by Lila Dare
Did Marsh know that Lisa was pregnant? Was it possible that another man was involved? Someone local? That might have been the reason Lisa was killed.
I turned off the engine and sat for a second, gathering what was left of my energy. The rain was light but showed no signs of letting up. Fortunately, the apartment I rented from Genevieve Jones was thirty feet from the street. My little place had once been her garage, but Mrs. Jones had long ago converted it into a living space for her son, who had died of lung cancer at sixty. He had never married.
After hurrying along the sidewalk with my head down, I made it to my stoop before I noticed a yellow tag had been wrapped around my door handle. The soggy paper read: “Sorry we missed you! A gift for you from St. Elizabeth’s premier florist is waiting…” and in a loopy script: See Mrs. Jones. Thanks to the rain, the note nearly fell apart in my hands. Two minutes more, and I wouldn’t have been able to decipher the writing.
Mrs. Jones stepped out on her porch and waved to me, beckoning me to take the two-stepping-stone pathway from my front door to hers. “Saw you pull up! Got your flowers!” She shouted across the broad expanse of her piazza.
My landlady was a tall, cranelike woman with skin so translucent it reminded me of tissue paper. She was a busy volunteer who visited “old people” and shut-ins, with her weekly bridge games lending structure to her life. Once I accompanied her to tai chi, where her agility and balance astonished me. As she moved into the pose mimicking a crane flapping its wings, I wondered if she might fly away. The pouf of her thinning, snow white hair as it formed a halo around her head heightened her resemblance to a crowned crane.
Ducking my head again, I jogged back out into the shower, but this time, I ran up the stairs leading to Mrs. Jones’s front door. She hugged me and pulled me inside.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Her housedress was nearly as faded as her blue eyes, but it was neatly pressed with starch. Her pearl clip-on earrings dangled along her scrawny neck. Mrs. Jones was a real pip with those blue eyes that danced with excitement. She pointed to a beautiful bouquet of long-stemmed roses taking pride of place on her mahogany dining room table. “I didn’t want them to go dry, so I watered them for you.”
She’d done more than water them; she’s soaked them good. The flowers were drenched, as was the card accompanying them. Her eyesight grew ever more dim with each day, and I worried that soon she’d run into a real problem getting around town in her huge, gold Impala.
“Come sit a spell, Grace. Here, take this towel and dry yourself off. I’ve got a fresh pitcher of sweet tea, and I want to show you what’ll surely be the last blossom on my gardenia this fall. See it? There out by the roses? Now I want to hear all about you being a person of interest. Gracious, I don’t know as I’ve ever met a person of interest before.”
“Thank you kindly,” I said as I took the cold glass from her gnarled hands. I am nothing if not polite, because every Southern girl has manners drummed into her from birth onward.
I’d taken just one sip when she said, “So they’re trying to blame you for the death of that awful Lisa Butterworth.”
“You knew her?” I shouldn’t be surprised. Mrs. Jones gets around, and St. Elizabeth isn’t a big town. My drinking glass clinked as I set it down on her glass-topped side table. One day I’d have to remember to buy her coasters, because the muggy weather caused terrible condensation. You could easily ruin a fine antique with a wet glass, and Mrs. Jones had a house full of them.
“Carol Brockman is my niece. Twice removed,” she said with a knowing grin. “I’ve heard all about that terrible young woman.”
In the South, familial relationships are sacred. It’s common to ask, “Who’s his people?” the way a dog breeder might ask about a purebred’s lineage. The complicated intertwining leads to odd and strained explanations. “Once removed,” “twice removed,” “on my daddy’s side,” “by marriage,” “and by blood” are everyday parlance. It’s confusing, so I ignore it. Mrs. Jones was simply telling me that she and Carol Brockman were distant relatives, not kissing kin.
“That so?”
“Sure you don’t want a couple of shortbread cookies to go with that sweet tea? I buy boxes of them every year from the Girl Scouts.” This was a bribe. I could hear the rest of the story only if I agreed to refreshments.
“You know, I think I will.”
