by Annie Irvin
“I’m not slowing you down, am I?” Eli asked.
“Not anymore,” Harper said, grabbing her jacket and heading for the front door. “Not anymore.”
Chapter Five
Harper was out of breath by the time she hotfooted it down the block to Wilcox and Wilson Realty. She realized the breathlessness was caused not only by her swift pace but by the fact that Eli’s visit to the antique shop had upset her more than she wanted to admit. She willed herself to breathe deeply and slowly. After giving the door to the real estate agency an opening shove, Harper looked around the front lobby. The receptionist wasn’t at her desk and the place appeared empty.
Aaron Wilcox and James Wilson had inherited the real estate business from their fathers. Good thing or bad thing, they also had inherited Grace Potter, Real Estate Agent. Grace’s valuable experience in wheeling and dealing, and her beneficial knowledge of all the red tape that goes along with buying and selling property, had convinced Aaron and James to overlook her sharp tongue and keep her on their payroll. Another real estate agent, Fannie Abbott, also worked for Wilcox and Wilson, and the feuding between Grace and the younger, prettier Fannie over who could outsell whom was known all over town. Neither woman wanted to play second fiddle to the other.
“Helloooo,” Harper called out. “Anyone here?”
Getting no answer, Harper tried to decide whether to wait or leave. It was then she noticed the door with Grace’s nameplate on it standing slightly ajar.
“Anyone here?” she called out again, cautiously giving the door a light shove with one finger. She’d been in this office before and in her view felt everything about it nailed Grace Potter’s personality. Pretentious. Overly done. Pompous. From the flamboyantly large antique desk, which Harper’s expertise told her must have cost a pretty penny and a half, to the awards for Outstanding Real Estate Agent—enlarged, expensively framed and hung on the wall where anyone sitting across from Grace would be sure to see them—there was nothing modest about the décor. Harper picked up a photo in a heavy silver frame from the corner of the desk. The camera had caught Grace holding a prestigious regional sales award, a disgruntled-looking Fannie Abbott standing by her side. She placed the picture next to a gold-plated pen set and an oversized ‘Grace Potter, Agent’ nameplate, then eased herself into Grace’s top-of-the-line leather office chair.
A neat stack of manila file folders on the well-polished desk caught Harper’s eye. Without really thinking about it, she reached over and slid the pile closer. She flipped open the top folder and scanned the first page.
Good grief, Harper thought, Grace appraised the value of her clients’ property and then, apparently to satisfy her own meddling desire to know, estimated the value of their furnishings and art work. But the amount of client assets wasn’t what caught Harper’s attention. It was the notes added to the folders and clearly meant for Grace’s eyes only that held her interest.
‘She’s never been married, yet several men’s shirts are freshly laundered and hanging in the back of Holly’s closet under a shelf with a bottle of Armani for Men and a shaving kit,’ Grace had scribbled on a sheet of note paper in Holly Freedman’s file.
‘Liquor cabinet not locked. Fully stocked with gin, vermouth and olives. Whoever thought elderly widow Edna drank so many martinis?’ she’d jotted down on old Edna Parker’s file.
‘It only took a quick peek inside bedroom end table to discover abundance of sex toys. Wonder if Barb bought these after she divorced her husband?’ Grace had cattily noted on the file of a recent divorcee who had listed her house with Wilcox and Wilson.
Taken aback by the intimate details Grace had so blatantly penned, Harper flipped shut the file folders, trying to get the image of padded handcuffs, martini shakers, and shirts smelling of Armani out of her mind.
Good Lord, she thought, Grace did more than take pictures and measurements before she put a house on the market. She pried where she shouldn’t have and then had the nerve to take notes on the scandalous stuff she found!
Harper, sorry she had looked inside the folders, shoved them to the far side of the desk.
Wait a minute, Harper thought. What if Grace snooped through Mom’s stuff when she appraised the Inn? What if she wrote notes in a folder on Mom, or on Violet or Ezra? There was no way Harper would let Grace, dead or alive, get away with keeping spiteful notes on Olivia. She looked around for a filing cabinet. There were none. She pulled open one of the four desk drawers and found it filled with neatly arranged, color-coded file folders.
Harper quickly dug through them, looking for one labeled ‘Bittersweet Inn’ or ‘Waterford, Olivia.’ Finding nothing she went through the other three drawers which turned up zilch.
Drats, Harper muttered, certain there must be a file someplace with her mother’s name on it. The only drawer left was the middle drawer which usually held nothing more than pens and paperclips. Still, Harper slid it open. A dark green folder lay in the middle of the drawer. It wasn’t labeled so Harper pulled it out and opened it.
Inside was a crisp, unfolded letter addressed to Milo Fairweather, Deacon at Bittersweet Hollow’s Church of the Merciful Redemption. The words stared up boldly at Harper and she couldn’t help but read them. In the letter, Grace carved up the church’s minister, Lawrence Hart, as well as Grace’s co-worker, Fannie Abbott.
