“I felt like I couldn’t count on law enforcement to catch Michael and Shawn’s killer—Deputy Sheriff Aguilar is busy trying to keep tourists safe here in Goldsgone, and Ranger O’Bryant has a whole national park to look after—so I’ve been investigating on my own. I began thinking, ‘Who has the most motivation to off Michael?’ And the finger pointed to Brian.”
Millie gaped at Dee. “That’s outrageous. How dare you even think that?”
“Brian hated Michael. He was jealous of how you fan-girled over him. It fractured your relationship, at least from your son’s end. I could totally see Michael baiting him and pushing him over the edge to murder. And Goldsgone is a small town. What if Shawn found out? And threatened to turn him in? Brian carries lumber. Transporting Shawn’s body to our pool wouldn’t be hard. And would possibly incriminate us in both murders. We were already suspects in O’Bryant’s eyes. Shawn’s murder could drive it home.”
Millie pressed her lips together until a thin white line formed around them. “This is the most insulting accusation I’ve ever heard. My son is a wonderful man. He would never do anything so heinous. Never.”
“I figured you’d say that. And you know what? I think you’re right.” Dee leaned an elbow on the reception table, but kept her other hand firmly in her pocket. “About a year ago, I was at a screening in L.A. where there was a Q and A with the screenwriter afterward. The movie was about a police officer who went through hell to solve a case, and the guy who wrote it was a former detective himself. He said the most important thing he learned on the force was the biggest motivator for murder wasn’t jealousy or money or revenge. It’s humiliation. Dig deep and it’s the root of most murders.”
Dee lifted her elbow from the table. She affected a casual saunter back and forth across the reception area floor. She stopped. “I watched a video Michael made: ‘Those Who Can’t.’ He ripped you apart. Your star student totally dragged his ‘favorite teacher.’ Said he had to unlearn everything you taught him. And he was so mean and snide. I’m sure you couldn’t unsubscribe to his stupid channel fast enough. But the thing is, you can’t unsubscribe from Comments. You may have deleted yours, but you couldn’t delete others. The ones defending you or the ones not so nicely piling on to make fun of you. He posted the video only days before he died. I think you confronted him, and when he refused to delete it or apologize, you blew and killed him.”
Millie’s jaw tightened, along with the crepey skin on her neck. She forced a smile that was more of a grimace. “What a story. So creative. It’s sad you don’t have a Hollywood career anymore. I recommend you sell it to a writer who’s still working.”
“I know it’s a lot of theorizing on my part,” Dee acknowledged. “But one thing the detective-turned-screenwriter said is that amateur criminals always make mistakes. I think Deputy Sheriff Aguilar will eventually find where you made yours. But he’d find it a whole lot faster if I shared my theories with him. If I don’t, though, it’ll buy you time. Nicaragua has beautiful flowers and no extradition treaty with the United States.”
Millie took a long pause. She toyed with the flowers in her bucket. “I assume you want something in exchange,” she said, avoiding eye contact with Dee.
“Brian rebuilds our burned-down cabin for free.”
The flora-loving retired schoolteacher, part-time mercantile salesclerk, and construction company receptionist let out a surprised snort. “That’s it? My goodness, it almost doesn’t seem fair.”
Millie yanked a flower from the bucket and thrust it in Dee’s face, startling her. She jumped back, but Millie came at her. “This isn’t baby’s breath. It’s water hemlock, one of the most poisonous plants in the country.”
She lunged at Dee with the hemlock. Dee pulled her container of bear spray from the pocket where she’d clutched it during the entire confrontation with Millie. She aimed the can at her attacker, but slipped on a puddle of water and fell to the floor. The bear spray rolled out of reach.
Millie pinned Dee to the floor, her gingham dress ripping in the process. She was about to attack Dee with the poisonous plant, when Aguilar and Tejada broke down the construction company door. They trained their guns on Millie.
“Drop the hemlock,” Raul ordered. “Now.”
Trapped, Millie did so. She held her arms in the air and slowly rose to her feet. Tejada cuffed her, while Aguilar dropped to his knees by Dee’s side.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, not making a move to get up. She touched her fingers to her mouth. “My lips are numb. I think a little of that hemlock might have gotten into my system. If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind running me by the hospital? Again?”
CHAPTER 32
That evening, Dee, Jeff, and Raul walked into the Golden Grub Café to a round of applause from those gathered there waiting for an update on the day’s dramatic events.
“Are you okay?” Liza Chen asked Dee as she led the three to a center table.
“Fine,” Dee said. “There was no evidence of hemlock in my bloodstream, so the doctors concluded only a minute amount might have touched my lips. They gave me a fluid intravenous drip, just to be on the safe side. I asked them if I won a prize for most visits to the ER in a month and they made this for me.” She held up a surgical glove with the index finger inflated and You’re Number 1! written on the glove’s front in black marker.
