A Murder Between the Pages

by Amy Lillard

  “You read the book,” Helen said. “Wally’s book.”

  “Yes.” Sam had joined their little group for a while and had read Missing Girl right alongside them.

  “Is there or is there not a similarity between the Mary Kennedy case and the missing girl in the book?”

  He shot Arlo an apologetic look before answering. “Well, yeah.”

  Fern gave a satisfied nod. “See?”

  “Missing—missing,” Arlo said. “Of course there are similarities, but that doesn’t mean that you have to bother a me—an elderly citizen of our community without true provocation.” She had been about to say “mean old lady” but stopped herself just in time. Judith Whitney might just be the meanest person in Sugar Springs, as well as the wealthiest, but there was no reason to be rude about it.

  “But if she knows something…” Fern pressed.

  “I heard that she can’t walk, talk, or even write,” Helen added. “Whatever she knows could be locked inside her mind forever.”

  “Elly.” Arlo chastised her, managing to contain most of her protest over her guardian’s dramatic statement.

  Arlo took a deep breath and tried again. “If that’s the case, there’s no use going out there at all.”

  “Pah.” Fern waved a dismissive hand. “Rumors.”

  “That was from the beauty shop,” Camille reminded her.

  Camille and Helen managed to go to the beauty parlor every Friday. They said it was to keep up their hair, but Arlo was certain it was to find out Sugar Springs’s latest gossip. Though in all fairness, she knew it was hard for Helen to maintain her fire engine red ends.

  They mulled it over for a moment, each taking in what they knew and piecing it together.

  “How ironic that she hired a nutritionist to improve her health, then turned around and had a stroke not a week later,” Fern mused.

  “Too little too late.” Camille nodded, though her mouth was turned down at the corners.

  “Money can’t buy you everything,” Arlo pointed out.

  “Just someone to take care of you when need it the most,” Helen said.

  They all nodded at that one.

  Sam sidled closer to Arlo. “Did I miss something?” he asked.

  “Nope. Sometimes they’re hard to keep up with.”

  “But if she can’t talk,” Camille started again. “She probably has another way of communicating.”

  “Maybe, but why would she know anything at all about Mary whoever, anyway?” Arlo interjected.

  All three of them turned and stared as if she had lost her mind. Two heartbeats passed before they turned away.

  “They think you’re crazy,” Sam murmured so only she could hear. His small chuckle took any sting from the words.

  “Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned him, though her mouth twitched at the corners.

  “I really need to go out there and talk to Haley too.” Fern said with a nod.

  “We need to talk to Haley,” Helen corrected.

  “That’s what I said,” Fern grumped.

  “Why do we need to talk to Haley?” Arlo asked, ignoring Sam’s muffled sniggers. He was enjoying this way too much.

  “She asked us to,” Helen said by way of explanation.

  “Haley asked you to come out to the mansion.”

  “That’s right,” Camille said.

  “Haley Adams whose sister works here part-time asked you to come out to Lillyfield where she works to talk about something?” Arlo asked. “What?”

  Fern gave her an innocent look. “It seems she might have a mystery she wanted us to help her solve.”

  “And she would have contacted you why?” Arlo pressed.

  “Maybe because we’ve gotten a reputation for being good at solving mysteries,” Camille said with a whimsical smile.

  “Street cred,” Fern said in backup.

  Arlo was speechless, but it was a good thing. As Fern spoke, the bell over the door rang, and all eyes turned to the newcomer.

  “Hey, Mads.” Chloe was the first to greet Sugar Springs’s chief of police as he entered. “You want a coffee?” She asked the question but was already making him his favorite before he answered.

  “Thanks.” He caught Arlo’s eye. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure.” Something in his tone told her he wanted to keep whatever it was private, so she moved toward him even as she felt all eyes on her. They might have been something back in the day, but there was no need for gawking. Still she knew they were. All of them. Right down to Sam. Okay, maybe he had the right to be interested. After all, hadn’t she thrown Mads over for Sam, only to have Sam leave town to pursue his career after high school?

