Death Among the Doilies

by Mollie Cox Bryan

  “Oh!” Cora gasped. “How stunning!”

  “Glad you like them,” the delivery man said. Blond, slight, and with a pleasant smile, he stepped forward. “I’m Matthew Reardon, one of the owners of Cattail Florists. We haven’t met yet.” He extended his hand, and Cora wanted to cry as she shook his hand. Here was a local who either didn’t read the paper or didn’t care what the paper said and was willing to give them a chance. She hadn’t realized until that moment how stressed she had been about it all.

  “Good to meet you,” she said. “I’d ask you to come in, but I’m on my way to pick up a child from school.”

  “I’ll take a rain check,” he said. “I’ve been so curious to see what you’ve done with the place.”

  “Why don’t you come by Sunday afternoon? We’re having a dessert reception. We’d love to have you.”

  “I’ll check my schedule,” he said. “I might see you then.”

  He left, leaving Cora to read the card attached to the flowers:

  So proud of you and can’t wait to see you. With much love, Uncle Jon.

  Overcome, Cora held back tears. Uncle Jon—what an old softy. She was blessed to have him in her life. He wasn’t her grand-père, but he was close enough to be a comfort. Uncle Jon was her grandfather’s brother. Her grandfather had emigrated from France to the States when he was a student, then he stayed because he married an American. Her grandmother was the woman who basically raised her because Cora’s parents traveled so much with their work, up until their accident. Jon and her grandfather kept in touch and remained close through the years.

  She remembered her grandfather and grandmother with such clarity, it almost felt as if they were with her here. She knew they would be happy for her and proud of her and Kildare House and what she was building. She caught a faint whiff of her grandmother’s favorite scent, L’Air du Temps, so slight that she told herself she imagined it.

  Cora mustn’t forget how far she’d come. She mustn’t forget to stop and celebrate this dream come true.

  Like all dreams, it had come with a price. And it wasn’t turning out to be the smooth road she’d wanted.

  The bouquet included salmon-colored roses, deep orange calla lilies, and miniature sunflowers and black-eyed Susans. She sat it on the foyer table, where it would be the first thing to greet her guests.

  Chapter 17

  After Cora picked up London and delivered her to Jane, her mission was to take a walk before dinner. She planned to treat the whole crew to dinner tonight—sort of a calm-before-the-storm dinner. Their first guest would be coming in late that night.

  She walked down Azure Lane toward the center of town, where Sarah had lived. Cora loved that many of streets in Indigo Gap were named after shades of blue. The town had several different legends about how it had gotten its name. The most believable one was that it had been a crossroads gap in the mountains where people came together and traded fur, pottery, and cloth. Because the locals grew the plants that gave indigo dye its color, the town became known as Indigo Gap.

  Another interesting theory was about a group from India who settled in the region and became friends with and married into the local Native American tribe. The Indians were expert in the art of dying fabric and taught the locals their craft and trade. Over the years, the intermixing of the Indians and Native American gave the locals much to ponder, providing fodder for some interesting legends—like the belief there was a whole tribe of them deep in the mountains somewhere, practicing a mix of Native American beliefs and Hinduism. Cora doubted any of this ever happened. But still, there were interesting, somewhat unexplained relics around—like a Ganesha temple deep in the woods. For years, this group of people were just known as the “Indigos.” History had yet to prove their existence, but it was fun to ponder.

  Cora gazed into the distance—dusky skies, the sun setting low against the mountains that gave off a blue hue, which could also be described as indigo. The shops were starting to close and the lantern-shaped streetlights to glow.

  Leaves scattered across the sidewalk as Cora made her way down the street. One more block and she would be able to see Sarah’s house, which was one of the historical houses in the village. It was stationed on a corner, with its main door facing a side street.

  She spotted Sarah’s house, painted in a terra-cotta shade and trimmed in teal. It had a gabled roof, which was quite steep, and was a bit taller than the surrounding houses and businesses. Cora wrapped her sweater closer around her as she approached. Oddly enough, smoke puffed out from the chimney. Someone must be inside.

