Invitation to Murder (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries)

by Tim Myers

  Lillian said, “Then that’s reason enough. I learned long ago to trust my instincts, especially when it comes to men. Talk to Bradford about it.”

  “I will, but first I have to tackle Sara Lynn.”

  Lillian bit her lip, then said, “You’re on your own there. I believe I’d rather face the murderer.” Sara Lynn answered on the first ring. I said, “Hey, Sis. I heard you were looking for me.”

  I held the phone out away from my ear for two reasons: one, she was shouting, and two, I wanted to let Lillian hear as well. After Sara Lynn started to wind down, I said, “I was working, even though my shop wasn’t open. Sara Lynn, I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I just got it from Bradford, and my patience to listen to both of you lecturing me is gone. I’ll keep my phone on from now on, but I’m fine. Lillian’s with me.”

  “I’m sorry, Jennifer. I may have overreacted. We can talk more tonight.”

  I took a deep breath, then said, “We can talk, but I won’t stand still for another sermon. Is that understood, or are you ready to move back home with your husband?”

  She paused a few moments, then said, “I agree. I’ll see you tonight.”

  When I hung up, Lillian was looking at me with a new respect in her gaze. “What’s up with that look?” I asked her.

  “I never thought I would see Sara Lynn cave in to anyone like that. You’re tougher than you look, Jennifer.”

  “I can be when I have to be,” I said. “Now, let’s go talk to Beth Anderson.”

  “I’m not about to try to stop you,” Lillian said, Ming in step behind me. I hated to use that tone of voice with one of my siblings, but with everything going on in my life at the moment, I was really stressing out.

  I just hoped Beth Anderson could give us more than we’d gotten from everyone else we’d interviewed so far.

  Hurley’s was a place that catered to tourists, a fancy Irish pub that served hamburgers and deli sandwiches at exorbitant prices. No locals ate there as far as I knew, but they did a bang-up job with the tourist trade.

  Jack Hurley was behind the bar, wiping it down with a rag and polishing it until it gleamed. Jack had gone to school with Sara Lynn, and once upon a time they’d dated. Though I was now old enough to know better, every time I saw Jack I reverted back to twelve-year-old girl. I’d had a huge crush on him and had been so jealous of Sara Lynn for getting to go out with him. He was happily married now, his wife pregnant with their fifth child.

  “How’s the family?” I asked as Lillian and I approached the bar. My aunt pretended to study a menu but I knew she was listening to every word. “Growing day by day, Shortcake,” he said. I fought the blush creeping onto my cheeks. He’d called me that as a kid, and I’d never been able to convince him that I was all-grown-up now.

  “Listen, I hate to bother you, but I need to talk to one of your employees.”

  Jack said, “What are you going to do, make a card for her?”

  “Jack Hurley, I run a business just like you do, and I’d appreciate it if you’d show me a little mot respect.”

  My outburst probably surprised us both. He said, “Easy, Jennifer, I didn’t mean anything by it. In fact, two ladies were in here talking about your shop earlier. They said how disappointed they were that you were already closed. Sorry about that crack. I should have known better.”

  “I was closed for the morning, not for good,” I said. I promised myself that the next time I took one these little field trips, Lillian was going to have to stay behind and run the shop whether she liked it or not. What could she do, quit?

  “I’ll be sure to pass that along,” he said. “Now, who would you like to see?”

  “Beth Anderson,” I said.

  He shrugged. “She’s working in the kitchen and waiting on tables. You can talk to her, but Miss Lillian needs to stay out here. Don’t get in Beth’s way or slow her down, Jennifer. I need her working.”

  “I understand.” I looked at Lillian to see if she’d agree to being excluded, but she wasn’t putting up any fight at all. I’d have to ask Jack what his secret was. I walked back into the kitchen and found a young woman preparing two salads. Though it was pretty obvious she was battling a lot more pounds than I was, her attire was skintight. I couldn’t imagine Jack allowing it, but then again, he was short on staff, so maybe he didn’t have any choice. Her hair appeared to have gone through several wildly different color incarnations, and I wondered if Mrs. Albright was going to make her wear a wig to the wedding. “Do you have a second?”

