Mad Money Murder Read online

  He tapped a gloved finger on his chin. "I don't know. I got the distinct impression that they were from Behold. My friend told me they used you know where because everyone here would've gone to Guttenberg. Going to my florist friend would ensure they didn't run into anyone from Behold."

  "Unless they ran into each other, that is."

  Basil nodded eagerly. "They probably called in their orders. Once, Aunt June did talk about getting flowers. They weren't red roses. The arrangements had all kinds of exotic and hard-to-find flowers. I'm guessing those men were trying to impress a woman who had very expensive tastes." The brushing stopped, and he slapped a shower cap on my head. "Okay, we need that to sit for a little while."

  I reached up and touched the cap. "Why did she live here? If she was always going to the West Coast, why stay here?"

  Basil took the chair next to me. "That's a good question. I've often wondered if her family originally came from here. Maybe she just loved the house and the peace and quiet?"

  "Hmmm…" I said. "There can't be much peace and quiet with three men hounding you every week."

  "I wish I had that problem!" Basil laughed. "I need to clean up. No peeking!"

  He gathered a couple of cups filled with goopy paint brushes and disappeared into the back of the building. I turned to look in the mirror, but a black shower cap covered my hair. I toyed with lifting up the edges, but for reasons I couldn't explain, I didn't want Basil to think I'd peeked.

  My thoughts turned back to what he'd said. The three suitors would be excellent suspects. People have killed for far less. And the men she'd dated must've been in her house and seen her collection. It would be easy to unleash a spider on her when she was sleeping. Wouldn't it?

  Love and jealousy are solid motives for murder. But who were these men? Aunt June sounded very charismatic. Did the men love her for her or for her house and money? Or was it the treasure? There were too many options.

  I thought about the ridiculous offer on the house. Someone wanted it badly. Was it the killer? A memento, perhaps, of a lost love? Or was it a way to get even with Aunt June and the other two boyfriends?

  "Basil?" I called out.

  "Yes?" He popped through the doorway and stood over me, pulling off the shower cap and running a gloved hand through parts of my hair before snapping it back into place.

  "Who are the wealthiest men in town?"

  His eyes went wide. "Ah! You think that's a clue! That's easy. There's Dr. Morgan. He's ancient, but his family owned seven very productive hog farms, which he later sold. Then, let's see, there's my brother Nigel." Basil made a face. "But he's too young for Aunt June."

  "Not necessarily," I said.

  Basil's eyebrows shot upward. "Good point. A May-December romance is a possibility. I never would've thought my brother had interest in anything but money and the law, but maybe I don't know him well enough."

  "You said three possible suitors. Is there anyone else?"

  "Time to rinse!" He led me over to the basin and once again shampooed my hair.

  "Let me think," Basil murmured. "Oh! There's Virgil Jacobsen! The postmaster! Let's head back to the chair, but no peeking!"

  Back in the chair, he brought out the blow dryer again. Twice in a morning I'd been shampooed and blow dried. Was this what normal women did? Who had time for this? I had a date with a mud pit later. There was no way I was drying my hair for a third time.

  The scalp massage was heaven, and Basil's banter was lots of fun. Maybe I was missing out. Our discussion was stalled for about ten minutes while he once again dried my hair.

  "Tell me about Virgil," I asked when he finished.

  "The Jacobsen family has lived here forever. They were the first founders of the town and own half the property. Old money, they say. Although, there was a rumor that his grandfather ran illegal liquor during Prohibition, so who knows?"

  "How old is Virgil?"

  Basil's jaw dropped open. "You haven't been to the post office to see the tooth?"

  "Not yet. The girls went the other day. I'm planning to go," I admitted.

  "I was being sarcastic. It's the stupidest thing to be famous for." Basil brought out a curling rod and flatiron and began working on my hair. "I thought it was hilarious when they made that sign and forgot the word human. No one really cares if you have the world's largest tooth because it could be from a whale or a mammoth. They didn't want to take down the sign and get a new one, so they added the caret and the word human. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?"

