“I wonder.” I stopped to try to tread extra carefully. “Does Lacey’s death have anything to do with her actions?”
“What do you mean?” Olivia placed her favor atop the star mirror and gave me her full attention. “Mallory?”
My friend would have a conniption if she knew Rachel and Truman had laid out a neat theory connecting the dots of Lacey’s murder straight back to Toby.
“Um, well, if Lacey was unhinged enough to go a little fatal attraction, what else did she do in her other relationships?”
Olivia relaxed at my explanation, and I let out a sigh of relief.
“I was wondering where you were going with that, Mallory.” Olivia carefully assessed me. “If I weren’t certain, I’d wonder if you were hinting that Toby is involved with Lacey’s accident.”
I gulped. Categorizing the stager’s murder as an accident was an interesting choice of words.
“Maybe you were too quick to give up your practice, Mallory.” Olivia’s eyes narrowed. My poker face had slipped, and my anguished face had confirmed her suspicions. “You’re treating me like a hostile witness.”
“Hardly!” My voice came out louder than I intended. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
A delicate stream of tears began to course down Olivia’s cheeks. “I’d hoped to make new traditions this year. Everyone thinks it’s so neat I was found in a manger on Christmas Eve. But I’ve always wondered who would’ve abandoned me, and why?” She cradled her nearly flat stomach. “Especially now that I’m going to have a family of my own. I couldn’t fathom giving up this little one.” Her eyes grew flinty. “I don’t want to get hurt again either, Mallory, but someone out there seems hell-bent on causing trouble for me and my family. And I’m going to give it my all to protect us and make some new Christmas memories to boot.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to my friend.
“It’s okay.” Olivia wiped the tears away and gave a little laugh. “Have you found out anything about my adoption?” She’d abruptly changed the subject, a slick diversion tactic she’d no doubt used in her practice.
I shook my head and gave my own laugh. “There are only so many hours in the day, Liv. You’ll have to decide what’s more important to you. Finding out your history or pulling off this wedding.”
We fell into a rhythm of work, the atmosphere still strange, like the air after lightning had struck nearby. It was companionable enough, but I couldn’t help but think some things in our friendship had just irrevocably changed. I retreated to my own thoughts and Olivia to hers. The oppressive silence reigned, save for the gentle click of our nails on the cookie-cutter favors.
* * *
Olivia left half an hour later, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I felt I’d bungled our meeting.
“What do you expect when you basically accuse your best friend’s fiancé of murder?” I muttered some self-censure under my breath before I blew out the candles in the sample angel centerpiece.
“What was that, dear?”
I jumped about a mile as my mother came up behind me. “You really need to get some different footwear, Mom. Those moccasins turn you into a stealth ninja.”
My mother smiled. “There’s a method to my madness.” She linked arms with me and we headed for the kitchen. “You’re working too hard, my dear. This was supposed to be a well-deserved several weeks off for you.”
Doug snorted from his spot at the kitchen table. “Like you can talk, Carole. You’re supposed to be retired!” I knew my stepdad. He was ninety-nine percent joking, but that outlier one percent showed he was genuinely upset. My mom dropped a kiss on her husband’s head and pretended not to notice. He’d read three historical biographies since moving back. He took little Ramona on enough walks to tire out the pup and increase her already ample nap schedule. I wondered if my parents had discussed my mom’s new career and its demanding hours.
A sharp rat-a-tat-tat at the back door broke through our cozy atmosphere.
“It’s just Truman.” We all relaxed as I let the chief in. My mom was at ease, although she did seem annoyed at having to entertain the man who’d questioned her so extensively. Her hello was cool.
“I’m happy to see you.” I found myself trying to make up for my mother’s hostility. “Can I get you something?”
“This isn’t a social visit, unfortunately.” Truman, with something akin to regret, handed me a sheaf of papers. My mother had already fled the kitchen to show Doug the angel centerpiece in the dining room.
“A warrant.” I glanced at the contents and shook my head. “No, no, no.”
