Chapter Twenty-Six
Willow hesitantly told the group about the texts Naomi had received from “Iron Man,” with their eggplant emojis and promises of Jacuzzi time and pepperoni pizza. “I don’t know who he is, but if she’s involved with someone else, that could give her a reason to want to be free of Geralt … sooner.”
There was stunned silence around the room. At last, Diana asked icily, “And you waited this long to mention it why?”
“I would have told you this morning, but then Rina jumped down my throat,” Willow shot back defensively.
“And it’s not like there’s been a lot of opportunity since then.
Besides, it still doesn’t feel right,” she said.
“I don’t see Naomi as some criminal mastermind, and this is a long-term, complicated plan we’re talking about here.
But it’s become something we need to consider. ”
Diana threw up her hands and glared at Willow. “We’re not doing crime-solving-by-vibes here, Willow; we can’t unravel any of this if you hold information back.” She fixed Willow with her sternest lawyer look. “Is there anything else you’re holding back?”
Willow shook her head quickly. She was not going to tell this group she was having conversations with the Cameron House ghost population.
Catherine wrote Iron Man on the page with a big red question mark beside it.
Mac said doubtfully, “I know Mom just said we shouldn’t be making decisions based on vibes, but I kind of agree with Willow about Naomi and the criminal mastermind thing. What about Hank? He totally wanted that land; we should put him up there too.”
Catherine nodded and wrote Hank’s name on the page beneath Naomi’s. “Okay, I guess,” she said. “Although, even with Geralt gone, I’m not sure how he could hope to acquire it.”
Diana made a note in her file. “We need to check Maine intestacy laws; in some places, if there are literally zero heirs, I suppose it could go to the state to be sold?”
Catherine nodded. “Intestacy laws, I’m on it. I’ll check it out.”
Then Catherine hesitantly wrote Patricia Ramsey’s name under her husband’s. “She’s an extremely long shot, but by the same logic of Naomi inheriting from Geralt, if Hank got the house and died, it would go to Patricia, right?” Diana and Mac nodded agreement, but Willow frowned.
“But Patricia was attacked too,” she said. “Someone tried to kill her and nearly succeeded. Maybe Hank was the actual target, and our saboteur messed up and got Patricia instead—”
Mac interrupted, “Or someone went after her as, I don’t know, a warning to Hank to stop whatever he is doing? Like, they weren’t even trying to kill her, but wanted him to know they could get to her?”
Diana shook her head decisively. “All right, we’re starting to head into the weeds here. Inventing plotlines for Law they could barely stand to be in the same room together. And he carried that cup around all through the reception, so anyone could have slipped him something to finish him off.”
They looked at the pages stuck around the room. “If it comes down to slow poisoning over time,” Mac said, “then we are back to Naomi.”
Willow shook her head. “I still don’t think it’s Naomi. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does and it doesn’t,” Catherine said. “The fact is, who else had that kind of access?”
“Anyone on his staff had access,” Willow said stubbornly. “I mean, people that rich, they have housekeepers, maids, cooks.”
“She’s right,” Diana admitted. “Housekeepers, secretaries, security guards, Naomi’s assistant too, I guess, if we look at it from that perspective.
He must have been a real creep to work for.
But”—she threw up her hands—“Bill at the Dockside made him his lobster roll every Wednesday. On Saturdays after croquet, he snuck into the ice cream shop like clockwork for his root beer float, and Naomi pretended she didn’t know about it.
Geralt Talbot was pretty predictable. If someone really wanted to do it, they could have found a way to slip poison into his food slowly over time.
But none of those folks have a claim on Cameron House, do they? Just Naomi.”
“But why now, after being married to him for eight years?” Willow shook her head. “I mean, there’s the whole affair thing, but—would that be enough to make her do something this risky?”
Mac nodded. “Yeah. Risking that kind of inheritance, not to mention prison, for a guy? He’d have to have, well, one hell of a pepperoni.” Mac looked over the array of notes covering the walls of the café. “My brain hurts.”
Diana nodded. “There are pieces missing, and without them, this is going to stay a tangled mess. Let’s get some rest and try again tomorrow.”