  “Nobody’s supposed to be back here,” she said without looking up. Then she glanced at me and said, “If you’re the new waitress, I don’t have time to show you anything right now.”

  “I’m not here for a job,” I said. “I’m a friend of Donna Albright’s.” That was as close to a lie as I’d come to yet, but she had been friendly and we’d gotten along all right.

  Beth dropped one of the salad bowls she’d just filled. “What’s happened now?”

  “Nothing,” I said as I helped her clean up the mess. I kept expecting Jack to poke his head into the kitchen and evict me, but there was no sign of him. “I’m here to talk about the wedding, and the invitations.”

  The look of relief on the poor girl’s face was obvious. “I was so afraid she was going to call the whole thing off after what happened to Tina.”

  “Did you know her well?”

  Beth snorted. “I guess. She waitressed here last summer. She wasn’t very good, in my opinion, but the customers seemed to like her well enough.”

  “Whatever happened to not speaking ill of the dead?” I asked before I realized that probably wasn’t the best way to pump her for information. I had a few things to learn if I was going to do any good at h looking into the murder.

  “I’m sorry,” Beth said defensively, “but I think it’s hypocritical to talk nice about someone just because they’re dead. We didn’t get along when she was alive and I won’t sugarcoat it now.”

  “It must have crushed you when Donna picked her for her maid of honor, the way you felt about her.”

  Beth’s nostrils flared. “It was a mistake, but it’s been corrected, as far as I’m concerned. Donna and I grew up together. She didn’t meet Tina until kindergarten.” As she spoke, Beth waved the knife she’d been using to cut fresh carrots in the air around me. This was one woman I wanted to stay on the good side of. She looked suspiciously at me, then asked, “So if the wedding’s not off, then why are you here? You’re not going to be in the wedding party, too are you?”

  “Gracious, no,” I said before she could get the wrong idea. “My aunt and I are doing an article for the paper about the wedding festivities, and we’re asking everyone to show us the earrings the bride gave them.”

  “That’s silly. Each pair is identical to every other one.”

  “Let’s just say it’s our hook to involve the reader more,” I said, stealing a line from my aunt.

  “Well, I can’t show you mine,” she said resolutely.

  “Beth, I didn’t expect you to have them on you. We can drop by after work if that’s convenient.”

  She hesitated, chopped a few more carrots, then said, “I suppose I’ll have to confess to someone sooner or later. I don’t have mine.”

  “What happened to them?” I asked, suddenly very aware of that knife in her hand.

  “I lost them, okay? I’ve torn my whole room up, but I can’t find them. I swear they were on the dresser in my bedroom, and the next thing I knew, they were gone.”

  “When did you first notice they were gone?” I asked, hoping she’d say the day of the murder.

  “Yesterday,” she admitted. “I had a bridal shower at my place and invited every woman in the wedding party for a little get-together. I was going to wear them to the party, but I forgot to put them on before everyone got there. When I realized I’d forgotten to wear them halfway through, I slipped back into my bedroom and they were gone.”

  “Do you mean that so
meone took them?” Beth looked exasperated. “Of course not, I don’t mean that at all. Why would someone steal something they already had? After all, we each got a pair. I must have mislaid them somewhere and then forgot about them. I’m afraid I do it all the time. I don’t know what I’m going to tell Donna. I’ve been looking all over town for a pair to replace them, but she must not have bought them in Rebel Forge.”

  “Don’t worry; I’m sure they’ll turn up,” I said.

  Jack poked his head in the door. “Beth, your customers are waiting for their salads. Jennifer, you need to scoot.”

  “Thanks, we were just finishing up.”

