"You're not late," I replied. "We're just getting started."
Ed sat down next to Ted. Jared lost the ability to close his mouth.
"You have a twin, Sheriff?" Basil asked.
"Who's also a sheriff, Sheriff?" Nancy added.
Ted regained his composure. "This is my cousin, Ed. He's sheriff back home where Mrs. Ferguson lives."
Basil smirked. "So you were talking about your cousin when you said Merry walks all over the sheriff back home?"
Ted turned beet red as Ed arched his right eyebrow but said nothing.
"I invited Sheriff Ed Carnack here," I explained. "You'll see why in a moment."
"Proceed, please, Mrs. Ferguson," my sheriff said with a wink.
"Okay." I clapped my hands together. "I've called you all here because we"—I motioned to Rex, Kelly, and the girls—"have figured out that Aunt June was murdered."
The audible gasp I'd hoped for did not come, but I wasn't too sure I was surprised by that reaction. I continued.
"This was a very confusing case from the start. I received Aunt June's remains with a note from her asking me to investigate her murder."
"Because she could time travel," Lauren said. The other four girls nodded.
I went on. "I was confused initially because who can predict their future death will be murder? And when I got here to Behold and discovered how quirky Aunt June was and that her death had been ruled accidental from a spider bite, I thought that maybe you guys were right.
"Dr. Morgan told me that he had been at the scene and that he'd concluded cause of death was a bite. Coroner Oroner said the same thing, even insisting that the brown recluse who did it was found dead on arrival. Sheriff Carnack showed me the spider. And it made sense. Anyone who played around with such lethal bugs could die accidentally by them.
"But then I found that her brown recluse was still in its enclosure. That threw me a little. Except for the fact that that particular spider is native to the area. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to think she'd disturbed one somehow, and it had bitten her.
"And these officials said they had found puncture wounds consistent with a spider bite. But with Aunt June having been cremated, it was impossible to corroborate their findings. There were crime scene photos, but I didn't have access to them."
I nodded at Ed, who pulled a file out of his briefcase and handed it to me.
"Fortunately, the sheriff, who I walk all over, could access these files."
Sheriff Ted began to sputter, "You can't do that! That's classified!"
"Why not?" his cousin said calmly. "It was ruled an accidental death. I contacted your protégé here." He pointed to Jared, who was turning a disturbing shade of green. "And told him it was germane to an investigation back home. As a professional courtesy, he sent me the photos." Ed opened the file and held up a large photo showing two tiny puncture wounds.
I said, "It was seeing the giant tooth and something Virgil said about bite marks and crime that put two and two together for me."
"I don't know about that, but what else could that photo prove," Dr. Morgan asked, "except that she had spider bite marks?"
"It proves that she wasn't bitten by a brown recluse," I said simply. "I did a little research and discovered that the bite of a brown recluse turns into a swollen, bruised wound." I held up a graphic image that Betty had pulled off the internet.
The crowd made gagging sounds. I have to admit their reaction was a bit more theatrical than I liked, but the photo was super gross, which is why I won't describe it here. You'll just have to trust me on this.
The girls loved it. Betty had taped it up next to her bunk. Because little girls are ghouls.
"Now I'd assumed that a retired doctor living in this area would realize that it wasn't a spider bite. And I'd also assumed that a coroner, with absolutely no medical experience…"
Pete sniffed. "I do too. Two years of dental transcription training is medical experience."
For what I believed to be the first time in Coroner Oroner's The Name Says It All career, the entire town turned to look at him as if for the first time. Had they not known?
"Like I said, no medical experience," I continued. "And people, please don't vote for a medical official just because his name rhymes with the title." I waited a beat for that to sink in. "A coroner with little to no medical experience wouldn't even know what death by spider would look like. And since this coroner in particular told me himself that there hadn't been a murder in the county for thirty years, I suspect there have been a number of murders he's covered up over that time, labelling them as accidents in order to hide his lack of experience."
The room vibrated with the unsaid.
"What are you saying?" Nancy asked at last. "That the doctor and coroner lied?"
"I'll get to that in a minute. Bear with me. With all of that in mind, we thought"—I again indicated Kelly, Rex, and the girls, who preened appropriately—"that this could still be an accident, just a misread one. Another insect could've gotten to her. She could've been allergic to something. We don't really know her medical history.
"But Aunt June had left clues around this house. Clues that confused us at first, but eventually we figured out what happened."
"What do you think happened?" Basil asked.
"I'll get to that. Before we found the clues, there were some rumors that made us wonder. The girls overheard you"—I pointed at Basil—"saying that Aunt June had three suitors who likely didn't know about each other. Love can be a powerful motive in murder. Maybe the most common motive. It wasn't a stretch to think that