  "Who's they? The city council?"

  He nodded as he brushed. "We were supposed to have a mayoral election soon. But when Aunt June died, the town council voted to let my brother have another term."

  "Which brother?" It had to be Hal. He was by far the most personable.

  Basil made a face. "Nigel."

  I recalled what he'd said moments before. "Wait…why cancel the election after Aunt June died?"

  He paused, brush in the air. "She was running against him. My brother has been mayor for ten years. He's always run unopposed. But Aunt June decided that it was time for new blood or something like that."

  This was news to me. I wondered why no one had mentioned it before. "Why was she running?"

  Basil stopped and stared off into space before his face cleared. "Ah. That's right. There was some talk that she wanted to sell her house and develop the land into some kind of river resort."

  Tear down that beautiful house? Why had she left it to me? Was that one of the missing clues—who to sell it to? Was that the mystery buyer who'd offered so much money? River property was rare. And this place would be perfect. It would put Behold on the map.

  "And Nigel didn't want that?" Seemed to me he would. It would bring more business his way as the only lawyer in town.

  Basil stopped curling or straightening or whatever he was doing. "Haven't you noticed how the town's exterior is in shambles but the interiors are really nice?" He waved his curling iron around him.

  Of course I had. "That's done on purpose?"

  He nodded and went back to work. "The citizens of Behold don't like outsiders. They just want to keep the rest of the world out. So five years ago, the council decided we had to 'distress' the buildings."

  My mouth dropped open. "You mean you guys made them look like they were decaying?"

  Basil sighed. "This used to be a lovely little town. A pretty riverside burg. We could've been a tourist hot spot like the other towns on the river."

  "What changed?"

  "I don't know." He seemed to be considering this question for the first time. "It's like people woke up one day and decided to keep everyone out."

  I studied the man. "Why are you here? You seem to belong in bigger cities than this."

  Basil laughed out loud. "I'm going nowhere. It's the same reason Hal is here. Our money is locked up in a trust fund managed by Nigel because he was born two minutes earlier than us. If we leave town, we forfeit." He waved the curling iron in the air. "Besides, if I left, who would do everybody's hair? I have some town pride. I can't let people look like they cut their hair themselves." He winked.

  "Who's on the town council?" I asked.

  "Nigel as mayor, of course. Hal, Dr. Morgan, and Virgil. That's it, I think. It's a job nobody wants, so they have to beg people to stay in office." He made that face again. "Except for Nigel. He loves being in charge." His voice trailed off. "I should know about that."

  This whole thing about Aunt June and the development was certainly a plausible motive for murder. In fact, I was pretty sure I'd heard about things like this before. But would Basil give me the scoop on his brother?

  "Tell me more about Virgil," I said.

  "Oh, right. Virgil is about Aunt June's age. Very quiet. Keeps to himself. His passion is local history, which is why the tooth is there. Make sure you stop by. It would make his day."

  "I will. Let me ask you something. Do you think Aunt June's death was an accident?"

 
He looked at me curiously. "That's what's going around town. Why?"

  I told him about the letter from her that suggested she'd been murdered.

  Basil burst out laughing. "She was a hoot, that one! I'm not surprised at all. She would've loved to have people thinking that!"

  "It sounds like it," I mumbled. "But what do you think? Do you think she was murdered? You seem to have your pulse on everything around here."

  Basil smiled warmly. The flattery had worked. "Well, if my opinion matters that much, I'd have to say no. She was dramatic, but I can't think of why anyone would kill her."

  Except for his brother if he really, really didn't want her to sell her land for a resort.

  "Okay, ready for the big reveal?" He picked up a huge can and sprayed a cloud of hairspray that probably opened up a huge hole in the ozone.

  Just then, Kelly and the girls streamed in. They took one look at me and stopped dead in their tracks.

  "You look awesome!" Ava clasped her hands in front of her face.

  "It's so you!" Lauren squealed.

  "Why haven't you done this before?" Kaitlyn gushed.

  Inez just nodded, her eyes like dinner plates.

