Invitation to Murder (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries)

by Tim Myers

  “I’ve been busy with a new suitor. Besides, after the riot act you read me about wanting to do this on your own, I didn’t dare come by unannounced. Young lady, the only way I was ever visiting this shop was by your personal invitation.”

  “Sorry if I came on a little strong,” I said. “I guess I’ve been a little overprotective about my shop.”

  She squeezed me with one arm. “Jennifer, I simply can’t imagine where you inherited a quality like that. Now let’s make some cards. Remember, you need to start with the basics for me. I’ve never done more than address a card and mail it before.”

  “It’s really loads of fun,” I said.

  Lillian picked up an ornate three-dimensional anniversary card with an intricate bouquet of paper flowers, nestled in a woven basket; the card was watercolor-washed, embossed and hand-stitched. “Let’s start with, one of these.”

  I gently took the card away from her. “That might be a little advanced for you just yet.”

  I handed her a sheet of regular white card stock already cut to its basic size of five inches by ten inches, Lillian asked, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Patience, dear Aunt. It’s the first card you’re going to make.”

  “With this?” she asked as she held up the blank white card stock.

  “Believe it or not, this is the best first step. We can create two basic cards with this size stock. I’ve already cut it to the right size. The easiest card to make is to just fold it in half, and then it’s ready to adorn.”

  She started to fold the sheet when I handed her at metal ruler. “I like to make the fold with this so your get a nice crisp edge. Put a light pencil mark at five inches on each side; then fold the paper over the ruler until you have a sharp crease.”

  “Jennifer Shane, I can certainly fold a piece of paper in half without your detailed instruction.”

  I shrugged. “Go ahead, then.”

  She bent the paper in half, matched up the edges, then folded the stock. “See? It’s not that difficult.” I took another sheet, did as I’d instructed her, and handed her my fold. “Now compare our results.” She studied both cards, then acknowledged, “Okay, your edge is crisper; I’ll grant you that. But is it really that important?”

  “Lillian, in handcrafting cards, everything is in the details. If you can’t understand that, then I’m sorry I bothered you, but I won’t be able to use you here.”

  That got her attention. I hadn’t meant to spank her so harshly, but I was serious about cards, and if she couldn’t match my commitment and dedication, I didn’t want her working in my shop.

  Lillian said, “Okay, you’re the teacher. I’ll do better, I promise.” She grabbed another sheet, folded it as I’d suggested, then asked, “What’s next?”

  “The other card we can do with this size folds together in the middle like a pair of doors. We do the same thing as before, only we space the folds to give us three sections. The two creases on the outside should be two and a half inches from either edge. Then fold them with the ruler again.”

  “That looks nice,” she said as she handed me her newly folded card. I noticed she’d done exactly as I’d taught her this time. “What do you think?” I examined it, then said, “Good job.”

  “That’s really all there is to it?” she asked. “No offense, Jennifer, but that was easy.”

  “The basic steps are simple to perform; that’s why card making is such a good craft for anybody to try. Now comes the fun part.”

  I grabbed a clear plastic template and said, “You can make your own guide out of plain paper or even graph paper, but I had some of these made up for the shop.” The thin template was a five-by-five-inch piece of Plexiglas with a square cut inside it that measured three inches by three. That gave me two pieces when they were separated: a two-inch framed border and a square that fitted exactly within it. “First we lay the outer frame on the front of our single-fold card. Then we put a little transparent tape on the inside square and secure it to the paper.”

  “So that automatically centers it,” Lillian said. “I get it.”

  “Very good.” After she’d done as I’d told her, I said, “Now lift the border off and your square is exactly where it needs to be.”

  “What comes next?” The enthusiasm in my aunt’s voice was readily apparent. I was beginning to believe she might work out after all.

  “Now we can get started on adornment.”

  I flipped the card open as I turned it over so the square was now on the bottom, attached to the lower half of the stock. After that, I grabbed the smooth wooden stick that resembled a letter opener, then said. “Now we press the creases where the square is. By the way, this is called a boning tool.”