“Yes, I’m afraid.”
My mom and Doug watched me follow Truman straight upstairs and to their room. He neatly searched every nook and cranny of the space, his right now that a judge had signed the warrant.
“Judge Ursula Frank,” I muttered to myself. Toby’s mother had personally given her John Hancock allowing Truman to carefully toss my parents’ room.
“What in the devil are you doing?” Doug appeared at my shoulder and made a move to enter his room.
“He has a warrant,” I said miserably. “Oh, my God.”
He has the goods.
Truman’s face flashed a brief look of pain before carefully concealing it behind his professional poker face. Deep in the recesses of the closet was the same half-empty jug of antifreeze my mother had carried into the B and B the first minute she’d arrived.
“Carole?” Doug turned behind him to take in my mother.
“I did not put that stuff in there! I’ve been framed.” My mother followed Truman down the stairs, dogging his every step. “That is my bottle of antifreeze—”
Ouch.
“And I did use most of it, but I didn’t put it in my closet, for Pete’s sake!”
Stop talking!
“Mom, as an attorney, I must say, you’ve got to be quiet right now.”
We followed Truman like a gaggle of baby geese waddling after its mama. Truman entered the kitchen, stopped before my mom’s purse, and unzipped the main compartment.
“Oh, no way! You do not go through a lady’s purse!” My mom seemed more indignant that Truman wanted to take a peek than the fact he’d just found the poison used to kill one person and attempt the death of another in her wardrobe.
“It’s in the warrant.” Truman nodded at the paper in my hands.
“He’s right.” I handed the document to my mother, whose eyes went wide reading about the probable cause Truman had amassed against her.
“Anonymous tip? That’s where you got this info? You’ve got to be joking.” She slammed the warrant down on the kitchen table. And went silent.
We all held our collective breath as Truman retracted a pretty bottle of perfume from Carole’s bag. She stared in horror as if the jaunty Vera Bradley holly berry print bag would regurgitate any number of unknown vessels that would implicate her.
“This yours?” Truman barked out his question. He held the pretty bottle of Ralph Lauren Blue to the light, the liquid inside a lovely shade of the titular color.
“Yes,” my mom whispered. It had been a present from Rachel, and my mom thought the scent a bit young for her, but I knew she dutifully wore it each day.
Truman sprayed a measure of the perfume onto a napkin and took a whiff.
“Carole Shepard, you have the right to remain silent.”
Out came the Miranda warning, and there went my Christmas.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning Rachel and I glumly ate our morning treat from the advent calendar. The luxe Swiss chocolate tasted like sawdust and ash in my mouth. It was December 19, Christmas a mere six days away. Our mother was firmly ensconced in the Port Quincy jail.
“I’m sorry, pup.” I picked up Ramona. The poor girl hadn’t understood as Truman led his person-mama away. She’d spent the evening looking hopefully out the window, her tiny curled tail quivering in anticipation of my mother’s return.
Doug was in worse shap
e than the pug, since he knew the gravity of the accusations and the evidence found.
“I swear I put that antifreeze in the shed myself.” He banged his hand on the kitchen table and made his untouched coffee jump. Except for his Revolutionary War reenactments, the man was a pacifist to a T. It upset me to see him so angry.
“I was there when Mom spritzed herself yesterday,” Rachel marveled after she spit out her chocolate. “She smelled like the perfume I gave her, not antifreeze.”
“Well, if it’s obvious to us someone planted that stuff, it’ll be obvious to Truman, too.”
At least I hoped. And in the meantime, Carole was going to be calling the Port Quincy jail “home.”
I decided to pull out the big guns. It was time to pay a visit to the Davies residence. I’d kept my distance, trying to give Garrett space to decide what to do with his career. But desperate times called for intervention. I decided to walk through the woods to clear my head and formulate my plan. I pulled on some plaid wellies, donned my parka, and began the trek through the woods connecting my property to the Davieses’ backyard.
