No Scone Unturned (13 page)

L
exy wouldn’t lie
to Jack, so it was a good thing he was working the night shift that night and, technically, she didn’t have to lie because he didn’t even know she was going out. His rule of not talking on the phone and only texting when he was on the job was working in her favor. Otherwise he might’ve called and asked what she was doing. The fact that he was working was good for another reason too. If they got arrested he’d be able to keep them out of jail. Hopefully.

Lexy dressed in all black. Black jeans. Black T-shirt. She was contemplating her black hoodie, but it was too hot out. When she arrived at the retirement center, Nans, Ruth, Ida, and Helen were waiting for her at the door, also dressed in black, except instead of jeans and T-shirts, they wore identical black polyester pantsuits accessorized with gigantic black patent-leather purses. Ruth was holding her wetsuit.

“You’re not going to need that, are you?” Lexy pointed to the wetsuit. She didn’t relish the idea of recovering a body that had been underwater for over a week.

“I figured if we can’t find the drone, maybe we could dig up the body.”

Lexy glanced up at Nans, who shrugged. Better to just put the wetsuit in and argue about it later.

They got in the car, and Lexy headed toward the Pendletons’.

“Okay now, we need to make this a stealth operation,” Nans said. “Ida, you need to keep your phone shielded so that the light can’t be seen from the house. We don’t know if Rupert will be home.”

“Check,” Ida said.

“And we all need to be quiet. No talking. We’ll use the owl signaling system,” Nans continued.

Lexy slid her eyes over to Nans. “Owl signaling system?”

Nans frowned at her. “Don’t you listen to anything I tell you? That’s the stealth system we use for communication. One hoot to indicate things are going fine, two hoots to indicate you found something, and three hoots to indicate get the heck out.”

“Oh, right.” Lexy vaguely remembered Nans explaining the system to her before. She hadn’t paid much attention, not expecting to ever be going on a covert operation at eleven p.m. with her grandmother and her three senior-citizen friends.

“Cut the lights! Cut the lights!” Nans whispered sharply as Lexy turned onto the Pendletons’ street.

“What? I won’t be able to see if I turn off the lights,” Lexy said.

“You can coast,” Ruth said. “If you leave the lights on, Rupert might see us coming.”

Lexy pulled over to the side and turned off the lights then inched the car slowly forward. She didn’t want to park right in front of the Pendleton house, so she pulled up three houses down.

The street was quiet, and most of the houses’ windows were dark. Several of them had outdoor lights on. Cars sat cold in the driveways. A few parked on the street in front of the houses. It appeared that the entire neighborhood was asleep. They sat in the car, waiting for a few minutes. Nothing moved in the neighborhood, and the air was silent except the occasional peep of a frog or chirp of a cricket.

“Okay, I think the coast is clear.” Nans popped her door open slowly and quietly. “Ready?”

The four old ladies slipped out of the car as silent as ninjas. They shuffled down the street, keeping to the shadows of the hedges and shrubs that dotted the yards. They slipped into the Pendletons’ yard virtually undetected.

“Hoot,” Ruth said.

“Hoot,” Nans answered.

Ida pulled out her phone, shielding the screen with her hand.

“
Ping!
”

“Ida, turn that down!” Nans whispered.

Ida pressed a button on the side of the phone then continued looking at the shielded display in her hand. “This way,” she whispered, nodding toward the back corner of the Pendletons’ yard where the half-built gazebo stood.

They walked slowly across the yard, sticking to the shadows. Lexy’s nerves were on edge, expecting the dogs to come racing and barking and the lights to blare on at any minute. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she took it out, shielding it with her palm as Ida had done with her phone. It was a text from Jack. She didn’t dare not answer it lest he suspect she was up to something.

Olive Pendleton’s car found at Lakeside Garage. Getting a new fan belt.

Hmmm… That was odd. Apparently their theory of Rupert taking the car to some desolate place to fake a disappearance or Susan taking it to the conference had been off. She was only getting a new fan belt. Lexy refrained from telling Nans and the others. The less talking they did the better. It could wait.

They slowly followed Ida as she veered first to the east and then to the west, heading toward the gazebo in a serpentine pattern.

“It’s over there.” Ida pointed toward the gazebo.

“In the gazebo?” Helen whispered.

