Chapter Seventeen
The sheriff was on his way to the hospital when he saw a message from the Shady Rest manager saying he had to see him immediately about Esther’s murder.
Max was anxious to get to the hospital, but last he’d checked, Diana Hunter was still in no shape to answer his questions. Since the rest home was on the way to the hospital, he swung by.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Vernon said, ushering him into the office and closing the door.
“There’s something I thought you’d better see.
We were cleaning out Esther’s apartment to get it ready for the new resident when we found these.
” He took an envelope from his desk and slid it across to Max.
“We tried not to touch them anymore than we had to in case you need to get fingerprints.”
Pulling on gloves, the sheriff removed what he saw at once were threatening notes.
Give it back or you’ll be sorry.
I know you took it from her room. Return it or else.
You made a mistake this time. You stole from the wrong person.
You’re as good as dead if you don’t give it back.
I’m coming to get what belongs to me tonight.
Max looked up at the manager. “All of these were found in Esther’s apartment?”
“They were stuffed in the side of her recliner,” Vernon said.
The sheriff was trying to see why Vernon thought he had to see them right away, when the rest home manager said, “I recognized the handwriting.” He reached into his desk again and pulled out a timecard.
He slid it across the desk to Max. “The handwriting matches one of the staff.”
Max saw at once that the man was right. What surprised him, though, was that the name at the top of the timecard wasn’t Diana’s.
“Sarah Brooks?” the sheriff said in surprise.
“I’m going to have to take these with me,” he said as he put the notes back in the envelope.
He’d been on the way to the hospital to arrest Diana for murdering both women.
But this indicated a different killer for Esther. This evidence now pointed directly at Sarah Brooks. He’d been so sure that the murders were connected, but maybe he’d been wrong about that.
As Max rose to leave, Vernon said, “All I can figure is that it had to do with Mildred Wilson’s alleged fortune and her missing pendant.
But if anyone benefited from Mildred’s death, I thought it would be her sons—not their cousin Sarah even though she did take care of Mildred even after she moved into the rest home. ”
“Luther and Abel are Sarah’s cousins?” the sheriff asked. “How was it that I didn’t know that?”
“I just assumed you knew that most everyone in rural Montana is related,” Vernon said.
“So this is about money,” Max said, remembering what Clancy had told him about the key she’d found in a pendant. “You say it was a pendant that Sarah had been looking for and believed Esther had taken?”
Vernon nodded. “A big, gaudy pendant that Mildred wore about her neck. I thought she probably slept with it on, but apparently not if Esther managed to steal it. The sons came and cleaned out Mildred’s apartment.
I did get the impression they were searching for something.
I doubt, though, there was ever any money.
They didn’t even have a funeral for the woman, just had her cremated. ”
Max rose. “Is Sarah working right now?”
Vernon shook his head. “She called in sick less than an hour ago.”
The sheriff left, even more anxious to get to the hospital after leaving Shady Rest. There was no doubt that Sarah had written those threatening notes to Esther.
But Diana had type O negative blood like the person who’d killed Jane and when he’d tried to talk to her, she’d made a run for it. Why had she risked her life trying to escape if she was innocent?
It made no sense, especially since Sarah Brooks’s blood type wasn’t O negative.
When the sheriff reached the hospital, he was relieved. Diana was conscious and well enough to talk. He needed some good news.
“The patient has lost a lot of blood, so she’s still a little weak even after the blood transfusion,” the nurse told him. “Keep it short. She needs her rest.”
“I just have a few questions,” he said as he pushed open the door into Diana’s room. She lay in bed, her face as white as the pillowcase her head rested against. “How are you doing?”
She shook her head, then closed her eyes as he approached her bed. “Diana, I need to ask you about Esther and Jane.”
Her eyes flew open and widened in terror. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Then why did you take off like that last night when all I wanted to do was talk to you?”
She closed her eyes again. Tears leaked out. “I stole the money. That’s all I did.”
He stared at her. “What money?”
Again, her eyes opened, but this time she looked a lot less scared.
“I thought this was about Jane’s money. When I didn’t see her come through for breakfast, I went down to her room to see if I could bring her a tray.
She was always so nice and polite to me.
But when I opened her door and saw what someone had done to her…
” Tears welled again in Diana’s eyes. “I shouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t like she was going to be spending any of it. I knew she didn’t have family.”
“You took her money?”
“Her purse was lying on the floor partway under her bed. It had fallen open and I could see a wad of bills.” Her eyes closed again. “I grabbed the money and got out of there as fast as I could. I know I should have told someone about her being dead.”
Was it possible that Diana hadn’t killed her? But she was O negative. He had a flash of memory from something the nurse had said. “I’ll be right back.” Stepping out, he found the nurse. “You said you had to give her blood? But isn’t her blood type O negative. You had that on hand?”
“She’s a universal donor. O positive.”
Max shook his head. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” the nurse said, clearly offended.
“Sorry, it’s just that I was told she was O negative.”
“Well, whoever told you that was wrong,” the nurse said and turned away.
He stepped into a waiting room and called Dr. Frazer. “You told me that the Shady Rest cook had O negative blood type. She’s in the hospital. I just talked to the nurse. She’s O positive. How could this have happened?”
“I can’t imagine how, unless the vials were mixed up in the confusion after Sarah Brooks fainted.”
“What are you telling me? That it’s Sarah Brooks whose blood type is O negative?”
