Murder Makes it Mine (Masters & McLain Mystery Book 1)

by Christina Strong

  Olivia refused to rise to that. Instead she turned away and asked, “When is he coming, Brenda?”

  “I wasn’t aware any of you knew him so well, Olivia.” Brenda looked at her appraisingly. “I thought he’d been sent off to school most of his life.”

  “That’s true, he was so gifted and his parents easily could afford to send him to that special school, but he was home for a large part of most of the summers. And every school vacation, of course.” Olivia’s face was shining. “When will he be here?”

  “Sometime next week.”

  “Oh, good. Please let me know when he gets here. I can’t wait to see him!” Olivia was aglow with the thought.

  Agnes couldn’t resist. “Oh, don’t be such sentimental fools. He’s not coming home to socialize.” She threw her companions an arch look. “He’s coming back to collect the fortune the Stoddards left.”

  Seeing Brenda blanch and the expression on Olivia’s lovely face change from fond happiness to approaching outrage, Samantha decided it was time to change the subject. ‘The girls’ were equal to the occasion, however, and the room was instantly filled with their chattering. They were all anxious to cover Agnes’s dreadful remark.

  Their charitable effort was wasted on the one they sought to shield. Her imperious voice cut through the general hub-bub. “Would it, I wonder, be in any way possible for you girls to keep your minds on Bridge long enough to finish this hand?”

  With guilty looks, and carefully hidden smiles, ‘the girls,’ keeping their eyes to themselves so nobody would laugh at how easily their friend Agnes bossed them around, hurried back to their places and picked up their cards.

  Agnes had spoken.

  Chapter Five

  Arriving home after Bridge, Samantha plopped her purse and gloves down on the narrow hall table and let out an explosive sigh.

  Jasmine Johnson came out of the kitchen, an ancient, tattered dishtowel in one hand, a spray can of furniture wax in the other. “Did you have a rough time at Bridge?”

  A grin split her handsome, dark face.

  “Hmmmm,” Samantha admitted. “Agnes Chamberlain was in rare form.”

  “My, oh, my.” Jasmine shook her head. “That lady surely can make herself unpleasant.”

  “Yes, and she can do it without even trying,” Samantha agreed. “Sometimes I wonder why we play bridge with her.” She cocked her head. “I guess it’s a case of if we don’t, who will.”

  “Just thank your lucky stars you’re not her husband.” Jasmine shook her head. “That poor man.”

  Samantha chuckled. “Yes. Everybody in the neighborhood pities poor Art Chamberlain.”

  “That woman could drive a man to drink, that’s for sure.”

  Samantha laughed. “As if Agnes would let him!”

  She riffled the stack of mail Jasmine had left for her. Distracted by a card from her children, she said, “One wonderful thing happened at Bridge, though.”

  “Oh?” Jasmine sprayed polish on her rag and ran it over the piano.

  “Brenda Talley told us that young Ben Stoddard is coming home.”

  Jasmine stopped dead, the rag and can of polish fell from her hands. Her voice shook as she turned to Samantha with quick tears in her eyes. “Wha—what?”

  Samantha startled and was instantly remorseful. Dropping the mail, she went to Jasmine and hugged her. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I’d forgotten how close you were to the boy. I should have remembered and told you the news better.”

  Samantha could have bitten her tongue for forgetting that Jasmine had worked for the Stoddards every day and even some weekends for dogs’s ages. Goodness, she’d practically raised Ben Stoddard Jr. while his parents had worked at amassing their millions. Jasmine and Olivia Charles had both been very close to the boy.

  “Benny’s coming home.” Jasmine sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a corner of her apron. “I’ve prayed so long, so hard.” She managed a watery smile. “I can’t wait to see him.”

  “It won’t be long. He’ll be here sometime next week. He’ll be staying with the Talleys.”

  “That’s wonderful news. Wonderful. We’ll have so many things to talk about. Oh, my!” Her laugh was joyous. “So many memories.”

  Samantha gave her housekeeper another quick hug. They stood and just smiled at each other at the thought of Benny Stoddard coming home.