  As she walked closer, Cora saw a yard-sale sign. Hadn’t they sold everything at the auction that was in the paper?

  A car sat in the off-street driveway. Should she knock at the door? In addition to the smoke, there were lights on inside the house. Someone walked around inside, maybe preparing for the upcoming yard sale.

  She fought the urge to turn and go home. This was awkward. But it might be a good break for her—a way to help prove that Jane was innocent. She thought of everything that was on the line—Jane’s case, their new business—and she mustered her courage. Awkwardness be damned.

  She opened the gate, which gave off a loud creaking noise, shut it, and walked up the stone path to the front door.

  Settling her nerves, she knocked.

  “Just a minute,” came a male voice. She heard some scuffling and movement behind the door, which finally opened.

  “Can I help you?” the man said. He looked as if he were in his late fifties, perhaps early sixties. Pale. Shadows circled his eyes. He wore glasses and a Steelers baseball cap, along with a UNC sweatshirt. He frowned at Cora.

  “Um, hi,” Cora said. “I was walking by and I saw the sign. I’ll be busy tomorrow and wondered if . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, you can come in and take a look around. You’re not the first early bird,” he said. He moved his head, and Cora noticed he was shaking slightly. He was perhaps older than Cora had first thought. “This stuff didn’t sell in the auction we had a few weeks ago and we need to get rid of it.”

  He ushered her inside. The place smelled of burning wood, cats, and something else that she couldn’t quite place. Something floral and a bit spicy. Incense-like.

  Sarah’s things were scattered on tables throughout the house. Even though Cora didn’t know her, an overwhelming sense of sadness overcame her.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked.

  “Oh yes, yes,” she said. “I just, you know, feel so terrible about Sarah.”

  “Bloody awful business,” he said. He had apparently been in the middle of organizing a group of items down at the end of a long card table.

  Cora briefly glanced at the items in front of her. Tupperware containers, a few plates, and a big box full of doilies and handkerchiefs. Five dollars for the whole box. It was the kind of thing she liked to find at sales; she was certain she could make use of the items. She picked the box up and carried it along with her, until she reached the end of the table, near where the man was organizing old vinyl record albums.

  There, at the end of the table, was part of Sarah’s collection of opium antiques, which shone and glittered like jewels.

  “These didn’t sell?” Cora said to the man with surprise.

  “Not these pieces. I’m afraid not,” he said. “It takes a collector, I think, to appreciate their value.”

  “They are just beautiful.”

  “Yes, I was with her when she purchased the first one. We were on our honeymoon in Turkey,” he said.

  “You’re—”

  “I’m Josh Waters, the ex-husband,” he said and coughed a bit.

  What was he doing here? They’d been divorced for years.

  “She left it all to me,” he said, with an odd, beleaguered grin.

  Cora took an eyeful of Josh Waters. He was now standing in much better light. His demeanor was off—almost as if he were stoned.

  “Did she think she was doing me a favor? Pfft,”
he said. “Like I don’t have anything better to do than get rid of all this junk.”

  Cora sat the box down, fighting the sudden urge to leave this place and this man. “Turkey,” she said, changing the subject. “That must have been wonderful.” It was the best she could do.

  She ran her fingers along the cool surface of the opium kit. She opened the lid—that same sweet, floral scent that had greeted her when she first walked in came pouring out. Was the smell opium? Had Josh been smoking opium before she had come inside? Or could the smell be the lingering scent from the paraphernalia? There was more here than what was pictured on the Web site. There was quite a collection of pipes, which were also stunning, with jewel-tone colors and delicate accents.

  “You wanting to buy?”

  “Excuse me?” she said, turning back toward him.

  He coughed a little, again. His eyes were red and watery. He was definitely stoned. Or drunk? Something was off.

