I frowned, thinking over our suspects. Rebecca had been consumed by guilt and fear and still mourning her recently deceased mother. I pictured her in her funeral blacks, all the mirrors in her shabby home covered in shrouds.
I froze, hardly daring to breathe as something slipped into place. The sanctuary—those mirrors that helped people see around corners had been covered in shrouds, too, after Malorie’s death. Had they had them fifty years ago, or were those recent installations?
“Jolene?”
Peter’s voice snapped me out of my deep thoughts. I looked up, grinning. “Check the photos for mirrors—round ones, mounted high up.”
Heidi bounced in her seat. “Found one!”
I rushed over to her and she handed me the photograph, pointing. Sure enough, the picture had captured not only one of the mirrors, but the reflection in it.
I grinned wider. “Check the reflections in the mirrors. Maybe one of them caught what happened to Richard Rutherford before his body was dumped inside that plant.”
Things moved quickly after that. It took another ten minutes, but we found enough photos with enough captured reflections to prove what happened to Richard Rutherford and who’d killed him.
Peter kissed my cheek. “You’re brilliant.”
I grinned, my face warm. “Go on.”
“Well, that solves one murder at least.” Will raised a brow. “What about the other ones? And I haven’t forgotten about that ice cream, by the way.”
I shrugged. “I’m hoping those will just kind of fall into place. And I’ll get you your ice cream.” I bit my lip, a theory starting to form. It stood to reason that someone who’d killed fifty years ago might strike again for the same reason. I nodded and turned to Peter.
“I think I’ve got it. Let’s get back up to the sanctuary.”
31
HABITS
We headed again to the top of the mountain and the sprawling Rutherford estate that contained the sanctuary. My legs had better look good after all this hiking up and down through Bijou Mer.
The servant showed us in, and we found Quincy with a pair of shears pruning a potted plant near the entrance to the sanctuary. He rose and gave us a sheepish grin. “We have a gardening staff, of course, but old habits die hard. I find it calming.”
I nodded. That’s right—he’d been the gardener before he married Malorie. Another bit of the puzzle made sense. I glanced at Peter, then back at Quincy. “That’s understandable—are you feeling stressed out from all the murdering?”
He blanched. “W-What?”
Peter’s hand closed around his wand, his eyes hard on the shears in Quincy’s hand. I grinned again, another piece of the puzzle falling into place for me. Quincy had a few habits—including his tendency to pick up small things and absentmindedly pocket them.
I stared Quincy down, a grim smile on my face. “We know that the phoenix was actually Maria Begin, a shifter. And we know that neither she nor Rebecca killed Malorie.”
Quincy scoffed, his jowls shaking. “What is this nonsense?” He glanced around, as if to sic his servants on us.
“Malorie was divorcing you. When Libbie showed her this photograph from the last Night of the Phoenix party fifty years ago, it wasn’t proof that Malorie killed her first husband, as Libbie thought.”
Peter flicked his wrist, and the photograph we’d found in the safe appeared in his hand. He held it up so Quincy could see. The man squinted through his glasses at it.
“What is this?”
I raised my brows. “It’s a picture that clearly shows a hand wearing Richard Rutherford’s distinctive ruby ring sticking out of the mouth of a meat-eating plant.”
Quincy took a step back, his mouth slack.
“Libbie thought Malorie paid her to leave to cover up her own guilt, but that wasn’t it, was it? Malorie saw it as proof that you killed her first husband, Quincy, and fed his body to one of your carnivorous plants. As the gardener, you’d have known the plant would dispose of the body nicely, leaving no trace.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was a suspicion Malorie had always held—maybe not—but she moved quickly once she realized her first husband had definitely been killed and suspected you. Malorie confronted you. You probably denied it at first, but confessed—that you’d done it for her, for the both of you together. She didn’t take it well, did she? Malorie didn’t like to ask questions—not about where her animals came from or about the death of her husband—but once she knew the truth, she couldn’t handle being with you, knowing you’d killed Richard—because she did have actual feelings for him, that hadn’t been a lie.”
Quincy bared his teeth. “She had feelings for me, too!”Hiseyes grew huge and wild behind his thick glasses.
I edged closer to Peter, grateful that he and Daisy were by my side. Quincy seemed unanchored and likely to snap at any moment.
I nodded as Peter, Daisy, and I slowly advanced on him. “She did. But still—she told you it was over, didn’t she?”
Tears welled in Quincy’s darting eyes. “We could’ve worked it out. She didn’t mean that.”
I shook my head. “For all her foibles, Malorie wasn’t guilty of the one crime everyone suspected her of. In fact, you killed Richard Rutherford, isn’t that true?”
“What—no!” Quincy’s face turned bright red.
Daisy, who stood beside Peter, barked. Lie!
Peter shook his head, expression grim. “We don’t even need Daisy to tell us you’re lying. We have photo proof—the sanctuary’s mirrors captured you spelling Richard to death, then feeding his body to the plant.” He held up the stack of photos that we’d found.
Quincy stumbled backward toward the wooden