“I’m so sorry, love.” Garrett embraced me as soon as he opened the door and ushered me in from the cold. “I know Dad didn’t want to do it.”
I nodded against his chest.
“He has to appear impartial, you know? And if someone thinks he’ll find something, he has to investigate.” Garrett looked down and winced. “And if he does end up with the goods, he has to arrest, or it’ll look like your mom’s getting special treatment because we’re dating.”
“I understand,” I mumbled. “On paper, at least. But this is real. You know my mom didn’t murder Lacey. Or try to poison Alan.”
“And I’m sure Dad does, too.” Garrett tipped my chin up and gave me a tender glance. “He’s just doing his job. It stinks that this is all going down near the holiday. But with any luck, it’ll be sorted out.”
“I guess I just never believed he’d arrest someone close to him,” I grumbled.
“That didn’t stop him from arresting my mom!” We jumped and parted as Summer appeared behind Garrett. “I’m sorry, Mallory.”
It was true. Just ten months ago, Truman had loaded Summer’s mother into the back of his squad car for her own stint in jail. “Right, Grandpa?”
I jumped again when I realized Truman was present. “You’re here? Why aren’t you downtown, questioning my mother or something?” I blanched at the harsh tones I used unbidden.
Truman winced. “I questioned her nearly till dawn, Mallory. She’s resting now, or as much as she can in that place, and I’m trying to as well.” He was clad in his time-off clothes, his West Virginia University sweat suit. He wearily unwrapped a candy cane, cursing when the cellophane stuck to the candy. He took a loud bite, breaking off half of the stick, and crunched it loudly between his teeth.
“I can’t think straight from this lack of sleep, not to mention I haven’t had my first cup of coffee.” Truman beckoned me to follow him, and I sat opposite him in a matching recliner.
“That’s better.” He smiled as Garrett wordlessly handed us steaming mugs of what smelled like strong coffee. Summer peeked her head into the room before Garrett shooed her away.
“The case against your mother is pretty convincing,” Truman began.
“Which you know is total garbage!”
That earned me a glare. I decided to mentally zip my lips closed and let him state his piece.
“As I was saying, the case itself is convincing.” Truman set his coffee on a crochet coaster and began enumerating the points against my mother. “She desperately wanted the stager job. And because she’s Carole, she was a flibbertigibbet about it. She let every man, woman, and child in town know she was going to get that job.”
Yup. My mom’s over-the-top enthusiasm had led to a formidable forty-eight hour campaign to unknowingly unseat Lacey from her job.
“Next, she undid all of Lacey’s work, and yours, I might add, decorating for Paws and Poinsettias. If that doesn’t make it seem like your mom had it in for Lacey, I don’t know what does.” He took a restorative sip of coffee. “It was all too easy making the case in the warrant. Ursula happily signed it. Well, that is, after extracting a promise that I start to seriously consider Hemingway’s disappearance as a ‘catnapping’ if he’s not found by Christmas.”
The judge had taken to putting up a new round of fliers downtown featuring her pretty Persian cat. The first round of neon fliers had been decimated in the snowy weather. These plastic coated ones greeted passersby at nearly every pillar, streetlight, and telephone pole downtown.
“And there’s the matter of the antifreeze. Several people at a tasting saw your mom come in, nattering about her rental having run out, with a big bottle of the stuff in her possession.”
So the March family had ratted out my mom. Or, they’d just politely answered Truman’s queries. Either way, my mom’s Christmas goose was cooked.
“And, I’m betting the stuff that suspiciously smells like antifreeze in that perfume bottle will be a perfect match, as well.”
“But she was obviously framed!” The springs of my recliner whined as I jumped to my feet. I retrieved my mug of coffee and began to pace the Davieses’ living room. “I know it, you know it. We just need to figure out who would want you to think it’s my mom, and why.”
Truman saved me the trouble of throwing my dear friend under the bus by bringing up the matter of Olivia himself.
“You’re not going to like this. But Olivia has just as much of a motive as anyone.”
