I nodded. “That’s what Matilda said.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  I bit back the urge to say something sarcastic, and instead said, “I came here because I wanted to pay my respects. After all, I was there when he collapsed and I tried to help him although it was unsuccessful.” And that was the truth—even if I hadn’t been a murder suspect, I would still have attended Colin Greaves’s funeral.

  “I see. And how do you know Iris Ogilvie?”

  I had to think quickly. “Eleanor and Matilda are thinking about buying a house,” I said. “Iris is a realtor. Why would you ask?” I plastered an innocent look on my face. Detective McCloud had no way of knowing I knew that Iris Ogilvie had been Colin Greaves’s mistress.

  “We were surprised to see her here,” I said, and that also was true. “She told us her husband was Mr. Greaves’s lawyer. It’s a small world, isn’t it!”

  Detective McCloud took a step closer to me and I took a step back instinctively. “Miss Delight, have a look around the room now and tell me if you can see the person who has been following you.”

  I did as he asked, and at the same time, I said, “But I have never seen his face.”

  “No, but I’m sure you have good instincts, Jane. You have seen his outline and the way he moves, and I’d like you to keep an eye out for him. Even if you aren’t sure and only have a small suspicion, I’d still rather you voice it to me. Do we have a deal?”

  “Sure.” I had to admit, the fact that he had praised my instincts made me flush warm from the tip of my head right down to my toes.

  Chapter 17

  Rebecca and I were cleaning the store after the close of business for the day and Eleanor and Matilda were helping us.

  Presently, Eleanor looked up from her mop. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since the funeral, and I can’t think of a way we can investigate Richard Ogilvie.”

  I agreed. “Yes, he is an expensive lawyer, so none of us can pretend we have a legal problem because we don’t have the money to pay the fees.”

  “He probably plays golf,” Eleanor said. “One of us could pretend to play golf.”

  Matilda sighed dramatically. “Oh Eleanor, that won’t work. It won’t work at all.”

  Eleanor was visibly put out. “Why not?”

  Matilda shook her head. “It just doesn’t work like that. See, I have no idea what we could do.”

  “We don’t have to speak to him in person,” I said. “Maybe we could google him and find out something about him.”

  “I googled him on my phone while you two were drinking coffee and eating cookies after the funeral,” Eleanor told us. “It doesn’t help at all. I mean I found a lot about the man but nothing that would give us any clues as to why he or his wife would want to murder Colin Greaves.”

  “It’s obvious why his wife wanted to,” Matilda said. “She wanted him for herself, and he refused to leave Stephanie for her.”

  “That’s pure speculation,” I said. “Richard was Greaves’s lawyer, so he would have known his secrets. But I can’t see how that helps us.”

  Rebecca finally spoke for the first time in the conversation. “If he did murder Mr. Greaves, then it was probably a business deal gone wrong.”

  I scratched my head. “How do we find out about that?”

  Rebecca stopped wiping down the countertop and looked up at me. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “If it was obvious I would have thought of it by now,” I said dryly.

  “Your ex-husband is a lawyer.”

  At first I wondered what she meant and then it dawned on me. “No, no, no, I stammered. “No way!”

  It seemed Matilda and Eleanor had already caught on. “Why, that’s perfect! You can ask your ex-husband.” Matilda rubbed her hands with glee.

  “I don’t want to speak to him,” I protested. “We haven’t spoken to each other since the divorce.”

  “You have nothing to be ashamed about,” Eleanor said. “What do you have to lose by calling him?”

  “Only my sanity,” I muttered. “Anyway, how would I explain the reason I wanted to know? I can hardly tell him that I’m a suspect in a murder case and so I’m investigating all of the other suspects, one of whom is the hotshot lawyer Richard Ogilvie.”

  “That’s exactly what you’re going to tell him,” Matilda said in an encouraging tone. “Call him now and get it over with. It will be like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

  “What if Cherri answers the phone?” I said with a shudder.

  “Then just ask to speak to what’s-his-name,” Eleanor said.

  “Ted,” I supplied.

  “You could always hang up and call again later,” Matilda said. “It’s entirely up to you, but the only way we can find out about Richard Ogilvie is to ask your ex-husband.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” I said and then added, “but it’s against my better judgment.”

  I had left my phone in the kitchen so I went back to fetch it. “Do you want us all to leave?” Matilda asked me.

  “No, I need you all here for backup,” I said. I took a deep breath and punched the buttons. It went straight to voicemail. I left a message for Ted to call me back.

  “Well, you all heard that,” I said. “He’ll have to call me back.”

  “What if he doesn’t?” Matilda said. “He probably feels the same way about you that you feel about him. In that case, he won’t call you back. He’ll probably be annoyed that you called him too. He will probably think you’re after money.”

  “Thanks for such encouraging words,” I said sarcastically. Just then my phone rang. I looked down at the caller ID. “It’s him!” I hissed. My blood ran cold.

  The mouth was dry and I was worried I’d have a fit of coughing. “Hello, Jane speaking.”

  “What do you want?” was the curt reply.

  “I want to ask you a question about another lawyer.”