It was nearly midnight when Willow and Catherine finally left the shelter of the café to brave the chill winds, each clutching a box of end-of-day pastries—and Willow, some dog biscuits—to take with them, in exchange for a promise to text the rest of the group when they arrived home safely.
Willow was thinking about Patricia’s near miss after leaving the Raven. That night, the police and ambulance had come from inland, but so had Nick—out of uniform and on a motorcycle. What had he been doing that night?
Not really your business, an ugly little part of her brain whispered spitefully, but all the same, I wonder how well he knows Naomi Talbot? And if he likes pepperoni pizza?
Willow unlocked the cabin door and went inside. Finn, after peeing on a stair post, followed quickly; he shivered, gave himself a thorough shake that started with his ears and rippled back to his tail, and trotted upstairs to the loft.
A few minutes later, Willow was sitting cross-legged on her bed with a mug of tea and a lemon bar, which Finn eyed hopefully.
Exhausted but not ready to sleep, Willow pulled from her bag the typewritten page that had floated down as she’d left Cameron House earlier in the day.
She examined the enigmatic messages, this time with helpful initials to identify the source material.
AT was Alfred Tennyson, and the quote’s instruction to “follow the quest despite of day or night,” was drawn from a poem unfamiliar to Willow.
The second quote, familiar to anyone who’d studied it in high school, was from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: translated into modern English, it proclaimed that “murder will out”—that no secret can stay hidden forever, and the guilty will come to justice.
Together the quotes left Willow fairly clear about what she was supposed to do: find out who has been killing the Cameron House heirs; bring the truth out into the light.
Rereading the words gave Willow a feeling of satisfaction. Joel might have thought she was useless, but there was someone in the house who clearly did not agree. Even if the task seemed impossible at the moment.
The Widow’s Walk novel was still in her backpack, all but forgotten; still too wired to rest, Willow pulled it out and opened it.
She wrapped Sue’s old granny-square afghan around her shoulders and began to read.
Between sips of tea and bites of lemon bar, grudgingly shared with Finn, she let herself be drawn into the tale of a young woman whose German family had immigrated to England when she was a child, now struggling to hide her ancestry as the Second World War swept through Europe …
Willow woke with a start, still fully dressed and tangled in the afghan.
Finn was sound asleep. The overhead light was still on, but even so, she could see that the blackness outside was beginning to yield to the first hints of gray; evidently, she had slept for several hours.
She checked her watch; 3:56 AM—still dark out, but a little less impenetrable than the deepest middle-night of the island; she’d forgotten how early dawn came here, especially in spring and summer.
Willow sat up and shook herself off. Still groggy, she picked up the book from where it had dropped onto the floor and set it next to the half-drunk mug of tea and empty plate; she gave the still-sleeping Finn a suspicious look, fairly sure there had been at least a couple of bites of lemon bar left the last time she’d been awake.
Oh well. To the victor the spoils, she supposed. She dragged herself out of bed and crossed the room to turn off the light.
As soon as the room was in darkness, she saw it again, across the field by Cameron House: the bobbing and shifting illumination of a flashlight, outside the house this time, approaching the back door. The door opened; the person with the flashlight slipped inside.
Willow’s teeth set. This was no ghost—this was a living person trespassing on Cameron property, not for the first time. Was it a common thief, hoping to make off with small, valuable family heirlooms and antiques? Or were they searching for something else?
Finn was awake now too. He was still curled up in his habitual doughnut shape, but his ears were pricked up on full alert, and his eyes were fixed on her.
She should call the police, she thought, but abandoned the idea almost immediately.
It wasn’t that she seriously believed Nick was Naomi’s affair partner, but now that the thought had entered her brain, she couldn’t seem to shake it.
Besides, Nick was furious with her; most likely, he would suspect her of making it up, and maybe even accuse her of being the intruder herself.
In any case, walking over to the house herself was absolutely the last thing she should do.
She was still thinking this as she pulled her maroon university hoodie over her head, put on her shoes, grabbed a pocket flashlight, and slipped quietly out of the cabin. Finn, of course, followed.