“Did you get your book done?” Paige asked.
“I’m polishing it a bit before I send it off to the publisher,” Annie said. “Did they solve the murder?”
“No,” Paige said. “The FBI talked with Sheila and Vera and that’s the last we heard of it. Now how about that strange postcard in Sheila’s mailbox? Did they find out who left it?”
“No. The trouble is Steve and Sheila were both gone when it was left. When he came home, the postcard was in the mailbox. They have no idea how long it had been there, only that it wasn’t there when either one of them left.”
“Maybe it was there longer than they knew,” Paige said.
“Steve’s been working with Bryant on this,” Annie said. “I’m sure he told him that.” She placed the last dish in the dishwasher. “How was the cruise, other than the murders?”
Paige sighed. “It was good to get away with Randy. I’m hoping he comes home. He’s thinking of changing jobs. I think he wants to leave the city.”
“That would be awesome,” Annie said. “How would Earl feel about that?”
“I’m not sure,” Paige said. “We’re making progress.”
“Did you learn any new scrapbooking techniques?”
“Oh yes. I’m sure we’ll get to that during the crop this Saturday,” Paige said. “It was really scrapbooking overkill.” She laughed.
“How is Sheila?” Annie asked after a moment.
Paige paused. “I really don’t know. She seems fine. But she has definitely been spooked by all of this. Imagine tripping over a dead body. Any dead body, let alone a woman you respect and admire. Then the concussion put a damper on the next few days. I could tell she wasn’t feeling well. But she still managed to get a few job offers.”
“Freelance?” Annie said. That, of course, is what Sheila had been hoping for. But Annie had warned her about it—people often had misconceptions when it came to freelancing. It was not as easy as it sounded and some of these work-for-hire contracts—at least for writers—were bad news. She hoped that Sheila hadn’t signed anything yet.
“I think she’s going to work with David’s Designs. She’ll have to make monthly trips to New York, but most of her work will be done from home,” Paige said.
“David’s Designs? Wow,” Annie said, sitting down at the kitchen table and fingering her new art journal. She loved this. It had become a ritual every morning to sit and work on this journal. She was producing something totally new for herself. It was so satisfying. And she was also keeping up with her Hanukkah scrapbook. She would have a lot to share with her friends on Saturday night.
After Annie and Paige said good-bye, Annie worked more on her art journal. This time, the word she painted on the page was “Home.” Traditional images of home and hearth played through her mind. But she drew waves. Waves upon waves.
When she was finished with her page, she went to her computer and checked e-mail. She noted that her request for the death report of Allie had been sent. She shrugged internally; now that her friends were home, she wasn’t certain she cared about the murder that much. But the report might be interesting to look over. She clicked on the pdf file and printed out the two reports.
Then the phone rang. It was a call from the boys’ school.
“Mrs. Chamovitz?”
“Yes,” she replied, thinking, What now?
“This is Beverly Adams, the school nurse. Ben is sick. He has a very sore and red throat and a temperature,” she said. “It may be strep. It’s going around the school.”
Poor, sweet, Ben. And damn, there goes my day, she thought. “I’ll be right there to pick him up. Thanks.”
After she dressed, she called their pediatrician for an appointment. Annie found herself hoping it was strep because antibiotics could help and within twenty-four hours her kids often bounced back. She hated for him to be sick at Hanukkah.
As she was leaving her home and thinking about the holiday, with snow coming down and all of her neighbors’ homes decorated, she once again thought about Hannah and made a mental note to send her a care package when she got to New York. Or maybe even visit her, if she could swing it.
When she finally saw her boy in the nurse’s office and how sick he looked, fear rolled through her. He was green. What had happened? He’d been healthy when she sent him off this morning—at least she thought so. This had come over him so suddenly. He stood and fell into Annie’s arms. And then threw up all over her.
Chapter 47
It was lunch time before Vera came padding down Beatrice’s stairs and into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Jon said.
