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“I’ll get on the phone right away. This is a miracle, Miss Poole.”

“It still doesn’t explain how Mr. Baker got bricked up in my parents’ basement, though,” she said, “or how he got his head bashed in right before his immurement.”

Nate smiled.“Well, I guess it’s your job to find out, isn’t it?”

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As Odelia walked out of the offices of the Clifford Family Trust, she almost bumped into Chase. They both laughed as he steadied her with a firm hand.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he said.

“Looks like you’re on the same track I am,” she said.

“I guess so.” He took out his phone. “Look what I found.” He showed her the official complaint Mrs. Clifford had made against Boyd Baker. “See the date?” he asked.

“Three days before he disappeared. Can’t be a coincidence.”

“No, it can’t. What did Nate Clifford say?”

“He recognized the brooch. Positively identified it as belonging to his late great-grandmother and as the one that was stolen from her mansion fifty-five years ago.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

“That’s what Nate said.”

Chase raked his fingers through his long mane.“Do you think the old lady had something to do with the murder?”

“I doubt it. People like Aurelia Clifford don’t go around bashing people’s heads in. Besides, Boyd Baker was a large man, and she was old and frail. I think we can rule her out.”

“A family member, maybe? Servant?”

“People like the Cliffords don’t go around killing people.”

“People like the Cliffords hire people who go around killing people.”

“I don’t know. I think what may have happened is that Boyd decided he didn’t want to share the loot. I talked to Paddy Crocket, who worked for Courtyard Living, the landscaping company, when Boyd was there. He vividly remembers Boyd, and says he was a bully and a violent man, and part of a gang of workers who targeted the rich owners who hired Courtyard Living to maintain their gardens and grounds. The leader of the gang was a man called Earl Paxton. Now it’s not that hard to imagine that Paxton and Boyd got into a fight over the brooch and Paxton got violent and bashed his associate’s head in. And then, when he realized what he’d done, and knowing Mrs. Baker and the kids could arrive any moment, he buried Boyd in the most convenient place: the basement, and effectively wiped out the traces of his crime.”

“It’s a theory,” Chase admitted. “Though I have to admit a very plausible one.”

“Did my uncle have any luck with his part of the investigation?” she asked.

“What part of the investigation? He dumped the whole thing on my neck. Too busy writing enough traffic tickets to please the new mayor. Did you know we have quotas now? We need to write enough tickets or else we’ll be demoted? Crazy politicians.”

And as Odelia walked back to her car, and Chase entered the building, she saw she’d received a text from her mom.

‘Cats are back from their visit to the parrot. Boyd Baker was not a nice person.’

Great. She’d already surmised as much herself, but it was always nice to get confirmation from an unsuspected source: the neighborhood parrot.

Chapter 28

Marge was at the library, extolling the virtues of the new John Grisham to one of her most loyal customers, when suddenly she remembered the diary she’d found the night before. It was probably nothing, but it could also be something. And hadn’t close association with her daughter taught her to leave no stone unturned when investigating a crime?

So she dug through her purse and took out the mysterious diary. It was locked and she didn’t have the key, but that wasn’t going to stop her. Like a regular sleuth she took a penknife from the library kitchen and dug it into the lock, twisting until the clasp clicked open.

She felt ridiculously happy with herself and grinned like a kid. She was her brother’s sister, after all, and her daughter’s mother, though she didn’t know if sleuthing talent traveled up and sideways and not down. She didn’t care. She was going to make her own, however modest, contribution to the investigation. She flipped open the diary and frowned as she read the childish hand on the first page. The diary belonged to Rita Baker, twelve, and was filled with hearts and flowers and even pictures the girl must have cut out of the newspaper or magazines of that time. There was even a picture of James Dean, under which she’d written the words ‘World’s Biggest Dreamboat.’

Yeah, well, James had been a dreamboat, of course, thought Marge with a smile. She leafed through the diary, which was filled with the typical reflections of a twelve-year-old, about boys and her friends, and the teachers at school, the ones she hated and the ones she liked because they were generous with their grades. And then, suddenly, she discovered two pages that had been glued together. She stuck her trusty knife between the pages and carefully pried them loose. Time spent inside the musty basement had done its work and the pages soon became unstuck.