A Whisker In The Dark

“Do you know anyone who would have wanted to murder him?” I wasn’t pumping the grieving mother for information, just trying to take her mind off things. But if she happened to have some information about who might have wanted Bob dead, all the better.

Doris pressed her lips together. “Hopefully not his own brother or sisters, though there has been a lot of fighting and animosity lately. You see, Bob could be a bit of a troublemaker. Never quite got along with the rest of the family.”

I raised my brows. Maybe Bob had done something to his brother or sisters and they had a long festering animosity toward him. “Really? What kind of trouble?”

Doris shrugged. “You know, the usual things. Not pulling his weight. Wanting to surf and ski instead of working. Marrying that awful woman.”

I frowned. Bob hadn’t brought a wife to the guesthouse. “He was married?”

“Yep. They were getting a divorce. Good riddance to her, I say.”

“Is it an amicable divorce?” My hopes rose. Maybe the person who had killed Bob was his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Doris wiggled her hand back and forth in a seesaw motion. “So-so. I guess it’s fairly friendly, as divorces go.”

I inched forward to the edge of my chair. “You don’t think the ex-wife could have killed him, do you?”

“I wish. It would take the heat off my other children. I can tell that the sheriff suspects them.” Doris looked thoughtful, as if she was coming to terms with the possibility that one of her children had killed Bob. “But she’s out of the country. I told the sheriff all about her. He’s going to double-check, but, honestly, I wouldn’t think she’d have it in her.”

“What about somebody else from his past? If he was a troublemaker, maybe he rubbed someone the wrong way.”

“Bob rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but I have no idea who he would have angered so much that they’d come here to kill him. I don’t think he knows anyone from Oyster Cove and most of the people he associates with are losers who wouldn’t travel so far to do him in.” Doris shook her head. “It’s just such bad timing with the family tensions being high because the business is doing so badly.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“I suppose I’ll have to arrange a funeral. If only the cheese-sculpting business was doing better we could do something more lavish, but I guess now it will have to be something simple,” Doris said.

I patted her hand for comfort. “Simple is better, sometimes.”

Doris nodded. “They’re not bad children, you know. Even though they each have their little quirks. I blame my husband for making them so lazy and selfish. He wanted them to have it easier than we did and didn’t want them to work as hard. Barney and I started the business from scratch, you know.”

“You don’t say. What made you start a cheese-sculpting business?” I asked.

Doris smiled at the memory. “Barney used to make little sculptures out of cheese for parties and all our friends loved them. It was just a silly hobby, but then people started asking if they could order specific sculptures. Next thing we knew, we were shipping out of state and running a full-blown business.” Doris swiped at the tears drying on her cheeks. “When the kids were grown, we brought them in, and when Barney died they took over. Sometimes when you get something for nothing, you don’t appreciate it. You don’t work as hard. I’ve used up all my retirement income supplementing the business.”

I nodded. I knew how that was. I’d worked my whole marriage to make things good for my husband and he hadn’t appreciated it one bit. I’d put my whole life savings into the guesthouse and my future depended on its success. I sure as heck was going to work my butt off and not let it fall to ruin like Doris’s cheese-sculpting business. All the more reason to clear up this murder fast. I’d do just about anything to make sure my business was a success.

Hey, wait a minute… hadn’t Doris mentioned spending her retirement income earlier in reference to the treasure? She’d looked pretty serious too. But surely she wouldn’t bash her own son over the head in order to grab the treasure from him?

“Of course, some of them don’t have a lick of sense and that might be part of it. Take Carla, for example.” Doris shook her head and looked out the window. “Now before we started digging, we discussed where the old homestead was located in Jedediah’s day. Even though he started off with a pretty big house, it’s been added to quite a bit over the years. Carla knew the gazebo didn’t exist on the grounds back then, it was added after Millie’s people bought it.”

I nodded. Apparently talking had comforted her. She was more animated and not as sad now. “I’m going to have that restored, the gazebo.”

“Good idea, but Carla should have been smarter. See, that’s why the business is failing.” Doris tapped her head with her forefinger. “They don’t use their smarts.”

“Why do you say that?”