Tea and Sympathy

by Carol Cox

  “Amen to that,” Kate said.

  Paul got out the Scrabble board, and they each drew from the bag of letter tiles. Livvy selected a b, which entitled her to go first. After they all filled their trays with tiles, Livvy studied her letters intently. With a pleased look, she lined her letters up vertically across the center square. “Jungle.”

  Paul, acting as the scorekeeper, tallied up her score and whistled. “Forty-four points. That’s a great way to start the game. You’re going to be a tough act to follow.”

  “Just wait until I really get going.” Livvy grinned at him as she reached in the bag to replenish her tiles.

  Paul raised his eyebrows. “Challenge duly noted and accepted.” And with that, the game was on.

  Play continued, with all four making a good showing. The score teetered back and forth, first with Paul leading, then Livvy. Kate tagged a b onto the e in jungle to make be, then added more letters to form the word butter going down.

  “Not bad,” Paul said, adding nineteen points to her score. “That brings you up even with Danny.”

  “Thank you. I try,” Kate said with feigned modesty.

  On Danny’s next turn, he used the u in butter to form bonus, and scored extra points when he also made jungles in the process.

  Both of the women played, and then it was Paul’s turn again.

  “Now watch the master at work.” Paul leaned over the board as he considered his next move. “Aha!” With a triumphant smile, he played his letters across bonus to make zebra, with the z on a double-letter square and the a on a double-word score.

  Paul puffed out his chest and cleared his throat loudly. “I believe I just pulled back into the lead.” He reached into the bag for more tiles and smirked at Danny. “See if you can top that.”

  “Whoa, trash talk from the preacher?”

  Kate and Livvy exchanged amused smiles as Danny studied his options, looking from one side of the board to the other.

  “Let’s see.” He toyed with the end tile on his rack. “No, that won’t work.”

  “What a shame,” Paul said, mock sincerity dripping from every syllable. “Look closely. Surely you’ll be able to play at least one tile somewhere.”

  Danny muttered under his breath, then picked up a different tile. “If that’s all I can do, here goes.” He laid down a y, changing butter to buttery.

  “That isn’t so bad,” Paul consoled him. He picked up the score sheet. “That’ll give you—”

  “Not so fast.” In quick succession, Danny put an r to the left of the y, then added e, g, r, o, and f until he stopped at the left-hand edge of the board. “Take a look—forgery.”

  Paul’s mouth dropped open, and Danny whooped. “What’s the matter...cat got your tongue? Here, let me help you add it up.” He pointed to the tiles, adding the points under his breath. “Let’s see, that’s twelve points for buttery and sixteen for forgery.”

  He lifted the f. “Whoops! That’s on a triple-word score. That makes it forty-eight for forgery. And look! There’s a fifty-point bonus for using all seven of my letters. That brings it up to...a hundred and ten points.” He chortled and slapped Paul on the back. “A new master has been crowned. Read it and weep, my friend.”

  Kate and Livvy laughed until tears ran down their cheeks. This was what made up some of life’s most special moments, Kate mused. Good friends, good times, and plenty of laughter.

  “Would you hand me the bag of tiles?” Danny asked. “I’m completely out of letters, and Paul seems to be in a state of shock.”

  “Sure.” Kate picked up the bag and held it out to Danny. As she did so, her eyes fell on the word he had just spelled. Her body grew rigid.

  Danny tugged the bag out of her fingers, but Kate’s arm remained suspended in midair.

  “Are you okay?” Danny asked, all trace of banter gone from his voice.

  Kate continued to stare at the board. “Oh my goodness.”

  “Oh no!” Livvy said. “It wasn’t the spaghetti, was it?”

  “No.” Kate drew her arm to her side and leaned back in her chair. “I feel fine, at least physically. Hold on, I need a minute to think.”

  Pressing her fingertips against her temples, she closed her eyes and concentrated. Whoever sent out the solicitation letter from the chamber of commerce had signed Lawton’s name at the bottom. And whoever opened the account at the Pine Ridge bank had impersonated the mayor and put Lawton’s name on a signature card.

