Death Threads, page 4
part #2 of Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series
But still, hearing Milo mention his late wife always stirred an overwhelming need to lighten the moment. Not because he wasn’t ready to move on after ten years—he was. But because she ached for the pain he endured all those years ago as he watched his wife succumb to cancer.
Sneaking a look at his face as they neared his destination of choice, she was pleased to see the face-lighting smile that had endeared him to her from the moment they first met. Whatever pain he still carried over his loss had been tamed by hope. And for that she was glad. Very, very glad.
“Oh, hey, would you remind me to grab a paper before we leave?” Milo tilted his head toward a small grouping of people huddled around the Sunday edition of the Sweet Briar News Times. “I like to read Colby’s columns and I forgot to pick one up on my way to get you this afternoon.”
She stopped, gestured toward the white tent just off to their right—a tent that appeared to rival that of any other at the festival in terms of a line. Only instead of food or trinkets, it existed solely to sell papers and subscriptions. “I could get one for you right now.”
He tightened his grip on her hand and shook his head. “Oh no . . . you’re not getting out of trying a funnel cake.”
“I’m not trying to get out of it,” she protested. “I just figured you could get in line for that while I get in line for a paper. When we’re done, we’ll just meet somewhere in the middle.”
“You won’t take off for the hills?”
“Not before I get your paper.”
“Hey!”
“I’m just kidding.” Tori jabbed a finger into his side and laughed. “Besides, finding a hill around here would be pretty tough to do. Perhaps the ocean would be better. It’s only an hour or so away. . . .”
“Cute. Very cute.” He leaned over, planted a gentle kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll meet you back here in a few.”
“I’ll be here.” She waved as he started across the matted grass in search of the artery-clogging treat that appeared to be a staple at Sweet Briar’s festivals. Why people wanted to eat a plate of fried dough was beyond her, but she’d give it a try if it meant something to Milo.
Pulling her gaze from the back of his head as he disappeared into the crowd, Tori turned and headed toward the ever-growing line at the newspaper tent. Many of the faces she recognized as library patrons, others were simply people she glimpsed at the market or church or a variety of other spots around the small white picket fence town.
She smiled at the forty-something woman in front of her as she took her place at the end of the line. “I can’t believe this line. Is the news tent always this busy at a festival?”
The woman shook her head, the emphatic motion dislodging a few strands of red hair from the casually pinned bun at the nape of her neck. “But it’s hard not to notice them there folks.” She pointed to various clusters of people peering over the shoulders of others to read the paper. “Everyone sure seems to be hankerin’ for one, don’t they? I reckon there’s somethin’ good goin’ on.”
Tori glanced at a group of men standing to the right of the tent as they waited for their buddy at the front of the line to get his copy. He’d barely exchanged money for a paper before they were ripping it from his hand and flipping through the contents with a mixture of determination and dread on their faces.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” she asked the woman.
Again, the redhead shook her head, her green eyes widening as she did. “Not a clue. But I’m guessing—hey! Watch where you’re going, mister.”
Carter Johnson, the owner of Johnson’s Diner, shoved his way between the two of them, his lips making an angry slash mark across his face as he balled up his newspaper and threw it into a nearby trash receptacle.
“Do you think it’s really true, Papa? Do you really think everybody’s been lying?”
“I most certainly do not. That kind of talk is rubbish, nothin’ but pride-stompin’ rubbish.” The man, seemingly oblivious to the fact he’d nearly knocked the redhead to the ground, grabbed hold of his grandson’s upper arm and fairly dragged him across the grass. “I have half a mind to come back here with a match and set those papers on fire. And while I’m at it, maybe my rifle wouldn’t be such a bad idea either.”
If the boy responded, Tori didn’t hear, as the pair moved so quickly through the crowd they disappeared before her eyes.
“Wow. Ain’t he ill as a hornet,” the woman said with disgust before waving the man’s actions off. “Eh, don’t pay him no mind, he’s just bein’ rude is all.”
