Veiled in Death

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  “I believe so, Mallory. The working theory is that the killer took advantage of the fog to make it look like Doug did it, but he was actually just in the wrong place. Why, the darn killer even managed to graze Doug himself. My working theory is that was a mistake.”

  My mother’s shoulders relaxed a mere centimeter at Truman’s declaration that he knew Doug didn’t really do it. “Fine. I’ll take it. But back to the motive. There isn’t a single reason why Dougie would want to hurt Claudia or Jesse!”

  Truman stared impassively at my mother. “Doug argued with Claudia about whether she would allow him to help her stand up to Helene. It was an act of chivalry, but people heard them arguing nonetheless.” He bit his lip and continued. “And, well, you had just announced your intention to work with Jesse to design a new house for Mallory and Garrett.” Truman held up a hand to stop my mother’s protestations that had already begun to loudly roll from her lips. “I know that is ancient history, but someone could make the case that Doug felt threatened at the prospect of you working with an old beau.”

  It was the working theory Bev was clinging to, and I nearly saw steam emanate from Carole’s ears.

  “What about Helene?!” My mother spat out a suspect loudly enough to wake Ramona in her window seat. “The silly, spiteful lady had it in for Claudia, and she was wearing gloves for goodness’ sake! All the better to maraud around and shoot people without leaving a trace.”

  Truman cocked his head and seemed to appraise my mother. “An intriguing clue we all took note of. The musket did not have any prints on it, save for my own and Doug’s.”

  Ramona danced in a slow circle at my mother’s feet and pranced over to the back door. Carole, long over this conversation, took her chance. “I’ve never been so happy to attend to Ramona’s potty business than in this very moment.”

  She flounced out the door, leaving me with my soon-to-be father-in-law.

  Truman rubbed the bridge of his nose in seeming irritation. “I’m not even done yet, Mallory.”

  Oh, great.

  This little teatime with my mother was irrevocably ruined. Doug had sent her over for a chat and a snack, and she’d been ambushed instead. What more did Truman have in store?

  He didn’t mince words, having already semi–worn out his welcome. “Be careful around Tabitha,” he cautioned.

  “Beg your pardon?” I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart beating with alarming alacrity in my ribcage. Had he somehow overheard her declaration of witnessing Richard Peirce’s murder while we’d been at Pellegrino’s?

  Truman seemed to consider how to say his next statement. “Hinky stuff is going on with historical society holdings. Tabitha is cooperating, but I feel like she’s not telling me something. Something big.”

  I felt a flare of irritation mixed with relief. “That’s nothing. I mean, it’s something, and I hope you catch who’s doing it. But Tabitha told me about that today. Why would she if she had anything to hide?”

  Truman tried to wipe away the shocked look on his face before I noticed. “One never knows one’s motives, Mallory. Just make me one promise this month. Leave the professional sleuthing to me.”

  I grumbled my assent, then stuck my tongue out at Truman’s retreating form as he left Thistle Park. I wouldn’t be jumping into the amateur detective fray this time, when bodies and stolen artifacts alike were piling up in Port Quincy. But I was irritated to be reminded twice in one day.

  * * *

  I had one more trick up my sleeve after dinner, compliments of Summer. I was eager to get out of the house. After Truman’s visit, my mother had retired to the library for a nap. She’d kept her phone on in case Doug called, but soon dropped into a deep sleep. While she dozed, I received a text from Summer asking me to meet her at the Silver Bells dress shop around seven p.m. to pick out a dress for the Founder’s Day dance. My heart melted at the request. I just wondered if I could convince my mother to accompany me to Bev’s store if we weren’t there to find me a wedding dress, but rather shopping for a semi-formal gown for my fiancé’s daughter.

  “Oh, alright.” My mother sat up and rubbed her face, the seam of a pillow embossed on her cheek. “I guess I needed that nap. I’m still ticked at Truman, and Bev, and well, basically half of Port Quincy. But I’ll go to that darn dress shop run by that darn woman. But make no mistake, missy. This is only for dear Summer, and not to find you a wedding dress.”

