Death Threads, page 22
part #2 of Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series
They stepped onto the porch, the decreasing sun casting their bodies in shadows. “I had a wonderful time with you tonight, Tori.”
She looked up at him. “I did, too. Very much. I’m just sorry Leona chose tonight to develop a sudden urge to sew.”
“It’s okay. We have tomorrow. And every day after that for as long as you want me around.”
Aware of the sudden moisture in her eyes, Tori simply nodded, her voice too constricted to speak.
“Good night, Tori. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“You might want to make it after ten. I suspect I’ll be accompanying Leona on her all-important mission.”
“Have fun with that.” He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, his lips finding hers in the looming darkness.
“Fun?” she asked as he pulled back, the touch of his lips leaving her dazed. “You haven’t spent much time with Leona Elkin, have you?”
Chapter 22
“Tell me again why I’m here?” Tori eyed the woman in her passenger seat. “Why I’m an accomplice in a crime I didn’t commit?”
Leona pouted her perfectly plump lips as she peered inside the straw bag on her lap. “Because you’re the one making me bring him back.”
“Uh, Leona? He doesn’t belong to you . . . that’s why I’m making you bring him back.” She looked up into her rearview mirror, her guilty conscience making her wary of anyone who could be watching.
“Why? So he can be one of hundreds instead of his own special little bunny?” Leona’s cheeks rose as she made a playful face at the bunny peeking out through the tiny opening she’d made with her fingers. “Isn’t that right, my sweet little Paris?”
Good grief.
“Okay, what gives? What’s with the name?”
Leona gazed down at the rabbit. “He just reminds me of someone.”
“Don’t you mean somewhere?”
“No. Someone.”
“Who?”
Leona puckered her plump lips and made kissing noises at the bunny. “A man I met the last time I was in Paris.”
Tori cast a sidelong glance at her friend. “A bunny reminds you of a man you met?”
“Yes. My little Paris here has the same warm chocolate eyes . . . whiskers that tickle my skin . . .”
She bit back the urge to laugh as she swung her focus back to the road. “So then why didn’t you just call him the same name as this man?”
Leona waved her hand in the air. “Good heavens, dear . . . I don’t remember his name.”
“Just his eyes and his whiskers?”
“Exactly.” The woman looked from Tori to the bunny and back again. “Why can’t I just keep him? Ella May will never notice.”
“He’s not yours, Leona. That’s why.” She pulled into an abandoned turnoff less than a quarter of a mile from Ella May Vetter’s home and cut the engine. “Couldn’t I just drop you off? Let you walk back to town when you’re done?”
Leona raised her free hand to the base of her neck and feigned surprise. “You’d ask me to walk back to town while my heart is breaking?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, c’mon, Leona. Giving this bunny back is not affecting you that much.”
The woman huffed. “Shows how much you know, dear.” She pulled her hand from her neck and wiggled her manicured fingers at the soulful brown eyes peering out from the bag. “Besides, don’t you want to see how my first sewing effort is received?”
Damn.
“Okay. Okay. I’ll do it. But how are you going to explain the bunny?” Tori leaned across her friend for a better look at the seemingly willing prisoner.
“If we’re not able to make it to the porch without being seen, I’ll gently drop the bag, make it appear as if Paris just hopped in.” Leona leaned against the seatback, a self-satisfied look on her flawlessly made-up face. “It’s really quite genius.”
“Don’t forget to pat yourself on the back,” Tori mumbled as she turned the key in the ignition and pulled back onto the road, Ella May’s Victorian springing into view behind a large grove of trees.
“Must you be so snippy this morning, dear?” Leona chided. “Paris likes positive, happy people.”
“Then what’s he doing with you?”
Leona slowly shook her head. “And here I thought I’d made some progress in teaching you how to conduct yourself as a proper southern belle.”
“Do southern belles make a habit of helping one another steal things? Do they stalk around people’s homes trying to get a glimpse into a personal life that is none of their business?” The questions sprang from Tori’s mouth as she slowed the car once again before turning into Ella May Vetter’s driveway.