“I suppose there’s lots of places for the dogs to hide it,” Lexy said, remembering how Sprinkles loved to hide things under other objects or dig holes in the ground.

“I saw them digging under that wood pile when we were here before. Maybe it’s there,” Ida said.

They moved up even with the gazebo, and now Lexy could see how slipshod the building of it was. Had Rupert only started the project so he could have the excuse of having cement around? Her eyes had adjusted fully to the dark, and she scanned the area for the blue tarp, remembering how Jack had said Rupert could have wrapped the body in it and weighed the whole package down. The blue tarp was nowhere to be seen.

Ida waved her phone back and forth as if it were a dowsing rod.

“It says it’s over there, but…” She nodded toward the side of the gazebo, where Lexy could see they’d set up a little area for cooking out.

“Looks like they’re moving their outdoor kitchen up here,” Lexy whispered.

“Seems odd to me,” Nans said. “Construction isn’t even finished. And look at this weird foundation.” Nans pointed to the foundation, where forms had been set up that looked a lot deeper than they needed to be.

“Maybe he needed a deep footing because it’s muddy here,” Helen said.

“I don’t think this GPS tracker is working,” Ida whispered. “It seems to think the drone is in—”

A light snapped on, illuminating them and freezing them in their tracks, and then they heard Rupert’s voice. “I’m getting a little sick of you old biddies nosing around here.”

“Hoot hoot hoot,” Ruth yelled.

“Yeah, it’s a little too late for that, Ruth.” Ida hid her hand with the phone behind her back and puckered her face into a look of confusion. “Snooping? Why, I thought this was my bedroom? Isn’t this the way to my room?” Ida looked from Nans to Ruth to Helen innocently.

“We’re very sorry, Mr. Pendleton,” Nans said. “My friend here wandered out of the retirement facility. She sleepwalks and gets confused easily. We had to follow her over here.”

Rupert’s brows mashed together. “You don’t think I’m going to buy that, do you?”

“Why? You know she’s not all there.”

“Why are you people really here?”

Nans' eyes flicked from Rupert to the pile of lumber. She sidled toward it. “Okay, let’s cut the malarkey. I think you know why we’re here.”

“No, honestly. I have no idea. What is it that you want? An autograph? A signed book? Pictures to put in one of those tabloid papers?”

Ruth scoffed. “Still playing, I see? We’ll have you know that
we
know what you’re up to. Where’s Susan? I thought she’d be right behind you.”

Rupert looked confused. “Susan? She’s in Europe.”

Helen laughed. “Yeah, sure she is. We know she’s here. Her car is in your garage.”

“Yeah, she left it there when she went to Europe with Olive. They took it to the airport and left it in long-term parking. Then when Olive came back by herself, she drove it back. Susan is staying on.”

“I think you can stop pretending now,” Lexy said. “We know what you’re up to. We know what you’ve used the cement for, and we know what’s in your pond.”

“You ladies are
all
senile. You’re bat-shoot crazy like that fan club. I want you off my property. Now.” Rupert waved the flashlight toward the front of the house. Lexy and Nans exchanged a confused look. Was he going to let them get away?

Ida was over by the freezer with her cell phone out in plain sight now. It appeared as if she was homing in on the location of the drone.

“Not a chance, buddy. We know what you’ve done, and the proof is right in here.” Ida tapped the top of the chest freezer.

“What are you talking about? Oh no, don’t open that!” Rupert looked worried. Scared, even. “Olive is doing an experiment for her new book, and if you open the freezer, it’ll ruin—”

But Ida didn’t follow directions so well. She whipped the top of the freezer open triumphantly. Lexy expected her to produce the drone, but instead her face crumpled, and she said, “Uh oh.”

“What?” Lexy ran to her, her heart seizing when she looked inside the freezer. Nestled in the blue tarp was Ida’s drone. Next to that, the baseball bat. But those two things weren’t what caught her attention. The thing that caught her attention was what the tarp was partially wrapped around. A body.
Susan’s
body.

Rupert hadn't murdered Connie—he'd murdered Susan.

* * *

“
Y
ou wrecked the experiment
!” Rupert cried.

“Experiment? Is that what you call this?” Nans said.

“My drone! It’s frozen!” Ida had pulled the controller out of her purse and was pushing the levers back and forth. The drone inside the freezer didn’t budge. “I’m not reaching in and getting it. You get it, Lexy.”