  I giggled at my mother’s decree and we headed out to Silver Bells shortly after a light dinner of sandwiches added to the tea goodies my mother had initially brought over. We stopped on our way to check on my stepdad, then headed on to downtown Port Quincy.

  “I texted Rachel, but she’s not answering,” I murmured as I parked the giant station wagon in front of Bev’s store.

  “Oh, she’s probably off with Miles, or Pia, even.” My mother airily waved her hand. “I know she’s been spending quite a bit of time with that lovely girl, trying to help her make sense of her grandmother’s death.”

  I felt a strange mixture of feelings eddy up in me as I rolled up my window. And since the car was an artifact itself, I literally did have to crank the window closed.

  On one hand I was happy that my sister could be there for Pia, as I had been for Tabitha. But an ugly green flare of jealousy also ignited inside me, and I didn’t like it. I wondered how my relationship with my sister would change when I was no longer living at Thistle Park and the two of us spent most of our work-week hours with her seemingly new best friend, Pia. I pushed down the strange feeling as I simultaneously pushed open the door to Bev’s pretty shop, the silver bells echoing the name of the store.

  “Mallory!” Summer nearly bounded over in excitement. She gave a practice spin, already clad in a contender dress for the dance. “Do you like it?”

  I blinked as I took in a dress that could have been at home in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Nearly every dress-up occasion in Port Quincy these days seemed to involve some kind of style time-machine. This dress was a daring magenta, the shade a precise match for the bands around Summer’s braces. It featured a bubble satin skirt topped with a strappy sequin bodice.

  “I love it. And you look amazing!” It was my second bout of strange feelings. Summer was lovely in the dress. With her lanky legs and tall stature, she looked much older than her fourteen years. I wanted to grumble about her growing up too fast, as Garrett was fond of doing these days, yet my heart simultaneously swelled with pride.

  I sat on a pretty polka-dotted loveseat while I waited for Summer to change into another dress. My mother sat next to me, her arms huffily crossed over her chest, as if not wanting to cede an inch of goodwill in Bev’s store. She needn’t have worried. Bev’s assistant manned the little shop, and I guessed Bev was still taking care of Jesse.

  Wrong again.

  The bell tinkled again, and in breezed Bev. “Hello, my dear. Jesse finally fell asleep over at McGavitt-Pierce Memorial.” She referenced the hospital where Jesse was making slow but steady progress. “The poor man can barely get a wink with all of the vitals checks the nurses insist on doing.” She leaned down to give me a hug and simultaneously rolled her eyes behind her glasses, the pair today a daring yellow, when my mother seemed to recoil. “And hello to you, too, Carole. How are you doing these days?”

  My mother stared at Bev with overt suspicion. “Just fine, Bev. Why do you ask?”

  Bev volleyed a smirk at my mother. “I was just wondering how you were handling the news that my poor Jesse was felled by your husband’s weapon?”

  Bull’s-eye.

  Bev’s accusation seemed to wound my mother, and my heart twisted. It was no fun refereeing a fight between two of the most important women in my life.

  But my mother’s nap must have soothed her nerves. She carefully fluffed her caramel hair. “I’m not sure where you’re getting your gossip these days, Bev. Truman already told me he knows Doug didn’t do it. Your sources really must be slipping.” My mother gave Bev a triumph
ant smile and nearly cackled as the dress-store owner stomped off.

  “Cool it, Mom.”

  “I can’t believe the nerve of that woman! Such wonderful hospitality in her store.” My mother rolled her eyes. “Let’s get out of here, Mallory.”

  But I insisted on staying until Garrett arrived to help Summer pick out her dress. It was one thing to sit with my mom in solidarity as she bickered with Bev, but I wasn’t going to let her ire infringe on my relationship with my soon-to-be stepdaughter.

  Garrett arrived mere minutes later and raised his eyebrows after he got a rather huffy greeting from Carole.

  “I’ll explain it all later,” I whispered in his ear as he knelt down to hear.

  “Oh, I think I can see what’s happening.” Garrett’s lovely eyes moved from my mom to Bev, who was glaring from her perch by the register.

