"So Nancy killed her!" Hal said triumphantly.
"I didn't kill her!" Nancy shrieked. "I loved her for years. We'd settled into a friendship over the past few years, but I wouldn't have murdered her for that." She turned to me. "How did you find out?"
Earlier I'd decided not to tell the woman that the letters had been behind logs in the fireplace. It seemed cruel. "Among her treasures were some love letters from you." I reached behind a book on the bookcase and pulled out a bundle wrapped in a blue ribbon. "I didn't include them in the stuff I gave the NSA. And I'm sorry for outing you like this. I wasn't going to name you."
I was wondering if I'd made a terrible mistake. Had I gotten carried away and indirectly outted Nancy? If anyone in this room understood how awful it was to be outted against your will, it was me.
"It's okay." Nancy smiled weakly as she took the letters. "I'm glad it's out. But you could've warned me."
Murl sputtered, "But I thought you and I…"
She patted his hand. "We are. That part of my life is over. You're the person I love now."
Murl appeared to accept that. He did a little nodding wiggle of his head before turning back to me.
"If it isn't Nancy," Nigel asked, "who killed Aunt June and why?"
Finally. It was time. "I'd have thought it was obvious," I said. "It was you."
Nigel blanched.
"And you." I pointed at his brother Hal. "And you." I indicated Basil.
"And you too." I pointed at Dr. Morgan, Coroner Pete, and the sheriff. "You all colluded to kill her."
"That's half the town!" Maplethorpe cried out.
"It is." I spotted a couple of Iowa State Troopers through the doorway to the study behind everyone. The lawmen gave me a brief nod.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Nigel shouted. "Sheriff! I demand that you arrest that woman for disorderly conduct."
Ted started to his feet, but Ed grabbed his arm and forced him back into his seat.
"Why would I kill her?" Basil whined. "She was my friend! I did her hair!"
I noticed he hadn't objected about anyone else I'd accused—including his brothers.
"Because she was going to open up the town. I wondered, when I got here, why all the decaying buildings to make it look like a ghost town? Because you don't want the town opened up to tourists or, more importantly, to anyone who'd snoop and find out how valuable the land really is."
"What are you talking about?" Murl asked.
"This land isn't valuable!" Nancy snorted. "It's on top of a bunch of old lead mines!"
"Oh, but it is. You see, it all comes back to Aunt June. She wanted to bring in tourists. She felt that all this beauty was going to waste. She wanted to become mayor to change things for the good of the town!
"But there was a secret. A secret that her killers knew. Aunt June's land wasn't just a pretty piece of property." I held up the letter from the university. "A local university's geological study found that deep under a city in Minnesota, there were minerals so valuable that they were worth trillions of dollars. And recently, they'd been working their way down the Mississippi to test other sites. Aunt June had let them do that on her property, not really thinking anything of it. When she found out that the land beneath her home could be harboring trillions of dollars in mineral rights, she was shocked. The mines underneath her property made it too dangerous to build a large resort. I believe she was still trying to figure out how to cash in and build the resort when she was murdered. This letter came after she'd died, and the test results confirmed that the valuable minerals were indeed there."
I turned to Dr. Morgan, who was just sitting there, staring into space. "I think you supplied the syringe with some sort of poison. One of you injected into her twice to make it look like spider bites. I've sent her ashes to a lab, but I doubt they'll find anything conclusive.
"I also talked to the university last night. They said you had called to ask in hopes of identifying the toxin just three days before she died. I don't know how you found out. Maybe Aunt June confided in you and then told Nigel and his brothers? But they needed your help and the sheriff and coroner to sign off on the cause of death."
The doctor said nothing.
"Regardless of the parts you all played, the real ringleaders were the Hickenlooper brothers. I think they came up with the plan. Afterward, if necessary, Basil would launch some rumors should anyone come around asking questions. I think you got the idea from the old tale of Princess Badger Tooth and her three suitors. And Nigel, being AJ's lawyer, hoped he could convince me, as her only heir, to sell the house to them."
I looked at him. "Am I right?"
The three brothers said nothing.
"That kind of confirms it for me. You really shouldn't have watched me that night at camp. Or tried to kill me with the golden poison frog in my bathtub. Or chased me across the ropes course. Or locked me in a room with a scorpion yesterday. I have no idea which one of you it was. Maybe all three."
"What are you saying?" Hal squeaked, his cool demeanor gone.
"I'm saying I didn't have any proof that a murder had taken place. It was all of those things, including the three attempts on my life, that solidified the idea that she'd been murdered. If you guys had done nothing, I'd never have known and probably would've sold you the house."
"Who wrote that nasty comment on the funeral page?"
