Murder Wears White

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  Garrett and I exchanged a silent glance, pregnant with meaning.

  “Go on, tell him.” Garrett nudged my shoe with his.

  “We recently found out Vanessa may have been fencing jewelry she stole from guests at the Senator Hotel.” I watched Eugene carefully.

  He cocked his head in thought, then nodded.

  He sank back into his chair. “There were things Vanessa didn’t tell me. We were planning to run away together, and she was going to bring Whitney with her. I was a muralist, and I painted houses for extra cash, but there was no way I could finance the kind of living she was used to. She said she had it covered and there was a line of money she could tap into that her husband, Porter, didn’t know about.”

  Garrett’s hazel eyes burned with a flash of annoyance. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Eugene shrugged but looked embarrassed. “I did, just not phrased that way. I knew she had money from her family, and I assumed that was what she meant.” Eugene turned to me. “Vanessa was secretive. If she was stealing jewelry from guests, it would have been for kicks, not because she needed it. She liked thrills, and I always wondered if she would have gone through with it. Running away with me.” His face grew somber. “Sometimes I questioned whether she really loved me or was using our affair for some excitement in her life.”

  “This is important, Eugene. We’ve been over this a thousand times, but can you think of any way to prove you didn’t kill Vanessa Scanlon? Anyone that could have seen you?”

  Eugene exhaled loudly and pushed back from the window in frustration. “You know the answer to that. The minister at the First Presbyterian Church, and he’s dead. There’s no record of me painting that church mural the same day Vanessa disappeared, so it’s my word against the police’s.”

  Garrett and I glanced at each other again.

  “Okay, you two, what else do I need to know?” Eugene leaned forward hungrily until his boyish face touched the thick glass.

  “I don’t want to get your hopes up. The prosecutor already thinks it’s not enough. But—” Garrett paused and turned to me.

  “—Rusty Dalton, the former police chief, admitted he moved the murder weapon into your shed.” I finished for him.

  “I knew it!” Eugene jumped up and crowed, causing a guard to hustle over to give him a stern word. “Our other theory was the killer planted the hammer in the shed, but it makes more sense that the police planted it.” His eyes glowed with hope, and I hated to see him get excited about something that might not come to fruition.

  Garrett counseled that his appeal chances were slim, even with the admission that the former chief had rigged the evidence. Eugene’s face fell.

  “Don’t get my hopes up, man. What I wouldn’t give to get out of here. I could paint again, and start my life over.”

  “You said you were a muralist?” My thoughts went back to the mess of a mural on the parlor ceiling at Thistle Park. “There aren’t too many of you around, and I sure need one now.” I told him about my predicament.

  His grin returned. “Sylvia Pierce used to own that house. She hired me to restore her ceiling. I was supposed to begin a month after I was arrested and charged.” His face fell.

  Garrett frowned and turned the interview back to the murders. “You said Vanessa didn’t always get along with her sisters-in-law. Lois found out about the affair and threatened Vanessa, right? Do you think she could have killed her?”

  Eugene stared behind us at the wall. “Lois is a big woman. It’s possible Whitney mistook her for a man. But I don’t think she could kill Vanessa. It was more of an annoyance between them.”

  “Did Lois ever wear all white?”

  Eugene shook his head. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “We can’t. She’s been murdered.”

  Eugene’s eyes widened in shock. Before we could discuss it further, the guard returned to take him back to his cell.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Whatever else may go wrong with this wedding, these chocolates almost make it worth it.” Whitney took a delicate bite of a rosemary truffle and closed her eyes in bliss. I’d returned from my trip with Garrett and sat at the old oak table in the breakfast room, making favors for Whitney’s reception. We sampled the chocolatier Penelope’s wares as we tied up one of each kind of chocolate into a small box emblazoned with Whitney and Ian’s initials and the date of her wedding. So far we’d eaten more than we’d boxed up.

  “If I’m not careful, I won’t fit into my mom’s dress.” Whitney giggled and took another bite, this time of a cayenne truffle.

