Page 17 of Luck of the Devil (Harper Adams Mystery #3)

Malcolm walked into the kitchen. “I smell coffee.”

Still reeling from my discovery, it took me a moment to acknowledge what he’d said. I nodded toward the coffeemaker. “Help yourself.” I nearly told him there was creamer in the fridge, but he already knew that. He’d made coffee here last week.

He opened the cabinet where my mother stored her mugs and grabbed two, then poured coffee into both.

“Find anything?” I asked, sitting back in my seat and watching him.

“Nope.” He answered flippantly. I was tempted to question him, but mostly out of habit. He brought both cups to the table, setting one in front of me and the second on the other side of the table, then headed to the fridge.

I looked up at him. “ I found something interesting.”

When I didn’t continue, he said, “Go on.”

“I told you that I called my mother last Tuesday around noon to tell her I couldn’t take her to her luncheon. I just looked up her calls on her laptop, and ten minutes after I placed that call, she made a call to a number that’s not in her contacts.”

He shut the fridge with his hip, grabbed a spoon from the drawer, and carried both to the table before he sat in the chair across from me. “I take it you already looked up who it belongs to.”

I added creamer to my coffee. “It’s a burner phone with no other information. No name or address. It’s not linked to anything. And even more suspicious, it was activated two days before my mother called the number.”

His brow shot up as he took the creamer from me. “What do you make of that?”

I picked up the spoon and stirred. “It’s strange, that’s for sure. She lived a small life. Sure, she was in all the women’s clubs, but this town’s pretty small. I can’t see how she’d even know someone with a burner phone, let alone call one.”

“Was she good with numbers, or would she have needed to write it down somewhere? Like on her phone or a notepad?”

I shook my head, then regretted it as the dull ache expanded. “She had a terrible memory. She must have stored it somewhere.”

“But likely not on her phone,” he mused, “otherwise she would have saved it as a contact, even if she’d used some kind of code for the name.”

He was right.

“So where would she have kept it?” he asked before taking a sip of the coffee.

“I think she would have either written it down here somewhere in the house or kept it in her purse.”

“If it was here in the house, where would it be?”

“Maybe her address book, but I doubt she’d put in a number for a phone that was only two days old.

What I don’t get is how she even had a chance to get someone’s brand-new number sometime between Sunday and Tuesday at noon.

As far as I knew, she mostly stayed home lately.

But if it’s here in the house, she might have kept it in the pen drawer.

Or maybe a drawer in her dining room hutch. ”

“Maybe someone emailed it to her.”

“It’s possible.”

“What’s the number?”

I grabbed the notepad she kept on the table, then reached for a pencil she kept in a small vase for her crossword puzzle book.

My hands were slightly shaky, so I gripped the pencil tightly, hoping Malcolm didn’t notice, then started to lightly scribble over the paper.

It revealed writing, but it was her grocery list of coffee, eggs, roast beef, potatoes, and carrots.

“Guess she didn’t write the number there,” he said.

“Agreed. This had to be her grocery list for Sunday lunch since she made a roast with potatoes and carrots, all on her list. She put it in the oven before she went to church, and we ate it after she came home.”

“So, she went to church Sunday morning, did she go anywhere else the rest of the day after lunch?”

“I don’t know when she left for church. I was still asleep.

” More like sleeping off my hangover. “But she usually left around 8:30. She always got to church early so she could help set out donuts, muffins, and coffee for people to eat during Sunday School. Last Sunday, she came home around noon, and I came over for lunch. That was her usual time for getting home, so I don’t think she went anywhere between church and home. ”

“If she actually went to church,” he said with a pointed look.

“True. Everything fits with her usual schedule, but it’s easy enough to find out. I can call a couple of her friends to make sure she was there.”

He gave a slight nod.

“I came over a few minutes after she got home and helped her finish getting lunch ready. We ate around one, then I watched a movie with her on the TV. Around three or a little after, I told her I was going to head to my apartment for a while. She wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t fight me on it.

I hung out in my apartment the rest of the afternoon, then came over around six-thirty to have sandwiches with her.

We watched more TV, and then I left at around nine. ”

“You don't think she went anywhere when you were in your apartment?”

