium. I saw you following me and my sister.”
A hint of color rose to Wyatt’s pale cheeks. “Yes. That day, I had just met with Maggie to discuss working together on freeing the orca held in captivity in San Diego. We’d left under the intention of Maggie preparing paperwork on what she’d learned of that center, and while I had waited for her, I happened to see you both. I knew that you had already found me suspicious, and for some reason, at the time I couldn’t think of a viable reason to explain why I was there. You had caught me off guard, which believe me, is rare.”
“Running away merely adds to one’s suspicion, you know.” I sat down on the sofa and crossed my legs, keeping the spray visible on my lap. “Not to mention stalking us.”
“Yes. It was my mistake.” The blush had drained from his cheeks now and his gaze hardened. “As for Matthew, I have given him two weeks to leave before, as I explained to him at the memorial service, I’m forced to seek legal action. I had showed him compassion towards his wife’s death, but I’ve found his nature to be deplorable, and at times, questionable.”
“The death threats,” I said, nodding my head slowly. “What were they exactly?”
“Nothing I did not forget to document. After the third one, I’d had enough of his behavior, and confronted him at the memorial.”
“And the cuts on your hand…” I jutted my chin toward his hand.
“Oh. These.” He shuffled nervously on the sofa and unfolded his legs. “I, uhh… like I said, I want to be a part of this community. When I saw how devastated Ivy and yourself were over the destroyed wreaths, I began to make my own for you.” He approached his desk and opened the top drawer, revealing a half-constructed wreath. It was spray-painted in white snow dust and glittered in the lights. “They’re trickier than I thought, which I think showed. At least with mine it certainly did.”
“The white one? That was you?” I said, quirking a brow.
“Indeed. I know it wasn’t great since my area of expertise, shall we say, lies in a different field. But I hope your sister—I mean, you both liked it.”
“She did. But the rest of them came from the town, didn’t they?”
“Once people started catching on to what I was doing, they banded together and joined in. Their camaraderie was quite remarkable to be a part of.”
I bit my bottom lip and focused on him. His alibi was good and steady. I had already managed to confirm aspects of his story in my mind without growing suspicious, but…
“Do the police know about all this? Detective Harper?”
“I believe they do, yes. But it hasn’t brought them any closer to finding the real killer.”
My blood froze inside my veins and my ribs seemed to tighten around my heart.
That was because the killer was the last person they expected.
The one who had access to the foxglove from his kitchen, who had broken into the aquarium and stolen the box j
ellyfish—which explained the scratches on his arm—being so aloof about his wife’s death, and he’d had the most opportunities to poison Jenny Walker.
The killer was Matthew Walker.
Her husband.
He could easily have poisoned Jenny’s stevia at home, and he hadn’t walked with her that day, either. Didn’t he say he always walked to work with Jenny on Friday mornings, but that day he had “slept in”? Which ensured he wouldn’t be around when she died, and the poison would be in my tea cup.
I shot up from the sofa and grabbed my bag. “I need to go. Wyatt, I think you just helped me crack the case.”
“I did?”
He rose up from the sofa, too, and watched me inch toward the door.
“Yes! And don’t worry,” I said over my shoulder, “I won’t tell Ivy that you have a crush on her. She’s oblivious to those kinds of things, anyway.”
His entire face turned beetroot as I raced out of his office.
Chapter Nineteen
I didn’t even thank the receptionist for the tea, as I moved quickly through the foyer and into the biting air. My eyes steamed with the cold and I brought out a clean handkerchief to wipe them.
“Ivy. What are you doing here?”
My sister leaned against the side of my truck, her arms folded and expression stubborn. “I got a bus. I wanted to make sure you were okay and nothing bad had happened. Or that you hadn’t been murdered.”
I smiled at the blatant concern flitting over her face. It was sweet of her, but— “The shop?”
“Mom’s looking after it. Any update?”
“It wasn’t Wyatt,” I said, unlocking the truck.
We climbed inside and Ivy blew out a sigh of relief. “Good. He’s too cute to rot in prison.”
I smirked at her comment. I wanted to tell her that Wyatt had a secret crush on her—that he’d made the ivy wreath—but I had more pressing matters to tend to.
Such as alerting the police that Matthew Walker had poisoned his own wife.
“It was Matthew,” I said, and Ivy choked on her saliva.
“Uhh, you mean that Matthew who’s just pulled up outside the building?”
My head whipped toward the entrance, where I saw an old Cadillac jerking to a halt. I watched in awe as Matthew climbed out—a heavy guitar case hunched on his back, wearing the same black coat from the surveillance videos—and entered SEPOA with a steady strut.
“What’s that on his back?” Ivy leaned toward my window, trying to catch a better glimpse.
“Text Dean. Tell him it’s urgent that he comes to SEPOA immediately. Tell him we’ve caught Jenny Walker’s killer.”
Ivy tapped furiously into her phone and followed me out of the truck. “If it was really him,” she said, “what should we do? We’re not exactly armed, or skilled in this kind of thing.”
I wasn’t sure myself. I just knew we had to follow him and make sure he wasn’t up to anymore tricks. Keep him trapped until the police came. But if the death threats were true—and now, I had little doubt of it—who knew what the man was capable of.
I hoped Dean would reach SEPOA swiftly.
Elspeth stood up from the reception desk. “Oh, sorry, but he’s in another meeting—”
“I just left my cellphone inside. I’ll be in and out real quick, if that’s okay?”
She worried her bottom lip. “Then I’ll come with you.”
I didn’t want her to, but I couldn’t possibly say that unless I wanted to be escorted from the building.