  “Are you thinking about taking legal action against me?” asked Ted.

  I hurried to reassure him. “No, no.” I took a deep breath and launched into my explanation. “A man died in Rebecca’s store and the police said he had been poisoned. The victim was having an affair with the wife of someone you might know, Richard Ogilvie.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath and then a young female voice calling out in the background, “Who is it, Popsicle?”

  “Popsicle?” I repeated, and at once regretted saying it. I quickly added, “Do you know Richard Ogilvie?”

  “Everyone knows Richard Ogilvie,” Ted said.

  “Well, I don’t know him,” I pointed out.

  Ted snorted rudely. “I mean anyone important, you know, like a lawyer. The lawyers all know him.”

  “So he’s some sort of commercial lawyer, I take it?”

  “Yes. His currency is in secrets. His clients are mostly millionaires and some would say his clients are those with shady dealings.”

  My phone was on loud and I looked up to see Matilda nodding.

  “This might sound strange, Ted, but do you think Richard could have possibly murdered Colin Greaves if he found out his wife was having an affair with Greaves?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” my husband snapped. “You’ve been watching too much TV, Jane.”

  Matilda snatched the phone from me. “Mr. Delight? This is Matilda Birtwistle. I’m investigating this case and I’d like to ask you some questions about Richard Ogilvie. Do you think he had illicit business dealings with Colin Greaves? Off the record, of course.”

  The phone was still on loud so I heard Ted say, “I have no idea, no idea at all. Why don’t you go and ask Richard?”

  I snatched the phone back. “That’s a good one, Ted. Are you suggesting we ask Richard Ogilvie if he murdered Colin Greaves because his wife was having an affair with him? And what if he doesn’t know his wife was having an affair?”

  “Then he wouldn’t have a motive, now would he?”

  I winced at my husband’s sarcastic voice. Still, I needed to find out more information. “Well then, Ted, is there anything else you can tell us about Richard Ogilvie or his law firm? Anything at all?”

  The line went silent for what seemed an age. I thought Ted had hung up. After a lengthy interval, he spoke. “You didn’t hear this from me, but Richard doesn’t have the best of reputations. Not amongst the other lawyers, that is. I heard some things from time to time that suggested he wasn’t completely on the level. I can’t be certain, mind you. It’s all hearsay and innuendo. It might have been simply jealousy, but I heard it from more than one source.”

  “Do you think he could be capable of murder?”

  “I sincerely doubt it,” my ex-husband said. “However, Richard would have known all his clients’ dirty little secrets, but that would have only given the clients the motive to murder him, not the other way around. Now is that all, Jane? I’m a very busy man.” With that, he hung up.

  I stared at the phone for some time. I could almost feel the steam coming out of my ears. “Why you, you…” I sputtered.

  “I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you,” Matilda said, pointing to my sister. “There’s an Amish person present who wouldn’t have heard such language before.”

  “I wasn’t going to call him anything like that,” I protested. “Anyway, can you believe the nerve of him? I wish there was some other way to find out more about Richard Ogilvie.”

  “I’d like to set Richard on the back burner for now,” Matilda said. “He is a possibility, although not a strong one. So far, Stephanie, her son, and Richard’s wife are the main suspects. Hmm, although there is always the possibility that Richard and Iris were in it together.”

  “I always come back to the fact that someone was probably in the car with him when they administered the fatal dose,” I said. “We need to find out where Richard was on that day and whether he had an alibi. In fact, we need to find out if all our suspects had alibis.”

  Matilda snapped her fingers. “I know! Let’s see if Richard Ogilvie was in court that day.”

  “Genius!” I exclaimed, just as a streak flashed through my legs.

  “Mr. Crumbles!” Matilda said.

  “How did you get down here?” Rebecca said, clearly concerned. “What if the Health Department sees him?”

  “I only had the door between the apartment and the store open a tiny little bit,” Matilda said. “He must have opened it with his little paw. Isn’t he so clever!”

  The look on Rebecca’s face showed she did not agree.

  A loud knock on the store door startled us all. I looked up. It was Detective McCloud, and his expression was grim.

  Chapter 18

  “Miss Delight, I’m going to have to ask you to come downtown with me. We have some questions.”

  I went cold all over. Surely they wouldn’t arrest me?

  “I’ll just get my purse,” I said.

  “We’ll pray for you,” Rebecca called after my departing back.

  Detective Stirling was waiting outside, leaning back against the police vehicle and looking quite bored. He opened the back door for me. Thankfully he didn’t put his hand on my head like they do on those TV shows, and I hadn’t been arrested yet, but that was small comfort to me.

  “Am I under arrest?” I said to both detectives from the back seat of the vehicle.

  “We were hoping you could clear up a couple of things for us,” Detective McCloud said.

  It sounded all the more ominous. I had no idea what was going on. I had no choice but to comply.

  This time they parked the car around the back of the building and I was led through the back door down a labyrinth of corridors and into an interview room. This one was not like the interview room I had been in before and it did have a large mirror on one wall, which I realized was a two-way mirror. I wondered if anyone was looking through it at me right at this minute. I resisted the bizarre desire to wave.

