I held his gaze and nodded.
It meant that Dylan’s wish for finding more suspects had just been granted.
Now not only was his mother still a suspect in Haywood’s death . . . but all the other Harpies as well.
Chapter Eight
The rain had let up some by the time Dylan and I had fed the sheaf of papers that had been in Haywood’s satchel through his photocopier. I had thanked our lucky stars that he had top-of-the-line office equipment as the machine spat out copy after copy in no time flat.
We’d placed the original paperwork back in the satchel, locked up the house, and drove back to my place. I hadn’t seen Haywood since he’d floated down the hallway at his house earlier, but I knew he’d be back eventually. He needed me.
My mind whirled with the knowledge that Haywood Dodd was the heir to the Ezekiel mansion. How long had he known? Had he only just found out? Or had he been toying with the Harpies all along, letting them fix up the house on their dime while he planned to swoop in to take possession after it was complete?
The phone was ringing as I came through my back door. I set the photocopies on the counter, whipped off my sunglasses, and peered at the ID screen. The sheriff’s office.
Grabbing up the receiver, I gave a breathy hello.
“Carly Hartwell, this is Patricia Davis Jackson. Is my son there with you?”
I bit back a smart remark about manners and courtesy hellos. I could cut her a bit of slack considering where she was calling from.
Leaning up on tiptoes, I peeked out the window above my kitchen sink to see Dylan on the sidewalk chatting with Eulalie who’d clearly waylaid him on his way inside if her hand on his arm was any indication. “He’s outside right now.”
She hesitated, then said, “It’s rather important I speak with him.”
Important? I wondered if there had been a break in the case. “Give me a second. . . .”
“Oh, please do take your time,” she said smoothly. “It’s not as though I have any time constraints.”
“Why? Is this your one phone call?” I asked, joking. I couldn’t help myself. It was that mischievous streak in me. That sucker was a mile wide.
Bitterly, she said, “I suppose it takes a jailbird to know a jailbird.”
At first, I wasn’t sure I heard correctly. “You’re serious?”
“Put Dylan on the phone. Now.” Each word was enunciated as though being pulled from the very depths of her being, shoved through a wringer, and hung out to dry.
Patricia had clearly reached a breaking point, and though that ought to make me happy at some visceral level, it didn’t.
I’d try to figure out why later.
I set the phone on the counter and ran out the door I’d just come in. “Dylan, your mother’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you,” I hollered from the back steps, garnering his attention, Eulalie’s, and . . . Virgil Keane’s as he wandered by.
Hell’s. Bells. This was why I hibernated. A witch wasn’t safe in her own driveway.
Virgil’s ghostly head whipped in my direction, and he looked straight into my eyes. I’d forgotten to put my sunglasses back on when I came outside, so I blinked and tried to pretend I hadn’t seen him, but he came floating up the driveway alongside Dylan nonetheless.
Oblivious to the ghost that had just passed by her, Eulalie gave me a wave and said, “See you in a bit, Carly Bell!”
Dylan came up the steps, and I looked to him for explanation about my aunt’s comment.
He said, “Eulalie wanted us to know that Avery Bryan is back at the inn, but she’s packing her bags, getting ready to check out. What’s my mama want?”
The closer Virgil came, the deeper a painful ache started to settle into my muscles, my bones. I tried to remember what happened to Virgil, how he died. It took me a moment to recall.
A car accident.
He’d been hit while out walking his dog last May. The driver had sped off, leaving him lying in the road, his dog crying over her master’s broken body.
The driver had never been found.
Trying to hide my discomfort, I managed to say, “I’m not sure.” If Patricia had been arrested, I’d let her tell him. “Go, go. The phone’s on the counter.”
The screen door thwapped loudly in his wake, and I waited until I heard his voice before I held up a hand, palm out toward Virgil. “Stop right there.”
Eyebrows shooting upward, he stopped.
Full of raw emotion, his eyes were brown, a deep dark brown that reminded me of the center of a molten chocolate cake. In his mid-fifties he had been a lifelong resident of Hitching Post and newly retired from his job as a senior manager at the Pig when he’d died.