“A good point.” Stanley had raised his hand over his eyes to protect them from the LED beam. “Surely, then, if the police didn’t find a kerosene lantern…”
“They found one, all right,” she said. “I expect we had one out in the shed, along with a lot of other old junk that we should have thrown out years ago. They might have found a butter churn and an old wooden washboard in the debris, too, but that doesn’t mean we were using them that night. Or maybe the killer planted the lantern. The point is, she wasn’t using a kerosene lantern or any other kind of open flame, so the police explanation of how it happened is nonsense.”
Stanley was scribbling rapidly. I was just listening, and trying to decide if Annabel’s version of events sounded plausible. Was she a keen-eyed witness being ignored by the police—and if so, why? Or was she a lonely old woman who was taking the death of her cousin hard and looking for someone to blame?
“Cordelia and I have been running that generator for twenty years now,” Annabel said. “I know how the thing works. What I saw wasn’t consistent with any kind of accident with a kerosene lamp. But it’s exactly what would happen if you poured gasoline around the shed and then threw in a match just as Cordelia showed up.”
“And you think it was your neighbor, Theo Weaver, who did this?” Stanley asked.
“Damn right I do,” Cordelia said. “I told you, I saw him slinking away from the shed and hopping over the fence.”
Hopping over the fence? It was eight feet tall if it was an inch. Was their neighbor a recreational pole vaulter? I could see Stanley frown at this, too.
“You recognized him?” he said aloud. “Wasn’t it dark?”
“It wasn’t that dark. There was a full moon, so with all the snow around, you could see pretty well when there was a break in the clouds. And not that bad even when the clouds were there. Wasn’t so much the darkness as the glare from the flames that made it hard to see. Hard, but not impossible. And I know Weaver well enough to recognize him. He was carrying something that could easily have been one of those red plastic gas cans, slipping along the hedge and then jumping the fence into his own yard.”
Stanley glanced over at me. If he was waiting for a signal, or the answer to some unspoken question, he was doomed to disappointment. I shrugged. Whatever question he was asking, that answer seemed to satisfy him.
“It does sound as if there may be some scope for investigation,” Stanley said.
“Good,” Annabel said. “You can start today. No time like the present.”
“There are a couple of things I need to do before I agree to go forward with this,” Stanley said. “First, I need to consult my client.”
“Consult away,” she said. “If you two want some privacy, use the study.”
“My client is actually Meg’s grandfather, Dr. Blake,” Stanley said.
“Wait—Blake hired you to find Cordelia?” Annabel asked.
Stanley nodded.
Annabel looked puzzled, and not entirely pleased.
“A little late in the day, don’t you think?” she asked.
“Better late than never,” I said.
Annabel’s face wore a thunderous look. Clearly she was not a fan of her late cousin’s lover.
“Dr. Blake was unaware, until a few years ago, that his relationship with Cordelia had produced a son,” Stanley said.
“He should have known it was a possibility,” Annabel retorted. “Some biologist he is.”
Stanley nodded, conceding the point.
“Technically, I’ve completed the task Dr. Blake hired me for,” he said. “Find Cordelia. If she was alive, see if she wanted any contact with her son and his family. If she was dead, tell him what I’d learned about her life since their parting. We never anticipated this—finding she’d been murdered and being asked to investigate it. I need to clear it with him before I can continue.”
“And if Blake says forget about it, case closed?” Annabel snapped. “What then?”
“Then Stanley will talk to my dad,” I said. “Who obviously has an even stronger reason for wanting to find out what happened to his mother. For that matter, so do I, and I bet my brother and sister will, too.”
“I feel reasonably sure Dr. Blake will authorize the expanded investigation,” Stanley said. “And if he doesn’t, I can terminate my contract with him and work with others in the family. But I do have to talk to him first.”
“That works,” Annabel said, with a brisk nod. “And you know, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of old Monty footing the bill for this. From what I hear, he can certainly afford it. So one way or another, you can move ahead, then, once you clear up the question of who’s the client.”