  But that was over. Years now. Mads had gone on to play football, Sam had gone to college and whatever school to become a private eye, and Arlo had stayed in Sugar Springs and opened a bookstore. Life goes on.

  “What’s up?” she asked just as Chloe passed him the to-go cup of mocha java.

  The buzz of his phone cut short his reply. He unclipped it from his belt, surveyed the screen, and sighed. “I’ve got to go. Okay if I come back by later?”

  Arlo nodded. “Sure. Be safe.”

  “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Anytime,” Chloe replied. Then he was gone.

  “I wonder what that was about,” Camille mused.

  Arlo knew one thing it wasn’t about: the missing piano teacher.

  She turned to find Sam studying her, his eyes unreadable. Could he feel it too? That small rise in tension when the three of them were together? Or was she letting her imagination run away with her? After all, prom night was ten years behind them now. They had grown up. Life goes on. Still his expression… She only had a moment to contemplate the look before the ladies’ chatter started up once more.

  “I say we drive out there and just see,” Fern said. She held up the keys to her Lincoln limo. Okay, so it wasn’t really a limo, but it was the longest town car Arlo had ever seen. In fact, she was certain there were limos with less space inside. “Arlo can pick up her books, and we can talk to Haley and see what’s up with Judith. Three birds. Who’s game?”

  Camille and Helen immediately raised their hands.

  “Let’s do it,” Helen added. “I’ve got all sorts of time before I need to be back for supper.”

  “I am not going to Lillyfield,” Arlo said as they started gathering their things. Purses and book bags, even the umbrella that Camille liked to carry when the sun got too hot.

  Arlo needed to pick up the donations, but she felt it particularly important to do that alone. Or maybe with Chloe. Certainly not with the three elderly sleuth-wannabes.

  If only there was something Arlo could say that would convince them to stay away from Lillyfield. If only.

  “You better go with them,” Chloe said when they were almost out the door. Her tone spoke volumes. Here we go again.

  Arlo sighed. “I’ll get my purse.”

  Fern, Camille, and Helen cheered.

  They all climbed into Fern’s Lincoln with room to spare. Arlo briefly wondered what it cost to fill the beast with gasoline but pushed the thought away and got down to business. The business of dissuading the ladies from bothering Judith Whitney. Like any of Arlo’s efforts had proved fruitful to date. You couldn’t blame a girl for trying.

  “Do you really see a connection between Mary Kennedy and Missing Girl, or do you just want to solve another mystery?” she bluntly asked.

  “I can’t believe you would ask us that,” Helen harrumphed from the front seat.

  Fern nodded as she caught Arlo’s gaze in the rearview mirror. From the slant of her eyes alone, Arlo could tell that Fern was frowning. “I think you don’t want to see the similarities because you don’t want to have to worry about us trying to solve the case. You worr
y too much, you know.”

  “Hear, hear,” Helen said.

  “Of course, discovering who actually killed Wally was sort of thrilling,” Camille admitted.

  Which told her everything and nothing. She knew there weren’t actual similarities between the book and the case besides the general inspiration Wally used to write a great story. But she also knew the book club ladies would do anything to make a mountain out of a molehill when it came to finding a new crime.

  “If you want to go digging around and trying to figure out who killed Mary Kennedy, that’s fine I guess.” Arlo tried to make her voice sound as dull as possible. As if finding out who murdered Mary Kennedy would be the most boring thing ever.

  “It’s a free country,” Fern reminded her. As if she had forgotten.

  “And we don’t know if she’s even dead, love. Just missing.” Camille gave her a sly smile. “But if she is dead, don’t we owe it to her to find her body and lay her to rest?”

  “I suppose.” Arlo sighed. “But I don’t think bothering one of Sugar Springs’s most upstanding citizens is the best way to go about it.”

  “Lillyfield was the last place she was seen alive,” Camille reminded her.

  The others nodded.

