An Embarrassment of Itches Read online

  “So, the notion he needs money isn’t that far off the mark.”

  Laney shook her head with a fierce smile. “Especially since rumor has it, his marriage is on the rocks, and there could be divorce proceedings in the near future.”

  I digested that. “A divorce might force lawyers to look into his holdings as part of the division of assets.”

  “My thought as well. It could be he was hoping an influx of money from Amanda’s estate would allow him to play a shell game a bit longer with his shareholders.”

  “Who do you think killed Amanda?”

  Laney took a sip from her lemonade and then pushed the glass aside, as though she were through with it. “Honestly? I think Derek found her. He’s the sort of guy that can’t let go, and he’d never forgive Amanda for leaving him. If Brad were that desperate for money, I’m sure Amanda would have helped him out. Perhaps reluctantly, but eventually, yes.”

  “Even given the things she said in the will?” Something about the staging of Amanda’s death scene bugged me. “Don’t you think if Derek killed her, he would have been more vindictive? More violent? The coroner’s office thought it was an accident at first. I think if Derek killed her, there would have been no doubt it was murder.”

  “That’s a good point.” Laney’s face fell, and I recognized the look of regret that washed over it. “I just wish I’d gotten in touch with her the night I got into town. I called her several times, but she never answered.”

  “When was that?”

  “The first call was right when I’d checked into the B&B. Around nine p.m. I’d say. I called again about ten o’clock, but when I didn’t get her a second time, I gave up and decided to try in the morning. I wish now I’d gone out to her place anyway.”

  If she was telling the truth, then it was a possible timeline for Amanda’s time of death.

  I wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person, but I laid a hand on Laney’s arm. “There’s a good chance she was already gone by then. If you’d gone out there, you might have met the same fate.”

  Laney locked gazes with me. “Tell me you wouldn’t have gone out there if you’d known. If you’d been worried about her safety.”

  She was right. If I’d thought Amanda was in trouble...

  Laney must have seen something in my expression, for she said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  Spotting Kim heading toward the booth with my lunch, I said, “I’ve got to go. Let’s get together before you leave town, though. Maybe dinner tomorrow?”

  Laney agreed, if somewhat unenthusiastically. Her next comment implied it had nothing to do with me. “Doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere anytime soon.”

  I left her and rejoined my mother. I was surprised she hadn’t bullied her way into our conversation already, but when I sat down, it was clear she thought she was already on the job.

  “Is she one of your contacts?” my mother asked.

  I managed to hide my smile by spearing a piece of crispy flounder and taking a bite. “That was Amanda’s agent. Apparently, Amanda asked her to come up, only she died before the two of them could meet.”

  “So, she says,” my mother said darkly.

  She had a point. Was I wrong to trust Laney as much as I did? I tended to go with my gut when it came to reading people and animals. In the fifteen years since I’d graduated from vet school, I’d been bitten exactly twice, not counting my actively encouraging Pumpkin to bite me so I could pull her out of the wall. Once by a terrified cat who’d been abused, and once by a dog I’d just vaccinated without incident. They always say it’s the ones you don’t see coming. Point is, unconsciously or not, I pay attention to body language and the subtle cues animals give to show if they are comfortable. I always tell them what I’m about to do before I do it, like examine their ears, or open their mouths. I respect when an animal tells me they are unhappy or scared.

  My gut told me I could trust Laney. That she was just as upset and angry over Amanda’s death as I was.

  But it’s always the one you don’t see coming.

  Perhaps I should be a little more cautious in my dealings with her.

  “You’re right.” A sentence I couldn’t ever recall saying to my mother before. “I’m inclined to take what Laney says at face value, but maybe I shouldn’t.”

  My mother straightened at my words, and a gleam entered her eye. Was it really that simple? I just had to pay heed to her advice?

  My food was getting cold, so I dove into it. For once, she didn’t criticize my choices at all.

  “Before I forget, I have a drawing of Remy by Amanda that I need to have framed. Do you mind running it into Clearwater? I’ve already placed the order. I just need you to drop it off.”

  I suspect at any other time, such an errand would have taken a backseat to my mother’s other activities, but as the drawing was tangentially related to Amanda’s death, she was more than willing to help. Especially when she learned the sketch might be worth over five hundred dollars. It was priceless to me, but that didn’t matter to my mother.

  “Now this other task is only something you can do,” I told her.

  The narrowing of her eyes made me wonder if I was laying it on a bit thick, so I hurried on.

  “See, I think Brad is hard up for funds.” I glossed over the selling of the horses to Ringbolts. She would have been unhappy if she’d known how much I forked over to save them. Or would she? It was so hard to tell with her sometimes. Instead, I focused on the meeting with the art dealer from New York, and his reaction to my being named heir instead of him, winding up with the favor I wanted her to perform. “Rumor has it he was rude to Miss Ellie because she couldn’t give him some piece of information he wanted. Could you go down to the library and see what it was about? Without seeming too obvious about it, of course. I don’t want word to get out that I was asking about Amanda’s brother.”

  Really, my mother was the perfect person to winkle this information out of Miss Ellie without raising any red flags. She seemed to know it as well.

