A Plus One for Murder, page 8
Nancy studied her for a moment and then reached into a drawer at her back and fished out her phone. A few taps of her finger later, she handed the device to Emma. “You see that shot right there?”
Emma took in the struggling plants and wilting flowers depicted on the handheld screen. “Yes.”
“Do you recognize it?”
“Should I?” Emma asked, searching the picture closely.
“That section right there”—Nancy pointed at the phone screen and then again toward the calendar-worthy picture on the wall—“is this section less than twelve months later.”
She tried to recover her wince lest it seem unkind, but she was a beat too late. “Oh. Wow.”
“That’s what you get when someone who doesn’t care a hoot about plants vows to take care of them.”
“Wow,” Emma said again, earning her a raised eyebrow from Nancy in return.
“Surely you’ve seen the difference with your own two eyes while walking around the square this year, yes?” Nancy prodded.
Had she? She wasn’t sure. Still, Nancy was clearly waiting for her answer.
“I think it’s safe to say, I’ve been a little distracted this year. But looking at these pictures now? It’s clear there’s a big difference.”
“A huge difference,” Nancy corrected. “Monumental, in fact.”
Emma nodded her agreement. “Did some sort of bug do that? Because if it did, I don’t want it anywhere near my plants.”
“No, a green-eyed monster did that . . . Neglect did that . . . Inexperience did that . . . An inflated sense of self-importance did that . . . Take your pick.” Nancy shot up her hands in disgust. “They all point to the same place—the same person, anyway.”
“Oh?”
“Some people crave the limelight. Some need it so badly they can’t handle someone else having it even for a little while. And when people don’t recognize jealousy for what it is, you get”—again, Nancy moved her finger between the framed photograph and the one on the rapidly dimming phone screen—“this.”
Emma looked back at the framed photograph long enough to pick out the same exact corner of the town’s gazebo that was shown on the phone. Same angle, same section of landscape, yet everything else was different. “Wait. Did someone have a problem with you getting all the attention for last year’s award?” she asked.
“If by someone you mean the mayor’s wife, yes.”
“Mayor Dalton’s wife?”
Nancy’s hand practically flew to her chest in shock. “Theresa? Good heavens, no. Theresa was grace personified. Twenty-four/seven. She gave her time to groups she truly cared about, regardless of her husband’s political career.”
Emma nodded at the information that matched with what she knew but stopped as her thoughts circled back around to Nancy’s words. “So, then, I take it you must be referring to the new mayor’s wife, Rita?”
“What was your clue? The green-eyed monster part or the inflated self-importance?”
“Um . . .” She sensed Scout getting cozy at her feet. A glance down served as confirmation. “Actually, you said ‘the mayor’s wife’ and since you weren’t referencing the former mayor I figured it must be the new one.”
“Voting that woman into office was a huge mistake for this town, you mark my words,” Nancy said, her finger pointed as if to admonish. “Huge. She doesn’t care about this town.”
“You mean voting her husband into office . . .”
“No. I mean her—Rita. People in this town wanted change and they got it, alright.”
“Not a fan, I take it,” Emma mused.
“Of the mayor himself? I can’t really say. It’s too early to know. But his wife? Positively not. That woman fancies herself living in the White House one day and Sweet Falls is merely a stepping-stone on her path to get there.”
She let Nancy’s words marinate for a moment and then did her best to bring the conversation back to the picture on Nancy’s phone. “So what did Rita do to make the square go from the way it looked last year to this?”
“She only joined our committee in the months leading up to the election. For show, clearly. But everyone knew her husband was running and the thought of cozying up to someone like that—just in case—was appealing to a handful of our members. As a result, when she started whispering things in those same members’ ears, they listened.”
“What kind of things?” Emma asked.
“Like, why was I getting all the press? Why was I getting the accolades from the town council? She said it was a committee effort and I was but one member. It was ridiculous, of course, because”—Nancy spread her arms wide to indicate the gardening shop and the grounds outside its walls—“this is what I do for a living. But the damage was done. Suddenly, at the meetings, conversations stopped when I arrived. Eyes rolled when I spoke. Suggestions I made for things we could do in the future were stepped on or ignored completely.”
“Oh, Nancy, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I guess I’m even more out of the loop on the inner workings of this town than I thought.”
“Be glad you are because it was awful, it was hurtful, and it was completely uncalled for.” Nancy slid off the stool, pushed it back into its spot beneath the counter, and began to pace from the register to the accordion screen and back again. “So I quit, and I wished them the best of luck in trying to bring home another award for the town. And, as you can see, based on this picture”—Nancy tapped her phone screen back to life in Emma’s hand—“there was absolutely zero chance of that happening.”
“Why would they let it get to that, though?” Emma asked.
“Because the woman who set all the ugliness in motion doesn’t care about plants. She never did. She only joined the group when her husband set his sights on running for mayor—so it would look like she was involved in our community. And pushing me out made it so she could get any residual press from the award.”
