“When Ida Lynn said that LouAnn stole the love of Millicent’s life, maybe she was really talking about Millicent stealing the love of her life. Was there a spark there? Could they have even dated?”
“Could be, though I’d never heard such a thing. Dig a little deeper. Talk to LouAnn—in fact, I have carrot cake in the fridge here. You take a piece of that over to her house and she might open up a little. The woman needs help, you ask me. I’ve seen her in the BI-LO supermarket and she’s one unhappy lady. Looks nothing like the LouAnn I once knew.”
“Taking cake over to LouAnn is a great idea.”
She smiled. “Nothing like a sweet memory to get a person talking.You think of anything else, you come find me. I’ll tell you anything I can remember. But for now I have work waiting in the office. Invoices, payroll—all my favorite stuff.” She laughed.
The minute Belle stood, I saw Emily Nguyen walk up to the counter and order. Of course, that meant Tom was busy outside putting the GPS device on her car. I should have been happy. But I couldn’t shake the feeling we were doing something wrong. Her following me and now our turning the tables seemed . . . dishonest.
Belle turned to see what I was staring at. “Then there’s that girl. Fancies herself some kind of reporter. Saw her here talking to Dirk, Millicent’s son, yesterday.”
“Really?” Maybe Emily was digging around in the family treasure trove of secrets herself. “Did you speak with her at all?”
“Enough to offer a ‘hey there’ and be polite. Jillian, I keep Mercy’s secrets in town—don’t ever share them with strangers. I noticed Dirk seemed quite interested in her. But he’s probably your age and she can’t be more than twenty-two years old. I don’t like seeing a man flirting with someone young enough to be his daughter.”
“Was she interested in him?” I asked.
“Don’t know. I got distracted. I suppose she knows who he is and wants to grill him about the murders.”
I nodded. “No doubt she recognized him from the interview he did about Clyde. I believe it aired right after the cat was discovered hanging around Mr. Jeffrey’s house and the body was found.”
“Just ’cause the girl works in the TV business doesn’t mean she watches TV,” Belle said. “Oops, she’s headed our way. Let me get you that piece of cake.”
Off Belle went, leaving me to deal with Emily, who approached with a wide smile as if we were long lost friends.
Twenty
“Jillian, I’m surprised to run into you again.” Emily took Belle’s vacated seat.
Not too surprised, since she tracked me, I thought. “I’m here a lot. It’s a busy place. No hard feelings about yesterday, I hope.” I wasn’t sure how long Tom needed to switch the GPS locator to her car, so I figured I should make peace between us and keep her talking for a minute or two, though I surely didn’t want to.
“No hard feelings. I’m doing my job, and you’re apparently making friends. Why’s that?”
I dodged her question by asking one of my own. “What’s on your agenda today?”
“Why, that’s up to you. You said something about meeting your stepdaughter, I believe.”
I’d forgotten about that. “You’re right, I did. Why don’t I give her a call later today?”
“Later? What’s wrong with now?” Emily continued to smile and I wondered if she put Vaseline on her teeth like pageant contestants since she felt the need to smile so darn much this morning.
“She’s a busy person, what with running a newspaper and all, so—”
“Call her. I’m sure she’d love to visit with a colleague.” More smiling.
Thank goodness Belle appeared with a small pastry box and rescued me. “Here you go, Jillian. I believe this will do the trick.” She gave me a knowing look before patting Emily on the arm. “Why, hey there, little lady. So glad to see you came back to visit us. Where did you say you’re from, again?”
The intuitive Belle kept Emily busy with questions long enough for me to make my escape. I was only sad that I had to leave the remainder of my latte behind.
Tom’s van was parked across the street and he’d apparently been waiting for me to appear. He saluted as if to say I was good to go and drove off, probably to meet up with Candace.
I wasted no time, worried Emily would follow whether or not she had a working GPS to track me. My phone rang the minute I turned off Main Street as I headed for LouAnn’s house. Tom told me he rigged things so Emily would get an error message when she pulled up the tracker on her phone or tablet. Mission accomplished—at least for now.
I pulled into LouAnn’s driveway a few minutes later, hoping this wasn’t her errand day. The first thing I noticed was that the lawn had been weeded and the grass cut. Just those two small changes seemed to brighten up the little brick house.
Cinderella sat in the window as before, but this time when I knocked, LouAnn answered immediately. Though she still seemed down in the mouth, her body language was more welcoming than before. “Hello, Jillian. Nice of you to drop by.”
“I should have called, but I was having coffee at Belle’s Beans this morning and brought you a little something.”
She showed me in and I noted that unlike last time, when her home had felt like a prison cell, the blinds were all open, shedding much-needed light into the living room.
LouAnn gestured toward the kitchen entrance. “If you’ve already had your coffee, I suppose you might not want another cup—but I do have some made. Oliver and I always started the day with coffee and I have kept on doing that because—” She cut the sentence short and I could see she was fighting tears.
“Do you know I still have my late husband’s recliner? It’s ugly and my cats have torn it up, but I can’t seem to let go of the old thing. Whenever I feel low, I sit in that chair and I can almost feel his arms around me.”
