“Why Brody, where'd you get all those oranges, and what did you bring them here for?” Dodie asked.

  “I was out at Becky's dad's house and fixed the outboard motor on his fishin' boat, and he offered to trade me his crop of green oranges instead of cash. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me. I brought 'em here 'cause I don't have no use for 'em and I figured you could do something with 'em.”

  “Why, what would I make with all those? A truckload of fruit salad? The guests are all going home this afternoon, so who's gonna eat it all?”

  I had never seen green oranges before and I was about to ask what they were like when the back door opened again and Aunt Sam walked in. She didn't look happy.

  “Why howdy, Miss Sam! Where you been so early?” Brody asked.

  “I went out to the sheriff's office to talk to Caleb,” Aunt Sam replied.

  “Caleb? Why did you want to talk to him?” I asked.

  “I wanted to know what happened at the Boathouse Museum last night, and I figured Caleb was the one who could tell me the most.”

  “You think he would tell you the truth?”

  “Yes, I do. I don't believe Captain Caleb murdered Dawn or Brent. It just doesn't sit right in my mind. I think the person who killed Dawn set up Caleb to take the blame for it, and if I don't unravel their plan, that's exactly what will happen.”

  “What did Caleb say?”

  Aunt Sam sighed. “Quite a lot. A freshly-sober and jittery Captain Caleb is not much easier to talk to than a drunk Captain Caleb, but what I was able to get from his ramblings was this: Last night about 8 o'clock Caleb received a phone call from Dawn. She told him that she was willing to make a deal with him to let him stay on his land. She said if he met her at the Boathouse Museum right away, they could sign the papers and make the deal. Of course Caleb hurried right over to the museum, but when he got there, the place looked deserted. The museum had closed at 4 PM as it does most days and Caleb thought that maybe it was just a prank, but he found that the door was open so he went inside. He saw Dawn dead on the floor and he panicked and ran away as fast as he could. On the way out he ran into you and Nick and you know the rest.”

  “What does Sheriff Landon think about his story?” I asked.

  “Well, Dr. Brad thinks Dawn had been dead for longer than just a few minutes when you caught Caleb running out of the museum, and Lois has no explanation for why Caleb would have hung around with the body waiting to get caught if he had really killed Dawn, but it doesn't really matter. It's out of her hands now. Mayor Croaker is satisfied that we have Brent Maxwell's killer and she's already called the Mayor of Golden Happiness Isle to send a boat to take Caleb to the mainland to stand trial for two murders.”

  “But who else could have killed Dawn? Where were the rest of the Maxwell bunch last night?”

  “Where indeed? Kristi says she was browsing around the shops in town, Charlie was in a beach bar as usual, and Gavin stopped at a restaurant and watched a basketball game on TV. And of course Vanessa was here at the house.”

  “And can any of them prove where they were, aside from Vanessa, that is?” I asked. “If they were all out in public like they say, surely someone must have seen them.”

  “Oh yes, there are plenty of witnesses who saw Kristi in some shops in town or that saw Charlie drinking at the bar, or saw Gavin at the restaurant. But no one was really paying that much attention to them; no one can say for certain that they were where they say they were at the time Dawn was murdered. None of them were far from the Boathouse Museum, and it would have been easy for any one of them to slip out and kill Dawn and then come back.”

  “So they all have alibis, but not really. Just like when Brent was killed.”

  “And according to what Lois tells me, Brent Maxwell's will has a provision that if Dawn should die his estate is to be split equally among Vanessa, Kristi and Gavin, so there's plenty of motivation for any of them to kill her.” Aunt Sam sighed again and leaned on the table. “I can't help thinking that Dawn's murder is my fault. Every since we started trying to solve Brent's murder I've had this nagging feeling that the answer is right in front of me, but I just can't see it. If I could have figured it out, maybe I could have prevented Dawn's murder.”

  “Oh, you can't blame yourself for things like this,” Brody said. “Folks die all the time for all kinds of reasons that you got no control over. For instance, when a cat walks in a figure eight pattern and then licks its paws, it means someone's gonna die soon.”

