The Tessa Randolph Collection, Books 1-3 by Paula Lester (good short books .TXT) 📕

took over my position and I went to the barn. And I was in the barn for about fifteen years, I think.”

“Sky?”

“A flower child, they used to call them. She was a much better chef than I was but kind of a brat. I’ve always been surprised Artemis didn’t kick her out on her behind. But he never did. I believe her daughter Lark works there now, actually. In the same position, not in the barn.” She re-focused and nodded curtly. “It was nice out there. Got to be alone most of the time. The only people I reported to were Artemis and then Nathaniel.”

“Nathaniel?”

“Artemis’s son-in-law. Real piece of work, he is. Never did a lick of work in his life—only real decision he ever made was to marry into the Green family wealth—but likes to act like the king of the castle. He’d come into the barn and stir up a bunch of dust about one thing or another and then leave again.”

“What did you do about that?” These all seemed like more likely culprits than Silas. Tessa wished the police had stopped to interview Mrs. Cross.

“I learned to bite my tongue when he arrived and ignore everything he’d said once he was gone again.” She snorted. “Sometimes you have to do that in your professional life, you know. Let the boss think he’s in charge but do things the right way when he isn’t looking. Makes everyone happy.”

Tessa wanted to argue. To tell Mrs. Cross it was stupid to do that. That you should be able to tell your boss you had a better way of doing something and accept the credit when it went well. But she swallowed the words. Mrs. Cross was past her working days, and it wasn’t going to do any good to argue with the elderly woman now.

Mrs. Cross clucked her tongue. "Well, anyway, Nathaniel will probably take over the place now. Likely, he’ll run it into disrepair. That is if his wife, Hannah, lets him. Because Artemis is gone now, and old Mrs. Green is in no shape to do much of anything.”

“That’s terrible.” Tessa wanted to console Mrs. Cross. But even more, she wanted to make a getaway. The smell was that bad.

“According to the scanner, he died in his breakfast cereal,” Mrs. Cross continued. “When the police got there, they didn't have any reason to think there was any foul play involved. It looked like he just had a heart attack and keeled over while he was eating breakfast. But, of course, they fanned out and looked around the place anyway. That's when one of the officers found a bottle of Grime Slayer. You know the stuff, girl?”

Tessa nodded. She watched enough late-night TV that the jingle for the heavy-duty cleaner with the tagline “It’s murder on muck,” got stuck in her head weekly. She started singing it, and Mrs. Cross joined in.

When they were done, the elderly woman chuckled. “Anyway, it’s no surprise they’d have cleaner around—Artemis insisted on a spotless home. But the stuff was in the kitchen, right on the counter next to the spot where someone would've made Artemis’s breakfast. That's when the cops got a little suspicious, and one of them asked the staff to see the security footage of the house."

Tessa almost smacked her forehead with a palm but remembered at the last minute that she shouldn't act like she knew anything about the situation. So, she smacked her forehead internally.

Of course. The security cameras.

She'd known where to look for them and how to get around them at an angle where she wouldn’t be caught on film, but Silas wouldn’t have been thinking about any of that. He probably just barged straight through their field of view. "But why would Silas be at Mr. Green's house?"

Mrs. Cross scoffed. “How should I know? I thought he was a very fine boy. I even gave him some money from my lottery winnings." She shook her head again, more violently this time, and two more rollers escaped from their bandana fabric captor. "I can't believe I was so wrong about him. I'm usually a fine judge of character. But he was at Mr. Green's house, skulking around. So, the cops got a search warrant.”

Tessa nodded along, thinking it couldn’t get any worse. There was no way there’d be anything linking Silas to Artemis Green’s death here at the apartment complex.

“They came here to Mist River Manor and searched Silas’s apartment and his pickup truck." Her sharp eyes met Tessa's, and Mrs. Cross scowled. "They found an open bottle of Grime Slayer right in that boy’s truck cab. I just can't believe he wasn't smart enough to hide it better."

"Hide it? You mean, you think Silas actually had something to do with this man's death?"

"Well, of course I do. And I'm no slouch in the mystery solving department, girl. I watch all the BBC mysteries of them all the time, plus I get my Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes from the library. This is an open and shut case if I ever heard one."

"I'm not sure . . ."

But Mrs. Cross interrupted Tessa. "Now, girl, I know you had the hots for our landlord, but you're just going to have to give up on that idea.”

The hots? Tessa had to hold in a laugh at the words that seemed so mismatched to the woman in front of her.

Mrs. Cross continued, “The boy’s a murderer. We'll have to get a new landlord in here and you're just going to have to find a new love interest." She scooched to the end of her chair, grabbed a cane leaning on the coffee table in front of her, and struggled to her feet.

Tessa jumped up, setting the plastic to crackling, and offered a hand to the elderly lady. But Mrs. Cross slapped it away. "I think I can get around in my own home. Now, I guess I'll be having my nap now. I just wanted to make sure you