Crowned and Moldering (23 page)

“You should look it over before you decide, of course. But maybe you could hang a
plaque in there. And maybe your story could be a tribute of sorts to Betsy.” I shrugged,
feeling a little silly for telling a bestselling author how to write. “Or not, if
that isn’t your style.”

He squeezed my hand. “I’d like to think I have it in me to do her justice.”

“Oh, Mac.” I rewarded him with a bright smile. “I know you do.”

Eventually the subject changed back to Lily. Mac brought his computer over to the
table and typed rapidly as I told stories of those days back in high school. I switched
to Denise’s attack on Cliff and conjectured here and there, wondering if Denise had
been sleeping with Cliff and speculating on which other girls Cliff might’ve been
dating. I knew he had asked me out, and Whitney, too. But not Jane. So who else had
Cliff Hogarth been interested in? Did he make some girl so jealous that she stalked
Lily and killed her? And what about the present day? Was Cliff spreading lies about
other people besides Denise? And me? I’d almost forgotten my desire to sue him for
slander. The lawsuit would have to wait until he was healthy enough to be dragged
into court.

I told Mac what Denise had said about Dismal Dain and his weird attraction to Mr.
Jones’s biology rats. I told him more about Sean and Lily’s father, and wondered aloud
if Hugh Brogan had had something to do with Lily’s demise. I didn’t mention her pregnancy
or anything else that Eric had told me in confidence. I knew that detail would be
revealed eventually and it would be important to Mac’s article. But for now he had
enough ghoulishly useful information to begin setting the scene for Lily’s death.

*   *   *

I drove back to school to finish up the day with my parking-lot crew. As I watched
the backhoe scoop up big chunks of asphalt into its loader, Whitney approached. I
braced myself for her latest insult, but she was too shaken to verbally abuse me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“I’m just so upset about Cliff.” She sniffled into a tissue, seeming genuinely distraught.
“Just when he was getting his life back together, this had to happen. It’s not fair.”

“Well, if you really want to be fair, you must admit he had to have said something
pretty awful to Denise if she was driven to try to hit him like that.”

Whitney uttered a sound of contempt. “It figures you would have no sympathy for him.”

“Hey, I’m glad he’s not dead. But my real sympathy is for Denise. And yours should
be, too. I thought you guys were good friends!”

“We are! Of course we are,” Whitney insisted. “But Cliff’s the one in the hospital.”

“I’m sure Tommy told you the whole story. Denise was fighting for her life when she
finally hit him.”

“Whatever. I still feel for Cliff,” she said. “And if Denise hadn’t confessed that
she hit him, I would suspect you. You hate him and I don’t know why. Wait. Yes, I
do. It’s because you’re jealous because he liked me so much.”

“Oh my God,” I muttered, and started to walk away. But I couldn’t let it go. I just
couldn’t. I turned around and said, “The way you’ve been yammering on and on about
how much you like Cliff Hogarth and how he was always asking you out, and how you
wanted to give him a job at your house? It makes
Tommy
look more like a suspect than I could ever be. So think about that.”

Her face turned pale. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

I couldn’t have asked for a better reaction, so I spun around and walked away as fast
as I could. It wasn’t often I managed to get the last word in with Whitney and I wanted
to enjoy the moment.

I kept walking and ended up at the main school building, staring up at the double
doors leading inside. I didn’t want to walk back to the parking lot and take a chance
on running into Whitney again, so I walked up the stairs and into the building. Maybe
I would stop in and say hello to Ms. Barney.

But once inside, I leaned against the door and sighed. I didn’t know why Whitney was
so determined to defend Cliff when she was supposedly such good friends with Denise.
I had to think it was only because of me. Tommy refused to hire anyone else to do
the work on their house but me, and Whitney didn’t like that one bit. She wanted Cliff.
Or anyone else, for that matter. Anyone except me.

And that was too darned bad.

“You look like you’re hiding from someone.”

I turned around and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Jones.”

“Hello, Shannon.” He glanced out the window. “Who are you hiding from?”