Without waiting for an answer, the woman stepped forward just as an additional worker sat down at the table and beckoned them to form the start of a new line. Mechanically, Tori followed along, her thoughts a few steps behind. Carter Johnson wasn’t a rude man. A little loud at times, yes. A little bit of a know-it-all at times, yes. But rude, no.
And certainly not violent . . .
“One copy or two?”
“Huh, what?”
With a bored roll of his eyes, the teenager behind the counter repeated his question, this time pointing to the stack of newspapers sitting on the table beside him. “One copy or two?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Forcing her attention back to the task at hand, Tori reached into her purse and pulled out two singles. “One copy is fine, thanks.”
The worker dropped two quarters, a dime, and a nickel onto a paper and slid it across the table at her. “Page three.”
“Excuse me?”
Again he rolled his eyes, this time adding a smirk for the benefit of the young girl sitting beside him manning the other line. “Page three. The story is on page three.”
“What story?”
“Page three,” he repeated before turning his attention to the person behind Tori. “One copy or two, sir?”
Stepping to the side, Tori glanced in the direction of the group of men she’d seen earlier, their mouths now distorted in rage as they, too, balled up their paper and disappeared into the crowd, leaving nothing but a trail of mumbled threats in their wake.
“What on earth . . .”
“Is everything okay, Victoria?”
Startled, Tori looked up, her mind racing to put a name to the rounded face in front of her.
Ella . . . Ella something . . .
“Everything is fine.” Her mind continued to cycle through names as she tried to buy herself some time. “I guess I was just lost in my own little world.”
The woman reached out, touched her forearm with long slender fingers. “I do that sometimes, too. Mostly when I’m reading though.”
Reading?
“I wanted to thank you for setting aside those books for me the other day. I’m not normally quite so lazy.”
Setting aside books . . .
“I’d fallen behind on feeding my bunnies and wasn’t sure I’d have time to locate all of the books on my own before you closed for the evening.”
Bunnies . . .
As her identity came into focus, Tori placed her free hand over the woman’s and gave it a gentle pat. “It was absolutely no problem, Miss Vetter. That’s what we’re there for. I’m only sorry I didn’t have more time to chat when you stopped by to pick them up. I was giving a tour of the new children’s room to a reporter from a national library publication.”
Ella May Vetter clapped her hands together. “A national publication? How wonderful.”
“It really is,” Tori agreed, studying the woman as she did. There was no doubt about it, Ella May Vetter was a tad peculiar. One only needed to see the petticoat-style dress and Little Bo Peep-curled hair to know that. But just because she did things a little differently didn’t mean she was a lost cause as Rose, Margaret Louise, and Leona made it sound. If anything, Tori found her to be sweet and unassuming. “Did you enjoy your selections?”
“Very much. Thank you.”
“There you are!” Milo flashed a warm smile at Ella May as he stopped beside Tori with a paper plate in his hand and a hint of powdered sugar on his upper lip. “Hi, Ella May. Are you enjoying the festival?”
The woman nodded as a smile broke out across her face as well. “It’s lovely.”
“Couldn’t wait, could you?” Tori looked from Milo’s lip, to the plate, and back again.
“I waited . . . see?” Milo held up the plate, a perfectly formed latticework of powder-topped golden fried dough shimmering in the sunshine.
“Then what’s this?” She reached out, swiped a finger across his upper lip, and then held it where he could see.
“I—er.”
“Busted!” She tucked the newspaper under her arm and rocked back on the heels of her tennis shoes.
Ella May laughed as Milo’s cheeks reddened. “You two are so cute, you remind me of the way Billy and I are together.”
“Who’s Billy?” The moment the words were out of her mouth she knew the answer. Billy was the guy—the smart, charming, intelligent, well-traveled Mystery Man no one in Sweet Briar had ever seen.
“He’s simply the most amazing man ever.” The woman sighed.
“Does he buy and hide second helpings of things, too?” Tori asked as she eyed Milo accusingly.
