“Did you put this in the recycling bin?” Pete said, keeping his eyes on hers.
She washed her mouthful down with a long drink of soda. “No. I didn’t.”
Pete let out his breath in a rush and went to sit down at the table across from her. He reached across the table and took her hand. “Who could have dumped this thing in our house to incriminate us?”
I stared at the two of them, feeling like I was trying to keep up. “That’s it?”
Aileen tore her eyes away from Pete. “If you were hoping for a full confession, sorry to disappoint. Usually it’s the guilty ones who confess.”
I went and sat down with them. “I wasn’t hoping you were guilty. I just…I don’t exactly know how we know you’re not. Guilty, I mean.”
She started to laugh until she almost choked on her foul sandwich. “I guess you just have to believe me. How hard could that be?”
I leaned forward, getting in her face just the tiniest bit. “It would be a lot easier if you told us about your history with Ladd Foster.”
Aileen set down her glass and looked me in the eye. I tried to keep eye contact without flinching. After a couple of hours—or maybe just thirty seconds or so—she picked up her sandwich again. “You once had a scumbag fiancé who jerked you around, but I didn’t hound you to tell me all the gory details. Did I?”
“Well, you kind of did,” I said, glad she was willing to talk about this rationally. “Was he your fiancé?”
She almost dropped her sandwich. “Hell no.” She heaved a sigh. “He was my partner, if you must know. We were in a band together.”
“I know.” I said, my heart starting to thump. “The Royal Pains.”
Pete’s hand holding hers was the only thing that kept Aileen from jumping up from the table. “It was a country music band,” he said. “You sounded really good.”
“What is this, some kind of intervention?” Aileen growled, glaring at Pete. “What else do you know, Moron?”
“Daria got a CD and we recognized your voice. We looked up some online videos, of Ladd and Penny Morrow in the Royal Pains. You have a really nice voice. That’s all we know.”
Aileen picked up her sandwich and took a bite, chewing slowly and deliberately while watching both Pete and me watching her. We sat like that in silence until the sandwich was almost gone. Aileen finally spoke. “He was a jerk. Okay? The Royal Pains were good. We could have hit the big time, but he got mixed up with gambling until we couldn’t pay our band’s debts. He lived like a con man, keeping one step ahead of the bill collectors and the police, laughing all the while. He dragged me down with him until I couldn’t play a single gig without it ending in a police bust. I had to get out or get arrested for all kinds of fraud.” She picked her teeth with the sharp corner of a nacho chip. “My only regret is that I never got the chance to hit him over the head with my guitar. If I was going to kill him, that’s what I would have done, while making sure he saw me coming. I wouldn’t slip some poison into his whiskey when he wasn’t looking.”
I believed her. After seeing her reaction to Ladd at the Highland Games, the hardest part about considering Aileen as a murderer was the clandestine manner of his death. I never was able to think of her as a poisoner. She would have knocked him out with her guitar in front of hundreds of witnesses if she hadn’t been restrained by her bandmates.
“So what’s your real name, Penny or Aileen?” I asked, ignoring Pete’s glare. If she was confiding in us, she might as well go all the way.
She flashed me a mischievous grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to know. I wanted her to be Aileen, singer and guitarist in the Twisted Armpits, that raucous metal band that was so far from the music of the Royal Pains that no one would ever suspect they could find Penny Morrow there.
“No, don’t tell me,” I cried. I leaned over and hugged her around the shoulders, knocking over her half-full glass of soda. “I’m sorry I suspected you of murder. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I’m the one you should call ‘Moron’.”
She pushed me off and swiped at her spilled soda with the ends of her wispy purple cape. “Does that mean I’m off your list?” She looked over at Pete, who was sitting quietly with a huge smile lighting up his face. “What about you, Moron? Am I off your list too?”
He took her hand again. “You were never on any list. I’d be a fool if I thought I could put you on any kind of list.”