  “Did you want to buy some of that stuff ?” he said.

  “No, what would I do with it?” She tried to laugh. But as she examined the dangle tools used for opium cutting and so on, she could imagine a lovely mobile. It would be quite the conversation piece. “I’ll tell you what.” She reached into her bag and handed him a card. “If you don’t sell this stuff, give me a call. I might be interested.”

  “Really? You don’t look the type.”

  “What type? A collector or an opium smoker?” she joked.

  “Neither,” he said.

  “Well, I’m not. But I like to repurpose things. I’m into crafts. I will take this box of doilies.”

  Josh rubbed his nose and he sniffed. He took the card and her money. “My allergies are so bad when I come back here,” he grumbled.

  Allergies, my ass, Cora thought.

  “I better go,” she said. “It’s getting late. You have my card.”

  She carried her box to the front door and opened it to find a frantic woman rushing up the path.

  “What you doing?” she screamed at Cora.

  Cora peeked behind her. Surely this woman wasn’t talking to her.

  “You!” the crazed woman said and shoved Cora. Startled, Cora dropped the box of doilies. She took the stance she’d been taught over and over again in self-defense class. “Get back!” she said and raised her hands.

  The woman jumped back and then reached for the box on the ground. “These are my mother’s things. Who do you think you are?”

  “I just bought them,” Cora said, her hands still up, heart pounding and adrenaline coursing.

  “Well, la-di-da,” the woman said and fished out the doilies and hankies and flung them all over the yard, skipping through the grass.

  “Becca! Good God, what are you doing?” came Josh’s voice from behind Cora.

  Cora stilled. What was going on here?

  “I’m so sorry, Ms. Chevalier,” the man said. “It’s my daughter. She’s having such a hard time with all of this.”

  Cora relaxed a bit. “I can see that,” she said after a minute, a wave of sympathy swept through her for the woman who was still throwing doilies all over the front yard. At least she had stopped skipping.

  “Rebecca, this just isn’t helping,” Josh pleaded.

  Rebecca looked up at him, as if it was the first time she’d seen him. He walked up to her slowly, as if approaching an animal, or a stranger half crazed with grief, not a daughter. He held his arms out to her.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said to him.

  I should go, Cora thought. Why are my feet not moving? She was no longer a counselor, she told herself, and yet she couldn’t help reaching out.

  “Can I help?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Look, lady, I don’t know who you are, but I think you should mind your own damn business,” the woman said.

  That was all Cora needed to hear to be on her way. When some half-crazed, grief-stricken woman tells you to leave, you march.

  Chapter 18

  Jane, Cora, Ruby, and Jude were on to dessert and coffee before they discussed Cora’s visit to Sarah Waters’ house. London was finally asleep, leaning on her mother in the corner of the restaurant booth.

  After Cora relayed what had happened, Jane sat stunned. “She really threw the doilies all over the front yard?” Jane said.

  Cora nodded.

  Ruby and Jude exchanged knowing glances.

  “What?” Cora said.

  “That family has had more than its share of troubles,” Jude said, stretching his arm across the seat.

  “Rebecca?” Ruby said.

  “Yes, I think that was her name,” Cora said.

  “Troubled doesn’t begin to cover that one,” Ruby said.

  “So the whole family is messed up?” Jane said.

  “Who knows what goes on behind closed doors?” Jude replied. “But I always thought there was something a little off about them. I never met the one daughter, the one they said was in England.”

  “I suspect the ex-husband was on drugs tonight,” Cora said.

  “That’s hard to imagine,” Jude said. “He seemed to be the most normal of all of them.”

  Ruby harrumphed. “That’s not what I heard.”

  “I don’t like to gossip,” Jane said in a clipped tone. “Let’s not go there.”

  “I agree,” Cora said. “But it interests me because of Sarah’s case. Do either of you think anybody in the family is capable of murder?” she said with a lowered voice.

  The waitress came by and filled up their coffee cups, smiling. The conversation stopped until she left.

