A Vintage Death

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  Callie walked through the shop and out the back to Dorothy’s cottage, an arrangement that was very similar to her own shop and home. Dorothy’s place, however, while perfectly nice, couldn’t come close to her own; all credit, of course, being due to Aunt Mel, whose decorative renovations had turned her little house as near to a fairy tale cottage as anyone could come without a magic wand. Callie mentally thanked her aunt once again for the gift while hating how it had come about. She lifted her hand to knock, but the door opened before she could.

  “Come in, dear,” Dorothy said with a smile, though she looked tired.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Callie said. “Something new has come up that I have to talk to you about.” She waved away an offer of coffee or tea and waited until Dorothy had settled in a comfortable chair before taking another.

  “What can you tell me about Vernon Parks?” she asked, plunging right in and watching Dorothy’s face closely.

  “Vernon Parks!” Dorothy’s expression flew from surprise to disgust in a flash. “I hope you don’t have dealings with him. He’s a most unpleasant man.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “Cliff and I knew him from way back. We used to stop in his lunch place in Annapolis. Vernon owned it, but the only work he seemed to do was watch his employees like a hawk and fuss over anyone important who happened to stop in. Situated in the state capital as it was, quite a few did. He and Cliff hit it off, but I never liked the man.”

  “Why?” Callie asked.

  Dorothy drew in a deep breath. “I never trusted him. I thought he was two-faced.” She grimaced. “Which must be why he and Cliff got along, though I didn’t realize that at the time. They might have seen elements of themselves in each other, elements that they both admired.”

  “Did Parks know what you thought of him?”

  “I’m sure he did! I caused him a good amount of trouble.”

  “Really? In what way?”

  Dorothy shifted a pillow behind her back with a slight wince. “Eating at his place as often as we did, I saw a lot of what was going on. I looked the other way with most of it. But then I reached my limit.” She starting coughing and turned toward an end table. Callie saw the glass there was empty and jumped up to refill it for her.

  “Thank you, dear,” Dorothy said after a few sips. She cleared her throat. “Allergies,” she said, adding with a wry smile, “on top of everything else.” She set her glass down and resumed her story.

  “Vernon Parks had bought the place just a year earlier from a lovely couple who had built up its reputation but were ready to retire. They asked that Vernon retain their employees, one of whom was a very sweet and efficient lady in her fifties. Over the next few months I noticed new workers appearing but didn’t think about it too much. Restaurant people tend to move around, and maybe some found better opportunities.

  “But then one day, when I was there without Cliff, Francine, the sweet woman who’d waited on us so often, told me it was her last day there. She had tears in her eyes, so with a little pressing I learned that it wasn’t her choice to leave. Vernon Parks apparently wanted younger, prettier waitresses and had been systematically replacing those who didn’t measure up to his standards. I saw red when she told me that, and I advised her that it was discrimination and she could sue. I even gave her the name of a lawyer who would take her case.”

  “Good for you. But Parks knew what you’d done?”

  “He did, and I didn’t care. I had to find another place for my lunch, but it was a small price to pay.”

  “I think Vernon Parks saw to it that you paid a much higher price.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Callie told her what the Mapleton police deputy had shared with Brian. “Also, Parks wants to buy the Foxwood Inn, according to Paula. I think he saw a double opportunity when Cliff was murdered: to get revenge on you, and also to put you in a position to have to sell the inn in a hurry at a bargain price.”

  “That horrible man!” Dorothy’s hands curled into fists against her lap. “Could he have murdered Cliff as well? With my scissors?”

  “He has a good alibi, so unfortunately, no. But at least you see what’s been working against you.”

  “Yes, but what do I do about it?”

  That question, Callie had to admit, she couldn’t answer.

  Fourteen

  C allie was about to leave when she remembered what else she’d meant to run by Dorothy: Renata Moore’s disparaging remarks.

  “One more thing,” she said. “If you’re not too tired?”

  “I’ll be less tired after a few sips of the raspberry iced tea that I just remembered Jane’s set in the refrigerator,” Dorothy said, a twinkle appearing in her eye. “And pour yourself some, too,” she added as Callie got up.

  The tea was bracing and very tasty, Callie found, and she watched Dorothy enjoy it for a few moments before launching into her next query.

  “Renata Moore has implied that she’s known you a long time. Is that true?”

  Dorothy closed her eyes briefly and sighed. “And what has she been saying about me?”

  “Something about having always known there was a bad side to you.” Callie winced as she said it. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be. I’m not the least surprised. Or offended anymore. We both were appalled to find ourselves in the same location again. Renata has disliked me for years.”

  “What, you set a lawsuit on her, too?”

  Dorothy laughed. But the laugh started a fresh fit of coughing that even her iced tea couldn’t help. When she could speak, she said, “Jane can tell you about it.” She began to cough again.

  “Of course,” Callie said, getting up. “I hope you feel better.”

  Dorothy lifted one hand in acknowledgment as her other hand tried valiantly to muffle her coughs. “I’ll be fine,” she managed to gasp.

