Page 29 of A Jingle of Justice
Her fifth question was unsettling. “How did you feel about the victim being strangled with Christmas lights? Was it too graphic?”
The frayed edges barista snorted. “It was a fun way to use them. Me? I can never, never, never get the knots out of them, which makes me want to strangle the manufacturers. Strangle them!” she repeated, which elicited laughter from the others.
“And, spoiler alert,” Lissa went on, “how did you feel about Jake not knowing he had a granddaughter?”
Glinda’s niece raised her hand. “It was so sad. I can’t imagine not knowing my grandpa.”
“I can’t imagine not recognizing my own child,” my hygienist quipped. “My twins are so alike. Their noses. Their eyes. It’s a genetic thing. You can’t mistake it. But I can see how it worked in the story.”
I thought about the Tillburys. Would a descendant of Daniel’s possess similar traits to one of Dexter’s even after four or more generations?
“Courtney, dear,” said my neighbor Holly Hopewell as she passed through the French doors on the way to the restroom. “Painting our own Christmas ornaments is so much fun.” She was a fantastic artist in her own right and had taught my mother how to paint. “A brushstroke here, a brushstroke there.”
She departed, and a theory blossomed in my mind. My gaze swung from the bisque items, to the iced snowmen cookies, to the paintbrushes. Had the killer used a paintbrush to apply cyanide to a single cookie?
I flashed on the pastry brushes stowed in Idris’s Sweet Treats apron, and another notion struck me.Thessalonia Tillbury had been a baker. So had Reenie Tillbury. Was it possible Idris was a Tillbury?
Holly returned from the restroom and chimed again, “This is so much fun!”
Fiona flitted to me and extended her arms. “This is so much fun!”
The mimicry jolted me, and two images flicked in my mind.
It’s my destiny, Tianna had said, making a spread-armed gesture.
Stretching gets rid of the tension,Idris had crooned at the bakery, while extending her arms.
In a matter of seconds, everything came together, and I understood why the rainbow-colored envelope I’d noticed in Idris’s purse at Hideaway Café had looked so familiar. It was aPast PerfectDNA kit result envelope. The company advertisedin magazines and mailers and at the opening of YouTube videos. Had Idris been investigating her lineage? Why? Had she thought her parents were lying to her about her birth? A DNA test would prove if they weren’t. It could also reveal whether or not she was a descendant of the Tillbury family.
Another possibility came to mind. What if Daniel was the one who’d buried a treasure on the property and had planned to recover it when he was released from prison? What if, just in case something happened to him, he gave his daughter Reenie a document showing her where it was hidden, but when she put her daughter Daniella up for adoption, she bestowed the document upon her as a keepsake, a treasure for her to discover when she was ready? What if Daniella never opened it and, subsequently, the document was passed down for generations?
I pictured Idris’s parents giving her the document on her eighteenth or twenty-first birthday. Unlike those before her, she opened it. The gift spurred her to discover more about her heritage. When she learned of Tianna’s existence in Carmel, she flew across the country to meet her. Though the genetic likenesses would have dissipated over time and the two women were not identical by any stretch of the imagination, when she met Tianna she would’ve seen what I now realized. They had the same hair color. The same pert noses. The same dulcet voices. And their idiosyncratic physical gestures matched, as well.
Idris contacted Tianna, who, as guileless as she was, embraced the truth with open arms. Being a trusting soul, she revealed she had a treasure map showing where the fortune was buried. Idris, stunned by her cousin’s honesty yet driven by greed because she, Idris, hadn’t had the luxuries afforded Tianna, warned her cousin she wouldn’t have any rights to the treasure if she took the legal route. She assured Tianna that the current property owner would thwart her. Therefore, the only way they could take possession was to dig it up themselves.Idris convinced Tianna she would find a way into Open Your Imagination, and they set a date.
That explained a detail that had been gnawing at me. Logan said he’d recently crossed the courtyard to Sweet Treats and had returned to find his door ajar. What if, while he was in line to purchase a donut, Idris took a break, stole to his shop, made a copy of the duplicate key to Open Your Imagination by pressing it into a wad of dough like the ones she’d been preparing for the miniature tarts, and raced back to the bakery with a perfect impression, able to make a copy with no one the wiser?
Fiona flapped double-time. “Courtney, what’s wrong? Your forehead is . . .” She squinched hers.
I filled her in on my musings. “They agreed to meet at the shop. When Tianna arrived at Open Your Imagination and saw the hole Idris had dug, she bent down, immediately enthralled, and touched the dirt. Idris urged her to stand and handed her a celebratory cookie. Tianna took a bite?—”
“And died.”
I nodded. “After which, Idris hurried away with whatever she’d found.”
“As Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible . . .’” Fiona mimed her head exploding.
Idris caught me staring at her and raised an eyebrow. I hitched my chin, inviting her to have a chat. There were people around. It was safe. But she didn’t budge.
Even though I had nothing but speculation to give Officer Reddick, I texted him. I asked him to come to the shop. We could confront her together.
He didn’t respond.
CHAPTER TEN
When I am gone, you must be queen instead.
Now reigns the Lady Summer,
