by V. M. Burns
Victor wasn’t the only one who noticed. Men who normally barely noticed Penelope surrounded her, but it was Victor’s night. He nudged his way through the crowd and took hold of her. He held her close, twirled her around the room, and staked his claim.
“Beautifully done.” She laughed.
“Thank you, m’lady.”
Penny and Victor floated across the dance floor.
“Daphne looks beautiful, don’t you think?” Penelope studied Victor’s face.
“I never noticed.”
Penelope laughed. “Well, I think we made an impression. Just about everyone is staring at us.” Penelope looked around the room. “Everyone except the cellist. He can’t seem to take his eyes off of Daphne.”
Victor swirled Penelope around so he could look at the cellist. “Fellow is a fool.”
The flush that rose into her face heightened her cheeks and added sparkle to her eyes.
Victor looked into her eyes and gasped. He pulled Penelope closer and they danced until perspiration beaded both of their foreheads.
They spotted Charles Parker heading toward the terrace. Daphne followed not long afterward.
“I think they managed to beat us outside.” Victor nodded toward Daphne.
“Well, it’s rather warm in here. Perhaps we should go and get some air too. Besides, this is where you propose.”
The aroma of jasmine and roses wafted from the gardens, and the air on the terrace was cool and sweet. Penelope left to powder her nose, and Victor enjoyed a smoke in the moonlight.
A woman screamed.
Victor froze, trying to get his bearings and determine where the sound originated. It sounded like Daphne. He squinted through the darkness. A white form emerged from the hedge maze. In the glow from the moon, it appeared to be a ghost. Hesitating only a moment, he ran down the terrace stairs toward the maze. The bright moonlight allowed him to quickly make his way to the edge of the maze.
“What happened? Are you hurt?”
Her response was merely a whimper before her legs gave out. Victor scooped her into his arms and carried her to the house and through the doors to the study. Thankfully, the room was empty. He gently placed her on the sofa in front of the fireplace and rang for the butler. Thompkins, prim and proper, appeared promptly.
“There’s been an accident. Get Lady Penelope and Lady Elizabeth,” Victor ordered. “And bring some towels.”
Thompkins retreated to carry out his commands.
At the sideboard, Victor grabbed a glass and filled it with brandy. He held Daphne’s head and put the glass to her lips.
Penelope appeared. One look at Daphne, and the color drained from her face. She staggered.
For a moment, Victor was afraid she was going to faint. “Come on, old girl. I can’t do this alone. I need you.”
Penelope steadied herself and rushed to the sofa. “What happened?” She carefully checked Daphne for wounds.
“I have no bloody idea. I was out on the south terrace smoking and heard a scream. I looked down and Daphne staggered out of the maze. I ran to her, and she collapsed in my arms. I picked her up and brought her here.”
“She doesn’t appear to be injured,” Penelope said.
“Then whose blood?” He motioned toward her blood-soaked dress.
She shook her head.
Lady Elizabeth arrived and kicked Victor out of the room so she and Penelope could perform a more thorough examination.
Unable to block the sight of Daphne’s pale form illuminated by moonlight and covered in blood from his mind, he needed to find the answer to the question he asked in the study.
In whose blood was Daphne covered?
Chapter 5
“Hmmm . . . Whose blood is it? I’ll have to figure that out later.”
Snickers and Oreo barely looked up when I mumbled. They napped on the nearby chair until a knock at the door sent them both into a barking frenzy.
Peeking over the open banister, I saw Nana Jo and her latest beau and ran down to open the door.
Nana Jo reminded me of all the characters from the television sitcom The Golden Girls rolled into one. She looked the most like Dorothy, the tall character played by Bea Arthur. She flirted like Blanche, played by Rue McClanahan, and had the sharp wit and an even sharper tongue than Sophia, played by Estelle Getty. Her background was most like that of Betty White’s character. Like Rose, Nana Jo was born and raised on a farm in Minnesota. I used to wonder if the writers had met my nana.
“What on earth brings you out on a night like this?” I kissed my grandma and noted her latest hunk carried a suitcase. “Don’t tell me you’re running away.”
Nana Jo was a quick-witted, wisecracking woman who liked to have fun and didn’t take crap from anyone. “I’m moving in. Your mama said men were dropping dead in your backyard, so I figured I’d better come and grab a few before all the good ones were gone.” Nana Jo laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
Momentarily shocked, I gasped but couldn’t help laughing too.
It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t right to laugh at the death of a human being, but it was the first time I’d laughed in days. Besides, I wasn’t sure I’d have classified Clayton Parker as human three days ago. I might be committed to helping our pathetic police force catch a murderer, but there was no point in turning a sinner into a saint simply because he was dead.
Nana Jo’s friend deposited her case in my guest room and politely made his exit.
“Seriously, why are you here?” I inquired as politely as I could once we were upstairs and seated on the sofa.
“You’d think it was a crime for a woman to visit her favorite granddaughter.” Nana Jo laughed.
When I was with Nana Jo, I was her favorite granddaughter. When my sister was with her, Jenna was the favorite granddaughter.
“It’s not a crime. I’m just a little suspicious of your motives.” Taking both of her hands in mine, I looked in her eyes. “I am happy to see you, but why are you here, really?”
