String of Lies

by Mary Ellen Hughes

As Jo watched in amazement, the others nodded easy agreement as though Loralee had predicted Jo would come up with a great new decoration theme for the next PTA party. She saw them turn back to their beading projects with apparently settled minds. Hey, I’m not a miracle worker guys, she wanted to cry, though I appreciate the vote of confidence. Plus at the moment I seem to be hitting a brick wall.

  Any ideas, Mike?

  Jo threw out that last silent appeal realizing she hadn’t spoken to Mike in a while. Nor had he sent down any messages from his heavenly cloud, or whatever, either. Not that she was convinced those messages had truly come from him. It was, though, a comforting concept at certain times of her life.

  She watched Vernon wrap his final string of beads about the other five strands, producing a striking effect largely because of the beads he had chosen, and wondered who was going to be the lucky recipient of this creation. His wife, Evelyn? Daughter, or sister? Who would he gift with this bracelet?

  A thought suddenly popped into her mind: A gift opens doors.

  It did indeed. Jo smiled as she thought she saw a possible crack in that brick wall.

  Thanks, she telegraphed skyward, but didn’t wait for a response. She was too busy wondering what kind of gift Mallory Holt would most enjoy.

  CHAPTER 23

  Jo stood on the front steps of the late Parker Holt’s house, ready to lift the same brass knocker she had tapped only days ago. Was this a good idea, she wondered? What kind of response would she get when Mallory Holt opened the door, considering their last encounter? Had the woman acquired any large, vicious dogs?

  Drawing in a deep breath for courage, Jo lifted the knocker and tapped it three times, hearing the sound echo inside the house. One, two, three. After a moment, she heard footsteps approaching, then the sheer curtain stretched over one of the sidelights twitched and an eyeball flicked into view. Mallory? Jo heard a lock turn, and braced herself as the door before her opened.

  “You!” Mallory Holt faced Jo. She was dressed in a grey suit and heels as though ready to go out. To Parker’s office? She held the door firmly at half-open. “What do you want?”

  “Hello, Mallory. I came to apologize. You were absolutely right – I had no right to go to Sebastian Zarnik’s studio and waste his time as I did. I’m sorry I upset you, especially with what’s been going on in your life right now, and I’ve brought this little gift to make amends.” Jo thrust the gift forward.

  Mallory stared at the box. Jo had wrapped it simply but beautifully with one of her lovely scrapbooking papers topped with an exquisite bow of pink wired ribbon. Jo watched Mallory’s struggle, her animosity toward Jo pitted against the lure of the gift. Her curiosity – her greed? – tugging hard.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” she said, cautiously, then stepped back and opened the door wide. She reached forward for the gift. “But it’s very thoughtful. Won’t you come in?”

  Yes! “Well, just for a minute.” Jo entered the foyer and followed Mallory’s lead to the formal living room, not the cozier den where Jo had met with Russ Morgan the night of Parker Holt’s murder. She remembered seeing Mallory rush into her house that night, as the emergency vehicles flashed lights in her driveway. Jo had felt a pang of sympathy for her then, as one widow to another. She had very different feelings about the woman now.

  Mallory gestured to her to have a seat on the burgundy striped sofa. Mallory perched on a gold velvet armchair, and worked at her gift’s tie. She pulled off the pink-washed paper and lifted the box’s top.

  “Ooh!”

  Mallory lifted out the silk flower arrangement Jo had worked furiously to create the night before as she strained to remember the colors of Mallory’s living room, arranging burgundies and golds along with dark greens and a bit of white for brightness.

  “It’s lovely,” Mallory exclaimed.

  “I hoped you would like it. I put it together from the flowers in my shop.”

  “You did this?”

  Jo nodded, she hoped modestly.

  “Well, thank you! It will be perfect in this very room.” Mallory paused. “We did get off on the wrong foot, didn’t we? Why don’t we just forget about the whole thing, shall we?” Mallory set her new centerpiece down on the nearby end table. “I can see you’re artistically inclined. That must be what drew you to Sebastian’s studio.”

  “Absolutely!” Jo crossed two fingers surreptitiously and hoped her expression looked sincere. “I had heard so much about his work, and was dying to see it. I only wish I could afford to buy one of his paintings.”

