“She told you that?”
“Not in so many words. I guess I’m not as important as their marriage. Portia’s hoping she can convince Colton to talk to their minister.”
“Counseling might be the best way forward for them.”
“I know. Tara told me that counseling doesn’t solve problems, but it helps the client get a handle on them.”
If Jazzi was quoting her counselor, she was finding their sessions worthwhile. She’d had two so far and had mentioned to Daisy that having Lancelot, the counselor’s yellow tabby, sitting in her lap while she talked to Tara kept her more relaxed.
“I don’t want to talk about Portia anymore, Mom. Until she makes a decision one way or another, until her husband decides what he wants, there’s simply no point. We have enough to deal with here with Vi’s pregnancy. Do you think Gram will feel better about Vi and Foster on Sunday?”
“I hope so. She made a point of telling me Foster is included.”
“Do you think he wants to go? Dinner on Easter was kind of tense.”
“It’s his choice. He insists that he’ll be there right beside Vi.”
“You don’t want them to get married, do you?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Daisy told Jazzi the truth. “I’m not sure. My initial reaction was that they should wait. But watching them together and hearing their plans, seeing that they’re really ready to compromise and do what’s best for the baby, marriage could make their bond even stronger. I was young when I married your dad.”
“And you would have stayed married.”
“I would have stayed married. Your dad and I might have been young, but we understood what vows meant. I did, thanks in large part to my mom and dad. Say what you want about Gram, but she loves your grandfather deeply.”
“And he loves her,” Jazzi said with a certainty that Daisy appreciated. Daisy held out her hand and Jazzi took it. She gave her daughter a slight tug up from the bed. “We have a few more trips up and down before Vi’s car is empty.”
Jazzi groaned. But then she followed her mom down the stairs, leaving her phone behind on the bed.
* * *
Afternoon tea service was sparse on Saturday. Iris had the day off. Daisy helped Cora Sue serve while Tessa and Eva handled the kitchen. They still had half a case of baked goods, so Tessa had let up on the baking. Eva had started another batch of chicken soup, but Daisy suspected that they would have plenty left over. Daisy had just finished serving a second round of tea at a table for four when her phone played its tuba sound. She motioned to Cora Sue that she was going to take a call as soon as she saw the name on the screen—June Seachrist.
Rounding the sales counter, Daisy answered while she made her way to her office. Once inside, she closed the door.
“Hello, June. How are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Has something happened to Harriet?”
“No.” June’s voice was a bit wobbly. “I haven’t told her about this.” Harriet’s sister kept her voice low, as if she didn’t want Harriet to overhear. “Can we talk somewhere—somewhere private?”
Vi and Foster were going to his dad’s for dinner, and Jazzi was staying overnight with Stacy.
“Why don’t you come to my house? How does six thirty sound?”
“That’s fine,” June decided, her voice stronger now.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what this is about? You could go outside.”
“No. Harriet would get suspicious, and I really don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”
“Do you know my address?”
“If you give it to me, I won’t have to look it up.”
Daisy rattled it off. “I’ll see you at six thirty.”
“Thank you, Daisy.”
After Daisy said good-bye and ended the call, she wondered just what June was thanking her for.
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. At four thirty, Daisy took an early inventory. No customers had entered the tea garden in the past half-hour. Tessa was counting the receipts and gathering the bills to put in the safe. Cora Sue was sweeping the floor. At exactly five, Daisy set the alarm and they all left. She didn’t tell anyone about her meeting. What was the point?
As soon as Daisy stepped inside her house, Marjoram and Pepper met her. Pepper meowed.
“You missed me that much?” Daisy asked the two of them.
Pepper meowed again.
Daisy crossed to the deacon’s bench and set her purse there. “I suppose you two would like supper?”
Both felines must have understood the word because they pattered toward the kitchen.
Daisy laughed and followed them. She took two of their dishes from the cupboard. She fed them wet food twice a day, and they nibbled on kibble in between. Taking down a can of grain-free certified chicken cat food, she popped open the can and split it between the two dishes. Then she set them on a mat on the floor.
