Page 76 of Wasted

Twenty-Two

“Another cookie?” Judy Kline lifted the plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies and held it out toward Cillian across the table in her modest, old-fashioned dining room that was open to the kitchen. “You look like a young man who needs more to eat. Not enough meat on your bones, my mother would say.”

He grinned. “Well, I never turn down cookies as good as these. Thank you.” He took a third cookie and bit into the delicious softness. Probably the best chocolate chip cookies he’d ever had.

“I’ll pass, thank you.” Victoria, sitting in the chair next to Cillian, held up a hand with a smile. “They really are delicious. I can see why Thomas hired you as his cook and housekeeper. The house was always immaculate.”

Judy jerked a nod as she set the plate down in the middle of the table. Her lips pressed together with the emotion she’d obviously been trying to hold back since they’d started talking about her boss.

“I had the feeling you two were friends, as well. I thought, perhaps, working for him wasn’t only a job for you.”

Judy’s gaze jumped to Victoria across the table. “We were family in a way. I worked for him for forty years.” Judging from her graying hair, she must have started the job when she was about thirty. “My family are all gone. Have been for some time. His, too.”

Cillian swallowed the bite of cookie. “Except for his niece and nephew.”

Judy’s green eyes sharpened. “Those two hardly count as family. Circling vultures was more like it.”

He tried to hold back a laugh as he shot a glance at Victoria.

She kept a perfectly proper expression, of course, as she watched Judy. “I hate to consider it, but do you believe they could have hurt Thomas?”

“You mean kill him?” Judy’s hand went to her coffee mug on the table in front of her. “Absolutely.” The confidence in her tone and gaze would be perfect on a witness stand if it came to that.

“Do you think they did kill him? Or one of them did it alone?” Cillian took another bite of the fabulous dessert.

“I don’t know for sure. They weren’t supposed to have the code to unlock the house, but that Brenda was such a snooper. I think she had found it someplace Thomas must have kept it written down.”

“What makes you say that?” Victoria lifted her mug and took a sip of the tea Judy had given her.

“She was in the house one morning before I arrived. Thomas didn’t let her in, but he found her in his office. He thought I must have been there and let her in.”

“She was in his office?” Victoria set down the mug.

“Yes. Probably snooping.”

Victoria glanced at Cillian.

Thinking the same thing he was, no doubt. The guy who’d knocked her down had been in the office, too. Could he have been the nephew, Ryan, instead of Clinton Glenn? He could’ve been looking for whatever the niece thought was in the office. Maybe a copy of the will?

Since Judy was turning out to be such wealth of information, he should probably see what she thought of the man who was Cillian’s prime suspect at the moment. “What about Clinton Glenn, the museum curator?”

“Oh, Mr. Glenn.” She frowned as her eyebrows lowered. “That’s a sad situation.”

Cillian’s instincts fired. Not the answer he’d expected but an intriguing one. He opened his mouth to prompt her to say more, but she continued on her own.

“He and Mr. Briscoe were good friends for nearly ten years, you know.” She directed her gaze at Victoria.

“Yes, I thought they were.” Victoria was really good at this interview thing. She sounded empathetic when she should, calm and trustworthy with perfect timing. Mostly, she listened instead of speaking. No wonder Judy had been so willing to talk to them without hesitation when they’d shown up unannounced at her front door, even on a Sunday afternoon. And Victoria had been so worried the woman wouldn’t talk to her because of the murder charges.

“That all changed when Mr. Briscoe discovered something that Mr. Glenn had done. Something very bad.”

Cillian quickly swallowed the last of the cookie. “What was it?”

“I don’t know.”

Disappointment sagged in Cillian’s chest, and he reached for the glass of milk to wash down the cookie.

“I wish I had asked more now, but I never pried into Mr. Briscoe’s affairs. We respected each other’s privacy.”