  Leaning back against her seat, she gave me a cat-got-the-canary smile and said, “You can count on me.”

  That’s what I was afraid of.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As we were getting ready to leave the diner, my mother excused herself to go to the restroom. I took the opportunity to head over to the cash register and pay for our meal. To my surprise, Sue herself was manning the till.

  The family resemblance between the Jackson sisters was strong. They both had blonde, curly hair and blue eyes, though Kim’s hair was the stark white color that came from a bottle and had enhanced her eyes with colored contact lenses. Sue was a slightly older, less harsh version of Kim. It had been a while since I’d seen her last, and there were dark circles beneath her somewhat puffy eyes.

  “Hey, Sue. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen you out front. You’re usually back at the grill, making the best burgers in town.”

  “Given my competition is Mickey D’s, I’d say you’re trying to butter me up.” She gave me a tired smile and pushed a strand of loose hair back behind one ear. “I’m hoping now that spring’s here, some of the high school kids will be looking for part-time work. I can’t keep any help.”

  I made a sympathetic noise as I handed her my ticket. “You’d think the perks of free food would be worth it.”

  She punched the numbers into the old-style register and rang up the total. “You’d think. But it seems no sooner than I get one set of teenagers trained, then they graduate and leave town.”

  A middle-aged man with skin tanned like shoe leather looked up from his BLT where he sat at the counter. “They got nothing to stay for.”

  Sue nodded. “That’s true enough, Blair.”

  I hadn’t placed him until Sue said his name, and then I recalled he owned land on the other side of Amanda’s property. Blair Kendall kept beef cattle, and the one time he’d called about getting a rabies shot for his dog, he’d complained about my prices and
said he’d get Doc Haskell to do it the next time he came out. Dr. Haskell was the large animal vet in the area. People often asked me why I limited my services to small animals, but the truth of the matter is that large animal work is brutal. You’re out in the elements year-round, and because there aren’t any emergency services that cover large animals, a livestock vet is on call 24/7/365 until the day you die or get too injured to work. I love horses and enjoy working with cattle, sheep, and goats, but I love sleep and intact bones more.

  A sudden intensity flared in Kendall’s gaze and he said, “You there. Is it true what they say? Did you inherit that artist woman’s place?”

  Amanda had been a neighbor, and he could only refer to her as “that artist woman.” Oh yay. If things went as planned, he’d become my neighbor. So, I made the effort to be polite. “According to Ms. Kelly’s lawyer, yes.”

  I had the attention of everyone in the diner now, from the couple seated at a nearby table to Kim, who paused in the act of loading dishes into a plastic tub. A large man sitting by himself wiped his lips with a napkin and got up from his booth. I realized with dismay it was Ed Linkous.

  Great. Just what I needed. The de facto head of the Linkous clan. If there was a pie in Greenbrier County, Ed had his stubby fingers in it.

  “You gonna sell?” Kendall growled as Ed made his way over toward us.

  Not that it was any of his business. I faked an unconcerned laugh. “I haven’t made any decisions yet. I’m still processing the information. I only found out last night.”

  Ed wasn’t even pretending not to eavesdrop.

  Kendall tossed some loose change down beside his plate and stood up. “You’d better decide soon.”

  “Excuse me?”

  His manner was distinctly hostile, and I had no idea why.

  “It’s that new development.” Sue took my card and ran it through the scanner. “They’re looking to build all along the ridge there near Blair’s farm.”

  She printed out a receipt and pushed it toward me to sign.

  Kim brought her tub of dishes up to the counter and set it down to join in the conversation. “Not just a subdivision. Riverside is planning to put in a shopping center as well. Restaurants, a movie theater, department stores, the works. But only if the subdivision goes through.”

  “Which it won’t if you don’t sell.” Kendall glowered at me.

  At least the reason for the hostility was clear now.

  “The truth is, Mr. Kendall, it will take some time for the will to go through probate—”

  Before I could continue, he made a face and cut me off. “This town needs that development. The young people need a reason to stay. No one wants to be a farmer anymore, and I can’t say as I blame them. It’s hard work from sunup to sundown all year round, with precious little to show for it.”

  By now, Ed was close enough to insinuate himself into the conversation. A big man with a deep tan, he favored jeans, boots, and a cowboy belt buckle big enough on which to serve a Thanksgiving turkey.

  “He’s right, Dr. Reese. I know you’ve only been back in town a few years, but surely you can see how hard things are around here. Ever since the plant closed, we’ve had a tough time attracting new business to the area, and the local economy has suffered for it. We need an infusion of new blood into the town, or we’re going to get wiped off the map.”

  Seeing as Ed’s chief business was construction, and he subcontracted members of his extensive family as plumbers and electricians, his motives weren’t entirely pure.

  I tried again. “Yes, but—”

  “No buts about it, missy.” Kendall hitched his jeans up at the waist and took a step toward me. “That bleeding heart artist was holding out and if she didn’t sell her tract of land, the whole deal was going to fall through, see? It wasn’t right. She already had plenty of money. She could buy another place somewhere. The developers were going to do right by us.”