It was colorful and proclaimed, FEED ME OR PET ME around a huge cat face.
Deciding to change clothes, Daisy headed toward her bedroom. She exchanged her pale blue slacks and sweater for jeans and a T-shirt printed with the Lehigh University logo. Vi had bought it for her for Christmas. She also grabbed a flannel jacket. Before June arrived, she wanted to plant a forsythia bush her parents had given her for Easter.
Daisy didn’t know how long her meeting with June would last, so she went to the kitchen and grabbed a container of peach yogurt from the refrigerator.
Pepper jumped up on a stool at the island beside her. Lifting a black paw, she washed her face, every once in a while eyeing Daisy.
As usual, Daisy told Pepper her plans. “I’m going to plant a bush. Then we have a meeting. Maybe you and Marjoram can find toy mice to play with in the meantime.”
Pepper paused . . . with her paw raised. She gave Daisy one of those maybe-it’s-time-you-bought-mea-new-toy looks.
“I’ll try to find new mice next week. You’ve torn apart so many.”
Pepper resumed washing as if what Daisy had said had no consequence.
Daisy tossed the yogurt container, washed her hands, and headed out the French door. The sky had already turned a darker gray. She realized that wasn’t from dusk but rather rainy weather moving in. If she was lucky, she’d have the bush planted before a downpour and she wouldn’t have to water the new planting.
Crossing to the garage, she grabbed a shovel from its temporary spot with other garden implements just inside the side door.
Twenty minutes later, she’d planted the forsythia under her kitchen window as a light drizzle began to spritz from the sky. She was taking off her gardening gloves, when her cell phone in her jeans pocket played its tuba sound. Maybe June had changed her mind about meeting.
However, Wyatt’s number lit up on the phone screen.
“Hello, Wyatt. How can I help you?”
“I have a question about the size of the window over the sink.”
“What about it?”
“Do you want a standard above-the-sink-size window, or would you prefer a garden window that opens?”
“I never thought about a garden window.”
“I also need to know if you want a baby gate set in across the stairway at the top.”
That gate would be a necessity as soon as the baby started crawling. “I’ll go over to the garage and imagine it all. Then I’ll talk to Vi and Foster about it.”
“We have time. Think about the space, how much light you want in, and how practical you want to be.”
“All right, I will. Thank you, Wyatt.”
She would take a quick look around the garage’s second floor before June arrived. The shovel she had used to plant the bush still had dirt caked on it. She set it outside the garage door, then went inside. Carefully she climbed the stairs . . . the new treads weren’t attached yet. On the second floor, she studied the wall where the sink window would be. She also studied the top of the steps, thinking about a baby gate and
what type would be best. Wood or aluminum? Just how high should it be? That might take online research. Plucking her phone from her pocket, she snapped photos of the entire second floor. They would help when envisioning the renovated space.
Afterward, she went downstairs, careful on the wobbly treads. She was scanning the rear of the garage and taking more photos, when she heard tires on the gravel lane. Setting her phone on her car’s hood, she left the garage by the side door and spotted June’s silver sedan coming up the lane.
In the rain that was now pouring down heavier than a drizzle, Daisy quickly waved her down.
June exited her car wearing jeans, sneakers, and a jacket with its hood over her hair as Daisy explained, “I’m just looking around and taking photos. We’re going to make the second floor a small studio apartment for my daughter and her husband-to-be.” If Daisy said it often enough, maybe she’d believe it.
“So you’re going to be planning a wedding?” June asked.
“It looks like it.”
Approaching Daisy quickly, June explained, “I know I’m early, but Lauren came to sit with Harriet, so I took advantage of the opportunity.”
“I left my phone inside,” Daisy explained. “Let’s just go in the garage and get out of this rain.”
Daisy led June inside the side door of the garage. At least they had shelter in here.
June looked around, scanning the empty bay and the space in the rear. “Your second floor should be big enough for a nice little apartment.”
“I hope so. What can I help you with?”
