I blinked. “You mean all the sisters had names starting with S?”
“Sarah, Shirley, Stella, Sadie, Sylvia, and Sophie,” Audry recited, smiling faintly.
“There’s a niece named Gwen,” I said, remembering the friend of Aunt Frances.
“One of Sarah’s, as I recall. She had boys named Gordon and Gerard. And one of them used names that started with K. Kevin, Kyle, Karla, and Kendra.” She frowned. “Or was that the next generation down?”
As she’d said, lots of children, all of whom turned a year older every twelve months. Was this the definition of multiplicity? I found it hard enough to keep track of the ages of my brother’s children, and there were only three of them.
“But there is one thing that’s been bothering me,” Audry said slowly.
The weight she was giving to the words made the insides of my wrists tingle. “What’s that?”
“The farmhouse where you found him? That was where he and his sisters grew up.”
Chapter 15
I left Audry’s house with one thought and one thought only: Find the closest Tonedagana County sheriff’s detective.
I drove straight to Chilson and parked in the empty sheriff’s office lot. It took a little bit of doing, but I eventually convinced the deputy on duty that tracking down either Detective Devereaux or Inwood would be in everyone’s best interest.
He hung up the phone and looked at me with a schooled expression of blankness. “Detective Inwood was at the grocery store. He said he’ll stop by in about five minutes.”
“Inwood. He’s the short round one, right?”
The deputy actually laughed. “Nope. Devereaux is the short, round one. He looks like the letter D, see? And Hal Inwood is the tall, skinny one. He looks like the letter I.”
Clouds parted and the light shone down. “That’s brilliant,” I said sincerely.
He waved me off to a plastic chair, but he was smiling as he did so, and a few minutes later, Detective Inwood walked in. “Ms. Hamilton. What can I do for you?”
I stood, but didn’t move much closer. He was too tall (like the letter I) to make a face-to-face talk much of a reality. “Sorry to bother you on a Friday night,” I said, “but I just found out something.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” He put an angular elbow on the front counter.
“Well, it’s a couple of somethings, actually.” I gave him a quick summary of the origin of Stan’s fortune. “His sisters were furious when he sold the farm, I was told.”
“Who told you about this?” While Inwood’s pose remained casual, the expression on his face was sharp.
“Oh. Well.” I mentally fast-forwarded through the next part of the conversation and decided it was best to tell the truth now rather than have it dragged out of me later. “Audry Brant. She was Stan’s first wife.”
Inwood reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small pad of paper. “His first wife, you say.”
I winced. Audry was going to get a police visit and it was all my fault. Sorry about that, I told her silently. “She had no reason to kill him, though. They were divorced about fifty years ago. And anyway, that’s not an important something.”
Inwood used the pencil he’d pulled out of the memo pad’s spiral binding to dot a period. “What is?”
“The farmhouse where Stan was killed? That was where Stan grew up. That was the farm he sold out from under his sisters.”
“Now that is a something.” Detective Inwood nodded, a faint smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. “Ms. Brant give you that bit of information?”
“Yes, so I was wondering. Have you looked at Stan’s sisters? I mean, with him being killed at their old farm, it makes you think there’s a connection, right? They were all older than Stan, but it doesn’t take much strength to pull a trigger.”
But the detective was shaking his head. “All six sisters are accounted for, either passed away or moved out of state decades ago.”
“Oh.” I deflated. “The ones still alive, they have alibis? I mean, I’m sure you checked, but . . .”
“Of the three,” he said, “two are in nursing homes. The other is living in Arizona, and according to the golf course manager, she hasn’t missed her daily game of golf since she moved there fifteen years ago.”
“What about their children? I’ve heard the sisters all had a lot of kids. And the kids probably all had kids. Have all of them been checked out?”
The detective stuffed his memo pad back into his pocket. “The six sisters had twenty-three children. The twenty-three of them have had a total of seventy-two offspring. So, we’re working on it, Ms. Hamilton. Plus, there are other—” He stopped. Gave me a short, assessing look. “We’re investigating all avenues,” he said. “In addition to the family members, Stan Larabee had many friends and business associates across the country. A thorough investigation takes time.”