  “I don’t know them well enough to say yes or no to something like that,” Jude said. “But I always thought that any of us might be capable, given the right circumstances.”

  Jane blinked and blushed, and stared off toward the window. But Cora knew that her friend had softened toward Jude. The two of them together? They would make a gorgeous couple. But she wasn’t certain Jane was ready for a real relationship. But what the heck—did every relationship have to lead to something serious? Why couldn’t Jane and Jude casually date and just have a good time?

  “I know I could kill someone. It’s not something I like to think about or something I’m proud of. Hell, I’m a pacifist. But if someone came at me or my kids, I have no idea what I’d be capable of,” Ruby said.

  Cora and Jane exchanged glances.

  “But within a family, the mother is the nurturer. Usually kids don’t kill their mothers. When kids kill their parents, usually it’s their father,” Cora went on. “So, statistically speaking, the odds are if someone within the family killed Sarah, it would have been her husband.”

  “But you’re talking about a relatively normal family,” Jude said. “And I never thought they were normal.”

  “What do you mean, specifically?” Cora asked.

  “One of the daughters was arrested in college for prostitution. I don’t know which one. But if that doesn’t tell you something, I don’t know what does,” Jude said. “The other one had a baby when she was like, I don’t know, fifteen? Fourteen?”

  “It keeps getting deeper,” Jane said.

  “The more we find out about this family, the more it leads me to believe the police have a lot to investigate with Sarah’s murder. That gives me hope,” said Cora after a moment.

  “You are such an optimist,” Jane said, and lifted her coffee cup in a toast. “To Cora, the Queen of Optimism.”

  “Hear, hear,” Ruby and Jude chimed in.

  Fog had settled over the hills by the time the group was finished with dinner and walking back to the house. Fog unsettled Cora—perhaps it was too many cheesy horror flicks she had watched.

  “I’ve always thought this town was one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen,” Jude said when they arrived at the top of the hill where Kildare House was situated, and surveyed the town, despite the fog. At first, Cora had thought the house was simply named for the family who built it. But Kildare was actuall
y the name of their hometown in Ireland, where they had made a small fortune with horses. So they changed their name when they came to America to honor their hometown. When they first bought the piece of land in the gap between two mountain ranges, they pretty much owned the town. The house was situated in such a way that it looked out over the town and valley. The view remained spectacular.

  “It is pretty,” Cora agreed.

  “And the damned historic preservation folks will keep it that way. No matter what,” Ruby mumbled.

  “I’m impressed with what you’ve done to the place. I love your mission. I hope it all works out for you,” Jude said.

  “Thanks, Jude,” Cora said and opened the front door.

  “Mind if I take a look around?” he asked.

  “Go right ahead,” she said.

  “God, if I were twenty years younger,” Ruby said as he left the foyer. “I’d go for it.”

  Jane laughed. “Really?”

  “He’s hot! Come on, what’s wrong with you young women? Live a little!” Ruby said and added a little flourish with her hands.

  “Not my type,” Jane said.

  Cora didn’t reply. She was busy fussing over the floral arrangement.

  “Is he your type?” Ruby said, elbowing her.

  “Who?” Cora said, still distracted by the flowers.

  “Jude!”

  “Jude, my type? I don’t know. He is charismatic,” Cora said, thinking she would keep her true thoughts on the luscious man to herself. “But he is here on business. I make it a policy to not sleep with colleagues.” Was that her policy? Since when? Since now, she decided.

  “Usually a pretty easy policy to enforce since most of our colleagues are women,” Ruby said. “But Jude is all man . . . and also not your type?”

  “Her type is the new librarian who works at the school. Nerdy,” Jane interjected.

  Cora preened over the flowers and didn’t react to Jane’s jabs. Jane knew that just the word “nerdy” made her heart skip a few beats. Visions of being “taken” among the stacks at a library or bookstore played in her mind. Or perhaps a science lab.