Page 79 of Murder By the Millions
“Ooh.” She fanned the air, as if willing herself not to cry. “I’m devastated and also stressed out. Even though his murder hasn’t been solved, the town council wants to go forward with the project with Iggie at the helm.”
“No!”
“Yes. He circumvented me and pressed the others for an answer. That man makes me so …” She hissed between her teeth.
I pulled the Blackwell book from the shelf and gave Finette a quick recap. “In this story, Mel is visited by the ghost of a colleague who recently met a bad end with power tools.”
“Talking about meeting a bad end, I wouldn’t put it past Iggie to have killed Jason to get rid of the competition. Youknow about his father, don’t you? They say he died of a heart attack and left all his wealth to Iggie, but his demise sounds suspiciously convenient to me.”
“I heard.” I didn’t say more, loath to reveal I’d done my own research. “But from what I hear, nothing untoward happened. He had heart issues.”
“Ha! I have read enough mysteries to know there are ways to cause heart attacks. As for killing Jason, Iggie—”
“Has an alibi. He was playing poker.”
“Pfft.He could’ve paid his poker buddies to lie about his whereabouts. They’re always in cahoots about one thing or another. However, I suppose he might have been gambling. He’s not careful with his money. My father—”
“Do you and Iggie have a history?” I interrupted, the question eating at me. Their relationship was complex.
She frowned and pursed her lips. After a long silence, she said, “We dated. Years ago. He was between wives. It didn’t work out.”
Did she blame him for the botched relationship, which would explain why she was throwing shade on him? Out of spite, had she pitted him against Jason and vice versa?
“As I was saying,” Finette continued, “my father used to tell me, ‘Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.’” She placed a hand over her heart. “He was always uttering witticisms and quoting great men. I shared a few quips with Jason. He wished he’d met my dad.” She sighed and pointed to the book I was holding. “Ring that up for me. I’ve got a meeting to attend.”
When she left with her purchase, I replayed our conversation and her insinuation that Iggie wasn’t to be trusted. Was it a diversion to mask her own guilt? I revisited the theory that she might have killed Jason because she’d been in love with him, but he’d rejected her. What would her beloved father have told herto do? Eighty-six him? No, he would have channeled Winston Churchill. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Allie, you’re on the wrong track.Finette hadn’t killed Iggie after they’d broken up. Therefore, she wouldn’t have killed Jason, either.
Tegan sidled to me. “What’s going on in your cleverly devious brain?”
I sighed. “I wish I could read minds.”
CHAPTER16
He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time,decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.
—Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald’sThe Great Gatsby
“Go over the crime scene again with me.” Tegan dragged me to the endcap of James Patterson books to have a private conversation. “Let’s see if talking it out will trigger new ideas.”
I did, piece by piece, shuddering as I did so, unable to shake the desolation I’d felt at the time. The spearhead. My missing earring. Dirt on the floor. Mud clinging to Jason’s shoes. Him reaching for his cell phone. A shrill scream. A dog barking. “I’ve been wondering what Zach has learned. He won’t share diddly with me.”
“And rightly so.” She elbowed me. “Hey, do you think he could compare the mud on Patrick’s shoes to the mud found at the crime scene? We should tell him about it. Or did youalready? The coincidence of it is suspicious, and now we know Patrick was a young eco-trasher—”
“It gets worse.” I told her about his sealed record for assault and his father’s crime.
“His biological father was a killer?” Tegan shimmied her shoulders, as if ridding herself of bad juju. “So much for contemplating dating him.”
“Now hold on. The sins of the father are not necessarily the sins of the son.”
“But Patrick attacked someone.”
“We don’t know who or what provoked the attack. The truth would be nice to learn.”
“Geez, Allie.” She scrubbed the back of her neck. “Sometimes you can be a pain about not jumping to conclusions.”
“Get the specifics. That’s all I’m saying. We’re fact finders.”
