Part 16 (1/2)
”I have my moments,” I admitted.
Zach's writing hand paused.
”Is anything wrong?” I asked.
”I was just wondering, is there any chance we have any ice cream left?”
I couldn't believe it after all he'd eaten. ”Are you honestly still hungry? We just ate.”
He frowned slightly. ”There's nothing wrong with a little dessert.”
He had a point. ”I suppose I might have a little room myself.”
I started to get up when he said, ”You stay here. I'll get it. After all, that's the least I can do, and I mean it.”
”You could always do dishes, if you wanted to be really helpful.”
He nodded. ”You're right. I haven't done them in a while. Let's skip the ice cream and I'll get right on the dishes.” We'd discussed installing a dishwasher in the cottage since we'd moved in, but it wouldn't be an easy, or inexpensive, fix, so for the time being, we were hand-was.h.i.+ng our things.
”I don't mind doing them later,” I said.
”Nope, I've made up my mind. You write while I wash. Let's go work on this in the kitchen.”
I wasn't about to try to discourage him anymore. ”Okay, that works fine for me.”
”You aren't putting up more of a fight than that?”
I grinned at him. ”Not today.”
As he filled the right bowl of the sink with warm, sudsy water, I took his legal pad and started to write.
”Hey,” he protested, ”I don't mind doing these, but you wouldn't mind doing that out loud, would you?”
”Sorry, I got carried away,” I said.
”I get it. I know how you are. What have you got so far?”
I started reading from the list. ”Harry's got a land deal with Joanne that's worth a great deal of money; Joanne supposedly stole something of value from Sandra-”
He cut me off. ”Any idea what that's all about? She wouldn't tell us a thing when we interviewed her.”
”No. She denied it to me as well. Rob and I were going to try to talk to her this evening about it again, but she and Nathan were already gone when we got there.”
”You two are a regular team on this, aren't you?”
”What's the matter-jealous?” I asked.
”Maybe a little,” he said as he moved a gla.s.s to the other sink to rinse it. ”You do seem to be spending a lot of time together lately.”
”We're working on the case,” I said. ”You're kidding, right?”
”Mostly I am,” he conceded. ”Is there anything wrong with wanting to keep my wife?”
”Not in my book,” I said as I gave him a kiss. ”I have no desire to be with anyone else.”
”Me, either,” he said. After was.h.i.+ng a bowl, Zach said, ”I'd love to know what Joanne took from Sandra.”
”It could be important. We need to ask her again.”
Zach considered that, and then said, ”Maybe you should ask Laura. After all, she's the one who told us about it in the first place.”
”That's another thing,” I said. ”Laura told me at Joanne's place today that Sandra isn't speaking to her anymore.”
He paused with a plate in his hand. ”That's odd. I thought those two were inseparable.”
”Apparently so did Laura.”
”Okay, let's move on. How about Laura herself?”
”She's due to inherit everything Joanne owned, but according to her, that won't be much of anything after the bills are all paid, even though I find that hard to believe, given what I've seen so far. Hang on a second, she knows about the land deal with Harry Pike. That changes everything.”
”We need to dig a little deeper into what she knows, and when she learned it,” Zach said. ”The timing of it all could mean everything. If she knew about the money and property beforehand, it could change everything.”
”I'll try, but money is always hard to discuss.”
”You can do it, Savannah. I have faith in you. Besides, you already have an in, there.”
”You're talking about the money we found, aren't you?”
”I am. That eleven grand just might be the key to this whole thing,” Zach said. ”Where do you suppose it came from?”
”I've been trying to figure that out since we found it. Could she have been saving it over the years?”
My husband frowned. ”A shoe box isn't much of a vault, is it?”
”I don't know. It's better than putting it under her mattress.”
Zach rinsed another bowl and put it in the drying rack. ”I still can't believe the police missed it. North couldn't understand it, either.”
”None of them are as competent as the great Zach Stone,” I said with a grin. ”But then who is?”
”True, it's a high bar I set when I was an officer of the law,” he said, laughing. ”What other reasons do you have that might lead to murder?”
”Greg had a lover's quarrel with Joanne before she died, and Hannah believes that Joanne ran her son out of town forever. Those could both be pretty strong motives.”
”I hope if anything happens to me they don't find so many folks with a motive for murder,” he said.