Nans whirled on Rupert. “You won’t get away with this. We have evidence now.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Rupert glanced back at the house nervously. “You’ve screwed up Olive’s experiment, and I’m going to be in trouble for it. You ladies have ruined everything!”

He lunged toward Nans, who deftly sidestepped.

Ruth picked up a piece of lumber that was lying on the ground and swung at Rupert. She missed, clocked the side of the freezer, and fell down, sliding in the mud.

Rupert made another attempt at Nans, which she averted, and then he turned his attention on Lexy. She had the drone in her hand and her back up against the freezer. He came at her, his hands reaching toward her throat. And then he stopped short. Looking down into the freezer, his eyes grew wide in horror just as the drone came to life in Lexy’s hands.

“Let go!” Ida cried as she worked the controls.

Lexy loosened her grip on the drone, and it flew up into the air then plummeted, smashing into Rupert’s head. He fell to the ground and lay there, knocked out cold.

“We’ve got him!” Nans cried.

“Hoot! Hoot!” Helen said.

“And I’ve got the evidence.” Lexy held up the USB card she’d taken from the drone.

“But I don’t understand what actually happened now,” Nans said as they all stood around, looking at Rupert’s inert body. “Susan was the victim, not Connie. But why?”

“That does screw up our theory for the motive, now, doesn’t it?” Helen said.

“Unfortunately, a lot of our evidence doesn’t make much sense now.”

“Why would Rupert want Susan dead?”

“Oh well, that’s not a problem anymore. We’ve got the killer. We’ve got the evidence. We can hand it over to the police. Lexy, why don’t you call Jack and—”

Click!

“Not so fast, ladies. Throw down your phones and step to the back of the gazebo.”

O
live Pendleton stood
at the opening to the gazebo, pointing a shiny black gun at them.

“It’s okay, Olive.” Helen waved her hand at Rupert. “We’ve got him immobilized. You’re safe.”

“You think Rupert is the killer?” Olive laughed. “He’s not man enough to kill anyone. Or smart enough. He never even suspected that the reason I sent him to the farthest store for cement was so I could have enough time to kill Susan and drag her into the freezer. He thought I was all sweaty because I was washing the patio. Had to to get rid of the blood, of course.”

“You killed your own sister?” Nans' eyes flicked from Olive to the freezer.

“I had to. I couldn’t risk not living in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed. And Rupert…” Olive looked down at her husband with disgust. “Well, he couldn’t provide for me if his life depended on it. Just like Momma and Daddy always said.”

“But why?” Ida asked. “I don’t get it.”

“Figures you wouldn’t. I noticed you’re a little slow on the uptake. I also noticed you ladies have been sniffing around where you don’t belong. Which is why I had Rupert make the foundation for the gazebo big enough to fit six. Though it looks like I’ll have to stick Rupert in there now too.”

Lexy’s eyes jerked to the foundation. That’s what had looked so strange about it. Olive had had Rupert make it large enough to stick a body in the concrete. Lexy had been so sure that Rupert had been using the concrete to weigh the body down in the pond when this whole time it had been Olive who had wanted the concrete to make a foundation to bury the body in. No wonder they’d been fooled by Olive’s lack of concern about draining the pond. She didn’t care if anyone messed around in there because the body wasn’t stashed there.

But what could they do now? She glanced over at Ida. Was Ida going to knock Olive out with the drone like she’d done to Rupert? Ida was pushing and pulling at the controls, but the drone lay dormant. It must have been damaged by the assault on Rupert. It lay there useless no matter how much Ida fiddled with the controls.

“You! The senile one. What are you doing with that gizmo?” Olive gestured to Ida with her gun. “Put that thing down.”

Ida looked conflicted, but she placed the controller down at her feet and muttered, “Stupid thing wasn’t working anymore anyway.”

Olive glanced at the drone. “Oh, so you’re the ones that belong to that thing. Well, now no one will be able to use whatever it has on it as evidence, because it’s going into the cement along with the bat and your bodies.”

Panic fluttered in Lexy’s chest. They had no weapon, and Olive had every incentive to kill them. In fact, there was no way she could let them live. She knew they owned the drone and…well…they’d seen the body that she’d admitted to killing.

