Death Among the Doilies

by Mollie Cox Bryan

  “By the way,” Jane said, nonchalantly, “I invited him to the chocolate reception. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “What? Who?” Cora’s voice rose.

  Just then, a woman walked in the still-open front door, carrying a suitcase. “Hi there,” she said. “I’m Ivy Renquist, checking in.”

  Cora had always imagined this moment. Her first guest. She paused to take it in for a moment before saying:

  “Welcome, Ivy. I’m Cora.”

  “Oh, Cora! I’ve been such a fan of your blog! I’m thrilled to meet you!” Ivy squealed.

  The woman was short, a little plump, and in her forties—right in the market they had targeted. “Look at the gorgeous house!”

  The others introduced themselves.

  Jude suddenly appeared in the foyer. “Can I take your bags?”

  Ivy’s face reddened. “Jude Sawyer!”

  Ivy ate the man up with her leering eyes. Cora thought she might growl, pass out, or attack Jude at any moment. Instead, she giggled and bounced on her feet when she saw Jude. What a broom-making rock star!

  “Ivy’s room is on the second floor. Second room on the right,” Cora said, thinking that Ivy might prove to be a handful.

  Chapter 19

  A little past midnight, Cora heard a noise at her front door. Her window seat was right above the front door. She had just fallen asleep—or had she? Had she just been dreaming? But then she heard it again.

  She slid out of her quilt-covered bed and gazed out the window. It was so dark. One of the town’s ordinances was that streetlights could only be placed every other block, and Kildare House was without them. But the moon was bright and almost full. Cora blinked. Should she go downstairs? Call the police?

  The noise came again. She reached for her cell phone, and right at that moment she saw him. A lone figure starting to walk toward her gate. He had a familiar air. He wore a baseball cap. Josh Waters! Why was he here so late at night?

  Her fingers hit the 9, and then she saw another figure. A shadow. A woman. And what was that? She had a gun!

  She dialed the 1, then 1 again.

  “9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” a woman said promptly on the other end of the line.

  “There’s an intruder in my front yard. And someone with a gun.” Cora’s voice shook. The air in her lungs dwindled. She should be used to this kind of thing by now. But she’d never get used to it.

  “What is your address?”

  What was her address? For a moment, Cora’s mind went blank. She had almost given the address of her old place in Pittsburgh.

  “Um . . . I live at Kildare House at 566 Kildare,” she said, still watching the scene out of her window.

  The man’s hands were up, as if in surrender. He gestured back toward the house, and tried to get the woman with a gun to go in the same direction. What the heck?

  The woman moved forward, but she kept her gun pointed at the man. Sirens rang out. And then both the man and the woman froze in their tracks.

  Cora saw the lights first, then the car. Where was her robe? She searched around on the pile of clothes on her chair. Clothes she had placed there to sort and put away, but had never gotten around to. Her robe was at the bottom of the pile. She slid it on over her T-shirt and fuzzy pj bottoms and raced downstairs.

  Luna looked up at her and meowed a decidedly disgruntled meow, then laid her head back down. She knew it wasn’t morning yet. Smart cat.

  As Cora descended the stairs, she heard a door open—could it be Ivy, awakened by all the noise out front? She turned her head to inspect, but she kept walking. No, it was Jude—but wasn’t that Ivy’s room he was exiting? No, it couldn’t be. Had there been some kind of mix-up with the rooms?

  “Everything okay?” Jude said to her as she flew by him. Oh Lord, the man was rumpled and sexy and looked as cute and dangerous as the Cheshire Cat.

  “I’m not sure,” Cora managed to say. “I’m on my way to investigate.”

  “I’ll come with.”

  “Suit yourself,” she replied and kept going. He wasn’t sleeping in Ivy’s room, was he? The idea was preposterous.

  She turned on the porch light and opened the front door. There stood two uniformed police officers with Josh Waters. He was cuffed. Ruby stood on the porch talking with the officers.

  “Yes, of course, I have a permit,” she said, indignant.

  “Ruby?” Cora said, looking at the gun in her hand. “What are you doing?”

  “I saw this man out walking around on the property. Didn’t recognize him at first. Sorry, Josh. But what the hell are you doing out this time of night on someone else’s property?” Ruby said.

  Her pacifist, ex-hippie herbalist packed heat? Cora made a mental note about scheduling a long conversation with Ruby.

  “Are you the owner of this house?” An officer approached her. Was he one of the same officers from the graffiti incident? Of course he was—how many cops could a small town employ?

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you know this man?”

  “We met earlier in the day. I stopped by his house for the yard sale,” she said.

  “I told you that,” Josh said to Shimer.

  Shimer nodded. “Still doesn’t explain what you were doing here.”

  “I was delivering something. It’s over there on the front porch,” Josh stated, bright eyed and alert. Not how he looked earlier in the day.

  Cora turned and faced the box, which she suspected contained the doilies she’d purchased earlier. She walked back up the steps and bent over and lifted the box. It was full of the doilies and handkerchiefs, plus more—he added in other bits and pieces of lace and cloth. How delightful.

  But also how strange. Why would he drop it by at this time of night?