“Hmph, it stopped being morning about an hour ago,” Beatrice said. “Good to see you’re still alive.”
“Thanks,” Vera mumbled. “Do I smell coffee?”
“Yes, indeed. Sit down, Vera,” Jon said.
“We just finished lunch. Plenty left,” Beatrice said, and pointed to the chicken noodle soup she’d made with the leftovers of the previous night’s chicken dinner.
“Oh, that looks good,” Vera said. Jon brought her a bowl of the soup and her mother brought her a plate of biscuits. The two of them sat down at the table with her.
“You look great. Very tan,” Jon said.
Vera smiled. “Thanks. I feel pretty good except I’m worried about Sheila. She’s not herself.”
“Of course not. A concussion is nothing to mess around with, then add to it all the trauma. . . .” Beatrice said.
“Have they found out who killed that poor woman and her lover?” Jon asked.
“I don’t think so,” Vera said. “But you know there were some very strange goings on. Mmm. The soup is so good. It almost feels, I don’t know, cleansing, after all the food I’ve gorged myself on.”
“What do you mean by ‘strange’?” Beatrice asked, leaning in a bit closer as she placed her elbows on the table.
“Well, the security guy thinks he’s a vampire, for one thing,” Vera blurted.
“What?” Jon and Beatrice said at the same time.
“Apparently, he told Randy this. You see, they went on this date.”
Beatrice didn’t know how to react to this. Of course the man must be certifiably crazy. She couldn’t find words.
“Nonsense,” Jon said after a few beats. “There’s no such thing as vampires. If the man was serious, you must report this back to the company. He’s not right in the head.”
The words “no such thing as vampires” rolled around in Beatrice’s old brain. That’s what people always said about ghosts, too. And she knew they existed. Her husband’s ghost had been with her up until a few years ago. Even now, though she couldn’t see him like she used to, sometimes she still smelled him or felt him close to her. But vampires? That was a different matter. She remembered reading about people who thought they were vampires. Wasn’t it a syndrome? Yes, she remembered—it was called Renfield’s syndrome.
“But like Sheila said, if the man thinks he’s a vampire, he may think he needs to kill,” Vera said.
“Did you tell the investigators all of this?” Beatrice asked.
“I didn’t know it at the time. I did tell them about Theresa Graves,” Vera said, and dipped her spoon back into the bowl.
“Who?” Jon asked.
“She was a woman on the cruise. She’s a big-time scrapbooker. Sheila had a meeting with her. And anyway, she came to our photo class on the island and she and this creepy guy heckled Sheila,” Vera said. “So I told the agents about it. They seemed pleased. They wrote it all down.”
“Heckled Sheila?” Beatrice said. “What?” It seemed that not everybody liked Sheila after all.
“Very juvenile,” Vera said.
“And just plain weird. Why would a grown person do such a thing?” Beatrice said.
Vera shrugged. “You know, I asked myself that a lot on this cruise.”
“I told you they were nothing but trouble,” Beatrice said.
“I know you did. But we’re home s
afe and sound. So at least there’s that,” Vera said, and took a large drink of her coffee.
“Between the weird security chief and the backbiting competitive scrapbookers, not to mention the juvenile ones, and all of the drinking, it was quite an eye opener. My God, the excess. And then the mention of Sharon Milhouse made me feel, I don’t know, creeped out, or something,” Vera said. “I’m so ready for a peaceful, relaxing Christmas break.”
Jon and Beatrice exchanged looks of concern. “What?” Vera said. “What else is going on? Don’t tell me there’s been another murder!”
“No, now calm down,” Beatrice said. “Sheila doesn’t know this yet, but when Steve came home a few days after they both had left, he found a threatening postcard in their mailbox.”
“What kind of threat? I mean, what did it say?” Vera said, her brows knitting.
“‘Die, die, die, scrapbook queen,’” Beatrice said.
