Death Threads, page 7
part #2 of Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series
A moment of silence ensued before the woman finally waved a manicured hand in the air. “No, you’re right. I was lost in my own little world last night and by the time I caught up with what was going on, it was too late.”
“Lost in your own little world?” she echoed.
“Yes, lost in my own little world.”
“Was something wrong?”
“I was planning. And plotting,” Leona explained.
“I’m not following.” She rubbed her right hand over her right eye as she released a deep exhale.
“Have I not taught you anything about personal maintenance these past few months, dear? Never, ever rub the skin around your eyes. We want it to be firm yet supple. Rubbing removes the natural glow in your skin.”
She stared at her friend. “You’re worried about my skin?”
“As you should be. You have it until the day you die. Unless you opt to have a little nip and a little tuck.” Turning her body ever so slightly in the chair, Leona crossed her legs at the ankles and straightened her back. “Just make sure if you go that route that you find a reputable doctor to do it and not some backwoods quack.”
On any other day, Tori would have laughed at the absurdity of the conversation playing out in her office. Never in her wildest imagination could she have anticipated receiving plastic surgery advice before she was officially thirty. Then again, she’d never known someone like Leona Elkin before, either.
“Anyway . . . where was I? Oh yes, while Rose was being her normally charming—and may I point out—spinster self, I was deciding the most appropriate way to meet William Clayton Wilder.”
She felt her mouth gape open. “The magazine guy?” Leona waggled her finger back and forth until Tori clamped her mouth shut. “The wealthy and widowed publishing genius.”
“You’re not serious. . . . Okay, wait. You are.” Pulling her hands from the edge of the desk, Tori dropped her head into them. “Can’t you just be in the kitchen when Margaret Louise meets him next?”
“And run the risk he thinks I cook?”
She laughed as she slid her hands down her face. “Um, Leona? He runs a culinary magazine. Don’t you think he has an interest in . . . I don’t know . . . maybe cooking?”
“Well, I sew, shouldn’t that count for anything?” Leona asked with a sniff.
“You sew? Since when?” Suddenly the tension that had knotted itself throughout her body began to ease as she allowed herself to enjoy the easy repartee she’d enjoyed with this woman since the first day they met.
Leona’s chin jutted in the air in defiance. “I’ve worked with buttons . . .”
“Worked with buttons?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve worked with buttons, Leona? Hmmm . . . I remember buttons . . . and I remember you . . . but I don’t recall you ever touching them, let alone sewing them.”
“Semantics, dear. Semantics.”
“Oh, is that what they call it in the south?” Tori pushed off the desk and walked over to the window, her face instinctively tilting toward the sunlight. “What is it about men that makes you shut down on your friends?”
“My friends don’t wine and dine me, dear. And they don’t have that stubble on their chins in the morning.”
She turned toward her friend, eyebrow cocked. “Stubble?”
Leona nodded, a knowing glint in her eye. “Don’t tell me you don’t think it feels wonderful in the morning against your bare skin.”
“Leona!”
“Thou doth protest too much, dear.”
Shaking her head, Tori stepped out of the path of the sun, the warm rays doing little to offset the sudden heat in her cheeks. “You’re going to quote Shakespeare now?”
“Who else?”
“How about this one . . . men come and go but friends stay forever.”
“Touché.” Leona uncrossed her ankles and rose from the chair, her short yet shapely legs lessening the distance between them. “What can I do?”
“Do, Leona?”
The woman rolled her eyes in dramatic fashion. “To help Debbie.”
“I’m sorry, my ears must not be working. Could you say that again, please?”
“Vic-tor-ia . . .”
“I’m sorry, I was just yanking your chain.”
“Yanking what?”
Tori waved a dismissive hand in the air before resting her forehead against the warm glass. “I’m not sure what we can do for Debbie. Maybe help out with the kids when she returns to work?” She stopped, stole a sidelong glance at Leona. “Okay, scratch that one. I know how you are about kids.”
“You’re a fast learner, dear.”
“Maybe find ways to help her keep things as normal as possible?”
“I could patronize her little shop,” Leona chimed in.
“But you said women must always be mindful of their figures, remember? Debbie owns a bakery in case you’ve forgotten . . .”
“I could stop by and gush over her cakes. Help her drum up business that way.”
“Let’s leave that to Ella May, shall we?” Tori took two steps back from the window and plopped into her office chair, swiveling it so she was, once again, in the path of the sun. “I think the most important thing we can do for Debbie is simply be there to listen and—”
“What does Ella May have to do with cakes and Debbie?”
At the risk of being tarred and feathered, Tori rubbed her hands across her eyes, the nearly sleepless night finally taking its toll. “She’s hiring Debbie to make her wedding cake.”
A sharp intake of air made her look up—mid-eye rub—just in time to watch the color drain from Leona’s face.
“Ella May is getting married?”
“That’s right.”
