Ice Pick in the Ivy (Lovely Lethal Gardens Book 9) Read online

  Immediately Nan sobered. “Right,” she said, “let’s stick to what’s important.”

  At that, Doreen explained about what Mack had done, fishing on the phone.

  Nan’s jaw dropped. She lowered her voice into a hoarse whisper, “He talked to the killer?”

  Doreen nodded. “We think so, yes. But now Mack’s gone to the captain because Mack didn’t pick up the recycling. I did it. They want to confirm they can use it for evidence.”

  “I never thought of that,” Nan said thoughtfully. She nodded. “Very, very important.”

  “But it still doesn’t help us with Fred and Frank,” Doreen said, lowering her voice as she looked around.

  “I don’t know if we can do anything about them,” Nan said. “Their parents just went missing.”

  “And Henrietta too. Remember?” Doreen added.

  “And Henrietta.” Nan nodded. “Everybody here thought they went back east.”

  “Except for the fact the parents and Henrietta were legally declared dead seven years after they went missing, so they didn’t just go back east. They might have originally gone back east, but then they went missing, never to be found again.”

  “Right.” Nan nodded in a wise manner.

  Doreen just chuckled. “See? Instead of just the one Darbunkle mystery, we now have the Burns mystery, so two mysteries at once.”

  “But it doesn’t really mean it’s a mystery,” Nan said. “For all you know, one of the Darbunkle parents ended up with a crippling disease, and they decided to self-terminate.”

  “Self-terminate?” Doreen rolled that term around in her head. “That sounds a little dodgy, doesn’t it?”

  “Call it murder-suicide if you want. It’s all dodgy,” Nan said with a chuckle. She looked down at her tea. “Too bad I don’t have any more zucchini bread.”

  “I still have some at home,” Doreen said, “although not much because Mack had several slices.”

  “I ended up sharing another loaf around here too,” Nan said. “I saved myself one piece, and I had that this morning.”

  “I’m fine without it,” Doreen said.

  “Do you need any more veggies? We keep getting baskets of it here.” Nan hopped up, returning a few minutes later with more of the same fresh vegetables. They divvied up some for Doreen to take back.

  “I’ll make a big salad for dinner,” Doreen said, “maybe add a can of tuna or something.”

  “You do that,” Nan said. “I have a couple people here I could talk to. Let me get back to you on those mysteries of yours.”

  “Are we talking about Ed Burns or are we talking about the Darbunkle parents?”

  “Both,” Nan said thoughtfully. “You never know who here might know something.”

  “True,” Doreen said, “but we have to keep it on the down-low.”

  “Will do.”

  As soon as they finished their tea, Doreen picked up her fresh veggies, gathered her crew, and headed back up the creek. She took her time—the sun was beautiful. As she got closer to her house, she thought she saw somebody in her backyard, and she raced around the corner, but no one was there. Instinctively she headed to the front of the house, only to see a Porsche heading down around the cul-de-sac. “So he’s getting bolder,” she said. “Just how bold will he get?”

  At her door, she found the security lock was still on. Grateful she’d set it, she opened the door, disarmed the security, and let everybody back into the house. She reset it afterward. It was past dinnertime, so she made a big healthy green salad with lots of raw veggies and a can of tuna and then sat back outside, while she thought about all the happenings so far.

  She didn’t know about a lot of the connections here. The big one was, who was this killer-for-hire, and how would Mack and the local cops go after him? After all, he seemed to live in another province—not exactly Mack’s territory. And what would the cops do about Jude Burns, the little piss-ant of a greedy murdering son? While she ate her salad, her phone rang. It was Nan. Doreen put it on Speaker. “Hello, Nan. I’m having a salad right now, with all your fresh veggies. Thanks again. What are you up to?”

  “I talked to Sylvia,” she said. “She was Ed Burns’s cleaning lady.”

  “Oh,” Doreen said. “I never thought about that angle. Is she in Rosemoor with you?”

  “She is. She’s one of the younger residents. I know she’s always worried about not having enough money to make it through. Ed was supposed to leave her money too, but he didn’t.”

  “Wow, nice guy.”

  “No, everybody thought it was all settled, but then Jude arrived with this new will that the new lawyer said was perfectly legal, and they took everything away from everybody.”

  “Right, that’s what I’m trying to fix,” Doreen said.

  “She said there was another will because she was a witness to it.”

  “Another one?”

  “Yes,” Nan said, “and it’s in Ed’s home office somewhere. But, if Jude found it, she figures he destroyed it.”

  “Would that will supersede the one Jude produced?”

  “Yes. Not to mention you can’t legally get into his house or that home office,” Nan said.

  “No, it might take Mack to do that. I wonder though, can you find out where in the office it would be? Because, if it was just in his desk, Jude would have definitely gotten rid of it. But if it had been hidden—”

  “His desk had a secret drawer,” Nan said, “kind of like our furniture. It was an antique desk, and it was in there.”

  “Do you know when he signed it?”

