The Corpse Wore Gingham (The Piper & Bill Robins Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) by Ed Lynskey

Author:Ed Lynskey [Lynskey, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: ECL Press
Published: 2015-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

“Do you know what I just realized, Piper?” Bill asked. “Our murder suspects list has grown by one more. I don’t like creating additional work for us. We should be narrowing down the field and zeroing in on the true guilty suspect, not rounding up more of them.”

“How many does Claude make it?” Piper asked.

“Four is what I get now.”

Piper nodded. “Yes, four is three too many. Who are the suspects again?”

“Number one is Emily who wasn’t here at the time of the murder, but who you said could have arranged a murder-for-hire to bump off her mother.”

Piper had a mirthless laugh. “That scenario now is too far-fetched and very unlikely. I can see now Emily is much too lovely a person to be regarded as a killer.”

Bill grunted. “If you say so, but I’ll reserve my judgment if you don’t mind,” he said.

“Number two is Joe Saxon who mowed Anna’s lawn every week. He had the golden opportunity to slip into her unlocked house, rob her, and murder her.”

“Alberto Suarez the service technician who checked her air conditioner four days before her murder gives us three suspects. He could also have returned there later.”

“Last but not least, Anna’s ex and Emily’s father Claude rounds out our foursome. He might be the dark horse.”

“He evidently carried a lot of rancor in his heart after their nasty divorce.”

Piper nodded. “His rancor could have made him a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.”

“Was Anna completely unaware Claude was coming after her?”

“I doubt if he gave her any advance warning and intended to surprise her.”

The Robinses were preparing for bed. Bill had finished his ministrations and waited sitting against his upended pillow for Piper to complete hers, which involved a few more steps. Why did women brush their hair prior to bedtime? They just mussed it up again by lying on their pillows. If he asked her why, Piper would say she was brushing out the hair spray she’d spritzed on that morning, a carryover habit from her nine-to-five working days.

“Do you see Claude as the most serious contender?” he asked.

“Well, I saw your eyes light up like a jack-o’-lantern on Halloween night when Emily mentioned him,” Piper replied.

“Oh yeah? That’s nothing,” Bill said. “You were like the cat that swallowed the canary. How do we ferret out more information about Claude when we don’t even have his last name? I bet you don’t know.”

“I give up. How?”

“We just look up Claude What’s-His-Name in our 1960s set of Encyclopedia Britannica shelved downstairs.” Bill chuckled at his bedtime wit.

“Our encyclopedias are relics, and we’ll improve our odds if we google on Claude Davenport.”

“Mr. Google can wait until the morning.”

“Claude didn’t feel any sense of parental duty to keep in touch with his daughter even into her adulthood. He may have been a deadbeat dad. The court ordered him to pay Anna, but she didn’t bother with going through the hassle to enforce it. The less contact she had with him, the better off she felt she and Emily were.

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