  Betty walked closer and studied my head.

  Kelly clapped her hand over her mouth, suppressing what I thought was laughter.

  "Turn around!" Basil beamed.

  I shook my head. "Nope. I don't think I want to."

  "Oh, come on." Kelly regained control of herself. "It's fine. A new you!"

  I spun around, and my blood ran cold. My hair was green with two white stripes framing either side of my face. The green was iridescent somehow…like a peacock with shifting colors.

  "You look ridiculous," Betty said.

  At least the cut was good. Could I bleach it out without changing that?

  Basil clasped his hands together. "What do you think?"

  I forced a smile. "I love it."

  "It still hasn't come out!" I picked through my wet, green curls. We were at Aunt June's, and this was my third time shampooing it.

  "You're going to ruin those towels," Kelly said as she handed me another one.

  "Well, they're my towels now, so who cares."

  Kelly sounded sympathetic. "The cut is cute though. Your hair actually has a shape now."

  "I like the cut." And I did, too. Unlike the usual spiral mess that made me look like I'd been given a perm by a poodle mainlining LSD. But this was different. No matter how I shook my head, the curls fell obediently into place. It was shorter than usual, but it kind of looked pretty. Except for the green and white parts.

  Which was all the parts.

  "It's Girl Scout colors." Ava rolled her eyes. "How can you not love that?" Then she went back into the hallway.

  The girls had praised the new look all the way to Aunt June's house, where I had proceeded to ruin five towels so far. I did fill them in on what Basil had told me, and they listened carefully. And now they were in the hallway discussing the case. I kind of felt left out.

  "Face it." I threw the wet towel on the floor. "I'm doomed."

  "You're not doomed," Kelly said. "But the girls are getting bored, and we need to corral them before they find the third floor a little too interesting."

  "Alright," I grumped. "Maybe the mud will get it out later."

  We walked out into the hallway on the second floor to find the girls sitting in a circle, waiting. They jumped to their feet when they saw us. Bridling like hopped-up horses before a race, they were waiting for us to say it was okay to charge the most dangerous floor in house history.

  I led with Kelly bringing up the rear. The girls were told not to touch anything but their shoes to the floor.

  The floor plan for the third floor was completely open. The walls were lined with the various enclosures that started three feet from the floor to the ceiling. All of the animals were behind glass. They seemed to be aquarium-like in nature, but some were larger than others.

  "Are we supposed to feed them?" Lauren looked worried—probably for the spiders. I wondered if she'd named them already.

  "What do you think they eat?" I asked her.

  "Flies. At least for the spiders and frog." The girl pulled out her cell and began researching.

  "How do we feed them?" I peered into the glass. The enclosures appeared to be part of the wall with no discernable openings.

  "I don't think we should worry about that." Kelly shifted her feet uneasily. "In fact, I'm okay with them dying."

  "How can you say that?" Lauren cried.

  "They're bugs," I said.

  "Bugs have mommies and daddies too!"

  "And Scout leaders," Inez added.

  Nearest to the stairs was a huge, glassed-in area. The plaque said Sydney Funnel Spider.

  "Is that a cloud?" Kaitlyn pointed to what certainly looked like a cloud coming through the branches of a small tree. It was the size of a bucket.

  "That's a web." Lauren read from her cell, "They lunge out from their hole and grab prey." She squinted into the depths. "I think I see him!"

  The other four little girls crowded around, pressing their faces to the glass.

  The black silhouette chose this time to lunge toward the glass, causing the girls to stumble backwards screaming. Kelly ran halfway down the stairs, and even I backed up against the rail.

  Betty, however, was unfazed. As the spider blinked at her, she stepped forward and gave him a defiant scowl. Please, I thought, don't let her poof him out of his cage.

  Lauren regained her poise. "It says here one bite will kill a man in fifteen minutes! Do you think that's what killed her?"

  "The sheriff said it was the brown recluse. Their fangs are smaller than this thing." I waved at the glass. No way was I getting closer.

  "How did he know?" Inez seemed dubious.

