Page 72 of Little Dark Deeds
CHAPTER 26
Queenie’s home hadbeen ransacked.Drawers and cabinets in the kitchen were open, and everything from paperclips to jewelry was scattered around the floor.I stood silent for a moment, trying to make sense of it all, then stepped into the living room.Foley was hunched over the coffee table, examining what looked like a cocktail ring, which I assumed was Queenie’s.
“Seems the murderer may have been looking for something,” I said.“I wonder if he found it.”
Foley took hold of the ring in his gloved hand and lifted it to the light, and I got a better look at it, and the massive diamond in its center.
“I agree,” he said.“If it was a robbery, he’d be an idiot to leave this behind.”
“Simone was here yesterday, talking to the neighbors,” I said.“She was told Queenie had taken it upon herself to play amateur detective, hoping to solve Tiffany’s murder before we did.”
He stared at me for a moment, then said, “You got that look in your eye—the one you always have right before you’re about to hit me with a theory.Am I right?”
“You are, I just haven’t thought it through all the way yet.”
“Go on.”
“What if Queenie confronted a few people she considered to be suspects and riled them up, trying to get one of them to confess?With her personality, she could have pushed one too many buttons, leaving the killer feeling like they had no choice but to take her out.”
Foley shifted his weight from one foot to the other.“Let’s say you’re right, even if she threatened people, why would anyone risk a second murder unless she had actual proof of their crime?”
He had a point.
And maybe she did have proof of some sort.
If the motive was to murder her, and nothing more, it didn’t seem logical that her house had been turned upside down when Tiffany’s hadn’t been.
“I just wish Queenie had kept some kind of record of her comings and goings—anything that might tell us what she’d been doing over the past week,” I said.
If only ...
Whitlock entered the room, joining us.“I don’t know about a record, but I just remembered something.When we first questioned Ron Wheeler about Tiffany, he told us that after he found her in the bathroom, the shock and sorrow of it all was overwhelming.He rushed outside and broke down, vomiting on the lawn.One of Tiffany’s neighbors saw the whole thing and came over to see if he was all right.Remember, Foley?”
Foley raised a brow, nodding.“Yeah, now that you mention it.He said it was a woman.He didn’t catch her name.We asked him to describe her, and he said she was older, with white hair.After the woman checked on him, she went into Tiffany’s house to get him a glass of water.That’s when he called the police.”He shot me a look.“Had to be Queenie.”
It was a crucial piece of information Queenie had neglected to share with me, and it shifted how I saw everything.I now knew she’d been inside Tiffany’s house.Had the killer left something behind, an item Queenie discovered?
“I believe the woman who approached Ron that day was Queenie,” I said.“If I’m right, she had access to Tiffany’s housebeforethe police arrived.In that time, she could have taken something, maybe an item she thought didn’t belong to Tiffany.If she was talking to our suspects, she may have used it as leverage to get answers.”
“You think she was withholding it from us all this time, though?”Foley asked.“We asked every woman on this street if they spoke to Ron that day.They all said no.”
One of them was lying, and all signs pointed to Queenie.
“When I first met Queenie, she seemed distraught over Tiffany’s death,” I said.“But as we started to discuss the investigation, she seemed invigorated, which brings me to my theory.”
“I figured we were getting around to it,” Foley said.“Let’s hear it.”
“Think about Queenie’s life.She wakes up each day, doing much of the same monotonous routine.Then something scandalous happens—a murder on the street she just happens to live on.A murder that needs to be solved.So Queenie decides to try and outsmart and outwit all of us, getting justice for Tiffany in the process.”