  “Yes, the price of his paintings has shot up astronomically, ever since Guy Paxton from the Paxton gallery in Philadelphia spotted one of his pieces and invited Sebastian to do a show there.”

  Jo remembered how Zarnik had explained it – that Mallory’s aunt, Lucy Kunkle, had connected him with someone she knew at the Philadelphia gallery – but smiled and nodded. “Well, talent has a way of rising to the top, doesn’t it?”

  Mallory agreed enthusiastically.

  Thinking she had probably softened Mallory up enough and beginning to tire of the effort, Jo was ready to turn the conversation toward motives and alibis when the front door’s knocker tapped. Mallory jumped up, saying, “That must be my aunt. I had thought you were her, actually, but a bit early.” Mallory opened the door to a plump, white-haired woman wearing a stunning fur-trimmed, peacock blue coat and matching hat. They hugged, then Mallory’s aunt held her niece out by the shoulders and looked intensely into her eyes.

  “How are you doing, my dear. Is it getting any easier?”

  “Yes, Aunt Lucy.” Jo couldn’t see Mallory’s face, but from the tone of her voice she imagined a sad but courageous expression spread over it. Jo rolled her eyes.

  Another hug, then the two women entered the living room. Mallory introduced Jo, and showed her aunt the silk flower arrangement Jo had brought.

  “Mallory’s friends have been so kind!” Lucy Kunkle exclaimed. “There’s been a magnificent outpouring of love for her in her time of distress. Of course it says so much about how beloved Parker was too.”

  Since Jo held no such emotions toward either Mallory or Parker, and highly doubted Parker’s funeral had produced much of any kind, she struggled to look properly sympathetic.

  “Aunt Lucy, I’ll just be a minute.” Mallory turned to Jo. “My aunt and I are meeting friends for lunch.”

  Jo knew that was her cue to stand up and politely leave, but she hadn’t planned to be particularly accommodating today. “How nice,” she said instead, and turned to Lucy Kunkle. “At a local restaurant?”

  Mallory paused for an instant, then turned and left the room, leaving Lucy Kunkle alone with Jo.

  “Yes, at Hollander’s. It has wonderful food, and it’s convenient to the office. Parker’s office, I mean. Though I suppose now I should call it Mallory’s office.”

  “Mallory’s taking it over?”

  “Oh, yes. Isn’t it amazing of her? She said she couldn’t let the business just fall apart. There were too many people depending on it. So she’s been going in almost every day now, having Parker’s staff bring her up to speed.”

  That wasn’t good news to Jo. It meant Mallory might really know what the corporation owned and what it did not, and the threat she had thrown out at the ball may not have been an empty one. Jo’s heart sank, but she pushed that worry aside. She needed to focus first on who murdered Parker Holt and Alexis, for Xavier’s sake.

  A framed painting on the wall over Lucy Kunkle’s shoulder caught Jo’s eye. Recognizing the style, she said, “That must be a Sebastian Zarnik.”

  Lucy Kunkle turned to look behind her. “Yes, don’t you love it? Such a talented young man. And so good hearted too! Why, that terrible evening after Parker’s – well, that terrible evening – Sebastian rushed over to ask what he could do for Mallory. He had been halfway to Richmond at the time, where he was going to meet with a gallery owner. But when he heard the news on the radio, he turned right ar
ound.”

  Interesting. Zarnik had told Jo he was working in his studio at the time.

  “I remember seeing him at the Founder’s Ball the other night,” Jo said, “but I never got a chance to talk with him. Did he leave early, do you know?” Early enough, for instance, to find Alexis’s car and cut her brake line? “I don’t remember seeing him toward the end of the evening. I know the snow began to worry many people.”

  “Well,” Lucy Kunkle frowned, “now that you mention it, I can’t say I remember him being around later on either, and Warren and I stayed to the very end. I do remember Nancy Hatfield asking me a question that I thought Sebastian could answer best, something about a certain artist that she’d seen discussed on a PBS show, but when I looked to see if he was nearby, I couldn’t find him. I didn’t go searching of course. Nancy’s question wasn’t all that urgent.”

  “Mallory,” Lucy asked as her niece re-entered the room wearing a chic, black jacket over her grey suit. “Did Sebastian leave the Ball early?”