  A note was attached:

  Sorry about earlier today. You purchased these. I want you to have them.

  Josh Waters

  “Thank you,” Cora said to Josh. “Officers, I think you can let him go.”

  “Just a darn minute. He was trespassing,” Ruby said. “Ain’t no man up to any good at this time of night.”

  “Explanation?” asked the other officer, who Cora now realized was Officer Glass.

  Josh hung his head a bit, then scanned the gathered crowd.

  “You bought them. I wanted you to have them. I don’t know,” he said and shrugged his shoulders. “I sometimes lose track of time. I’m not sleeping these days. So I thought I’d sit them on your porch and you’d find them first thing in the morning. Thought it would be a nice surprise. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Scare me? It takes more than the likes of you to scare me, Josh Waters,” Ruby said indignantly.

  “Ruby!” Cora said.

  “Okay,” Glass said. “We’ll let you go with a warning, Waters. This all seems to check out. This is Indigo Gap, not Philadelphia. Folks don’t roam the streets after certain hours. Got that?”

  Josh nodded sheepishly.

  But he used to live here. Doesn’t he know all about Indigo Gap? Cora thought.

  Cora shivered in the October night—but it wasn’t because of the chill in the air.

  Chapter 20

  A full, bright moon beamed through Cora’s lacy sheer curtains. How was she supposed to sleep after the incident that happened right in her front yard? She turned over one more time, then decided to get some blog writing done.

  Instead, she found herself searching on the Internet for information about Josh Waters. He was a retired school teacher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had remarried—to a Charlotte Bow—and had two children with her.

  His family must love him being here, tending to his ex-wife’s estate, Cora mused.

  More probing revealed an article about drug addiction in which he was quoted as saying, “It rules your life until you rule it.”

  That is true enough, Cora thought.

  A huge follower of Al-Anon, Waters had apparently lost his first marriage because of drug
addiction. He stated in the article that he didn’t want to go into detail, but that those years were rough and he’d rather put them behind him.

  Hmm. So was it him or his wife that had the addiction?

  Most nondomestic murders in the United States were drug related. But it was hard to imagine that Sarah Waters—the school librarian—had a drug problem, especially when Cora knew about the tight security at the schools. They would not let a woman with a record work there, let alone a woman involved with drugs.

  She had suspected Josh was on something when she was with him in his ex-wife’s house. Was Sarah killed because she or Josh owed money to a drug lord somewhere?

  Drug lord? This was not her old borderline neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Cora reminded herself. Did they have drug lords in Indigo Gap? The unusually low crime rate was one reason she picked this place to relocate to. She’d had enough criminal excitement to last her a lifetime—which was partly why she had developed the panic disorder. She was not built for daily hard-core stress.

  The possibility of drug involvement in Sarah’s case was extremely high—at least in Cora’s estimation. She Googled Sarah Waters again, and the same list of links appeared.

  But there was a new one—it was about the historical commission in Indigo Gap, a tough bunch of people who kept a watchful eye on the main few streets of the town to make certain everybody was abiding by the rules. Some of those rules included things like what you could plant in your garden, what color you could paint your house, and what kind of curtains you could hang in the windows. Cora thought it was a bit much, but she had to admit the historical integrity of the town had endured as a result.

  She clicked on the article. It was about a new proposed color for Sarah’s house. She had wanted to paint it, and the board struck her down. It wasn’t the first time Sarah had gone head-to-head with them. A certain man, Edgar Thorncraft, always seemed to reject her proposals. The article listed the several things she’d tried to change over the years, and sometimes the commission would be split almost right down the middle, with Edgar delivering the final blow of rejection.

  Cora had actually met Edgar Thorncraft. She met him the day he came over to Jane’s place to review the paint color she’d selected for the carriage house. He walked around that day with a clipboard, taking notes. He seemed pleasant enough, but maybe a little rigid. He was pleased with the color Jane selected—historical creds and all that. Cora was not about to rock the historical boat that she and Jane came in on—it worked for them.

  So—Sarah Waters was not a little mouse of a librarian. She was possibly involved in drugs, went to bat against the commission several times, and had been quite a collector of some unusual items. Sarah might have been an interesting person to hang out with—sans drugs, of course. What a sorry end for her.

  Cora debated what her next step should be. Should she try to talk with Josh again? Possibly Edgar? Or maybe she should contact Cashel and see what he knew about these folks first. That sounded like the most sensible thing to do. Maybe when she told him what she figured out, he’d follow up. Maybe.

  He thought it best to leave the investigating to the cops, so he might not want to help.

  But the cops’ investigation seemed to be focused on Jane, and that was not going to get them anywhere. After all, Jane had an alibi. She was out of town.

  But where exactly was she? Where had Jane gone that weekend? Cora didn’t even think to ask her at the time where she was going. And it was obvious that Jane had gotten mixed up herself about the times and dates.

  Well, it didn’t matter where she had been, Cora reminded herself, she knew Jane didn’t kill Sarah. And Jane was entitled to some private time.