  “That's true,” Dodie said. “And Nick's got that tabby cat, y'know. Who's to say that cat ain't been turnin' figure eights out there in the lighthouse when no one's around?”

  “And if it was then that would mean someone Nick knows will die?” I asked.

  “No, just someone in the world,” Brody replied. “Could be anyone. Maybe someone on the other side of the world dropped dead on account of that cat. Of course, we don't know that Nick's cat was walkin' in a figure eight. The person on the other side of the world could have died for another reason all together. You just don't never know.”

  “Just like you don't never know what to do with all these green oranges!” Dodie said. “I expect I could make an orange sherbet for desert with a few of them, but that would barely make a dent in this pile.”

  “Heck, you could make up a big bucket orange juice! Folks like orange juice with their breakfast, don't they?”

  “Of course,” Aunt Sam murmured. She picked up one of the green oranges and turned it over in her hands. “It really was right in front of me. Why didn't I see it sooner? I must be getting old....”

  I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but I was pretty sure it wasn't green oranges. “Uh... Aunt Sam? What are you-”

  Suddenly Aunt Sam jumped to her feet. “Brody, I need you to give me a ride,” she said.

  “Sure, where to?”

  “I'll tell you on the way. Teri, round up Vanessa, Kristi, Gavin and Charlie and have them all in the dining room in half an hour- no, better make that an hour. Oh, and call Nick, too. He'd better be here in case we need some muscle.” She hurried to the door, practically dragging Brody along by the arm behind her.

  “Muscle?” I asked incredulously. “Aunt Sam, what's this all about? Where are you going?”

  “To solve a murder, I hope!” she said and then the door slammed shut behind her.

  An hour later I was sitting at the door of the dining room next to Nick, looking at Vanessa, Kristi, Gavin and Charlie who were seated at separate tables around the room. Gavin sat sullenly in a corner, Vanessa and Kristi at opposite ends of the room and Charlie by the window, looking unusually sober. No one spoke, not even any bickering between Kristi and Vanessa, and I could feel the tension in the air.

  Nick leaned over to me and whispered, “So you want to fill me in on what this is all about?”

  “Sure, as soon as someone fills me in,” I whispered back. “I think Aunt Sam figured something out about the murders, but I have no idea what. The more I think about the case, the more confusing it all seems.”

  Just then I heard the front door open, and looked out into the hall where I saw Sheriff Landon walking towards us. “All right everyone, I apologize for detaining you. I know you all want to leave the island and go home, but I have a few final questions for you.”

  “Questions?! What the hell?” Gavin snapped. “You already caught the guy who killed Dad and Dawn! Where is there left to talk about?”

  “How about your relationship with Dawn?” Sheriff Landon countered. “You were in love with Dawn, weren't you?”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Gavin spluttered.

  “You dated Dawn before she left you for your father. That must have been quite a blow to your ego. I'll bet you were really angry at both of them.”

  “Get off my back! That's none of your damn business!”

  “None of my business when both of them are dead? And just what-”

  “Lois, what are you doing?!” I heard Aunt Sam's voice from the hall and a moment later she stalked into the room, glaring at Sheriff Landon. “This isn't what we talked about!”

  “I know what I'm doing, Sammie,” Sheriff Landon snapped. “Just leave this to me!”

  “You're messing everything up, that's what you're doing! Why can't you just follow the plan?”

  “Now look, I asked you to help me, not take over! I'm still in charge of this investigation, remember?”

  “Lois, how many times do I have to explain to you--” Aunt Sam stopped and looked around at the rest of us, who were all staring at her and the sheriff. “Excuse us a minute,” she said. She turned around and walked back into the hall. Sheriff Landon followed and slammed the door shut behind them.

  Immediately we could hear the argument start again. “If you think you'd make a better sheriff, go call the mayor and have her give you a badge!”

  “Oh, get off your high horse and listen for once!”

  “I've listened and listened and I haven't heard one thing that's helped me yet!”

  “Fine, if you want to make a fool of yourself in front of everyone, be my guest! That seems to be your specialty!”