  “Just wait’ll you try the cocktails.” Rachel poked her head in from the kitchen, and a moment later, we heard the telltale sound of a martini shaker.

  “Voilà.” Rachel returned and set down a tray with three martini glasses and three glass mugs.

  “That’s a lot to sample.” I eyed the pretty glasses. Would the drinks hinder our favor-making project?

  “Just sip slowly. From the looks of it, we’ll be here for a long time.”

  Rachel was right. There were mountains of truffles on trays waiting for us to sort, wrap, and box up. After we finished, we’d have to embellish each gold box with a satin, chocolate-colored ribbon.

  I took a sip of smooth liquid and closed my eyes with a sigh. “This is heaven.” The drink was a concoction of caramel and cream liqueurs over ice with a hint of cocoa. A sprinkling of salt dusted the rim of the glass and sparkled in the light.

  “A salted caramel martini!” Whitney grinned and set down her glass.

  “And this is traditional mulled wine for fall.” Rachel gestured to the second set of drinks, and we each took a sip. A fruity explosion danced tête-à-tête with a chorus of spices. Sweet cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves exploded on my tongue.

  “It’s like drinking the essence of fall.” Whitney twirled the cinnamon stick in her glass.

  Rachel breathed a sigh of relief and sat down to make favors.

  “I’m glad you like them. It’s all coming together.” My sister clasped her hands together and gave me a satisfied smile.

  I couldn’t help grinning back. We were going to pull off the wedding. The house was starting to look like my vision for the B and B. Each day Jesse and the Senator Hotel contractors inched closer to completion, and I could see what the finished result was going to look like. It would be close, but I actually believed we had a prayer of finishing in time for Saturday’s wedding.

  Maisie emerged from the hallway and sat on her haunches. Whitney hadn’t let the dogs out of her sight after Bruce disappeared. She lifted her front paws up in the international canine sign for begging. Fiona lifted her head from her bed and seemed to give a look of disapproval before yawning and returning to her nap.

  “No chocolates for doggies,” I admonished the pup. I brought her a dog biscuit and she gobbled it up.

  She trotted over to Soda, the kitten, who was curled up in a weak patch of autumn sunlight. The kitten lifted her head and sniffed the Westie and finally consented to lick her nose. Maisie sat with a satisfied sigh and curled up next to the orange kitty. Whiskey opened one eye from her perch on the window seat and closed it again, curling up into an even tighter calico ball.

  “I can’t believe we haven’t found Bruce.” Whitney sniffed and hurriedly looked at the ceiling, seeming to stave off tears. “All I can think of is him wandering around Port Quincy, scared, cold, and alone.” We’d put up flyers all around town, but no one had called Whitney with information about the Westie, and he hadn’t turned up at any of the animal shelters.

  “And I’m starting to have doubts about my mom’s murder.” Whit sat back and wilted like a flower under the harsh scrutiny of the sun. “What if the person sending the notes is right? What if Eugene Newton didn’t murder my mother?” She set down a box of chocolates and got up from the table, scraping the chair on the floor with a harsh, quick jerk. She stared out the kitchen window for a minute, then turned around, backlit by the waning
fall daylight. “I was only five. I told the cops everything I could remember that day my mom disappeared. What if I got it wrong? I thought I heard my mother arguing, and I thought I saw someone wearing white leave our house. But I can’t really be sure.”

  “They based the case on other things,” I said gently. “And the police investigated fully.” And the police chief tampered with a key piece of evidence.

  “But it’s a lot of pressure. What if that man—Eugene—was wrongly convicted and spent a decade in prison based on the word of a five-year-old?” Whitney drifted back to the table and sank down onto her chair. She picked up a box and filled it with chocolate on autopilot, her gaze far away.

  Rachel and I glanced at each other.