  Cora’s eyelids were finally drooping, and she slipped into bed. She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  The next morning, Cora grabbed a cup of coffee, stacked a bunch of muffins into a basket, and hightailed it to Cashel’s office. Her goal was to get out of the house before she was corralled into taking London to school again or into a long social breakfast with her guest teacher and guest. She’d left them both a list of good places to eat in Indigo Gap.

  She ran into Cashel on the sidewalk outside of his office, which was across the street from the police station.

  “Hey,” Cashel said. “Good morning. What are you doing out and about so early?”

  “I’m coming to your office. I wanted to talk with you,” Cora replied. Dang, he was looking fine in a dark blue suit and a red tie.

  “I’m in court this morning,” he said and frowned. He glanced at his watch. “I have about twenty minutes. Let’s go to the park.”

  Sitting on a park bench next to Cashel was not what she planned. Still, there could be worse things. They walked together to the corner, where there was a little park with several benches. He sat down and she followed his lead.

  Once again, Cora noted that Cashel’s eyes were blue, blue, blue—especially blue outdoors with the sky’s reflection and light in them.

  Get a grip, Cora. He is Ruby’s son.

  “What’s in the basket?” he said.

  “Muffins.”

  “For me?”

  “You may have one, but I’m taking them to the police station.”

  “I’m sure there’s a story?” he asked, reaching for a blueberry muffin and taking a bite. His hair was catching the morning light, giving it a golden sheen. “Okay, spill,” he said, with his mouth curling into a kind of lopsided grin, then took a bite. “Mmm, good muffins.”

  “Thanks,” she said and proceeded to fill him in on what happened last night, as well as the graffiti, and the confrontation in the front yard of Sarah Waters’ house with her daughter.

  “I know you’re trying to help Jane,” he said when Cora was done. “But it looks like it could get dangerous. I want you to stop.”

  “I can defend myself,” she told him. She didn’t feel obligated to tell him about all the self-defense classes she had been required to take as part of her old job.

  “Not much you can do against a gun,” he said.

  “Nobody had a gun—except your mother,” she said, watching him finish his muffin and roll his eyes at the mention of his mom. “All that aside, what do you think?”

  “I think you have a unique mind,” he said, as a softness came over his face. Cora might have been misreading him—but she thought he genuinely liked her. “I think you care a lot for your friend. But what makes you think the police haven’t previously researched this?”

  “Because they are investigating Jane. Why would they bother with her if there were other leads?” she responded. A strand of her red hair blew in front of her eye, so she tucked it behind her ear.

  “They found a partial print that appears to match hers and they are compelled to look into it. That’s pretty serious business,” he said after a few moments.

  “We both know those aren’t her prints. When will the team of experts be here to look at them?”

  “They are already here, from my understanding. Look, I need to go,” he said and started to rise from the bench.

  “One more thing,” she said. “Does Indigo Gap have a drug problem?”

  “Every place in this country has one—big or small. It’s everywhere.”

  “Thanks for talking with me,” Cora said and stood face-to-face with him a moment.

  He scratched his chin and eyeballed her, opened his mouth as if he had something to say, and then looked away as he picked up his briefcase.

  “Oh,” he said, turning back around. “Giving muffins to the police? Nicely played.” He laughed and walked away.

  Chapter 21

  When Cora still wasn’t home after Jane returned from taking London to school, she started to worry. It was ridiculous, Jane knew. If anybody could take care of herself, it was Cora. When most people looked at Cora, they might think she was pretty and sweet and, well, almost pixie-like. But looks deceived. Cora was a warrior.

  A creati
ve-warrior vintage-fairy-princess. But still. A warrior.

  She noticed a car pulling up to the house and wondered if it was a guest arriving early. When Jane opened the front door, she realized that it was that guy from the historical commission.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Edgar Thorncraft.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I remember. Is there a problem?”

  “I’m checking on the parking situation. I know you’re having guests this weekend,” he said and used one of his long bony fingers to push his glasses back on his nose.

  “There will be cars parked here and in the driveway. Cora isn’t here now, but she informed you about this, right?”

  He nodded. “I wanted to make sure the number of guests hadn’t grown. We don’t want visitors to our quaint historical town to see an eyesore in the form of a big pile of cars in front of one of our most famous houses,” he said with a biting tone.

  Jane frowned. “As far as I know, our registration has remained the same as when Cora spoke with you. If it’s changed, I’ll have her call you. Do you have a card?”

  “She has my number.”

  So do I, Jane thought. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll pass along your concerns.” She walked forward out of the house, trying to usher him along. But he stood and observed the house, then turned back to Jane.

  “You are Jane Starr, correct?”

  She nodded.

  “Humph. My sister loves your pottery,” he said and then walked away.

  “That’s so good to hear,” she called out after him.

  What an odd bird. The words “lacking in social skills” rang in her head. Oh well. She wasn’t going to worry about him today. Today was an important day. The retreat guests were arriving, and they were going to have a fabulous reception. Launch day. She could hardly believe it.

  If someone had said to her ten years ago that this life was going to be hers, she wouldn’t have believed it. Of course, it could all be taken away if by some strange fluke she was found guilty of the murder of Sarah Waters.