Page 39 of Setup In Montana

I know you took it from her room. Return it or else.

You made a mistake this time. You stole from the wrong person.

You’re as good as dead if you don’t give it back.

I’m coming to get what belongs to me tonight.

Max looked up at the manager. “All of these were found in Esther’s apartment?”

“They were stuffed in the side of her recliner,” Vernon said. The sheriff was trying to see why Vernon thought he had to see them right away, when the rest home manager said, “I recognized the handwriting.” He reached into his desk again and pulled out a timecard. He slid it across the desk to Max. “The handwriting matches one of the staff.”

Max saw at once that the man was right. What surprised him, though, was that the name at the top of the timecard wasn’t Diana’s. “Sarah Brooks?” the sheriff said in surprise. “I’m going to have to take these with me,” he said as he put the notes back in the envelope. He’d been on the way to the hospital to arrest Diana for murdering both women.

But this indicated a different killer for Esther. This evidence now pointed directly at Sarah Brooks. He’d been so sure that the murders were connected, but maybe he’d been wrong about that.

As Max rose to leave, Vernon said, “All I can figure is that it had to do with Mildred Wilson’s alleged fortune and her missing pendant. But if anyone benefited from Mildred’s death, I thought it would be her sons—not their cousin Sarah even though she did take care of Mildred even after she moved into the rest home.”

“Luther and Abel are Sarah’s cousins?” the sheriff asked. “How was it that I didn’t know that?”

“I just assumed you knew that most everyone in rural Montana is related,” Vernon said.

“So this is about money,” Max said, remembering what Clancy had told him about the key she’d found in a pendant. “You say it was a pendant that Sarah had been looking for and believed Esther had taken?”

Vernon nodded. “A big, gaudy pendant that Mildred wore about her neck. I thought she probably slept with it on, but apparently not if Esther managed to steal it. The sons came and cleaned out Mildred’s apartment. I did get the impression they were searching for something. I doubt, though, there was ever any money. They didn’t even have a funeral for the woman, just had her cremated.”

Max rose. “Is Sarah working right now?”

Vernon shook his head. “She called in sick less than an hour ago.”

The sheriff left, even more anxious to get to the hospital after leaving Shady Rest. There was no doubt that Sarah had written those threatening notes to Esther.

But Diana had type O negative blood like the person who’d killed Jane and when he’d tried to talk to her, she’d made a run for it. Why had she risked her life trying to escape if she was innocent?

It made no sense, especially since Sarah Brooks’s blood type wasn’t O negative.

When the sheriff reached the hospital, he was relieved. Diana was conscious and well enough to talk. He needed some good news.

“The patient has lost a lot of blood, so she’s still a little weak even after the blood transfusion,” the nurse told him. “Keep it short. She needs her rest.”

“I just have a few questions,” he said as he pushed open the door into Diana’s room. She lay in bed, her face as white as the pillowcase her head rested against. “How are you doing?”

She shook her head, then closed her eyes as he approached her bed. “Diana, I need to ask you about Esther and Jane.”

Her eyes flew open and widened in terror. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Then why did you take off like that last night when all I wanted to do was talk to you?”

She closed her eyes again. Tears leaked out. “I stole the money. That’s all I did.”

He stared at her. “What money?”

Again, her eyes opened, but this time she looked a lot less scared. “I thought this was about Jane’s money. When I didn’t see her come through for breakfast, I went down to her room to see if I could bring her a tray. She was always so nice and polite to me. But when I opened her door and saw what someone had done to her…” Tears welled again in Diana’s eyes. “I shouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t like she was going to be spending any of it. I knew she didn’t have family.”

“You took her money?”

“Her purse was lying on the floor partway under her bed. It had fallen open and I could see a wad of bills.” Her eyes closed again. “I grabbed the money and got out of there as fast as I could. I know I should have told someone about her being dead.”

Was it possible that Diana hadn’t killed her? But she was O negative. He had a flash of memory from something the nurse had said. “I’ll be right back.” Stepping out, he found the nurse. “You said you had to give her blood? But isn’t her blood type O negative. You had that on hand?”