by Edie Claire
“Oh,” Allison spoke up. “And Mom, Olympia’s not a tax attorney, either. She’s an accountant.”
Leigh had no business being surprised by that.
“We’re here,” Warren announced, shifting the van into park. “As close as I can get, anyway. The Floribundas take up a lot of parking spaces.”
Leigh hopped out and hurried the kids along. It was amazing how slowly middle schoolers got out of a car. In elementary school, the kids would be halfway across a parking lot before she could get her seatbelt undone. Now they stared at their phones like zombies and practically had to be pried out.
“Could you take them to Aunt Lydie’s?” Leigh asked Warren when they finally began walking toward the houses. “I’ll have to go to my mom’s alone. She already told me their meetings are ‘closed.’”
“So what are you going to do?” Warren asked.
“Sneak into the kitchen and wait it out,” Leigh replied. “I can’t let Olympia get her alone.”
“You’re not going to eavesdrop on the meeting, though, are you, Mom?” Allison asked innocently. “Because eavesdropping is rude and dishonest.”
Leigh looked down to find her daughter directly behind her elbow, as expected. Her voice was convincing enough, but the girl’s dark eyes couldn’t hide a sassy glimmer of sarcasm.
“Of course,” Allison went on, using her most mature tone, “eavesdropping can be an okay thing to do, if you’re trying to protect somebody who might be in danger. Isn’t that right, Mom?”
“I didn’t—” Leigh gnashed her teeth. She could see her parents’ house up ahead. “Your dad will explain it.” She broke into a jog, then called back over her shoulder. “I’ll text you!”
She did not let her gaze dwell on the look her husband was giving her. She whipped her head back around and focused on the mission before her. She had no intention of confronting Olympia Pepp—. Well, Olympia whatever-her-name-was. Leigh’s only goal was to get the woman out of her mother’s house, and then clue Frances in on what had probably happened so that they could all stay away from the pathological liar in the future.
Leigh drew close to the houses, then skirted around to avoid being seen through her parents’ living room windows. She crept up to the back door, found it unlocked, and quietly made her way into the kitchen. No way would her father be home — she wasn’t worried about that. Nor were the Floribundas likely to congregate in the kitchen, as most women did. Frances’s crowd liked to keep it formal, convening in the living room for the business meeting and eating — if food were involved — in the dining room on china plates.
At this moment, the women were in the living room. Leigh could hear their voices as soon as she entered. She crept over and leaned into the corner by the kitchen doorway.
“Anna Marie has done what she thought best, Virginia, dear,” Delores was saying in her fake sweet voice. “Even if it might put us all behind bars, I’m sure that’s not her concern.”
“Oh, stuff it, Delores!” Anna Marie spat back. “I don’t want to be president again! Do you? She was going to find out anyway.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Virginia was moaning. “I do believe she’s in shock.”
“Olympia?” Frances crooned. “Are you all right?”
Leigh couldn’t help herself. She eased her way around the doorframe until she could just peer into the living room with one eye. She couldn’t see much, but the sliver of the room she could see is where Olympia was standing, looking pale and totally adrift. Frances stood next to her.
“We wanted to tell you earlier, but really, it was better for you if you didn’t know,” Frances explained. “Once the investigation started, we were strongly advised not to talk about it at all.”
“Everyone knew?” Olympia asked finally, her voice shaky. “Lucille asked every one of you to… to kill her?”
“Kill is such a crass-sounding word,” Anna Marie retorted. “Assisted suicide sounds much better.”
“The answer is no,” Frances said forcefully. “Lucille did not ask me.”
Olympia turned and studied her. “Oh,” she said simply.
Frances’s cheeks reddened. She looked affronted. “The point is,” she continued, assuming a lofty tone, “your contention that you cannot continue to serve as our president because we do not trust you is incorrect. Anna Marie has proven that we do. We have told you one of our deepest and darkest secrets.”
“There’s more?” Olympia croaked.
“No,” Anna Marie answered sharply. “Now, are you going to stay on as president or not?”
