Lending a Paw(101)

But at least it was over. I wasn’t dead from dehydration or any other means, and Stan’s killer was in police custody.

“Sorry this took so long, Stan,” I murmured, and in a quiet part of my thoughts, I heard his reply.

Remember what I told you about reputations, Minnie. And thanks.

“Thanks for what?” Devereaux asked.

I shook my head. “Could I get a ride back to my car?” There was a cat waiting for me, and I had a lot to tell him.





Chapter 20


The next evening, Kristen and I sat out on the marina’s patio. My best friend was smart, brave, strong, and able to cook soufflés without a recipe, but she hated boats with a passion. Wouldn’t have anything to do with them. Wouldn’t even sit on the houseboat’s deck while tied up to the dock. I’d long since given up trying to jolly her out of her fears and had brought out a freshly opened bottle of red adult beverage and a couple of glasses.

“When I hired Larry,” she said, “I asked around about him. I knew him in high school, but hadn’t seen him since. Everybody said he was a great chef, but that managing money was his weak point.” She snorted. “I’m such an idiot. I remember thinking, well, gosh, I’m hiring a chef, not a manager. What do I care about his financial skills? But this was all about money, wasn’t it?”

On the ride back to my car, Detective Devereaux had told me what they’d already found out through some fast investigating.

Larry, aka Kyle, and his wife had lost their house to foreclosure a few months ago. They’d rented that place in the valley because it was dirt cheap. His wife had hated it. Devereaux had already tracked down her phone number; she said she’d left Kyle and moved downstate to stay with friends while she was looking for a job.

The captured Kyle had told the detectives that he was headed south that morning to talk her into coming home, that he was going to call the police from a pay phone at a rest stop somewhere and give an anonymous tip that I was locked in the barn.

Kristen rolled her eyes. “And they believed him?”

I shrugged. They hadn’t, but I had. Or I’d wanted to. Thinking that he’d left me there to die wasn’t going to improve my dreams any, and since I’d escaped, I’d decided to accept the explanation.

Kristen sipped her wine. “Man, this is good. Where did you get it?”

“You gave it to me for Christmas.”

She nodded absently. “There’s one thing I haven’t been able to figure out. Why did Larry think he was going to inherit anything?”

I looked at the never-ending blue sky. “He thought Stan liked him.” I remembered what Larry had said, the night Caroline and I had eaten dinner together. From Stan’s undoubtedly offhand comment about money being easy to come by, Larry must have built up a fantasy of inheritances and money owed from long-ago wrongs. And I heard again what Larry had said, the first time I’d met him, about his dreams of building a restaurant.

Had it really been all about money?

I’d had a lot of time to think about Kristen’s question, out there in the barn, and I still didn’t know. I’d had time to think about the farmhouse, about Stan, about his shady business practices, and about his six sisters. I’d thought about genealogy and how the sting of injustice can survive through generations. I’d thought about how Stan’s sale of the farmhouse had started his empire, and how it had ruined his relationship with his sisters forever. I’d thought about families and money and motivations and hatred, and standing there in the warm sunshine outside the barn, I’d asked the detectives if they knew the maiden name of Kyle’s grandmother.

They’d looked at each other. “No idea,” Inwood said. “Why?”

When I suggested that it might be Larabee, they both gave slow nods and pulled out their cell phones. Devereaux got the answer first, from his sister-in-law who’d grown up in that part of the county.

He’d nodded. “Larabee. How’d you know?”

I didn’t say anything, but watched as Deputy Wolverson got into the patrol car, started it up, and drove off, taking Larry away.

“Say, I forgot to tell you, Ms. Hamilton,” Detective Devereaux had said. “We recovered a bullet from one of the bookmobile tires. What do you bet the bullet was fired from a gun Mr. Sutton owns? And it’ll be easy enough to get witnesses to testify that Mr. Sutton knew the bookmobile lady was trying to find Stan’s killer.”

I’d frowned. “It will?”

Devereaux had chuckled. “Sure. Everybody knew.”

When I was relating this part of the story to Kristen, she sat up so suddenly that wine slopped over the side of her glass. “Shot?!” she yelled. “Larry shot at you?”