  Beth grabbed my hand. “You won’t tell anyone about the earrings, will you?”

  “Donna won’t hear it from me,” I said. There was no way I was going to keep that to myself, but I would keep my pledge not to tell the bride.

  “Thanks.”

  I followed her out of the kitchen, said good-bye to Jack, then collected Lillian and left. As we walked toward Custom Card Creations, Lillian said, “Now, tell me everything she said.”

  “I don’t know what to think about her story. Maybe you can help me figure it out.” I relayed Beth’s tale as we walked, finishing up as we neared the card shop, “So what do you make of it?”

  “There are several possibilities.” “Enlighten me,” I said as I unbolted the door.

  HANDCRAFTED CARD-MAKING TIP

  Use foam tape on your adornments to make them jump off the front of the card! It’s amazing what a little added dimension will do to enhance your card’s visual appeal.

  Chapter 16

  There was a pile of mail on the floor by the slot, as well is a few handwritten notes. They would have to wait, though. It sounded as if my aunt was on to something.

  She said, “First, we need to consider the fact that Beth just mislaid them as she claimed. But we can’t disregard the more ominous possibilities. She could have lost one earring at the murder scene while she was killing Tina. There was no love lost between them, according to your conversation with the girl.”

  “You actually think she killed her so she could be the maid of honor instead?” I couldn’t believe that.

  “I’m not saying it was the only reason, but it could have been the final indignity for her. After all, if that was her motive, she was rather successful at achieving what she wanted, wasn’t she?”

  “What else have you got?” I said as I sorted the mail from the handwritten notes.

  “The other possibility is that someone from that party is the murderer, and she saw an opportunity to steal a complete set of earrings without throwing suspicion on herself. If a single earring shows up somewhere, it could be a plant in order to frame someone else, especially since you can’t just buy these earrings in town without special ordering them.”

  “You have a devious mind; you know that, don’t you?” I said as I smiled at my aunt.

  “My dear child, no one could survive the marriages I’ve had without one. So I’m afraid we’re back where we started.”

  “At least we can be pretty sure we talked to the killer today,” I said. “We covered everyone in the wedding party.”

  “And that means that you showed the murderer you weren’t taking her warning seriously enough,” Lillian said. “I don’t like that.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about that,” I said. “Do you mean the added menace, or my disapproval?”

  “Either one,” I said. “I can’t let anything stop me from doing this.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Lillian asked. “We take care of business, make some wedding invitations and wait to see what happens.”

  “Being passive doesn’t sound like you,” Lillian said. “I don’t know what else to do at this point, and those cards are due in a few days. Don’t worry; I’m not giving up yet.”

  “Then by all means, let’s make cards.”

  I held up a hand, going through the notes in the pile. There were three from Sara Lynn, one demanding that I get an answering machine for the shop. I’d written that on my opening-day wish list, and then had promptly forgotten to buy one. One note was from Bradford, scolding me for vanishing without telling him first, one was from Anne Albright wondering when she could pick up her Art Deco invitations, and another was from Greg Langston asking me to call him at my earliest convenience. When pigs fly, I thought as I crumpled up that particular note. The last thing I needed in my life was another round with him.

  “Is there anything urgent in there?” Lillian asked. “No, it’s about what I expected. How would you like to make some wedding invitations?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Lillian said.

  I never thought I’d say it, but thankfully, we had a slow day at the card shop. By closing time, Lillian and I had managed to put a real dent in our orders. She’d cut the jagged patterns out of red stock for Mrs. Albright’s cards while I’d worked on Melinda’s. I’d run the stock through the printer earlier, something I’d sworn I’d never do, but there was no way I could handle a big order on such short notice and still manage to ink them all myself. It was a little tricky attaching the rings to the wire on the cards, but I’d come up with a system that made it possible, though I’d burned my fingertips a dozen times with my glue gun and managed to stab my thumbs three or four times with the sharp wire ends. My gun was supposed to be a cool one, but the glue still got hot enough to sting my fingers when I accidentally touched some of the melted glue.

