Lending a Paw(51)

She picked up her head, allowing me to see the ravaged makeup and mussed hair. “Old as I am, I should know better than to trust the impressions of others. My father always told me to make sure I had my own information.” She sighed. “I passed on that same piece of advice to my children. I hope it stays with them better than it stayed with me.”

I made a comforting, murmuring sort of noise.

“You’re a dear,” Caroline said. “And you deserve an explanation for letting an old woman cry onto your shoulder.”

“Grief strikes in unexpected places.”

“Yes, it does.” She looked around and managed a small smile. “It certainly does.” Her sigh stirred the bangs that now lay flat on her forehead. “You wouldn’t think I could get so upset over a man I knew only six months, but he caught me . . . off guard. I wasn’t thinking of seeing a man ever again, not in that way.” Her smile was sweet and sad. “Did you know Stan sponsored two college scholarships? Every four years, a boy and a girl from a Tonedagana County high school is awarded a full ride.”

“The Sunrise Scholarship?” I hadn’t been living in Chilson the last time it was awarded. “That was Stan?”

She nodded. “And the new intensive care wing at the Charlevoix Hospital was financed in large part by Stan’s money. So was Chilson’s community pool. And the waterfront park.”

I’d had no idea. All of those projects had been completed, or mostly completed, by the time I’d moved north. Yet if he’d given away all that money, how could his reputation be that of a miser who clutched his cash to his chest? “Were those donations anonymous?”

“No, but he didn’t make a spectacle out of giving away money.”

I sighed, unhappy that Stan had been so right, unhappy that he hadn’t lived long enough to outlive his reputation.

But Caroline was still talking. “In some ways he was very modest. In other ways”—her smile this time was wider—“he was so immodest as to be a caricature of the self-made man.”

“Maybe that was part of his charm?”

“Oh, yes. Decidedly. And the man knew how to treat a lady. Oh, not the door opening and the chair pulling, that’s mere etiquette. Anyone can do that. Stan had a rare capacity in a man. He knew how to listen to a woman. He had the ability to focus, to make me think I was important. That’s why . . .” Her voice caught on itself.

And here was the moment I’d wanted so badly. I needed to press her, to push for answers, and to make my own conclusion on her ability to kill Stan. Only . . . how could I? The woman was grieving.

Of course, she might be sad because she’d committed murder. I had to think about Holly, worrying herself to a frazzle. And I should be thinking about what I’d told Stephen, that I’d ask Caroline for a donation to the library. But that would have to wait. Some things were more important than money.

“Why what?” I asked softly.

A deep breath whistled out from between her teeth. “To my own dying day, I’ll regret what I said to him, the last time I saw him.”

“The last time . . . ?”

“We had an argument.” She looked around the small office. “In this very room.” She closed her eyes briefly. “He asked if I wanted to fly to Toronto with him to see Evita. He knew how I enjoy that show, but I told him, ‘Not if you were the last man on earth. I daresay the next time I see you will be at your funeral.’”

So Lina had heard exactly right.

“Why did I say that?” Caroline bit her lips, smearing the last of her lipstick onto her teeth. “It was a ridiculous thing to say. I should never have said something like that, no matter how angry I was.”

I had to do it. I had to press. For Holly. For Stan. “So why did you?” I asked. “Say it, I mean?”

The air went out of her. “Jealousy. Silly, childish jealousy.”

A perfect motive for murder.

But as I watched her fish a handkerchief from her purse and dab at her face, I didn’t think she had anything to do with Stan’s death. Call it a hunch, call it instinct, call it whatever you want, I simply couldn’t picture any reality in which it could happen. Besides, the car parked outside the art gallery would have been hard for someone to miss seeing at the farmhouse. Even I could recognize a Rolls-Royce when I saw a double R on the front.

So if Caroline was out as a killer, who was in?

“Jealous?” I asked. “Of whom?”

“Whom. It’s so nice to hear that word used properly.” Caroline touched the handkerchief to her nose. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion. It’s embarrassing to admit to the feeling, especially when you consider the woman who caused it.”