"Oh?" Davies brows shot up.

"Yes, their oldest got into some trouble and I was able to use my connections to hush it up. It's private and not pertaining to this case, so I'd rather keep the details to myself, if you don't mind," Nans said primly.

"Fair enough ... for now," Jack replied.

"So, anyway," Nans continued. "The McDonalds agreed to call Nesbaum and tell him his services were no longer needed. Then, we all got to work."

"So, just the five of you redid the basement and made that room?" Lexy asked.

"Seven," Nans answered. "Ester and Mary helped, too."

"And you did all the work yourselves?" Jack asked.

"Yep, Paddy and Ron are tradesmen and they knew just how to do it. They supervised and we all got it done in thirty-six hours."

Jacks brows crept up. "And nobody else in the neighborhood noticed what you were doing?"

"Nope, we kept it quite hush-hush. The work was done under the cover of darkness and all."

"What about the smell?" Davies asked. "The body had to have started to smell."

Nans wrinkled her nose. "He did start to smell, especially toward the end. Violet suggested we cover him with lavender sachets. She ran home and got a bunch of them, then she crawled right into that space and laid them all around."

"Took her time and did a nice job, too," Paddy added.

"It didn't work so well, though. The body stunk up the place," Floyd said.

"That's right. Lois tried to cover it up by cooking those spicy foreign dishes." Esther laughed at the memory.

"We ate that stuff for weeks!" Nans said.

"Wait, didn't you say someone's septic system flooded?" Lexy asked.

"Oh, we just made that up when you started asking around in case anyone talked about the smell," Nans said.

"Well, that explains why Ed Johnston didn't know anything about the septic system," Lexy said.

"Oh, right," Nans shrugged. "Ed wasn't part of our little clique. He didn't know anything about what we were doing, so I never talked to him about the plan to cast suspicion away from us."

"So, you guys got together and made up a plan to lie to me, then?" Lexy looked at Nans. "When I started trying to find out about the mummy, I mean."

Nans cheeks turned pink and she looked at her lap. "Yes, dear. I'm sorry, but I felt it was best to protect all of us."

Lexy nodded. That explained a lot about Nans' recent, odd behavior; why she wasn't interested in discussing the case, why she and the Witts had lied about Nans being there and even her secret meeting with Violet.

"By the way, your glasses are at the Witt's," Lexy said. "Even though you said you hadn't been there ... I saw them on the table in the living room. Esther tried to cover for you and claim they were hers."

Nans turned a deeper shade of red and so did Esther.

"Thank you, dear," Nans said meekly.

"I think it's amazing that all these years, no one has said anything." Davies shook her head. "You guys never talked to each other about it? Not even once?"

"Nope," Nans said. "And it turns out no one even missed Earl. We all vowed never to speak of it again, and as far as I know, we've all kept that vow."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"No wonder the McDonalds wanted to leave everything in the basement when they sold me the house," Jack said. "I thought I was being a nice guy and helping out some elderly folks and I was really helping them keep a body hidden!"

"Oh, they didn't want to sell the house with that body in there," Nans said. "But they had to. Charlie had that problem with his hip and the property taxes were killing them. They were mighty nervous to hear a police detective bought it."

"I'll bet," Jack said.

"That's why I was sent over to make sure you didn't poke around too much," Nans said.

"Oh, and here I thought you just wanted to be friends," Jack said, acting hurt.

Nans flushed. "Well, at first I was just making sure you didn't have plans for the basement. But once I got to know you, I really did want to be friends."

Davies looked down at her notes. "Well, I'm not sure what to make of all this. I was trying to find the murderer to make sure the Feds didn't prosecute the wrong person and I'm not sure I like what I found."

"Oh, that's right." Nans turned sorrowful eyes on Floyd. "It sounds like Floyd actually killed him. He won't have to go to jail, will he?"

"I dont know..." Davies looked at Jack.

"I think-" Violet started.

"Well, I'm not so sure it was Floyd," Jack cut in. "The way Floyd mentions him just falling, it could have been one of the blows he received earlier which caused some kind of blood clot or brain swelling and he just happened to die in front of Floyd. He was walking around like he was drunk, but he might have had a concussion from when Paddy hit him."

"Or maybe even from his fight with Ron," Lexy suggested.

"So, which one of us really killed him, then?" Floyd asked.

"Maybe they can figure that out through the autopsy," Nans suggested. "But I hate to think of any one one of us going to jail. If one goes, we all go. Isn't that right?"

Everyone murmured their agreement.

Violet spoke up, "I must tell you-"

She was interrupted by the door whipping open. A tall man with a gleaming FBI badge nestled on the hip of his black dress pants stepped in.

"No one is going to go to jail," he said. "At least not for killing Earl Schute. Because you're not the ones that actually killed him."

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Everyone stared at the man. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his face worn with lines, his dark hair graying at the temples. Lexy could tell he'd been on the job for a while and he meant business.