Emma looked again at the phone. “But this looks awful.”
“You’re right. It does. Which is why the letters to the editor started pouring in.”
“Letters to the editor?” Emma echoed.
“You don’t read the paper much, do you?”
She felt her face flush with embarrassment. “Not really, no. And when I do, it’s the frivolous stuff.”
“I guess that explains why you’re here, then.”
“Excuse me?”
Nancy waved aside Emma’s question. “To answer your original question, the letters were all versions of the same thing. Why does the square look so bad? What happened to the way it looked last year? Surely the tax dollars this town pilfers from its residents each year can pay for some decent flowers. And on and on it went until someone with a brain in their head put two and two together.”
“Meaning, you were the missing link between last year and this year?”
Nancy beamed. “Exactly.”
“That had to feel good.”
“It should have. And it did for a little while. Right up until that awful—well, there’s no need to discuss any of that unpleasantness now. What’s done is done.”
“My great-aunt Annabelle used to say that same thing—what’s done is done,” Emma said. “I remind myself of those words whenever I need to let something go in order to move forward.”
“Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
With one last look at the sorry state of the town square’s once-prized flower beds, Emma handed the phone back to Nancy and then reached inside the back pocket of her jeans for the notes she’d made before loading Scout into the car. “So . . . what would you suggest for a flower bed at the base of my front steps? Something that will give a little splash of color and not lose it too soon?”
“Full sun for the majority of the day?”
She weighed the woman’s question in relation to the appropriate answer. “Late morning to early afternoon . . .”
“Late morning to early afternoon,” Nancy repeated. “Well, let’s look at the possibilities, shall we?”
With well-honed efficiency, Nancy swapped the phone for a navy-blue binder while Emma glanced back at the door and its view of the still-empty parking lot. “I can’t believe how empty this place is. It’s always packed when I come.” The second the words were out Emma wished she could recall them. Not because they weren’t true, but because of the way they made Nancy visibly stiffen and step back.
“I-I didn’t mean that to be a bad thing,” Emma rushed to clarify in an attempt to lessen any unintended sting caused by her observation. “In fact, it’s a good thing, actually. For me, anyway. Lord knows I need all the time and all the hand-holding I can get with this kind of—”
“It’s like I said earlier; people are quick to forget.” Reclaiming her spot, Nancy turned the binder around to Emma and yanked open the cover. “Which means we’ll be back to lines here again soon. Now let’s find you some new plants, shall we?”
Chapter Nine
Emma was waiting outside the gym at five thirty Monday morning when Stephanie came around the corner, wincing and moaning.
“You okay?” Parting company with the brick wall on which she’d been leaning, Emma retrieved her bag from the sidewalk and slung it over her shoulder. “You’re moving a little slow.”
“At least I’m moving. Which is more than I was doing most of the weekend.” Stephanie stopped, released a long, labored sigh, and nudged her chin and Emma’s attention toward the gym. “There should be a warning on that door. Something like Inability to move may occur or, even better, Working out is bad for your health.”
Emma’s answering laugh filled the otherwise quiet dawn. “Oh, come on, you’re really that sore after Friday’s workout?”
“You’re not?” Stephanie asked, staring.
“No, of course not. It was just the treadmill.”
Stephanie’s mouth gaped. “Just the treadmill? Seriously? I walked six miles!”
Her laugh led to a snort and, thanks to Stephanie’s rapidly widening eyes, another laugh. “Stephanie, you walked point 6 miles. As in just a scootch over one half of one mile.”
“I saw a six . . .”
“You did. You just missed the decimal point in front of it, apparently.” At Stephanie’s silent display of horror, Emma laughed and tugged her toward the door. “But today, we’re going to put an actual number in front of that decimal point.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, you are going to walk a whole mile.”
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can.”
“I won’t be able to move for days!”
Emma opened the door and gently pushed Stephanie inside. “Of course you will. The more you do, the more used to it your legs will get. And then, before you know it, you will be walking six miles.”
“Bite your tongue!”
She guided Stephanie over to the front desk, showed the attendant her ID, waited for Stephanie to locate hers in her bag, and then led the way to the locker room. “So how was your weekend? Do anything fun?”
Stephanie looked at Emma as if she had sprouted three heads. “I wasn’t able to move, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” She found two empty lockers next to each other, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and shoved her bag through the first of the two doors. “So what did you do?”
“I watched a few movies, ate my way through a bag of potato chips, and, after about the hundredth disgusted sigh from my mother, started perusing the meager rental house market.”
Emma took a spot on a nearby bench and watched as Stephanie riffled through her bag for a brush and a hair tie, only to put the brush back, unused. Seconds later, when the woman had the hair tie in her hands and began looking around the floor, and in the open locker, and on the bench beside Emma, Emma pointed her back to the bag and the brush with a grin.
Stephanie was, in a word, a disaster. But in a sweet, scatterbrained, endearing sort of way. “You’re looking for a place?”