  Callie returned to the vintage sewing shop, knocking twice as she walked in to alert Dorothy’s cousin.

  “Did you get what you needed?” Jane asked, looking up from where she sat behind the counter. An opened magazine lay in front of her, indicating that business was still painfully slow.

  “Not everything. Dorothy needed a break, but she suggested you could tell me about her relationship with Renata Moore.”

  “Oh, Renata!” Jane said, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she shook her head. “I didn’t recognize the woman at first. She’s gained a lot of weight over the years. She was Renata Gunderson when I knew her.”

  “When was that?”

  “Years ago. We were all in school together, though I was a year behind Renata and Dorothy.”

  “And they didn’t get along?”

  “It was much more than that. Renata was horrible, and the funny thing was she didn’t need to be. She had a lot of advantages, if she’d only recognized them.” Jane sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time,” Callie said. Her cell phone hadn’t dinged with any texts from Tabitha. “And it doesn’t look like we’ll be interrupted by customers.”

  “No, it doesn’t, does it?” Jane agreed wryly. “Well, all right.” She shifted in her chair. “Pull up a stool and get comfortable.”

  With a final glance toward the door, Jane began. “Renata’s father headed the bank in our little town. Dorothy’s father—my Uncle John—owned a modest but very nice shoe store. The bank held mortgages on that as well as their house, and my uncle, I was told, paid what was due faithfully each month. One year, unusually heavy rains caused a dam to break up river—a very freakish thing—and the low part of town was flooded. Uncle John’s shoe store was hit hard. His insurance didn’t cover that kind of damage, and the financial loss was devastating. He fell behind on his mortgage payments, and the bank foreclosed immediately.”

  Jane heaved a long sigh. “My uncle’s health declined, pa
rtly from the stress, I’m sure, and the family struggled but somehow kept going, though it was tough. We were all in high school by this time. Renata surely knew all of this, but she still felt a need to make nasty remarks about Dorothy’s drab secondhand clothes or the fact that she wasn’t participating in certain costly school events. She’d say it as if Dorothy was doing it all on purpose, as some sort of disrespect for the school.”

  “Wow! Why would she do that?”

  Jane shrugged. “Who knows? As I said, Renata had her advantages coming from her well-off family, and she did okay in school as far as I knew. But Dorothy, for all her struggles, managed to do a little better. She won scholastic prizes and she was well-liked just for herself. Perhaps Renata thought she deserved to have it all and couldn’t stand that she didn’t? Anyway, Renata tried to put down Dorothy every chance she got.”

  “And how did Dorothy deal with it?”

  “Well, she hated it, of course. She told me once that the only thing that kept her from slapping Renata outright was that she couldn’t bear to add more stress to her parents by causing trouble.”

  “So she swallowed it?”

  Jane nodded.

  “Tough on a teenager,” Callie said.

  “And maybe a bad habit to get into—not standing up for yourself, I mean. I sometimes wondered if it was why she put up with Cliff as long as she did.”

  Callie raised an eyebrow. “Good point,” she said. “You’re a very wise woman.”

  Jane flushed at that. “I don’t know about that. What wisdom I might have was a long time in coming. What’s that saying? Old too soon and smart too late?”

  Callie smiled. “Probably true of a lot of people.” Had she, for one, grown smart too late regarding Hank? She wasn’t exactly old, but … her phone dinged and she saw that Tabitha had sent a message. There was a call from a supplier that she needed to deal with quickly. “I’d better go. Thank you for sharing this.”

  Jane nodded.

  “How long are you planning to stay, by the way?” Callie asked as she returned her stool to its original place. “Your plan had been for a short visit, I think, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. But I can easily stay as long as Dorothy needs me. I’m a widow, you know, and my children are grown. They’re the dearest thing in the world to me, but they have their own lives now, so my time is my own.”

  Callie remembered Dorothy telling her that Jane’s two daughters and son lived close to her. But it also seemed as though Jane had made her unannounced visit because of some sort of problem at home. Or perhaps that was just an impression from when she’d first met her? Since Jane had offered no subsequent hint of this, Callie could only suppose that the problem, if there was one, had been either minor or resolved. She thanked Jane again and headed back to the music box shop to deal with whatever problem awaited her there, hopefully one that was very, very minor.

  Callie was mulling over the Vernon Parks situation later that afternoon, during a quiet time at the shop, when her phone rang. It was Laurie Hart, one of her volunteers for the book event. From the tone of Laurie’s voice, Callie knew something was wrong and braced herself.

  “I called the bookstore,” Laurie said. “Just to double check that we were all on the same page? Well, guess what? They canceled their huge order of Lyssa Hammond’s books!”

  “What!” Callie had to sit down. “Why?”

  “They said you called and told them Lyssa was sick and that the event was called off.”

  “What are they talking about? I never called to say any such thing. We have to have those books! Did you tell them to reorder?”

  “I did. But they say it’s too late to get them in time. What are we going to do?”

  Callie groaned. All the arrangements had been made, including ads in the papers, shops staying open extra hours, decorations, refreshments, music, and plenty of people planning to show up who would not be happy, to say the least. “Let me call them.”