  Gavin threw his head back and laughed. “Listen to them go! This was worth pushing back my flight for!”

  “Why must we be subjected to such nonsense?” Charlie protested. “Just what is going on here?”

  “I, er, I'm sure if we just wait....” I stammered. I didn't really know how to answer him because I had the same question. What was going on? I had never seen Aunt Sam get so angry. I looked at Nick but he just shrugged.

  Suddenly, the door from the patio opened, and Aunt Sam walked in! We all gaped in amazement and Gavin had to grab the table to keep his chair from falling over. The argument was still going on in the hallway:

  “Don't tell me how to do my job! I was doing this for years before you even got here!”

  “Then how can you still be so pigheaded?!”

  “What- what is this?” Charlie stammered. He reached for a glass of something alcoholic on the table, but there was nothing there, so he settled for standing up and looking indignant.

  “Come on in, Lois!” Aunt Sam called.

  The door from the hallway opened and Sheriff Landon walked in holding the tape recorder I had seen in Kristi's room.

  “Hey, that's mine!” Kristi shouted. “What are you doing with it?!”

  “Just showing how a pair very clever and very ruthless women can be in two places at once,” Aunt Sam said. “No one knew who could have killed Brent Maxwell, but one thing we knew for certain: it couldn't have been Vanessa or Kristi because several witnesses including myself heard them arguing in the library at the time of the murder. But that wasn't really what we heard; we heard Kristi playing a tape of an argument which they probably recorded before they even got to Admiral Archibald Falls, while Vanessa slipped quietly upstairs and killed Brent with his beloved Sneaky. Then back down the stairs to the library, turn off the tape, come into the kitchen so that all the witnesses can see you both once again, and you're safely off to bed with the perfect alibi.”

  A moment of stunned silence followed, and then Kristi managed, “That- that's insane! You're just making up nonsense! Do you really think I'd work with that witch?”

  “Yes, if you accused me of wanting to kill Kristi, I'd have to admit it,” Vanessa said, “but working with that fat fool? You must be joking!”

  “Oh, I know that you two hate each other,” Aunt Sam replied, “but you also needed each other. Brent was planning to cut you both out with nothing, and putting aside your differences to come up with a plan to kill him was your only option to stop him. And it was quite an impressive plan, too! I suppose you could have used your phones instead of the tape recorder, but I expect that murdering Brent with the help of that clunky old relic he forced you to work with was pretty satisfying. You did have to use phone tricks when you killed Dawn, of course.”

  “You're out of your mind!” Vanessa cried. “You know I was nowhere near that museum when Dawn was killed!”

  “Yes, you had an airtight alibi once again. Kristi's couldn't be quite as perfect this time, but it would be good enough. All you had to do was call Captain Caleb pretending to be Dawn, and arrange to meet him at the Boathouse Museum. Caleb had never spoken to Dawn so he wouldn't know that the voice on the phone wasn't hers. Then it was up to Kristi to lure Dawn to the museum shortly before Caleb would arrive, probably promising to give her proof that Vanessa and Charlie had been skimming money from Brent, and murder her with the speargun. Then, using Dawn's phone, Kristi called Vanessa who 'just happened' to be in the company of several witnesses once again and staged Dawn's frantic call. Once that was done she could go back to the shops in town and make sure she was seen.”

  “What the hell!” Gavin yelled. “Is this true, Kristi?”

  “Of course not,” Kristi snapped. “Old ladies like to make up stories to get attention and make their lives more interesting. I'm sure she has a ton of them about UFOs and Bigfoot, which are about as real as this one she's just made up!”

  “The people on this island want to stick together and protect Caleb because he's one of their own!” Vanessa said. “There's not one shred of proof to this fairy tale!”

  “That would be true,” Aunt Sam said, “if not for the oranges.”

  Kristi laughed bitterly. “Yes, an orange, no doubt a Florida orange, spoke to her and told her we killed Brent! Is there any reason why we're listening to this senile old woman?!”

