by Janet Bolin
“Me, too?” Dora asked.
“After I talk to Willow,” Vicki told her.
Walking behind the stretcher, Paula called over her shoulder, “Arrest them both for attempted murder!”
Why did the woman keep harping on the word “murder”? If we had punched Antonio, she might have had a case for accusing us of assault, but we hadn’t touched him.
Murder?
Ignoring Paula’s outburst, Vicki asked everyone except me to clear the room. “But anyone who heard or saw Antonio fall, don’t leave the building. I’ll want your statements, too.”
Ashley and Macey looked at each other, then Ashley braced her shoulders. “Willow and Mrs. Battersby did not touch Antonio.” She wagged an index finger between herself and Macey. “We were there. We saw.”
Vicki nodded. “Fine, thank you. Please go with the others, and I’ll talk to you two later.”
I asked Haylee where Clay was.
Haylee looked uncomfortable. “He left.”
I made a vague gesture toward the floor. “Before Antonio collapsed?”
She nodded. “He went out the back door.” She scooted toward Ben, who was waiting for her in the foyer.
How strange. Still, it wasn’t as if Clay and I had a date. I hadn’t expected him to attend the fashion show, but leaving without saying good-bye wasn’t exactly his style.
And I don’t usually look this glamorous.
Dora must have noticed the disappointment I was trying to conceal. She patted my arm.
Vicki told her gently, “I do want to speak to you, Mrs. Battersby, but after I talk to Willow, okay?”
Dora saluted. “Don’t call me Mrs. Battersby like I’m some ancient old grandmother. Even Haylee and Willow call me Dora. But I get it. You have to question us separately to see if our stories match.”
Vicki made a pretend scowl. “I know you Threadville women. You’ve been passing each other messages that I can’t understand ever since I arrived, and probably before, also.”
Dora rose to the bait. “No, we haven’t!” Head high, she marched out of the room.
One corner of Vicki’s mouth quirked up. “She’s so easy to rile. Okay, Willow, what happened?”
I told her that I suspected that Antonio had pinched Macey’s rear end, and maybe Ashley’s, also, and that I’d been afraid that Dora had been about to take a swing at him. “I grabbed her hand and stopped her. But he fell, anyway. It was the strangest thing. Neither of us touched him.”
“How did he look?”
“Surprised.”
“Mrs. Battersby—Dora—can have that effect on people,” Vicki deadpanned.
I couldn’t help smiling at her description of Dora. “His face became red and puffy, like he was angry. Or embarrassed at being caught possibly touching girls.”
“Did he say anything? Apologize, for instance?”
“He did this pretend thing like he was choking, you know, clutching at his throat. And he said, ‘Help me.’”
Writing in her notebook, she didn’t look up. “Think he was choking? I mean, actually choking?”
“I didn’t think so at the time. I thought he was only trying to distract us from his behavior. But he could have been choking. He started feeling around in his pockets as if he were hunting for his candy, and he said, ‘Where’s my—’ but he didn’t finish the question. He gasped, ‘Help,’ and then fell.”
She sent me one of her piercing glances. “Did he take anything out of his pockets?”
“Not that I noticed. I’m sure he didn’t put anything into his mouth.”
“And he was clutching his throat? Not his chest?”
I tried to picture the moment. “I think so. Maybe he had a candy in his mouth and it went down the wrong way.”
“Hmmm.” Another of Vicki’s indecipherable comments. She pointed her pen toward the foyer. “Tell Dora Battersby that I want to talk to her. Then you can go.”
I didn’t have to tell Dora. As soon as she spotted me coming into the double parlor from the foyer, she marched off, head high, to the mansion’s former dining room and her interview with Chief Vicki Smallwood.
The only other people in the large room were Ashley and Macey. They left, though, carrying platters of goodies to the kitchen where, I guessed from the noises, people were putting away food and washing dishes.