She nodded in understanding. “Some days I picture Oliver sitting at the table across from me, working on his crossword, his mug of coffee right by his hand.”
I sat on the edge of the wing chair across from the couch, clutching the small box. LouAnn still hadn’t sat down. I wasn’t sure if that meant she expected me to depart quickly or if her depression had made her indecisive. I recalled the days after my husband passed. Back then, figuring out what to eat was the biggest decision of my day.
Cinderella jumped on the arm of the chair with some difficulty given her size and she sniffed at what I held. The other cats slept soundly on their quilts—no surprise, considering the average cat sleeps about eighteen hours a day.
I said, “Would Oliver want you to go on like you have been? You seem so unhappy. I ask because when I’m down and out, I say to myself, ‘If John reappeared for even one second, what would he say about the way you’re living? Would he be glad you’ve chosen to move on?’ The answer these days is always yes.”
She sat on the sofa. “Since you were last here and were so kind to me, I’ve been asking myself questions like that. I even thought about learning how to make those little quilts myself. I still have my sewing machine in the attic somewhere. I do care about living well. Deep down, I do.”
“If you didn’t, these four fur friends of yours wouldn’t be so well cared for. And I would absolutely love to teach you to quilt—but you’d have to come to my house for lessons, Mrs. Rafferty. That way you could meet my cats, too.”
I saw her expression perk up as she warmed to the idea. “I would like that. I’ll bet they’re wonderful kitties. And please call me LouAnn. Now, what’s brought you here today?”
I opened the box and tilted it to show her. “Belle wanted you to have this.”
LouAnn gasped and pressed trembling fingers to her lips. “Oh my. That Belle is such a sweet woman.”
“Since I left half my coffee behind, I would love to have a cup, if the offer’s still open.”
Soon, LouAnn and I were sharing carrot cake and dark roast coffee in her kitchen. She liked hers black, but she had brought out cream and sugar for me�
�cream that no doubt helped Cinderella get to be the size she was now. The chubby calico wound around and around my ankles in anticipation once she smelled that cream.
Cinderella’s purrs brought the others into the room soon enough and I was surprised none of them jumped on the table. Mine would have, but her four seemed to realize the small oak table was off-limits. That didn’t keep them from sitting and watching our every move as we ate the delicious carrot cake dripping with cream cheese frosting. So much for my yogurt and fruit breakfast.
LouAnn never uttered a word as she ate. No doubt she was reliving the times she’d shared carrot cake with Oliver, but I could tell her thoughts were peaceful—that Belle had sent over a miniature box of comfort.
After I drained my mug, I said, “I’ve met your cousins and shared time with Millicent and Ida Lynn. They seem so rooted in the past and I was wondering if you could tell me more about your relationship with them. It would help the police if you shared more about your family.”
LouAnn pushed away the now-empty pastry box and took our forks to the sink. She didn’t seem all that eager to talk about her cousins. All four cats followed her, hoping for a taste of the cream cheese they smelled.
Without turning around, she said, “Millicent finally came to town, then. I was afraid she wouldn’t.”
“Why is that, LouAnn?” Maybe more specific questions would help her get started.
She turned, her face creased with sorrow again. “Because she hates me. They all do—even Wayne.”
I gestured at her abandoned chair. “Please sit and talk to me.”
“What’s the use of talking about the past? They won’t ever change their minds.” She went to the pantry and took out a jar of cat treats. She doled out a few to each cat. As they gobbled them up, she petted each one on the head. “Cats don’t mind if you make a mistake or two. They go on with their day-to-day existence and love you just as much as when you came into their lives.”
I nodded. “They do. But what if your cousins could change their minds? Would you welcome that?”
She reclaimed her seat, considering the question for several seconds. “Maybe so. Our trouble started so long ago, I don’t even know for sure why they’re so upset with me.”
“Could it have had something to do with Oliver?” I prompted.
“Ah, so they told you. You’re talking about Oliver and Millicent some forty-five years ago. About Ida Lynn being so silly.”
“I’d love to hear your side,” I said.
“Those two are good at twisting things—and at poisoning Wayne’s mind. They convinced him I’m some evildoer, that I stole Oliver away from Millicent, which isn’t true. Good thing Norman never bought into their stories.” She paused and looked down. “But now he’s gone.”
“What else happened besides Ida Lynn being what seemed to me to be overly dramatic?” I asked. “Because I sense there’s something more going on.”
“Why, it’s about Norman, of course.”
Yes. It must be about Norman, I thought. I’d gotten sidetracked, it would seem. Maybe we all had. “Tell me about his relationship with you first. You said you visited him the week before he died. Was he worried about anything?”
LouAnn rotated her wedding ring as she thought about the question for several seconds. “A dying man is always worried, I suppose. I know he was unhappy with Buford, but it was over minor things.” She paused. “But you have to understand—Norman was a quiet man. You could say that for him to even tell me about Buford was unusual.”
“What did Mr. Jeffrey say about him?” Now we were getting somewhere.
“He thought Buford was taking things—just small things, really. A few old coins, gold cuff links that had belonged to Norman’s father. He even asked me to hunt around for them, hoping he’d just forgotten where he’d put them. Most of Norman’s valuables—like his mother’s jewelry, his stock certificates and who knows what else—he kept in a safe-deposit box.”