  “That was certainly an interesting day,” Lillian said as she put her scissors down.

  “It had its moments, didn’t it?” I said as I kept working.

  “Aren’t you going to go home?”

  I looked at the pile of cards still to do. “I wish I could, but there’s too much to do if I’m going to make my deadline.”

  “Sara Lynn won’t approve, and neither will Bradford,” Lillian said.

  “So what else is new?” I said as I rubbed my fingertips.

  “You still have to eat. Let me run out and get us something. Then we can jump right back on it.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” I said. “You’re just a volunteer, remember? I’m sure your social calendar is full.”

  “Posh, let him wait. It will do him good.”

  “You never did tell me the name of the new man you were dating,” I said.

  “Imagine that,” Lillian replied. “So what would you like for dinner?”

  “If you’re hungry, be my guest, but I’m going to keep working. I’d better call Sara Lynn and tell her I won’t be home in time to eat.”

  I dialed my apartment and my sister picked up on the first ring. She said, “Are you on your way home? My chicken potpie will be out of the oven in three minutes.”

  “I can’t do it,” I said. “I’ve got a deadline I’m against, and if I don’t put in some extra time, I won’t make it.” To give my sister credit, she didn’t mention my AWOL performance that morning. Why don’t you take that home and feed your husband?”

  “We had lunch together,” Sara Lynn said. “I don’t want to spoil him.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d feed the cats. Oggie gets kind of cranky when his meals are late.”

  “And how could you possibly tell?” she said. It looked like the two of them were having a bit of a power struggle, but I wasn’t about to get involved. I said good-bye, then told Lillian, “You’re free to go if you’d like, but you’re welcome to stay, too.”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Then at least go get something to eat. I don’t want your hunger pains on my conscience.”

  Lillian snorted. “It wouldn’t hurt me to miss a meal now and again. Let’s get back to work.”

  We closed the shop, then continued our invitation making party. Twenty minutes later there was a knocking on the door. I peeked outside and saw Sara Lynn standing there with an enormous picnic basket latched on one arm.

  “It looks like we’re going to ea
t after all,” I said I unlocked the door.

  As Sara Lynn stepped inside, I said, “This is above and beyond the call of duty, Sis.”

  “Nonsense, I had no desire to sit in your apartment alone and eat with your roommates watching me. She put the basket down on the counter. “So where should we eat?”

  I glanced at the table in the window where we’d been working, and realized what a pain it would be to move everything, then put it back after the meal. “Why don’t we eat in back?”

  “That suits me,” she said. “Lillian, would you mind setting the table?”

  She took the basket from Sara Lynn and said, “I’d be delighted. You are a special woman; you know that, don’t you?”

  “I’ve suspected it on occasion,” Sara Lynn said with a smile. She moved to our worktable and examined the cards.

  “They’re still works in progress,” I explained as I pulled the prototypes out of my purse. “Here’s what the finished products will look like.”

  She studied the cards, and despite myself, I found I was holding my breath waiting for her response. My sister’s professional opinion meant a great deal to me, more than I was willing to admit to anyone, most of all myself.

  “They’re certainly different, aren’t they?” she said. “But why are you making so many of each design?”

  I explained the double order, expecting her to disapprove. Instead, she started laughing. “How wonderful. Everyone gets what they want and you get paid twice for the same job.”

  “For the same wedding,” I gently corrected her. “I’m still doing two jobs for two fees.”

  “Of course you are,” she said. “And you designed these yourself?”

  I admitted as much, though I didn’t tell her one had been done as a bad example that had gone horribly wrong.

  “They’re wonderful,” she said as she handed the cards back to me. “I was wrong not to listen to you.”

  Were those angels singing in the background? It was all I could do not to whoop-with delight. “Hey, Forever Memories is your shop. You have a right to stock what you want.”