“I don’t know how to say this,” June began, “so I’ll just say it. Harriet asked me to clean out Derek’s desk. She just didn’t have the heart to do it. I was going through all the papers, and I found a letter.”
Daisy’s heart pounded faster. “A letter to Derek?”
“No, a letter from Derek to his daughter! Lauren’s daughter Chrissy is his. I don’t know if Bradley knows or not. I don’t know whether to tell Harriet or to confront Lauren. What do you think—”
The downpour muffled any outside sounds as Daisy’s mind raced. She hardly had time to formulate any thoughts, when Lauren burst through the door with the shovel Daisy had left outside. Before Daisy could blink, Lauren whacked June over the head with it!
Chapter Twenty-one
Daisy saw the glint of crazy in Lauren’s eyes. Crazy from fear? Crazy from discovery? Crazy because she’d been out of her mind all along and no one had noticed? Rushing to June, Daisy took off her flannel jacket and held it to the wound on June’s head. Had Lauren cracked June’s skull? Would she live? How would Harriet be able to survive another loss?
Still concerned about June, Daisy almost missed Lauren’s words when she mumbled, “I knew she’d find that letter. I knew Derek kept it, but I didn’t know where. Then when I came in today to take care of Harriet, June acted really weird around me.”
“Why did you come after her? Certainly, other people will know what she saw. All secrets come out.” Daisy wasn’t about to tell Lauren that June had already admitted what was in the letter . . . that Lauren’s daughter was Derek’s.
Lauren was mumbling again, looking down at June. “I followed her, hoping to run her off the road. But there was more traffic than I expected, and I couldn’t find a good spot.”
Daisy glanced at the car hood where she’d laid her phone.
Suddenly, Lauren stared at Daisy as if her eyes were piercing straight through her. “She told you, didn’t she?”
“Told me what?” Daisy asked innocently, even though her hands were shaking, her heart was pounding, her ears were ringing. It was stress, and she had to make sure she didn’t succumb to it . . . because Lauren was most probably Derek’s killer.
“Told you that Derek is Chrissy’s father.”
Daisy kept all expression from her face. She wasn’t going to confirm or deny. That wouldn’t matter anyway since Lauren had just told her the secret. So if nothing else, maybe she could coax information from her. If Daisy survived this, she could tell the police.
Still stemming the blood oozing from June’s head, Daisy asked Lauren, “Why did you kill Derek?”
“Because he was blackmailing me,” Lauren shouted. “Originally, Harriet had in her will that her money should go to a home for unwed mothers. I’d almost convinced Harriet to change it so her estate went to Derek and Bradley. Why should that money go to a bunch of kids who didn’t know better?”
Daisy was wondering why Lauren hadn’t known better. “Was Derek blackmailing you for money?”
“No, not money. He told me if I didn’t leave his mother’s will alone, he’d reveal our secret, that we’d had an affair, that Chrissy is his daughter. And he wouldn’t tell me why a home for unwed mothers was so important to his mother and obviously to him.”
Although Daisy’s thoughts were speeding so fast she could hardly catch any, one of them fell into place. Derek might not have known about Harriet’s rape, but he did know that she was unwed when he was born. There wasn’t any point in telling Lauren that. She obviously didn’t have the compassion to understand. Apparently, Bradley hadn’t told Lauren his mother’s secret. Why not? Didn’t he trust her? Did he suspect that Chrissy wasn’t his?
Lauren came a few steps closer and suddenly raised the shovel. “Killing June will be easy. Another whack will crush her skull. But first I have to take care of you.”
Violet and her pregnancy came to mind, the wedding Daisy didn’t know if she approved of or not, Jazzi, Jonas, her aunt and Tessa . . . her parents and sister. She had too much to live for to be easy prey.
Lauren didn’t expect Daisy’s sudden movement. Lauren apparently thought she had time to bring that shovel down. Daisy scooted back away from her and ran up the stairs, feeling the new treads slip. Lauren rushed after her and brought the shovel down hard. Daisy evaded it. Almost mindlessly, she grabbed the loose stair tread above her and brought it down hard on Lauren.