  I picked up my card and turned to face him as my mother came out of the restroom. “Are you saying that if Amanda had refused to sell her place, the subdivision was off?”

  Sue cut a glance toward Kendall and chimed in. “Oh, they would have probably built somewhere else in the area. Just not in Greenbrier.”

  And by doing so, would cost Kendall the sale of his farm. Not to mention, the support of a lot of other residents in the area who might have embraced the idea of more development, more business.

  “People would pay a pretty penny for that view,” Kim added. There was a gleam in her eye that suggested she was enjoying Kendall’s confrontation with me.

  Her slight smirk disappeared when my mother joined me, and she busied herself with clearing Kendall’s dishes and adding them to her tub.

  “I want to know what you intend to do.” Kendall demanded.

  He’d reckoned without my mother, however.

  “Is that you, Blair?” My mother rapped out in ringing tones, straight from the schoolroom. “I swear, I didn’t recognize you. You’ve gained weight.”

  Kendall turned red in the face and screwed up his lips until he looked like a boiler about to blow. Ed’s eyes grew wide, and he pulled his lips down in a heroic attempt to keep from laughing.

  “Thanks for a delicious meal, Sue! Golly, look at the time. We’ve got to go.” I grabbed my mother by the elbow and steered her toward the door, tossing Sue an apologetic glance over my shoulder.

  My mother resisted being herded and seemingly had every intention of saying more to Kendall as her former student. I’d given up long ago trying to stop her from saying outrageous things in public, especially about appearances. Since she had no compunction about commenting on my appearance, it was a lost cause.

  Instead, I leaned in and said as quietly as possible, “We’ve got another motive for murder. Act natural and come with me.”

  And she did, as meek as a lamb. If I’d known it was that easy, I would have played into my mother’s spy fantasies decades ago.

  We headed back to my car so I could give her the sketch to frame. I filled her in on what had happened while she was in the restroom.

  “After I speak with Miss Ellie, I’ll go down to the courthouse and ask to see the proposed development plans. That should generate a list of names of property owners who had a vested interest in seeing that Amanda sold her land.” My mother nodded to herself as though it were a done deal.

  It was an excellent idea, and the sort of research that would bore me to tears but that my mother would thrive upon. “I definitely think that’s worth doing, but do you really think someone would kill Amanda over her refusal to sell? Look at the can of worms it opened, what with the will being contested and the likely delay to probate.”

  “I wouldn’t rule it out just yet.” My mother gave me a knowing tip of her chin as she lifted an eyebrow. “No one expected you to inherit. If you’re right and he needs the money, that brother of hers would have sold in a heartbeat. Someone could have killed poor Amanda, thinking it would solve the issue of her being a holdout.”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head slowly. “I could see someone pressuring her to sell. Maybe that’s why her brother came to see her. But her death puts a monkey wrench into any sale until her will can be probated now.”

  We’d reached my car, and Remy popped up to drop his ears ingratiatingly as his whole body wagged side to side at the sight of my mother. As I’d parked in the shade and left the windows partly rolled down, he shoved his nose through the gap and tried to lick her. I ordered him to stay but allowed him to greet her as I rummaged through the car for the sketch.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” My mother fondled Remy’s ears as he leaned out of the open door toward her. “If the developers knew Amanda’s place would be available in a specific period of time, I bet they could be convinced to wait on the project six months or so if it were going to give them everything they wanted. From what you say, Amanda’s property would make up a considerable chunk of any planned subdivision, especially combined with the surr
ounding farms such as Blair’s. And if her brother had been named heir instead of you, there’s a good chance he would have been able to at least contract the sale on paper, which might have satisfied any creditors he might have. It’s the fact that he intends to fight for it that makes it a problem.”

  I wondered if that made it more or less likely that Brad had something to do with Amanda’s death? Contesting the will would drag the proceedings out for months, possibly years, if it didn’t drain the estate dry. If he’d murdered his sister for her property, would he continue to fight tooth and nail for the inheritance if it couldn’t come to him soon enough to put through the sale to the developers? Perhaps. Especially if he was desperate.

  On the other hand, he could be fighting for her estate without having been the one to kill her at all.

  “I’ll speak to Ethan about it. He’d know what the law allows.”

  My mother’s contacts were going to turn out to be useful after all.

  I shut Remy in the car and handed the taped-together pieces of cardboard protecting the sketch to my mother. She took it, and then fixed me with one of her thoughtful expressions.

  “Now that you’re Ms. Kelly’s heir, are you in any danger, my dear?”

  It was a good thing I hadn’t mentioned the incident with the car. She’d never believe the two weren’t connected, and truthfully, I thought they were myself.

  “Not to worry, Mr. Carter was very clear on that point in front of everyone last night. If anything should happen to me, the property goes to my heirs, no one else. That means they’d have to fight you.”

  I said it with a smile, but I didn’t like the glint that entered my mother’s eye. I could almost hear her saying, “Bring it on.”

  Instead, she asked, “What do you plan to do next?”

  I blew air out of my lips. “I’ve got to see some appointments this afternoon, including the one I had to reschedule because they wanted me down at the station.”