Who'll Kill Agnes? by Lea Chan Page B

control. Living with Agnes was a piece of cake compared to all that and there were things she wanted from the old biddy.
    “Could I get them if she was dead? After all, old Lester likes me. Things would sure be different around here. At least it’s up to me to kill her or not. I wonder why the others hate her so much. If I did it, will they really back me up? Give me that alibi? Like Lester said, I am a Tucker. How could I do it? Shoot her? Where would I get the gun? Stab her? Agnes is bigger than I am. Of course that never bothered my daddy. He’s stabbed plenty of men bigger than himself . ”
    She stepped out of the shower and toweled herself off. She still couldn’t believe how many rooms that she and Kevin had to themselves in their suite. The bedroom ran along the front of the house on the second floor but each of them had a private dressing room and bath, one on each side of the bedroom. Her whole family had had to use one tiny bathroom in the trailer. The Henley lifestyle had amazed and bedazzled her. She smiled as she remembered how her mother had warned her about upsetting the applecart and getting thrown out by Agnes Henley, not that Kevin would ever let that happen.
    She walked into the master suite still nude, climbed into bed, and snuggled next to Kevin. “Hell, why worry about it?” she thought to herself. “If I can think of a way to do it and not get caught, well, why not? No matter what, I got it made here. A dead Agnes or a live Agnes? Do I care?”
    She fell asleep, hugging Kevin, the son of her potential victim, and unlike Penny and Audrey, not disturbed by any moral dilemmas.
     
    Lester lay in his bed in his rooms on the third floor, a suite that took up almost one half of the floor while Agnes naturally had the larger suite. Although his furnishings were sparse compared to those in the other suites, he lived in comfort. The back staircase came up from the garage and opened to the door of his suite. Agnes had thought it appropriate that he should be the one to have access to the garage. She never considered that he might use the staircase as a getaway route.
    But tonight, escaping to another sanctuary wasn’t on his mind. He was beside himself with anticipation. Would any of them take him seriously? Or all of them? Would one actually try to do it? And succeed?
    “What was it that Penny had said? The Orient Express? Maybe each one will get up in the middle of the night and stab Agnes, not knowing that the others were doing likewise. But if each one did try to kill her, would they each use the same method? Stabbing would be messy, and a full-scale investigation would enfold. But hell, I told them to make it look like an accident. So, maybe they’ll each try to smother her. Agnes locks her door, but it’s an old lock and easy to jiggle open. And the way she snores, she’d never hear anything.”
    Lester giggled himself to sleep dreaming of riches to come with his wife dead and buried.
     
    Agnes was neither stabbed nor smothered during the night. She was alive and well the next morning and, as she arose, oblivious to any malevolent thoughts that might dwell in the minds of her family, she began a secret, private, gratifying ritual. When she and Lester moved to the third floor, she discovered a “hidey hole” in the floor of her bedroom. In the hole, a long gone maid had hidden little treasures that she had probably stolen from her employers. Agnes purchased a small safe and fitted it into the hole. There she kept her most private possessions and papers. Every morning she would pull back her carpet, open the safe, and lift out Aunt Hilda’s priceless, rare emerald collection, which had been purchased in Europe over a hundred years ago by her shipping magnate ancestor. Agnes would sit on a purple velveteen cushion and caress each piece lovingly.
    This morning she was particularly absorbed in admiring the necklace, an elaborate piece of jewelry that combined large emeralds with small diamonds.