“Mom, be quiet.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. For so much. I never should have called you that night. I should have turned myself in.”

“You still can,” I said. “It will help if you do.”

“Shut up!” Liz shouted, angry tears flashing in her eyes.

I didn’t flinch. “It’s over. I already know you came to help your mother at the B&B that night. The edge of your nightgown is on Mr. Henderson’s security footage. She was waiting for you behind the house, wasn’t she? It wouldn’t have been hard. We all thought Constance’s death was an accident. No one was looking for her. She called you and you came. I also know you broke into the records building trying to get what you probably thought was the only copy of the addendum to the family burial plot. But it’s not.” I would have gone on with my explanation, but a new voice shattered the quiet around us. A man’s voice.

“I found this in the caretaker’s shed.” The words were said lightly, but they held an undercurrent of menace I couldn’t ignore. “So, let’s quit with the confessing and put an end to this once and for all.”

I had been wondering when Rip would show up.

He lumbered toward us, shovel in hand.

I knew I should have been intimidated, scared, but I was far more afraid of not getting every last detail out of these three. I knew what could happen when I didn’t have all the information. I pressed on. “I also know it was Rip who brought the murder weapon back to the B&B,” I said, meeting his eye, “and planted it in the greenhouse.”

Rip frowned at me. “You have any proof of that?”

I did. The soap. But that wasn’t something I could use. “I know Liz must have called you after the murder looking for help. And you were more than happy to oblige. It would be much easier to contest both your father’s and Constance’s will with another sibling on board. Plus, nobody hated Constance as much as you did.”

“Well, it wasn’t just that. I also have a soft spot for Mary,” he said, tilting his head toward his sister. “Poor kid was the only one my dad hated more than me.”

“You initially hoped you could pin the murder on your brother. You had Constance’s letter as motive.”

He chuckled. “I wondered who Maureen had given it to.”

“Constance confessed to John what she did to him in that letter, didn’t she?” The words spilled out of me. I knew time was running out. “He never went to veterinary school. He never got his farm.”

He shook his head. “It would have been a great motive, and it would have gotten John out of the way of my upcoming lawsuit. Too bad his alibi was so strong. Who knew my little brother still had friends?”

“So, you went with your niece’s preference to pin it on us. I’m guessing it was the herbicides from the orchard that killed everyone’s plants.”