by Tess Rothery
How much more peaceful would Lorraine's life have been all these years if people had taken her seriously?
Graham had tried. Taylor smiled at the thought of him. This was the magic of a journalist. They were required to take everything seriously, without judgment, without opinion.
“I’m also worried about you," Lorraine said after a silence that lasted a significant amount of time. “I'm so thankful to hear that you've had counseling, but does this bring back fears for you as well? And do you have anyone you can turn to right now?”
“I have my sister." Taylor’s fingers felt fat and clumsy as she worked the edge of her linen handkerchief. "And there's always Sissy. She's everyone's mother, isn't she?"
A hardness slipped over Lorraine’s face like a mask.
Taylor regretted her words. She hadn’t meant to hold Tansy’s stepmother up as a better option. “I just mean she's been close to Belle for so long…."
"Yes," Lorraine interrupted. "Sissy is an interesting one. Remarkably nurturing for where she came from. The human mind has a fascinating ability to compensate for deficits.”
Taylor thought those were fighting words, but she did not ask for more details. If Sissy wanted to reveal the traumas of her life, she would.
"Grandma Quinny's just a phone call away as well." Taylor poked herself with her needle.
"I hear you haven't been speaking much with Ingrid lately." Lorraine's voice was sharp.
"The situation with my cousin Coco has been difficult for all of us. But we Quinns are a tight knit family, and Grandpa Ernie is staying with them."
"I'd heard Ingrid finally had her way about that. I remember when they built that house. Everyone knew the second master bedroom would be for the Bakers."
"What are you talking about?" The thread slipped out of Taylor’s needle. She grimaced.
Lorraine waved her needle. The red embroidery floss fluttered in front of her pale face. "You were young when the Quinns replaced the original farmhouse. Ernie Baker was thinking of early retirement. Flour Sax Quilt Shop had already been established, but nobody knew if a fabric store in a tiny town like this would be able to support a man and his wife through retirement. It was rumored that building the business had taken all of their savings."
Taylor’s face was heating up. Grandpa Ernie’s finances were none of Lorraine’s business. “We know better now. The store did great, and he and Grandma Delma gave lots of money away to charity.” There was even an exhibit about it in the Flour Mill Museum that Lorraine had created, but Taylor didn’t add that part. "Anyway, you didn't live in Comfort back then."
"Rumors have long legs. When your father died, the Quinns and the Bakers were all anyone talked about for a long time.” Lorraine’s voice grew stronger and her movements less shaky as though she were drawing strength from telling someone else’s troubles. “Ernie would have to take care of not only his wife, but his daughter and granddaughter. And so the Quinns built a house big enough for all of you because there was no way Ingrid Quinn would ever shirk a duty."
Taylor swallowed her irritation. Lorraine wasn’t well. She wasn’t trying to be hurtful. She was saying nice things about the Quinns, not rude things about Grandpa Ernie.
Kindness had led Grandma and Grandpa Quinny to make room for so many others in their home. They were good people. "He's happy there. Grandpa Ernie and Grandpa Quinny have been best friends for ages.”
"Indeed." Lorraine seemed at peace now. The hand that held the needle was firm and strong.
Taylor hadn't meant to hurt Lorraine's feelings by calling Sissy motherly. She hadn't set out to harm the lady who’d had enough troubles. But Lorraine certainly seemed pleased that she'd managed to deliver a blow or two to Taylor.
Taylor slipped her needle back into the felt needle book. She didn’t have the energy to fight with threading it again.
A bright yellow flash from the window caught her eye. John Hancock’s vintage Corvette had pulled up to the curb. He sat at the wheel, top down, with his Aviators on as he pulled a surgical mask over his grin. He waved at the house as though he could see her in the window.
Seconds later a large delivery van with a vintage style Hancock’s Pub logo parked behind the Corvette.
Taylor was mesmerized.
She ought to run out to the porch and welcome her buddy from a safe social distance, but she couldn't bring herself to move.
