The Unkindness of Ravens by M. Hilliard (fastest ebook reader txt) 📕

bet he hadn’t asked. But I would, because I’m helpful like that, especially when a potential clue in no way leads to me. Still, if Joanna had the drive on her when she fell, it could still be here in some nook or cranny. Unlikely the police had missed it, but possible. Vince thought it was worth a look, and if he wanted it that badly, I wanted it more.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just awful that you had to come here and look for it. I can carry on the search if you want. Was there anything on it you need urgently? I have some time right now. I’m on my lunch break.”

“A lot of details of our current project are on it. Joanna had mapped out the whole thing. I was working on specific segments. I need it badly to keep things moving.”

I knew Joanna had helped Vince with running his company. It wouldn’t surprise me if she did most of the detail work. He reluctantly accepted my offer of help, since I made it clear I wasn’t going anywhere. If he thought I’d leave him here alone he was delusional. I had every intention of palming the drive if I got to it first. Besides, this might be the only chance I had to ask him a few questions.

“How are the girls?” I asked as we quartered the landing.

“I don’t think they really comprehend it yet. They’re staying with my parents. My mother said they cry sometimes and ask for her at bedtime, but the rest of the time they just act like kids.”

A wave of sadness rolled over me, as I remembered there would be no courageous mommy reading bedtime stories about brave, clever little girls doing amazing things. I gave myself a mental shake.

“It’s lucky they have grandparents so close. It would be harder if they were at home. They stay with your parents often, don’t they? Weren’t they there Tuesday night, because both you and Joanna were going to be out late?”

That last bit was a stab in the dark, but there had to be a reason Vince hadn’t gone looking for his wife or at least a reason he could give the police.

“I was gone all night, filming downtown. Joanna was going to be organizing for the jumble sale and didn’t know how late she’d be.”

He was a little abrupt. I was sure he’d had to go over this with the police more than once. Since he was still a free man, his alibi must have held up. So far.

We searched a few more minutes before Vince said he was giving up. I told him I’d continue to look for it in the library and promised to let him know if I found it. Which I would, once I’d copied the contents, determined whether or not there was anything incriminating on it, and decided whether or not to hand it over to the police.

Once Vince left, I began at the bottom of the stairwell and worked my way up. I had no flashlight, so I had to feel my way along each step. Vince hadn’t asked what I was doing here in the middle of a busy Saturday. That might be suspicious or it might not. He did have a lot on his mind. If anyone else appeared, I decided to tell them I was looking for my own flash drive which I thought I’d dropped the day I found Joanna’s body. I didn’t expect to see anyone, but I wouldn’t put it past Officer Webber to turn up unexpectedly in the hope of finding someone up to no good. Or maybe I could use my own fictional missing flash drive to find out if the police had found one.

I hadn’t found a flash drive or anything else unusual by the time I made it to the top of the stairs. I turned my attention to the shelves. Joanna had clearly been organizing for the sale. Neatly sorted board games and small toys filled the remaining shelves, whose gently rounded edges showed the scars of much use. I gave each an experimental tug. All gave slightly, but it would take a good yank to get them loose. Always possible the top one was an outlier, but I thought it more likely Joanna had grabbed for it as she fell, or someone pulled it down to make it look like that’s what hit her.

Mindful of the time I’d been away from the reading room, I began to test the floorboards for squeaks while I studied the piles of stuff to the right of the shelves. Millicent had sequestered the original contents of the attic with some plastic barricade tape. The little needlepoint footstool I had noticed clearly belonged in another part of the attic, but it was likely Joanna or another one of the Friends had commandeered it so they could reach the higher shelves more easily. There were boxes and bags of everything from knickknacks to small appliances. I counted three bread makers, still in their original packaging, but nothing thus far that looked like a murder weapon. I didn’t expect to find a bloodstained golf club the police had somehow missed, but some head wounds could kill you without the skin being broken, and she might have gotten that bloody gash tumbling down the stairs.

I turned the corner and found piles of used sports equipment. It was an embarrassment of riches in terms of blunt instruments. Baseball bats, an old croquet set, hockey sticks, and even a cricket bat were piled in no particular order. I’d registered this stuff on various trips through the attic, but had no idea how long each thing had been there. There was no way for me to know if something was missing. The Friends might have a record of who had donated what, but only if someone wanted a receipt for tax purposes. And if I had noticed all this stuff, someone planning a murder would