“I don’t know what else it could have been.
I told you about the confusion when Sarah arrived late.
Vernon was still recovering, and my nurse had just finished taking Diana’s blood sample when Sarah saw the vial of blood and fainted,” Dr. Frazer said.
“Still, if they were switched… Then Sarah must have faked fainting, and in the confusion, swapped the vials.”
* * *
AS SARAH DROPPED the pendant on the table and turned to face her, Clancy saw the change in her friend. “I knew you had the bag of jewelry, but now I wonder who else does. You need to give me the key, and we need to get out of here.”
Clancy took a step back. She stared at Sarah. “You always knew about the key?”
“Of course, I knew. I never believed the pendant was worth anything. I found the secret compartment but didn’t dare take the key before Mildred died, though I’m not sure she even remembered the key at that point in her disease.
She seemed to think the fortune was the pendant.
But she’d already left the pendant to me in her will when she was lucid.
Her sons got the land and house. It was already settled. ”
Clancy took another step back as she looked around for something she could use as a weapon. She spotted the knife rack, but knew she couldn’t get to it before Sarah stopped her. Could she really stab her friend even if she was a killer?
“You aren’t going to stab me with a knife.
” Sarah sounded amused as she followed her gaze to the block of knives.
“I can imagine what you’re thinking right now, but you’re wrong.
You have to listen to me. We need to get out of here now.
You have no idea how much danger we are both in.
Tell me you have the key. It isn’t in the pendant. ”
Clancy couldn’t stop herself from touching the key under her sweater as if afraid it wouldn’t be there.
“Give me the key, Clancy.”
Max wasn’t going to get here in time. Who knew if Dub was even coming back? Clancy, as usual, was on her own. She’d thought when Dub had gotten her away from the ranch, that things would be different. But of course she was wrong. She’d been let down her whole life.
Sarah took a step toward her. Realizing that Dub had left her alone hurt more than she wanted to admit, but it was nothing like being betrayed by the woman she’d considered a friend.
“Don’t do it. I know you want to run, but that’s the worst thing you can do right now.” Sarah took another step toward her, reaching out as she moved closer. “You have to trust me.”
There was no way she could do that, Clancy thought. No way she should. She started to turn when Sarah pulled the gun from her pocket and pointed it at her heart.
“Clancy, we don’t have time for this. Give me the key. I know you have it. If I had to guess it’s on the chain you always wear with the little silver bear on it. I’m not clairvoyant. You keep touching it beneath your sweater.”
She felt her heart break as she looked from Sarah to the gun she was holding. “You must think I’m an idiot for trusting you. You were so nice to me when I started work at Shady Rest.”
“Oh, please,” Sarah said with a groan. “We both know you think I only befriended you because I might need your help to get the pendant and the key.” She shrugged.
“As it turned out, I did. You were a great help.” She sighed.
“Now give me the key. The pendant and key are mine. Esther should never have taken them, and she should never have tried to get you killed by passing them off to you. If you had thrown them away or handed them over to the sheriff… Well, you would have made things much harder for me, so thank you.”
Clancy couldn’t help being angry at Esther, but she was furious with Sarah.
She’d known who Esther was. But Sarah? She’d never been such a poor judge of character.
Or lack of character in Sarah’s case. “After everything you’ve done, I can’t imagine the money—if there really is any—will make you happy. ”
Sarah laughed. “Okay, fine, your feelings are hurt. Now quit stalling and give me my key.”
It was the last thing Clancy wanted to do. Once Sarah had the key she would kill her, wouldn’t she? The woman had already killed two people for the key. What was one more?
“You don’t even know what the key opens or if there is any money,” she said, stubbornly hoping that whatever the key opened, it would be empty and Sarah would have done all this for nothing. “I heard Mildred had Alzheimer’s. What if she made it all up?”
“That’s my problem,” Sarah said, taking another step toward her as Clancy took one back. “You thought your life was waiting for you down that highway to Billings? Mine is waiting for me once I get into Mildred’s safety deposit box at her bank in Lewistown. Now give me the damned key!”
The message was clear. The woman wasn’t bluffing and Dub wasn’t coming back. Because he couldn’t? Or because he’d come to his senses last night and wanted nothing to do with her? It terrified her to think that he might have been harmed because of her and this mess she found herself in.
“The key.”
There was no reason to keep stalling, Clancy realized as Sarah backed her into a wall. No one was coming to save her. She was going to have to get out of this herself. Nothing new there.
She reached behind her and unlatched the chain.
Pulling it out from under her sweater, she started to slip off the key, but Sarah grabbed the chain, key and bear.
“Sorry but we don’t have time for this.” As she pocketed all of it, she said, “Don’t worry.
I know how much the bear means to you. I’ll see that you get it back. Now let’s go before it’s too late.”
When Clancy didn’t move, she said, “You’re coming with me, one way or another. It’s for your own good. Now move it. My car is right outside.”
Sarah grabbed her arm with her free hand and pressed the gun to her back as they headed for the door.
Sunshine laid a path of gold on the hardwood floor.
She glimpsed the beautiful day as they stepped outside under a brilliant blue, cloudless sky.
Everything felt so surreal as she was forced to walk to Sarah’s car.
“If you really believe I’ve already killed two people, you’ll be smart and not give me any trouble,” Sarah said behind her. “You’re the last person I would want to shoot.”