A Bean to Die For by Tara Lush

Author:Tara Lush
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

* * *

Less than fifteen minutes later, Stanley and I were ensconced in my second-floor office above Perkatory. Erica was on one side of me, and a big cup of iced cold brew on the other. My hand reached for the computer mouse and it flickered to life. I navigated to my email and there it was.

“Willa Daggitt. Here we go, a full background report from my friend Sheila,” I murmured.

Erica rubbed her hands together, like she was watching a roulette table. “Come on, come on, come on.”

I clicked on the attachment. “Reports like this rarely show anything significant. They’re only a piece of the puzzle.”

“It’s still exciting. Digging into someone’s background.” Erica’s eyes shimmered.

Stanley was in the corner, flopped on a dog bed that I’d brought here. He had a total of six dog beds scattered around the island: two at my place, and one each at Dad’s, Noah’s, Erica’s boat, and here, all the locations where Stanley spent his time. They were all identical, olive-hued orthopedic dog beds with Stanley’s initials—SL—monogrammed on the front. Dad had bought them for Christmas.

Finally, the report downloaded, and I opened and expanded it on the screen so Erica and I could both read easily.

“Okay, Willa is fifty-three, she was born in Florida, lived in Baltimore and DC. Owned a condo worth a half million.” I scanned the document. “Oh look, here. A bankruptcy. Looks like she lost her house.”

Erica made a clicking noise with her tongue. “That’s sad.”

“Doesn’t mean she was a killer, though.” The bankruptcy was fairly recent, and I made note of that on my yellow legal pad.

I scrolled the rest of the report, which was short and boring. Aside from the bankruptcy, there were few scintillating details about Willa. She didn’t seem to have a spouse or children.

“What’s that?” Erica pointed.

I was about to tell her not to put her fingers on the glass—I loathed fingerprints on screens—when I saw the words.

PROFESSIONAL LICENSES AND DISCIPLINE

In my experience as a crime reporter, this part of the report was almost always blank. Then again, I’d mostly written about gangbangers, drug runners, and people who stayed under the radar to carry out their criminal enterprises. Few of those folks were licensed by the state for any reason.

“She’s a doctor?” Erica leaned close to the screen.

“You need glasses.”

“Maybe. But look. What does this mean?”

“Whoa. She was disciplined and her medical license was revoked a few months ago.”

We both sat back in our seats, looking at each other and sipping from our iced coffees.

“Here’s a theory,” I said. “She went bankrupt, lost her doctor’s license, moved back to Devil’s Beach …”

I paused because the description of Willa’s dismal life wasn’t all that different than my own. I hadn’t gone bankrupt, but only because I’d remained poor and didn’t get into too much debt. Aside from student loans, of course. I’d be paying on those when I was in the nursing home.

“Then she found out her jerk of a father had a life insurance policy …” Erica nodded.

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