Page 55 of Justice & Liberty

“As far as I know, all he did for her was this,” I said, holding up the pages I’d been reading. “Arrange her will.”

“Honey, you need to find yourself a different lawyer and sue the pants off this asshole.”

Find a different lawyer.

Sue.

I blinked, leaning back in my chair as realization washed over me.

“Martin Hayes killed Ephraim.”

The whole shop went silent around us.

A second later, Ed Kelley’s voice said, first muffled, then a moment later, again and clearer. “How do you figure?”

“He was Collins’s lawyer for years. He’s everyone in town’s lawyer—he’s the only lawyer who lives here. But last month Collins made an appointment with a new lawyer. A shark up in Iowa City with a reputation for suing people. He’s threatened that kind of thing before, but never followed through, because who’s going to follow through and sue someone over nickel-and-dime stuff? A couple hundred dollars for a dental bill you think is bull? That’s not worth the thousands of dollars it takes to bring a real case to court.”

Walter, bless his heart, was confused. As much as it turned out he wasn’t a terrible person, he also wasn’t very bright. “Then whatisworth suing over? Was Hayes overcharging him for something?”

“Wasn’t he rich?” Rita asked. “If Hayes had control of any of his money...”

“Or a lot of it,” I corrected. “And just maybe, Ephraim found out that it was gone. He couldn’t sue Martin Hayes using Martin’s help. So he had to go find a new lawyer.”

“Which will be proven through when the sheriff subpoenas the records of Dooley and Franks in Iowa City,” Hunter said, looking windblown as she stood in the shop door, grinning. “Collins told them what he wanted to see them about. Then Pat will just have to find out where Hayes bought the antifreeze. There’s an auto parts store on the south side of Iowa City, I’d start there. They’ve even got a convenient camera in the parking lot.”

She pressed her way through the mass of people in order to drop into a chair across from me. “How did you figure it out?”

I held up the papers Hayes had given me. “He was trying to steal my inheritance from Mom by making me sign away the shop. I figured there had to be a reason he needed that much money, and was willing to be so brazen about it. Plus like I said, why else hire a new lawyer? The old one was the problem. How did you figure it out?”

She gave a wicked smirk and it made me want to lean across the table and kiss her. “Dooley and Frank at law are much more accommodating in person, as it happens, especially when you know a guy. Took me about thirty seconds with the front desk computer to find the notes their secretary took.”

I pushed up out of my chair. “I guess we better go see the sheriff.”

“Think he’s coming to see you,” Ed said, waving his phone around.

A moment later a harried Sheriff Parker marched in, phone pressed to his ear with one shoulder, trying to write in a tiny notebook with both hands.

“Dooley who now?”

28

We went backto the sheriff’s station, Parker himself insisting to everyone at the coffee shop that they keep quiet about what they’d overheard, and Hunter looking at him like he was out of his mind.

Keeping a bunch of small town people from gossiping?

Good luck.

For good measure, Sheriff Parker turned and looked back at them as he dragged Hunter and me out with him. “If you keep us from catching the killer and getting little Sabrina Collins free, you’re gonna feel like a heel, aren’t you?”

Behind us, there was silence in the coffee shop.

It turned out that it was hard to do a whole lot on Sunday morning.

The banks were closed, the Collins family accountant’s office was closed—everyone was closed.

Oddly, everyone except Martin Hayes’s office was closed.

“By the time we get hard evidence about the family finances, Hayes will have heard about that little scene in the coffee shop,” the sheriff grumbled after calling the accountant for the third time.

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