  “Fifty years ago. And you really believe Wally’s book holds the answers to her disappearance?” Her tone did its best to convey that she thought it entirely unlikely.

  “Yes!” the three ladies said simultaneously.

  “How?” Arlo challenged. “And I’m talking more than just the word missing.”

  Helen turned in her seat to better look at Arlo as she spoke. “You’ve read the book. All the things he mentions. The diner.”

  “Name me one small town without a diner,” Arlo demanded.

  But Helen wasn’t listening. “One stop light in town. The Red Devil high school mascot.”

  “We’re the Blue Devils,” Arlo reminded her, but Helen was lost in her own reasoning, ticking off the similarities as she saw them.

  “The old cemetery, the theater in town. Even two rival grocery store owners.”

  “Those are details that could have come from anywhere.” Most all the writers she had ever talked to used bits of their personal lives to embellish their stories. A different kind of write what you know scenario.

  “But they came from Sugar Springs, love.” Camille patted Arlo on the knee.

  “That’s what I’m saying. Just because those things are part of Sugar Springs it doesn’t mean that the rest is.”

  “It’s too much of a coinkidink,” Fern interjected from the front seat. “Because those things are part of Sugar Springs, and we have ourselves a missing girl here. Well, it just stands to reason.”

  Round Two to the Book Club.

  “And when we get to the house, let me do the talking,” Fern instructed.

  “Why do you get to do all the talking?” Helen and Fern seemed to constantly be locked in a battle of who ran the book club. As far as Arlo could see, the power was really Camille’s.

  “You’re too tall,” Fern stated. Helen was a very tall woman. “An intimidating business owner. I’m just an aging housewife.”

  Who probably worked for the CIA at its inception.

  “And what are you going to say?” Camille asked, her lilting accent a little stronger with the excitement of solving a new mystery.

  “I’m going to ask whoever opens the door if Mrs. Whitney is available and if we could possibly speak to her.” Fern’s car slowed as she neared the large iron gates that blocked the winding drive to Lillyfield. The gates remained closed as the ladies waited for someone inside the mansion to open them.

  “You will not,” Arlo demanded.

  “I hope it’s not that same girl who came into the bookstore.” Camille made a face.

  A new Lillyfield employee had come into the store a few short weeks ago. She had wanted a book and had been put out that Arlo didn’t have the exact one she was looking for. Arlo had ordered it of course, but not without getting a dressing down on the importance of having a customer’s needs in stock. Arlo had smiled politely, nodded understandingly in all the right places, then gently escorted the woman to the door, praying all the while that it would be the last she would see of her.

  “Won’t be,” Helen said with confidence. “She was here cooking for Judith, but I’m guessing she’s gone now. Not much to worry about when everything is pureed.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Fern said. “But she was”—she searched for a word—“forceful.”

  Got it in one. The cook/nutritionist that Judith had hired could have doubled as a bodyguard. She rivaled Helen in stature, but unlike Helen, this woman wore a perpetual frown to go with her suspicious eyes.

  “What was her name?” Helen mused.

  “Pam,” Arlo supplied with certainty. It wasn’t a name she was likely to forget anytime soon.

  “What’s taking so long?” Camille asked. She peered around the front seat to get a better look around the gates and up the drive leading to Lillyfield.

  “Pam?” Fern asked. “She didn’t look like a Pam.”

  Camille shrugged. “I’m sure she hasn’t always looked the same.”

  “True.” Helen nodded. “The gates are open.” She nudged Fern, who was half turned in her seat in order to talk to Camille.

  Fern whipped back around and drove the car up the winding drive to the mansion.

  Lillyfield was the biggest antebellum home in Sugar Springs. Built by Colonel Eustace Lilly in the 1840s, it was a rambling structure with several additions tacked on over the years, though no one in the Lilly family would attest to such. As with all proper antebellum homes, it was painted a soft, clean white with large black shutters and Corinthian columns that stretched from the portico to the half-moon balcony on the second floor. With two more stories stacked on top, it was an impressive structure to say the least.

