“And what did she do to get out of it?”
“She cheated,” she replied succinctly.
At that, even Mack winced. “Not sure that’ll work with your grandmother. She doesn’t tolerate that very much.”
“Nope, she sure doesn’t.” Doreen laughed. “And I can’t say I really blame her.”
“No, maybe not,” he agreed, “but, if we don’t have anything to go on with Nan’s attack and if we don’t have anything to go on here with your break-in”—he paused—“it does make me wonder if any of these are connected.”
“And why would they be connected?” she asked.
“Because you’re pushing the boundaries again.”
“Actually,” she clarified, “more than the boundaries there at Rosemoor. Don’t forget I’ve been asking a lot of questions about the poisonings.”
At that, he turned and stared at her. She shrugged. “Didn’t want you to lose sight of that fact.”
“Great, thanks for that,” he said. “So, just like your Nan, you have an awful lot of people who might want you to butt out of their business.”
At that, she glared at him. “I’m not a terrible person,” she muttered.
“Not at all,” he replied. “Yet not everybody’ll have the same viewpoint.”
And of course he was right there. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, a lot of people didn’t like her methodology—her meddling. “So what’s the answer?” As he went to open his mouth, she said, “And, no, I’m not staying home and staying out of trouble.”
His mouth clicked shut, with more force than necessary, and he glared at her.
She shrugged. “You know perfectly well that’s not something I can do.”
“You could try,” he suggested. “You don’t always have to be the one in the middle of the danger.”
“No, I don’t,” she agreed. “However, something here is definitely off.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” he noted, “because I agree. Something is off. I’m just not sure what’s off about any of it. And whether any of it’s connected.”
“Well, in my world, it seems that they’re always connected. I just don’t know if that recent poisoning of Alan and Chrissy’s earlier poisoning, supposed poisoning”—she corrected at a look from him—“but a few months earlier and now possibly Nan’s recent attack could all be related. That seems a little bit far-fetched.”
He nodded. “And I can’t blame you for getting involved in the poisoning cases because we were together at the beach when we saw the box of rat poison.”
“Exactly,” she said in delight. “So really you can’t blame me for this one.”
“No, I would like to though.”
It took her moment to understand, and then she gasped in shock. “You don’t get to just blame me,” she stated.
“No, it doesn’t work that way,” he muttered. “But I will have to talk to my captain about this.”
“Great. We already know how he feels about me being involved.”
“He’s been very tolerant with you so far.” Mack gave her a hard look. “Let’s not push it.”
“That’s what I meant about how he feels about me being involved. I mean, let’s not push it isn’t the same thing as being lenient.”
“No, of course not,” he replied quietly. “So what we do is, we have to ensure that we get to the bottom of this and fast.”
“Any leads on the poisoning of Alan, the poor man who died?”
“Nope. Nothing concrete. Wouldn’t it have been nice if he’d left us a roadmap to say, Hey, this guy did it.”
“Right?” she agreed. “And it seemed like everybody loved him.”
“Exactly. But death sometimes smooths over people’s rough edges.” At Doreen’s frown, he explained further. “Some people overlook another’s shortcomings, once they’re dead. Like you do, with your former divorce attorney, Robin.”
Doreen shrugged, but she understood what he was trying to say.
“Still,” Mack added, “that doesn’t mean that everybody really loved him. It only takes one person to make something like this into a very ugly scenario.”
“Agreed,” she noted quietly. “And it sure seems like we have more ugliness than is fair.” He looked at her. She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just always seems like there’s so much ugly around.”
“Getting a little bit depressed about humanity?” he asked quietly.
“Sometimes, yeah.” She stopped, thought about it. “Wonder if there’s any connection among the people? Maybe you should do that,” she said thoughtfully. “Check out associations between the three different scenarios—Alan, Chrissy, Nan.”
He looked at her, then shrugged. “I can do something along that line,” he agreed, “but it still doesn’t mean that we’ll get a list of known associates, much less anyone in common with all three victims.”
“What about … did Alan leave a will?”
“I spoke to the lawyer this morning,” he relayed. “He’s not being terribly cooperative.”
“Yeah, well, maybe the lawyer did it too then,” she noted in exasperation. “I don’t get it. Why are these guys causing us so much trouble?”
“Us?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.
She glared at him. “You know what I mean.”
“I do, indeed. But they’re trying to cover their own selves and make sure that they’re staying within the confines of the law.”
“So maybe they should have done that in time to keep their clients alive,” she stated.
“In this case, he’s checking into his own legalities. And then he’ll talk to us.”
“Sure he will. What, as long as you sign some sort of disclosure agreement?”
He chuckled. “No, I have a meeting with him tomorrow, and that’ll only happen as long as he cooperates.”
“Fine.” She sighed. “But keep these names in mind, just in case somebody pops in that will.”
“And the will’s already been read, I believe,” he noted.
“In that case the lawyer should be perfectly capable of handing off any information about it, shouldn’t he?”
“Maybe,” Mack said cheerfully. “Not your problem.” She glared at him again. He shrugged. “It’s not.”
“Fine,” she muttered. “I really don’t like it when you get official and kick me out of it.”
At that, he smiled. “I wouldn’t have to, if you would stay out of it voluntarily.”
She waved her hand. “That’s just details.”
He burst out laughing. “So you had breakfast, but did you eat anything else?”
“Nope, not yet. Oh—” And then she stopped, looked at him. “I have another problem.”
“Great.” He walked to the fridge, opened it, and took a look. “It’s not dinnertime, is it?”
She checked her watch and gasped. “Oh my God, I missed lunch.”