Dee took a seat. “I’ll get us both food,” Jeff said, eyeing a plentiful buffet Liza had set up.
He headed off, trailed by Raul. Jonas and Elmira usurped their seats at the table; a small crowd huddled behind them. Even Ma’am and Mister were there, having joined the impromptu gathering for the free food.
Dee gratefully accepted a bottle of sparkling water from Jonas. Elmira propped her elbow on the table. She rested her chin on her fist and said to Dee, “Tell us everything.”
“Hoo boy. Where to begin?” Dee took a deep breath and exhaled. “I began to suspect Millie when I landed on what bothered me about the threatening note someone who turned out to be her left for me. It was the word ‘businesses.’ ” The others looked confused and Dee elaborated. “ ‘The note read ‘Stop poking your nose in other people’s businesses . . . or else.’ It sounds incorrect, because it’s not how we talk. But grammatically, it’s correct. Millie taught English for forty years. She couldn’t help herself. She had to use correct English. So did my mom, who was a legal secretary, where the wrong date or word in a document could tank a case.”
Dee stopped to take a sip of water, then resumed. “To make sure her message hit home, Millie also burned down Michael’s cabin. But I think part of the motivation for that was emotional. Millie was starstruck by her ‘star’ student, Michael. He knew this and used it to manipulate her. He got her to sweet-talk Brian and a few other locals into investing in his plan to turn the West Camp warehouse into a soundstage, selling how it would attract film and TV production to the area. Right, Jonas?”
Jonas responded with a nod. “To be honest, I still think it’s a good idea. The place is sitting empty right now. I use it to store my real estate signs.”
Hearing this, Dee mentally ticked off the box that posed the question of what Jonas was doing at the warehouse. “None of you knew about Michael’s gambling addiction,” she said. “He lost all the money you invested with him and got himself into serious trouble. He thought he could write his way out of it by stealing my life for the premise of a sitcom pilot. And he created a whole online channel of how-to videos. One of which completely tore apart Millie. He called her ‘pedantic’ and ‘rigid,’ and said she ‘lacked any talent of her own’ so she ‘glommed’ on to her students. It got worse from there. Talk about a fallen idol. She was devastated.”
“But to kill because of it!” Liza shuddered.
Raul took over the story. “Millie’s one of those people who thinks that if she can just explain, everyone will understand why she did what she did. So she talked a lot after we booked her. The first straw was Michael gambling away her investment, along with everyone else’s. But she tried to justify that to herself. ‘He had a sickness.’ ‘He needed treatment.’ Then she saw the video. And that sent her over the edge. She confronted him, and he was trying to get away from her, which is how they wound up at the Majestic property line,” Raul continued. “She says he was coming at her, and she hit him with the rock to defend herself. Unfortunately for her, that defense is a wash, because he took the fatal blow to the back of his head.”
The others grew silent. “What about Shawn?” Liza finally asked.
“The coroner’s report showed Shawn died from water hemlock poisoning,” Raul said. “Served in the tea at Millie’s house. As soon as Brian heard his mother had been arrested, he turned himself in as an accessory and explained everything. Shawn, you see, was on his way to confront Michael when he saw Millie running away from the Golden to her car. When Michael was killed, Shawn put two and two together. Angry at Millie for convincing him to invest with Michael, he threatened her, saying he’d go to the police and tell them what he saw if she didn’t make him whole with money from her own savings. When Brian found out what his mother had done, he panicked and dumped Shawn’s body in the Golden pool. He knew Dee and Jeff were already suspects in Michael’s murder. He also conked you on the head, Dee, hoping it would scare you out of investigating.”
“Way to welcome newcomers to town,” Dee said, pursing her lips. “Back to Shawn. I’d still like to know what Verity’s fake nail was doing in our pool.”
Elmira chuckled. “I got the four-one-one on that little tidbit. Verity and Shawn had a thing going on. I’m guessing one of her nails got stuck in his hair when they were being intimate during a ‘private training session’ before he paid Millie a visit, and then the fake nail fell off in the pool.”
Dee choked back a laugh. She wasn’t the only one.
Their curiosity sated, everyone drifted off except Jonas and Elmira. The All-in-One proprietor stood up. “If there’s a better way of ingratiating yourself with our community than helping to solve two murders,” she said to Dee with affection, “I can’t think of it.”
She departed the table for the buffet spread, leaving Dee alone with Jonas. “You know, Millie tried to set you up as a suspect,” Dee said.
Jonas narrowed his eyes. “No surprise there. There’s not enough gingham and bonnets in the world to hide a racist.”
“She said ‘the likes of him’ when we were at the Golden Grub, but I didn’t call her out on it because I wasn’t sure if it was Goldsgonedian old-timey or a dog whistle.”