John and a man in a black polo shirt and khakis had opened the back of the van and were stacking large cartons on a hand truck. Whatever they were delivering to Belle’s dream mansion was going to take a few trips.
John Hancock pulled out his cell phone and made a dramatic gesture of typing.
Almost immediately she received a text. Don't come out. I don't want the plague.
Taylor's hand hovered over her screen. She had so much to tell John, didn't she? After all, he couldn't possibly have heard about the murder yet.
Before she could decide what to tell him, she got another text. Heard about the quarantine. You poor kids. Convinced my brother to make a charitable donation. Lots of good bar food. Sorry no beer.
Taylor wanted to run out and hop into his Corvette.
She wanted to drive away fast with the wind in her hair.
In her imagination, she could be completely silent while he told her all of the… she tried to picture what kind of gossip John Hancock would have. Investment banking wasn't terribly interesting.
But it didn’t matter.
There was no escape.
She tapped the microphone on the keyboard of her phone and began talking. “You are the best. We can definitely use the food. Oh, by the way, one of our guests was murdered last night and maybe one of us did it."
She watched the window rather than her phone.
John Hancock’s brow creased in confusion. He looked up at the house with wide eyes and hopped up the steps quickly.
Before he could knock on the door, Taylor sent another text. "No really, don't come in. You don't want to get the virus from us."
After a second, her phone rang. John didn’t bother with a normal phone greeting. "I already had it in April. It sucked and I still have a dreadful cough. But I don't care about me. I want to help."
"You really can't come in. Nobody knows if you can get this thing twice. Or even worse, you might carry it to someone else and make them sick."
He descended the staircase, kindly respecting her wishes. "I'm worried. How can I help? You know I will literally do anything."
"Both Sheriff Rousseau and Deputy Maria are quarantining with us. I don't know what else to say about it. It doesn't feel safe. But when was the last time anything seemed safe?”
"This is remarkably bleak. I’m glad you have the law with you, but are you serious that one of you might be the killer?”
“We’d all prefer to think someone broke in, but we don’t have any evidence of it yet.”
“Listen, I hate this with my whole heart. I will do anything. All you have to do is ask. Is it too much if I check in every day? Maybe I could camp on the front lawn?"
"Tempting, the camping, I mean. Check in as much as you want. I can always use a friend."
“It’s the least I can do.” He looked up at the house as he ended the call.
She stood at the window, watching him. They stared for a moment, and the reality that someone had been murdered overwhelmed her.
She lifted a hand to her eye—tears were beginning to burn.
He broke the gaze and returned to helping the driver.
They had just a few more loads of small cartons to leave on the front step.
John lingered after the van drove off. But Taylor did not text him again.
What could he do? He wasn't an online hacker who could source the author of threatening reviews for her. He wasn't the police who could get warrants to search people's kitchens. He was a nice guy. The nicest, really. But he couldn’t help.
He watched the house for another minute, looking backwards and for
wards, up and down the street and then his yellow Corvette sped away.
She didn't text Belle to help her bring the cartons in until he was gone.
The look of pure pleasure on Belle's face as they opened those boxes of sausage rolls, bratwursts, chicken and apple links, frozen fish and chips, and individually wrapped sliders, which Taylor was sure the pub’s chef had just made for them, made Taylor happy.
How funny to say someone who would go to all this trouble just to make sure they had good food was someone who couldn't help.
As the last carton was opened, Belle got a text and excused herself to handle it.
Taylor hoped it was from Jonah, but in the end, it didn't matter because it left her alone in the kitchen with Aviva.
"I hope this doesn't put a hitch in your plans to order food from the diner,” Taylor said.
"It's fine.” Aviva shifted things in the fridge. “A lot of what I ordered can freeze. And it doesn't look like there's much fresh veg in this delivery.”
Taylor looked through the boxes again. “You're right. How funny. I wonder if that's a man thing. To think we needed three different kinds of sausage, but no leafy greens.”
Aviva smiled weakly.