  ***

  Half an hour later the phone rang. Samantha, in her bedroom to change, stripped off an earring and answered. “Hello?”

  It was Laura. “Hi, Samantha. I just got home from my doctor’s appointment. How did Bridge go?”

  “We all missed you. Olivia’s cousin Janet Wilson played for you.”

  “Did she mind?”

  “No, I think she was glad for a game.”

  “Maybe I should be absent more often.”

  “Silly Goose. You know she only gets to play once in a blue moon. Herb keeps her too busy at the office to play regularly.” Samantha hadn’t heard the chuckle she’d expected with Laura’s comment about playing Bridge less often. It troubled her. Her hand tightened on the phone as she asked, “What did your doctor have to say?”

  “Praise God, he said that the mole was just a common garden variety. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh.” Samantha let her breath go in a sigh of relief. “Good.” She could breathe again. She couldn’t help letting Laura hear. “I’m so glad you went. Better to go ten times for nothing than to chance missing the one time it’s something serious.”

  Laura laughed, but the sound was strained. “From the way you said that, I can tell that that was yet another of your mother’s precepts.”

  “Yep. But you’ll have to admit she was right about that one. I’m so glad it was a false alarm for you, dear. Too many women die because they don’t have things they’re suspicious about looked at by their doctor.” Still she worried that Laura sounded . . . grim. Something was bothering her friend. After a moment, she asked, “What’s the matter, Laurie?”

  “Hmmmm.” Laura’s tone changed. She stopped trying to disguise the fact that something was wrong. There was a long pause. Then, “Samantha, have you got time to slip over here for a cup of coffee? Alison’s not home yet.”

  “Sure. Be right there.” She replaced the receiver, changed into jeans and a tee-shirt and called to Jasmine. “I’m going over to Mrs. Fulton’s, Jasmine. I should be back before you’re ready to leave.” She thrust her feet into her loafers.

  “All right. If you’re not, I’ll lock up, so you take your door key.” To Rags, she said, “You come back here dog, you ain’ going nowhere.” Rags returned to her with a resentful yap at Samantha. Jasmine scooped him up unceremoniously to keep him from trotting after his mistress.

  “Good boy, Rags, stay with Jasmine.” Samantha snatched up her keys on her way out. Walking fast, she cut diagonally across her front lawn toward the tall gateway to the Fulton estate. The houses on the river had spacious grounds and qualified for that description, while all the other houses in the neighborhood were, like Samantha’s, just exceptionally nice homes on large lots.

  As she rushed through Laura’s tall iron gates, she wondered what in the world was going on. Never before had Alison’s absence—or her presence, for that matter—had anything to do with Laura and her getting together for a cup of coffee. There wasn’t anything they kept from Alison, there never had been. Now, suddenly it seemed that there might be something. It worried her.

  She hurried up the gravel drive. It was long enough to give her time to notice her surroundings, and truly they were impossible to ignore. Laura’s azaleas were in bloom and they were beautiful. Mature plants that had had the best of care, they were a heady riot of color. They swirled around the foundation of Laura’s tall Georgian mansion, filled the wide center of the circle the drive made in front of the house, and gaily bloomed here and there in islands dotted around the two acre lawn to lead one’s eye out to the wide, calm river.

  Samantha loved Laura’s yard.<
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  Crunching across the last bit of Laura’s gravel drive, Samantha ran up the steps and across the terrace to the side door that led into the kitchen. She never used the front entrance unless Laura was giving some sort of party and they all had decided to be formal. Most Southerners never did. Back doors were for good friends.

  Laura threw open the door before Samantha had even touched the knob. “Come on in. I picked up some Prince of Wales and some Earl Grey if you’d rather have tea. If so, which would you like?”

  “Earl Grey, please.” Samantha watched her friend closely. Laura was tense as she had sounded on the phone. It certainly didn’t take a close examination to see that.

  Samantha frowned. Laura had said that her visit to the doctor had been fine, so what was the matter? As the scent of bergamot wafted from the teapot, she asked, “Laura, tell me what Alison not being home yet has to do with anything.”

