Ice Pick in the Ivy (Lovely Lethal Gardens Book 9)

by Dale Mayer

  The two sisters shook their heads. Lavender said, “If he did, we don’t know about it.”

  “What happened to your mother?”

  “She died giving birth to our brother,” Lavender said.

  “So did you raise him?”

  “Nannies did,” Turquoise said. “He was, of course, the apple of our father’s eye because, in our family, we still believe strongly in the male heir.”

  “So work the women to the bone and give everything to the man who did nothing?”

  Both women winced. “He wasn’t supposed to get everything. We were supposed to get enough to live on.”

  “Which would be normal,” Doreen said. “What do you have for me to go on?”

  “Not much,” Lavender admitted. “Just our father’s and the old lawyer’s words.”

  “Do you have any investments or any money?”

  Lavender shook her head. “No, we handled the household accounts, and, as we needed individual money for our own personal needs, we took it and marked it down as part of the accounts. But, once Father died, we didn’t even have access to that.”

  “Where are you staying now?”

  “We share a room at a friend’s house. And we do work around the house and look after their child. They were the only ones to offer us a place after Jude said we had to leave. So we’ve stayed with them ever since.”

  “And you get paid for that, right?”

  Both women just looked at her mutely.

  “Oh, boy,” she said, “we’re so going to have a talk with this supposed friend of yours.”

  “But they have given us a home, where nobody else has.”

  “We’re all entitled to a day’s pay for honest labor,” Doreen said. “To even consider working for years like this without pay is not acceptable.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Who is it you are staying with and working for?”

  “I can’t have you ruining our lives,” Lavender said in alarm. “Don’t you understand we have no place to go?”

  “I hear you, but this isn’t a friend of yours. They’re taking just as much advantage of you as your father did.”

  “We know that,” Turquoise said quietly, “which is another reason why we’re trying to get money from the estate.”

  “And, if you got money, what would you do?”

  “We’d leave,” she said.

  “I still need to know who is doing this,” Doreen said, “because that’s very much against the law.”

  The two women started to fret, shuffling their feet, their hands clenching and unclenching as they looked at each other.

  “Look. I won’t rock the boat until I can figure out what’s happening with your brother and the estate, but that family owes you big-time.”

  “Something about us people take advantage of.”

  “For one,” Doreen said, “you need to grow a spine. Like I had to.”

  Both women looked at her in horror.

  She nodded. “And I know I’m hardly one to talk, but, since I’ve been on my own, you can bet I’m not the same person. I was the one who was taken advantage of. Once you start being taken advantage of, you almost think you deserve it and think that’s all you’re worth. And that’s not true. You ran your father’s businesses for decades. And, yes, you’re both in this house, and I presume they don’t need both of you to look after the one child and to look after the house. But they owe you wages regardless.”

  “But they said then they’d have to take away expenses for the other person, so, therefore, we were back to zero.”

  Doreen just muttered, “People will be people.” She remembered everything Mack had told her recently about people. “Let me check into this,” she said and was about to enter their contact information into her phone. “I presume you have a phone.”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Jesus, what do you have? Nothing? Anyway, whose vehicle is that?”

  “It’s ours,” Lavender said. “It’s the only thing we were allowed from the estate.”

  “Do you get any cash to put gas into it?”

  She nodded. “Fifty a month is our allowance.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything,” she said. “They can’t pay us more.”

  “Like I believe that,” Doreen said. “They better be driving beaters themselves and not live in a gorgeous home and not both have good jobs before I listen to anybody saying that!”

  But she understood all too well how the women had slid into this abusive situation. In this mental state, well, they didn’t think they were entitled to more. Of course they were desperate and thinking maybe they could get more, but they didn’t have the attitude that said they deserved more and that the world needed to watch out because they were getting some backbone.

  As the women drove away, Doreen stared after them. What the heck was she supposed to do with this? She went back into the house and walked out to the kitchen deck. Her phone rang.

  “Who was that?” Mack asked.

  “You won’t believe it,” Doreen groaned. “It was Jude’s sisters. Ed Burns’s daughters. And you really won’t believe what they told me.”

  Chapter 22

  Sunday Late Afternoon …

  By the time Doreen finished explaining it all to Mack, he was livid. “You can’t just get involved in every sob story in town.”

  “I know that, but are you seriously upset about the sisters’ arrangement?”

  “I’m seriously upset about this. That is highly illegal. They are deserving of full wages.”

  “What about the fact they’re having to pay for the expenses of each other. That between them, they only do the work of one, so they need to cover the cost of the second one?” She smiled, knowing he was hurt by what was happening to the sisters.

  “That’s an excuse,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with this family.”

  “I didn’t get a name. I just have their phone number, and it’s not even a cell phone.”

  He snorted at that. “Which means the sisters probably don’t have any privacy to talk. But I’ll trace that number and have my own private conversation with that couple taking advantage of the sisters. And I’ll make sure they don’t fire them on the spot.”