“I did not buy a second helping. I swear. I just”—he looked down at the plate and back up again—“happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“Translation, please?” Tori prompted as she winked a smile at Ella May before looking back at Milo and waiting.
“Dirk Rogers’s nephew didn’t care for his funnel cake. And Dirk was in a foul mood.”
“Dirk Rogers? Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Dirk owns the garage out on Plantation Lane.”
Tori nodded. “Okay, so what does his nephew’s dislike for funnel cake and his foul mood have to do with you?”
“Someone had to eat it,” Milo pleaded. “Wasting food is a sin.”
“Ohhh. I see now.” Tori crinkled her forehead as she looked at Ella May. “He simply couldn’t stand by helplessly as an innocent plate of funnel cake faced an uncertain fate.”
“Milo Wentworth is a true philanthropist in every sense of the word.” Ella May’s near-perfect crack at a straight face, coupled with the words she’d chosen to speak, set Tori into a fit of giggles—giggles that only intensified as Milo rolled his eyes.
“Mock me all you want, ladies. You’ll change your tune once you try a bite.” Carefully, Milo tore a piece of dough from the creation in front of him and extended it toward Ella May. “Would you like some?”
“No, thank you.”
Milo shrugged and held it toward Tori. “You promised.”
“I did.” She took the sprinkled dough from his outstretched hand and took a bite. “Mmmm. Wow.”
“See? I told you.” He fixed his gaze on her face for a moment before letting it travel slowly down her soft yellow T-shirt and formfitting stonewashed jeans. “And with your body, you can eat this stuff all day and not worry.”
She felt her face redden with a mixture of flattery and embarrassment. Flattery because he liked what he saw and embarrassment because Ella May was still standing there, soaking it all up. “Yeah, but do you hear that sound?”
Milo shook his head, his brows furrowing. “No. What sound?”
“This”—Tori parted her lips ever so slightly and then inhaled deeply—“that’s the sound of my arteries clogging as we speak.”
Milo waved the comment aside with his free hand. “We’re at a festival. We don’t hear those sounds at a festival. The only thing we hear is laughter. And an occasional screaming kid.”
“I’ve heard a few expletives myself.” Tori pulled the paper from under her arm and held it out to Milo. “In fact, I’ve heard threats.”
“Threats?” Milo swapped the funnel cake for the paper. “What kind of threats?”
“Well, Carter Johnson said he wanted to burn the news tent down.”
Milo’s head snapped back. “That doesn’t sound like Carter at all.”
“I know. I thought the same thing.”
“Now that you mention it though, Dirk Rogers said something about shoving a computer in places a computer shouldn’t be shoved.”
Tori gestured toward the paper. “I’m thinking that whatever has everyone so fired up is on page three. At least that’s what the kid in the tent said.”
“Page three,” Milo repeated as he unfolded the paper and flipped back the front page. “Page three—ah, here we go. The only thing here is Colby’s—oh no . . .”
“What?”
“Oh no,” he mumbled again, as Ella May moved in from one side and Tori from the other. “Oh, Colby, what did you do?”
“What are you talking—” She stopped, midsentence, as the object of Milo’s displeasure sprang into view in the form of a bold black headline that stretched from one side of the page to the other.
SWEET BRIAR’S HISTORIC REBIRTH A FRAUD.
A slightly smaller headline sat just below the first.
Moonshine—Not Yankees—to Blame for
Town’s Incineration
Lenin once said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
While it’s anyone’s guess what specific event sparked his comment, he could—in theory—have been talking about Sweet Briar.
For well over a century—in homes across our town—the story of Sweet Briar’s rise-from-the-ashes rebirth has been passed around the table along with the okra. It’s been written on blackboards in the elementary school and preached as gospel on more than its share of Sunday mornings. It’s been passed down as truth through the Johnsons, the Rogerses, the Clemmonses, and every other founding family, including my in-laws.