We took the elevator to the top floor, and as soon as the doors pinged open, Ivy ran into the office.
Again, typical Ivy. But this time my stomach flipped, and I called out —
“Ivy, wait!”
She didn’t listen to me. As I grabbed my pepper spray from my pocket, Ivy’s hands thrust open Wyatt’s door and she pounced over the threshold. Elspeth and I quickly followed, but what we saw chilled my bones right to the core.
Elspeth screamed.
My breathing cut short in my throat as I took another step.
Wyatt, on his knees in front of his desk, hands locked behind his head, and Matthew, carrying a baseball bat only inches from Wyatt’s face, raised his arm to strike.
At the sound of us entering, their eyes snapped to the door. For a fleeting moment, Matthew looked horrified to see us standing there. But then his countenance shifted into an ugly, sneering grin, and his beady eyes flashed like a beast about to sink its teeth into its prey.
“Well now. If it isn’t the precious Darrow girls come to save the day.” He swung his arm, causing Ivy to shriek as the bat just missed Wyatt by a hair. “A pity you’re too late.”
“Get outside,” Wyatt managed, his face already slightly bruised. “Leave while you still can!”
“M… Mr. Edwards, I’ll call the police,” Elspeth managed, pivoting on her heel.
“Do so and I will put this bat straight through your pretty boss’s thick skull,” Matthew warned, swinging the bat once again.
He no longer sounded like the sweet old librarian. He sounded and looked like a madman intent on killing. Again.
Wyatt moved his head to the side, hoping to miss the impact. He did, just barely, and he didn’t so much as hiss.
“Mr. Walker, please don’t do this,” I begged, inching nearing to him. I paused when he raised the bat again. “I know you’re under a lot of stress right now, but please… This isn’t you.”
“You’re right,” he whispered, glancing at me briefly. His eyes were bloodshot, and the wrinkles etched into his face seemed to have tripled. “This isn’t me. This is the me I’ve been turned into after my wife stole my home from me, and this man—this slimy, good-for-nothing snake—wants to leave me homeless with not a penny to my name.”
“You know that’s not true—”
“Don’t you speak another word, you snake! I gave you chances to revoke the escrow, but you would not listen. I told you to leave me alone, and yet you continued to pursue me. You’re a fool and this is what you deserve, boy.”
Another swing, this time catching Wyatt in the ribs.
He arched his spine and choked back against the pain. I took another step, desperate to tackle the bat from him before he killed Wyatt.
Dean, please hurry up. I need you!
“If you stop, we can fix this,” I said, lowering my voice as though I were coaxing a caged animal. “It’s not too late.”
“Too late?” Matthew spat. “Too late? I wasn’t the one who pushed me to this—he and my wife did. I told them how much my home meant to me. It was my life, my past, and by God, it was going to be my future even if I had to burn this town to the ground. It’s all I have left, and yet everyone refused to listen to me.”
“I gave you… six months,” Wyatt managed between gasps.
“If you had given me forever, son, it would not have come to this. Jenny would still be alive!”
“But you were the one who killed her!” Ivy screamed, throwing an accusatory finger at him. “She’d be alive if you hadn’t poisoned her!”
I steeled myself and took another step. “You poisoned her with the foxglove and jellyfish, didn’t you? You slipped it into her stevia before she’d even reached my shop. You wanted me to take the fall for it because you knew she was coming to me.”
“Yes! But Jenny gave me no choice,” Matthew shot back, glaring only at Wyatt. “She signed the documents despite my pleas. What was I to do?”
“Uhh, not kill her?” Ivy said, and I closed my eyes.
She wasn’t helping the situation any.
I braved one more step. “Matthew, please listen to me… You don’t have to be this person. You made a mistake. We all do it. But that doesn’t mean we have to keep making them.”
I’d gotten so close—only a few steps away from him—and Matthew had even lowered the bat.
But Ivy pounced onto Matthew’s back and wrapped her arms around his neck, pinning him close to her body. Their bodies quickly c
ollapsed backward, and Matthew pushed them onto the sofa to try to untangle her from him. But she didn’t. She wrestled the old man’s arms to his side and screamed at me.
“Quick, Olivia! Hurry! The spray!”
My body lurched into action and I dragged out my pepper spray. Without even hesitating, I sprayed into Matthew’s eyes and covered my mouth. His eyeballs sizzled and slammed shut, and he screamed—screamed so loudly I thought I had killed him.
I jumped back and picked up his baseball bat. Elspeth ran to Wyatt and steadied him up from the floor. At that moment, the doors were thrown open, and Detective Woods and Harper charged inside, guns at the ready.
As Ivy released Matthew and I stepped back, my limbs trembling from head to toe, the old man dropped to his knees and wept.
“What have I done, Jenny? What have I done…”
Chapter Twenty
My lungs ached from coughing, and I swore I could still smell pepper spray in the air.
But at least the murderer was caught, and my name had been cleared.
I stood outside of SEPOA with Ivy at my side. She had closed her eyes, but the pepper spray still came dangerously close to her face. They were red, and she coughed more than I did—if that were even possible.
We watched the lights flash on top of the police cars as Dean and his partner led Matthew out and read him his rights. After what we’d seen, I didn’t know if we’d have to go with him to the station or not.
I hoped not.
“I tackled a killer,” Ivy said and grinned at me.
“An eighty-year-old killer,” I corrected with a smile.
She glowered at me. “Sixty. You have to admit that I helped.”
“I can do that. Though, I think I could have sprayed him without you tackling him, for future reference.”
Ivy shrugged, and I could tell she was doing her best to ignore Wyatt, who was being checked over by the medic. “You think we’ll have to clear your name some other time?”