Powdered Peril by Jessica Beck

comforting manner that surprised me. “She thought she might be with child a few days ago, but she took another test when she got here, and she’s not having a baby.”
    “But she thought she could be?” I asked.
    “I’m shamed to admit that she did,” Ida said. “Like I told you before, the girl’s out of control. I doubt she could narrow her list of suspects of possible fathers to the fingers on one hand, if you want to know the truth. When her parents died, she turned to Burt and me for support, but it was never enough for her.”
    “I’m sorry about that, but I’m betting that Peter was at the top of her list,” I said.
    “I admit that she’s mentioned him a time or two,” Ida said as she finished wiping up the spill. She took the towel, and the discarded box, back into the kitchen.
    I followed her, with Grace close behind.
    “You know her better than we do. Is there a chance in your mind that she could have killed him?” Grace asked, her voice heavy with the weight of what had happened.
    After hesitating longer than I could have imagined, Ida said, “I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since you told me that the man was dead, and to be honest with you, I don’t have an answer one way or the other. The old Leah couldn’t have done it, but it feels as though I hardly know this girl anymore, and that’s the honest truth.”
    The front door opened, and Leah herself walked in. She was clearly angry, and had worked herself up into quite a state. “I saw your car out front. You can’t just barge in here like this. You both need to get out, or I’m going to call the police.”
    Ida snapped, “Young lady, you’ll do no such thing. They are my guests, not yours, and they’ll stay as long as I please.”
    She looked shocked that Ida had taken our side. “What did they tell you? Never mind. Whatever they said was a lie,” Leah protested.
    “Are you claiming then that your special friend, Peter Morgan, isn’t dead?” Ida asked, staring hard at her niece.
    “It’s true that he’s gone,” Leah said, “but I didn’t kill him.”
    “Then why did you run?” Grace asked softly. I was amazed at how calm her voice was, especially under the pressure she had to be feeling.
    “I didn’t want to, but Uncle Burt saw us talking, and he made me come here when I told him that you weren’t finished with me. He said that if I talked to you again in his hardware store, he was going to fire me. What choice did I have?”
    “Why would Burt care if you talked to us, anyway?” I asked, honestly curious.
    “He said you were both snoops, and that if you got started on me, the whole town would believe that I was a killer. He said I’d be washed up then, and would have to go somewhere else and start over.”
    Given my history with the man, I could almost understand where he was coming from. “We’re looking for the killer. If you didn’t do it, you don’t have anything to fear from us.”
    Leah took that in, and then turned to her aunt. “What do you think, Aunt Ida? Should I believe them?”
    “If it were me, I would,” Ida said after a moment’s consideration.
    Leah nodded, accepting her aunt’s judgment. “Okay, we can talk. You just can’t tell my uncle that we spoke.”
    I had no problem making that particular promise. “We won’t say a word to him.” That didn’t mean he wouldn’t find out somehow, particularly if Leah was a killer, but I’d keep my word. Burt Gentry wouldn’t hear it from me.
    Leah sighed loudly, and then said, “Honestly, it will be a relief getting this off my chest. I’ve wanted to tell someone since I found out that Peter was dead. I just didn’t know who to talk to about it.”
    “We’re good listeners,” I said.
    Leah nodded, and then began to talk.

 
    CHAPTER 8
    “First, I’m really sorry for what I did to you,” she said as she turned to Grace. “You deserved better than that, and I feel worse than you can imagine. You have to understand