by Janet Bolin
Dora Battersby held out her hands and stopped the rest of us from going inside. “We need to plan our strategy.”
6
Dora scowled at the closed door of the TADAM mansion. “I don’t trust that Antonio.” She turned to Ashley. “You and this other young lady, Macey, is it?”
Macey nodded.
Dora ordered, “You two stay together. Don’t let that man be alone with either of you.” Dora grabbed Clay’s arm. “Do not let Willow out of your sight.”
I sputtered, “I can look after myself!”
Clay slid an arm around my waist. “Glad to.” He murmured into my hair, “Gluttony, as if. Mm.”
“That was a ridiculous dress.”
“You rocked it.”
Smiling up into those dark brown eyes, I thanked him.
Dora took Ben’s hand. “Ben, you stay with Haylee and protect her from that man.”
Ben smiled. “My pleasure.”
I could tell that Haylee was trying hard not to break into a huge grin.
Dora wasn’t done choreographing the group on the porch. “Opal and Naomi, you two stay together.”
Opal laughed. “We’re older than Antonio.”
“Not enough.” Dora frowned. “Those so-called complaints about your outfits were his attempt to get all of you to fawn over him and prove that you aren’t as bad as he said.”
“I thought so, too,” Opal said.
“Maybe he’s only trying to be liked,” Naomi suggested.
Dora raised herself to her full height, bringing her head up past Clay’s and Ben’s elbows. “Then he’s going about it all wrong.”
Ashley asked her, “Who’s going to protect you?”
“I am definitely too old for that man, so I’ll watch over the rest of you. If any of you need my help, ask. I’ve encountered that type of man before. Often, it’s all hot air, but let’s not test it, okay?”
We all agreed.
“Let’s go in, then,” she said.
Apparently struggling with a grin of his own, Ben opened the door. Dora preceded the rest of us into the mansion.
Inside, gleaming dark oak paneled the walls of a grand foyer. Paula was halfway up a sweeping, red-carpeted staircase. She didn’t turn to see who had entered. Muscle Shirt and Loretta disappeared from the broad hallway into a room to our right.
I asked Clay, “Did you restore this mansion?”
“No. Elderberry Bay took it for back taxes years ago. They kept the conservatory and some of the land surrounding it as a public park but couldn’t make up their minds what to do with the mansion itself. Finally, they sold it and its grounds—there’s still a big yard and a carriage house—to TADAM for a dollar with hopes for future tax revenue and in the understanding that TADAM would restore, preserve, and maintain the building and property.” He studied the floor, stained dark to match the walls. “They did a good job.” He was being polite, I could tell, as if he didn’t want to point out flaws.
I knew from the restorations he’d made to the Threadville shops and the Elderberry Bay Lodge that he was a perfectionist. Raising one eyebrow in exaggerated bewilderment, I looked up at him.
He tightened his arm around my waist. “Tell you later.” We went through the doorway where Loretta and Muscle Shirt had gone. Pocket doors that could be closed to separate the front parlor from the back one were tucked away, combining the two rooms into a large one, perfect for the crowded reception. We went to a table underneath a side window. TADAM students poured wine and told us to help ourselves to sandwiches, cookies, tarts, and bars from heaped-up platters. They all looked very tempting.
Gluttony.
Behind me, someone breathed, “Aha!” I smelled mint. How had Antonio crept this close? “The lovely Willow!”
Clay was still beside me, but with a glass in one hand and a cookie in the other, he no longer had his arm around me.
With difficulty, I turned around without bumping into Antonio or knocking cookies or wineglasses off the table. I made my voice as formal as my posture. “Antonio, this is my friend, Clay Fraser.”
Antonio wrinkled his forehead and repeated Clay’s name in drawn-out syllables. “You’re the local builder?”
Clay nodded.
