A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,126
filling the room, her glee infectious.
Sun fought a sheepish grin.
“You almost pulled it off, too. I’d never seen boys run so fast in my life. If not for your mother capturing you mid-swing, your parents would’ve had several lawsuits on their hands.”
Sun laughed, thinking back, then asked, “So that’s why?”
The older woman leaned forward. “That was only the beginning. I’ve been watching you, Sunbeam.” She tapped her temple. “You have all the fire and passion I once had. You’re the one I want filling my shoes.”
Sun took Mrs. Fairborn’s hands into hers. “Thank you.”
“How did all this get started?” Quincy asked. He brought around a chair for Sun and took one beside them. Everyone else did the same so they could hear the story once more. “The whole Dangerous Daughters thing.”
“Like Sunny said. It started with the missing persons cases. It’s so odd. It just doesn’t seem like that long ago.”
Sun leaned on her elbows and listened.
“Aurora was right. The people who went missing in the late fifties and early sixties, many of them anyway, had stayed with us at the boardinghouse. For almost a decade, travelers and the like just disappeared. Not many, mind you. Maybe one or two a year. Sometimes they’d leave some of their belongings. They’d head out at all hours and we wouldn’t hear about the fact that they never made it to their destinations for weeks. Sometimes months, if at all.”
Royce brought Mrs. Fairborn a cup of tea and put it on a side table.
“Thank you, Sheriff.”
Sun smiled. Lots of people in town still called Royce “Sheriff.” She loved it. If she could co-sheriff with anyone, it would be with that grizzly bear.
“But it was the Emily Press case that brought it all to the forefront. The papers got wind that she’d stolen a necklace, an old family heirloom, and was headed to Colorado to meet up with her beau when she disappeared.”
“The necklace Billy Press was after?” Quincy asked.
“Yes, sir. That’s when I first started to suspect. I found the necklace in the dresser of my husband, Mortimer. He said Miss Press forgot it when she took off, but I knew. Deep down, I knew he was killing those people for what little they had.”
She took her cup into a shaky hand and sipped to calm herself, a haunted expression on her face. “He killed that sweet girl. He killed them all.”
“I’m sorry,” Quince said.
“Me too.” Sun squeezed her hand. “I think this story should be told. The world needs to know who the real killer was.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I have that rascally daughter of yours working on it.”
Uh-oh. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad one, Sun acquiesced with a nod.
“Mortimer didn’t expect the firestorm he brought down on us. The family wanted that necklace back like the dickens. And, quite frankly, they were willing to move heaven and earth to get it. They had all kinds of investigators comb through this town and the whole area. We even had gen-you-wine Pinkertons in town.”
“Wow,” Quincy said. He’d wanted to become a Pinkerton at one point. Allan Pinkerton had been a hero of his since he’d read about how the man saved Lincoln’s life and helped with the Underground Railroad. “But I didn’t think the necklace was worth that much.”
“According to the family, it wasn’t. Said they wanted it for sentimental reasons.”
“You didn’t buy it,” Sun said.
“Not in the least. But my husband got it in his head it was worth a lot of money to them, so he was going to demand a ransom of sorts. In the meantime, the detectives began to realize that more than a handful of people who stayed at our boardinghouse went missing soon after. It did not look good.”
“That’s when you figured it out?”
“I confronted Mortimer about the killings before he could send his ransom demand.” She took another sip. “Let’s just say, Billy Press was not the first man to die in my kitchen.”
Quincy and Sun both sat back in unison.
“You killed him?” Quincy asked.
“Yes and no. I told him I was going to tell the sheriff everything and, well, he flat did not want me to. Went to kill me with a toaster. When he grabbed it, I plugged it in real fast and he electrocuted himself.” She shook her head. “I kept telling him to fix that old thing.”
Sun covered her mouth and cleared her throat. It was horrific and hilarious at once.