From her kitchen, she brought an eggshell-thin plate of fine china that was loaded down with more cookies than I could eat in a year. First she handed me a damask napkin to put in my lap. “Yes, indeedie-do. Carol was fit to be tied. She sees all the receipts. That girl was trying to pull a fast one on the company. See she wanted to recoup the money they spent for that big fish tank. Guess how much it cost. Just guess.”
I named a figure.
Mrs. Jones chuckled and hiked her thumb toward her ceiling. My eyes followed the gesture and noticed cobwebs hanging from the light fixture.
I raised the figure.
Mrs. Jones hiked her thumb again.
Surely that tank hadn’t cost more than a month of my salary? Well, it did. At least that’s what my landlady said.
“Lisa thought it was a big waste of money. Carol caught her monkeying around with the different chemicals. Don’t you know all those fish up and died? Carol came in one morning and they were all floating belly up. Lisa was happy as a pig in mud,” she said as she shook her head so the crown of hair floated around her face.
“Really? But now the salon is left with a big empty space in the middle.”
“Don’t you know it?” said Mrs. Jones with a nod. “Carol got me an invitation to the grand opening. That was some party, I tell you. I remember precisely how big that tank was, and how much space it took up. You see, that Lisa Butterworth wanted a big empty space. Yes, it’s true. She was fixing to put in a display rack for more product. Originally, she had called Mrs. Sebastiani, I mean, Mrs. Goodman, and told her what she wanted to do, but Mrs. Goodman had a fit. She was not happy. They got to hollering at each other over the phone. Carol heard ever’ bit of it.”
So Eve and Lisa had fought. Interesting.
“But they calmed down, right?”
Mrs. Jones smiled, those bright eyes of her lively with mischief. “No, they did not. Lisa hung up on her boss. Eve called back and spoke to Carol. Carol told her about the missing money.”
“Missing money?”
“Lisa was skimming a little off the top, don’t you know? Every bill that came in from a supplier, Lisa added a bit and handed it to Carol. Most bookkeepers wouldn’t get wise to that, but Carol started double-checking the paper invoices against the order books. That’s how she noticed the discrepancy. She’s a smart one, our Carol.”
“What did Eve—Mrs. Goodman—say when she learned about Lisa stealing from her?”
Mrs. Jones shrugged. “She told Carol to keep track of the dollar amount. See, when it reaches a certain amount, it goes from a misdemeanor to a felony. Mrs. Goodman told Carol, ‘I’m going to make sure Lisa never, ever pulls a stunt like this again. Believe me, she’ll wish she was never born!’”
Chapter Forty-four
I THANKED MRS. JONES FOR COLLECTING MY FLOWERS and left, walking in the light rain and picking my way along the stepping stones. As part of our agreement, I helped her with the gardening for a reduction in my rent. The overgrown honeysuckle sent up a heavenly fragrance, as did the last of the season’s roses. Soon they would need trimming and mulching as preparation for their dormancy. What was it Mom had reminded me? Everything had its season.
Eve had lied to me, by omission. She’d said that Carol thought someone was stealing. Actually, she had proof that Lisa was dipping into the till. Why hadn’t Eve been honest with me? My new boss hadn’t told me that she and Lisa were at odds, even though she had mentioned Lisa’s problems with everyone else in the shop. Curious-er and curious-er, as Alice said in Wonderland.
Balancing the flowers in one hand and fighting my rain-slick doorknob with the oth
er, I managed to slip into my apartment as I wondered out loud, “What else is Eve hiding from me?”
Sam greeted me with an excited stream of chirping and general carrying-on. I shook off the rain and set my roses on the kitchen counter.
“You’ll have to wait, buddy. I need a towel.” After I grabbed one, the soggy card stuck in the blossoms demanded my attention. Gently extracting it from the plastic pitchfork that held it, I opened the damp envelope, withdrew the card inside, and tried to make out the message. “Sorry” and then a blur.
“Totally useless,” I muttered. “But these sure are lovely.” They were long stemmed, a deep romantic red like you see in commercials. Hank had sent me roses once before. Right after I found him with Melissa Littleton. Could this be his attempt at apologizing for naming me a person of interest? It would be his style. A grand gesture signifying nothing.
