Maple Ridge...Unsolved - Episode 13
- Brittany Brinegar
- 29 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Blame it on Your Heart
Murder, Mystery & Mom Season 3
Snow fell in picture-perfect flakes, as if the universe were trying to soften the edges of Maple Ridge. Which was adorable. Because nothing about this town felt soft or inviting. Not anymore. Not after spending a night in the slammer with nothing but bread, a cup of water, and a goldendoodle to keep me warm.
Mattie and I crunched across the path toward Tappington Lodge, Goldilocks weaving between us like a fluffy tour guide. The snowflakes landed in my eyelashes, turning the world gauzy and quiet in a way that felt deeply ironic considering I’d spent the last twelve hours in a holding cell next to rowdy frat boys who stole a snowmobile.
“Thanks for busting me out, Mama,” I said, shoving my hands into my coat pockets.
She didn’t slow her stride. “You make it sound like The Great Escape. All I did was pay your bail.”
“Still. You had me worried when you wouldn’t even make eye contact back at the mansion.”
Mattie gave me a sidelong glance. “If I had so much as twitched, you would have tried to improvise and accidentally named me as your co-conspirator. Improvisation is not your strong suit under pressure.”
“That is wildly unfair.”
“You asked a woman about a bicycle she tried to sell eight years ago.”
“That was strategic nostalgia.” I sighed. “That ambush could not have gone worse, Mama.”
Mattie blew into her gloved hands. “Quit harping on it. What’s done is done.”
“Not only did I lose my in with the family, but we also lost valuable time. The killer knows we’re on the case and is probably covering his tracks as we speak.”
I tossed my head back in frustration. Yesterday started off so promising with the will and the interviews. Faith and Barbara Rey practically gift-wrapped a motive and handed it to me. Evangelina stood to inherit Cisco’s stake. With Cisco gone, she had access. With Ebenezer gone, she had power. If someone poisoned Cisco with digitalis, the widow was a textbook suspect.
And we were long overdue for this conversation.
The Lodge loomed ahead, windows glowing against the storm. According to the intel Mattie gathered as a trusted maid, we could find Evangelina at the yoga studio doing something aggressively wellness-based.
The Infrared Mind-Body Studio didn’t just offer a view of the mountains; it framed them in a way that made it look like you were in nature without the chill.
It was a cathedral of glass and white quartz, so clean it felt like even a stray thought would leave a smudge. The air was pressurized, smelling of high-altitude oxygen and expensive, essential-oil-infused silence. It was the kind of room where you felt your heartbeat was a bit too loud and your tax bracket was a bit too low.
Evangelina stood at the center of the room in a pose that looked medically inadvisable. One leg hooked behind her head. Arms extended. Completely inverted. Perfectly still.
Mattie and I stood there in boots and winter coats like we’d wandered into the wrong dimension.
Without turning her head, Evangelina somehow knew exactly who we were. “You should be here.”
“So, I guess that means you heard?”
“I may not have been present for your little arrest yesterday, but I didn’t need to be in the foyer to hear the handcuffs click, Patsy—if that’s even your name. The staff is calling you the ‘Sarasota Stalker.’”
I winced. “That nickname lacks branding cohesion. I’m from Texas, and I live in Virginia. Never stepped foot in Sarasota.”
Mattie rolled her eyes. “Because that’s an important distinction right now.”
Evangelina shifted, flowing into something equally acrobatic and humiliating for the rest of us who couldn’t accomplish the pose if our limbs were detachable like an action figure.
“What you may not have heard from the gossiping staff is that my mother and I have an unsolved mystery podcast. We travel across the country solving cold cases people forgot about. We give closure to grieving families.”
“Closure?” The word sounded like a curse when Evangelina said it. “You humiliated us. Took advantage of our generosity.”
“That wasn’t my intention.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This is going to be harder than I thought. “Last time we spoke, I felt like you held something back. Something about Cisco and his role in the company.”
“Fine, I admit it.” She stretched into a downward dog, a pose Goldilocks felt compelled to mimic. “Cisco was in way over his head running this place.”
“You told me that already.”
Mattie stepped forward, her sensible shoes squeaking against the expensive mats in a way that felt intentionally disruptive. “We’re looking for new information.”
Evangelina exhaled, lowering into a controlled bend that made my hamstrings ache in solidarity. “And I wish I could help you, but I wasn’t hiding anything the last time we chatted. Unlike the Fake Patsy over here.”
“I’m the real Patsy and the fake Patrice Marie. Get your facts straight, Missy.”
She gave me a cool look from upside down. “It’s hard to keep up with all the blatant lies. You took advantage of a grieving family for clicks on your podcast. That’s lower than low. That’s scum of the earth in my book.”
That blow landed like an uppercut. And here I thought yogis were supposed to be Zen.
“We should leave, Mama,” I said, suddenly acutely aware of how scummy this all sounded in fluorescent enlightenment lighting.
Mattie shook her head. “Not until we finish questioning the suspect.”
Evangelina’s foot hit the mat with more force than necessary as she stood upright. “Suspect? Me? I wasn’t one of the three people Ebenezer named in his will.”
“Only because you had the old man wrapped around your little finger,” Mattie said.
Evangelina’s jaw tightened. “Says who?”
I arched a brow. “Everyone in the family, actually.”
She laughed, a sharp single snort. “This is ludicrous. I don’t have to listen to this.”
Mattie began pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her shoes squeaked, and the sound sliced through the serenity like perfectly executed CIA warfare. “You walk out that door, and you jump to the very top of our suspect list.” Her gaze narrowed in on the widow. “We won’t leave a stone unturned until you’re fully investigated.”
