Page 54 of Murder on the Page

“Nope.”

I typed it in, and the computer came to life. I clicked her email browser, which did not require a password. She had a few new messages—all spam—but I was surprised to learn she had no cache of previous messages. Had she erased them? I was not in the habit of deleting mine. Oh, sure, I eliminated junk, but if I wanted to see a previous message, I stored it in a file I’d named as Future to Keep. Her similarly named file was empty.

“Did she have a computer at home, too?” I asked.

“Nope. She left this one here so she could devote her time to reading at home and wouldn’t be tempted to go online.” I studied the screen. There were opened documents. “Do you mind if I view these files? I have a bee in my bonnet.”

“Be-e-e my guest.” Teganbuzzed.

I clicked on the Mission Control app. The Calendar page, Browser page, Contacts page, and two Word documents appeared. One of the Word documents was a letter-in-progress addressed to the Bramblewood Community Theater Foundation donors. It laid out Marigold’s plan for the year, detailing events and how its funds would be spent. It wasn’t complete. It ended midparagraph regarding expenditures, which explained why the document would’ve been open.

The other file read like the beginning of a mystery novel. It was new and hadn’t been saved. It didn’t have a title.

“Tegan, look at this.”

Chapter One

Heart pounding, Josephine Bellamy stood beneath the gaslight at Broadway and 34th, the hem of her plaid silk dress dusting the street. She peered into the dim night. Which way to go? Where to turn? The killer’s threats had been real, she had no doubt. She knew the truth, but she dare not tell anyone. She couldn’t. If she did, her family would be a target. Josephine was barely eighteen, but she knew things other girls her age didn’t. Elizabeth Bennet would have liked her. She observed. She spoke out of turn. She was always underestimated.

A whisper of fear crawled down my spine.

Tegan whistled. “It’s not bad.”

“Did she tell you she was writing a book?”

“I didn’t have a clue.”

To preserve the file, I saved it with a simple title, Marigold _book_draft, and then clicked on the Google browser page. In the search line was the word “gaslight.” The initial website listing was the dictionary definition of the word, both noun and verb. As widely as Marigold read, I imagined she knew what gaslighting meant in present-day lingo. Thanks to the classic movieGaslight,with Ingrid Bergman, to gaslight meant to use psychological methods that made a person question his or her own sanity. I guessed Marigold also knew when gaslighting was introduced in New York, so why would she need to research the term? I scrolled down to view other links, all of which pertained to the film.

Wondering what else Marigold might have delved into, I opened her search history and was surprised to see that, except for the current page, it had been cleared out the day she died. Had she done so, or had someone else? Why?

“Who else had the password to your aunt’s computer?” I asked.

“Me, Chloe. That’s it.”

“Then explain this.” I pointed to the date when the history had been wiped clean.

She yelled, “Chloe, c’mere!”

Chloe rushed in.

“Did you erase the Internet search history on this computer?” Tegan asked.

“I never touch that computer,” Chloe said. “I mean, I can open it, but I never do. Marigold said it was private, and I should only access it in an emergency. I use the desktop in the shop.” She hooked her thumb in that direction.

The chimes over the front door jangled. Chloe left to tend to customers.

I revisited Mission Control and viewed the other opened documents. The Calendar reflected appointments for the theater foundation donors’ meeting last Friday and the tea scheduled for Saturday. Sunday was blank. On Monday, Marigold was scheduled to have lunch with Evelyn Evers, her second-in-command for the theater foundation. On Tuesday—today—she’d planned to have coffee with Oly Olsen, who owned the Brewery. Why would she have needed to meet with him? Was he a donor?

I clicked on Contacts and saw theDpage was open. Lo and behold, Oly’s contact appeared. The company noted on it was Due Diligence, not the Brewery. Odd name for a parent company. “Due diligence” was a legal term that typically meant conducting research, an analysis, and an investigation to verify facts about a particular subject. Had Marigold called Oly the morning she died or the evening before? I dialed his number on my cell, put the call on speaker, and waited.

He answered on the second ring.“Ja?”A hint of his Danish heritage was ever-present in his accent, even though he’d relocated to the States as a boy.

“Oly, it’s Allie Catt. You knew Marigold Markel, right?”

“Ja.”

“Did she call you the other day?”

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