  “Is it really made of bone?”

  “Some are, but this one’s made of polished maple, would you like to try it?” I asked as I rubbed an edge of the paper.

  “Certainly,” she said as she took the tool from me and rubbed the paper. “Is that enough?”

  I looked at the card. “It’s perfect. Now flip it back over and gently peel off the tape. Then you can remove the square.”

  She did as instructed, then examined the results. “My goodness, it looks so professional.”

  “It is,” I said. “You did a very nice job.”

  “So what are we going to put inside it?”

  “Why don’t you set that aside and we’ll work on some more basic shapes and cutouts first.” The look of disappointment on her face was obvious, so I added, “Don’t worry; we’ll make lots of cards before we’re through. We don’t seem to have to be concerned about customers interrupting us.”

  “Jennifer, they’ll come. In the meantime, this is fascinating. What are we going to do next?”

  “Let’s see. I think we should make a simple cutout.” As we cleared off the table, I saw a few folks glancing in through the window as we worked. Maybe Lillian’s public lesson would serve as free advertising for the shop. I could certainly use all that I could get. I laid out a cutting mat with the grid already printed on it, put a thin piece of corkboard over that, then said, “Get another piece of the white stock and fold it once.” After she’d done as she was told, I said, “Now take the template for the outer frame and lay it on the front of the card. Then take this awl and push it gently through the card stock in each corner of the frame.”

  “Why, it’s nothing but a needle on a stick,” she said.

  “I never claimed the tools were complex. It’s a very user-friendly craft.”

  Once she’d punched the four holes, I said, “Now pull off the template. Take this metal ruler and the craft knife and cut the paper, connecting the dots until you’ve got a square. Careful, that blade is sharp.”

  Lillian made the cuts, then lifted the card up, with the square left neatly behind. “How lovely,” she said.

  “You’re a natural. Are you ready to embellish it even more?”

  “I’d love to,” she said just as the bell over the door chimed. It looked like we were going to get our first honest-to-goodness customer for the day.

  “We’ll continue this later,” I said softly. As I approached the young woman with lustrous red hair pleated in long braids, I asked, “May I help you?”

  “I need a birthday present for my grandmother. Do you have anything here I can give her? She loves to work with her hands.”

  “Absolutely. I’ve got lots of supplies for the amateur, and instruction books, as well.”

  “You don’t happen to have any kits for sale with all that stuff already in it, do you? I’m kind of in a hurry.”

  It was all I could do to hide my grin. “I think we can find something you’ll be happy with,” I said as I led her to the proper section. When I glanced back at Lillian, I saw that she’d taken another piece of stock and was folding it. It appeared that my aunt and unpaid assistant had been bitten by the card-making bug, as well, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

  By the end of the business day, we’d
had several actual customers, and we’d even made enough in sales to justify opening our door. Lillian had left promptly at five to meet her new beau and I was getting ready to lock up. I was feeling pretty good about the situation when Bradford walked in. From the dour look on his face, I could tell that he was about to ruin the rest of my day.

  HANDCRAFTED CARD-MAKING TIP

  I like to personalize my cards whenever possible. For example, a discarded set of Scrabble tiles delivers a wonderful message to an aficionado of the game. Letters cut out to resemble crossword puzzle blanks also make a neat way of letting the receiver know you care.

  Chapter 4

  “What is it, Bradford? Has something else happened?”

  “Not that I know of. It’s a good thing, too; I’ve got enough to deal with as it is. You wanted to know more about that girl who was murdered last night. I finally got in touch with her parents, so I feel a little better talking to you about it now.” I could tell it must have killed him telling them that their little girl was gone. It had to be one of the worst parts of my mother’s job, and I didn’t know how he found the strength to do it.

