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“Does it say who she was to the victim?” asked Christie.
Lori nodded. “It says she was the victim’s friend.”
“Let’s go back and start at the beginning,” Jessica suggested.
Christie flipped through the file. “There’s really not much here at all. Why don’t we just call this Carole Lee up and ask if she’d be willing to talk to us? You never know; she might jump at the chance to solve her friend’s murder.”
“Unless she’s the one who did it,” quipped Lori, earning an eye roll from all her friends.
Jessica dialed the woman’s last listed number. “Hello? Is this Carole Lee Brewster?”
“Why yes, yes it is,” said a somewhat frail voice on the other end of the line.
“Miss Brewster, my name is Jessica Murdoch and I write mysteries for a living—kind of like your old friend, Pandora Pritchard…”
“Dear Pandora…” Carole Lee started before someone grabbed the phone.
“I don’t know who you are or what you want, but my aunt has nothing to say to you. Don’t call this number again.”
The call ended before Jessica could get a word in edgewise.
“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Jessica with a grin, “but I suggest we adjourn to Maine. Granville isn’t far from Badger’s Drift.” Jessica’s home was in Badger’s Drift.
Fiona looked pointedly at Christie. “Only if you promise not to stick your foot in the door again.”
“Why are you harping on that? It wasn’t your foot, and it worked.”
Lori shook her head remembering the last time they had gone to confront someone. The guy had tried to slam the door in their faces. He’d failed. Christie had stopped him by positioning her foot in the doorjamb.
“What do you say, Lori?” asked Jessica. “You up for a weekend in Maine?”
Lori grinned. She couldn’t love these women more if they’d been born family. Instead, they were her found family, formed by choice and circumstance rather than blood and birth.
“I can be packed in ten minutes or less.”
Within the hour, the train was pulling out of Chicago with the Mystery Writers’ Murder Club aboard, headed for Badger’s Drift.
“It’s a good thing Thorn is out on a case,” said Jessica.
“He doesn’t fancy an invasion of his wife’s friends?” cackled Christie.
“Not when he thinks we’re about to stick our noses into trouble again,” admitted Jessica, “but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, it’ll give Sudie more people to fuss over.”
They arrived in Badger’s Drift and descended on Jessica’s house and Sudie, Jessica’s housekeeper, like a plague of starving locusts. Lori might have felt bad, but Sudie seemed delighted to see and feed them all again.
The following morning, they drove to Granville and to the home of Carole Lee Brewster. Jessica knocked on the door and made sure Christie wasn’t where she could keep the door from being closed in their faces.
“Yes?” said the spry woman behind the storm door. Her voice had sounded far more frail on the phone than she looked in person.
“I’m Jessica Murdoch. I spoke with you briefly yester…”
“About Pandora? I must apologize for my nephew. He can be rather abrupt with people. Won’t you ladies come in? I looked you up on the Google. Are these your friends in the murder club?”
Jessica smiled. “They are. That’s Lori, this is Fiona, and that’s Christie. She’s a retired homicide cop from Baltimore, but it was Lori here who brought Pandora’s case to our attention.”
Carole Lee nodded. “I always wondered why the police didn’t seem very interested. They really only talked to me the one time.”
“You do understand that we have no legal authority and that you are under no obligation to speak with us,” said Fiona.