“You were our second choice for our restorations. Like it?” He waved his hand around to indicate the double parlor but didn’t wait for Clay’s answer. “We decided to go with a lower bidder, a big firm out of Erie. They did a superb job. We’re keeping the mansion as much like a home as possible, so although the former bedrooms on the second floor are now classrooms, they still have their original details, including closets. And we’ve turned the third floor into the director’s suite. I designed the kitchen on this floor, and it’s the crown jewel of the place. Come see it. Tell me if you could have done anywhere near as well.” He clasped Clay’s elbow and led him toward the back of the house.
Maybe I should have gone with them. But Clay didn’t need protecting, not even from Antonio’s obvious plans to rub it in that Clay’s company had not won the job of restoring the mansion.
Clay wouldn’t care, and was probably trying to disguise his amusement. For one thing, although Clay kept hiring more employees, he could hardly keep up with the jobs people were begging him to do. For another, Clay would not have enjoyed working for someone who made suggestive remarks to nearly every female around, and was aggressively competitive with men.
Standing with their backs to the front windows, Loretta and Muscle Shirt stared into the crowded room. As if unimpressed by Muscle Shirt’s impersonation of a boulder, Loretta darted away. Seconds later, she passed the parlor door nearest me. She was heading in the direction that Antonio and Clay had gone.
Antonio had been carrying neither a glass nor a plate, probably to keep both hands free so he could touch people who didn’t want to be touched. Scolding myself for being snarky, I joined Dora near the partial wall between the two parlors.
“I told you to stay with Clay,” she muttered.
“He went to see the kitchen with Antonio, so I figured I was safe from unwanted mauling.”
“Is Antonio that bad?” She looked about to charge into the kitchen to confront him.
“He didn’t touch me, but . . .” I leaned down and whispered to her, “I think Macey had to slap him yesterday before the dress rehearsal.”
Dora looked about to explode. “What?”
A student passed us with a platter of cookies.
When he was out of earshot, I murmured to Dora, “I’m not positive. Want to check out the silent auction?”
“You’re just changing the subject, but okay, let’s. Have you tried the wine?” With a grimace of distaste, she set her glass on the nearest table. “Plonk,” she said.
I took a sip of my wine. It was sugary and bland. I put my nearly full glass beside hers, and we fled to the vast entry hall. Ben and Haylee had their backs to us and were heading toward the rear of the mansion, where, judging by where Antonio had taken Clay, the kitchen must be.
Beyond the foot of the stairs, Dora and I entered a large and beautifully paneled room that had probably once been a dining room but could now be used as a classroom.
Tables lined the walls, leaving the center of the room free so we could view the auction sign-up sheets. To make it clear which outfit was for sale on which sheet, a photo of that particular outfit, with one of us modeling it, was printed at the top of the sheet.
Macey and Ashley were giggling at a picture of me twirling in my Bo Peep dress.
I had tried not to show off my ruffled bloomers during the dress rehearsal when Muscle Shirt was taking those pictures. I hadn’t succeeded.
“Cute,” Ashley teased. Her grin was mischievous. She and Macey started around the room one way to look at the pictures. Dora and I went the other way.
Dora tapped the shot of Macey
in cutoffs and halter top. “She bought that at a mall.”
She moved to a photo of Mona. “And that woman can’t sew a stitch. Why is she pretending she can?”
Mona wasn’t nearby, but I heard her laughing in the kitchen. I said quietly, “She likes to pretend she does all the upholstery and makes all the window coverings and sofa cushions in her shop, too, and we haven’t told her we know she doesn’t.”
Dora demanded, “Why not?”
“We’ve pretended to believe her ever since she opened that shop. How could we change now?”
She folded her arms. “I could. Want me to?”
I pulled her to the next table. “No way. You’d spoil our fun.”
“You and Haylee have some very odd notions of fun.”
Near the door to the kitchen, Antonio said in a husky voice, “The lovely Ashley and the lovely Macey!”
Ashley squealed, “Don’t!”
I whipped around. Ashley was pushing Antonio’s hand away from Macey’s backside, and Macey looked about to lash out.
