A Purrfect Alibi

“No background.” At my curious look Anita stood straighter. “I’ve done background checks on all these people. They’re all mediums who have businesses and a history. All except Gail. Not even a classified ad back in her paper in Ohio. And the other day when I was talking to the movie producer and ran into Victor, guess who I saw watching us?”

“Gail?”

“Yep.”

I’d seen Gail watching Victor too. At least that’s what I thought she’d been doing when I’d run into her looking for tea in the pantry. But why watch Victor? If she’d seen him with the movie producer, then she knew about the potential movie. Was she trying to steal the limelight from Victor somehow? But why not just claim she could talk to Jed herself? If she did that, then the attention would be on her. Instead, she was hiding and following people.

“What do you think she’s up to?” I asked.

“Beats me.” Anita bent down to pick up the tote bag she’d dropped when I’d startled her. The bag spilled over and a copy of the early etching of the guesthouse with Jed Biddeford and family tumbled out.

My eyes went right to the buckle on his shoes. Anita knew about the buckle. My eyes flicked to hers, a shiver running through me. I grabbed the paper, noticing another one behind it. This other one was of Jedediah Biddeford signing something. He had a fancy carved-ivory quill pen in his hand. Why did she have these drawings of Jed? Was she scoping out Jed’s belongings? Maybe planning to leave another piece of memorabilia on her next body?

“Aha! You have a photograph of the drawing of Jed’s buckle!” I pointed to the shoe in the photo.

Anita tried to snatch the papers away, but I pulled them out of her hands. She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Of course I have images of Jed. Like I just told you, I do my research. I looked up all kinds of things about the family.”

“Why would you need to do that? Seems like a lot of work,” I said.

“Not really. They have all this stuff down at the bank. There’s a whole display of Remington memorabilia and since the Biddefords were big in town back then, there’s a lot of images of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse and Jedediah Biddeford too.”

I usually did my banking online but now I remembered the display down at the bank. It was off to one side and included all kinds of things like the bank’s first coin, etchings of the original bank—an old shack complete with iron bars—various old desk implements, pens, bank notes and so on.

“Do they have personal items there?” I was thinking about the shoes.

Anita grabbed for the papers again and this time I let her take them. They crinkled as she shoved them in her tote bag. “Personal items? I’m not sure. I mean, they have an old inkwell and a desk blotter that they first used in the bank. It’s kind of like a mini museum.”

It was probably a long shot, but what if the killer got the buckle from the bank? Some of it was locked up, some of it was out in the open. If the shoes with the buckle had been there, would the killer have been able to swipe it without anyone noticing? This didn’t let Anita off the hook, she’d been there and knew what was in the collection. Would she be dumb enough to admit that to me now, though? Probably not.

Suddenly I had the urge to make a deposit at the bank. I wanted to see exactly what was in that display… or, more importantly, to see if anything was missing.

Nineteen

I rushed in the back door and down the hallway on the way to my car, which was parked out front. I didn’t make it to the door though because a heated argument was brewing in the parlor.

“I call foul on that! If you talked to Jedediah Biddeford, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.” Esther’s voice reached me in the hallway and I looked into the parlor to see her looking down at Victor, her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.

“I’m telling you the truth!” Victor was wearing a gray velour jogging suit. He patted his mustache and looked up at Esther innocently. “Jed will talk to me tonight. We’ll find the treasure and he will give me a unique clue to solve his murder.”

“Ha! That’s how I know you’re lying.” Esther leaned down toward Victor. “There is no treasure.”

“How do you know that?” Victor fixed her with a shrewd gaze.

Esther frowned. “I… Umm… Well, after all these years it’s doubtful. And I read that there was a big treasure hunt here a few weeks ago. Nothing was found.”

“We’ll see about that.” Victor shifted in his chair, noticing me in the doorway. “Your guesthouse will be famous. Especially when they make the movie.”

“Movie?” Gail, who was on the sofa and had been gazing into a dainty floral teacup looked up at him. “What movie?”

“Yeah, what movie?” Esther echoed.

Victor made a face at Esther. “Don’t give me that. I saw you in town. You know that there is a movie producer sniffing around the story of Jedediah Biddeford’s skeleton. And he is well aware that I am the only real psychic here.”

“Madame Zenda claimed that she was going to talk to Jed’s ghost too and look what happened to her,” Gail said.