Probable Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series Book 5) Read online

  I was braced for her to attack me somehow, but to my surprise, Josie dissolved into tears and collapsed onto the nearest chair. “I know you think I did it, but I didn’t. I swear.”

  I sat down on the sofa. Obviously there was more to Adelaide’s death. I had to find out what Josie knew. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me what happened, then.”

  She plucked a tissue out of a silver box on the table and dabbed at her red-rimmed eyes. “I didn’t lie about what happened that morning. Well, not about everything. Most of it was the truth.”

  “Which part wasn’t the truth?”

  Josie sighed and looked down at the floor, her cheeks turning pink. “The part about her being alive.”

  “You knew she was dead when you looked in on her?”

  “Yes, but I swear I thought she’d died in her sleep.” Josie blew her nose loudly into the tissue.

  “But why wouldn’t you have said something? Why would you leave and go to the pharmacy and then lie about being in the library?”

  She glanced back at the door as if making sure it was still closed and no one could hear us. “I knew once the pharmacy found out she was dead, her prescriptions would no longer be able to be filled.”

  “So you rushed out to the pharmacy to refill it before anyone found out. Why would you need to refill it, though, if she was dead?”

  Josie hung her head in shame. “I’m not proud of this. I’ve been taking Mom’s pills for quite some time. I was shocked when I found my mom, but I knew I couldn’t help her. She was already gone.” Her eyes took on a desperate, wild look. “I need those pills to get through the day. But you see this proves I had no motive to kill my mother. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her death has put me in a bad place because I can’t get the prescription pills anymore.”

  I blew out a breath and sat back in the chair. That explained how she always seemed doped up or nervous. Either she was telling the truth, or she was a great actress. But if she was telling the truth, that meant she didn’t kill Adelaide for the book. And if she didn’t kill Adelaide, then who did?

  Josie sobbed loudly into the tissue. “You do believe me? Don’t you?”

  I leaned forward and touched her arm. I did believe her. And not only that, since she seemed to be in a confessing mood, I figured it was a good time to earn her trust with sympathy so I could ask more questions. “I believe you, Josie.”

  Her shoulders relaxed. “Thank you. And you’ll tell your boyfriend that it wasn’t me? He won’t arrest me, will he?”

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t arrest you,” I assured her as if I had any control of what Striker would do. “Do you have any idea who would have wanted your mother dead?”

  She shook her head and dabbed at her eyes with a fresh tissue. “I honestly thought she died in her sleep. But if someone really did kill her, then my money would be on that bitch Lisa.”

  “Lisa? Why?”

  “To get her hands on my mother’s money, of course.”

  “But why risk killing an old woman? It seems like Lisa has plenty of money. She wears nice clothes and has expensive jewelry. Seems like it wouldn’t be worth the risk of getting caught, especially since she probably wouldn’t have had to wait too long for your mother to die naturally.”

  Josie shrugged. “She’s greedy. Wasn’t satisfied with what she had. Always wanted more and more and more.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about your mother that morning? Anything in her room that was out of place?”

  “I’m not sure. It was such a shock. I did love my mother. Didn’t want her to die. And she was lying there so still. I crept over to her to see if she was breathing. She wasn’t. Her pillows were askew, and I adjusted them.” She sucked in a breath and looked at me with wide eyes. “You don’t think I ruined the evidence, do you? It’s just that Mother always liked to have matching pillowcases, and one didn’t match. So I put it on the bottom.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t ruin anything.” I didn’t mention the part about how the pillow was likely askew because Adelaide was suffocated with it. “The police didn’t process her room as a crime scene anyway because they didn’t have probable cause until after the blood work came back.”

  “Oh, good.”

  I’d already asked about the recipe book on my first visit, and no one had admitted to knowing about it, so I decided to take a different route in my questioning. “Did your mom ever mention something important that she might have hidden away?”

  “Important? Like diamonds or precious gems or silver? There was a silver tray that she—”

  “Not like that. More like something she treasured but might not have a lot of monetary value.”