"Hey, how are you holding up?” Taylor asked.
"I'm not even sure how to answer that question. How does one ‘hold up’ when they’re housemates with a murderer?”
"So, you don't think it was an outsider?" Taylor asked.
Aviva shoved two six packs of Jones Soda into the fridge. “I want to believe it. Does that help?”
“It was intimidating answering the police questions.” Taylor wanted to nudge the conversation casually towards Aviva’s potential motive.
"That's hard to believe. You've done this so many times before." Aviva pulled out two bottles of ginger beer and offered one to Taylor.
She accepted and they both popped the lids off. "Personally, I think whoever was leaving those nasty bones around for Maddie must be terrified right now. But I don't think that person killed her.” Taylor sipped her soda.
"Oh?” Aviva shifted from foot to foot.
"I get the feeling that person had some kind of personal grudge but being annoying isn’t the same thing as murdering someone. Even if they were trying to scare her away…. It just doesn't strike me as the same personality type, you know?”
Aviva sipped her drink but spilled a little down the front of her shirt. She thumped the bottle on the butcher block kitchen island and scrabbled around looking for a towel. “I don't know what to think.”
"I just hope whoever was doing that is brave enough to tell the police before the police find out on their own. I think the longer that person waits to confess the worse it's going to look for them.”
Aviva would not make eye contact with Taylor, but she nodded.
“I think,” Taylor said, “that if they don't tell, they risk the real killer getting away."
"No. Why?" Aviva froze.
“If the police spend all their time trying to figure out who left chicken bones and stuff around, they’ll be following a red herring.” Taylor turned and looked toward the staircase, hoping she gave the kind of dramatic and serious face that would inspire confession. “If you hear anything,” Taylor added, “will you tell me? I've spoken to the police so many times, like you said. But even though it's intimidating, I would be more than happy to help.”
Aviva was silent.
“While the bones and things weren't nice, they could hardly be called a crime. Would you pass the word along that I want to help? Whoever did it needs to know they've got a friend.” Taylor turned and focused on Aviva.
Aviva nodded. She picked up her bottle again, but her hand was shaking.
Taylor stayed in the basement finishing her soda and hoping that Aviva would warm up and confess. Unfortunately, Aviva didn't crack.
Chapter Twelve
Taylor had stolen a few minutes in the bedroom she shared with her sister to scour through her mom's show for ideas. She needed more sewing lessons she could teach on the fly. They'd need more materials as well, but Clay could do a drive-and-drop like John Hancock had done. They had plenty of fabric and notions at her store.
She was debating between two simple quilt blocks when Belle burst in.
"It was Valerie," Belle practically shouted as she jumped onto her bed beside her sister. “Not the killer, I mean the text that I got when I left. It was from Valerie Ritz. She was getting back to me about that terrible review left on Maddie's yelp.”
Taylor set aside her phone, annoyed that Valerie hadn’t sent the news to her. “What did she say?”
Belle exhaled. "Some guy named Alex Stoner wrote it. I've heard that name before, and I think I heard it from Aviva."
Taylor nodded pondering this new bit of information.
"Don't tell me you're not surprised." Belle pulled an exaggerated pouty face.
"I was recently given reason to look more closely at Aviva. It was nothing definite.”
Belle looked mollified.
"It would really help if you could remember in what context you heard this name. Like, did she say it as though he was someone she knew well? Or was it more casual?”
"I've been trying to remember but getting nowhere. Still, the name was familiar enough that I recognized it right away. She must have talked about him more than once. My money is she likes him. Perhaps they like each other. She must know him from college because he wasn't from around here.”
"That tracks with what Maddie had said about the person who left the review. Here's the question: do we tell Sheriff Rousseau what you learned?”
"Not if it would make him think Aviva killed Maddie."
"If the person responsible for the little bullying campaign against Maddie confesses, it would free up the police to look in other places for the killer."
"You have a better opinion of the sheriff than I do. I think it would just make him think he’d caught the killer. After all, none of us were together when she was killed, were we?”