Squinting at the card and holding it under a lamp, I could barely make out the letter M.
I set the card down and checked my phone messages. There were three. One was a hang up. Alice Rose, my sister, called to say, “Grace Ann! I can’t believe what you’ve gone and done! Working for Snippets! If that doesn’t make you a traitor, I don’t know what does!”
I hit “delete.” When she calmed down, and I explained everything to her, she’d apologize. Unfortunately, Alice Rose did not walk away from quarrels if they involved me. Then she was every bit as combative as I was. Her worries about Owen were probably putting her on edge. I made a mental note to call her tomorrow and ask what she’d learned.
The final message on my machine was from Marty. “I’ve been thinking, Grace Ann. I’m sorry about the other night. I’ve never been good with commitment. On the ride back to Washington, I had plenty of time to think. Why don’t you—” But the message was cut short.
So that was it. The flowers were from Marty. I briefly considered tossing them, but why waste good roses? Instead, I freshened the ends and put them in a vase of warm water.
Sam had gotten noisier still, raising a general ruckus and demanding my attention, as if he was bothered by something. I reached in, let him hop on my index finger, and withdrew him carefully. He calmed down immediately. I wondered if I could teach him to kiss me, as my grandmother’s bird used to do with her. Tentatively, I lifted the small bird to my mouth and touched my lips to his beak. He stared at me nervously, looking past me with his good eye, and backed away.
“No kisses?”
“I’ve got plenty of them for you.”
I whirled around to see Wynn standing in my doorway. His hair dripping wet.
“What are you doing here? Get out!” I scolded him. Sam fluttered up and would have flown away had Marsh not clipped his wings. With a quick grab, I corralled my frightened bird and popped him back in his cage.
“Hey, the door wasn’t locked and I stopped by to talk. You don’t want me to stand out in the rain, do you?” He stepped inside and shook the water from his leather jacket. As usual, every hair of his fell into place, leaving him as devastatingly handsome as any male model could be.
I felt the attraction that had drawn me to Wynn in the first place, and that hormonal tractor beam made me furious.
“I want nothing to do with you. Nothing!” Without Eve’s mitigating presence, the force of my anger at Wynn hit me hard.
His shoulders dropped and his face lost all eagerness. He wiped his face on his sleeve. “Aw, gee, Grace Ann. Did I really hurt you that badly? I mean, I understand you have a reason to be upset, but geez.”
“You kidding? You passed my work off as your own. You shuffled all your responsibilities at the school onto me, but never gave me credit. And worst of all, you were dating Eve behind my back. You humiliated me twenty ways to Sunday!” I screamed at him.
“Oh, babe, I never meant to embarrass you. I thought you knew we weren’t exclusive.” He started for my sofa, but I got between him and it. “No. Out!”
Wynn rubbed his eyes, trying to look sad. “Come on. We can talk this through.”
“No, we can’t. There’s a huge difference between not exclusive and one person being engaged to someone else.”
“I meant to tell you. Honest I did!”
“Wynn, knock it off. We both know that the word ‘honest’ is not part of your vocabulary.”
He bowed his head and, I swear, he looked exactly like an eight-year-old boy with his hand caught in a vending machine. That was a large part of his charm—and he knew it. When he raised his eyes, tears stood in them. “Okay, I deserve all that. You’re right. I knew all along I was going to hurt you. That’s what I do, Grace Ann. That’s what I am. I’m a loser. I can face up to that. I’ve told Eve I’ll go into counseling, and I will, but meanwhile, I want you to know that I love her. I really, really do. With all my heart. More than I’ve ever loved anybody in my life. I want to do right by her. And my baby. I can’t believe I’m going to be a dad!”
I didn’t say a word. Either he was the world’s best actor in a leading role, or he was for once being totally candid with me.
“Right. And what kind of father are you going to make?”
“I know…I know.”
“Eve deserves better.”
