She vanished down the hallway.
What was with this town? The outsides of the buildings implied they'd been abandoned for decades. But inside they were posh, clean, and fabulous. Was it some sort of thing to spend a fortune on the insides but not so much as scrape the peeling paint off the outsides? It's almost as if the town wanted to dissuade anyone from stopping by.
"Mrs. Ferguson." A short, forty-something man in a bespoke suit stood before me, arm outstretched. "I hope your travels were not too uncomfortable." His posh British accent made me feel welcome and stupid all at the same time.
I got to my feet and shook his hand. "It was fine. Thanks." I looked down at my T-shirt and shorts and felt severely underdressed.
"This way, please." Hickenlooper turned and walked down the hall.
I fell in behind him, staring at the endless framed award certificates that covered the wall on my right. How could he win all of these awards in a town this small? Beside the diplomas from the University of Iowa and American Bar Association citations were seven Small Town Mayor of the Year awards and a painting of a large, colorful Victorian home that couldn't possibly exist within ten miles of this shabby village.
"After you." The lawyer stopped and motioned for me to go inside. "Please take a seat."
I did so while studying him. Clean-shaven with brown hair, he was younger than I'd thought from his voice on the phone. He looked like he belonged in a bank in London, not here.
"Mr. Hickenlooper." I paused, waiting for him to ask me to call him Nigel. He didn't. I went on. "I have to ask. What are you doing here in Behold?"
The man sat back in his chair, considering me. His blank face told me nothing. He would've been an excellent spy.
"My father moved here in the 1950s. Both of my parents are deceased and buried here. My brothers and I decided to stay."
"Ah, the second and third Hickenloopers," I said, thinking of the sign out front.
He shook his head. "No, I'm the only one."
"But your firm is called…" I started.
He finished, "Yes, I know. There are three Hickenloopers. I'll admit I took a few liberties with the name. It seemed more professional that way. But they're all simply me."
"What do your brothers do?" I looked around, even though I knew they weren't there.
He looked as if he was bored by the question. "You'll see them around, I am sure. Now can we get to the matter at hand?"
I clapped my hands together. "Okay. Why don't you start at the beginning?"
Nigel looked confused. "The beginning? I'm afraid I don't understand. Why wouldn't I start at the beginning? I'll never understand you Americans."
"But you're an American. It's just a…" Words failed me. He was born and grew up here, even with the accent. Wasn't he technically an American too? "Never mind. Fill me in on Aunt June."
Hickenlooper opened the only folder on his desk, took out a piece of paper, and slid it toward me. I took it and read.
"It says I inherit her house." That was all that was on the page. It literally said The house, the land, and everything in and on it goes to Mrs. Merry Czrygy Ferguson of Who's There, Iowa.
"That is correct," Nigel said. "The house and all of its contents now belong to you."
"All of its contents? Does that mean the spider collection too?"
He nodded solemnly. "All of the furniture, tchotchkes, etcetera."
I repeated, "What about the spiders?"
"Ah. About that." Nigel was quiet for a moment before proceeding. "Ms. June had a very dangerous collection. And they weren't all spiders." He handed me another sheet of paper from the file.
The sheet was an inventory of potential death and destruction, bug-sized.
"There's a funnel spider from Australia," Nigel went on to say. "A black widow and brown recluse from the US, of course."
"Of course." I nodded as if I wasn't panicking inside.
"A deathstalker scorpion, an assassin caterpillar, and a golden poison dart frog."
I studied the images on the sheet of paper. "It says that a single golden frog's secretions has enough poison to kill 1,500 people!"
"Yes. That would take out the whole town and then some," Nigel said.
Had Aunt June been thinking of taking out Behold? "Why did she have this collection?"
Nigel shrugged. "No one knows." He started to hand me another piece of paper, but I waved him away.
"Never mind." I cut to the chase. "How do I donate all of this…stuff? Is there a zoo or museum that would take them?"
He took the pieces of paper back, put them in the folder, and closed it. "Yes, well, I'm working on that."
"Thank you," I sighed. That was a relief.
"Aunt June wanted to make your inheritance contingent upon the forever upkeep of these creatures but in the end decided it might make you turn down the house and property."
I was planning on selling the house as soon as I could but decided not to tell him that for the time being. "Mr. Hickenlooper, Aunt June gave me a letter with her remains."
He nodded. "Yes. She wants you to find out who murdered her."
So he'd read the letter. "Do you think she was murdered?"
Nigel sighed. "She succumbed to one of the venomous creatures in her collection."
I guess that made sense. "What did the autopsy say?"
The man looked me in the eyes. "There was no autopsy. Aunt June wanted to be cremated as soon as possible."
No autopsy? That seemed unusual, unless she had been very old and they decided it was natural causes.
"Was there an attending doctor?" I asked. "Who signed the death certificate?"
"That would be Dr. Morgan." Nigel wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. "His office is across the street in Morgan Seed and Feed. You can't miss it."
Why did he write it down if it was across the street and I couldn't miss it?
I took it all in. "Why would