“I’m here to catch a murderer, of course. I know my granddaughter, and the North Harbor police are idiots. I figure it’s just a matter of time before you go sleuthing. So, here I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t honestly expect to figure this thing out on your own? Everyone needs help. Sherlock Holmes had Watson. Hercule Poirot had Captain Hastings. Nero Wolfe had Archie Goodwin. And you, my dear, have got me!” She patted my knee. “Besides, you might need some protection,” she said with a straight face.
I wasn’t surprised my grandmother knew the great literary detectives. She was a huge mystery fan. In fact, she was the one who started me on my love affair with mysteries. She bought me my first mystery, an Encyclopedia Brown book. I devoured it. No, my grandmother knew her mysteries, all right. What amazed me was that she was even contemplating the two of us as real-life sleuths.
It was absurd. I struggled to formulate my response. “But, Nana Jo . . . I mean, how?”
“I don’t know what you’re planning to do, but I know you can’t and shouldn’t do anything on your own. There are crazy people out there. With two of us, we should be able to put the pieces together and figure this thing out.”
I was touched my eighty-something grandmother was looking out for me. At least, I was touched until she reached into her purse.
“Plus, I’m the one that’s packing heat.” She pulled out a gun.
I nearly choked. I wasn’t a big proponent of guns and my grandmother was waving one around in my living room. I didn’t even know she owned a gun.
“Nana Jo, you put that thing away! Where on earth did you get it?”
“I’ve had it for years. Your grandpa bought it for me.” She looked at the gun lovingly.
“Do you even know how to shoot it?”
She looked at me as if I’d suddenly grown a second head. “Well, of course, I know how to shoot it. I grew up on a farm, didn’t I? I’ve been shooting since I was ten. I used to be
pretty good too.” Nana Jo aimed the gun at a picture on my wall, cocked her head to the side, closed one eye, and looked down the barrel. “I won the Junior Annie Oakley Competition three years in a row and Best Shot for Lauderdale County, Female Division, my senior year of high school.” She must have noticed my shock and, I must admit, awe.
“Didn’t I ever tell you?”
“Ah, no. You must have skipped that part.”
“Well, one day when you come to the house, I’ll show you my trophies. I’ve still got most of them. Used to keep ’em in the display cabinet, but I got tired of dusting. They’re in a box in the attic now. I thought you knew.” She put the gun back in her purse.
“I don’t think you’re going to need that.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her handbag. How long had she been carrying that thing around?
Geez, live your whole life and you think you know someone, and then they come to your house wielding a gun and you realize you don’t really know them at all.
“I hope we won’t need it. But, better safe than sorry is my motto.”
“Right. Well, I’m not planning to go out and get myself killed. I just want to do some research. I thought I’d find out about Clayton Parker. Hopefully, I can do most of it on the Internet and won’t even have to leave home.” I wanted to convince my nana sleuthing wouldn’t be the exciting adventure she was looking for.
“Good. I already Googled him and have some of the girls at the village working on his real estate company.”
“The village” was the retirement village my grandmother moved to after Gramps died. Unlike my mom’s villa, my grandmother moved into a retirement community that offered hiking, martial arts, Zumba, and waterskiing. Yes, waterskiing. Those seniors were certainly nothing like Miss Marple, who gardened and knitted sweaters. I didn’t think my grandmother knitted, but she took Aikido.
“Really? What did they find?” I was intrigued, in spite of myself.
She reached into her bag again. The muscles in my stomach tensed until she pulled out an iPad.
“You have an iPad?” I tried really hard to keep the envy out of my voice.
“Sure do. I bought it a few months ago, and I have to say, I really like this thing. It’s fantastic. You don’t have one?” She sounded surprised. “I thought everybody had one.”
I tried not to drool. I wanted one but couldn’t justify the expenditure. “No. Everyone does not have one.” I didn’t even try not to snipe, but Nana Jo didn’t seem to be listening.
“Well.” She absentmindedly looked at her iPad and swiped through pages of information. She stopped swiping and adjusted her glasses. “Irma found some interesting stuff. It seems Clayton Parker had his own real estate company until he sold it rather suddenly a few months ago.”
“What? You mean he doesn’t own Parker & Parker Real Estate?” When I bought my building, I thought Clayton Parker owned the real estate company. He acted like he owned the place. But then, Clayton Parker acted like he owned the world. “Was she able to find out why he sold?” I was intrigued that Irma had found the information already.
“He used to own Clayton Parker Real Estate, but he sold it and went in with his dad’s company, Parker & Parker. One of Irma’s great-grandsons is a realtor. She sent him an e-mail and asked him to come by on Sunday. She’ll pump him for information then.”
“Really? That’s great.” I was genuinely amazed.
“And Ruby Mae has a daughter who used to clean house for Robert Parker.”
“Robert Parker?”
“Robert was his dad. He started Parker Realty about forty years ago. His brother George joined the company a few years later. That’s when it became Parker & Parker. Robert owned the majority of the company. George handled the books. He’s an accountant.” Nana Jo scrolled through her notes, and I looked over her shoulder.