“Sir Billy is about to become Mr. Ella May Vetter?” Leona raised up her forearm just long enough to tap the face of her sterling silver link watch with her perfectly polished fingernail. “Oh dear, would you look at the time? I really must be getting back to the shop.”
“It’s Tuesday, Leona. Elkin Antiques and Collectibles is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, remember?”
“I-uh . . . need to help my sister . . .”
“Doesn’t Margaret Louise look after Melissa’s brood on Tuesday mornings? So Melissa can attend a mom and me swim class with Sally?” she asked as the corners of her mouth turned upward in amusement. “Surely you wouldn’t stop by a home with six children in it, would you? Unless, of course, you’re preparing for your upcoming babysitting job?”
“Rose said something about needing help . . .”
“Rose visits the nursing home on Tuesday mornings, Leona. And you’d be sooner caught dead than go there.”
Stamping her foot, Leona turned toward the office door.
“I have something I have to do, Victoria. Something I’d rather not discuss.”
“You have gossip to spread, don’t you?”
Leona reached for the doorknob then looked over her shoulder and smiled ever so sweetly in Tori’s direction. “It is my duty, as a good southern neighbor—one who realizes the importance of friendship—to gather together the women of this town in celebration of Ella May’s wonderful news.”
“To spread gossip, you mean.”
With a ladylike shrug, Leona yanked open the door and stepped in the hall, a smile lighting her face from the depths of her soul. “As Margaret Louise would say . . . you’re darn tootin’.”
Chapter 7
Lowering her sandwich to her lap, Tori leaned back against the brick exterior of the Sweet Briar Public Library and lifted her face to the noon sun.
“Do you remember what you said the other day . . . at the festival? About the loyalty in this town being a good thing so long as it’s in your favor?” She turned her face to the left and studied the man who’d become such a bright part of her daily life. A man who’d stood by her through thick and thin during the investigation into Tiffany Ann Gilbert’s murder and stayed by her side even after it was all over.
Milo took a bite of his ham and cheese sandwich and nodded, his gaze focused somewhere in the distance.
“You were right. It can really get ugly when it’s not, can’t it?”
“I think you probably know that better than anyone.” Wiping his mouth with one of the paper napkins he brought to accompany their impromptu picnic lunch, he, too, leaned his head against the brick wall.
“But I was an outsider, a newbie. Someone like Debbie Calhoun has lived here her entire life. She was born here, went to school here, was married here, is raising her family here, has opened a business here. Shouldn’t the loyalty extend a little deeper and a little truer for someone like that?” It was a question that had nagged at her from the moment the woman had shared tales of the backlash her family had endured on the heels of Colby’s article in the Sunday edition of the Sweet Briar Times. Backlash that had not only extended to Colby as the author, but to Debbie and her young children as well.
He shrugged, his strong capable frame rising ever so slightly. “It seems like it should, doesn’t it? But the loyalty isn’t for any one person. It’s for the town . . . the image.” Balling his sandwich wrapper in his left hand, he tossed it into the empty paper sack beside his thigh. “The image is what matters most.”
“More than people?”
“More than people,” he confirmed as he hoisted a bright red apple to his lips and clamped his teeth down.
She looked down at her own food—at the sandwich with little more than a bite taken out, at the untouched apple, at the still wrapped candy bar Milo had included specifically for her sweet tooth—and felt her stomach churn with repulsion. The overwhelming hunger she’d experienced when he first walked through the door twenty minutes earlier was nowhere to be found, a casualty of the worry and fear she couldn’t seem to shake.
“I’m sorry, Milo.” She set her sandwich back in the paper wrapper, sealed it shut, and then returned it to her own sack along with the apple and candy bar. “This was such a sweet idea, it really was. But”—she stopped, swallowed, and tried again—“I just can’t get Debbie’s face out of my mind.”
Tossing his half-eaten apple into the bag, Milo scooted over on the sidewalk, draping his arm across her shoulder as he drew closer. “I’m glad she had you with her. I’m sure that was a comfort.”
“Her husband is gone.” She swallowed again as she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder. “I’m not sure what can comfort something like that.”
“Colby may be a soft-spoken guy, he may spend a large amount of his time behind a computer, but that guy is in shape. He’s not going down without a fight.”
She closed her eyes against the image of the bedroom he shared with his wife, a bedroom that backed up Milo’s words to a point. But in the end, Colby Calhoun was still missing. And there were still blood smears on the wall and droplets across the kitchen floor. She said as much to Milo.
“So maybe you’re right. Maybe he lost the fight. I don’t know. But whoever did it didn’t think things through very well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the town’s image is still destroyed. There’s no way to get Colby to recant his story if he’s dead.”
“Recant his . . . wait.” She pushed off the wall and swiveled her body so she could meet Milo’s eyes. “You think whoever did this should have had him recant his article before killing him?”
He shrugged. “If they were thinking they would have.”
“You almost sound as if you think that’s the bigger issue here. That the town’s image is more important than a man’s life.”