If only I could tell the truth, but instead I continued to smile and told a small
fib. “I’m waiting for someone, but it looks like they’ll be late.” My smile faded
as I realized what he’d been through today. “Is Denise okay, Mr. Jones? I’m so worried
about her.”

“She’ll be fine,” he said somberly. “She’s home, resting.”

“Home? Oh, I’m so glad. I thought the police might . . . Well. I’m glad she’s home.”

“You thought they might arrest her for attacking that blackmailing scumball?” He touched
my arm. “I’m sorry for that. Pardon my language. It’s not very charitable of me. But
no, she’s not being arrested. The police believe she hit him in self-defense. And
fortunately Hogarth is still alive, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

I’d never heard him utter a harsh word before, so I knew he had to be upset. “If she
needs a character reference, I’ll be happy to talk to Chief Jensen.” I gave a slight
shrug. “Not that I’m anyone special, but every little bit helps.”

“That’s not true. You’re very special, Shannon. And I appreciate it.” He gave me a
tired smile, and I thought how hard this had to be on him. “I’ll let you know if we
need any extra help.”

“Okay.” I gazed out the window again. “Well, I guess I’d better go back to work. Maybe
my friend meant to meet me at the parking lot. That’s where I can usually be found
most days.” Another fib, but I didn’t feel bad about it.

“I have a free period, so I’ll walk with you.” He pushed open the door and we strolled
down the stairs together. The wind had picked up and I zipped my vest closed.

“I was going to stay home with her,” he said, “but Denise told me to go back to work
because I was driving her crazy. I think I’m more nervous than she is.”

“I don’t blame you. It must have been terrifying to hear what happened.”

“Yes, that’s the perfect word for it.” He shook his head as if to shake off the bad
vibes and gazed around at the beautiful campus. “You’re making excellent progress
on the parking lot.”

“It’s coming along pretty well.”

“It’s nice to see Sean Brogan hard at work every day,” he said. “He always says hello.”

“He’s a great team player,” I said, pushing my windswept hair off my face. “I’m lucky
to have him on my crew.”

“The Brogan children overcame a lot of obstacles,” he murmured. “Their father was
a real brute.”

“Did you ever have to deal with him?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” he said, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I had a few run-ins with Hugh Brogan.
The man was a true bully. He considered his children his property, his chattel, really.
He refused to take advice from anyone else.”

“You tried to talk to him?”

“Yes, about Lily.” His jaw tightened. “It didn’t go well.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too.” He stared across the greenbelt and I wondered if he was looking into the
past. “I just . . . I just wish Lily had been given the chance to get that scholarship
and go to college as she’d always dreamed of doing.”

“I wish she had, too. She was so smart and talented, she could’ve done anything she
wanted with her life.”

“True.” Mr. Jones checked his wristwatch and sighed. “I’d better get back to the classroom.”

“Thank you for walking with me. Please let Denise know that my thoughts are with her.”

“I will.” He smiled. “Thank you, Shannon. It’s always great to talk to you.” He turned
and jogged back to school.

*   *   *

I came home from work a grungy mess, covered with dirt from head to toe. I jumped
into the shower to wash my hair and scrub myself clean, and when I’d dried myself
off and put on fresh clothes, I felt so much better. I was filling the animals’ bowls
with water and wondering what to do about dinner when the doorbell rang and I ran
to answer it. “Eric, hi. What a surprise.”

“Hello, Shannon.” He was leaning against the porch railing, looking casually gorgeous
in his distressed-leather bomber jacket. “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Me? I don’t think so.”

He took a step closer and said, “Something about a conversation you had with Cliff
Hogarth?”

Understanding dawned. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that.”

I held up both hands in a sign of capitulation. “I can explain.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Okay, look. My crew guy Douglas had just told me that Cliff had offered him a bunch
of money to leave me and go work with him. And I freaked out. That was the last straw.
I was going to read Cliff the riot act, so I tracked him down to the Inn on Main Street
and told him what I thought of him.”

“An eyewitness says you threatened him.”

“Maybe a little.”

Eric shook his head. “So where’d you go after that?”

