“After Luis stabbed her, you mean.”
I wiped a smudge of mustard from the corner of my mouth. “You’re so sure. He wasn’t the only person in the house.”
She laughed. “What could fat old Tex have wanted her dead for?”
“Maybe he thought Zelda was holding out on him, that she knew exactly where the gold was buried. Maybe you wanted your mother dead for the inheritance. I assume there’s an inheritance, though I don’t know what it is.”
“Oh, there’s an inheritance, all right.”
“What about the will?”
“Luis is probably reading it right now. I don’t need to read it. I know what it says.”
“And what’s that?”
“I get the house. He gets the money. Trust me, the house is worth a lot more.”
“So you would have had a reason to want her dead.”
Her face crunched in fury. “Who are you? Inspector Poirot or something? I didn’t want my mother dead. Traylor makes plenty of money. We can live on his paycheck well enough. I’m not the one in financial straits—it’s Luis. Come on. I’ll show you.”
Lemon took my arm and swung me away from the counter and back toward the séance room. I barely managed to snatch the rest of my tiny sandwich from the plate before I was being launched through the house.
She entered the room in a huff. “Where’s the will, Luis?”
Luis, who had been creating a pallet from a tower of blankets, huffed over his shoulder. “How would I know?”
“Of course you know. You’ve probably already checked it to make sure that you got what you were supposed to.”
“You ungrateful little girl.” Luis’s face twisted in fury as he charged toward Lemon, finger thrust out in anger. “You think I did this to your mother for the money? I don’t care about that.”
“Then where is the will?” Lemon demanded.
Traylor smoothly parted the two enemies. “Y’all, we need to calm down. This anger isn’t helping anyone. Let’s just try to make it through the rest of the night without killing anyone.”
Roan sidled up and whispered in my ear, “My thoughts exactly.”
“No.” Lemon stamped her foot. “I want to see the will, and I want to see it now!”
“Fine, you spoiled little brat.” Luis crossed to an oil portrait of Zelda and swung it open like a door.
“Tell you what, the two of y’all would rival me and my poor dead Sable,” Tex said with a chuckle. “We were always going at each other. Used to fight like cats and dogs.”
No one acknowledged him, and Tex didn’t seem to care.
A safe door was secured into the wall, and Luis turned the dial, quietly murmuring the combination (which I didn’t hear) to himself.
“You sure that’s where it is?” Lemon said sourly.
“This is the last place that your mother told me it was. I am surprised that you don’t know this yourself.”
Lemon hiked a shoulder to her ear. “I have more important things to fill my head with other than where my mother’s will is.”
Luis pulled on the bat-shaped latch and opened the door. “Here it is. Feel free to read every part of it if you want.”
Lemon snatched a folded document from his hand. She glanced at me, and with a look that said,See, I told you he would know where it was,she proceeded to unfold the pages and begin to read.
I took the opportunity to whisper to Roan. “So, how’s your night been going?”
