A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) by Darynda Jones

“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I have that rascally daughter of yours working on it.”

Uh-oh. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad one, Sun acquiesced with a nod.

“Mortimer didn’t expect the firestorm he brought down on us. The family wanted that necklace back like the dickens. And, quite frankly, they were willing to move heaven and earth to get it. They had all kinds of investigators comb through this town and the whole area. We even had gen-you-wine Pinkertons in town.”

“Wow,” Quincy said. He’d wanted to become a Pinkerton at one point. Allan Pinkerton had been a hero of his since he’d read about how the man saved Lincoln’s life and helped with the Underground Railroad. “But I didn’t think the necklace was worth that much.”

“According to the family, it wasn’t. Said they wanted it for sentimental reasons.”

“You didn’t buy it,” Sun said.

“Not in the least. But my husband got it in his head it was worth a lot of money to them, so he was going to demand a ransom of sorts. In the meantime, the detectives began to realize that more than a handful of people who stayed at our boardinghouse went missing soon after. It did not look good.”

“That’s when you figured it out?”

“I confronted Mortimer about the killings before he could send his ransom demand.” She took another sip. “Let’s just say, Billy Press was not the first man to die in my kitchen.”

Quincy and Sun both sat back in unison.

“You killed him?” Quincy asked.

“Yes and no. I told him I was going to tell the sheriff everything and, well, he flat did not want me to. Went to kill me with a toaster. When he grabbed it, I plugged it in real fast and he electrocuted himself.” She shook her head. “I kept telling him to fix that old thing.”

Sun covered her mouth and cleared her throat. It was horrific and hilarious at once.

“But with all the detectives running around, and now with Mortimer dead, I was afraid they’d think I was the killer. So, I buried him in the backyard, planted a cherry tree on top, and called it a day.”

That time Quincy covered his mouth under the guise of deep thinking. He scrunched his brows together and everything.

Sun agreed. The image of Mrs. Fairborn hurrying to plug in a toaster to electrocute her husband was too much, but she and Quincy were now in one of those surreal situations where they were making an oath to a group of people that usually—but not always—had motivations and loyalties that lined up with the law. And they’d taken an oath to uphold said law, so what would happen when that was not the case? When one of those group decisions contradicted with their oath? What would they do then?

Mrs. Fairborn’s actions were clearly self-defense. But one thing was certain: the next few months would be interesting. Sun had no doubt.

“As you may have guessed,” Mrs. Fairborn continued, “I couldn’t take it. The guilt was eating me alive. So, about a week after I planted Mortimer, I went to the sheriff, that old bastard Campbell Scott, and confessed everything.” She cackled. “You should have seen the look on his face when I told him.”

“He didn’t think you could do it?”

“Oh, no. He knew I had it in me. I’d gone steady with him before I met Mortimer. The problem was, he was having an affair. He’d found himself a young filly on the side and I knew it. When he figured out I knew the truth and he could lose all that shiny money he’d married into, he told me I was mistaken about Mortimer being the killer. Said I was confused. Said I was—my favorite word—hysterical.”

Ah. One of Sun’s favorite words as well. Not.

“He told me they’d found the man responsible for the missing people over the years. Said a drifter by the name of Hercules Holmes had one of the missing men’s wallets.”

“Who was Hercules Holmes?” Quince asked.

“Just like he said. A drifter in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“But how would a man passing through town be responsible for all of those other people’s deaths over the years? Didn’t the detectives think of that?”

She shook her head. “They didn’t much care. Once Hercules escaped the jail, their only lead was gone. They had nothing to go on and the family had no way of getting the necklace back. When they found Hercules dead two weeks later, the investigation fizzled.”

“Did they ever find who killed him?”

“No. And it’s funny how I was never brought up on charges myself. I guess Campbell figured if I stayed quiet, he’d stay quiet.”

Sun gave her a dubious grin. “That doesn’t much sound like you.”

“It doesn’t, does it? By that point, I’d had about enough of men and their handling of things around town. We were getting to be a bit of a tourist town, even back then, and I knew things needed to be handled right and corruption needed to be brought to a minimum, so I brought the Dangerous Daughters to life.”

“And later the Sordid Sons,” Cyrus said.

Sun looked up at her dad. So proud of him.

“Also, for the record, the fact that Sheriff Campbell Scott went missing himself a few months later had nothing to do with me.”

Sun and Quincy exchanged glances and decided to let it go. For now.

“Wait,” Sun said, thinking back to her research. “I thought the Dangerous Daughters was formed in the thirties after the mines shut down and a bunch of women were left undefended when the men went off to find work elsewhere.”