“Leave it to a northerner to disguise their accusations in sarcasm.” Leona pulled the straw bag closer to her body as the car bumped its way down the gravel driveway.
“Ahhh yes, because out-and-out accusing people of crimes they didn’t commit simply because they don’t look and act like everyone around them isn’t wrong?” She knew her teasing had crossed into bitterness but she didn’t care. Some things just needed to be said. “Wait. Don’t answer that. I forgot we’re living in a place where decent men are murdered for telling the truth.”
Leona waved her free hand in the air. “I still intend to work on Harrison.”
Tori shifted in her seat. “When?”
“After my date with William.”
“After?” She bit back the urge to scream, her irritation at her friend’s constant man-chasing nearing its limit. “I thought you said you learned a lesson last time . . . that friends come first.”
“Did I say that?” Leona asked with surprise.
“Yes. You did. And spending time with Harrison could give us some much needed insight into what happened to Colby.”
“I did try. When you first brought it up. But . . .” The woman’s voice trailed off for a moment only to return as a near whisper, “he didn’t seem interested.”
Tori gasped. “A man didn’t jump when you asked?”
“Stop it, dear. Perhaps he’s involved with a new woman and he’s trying to resist temptation.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at the way Leona shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the notion a man might not be interested just about more than the woman could take. “Do you know who?”
“He acted very secretive.”
She straightened behind the wheel, her radar pinging loudly. “Secretive?”
“Not in the I’m-hiding-a-dead-body kind of way, dear. Rather in an I’m-dating-someone-but-don’t-want-anyone-to-know kind of way. But it won’t last. When he realizes the opportunity he was given, he’ll come around. They always do, dear.” Leona jutted her chin upward as she wrapped her fingers around the door handle and pulled, the door swinging open simultaneously. “Enough of that for now. Let’s get snooping . . . I mean going.”
“No, you meant snooping.” Tori followed suit, stepping onto the gravel driveway in her new woven wedge heels as she moved her hand upward to shield her eyes from the midmorning sun. “I think you might be in luck. Though I suppose that’s contingent on what you consider luck . . . Ella May being home so you can spy, or Ella May not being home so you can return the bunny without fear of getting caught?”
Leona walked around the front of the car to join Tori, her hand shaking ever so slightly as she held the bag outward one more time. “I’m going to miss him.”
“We can get you your own, you know.” Tori slid a sympathetic look in Leona’s direction as the woman peered forlornly down at the bunny. “We could call a few pet stores in the county, see if they have one.”
“He wouldn’t be my Paris.”
“Your Paris?” Tori echoed in surprise.
“I got attached.”
“I’ll say.” Realizing her friend wasn’t acting, Tori slipped a reassuring hand around the woman’s shoulders. “Think of all the friends he has here. And the flowers he can trample through and the organic carrots he’ll eat.”
Leona nodded sadly.
“He really is better off here.” Tori rested her head briefly on her friend’s shoulder before letting her hand drop to her side.
“How should I do this?” Leona asked, her voice barely audible over the chirping of the birds and the whir of Ella May’s air conditioner clicking to life.
“Just set the bag down. Let him hop out just the way he hopped in.” Tori gently wrestled the bag from Leona’s clutches and set it on the ground.
Moments passed. The bunny remained in the bag.
“See?” Leona asked, her mouth widening in a smile. “See. He loves me.”
Seconds later a second bunny appeared, hopping its way past the bag and toward the house. Paris emerged and followed suit, stopping every once in a while to munch on something green and leafy.
Tori laughed. “He really is your bunny, isn’t he?”
“Why is that, dear?”
“He’s interested in that one”—she pointed at the rabbit who’d lured Paris from the bag—“yet playing coy at the same time.”
Leona’s hands found her hips. “I don’t play coy, dear.”