  “No, she just mentioned she didn’t want Lisa stealing everything, so she was storing some of it in the cottage.”

  “The one that Max is using now?”

  Josie nodded.

  I gnawed on my bottom lip. I’d been in the cottage, and there were no family heirlooms. But would Adelaide have put the painting with the book in it there for safekeeping? Or would she have hidden it in plain sight?

  “I noticed you have a lot of ancestral paintings in the hallway here. They’re quite nice and probably worth a lot. Do you have a lot of them in the home?”

  Josie snorted. “Those horrible old things? I should say not. Mother wouldn’t let us take them down from the hall or the library, but we managed to get rid of the others, thankfully.”

  My heart lurched. Get rid of them? I hoped that after all this, she wasn’t about to tell me they’d thrown the painting of Daisy in the blue gown in the dump or something. Surely Adelaide wouldn’t have let that happen, unless the living Adelaide had dementia … or they did it without telling her.

  “Do you remember one of your ancestor Daisy in a blue dress?”

  Josie thought for a minute. “Now that you mention it, I do. Mother liked that one especially, but it was at the top of the stairs and so gaudy. We took it down with the others after she … umm … passed.”

  “What happened to them? You didn’t throw them out, did you?” I asked.

  “Oh, no. We couldn’t bring ourselves to do that. Someone in the family said they would find a home for them.”

  My blood chilled as I remembered Lisa saying she was selling things off to Felicity Bates. Felicity might already have the spell book in her possession, and that would be bad. Very bad.

  “Who was it? Lisa?”

  Josie made a face. “No, we wouldn’t trust anything to her. It wasn’t Lisa. It was Max.”

  23

  By the time I left the Hamiltons’, my head was spinning. If Josie didn’t kill Adelaide, then who did? Evie’s behavior and odd demeanor put her at the top of my list. Josie had said she’d heard the squeaking of the dumbwaiter, which made me wonder if someone snuck up in there and killed Adelaide. That ruled out Evie and Julie, though, since all they had to do was walk down the hall. But someone who didn’t want to be seen passing Evie, Julie, or Josie’s rooms might have used it. Someone whose room wasn’t in that hall but still had access to the house. Max? Lisa? John?

  Josie said they’d given the paintings to Max. Did Max want the paintings because he knew the book was in one of them, or was he just trying to protect them from Lisa and make sure they stayed in the family, as he’d told Striker and me the night we were in the cottage? And if so, what did he do with them? They weren’t in the cottage.

  I had to admit that I liked Max, but I couldn’t let that cloud my judgment. He’d seemed pretty upset that first night when he caught me digging in the daisy field. Had he buried the book there in the time capsule?

  He’d seemed sincerely upset about Adelaide’s death when he came to the bookstore to tell me that Josie had lied about being in the house that morning, but maybe it was all a ploy to cast suspicion away from him. He knew I was friends with Striker—maybe he thought I’d tell the police and they wouldn’t look at him as a suspect.

  My eyes fell on the cottage as I pulled out of the Hamil
ton driveway. I needed to go talk to Max. But if he was the killer, that could be dangerous. Though that had never stopped me before, and I couldn’t call Striker or Gus because I didn’t have a reason to suspect Max of Adelaide’s death other than the fact that he might have killed her for the spell book. And I certainly couldn’t tell them about that.

  I pulled out onto the road and then drove up to the dirt road that ran behind the cottage. I parked my Jeep right at the cottage this time. If I disappeared, maybe someone would remember seeing it there. I walked right up to the door and knocked.

  No answer.

  I peeked in the window, cupping my hands over my eyes. The red and green lights on the equipment blinked, but the screen savers on the monitors were up. No one had used the computers in a while, and there was no sign of Max.

  “Looking for someone?”

  I spun around, and Julie was standing behind me, a pie plate with a blue-checkered cloth over it in her hand.

  “I was looking for Max.”

  She frowned. “Oh, he’s not home?”