  “So who was she?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

  He flipped open a notebook stored in his front pocket. “Her name was Tina Mast, and she was just barely twenty years old. I didn’t know her, but one of my deputies went to school with her older sister. Wayne Davidson said she was a pretty little thing, but you couldn’t prove it by me from the way I found her inside that house. She was a senior at Tech, but she came home this weekend to help one of her friends out, according to her folks. They were pretty torn up about it when I talked to them in Florida. They were on vacation, if you can imagine that,” he said as his voice started to get deeper. When my brother got upset, his voice went down an octave, and he was talking so low at the moment I could barely believe it was him.

  “I’m going to hate myself for asking you this, but how did she die?”

  Bradford hesitated, then said, “Somebody worked her over pretty good with a chunk of wood. It was bad, Sis. I won’t lie to you.”

  He hesitated so long that I knew there was something my brother wasn’t telling me. “Why are you giving me all this information?”

  “Hey, you said you wanted to know.” He sounded petulant, and I knew there was more of a reason than that.

  “I ask you about a lot of things, but I rarely get any answers that satisfy me. So I’m going to ask you again. Why are you giving me so much information about your investigation?”

  “Blast it, Jennifer, the truth is, she had a telephone; clutched in her hand when we found her. The cord was still connected to the base, and somebody had smashed the daylights out of it. I’m guessing that’s what killed your connection yesterday.”

  My heart started pounding so hard I thought it was going to jump right out of my chest. Suspecting something and knowing it were two different things. I’d guessed that something bad had happened to the girl on the other end of the phone, but hearing my brother confirm my suspicions was just about more than I could take.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  I leaned against the counter, thankful for the support, as my legs fought to hold me up. “I’m not, but I will be. I knew that girl on the phone was from around here, Bradford. I just knew it.”

  “Well, I wish that was one hunch of yours that hadn’t paid off. Now that we know you heard a murder over the telephone, I’m not asking you to move in with Sara Lynn or me; I’m ordering you to.”

  “Bradford, you’re going to have to lock me up it handcuffs to get me to leave my apartment. This doesn’t change anything. Tina Mast was dead yesterday, and the killer didn’t come after me then. What makes you think she’s going to do it now?”

  “Are you forgetting about that note you got in the mail this morning?”

  “I doubt I ever will, but I’m not a threat to anyone right now. I wouldn’t even know where to start digging into this. The killer will see that I’m harmless and she’ll have to leave me alone.” It might have been wishful thinking on my part, but really, it made more sense my way. If the woman who’d killed Tina Mast wanted me dead, I had been unguarded at my apartment the night before and this morning, and then again at the store before Lillian came. I had to admit that if I’d had more of an idea about who the killer could have been, I might have glimpsed around more. After all, Bradford wasn’t the only kid in our family who could think logically and rationally. Growing up, I’d won more games playing the Clue board game than he’d ever dreamed of. Why I was it so hard for him to imagine that I couldn’t do the same thing now?

  “I’ve seen that look in your eyes before, baby sister. You think you can solve this yourself, don’t you? Jennifer, I’m warning you, you’re in way over your head here.”

  I wouldn’t have been so aggravated with him if he weren’t right. “You don’t know everything just because you’re sheriff here. I’ve got a good head on my shoulders when it comes to things like this, and you know it.”

  He shook his head. “We’re not kids anymore, and this isn’t make-believe. That girl’s really dead, and she’s not coming back.”

  “That’s why we need to make sure her killer doesn’t go free, don’t you think?” Honestly, sometimes my brother could be so thick. “We can figure this out together, Bradford.”

  “Even discounting you including yourself in my investigation, there are two guys from the state police over there right now. Do you honestly think that we can come up with something that they might miss?”

  “We’ll never know unless we try. Come on, what’s it going to hurt if you take me to the crime scene so I can look around for myself?”

  “You are absolutely out of your mind. There’s no way I’m letting you get within two miles of that house.”

  “Afraid of a little competition from your baby sister?”

  He shook his head. “What I’m afraid of is that the killer is still keeping an eye on the place. How’s she going to react if she sees you snooping around after she warned you to butt out? Kid, do you have a death wish or something?”