“Oh, yes, my mistake.” Tori turned on her heels and walked toward the car, looking back over her shoulder as she did. “Leona? Aren’t you coming?”
“No.”
She stopped, her shoulders slouching. “Why not?”
“Because I have a gift to deliver, dear. Remember?”
“How could I forget,” she mumbled under her breath as she retraced her steps. “Couldn’t you just wait until there’s an actual date for the wedding? Give it to her then?”
“And miss all the fun?” Leona shook her head. “Not on your life, dear.”
Ahhh, yes, the many polite overtures of a proper southern belle . . .
Tori trailed her friend as the woman made her way toward the wide front porch that spanned the front side of Ella May’s Victorian, her thoughts skipping ahead to the work that awaited her at the library that morning—cataloguing, ordering, reading to a summer school group, and making her first delivery out to the nursing home.
Yet as they mounted the stairs, she couldn’t help soaking up every detail of the woman’s home—a woman who was both sweet and a tad bit odd all at the same time. When they reached the top step, she looked around, noted the two rocking chairs that stood side by side, positioned to watch the sun as it set over Sweet Briar. A window overlooking the porch stood open a few inches, the glimpse of the country kitchen it afforded lit only by natural light.
“I don’t think anyone’s home, Leona.”
Leona knocked, first quietly and then more insistent, the sound bringing curious bunnies from around every corner.
“I don’t think anyone’s home, Leona,” Tori repeated, looking over her shoulder at the driveway that was empty save for her own car. “There’s not another car anywhere.”
“Ella May doesn’t own a car, dear.” Leona rolled her eyes while simultaneously shaking her head as if Tori’s lack of knowledge in that area was due to pure stupidity.
“Still, I don’t think she’s home. There aren’t any lights on.”
“It’s daytime, dear. And Ella May believes in natural everything.” Leona placed her hand on the door and turned the knob to the right.
“What are you doing?” Tori hissed through clenched teeth. “You can’t just walk inside.”
“Didn’t you see, dear? The door was partially open . . . I’m just being a good neighbor and calling it to Ella May’s attention.” Leona stepped inside, gestured for Tori to follow.
“It was not! You just turned it. I saw you!”
“I most certainly did not. It was open.” Wrapping her hands around Tori’s forearm, she pulled her inside the large country kitchen decorated with a blue and white border of bunnies. “Hmmm, isn’t this quaint? Ella May is quite the interior decorator.” Leona pointed at a picture in the middle of the table. “And, as it seems, an artist.”
Tori leaned forward and studied the beautifully illustrated picture of a family of bunnies frolicking in a knoll. Despite the use of crayons, the attention to detail was impossible to ignore. “Wow, she’s good. Really, really good.”
“It’s okay, I sup—”
A fast rhythmic thumping from upstairs cut Leona off midsentence.
Thump-thump-thump-thump . . .
“What was that?” Tori whispered.
Thump-thump-thump-thump . . .
The mirrored surprise on Leona’s face morphed into a knowing smile as she shooed Tori back outside, the rhythmic sound increasing not only in speed but volume as well.
Thumpthumpthumpthump.
Feeling Leona’s hand beneath her arm, Tori looked a question at her friend.
“Don’t they know about the birds and the bees in Chicago, dear? Or must I teach you that as well?”
“The birds and the bees?” Tori asked as she felt Leona’s pace quicken, urging her forward as well. “Of course they . . .” She slapped a hand over her mouth as she peeked back over her shoulder. “Wait. You think . . . you think that was them?”
“Yes I do. And a good southern belle respects the privacy of her fellow belles.” Leona reclaimed the passenger seat as Tori slid behind the wheel.
“Since when are you a proponent of privacy, Leona?”
The woman reached across the center console and gave Tori’s leg a mothering pat. “There’s a time and place for everything, dear.”
“A time and place for everything,” she repeated as she backed her car slowly from the driveway.
“You’d know that, dear, if you’d stop being so rigid around Milo.”
She hit the brakes. “Rigid? Did you just say I’m rigid?”
