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He scowled at me. “She won’t let me.”
I shook my head, not understanding the two of them but also not wanting to get into it.
“Here, let me,” Kat said. She set down the bottles of wine and took over feeding Adaline in the bouncy seat.
“What can we do?” I asked.
“Set up the seating and then come back for further instructions,” Mindy said. “Kat, your job is to watch the twins. Frank, don’t you dare take that sleeping baby out of that carrier.”
He held his hands up and backed out of the kitchen. I chuckled and followed him.
Frank and I walked through the sunroom and outside. He had a large horizontal shed that sat up against the house on the other side of his immaculate patio. We pulled out folding chairs and a card table and carried them inside.
I brought in two extra chairs from the outdoor patio since I had invited my brothers to join us, and that made seventeen. Frank’s large oak table with matching chairs and bench seat could fit eleven. More if people squished together on the bench.
Peter had built the table, and when I had a bigger house, I would have him make me one too. He made all kinds of furniture and sold most of it in his store, Double Oak Furnishings, below his office. I had a few pieces, like the coffee table and end table, but I wanted that dining table.
“How’s the case?” Frank asked.
“Over finally. We caught the guy as he tried to board a plane.”
Frank frowned. “Caught him? I thought the people were dead.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m all ears. Nothing interesting ever happens around here.”
“This about the case?” Peter asked, joining us.
“Yeah.”
“Crazy. He would have gotten away with it if he hadn’t started the fire,” Peter said.
“I need the details,” Frank whined.
“Nash had been poking around some cold cases to pass the time and stumbled across one that involved both our towns. His boss had done most of the legwork on their end, but Nash pulled the case from our archives and started piecing things together. A man named Herman who worked at the mill was married to a woman named Annabeth. They lived in Ridge Point. Herman was murdered. Gunshot wound to the abdomen.”
“Jesus, that’s a horrible way to go,” Frank said. “Let me guess, it was the wife?”
“Nope. She was found a few days later in a park near here. Strangled.”
Frank’s eyes widened.
“Nash had a theory, and it was pretty good. He guessed that the wife was having an affair with one of the husband’s coworkers or friends, and the lover murdered the husband.”
“Go on,” Frank said. Ava stirred in her carrier, and he started bouncing her. His eyes were fixed on me, waiting for more.
“For weeks, we looked at the cases separately, concentrating on the why and also making a list of suspects. Nash and I got together for lunch and found one common suspect. We paid him a visit, but he wasn’t home. Nothing came of the lead until the investigation of the fire was complete. Chief Hanson told us that they found a body in the rubble, but the person hadn’t been killed in the fire.”
Peter had already heard the story. Since he was the mayor of Oak Springs, we’d filled him in on what was going on while we were putting the case together. Frank, however, was hearing this for the first time and was on the edge of his seat.
“Long story short, the man we suspected was Lloyd Banks. Turns out Lloyd was Annabeth’s lover. Herman found out, and Lloyd killed him and ran off with Annabeth.”
Frank leaned forward, making Ava fuss. “What about the fire and the body and Annabeth? Don’t leave me hanging.”
Peter chuckled, and I rolled my eyes. “Lloyd also killed Annabeth, but we didn’t know why until yesterday. Lloyd had gotten away with the murders for ten years. He continued to work at the mill and live life normally until Walter, one of his coworkers, mentioned that Nash was poking around the murders. Lloyd used Walter for information for a while until Walter started coming up with his own theories about what happened. Apparently one of those theories was a little too close to the truth, so Lloyd killed him too. Lloyd needed to get rid of poor old Walter, so he started the fire to cover up the murder, hoping the authorities would assume Walter had died in the fire.”
“Wow. That’s terrible,” Frank said.