“No. Killing a man is wrong under any circumstances. And justice must be served. But finding the culprit in this equation is going to be mighty difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because Colby set himself up as a target for a whole lot of folks. In fact, I’d be willing to say the list of people who despise Colby Calhoun after Sunday’s article is far longer than the list of people who don’t.”
She felt her mouth drop open. “You can’t be serious?”
“Oh yes I can.” Pushing off the ground, he gathered up their paper sacks and tossed them into a nearby trash can before reaching for her hand. “C’mon, let’s take a little walk.”
“I can’t. Nina needs me,” she said as she flashed an apologetic smile. “Besides my lunch break is—”
“Still in full swing.” He turned his wrist so she could see the face of his watch. “We’ve only been out here for less than twenty-five minutes. You take forty-five, don’t you?”
“I do, normally. But I’ve been worthless so far today.
Between my too-long conversation with Leona this morning and the funk I’ve been in since I got here, I really need to step it up.”
“And you will. When your break is over.” He closed his hand over top of hers and gently tugged her down the stone steps of the library. “We won’t go far, just around the building a few times. It’ll give you a chance to vent some of this stuff out.”
“Remind me what I did to deserve you?” she asked as she fell in step beside him, the warmth of the sun permeating her body and chasing away the chill she’d harbored all morning.
“You stole my question.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently, his eyes looking down at her with a mixture of admiration and worry. “So what do you want to do about all this?”
“Do?”
“I haven’t known you long Tori Sinclair, but I’ve known you long enough to know you can’t sit idly by while your friends are hurting.”
He was right. She couldn’t. “I want to find Colby. Give Debbie and the kids some closure. It’s hard to say good-bye when there is no body to bury.”
“You’re that sure he’s dead?”
“I saw the blood, Milo.”
For a moment he said nothing, his silence doing little to quiet the tension in her body. “And if you’re right . . . and he really is dead . . . don’t you think Chief Dallas is trying to find his body, too?”
She lifted her shoulders into the air and let them slide back down. “I suppose. But he’s only one person and he’s . . .” She stopped, considered the impact of her words on the man walking beside her, a man who claimed Sweet Briar as his birthplace as well. “Well, he can only be in so many places at one time. And if the suspect list is as big as you insinuated it could be, it might be difficult for him to cull through in quick fashion.”
“What aren’t you saying, Tori?”
Damn.
“I-I guess I’m just worried how the whole loyalty thing is going to play into the investigation.” There, she said it. Inhaling slowly, she steeled herself for an argument that didn’t come.
“Chief Dallas is a fair man. He may have spent the bulk of his life in this town but he also takes his job very seriously. He won’t leave a single stone unturned in this investigation.”
“But isn’t it possible he might be a little hesitant in the stones he chooses to look under first?” She knew she was running the risk of offending him, but she simply couldn’t leave the fears in her head unspoken. Not for anyone, including Milo Wentworth.
“I suppose. I mean, I know he’s one of Carter Johnson’s poker buddies and I know he goes fishing with Dirk Rogers every spring.”
“See? That’s all I’m worried about.” She stopped, replayed his last sentence in her mind. “Wait. You think Carter and Dirk could be legitimate suspects in Colby’s disappearance?”
They rounded the backside of the library, their feet leaving grass as they stepped onto the asphalt of the parking lot and continued walking. “I know Dirk was piping mad at the festival and you said Carter Johnson—”
“Threatened Colby with a rifle . . . you’re right.” She took stock of the near-empty parking lot, mentally calculating how many customers had left since she went on break. Milo was right, Nina would be fine for the remaining five or so minutes she had. “And then there’s whoever wrote that letter, right? Assuming, of course, it wasn’t written by Dirk or Carter.”
“I doubt Dirk has ever seen a piece of stationery let alone written on one, so . . . although I’m no police detective . . . I think he can be ruled out as the author for now.” They rounded the far side of the brick structure, their feet returning to grass and the occasional piece of scattered pine straw that served as landscape material around the moss trees that graced the grounds of the hundred-year-old building. “But, Tori, there are a lot of people in this town who are furious at Colby right now. Essentially everyone who calls Sweet Briar home could be a suspect.”
“Except you, of course.” The second the words were out of her mouth she could feel him stiffen beside her. Stopping, midstep, she tugged his hand until they were face to face. “Hey, I was only kidding.”
“I guess.” He ran his free hand through his burnished brown hair, leaving the top more than a little disheveled as he let a burst of air escape his lips. “Tori, I have to tell you that I’m not real happy with Colby right now either. He questioned my teaching in that article.”
“He didn’t call you out by name,” she protested.
“He didn’t have to. He said this supposed lie was taught in the classroom. Don’t you see that statement calls all of the teachers at Sweet Briar Elementary liars?”
She stared at him, unsure of what to say in response to his growing anger.
“He had no right to do that, Tori.”
She heard herself gasp, saw the hurt in his eyes as she removed her hand from his. “But if it’s true . . .”
“What? That I’m a liar?” he asked through teeth that were suddenly clenched.
