Page 106 of Murder on Charity Lane

“Okay.”

“It’s messy!”

“Do you eat your burgers that way, too?”

“No, Ocean.” Sophie flipped her the middle finger. “I use my fingers.”

“Also,” Lily-Ann said, as they laughed, “CJ searched the web for ‘painless ways to kill an old man.’”

The two of them stopped laughing.

“That is the other piece of evidence the police unearthed,” she explained.

“She googled ways to kill Frank?” Ocean said, her shoulders slumping. “Well, that’s a bit damning.”

Lily-Ann couldn’t abide the imprecision. “She searched online for how to kill a man who was roughly Frank’s age with roughly his medical condition. At least, the police believe it was her. The searcher used a laptop in the house, in Frank DeYoung’s office, not CJ’s personal computer or her phone so—”

“Karina could’ve planted the search,” Sophie interrupted.

“Searches,” Lily-Ann corrected. “There were two.”

“Well, shit,” Ocean said.

“They date back four months.” Lily-Ann dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “So if Karina framed CJ, she started at least that long ago—before the cash withdrawals—and she planted the evidence deep. However, Frank DeYoung also used that laptop.”

“Why would he search…” Ocean trailed off. “You think he wanted to die by suicide?”

Sophie made a thoughtful noise. “Everyone says he’d been slowing down.”

“It’s possible,” Lily-Ann said, “but if he were thinking of euthanizing himself, I suspect he would’ve searched something like ‘how to kill yourself,’ not ‘how to kill an infirm old man.’”

Sophie forked another section of her toast. “Which means we’re back to trying to prove that Karina framed CJ.”

“Or to admitting that she’s been guilty all along,” Ocean said.

“I don’t think she is,” Sophie said.

Lily-Ann decided against asking for more maple syrup, then said, “The computer searches don’t strike me as a big deal.”

“Why not?”

“It’s normal curiosity, isn’t it?”

“Searching how to kill someone?”

“Yes. I mean it’s an interesting question.”

“It might be interesting, Lily-Ann, but it’s not normal.”

The certainty in Sophie’s voice surprised Lily-Ann. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” She looked to Ocean. “You’ve never searched that about Mrs. B?”

Ocean covered her mouth to keep from spitting out her coffee. “No! No, I’ve never searched that, Lily-Ann.”

“Why not?”