Olympia looked conflicted. She also looked horrified.
Leigh’s head swam with confusion. If she didn’t know her own mother, she would be calling 911 right now, ready to have all six of these women — plus the one who was home sick in bed — arrested for conspiracy. Conspiracy to commit what she still wasn’t sure, but they sure as hell sounded guilty of something.
“I… Well, I…” Olympia stammered. “I still can’t believe it. Are you saying that Lucille’s son is in on this? And that someone really did… I mean… one of you…”
“Well, I don’t know that,” Virginia said defensively. “Do you, Olympia? Who does?”
Leigh couldn’t see Virginia, but she got the idea that the woman’s piercing eyes were floating around the room with an accusing look, because the women she could see were all taking a sudden, intense interest in either the floor or the ceiling.
“Mortal sin!” Jennie Ruth boomed out.
Maybe not a conspiracy, Leigh thought with relief. These women couldn’t possibly work together well enough to join forces for evil.
A loud, angry rapping sounded on the front door.
“Good heavens!” Frances said with a start. “Who on earth could that—”
Virginia jumped to the window. “It’s Bridget!”
Crap! Once Leigh had ruled out the woman as a threat to the children, she had forgotten her entirely.
“Bridget?” Frances questioned, even as she turned the knob. She had barely opened the door when Lucille’s heretofore unassertive personal assistant burst through the opening and into the room.
“Where is she?” Bridget demanded, looking around frantically until her eyes alighted on Olympia, who had been standing behind her. “You!” she screeched. “You did it! You poisoned Miss Lucille!”
The Floribundas let out a collective gasp, and Olympia collapsed against the arm of the wing chair. “You… you’re insane,” she said weakly. She looked toward the door, but Bridget immediately backed up and blocked it. The Floribundas rose to their feet. Olympia pulled out her phone. She looked around at them all, her eyes wide and wild. “You’re all insane!” She looked down at her phone and texted something.
“Do calm down!” Frances ordered gruffly. “And sit down! This meeting is still called to order!”
“Anna Marie is sergeant-at-arms!” Virginia groused.
“Clamp it, Virginia!” Anna Marie ordered. “Everybody sit down!”
The other women all groused and moved back a bit, but only Anna Marie actually sat down. The rest continued to hold their ranks in a menacing semi-circle around Olympia.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about!” Olympia declared. “I swear! I didn’t know about any of this!”
“It was your punch!” Bridget continued, her whole body shaking. “Bobby blames me, everybody blames me. The police are trying to arrest me, to put me in jail, to ruin my life! But I didn’t give her anything she shouldn’t have had and I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Leigh’s feet fidgeted beneath her. She wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. She couldn’t remember quite how that had happened, but she was now standing at the edge of the living room. Of course Bridget would know about the upcoming Floribunda meeting — and she would expect Olympia to be there. Did Bridget hope to trick Olympia into a confession in front of everyone? Or was she just flipping out from pure emotion?
“You lie like a rug,” Virginia accused Olympia.
“How do we know you’re not lying now?”
“I’m not!” Olympia insisted, rising to her full height. “It’s true that I do… exaggerate sometimes. But it’s just a little game I play!” She looked around at all their faces in appeal. “It’s how I got this chapter on the Holiday House Tour, isn’t it? And you were fine with my methods when I was helping you!”
“She does have a point, ladies!” Frances agreed.
“Murderer!” Jennie Ruth bellowed.
Olympia sank down on the chair arm again.
“Now, let’s be reasonable,” Virginia argued. “Even if Olympia did help Lucille along, we all know it was a kindness. Why, it was practically a fiduciary duty, if you think about her family!” She stopped and glared at Jennie Ruth. “So stop with the moralizing, you old fuddy duddy!”
“Virginia!” Anna Marie said hotly. “We are not alone!”
Virginia glanced up at Bridget. “Aw, hell,” she said dismissively. “She’s bound to know.”
