Mr. Kincaid gave a bitter snort. “It would cost me more to divorce her than just deal with her. No prenup. She’d take me to the cleaners. Hell, she’d sell me up the river. A few too much between us to just call it quits. Now I’m trading a homegrown hellhole for an African one. Damn money. It’s an addiction.”
He had a lifestyle to maintain. Once you had money, I imagined it was hard to give it up.
The redheaded friend moved right along in the conversation, never missing a beat. “Derek might fall in love someday, and if he does, he may settle down yet.”
I sipped my wine. Derek Kincaid wasn’t going to any chapel; he was going to jail for his smuggling activities.
“You got Nate out of the nest—”
“Only took thirty-four years,” he said with a scoff.
“And Miriam—”
Mr. Kincaid saved his most bitter laugh for his daughter. “Lasted all of, what? Three years? Lori and me, least we know we’re stronger together than apart.”
Stronger together than apart. If they’d been spoken by someone else, those words would have been poignant and meaningful. As it was, they fell flat and made me feel just a tiny bit sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Kincaid. Whatever was between them didn’t sound like love. That was not the type of marriage I wanted to be in . . . if marriage was in my future.
I caught a glimpse of a silver-haired couple. They held hands, and as he leaned over to whisper something in her ear, she giggled and batted his arm.
I smiled to myself. That was the kind of marriage I wanted. One that would make me laugh and smile well into my nineties.
Chapter 52
The minutes turned to hours. I’d chatted with Josie’s mother and aunt, gotten a second glass of wine, and strolled the perimeter of the hall, listening for any snippets of conversation that might contain a clue that would help me unravel the final threads of Nell’s murder.
I had nothing but a bunch of details that didn’t seem to add up to any cohesive answer. I checked my cell phone, thinking I’d missed another text from Will. Why was he taking so long?
Josie, Nate, and the wedding party, sheltered from the potential discovery of the murder weapon, laughed and danced to Waylon, Willie, and the boys, easily transitioning a while later to the Macarena.
Mama ambled over to where I sat with Madelyn, who was splitting her time between me and her tweedjacketed husband, Bill. She plopped a plate of food down next to the Easter lily centerpiece. As we picked at the chunks of fruit and cheese, I filled her in on the torn fabric braid Gracie had used on her purse and how the uneven pattern looked like a match to the odd strangulation marks on Nell’s neck. “The thing is,” I finished, “if Derek’s alibi is true, and Nate’s definitely not a suspect, who had access to the bins—and who else would have wanted Nell dead?”
“From what I know, that house is a fortress. Nobody’s gettin’ in who wasn’t invited in,” Mama said.
That was right. Josie had told me about the gate and how she hadn’t been able to get in to give her mother the glass cleaner. For the briefest second, I entertained the idea that Mrs. Sandoval had killed Nell. She would have had access to the fabric bins with the probable murder weapon, she knew Nell was coming back to my shop that night, and she lived alone, so most likely had no alibi. But I couldn’t pin a motive on her. Nell had been good to Josie, even leaving her share in the bead shop to her.
Unless . . .
Could she have somehow known Josie was in Nell’s original will and killed her so Josie would inherit the equal partnership?
Karen and Ruthann came up on either side of me, wrapped their arms around me, and squeezed. “We can’t thank you enough,” Karen cooed. “I don’t know what it is, but Ted is a changed man tonight.” She stood, twirled, and grinned. “I think it’s the dress.”
“Definitely,” Ruthann said. She pulled her arm from my shoulder, her ring catching on a particularly curly loop of my hair. “Sorry!” She freed her finger and did her own spin, dropping her shawl. “I just made a date with George Taylor,” she gushed.
“No!” Karen giggled. “Wait till the wine wears off, Ruthie.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. Gathering up her shawl, she grabbed Karen’s wrist. “Come on. There’s Derek. Now he’s a catch.”
They fluttered their fingers at us and scurried off toward Derek, who’d been watching them, that same smug smile on his lips that he’d had at the church when he’d seen Ruthann glide down the aisle.
My stomach turned watching Ruthann fall against him, as Karen scooted back to Ted. I followed Derek’s arm as it snaked around Ruthann’s waist. Soon they melted into the crowd.
“Which leaves Mr. or Mrs. Kincaid,” I said, picking up where I’d left off.
I glanced at the chair next to me where I’d put my clutch as Mama said, “Or their daughter.”
My mind screeched to a halt. “Where’s my purse?” I bent down to peer under the table. I searched around my chair, even lifted my napkin up in case it had shrunk and was now a miniature version of its former self. But I didn’t see the purse.
It hadn’t.
“It’s gone?” Mama asked, her accent deepening so that “gone” sounded like ga-won. “Is the . . . you-knowwhat still in it?”
My skin turned instantly clammy, my heart hammering in my chest. I’d set it down on the stool at the bar, right next to Mr. Kincaid, while I was listening to him regale his friend with stories of his affairs.
My conversation with Mrs. James shot into my head. She’d said she hadn’t seen Derek at Reata, but that day in Buttons & Bows, she’d said she’d seen Keith Kincaid and his lawyer there plenty of times.
I whirled around, my head spinning. I slapped my hand over my mouth. “It wasn’t Derek.”
“What wasn’t Derek?” Mama asked.
Madelyn’s mouth had formed a speechless O.
“Keith Kincaid and Nell. You were right, Mama—it was a married man.” And Mrs. Kincaid knew about it, I suddenly realized. That’s why she’d so pointedly asked about Reata. They were stronger together than apart because they knew each other’s secrets, Mr. Kincaid had said.
I searched the table and chairs one more time, just in case I’d overlooked my purse. It hadn’t materialized.
I must have left it on the chair at the bar. Please let it still be there, I silently pleaded. I ran back to the bar while Mama and Madelyn looked everywhere else.
The barstool was empty. No purse. And that meant no ring.
Miriam sat at the head table, looking miles better than she had that morning, although it was clear that she was tired. My charm wasn’t fully working with her. Curious. With my cell phone as my only comfort, I made a beeline for her and cut to the chase. “Who knows I have the ring?”
She stared at me. “I . . . I . . .”
The deejay’s music pounded in my ears. The questions Will and I had talked about pumped through my mind with the same blinding rhythm. “Where did you find the ring, Miriam?”
“It was in my dad’s desk. In his study,” she added. “I was looking for a paper clip and . . . and I saw it. After those texts, I knew it was one of the diamonds . . . so I took it.”
Like a trigger, I suddenly remembered Ruthann, or maybe it was Karen, saying Nate couldn’t return the engagement ring to a store because of the custom diamond and that his dad said he’d take care of it. My fingers carved through my hair. How, how, how could I have forgotten that?
Cold sweat beaded around my hairline. Could Derek have pulled off a diamond-smuggling operation alone? More conversations flooded back to me. He and his dad took turns coming home. Someone had told me that, though at the moment I couldn’t for the life of me remember who.