Grace had written in part, ‘It was my plan to confront Pastor Hart about Fannie Abbott’s solo for the upcoming Christmas service as I was quite surprised by his announcement at choir practice tonight that he had given that prime position to Fannie as well as offered her the solo parts for all of November, too. Fannie Abbott’s voice is entirely too weak to go it alone and I felt it absolutely my duty to speak with Pastor about this. With that thought in mind, I stayed after all the others had left choir practice. Knowing I would be alone to state my case, I made my way to the church office, ready to insist Pastor Hart give the solos to someone else or I’d know the reason why. I pushed open the office door and witnessed the real reason the Pastor had given it to Fannie Abbott.
“I was shocked beyond words and obviously so were the Pastor and Fannie at being caught in the act of fornication. Pastor Hart looked sweaty and pasty, as though he might suffer a coronary at any moment, and Fannie appeared red-faced and completely distressed. Naturally she would be distressed since we all know she can’t really sing. Since Pastor Hart was hired two years ago, I have said time and time again he is much too handsome for his own good. Mark my words, I said many a time, that man will have all the single female parishioners after him even though he’s a married man with young children. Unfortunately some of the more immoral of our married parishioners went after him, and he capitulated to his baser needs.
“While it is regrettable my disclosure means Lawrence Hart will not be able to continue his spiritual leadership due to his disgusting lack of morals, I simply have no choice but to expose him and let the consequences fall where they may.”
Harper hated the fact she now knew more than she wanted to know about Lawrence and Fannie, yet the train had already wrecked and Harper couldn’t take her eyes off it. There was a second letter in the folder addressed to Fannie’s husband, Bruce Abbott.
Harper read the words, ‘how regrettable it is that I am the one to tell you about your wife’s fornicating with, of all people, the pastor, but I believe it’s only fair you know all about it. Fannie is obviously addicted to attracting men which can be seen in the way she dresses so provocatively in low-cut blouses, skin tight skirts, and five inch heels. It’s a pity Pastor Hart had to jump on temptation by jumping on your wife, but perhaps it was only a matter of time...
Harper sat still for a few minutes. Grace had opened a can of loose-lipped worms and they were crawling all over Harper’s vision. She didn’t need to read any further. She wanted to forget she’d read either letter. These words would destroy Pastor Hart’s career, tear apart his young family, ruin Fannie and Bruce Abbott’s marriage, and wreck Fannie’s real e
state career, at least in the town where she’d been caught in the church office on top of the desk and under the pastor.
Harper noted the letters had been dated a few days ago. Grace had clipped a stamped, addressed envelope with each letter and, it appeared, held on to them for a few days after she wrote them. Why hadn’t she mailed them right away? Did Lawrence and Fannie know about the letters? If they did, it might mean Grace had written them in order to blackmail her rival.
Blackmail. That was a compelling motive for murder, wasn’t it? Fannie had never hidden her dislike of Grace and if Grace had threatened to expose her affair with the pastor, Fannie might have acted to keep the scandal from becoming public.
Nothing says Lawrence Hart couldn’t also be pushed over the edge of reason by Grace Potter catching him and Fannie in the act, Harper realized. It wouldn’t be the first time a man of the cloth had broken the Sixth Commandment. He’d already broken the Seventh.
Suddenly a strong desire to show Grace’s letters to Lonnie overrode her common sense and she shoved the letters into her purse instead of returning them to the desk drawer. Obviously the police would be interested in these letters and Harper would certainly find a way to return them before they were missed. Not that they would be missed if no one knew they were there in the first place. But now wasn’t the time to rationalize. Now was the time to beat a retreat out of the realty office before James and Aaron showed up. She’d find out later if Mead and Alice had stopped by. For now she wanted to see if her sister believed b-l-a-c-k-m-a-i-l wasn’t a darned good way to spell murder.
Chapter Six
“Good morning, Sweetie,” Naylor Biggs, proprietor of A Different Wrinkle, sang out cheerily from behind a display of women’s hats as Harper walked through the door. “What brings you in today? Our sweater dresses? A nice wool coat?”
“My sister,” Harper said, smiling at Naylor whose spiked blond hair was at odds with the vintage English tweed suit he wore.
Tilting his head, he said, “I do believe she’s in the back room sorting through some lovely scarves. Shall I go get her for you?”
“That would be great,” Harper replied.
While Naylor glided toward the rear of the store, Harper browsed, casually inspecting a rack of circa 1960 dresses. Naylor carried quality vintage clothing in his store, traveling around the country four times a year to replenish his inventory. He carried mainly women’s clothing and accessories although he’d recently expanded the men’s section.
Naylor never concealed from his customers the fact that he loved the women’s section best. His other longtime employee, Carlotta Perez, handled the men’s clothing section while he and Lonnie created the artistic displays that defined the women’s department. Naylor treated Lonnie and Carlotta like partners in the successful, upscale boutique.
“Here she is, darling,” Naylor sang out as he and Lonnie advanced from the storage area in the back. “I brought you some scarves to try on. This paisley one is so you.”
“It is nice,” Harper agreed, fingering the soft material.
