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This was news to Theodosia. “Seriously?”
Mignon cocked her head to one side like a curious magpie. “Oh my, yes.”
“And you think this Ginny Bell could have murdered him?” Theodosia was both surprised and curious.
Mignon took Theodosia by the elbow and pulled her into the nook next to the stone fireplace. “Ginny Bell is a treacherous Jezebel,” she snarled. “The woman tried her hardest to get her hooks into Osgood and rip us apart. Which she eventually did, of course. Osgood, may his soul rest in purgatorial bliss until the end of time, was flattered and tickled pink to carry on with Miss Bell, though he never in a million years would have married her.”
“I’m sorry, but I was under the impression that the two of you were in the process of getting a divorce,” Theodosia said. “So maybe he was going to marry Ginny Bell.”
“No, no, don’t believe that for a minute. In fact, they’d actually called it quits a few months ago.” Mignon paused. “And it did not end on friendly terms.”
“Really.”
Mignon lowered her voice. “I heard—mind you, this was through the gossip grapevine—that Ginny Bell was absolutely furious with him. Like losing-her-mind-getting-revenge furious.”
Theodosia digested Mignon’s words for a few moments. “Excuse me, you’re implying that Ginny Bell had an axe to grind? That she might have killed him?”
Mignon held up an index finger. “I didn’t say that.”
“Not in so many words. But that’s what you meant, right?”
“Okay, I suppose that is what I meant.”
“Do you have any evidence?”
“If I did, I’d have gone running to the police immediately,” Mignon said. “Because I love the idea of putting Ginny Bell’s scrawny butt in Graham Correctional Institution for the next twenty years.”
***
Once the guests had all left, Theodosia cleared tables with Miss Dimple, then sidled up to the front counter where Drayton was wiping out teapots.
“Did you by any chance overhear the exchange I had with Mignon?”
“The outraged soon-to-be ex-wife?”
“So you did hear us.”
“Bits and pieces of your conversation,” Drayton said. “I take it her angry words set your head to spinning?”
“Mostly they got me thinking. First we had Lamar Lucket pegged as a possible suspect. Then Lucket pointed his finger at Mignon as the killer. Now we have Mignon pointing a finger at this Ginny Bell person. It seems like any one of them could have had a good reason to kill Claxton.”
“Or maybe Booker did it after all,” Drayton said.
“Right. Or maybe Booker. Confusing.”
“Nothing’s ever cut-and-dried,” Drayton said.
“The thing that worries me is that Mignon says she’s almost out of money. And that she’s counting on the insurance money from Claxton’s death as well as winning a lawsuit against the Imago Gallery.”
“Counting her chickens before they’re hatched,” Drayton said. “Which sounds kind of fun and frivolous but is really rather foreboding.”
“I know. What if Mignon was the one who killed Claxton?”
Drayton picked up a clean cloth and wiped out the inside of an oxblood red teapot. “It wouldn’t be the first time a woman killed her husband so she could collect the insurance money. It’s almost Shakespearean, except for the fact they probably didn’t have insurance back then.”
“But they had money.”
“Point taken.”