I enjoyed being mock-stunned. “First my mom, now Olivia. Who’s next, me or Rachel?”
Truman ignored my comment and enumerated everything I’d quietly sleuthed out myself: Lacey’s stalking of Toby, her harassment of Olivia, and Toby’s ministrations once Lacey found out she was sick.
“You don’t seem surprised by any of this.” Truman carefully regarded my face. “You haven’t been deputizing yourself again, have you, Mallory?” His tone was even, but I saw his eyebrow twitch. In anger or amusement, I wasn’t sure. A small smile cracked despite himself, and I relaxed as much as possible in the situation.
“People just happened to tell me about Toby and Lacey. That’s not a crime.”
“Yes, the town of Port Quincy does excel at gossip.” Truman’s smile dimmed. “But if I’m honest, Olivia seems like a more likely candidate to murder Lacey and to try to kill Alan than your mother.”
I was stunned. I knew, and Truman seemed to know that my mother didn’t murder Lacey. The chief had to follow through and honor the evidence some anonymous meddler had led him to. But I believed my mom would be exonerated. I wanted to think the same for Olivia since my bride was an unofficial suspect.
“What are you thinking about, Mallory?”
I’d stopped to peer at the bank of photographs on a credenza. There was Truman and Lorraine taking an infant Garrett home from the hospital. The faded eighties photo couldn’t suppress the joy and excitement on the new parents’ faces. Next were a series of photos of Summer, and it was fun to trace how she’d grown over the years. Olivia was supposed to be embarking on a similar journey, welcoming her baby with Toby this summer. It was a life worthy of protecting. And maybe she would do anything to protect it.
I shivered and wheeled around. It was time to come clean.
“Olivia poured her drink out at Paws and Poinsettias. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.”
Truman’s eyes flashed with something akin to annoyance. “You’re mistaken. It’s a very big deal.”
“Couldn’t she have done it just because she’s pregnant?” I grabbed any straw within my reach.
Truman considered my volley. “Sure, but it could be a thousand other things. One of which could be that it held the poison she used to kill her fiancé’s ex.”
“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.” I returned to my chair. “There were plenty of people upset with Lacey. Clementine, for star
ters. She was unhappy with Lacey’s work, but Goldie wouldn’t let her fire Lacey. Clementine wanted a stager who’s more avant-garde, like my mom, but Goldie was in Lacey’s corner.”
Truman nodded. “I thought as much, and it’s nice to hear you confirm it. The March family gave me some hooey about them all being a happy, working family. I’ll admit, it doesn’t make Clementine look good to try to conceal that she was trying to fire Lacey.”
“Okay, great!” The morning was looking considerably brighter. “Now just go chase down that lead, and you can formally drop the charges against my mom and leave Olivia out of it.”
Truman just shook his head. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. I’m not really on the clock today, but I’m glad we talked. I’ll head into headquarters. I’d like to look into some other things.” He excused himself to get dressed in his work garb.
I felt cheered. Maybe Truman would right the ship and head for a different course, one that didn’t involve accusing my loved ones.
Five minutes later Truman reappeared in his uniform.
“Let’s go.”
I sat in the police cruiser with a heavy heart. My mom hadn’t ridden in the passenger seat yesterday when Truman had driven her downtown. She’d been placed in the back, the metal grille separating her from Truman. Her innocence was no longer presumed.
A cell phone trilled out a tone from Truman’s front pocket.
“Truman.” The chief frowned as he listened. “Be right there.” He jabbed the phone off with a poke of his finger. “I should have known what kind of day it would be when you showed up on my stoop. That was the dispatcher. They’ve found a body on the March property.”
I held my breath as Truman turned on the sirens and lights. We breezed through several stoplights that were notoriously slow and buzzed our way out to the large parcel of land March Homes had begun carving up. A fancy script sign at the entrance of the rudimentary road announced this was Phase II of the March Homes developments in Port Quincy, to be christened Rushing Creek. Homes were going to be a mix of predesigned and build to suit.
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