  “Sebastian? No. Why do you ask?”

  “Mrs. McAllister, here, was ---”

  Jo broke in. “Your aunt said she had looked for him to answer something that Nancy Hatfield needed to know, and couldn’t find him. We wondered if he’d left early because of the snow.”

  Mallory looked at Jo with slightly narrowed eyes, then at her aunt.. “Sebastian may have stepped out for a cigarette – an unfortunate habit he slipped into during a stressful period of his life and has been trying hard to stop. That may have been when you didn’t see him, Auntie. But no, I’m sure he didn’t leave early. He’s originally from upstate New York, you know. Snow would never worry him. Now,” she said firmly, “it’s getting late. We’d better be going.”

  Mallory turned to Jo as she briskly gathered up her pocketbook and keys. “Do you mind if we all go out the back door? It’s easier for me to set the security code there.”

  “Not at all,” Jo said, rising. “By the way,” she began, wanting to keep the discussion on Zarnik, but Lucy Kunkle spoke over her.

  “Oh, certainly, Mallory dear,” she said. “I do hope you had the code changed since….”

  “Yes, Auntie,” Mallory answered, a tad impatiently, and turned to lead the way through her impressive kitchen and into the short hall leading to the back door, the same hall Jo had entered that night as she searched for Parker Holt. Loralee’s glass candleholder, or rather its twin, sat on a small table, something Jo hadn’t noticed that night as her attention had been drawn to the lighted basement stairs.

  “How in the world,” Aunt Lucy asked, apparently focusing on the same item “did this delicate thing survive all the goings-on of that awful night?”

  “One of the medics apparently moved it out of the way and into the kitchen,” Mallory said. “That’s where I found it, anyway, the next day.” She opened the back door to usher out her aunt and Jo, then punched in the code on the keypad before stepping out herself.

  “Thank you again for the lovely flower centerpiece,” Mallory said, pausing beside the silver Lexus that Jo recognized from having seen it parked in the driveway that night. A second Lexus sat beside it, this one black, and Jo assumed it was Lucy Kunkle’s. Lucy pulled open the passenger door of Mallory’s car.

  “I’m so glad you liked the arrangement,” Jo said. “Since you are obviously a person of impeccable taste, I was specially concerned.”

  Mallory accepted the compliment with a pleased tilt of her head.

  “I mean,” Jo continued, gesturing toward Mallory’s front yard, “just seeing how beautifully your place was landscaped, told me so much. Did you design it yourself?”

  Lucy Kunkle called out the answer. “Yes, she did! I remember you sketching it all out, Mallory, shortly after you and Parker moved in. I was so impressed. Then Parker surprised you by having all the plants and shrubs delivered and put in lickety-split!”

  “Wow,” Jo said. “How lucky of him to find a landscape service that had everything you needed on hand.”

  Mallory’s brow puckered. “Not everything. As a matter of fact, there were quite a few changes made from what I had originally planned. But Parker, it seemed, found a good deal – plants that were available at a very good price.”

  Jo nodded, wondering if that very good price was in fact no cost at all, such as shrubs that had been ordered and paid for by the Pheasant Run condo association? It sounded like it.

  Mallory glanced at her watch. “We’d better be going, Aunt Lucy,” she said, and moved briskly toward the driver’s side of her car.

  Jo watched as the pair prepared to take off, wishing she could slip into Mallory’s back seat and keep the conversation going. Her surprise gift, though, had produced an interesting tidbit or two, and it had at least put the two of them on civil speaking terms. This would be helpful for the future when Jo hoped she could pry more from the not-so-grieving widow.

  Lucy Kunkle called out several farewell pleasantries to Jo as Mallory put her car in gear and began to back away from the house. Jo headed for her own car whose shabbiness seemed magnified by its proximity to the two luxury vehicles. She consoled herself with the fact that her rusty bucket of bolts had at least been fully paid for.

  And with honestly-earned money.

  <><><>

  Jo had left Carrie in charge of the Craft Shop with a promise to bring back lunch for them both. Her first impulse was to head for the Abbot’s Kitchen, but she realized she wasn’t all that far from TJ’s, the restaurant where she’d encountered Heather Bannister’s hardware store relatives. TJ’s did take-out, so Jo turned toward there, to pick up something.