My eyes flicked from Aileen to Pete and back again. I was a moron. How could I have failed to notice what was happening under my own roof? I slipped out of the kitchen to give them some privacy. I walked up the stairs to my workroom, shaking my head the whole way. Pete and Aileen. It seemed so far-fetched and so absolutely right at the same time.
Chapter 18
After a while, Pete and Aileen came upstairs and stood in the open doorway of my workroom, hand in hand.
I looked up from my basting, which was almost finished at long last. “Congratulations, you two lovebirds. Nothing like a murder to bring people together in the end, right?”
“Or something,” Pete said with a smile that caught me off guard with its sheer happiness. I hadn’t seen him look so contented in the whole time he’d been home from his ill-fated time in Hollywood. It was especially striking now, with him holding Ladd Foster’s horrible flask in his left hand.
“What are we going to do about this, Daria? If we’re not going to throw it out with the trash, we need to figure out how to turn it over to the police without getting anyone arrested.”
I contemplated the revolting thing. “It could be any of us, really. I ended up with the poison all over my blouse because I was wrestling with Gillian for control of the flask. Aileen has the strongest motive for killing him.”
“And I have the police record,” Pete said with a grimace, “which makes me one of the usual suspects in the eyes of the LSPD.”
Aileen piped in, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, pick a murderer by the toe. Which one of us will they pick?”
I sat back on my heels and tried to think of a way out. Nothing came to mind. “Aileen, why wouldn’t you tell the police about your history with Ladd? Were you worried about your reputation as a musician?”
“Maybe you weren’t listening while I was baring my soul to you, but my history with Ladd was punctuated by fraud. I don’t know how he avoided a long stint in jail unless he managed to pass off all his deceptions onto me after I split. In that case, if I were to resurrect Penny Morrow, I’d probably spend the next few years of my life behind bars. No, thanks!”
“Gotcha.” I stared at the flask until it blurred before my eyes and all I could see was the unicorn embossed on the front. “Aileen, do you know if Ladd went to Oliphant University?” I pointed. “That’s the Oliphant crest on his flask.”
She snorted. “He went to Penn State and majored in partying. He had the Oliphant crest because he was part of the Oliphant family.” She contemplated the unicorn as well. “He told me some wild story one time about how he was the descendant of Scottish kings. That’s why he liked the name Royal Pains.” She rolled her eyes. “He was so full of himself.”
I stared at her. “Ladd was an Oliphant?”
“His full name was Ladd Stuart Oliphant Foster. He used to reel it off like he was somebody special because he had four names.”
Maybe he was somebody special. I thought about Margaret Oliphant’s diary, in which she’d written of giving birth to a boy in secret and naming him Edward Stuart Oliphant. Eddy was then given over to Mrs. F. to raise. Could that have been Mrs. Foster, by any chance? Was Ladd Foster descended from Eddy, son of Margaret Oliphant and her mysterious Scottish lover? But I’d never understood the Oliphants to be royalty. Margaret’s father, Jock, was a clan chieftain in Scotland, but by the time he got to Pennsylvania he was probably no different from all the other immigrants fleein
g from war abroad.
“Hang on a minute.” Pete broke in on my musings. “Who is Gillian, and why were you wrestling with her over Ladd’s flask?”
“She’s a troubled teen—one of Breanna Lawton’s Highland dancers. Gillian was flirting with Ladd at the Highland Games and he gave her the flask to hold. She put it down in the VIP tent, where it was poisoned. I watched four people go in and out of the tent before Ladd collapsed: Aileen, Patrick Ames, Morris Hart, and Ryan King, Gillian’s dad. Ryan had a fight with Ladd over the flirting, so he’s got a good motive for murder. I think Gillian was trying to make the flask disappear because she was afraid her father was the killer.”
