Page 52 of Death By Llama
I thought about it for a moment.“I think we only have three potential suspects.”
Oliver waited.
“Daphne.She’s the other woman or the jilted woman—I’m not sure which—but she also found his body.And I have to say, when we were outside, she was really hamming it up with her grief.I wasn’t quite buying it.But then we also have Ashley, who is Nick’s… other—” I paused to find the right word “—paramore.And we don’t know where she really was.I saw her in Bar Harbor, but when I called Brad, he claimed she was in Boston, which, now that I think about it, she couldn’t have been there yet.So where was she?And where is she now?”
Oliver raised a hand to stop me.“Wait, who’s Brad?”
“He co-owns Opulent Occasions with Ashley.”
“When did you talk to him?”
“I called him a little while ago when I remembered I had the business card.”
“And you didn’t tell Justin?”
“I would have, but I didn’t get the chance before he got that phone call.”Which I still really wanted to hear.
Oliver still looked mildly confused, but then he nodded and said, “And suspect three?”
“Vance, who was clearly competitive with Nick and didn’t care for him.Maybe he had a reason to do him in—like trying to get the part in that movie they were both fighting over.”
“We’ve known plenty of actors who would at least consider murder to get a starring role.”
“Definitely,” I said.“But where I’m hung up is the fact that none of those suspects explains why Peanut was killed.”I paused, pondering.“It just doesn’t tie together for me.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Oliver agreed.“Maybe he truly was an accident.They did find peppermints on his body.Maybe Jack really did give Peanut a nudge.Unintentionally knocking him off the edge, of course.”
I hated to consider that, but maybe Oliver was right.“But how could one death be an accident and the other intentional?That seems crazy.”
“Jack was nuzzling Peanut, who was drunk and not particularly sure-footed and fell, and someone realized it would be very easy to knock Nick off of the cliff today.”
“True.”
I considered telling him my theory about Cameron and the insurance, but I just couldn’t believe he’d do that.Saying it aloud would be the ultimate insult to Cameron’s character.
Justin appeared in the kitchen doorway again.
“That was Ashley Wells,” he said.“She’s in Boston.She has a corporate event she’s catering this evening.I think that takes her out of the running since you saw her in Bar Harbor earlier today.She had at least a three-hour drive back to Boston—closer to four, really.So that makes it kind of impossible for her to have been here in the timeline we’ve got right now.”
“I’m going to go talk to some of the other people who were in the inn today, including some of your staff, if that’s okay with you, Oliver?”
Oliver nodded.
Justin disappeared down the hallway.Oliver and I exchanged looks.
I made an intrigued face.“And then there were two.”
“And I’m supposed to sleep here in the same house with both of them?”Oliver asked.“This job doesn’t pay me enough.”
FOURTEEN
“I just don’t seewhy we had to leave,” my mother said, rooting around in her purse.“And so quickly.I hate trying to pack like that.I’m sure I forgot my antacids there.”
I stared at her from my seat across the table.“Mom, you’re only here for a long weekend.How much stuff could you need to repack?And I have Tums.”
“Tums won’t do it,” she said, sighing woefully before setting aside her purse.She picked up her fork and jabbed at her caesar salad.
I tried not to be offended that she was still lamenting the fact that she had to come stay at my house.Of course, I understood she didn’t want to be there—my house was her childhood home, which she still had mixed feelings about.But honestly, I was confused about why she thought of her childhood as such a terrible experience, especially now that her mother, my grandmother, was no longer considered a suspect in her father’s demise.That had all been sorted out and the real culprit arrested after decades.And in no small part due to me and my own investigation.