  "He had the spider in a baggie…which reminds me." I skipped the black widow spider's enclosure and went straight to where the brown recluse was kept. A little brown spider seemed to wave at me from a branch that nearly touched the glass.

  "Reminds you of what?" Kelly appeared at my side.

  "In the inventory of the place, there was only one brown recluse. And the sheriff claims to have it. So who's this guy?"

  Kaitlyn suggested, "Maybe he was a twin?"

  "Or a secret baby, like on my mom's TV show that she watches at lunchtime," Ava announced.

  "I think it's the aliens." Betty was still staring down the funnel spider.

  There was general agreement that this was, in fact, the answer. Aliens had fooled us all by putting a second spider in the enclosure, removing it to bite Aunt June, and then squishing it.

  Ava snapped her fingers. "Maybe the spider is the alien!"

  They moved closer to the glass, causing the little spider to beat a hasty retreat into the shadows.

  "The black widow isn't out." Kelly had rejoined us and was studying the enclosure from a bit of a distance.

  We joined her. The spider wasn't visible.

  Kelly wondered, "Do you think they confused the brown recluse with the black widow?"

  I shook my head. "The sheriff didn't have a black widow. Those are, you know, black, with a little red hourglass on the abdomen. The spider he had was brown."

  "Ewwww!" Ava shrieked a little ahead of us. "What is this?"

  "The deathstalker scorpion," I said as I looked at the light tan arachnid.

  Lauren consulted her phone. "It's the deadliest of all scorpions. Its venom can't kill a healthy adult but can kill a child or someone who's sick. Wow."

  "Cool name," Inez said. "But it's ugly!"

  Kaitlyn agreed, "Even if it was a baby it would be ugly!"

  That was saying something. My experience with these girls taught me one thing—if there's a bat or mouse or daddy longlegs, it's far less repulsive if you tell them it's a baby bat, mouse, or daddy longlegs. Well, on everything but this ugly scorpion, that is. And baby bugs seemed cuter and safer with little girls. Which was why I wasn't going t
o encourage the idea of them being babies.

  This particular enclosure was made up to look like a desert, with large heat lamps simulating the sun's rays. The critter in question was sunning himself on a rock until we showed up. Then he raised his claws in the air, opening them menacingly as his tail curled upward, displaying a nasty stinger.

  I stood there as the girls were studying these little critters of death and couldn't help but wonder if Nigel was right. It was possible that Aunt June could've been accidentally bitten by one of her "pets." Of course, an alien could've put another brown recluse in the terrarium. It seemed irresponsible to rule them out just yet.

  My mind reeled back to the clue in the tuba. It only said she knew she would be murdered because she could feel it in her bones. If she knew that, why couldn't she tell me about her killer?

  And if she was killed, was it by one of three disgruntled boyfriends or even the jealous Nancy? It had to be. I couldn't think of one single reason why anyone else would kill her. If anyone killed her at all.

  "What are you going to do with these bugs?" Kelly glanced at the girls, who had moved on to the assassin caterpillar.

  "He looks like a long, skinny flower!" Lauren pointed. "See those spiny things? They have venom that can make you bleed to death on the inside." She looked back at her cell. "But mostly if you come into contact with a bunch of them hanging out on the side of a tree."

  The girls gathered around Lauren to take a closer look.

  I answered Kelly, "Nigel said he'd look into zoos, but other than that, no clue."

  "You could give them to Hilly," Betty suggested as she tapped on the glass separating her from the scorpion.

  Hilly Vinton, a friend of mine, was an assassin for the CIA (who doesn't have assassins because that would be murder and wrong—a thing I'm required by law to say). She'd definitely have use for these things. And she bred beetles, so bugs were kind of her thing.

  But how to get them to her? I doubted you could just mail someone an assassin caterpillar. Then again, there was a certain postmaster here in town, rumored to be Aunt June's beau, who I could ask.

  This was an interesting dilemma. Was I required to keep these things alive and find them suitable, non-murdery homes? Were any of them endangered? I'd have to look that up.