“No.” But I couldn’t be one-hundred-percent sure. I’d had a few drinks and napped a bit before my alarm went off, reminding me to go over. “Besides, it would have been out of character for her.”

“So is calling a burner phone, so we can’t rely on her doing things that are in character.”

He was right and I felt foolish for suggesting it. We were looking for actions that weren’t usual for her.

His jacket was slung over the back of his chair, and he reached behind him, into the jacket, then pulled out his flask. After he uncapped it, he handed it to me.

I took it without protest. Between my shaky hands and my comment about my mother’s regular habits, it was clear my brain wasn’t working on all cylinders.

I limited myself to a healthy sip, ignoring the voice in my brain that said I needed to take another one or two or ten. I hated myself for sinking so low that I couldn’t control my drinking, but I’d deal with my self-recrimination later. Right now, I needed to focus.

It took everything in me to hand the metal flask back, but he took it without comment, even though he had to know about the inner battle I was waging.

I leaned back in my chair, letting the whiskey work its magic. The tight muscles of my back and neck began to relax before I focused on what we’d been discussing. “I don’t think she left the house Sunday afternoon,” I said, “but if I’m honest, I can’t be totally sure.”

Should I admit I’d been drinking? But a quick glance over at him suggested he already knew.

“But,” I added, “I don’t think she got the number for the burner during that time. That kind of thing would have made her nervous, and she didn’t seem particularly on edge when I came back over.”

“She might not have known it was a burner,” he said, lifting his mug. “She might have thought it was just a number.”

“True.”

He nodded. “Someone could have given her the number on Monday. Do you know what she was up to that day?”

“Her car was in the driveway when I left for work around 7:45, and I could see a light on in her bathroom window. I have no idea what she did while I was gone, but I got home a little after five, ate dinner with her and watched more TV. She could have easily met someone during the day.”

“And Tuesday?”

“I left for work around the same time, and there was a light on in the kitchen.”

“Was it out of character for her to be up that early?”

I shook my head. “My mother wasn’t a night owl. She was an early riser. If anything, it was unusual that the kitchen light wasn’t on yet when I left for work on Monday.”

“And you were at work on Tuesday morning, so you don’t know what she did before you called her.”

“Yeah.”

He leaned back and took a sip of his coffee. “At least we have a rough timeline to work with. We should confirm she was at church on Sunday morning. You said she kept a calendar, but did she have a planner? She might have written her Monday and Tuesday activities in there.”

“Good point. I’ll check her email first. You can search the pen drawer and the buffet for the phone number while I pull it up.”

He stood, taking his coffee cup with him as he headed to the kitchen drawer I pointed to.

I woke up the laptop, then clicked on the email icon.

When the login page came up, the autosaved login and password filled in the fields.

To my surprise, she only had twelve unread emails.

That was a remarkably small number considering she’d been dead a week.

Most of the emails were part of a historical society email chain.

Another was a recipe newsletter, and there was a reminder for a dental appointment last Friday that had been sent out the day before.

Late Friday afternoon, she’d received a follow-up email to reschedule her missed appointment.

That one struck me as odd.

Malcolm had already rifled through the pen drawer and moved into the dining room—I could hear him pulling out a squeaky drawer in the buffet.

“She missed an appointment with her dentist last Friday,” I said, raising my voice so he could hear me.

“And they sent an email for her to reschedule. She would never purposely miss an appointment, which makes me think she wasn’t planning on leaving so quickly on Tuesday.

That or she thought she’d be back by Friday. ”

“You think something spooked her?” he called back.

“Maybe.” I took a sip of my coffee, hoping the mix of whiskey and coffee would work its magic soon, then rethought my answer.

“She was upset when I said I couldn’t go to the historical society luncheon on Tuesday.

I’d just gotten the Hugo Burton case, and it was the only time his wife could meet with me.

Those meetings are at least an hour to an hour and a half.

I don’t think she would have planned to go to the meeting if she was leaving town in a hurry. ”

“Who’s to say she was in a hurry?” he asked, still in the dining room. “What if part of the reason she was upset you didn’t take her was because she wanted to tell you about her plans?”