“It’s a classic,” Naylor said, draping the scarf across Harper’s shoulder. “You look divine as always,” Naylor winked, stroking the fine fabric of the scarf with his fingers. “You both do. Goodness, you must feel as though you’re looking in a mirror when you face each other.” Naylor folded the scarf over his arm.
“Only if the mirror is one of those carnival ones that warp the image,” Harper laughed. “Lonnie is two inches shorter and five pounds lighter than me.”
“But you have the same features, the dark emerald eyes, the cute little nose, the shiny auburn hair. And barely any gray. Not to mention your lovely complexions.” Naylor squinted into Harper’s face. “I’m ten years younger than you, honey, and very jealous of your skin. Yours and Lonnie’s.”
“That’s what you get for being a sun worshiper when you lived in California,” Harper pointed out.
Naylor sighed and gazed at the ceiling as though he could actually see the sun-soaked sand along the Pacific shoreline. “And I have no regrets. Because that’s where I met Wild Eddie Folsom. He was a lifeguard at Bare Bottom Beach. He taught me how to surf, along with a few other fabulous things.”
Harper smiled. “I’m going to borrow Lonnie for a bit. I’ll bring her back soon.”
“Yes, bring her back,” he said absentmindedly as he walked away mumbling, “Drop dead gorgeous; Wild Eddie was, drop dead gorgeous.”
“So what’s up? Where are we going?” Lonnie panted, trying to keep up with Harper’s purposeful stride.
“We’re going to my shop. I’ve got something to show you. Something you wouldn’t guess in a million years and after I show it to you, you’ve got to keep quiet about it.”
“I can keep quiet. It must be pretty good, huh?”
“Actually, it’s pretty bad,” Harper said as they arrived at Our Earthly Remains.
Harper spotted Helen waiting on a couple admiring a nineteenth century writing desk. She hurried Lonnie through her office door, shutting it firmly behind them. She motioned for Lonnie to sit down on an antique sofa, and then plopped down beside her. She opened her purse and pulled out the letters.
“I went to the realty office this morning to see if Mead and Alice had talked with James and Aaron yet. No one was there. I found these in Grace’s desk.”
She handed the letters to Lonnie who took them and said, “You mean you were snooping?”
“Sleuthing.”
“Whatever,” Lonnie said, unfolding the two letters Grace had written.
“Your jaw has dropped open,” Harper said, watching Lonnie read.
“My eyeballs have popped out, too,” Lonnie declared, shaking her head in disbelief. “I have to say I’m shocked.”
“Let me know when the shock wears off. I want your opinion on whether or not we’ve found motives for Grace’s murder.”
“Grace’s murder? You mean either the Pastor or Fannie committed the crime? Isn’t that a little farfetched?”
“Well, think about it. Let’s say you’re a minister, it’s your calling. It’s your whole life. That and your family. Lawrence Hart has a wife and two small children. He also has a flock looking to him to lead their way to the Pearly Gates. And because of what might have been no more than a one-time fall from grace, no pun intended, he stands to lose it all with one mail delivery. As for Fannie, she has a husband with a good job who supports her quite well. I mean, look at her comfortable home and expensive car, and she has a good job with Wilcox and Wilson. Besides, now that her competition at work is dead she basically gets a promotion.”
Lonnie nodded in agreement. “Lawrence and his family were at the festival yesterday evening. So were Fannie and Bruce. Neither couple acted as though they’d recently found out their spouse was doing ‘it’ with someone else. As a matter of fact, I spotted Fannie and Bruce holding hands at the hot dog stand.”
“Soooo,” Harper said, pursing her lips, “we can assume Grace hadn’t ratted on Lawrence or Fannie before she was murdered. But she could have blackmailed both of them with the letters.”
“If she did, I wonder what her demands were,” Lonnie mused.
“Enough for one of them to kill her.”
“You really think so?”
“I think this. We need to expose the murderer. Then Alice will believe Grace’s spirit will vanish into thin air like a good ghost and she and Mead will sign the papers to close the sale. We can get our mother away from a horrifying murder site and into a peaceful, safe townhome before she has another fall and breaks more than her wrist. Lawrence and Fannie both had motive. I need to find out if they had the opportunity. There were a lot of people milling around the Inn last night and someone was bound to have seen something. I’m going to dig around and find out.”
“I should get back to work,” Lonnie said, handing the letters back to Harper just as Harper’s cell phone rang.
Harper took the call while Lonnie waited.
“That
was Maggie,” Harper said, slipping the cell back into her purse. “She’s been dying to call me all morning to get the details about Grace’s murder but she’s been too busy at the farm. I told her I’d be right out. Since I walked to work and you drove, well, you do the math.”
“I’m on it,” Lonnie said. “Didn’t want to go back to work now anyway. Maggie and Fred were at the festival last night but I didn’t see them after Paul found Grace’s body.”
“We’ll find out if they saw anything. Let’s go.”
After briefly checking in with Helen and Naylor, the sisters headed to Maggie McCarthy’s White Pine Farm, its hundred and sixty acres spread adjacent to the Bittersweet Inn’s property. Maggie and Harper had been buddies since they started kindergarten together. In high school they let Lonnie tag along with them. The three had remained close friends.