“Know what?” Bridget shrieked. “What’s going on, here?” She looked past the women and over at Leigh. “You know about this, too?”
All eyes turned to Leigh.
Frances jumped. “Where did you come from?”
Leigh’s cheeks flamed with heat. She’d long since forgotten the incognito thing.
She was saved from answering by Olympia, who rose again and made a move for the door. “Don’t you dare!” Bridget demanded, blocking her again. “Not until you admit what you did! Tell them it was you and not me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Olympia fired back.
“What was in the punch?” Bridget pressed. “I know it was the punch that killed her. It was the only thing I didn’t give her myself! She was fine all day, awake and alert. Then she drank that one cup of punch and she nodded right off. Within minutes her eyes were closed. And she never woke up!”
Leigh watched in horror as Frances made a strangled sound. Her hands flew to her throat. “The punch?” she rasped. “My punch?”
“No, Mom!” Leigh cried. “Not your punch! If anything was in it, it was added later!”
“You added it!” Bridget accused, sticking a pudgy finger in Olympia’s face. “What did you put in there?”
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Olympia fired back, shoving Bridget’s hand aside. “Get out of my way!”
“Let her go!” Leigh yelled to Bridget, who was attempting to block the door again. “The police will catch up to her!”
But Bridget wasn’t listening. A catfight of a shoving match ensued at the door, with both women using their bulk to try and oust the other from the vicinity of the doorknob. Olympia was taller and had longer arms, but Bridget was plumper and nimbler, and the two banged around in a well-matched tussle while Leigh and Frances stood back in dismay and the rest of the Floribundas egged on the conflict with assorted screams, screeches, hoots, and whistles. Olympia seemed about to get the upper hand when the front door burst open and both women tumbled into a heap on the floor.
“What the blazes is going on in here?” Mason demanded, stepping into the doorway with Warren close on his heels.
The room went quiet. Olympia and Bridget both adjusted their rumpled clothing and scrambled to a more dignified sitting position.
Frances cleared her throat. “Point of Order.”
Olympia struggled to her feet and smoothed her hair. “Yes?”
“I move to adjourn.”
Chapter 25
Olympia glared at Bridget from the relative safety of Mason’s side. “I am leaving now,” she announced with a theatrical tone. “I have come into your storied chapter, I have been willing to serve, and if I do say so myself, I have done an excellent job of it. And if this is the way I am to be repaid, I will tender my resignation via written correspondence.” She turned to the door with her nose in the air, and both Mason and Warren made way to let her leave.
Leigh’s shoulders sagged with relief. But her reprieve was short-lived.
“No, Olympia,” Frances insisted, stepping forward. “Don’t go. And don’t resign. I, for one, do not believe that you poisoned Lucille Busby. I just don’t believe it!”
Oh, Mom, Leigh thought miserably. Don’t say that.
“Who else agrees with me?” Frances said confidently, looking around the room.
The other Floribundas looked back at her. Then they all looked everywhere except at her. Lips pursed and backs straightened. No one said a word.
“I see,” Olympia said blandly. “Well. That’s that, then.” She stepped between the men and out onto the porch.
Leigh released the pent-up breath she was holding. But again, the feeling of relief didn’t last. As Mason and Warren followed Olympia out the door, Leigh looked past them and could see that the children and Lydie had gathered outside on the lawn. Fabulous. She headed toward the door herself.
“Olympia did too do it!” Bridget insisted to Frances. “The only question is why!”
“Why?” Virginia repeated with a laugh. “That’s not a question at all!”
“Of course it is!” Bridget cried. “Miss Lucille didn’t have much money, but all she had and even anything she might get from insurance is going straight to Bobby! She was a hateful old thing, but that’s no reason to kill her. And Olympia barely knew her! What could she possibly get out of it?”
Leigh stopped walking. Something was wrong.
Anna Marie sighed loudly. “Go home, Bridget,” she said dismissively. “There are things you don’t need to know. Okay?”
Bridget balled her fists and let out a shriek of frustration. Then she brushed past Leigh and stormed out the door.