The snow fell harder outside, and a chill danced across my spine.
Evangelina folded her arms. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because we want to find your husband’s killer,” I said. “Don’t you?”
Her eyes flickered. “Of course. Which is why you should stop looking at me. I loved Cisco.”
“But with his death, you inherited a fortune,” Mattie said.
“I never expected to.”
“You’re Cisco’s widow.” I waved my arm. “You inherit his stake.”
“Yeah, but Grandpa Ebenezer was still alive at the time. I always assumed he’d have it rewritten and leave everything to Faith and his kids. Never in my wildest imagination did I think he’d hand me the keys.”
Mattie tilted her head. “You sell yourself short, Evangelina. I imagine you can be quite persuasive.”
Evangelina entered the typical pose you see on all the posters. “All I did was listen and spend time with a dying old man trying to save his company. Everyone else treated Ebenezer like an ATM or like he had one foot in the grave.”
“But not you?” I asked.
“He was a brilliant businessman,” she said. “I absorbed every morsel of wisdom he had to offer. That’s why I started running tours. I learned everything about the history of Maple Ridge and the Tappington family from him.”
That part tracked. She knew the lore.
“Ebenezer was in poor health last winter,” Mattie said. “On his deathbed, in fact. Something changed when Cisco died.”
“He was stubborn.” Evangelina clasped her hands in front of her chest and balanced on one leg. “He refused to leave this earth with the company in shambles.”
“You said before that Cisco mismanaged the company.”
Evangelina’s composure flickered as she met my gaze. “Cisco had all the fancy schooling that looks good on a resume, but no practical experience. He couldn’t make a pancake, much less run an entire maple syrup empire. He wasn’t ready. The responsibility crippled him.”
“A secret he kept from you?” Mattie asked.
Evangelina’s ponytail bobbed. “I didn’t learn about it until a few weeks before Christmas.” She dismounted from her pose and grabbed a water bottle from the bench. “Grandpa Ebenezer blamed himself for what happened to Cisco. He worried that the stress of trying to live up to massive expectations caused his heart to quite literally break. I think that’s why he looked for any other explanation for his grandson’s death. Until he finally found one.”
“So you don’t think Cisco was murdered?” I asked.
Evangelina looked up sharply. “No, he totally was. I saw the report that confirms he was poisoned with Grandpa Ebenezer’s heart medication.”
Before I could ask when, how, where, why, and other staples of savvy journalists, Evangelina held up a hand. “And before you think that’s suspicious, it was all in the files the executor turned over to me yesterday.” She snapped the lid of her bottle and reached for a towel. “One of the people Cisco trusted—someone who was supposed to love and support him—stabbed him in the back. A coward who worked from afar.”
Mattie’s voice went still. “Who?”
Evangelina dabbed her neck. “I’m no detective. But I spent a lot of time thinking about nothing else since Ebenezer accused everybody from beyond the grave. And only one name comes to mind. The person who sits in his ivory tower, watching the world through security cameras and passing judgment. He saw Cisco alone and knew this was his chance to off him.”
My stomach dropped. “Zer?”
“Of course, Zer,” she said. “He has the military training and the killer instinct. He never wanted a bigger role in the company. Just a bigger payday.”
My pulse did a frantic tap-dance against my ribs. I thought about Zer’s office—that windowless watchtower where my own face looped on a dozen screens. It’s one thing to suspect a man because he’s grumpy; it’s another to suspect him because you’re his favorite reality show.
But if Zer was the type of person who treated privacy like a suggestion, treating a human life like an obstacle didn't seem like much of a leap.
“You said you found out about the company’s financial troubles last Christmas,” Mattie said. “What tipped you off?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t really one thing.” Evangelina hesitated. “We weren’t married yet, and Cisco was always stressed. I started worrying that he was going to call off the wedding… or maybe there was someone else… so I started snooping.”
I spun my hand for her to continue. “And?”
“I guess I put two and two together.”
“What does that mean?” Mattie asked.
Evangelina huffed, blowing stray hair from her forehead. “I know this sounds like crazy girlfriend behavior—and I swore I’d never be that type—but I went through his phone.”
My eyebrows arched. “What did you find?”
“Texts.” Evangelina rolled her shoulders. “But not the cheating kind. He was arguing with his grandmother.”
“Faith?” Mattie asked. “About what?”
“Apparently, Faith knew that Cisco wasn’t up for the job as CEO and went behind his back to set up a sale.”
My brain hiccupped. “Did she have the authority to do that?”
“No way, no how.” Evangelina's mouth contorted like an engine revving up. “Ebenezer was still president of the board. Cisco ran the day-to-day. The rest of the family had seats, but not nearly enough votes to sell on their own.”
“And Cisco found out,” Mattie said.
“Yeah,” Evangelina nodded. “That’s kinda why we eloped. No family drama if it’s just us and the justice of the peace.”
Mattie folded her arms. “Are you sure Faith arranged the sale, not someone else? She’s on record saying she wants to preserve the family legacy.”
I blinked. I did not recall Faith saying that. But Mama was fishing.
Evangelina snorted. “Oh, it was Faith, all right. She might pretend to be matronly, but those kids of hers don’t breathe without her say-so. She came right out and told Cisco that his terrible business decisions were destroying any chance they had of selling the company and that the evaluation was dropping by the day.” She shook her head. “The worst part? It was that same slimy buyer who came to the will reading.”
“The finance bro?” I asked.
“He was pushy with Cisco,” she said. “And he keeps calling me, too. Apparently, he thought it was a done deal this time.”
Snow fell harder, and the Zen music faded into the background. Suddenly, the peaceful glass studio didn’t feel peaceful at all. It felt like a chessboard.