Page 107 of Murder By the Millions
He didn’t budge.
Growling, I lowered myself to my knees and, feeling like Magda crawling through the doggy door, sans the possibly broken shoulder, lasered him with an evil eye. “Come out.”
He backed away.
“What the heck? C’mon, sir. Please …”
He yowled.
I noticed jute straps and broken springs weren’t the only things hanging from the underside of the chair. Something gold was dangling. A dainty piece of jewelry.
“Oh, my, have you been trying all this time to draw my attention to it? Got it. I’m on it. I’m reaching in. Not for you. For your plaything. Ready? Three … two …” I stretched my arm and wrapped my hand around the chain. I couldn’t pull it loose. “Darcy, I need to turn the chair upside down. Please don’t be upset.” I rose to my feet.
He dashed out, bounded to the top of the cat-scratching station, and glowered at me like an angry toddler.
“Tough beans.”
I gripped the chair’s roll-style arm and laid the heavy piece of furniture on its side. Extending my hand between the turned-wood legs, I unhooked a bracelet from the offending loose spring. It wasn’t just any bracelet. It was an infinity ankle bracelet. Like the one Finette sported when she’d visited my place at the neighborhood watch party a few weeks ago. She’d worn one of her classic skirt suits, and I’d noticed the bracelet and commented on how pretty it looked. I also remembered Iggie pointing it out at Ragamuffin.
I perched on a chair at the dining table and studied what I was holding as another thought occurred to me. Was it possible the bracelet had a faulty clasp and had wound up in my house when an intruder, say Finette, sneaked in and stole the spearhead from my collection?
No way. She wasn’t a thief. She wasn’t a killer, either. She had loved Jason. At least that was the vibe I’d gotten. They’d teased. They’d cajoled.
But her alibi of reading to her great-aunt was questionable.
I recollected Lillian asking Finette how her great-aunt was doing. She had bemoaned her great-aunt’s frailty and intimated that Katherine “wouldn’t remember” her being there Monday, even though Finette claimed she had read to her until midnight. Had she offered up the tidbit to make us believe her great-aunt was losing it and therefore couldn’t be counted on to corroborate her alibi?
Finette’s buddy-buddy relationship with Jason had been unusual. The first time I saw them interact was at Feast for the Eyes. He swaggered in, and she cozied up to him. Their playful banter was light and easy. In an English accent, Jason said, “Hello, ducky, old sport.” She laughed and explained to us he’d dubbed her “Duckworthy” because he had a friend in college with that last name. She feigned umbrage because she was a Fineworthy oftheFineworthys, and—
I gasped.Duckworthy.Before dying, Jason had uttered the single syllable “Duh.” I thought he was calling for Delilah, but “Duh” could also be the beginning of Duckworthy. Had he been trying to tell me she was the one who stabbed him?
Earlier, I’d considered Iggie a tech-savvy person because of his interest in the tips Burt the Cyber Buddy offered. Finette was equally enthused. What if she, not Iggie, had cloned Jason’s phone and sent me the texts? What if she had the expertise to erase them from my phone? I recalled seeing her the day I lost my earring. At Ragamuffin, waiting for her latte. She could have nabbed the jewelry and planted it at the crime scene.
I paused. Why would she want to frame me? Because she was interested in Zach? Was she jealous of my relationship withhim? Did she want him, not Jason, and think by pinning a murder on me, he would be available?
I pictured the cuff link I had seen at the crime scene, etched with the cursive letterI.The other day at Ragamuffin, Finette had helped Iggie when his cuff link had come loose. Had she, like a magician, swiped it and swapped it for another—difficult to do, but not impossible—and taken his to the crime scene to frame him, as she had me? A twofer, as it were. If Zach didn’t believe I committed murder, he might believe Iggie did. I recalled how Finette had latched on to Iggie’s affair with Ulla at the sing-along. If she’d been keeping tabs on him after their breakup, she could’ve learned he was fooling around with Ulla, and realized he couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to verify his alibi, lest he destroy his marriage, and therefore would be an easy target to frame. Also, she needn’t have palmed the cuff link that day. She could have devised the plan to frame us long before and stolen one from his house.
A niggling notion cycled through my mind. What if Finette wasn’t even a blip on Zach’s radar? What if he deemed only me and Iggie suspects, and Iggie was now cleared for the second time, thanks to me? After all, I’d left Zach the message about Ulla’s confession.
Tag. You’re it, Allie.
But why would Finette kill Jason? When I had first tried to come up with suspects, I’d given her a feeble motive: she professed her love to Jason, but he rebuffed her. I’d ditched the theory, thinking she couldn’t win Jason over if he was dead. She would want him to remain alive. However, if she did have a thing for Zach, her interest in Jason was moot.
Darcy clawed the llama cat-scratching station with intensity, and I harkened back to the vet saying there had been skin under Darcy’s toenail when I’d brought him in for treatment. She hadn’t mentioned it on our previous visit, assuming hemust have scratched me, and since I hadn’t complained, she’d believed it wasn’t a big deal.
But hehadn’thurt me. Had he defended our home and clawed Finette?
Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her ankles in a while. She’d taken to wearing slacks. For a woman who liked to show off her legs, her donning slacks seemed unusual, especially considering how hot it had been lately.
I revisited her motive for wanting Jason dead. If not rejection …
I snapped my fingers. “Darcy, yes! This is about money. Iggie intimated that Jason might have been paying Finette for her sway with the town council. If she was hard up for cash, she might have demanded Jason pay her more money than they’d first negotiated. What if he’d refused? At her wit’s end, distraught with her financial situation, she’d lost all reason and plotted his death.”
Darcy tilted his head, listening.
“Last night at Blessed Bean, Lillian talked about Finette having secured a loan. What if she was in charge of managing her great-aunt’s finances, and because of her elaborate tastes— jewelry, designer handbags, and expensive hair highlights—she messed up and missed payments on the house loan, thus launching the house into foreclosure?”
I flashed on the other day, when Finette jokingly rushed into the bookshop, out of breath—I’d feared she needed CPR. She was fanning a pink envelope similar to the one I’d seen at her great-aunt’s house, the one marked Final Notice. She said she was overwhelmed with business meetings, as well as with talking to citizens and going to the bank. Had she met with the lenders in an attempt to rectify her financial situation, but the loan officer had denied her any assistance? Was the official end to the ninety-day foreclosure period at hand?