  McCloud left, and was replaced by a thin, younger detective by the name of Sykes.

  The preliminaries went through in a blur. Detective Stirling asked me my name, age, and address, which I had already given them, but I wasn’t going to point that out.

  “Can I get you anything?” Stirling asked. “Coffee, water?”

  I shook my head. “No thanks.”

  “Would you tell us your movements for the day of Colin Greaves’s murder?” This time it was Detective Sykes who spoke.

  “Well, I woke up as usual in my apartment, and then I hurried around cleaning the apartment because Matilda and Eleanor were arriving that day. Then I went down to work in my sister’s store as I always do.”

  “How long was Greaves in the store?” Detective Stirling asked me.

  “About five minutes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Did you leave the store at any point through the day before Greaves’s visit?”

  “No.”

  Stirling gave me a half nod. “Please think about it before you answer, Miss Delight,” he said. “This is important, so take as long as you need to remember.”

  “I don’t need time to remember,” I said. “I didn’t go anywhere. I just woke up, cleaned the apartment, walked down the stairs to the store, and worked in the store. I didn’t go outside at all.”

  Sykes looked up from his paperwork. “You didn’t go outside once?”

  “That’s correct,” I said.

  “You didn’t go to a café?” Stirling said. “You didn’t run any errands?”

  I shifted in my seat. This room had a stale smell, as though it hadn’t been used in a while, but it was spotlessly clean. “No. I’ve already told you I didn’t leave at all.”

  “You haven’t mentioned eating breakfast, having coffee anything like that.”

  I haven’t mentioned cleaning my teeth either, I silently added. Aloud, I said, “Obviously, I had coffee, but it was in my apartment. Rebecca and I had coffee together in the back room of the store, but I can assure you I did not leave the building at all that day until the time Mr. Greaves collapsed.”

  “Did any of your friends enter the shop that day?” Stirling asked me.

  “I don’t have any friends,” I said and then winced when Sykes shot me a strange look. I decided to explain. “I don’t really know anyone in town apart from my sister and her family. I go to church on Sundays, but I haven’t really met anyone there. I only know people to say hello to and I haven’t really made any friends here.”

  Stirling leaned back in his seat, his arms locked behind his head. He put his arms behind his neck, his fingers interlocked. “Do you expect me to believe that you have been here six months and you haven’t made any friends at all? Not a single friend?”

  I bristled. “That’s none of your business,” I said. “Surely it is not a crime not to make friends!” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him.

  Stirling appeared unperturbed. “And you allege you hadn’t met the Birtwistle sisters either?”

  “I don’t allege anything,” I said. “It’s the truth. I had never met them before they came into Rebecca’s store that afternoon.”

  “Had you ever spoken with them on the phone prior to that day?”

  I shook my head. “No, but we’ve already been over this. How many times do I have to go over and over this?”

  Stirling landed his chair with a thud. “Until we are completely satisfied, Miss Delight. So are you saying you had never spoken with Matilda or Eleanor Birtwistle until they arrived in the store that day?”

  “That’s exactly right,” I said, more firmly than I intended.

  “And what did you have for breakfast?” he asked me.

  I was surprised by the question. I mean, what possible relevance did it have for the case? Still, I did my best to answer. “I had a few cups of coffee for breakfast,” I told him. “After we opened the store, there was a lull in customers so Jane and I had coffee and some graham cracker pudding.”

  Stirling raised his eyebrows. “You said you had several cups of coffee in your apartment? Then you had more soon after? Isn’t that a little excessive?”

  “Is that illegal?” I said crossly.

  “And you didn’t eat anything else?”

  I had no idea where he was going with this line of questioning. “No I didn’t, apart from the graham cracker pudding. You can ask Rebecca.”

  “Yes, we will do just that,” Stirling said. “And your sister can vouch for your whereabouts all that morning?”

  “Of course she can. Look, what’s all this about?”

  “We’re just trying to clear some things up,” Stirling said after glancing at his partner. He stood up. “That will be all for now, Miss Delight, but please make yourself available for questioning. I’m sure we will want to speak with you again.”

  “Sure,” I said. I felt like some sort of criminal. It quite unnerved me.

  “We will have a uniformed officer take you home,” Stirling said. The two detectives left the room, although I was sure the other detective shot me an apologetic look.

  Two uniformed officers entered the room shortly afterwards and said they’d give me a ride home. They were quite nice and chatty and so by the time I arrived home, I felt a little more comfortable and at ease.

  My mood changed as soon as I entered the apartment.

  “Detective McCloud was here questioning us,” Matilda blurted out.

  “What about?” I asked her.

  “He was going on and on asking us whether we had ever met you before, and he also questioned Rebecca downstairs in her shop.”

  I was horrified. “What about?” I said again.

  “The same sort of thing,” Matilda said. “Rebecca said they were asking her if you had ever spoken with us on the phone or whether you knew us before. They also looked through our fridge and took photos, and they looked through our trash. They also asked what you normally eat for breakfast.”

  “And they asked Rebecca how long the vic was in her store. They also asked her what you’d eaten that day before the vic died,” Matilda chimed in.