But I’m here to tell you it’s all been a fairy tale. Or, to be more blunt, an out-and-out lie.
Well, 90 percent of it anyway.
There was a fire. And it did reduce Sweet Briar to ash. That part is true. It’s just the celebrated how—the part that’s been flaunted for generations and generations—that is nothing short of a bold-faced lie.
Yankees didn’t burn Sweet Briar to the ground. Gabe Jameson’s great-great-grandfather did.
That’s right, my fellow Sweet Briar residents, our town didn’t rise from the ashes of an enemy attack. We rose from the flames of a moonshine snafu.
Tori sucked in her breath as she scanned the rest of Colby’s column, the enormity of his charge bringing a new clarity to Carter Johnson’s words. “The matches were for the tent . . . the rifle must have been for . . .” The words trailed from her mouth as reality dawned.
“What rifle? What are you talking about?” Milo asked.
She met Milo’s worried eyes with her own. “Matches weren’t the only thing Carter Johnson wanted to bring back after he read this. He said”—she swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat, her words growing raspy—“he said a rifle might not be a bad idea either.”
“A rifle?” Ella May ran the tips of her fingers slowly down the article in front of them, her gaze never leaving the paper. “Why on earth would he need a rifle?”
Pushing the paper in Ella May’s direction, Milo raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why? Because Colby Calhoun just destroyed a legacy with the sweep of his pen . . . and placed himself firmly on the top of everyone’s Most Hated list in the process.”
Chapter 4
From the moment she stepped inside Melissa Davis’s home the aura was anything but normal. In fact, if she didn’t know any better, Tori would have thought she was at a funeral rather than the weekly sewing circle meeting that had managed to turn Mondays into one of her favorite days of the week.
Gone was the sound of the animated chatter and good-natured gossip that was as much a part of each meeting as the sewing itself. Gone was the verbal banter over who brought what for the dessert table. And gone were the smiles on the faces of women who treasured the opportunity to spend a few hours with close friends while engaging in a hobby they all loved and respected.
Instead, the chatter and gossip had been replaced by the intermittent sound of throat clearing laced with a suffocating silence. Instead of a dissertation about a particular recipe’s lineage, covered plates were merely plunked down on the table and ignored, their claim to fame left unspoken. And instead of smiles there were only sullen faces—sullen and angry.
Except Debbie Calhoun’s. Hers simply looked sad. Heartbroken, even.
Tori stood just outside the doorway of the family room and studied her friend. The woman’s normally upturned lips drooped low and her eyes cast downward as if she were waiting for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. And if the expressions on the faces of the other women in the room were any indication, they were not only waiting but hoping she’d meet with the same fate as well.
Milo was right. The steadfast loyalty she’d grown to admire among the residents of Sweet Briar could, indeed, be a double-edged sword—a sword that was now pointed in Debbie Calhoun’s direction.
“Oh, Tori, hi. I didn’t hear you come in.” Melissa strode down the hallway from the back of the house, an assortment of toys nestled against her side by one forearm, an infant propped atop the other. “I just finished nursing Molly Sue and Jake took the rest of them—plus Debbie’s two—to the park to play for a little while. If we’re lucky he’ll get them nice and tuckered before bringing them back home.”
Tori shook her head and smiled, her hands instinctively releasing her sewing box and tote bag in favor of her hostess’s most recent addition to the family. “I don’t know how you do it, Melissa.”
“The secret is to not think. If I did, I’d have to be committed.” Melissa released an audible sigh of relief as she handed the wide-eyed baby to Tori. “I apologize for this place”—she gestured around the room with her newly freed hand—“looking the way it does. But housecleaning is an art form I’ve yet to relearn since baby number seven arrived.”
“That’s okay. You’re focusing on the important part first. Anyone who’s spent more than two seconds with your kids knows they’re rare—respectful, creative, encouraged, and loved.” Tori looked down at the baby in her arms and smiled as they locked gazes. “Molly Sue will be no exception, I’m sure.”