  “No.” My eyes were still on the pie. “Did you bring that from your house?”

  She glanced back at the mansion. “Yes. Cook made it, and I thought I’d run it over. It’s blueberry. His favorite. What did you want? Maybe I can help you.”

  I studied Julie for a second. The rest of the Hamiltons had regarded me with suspicion from the get-go, but Julie didn’t seem suspicious of me at all. Maybe I could get some information out of her. “Max and I have been working on something together, and I was wondering if there was a place he might store things that were precious to him. You know, like a hiding place. I was supposed to pick something up …”

  She gnawed on her bottom lip. “The only place I know of is the time capsule, but he wouldn’t put anything in there until the ceremony.” Julie pointed to the spot in the daisy field where the earth had been disturbed.

  “Yeah, he told me about that. What is the ceremony?”

  Julie shrugged. “My grandma started it a long time ago. We all put stuff in there. Every year we have a ceremony and put in some memorabilia for future generations.”

  “How big is it?”

  “Oh, about this big.” Julie balanced the pie plate as she spread her hands apart to indicate a container about three feet by four feet. Big enough to fit a book or even a small painting.

  “When was the last time you guys buried something in it?” I asked.

  “We do it every year on September fifteen.” Julie looked at me curiously.

  “Interesting.” It was June, and judging by the way the ground was disturbed, someone had put something in there recently, not last September. I flicked my gaze back to Julie. “Do you know when Max will be back?”

  She shook her head. “I actually thought he would be here, but you know Max. He comes and goes.”

  “Right. Well, thanks a lot.” I wanted to rush over to the time capsule and start digging, but I couldn’t do that in broad daylight with Julie watching, so I forced myself to walk back to the car. As I drove off, I craned my neck to look at the daisy field. Something had been buried there. Was it the spell book?

  If it was, and Max was the killer, it might not be safe to come back and dig around there at night by myself. But if Max did kill Adelaide for the spell book, then why bury it in the time capsule? Surely he would want to use it right away or keep it handy…unless he was trying to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Maybe Max didn’t kill Adelaide but knew the power of the book. Once Adelaide was gone, he buried it to keep it safe. From whom? Evie?

  There were a lot of what-ifs running around in my head, but one thing I knew for sure—I had to find out what Max was up to.

  I called Max’s cell phone and left a message for him to return the call. It might have been my worst mistake ever, but I mentioned the digging I’d seen near the time capsule. He might have one of his surveillance cameras pointed at it and might have caught someone burying something there. I had a gut feeling that Max was a good guy and, if I was right, he might be able to help. But if he was on the other side, he would know I was onto him, and that might not be good for my health. I shuddered to think of the harmful spells that might be inside that book. Spells he could use on me.

  I rustled around the shop nervously. I called out to Adelaide, but she didn’t show. Robert and Franklin popped in to discuss the weather, but they hadn’t seen even a whisper of mist from her.

  Even Pandora was restless, pacing back and forth and jumping in and out of her cat bed. Her constant meowing grated on my nerves, and I finally dug out her catnip toy to quiet her down. The end of the day came, and Max never returned my call. What was he doing all day? Did he have the spell book? And where were the paintings?

  I decided I had no choice but to go back to the cottage and dig up that time capsule. I couldn’t do that until later in the night if I had any hopes of not getting caught. I debated calling Striker to bring him with me for protection, but what would I tell him? I could say that I’d gotten a lead that some evidence was buried in the time capsule, but I didn’t want to have to explain how I’d gotten such a lead. Probably better to go on my own.

  Five minutes before closing, Pandora raced to the back door and paced back and forth until I closed up. She stared out the Jeep’s side window all the way home, and when I pulled into the driveway and opened my door, she shot out of the car like a bullet and ran over to the path that led to Elspeth’s house. Was she trying to tell me something? I hadn’t checked in on Elspeth in a few days. It couldn’t hurt to go over and see if she was okay while I was killing time before my excursion later that night.

