My brain exploded.
"Hold on!" I ran to the urn. With Rex and Kelly beside me, I knelt down and popped off one of the bedazzled jewels.
Kelly didn't try to stop me but said, "I should tell you not to deface an urn, but it's so ugly, why not." She turned to the girls. "Even though Mrs. Wrath is doing it, it doesn't mean you ever should. Okay?"
"Is it real?" Rex had figured it out right away.
I looked at what might be a diamond in my hands. "I have no idea. How do we know?"
Kelly took it from me. "It doesn't feel like plastic. Do you think this is the treasure?"
"If it is, it does make it seem like she could've been killed for it," I mused. "I could see her having the urn made before she died just to hide the jewels in plain sight."
I finished picking the rest of the stones off of the urn, uttering apologies to Aunt June. Thirty jewels of various sizes and colors felt heavy in my palm.
"I'll take them to a jeweler in Dubuque," Rex said.
Betty spoke up, "'Feel it in my bones!'"
Lauren continued, "'Don't stick your head in the sand!'"
"Yes!" Kelly shouted. "'The cold ashes of love!' All of those could be pointing to the treasure, not the murder!"
CHAPTER TWENTY
Wow. I hadn't thought of that. All of those clues could certainly be about the treasure. But why act as though they were clues to her murder? Did she suspect that the reason she would be killed was for these jewels?
We were no closer to having one suspect. Any one of the three suitors could kill for the treasure, especially if they thought they were going to be dumped for one of the others. But it would rule Nancy out, I think, because she was allegedly motivated by love.
As for Nigel, if his beef was about her running against him for mayor and then turning the town into a tourist hot spot, would the jewels be the motivating factor? Somehow, I didn't think so.
"Tell you what," Rex said. "I'll run into Dubuque, drop these at a jeweler's, and bring back something for lunch."
"Great idea!" I said. "We've had pizza, burgers, and hot dogs, so maybe some fried chicken?"
"Here we go again." Kelly threw up her hands. "I give up on trying to eat the food at camp. Fried chicken sounds perfect."
Rex gave me a quick kiss before he was out the door. Betty ran to the kitchen and washed her hands again, for twenty minutes, as the rest of us started getting ready to eat. The table in the dining room seated eight, and there were eight of us.
My mind ran through the clues dozens of times as I set the table. No matter how I laid it out in my head, I got the same result. The clues all seemed to point to the jewels stuck to the side of the urn.
The thing I couldn't come up with was why Aunt June thought the jewels would lead to her murder. If she was worried someone was coming for her treasure and would kill her for it, why not put it in a safety deposit box in Dubuque—where anyone from Behold was unlikely to touch it—and make it known through town? The news flew fast in this town. If the killer was local, he would know he couldn't access them at her house.
Could it be someone who wasn't from here? Was Aunt June predicting that jewel thieves would descend on Behold, rob, and kill her? Well, that would suck, considering that we'd probably never solve that.
Again, I revisited the idea that the woman was just plain nuts. And if she was, this could all be a wild-goose chase to satisfy an eccentric, lonely old woman's fantasies. In other words, a huge waste of my time.
Oh well. I had Rex, Kelly, and the girls here. And in spite of almost being killed by a frog, it was good spending time with them.
"The table's set," I said to Kelly as I walked back into the kitchen.
"Good," she said. "I found some lemonade mix in the fridge." She nodded toward the screen door, where, on the back porch, five girls were measuring out powder and dumping it into a huge pitcher.
Betty dumped in half a bag of sugar. Since Kelly had turned back to the sink, I decided not to warn her.
Kelly and I washed silverware and serving utensils. There was no telling how long these things had sat in the cupboards unused. I found a drawer full of cloth napkins and added those to the table.
The girls came in and added ice and lemonade to the glasses, mostly without spilling. If Kelly noticed how thick the liquid in the glasses was, she didn't say anything. It was fun working together to organize lunch.
Rex breezed through the doorway half an hour later with two large bags filled with fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuits. We all sat down and helped ourselves.
"So," I said between mouthfuls of buttermilk biscuits. "What did you find out?"
"You weren't gone very long," Betty accused. I noticed that she'd found some white cotton gloves and was wearing them to eat. She must've felt like she still had some ash on her.
Rex passed the bowl of chicken to Lauren. "I dropped them off at the first jewelry store I came across. The jeweler was out to lunch, but the salesgirl said she'd have him call me."
"Well," I said as I reached for my third scoop of potatoes. "We'll wait and see."
My husband continued, "I found out there are nine florists in town. I called all of them while I waited for the food."
My eyebrows went up. "You were checking on Basil's claim?"
"I was. I was hoping I could wheedle the three names out of whoever it was."
We all stopped what we were doing and focused on him.
"And?"