Although Vicki had told me I could leave, I decided to wait for Dora so we could walk Ashley home. The dogs and I had always walked with Ashley when she left In Stitches after dark, and even though Ashley was seventeen, I would find it difficult to send her off alone. Besides, her home was only a short detour for Dora and me. Macey was safe from unwanted attention from Antonio at the moment, but if she lived in the village and wanted to join us, that would be fine, too.
I felt a little guilty about my relief that Antonio couldn’t bother Macey and Ashley while he was on his way to the hospital.
Maybe he wasn’t suffering. After those first few moments of clutching his throat, he hadn’t seemed to be. I hoped he’d stay in the hospital for a very long time, and when they released him, he would move on to a career that didn’t involve being around students.
Although I couldn’t hear Dora’s words, her tone was indignant and assertive. I couldn’t help smiling. Later, she and my other Threadville friends would help me remind Ashley and Macey that they should not put up with harassment—from anyone.
But Dora hadn’t needed to clobber anyone about it. If I hadn’t stopped her, would she have hit Antonio? I suspected she’d merely wanted to startle him into behaving himself.
She returned to the reception room as Macey and Ashley came back from the kitchen. Dora sent Macey into the dining room to talk to Vicki, then turned to Ashley. “I told our police chief to charge that horrible man with assault for pinching you and Macey.”
Ashley’s mouth was a grim line. “Only Macey. I told him off. I mean I started to, but he went all funny. Don’t worry. I’d never let him or anyone else get away with anything like that. But it must be hard for Macey. She’s dependent on him for grades.”
Dora and I chimed in, “That doesn’t matter.”
I continued, “He should not get away with that.”
Dora added, “Maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll lose his job.”
“He owns the Threadville Academy of Design and Modeling,” I told her.
Dora pinned Ashley with a glare. “Don’t you be thinking of attending TADAM, young lady.”
Ashley’s face closed. “I can look after myself.”
Dora scowled at her for what must have felt to Ashley like interminable seconds. “See that you do.”
Macey returned, and Ashley went to talk to Vicki.
Dora and I gave Macey basically the same lecture we’d given Ashley.
I said gently, “That wasn’t the first time he’d touched you, was it, Macey?”
Macey looked scared, backed away, and lowered her eyes. The slight shake of her head was barely discernible, and so was her soft reply. “No.”
I pressed harder. “Last night when we were in our changing cubicles before the dress rehearsal, I heard you slap him, and I also heard his comment about models having to let people help adjust their outfits.”
Macey shivered and rubbed her bare arms. “It was nothing.”
Dora demanded, “Had he done things like that to you before?”
Macey looked up at us again and shook her head decisively. “No.”
Macey’s denial had been firm, but Dora gave her a stern look verging on disbelief. “If you ever need help, you can count on Willow and me.”
I rested my forearm on Dora’s shoulder. “But we won’t beat anyone up, right, Dora?” I teased.
“I’ll do whatever it takes.” Dora’s voice carried.
Vicki peered into the parlor and stared at Dora wi
th something like horrified fascination.
I opened my mouth to tell Vicki that Dora would never harm anyone, but hadn’t I already said that Dora had raised her hand as if about to hit Antonio, and that I grabbed her arm before she’d had a chance to draw back?
I got along reasonably well with our police chief, but she never lost an opportunity to remind me what would happen if I broke the law. She and I both wanted to see justice prevail, but our methods of reaching that goal sometimes differed, and she had an unfortunate tendency to conclude that I was interfering with her investigations when I was merely trying to help.
Vicki asked Macey, “Can you join Ashley and me, please? I need to tell you both something.”
Macey tossed me a humorless grin, then followed Vicki into the dining room.
We couldn’t tell what Vicki was saying, but she was probably reiterating what Dora and I had already told the girls. Maybe Vicki was going to charge Antonio for pinching Macey.
Dora may have thought the same thing. Her dark eyes brightened. She raised her eyebrows and took one stealthy step toward the foyer.
Then there was a loud crash in the kitchen. Glass shattered. A woman screamed.