  When she opened her eyes, the rest of the group sat staring at her, frozen in place.

  “What’s going on, Katie?” Paul asked, concern tingeing his voice.

  Kate looked at each one of them in turn. “How did I miss it? It had to be a forgery.”

  Chapter Thirty

  He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things.

  Kate fixed her eyes on the words written by the prophet Daniel, marveling at the way the ancient text spoke to her situation that very morning. God seemed to be in the process of revealing hidden things once again. She closed her Bible, leaned her head against the back of her rocker, and watched the pale gray light filter into the living room. She enjoyed this early morning hour, though she liked it even more when she felt fully rested.

  Once she explained her revelation during Scrabble, Paul, Livvy, and Danny had agreed that she might very possibly be onto something. She and Paul discussed her idea further after Danny and Livvy said their good-nights and left, but no new theories leaped out at them. Paul suggested they take a fresh look at the situation after a good night’s sleep.

  How she wished she’d gotten one. Kate spent a restless night tossing back and forth, trying to gain additional insight, but none had come. How maddening to be dazzled by this blazing, white-hot idea and then not be able to make any headway with it!

  Paul padded across the carpet and sat on one of the overstuffed chairs to put on his shoes. His hair was slicked back, still damp from his shower. “Any thoughts on the direction you’re going to take now?”

  “I’m still trying to work that out,” Kate admitted. “I did a lot of thinking last night, but I didn’t make a lot of progress.”

  Paul smiled. “I felt you moving around quite a bit. I got the feeling you weren’t doing much sleeping.”

  Kate gave him an apologetic grin. “I think I’ve been taking too narrow a view of this case. Everything seems to point to Lawton—his signature on the letter, his name on the account. His involvement seems so obvious that I think I’ve gotten sidetracked. Maybe Lawton really wasn’t the intended victim, even though he’s taken the brunt of the blame. Maybe I need to go back to my earlier line of thinking and consider the possibility that this was meant as an action against the chamber as a whole.”

  Paul scrunched his forehead. “Then why single Lawton out like that?”

  “Anyone callous enough to defraud donors on the pretense of raising money to help a needy village wouldn’t give a hoot about causing grief to one individual. It’s possible that Lawton, being a figurehead of sorts, was merely a casualty of the plan.”

  Paul nodded. “Collateral damage? You could be right. So where do we go from here?”

  “When we first discussed the chamber of commerce, we only took a close look at those who attend the meetings regularly. It’s time to cast a wider net. Could you get me a roster of all the members of the chamber, whether they show up at the meetings or not?”

  “I think so. I can find out, anyway. I’ll check with Lawton in, say, an hour or so. Will that be okay?”

  Kate nodded. She chafed at the delay but knew she would have to accept it.

  LIVVY CALLED JUST AFTER BREAKFAST. Paul brought the cordless phone out to the couch, where Kate was sitting. “Are you up and around this morning?” Livvy asked.

  “I’m up. I’m not moving around too fast, though,” Kate joked. “Why?”

  “I got the feeling last night that things are about to heat up on the investigation. I thought it
might help to have a couple of your musketeers available today.”

  “That would be great. Are you coming straight over here after work?”

  “Better than that,” Livvy said. “See you soon.”

  Puzzling over Livvy’s cryptic remark, Kate hung up and tried to get her thoughts in order. The previous night’s tossing and turning had yielded little but more questions. Maybe she could get one of the answers she needed now. She picked up the phone again and dialed Skip’s number.

  “I don’t have time to talk,” he said when Kate identified herself. “I was just gettin’ ready to head out the door.”

  “I only need to ask one question.” Kate spoke quickly, hoping the deputy would be willing to hear her out. “You said the bank manager who set up the account for the chamber of commerce is new to this area. Had he ever seen Mayor Briddle before?”

  There was a brief pause before Skip answered. “No, I guess he hadn’t. That was their first meeting. Some introduction, huh?”

