With that, the other shoe dropped. What a sucker I’d been.
Enraged, I rose slowly from my chair. “No one threatened to reveal Parker’s arrest for vandalism. Am I right? If there was an arrest. Was there?”
Still refusing to look at me, Mary shook her head.
“You lied about everything.”
“Not everything.”
“You made up the whole thing! Gavin Inman, Fred Stratz—were they even part of this?”
“Parker did work for Fred. That part is true. But he was never arrested. Fred caught him in the act and called Clay. They worked a deal.”
Anger washed over me. I’d considered Mary a friend. What she’d done was not only a betrayal, but downright nuts. Certifiable. She’d had me chasing lies. “What’s wrong with you? How could you do this? And why?”
“You don’t understand. I felt trapped.”
“Stop it.” I wasn’t buying her poor, poor pitiful me act, but when I noticed a few people watching our drama from adjoining glass offices, I sat. Then I leveled my eyes at her and demanded she look at me. “Who told Dalton about Morse? Parker or you? Don’t waffle, just say it.”
“Me.”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“Money. He paid me fifteen hundred dollars—extra because I had proof. I don’t think I was the only one he paid for information. The man was loaded.”
“He paid people for gossip?”
“Sometimes he heard things on his own, but he didn’t have friends, so he paid. He told me that.”
“He paid people for dirt, and you consented to that deal.”
“Morse’s arrest wasn’t dirt, it was the truth.”
“Do you know the difference?”
“I really need your help,” Mary whined. “I don’t know who sent me those other things. Why would someone send me a photo of Shasta and Dalton? Am I still supposed to publish it now that he’s dead? What if word about Isak and that Minnesota school gets out? It’ll ruin him—it’ll ruin the gallery!”
“That pathetic gallery.” In my short time sleuthing I’d learned that the best way to tell if a person is lying is to throw her off balance and watch her reaction. “Did you know Laura Patchett was going blind?”
Mary’s jaw dropped. “What? No, she wasn’t.”
Unless Mary was a superb actress, she hadn’t known.
“You said Dalton paid people for gossip. Did he mention any names?”
“Laura was going blind?”
“Forget that. Did Dalton mention names of people he’d paid?”
“No.”
“Charlotte or Brodie?”
“Why them? Look, if word spread over town that he was paying, either people would tell him lies for money or his sources would dry up because they knew they’d be exposed.”
I snorted. “Sources. He painted the nastiest gossip he could find. Did you tell him about Isak using other people’s recipes?”
“Recipes? What are you talking about?”
“Look at the paintings on your walls, Mary. Check out the blind person’s cane in Hidden Little Town Number 8.”
“I told Dalton about Connor Morse, that’s all, but Morse was a drug dealer, Rachel.”
“Sounds to me like he’d turned things around.”
“Will you still help me?”
I got to my feet. She had to be kidding. “My focus is on Laura’s and Dalton’s killer. If I find out who’s trying to blackmail you, I’ll let you know.”
As I left the building, my anger turned to sadness and a speck of self-pity. I’d just lost a friend, and it was hard for me to make friends in my small town. But Mary had used our friendship to get what she wanted out of me while misdirecting my attention and wasting my time. More important, she’d wasted Gilroy’s time.
Had she also unknowingly incited a killer?
I had intended to walk to the police station to let Gilroy know about Mary, but thinking better of it, I headed to my Forester. I didn’t want to be that kind of wife. Gilroy didn’t object to my investigations as long as I was being safe, and in return, I had vowed after our marriage—silently, without his knowledge—not to pop into the station every hour like some half-crazed Hallmark Channel sleuth. Some information couldn’t wait, but some could. Mary’s betrayal could. With lunch and cream puffs on my mind, I drove home and parked in the shed.
Half way across my back yard, I knew something was wrong.
My back door was open. Only an inch, but clearly open.