“You are right. She does.” He sniffed. “Did you ever read that comic book? Richie Rich, the poor little rich boy? That’s Eve’s story. Her dad kept her locked away. She’s never had friends. He raised her to take over his business, and that’s her whole life, twenty-four-seven. When we met, she’d never even gone to a movie in a theatre. Or gone flying kites. Or riding bikes. He protected her, but he also kept her away from real life.”
“And now she has you,” I said. “Lucky girl.”
“Well, yeah. I’m not much, I know, but I can have a good time, can’t I? I can make a woman feel special. I can get people laughing.” To prove it, he did a silly soft-shoe imitation and ended with a goofy grin.
“Your point?”
“Look, she’s wanted this baby for a long time, and I gave it to her. I love Eve more than life itself. Help me out here. I know your ex-husband is on the police force, and I heard that he came into the shop. He still cares for you. Could you tell him she didn’t do it?”
I shook my head at Wynn. “What makes you think that Hank Parker or anyone else would listen to me?”
He sighed. “Okay, whatever. It’s just that I know she didn’t do it.”
“Did you?” I stepped closer and shoved my index finger into his chest. “Was it an accident? You smacked Lisa. She fell. You thought she’d climb out of the fish tank?”
“No!” he yelled. “I didn’t do it! Don’t you see? That’s why I’m so worried! I didn’t do it and I think maybe Eve did!”
Chapter Forty-five
FOR A MINUTE, I WAS TOO STUNNED TO SAY ANYTHING. What a jerk he was, blaming his wife! “I can’t help you or her. My ex and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye.”
“But he sent you those flowers, didn’t he?” Wynn pointed.
“Those are none of your business.”
“Okay, all right. Look, Grace Ann, all I’m sayin’ is that I love Eve. I really do. More than I ever thought I could love anybody.”
“That’s nice to hear you’re capable of deep emotion. Now go. Shoo. Get out of here.” I hustled him out of my apartment.
“You’ve got to forgive me, Grace!” He resisted my tugs on his arm. “Besides, it’s raining.”
“So what? I don’t got to do anything. Good night!” As I locked the door behind him, I rested against its comforting surface. What was going on? First Eve wondered if Wynn killed Lisa, now Wynn worried that Eve had killed Lisa.
Who was the real culprit? If it wasn’t one of the two of them, who could it be? Carol, the accountant? Suzee, the second-in-command? Eve told me there’d been no forced entry, so I could assume that the killer either let himself in or Lisa had opened the salon for her killer.
That meant that she must have known her murderer, but that wasn’t unusual. Most killers know their victi
ms.
The more I thought about what I’d learned, the more confused I became. I went into my bedroom and started to undress. As I did, I found the folded piece of paper with the word SUSPECTS written across the top. Pulling a pen from my bedside table, I made notes.
Carol Brockman—Was definitely at the shop by herself that night. Thought Lisa was stealing.
Suzee Gaylord—Was in line for a promotion. Whereabouts unknown.
The rest of the staff
Eve?—She had to be sick and tired of Wynn’s cheating. Where was she the night Lisa was killed? Any alibi?
Wynn?—If Lisa was really pregnant, could that have been Wynn’s child, too? Was he worried about his marriage to Eve being in trouble if Lisa was pregnant with his child? He drove past the shop, but claims to have stayed in his car after he left Lisa.
Contractor—Got Lisa to change his work order. Might be in trouble with Eve now. Where was he?
Other?—Could be Lisa had gotten pregnant by another man. Maybe he met her at Snippets?
After standing on my feet all day, I wanted a long soak in my tub. I poured a scented Epsom salt mixture that Althea had mixed up onto the porcelain surface of the clawed basin, turned on hot water, and stirred it with my hand. The fragrance of lavender mixed with eucalyptus wafted upward, bathing my face in scent. With one hand, I twisted my hair up on top of my head and used a clasp to keep it there.
I had one foot in the water when the doorbell rang.
Pulling on my wrapper, I gave the tub a longing look and padded to the door.
Marsh stood outside. In the rain.
I debated what to do, but I did need to talk to him and tell him what I’d learned, so finally I opened the door.
“It’s wet out—” He paused as water dripped from his hair. “Was I interrupting?”
“I had one foot in a hot bath.”