  “I hid in the closet,” Whitney whispered. “When she told me to go to my room and take a nap. The prosecution made a big deal out of that, that my mother recognized her killer and didn’t want me to see him. But she did let him in, so she trusted him. That part I remember. And Mom was shouting and arguing with that man pretty quickly. That’s when I got scared and ran into the closet.” Whitney’s eyes stared ahead as if in a trance, and she quietly continued her tale. “I heard something break in the family room, and I waited a few minutes to sneak out of the closet. He was heading to the driveway. He must have already gotten my mom in the car. He wore a cap, all white, and the rest of his outfit was white too. Or so I thought.” She shook her head as if to clear it and set down the box with trembling hands. “And after that, I never saw my mother again.”

  Rachel downed her mulled wine in one swig. “I’m so sorry, Whitney.”

  We reached out to hold her hands, and she sniffed back some tears.

  “I haven’t told anyone that for years, besides Ian. And I had to recount it a million times at the trial, of course.” Her face hardened, and she turned to me. “That’s why I have such a strong reaction to Garrett, Mallory. It isn’t his fault. But, for me, he’s caught up in all of this.”

  I nodded and gave her hand a squeeze.

  “What I don’t understand is what Mom was doing with stolen jewelry. Faith got back to me, and Mr. Fournier was right. That ring was definitely stolen from a woman back in the nineteen nineties. She left it on the dresser at the Senator Hotel, and when she came back from a day of visiting her grandchildren, it was gone.”

  Rachel and I exchanged a surreptitious glance. I’d told my sister about Garrett’s and my trip to see Eugene but hadn’t broken the news to Whitney.

  My cell took that moment to blast out a chipper ringtone, and my face heated as I took it off the table. Saved by the bell. The screen read Truman Davies. Okay, maybe not saved.

  “I have to take this.” I stepped into the hall and shut my eyes as I swiped to answer. “Hello?”

  “I know you and my busybody son visited Eugene Newton in prison,” A voice blared into my ear. “Garrett may have a reason to visit his client, but as for you, missy, get out of my investigation!”

  I dropped the phone.

  The doorbell rang. I thought of Whitney’s mother looking through the peephole and unwittingly letting in her killer.

  “Thank goodness it’s just you.” I smiled up at Garrett as he stepped through the door, a worried expression marring the symmetry of his face.

  “Recognize this?” He held up another note, identical to the ones Whitney had received, encased in a large plastic bag.

  You know it’s true. Eugene Newton is innocent.

  Get on it.

  “It’s the same stationery as Whitney’s latest note.” A faint border of helixes traced the edges of the paper, in shades of red and blue. A faint tickle of recognition ran through my brain, but I couldn’t catch it before it left.

  “Better call your dad.” I told him about his call to me seconds before.

  Garrett laughed. “I’m on my way to see him.” He dropped a kiss on top of my head. “Be careful, Mallory.” He got in his Accord and pulled out of the long driveway just as another car pulled in.

  * * *

  “You’ve come a long way, girls.” A smile cut through the harsh cast of Angela’s face as she took in Rachel and me, and I basked in its glow for a moment. “This is delicious.” She set down her salted caramel martini and finished the last box of chocolate favors. “Whitney, dear, your wedding will be beautiful, and your father will be so thrilled to be here to witness it. To Whitney and Ian.”

  Rachel and I dutifully clinked our martini glasses to Angela’s, and Whitney blushed.

  “I’d give anything for Dad to get better, but at least I get to spend time with him now.” She picked up her purse and took in the mountain of chocolate boxes. “Thanks again, Mallory and Rachel and Aunt Angela. I’m going to go have dinner with Dad.” Whitney had declined the invitation to stay at Helene’s house and was staying with her father until she married on Saturday. She leaned down, kissed her aunt good-bye, and slipped out of the breakfast room to let herself out.

  “I’ve got to run to yoga, but it was good seeing you, Angela.” Rachel was still taking classes from our neighbor, Charity, who had stayed quiet after her latest outburst. Rachel followed Whitney, and I was left with Angela at the table. She stood to go when I held up my hand.

  “I have a few questions about Vanessa’s death, and I didn’t want to upset Whitney by asking her.”

  Angela stiffened and put down her purse with a clunk on the table. She cocked her eyebrow and remained standing but gave me a cool nod.