  Laura’s expression was troubled as she turned from the stove to face her friend. “Oh, Samantha, the vandal struck again last night, and I don’t want her to be upset about it.”

  “What did he do this time? Nobody at Bridge mentioned anything.”

  “They don’t know. I haven’t told anyone.” She turned miserable eyes to Samantha. “It was my greenhouse.”

  “Oh, no! Not your orchids.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip. “When you finish your tea, I’ll take you out to see.”

  Samantha was amazed that Laura wasn’t more upset. She had the best collection of orchids in the area and she spent a ton of money on it, not to mention hours and hours of time. Her greenhouse was always heated, the light regulated just so, the circulation of air perfect and her gardener, Mr. Pritchard, an expert on orchids. Her orchids were—next to her niece—her pride and joy.

  “Laura, tea can wait.” Samantha’s voice showed her concern. “Let’s go see your greenhouse.”

  “Great.” Relieved, Laura headed for the door.

  Samantha followed her friend. They walked across the front of Laura’s property, crossed the gravel drive, and turned to their left just inside the entrance gate.

  The greenhouse nestled in the corner against the wall that separated Laura’s property from that which had been the Stoddards’s. Long and low, it was built of the same mellow brick as the mansion and wall, and the bottom half of it was partially sunk into the ground so that the greenhouse was hidden behind the wall if one looked in from the street. A short flight of steps led down to its door.

  Moss grew emerald green velvet on the lower bricks. It made the steps slippery. Fortunately there were only a few. Then the door opened inward for easy access to the interior.

  Overhead, the glass of the roof was painted white to make the light that entered the greenhouse gentle in its profusion. Sections of the roof were free-moving panels that could be elevated to let out heat or to invite fresh air in. Inside, there were waist high tables in orderly rows, each of them eighteen inches deep and each filled with Laura’s own special mixture of fir bark, coco husk chips, charcoal and perlite.

  Nothing was too good for her orchids. Laura looked after them as if they were her children. Samantha mused that perhaps they were in a way.

  Laura and Bob had not been blessed with children of their own, so at first Laura had chosen to lavish attention on her plants instead of to give in to her heartache over her lack. Heaven knew her garden and greenhouse rewarded this devotion by becoming the envy of most of the city’s serious gardeners.

  Then fate had intervened and given Alison to Laura. Alison was Laura’s husband Bob’s orphaned niece. The love between the two of them was obvious. From the moment Alison, a frightened, grieving ten-year-old, had arrived, Samantha’s heart had been certain there was no longer any need to worry about her friend.

  Now, as they approached the greenhouse, Samantha was relieved to see that Laura’s greenhouse glass, except for a dusting of green pollen from the oaks in the yard, was perfect. The white paint that defused the light was without a break anywhere. The glass that formed the roof showed no damage, only the slight traces of scratches from twigs that had blown across it in storms.

  Samantha said, “Thank heaven the glass is intact.”

  “Yes.” Laura was holding herself tightly under control. “It could have been a lot worse.” She opened the door and descended the three inside steps to the brick floor of the partially sunken structure. There, just beyond the foot of the steps, the vandal’s work was clearly in evidence.

  Terracotta shards of smashed pots littered the floor of the greenhouse. Leaves from orchid plants were strewn among them. A pile of uprooted Cymbidiums was heaped in the doorway. Bags of Laura’s special potting soil had been cut open. Their contents had been spilled around the entire greenhouse. Into the large pile of potting soil mounded around the delicate, pale Cymbidiums, tools were stuck at odd angles.

  It looked as if maliciously mischievous children had been at work.

  Or a madman.

  Chapter Six

  Samantha was having trouble getting to sleep. After praying the Lord’s Prayer and mentioning the short list of people and things she thought needed His attention most, she was still awake. The memory of what she had seen in Laura’s greenhouse kept her tossing and turning.

  The wanton destruction of Laura’s orchids and the pile of special orchid growing medium with the gardening tools viciously stabbed into it had put her nerves on edge. Now, she lay and chided herself for magnifying every noise into something harmful—if not to her person, then at least to her garden.