  “But the man purporting to be Lawton Briddle didn’t show any ID,” Kate reminded him. “Are you sure it was him?”

  “The bank manager gave us a description. Height, weight, general appearance—everything was right on target.”

  “But those details could fit anyone who bore a superficial resemblance to Lawton,” Kate insisted. “What about showing him a picture of Lawton, just to be sure?”

  “I’ll talk to Sheriff Roberts and see what he says.” Impatience edged Skip’s voice. “Is there anything else, Miz Hanlon?”

  “No, not right now, anyway. Thanks, Skip.”

  Kate set the phone down on the cushion next to her, trying to bring her thoughts into focus. The brief conversation with Skip had given her another piece to the puzzle. Was she fitting it in the proper place? Her musing was cut short when Livvy and Renee showed up on her doorstep.

  Livvy grinned and gave Kate a crisp salute. “Faithful musketeers reporting for duty.”

  “What are you doing here? As I recall, you have a job to go to.”

  Livvy smiled as she and Renee came inside. “I have some personal days accumulated. I decided to take one today.”

  Paul walked out of the kitchen and headed for the front door. “I called Millie to let her know I’d be a little late getting to the office. I’ll be back with that list as quickly as I can.”

  Renee rubbed her hands. “The game’s afoot! What’s the plan?”

  Kate explained her strategy to go over the entire membership list for the chamber and filled them in on what she had just learned from Skip.

  “The bank manager didn’t know Lawton personally, so it’s possible that someone impersonated him in setting up the account. My intuition tells me that if we find out the signatures on the bank documents and the letter from the chamber of commerce are forgeries, it’ll be the key to untangling the rest of this case. But merely learning that they’re forgeries still won’t tell us who the forger is.”

  Renee nodded approval. “Livvy, help me bring the easel and whiteboard out to the living room,” she ordered crisply. “We’ll need a place to map out our tactics when Paul gets back with those names.”

  Renee returned with the easel while Livvy lugged the marker board. Renee set up the easel at an angle that Kate could easily see from the couch. Livvy lifted the whiteboard into place. The names from the previous night’s “war room” session stared back at them, LuAnne’s being the most prominent.

  Renee stared at the board, and her features tightened. She marched into Kate’s bedroom and came back with the eraser in hand. Walking to the whiteboard, she swiped LuAnne’s name off the list.

  “I thought about that all night,” she said. “I can’t believe I went so far as accusing my old friend. I guess I let myself get too caught up in the thrill of the chase, but that isn’t going to happen again.”

  Kate smiled, relieved beyond words by Renee’s admission. Thank goodness the book on poisonous plants had said that cooked berries—as in the jam LuAnne had brought—were perfectly safe to eat and freed her dear friend from suspicion!

  “That’s all behind us now,” Kate said. “Let’s leave it there.” She took in both of the other women with a look. “And let’s make sure LuAnne never hears about this.”

  Twenty minutes later, Paul burst in, waving a sheet of paper. “That was easier than I thought. He had a membership roster already printed. All we had to do was make a copy.”

  “Let’s see.” Kate reached for the paper, and the rest crowded around the couch.

  “Why don’t we put the names on the board where we’ll all be able to see them?” Renee suggested, erasing their earlier list. “You read them off, and I’ll write them down.”

  Kate called out the names: Copper Mill Pharmacy, John Sharpe’s insurance agency, the Copper Mill branch of Mid-Cumberland Bank and Trust, Smith Street Gifts, Evan Sheppard, Clayton Miller...”

  “Clayton Miller?” Kate repeated. “I’m trying to remember who he is. Doesn’t he have something to do with car sales?”

  Livvy shook her head. “No, you must be thinking of someone else. Clayton does tax preparation. I know you’ve seen him around town. He’s an older man, tallish.”

  “He visited Faith Briar a couple of times just after you moved here,” Renee added.

  “That’s right.” Kate could picture him now—a tall, gangly man with silver hair. Rather quiet, as she recalled. She returned her attention to the list and frowned. “Why is Evan a member of the chamber? I thought Paul told me Evan was retired.”