  “Does that fifty a month even cover car insurance, not to mention medical care?”

  “No,” he said. “This is basically part of the domestic slave trade, and that is an issue. We need to check into this asshole of a brother too. It’s possible the courts would take another look at the will.”

  “The sisters obviously don’t have any money for a lawyer,” Doreen protested.

  “Sometimes, in a case like this, they don’t need one,” he said. “Again, I’ll have to look into it. And I have to cancel our cooking lesson tonight.”

  When he hung up, she had more questions than answers, but at least she felt a sense of somebody helping Lavender and Turquoise.

  She created a sandwich for her dinner and then sat outside, mulling over the sisters’ problem. Doreen had come a long way, and solving these mysteries had given her a purpose and a sense of identity that she hadn’t had before. It gave her a sense of self. And that was what both sisters were missing. It was painful to look at the sisters and see parts of herself in there. She had heard the phrase that the people in front of you were mirrors, and, although she understood it in theory, she didn’t like it one bit. Again, she remembered that whole thing about projection, like Mack had told her just the other day.

  But it wasn’t her job to help the sisters find out what they wanted from this life. It was more a case of making sure that, from here on out, they were at least independent and looking after themselves as much as they could.

  Sitting down, Doreen looked up the name of the old lawyer. Everything she read held him in good standing.

  “Look at that. A lawyer you could trust,” she said sarcastically. And then she read his business had been taken over by this younger attorney, and people weren’t happy. She found the Google reviews
and a review sheet on the law firm. As she read it, she found no more comments were allowed.

  “Of course not.” There was a cached page though, that said he had seven reviews, and they were all one stars. She studied that for a long moment. “What are the chances he’s a good buddy of the Jude guy who inherited all the Burns’s money?” she muttered. “How much did this new lawyer get paid to create a false will?”

  But she couldn’t make assumptions. If the former lawyer died, what age had he been? It took a bit to figure it out, and she discovered he was only sixty-eight. Would Nan know him? She picked up her phone and texted Nan. Instead of texting back, Nan called her.

  “My, what are you asking about Ranford?”

  “Was he a good lawyer?”

  “The very best,” Nan said.

  “I’m sorry he’s gone then,” Doreen said. “I’d like to have met an honest lawyer.”

  At that Nan laughed.

  “Do you know Ed Burns’s daughters?”

  “I’m sure I’ve seen them around,” Nan said. “They are wallflowers though, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, but, then again, they’ve not had an easy time.”

  “Maybe not. They have to make changes. Otherwise they’ll keep making the same mistakes.”

  “I’m pretty sure,” Doreen said, “they already are.” And she explained about their current living situation.

  “That’s terrible,” Nan cried out. “I wonder what family that is,” she said thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know, but Mack vowed to have a talk with them. Still, this whole thing puts me very much on edge.”

  “Time for a bath to relax,” Nan said. “You don’t have to solve everybody else’s problems, you know? Some people will have to solve them for themselves.”

  “And some people can’t,” Doreen said sadly. “Not everybody has somebody like you, who was thinking of her granddaughter.”

  “No, but you might be surprised. The sisters have each other, and, for that, they should be grateful.”

  “I think they are,” Doreen said, “but it’s still hard.”

  “If I do hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “What about the other people I mentioned?”

  “Well, Ed Burns, he was a bit of a cheapskate,” Nan said. “The lawyer Ranford was lovely. But I’m not sure there’s anything suspicious about his death. They both had heart attacks, I think.”

  “That’s interesting. I wish I knew where the will came from and how to find the original.”

  “It would have been filed with the BC government,” Nan said, “but another will could be around. As long as it’s signed properly, it would be legal.”

  “Well, that’s the problem with legal wills, right? Who declared it legal?”

  Nan went on. “Oh, now I remember something about that.”

  “What about it?”

  “The old lawyer was still on the case when Ed Burns died. I remember some kerfuffle in the news about it.”

  “About everything going to the son, you mean?”

  “Yes, about there being a different will, as the one that was final was not the one the original lawyer had dealt with.”

  “Wouldn’t he have been forced to do an investigation?”

  “I think he died pretty soon after that,” Nan said thoughtfully.

  “And that’s just way too convenient,” Doreen said.

  “Sometimes things are just as they are,” Nan said. “You can’t necessarily pin a crime on everyone.”

  “Maybe not, but maybe I’ll check with the lawyer’s family and see if they have any information on it.”

  “You do that,” Nan said. “His wife, Sarah, is a lovely lady.”

  “I just have to track her down,” Doreen said.

  “That’s easy. She owns the little flower shop down at the corner of Pandosy and KLO Road.”

  “Oh, well, maybe I need to walk in and take a look.”

  “You should go buy yourself some flowers,” Nan said, chuckling.

  “No, I don’t have any money for that.”

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with an excuse.” And, with that, Nan hung up.