  “Now remember; I’m doing the talking.” Fern locked the car and pocketed the keys.

  Helen frowned, and Camille rolled her eyes, but neither one protested.

  “I’m here for a promised donation,” Arlo reminded them. “I’ll do the talking.”

  Together they marched toward the double doors of the mansion.

  Fern used the large brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head to summon someone to the door.

  This time Helen rolled her eyes. She stepped forward and pressed the bell. The chimes could be heard even where they stood.

  “That should do it,” Camille said. They waited for someone to answer their call. After what seemed like much longer than necessary, the door finally opened.

  “Yes?” The young girl was dressed in black slacks and a white shirt. She had a small white apron tied around her waist in what Arlo supposed was the closest to a maid’s uniform that still existed these days. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and if Arlo was guessing correctly, she was in her late teens/early twenties. Maybe even the same age as Haley, who also worked as a maid in the mansion.

  “I’m Arlo Stanley,” she said. “From the Books and More in town. I got a call last week about a donation of books.”

  “Oh, hi,” she said and stepped back so they could enter. “It has been a busy day for visitors.”

  The women exchanged greetings with the young girl, and Arlo got down to business.

  “I believe I talked to Robert,” Arlo said.

  “Roberts.” The girl nodded. “He’s the house manager.”

  “Sort of like a butler?” Fern asked.

  The young maid smiled. “Sort of.”

  “Is Haley working today?” Helen asked. “Haley Adams?”

  A shadow of a frown crossed the girl’s face before her smile returned. “She’s around someplace. Do you need to speak to her?”

  “No.” Arlo shook her head. “He
r sister just works at the Books and More.” She gave a small shrug.

  “Yes, please,” Fern said, shooting Arlo a withering look. “We would love to talk to Haley.”

  “Oh.” The maid paused as if waiting for any other questions they might have. When none came, she sucked in a deep breath and expelled it quickly. Her smile widened just a bit as if realizing she might have been acting rudely and she wanted to make up for it. “Y’all can wait here, and I’ll go get Roberts. And Haley.”

  Before the book club ladies could start to question her about Judith and any connection to Wally’s book, the young girl disappeared down a hallway tucked under the wide, winding staircase.

  Arlo rocked back on her heels and waited for the inevitable.

  “I wonder where Judith is?” Fern mused, looking up toward the second floor.

  “We did not come here to bother Mrs. Whitney,” Arlo said, wondering how many times she would have to repeat herself before anyone paid her any mind.

  “If she can’t walk, how did she get up the stairs?” Fern asked.

  “Someone could have carried her,” Camille replied.

  “Or she could be down here on the first floor in a guest suite or something,” Helen said.

  “Are there any guest suites on the first floor?” Fern asked.

  “No idea.” Helen gave a shrug.

  “There’s probably an elevator,” Arlo supplied.

  “You know what?” Camille started. “I do believe you’re right. I think I read something about that in one of those pamphlet things that they give out when they host the annual barbecue.”

  “Probably not going to be a barbecue this year,” Helen lamented.

  “Probably not,” Camille agreed. “I haven’t seen any flyers for it in town. And it should be coming up here pretty soon.”

  “You would think that girl would at least have seated us in a parlor or a receiving room.” Fern looked around at the foyer where they stood. There were no chairs, and Arlo figured visitors were supposed to stand until told otherwise.

  “It’s nice here though,” Camille added.

  And it was nice. Shining marble floors, gleaming mahogany staircase, and polished oak paneling. There were small, obviously antique tables scattered around, pushed close to the walls and usually situated under a painting of some sort or another. The paintings themselves were in heavy gilded frames with small lights glowing from above them. The largest table was in the middle of the floor in the center of the star pattern made from two different-colored marble inlays. A large vase sat on the table, tall stalks of gladiolus—peach, white, and red—reached toward the ceiling. The remainder of the tables held bronze statuettes and other assorted treasures.