  She was standing at the take-out counter, reading over TJ’s menu when a pony-tailed waitress walked by and smiled. Jo automatically returned the smile, thinking the woman looked familiar, and after a moment realized she was Lisa Williams, Randy’s girlfriend, whom Jo had first seen Saturday night at the ball. Lisa must have been a temporary hire for that night, just as Randy had been. And Xavier.

  Jo gave her order to the counter person – a Chinese chicken salad for Carrie and eggplant parmesan for Jo – then sat down on the small bench provided for customers to wait.

  Business at TJ’s was light this mid-week afternoon. Jo watched Lisa deliver an order of salads and burgers to two mothers with toddlers in high chairs, only one of several booths occupied at the moment. Lisa chatted for a few moments with the mothers, then deposited her empty tray on a stand nearby and wandered over toward where Jo sat, exchanging a friendly word on the way with a passing waitress. She pulled a pack of cigarettes part way from a pocket and walked to the front window as if considering stepping out for a smoke, but apparently changed her mind and wandered back.

  Lisa smiled once more at Jo, then stopped. “You were at the ball Saturday night, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was. I thought I recognized you too. Aren’t you a friend of Randy’s?”

  Lisa’s face took on a slightly defensive look. “Yes, we’re friends. Some people seem to think that’s odd, but …” Lisa shrugged.

  “Some people like Alexis Wigsley?”

  Lisa looked surprised, but then she nodded, apparently accepting that of course Jo would know it was Alexis Wigsley. Slightly overweight and blunt-featured, Lisa’s age, Jo guessed, was late thirties. Her face already showed signs of fatigue, the ingrained kind that came from hard work that produced very few rewards. Despite this, there was an openness about her that made her very approachable.

  “Yeah,” Lisa said, grimacing. “Alexis Wigsley. I suppose she was only trying to be helpful and all. But it kind of upset me, you know?” She fingered the cigarette pack in her pocket.

  “Alexis was out of line, talking to you like that.”

  Lisa smiled gratefully. “I know Randy’s had problems in the past. But who hasn’t? At least he’s honest. He might not be a big shot like his old friend Parker Holt, but the only harm he’s ever done was to himself, not to anyone else. I mean, look how Parker ended up. I hate t
o say it, but it’s the kind of thing that only happens to someone who deserves it. Parker may have been rich, but he wasn’t much else.”

  “That’s pretty close to what I’ve heard from a lot of people.”

  Lisa moved over to the vacant hostess stand and began rolling tableware into napkins. On a slow day like this, and with plenty of napkin rolls already prepared, Jo thought Lisa probably wanted to appear busy as she continued talking.

  “It was really nice for me that Randy was working there that night, you know?” Lisa said, pulling a basket of spoons closer. “I mean, I was able to go talk with him when I had a break, and seeing him looking so great in that uniform and all helped me get over all the nasty things Alexis said.”

  Lisa dropped a fork and bent to retrieve it. She seemed on the verge of returning it to its napkin before catching herself and setting it aside for washing. She smiled at Jo, and Jo couldn’t help wondering what the decision would have been if she hadn’t been sitting there observing. The take-out person showed up with Jo’s order packed in a brown paper bag, and Jo stood up to pay for it.

  “Well, enjoy your lunch,” Lisa said. “I’d better get my tables cleaned up. My shift’s over soon, and Randy’s coming by to give me a lift to my sister’s.”

  “Say ‘Hi’ to Randy for me. Tell him the shelves he built for Jo are holding up great.”

  Jo was halfway out the door with her bag of food when she stopped and turned back, catching Lisa before she disappeared.

  “You called Parker Holt an old friend of Randy’s. You meant, didn’t you, that they knew each other in school, not that they hung out together or anything, right?”

  Lisa shook her head, surprised. “No, they were real good buds. All through high school. Funny, isn’t it, how they ended up so different?”

  Jo nodded slowly. Alarms had started going off in her head so loudly that she barely heard the crash of crockery coming from a dropped tray somewhere in the back. Lisa cried, “Oh gosh,” and hurried off, leaving Jo still nodding and saying to no one.