  “It was just a few days before he died. He was feeling angry with his son. Jude had only wanted to come back if something was in it for him to come back for. And he had no intention of waiting until his father died. His father was angry about the whole thing and called his lawyer to come over to his house and to draft a new will.”

  “But wouldn’t the lawyer have had a copy?”

  “There was some discussion about it, and he was supposed to do something with it, but then, as far as I understand, he died.”

  “The lawyer did pass away, but he didn’t pass away until after Ed Burns did. Although it was soon afterward.” After hanging up with Nan, Doreen sent Mack a text. Dingbat was here in the backyard.

  Her phone rang immediately. “Are you serious?”

  “I saw somebody come around the corner of the house, as I came back from Nan’s, so I went out front and saw the Porsche disappearing.”

  There was silence on Mack’s end of the call, but Doreen could hear his anger thrumming through the lines. “He didn’t do anything,” she said gently.

  “But he’s getting bolder,” Mack snapped.

  “Yeah, he is. Also,” she said, “Nan had an interesting tidbit,” and she told him about the cleaning lady.

  “I’ll have a talk with her myself tonight,” Mack said. “If she confirms this, I need to open an investigation.”

  “Good,” Doreen said. “You need to make it official. I wish I could go to Ed Burns’s home office and take a look. I did learn a lot about antiques and their secret drawers.”

  Mack hesitated.

  “I can come with you.”

  “No,” he said. “We can’t do that without a warrant, and I need cause in order to have a warrant.”

  “I hear you there,” she said, “but …”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I’ll talk with the cleaning lady, and I might stop in and talk with Jude too.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’d like to see him pee in his pants. I really don’t like being threatened by him.”

  “Maybe you could just stay out of trouble for once,” Mack said in exasperation.

  “Maybe,” Doreen said cheerfully. “But maybe not.” And she hung up.

  Chapter 31

  Tuesday Late Afternoon …

  Doreen walked back to her computer and studied as many different angles on these cases as she could, but everything she did drew a blank. She needed J
ude to either break or do something stupid, like attack her, so they had a reason to go into his house, particularly Ed’s home office to search the desk for that later will.

  “Which would be perfect,” she said out loud. Or she needed to find a way to get in there without anybody knowing. She hemmed and hawed over the possibilities, but, no matter what she thought of, it would put her in the wrong light. And that, she didn’t want to do.

  She walked out front and sat on the porch steps, and it didn’t take long for the Porsche to come around again. As soon as it came up to her driveway, it stopped. She watched as he got out, apparently not seeing her. She crouched down on the front step so she peered around the bushes through the railing. She sent Mack a text. He’s here again.

  And, indeed, he snuck up around the back of her driveway. As soon as he was out of sight, she snuck back into the house and raced to the kitchen door, which was propped open for the animals sprawled out in the backyard, enjoying the warm evening air. As she watched, he came around the side, crept up to the door and into the house. She was hiding in her kitchen area by her printer, and she started videotaping his entrance into her home. He swept through the kitchen and all of downstairs and then she heard him go upstairs.

  She wondered what he was looking for, then she knew. He was after the papers she had taken from his recycling bin. She frowned and saw them under her laptop. Did she dare move them? She grabbed them and shoved them into her scanner. As it started working, Jude came back down the stairs and confronted her.

  She cried out in false alarm. “What are you doing in my house?” This guy had a lot of nerve …

  “You stupid bitch,” he said, “you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, advancing on him. “How dare you come into my house?”

  “I’ll go wherever the hell I want,” he said. “You stole from me.”

  That stopped her in her tracks. “What are you talking about? I didn’t steal anything.” Mugs, hearing her raised voice, was suddenly in the doorway. And darn if Thaddeus wasn’t riding on his back. Of Goliath, there was no sign. … And that made her even more suspicious.

  Jude paused for a moment. “You stole from my recycling bin.”

  She laughed. “Seriously?”

  “I accidentally threw something away,” he said, “and you’re the only one who would have found and taken it.”

  “What was it?” she asked.

  Just then, he looked behind her to see the last page on the scanner. He snatched the papers from the machine and held them up. “These,” he said. “I’ll have my lawyer after you for this.”

  “You could,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure the lawyer will be covering his own butt. Besides, I didn’t steal those. Anything you throw into the garbage and into your trash bins off your property is for anybody to collect. It’s not theft. You threw it away. I have full rights to take it.”

  Jude stopped.

  She gave a crisp, clean nod. “You should learn the law before you start accusing people of breaking it. If you hadn’t hired that jerk to kill your father and your girlfriend and your previous lawyer, you wouldn’t be facing three murder charges.”

  He stared at her, his jaw working.

  “Oh, yeah, I know,” she said. “I also know there’s another will. But I won’t tell you where it is.” She smiled sweetly. “So, I highly suggest you come up with a decent story to get yourself off the hook on that one.”

  “You interfering no-good … witch.” He stepped toward her.

  But Mugs jumped behind him, barking ferociously, momentarily diverting his attention.

  Doreen sidestepped him and ran outside into the backyard. She still had her camera on and was recording.

  As he charged toward her, she said, “I’m taping this. Go ahead and hit me. We’ll add assault and battery to your charges.”

