“Tell Chief Gilroy,” I demanded. “You’ve got five minutes, then I’m calling the station. Five minutes.”
I clicked off.
Julia was aghast. She was an above-board, loyal, no-nonsense woman, and Mary’s level of craziness was beyond her grasp. “She was never being blackmailed?”
“Nope. She made it all up.”
“What’s wrong with the woman? The damage she’s caused! Why did she drag you into this?”
“She knew I’d ask questions, and my questions would spread word in this small town. And you know what? It worked.”
“We all asked questions,” Holly said.
“She had two goals,” I went on. “First, to bring Brodie Keegan down a peg and keep her own job secure in the process. Second, to finish off the art gallery. Outing Isak as a creep and possibly a molester would easily take care of the latter.”
“I’d say so.” Holly snapped a cookie in two and popped half of it in her mouth.
Julia drew in a long breath and said, “Thank goodness we focused more on the murders than the blackmail. We don’t think Mary is our killer, do we, Rachel?”
“Well, she’s out of her mind, so maybe.” But I thought again and shook my head. “No, I don’t think she’s the killer. She didn’t have to kill to get what she wanted. All she had to do was use our friendship and my gullibility.”
“You’re a mystery writer,” Royce said. “Puzzles and papers, secret notes. Things that are written down. They draw you in, as they should. They do me.”
Royce was being kind, but I felt like a fool. “It’s how she hooked me, and it’s why she handed me a note at the brunch instead of simply telling me to check my pocket. She knew it would add to the mystery and suck me in.”
“She hooked us all,” Holly declared. “She used our willingness to help against us, and that’s on her, not us. I should ban her from the bakery.”
“She reeled me in too,” Royce said.
“We worked up a diagram of blackmail possibilities, didn’t we?” Julia said, resting her hand on his.
“Hours of fun,” Royce replied. He winked at her.
I walked to the whiteboard, stripped it of the four items Mary had stuffed in my coat pocket, and set them on my desk.
“Call your husband, Rachel,” Holly said. “It’s been three minutes and that’s more than Mary Blackwell deserves.”
“What’s she going to do when word gets out about her?” Julia asked. “Rumor mills work both ways.”
“Let’s leave that to time,” Royce said. “The truth will come out on its own.”
He was right. I sat down behind my desk, a dozen questions competing for answers in my mind. “I wonder if Isak confessed to bugging Dalton’s studio.”
“I wonder what became of your painting,” Holly said. “Do you think it was sold on the black market?”
“I think it was destroyed.” My mind ping-ponged back to the audio bugs. “Isak must have suspected Shasta was cheating on him—Shasta said the affair was an open secret—and when Isak wired Dalton’s studio, he bugged it. That way he could be sure of his suspicions.”
“Cheaters can’t abide others cheating,” Julia said.
“If word got out that Dalton was painting forgeries,” Holly said, “his reputation would’ve gone down the drain. Whoever took your painting had to destroy it.”
We’d ping-ponged again, returning to the subject of forgeries and my stolen landscape.
“Eventually someone would’ve found out what he was doing,” Royce said. “Think what would’ve happened to him legally.”
“Prison, that’s what,” Julia said, “and he would have deserved it. How many people did he defraud in order to finance work on his house and yard?”
A tone sounded on my phone. Gilroy was texting from the backyard gate.
“It’s James,” I said. “He wants me to know he’s walking to the back door.”
“Aww,” Holly cooed. “So we know it’s him and not some burglar.”
Royce stood. “We should go.”
“You don’t have to leave,” I replied.
“Yes, we do,” Julia said. “You two don’t get enough time alone.”
“It’s almost my bedtime, anyway,” Holly said as she started for the stairs. “Tell your sweet and considerate husband about Mary, as soon as we leave. I hope he handcuffs her. Take a photo if he does.”
“I’d pay to see that,” Julia said, following Royce down the steps.
I moved the Gang’s chairs out of the way, against the office wall, and started for the stairs.
“Ladies, Royce,” I heard Gilroy say. “Thanks again for telling me about that argument on Willow Court.”
He glanced up at me as I trotted down the steps.