"What? Of course we killed him." Floyd broke the silence, sounding almost indignant.

"Yeah, we buried him. He was dead. I saw it with my own eyes," Ron added.

"Oh, he was dead all right. It's just that he didn't die from a punch or a blow from a baseball bat," the man said.

Nans fixed him with a steely glare. "And just who are you, anyway?"

"And how did you find out about this meeting?" Davies added angrily.

The man shrugged. "I have my ways."

Davies sighed. "This is detective Binder of the FBI."

Davies made a round of introductions and Binder pulled a chair up to the table.

"So, you knew we were meeting the whole time?" Davies asked. "How?"

"We're the Feds, we know everything," Binder said importantly. "Our sources told us you were having this soiree and we bugged the room. We figured no one would open up to us and we'd have a better chance of finding out the truth if we listened in. Anyway, we just got the full autopsy report back and Earl wasn't killed by fighting with any of you."

Davies brows rose. "Well, what killed him, then?"

"Poison."

"What?" Paddy Sullivan's forehead collapsed in layers of wrinkles. "How could that be? He was walking around fine. If he ate something poisonous, wouldn't he have died where he ate it or at least have been physically sick?"

"It wasn't ingested, it was injected," Binder replied.

"What? How?" Davies asked.

"And when?" Jack added.

Binder shrugged. "That, we're not sure about. The autopsy revealed traces of aconite in his tissue. It's a poison. We think it may have been injected through a tiny pinhole in his neck, but it's hard to tell, given the condition of his skin."

"If someone injected him with a needle, why would he be just walking around the neighborhood?" Floyd asked.

"Maybe the poison made him delirious or something before he died," Ron suggested. "He was acting strange."

"Nope, that's the thing. That kind of poison would kill him pretty much instantly."

"Instantly?" Nans chewed her bottom lip. "But Floyd was the last one to see him alive."

Everyone looked at Floyd, who spread his hands. "I didn't inject him with any poison. Did you see any syringes on me? I wouldn't even know how to use one."

"You wouldn't need to use a hypodermic. Just a prick of a needle with concentrated aconite on it could do the trick." Binder glared at him. "Do you have a garden?"

"What?" Floyd looked at him like he was crazy. "No!"

"Why do you ask that?" Nans asked.

"The aconite comes from a plant. The wolfsbane plant," Binder replied. "But we don't think it was Floyd or any of you, anyway."

"Oh, well, that's a relief," Nans said.

"So, you think it was one of the other people he scammed, then?" Davies asked.

"Scammed?" Binder's brows creased for a second. "Oh, you mean that insurance thing. No, that's not why we're interested in, Earl."

"Why are you, then?" Jack asked.

"Earl Schute was in the witness protection program. We lost track of him in nineteen-fifty-five. When we heard his body had surfaced, we had to come check it out." Binder squirmed in his seat and glanced at the door. "You see, our department was the one that lost track of Earl and it's been a black mark on us ever since. We get the crappiest cases-the bottom of the barrel-because of it. Of course, I wasn't around then, but if I could close the case, it might redeem our status."

"Witness protection?" Nans stared at Binder. "Why was he in there? Was he some kind of gangster?"

Binder nodded. "He ratted out his boss and we put him in protection."

"I knew there was something odd about him," Esther Witt said. "That explains the way he acted."

"But what do you need to solve?" Nans asked. "I mean, now you know where he is and that he's been dead all this time."

"Earl testified against the mob boss, Harry Gooch. We think Harry sent one of his guys to kill him," Binder said. "A particular assassin who used this type of poison. That assassin has been on our Most Wanted list for sixty years and if we could find him, that would go a long way toward raising the status of my department."

"You think the assassin is still around?" Violet asked. "It's been decades. He's probably dead by now."

"Maybe. But the mystery is that this particular assassin who has this M.O. disappeared the same time Earl did. I need to find out what happened to him, whether he is dead or alive."

"M.O.?" Nans perked up. "What exactly was his M.O.?"

"He usually stalks his victim and kills using this poison. But the thing is, he doesn't need to get near the victim-he shoots a poison dart. Then he cuts off a body part and sends it back for proof."

"The toe!" Lexy blurted out.

Binder nodded. "Yep, Earl's toe was cut off post-mortem. We think it was by this assassin."

"And you think the assassin is one of us?" Floyd asked.

"No, that's the thing. We checked you all out and you' all lived here long before Earl showed up. Plus, we don't show any of you traveling to the areas the assassin made his kills in. The assassin would have had a big deposit in his bank account after Earl's kill was verified and none of you have that."

"Well, that's a relief," Floyd said. "And here all these years I thought I'd killed a man."

"Me, too," Ron echoed.

Paddy nodded. "As did I."

"The thing is, very little is known about this guy," Binder continued. "We call him Blow Gun Bennie because of the methods he uses. We don't know his real name and no one has ever seen him. He's been very clever."