Page 6 of Dairy and Deadly

The homepage of her website was simply titled Texas Private Investigator. A paragraph in the middle of the page described her services, and an online form at the bottom of the page allowed a potential client to reach out to her for an appointment. Despite the simplicity of her site, it had been enough to attract her first paying customer. It felt good to be working on a case again —a real case for someone who really needed her help. She pulled up the case file and reviewed what she knew about it so far.

Mr. Edward Clark was dead.

His elderly wife was in a nursing home.

His only surviving daughter, Monica Poet, was the one who’d initiated the investigation.

She was a veryangry woman who didn’t believe for a second that her father had committed suicide. She also wasn’t convinced that her father had taken a mistress like his suicide note had stated — a mistress who’d allegedly emptied out his bank account, then abruptly ended things between them. Unfortunately, the name of the woman hadn’t been included in Mr. Clark’s suicide note.

Ashley clicked on the button to play back the recording she’d taken during her interview with Mr. Clark’s daughter. The woman’s tearful voice shattered the silence in the motel room.

“My father would’ve never been unfaithful to my mother. He loved her so much. So, so, so much!”

She turned off the recording, inclined to believe Monica’s impassioned declaration. Mr. Clark had died from an overdose of sleeping pills, which wasn’t a typical way for a man to take his life. Statistically, men tended to end things more violently with guns or hanging. Death by sleeping pills held a distinctly feminine overtone.

Her gaze continued down the list of facts she’d typed up about their chief suspect:

Caroline Bennington Madison preferred to be called Caro.

She owned Sunrise Solutions, a personal services company that offered everything from dog walking to meals on wheels.

She also offered light housekeeping and had been employed by Mr. Clark at the time of his death.

She’d provided housekeeping services to two other elderly men who’d committed suicide in the greater Dallas area during the past five years. Men whose bank accounts had also been cleaned out before their demise.

Because of Caro’s connection to all three of the deceased, Ashley had nicknamed her The Black Widow. It sure seemed to fit hermodus operandi.

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