As soon as the words left my lips, I knew how Ladd’s flask came to be in our recycling bin. After I hustled Gillian out of the VIP tent when Patrick Ames came in, she must have gone back and filched the flask. She could have hung on to it all this time, only to sneak it into our house during the sewing lesson. My cheeks burned at the thought of her taking offense to my questions and running off downstairs, leaving me to feel sorry for her while she planted incriminating evidence in my house. It was even possible she’d planned the whole thing before the end of the event at the Printed Page and had stayed behind with the express intention of guilting me into offering her a ride. I took it one step further. Could she have put the torch fuel into the flask to begin with? Was Gillian King the murderer after all?
I couldn’t believe it. Regardless of whatever else I could imagine her doing, I couldn’t see her poisoning Ladd. She’d seemed to genuinely like him, or at least she liked the attention he’d lavished on her. Why would she kill him? I couldn’t think of any reason.
Pete and Aileen were both staring at me by this point, wondering what was going on in my head, no doubt.
“Sorry. I just realized it was Gillian who hid the flask in our house.” I shook my head, tight-lipped. “I was giving her a sewing lesson while she was trying to get one of us to take the fall for her father. I think she suspects him as the murderer.”
“He’s one of your four,” Aileen said, chewing on a long black fingernail. “Maybe he did it.”
I took a deep breath. “I guess that’s what we’ll have to tell the police. I’m not going to protect Gillian if she’s ready to throw us all under the bus like this.” I picked up my phone.
Pete gripped his head with both hands. “Maybe we should call a lawyer first. I don’t want to bring the cops here to cart one or all of us off. Your fingerprints and mine are all over this flask,” he said to me.
Aileen leaned down and picked up the flask and tossed it from hand to hand. “Mine are too.” She dropped it back onto my desk.
I started to laugh, with only a hint of hysteria lurking underneath. “We’re all in this together, is that it? I’m going to call McCarthy first. He can come over and document the whole police thing. His prints aren’t on the flask.”
“Good idea,” Pete said. He and Aileen went back downstairs, leaving me with the flask and my phone. McCarthy answered on the first ring. He responded with enthusiasm when I told him about the flask. “I’m already there!” I could almost see the gleam in his eyes through the phone.
I paused a moment to breathe a quick prayer, and then I dialed the police department. “I’ve found Ladd Foster’s missing flask.” I gave the officer my address, and he told me that someone would be over as soon as possible.
I went downstairs with the flask to wait.
McCarthy beat the police to our house. He bounded up the porch steps and pounded on the door as if he were the prize patrol or something. His camera dangled around his neck, close at hand and ready for business.
I displayed the flask for him to photograph. “No need to put my face in the shot, though. You can take a close-up with my hand holding it if you want.” I did a little wave worthy of a game-show hostess. “I’m hoping to stay off the front page.”
His camera clicked away. “This is front-page news, you know. Unless something bigger comes up, I’m sure the Chronicle will run this on page one.” He grinned at me. “You’ll get your fifteen minutes of fame.”
“I’d rather get ten minutes for something I accomplished that was worthy of recognition.” I laid the flask down on the kitchen table in time for the arrival of the police.
Pete ushered in Officers Franklin and Butler, the two cops who had responded to Ladd’s collapse at the Games. They were the ones I’d taken to the VIP tent to find the torch fuel, so they knew all the issues of the poison and the disappearing flask. Their eyes fixed on me the minute they walked into the kitchen.
“Daria Dembrowski,” Officer Franklin said, pulling out her notebook and flipping a few pages. “You were on the spot, covered in torch fuel, when Ladd Foster’s whiskey flask—the murder weapon, if you will—went missing. Now here it is, in your house.” She slipped on a glove and picked up the flask and unscrewed it, her snapping black eyes never leaving my face. “Yup. Smells just like your blouse from the other day.”
My heart sank. I was just trying to do the right thing and she wanted to pin me for Ladd’s murder! I was only slightly reassured by the sight of McCarthy and his video camera capturing every minute of this exchange.
“We found the flask in the recycling bin,” I said, hoping to keep Pete out of the spotlight. “I’m pretty sure Gillian King hid it there yesterday when she was here for a sewing lesson.”
Officer Franklin noted this down. “I hadn’t heard you were giving sewing lessons to wayward teens.”