  “Dad, you’re here just in time.” Summer had tried on three dresses, but kept coming back to the retro magenta number. She held it up and took a spin. “Don’t you love it?”

  “It’s very you, kiddo.” Garrett moved to ruffle Summer’s hair.

  This past spring she’d finally started to grow out the daring platinum pixie-cut that my sister had given her on a whim many summers ago, the first day we met her, in fact. Her pretty flaxen hair fell to her shoulders. She impatiently brushed her dad’s hand away and fluffed her new do. “Dad, I’m too old to be called a kiddo. Come on. If you want to call someone kiddo, you and Mallory need to have one of your own. And you guys better get cracking. It’s not like you have a ton of time left.”

  What?!

  I felt my heart gallop for the third time in one day. I’d been meaning to broach the family expansion question with Garrett in private, then loop in Summer when we’d decided what in the heck we wanted to do. But here she was, bluntly bringing the issue to the fore, in the confident and refreshing way she always had.

  Garrett to his credit no longer looked like a deer in headlights. He ruffled her hair anew, and sent her off with a laugh. “I guess that answers one question I know we both have. Apparently, Summer wouldn’t mind a younger sibling someday. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear your mother put her up to that.”

  I collapsed against him in a spate of laughter as Summer brought her purchase to the front of the store. Bev managed to tear her dagger eyes away from my mother and ring up the purchase.

  My phone buzzed with a text from my sister.

  Out with Pia and Miles. Trying to cheer Pia up. Send Summer my regards. Sorry I can’t make it!

  I pushed down the renewed strange feeling bubbling up in the corners of my mind. I was getting hitched, perhaps sooner than I knew. While my sister was having fun, fancy-free with her younger friends. It was time to celebrate the changes in my life, rather than trying to desperately hold on to what had been.

  And as it turned out, Summer had just received a text of her own. She bounded away from the store counter and waved her phone around in the air as if it were a second Armistice Day. “He did it! He did it! He did it!”

  “Who is he? And just what did he do?” Garrett sprang from the couch he’d been sitting on, nearly causing my mom to topple over. It was her last straw. She grabbed her purse and fumbled for the keys at the bottom of my bag and muttered something about waiting in the Butterscotch Monster. Garrett seemed torn between going after my mom to offer an apology, and awaiting Summer’s explanation for her cryptic announcement.

  “I was going to go to the Founder’s Day dance with my friends, of course,” Summer reported breathlessly. “But he asked me out!”

  “Who?!” Garrett and I spoke the word in parental-like unison. I refrained from tacking on the word jinx.

  “Preston Mitchell, of course!” Summer turned to beam at Bev, and share in her joy with her new beau’s mother.

  “I knew he would, sweetie. He’s just wild about you.” Bev bestowed a radiant smile on Summer.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” Garrett whispered his assessment of the situation into my ear. His face truly was an interesting shade of split-pea-soup green. “Whatever happened to the practice of a guy asking the dad for permission to take his daughter out on a date?”

  I giggled at my fiancé. “Are you serious? Just be happy Preston is a great guy. She’s growing up, Garrett.”

  Indeed, the unmistakable electrifying look of young love, or rather young infatuation, graced Summer’s face.

  Everything’s changing.

  Marriage was looming, and motherhood, too, at least in the form of becoming Summer’s stepmother. Rachel was making new friends, our business was expanding, and Pia was a great addition.

  Bev broke into my tender and reflective thoughts. “If you stay a while, we can start looking for your dress!”

  The glass doors flew open, the bells jingling harder than ever.

  “I heard that, Bev. And she’s not interested.” Carole snaked out her hand, and nearly pulled me from the shop. I wasn’t sure whether to scold her or break out into a spate of laughter.

  One thing was for sure. I needed to assess all of the changes in my life, and together with my partner, Garrett, make some decisions and plans.

