Murder by Yew (An Edna Davies Mystery #1)(34)

“So, you do think it was deliberate?” Starling’s eyes grew wide.

“Yes, I believe I do,” Edna said as the thought gelled. What else made sense?

Starling frowned as she nibbled her lower lip. “Maybe we can try to work it out.” “Saaay …” A quick smile brightened her face. “Remember the game you used to play with Grant and me? You’d begin by saying ‘I’m thinking of something,‘ and you’d give us a word that applied to an object we could all see from where we were sitting. Grant and I would try to guess what it was by asking questions, like ‘Is it bigger than a breadbox?’.”

Edna laughed. “Yes, and I remember how mad you both got the day we were playing outside, and I said ‘I’m thinking of something blue.’ Both of you gave up on that one.”

Starling flushed. “Well, you’ve got to admit, picking the sky was pretty sneaky.”

“What you’re getting at,” said Edna when their laughter died down, “is playing ‘I’m thinking of someone who committed murder,’ only neither of us knows the answer.”

“Exactly. I guess it’s a stretch comparing this to our old childhood game, but we should be able to come up with a bunch of questions that might help you track down answers.”

“We just might at that.” Edna was starting to feel some of Starling’s excitement. “Where shall we begin?”

“I think we should start with motive. I read somewhere that murder is usually committed for one of three reasons—love, money or revenge.” Starling untangled her legs and rose from the couch as she spoke. “I think we need to write stuff down.” Disappearing into the kitchen, she returned with a small stack of three-by-five index cards and two pencils.

Edna accepted several cards and a pencil, throwing herself into the game. “We should make a separate card for each idea or person.”

“Good thinking. You do one for love and another for money. I’ll take revenge.”

As Starling bent over the task, her hair glowed almost red in the light from the lamp behind her. Looking up, her eyes flashing with excitement, she flipped a strand of the auburn mane behind an ear. “Okay. We should make some people cards, maybe start with who saw him that day—I mean, besides you, of course.”

“Well,” Edna thought for a moment “he had his grandson Danny with him.” She felt her face heat up, thinking of her humiliating visit to Nancy’s home. “I’ve tried to see the boy, but his mother won’t let me near him. She thinks, as the police seem to, that I’m to blame.”

“I can’t believe anyone would think of you like that.” Starling stared at her intently for a few heartbeats before tapping her pencil against a blank card. “We need to list witnesses, too, so we don’t leave anything or anyone out.” She scribbled a name and placed the card on the cushion between them. “That’s the witness pile with a card for Danny. What about places? Where would Tom have gone after he left your place?”

“He mentioned going somewhere at the shore, but I had the impression that would have been later in the day. It was almost lunchtime when he left, so he probably took Danny to McDonald’s.” Edna smiled. “Tom told me once that his grandson always insisted on McDonald’s for lunch.”

“He probably wasn’t poisoned in a public place. Others would have contracted the same symptoms, and the news would have been all over town. Still, I’ll make a card for McDonald’s and that other place. What was the name?”

“I don’t remember . . . some kind of fish, I think.”

Starling waited for Edna to remember, then grew impatient. “It doesn’t matter. You can fill in the name later. I’ll just put ‘shore place’ for now. When you get home, take a drive down to the beach. Maybe a shop sign will jog your memory, and you can go in and find out if Tom and Danny were there and whether someone was with them.”

“I bet Norm knows where Tom was on Thursday.”

“Who’s Norm?”

Edna explained Tom’s employer to Starling and told her how he had accused her of being in cahoots with his cousin to steal from Honeydew Home Repairs. “I’d bet anything he knows where Tom went that day,” she said again, finishing her story. “He’s making me look guilty by saying Tom was scheduled to work all day at our place. He knows darn well it isn’t true.”

“Do you think he’s covering up something?”

“Maybe.” Edna thought for a minute while her anger cooled. “I can’t believe he’d gain anything by killing his best worker.” She shook her head. “Maybe he just wants to bill us for eight hours instead of one. I think he’s lying for the money.”

“Well, just in case, I think we should put him at the top of our suspect list. Why don’t you make out a card and note on it something like ‘knows where Tom was.’ Maybe mark it with a question. He sounds fishy to me.”

Edna began to realize that all these cards were creating quite a lot of work for her when she got home, but the game was helping her organize her thoughts. As she finished filling out the card for Norm, Starling said, “Do you know anyone who might have had a grudge against him? You know, the revenge angle.”

Edna considered the idea. “It’s a terrible thing to imagine, but I suppose his son-in-law, Walt Alcott, might have hated him enough to want him dead. According to what Tom told me, Walt blamed him for breaking up his marriage and talking Nancy into moving back home with Danny.”