“Lila,” Vi started, but Lila shook her head, lifted her drink, and took another over-sized swallow.
“So,” Lila said, trying to smile and not quite succeeding, “let’s catch this killer, shall we?”
Rita rose and lifted Jack’s small notebook to show she had somewhere to start. A moment later, Rita wrote out Bertha Meyers on the board.
“Vi,” Rita said, “what do you know?”
Vi shook her head. She had three drinks next to her, but the one that might provide a level of alertness was the least compelling. Even still, Vi took a large swallow of her coffee, burned her mouth, whimpered, and then cooled it with the G&T.
While Vi was recovering, Lila said, “She spooked Jack.”
“She hired Jack and Ham,” Rita added, writing that first.
“She spooked Smith too,” Vi said, waving her hand in front of her too-hot mouth. “He told Jack and Ham that there was something off about the case when he handed it over to them.”
“Jack wrote that it seemed she’d alienated most of her family.” Rita looked the question to Vi, who nodded in fervent agreement.
They paused and Vi read the board over.
BERTHA MEYERS — hired Jack & Ham to find her grandson. Spooked Jack. Smith turned down the case but told the boys that something wasn’t right. Alone but for this one grandchild.
“You know,” Vi said as she looked at the board. “I think that she chose to be alienated. That daughter of hers would have been respectful and attentive if the mother hadn’t been quite so venomous.” She slowly rose and crossed to the board, staring while her mind ran over the last few days.
“Unlike you,” Lila shot out.
“Or you,” Vi added. She grinned, sniffed, and then added, “I don’t really blame Mrs. Watkins for distancing herself. The things Mrs. Meyers said to us about her grandchildren, without compunction or hesitation, were painful. Even Lady Eleanor who half-despises me would never tell a random investigator and his wife the things that Mrs. Meyers said.” Vi considered for too long. “Of all the people I met who seemed to have a reason to kill Jason Meyers, Mrs. Meyers is my favorite.”
“Favorite?” Lila snorted and then crossed over, stealing half of Vi’s doctored scone. “The problem is that your Jason Meyers wasn’t just a family member. He was attempting all sorts of crimes, wasn’t he?”
Vi nodded. “We could easily not know anything about the murderer if it were some criminal that his family wouldn’t know about.”
Rita muttered darkly. “Look, I don’t really care who murdered him, and I certainly don’t care enough to go out and seek out the criminals, but I do know this…”
Everyone waited for Rita to finish and she looked them over and laughed. “You are so transparently worried, it’s suffocating.”
“Hence the gin,” Vi agreed. “Maybe a few drinks and we won’t smother you with our love.”
“Or we actually will smother you,” Kate suggested and then added for the effect, “literally.”
As a group they groaned and Rita threw a pillow at Kate. “We are not playing the literally-figuratively game. It makes my back teeth hurt.”
“Fine,” Kate shot back, “since you’re the one who’s the queen of today.”
Rita stared, realized she got what she wanted, which was less-tender handling, and then she laughed. “Brat.”
“Wench,” Kate snapped back.
“Blue-stocking,” Rita said after almost too long of a pause.
“Proudly,” Kate countered without delay. The exchange was exhilarating, and they were laughing too hard from it. It wasn’t the barely amusing counter-play, it was the relief that the tension was starting to drain.
Rita’s humor fled and her expression crumpled. Lila patted her on the head. “It’ll hit you over and over again and then it just starts to fade some. It’s not that you don’t wish for things to be different, you just—learn to move forward.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child you had met,” Rita said, and another tear slipped down her cheek. “I just can’t imagine it. I loved him so much. It seemed like I could feel him in my arms, and I ached for him. It was like missing someone that I loved and suddenly, with his impending presence, I had a sense of recovery. As though that long-missed loved one was on his way. Only now—he’s not coming.”
The tears were falling fast and quick for all of them, and Vi could too easily imagine what Rita was talking about. Vi didn’t feel the need for a baby yet, but she knew that someday she’d be a mother, and there was a part of her heart reserved for the children who would come. Filling that piece of her heart only to have it emptied would be painful.
Vi didn’t know what to say, however, so she just reached out and held Rita’s hand while Lila rose and made another drink. It wasn’t, perhaps, the most healthful of ways to deal with mourning, but being there for each other was what truly mattered.
And, because they had Kate, Rita got a plate of sandwiches along with her drink and Kate’s fierce gaze pushed Rita into eating a few of the small squares.
“I declare Mrs. Meyers the favorite suspect,” Lila said after handing Rita her drink. With that, Lila put a crown over Bertha Meyers’s name on the board and said, “What was next? The heiress?”
Lila didn’t wait for the name but drew a bag of money with surprising skill and then followed it with, ‘HEIRESS’. The next thing wasn’t the usual dash followed by observations but a sketch of a mask.
Lila then wrote:
HEIRESS — We’d prefer for her not to be the killer as some of our company were heiresses themselves and chased for money. As a non-heiress, however, I suspect the spoiled machinations of a girl who expected to be wanted for her money and still no one was interested in breaching her walls.
“Lila!” Vi started and then laughed.
“You’re bad,” Kate told Lila, who grinned and bowed.
“We don’t know no one wanted her,”
