“Okay. Let's move on,” I said. “There's Debbie, the receptionist. What if she wanted to marry Matavious so badly, she decided to get Oretta out of the way?”
Maggie looked up. “And she killed Bernice first, to keep her from blabbing to Oretta.”
“Write that down,” I said.
When Maggie was finished writing, she said, “You haven't mentioned the other branch of the Clopper family. Weezie and Jackson. They had reason to resent both Oretta and Bernice. Bernice, because the town's too small for two big shopping malls, and she was rushing to build her shopping center downtown before they could sell their land to a developer. And Oretta, because she persuaded Matavious to put his land in a conservation bank, making it nearly impossible for Jackson to sell his land to anybody in the future.”
Since I really disliked Weezie, I agreed with Maggie that the Cloppers were likely suspects.
“What about that nutty group Bernice belonged to?” Maggie asked. “You know, the witchie-poos.”
“What makes you think she was a member of the coven?” I asked.
“You're not the only one who can play Nancy Drew. Besides, it's hard to keep a thing like a witches’ coven a secret in a gossip-loving town like Lickin Creek.”
“I don't think they had anything to do with her death,” I said. I didn't want either woman to know I planned a sneak visit to tonight's coven meeting, for I knew they'd try to stop me.
“Okay, then. Here's the list.” Maggie ripped the top page off the legal pad and handed it to me. I studied it and decided it was a good start, but that was all it was. There was nothing definite to go by, and there could be many other people we simply hadn't thought about. The clown, for instance. Who was he? And what, if anything, did he have to do with all this?
“What's missing is a connection between the two women,” I announced. “Find that, and we find the killer.”
“We can start another list.” Maggie licked the end of her pencil. “I'll start with the Christmas pageant.”
“I nearly forgot your hunch that there's a serial killer out there bumping off sugar plum fairies,” I said with a giggle.
“Don't be so nonchalant about it,” Maggie warned. “I still think you could be next.”
The back door burst open, admitting Luscious Miller and putting a stop to our list-making.
Luscious tossed my truck keys on the table, then helped himself to coffee.
“Thanks,” I said meekly.
“Don't mention it.” He sat down without removing his jacket and sipped from his mug.
I figured he had something to say to me, and I hoped he wouldn't be too harsh in front of my friends. He surprised me, though, by not even mentioning my afternoon's escapade.
“I had a call from the medical examiner's office in Harrisburg.”
“So soon?” Usually it took a week or more to hear anything from that busy place.
“I think they were trying to clear their desks before Christmas.”
That I could understand. “Whom were they calling about, Bernice or Oretta?”
“Both,” Luscious said. “You were right about the cyanide, Tori. Bernice drank enough of it to kill a horse.”
“How could she?” Maggie shuddered. “Wouldn't it have a bad taste?”
“The cyanide was in spiced cider, which she laced liberally with gin,” I reminded them. “And she was already looped when she arrived, so she probably didn't even notice the taste.”
“That's true,” Maggie said. “Once, not too long ago, I was at a party where Stanley accused her of drinking anything if it had booze in it.”
“Many alcoholics will do that.” I remembered a few times when my mother drank aftershave, mouthwash, and even vanilla extract after my father and I had emptied the liquor cabinet.
“I wonder where you can buy cyanide?” I mused.
“Lots of places, I should think,” Maggie said.
“Name one.”
“How about a drugstore?”
Praxythea laughed out loud. “I can just see someone walking in and saying ‘Hello, Mr. Pharmacist, I'd like a gallon of your very best cyanide.’”
Maggie protested. “What I meant was it's probably used in mixing medicines or something.”
I remembered when I was a kid living in some third world country, I forget which, the missionaries used to use a strychnine-based medicine as a dewormer, but I couldn't think of anything with cyanide in it. I could ask a pharmacist.
“And I think you can buy it in a garden shop,” Maggie went on. “Isn't it used in bug killers?”
“Do you want me to check that out?” I asked Luscious. I would anyway, but I thought it would be good for his self-image if I involved him.
“Go ahead, do what you want. Just stay out of trouble, please.”
“What about the bullet that killed Oretta?” I asked. “Was the lab able to determine what kind of gun was used?”
Luscious nodded and drained his coffee. Praxythea leaped up to refill the mug, earning an adoring smile from the young man. With the addition of a little tail, he'd make a perfect puppy dog.
“The bullet,” I prompted.
“It was a forty-four caliber. You don't see many of them in use anymore. Ballistics said it came from an early Colt, probably the model 1860.”
“Find any traces of black powder?” Maggie asked.
Luscious nodded in agreement.
I stared at her in awe.
“My fiance's a Civil War reenactor,” Maggie reminded me. “And he's taught me more about guns than I ever wanted to know. The Colt model 1860 was the most common sidearm used during the war. Reenactors use them a lot.”
I grabbed Luscious's arm. “The Civil War items that were found in the manger yesterday morning… in the square… were there any guns?”
“You mean that stuff that belonged to Cletus Wilson? Sure there were guns.” Luscious paused, and I could tell that he and I were thinking along the same lines. “Damn! I gave everything back to him. What if there were fingerprints?”
“I wouldn't worry too much about that,” I assured him. “Everything there had been handled by the church group. Fingerprints wouldn't tell you anything.”
“I'd better go talk to Cletus,” Luscious said, standing. “Maybe he has some ideas about who broke into his house.”
“Good idea,” I said. “There's always the possibility he made up the story about a robbery as a cover-up.” I tried to recall when he'd reported the burglary. Then I remembered-the dentist claimed his home had been broken into on Wednesday, the day of Bernice's murder.
CHAPTER 19
ACCORDING TO THE CLOCK ON TOP OF THE Lickin Creek National Bank, it was half past eleven. I was alone on the dark streets; the bad weather had forced even the local teenagers off the “peanut circuit,” their Saturday- night party route around the downtown area on its confusing one-way streets. From what I'd read at the library, I was pretty sure the coven would meet at midnight. I hoped I was right.
A block away from the old cold-storage building, I parked and walked the rest of the way, staying close to the deserted buildings to keep from being seen. That was an unnecessary precaution, for there wasn't a soul around. It was too cold for anyone to be out, a fact I was really beginning to appreciate. I pulled up the hood of the floor-