In the next moment, Lauren lost her balance and fell backward down the stairs. As she groaned, Daisy ran down, fetched her phone, and got hold of the Lesche shovel that stood just inside the door.
Holding the implement to Lauren’s chest, she speed-dialed 9-1-1. After she gave her address and explained what happened in a shaky voice, the dispatcher told her to stay on the line. But Daisy’s mind cleared, and she told the dispatcher she couldn’t stay on the line. She had other calls to attend to.
The next call she made was to Jonas.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
From the space above the garage that was slowly turning into a studio apartment, Daisy heard the side door downstairs open. Jonas had left earlier to drive into town to buy paint to spray the cabinets. Violet and Foster had decided on white. After the cabinets were finished, Foster and his friends would come in to paint the walls the palest yellow.
With sunlight pouring in the plate glass window at one end of the garage, and more sunlight gleaming through the garden window over the sink, the space would be nice and bright. The shower and toilet had been set into the bathroom yesterday, and the counter and sink would arrive next week. Vi and Foster had decided to go with a double bed and an area for the baby that would be set off with a curtain. That didn’t leave much of a sitting space in the middle, but they could fit in a small sofa.
Daisy had samples of fabrics laid out across a card table. Aunt Iris was going to make curtains for the big window, a valance for the garden window, and the separation curtain for the baby. Vi, Foster, and Jazzi had met Jonas at the home improvement store to choose hardware for the cabinets.
Jonas ascended the stairs that now had treads firmly attached as well as a sturdy railing along the side. He carried a bucket of paint in each hand. “Vi, Foster, and Jazzi shouldn’t be too long. They were making their final decision on knobs and drawer pulls. I think they decided on a satin nickel finish.”
“I can’t believe in three months Vi and Foster will be married and living here.
” She thought about the cream lace dress with the empire waist that Vi had chosen for her wedding. Her baby bump probably wouldn’t be showing yet, but she’d wanted to make sure she had enough room for her and the baby.
Jonas set down the paint cans and came toward Daisy with a gentle smile. “Are you nervous about the wedding?”
“Not nervous about the wedding per se. I really have no doubt that Foster and Vi are committed now. But bring a baby into the mix, and I don’t know how they’re going to handle it.”
“How about if we take your mind off Vi and Foster for a few minutes. You told me you saw June and Harriet yesterday, and June is recovering with Harriet’s help.”
“Harriet has really stepped up. Yesterday she wasn’t even using her cane. I think she and June are thinking about getting a place together, either here or in Erie.”
“I ran into Detective Rappaport,” Jonas mentioned nonchalantly.
“Ran into?” Daisy asked with a raised brow.
Jonas chuckled. “I stopped for a cup of coffee at his favorite doughnut shop. There he was.”
“Pure coincidence,” Daisy teased.
“I knew he’d be wrapping up details. I also knew you’d be curious. He said he was going to stop by the tea garden himself to tell you. Lauren confessed and told the whole story, how she and Derek had an affair, how he’d insisted on the DNA test, how he wanted to spend time with Chrissy but she wouldn’t let him. I guess he’d had enough because when she tried to convince his mother to change her will, he blackmailed Lauren with their secret. And after Harriet’s stroke, he also blackmailed her into spending time with his mother and helping with her care. Lauren was sick of the whole situation.”
“Secrets always lead to destruction,” Daisy murmured, still horrified by everything that had happened and still having nightmares about Lauren and that shovel.
“Lauren was the type of woman who couldn’t see past her nose as far as resolving a problem. She wanted resolution. She stole some of Harriet’s Cardizem and told Harriet’s doctor that Harriet had misplaced the prescription. Then she stole some of Bradley’s atenolol that was also prescribed for high blood pressure. It wasn’t difficult to grind up all the pills and lace Derek’s cucumber sandwiches with it when they were just stored in the refrigerator. Derek had stepped out for an errand and she had the opportunity. She’s being charged with two counts of attempted murder and murder in the first degree.”
Murder with Cucumber Sandwiches Page 24