“Was he thinking about filing a police report? Or complaining to the home health care agency that Buford worked for?”
LouAnn shook her head. “Oh, Norman would never do that, not over material things.”
“But he spoke with you about this situation, LouAnn. Why exactly did he tell you?”
“Jillian, you know how we do things in the South. Norman tells me and then I talk to Buford and say something like, ‘How’s things with you? You doing okay?’ You know—get to the root of the problem without saying exactly what the problem is.”
“And did you talk to Buford?” I refilled my coffee cup from the pot sitting on a trivet between us.
“No, but I called Birdie. I asked her if Buford was having troubles—you know, money troubles.”
“You know Birdie well enough to call her?” LouAnn certainly was full of surprises. She seemed to know important information, information that she didn’t realize the police should know.
“Birdie and I have been friends for years. Even before she went to work cleaning Millicent’s house. It was a big place on the hill here in Mercy. Millicent and Dirk’s father lived there before their divorce—oh, had to be more than thirty years ago.”
“Millicent knows Birdie, too?” Why hadn’t Birdie mentioned this connection to the family? Was she embarrassed about having been a housekeeper?
“Why, of course she knows Birdie.” LouAnn looked at me as if I hadn’t been listening.
But I was still trying to process this information. Birdie was much more involved in all this than I’d realized. “Sorry I got distracted. How long did Birdie work for Millicent?”
“Oh, not long. Soon as Norman found out Birdie was polishing silver and had her knees on a marble foyer erasing every streak and scuff, he made sure that assignment came to a swift end.”
Did I need to shake the cobwebs out of my head or was I missing something? “Norman got Birdie fired? And I suppose that means Norman knew Birdie back then, too?”
LouAnn laughed for the first time, a pretty, gentle, “you do not understand” laugh. It transformed her features. A sparkle shone in her eyes for the first time. “Fired? Of course not. See, Birdie only started working to put her son through college. Soon as Norman heard about that, he made sure that problem went away.”
“He helped Birdie out with her son’s schooling? What a kind thing to do.”
“Responsible, you mean. We all knew that boy was Norman’s son.”
What? I sat back, stunned. This was huge. But I stayed quiet so LouAnn could continue uninterrupted.
“When we heard that Birdie didn’t have to work anymore because her son’s education was paid for, well, that’s when everyone got up on their high horses. Argued with Norman about it and when he wouldn’t budge about his decision, they stopped talking to him.”
I blinked, still shocked by this news. When I found my voice, I said, “Did anyone outside the family realize Birdie and Norman had a child together?”
LouAnn’s brow wrinkled as she considered the question. “I don’t rightly know. We didn’t talk about such things back then. We did plenty of assuming, though.”
“Was that when family ties started to fray? After Norman helped Birdie out with their son’s education?”
“They got worse at that time, but they were fraying well beforehand. See, Norman helped build everyone’s investments and though Oliver and I were grateful and followed his advice, the others took pleasure in argument for argument’s sake. That bunch isn’t fond of being told what to do.”
I set my coffee mug down. “They lost money because they made investments Mr. Jeffrey hadn’t approved of?”
“I believe so, but of course I heard this from Norman, not from them. He said he told them he was done helping if they wouldn’t do what was sound, said he couldn’t be responsible if they all lost their savings.”
“None of them told you directly they’d lost money because they didn’t follow Norman’s advice?” I asked.
“Oh, none of them would admit to such a
thing. Plus there was already bad blood when my marrying Oliver had Ida Lynn so irate. She seems to delight in carrying grudges—even ones that don’t involve her directly. She probably turned the others against me—except for Norman, that is.”
This confirmed what I’d already been told by Millicent and Ida Lynn. “So, you were considered an outsider as far as your family was concerned even before this incident involving Birdie?”
“In a way, though we still talked in a polite manner, met up at church, pretended we were a close family. Back when the rumors started about Norman and Birdie being romantically involved, Ida Lynn came to me for confirmation. I refused to discuss it, told her to talk to Norman about his life, not to me. She may have walked into my house purring that day, hoping I’d talk behind Norman’s back, but she left growling and hasn’t stopped since.”
“Did you know about Birdie and Norman’s relationship from the beginning?”
“I was sure he loved someone, but like I said, he wasn’t much for sharing his private business. When Birdie went to work for Millicent and he stepped in, it all started to make sense.”
“You figured out he would only pay for this boy’s education if he had a strong connection to Birdie and to him?”
“Norman never came right out and told me, but he had a picture of the boy in his room. He was wearing a cap and gown with all these gold braids on his shoulders—and the young man had a hint of Norman in his eyes. See, I used to go over and dust a bit, straighten up for Norman, him being a bachelor and all and none too tidy. The picture was put away in a drawer near his bed.”
I wondered if it was still there. “Put away? You mean hidden?”
“Not hidden, just private. Norman had a few quarters on this little table by the bed and I opened the drawer to sweep them in. That’s when I saw the picture.”
The Cat, the Vagabond and the Victim: A Cats in Trouble Mystery Page 15