Vera gasped.
“There was something else on the note. Bryant is checking it out and the forensics team in Richmond is looking at it. It may have been blood,” Beatrice said.
“Blood?” Vera paled.
“I’ve talked with Steve and Bryant about it. We’re all wondering who would have it in for Sheila.”
“Bryant? You talked with Detective Bryant?”
“Hmph. More than I wanted to,” Beatrice said, sitting back and crossing her arms. “But he hasn’t been too cocky these days.”
“That’s suspicious in and of itself,” Vera said. “Does Sheila know about any of this?”
Beatrice shrugged. “I don’t know if Steve’s told her about it yet. But we decided not to tell her while she was on the cruise. Thought she had enough to think about.”
Vera thought a moment. “Maybe so,” she said. “As far as I know, Sheila has no enemies. Unless it’s someone from afar that we know nothing about. I mean, I know everybody she does. I can’t think of anyone except Sharon and that was so many years ago.”
“I suppose Bryant is looking for her,” Jon said.
Beatrice nodded. “I hope he finds her, too.”
Vera’s spoon clanked on her bowl as she scooped up the last of her soup. “I’m sure he will. I’m sure she’s somewhere far away and there’s nothing at all to worry about. I’m putting it completely out of my mind. It’s Christmas and a joyful time of the year. I’m going to do my best to give Lizzie a good one.”
Beatrice stopped herself from rolling her eyes at her only daughter. Try as she had over the years to vanquish the Scarlett O’Hara streak Vera had, it had never gone away. Sometimes she could almost see her daughter as Vivien Leigh, putting off today what she could do tomorrow.
It had served Vera well most of her life. This time Beatrice wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 48
Sheila had just finished hanging all the Christmas wreaths in her windows. She stepped out into the front yard to see if she had them all straight. She had a very good eye for straight. The wreath that hung in Jonathon’s bedroom window seemed a bit off. She went back in, walked up the steps to his room, and fixed the wreath. When she came back down, Steve was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. One of the great things about his business was that he sometimes had a lot of time on his hands and could spend a lot of it with her.
“What are you doing, hon?” he said.
“Working on my wreaths,” she said.
“Ever hear of a day of rest?”
“You know me better than that,” she said, leaned down and kissed him. “Be right back.”
She went outside again, welcoming the cold. Being in the Caribbean sun had felt unnatural to her. She walked to the edge of her yard and looked at her house. Each wreath in each window appeared fine. But something was off. She stood there a moment, trying to put her finger on what it was. Her house was the same, but it also somehow looked different. It wasn’t simply the Christmas decorations she had added. Something was missing. Her old butter churn was gone!
She took a deep breath. Maybe Steve had done something with it.
“Steve?” she yelled toward the house.
It was a butter churn she had found at a yard sale a few years back. She had painted it and sat it on her front porch. It had been sitting there for years. She started to walk toward the house and a dark figure caught her eye as it moved around the corner. She caught a glimpse of the face—it couldn’t be! It was the creepy man from the cruise! She was certain.
What was he doing here? Well, damn if she wasn’t going to find out! He was on her turf now. She started to take off after him when her husband came out onto the porch.
“What?” he said.
She kept moving.
“Where the hell are you going?” Steve chased after her.
All her years of running were going to do her good. She’d catch him and force him to tell her what he wanted with her. Why was he in Cumberland Creek?
“There’s a man,” Sheila said. “I just saw him.”
She ran to the end of her street, her heart thrumming, blood rushing. Where did he go? She scanned Ivy Lane. Nobody was out. A car passed. She didn’t recognize the driver.
Steve caught up with her and grabbed her shoulder. “What’s going on?”
She explained about the creepy man on the cruise and how she’d seen him.
“Here?” he said. He seemed incredulous. “Did you get a good look?”
Mrs. Blackburn came walking down the street and smiled at them. “How do?” she said.