Lexy wondered how she’d gotten the drone in the first place. Had she seen it buzzing around? More likely the dogs had brought it to her. Had she wondered all this time if someone had witnessed the murder through the drone’s camera, and did she have any idea there was a video of it sitting on the USB card in Lexy’s hand?

Nans had always told her that if they got into a bad situation, the best thing to do in front of the killer was to stall for time by keeping them talking. Maybe she could distract Olive with the conversation while she worked her way over to the nail gun lying on the other side of the gazebo.

“I still don’t get it,” Lexy said. “Aren’t you going to get a lot of money from your new book that comes out next week?”

“Pffft! Hardly. My publisher takes most of that. And as you can see”—Olive gestured back toward the dilapidated house—“I’m in need of funds.”

“But what about the money you inherited from your parents?” Nans asked. “I thought they were quite well off.”

“
They
were. But ten years is a long time, and I have to live to a certain standard. Not to mention that Rupert has very expensive tastes.”

“But Susan doesn’t have expensive tastes. Susan invested her money and saved it, didn’t she?” Lexy asked, taking a tentative step toward the nail gun.

“That’s right. Little Susan, the pretty one. Oh, everyone always fawned over her. She was so pretty, and I was supposed to be the ugly, smart one.” Olive snorted. “Well, it turns out I really
was
the smart one.”

“So you killed her for her share of the money,” Ida said.

“That’s right. She had plenty. Even more than what my parents left us. And that son of hers was coming around, and she wanted to reconcile with him!” Olive got a sour look on her face, and Lexy took the opportunity to sidle closer to the tools.

“And if they reconciled, she would have put him back in the will, wouldn’t she?” Helen asked.

“Yes. And I couldn’t have that happen. I’d worked very hard the last few years to get Susan to put
me
in as the beneficiary. Not to mention I’d worked long and hard to get her to give us money for the various projects we need to do here. If that no-good Brent came here, I’m sure he’d put a stop to that in no time. He only wanted her money, and he wouldn’t want her spending it on me.”

“Susan never went to Europe, did she?” Ruth asked, drawing Olive’s attention and allowing Lexy to move closer to the nail gun.

“That’s right. Aren’t you the smart one.”

“But
you
were in Paris,” Ruth continued. “You took a selfie with the paper showing the date and later on photoshopped your sister in to make it look like she was there.”

“I have other talents aside from being an author, you know.”

“That’s why the same shirt was in her closet. It was an old picture. She never wore that shirt in Paris. You cropped her out of some other picture. She drove over here that Saturday, and you killed her. That’s why her car is in the garage. Then
you
went to Paris alone,” Lexy said.

“Well done. That’s correct, and since my car is in the shop, it was very convenient for me to just use Susan’s,” Olive said. “After all, she wouldn’t be needing it.”

“And her dog,” Lexy said. “The little black one. You put him on the roof.”

Olive looked apologetic. “Now, I never put that dog in harm’s way. He was perfectly safe up there in the valley of the roof. I had him secured up there, but not so that Susan could notice. And now I have him here as part of my brood. I love him as much as my own dogs.”

“So you answered the letter to her son, pretending to be her. You told him you didn’t want to reconcile and were taking an extended trip to Europe.” Helen’s eyes turned sad. “You did all that so he wouldn’t come here and try to talk to her in person, didn’t you?”

Olive nodded. “Pretty clever, don’t you think? I even had Rupert stick the letter in Susan’s mailbox so that the postmark would be from her zip code. That was just a little trick I learned from one of my books.”

Lexy chanced a sideways glance. Six more feet and she’d be able to lunge for the nail gun. They had to keep Olive talking.

“And that’s why you sent Amelia on vacation,” Lexy said.

“The maid? Yes. I did like her cleaning, actually. Even used to give her my older clothes. But she was very observant. I couldn’t have her around to pick up on anything that was out of the ordinary. At least not until I’d taken care of Susan.” Olive gestured toward the freezer.

“So when you had that pamphlet at Connie’s the other day, that wasn’t really from Rupert, then?” Ruth asked.

“No, of course not. I was giving it
to
Rupert. I told him that Amelia’s cleaning was not sufficient anymore. He would have to find someone new. Of course, I didn’t plan on approving of anyone, but Rupert didn’t know that.” She looked down at him, giving Lexy the opportunity to take another step toward the nail gun. “He was obedient in that way. I always knew I could count on him to run little things over to Connie. Too bad I’m going to have to do away with him now too.”