  “I’m not a kid,” I snapped automatically, but maybe my brother had a point. He’d discussed a few cases in the past with me, and I’d even given him a nudge in the right direction on occasion, but I was directly involved in this one, and it could have dire consequences for me if the killer found out what I was up to. “You say the killer shouldn’t see me going to the murder scene. Fine then, I’ll wear a disguise and you can take me by after the state cops leave.”

  “How do you plan to disguise yourself? Are you going to wear a mask or something? Yeah, you’re right. That wouldn’t look too suspicious.”

  “Be serious, Bradford. I’ll borrow one of Lillian’s wigs—goodness knows she has enough of those—and I’ll wear high heels and put on some of those big sunglasses. Sara Lynn won’t even recognize me by the time I’m finished.”

  “Why the sudden desire to dig into this, Jennifer? You’ve never shown this active an interest in any of my cases before. All your help has been from the sidelines in the past.”

  “I never heard anyone get murdered while I was talking to them on the phone, either. Come on, Bradford, this is important to me. If my life’s at risk, which you seem to think it is, shouldn’t I have the right to investigate the crime scene myself.

  “I knew I was on shaky ground as far as logic went, but it made a lot more sense to me to actively go after the killer than to wait around for her to decide to knock me off. I always favored action over delay, sometimes even when I would be better served by having a little patience. I was willing to admit that about myself.

  He scratched his left ear, walked over to the window and stared outside. “I was right; you have lost your mind.”

  “So you’ll take me?” I asked.

  “I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t, will I? I suppose you want me to sneak you into the morgue so you can see the body, too, huh?”

  “Don�
��t be gross, Bradford. I’ve got no desire to see that poor girl laid out on a cold steel table.” I grabbed my purse. “Let’s go.”

  “You mean right now? I thought you had to get if your disguise together.”

  “I do, but I’m finished here, and the quicker we do this, the sooner I find out what really happened to Tina Mast. The state police should be gone by the time we get there, shouldn’t they?” I held the door open for him, but he didn’t budge. “Are you coming, or do I have to go without you?” My brother frowned as he walked out the door I held for him. “Sometimes I honestly wish I were an only child.”

  “Well, life’s full of disappointment sometimes, isn’t? Meet me at Lillian’s. I need half an hour to get ready.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  As I drove my Gremlin to my aunt’s house, I felt my pulse speed up. Odds were that I wouldn’t be able to find a clue that everyone else had missed, but I owed the attempt to that girl who had been on the other end of the line.

  It was a good thing Lillian never threw anything away. I slipped through her back door using my key then made my way to her dressing room. Most people had a closet or two where they stored their clothes and accessories, but not my aunt. Lillian had taken an entire bedroom of her old house and had converted it into one huge closet. My aunt loved her Victorian place, and each new groom had been required to move his belongings in immediately following the nuptials. How she got them to agree to that was beyond me. I was certain that one of the reasons she refused to leave was the room I was standing in. It was like walking through a time capsule as I browsed through her clothes trying to find something that would distract anyone watching from my face. I knew it would be lot harder to be recognized if I was in clothing I would never wear ordinarily. After all, how many people would recognize their pharmacist if he was dressed a priest or a police officer? I found just what I was looking for after twenty minutes of digging around through paisleys, polka dots and leopard prints. There was a duster jacket that brushed the ground, made of a material that defied description, in a color combination only for those with strong stomachs. Lillian might have wallowed in the jacket, but it was a snug fit for me. A cross between tie-dye and paisley, it had more colors than a psychedelic rainbow. Content that one would recognize that coat as anything I could possibly wear, I found one of Lillian’s wigs—red, of course—that reached halfway down my back, couldn’t resist grabbing a pair of her rhinestone glasses off the stand, and I tried the entire ensemble on in front of her three-way mirror. I didn’t even know the stranger looking back at me. I could only look for a few seconds—the coat was that blinding— but what I saw would do perfectly.