  I momentarily regretted my decision to ask her questions but pressed on. “Was Vanessa involved in fencing jewelry?” I decided to be direct since Angela was already giving me the stink eye.

  “She was no saint, since she was cavorting around on my brother, Porter, with that housepainter. You don’t need to make her out to be a common thief as well.” Angela seemed more distressed by the fact her sister-in-law had had her affair with a painter than that she was murdered.

  “I’m sorry I brought it up. I just thought—”

  “You just thought you’d get to the bottom of those notes? They’re upsetting Whitney enough as it is. I don’t think she’d be very pleased if she knew you were adding amateur sleuthing to your repertoire as a wedding planner.” She stared down her nose at me and dared me to say something. “I must admit I overheard you talking to Chief Truman about it the other day at my restaurant.”

  I flashed back to Pellegrino’s. Angela had hovered pretty closely while Truman and I talked about Rusty’s admissions of moving the murder weapon.

  Angela softened a millimeter and sat at the table with a sigh. “Mallory, I had to work around the clock for years to make Pellegrino’s the most successful restaurant in Port Quincy. My late husband and I turned our idea into reality through hours of blood, sweat, and tears. You and Rachel have the beginnings of what could be a fabulously successful business. Focus on your career and stop meddling in my family’s affairs.”

  I choked down the last swig of salted caramel martini and nodded. “I’ll let the authorities handle it.”

  She nodded. “It isn’t Whitney’s fault her mother was kidnapped and murdered. She was involved in a lot of seedy things, in addition to that affair.” She shook her head slowly. “Jewelry thief as well? I wouldn’t put it past her. But this is supposed to be a happy time for Whitney, a time to spend with her father. So not a word of this to her. Am I understood?”

  “Loud and clear,” I whispered.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Three seconds after Angela left, Rachel blew into the breakfast room. She shook her head in anger, her hair swishing over her shoulders like Medusa’s snakes. “I can’t believe you’re jeopardizing my mentorship with Angela to play detective.”

  “I thought you left for yoga,” I said levelly and sat down at the table.

  Rachel remained standing, her feet planted wide apart. “I forgot my mat and came back. Just in time to hear you interrogating Angela!”

  “I asked Angela because I didn’t want to upset Whitney. Someone is t
hreatening Garrett and Whitney with anonymous notes. And they might be the same person who dismantled Garrett’s office, trashed Whitney’s dress, and clobbered Becca with a vase. Of course I’m concerned and looking into it.”

  “I don’t recall your stint at the police academy. Why don’t you just leave it to Truman and Faith?”

  I ignored her logical reminder. “If Garrett thinks Eugene is innocent, then he is. And you heard Whitney today. She isn’t sure if she even saw what she thinks she saw.”

  “What’s going on, girls?” My mother rushed into the room, her hair bouncing with each step. I was still getting used to her haircut.

  “Nothing, Mom.” Rachel sent me a withering look and picked up her yoga mat.

  A knock on the back door startled the three of us. I crossed and peeked out into the now dusky backyard. A smiling Hunter waved on the other side of the glass. For once he carried no ghost-hunting equipment.

  “Am I interrupting anything?” Hunter breezed into the room with a kiss for Rachel and a smile for my mom.

  Rachel giggled and set down her mat, her yoga class temporarily forgotten.

  “I have a great idea.” Hunter turned around a kitchen chair and straddled it.

  My mother raised a skeptical eyebrow. I shrugged and waited for Hunter.

  “We should have a séance!” He spread his hands out and looked from me to Rachel to our mother.

  “That’s fantastic!” Rachel nearly bounced on the balls of her feet.

  I did a double take. “The week of Whitney’s wedding?”

  Hunter’s face fell. “But it’s the most liminal time of the year. The ancient holiday of Samhain is this week. The ghosts will be at their most potent energies. This is a unique opportunity, since we know this house contains spirits—”

  “We’ll be running around setting up for the wedding this week. I doubt we’ll have time.” I softened my stance. “Where would you hold a séance?”