“I, um, drove out to the Gardens and talked to Denise.” I frowned. “Why? We just talked.
I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I didn’t say you did. I just have another question or two.” He glanced over my shoulder
at the front door. “May I come in for a minute?”

“Oh, sure.” I held the door open until he was inside, then shut it securely. “Would
you like something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

I gestured toward the two chairs by the bay window. “Have a seat. How can I help?”

He took off his jacket and tossed it on the couch before sitting down, then pulled
a small notepad from his pocket and opened it. “I wanted to know if Denise Jones said
anything to you yesterday that made you think she might have a grudge against Cliff
Hogarth.”

“A grudge? But you can’t think she actually planned to hit him. He attacked her. She
bashed his head in self-defense.”

“We only have her word that it happened that way.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to remember our conversation, then looked over at
him. “I won’t pretend we didn’t talk about Cliff, because I drove straight from my
confrontation with him to the Gardens, where I ran into Denise.”

“Why did you go to see her?”

“I didn’t. I just went to stroll around the Gardens. It’s pretty and peaceful out
there, and I go sometimes when I need to think or unwind. And I needed to do both
yesterday.”

“So you walked around for a little while and then you ran into Denise?”

“That’s right. I wasn’t going to say a word about Cliff, but we got to talking and
I ended up telling her what had happened. She basically admitted that Cliff was always
a troublemaker, even back in high school. He was always pushing people’s buttons.”

“Guess he pushed a few of yours.”

“You could say that. Denise agrees with me that Cliff’s timing is interesting. Why
did he suddenly move back to town barely two months before we discovered Lily’s body?”

“Did she think the two events were connected?”

“She did. And I’ve been thinking about this. Cliff was in real estate. He could’ve
heard that the lighthouse mansion had been sold and that someone would be moving in
soon. He knew Lily’s body would be discovered and he decided he’d better be nearby
when it happened.”

“Did Denise say that?”

“No. I’m saying it now to you. It’s just something to think about.” I glanced at him.
“Also, just so you know, all the time I was talking to Denise, I was thinking I’d
have to call and tell you everything she said.”

He was scribbling rapidly. “But you didn’t.”

“You didn’t give me a chance.” He shot me one of his looks, and I quickly added, “It’s
only been a day since I was out there talking to her. So much has happened since then,
I’ve lost track.”

As he wrote something down, I added, “Did Denise tell you we talked?”

“She mentioned it.”

“So you were hoping I’d corroborate her story.”

I got another of his looks.

“One thing you should know,” I continued, “is that I was the one ranting about Cliff,
not Denise. She was the one who calmed me down and changed the subject. She didn’t
want to feed my anger, as she put it. So we talked about cooking. And rats. Nothing
that would interest you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You talked about rats?”

“Mm-hmm.” I smiled. “We talked about Dismal Dain and how he used to take care of Mr.
Jones’s biology-class rats during school vacations. Just one more disturbing aspect
of Mr. Dain’s odd personality.”

*   *   *

A little while later, after Eric left, Callie went to the library with her girlfriends—and,
yes, they were actually going to the library to study, she insisted. Mac and I stayed
home and grilled steaks. We had potatoes baking in the oven, and while I prepared
a salad, we talked more about Aldous Murch and his tale of the housemaid who was assaulted.

“With Betsy’s sad story and the discovery of Lily’s bones, I might have to bring in
a coven of witches to cleanse the place,” Mac said.

“Not a bad idea,” I replied.

“So, you are the hero of the hour,” he said, holding up his wineglass in a toast.
“Despite all the grisly details, I think congratulations are in order. You broke through
that wall and found a whole new section of the house. That’s amazing.”

“It’s an uncomfortably small section, but yes. It has a parlor with a fireplace, and
there’s a narrow staircase going up to the second floor. It’s a hazard right now and
I wouldn’t trust anyone to walk on it, but once it’s been reinforced, you can use
it as a back staircase.”

“Cool. Good work, Irish.” He reached over and clinked his glass against mine for a
second time. “Cheers.”

“Thanks.” I sipped my wine. “I think Aldous was happy.”