8
Dora sprinted to the kitchen. In my higher heels, I wobbled right behind her.
Vicki was already there. Macey and Ashley gawked from the dining room doorway.
The TADAM student who had poured my wine sobbed, “I dropped a tray of glasses.”
Bits of glass were all over the floor.
“It’s nothing to cry about,” Dora said, although she could have sounded more sympathetic.
Macey must have thought so, too. Ignoring fragments of glass, she dashed into the kitchen and gave the girl a quick hug. “It’s okay, Samantha.”
Vicki turned to Dora and me. “I’ll call you two at home if I need you.”
Dora folded her arms. “We’ll help Samantha clean up before we go. And we’ll wait for Ashley so we can walk her home.”
Vicki said drily, “I think she’ll be okay now.” Apparently giving up on dismissing us, she ushered Ashley and Macey back into the dining room.
I asked Samantha where I could find a broom. She didn’t know, but Dora had no qualms about searching until she found one.
Out in the backyard, a light shined as a door opened. Was this the carriage house that Clay had mentioned?
For a second, I saw Loretta and Clay silhouetted in the doorway, and then the light went out, the yard was dark again, and I doubted that I’d really seen Loretta and Clay.
Especially not in each other’s arms. And then separating, and Loretta taking Clay’s hand and pulling him out of the carriage house as she switched off the light . . .
No, I could not have seen any of that.
But I had. All of it.
I grabbed the broom from Dora and wielded it with speed and power that made her exclaim, “What’s gotten into you, Willow?”
Samantha smiled, sort of.
“You’re all dressed up,” Dora scolded me. “Let me do that. What if your young man comes in and sees you playing Cinderella?”
The back door slammed open. Loretta burst in. “What’s wrong?”
I straightened and stared at her. Where to begin? With the broken glasses, or the news that Loretta’s boss had collapsed and been taken to the hospital?
What I really wanted to do was shout at her to leave Clay alone.
Her hair was messy and her lipstick was smeared.
Clay came in behind her and shut the back door. Something like embarrassment crept across his face. He straightened his tie, but it was too late.
I’d seen the red smudge near one of the buttons on his white shirt.
My heart felt like it was down there on the floor, shattered with all that glass.
Loretta prompted, “Someone screamed just now?”
Samantha gulped between hiccups. “I’m sorry. I dropped some glasses and they broke.”
Dora scowled at Clay as if she’d also seen the red lipstick on his shirt. Uncharacteristically restrained, she stooped and held the dustpan while I brushed fragments of glass into it, then she dumped the contents of the dustpan into the wastebasket. Finally, she stood and turned to Samantha, who was staring apologetically at Loretta. “There,” Dora said in a surprisingly soothing voice. “All cleaned up. No harm done.”
“Except to the glasses—” Loretta began.
Dora interrupted her. “Glasses can be replaced. They weren’t good ones, anyway.”
Loretta argued, “Yes, they were. Antonio buys only the best.”
Dora shook her head. “Trust me.”
I did. Dora had been an interior designer before her retirement, and she had an encyclopedic knowledge of nearly everything that could go into a home.
Dora added, “Arguing about fifty-cent glasses is not important. If you heard other screams earlier, it’s because your boss fainted and his wife screamed, and they’re both on the way to the hospital.”
Loretta faltered backward. And landed conveniently against Clay. “Screams?” she whimpered. “Earlier? Antonio and Paula? What’s wrong with them?”
Vicki spoke from behind me. “You didn’t hear a scream about forty-five minutes ago?”
Loretta shook her head. “No, I was busy.” She turned her head and smiled up at Clay. “Getting reacquainted with my first love.”
Clay’s voice was as flinty as his face. “We were discussing renovating the carriage house so it could be used as an apartment, either for TADAM staff or as a source of income for TADAM.”
For over forty-five minutes? If the mansion had a subbasement, my heart was somewhere in it, and sinking fast.
Dora looked out the back window. “Let’s do it!”