I never would have guessed that Dora Battersby could move that fast. Like a steamroller in chunky heels, she motored across the room toward Antonio.
His face reddening, he clutched at his neck. Pretending he was only desperate for a candy when he’d obviously been too close to one of his students—and to my seventeen-year-old assistant?
I was right behind Dora, who was yelling, “How dare you!”
Antonio patted a pocket bulging with candy. “Where’s my—” Watching Dora barrel toward him, he squeaked out a wheezy, “Help!”
In those heels, Dora barely topped five feet. Antonio was a good ten inches taller, but Dora made a fist and reared her arm back. “I’ll help you.”
I caught Dora’s hand and held it. “No!”
Dora struggled but didn’t manage to hit Antonio.
He staggered dramatically away from us.
His wife burst out of the kitchen. Screaming, she reached toward her husband and missed.
Antonio tipped backward, banged his head on a table, slumped to the floor, and lay there, not moving.
7
Paula’s scream and Antonio’s crash on the hard maple floor brought Mona, Ben, and Haylee from the kitchen. Others crowded in from the parlors and foyer.
Paula knelt beside her prone husband and patted his face. “Antonio!”
He didn’t respond.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Paula jumped up and pointed at Dora and me. “Call the police and have them arrest those two women! They killed my husband.”
Even when she wasn’t swinging a clipboard around, Paula was unpredictable. I backed away.
She stabbed a finger toward me. “Don’t you go anywhere. Someone, stop those two women from escaping.”
I was about to pull my phone out of the little evening bag I’d made for the fashion show, but Ashley was already talking breathlessly to the emergency dispatcher.
Dora yelled, “Gord!”
Her son-in-law, the popular doctor who had ushered many of Elderberry Bay’s citizens, including Ashley, into the world, rushed into the former dining room and started CPR on Antonio.
Haylee and Ben, who were volunteer firefighters, knelt beside Gord. Clay was a firefighter, too. Where was he?
I was on the force, but if Paula thought I’d tried to kill Antonio, she probably wouldn’t want me attempting to revive him.
Within minutes, police chief Vicki Smallwood rushed into the mansion.
Paula shrieked that Dora and I had killed her husband.
Vicki sent me an astonished look, but all she said was, “Clear out, everyone, except Haylee, Ben, and Gord. The rest of you, go wait in that big room across the hall and stay there near those tables of food until I let you go.”
Paula aimed her forefinger, trembling and curling into a witch’s claw, at Dora and me. “I don’t want those two murderers going out of my sight.”
Vicki Smallwood showed her tough, practical side. “Then go with them into the next room.”
Paula tugged at her lank brown hair. “I’m staying with my husband. They beat him up and killed him.”
Seeing the question in Vicki’s clear blue eyes, I shook my head.
Vicki relented. “Okay, Willow and Mrs. Battersby, stay here with us, please.” She looked down at Antonio. “He doesn’t look like anyone beat him up.”
Gord lifted his head from giving Antonio mouth-to-mouth. “And he’s not dead.” He signaled for someone to take over the resuscitation effort. Haylee blanched. I edged farther from Antonio. Clay was still nowhere around.
Ben knelt beside Antonio and took over. Apparently, Antonio still needed both mouth-to-mouth breathing aid and chest compressions.
Gord stood and frowned at Vicki.
She said tersely, “An ambulance is on its way.”
Gord asked Paula, “Does your husband have heart trouble?”
Paula took a long time to answer, as if she couldn’t quite force words past her lips, which were twisted in what appeared to be anger. “I’m not sure.” She glared at Dora and me. “But maybe he got heart trouble from those two women knocking him out and attempting to kill him.”
Gord persisted, “Does he have medication for a heart condition?”
Paula shrugged, opened her mouth, closed it again, and finally managed, “He takes a lot of pills. I don’t know what they’re all for. He was already taking them when we got married.” She twisted her watch on her wrist. The bracelet was loose. “Six months ago,” she added.
