Page 19 of June's First Murder
She could see the chill that ran through Sara Lee atthat realization. "So the Judge might have a financial motive."
"Might. Or it could be a simple tragedy and bad timing." June moved on, not wanting to fixate on any one suspect yet. "What about Lucy?"
They continued through the list systematically. Each incident Sara Lee described, June added layers of context and possible motives. Jerry's visible hatred of ethnic slurs. Bob's confrontation about old debts. A taunt thrown out toward Helena's cookbooks, which neither of them could make sense of, or why it produced such a strong reaction from Helena.
"Bob's lumber business nearly went under years ago," June explained, tapping the pen against her chin. "He took out loans to keep it afloat. I don't know the details, but if Raymond had some connection to those debts, if he was threatening to call them in or expose something about how Bob got that money..." She shrugged. "Desperation makes people do terrible things."
She watched understanding dawn on Sara Lee's face, followed by a horrible realization. "Do you think Barb knows?"
"I doubt it," June said gently, knowing how much Sara Lee valued her friendship with Barb. "Bill and Bob probably keep their business separate from Barb. They helped her set up the coffee shop, though, so their money problems must be resolved now." She sipped her tea thoughtfully. "Which means if Bob did something he's ashamed of, Bill might be the only other person who knows."
They added more names to their growing list. Ivy'shumiliation. Even Petunia’s distress. Diane's terror. He called her Diana… was that a taunt or an error?
"Petunia stands to lose socially, as well as financially," June observed, making notes. "Her husband's reputation, their standing in the community. Maybe even money if Raymond somehow had access to the trust funds. Raymond was a walking scandal. With him gone..." She left the thought unfinished.
Sara Lee looked down at the growing list of names, motives, and secrets with an expression that was part fascination, part horror. "So many names…” she mumbled, her brows raised.
“Remember, they may be a suspect or simply someone now dealing with the emotions from wishing a bully was gone from their lives to no longer having it be an issue.”
“How do we figure out who might be guilty of not just wishing Raymond was dead?"
As if in answer, Mister Smee suddenly woke from his position on the table, stretched with feline deliberation, and then sat on one of the open books, delicately licking his whiskers.
"What woke him up?" Sara Lee asked.
June smiled slightly, standing to walk over to the desk. "You never know with a cat. But they do have a sixth sense. Come on, Mister Smee." She gently moved the cat off the book and looked down.
Sara Lee picked it up and read the title. "Agatha Christie. The Pale Horse." She caught her grandmother's eye. "I don't remember reading this one."
"It's about a murder that occurred using poison,"June said, not at all surprised by Mister Smee's selection. The cat had an uncanny ability to find relevant books for whatever mood June was in, and she'd long since stopped questioning it. She settled into one of the reading chairs, gesturing for Sara Lee to take the other. "In the book, it's disguised as natural causes."
"You think Raymond was poisoned?" Sara Lee's voice rose slightly as the words were slowly pulled from her.
"I think," June said carefully, organizing her thoughts, "that the Sheriff wants this to be simple. Alcohol poisoning, accidental death, case closed. But I've seen too much of life to dismiss oddities when I see them." She glanced over to see the orange and white cat squinting toward the sun coming through the window as though his world was complete with just a sunspot.
“You know, Nana June… Mister Smee is just a cat. There’s no special skill he has with investigations.”
June chuckled as she shrugged. “We never know what instincts animals have. What they sense… what they’ll do.” She leaned forward, her voice taking on a softer quality. "Now, back to our remembrances. The flask smelled wrong. It wasn't just bourbon or bitter. But there was a sweet hint of vanilla. And there was a torn piece of newspaper in his jacket pocket." She closed her eyes briefly, bringing back the exact image.
"Was it something incriminating or just something he picked up?" Sara Lee asked.
"I don’t know. But if it was from him to someone else, why was it in his pocket? And if it was from someone else to him, when was it given to him?” June pulled out her notebook again, flipping to a fresh page. "We need to keep track of everything. What we know, what we suspect, what we need to discover."
"Shouldn't we tell Sheriff Gordon what we suspect?"
June considered this carefully. It was a fair question, and one she'd wrestled with herself. "Not yet. Our suspicions are simply those of two observers. Gordon's already convinced himself this was an accident. Unless we have real evidence to suggest otherwise, he'll dismiss anything we bring him. And he'll just wait to see what the medical examiner says, and those tests can take days, if not longer."
Mister Smee interrupted with a wide yawn, stretching his paw toward the Christie novel. June rubbed his head affectionately, then opened the book to a page she'd marked years ago during a previous reading.
"Oh, my. Listen to this," she said, and read aloud,"Very few of us are what we seem."
The words hung in the air between them… Agatha Christie's wisdom is as relevant now as when she wrote it.
"You think… someone in Meadowlark Creek… isn't who they claim to be," Sara Lee said slowly.
"I think Raymond wasn't just drunk and mean at the festival. He wasrecognizingpeople. Saying things that suggested he knew secrets about multiple people." June stood, energy returning to her movements despite her earlier weariness. "People with secrets are dangerous when those secrets are threatened."
"So what do we do?"