  “Good luck,” Laurie said, though the way she said it made it sound highly unlikely.

  Callie quickly got the bookstore manager on the line.

  “I’m so sorry if there was a misunderstanding,” the woman said, sincerely. “But when you called to tell us the book event couldn’t happen, we had to cancel the books. We just couldn’t afford such a large order without the guaranteed sales.”

  “But I didn’t call, and Lyssa isn’t sick!”

  “Oh, dear. I didn’t take the call myself, but my clerk seemed convinced it was you. Or maybe she said it was someone representing you. I’m not sure. But I’m really, really sorry. If I could get that many books in such a short time, I would. It’s just impossible.”

  Callie groaned again, but this time silently. It wasn’t the bookstore’s fault. Someone had sabotaged them both. Who that was, she intended to find out. But not just now. First she had to tell Lyssa.

  Lyssa picked up, sounding in her usual good spirits, and Callie took a deep breath, knowing what she had to say would change that.

  “We’ve got a problem,” she said, and explained.

  She was met with deep silence from the other end. After a few moments, she rushed into an apology. “I’m so sorry, I should have—”

  “No, no,” Lyssa said, stopping her. “I was just trying to remember where my boxes of books were right now. Things have been shifted around so much with the remodeling going on at the house.”

  “You have books?”

  “Of course I have books!” Lyssa said with a quick laugh. “I just don’t carry them around with me. And I’m not sure how many copies I have of each book. I might have to scramble a bit. Let me think. Maybe my publisher could send some directly? If only it wasn’t a weekend. I’m not sure there’ll be time. Other bookstores, maybe? But I’ll check at home first. Give me this bookstore’s number. I’ll need to talk to them before I take off.”

  Callie’s spirits started to lift. She recited the number.

  “Got it. Don’t worry. We’ll work something out, even if it’s having to give out vouchers. But we have to figure out who made that phony phone call.”

  “Right. Whoever it is has put you to a lot of trouble. But that wouldn’t have been the motive,” Callie said.

  “Exactly. Someone wants to pull us away from looking into Ashby’s murder.”

  Callie heard Grandpa Reed’s music box give a trill behind her. This time she didn’t think twice about the reason. Things were getting dicey if a murderer was aware of her actions and moving to put a stop to them. I’ll be careful, Aunt Mel, she promised. But if you could give me a hint about what to look out for, it’d be very helpful.

  “I’ll call you when I know more,” Lyssa promised.

  “Yes,” Callie said. “And I’ll do the same. Stay safe,” she added, but Lyssa had already clicked off.

  Fifteen

  As she prepared to close the shop for the day, Callie spotted a small pile of mail that must have arrived while she’d been at Stitches Thru Time. Tabitha apparently had sorted out the junk and left the rest on the back office desk as usual, though the events of the afternoon had kept Callie from noticing. She flipped through the pile.

  Among the various invoices and catalogues, one hand-addressed envelope stood out. The sloppy printing would have been enough for her to identify the sender, but the return address sticker (with an incongruous teddy bear decoration) confirmed it. Something from Hank.

  Callie sighed and reached for her letter opener. Inside was a single sheet of paper—a bill. It was for Hank’s snakeskin boots. Gotta take care of this soon! he’d scribbled on a Post-it note stuck at the top.

  “Then do it!” Callie cried out to the walls. What next? A bill from Hank’s barber because she’d once said that he needed a decent cut before performing? Or from the grocer because she’d once suggested that choices beyond his steady diet of pizza and chicken wings w
ould be good for his voice?

  Callie knew Hank was having a hard time getting past their break-up. It had caught him unawares, probably because he was unaware of almost anything beyond his band and video games. But she doubted that she’d actually broken his heart, as he liked to claim. What she’d mainly upset was the routine he’d grown comfortable with and expected to continue with little effort on his part. He didn’t like that change. And this was his way of getting back at her, she supposed. Well, good luck with that.

  She crumpled the bill and dropped it in her wastebasket. Then she picked up the phone and pressed a number on her speed dial.

  “Hi,” she said when Brian answered. “Feel like doing something tonight? My treat.”

  As they drove into Mapleton, Callie suggested Sullivan’s just because she knew Brian liked its pub food, but he shook his head, saying, “Not tonight. How about a place where we can actually hear each other?”

  Had he sensed her need to talk? There were men who actually picked up signals from the woman they were with? Amazing. They ended up at a new place that had yet to be discovered and so had tables available. The soft music piped in was another draw, and they settled comfortably into a quiet booth. When she opened her menu, Callie found enticing choices, and the basket of crispy, seasoned flatbread raised high hopes for what was ahead.

  The only downside was their highly solicitous waiter—usually a good thing, but not when you want to discuss a subject like murder. “More water?” he asked after they’d barely taken sips. He hovered anxiously once their entrees had been served, eager to address the slightest request. Finally Brian got the message across that they could safely be left alone with a firm “We’re fine. Thanks.” He waited until the man had withdrawn to the other side of the room with more than one backward glance, then looked over to Callie. “So, what’s been happening?”