“Are they still with the company?” I asked.
“Robert died a couple of months ago. I think George’s still there.”
“What else have the girls found out?” No skepticism in my voice that time.
“Well, Dorothy has a son who works at the country club and a nephew who works at the yacht club. She’s going to a wedding on Saturday. She should have some information for us by Sunday or Monday, at the latest.” Nana reached the end of her notes.
“Wow. You guys are fast.”
“Honey, at our age, you have to be, and Freddie, the hunk who just dropped me off, has a son who works for the state police. He’s going to get him to pull the police report so we can find out what that nincompoop detective has done so far. He said it may take a couple more days, but he should be able to get it.”
“That’s amazing. I was just planning to go to the library and look through old newspaper articles and surf the Internet for anything I could find.” Reluctantly, I had to admit Nana Jo and her girls might come in handy after all.
“So, we’re a team?” Nana Jo’s smile lit up her whole face.
“We’re a team.”
We shook on it for good measure.
“Great. Now, let’s go across the street to Murray’s Ice Cream Shoppe, get some ice cream, and get to work.” Nana Jo grabbed her purse and headed downstairs.
I grabbed my wallet and keys from the counter, along with leashes for Snickers and Oreo, who raced after Nana Jo when they heard the magic word—ice cream.
“Get a move on girl—we’ve got a murderer to catch,” Nana Jo yelled.
I headed down the stairs.
Chapter 6
The next few days were busy. Andrew, the Amish craftsman building the bookshelves, dropped off the last set. He wore the traditional black and white clothes of the Amish. His face, the part that wasn’t covered by hair, looked like that of a sixteen-year-old with skin as soft as a baby’s. Were it not for the long dark beard, you might mistake him for an adolescent.
Northern Indiana, less than an hour’s drive from North Harbor, had quite a few Amish. The community coexisted peaceably with the modern society of rural Indiana and Southwestern Michigan. Passing a horse and buggy on the road or parked at a shop right next to a car or motorcycle wasn’t uncommon. Amish men, known for exceptional craftsmanship and woodworking, were highly sought after for building projects. Amish women were sought out for their excellent baked goods and quilts.
The bookshelves Andrew built weren’t fancy, but they were sturdy and beautiful in their simplicity. The shop smelled of freshly cut wood and wax, and I couldn’t wait to load the shelves with books.
I hired my two nephews, off from college for the summer, to help. They shelved books, swept, and cleaned. They got my new computer and point-of-sale system up and running. Between the two of them, they scanned and sorted all of the books within days. The actual shelving took a little more time. I was still unsure of how to organize the shelves. I toyed with the idea of sorting the books into subgenres, like British Cozy or Police Procedural. Ultimately, alphabetical order won out and, within three days, we had most of the books shelved. It actually began to look like a real bookstore, and I was both excited and nervous to open the doors to the public.
Nana Jo, surprisingly, was quite helpful in organizing and shelving the books. Despite her age, she was active and energetic. I struggled to keep up with her. I would have been embarrassed that, at more than half of her age, I was so out of shape, if not for the fact my twenty-year-old nephews, Christopher and Zaq, also struggled to keep up with her.
It was Saturday before I had time to think about Clayton Parker again, and then only because Detective Pitt came by the store to ask more questions.
Nana Jo, a retired teacher, remembered Detective Pitt. As a child, he was called Stinky.
I wished I had a camera to record the look on Detective Pitt’s face when he swaggered into the store, opened his mouth to speak, and was halted at the sound of Nana Jo yelling, “Well, bless my soul if it isn’t Stinky Pitt.”
I ducked behind a bookshelf to keep from laughing in his face. Christopher and Zaq weren’t as qu
ick. Zaq laughed so hard tears streamed down his face. Christopher tried to stop laughing but couldn’t.
“Mrs. Thomas! What are you doing here?” Detective Pitt sputtered.
Nana Jo came around the corner and stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. “Working. This is my granddaughter’s bookstore, Stinky. What are you doing here?”
“I’m investigating the murder that took place here,” Detective Pitt said with as much dignity as he could muster.
“Well, Sam, you never told me Stinky Pitt was the detective investigating this murder.” Nana Jo turned her back to Detective Pitt and winked at me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you two knew each other,” I managed to squeak as I peeked around the side of the bookshelf where I had retreated.
“Well, few people call me that name anymore, Mrs. Thomas. I’m Detective Pitt now, ma’am.” He stood straighter.
Nana Jo was a much better actor than I gave her credit for. She smiled innocently. “Really? Well, that’s nice. But you’ll have to forgive an old woman. After almost thirty years, it may take some time for me to stop thinking about you as little Stinky Pitt.”
The color rose in Detective Pitt’s face.
“May I help you, Detective?” I tried to alleviate a little of his discomfort.
“Ah . . . yes. I was hoping you could answer a few more questions.” Whether it was fear of his old math teacher or fear we would spread his childhood nickname around the police force, whatever the reason, Detective Pitt was much kinder to me this time around.
We retreated to the office, and Detective Pitt stepped over the boxes still piled everywhere and sat in the guest chair.
“I was just wondering if you remembered anything that might assist us in our investigation.”