The Rose Quilt by Mark Pasquini

Author:Mark Pasquini [Pasquini, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: C&T Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

On the way back down the hill, Buck shot Steve a curious look. “I thought you wanted to rattle Mrs. Black’s chain.”

Steve chuckled. “I was tempted after all the blind alleys she set us up with. Typical of a malicious rumormonger—everything she said had a kernel of truth but was actually a lie. I think she is the only one who is hated by the rest. Anyway, it wouldn’t be professional,” he said with an air of sanctity. “A woman like that always gets her just deserts when she least expects it. But to tell you the truth, I just couldn’t make it convincing. Even she would have trouble believing the gossip I had cooked up.”

“Tell Uncle Buck just what you had planned,” he entreated with an anticipatory grin.

Steve lit a cigarette and rolled down the window to flick out the match before he said, “Oh, I was going to tell her that I heard that some people said that all three of the Chandler children were hers, and that she had cheated on her husband with A. J. Chandler and begged him to adopt them.”

Buck laughed out loud and almost wrecked the car on the narrow drive. “And what was Mrs. Chandler doing while all of this philandering was going on?”

“She was saving the family name. Mrs. Black was probably a long-lost cousin or something. She couldn’t abide the scandal, you know, really,” he finished, with an atrocious upper-crust accent. “And watch where you are driving. I don’t want to be the main guest at my own funeral. My boss would exhume me just to kick my tail for inconveniencing him.”

Buck snorted. “You would have a wonderful ceremony. What with all the women who hate you. We would have to hire the hotel’s ballroom to hold them all.” They came to the gate, waved to Huskins walking his old dog by the road, and turned toward town.

Buck drove to the police station and parked next to his private automobile. Steve opened the door, but Buck asked before he stepped out, “Do you have any thoughts about the case?”

Steve sighed deeply and shook his head. “First of all, the people at the house. Mrs. Black and the professor don’t have the strength. With the way his hands tremble, I would guess that he has palsy or something like that. Mrs. Flowers is just too timid. Unless she is the greatest actress in the world, Miss Carlyle just doesn’t fill the bill. The servants are out, as far as I’m concerned. They had duties and would have been missed, even for a few minutes. The Joneses said they had been moving plants all week. Wanda was probably taking her medication, like tonight, and was too fuzzy to plan, much less carry out, the murder. That leaves Barry, but he was at the opposite end of the terrace. He was in sight of either Wanda or the professor or the Carlyle woman.

“How would someone get around here where everyone knows everybody

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