Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

Miss Weena frowned. “Probably after we all started to lose it. I wish we hadn’t lost it—or at least not lost it that way, because it’s been a real pain not having a phone. And sometimes I miss having a television.” She gave Luci a bright look. “I was never as freaky about it as Hermi.”

“But…you’re the one who buried Mickey’s cell phone,” Luci felt bound to point out.

Miss Weena looked impish and a bit guilty. “He’s cute when he’s mad.”

It was an undeniable fact. With a touch of guilt, Luci recalled those occasions she’d played “Seymour” to stir Mickey’s pot a bit.

“Are you going to tell him?”

Luci raised her brows. “I may be pregnant, but I’m not crazy. If you want him to know, you tell him.”

“I’m not crazy either,” Miss Weena said, “just eccentric. Besides, he might kill me before I finish this business.”

Thus reminded of the business, Luci tried to focus her thoughts on that and not on how cute her husband was when roused to wrath. She leaned her elbows on the desk and rubbed her temples as the baby stirred inside her. Outside she heard a siren, recognized it as a call to action for some beat cops and wished she were with them instead of here. The room was too warm and Miss Weena’s scent too strong for clear thought.

“I know the murder was never officially solved,” Luci managed, wishing Miss Gracie would come and cool the room off. Of course, since it was her death they were discussing, maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. “But you all knew who did it…didn’t you?”

Miss Weena shook her head. “We all thought it was Henry who did it. He was so in love with Gracie and got quite…vocal when she turned him down. He didn’t know about Charles, of course.”

“Charles?” She was going to be a lot nicer to Mickey after this. Her eye wasn’t twitching yet, but it felt like it really wanted to. She rubbed that temple more forcefully.

“He was the one she loved.” The faded blues were calm and clear, a distinct contrast to the confusion inside Luci’s head. “I think she would have given in and married him, like you, dear, only he died.” She gave a sort of sad sigh. “As I said, Henry didn’t know, of course, no one here knew about it because Gracie came here to get away from it and if he had known? I’m not sure it would have helped. Besides a hasty temper, he had a jealous disposition. And he was used to getting what he wanted. It seemed obvious…and yet…I’ll admit I sometimes wondered…”

“Wondered what, Miss Weena?” Luci stopped rubbing her temples and studied her aunt. She looked so…normal.

“It was the way it was done…it didn’t seem like a crime of passion, but one of calculation. She was shot in the back, you see. She wasn’t murdered, so much as…executed.”

The word sounded wrong, coming out the aging cupid’s bow of Miss Weena’s mouth. It was so cold—and so logical, something Miss Weena had never been.

“So why did you decide it was Henry?”

“Because who on earth would want or need to execute Gracie? There was nothing in her life to motivate her death but the…the…Seymour factor.”

She paused and then gave Luci another one of those oddly direct looks. “You think you get your whole police thing from your father, but I think some of it comes from me. Beneath the Seymour eccentricity, I have a very logical mind. A pity I didn’t listen to myself.” She sighed again. “I don’t like being wrong.”

Luci shook her head. She must have missed a beat somewhere. “Wait a minute. How do you know you were wrong?”

“Theo saw Henry after she died and asked him.” Miss Weena’s voice was overly patient, like someone explaining simple truths to a clueless child. “None of us expected him to go anywhere but hell.”

Luci’s eye twitched then, just slightly, but definitely a twitch. “Okay—so Miss Theo talked to Henry—how do you know that?”

Miss Weena looked surprised. “She told Hermi when she came to get her last year and Hermi told me. She knew I’d want to know and gasped it out in her last breath.” Miss Weena had a “wasn’t that nice of her” look on her pixie face. “I’ve spent the last year going over the evidence again, trying to figure out who it could be. I thought I figured it out again—there was a girl who had a thing for Henry and I wondered if she did it—but Hermi says no.”

“Hermi told you—when?” Luci rubbed her eye.

“When she came to get me the other day. It is disappointing not to be with them, but how can I rest in peace, knowing Gracie’s killer is still out there?”

“If Miss Hermi knows so much about who didn’t do it, why didn’t she tell you who did?” Luci heard herself ask, glad Mickey wasn’t here to hear the words come out her mouth.

Miss Weena’s brows arched almost to her gray hairline. “Isn’t it obvious? The killer is still alive…” she tapped a sheet with her finger, “…and one of the people on this suspect list.”

Luci blinked once. When it didn’t help, she tried it again, but to no avail. Sighing was—painful and thinking was challenging. She rubbed both temples some more. “Okay, so the killer is still alive, but Miss Weena, it’s been fifty years. If the killer isn’t dead by now, he or she soon will be. Then you’ll know. You can even talk to him or her if you want to.”

“I do not plan on making any visits to hell. What if I couldn’t get out again? No, Luci, this needs to be solved here and now.” She waved a hand. “It’s a closure thing.”

What idiot had been talking to Miss Weena about closure? Luci stiffened. “Wait a minute. You told me you were hanging around to see the baby.”

For the first time, Miss Weena