Chapter 38
LILY-ANN
For the first time ever, Lily-Ann didn’t prepare a meal for a meeting of the Marigold Cottages Murder Collective.
She needed to email a project to her boss before the deadline, and didn’t have time to throw anything together.
So she didn’t bother objecting when Nicholas ordered pizzas from Capriccio.
She didn’t arrive first, either. When she walked into Hamilton’s cottage, she found Sophie already there, listening to Hamilton talk about cats.
“I’m partial to ragdolls and British shorthairs,” he was saying, “especially the blues, who are supposed to have what’s called ‘pineapple eyes,’ though I’m not sure what that implies.”
“Maybe just the color?” Sophie suggested.
“Oh! Is pineapple a color?”
“Orange is,” Lily-Ann said, closing the front door behind herself. “And lemon.”
Hamilton’s brow knotted. “Surely, not all fruits are colors.”
“Lime,” she said. “Avocado.”
“Stop teasing him,” Sophie told her, with a quick smile.
Lily-Ann hadn’t been teasing. “You should adopt one from the shelter, anyway.”
“Then I’d have to go to the shelter,” Hamilton said.
“I’ll go for you,” she told him.
“You’d do that?”
“Of course.”
Hamilton snapped his fingers. “Grape!”
“What?” Sophie asked.
“Another fruit color.” He started for the kitchen. “Let me grab some drinks. Then we can talk about the police reports.”
“Did your cop friend give you the files for Frank DeYoung?” Lily-Ann called after him.
“Definitely not,” Hamilton said from the kitchen. “No. Nope. That would put his job in jeopardy. He didn’t give me anything, I merely happened to notice a file he accidentally attached to an email. By accident.”
Lily-Ann sat on the couch. “So you know why they arrested CJ?”
“Milco, tamarind soda, or water?” he called.
“Water,” she said. “With ice and a slice of lemon.”
“What’s milco?” Sophie asked.
Lily-Ann felt her lips thin. “Half milk and half Coke.”
“I’ll have Coke, hold the milk!” Sophie called, then glanced at Lily-Ann. “How does he come up with these things?”
“He likes beverages.”
“Then why does he do such terrible things to them?”
Hamilton brought the drinks, his Birks scuffing the floor. “They arrested CJ because another witness came forward. Should I wait for everyone else?”
“Anthony’s working.” Lily-Ann took a glass from Hamilton, enjoying the coolness on her fingers. “But Ocean and Mrs. B should be here any minute, so let’s—”
“It’s just me,” Ocean said, as she opened the screen door. “Mrs. B’s staying home, drowning her sorrows in sherry and sudoku.”
Sophie made a sympathetic noise. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” Ocean said.
Lily-Ann suspected that the quaver in her voice gave lie to her words. She wanted to ask, but she resisted the urge.
“Mrs. B said that while CJ might not always stay in her lane at the YMCA pool, she’s not a killer.” Ocean scratched her wrist, sending paint flecks to the floor. “I think she’s been dreaming of proving her innocent and feeling better about what we did last time.”
Lily-Ann was absolutely content with what they’d done last time. Everything had worked out fine, as far as she was concerned. So she didn’t reply, she simply went to the kitchen for Hamilton’s dustpan, then swept the paint flecks from the floor.
“At least the cops won’t think Mrs. B is a suspect,” Ocean said, her voice still tight. “She can’t, like, claim she was hiding in a closet in the DeYoungs’ mansion.”
“Also, there’s a new witness who says CJ pushed Frank,” Hamilton said.
Sophie peered at her drink as if to check for milk. “Well, shit.”
“What new witness?” Ocean asked, from between her teeth.
“Sunny Wheeler came forward. He presented written testimony through his lawyers, which frankly is how I’ll testify, if I ever have to testify for anything, via a written statement that my lawyers drafted, so I can ensure accuracy as well as—”
“Hamilton,” Lily-Ann cut in.
“Er, right. So the news is Sunny also saw CJ push Frank down the stairs.”
“Oh, come on!” Ocean said. “That can’t be true.”
A corroborating witness. Well, that was unexpected.
On the other hand, while Lily-Ann didn’t trust Mrs. B’s judgments, she trusted her sentiments.
Also, Mrs. B had stood by Anthony despite his history, despite his appearance; plus, Lily-Ann owed her for creating the oasis in which she lived—so she’d keep digging.
“Why didn’t he say anything at the time?” she asked.
Hamilton fiddled with a button on his short-sleeved shirt. “Reading between the lines of the statement? Because he’s old, in shock, and lost a good friend.”
“And that’s enough to arrest CJ?” Sophie asked.
“Two extremely wealthy, entirely respectable eyewitnesses, plus the bruising?” Hamilton said. “More than enough.”
Ocean rubbed her face. “I sure can pick ’em.”
“What about motive?” Lily-Ann asked.
“I don’t think they’ve gotten that far,” Hamilton told her.
“Could Karina have paid Sunny to back her up?” Ocean asked. “If he has legal problems like my artist friends mentioned, he probably also has money problems.”
“The fifty grand in cash?” Lily-Ann asked. “Did that go to Sunny?”
“No clue,” Hamilton said.
Ocean took a deliberate breath, so slowly that even Lily-Ann realized she was wrestling with her temper. “But why? Why would CJ hurt Frank? She loved him.”
“I don’t know,” Lily-Ann said, returning the dustpan to the closet. “Maybe she doesn’t know either. It doesn’t matter. Two people saw her.”
Sophie made an unhappy noise. “I guess sometimes the most obvious thing is what happened.”
“The most obvious thing is that he fell,” Lily-Ann said, trying to identify the uncomfortable feeling nagging at her.
“Exactly!” Ocean said. “So what we need to investigate is why these pricks are trying to frame her.”
As the others responded, Lily-Ann gazed toward Ocean without seeing her.
CJ could’ve killed Frank in any number of ways, at any point in the past or coming year.
Even if she was guilty, that didn’t mean she was stupid.
Why commit homicide in public, in front of his friends?
Well, maybe that was exactly why: so she’d be shielded by the unlikelihood of her actions.
Except what about the Amaretto bottle smashing at exactly the right time? Had that been planned?
“Welp,” Ocean said, setting her glass aside and standing. “I better go tell Mrs. B about this new statement.”
Hamilton looked alarmed. “You’re leaving? What about the pizza?”
“I’ll have Nicholas deliver them,” Sophie said, following Ocean to the door.
Lily-Ann watched them go without saying goodbye and ignored Hamilton as he complained about a lonely slice. She gazed at the hedge through the window until she identified that uncomfortable feeling: it was how she felt when she’d almost finished a jigsaw before discovering that it was incomplete.
A piece of the puzzle was missing.