Bran New Death(89)

“Thank you,” he said, taking my hand in his and squeezing it. “I’ll have her home late. I want to show her all my hideouts from when I was a kid.”

I sighed as he hopped in the car and drove away, and sent a wish after them, that their love was true, and happiness would follow them wherever they went. Instead of looking through the library, I spent a couple of hours going through more paperwork, and searching through my uncle’s stuff, trying to understand his relationship with Rusty Turner. Not a lot to go on there. I checked in often on Becket, following doctor’s orders, which were to feed him and give him water, as much as he wanted, but in small quantities often, rather than letting him gorge himself. He seemed to want out, but I kept him in my room to keep him from doing too much too fast.

My supper was solitary, a grilled chicken breast and salad eaten at the big kitchen table with a book of poetry propped up in front of me. It gave me a good sense of what my life would be like if Shilo married McGill and moved in with him. The castle was far too huge and echoed at night, making weird noises that had me on edge. I was tired and weepy and feeling sorry for myself. What was I going to do with Wynter Castle, being that I was the last remaining Wynter? I was about to turn out the lights and go upstairs when the phone rang. I picked it up, said “Hello?” as I flopped down in one of the chairs by the fireplace.

“Merry? It’s Hannah.”

“Hi, Hannah! Nice to hear your voice.”

She said much the same back, a very polite girl, then told me that over supper, she had asked her mother some questions. Her mom was the Lady’s League organizing chair, and she knew Isadore Openshaw and Dinah Hooper quite well. When Hannah mentioned Isadore’s trouble with Dinah, her mother told her something important.

“It all goes back to Dinah taking her job away at Turner Construction,” Hannah said.

“Dinah doing what?” I said.

“Dinah got a job there as kind of office manager, mostly because Rusty was hot-cha-cha in lust with her,” Hannah said on a cute giggle. “But Isadore did the bookkeeping for the company . . . you know, taxes, payroll, that kind of thing. It was just part-time, in addition to her job at the bank, which was just part-time at that point, too. I forgot that there used to be a lady named Mrs. Murphy, who was like the dragon lady of the tellers. Isadore supplemented her teller’s job with doing bookkeeping for folks. Anyway, that all changed when Dinah took over at Turner Construction.”

I thought about it for a long moment. That explained Isadore’s venom toward Dinah, but it didn’t explain why Dinah had claimed not to remember who used to do the books for the construction company. Although . . . if I had had to get someone fired because they were doing a lousy job, I might avoid the whole question, too. “Wait . . . how did Isadore get out to Turner Construction? It’s a ways out of town. She couldn’t have ridden her bike out there all winter.”

“Wait a sec, I’ll ask my mom,” Hannah said. When she came back, she said, “Mom says Isadore used her brother’s big, old car to drive out there. I guess she can drive, but leaves the car in the garage most of the time.”

Except when she was running my uncle off the road? Okay, so that was a stretch, but it was possible. “You have been a busy little bee, haven’t you, to find all this out?”

“I have! Oh, and one more thing I found out,” she said. “Tom was following someone for a lawyer, right, but we didn’t know what lawyer? Well, I know Mr. Silvio’s secretary, Chrissie; in fact, we went to school together when we were just little kids, and she comes in to the library all the time. She says that Tom was following a woman because Mr. Silvio suspected her of something, she wasn’t sure what.”

“What woman?”

“She didn’t know,” Hannah said regretfully. “She might be able to find out, though, tomorrow, when she’s in the office.”

“Why wouldn’t he hire the private investigator who has an office in the same building, if he wanted someone followed?”

“I don’t know. That guy doesn’t spend a lot of time in Autumn Vale, I think. Plus, Tom would have been cheaper, I suppose. He wasn’t doing much, with his dad missing and Turner Construction mostly out of business.”

“You’re right,” I said thoughtfully. “Thank you, Hannah. You’ve given me a lot to think of.”

“I may find out more tomorrow!” she said.

“Hannah, now listen to me; you be careful. I don’t want you asking too many questions.” In every detective book I’ve ever read, the one who gets snoopy gets in trouble. I couldn’t bear the thought of little Hannah being targeted. This was serious. I heard someone yelling in the background.