Vail rolled his eyes. “Why would I burn some stupid dolls?”
“It was youridea,” Dodie said, giving the lie away.
“It was a suggestion,” Vail argued back to her. “No one made you take it. You did it on your own.”
“Because Violet provoked me. I wouldn’t have burned her things if you hadn’t told me to.”
“I didn’t tell you to do anything. It was just an idea. I didn’t think you’d actually do it, you lunatic.”
“Well, well,” I said with dark calm, scraping up the last crumbs of egg with my fork. “I liked those dolls. I’ll have my revenge on both of you, have no fear.”
Dodie shot an accusing look at Vail. “Now look what you’ve done. She’ll put arsenic in our tea when we’re eighty. No one does revenge like Violet. You know full well she can wait that long.”
Vail picked up his fork and finally dug into his eggs. “I don’t plan to live to eighty, so that won’t be a problem.”
“You most definitely won’t live to eighty, dear brother,” I said with threatening sweetness. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Dodie slapped her palm lightly on the table. “Tell me what’s in the file, one of you. Ihatereading.”
Vail was eating, the bastard, and he didn’t speak. So I took a drink of half-cold coffee and I told her.
It didn’t take long. The file was enraging, but it wasn’t very thick. Dodie listened, every part of her body going still.
“You’re right,” she said when I finished. “I’m angry. Do you have a plan?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I always have a plan.”
“Does it involve arsenic?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Not at the moment. But if I need to use it, I will. Think about where we can find some, just in case.”
—
I made the phone call from the kitchen. It was the only phone in the house, which was unfortunate because it was placed in the middle of the wall with nowhere to sit next to it. To make a phone call—which was rare for us—one had to stand awkwardly like a soldier on parade, posture upright, legs apart. No leaning or sitting allowed.
Dodie had wandered off, but Vail stayed in the kitchen, washing the dishes in the sink and listening in. I’d had to pull a phone book—turned nearly to dust—from under the counter to get the number. Luckily, former detective Gus Pine had lived in Fell with the same phone number since roughly the fall of the Roman Empire.
“Hello?” came his gruff voice when he picked up.
My voice was calm. “You bastard,” I said. “Now I know why you didn’t want me to read that fucking file.”
“Ah, the Esmie girl,” he said. “Such ladylike language. I guess I didn’t get rid of you.”
Get rid of me? “Never,” I replied. “I’m still here.”
“I told you not to read it. Family shouldn’t read those things. It never solves anything, and it never goes well.”
“I’m not just family,” I said as Vail clanked dishes louder than needed in the sink, his controlled anger matching mine. “Apparently, I’m your suspect.All of us were.”
It had been typed into the file by Gus himself.
Interviewed the three remaining children. All are teenagers. Hard to pin down, but something seems off.
A few lines down:
The oldest daughter, Violet, is rumored to be sick in the head somehow. Note to speak to any local doctor who has seen her. Mrs. Lydia Thornhill, neighbor, said that Violet sees things that aren’t there. Mrs. Thornhill says she has never seen Ben Esmie in person. Follow up on possibility that the oldest daughter harmed her brother and the others are covering it up.
“I was just doing my job,” Gus argued. “No one else was home when he disappeared except for the three of you. What was I supposed to think?”
