“When is it for?” Smith asked. “Saturday?”
“How did you know?” Miss Sinclair demanded. She was shaking her head as though to deny the picture that was forming.
“Was your father crueler lately?” Rita asked gently.
Miss Sinclair carefully set her fork down, and the pride was back in her gaze. She nodded once, but did not elaborate.
“Bastard,” Lila muttered.
“Mrs. Meyers insisted her grandson be located before Saturday,” Smith told them.
“But, why—that doesn’t make sense. I wasn’t going to marry Jason. No one would have told Father that I was.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense.” Rita rose and paced before stumbling and then landing next to Lila.
Vi took Rita’s place in pacing. As she moved, she fiddled with her wedding ring. “It doesn’t matter what lie your father told Mrs. Meyers about the reason Jason needed to return before Saturday. It just matters that your father had arranged Jason’s return, and Jason turned up dead.”
“You don’t have any evidence.” Miss Sinclair carefully set the cake aside, looking ill. “I am not someone who will lie to you about my father’s nature, but he is a reverend.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Smith told Miss Sinclair. “Think, girl. Your father is a reverend. He probably knows many other churchmen. So, he sees the name of a vicar or the like. He sees a time. What was it? 10:00 a.m. on Saturday? How many weddings happen on that day, at that time? Enough for your father to be suspicious. Maybe he questioned you about his plans for you and the tepid Toby.”
Miss Sinclair’s mouth dropped open. “I…I…don’t know.”
“Did he question you?” Rita crossed to make another G&T. Vi winced at the additional cocktail but said nothing.
“He asked me if I intended to be stubborn about Jason or if I had realized that Tobias was the better choice.”
“After that paper went missing?” Vi paused in her pacing to eye Miss Sinclair. Her skin had turned pale and she nodded once.
“So, let’s assume that your father thinks that you were determined to marry Jason, that you had a date, and so he contacted Mrs. Meyers and demanded Jason’s return.”
“But why did Jason return?” Kate asked, looking for holes in their theory. “And if we’re right, Mrs. Meyers must know who killed Jason, then. Only she hired Jack and Ham.”
“Jason wouldn’t have had to have a reason,” Beatrice answered. “He used his grandmother for money. For him, it could be as simple as wanting more. He is incidental. Don’t you see? It’s all about the conclusion you let your father draw and the fact that your father really is too proud to let you marry some half-wit criminal.”
Miss Sinclair’s eyes filled with tears. “This is my fault then.”
“No,” Rita snapped. “This is the theory of whoever plunged that knife into someone’s little boy.”
The entire room froze, though only Miss Sinclair was confused.
“What about the grandmother?” Vi asked to break the tension in the room. “Surely she can guess as to who killed her grandson?”
Miss Sinclair put her hand to her mouth, and she looked ready to sick up, but she had an answer for that. “Why are you still working on this case?”
Vi frowned. “She demanded Jack find her grandson’s killer.”
“She’s mean enough to tell my father that,” Miss Sinclair muttered. “She’s the kind of woman who twists the knife in the wound. If she knows, she’d want him to know he was being hunted. If she only suspects, she’d want to know who killed Jason just to torment them.”
“Oh,” Lila breathed. “I don’t like that.”
“She’s evil,” Miss Sinclair told them. “She’s cold and mean and I’d never have married either of her grandsons for that reason alone.”
“Because you think it passed on to them?” Rita said.
Miss Sinclair shook her head. “It’s simpler than that. I wouldn’t want her in my life or in the lives of any children I had. Mrs. Watkins has the right idea in keeping her children away from her mother.”
“I don’t like her either then,” Lila said, pulling her feet closer and curling into the side of the chair to prop her head up on her hand as though it had become too heavy to carry.
Smith cleared his throat. “I think we can find the truth easily enough.”
“How?” Vi demanded.
And then he explained.
Chapter 17
“How is Mrs. Meyers?” Reverend Sinclair demanded. “You saw her?”
Miss Sinclair nodded, her eyes wide, her complexion too pale, but her father must have been used to her fear of him, because he didn’t seem to notice the way she trembled. “She’s quite upset.”
The reverend snorted meanly. He rose, looming over Miss Sinclair, and Vi had to curl her hands into fists, pressing one into her mouth to hold back any noises. As she watched from the crack in the door where Miss Sinclair had secreted them, a frisson of worry flickered over her skin. She glanced at Smith, who had his pistol at the ready, and reminded herself that they’d promised Miss Sinclair that her father would not hurt her again. Now, however, she was doubting the sincerity of Smith’s promise.
“She—” Miss Sinclair had to stop and gather her courage before she could finish the lie they had concocted. “She is focused on finding her grandson’s killer. She spoke the entire time about how justice would be served.”
The dark laugh made Vi jump. There was just something so mean in it. Like a fire of cruelty that no one should have been able to convey with a laugh. Only he did. This man who preached on Sundays. Vi could well imagine that he rather enjoyed promising fire and brimstone. Suffering and eternal agony for the mistakes of humanity.
“How does she imagine she can do that? Does she have ties to the criminal underworld where young Jason liked to sully his good name?”
Miss Sinclair bit her bottom lip and then let a tear slip down her cheek. “Papa, Jason wasn’t so