“You and I were in this room together, at least. And if Sissy had left her room, Aviva would have known since she’d have to pass Aviva. And the rest of the guests were all snug in their beds by themselves. But mostly, you’re right. It wouldn’t clear anything up.” Taylor chewed her lip. She didn’t think Aviva was a killer. But so many killers she had met over the last several years hadn’t seemed like it at first. In fact, every single time she’d chatted with a murderer, they had seemed perfectly normal—at first. At the same time, she’d known Aviva for a nice little while now. That had to count for something.
"Can't we keep this hidden for a little while longer? Maybe we can find something, anything, that helps us find the real killer before we implicate Aviva,” Belle begged.
"That would be ideal. Got any ideas where to start?"
“I wish I'd let Jonah put all those cameras up that he wanted,” Belle said. "He thought being able to turn them on and off for the sake of content creation was fabulous, but I put my foot down. I have no desire to live in a reality show. If I hadn't done that, we could check them."
"Don’t beat yourself up. We wouldn’t have had the cameras turned on.”
A brief look of relief passed over Belle’s features. “All of this technology and there's nothing to show us who snuck into the library and took that knife."
“I should text Clay.” Taylor stared at her phone. “He was going to find out if that bit of receipt tape could have been the result of some normal cash register thing. If so, it could have just accidentally fallen in the cookie dough.”
“Let’s hope.” Belle leaned back and closed her eyes.
They sat in silence waiting for a reply.
Clay's text and one from Roxy Lang, Taylor's friend, employee, and Belle's mother-in-law, came at the same time. Clay said: possible not probable. And also, Dahlia really hates you.
This wasn't news, and it wasn't comfortable.
Roxy's text said: what has Jonah done now?
Taylor responded with a question mark.
Roxy replied immediately. my Google alerts for Jonah Lang have gone crazy. TikTok is really mad.
Taylor nudged her sister. “What happened with Jonah?”
“Masks."
Taylor texted masks to Roxy. She was too scared to Google the boy herself, so she asked her sister for more details.
"His TikTok account was shut down today because of an anti-anti-Maskers rant he went on.” Belle’s mask had slipped off her nose. It was as though being sisters meant they already shared all their germs, though that wasn’t necessarily true. “Remember how I said I saw something with him not-masked? I guess he felt guilty and really went off.”
"What do you mean?”
“He shared his strongly held opinions that masks save lives and only selfish people refuse to wear them. He said it’s one thing to forget, but if you make a point of it, you’re a terrible person. Apparently TikTok is full of terrible people." Belle didn’t open her eyes. She sounded exhausted.
“That’s…. weird. I don’t get it.”
“The Juvies still love us, but there was another TikToker who got his audience to send a whole lot of complaints about Jonah’s rant. That got him shut down. After that, he sent out a ton of Snaps where he called a lot of people murderers."
"That can't be good.”
“It turns out people don't like to be called murderers, even when their decisions are going to be responsible for thousands of deaths.”
“Is he headed back here?” Taylor wanted to pull a nice safe quilt up over her sister and tuck her in. Maybe bring her a cup of coco. Anything to comfort her, but it was a hot summer day and the sun streaming through the window seemed to laugh at their pain.
"How would that look? If he went off on health and safety, in defense of it, and then showed up at the house where his wife and her friends were actively quarantining. No. Just when he needs me, he can't come home, and I can't do anything to help him."
Taylor shivered. Graham was in the middle of writing about the biggest protest for the rights of minorities that had happened in her lifetime. And so, he too, couldn't be here for her crisis. But that hardly compared. Graham wasn't her husband. Wasn't even her boyfriend if she was being honest. Perhaps her lover, if one awkward night together many months ago counted for that much. The pandemic was tearing relationships apart. Destroying families and making enemies of friends. All because some people didn't think they should have to sacrifice a little bit to save a lot. "Getting political in my old age." Taylor muttered without explaining.