Seth shook his head.“Nope. He was killed with another shovel, so the murder weapon must be out there somewhere.”
“Half the town had shovels, the store was sold out,” I said. Everyone except Myron, who had said he couldn’t get one because Flora had gotten the last one. Which made me wonder… where was Flora’s shovel? Had she taken it home or was it on the premises somewhere?
“That’s right,” Seth agreed. “But I am afraid half the town wasnot seen running from the scene by an eyewitness—only one person was. And that person is now my main suspect.”
“Seth Chamberlain, you can’t be serious!” Millie said. “What motive would she have?”
“That remains to be seen.” A look of regret passed over Seth’s face. “Unfortunately, unless new evidence comes to light, I’m going to be bringing Flora in for questioning and you better hope there isn’t another shovel out there with her fingerprints on one end and Bob’s DNA on the other.”
Twenty-Two
“It simply can’t be Flora,” Millie insisted later on when we were back in the kitchen of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse. She was vigorously beating together batter for a new batch of apple-pecan bread with extra cinnamon. “She’s been with the guesthouse since I was a little girl. My parents hired her. She’s a great-grandma, for crying out loud!”
It was just the two of us in the kitchen since my mom had texted that she and Paula had found a ride home from the beer tent and were staying for a few more. Apparently Paula was good company over a mug of beer.
Millie had actually stayed behind too, to try to wrangle more information out of Seth, and I’d driven home by myself. He’d dropped her off at the guesthouse a little bit later.
“I don’t know,” I hesitated. “A lot of the clues do point to her.”
I didn’twant it to be Flora. Even though she was the world’s worst maid, she was starting to grow on me. She had a certain grandmotherly way about her, sort of like Sophia fromThe Golden Girls, but grumpier.
Even so, I had to admit some things about Flora’s story didn’t add up. Then again, I’d just added a few suspects to my mental suspect list. “I have my suspicions about a few other people too.”
Millie turned to look at me.“Really? Who?”
“Annabel Drescher, for one. Paula said her shoes were like Earl’s and she is doing a lot of renovations on her travel agency, so might need treasure-money. Plus, it seemed like she was avoiding us and Flora said she never went in to book a vacation. Maybe Annabel has something to hide.”
Millie considered this, then shook her head.“Kind of far-fetched that she would kill Bob but I’ll keep her in mind. Who is the other person?”
“Ed O’Hara.”
“Ed? You must be joking. Why he’s the nicest man you’d want to meet. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Why do you suspect him?”
That was true, but wasn’t it always the nice ones that turned out to be the killer? “I think he was sneaking around in the conservatory.”
“The conservatory? What’s that got to do with any of this? That part of the house wasn’t even built back in Jed’s day and besides, don’t you have work for him in there?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t supposed to be doing that yet.”
Millie scowled at me.“I think you are grasping at straws. Do you have some reason to think Ed being in the conservatory has something to do with Bob’s death? Or the treasure?”
She had a point. All I had was a nail that could have gotten in there in a dozen ways. I guess Iwas getting carried away.
Millie must have taken my silence for agreement because she went back to considering the Biddefords as prime suspects.“Just because those shovels didn’t have any of Bob’s blood on them doesn’t mean one of the Biddefords isn’t the killer.” Millie beat the batter more vigorously.
“True. I mean, if they were clever, they could have clonked him over the head and switched shovels. Besides, I think Doris lied about them all being together.” I much preferred Doris as a suspect over Ed anyway. “But then where is the shovel that killed Bob? And where is Flora’s?”
“I don’t know, seems like Seth would have confiscated it from her if he thinks she’s a suspect.” Millie paused her beating and turned to me. “Do you think Doris lied because she killed her son?”
“I’m not sure. She was pretty upset about the business failing and Bob was threatening everyone. If he made good on any of those threats, it wouldn’t be good for business,” I said. “Maybe she thought that the treasure curse and ghost would make a good cover. Someone has been pushing that ghost rumor pretty hard around town.”
“Would Doris really think that Seth would believe that a ghost killed someone?”
Millie and I exchanged a glance. Seth wasn’t the sharpest pencil but I didn’t think he believed in murdering ghosts. But maybe Doris thought he did.
“We have to figure out what is going on with Flora.” The missing shovel bothered me. Seth had said the Biddefords’ shovels had been tested and none of them had been used to kill Bob. If Doris was the killer, then how had she pulled that off? On the other hand, Flora had been making herself scarce around the guesthouse lately. Was that so she could avoid Seth because she knew that he was going to ask for her shovel?
“Butwhy would she kill Bob? I doubt there is even any treasure and she never mentioned needing money,” Millie said, almost to herself. “Maybe I should’ve given her a raise before I sold the guesthouse.”
Was I not paying Flora enough? But she barely did anything. I made a mental note to give her a raise anyway once profits increased. If she wasn’t rotting away in a jail cell.
“Myron could have used a shovel from home. I mean just because the store was sold out doesn’t mean a thing. I’m sure there are some shovels hanging around that big estate he lives on. Maybe his proof that he showed Seth was fake?” I said.
“Oh, that.” Millie fluffed her hair, her cheeks turning crimson. “I got that out of Seth behind the Chamber of Commerce tent.”
Best not to ask what she’d had to do behind the tent to get it out of him. “So what was it?”
Millie grabbed a loaf pan and started pouring the batter in.“Apparently one of your guests is taking out a loan to buy out more than fifty percent of the stock in the cheese-sculpting business.”
“Seriously?” This was big news. Why hadn’t she mentioned that when she first came in?
“Yeah, I thought it was important too, but it’s not because it clears Myron as well as one of the Biddefords. And it also proves that Doris is lying.”
“Wait, one of them was going to steal the company out from under the rest of the family? Was it Bob? Is that why he was killed because someone found out and wanted to stop him from taking control?”
It wasn’t totally ridiculous. After all, the company was failing and the siblings were at odds. It did seem prudent for one of them to buy the others out, take control and dictate a course of action that might bring the company back to its former glory. At least, I hoped so for Doris’s sake. “But why would they get a loan from a bank all the way out here? Their business is in New Jersey.”
“Turns out you were partially right about Myron and Carla. They did know each other from Yale. They weren’t having an affair though, she prevailed upon him to get this loan because she didn’t want to go with anyone local to them because she wanted secrecy.” Millie glanced around to make sure no Biddefords were lurking within hearing distance. “You can imagine what a ruckus that would cause if the family found out someone was attempting a hostile takeover.”
“Yeah. I can’t imagine that Bob would have liked it much. I wonder if that’s what Bob was threatening her about?”
“It could’ve been. But I don’t think she’s the one who killed Bob because Seth said it’s one of those online documents that you sign electronically and it’s timestamped. Apparently, that’s why they didn’t go to the bank and did the dirty deed here in the gazebo.” Millie shoved thepan into the oven. “Carla already knew her family would be digging outside and that they wouldn’t be anywhere near the gazebo since that wasn’t built in Jed’s day. She figured it would be the perfect place to meet him without her family asking a lot of questions about where she was going. They’d all be focused on where they thought the treasure was and no one would be paying much attention to her. The timestamp is shortly before the time of death for Bob, so that gives both Myron and Carla an alibi. Seth said there was no way they could have gotten from the gazebo to the pond that quickly.”