“So we’re down to the usual motives,” Cooper said. “Who gains from Lady Marianne’s death? Your promoted Councilor?”
“Technically,” Keith said reluctantly. “But I have a hard time imagining him doing anything like this, and he looked pretty shocked when we told him what was happening. I know we can’t rule him out, because for all I know he’s the world’s greatest actor, but I’d be surprised. Maybe someone just wanted to open a spot on the Council, but even then ....” He trailed off, remembering Blake Abbott and his great unfulfilled ambition.
“What?” Cooper said.
As soon as he glanced at Iris, she picked up on what he was thinking.
“My brother-in-law wants a spot on the Council,” she said frankly. “And he’s far from the only one, and positions don’t open up all that often. Someone could have decided tomakeone open up. But that’s like the Lord Sinclair possibility. We can’t rule it out, but I don’t believe it, either. If you were going to kill someone on the Council just to open up a seat, you wouldn’t have to start with someone at the top. There would have been easier targets.”
“And safer methods,” Evie said. “If it was a cold-blooded murder for the sake of somebody’s career, they would have had time to plan. They could have made it look like a natural death or an accident. This looks like anything but.”
She was right. If someone had planned this out, Keith didn’t understand their plan at all.
“So maybe it wasn’t premeditated,” Keith said, thinking out loud. “Maybe the killer didn’t expect things to escalate like this.”
“They could have come here to get information,” Iris suggested. “The Council House is one of the few buildings in town thatdoeslock up when no one’s around, but it still wouldn’t be hard to get inside. Maybe someone was rummaging around and Marianne interrupted them.”
“Security cameras?” Simon said hopefully.
“No, sorry.”
He sighed. “Probably should have expected that, since you just said most people here don’t even bother to lock up.”
“This kind of thing doesn’t usually happen,” Keith said, feeling a rare flicker of defensiveness on behalf of his odd, sheltered hometown. “The murder rate here is so low it’s almost nonexistent.”
“Which means,” Iris said, “this is all going to attract alotof attention.” She looked at Keith. “You shouldn’t be involved.”
Keith did a double-take. “I want to be. I haven’t been the gift to the outside world that they really wanted me to be. I’d like to do my duty by it somehow.”
Iris’s eyes were soft, and their right now their color reminded him of toffee: sweet and somehow consoling. “I know. I’d want that too, if I were you. But you heard what Lady Alicia said, and she’s not going to be the only one saying it. People are going to blame me.”
“What?” Cooper said, startled. “You? Why?”
“I’m the bad seed,” Iris said, her light tone obviously forced. “Or at least I used to be. For the last year or so, I’ve been acting as decorous as a good unicorn should, but people here haven’t forgotten that I spent years raising hell.”
“By unicorn standards,” Keith clarified, because he could tell they were trying to picture what that meant: cocaine? A motorcycle gang? “She means she made a lot of trips out of town. She’s watched superhero movies and worn bright colors.”
“Are youAmish?” Simon said in disbelief. “Because I was always joking about the rumspringa thing, but now I feel like I’m inWitness.”
“I’ve seenWitness,” Iris volunteered. “The whole problem people here have with me is that if some guy dabbed his ice cream cone on my nose, I’d probably punch him.”
Evie shrugged. “Personally, I say good for you. I don’t see how that translates to you being a suspect.”
“She’snota suspect!” Keith exclaimed.
Iris put her hand on his arm. He had to admire her poise: as she explained the situation to them, she sounded perfectly calm.
“I hope I’m not a viable suspect, and that nothing that turns up makes you think so. But I’ve gone against the grain before, and for some people here, that’s enough to make me seem dangerous. And I’m the one who found Lady Marianne’s body and broke the bad news. I’m an easy scapegoat. And the village really is going to be scared and grief-stricken right now; they need to feel sure that whatever answer you find is the right one and that Marianne’s getting the justice she deserves. If Keith is part of the investigation, they’ll always wonder if I influenced him somehow and got him to look the other way.”
“Then they can take that up with me.”
But he knew that she was right. His team could handle the investigation perfectly well without him, at least if he could quietly give them some background intel. He wouldn’t be doing Iris any favors if he created a situation where everyone in town vaguely suspected that she’d been involved in all this.
It was just so idiotic and unfair. There was no legitimate reason to suspect her, and he hated that he had to act like there was.
He sighed. “She’s right about what people will think. I wish she wasn’t, but she is.”
“I know how that is,” Evie said, with a sympathetic smile at Iris. “It’s not a fun position to be in. We’ll do our best to get you out of it as soon as we can.”