  Doreen checked her timing, but it was a Sunday, which meant not a good day to talk to anybody about the lawyer. As it was, she ended up taking Nan’s advice and had a long, soaking bath. As she read her favorite murder mystery while soaking, it was hard to keep her mind on the page because now she had so much else going on. Again, she wasn’t sure of the connections yet between the Burns family and the Darbunkles, but something was there, and she knew it. She just didn’t know how she knew it.

  And she didn’t know how she’d prove it. She had to have evidence worthy of Mack’s regard.

  She wanted Jude Burns, that bum of a brother, to pay his sisters back. Even better, she wanted him to lose everything, and it all to go to his sisters. She’d even be happy if they just had enough to live off of. Talk about greed. But it still didn’t mean Jude did anything criminal. Unfortunately being greedy wasn’t a crime. And what did the ice picks have to do with anything? And then she still had the issue of the missing-but-declared-dead Darbunkle parents and sister. She shook her head. “Mack, Mack, too many pieces are here. You’re the one who’s good with puzzles. You’ll have to help me sort this all out.”

  But, of course, he didn’t answer her. In fact, if she told him right now what she had just posed to the empty air, he’d laugh and say, “You’re the puzzle master. You figure it out.” And, as she lay in the hot water with the animals seated around her in the bathroom, keeping her company, she realized he was right, and this one definitely needed solving.

  Chapter 23

  Monday Morning …

  Bright and early Monday morning Doreen took Mugs with her and headed to the Pandosy area. The flower shop was located on the corner of Pandosy and KLO, just like Nan said. Doreen parked and walked into the small shop and asked, “Hi, are you Sarah?”

  The young woman in front looked up. “No, Sarah is my mom.”

  “Is it possible to speak with her?”

  “Maybe.” The woman turned into the back and called out, “Mom, you there?”

  An older lady came in with some flowers and an arrangement in her hands. She looked up at Doreen, frowned, and said, “Hi, were you looking for something special?”

  Doreen didn’t know any other way to start but straightforward, so she nodded and said, “Yes, I was looking for some help on one of your husband’s cases.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Sarah said. “He’s been dead and gone many years now.”

  “I know,” Doreen said, “but unfortunately a case just landed on my plate, so I have to take a look into it.”

  As the woman brushed her hands on her apron, she asked, “What’s this all about?”

  “Ed Burns,” Doreen said.

  Immediately both the mother and daughter scrunched up their faces and went, “Eeewww.”

  “Wow,” Doreen said, “that’s not the reaction I was expecting.”

  “Well, the son is very much an eww,” Sarah said. “And the father wasn’t much better.”

  “And I understand the sisters didn’t get anything out of the will.”

  “They were supposed to,” Sarah said. “Both were supposed to have enough to live off of for the rest of their lives.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “The son produced another will. It was dated and signed, official in every way. And, as a newer will, it preempted the older will. There was nothing Ranford could do.”

  “What if it was forged?”

  “That was the problem, and my husband was trying to figure out how to handle the problem when he died. I figured it was the stress of that case that killed him because he was so upset that Ed Burns would do this to his daughters.”

  “Not only are they not fine but now they’re in another equally bad situation,” Doreen said, and she explained a little bit about their current living conditions.

  Th
e daughter stared at her. “Oh my,” she said, “that’s like white slavery.”

  “Maybe,” Doreen said. “I’m not sure what they’re doing is anywhere near legal.”

  “No, of course not,” Sarah said. “So often these cases aren’t. When a lot of money is involved, people get greedy.”

  “Was there nothing to go to the sisters? Nothing in their names?”

  Sarah raised both hands in frustration. “My husband used to come home every night and talk about it. He was so upset and kept trying to find an answer.”

  “Did he ever come up with one?”

  “He told them the only thing they could do was try to overturn the will.”

  “And yet they didn’t do that?”

  “He wasn’t sure what the process was, whether they needed their own lawyer or not, but he was willing to find out. Except he died, and the sisters came to me. But I couldn’t tell them any more than I can tell you now. I don’t know anything.”

  “The practice was passed off to somebody else. Is that correct?”

  “He had a partner, and then, when Ranford was gone, a lot of those clients stayed with the other partner.”

  “I guess you don’t happen to have his files or anything, right?”

  Suddenly the young woman said, “I know who you are.”

  Doreen tossed a quick glance her way. She didn’t want anything to be a distraction at this moment.

  But Sarah was looking at her daughter. “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s the bone lady,” the daughter said excitedly. “Oh my.” She looked around for the animals, saw Mugs, and grinned. “That’s him. That’s him.”

  She came out from behind the counter, squatted beside Mugs, and petted him. Mugs, the complete sucker that he was, lay down and gave her his belly and licked her hand. The daughter fell in love with him, oohing and aahing about what a beautiful dog he was. After a bit, she looked up at Doreen and said, “Do you have the other two with you?”

  Doreen shook her head. “No, not at the moment. They’re both at home.”

  “Wow, I got to meet you.”

  Doreen could see from Sarah’s face that she didn’t have a clue what her daughter was talking about.