“Does he keep any medication with him?” Gord’s tone was sharp.
Paula wrung her hands. “He might.”
Wouldn’t married couples know important facts like that about each other? And if Paula truly didn’t know, wouldn’t she make an attempt to find out, even in these stressful circumstances? But she only stared down at her husband as if she lacked bones, muscles, or the will to do anything. Shock, I guessed.
Gord and Vicki dropped to their knees and thrust their hands into Antonio’s jacket pockets.
If I were married, would my husband and I keep life-or-death secrets from each other?
Where was Clay?
Holding some of Antonio’s candies on the flat of her palm, Vicki tilted her face up toward Paula. “Could these be some of his pills?” Vicki looked skeptical but for once didn’t sound sarcastic. As I’d noticed the night before, those candies resembled fat, white beads. They certainly didn’t look like pills.
Paula shot Vicki a scorn-filled look. “That’s candy. He eats them to help him give up smoking.”
Vicki asked Gord, “Did you find any pills?”
He shook his head. “Only more candies.”
Vicki poured Antonio’s candies into an evidence bag, then offered the bag to Gord. He dumped the candies he’d found into the bag, also. Apparently, the director of a fashion design school had not minded that handfuls of candy were distorting his jacket pockets, which was not exactly a typical runway look.
Vicki pulled a comb and wallet out of the jacket’s inner chest pocket, and then two large batches of keys from his pants pockets. Hanging on to the wallet, she put the keys and comb into another evidence bag.
Paula growled, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Vicki was noncommittal. “He’s going to the hospital. I’ll look after his property for him until he can do it himself.”
Paula held out a hand. “Give it to me.”
“You can come in the ambulance with us.” Vicki didn’t hand any of it to Paula.
Paula squinted at Vicki as if suspecting that Vicki was about to help herself to Antonio’s cash or credit cards. “Give me his wallet.” The once-black leather wallet was thin and worn, like a favorite possession that Antonio hadn’t been able to bring himself to replace.
“
Fair enough,” Vicki agreed. “Mind if I have a look at his ID first?”
Paula gave a begrudging consent.
Vicki studied Antonio’s driver’s license and wrote in her notebook, then gave the license and wallet to Paula. “You’d better collect everything else you’ll want at the hospital so you’ll be ready to go with the ambulance.”
Gord added, “And bring his medications, too. All of them. Whatever you can find.”
Paula dashed away, into the kitchen. I heard her pound up what was apparently a set of back stairs. Ben continued working on Antonio, for what seemed like a long time without any noticeable improvement in the man’s color.
Breathing heavily and carrying a large tote bag, Paula returned. She handed Gord a plastic bag filled with bottles.
He examined the bag. “These all look like vitamins and supplements.”
“That’s all I could find,” Paula told him.
Gord was the sweetest man imaginable, but if he studied me the way he was studying Paula, I’d be worried. Or confessing all of my sins, both threadly and deadly.
Emergency medical technicians strode in, checked Antonio, attached him to an oxygen unit, and bundled him onto a stretcher. Paula complained that Vicki didn’t need to ride with her and Antonio in the ambulance.
“Okay,” Vicki said. “Gord, mind going in my place? I’d like to talk to the people here. I’ll drive to the hospital and pick you up later.”
Gord examined Vicki’s face. She raised one eyebrow and gave him a tiny nod.
“Sure,” he said, “I’ll go in your place, Chief Smallwood.”
If I read that little exchange correctly, Vicki was asking Gord to keep an eye on Paula, as well as on the invalid, and he was agreeing.
Did Vicki suspect that Paula had already harmed Antonio?
Paula snapped, “I can look after my own husband. And ambulance attendants are going along, right?”
Vicki leveled a stern look at Paula. “Gord’s a doctor. I’ll give you a ride home from Erie, too, if you need it.” She turned away from Paula. “Willow, I need to talk to you.”