That seemed like a rather enthusiastic reaction, considering that all I could see through the back window were shadows of shadows. But then, Dora was always eager to design. I felt a pang. What if she liked the mansion’s carriage house better than Blueberry Cottage and decided to rent it? I’d need to find a new tenant, and although she could be a little too snoopy about what might be going on in my apartment, I liked her, and we looked out for each other.
Besides, my hopes of anything interesting ever going on inside my apartment were in smithereens. Was Clay as excited about finding Loretta again as she was about finding him?
He had never acted like he was having trouble getting over a first love.
Then again, I was never sure where I stood with him.
At least I knew that he and I were friends, and I’d hoped we were becoming more than friends. I should have been less dedicated to my career. I should have put more time and effort into romance. Making that decision now could be a little late, though.
While I was debating with myself and carefully not looking at Loretta and Clay, Vicki was explaining that Antonio had become ill and that Paula had gone to the hospital in the ambulance with him.
“And so did my son-in-law, Gord,” Dora proclaimed. “He’s a doctor.”
Loretta sagged farther into Clay. “This is very upsetting. I should go, too, but I’m not in any shape to drive.”
Of course not, if she insisted on pasting herself so closely to Clay that she’d have to sit on his lap in her driver’s seat.
Vicki waved the notion away with one hand. “You’d just be in the way. I’ll give you the hospital number. Do you have a pencil and paper?”
Samantha grabbed a magnetized notepad and pen from the fridge and thrust them at Loretta. “Here.”
Ashley’s phone jingled. She read a text, then asked, “Can we go home now? My dad’s getting worried.”
Vicki nodded. “You’re all free to go.” She recited a number to Loretta, who wrote it down.
I touched Dora’s shoulder and told Ashley, “We’ll walk you home.”
Cl
ay eased around Loretta. “Mind if I join you?”
I didn’t mind, but my mouth refused to open.
Dora answered for all of us. “Of course not!”
“Clay,” Loretta wheedled, “you can’t go. I’m sorry, but I got lipstick on your shirt. Because of my extensive education in textiles, I can wash the stains out. Piece of cake.”
“I can do it.” Clay’s voice was still surprisingly stony.
Loretta pouted. “I don’t know how to lock up the mansion and carriage house.”
Vicki stared at Loretta like she was a particularly repulsive insect that had just scurried out from behind a baseboard. “I’ll give you a hand. It’s part of my job description, and I have Antonio’s keys. Besides, I don’t mind looking around a little more before I go.”
“I guess I can do it myself,” Loretta began.
Vicki snapped, “No need.”
I almost smiled at Vicki’s stern police officer act, but Loretta stopped arguing with her. And with Clay.
Dora asked, “Macey, are you going our way?”
Macey told us an address that was just around the corner, between TADAM and Ashley’s house. “You’ll come with us, too, Samantha, won’t you?” Macey explained that Samantha was one of her roommates.
Samantha nodded. “Yes, please.” It came out barely above a whisper.
Dora shepherded the three girls and me out the front door ahead of her and Clay, then draped her hand over Clay’s arm.
Macey and Samantha led the way, with Ashley and me behind them, and Dora and Clay following us.
All I wanted to do was put distance between myself and Clay and his lipstick-stained shirt. I didn’t want to examine my unexpectedly strong feelings of desolation. I didn’t want to think about Clay until I was home alone.
And I definitely didn’t want to talk to him and possibly betray feelings that he couldn’t return.
I didn’t own him, I reminded myself. We weren’t a couple—except in some of my more unrealistic dreams, I guessed—and never had been. Maybe I’d been like Mona, reading too much into a smile, a glance, or a swift embrace.
As I hurried the three girls along, Dora clunked behind us in her thick heels, keeping Clay farther and farther from us. Dora had been able to race toward Antonio and, later, from the reception room to the kitchen in those heels, so I was certain she was walking slowly on purpose, maybe to give me a chance to lecture the girls about not allowing a teacher to take advantage of their desire for good grades.
