A Dilly of a Death by Susan Wittig Albert

Author:Susan Wittig Albert
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

probably aren’t thrilled to hear this, but I feel that you have a right to know and decide how you want to be involved. I can understand why you need to keep it a secret, under the circumstances. Nobody’s going to find out from me, unless it’s absolutely necessary for them to know. But given all that’s happened to me in my life, I’m obviously not going to keep it a secret from

I looked at Marsha. Her face had gone white and she was biting her lip. It was my guess that she had seen the letter before. But she only said tautly, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

Blackie’s glance flickered over her face. “Too bad,” he said. “I was hoping you’d recognize the handwriting. But we may be able to find fingerprints, even after a few days in the water. It’s amazing what forensic science can do these days.”

Marsha shivered. She was looking down at the paper. “It . . . it almost sounds like blackmail.”

Not blackmail, exactly, I thought uneasily. But the writing did have a kind of urgency about it that might, under some circumstances, seem threatening. It could have something to do with Vince’s under-the-table activities. Or perhaps it hadn’t been written to Phoebe, but to Todd, and Phoebe had somehow managed to get her hands on it. But there wasn’t really much point in guessing. As Blackie said, there wasn’t much to go on here—except for the expression on Marsha’s face. She knew something about that letter, I was sure of it.

Blackie picked up the evidence envelope and put it back in his notebook. “Just one more thing, Ms. Miller. I’m a little curious why you didn’t mention the sale of the plant.”

“The sale—” Marsha blinked. “I . . . I guess I just didn’t think about it,” she said lamely. “It doesn’t seem very important now. Now that she’s dead, I mean.”

“That is what I mean,” Blackie said. “Now that Ms. Morgan is dead, will the plant be sold?”

“I don’t know,” Marsha said, her voice breaking nervously. “Maybe not. The deal was only in the talking stages. Once the news got out, she knew there was going to be a lot of local opposition.”

“Did anybody oppose the idea?”

She frowned. “Vince Walton wasn’t very happy about it, but I don’t know that he opposed her, actually.” An ironic smile quirked at the corners of her mouth. “It wasn’t easy to oppose Phoebe. When she wanted to do something, standing in her way only made it more likely that she’d do it.”

“Why did she want to sell the plant? It’s been in her family since the beginning, hasn’t it?”

Marsha shrugged. “I have no idea. She didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask. She was getting more involved with other things—real estate, some land development, the arts, things like that.” The irony became amusement. “I sort of assumed she didn’t like being the Pickle Queen anymore. It didn’t suit her image of herself.”

“I see,” Blackie said. “Well, that’s about it, at least for now.

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