  As she tossed and turned, she mulled the vandalism over in her mind, but could come up with no suspects. That was what was so utterly awful about vandals. They left the whole community wondering who could do such a thing and drawing all sorts of conclusions—most of which would have to be incorrect.

  Certainly it made neighbors suspicious of one another’s children. And all the children couldn’t be guilty. That was what made it so unfair—that inescapable placing of suspicion on the innocent.

  She sighed. The same was true of thieves, of course. Or any sneak, for that matter. The unwarranted suspicion their crimes placed upon the innocent was unforgivable. She seethed at the injustice of it. Finally, she mentally threw up her hands. “Oh, stop it, Samantha!”

  Rags startled up out of his sleep on the foot of her bed and whined his displeasure at having his dreams interrupted. “Sorry, Rags,” she told him. Rags yapped once, then dropped his head again. His round black eyes watched her for a moment more, then he closed them again with a sigh.

  Samantha punched her pillow into an uncomfortable lump, plopped her head on it in a determined manner, and finally fell into a fitful sleep. She dreamed of Cymbidiums attacking her with garden tools.

  She didn’t dream for long.

  “Rrrrr. Grrrr. Yap, yap, yap!” Rags left the bed like a rocket. He stood in front of the French doors in the end wall of the bedroom, quivering from ears to tail with the urge to do battle. Samantha bolted upright. “Rags! What is it? What’s the matter?”

  Rags wasn’t paying her the least attention. He was throwing himself against the French doors that led out to the side yard, scratching madly at their bottoms and sniffing at the crack where they met the floor as if he would drag whatever it was that he was so excited about into the room by the sheer power of his inhalation.

  Samantha felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Fear trickled from there down her spine to her knees and turned them to jelly. Someone was out there in her yard. The vandal! “Oh, Dear God!” she breathed as a prayer. It was the madman that had savaged Laura’s orchids, she knew it.

  For the first time in her life, Samantha understood the phrase ‘her blood ran cold.’

  The French doors, long her favorite feature of her spacious bedroom, instantly lost that status. Suddenly they seemed too frail a barrier to withstand whatever was outside them in the dark. Desperately, Samantha wished Rags would stop clawing at the organdy sheers that covered them. She
was absurdly grateful even for their non-existent protection.

  Moving as stealthily as if she were being observed and must avoid detection, she reached up beside the head of her bed and jabbed at the switch that turned on the floodlights mounted at the four corners of her house. Light flared outside. The draperies at her windows glowed to translucent life.

  With all her heart, Samantha blessed her dear departed husband Andrew for his foresight in installing the double-headed fixtures on each corner of the house. They swept the entire yard outside with their bright glare. Andrew had done it for her safety when he realized he was no longer going to be there to look after her. This was the first time she’d ever touched the switch that activated those lights. The relief that washed over her as it worked left her weak.

  Where had she put the revolver that Andrew had insisted she learn to use? She slipped from her bed and scrabbled through her lingerie drawer.

  Oh, why had she thought she didn’t approve of handguns? Now that her safety, indeed, her very life, could depend on the one her husband had gotten for her, she found her disapproval fast disappearing.

  Even if she called the police this instant, it would take them twenty minutes to arrive. What good would that do when the intruder was just outside her door right this minute? She could be dead ten times over before the police got here!

  Her mind was spinning as she stared at the gathered white semi-sheers covering her French doors. Never would she use a gun to defend her yard, of course. Nor, for that matter would she shoot to defend anything in the way of mere property. She’d come to that realization long ago, when she’d given serious thought to the matter of carjacking and decided that if she got carjacked, she’d just sensibly give up her vehicle.

  This wasn’t about a car, though. This was about her personal, cherished, very own self, and that was an entirely different matter. She wasn’t about to give that up. Not without a fight.

  Suddenly the night silence was broken! The ringing of the phone sounded sharply in the quiet of her room. Samantha dived for it. Clumsy in her haste, she dropped the receiver. “Oh! Hello! Hello?”