“Yes, dear. Rigid.”
“One minute you tell me I’m too rigid, the next you tell me I wear things that show too much bosom,” she said as she bopped her head against the seatback in frustration.
“There’s a time and place for bosom, dear.”
“And when, Leona, is that?” She lifted her head, looked both ways over her shoulder, and then backed onto the main road, her mind whirling from the outlandish conversation taking place inside her car.
“Why don’t you ask Ella May? She seems to be well versed in the subject.”
Chapter 23
She probably should have felt guilty for leaving Leona standing in the library parking lot without a way to get back home, but she didn’t. She’d spent far too much of her morning traipsing all over God’s creation when she had a mountain of work to do.
Rounding the corner of the information desk, Tori flung her backpack purse onto the lowest shelf. “I’m sorry I’m a little late, Nina. I got . . . sidetracked.” Bamboozled was a better word but it would have resulted in questions. Questions she had neither time nor desire to answer.
“Not a problem. We’ve only been open ten minutes, Miss Sinclair.” The woman she’d come to count on as far more than a part-time assistant moved effortlessly between piles of books. “It was just enough time for one visitor to return some books and another to ask a question.” Nina pointed toward a forty-something woman with dark brown hair and a high schooler in tow.
“I’m glad.” Tori looked from pile to pile, noting the slip of paper Nina had placed on each one. “Are the orders all ready?”
“Yes, Miss Sinclair. And only one of the requested books was already checked out. So I made a substitution with a similar book and tucked a note inside saying we’d send the requested book when it comes back.” Nina leaned against the counter long enough to eye Tori closely. “Are you okay, Miss Sinclair? You look a little . . . tired.”
“Long morning.” She squatted down in front of a large binlike drawer and slid it open, a stack of homemade bags springing into view. “I guess we better get these orders bagged up and ready to go. I’ll take them over to the nursing home on my lunch break.”
Nina took some bags from Tori’s hand, examining them carefully. “These are wonderful, Miss Sinclair.”
She couldn’t help but smile. For as crazy as the past week had been, some good had come of it, too. “They are, aren’t they?”
The door opened, followed by the sounds of young children who didn’t have a firm enough grasp on the concept of quiet voices. Looking quickly at the clock on the counter, Tori’s eyes widened as they met Nina’s.
“The summer school group.”
She nodded along with Nina’s words, her own voice dipping to a near whisper. “They’re early, aren’t they?”
“By almost thirty minutes,” Nina whispered back. Pushing off the counter, Nina rubbed a hand on Tori’s shoulder. “I can read with them if you’d like . . . give you time to take care of the bags.”
She hoped her sigh wasn’t too obvious, especially to the approaching ears of the overanxious summer school teacher who’d run out of things to keep her charges busy. “That would be great. My mind isn’t really in the right place to make exciting voices and sound effects.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Nina left the desk area, her shy smile greeting the students on the other side. “Hello, boys and girls. Let’s head on into the back for some fun with books, okay?”
A chorus of agreement rang out as the children followed Nina down the hallway toward the children’s room Tori had created in an old storage area. The hard work that had gone into transforming the room had paid off as the addition was one celebrated throughout Sweet Briar.
Forcing her attention onto the stacks of books in front of her, Tori began the slow process of matching a bag to each order form—the nursing home director’s description of each resident making the process somewhat easier. There was the bag with the fishing motif for Mr. Donaldson, the floral pattern bag for Ms. Thomas, a pastel colored bag for Mrs. Richmond, and the cartoon characters for Mr. Zane. Eunice Weatherby, an avid painter, would adore the bag boasting an artist’s palate and a rainbow of paint colors.
She opened Ms. Weatherby’s bag and placed the first two books inside, her throat constricting as she stared at the third—In a Split Second by Colby William Calhoun. Setting the bag down on the counter, Tori reached for the book, turning it over in her hands to look at the publisher’s name that had captivated her two days earlier.