“I’ve been looking for years. Mostly in spurts born of my mother’s conviction that I’ll never find a man living at home with her.” Stephanie finished with her brush, popped it back inside her open bag, and sank down onto the bench a few feet from Emma. “But seeing as how I’m forty, still living at home, and”—she swept a hand toward herself—“look like I’m ten years older than I am, I think that ship has long since passed.”
“Whoa, now. This is a no-trashing-yourself zone.”
“Just stating facts.”
Emma pushed off the bench and stood, arms crossed, in front of Stephanie. “First up, you don’t look ten years older than you really are. You just look tired.”
“Because I am. Always.”
“Next, forty is not too old to find love. Two of my aunts found their soul mates in their fifties.”
“Were they living at home with their mother?”
“Well . . . no. But you just said you’re looking to move out.”
“Looking and doing are two very different things. At least that’s what my mother says.”
“And she’s right. It is. But you wanted to start getting fit and here you are, right?” Emma countered. “That’s doing.”
Wincing, Stephanie stood. “Is it really? Because it feels more like I’m dying a slow, painful death, quite frankly.”
“You’re not. It just feels that way. For now.” Emma plucked Stephanie’s bag off the bench, stuffed it in the empty locker next to her own, and beckoned toward the door. “Come on, let’s do this.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll be glad you did when we’re done.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“Okay, then come because you’re paying me to work out with you, remember?”
Rolling her eyes, Stephanie followed Emma out the door and into the workout room. “I could always just fire you.”
Emma froze en route to the treadmills. “You’re going to fire me because you don’t want to walk on a treadmill?”
“Part of me wants to say yes.” Stephanie glanced down at herself and then up at the handful of women scattered about the room in their workout gear. “But another part of me knows I need to do this.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you need to do this?”
“Because dropping dead of a heart attack on a treadmill will look better than dropping dead of a heart attack while stuffing potato chips down my face.”
More than a few heads turned in their direction as Emma laughed. “Has anyone ever told you you’re pretty funny?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Stephanie’s gaze moved beyond Emma to the bank of treadmills. “We could always move this to the coffee house down the street. Less distractions.”
“Nah. We can talk here. While we’re getting fit.”
“We can talk here while we’re getting fit,” Stephanie repeated, mimicking her. “Man, has anyone ever told you that you’re a real buzzkill, Emma Westlake?”
Emma grinned. “Maybe. But that’s okay. I can handle it.” She motioned Stephanie over and onto Friday’s treadmill and then nudged her chin at the control panel. “You remember what to push?”
“I remember what to push to stop . . .”
“Then I’ll show you again.” And she did. Button by button, Emma painstakingly walked Stephanie through the start-up process. They argued about the program (Flat. No, hills!), and the speed (A casual stroll. No, a trot!), but eventually, they were moving. “What kind of house are you wanting?”
“I . . . can’t . . . talk . . . and . . . do . . . this,” Stephanie said, huffing. “Not . . . if . . . you . . . want . . . me . . . alive . . . to . . . pay . . . you.”
“Fine. I’ll talk. My weekend was—”
“Wait . . . Friday evening news . . . Dead guy . . . They say it was . . .”
Emma ratcheted up her speed to a slow run. “Murder. I know. I saw the same report.”
“Are . . . you . . . freaked out? They . . . could . . . have . . . gotten . . . you . . . too . . .”
She considered Stephanie’s words, discarding them immediately. “No. Whoever it was wanted Brian dead. Just like he said.”
“Just . . . like . . . he . . . said?” Stephanie slanted a glance in Emma’s direction. “Explain . . . that.”
Emma looked to the empty treadmills beyond Stephanie, and then turned and looked at the empty treadmills to her right. When she was satisfied no one was lurking within listening range, she decreased her speed a notch. “That night? Before he went onstage? Brian gave me a piece of paper with pictures of four people he said wanted him dead.”
“Talk about a . . . strange dating technique . . .”
“It wasn’t a date, remember?” Emma said. “He hired me to be there in the audience for him during Open Mic Night.”
“Oh. Right. I guess I just . . . have a hard time . . . imagining there are others as desperate as me. I thought I was one of a . . . kind.”
Emma looked from Stephanie to the empty handrails and back again. “Don’t look now, but you’re actually pumping your arms and you’re not huffing and puffing nearly as much as you were a few minutes ago.”
Stephanie looked down at her machine, the shock on her face unmistakable. “Huh . . . Would you look at that.”
“See? I told you you’d get used to it.” It was fast, and it was fleeting, but still, Emma caught Stephanie’s quiet grin. “And soon, you’ll get used to the stair machine, and the rowing machine, and the weights, too.”
“Hmmm. Perhaps the wrong person was murdered at Deeter’s,” Stephanie quipped.
“Ha. Ha.”
Turning her finger in a let’s move it along circle, Stephanie took command of the conversation. “Getting back to the other night . . . at Deeter’s . . . this paper you mentioned. Do you think any of them were actually there that night?”