  “Yes, this is an outrageous trampling of our rights, Sheriff!” Vanessa said. “Once the mayor hears about this-”

  Aunt Sam ignored them. “From the very beginning of this investigation, something felt wrong about the whole situation. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until Brody brought in a box of oranges this morning and it jogged my memory; the day of the murder, when Dodie was about to take Brent's breakfast up to his room, Vanessa told her that Brent had said he didn't want orange juice with his breakfast anymore. She also reminded Dodie to bring down the tape from Brent's recorder that would have his instructions for the day, which meant that she hadn't listed to the recording yet. But it was that same recording where Brent said he didn't want the orange juice. The only way Vanessa could have known about that change was if she was in the room while he made that recording, and we know from the tape that the only person in the room with Brent Maxwell at that time was his murderer. Once I knew that Vanessa was the murderer, it was obvious that Kristi was her accomplice. And with Brent Maxwell's insistence on using tape recorders instead of more modern technology, it wasn't hard to figure out the rest.”

  Vanessa and Kristi were speechless. Even with makeup and spray tan I could see Vanessa had gone pale. Meanwhile, Kristi was turning red as a beet.

  “You stupid bitch! How could you be so dumb! This was a perfect plan!” she screamed.

  “Shut up, Kristi!” Vanessa shouted. “Don't you see they don't really have anything on us?!”

  “They have everything on us thanks to you and your stupid orange juice!” Kristi turned to the sheriff. “This was all Vanessa's idea! She forced me to help her! I tried to stop her but-”

  “Oh, no, you're not going to dump this all on me!” Vanessa shrieked. “You're the one that wanted to kill Dawn and frame that drunken idiot! I wanted to wait till we got off the island and make it look like an accident, but, no, you couldn't wait---”

  Gavin leaped to his feet, knocking his chair to the floor. “What in the hell is wrong with you two?! I can't believe that you actually killed Dawn and my father just to get more money! The old man always gave you anything you wanted!”

  “You arrogant little worm!” Vanessa spat. “You know nothing all about what we went through with your egomaniac father all these years! Kristi and I were the ones who made Dirk Nightshade a success, not that old idiot! For years we put up with his womanizing, his drinking, and even put up with each other, all because we knew that, when he died, we would have controlling interest of the character and we would finally get the fame and fortune we deserve! We were not about to lose it all just because Brent was going through a mid-life crisis and decided to give it all away to some brainless bimbo!”

  Gavin was speechless. Kristi, on the other hand, was not. “And now we have lost everything thanks to your stupid mouth, you brainless crone!”

  “Why, you tub of garbage!!” Vanessa raged. Her hands shot out to grab Kristi by the neck, and Kristi clawed at Vanessa's face. I jumped up from my seat, but Nick was ahead of me and pulled Vanessa away by her arms while Sheriff Landon pushed Kristi back down into her chair.

  “Let's get them out to the squad car,” the sheriff said as she pulled out her handcuffs. “I think we'll have to transport them separately so they don't kill each other!”

  That evening I was sitting on the porch with Aunt Sam, listening to the waves lapping at the shore and finally relaxing for the first time in what seemed like ages. The police boat from Golden Happiness Isle had arrived to transport Captain Caleb to the mainland, and there was quite a bit of confusion when they found out they had to take Vanessa and Kristi instead. Eventually the chief of police had called Mayor Croaker, who had an awkward time explaining the situation, but in the end everything got resolved, and the mayor had even called a hasty press conference to announce the arrests.

  “It was pretty shabby of Mayor Croaker not to give you any credit for solving the murders,” I said to Aunt Sam. “She could have at least mentioned your name after praising herself for 'supervising' the investigation and going on about how Sheriff Landon handled things. ”

  “Oh, I don't mind,” Aunt Sam replied. “My reward is having all of the guests gone and knowing that I'll never have to see any of them again! Nick took Gavin, Charlie and Captain Caleb to Golden Happiness Isle to catch a plane about an hour ago.”

  “Captain Caleb was with them? Why?”

  “Apparently Charlie has taken on Caleb as a client; he's convinced him to write a book about his non-existent experiences at sea, as well as his life behind bars when he was locked up for a crime he didn't commit.”