I bit my lip. Only a small-town policewoman could possibly know this level of detail about both me and Gillian. If small-town life was like living in a fishbowl, living in Laurel Springs was like taking that fishbowl and setting it up on a table in the middle of the most popular restaurant in town on a Friday night. McCarthy always called me nosy, but I wasn’t the nosiest person in town; not by a long shot.
I figured it was best to tell the truth. “I offered to teach her to sew because I wanted to know more about her personal life. I didn’t think I was opening my door to her so she could plant evidence to try to trap me.”
Officer Franklin looked me over with her piercing gaze and then made another note in her notebook. “We’ll want to question each of you separately. This is a fine place to talk. Is there someplace the other two witnesses can wait?” She frowned at McCarthy. “Have you gotten what you need for the newspaper? Feel free to leave at any time.”
McCarthy winked at me. “Notice how the police are never inviting us photogs to feel free to stay as long as we like?” He grinned at Officer Franklin. “I believe I’m here as moral support, as well as in my capacity as a member of the media. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”
I could see a smile tugging at Officer Franklin’s lips, even as she tried to keep a stern demeanor. Stern was hard to achieve where McCarthy was concerned.
Officer Butler took Pete and Aileen into the living room, followed by McCarthy. Officer Franklin sat down at the kitchen table and motioned for me to take a seat across from her. I told her how we had found the flask and concluded that Gillian was the one to hide it in our house.
“Tell me about your dealings with Gillian King, and why you suspect her of harboring the flask.”
I took a deep breath. “You know that Gillian was flirting with Ladd Foster at the Games, and her father punched him and told him to leave his daughter alone. I think Gillian thinks Ryan was so angry, he killed Ladd. So she’s trying to protect him by throwing suspicion onto Aileen, who also got into a confrontation with Ladd at the Games.”
Officer Franklin chewed on the end of her pen. “Why would Gillian want to protect her father? By all accounts, she’s openly defiant of him.”
“Okay, I’m just guessing here. But I think she’s really protecting herself. She made some mention about wanting to avoid getting sent into foster care. It all has to do with her mother’s death.”
/> I’d managed to surprise Officer Franklin. Her head snapped up and her sharp eyes bored into mine. “What do you know about her mother?”
“Her mother died by choking two years ago, but there was some doubt as to whether Ryan killed her. I think Gillian thinks he did, so it’s not hard for her to imagine Ryan killing Ladd.” I thought about what Gillian must be feeling. “It’s sad, really. She’d rather live with someone she suspects is a murderer than risk going into foster care.”
Officer Franklin had herself under control now. “This is all speculation on your part. Please stick to the facts.”
I drew myself up straight. “The fact is, nobody living in this house put Ladd Foster’s flask in the recycling bin, so someone other than me, Pete, or Aileen must have done it. I’m guessing it was Gillian. She was in the house yesterday for a sewing lesson. That’s a fact. She was alone downstairs at one point, so she had plenty of time to hide the flask.” I looked Officer Franklin in the eye. “You can ask her.”
She flipped her notebook closed. “For what good that would do.”
She escorted me out of the kitchen and called Pete in. I joined the group in the living room.
“So, did you incriminate yourself or the rest of us?” Aileen said. Luckily, I caught the wink in her eye or I would have taken offense at her insinuation.
“We won’t have any discussion of this police investigation,” Officer Butler said before I could respond. He was standing stiffly by the mantel, like a soldier standing at ease, with feet apart and hands clasped behind his back. It was a pose that was meant to intimidate more than relax.
I sat down on the couch next to McCarthy and wondered if we could have any kind of conversation at all.
“I don’t see any handcuffs,” McCarthy observed. “That’s a good sign.” He caught Butler’s warning glance and lifted his camera to snap a picture of me. “I’ll call this, ‘After the Interrogation.’” He wiled away the next few minutes showing me the pictures he’d taken that afternoon. As always, the images in McCarthy’s photographs seemed more meaningful, somehow, than my memories of what I’d seen or done.
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