Murder in the Marigolds by Dale Mayer (best young adult book series .txt) 📕

“You sound odd.”

“I was just talking to your brother,” she said, with a groan. “He’s a little bit too much like you for comfort.”

“Meaning?”

“He hung up on me,” she wailed.

After a moment of startled silence, Mack laughed. “You must have got to him, if he did that.”

“Apparently I can get to anybody,” she said, with a dark tone. “Can you pull a cold case file for me?”

“Nope,” he said cheerfully.

“It’s related,” she said.

“I doubt it,” he snapped. “You’re just trying to get your nose in my business.”

“Is it working?”

“Nope, not at all,” he said once again in a cheerful voice.

Then she remembered what he had been doing. “Hey, what about my ex?”

“What about him? He decided to stay in town for a couple days.”

“Ooh,” she said, “that’s fascinating.”

“Well, I don’t know about fascinating as much as potentially irritating, but, hey, we’ll keep him close. He is coming back in to answer a few more questions tomorrow.”

“Why did you let him go today?”

“Because we didn’t have any real reason to hang on to him, and we don’t want to tip him off and let him know we’re suspicious.”

“Right, you want his cooperation,” she groaned. “But that means he’s still in town, so I will have to deal with him.”

“Why do you think that?” Mack asked curiously. “Do you think he will contact you again?”

“Yes. He already searched my house, but that doesn’t mean he found what he was looking for or that he wants something else as well. Or is afraid I know something I’m not telling him.” And she had to wonder if maybe she did. She looked around her home.

“Did you let Robin in the house?” Mack asked.

“No, not really,” she said. “It was mostly a big confrontation on the front steps.” At that, she walked to the front door, pushed open the screen door, stepped out, and looked around. “And you’ve got her laptop anyway. Can you not get into it?”

“Forensics has it,” he said easily. “And remember. I’m not telling you anything.”

“So, back to that cold case,” she said. “Could you get me the file of the murders of Ralph and Jennifer Waldorf, on August 17, 2000?”

“What difference does it make?” he asked.

“I think it’ll be interesting.”

He said, “Is it related? You said it was related.”

“And you said it wasn’t.”

“I’ll take a look at it,” he said, “but chances are it’s a no.” Then he hung up on her.

Doreen sighed and came back inside. As she slowly put her phone on the kitchen table, she looked around the kitchen, ran her fingers through her hair, and said, “I need coffee.”

She walked over and put on the coffeepot, wondering what Mack would decide. She didn’t have long to wait. No sooner had she hit the Start button on the coffeepot than her phone rang. She walked over, took a look, and started to laugh.

Chapter 13

“Hey, Mack,” Doreen said, feeling pleased with herself.

Where did you find this?” he snapped.

“Well, that’s why I wanted more information because I hardly found a thing. I mean, until we actually get anything, we don’t know squat, right? That’s how you always look at everything, right?”

“Where did you get this information?”

“Well, you’ll just get mad at him, and I don’t want that.”

“My brother?” he asked, incredulous.

“Well, not so much your brother as I did worm it out of him.”

He groaned. “Nick doesn’t know what you’re like. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“Thank you very much for that,” she said. “You make it sound like I’m some weasel.”

“Not a weasel at all,” he said, “but you weasel information out of people.”

She huffed. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No,” he snapped. “A weasel is like a rat, somebody who tells on another person.”

“Oh, so like you.”

Silence.

She snickered. “Never mind that. What’s your answer?”

“The answer is no. You’re not getting into this one. It’s connected to my case, so the answer is no.”

“But we don’t know how much it’s connected,” she said.

“Well, if you’re involved, chances are it’s very connected,” he said, speaking in a rapid voice. “I will take a look, but, if nothing’s there, we’ll drop it, okay?”

“Fine, but, while you’re taking a look,” she muttered, “you should check to see if the son and his wife, Robin, actually paid for law school themselves or if they managed to get through without having student loans to pay for it. Of course they’d use their inheritance to fund their futures.”

“Well, if they inherited a lot of money, they wouldn’t have had to pay for college.”

“Obviously,” she said, wondering where he was going with this.

“What are you talking about?” he snapped. “Don’t start talking around in circles again.”

“I’m not. You are.”

“Stop it,” he said.

“What if they wanted to go to law school and couldn’t afford it, and maybe the parents wouldn’t help them?”

“You think they murdered the parents so they could go to law school?”

“I don’t know. We’ve certainly seen worse motives.”

He stopped and thought about it. “Well, I’ll give you that. I mean, people do the stupidest things for the darndest reasons sometimes.”

“Exactly, and, of course, they can’t turn each other in because then they would incriminate themselves.”

“I wouldn’t have thought they would have gotten divorced at that point.”

“No, I think they’re both climbers. Who knows? They might even have still been involved with each other, but the bottom line is that they’re climbers.”

“Meaning?”

“I think any relationship they had would be to move themselves up the ladder.”

“Like with your ex?”

“Exactly. Maybe she was getting information or wanted to be one of his many lawyers. Maybe she was after information, or perhaps she just wanted to feather her nest a little bit.”

“Or all of the above? he asked.

“Precisely. But I don’t know anything about her husband.”

“And he hasn’t been on the scene for a long time.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but, while I was going through online images, I did find her with quite a few different men,” she said. “I saved what I found. I think I’ve got thirty-six various