“Did you see a man dressed in a long dark coat?” Sheila asked.
“No,” she said. “I’ve not seen anybody out. Right before supper for most folks, I guess. Merry Christmas, if I don’t see you before.”
“Same to you,” said Steve.
Damn! thought Sheila. Where did he go?
“Sheila, let’s go back in the house and talk about this. I don’t see anybody at all. Are you certain you saw someone?”
She nodded as he led her back to their house. She stopped in front of it.
“Steve, what happened to my butter churn?” she said.
“Your what?”
“My butter churn. You remember, I painted it green with daisies down the front of it. We had it sitting on the front porch for years,” she said.
He looked off toward their porch. “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t even know it was missing.”
“Someone took my butter churn? Right off the porch?”
“We haven’t been home,” he said. “Maybe we should have secured it elsewhere. I didn’t even think about it. Bryant asked me if anything was missing and I told him no.”
“Bryant?” Sheila said.
“Sheila, I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you this. Let’s go inside. Seems like you’ve got something to tell me, too. Who is this man you think you saw?”
Sheila took a deep breath and told her husband about the man on the cruise ship.
Steve reddened and looked like he was about to explode, but then took a deep breath. “Sheila, I’m so glad you’re home. I didn’t like you being gone. Not one bit,” he said, and hugged her.
She didn’t tell him that she’d almost accepted a job that would require her to travel to New York City once a month. Oh, she wanted that job so bad she could taste it. Working for David’s Designs would be a dream come true.
“What’s on your mind, Steve? What is it that you need to tell me?”
He then filled her in on the postcard.
She watched her husband’s mouth form the words. And though she heard what he was saying, it somehow refused to sink in.
Die, die, die, scrapbook queen.
“Sheila?” he said after a few minutes.
Her chest pressed heavy against her lungs. She gasped for air and fell back on the couch. “Who?” she managed to say.
“We just don’t know,” Steve said. “Bryant sent it to the crime lab in Richmond. I didn’t realize anything was missing. I better call him. Are you okay?”
Sheila nodded. But she wasn’t certain she was. What was happening to her well-constructed and controlled life? She’d done everything that was expected of her and more. She was a good wife and mother, a volunteer in the classroom and community, and she had built a good business based on good products and a solid reputation. She thought she was well liked. But lately she wondered. And it had all begun when she won that scrapbooking contest. She was in the news—everywhere—and some people seemed genuinely pleased for her. Others had developed an attitude with her, like they thought she had gone beyond her upbringing. She had caught the looks and heard the chatter. She tried not to pay attention to it. But now it seemed she would have to. Someone had stolen her butter churn and placed a threatening note in her mailbox. She would have to fill out a police report.
Beyond all that, no matter what Steve believed, she was certain she’d seen the man from the Jezebel walking down Ivy Lane today.
Chapter 49
“That’s crazy,” Annie said when Vera told her that Sheila thought she saw the creepy man from the cruise. “Don’t you think?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Vera said. “But I do think it’s a stretch, even though the man seemed to be infatuated with Sheila for most of the cruise. I mean, he stared at her. Then all of a sudden he was with that Theresa, who was heckling Sheila. Then we never saw him again.”
“Maybe he wasn’t infatuated. Maybe he didn’t like her at all,” Annie said. “And we know Theresa doesn’t like her.”
“Well, whatever; Sheila noticed it and it made her uneasy even before she tripped over Allie,” Vera said.
“How is Sheila’s head?” Annie asked.
“Still bruised. But she said she was feeling better. I tell you, Annie, I’m so glad to be home. First the murder, then the storm, then the heckling.”
“But what about the rest of the cruise?”
“Eh,” Vera said. “The food was good. And so was the scrapbooking. I’ve been using doilies and making some great patterns on my pages. We also learned about gels, chalks, paints. It was fun. And it was awesome seeing Sheila get that award. She was glowing that night, you know? All these years of hard work . . .”
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