“Yeah, Mrs. Jenkins said she saw Rupert going over to Connie’s quite a bit,” Helen said.

“Oh, that busybody,” Olive made a face. “I wish I had a spot for her in the foundation, but it’s getting quite crowded as it is.”

Ruth tilted her head and looked at Olive inquisitively. “There’s one more thing, though. The threatening note that said ‘you’d better keep quiet or you’ll be next’. Did you write that to Connie?”

Olive’s brows shot up. “How did you know about that?”

Ruth shrugged. “We have our ways.”

“Well, I suppose I could tell you, since you won’t be around to tell anyone else. As a matter fact, I did write that to Connie. She’d asked about Susan’s car in the garage and her dog being here one too many times, and I knew she was getting suspicious. So I wrote her that note. I was going to slip it under her door the day I ran into you busybodies at her house. But I couldn’t very well do that with you people watching.”

“Susan borrowed your sweater because she was frail and often cold.” Lexy remembered Kingsley’s words about Susan. It made sense that she might have borrowed it even if the day was warm.

“She was always borrowing my things. I’m glad that at least…” Olive glanced into the freezer, her face looking almost regretful. Did she have a pang of grief about missing her sister, or was her heart as frozen as Susan’s body?

“Okay, well, here’s what I don’t get,” Ida said.

Lexy took another step toward the nail gun while Olive’s attention was on Ida.

Ida continued, “Susan had several large withdrawals from her bank account this past month. We thought she was being blackmailed, but now I assume that money was going to you, wasn’t it?”

Olive’s brows shot up. “Well, aren’t you the little detective. What are you guys, some kind of amateur sleuths?”

Nan straightened her spine. “I’ll have you know we are a bona fide private investigative service. The Brook Ridge Falls Ladies Detective Club.”

“Well, excuse me if I don’t ask for your card. You’re not going to be around long enough for me to use your services. It’s too bad things had to end this way. I could have used your knowledge for my books.”

“Dang,” Ida said.

Helen shot a look at her then turned back to Olive. “If you would just answer this one question for us since we are of an inquisitive nature, we’ll go to our concrete graves with no struggle.” Helen shot a look at Lexy. Apparently she was onto Lexy’s plan about the nail gun and wanted to keep Olive occupied for her so she could get closer. “Rupert got cashier’s checks every other Tuesday. Where did he get the money for those, and what were they for?”

“Susan was always the sympathetic sap. I’d tell her about how my publisher pays me peanuts, and she’d have sympathy and give me money. I asked to borrow some money until my book release. That’s what those withdrawals were. She was withdrawing money for me. But I didn’t want to just deposit it because I didn’t want the police looking into that later on. I didn’t want to have anything that would look suspicious or tie me to her financially. Nor did I want her pesky son to figure out what was really going on in case he came back looking for her. So I had Rupert turn them into cashier’s checks. Then later on I would use them to buy things to fix up the house or get some new shoes or purses.”

“So Susan was giving you her money all along because you’d already spent all of yours,” Nans said.

“That’s right. She had plenty and I had nothing!”

“So you dipped into what she had, and even though she was generous with it, you still killed her,” Ruth added.

“I couldn’t let Brent come back and screw things up! Anyway, it’s none of your business. Enough of this idle chitchat. Get over there and meet your final resting place!” Olive jerked the gun in the direction of the foundation.

“Now hold on, Olive. We can work something out,” Nans held her hand out toward the gun, but Olive wasn’t going to hand it over that easily.

She pointed the gun right at Nans' head. “I said get over there.” She jerked the gun again, and the ladies shuffled toward the foundation.

It was now or never.

Lexy lunged for the nail gun.

“Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!” Nans, Ruth, Ida, and Helen yelled in unison.

Olive swung around in time to see Lexy pick up the nail gun and aim.

“
Bang!
”

White-hot pain seared Lexy’s arm. The nail gun clattered to the ground unfired.

Lexy’s energy drained as if someone had pulled a plug. She fell to her knees, her vision closing in on her.

In the distance, she heard a pack of dogs barking.

She slumped the rest of the way to the patio, her senses fading out just as she heard a strange rat-a-tat-tat.

Lexy struggled to stay conscious, her eyesight clearing just long enough to see Olive’s scowling face looming above her before she toppled onto the pavers beside Lexy.