“Wait!” Leigh called, following her onto the porch. Olympia was standing on the sidewalk now, facing away. She appeared to be waiting for her ride home. “What did you say?” Leigh asked. But Bridget kept walking. The personal assistant was down the steps and into the yard, not far from where Lydie and the children stood, when Leigh took a chance and grabbed her arm. “Please, Bridget, stop a minute!”
“What do you want?” she cried.
“How well did Olympia and Lucille know each other?” Leigh asked.
Bridget looked at her as though the question were stupid. She shrugged. “They saw each other at these meetings.”
Leigh had a niggling worry that she was missing something. “I was under the impression that Olympia had been meeting with Lucille secretly,” she confessed. “Maybe talking on the phone. And that the others didn’t necessarily know about it.”
Bridget’s lips screwed up into a puzzled frown. “Well, that’s news to me. I don’t see how. I was with the woman practically every second.”
“I see,” Leigh murmured, not seeing at all. If Olympia had plotted with Lucille, how had they managed it? Had it all been done through Bobby? If so, why was he so confused?
“I’m telling you,” Bridget said again, with conviction. “Whatever killed Lucille was in the punch. The punch that Olympia gave her. And I’m done running. I’m going to tell the police everything I know right now!”
“There was nothing poisonous in the punch!” Lydie protested hotly.
Bridget and Leigh swung around. Lydie and the children were standing within steps of them. The Floribundas were all either on the porch or spilling out into the yard, even Anna Marie. Mason and Warren had positioned themselves between Bridget and the still-waiting Olympia.
“Maybe not when you served it,” Bridget argued. “At least nothing but a little harmless cognac! But there was something else in it after she got hold of it and gave it to Miss Lucille!” Bridget pointed at Olympia. Olympia lifted her chin again and turned her back.
Leigh heard an animalistic sound, rather like a whimper. Frances was clutching her throat again. She sank down to sit on the porch steps.
“Oh, good Lord, Frances!” Lydie objected again. “There was nothing wrong with the punch we served!”
“We never even served punch to Olympia!” an unexpect
ed soprano voice piped up.
All eyes focused on Lenna. “Remember, Grandma?” the girl said to Lydie. “She tasted it at lunch and said she liked it, but once the tour started she wouldn’t drink a thing.”
A shadow passed over Lydie’s face. “That’s true,” she confirmed. “Olympia never did take any punch. I remember offering it.”
“She told me she didn’t want to drink any liquids because too many people would be using the bathrooms,” Lenna reported. “She said it was better to wait until they were properly cleaned or we all got home.”
Leigh looked over her shoulder at Olympia. The chapter president was facing Lydie now. She was watching them all, but her eyes seemed vacant, suddenly. Unseeing.
A twinge of fear crawled up Leigh’s spine.
“Well, she must have stolen some punch when you weren’t looking, then!” Bridget insisted. “Because she certainly had a cup!”
Olympia remained standing stiffly for a moment, still staring. At the sound of an approaching car, she turned her head down the street, then bolted like a startled cat. She jumped straight up in the air, hit the ground running, and raced through the yard and back up onto the porch. She appeared to be aiming for the door, but, seeing her path blocked by numerous Floribundas, she stopped and spun around frantically, seemingly looking for someplace else to go. Finally she squatted down right where she was — hiding herself behind the brick porch railing.
“Wages of sin!” Jennie Ruth bellowed, pointing at her.
Everyone else simply stared, befuddled.
“Mom,” Allison spoke up. “I saw Olympia, like, ten minutes before Lucille started coughing, and she wasn’t carrying a cup of punch then. If Lenna and Grandma say Olympia didn’t get that cup herself, then she must have asked someone else to get it for her.”
“Her husband!” Lenna exclaimed. “He got a cup the same time Bridget did. He must have given her his!”
Allison nodded. “And that cup would have been laced with alcohol, which could have put Lucille to sleep. But… Olympia only offered it to Lucille because she started to cough!”