  And somehow mediate the growing feud percolating between my mother and Bev. I couldn’t really let either woman dictate my decisions. I had a feeling a different kind of war was going to break out soon. My own war of independence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Despite the silly, overblown spat between my mother and Bev that was ballooning out of proportion, I wanted to pay my friend Jesse a visit. He was due to be discharged from the hospital tomorrow. His stay hadn’t stopped him from writing email after email with plans for the home he’d already started designing. I silently rued my mother’s decision to bait him into taking on the job of designing a new abode for me, Garrett, and Summer right before his wedding to Bev. And that was before he was targeted and shot on the reenactment field.

  “How’s it going?” I tentatively peeked into Jesse’s room. The hospital had scrounged up an extra-long bed to accommodate Jesse’s mammoth frame. I loved seeing tall, lumberjack-built Jesse standing next to his fiancé, Bev, a cool foot-and-a-half shorter than him.

  But Jesse looked decidedly smaller, shrunken, and weakened in his current state. Though he and Bev had both reached middle age, their vim and vigor made them appear perpetually young at heart. But today Jesse looked his actual age and then some. His injuries on the field had been no joke. He’d lost quite a bit of blood, not helped by the fact that he’d trudged up the hill carrying an already lifeless Claudia, in an attempt to save someone worse off than him.

  I shook off such thoughts and entered the room with what I hoped was a cheery smile. Jesse’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of my footfalls and he instantly brightened.

  “Mallory! So good to see you.”

  I poured him a glass of water from the pitcher on his table and got down to business. Or rather, cessation of business.

  “Jesse, I mean this kindly. You have a lot of recuperating to do, and I’m worried about your plan to keep your wedding date and also begin construction on my new home.”

  I wasn’t going to be the one pushing my dear friend to the brink. Though he was doing well, he didn’t need my plans, or rather Carole’s, getting in his way on the path back to complete health.

  “Oh, please.” Jesse weakly waved a bear paw of a hand. I always startled to hear his rather high tenor voice, not what one would expect from so large a man. “Marrying my girl Bev, officially becoming Preston’s parent, and having a fun new project to focus on is what’s gotten me through this horrid stay in the hospital.” He leaned back, winded from his passionate speech.

  Uh-oh.

  “Plus, I struck a deal with Bev. I’ll finish the blueprints and apply for the permits once you and Garrett give me the A-OK on a certain design. I can pull some strings with the planning commission to get them approved right away. Then I’ll talk to my best men over Skype, and they’ll begin
the actual construction. Your mom said you were thinking of getting married in about a month. This is totally doable.”

  Double uh-oh.

  “Um, Jesse? While I appreciate virtual communication, I’m not so sure that’s the best way to direct the building of a brand-new house.” I wasn’t game for Jesse’s plan, and I was sure Garrett would have the same concerns.

  “Just promise me one thing.” Jesse ignored my concerns and plowed ahead. “My doctors aren’t too keen on me returning to work so soon. Keep this under wraps, okay?”

  I gave my friend what I hoped was a kind smile. “Jesse, are you listening to yourself? This plan is madness.” I gestured to all of the wires and doodads hooked up to constantly monitor his condition. “My wedding can wait. Even if I wed this summer, I haven’t picked an official date! This summer is flexible. And so is my housing situation. You need to chill out.”

  Jesse didn’t take kindly to my little speech. His expression turned grave. He reached out one of his giant bear hands and enclosed it around mine. “Please, Mallory. Let me do this.”

  I gulped under the laser-beam focus of his intense gaze. Though he was on the fast track to recovery, seeing him all hooked up and stationary on the hospital bed tugged at my heartstrings. Then he went for the jugular.

  “I’m a medical miracle, Mallory. There aren’t too many gents running around with only one-point-five kidneys. Now do me a favor and grab those blueprints I’ve got stashed under that chair.” Jesse released my hand and pointed to a roll of papers barely nudging out from under a vinyl visitor’s recliner.

  I tried not to think too much about hospital germs as I knelt and pulled out the rolled-up designs. I’d humor Jesse, but I wasn’t yet about to totally sign on to his scheme of building me a house from his bedside perch.

  “Garrett and I did look over your emails,” I admitted as I helped him spread the detailed blueprints over his swivel hospital tray. “And if, and that’s a big if, we decided to go with this crazy time-crunch plan of yours, we were thinking plans A and C were the best.”