  I dropped my purse on the porch and followed Pandora. The smell of molasses cookies grabbed me halfway down the path and dragged me toward Elspeth’s. My mouth was watering by the time I got there. Pandora veered toward the barn, and I toward the rose-laden porch. I could see into the house through the green wooden screen door with its scrolled corners. I knocked on the wooden frame of the screen door, and Elspeth yelled at me to come in. She was in the kitchen, scraping ginger-brown cookies off a cookie sheet onto a blue-and-white-flowered plate with a spatula.

  “Would you like some cookies? This is one of your grandmother’s recipes.” Elspeth waved the cookie plate under my nose, and my mouth watered. I grabbed two and sat at the table.

  Elspeth busied herself pouring tea. “Speaking of recipes. Did you ever find Adelaide’s recipe book?”

  “No. The Hamiltons are an odd bunch. I didn’t see it in the cottage. Do you know of any other places Adelaide might store things she treasured?”

  “No, dear. Sorry.”

  Disappointment settled on me, and I consoled myself by scarfing down another cookie. I knew the book was in the painting, but what had Max done with the painting? Could I trust him, or was he a killer?

  “Do you know anything about Adelaide’s grandson, Max?” I asked.

  Elspeth’s white brows tugged together. “Not much. Why do you ask about him?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve met him a few times in the course of looking for the book, and he seems a little odd. He was using the cottage where Adelaide stored some of the family heirlooms, but now there’s nothing in there. I just wondered if that recipe book—”

  “Oh, I think I know what he did with those. In fact, I saw Max just this afternoon with a bunch of family portraits. I’m not sure if he had any other family heirlooms, though, and I didn’t see any books.” Elspeth’s keen blue eyes studied me over the rim of her teacup.

  “You saw him? Where?”

  “The historical society. You know that lovely new building they’ve finally finished? They have a lot more room for displays in the museum now, and he was donating some of their things for future exhibits. Adelaide was a huge supporter of the society, and you know if you loan stuff to the historical society for them to put on display, the family retains possession.”

  My conversation with Max came back to me when he said he wanted to help h
is grandmother make sure some of the things remained part of the family. Was he merely helping out with the paintings and didn’t even know about the spell book? And if so, was the painting of Daisy Hamilton in the blue dress at the historical society right now?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Pandora was filled with self-importance as she sat in the beam of light in the middle of Elspeth’s barn. The other cats had gathered around her to listen to her tale of seeing the two ghosts, and a murmur of meows had circulated the barn when she’d told them she’d discovered, through the ghosts, that the book was in the old painting of Daisy Hamilton. Pandora was one of the very rare cats that could see and talk to ghosts, and she took great pride whenever she could use that ability to help Mystic Notch.

  “And furthermore, I may have narrowed down who the evil foe is within the Hamilton ranks,” Pandora said.

  “How did you do that?” Ivy asked.

  “I went on a foray to the Hamilton mausoleum with my human, and we ran into one of them inside. I sensed great evil.”

  “But who is it?” Otis said impatiently. “Get on with that so we know who to avoid.”

  “The dark twin, Evie. She’s been very suspicious as well as unwelcoming. I felt her watching us from the patio the other night when we were at the Hamilton house trying to home in on the location of the book.”

  “Is she the only one?” Sasha asked. “There may be more than one person there working against us. I believe I sensed an abundance of wicked thoughts at the house.”

  Pandora’s whiskers twitched. She was sure she’d felt something out of the ordinary from Evie, but she’d also sensed another presence at the house. “We followed the daughter, Josie, out there, but I did not get a strong sense from her. Evie was with the young man, Brian, at first, but he disappeared quickly. Evie stayed in the mausoleum to threaten Willa. Evie was outside the house the other night when we were all there. We sensed evil intentions then as well.”

  Inkspot tilted his head. “We’ll take that into consideration. Everyone must be on alert around the Hamilton humans. But we still do not know where the painting is, so I don’t see how we can take action.”