  “Not completely,” Livvy said. “He doesn’t have his engineering firm anymore, but he does consulting work from time to time.”

  After Kate finished reading off the rest of the names, Paul studied the list. “I’ve made it a point to meet as many people in Copper Mill as I can, but there are a couple of names on here I’ve never heard of before.”

  Renee capped the marker and used it to tap on the board like a schoolmarm calling her class to attention. “What’s the next step? Now that we have this information, what do we do with it?”

  Kate rubbed her chin. “If somebody is holding a grudge against a group, there has to be a reason. Can we find any common denominator among these people?”

  They stared at the whiteboard without comment until Livvy spoke. “I don’t see anything they all have in common other than being part of the business community.”

  “Let’s turn it around then,” Kate suggested. “Do you see anyone on there who might be holding a grudge or could benefit from the problems the chamber is having right now?”

  Again her query resulted in silence.

  Renee harrumphed. “This isn’t getting us very far.”

  “I have an idea,” Kate said slowly. “But I’m going to need your help.”

  Livvy brightened. “That’s what we’re here for. Just tell us what it is.”

  “If I were able to go out myself, I’d be inclined to talk to each one of these people. Not an interrogation, you understand, just striking up a casual conversation to get their take on the recent trouble.”

  “You want us to look up the phone numbers so you can call them?” Renee grimaced. “That isn’t much of a challenge.”

  “No, talking on the phone simply doesn’t get the same results as a face-to-face conversation. There are shades of expression—”

  “Ah yes.” Renee perked up. “Body language. You’d hardly be able to notice that in a phone call.”

  Kate nodded. “That’s where you come in. If the two of you—or three...?” She looked up at Paul.

  He shook his head and bent to give her a quick kiss. “I wish I could, but I’ve got some work down at the church that I can’t put off. Let me get that out of the way this morning, and I’ll see what I can do after lunch.” With a quick good-bye to Renee and Livvy, he picked up his keys and went on his way.

  “It looks like it’s just Renee and yours truly,” Livvy said. “But we can still get a lot done.”

  “Right,” Kat
e said. “I’d like you to divide up the list and talk to as many of these people as you can.”

  Renee’s eyes lit up. “Maybe we should go undercover. Do we need to assume some sort of disguise?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary.” Kate didn’t look in Livvy’s direction. She knew if the two of them made eye contact, they would both burst into giggles.

  “We want to make these interviews as low key as possible. It’ll take some finessing to pull it off.”

  “I’m up for that,” Livvy said promptly.

  “Me too.” Renee thrust her arm aloft. “All for one, and one for all!”

  Kate took out two pieces of paper and wrote half the names from the list on each one. “Remember,” she cautioned, “this is not an interrogation. Keep it casual, and above all, don’t do anything to put yourselves in danger. Why don’t you come back here at lunchtime, and we’ll see what kind of progress you’ve made by then?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  After they left, Kate pulled out her notebook and leafed through it, looking for any connection between the information there and the names on the whiteboard.

  While she turned the pages, she thought about Livvy and Renee questioning the chamber members. Would she be able to get the insight she needed from hearing their reports? Secondhand information was never as good as being on the scene herself. With all her heart, Kate wished she were the one out making the rounds. Then she chided herself. She ought to be grateful that Livvy and Renee were willing to act as her eyes and ears. This time, it would have to be enough.

  Kate’s mind drifted back to the idea of those documents being forged. Was her suspicion correct? To know that for sure, she would need proof. She picked up the phone and punched in Skip’s number.

  The deputy listened patiently to her explanation, but his voice sounded skeptical when she finished. “We looked at that paperwork, and those signatures are dead ringers for Mayor Briddle’s.”

  He paused and clicked his tongue. “Tell you what, I’ll talk to Sheriff Roberts and see if he thinks it’s something we should check into. We don’t have a handwritin’ expert at the sheriff’s office in Pine Ridge. We’d have to send the documents out to the state crime lab in Knoxville.”