Murder of the Cat's Meow: A Scumble River Mystery (32 page)

“Why?” I called after her. A sinking feeling made my stomach clench. “They were yours to sell, weren’t they? You are the owner, right?”

But it was too late; she had already gotten into her red Lexus and was backing into the street. As she sped away, I noticed her license plate read
WUZ HIZ
. Damn! I knew
that had been too easy. Why hadn’t I asked more questions? Had I just committed a felony?

After hastily sticking the chocolate molds into my safe, I finished locking up the store and jumped into my sapphire black Z4. It was one of the few possessions that I had kept from my old life—the one where I earned a six-figure salary as an investment consultant employed by Stramp Investments.

I’d allowed myself to hang on to the BMW by rationalizing that in this economy I’d never get what it was worth if I sold it. However, the truth was, I loved that car, and I knew there was more chance of me winning the Miss Missouri contest than ever owning a vehicle like it again.

Chuckling at the thought of being a beauty pageant queen, I put the Z4 in gear and headed home. I lived with my grandma Birdie just outside of Shadow Bend on the ten remaining acres of the property my ancestors had settled in the 1860s.

Due to three generations before me producing only one child each, relatives who had moved away, and several Sinclair men who’d died in various wars, Gran and I were the last of our clan in Shadow Bend. My grandfather’s death fifteen years ago had forced Gran to begin selling off the land surrounding the old homestead to pay the taxes and support herself and me. Piece by piece, my heritage had been stripped away, and I treasured what we had left. Just as I cherished my grandmother.

It was when Gran had started to have some memory issues that I had quit my job in Kansas City and purchased the dime store. Going from a sixty-hour, or more, workweek to a little over forty hours had given me the time I needed to be there for her. As had swapping my two-hour round-trip commute for a twenty-minute drive.

Gran had taken me in thirteen years ago when my
parents deserted me. Although my father hadn’t had a choice about it—he’d been sent to prison for manslaughter and possession of a controlled substance—my mom didn’t have any excuse.

She had dumped me on Birdie’s doorstep with a suitcase and a fifty-dollar bill, and run off to California. I was sixteen at the time, and even though Gran had showered me with love and attention, I never got over my mother’s actions or the feelings of rejection and abandonment they instilled.

Which is why when Gran’s doctor informed me that she needed me to be around more, I hadn’t hesitated to find another way to earn a living. I put in my two weeks’ notice at Stramp Investment as soon as the deal for the dime store purchase was complete. Some people thought I resigned from my job because I found out my boss, Ronald Stramp, was a crook, and that he paid for my silence. But I’d been as surprised as the rest of the world when his Ponzi scheme was revealed.

Just as my father had claimed to have been set up—and was as innocent of committing manslaughter as he was of the bank embezzlement of which he’d also been accused but never convicted—Stramp also maintained his innocence. However, unlike Dad, the jury at my boss’s trial acquitted him—a fact that the people he had bilked out of millions still resented.

Unfortunately, most people blamed me for the not-guilty verdict that freed him. I hadn’t been able to testify about Stramp’s scam because I hadn’t been aware of it. I don’t know which I felt worse about: that my ignorance allowed him to get away with his crime or that I was so dumb I never noticed what he was doing. My only defense was that Stramp was an extremely secretive and clever man.

All of this was on my mind as I made the short drive home. After both my father’s and my ex-boss’s scandals,
I had struggled to rehabilitate my image. As a teenager, I had shunned any and all controversy—never getting so much as a detention at school or a speeding ticket around my hometown.

And having made it through the Stramp disaster, I had pledged to avoid even the hint of dishonesty. Heck, I had solved a murder in which I was the prime suspect in order to escape being tainted by more gossip. Of course, my fear of being sent to prison might have also motivated me to find the real killer.

Now, as I tore down the blacktop toward home, passing farmhouses, fields, and pastures of grazing cows, sheep, and goats, I wondered if my love of collectibles and antiques had led me to commit a crime. If I had, could I make things right before my reputation was damaged beyond all repair?

Hitting the steering wheel, I groaned.
Great!
My good name was on the line again. And this time, it was my own damn fault.