  “I didn’t touch you,” he said, stopping in his tracks.

  Surprisingly, Doreen’s grouchy neighbor Richard popped up over the top of the fence. “Doreen, are you okay?”

  “No,” she said, “Jude Burns has threatened me, entered my home without my permission, and has now taken something of mine from my house.”

  Jude stared at her in astonishment. “These papers are mine.”

  “Which you threw away,” she said. “Now you’ve come into my house illegally, and you’ve taken them away from me.” She turned to Richard and said, “Call Mack.”

  As quickly as he arrived, Richard’s head disappeared around the corner.

  “I thought nobody liked you. Why would your neighbor help you?”

  “Because I helped him,” she said. “But what do you know about helping people? You are just a taker.”

  He glared at her. “I’m not going to jail,” he said. “There is no way.”

  “Of course not,” she said. “You didn’t actually kill them, did you? I mean, it was your killer-for-hire who you paid to do it. I wonder where you got the ten grand to pay for each of their murders though. That’s a lot of money. Of course, maybe your girlfriend kept that loose change around, and you took advantage by searching her place while she lay dying.”

  Jude’s face worked, and Doreen nodded. “Yeah, you think I don’t know how this works?” she said. “I wonder if you have something to do with that ice pick though.”

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. This is all so long ago. Why are you dredging any of it up?”

  “I know it was a long time ago,” she said, “but some things never change. Your sisters are living terrible lives.”

  “Why do they deserve anything better?” he asked. “They’re no different from me. Why should they get all the money, and I get nothing?”

  “Why didn’t you share with them?” she asked.

  “Why should I? He left the money to me,” Jude said and tapped his chest. “My dad left the money to me.”

  “Did he though?” she said with a snarky smile. “Funny how your father’s lawyer died around the same time. The police are opening an investigation into your will,” she lied. She hoped Mack would, but it was premature at this point.

  Jude paled at that.

  “You think I didn’t know about that? I’ve got all the lawyer’s notes, and I turned it all over to the police.”

  When she said that, something came over him. It was almost like a coldness, a chill. “Then I have nothing to lose.” He advanced on her.

  She realized she was in imminent danger now and took several hurried steps backward. “What will you do?”

  “Well, according to you, I’ve already killed three people,” he said, “so what difference does a fourth make?” His words echoed Mack’s earlier words.

  “I guess the question is whether you killed anybody else too. Somebody killed by an ice pick.”

  He stared at her, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m missing an ice pick,” she announced. “I’m expecting to find out it was used to kill somebody.”

  “Just who are you?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Doreen,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Somebody with a hobby of solving cold cases.”

  “My life was never a case. Get your nose out of my business!” He glared at her. “Why do you care?”

  “Because it’s wrong. And, if I get a chance to cheer on the underdog and right some wrongs, I will do so. If you had anything to do with your father’s death, your girlfriend’s death, or your father’s lawyer’s death, then you need to pay for it. And stealing all that money from your sisters is just nasty.”

  He shook his head. “What does any of that have to do with an ice pick?”

  “I’m missing one,” she said. She looked at him hopefully. “It was a set your father had on display.”

  He stared at her, then scratched the back of his head.

  “Good Lord,” she said, “you know what happened to it.”

  He looked at her and groaned. “I do know what happene
d to the ice pick, but it didn’t murder anybody.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, “because the maker would like it back.”

  “I gave the set to the maker’s brother.”

  “Fred? You gave the set to Fred? Why would you do that?”

  “He wanted them badly, so I gave the set to him. Something about my father having ruined his brother’s reputation or some such thing. I don’t know anything more about that.”

  “You don’t look like the giving type.”

  Frustrated, he snapped, “Because he saw something, and the set was payment for his silence.”

  “What did he see?”

  Jude frowned. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She nodded. “What were you doing that Fred saw?”

  “None of your business,” he said. “I’ll call my lawyer about this.” He pulled out his phone.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Contact the one cheesy illegal lawyer you’ve got. I’m sure that’ll make for great courtroom drama.” She stopped and said, “It wasn’t Frank you gave it to. It was Fred.”

  “I know that. I just said I gave it to the maker’s brother. Don’t you listen?” he asked, dialing his phone again and then stopping, hesitating as if not sure what to do.

  “You gave them back to Fred because Fred did the landscaping for Ed Burns,” she said. “I’m slow, but I do finally get there. He saw you kill your father.”

  “I didn’t kill my father.” He tried for outrage but failed miserably.

  “Fred saw something,” she said, letting a smirk show. Anything to rattle Jude more. “Something ugly. Although I’m surprised that’s all he wanted because they don’t have much.”

  “Maybe,” Jude said. “But that’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

  “No, it’s not. The only reason you’d buckle to that type of pressure is if Fred saw something really good. Although maybe Fred was too scared to ask for more. What did he see? He saw you kill your father?” She was fishing and taking a chance on pissing off yet another potential killer, but something had to get him to talk. At least he seemed to have forgotten that she was recording this conversation.

  A pale sickly look washed over his face.