by Tim Myers
I admired my card again. “I wouldn’t say that.” I took it and mounted it behind my cash register. “You don’t mind if I display it, do you? I honestly don’t have anything like it. It’s lovely.”
“I’d be honored,” she said as the front door opened. I was ready for Greg, just in case he was back for another tongue-lashing, but instead I saw my brother come in.
It was perfect timing. I had a dozen things I needed to talk to him about, and he wasn’t going to like a single one of them.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
“Can we take a walk and do it, Jennifer?” He looked at Lillian with a mixture of fear and dislike.
“What is it with you two?” I asked. “Why can’t you get along?”
Lillian said, “Ask him. I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”
“Come on, Aunt Lillian, you know full well why there’s so much bad blood between us.”
She blew out a puff of air. “Don’t tell me you’re still upset about the banana pudding incident. Bradford Shane, that was thirty years ago.”
Bradford shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Mom made it especially for me, and you stole it.”
“I was hungry, you nitwit,” Lillian said. “Christine never told me it was for you, and by the time she realized what I was eating, it was too late. I made you another bowl myself the next day.”
“It wasn’t as good as Mom’s.”
I couldn’t help myself; I busted out laughing. They both looked at me as if I were insane. Once I got my breath back, I said, “That’s it? You’ve been battling all these years over a bowl of banana pudding? You both are unbelievable.”
For the first time in thirty years, it appeared that my brother and my aunt were in perfect agreement that I was the only crazy one in the room. I grabbed Bradford’s arm and said, “Let’s go. I can’t take the two of you at the same time.”
He huffed slightly as we walked outside. I said, “Here all these years I thought you were the great peacemaker, and now my illusions are shattered.”
“There’s more to it than that,” he protested.
“I certainly hope so, but you two can deal with it yourselves. I have enough to worry about without your squabble. There are some things I need to talk to you about.”
“Yeah, well there’s something I need to tell you, too.”
“Me first,” I said, steamrolling over him. “You need to tell your deputy to stop watching me. He’s giving me the creeps.”
“Which deputy are you talking about?” he asked.
“Wayne Davidson. He’s been stalking me the past few days, and I don’t like it, whether it’s been on your orders or he’s doing it on his own.”
Bradford looked puzzled by my statement. “Sis, I haven’t had him on you since he blew it the other night. That’s the honest truth.”
“Then he’s developing a new obsession.”
I relayed my conversation with Corrine in the bank line, and Bradford whistled softly. “That’s it. I’m pulling him in. Let me know if you spot him again, okay?”
“What are you going to do?”
Bradford said, “I’m going to have one last talk with him, and if that doesn’t work, he’s gone. We’re here to make folks feel safer, not add to their worries.
What else is on your mind? Let’s get it all on the table.”
“Okay, here’s something else that’s been bugging me. Have you been keeping Greg Langston up-to-date on what’s been going on in my life? He seems to know what’s happening with me the second I do.”
Bradford actually reddened slightly. “Sis, he’s a good guy. You two belong together. At least you would if you weren’t so stubborn.”
“Stop matchmaking, Bradford. We’re through.”
He looked shocked by my statement. “Come on, Jennifer, I didn’t mean anything by it. You can’t cut me out of your life.”
“I’m not talking about you, you big oaf. I won’t deny that Greg and I had a good thing going, but it’s dead. You can trust me on that, okay? So would you stop telling him everything that’s happening in my life?”
“You may not love him anymore, but I’ve got a feeling it’s not mutual.”
“That’s his problem,” I said. “Just kill the pipe-line, okay?”
“Okay. Anything else you want to chew me out about while you’re in the mood?” I glanced over and saw a couple of tourists approaching us warily. When I thought about how it must look to them to see a civilian upbraiding the sheriff in his full uniform, I had to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Bradford asked.
“We must look comical to everyone else,” I said. “I knew we should have had this conversation in my shop.”
“No thank you,” Bradford said.
“So I know you didn’t come by for an earful of grief from me,” I said. “Was there something yon wanted to tell me?”
“I don’t know if I should,” Bradford said, “It’s police business, but I thought you had a right to know.”
“You know you can trust me to keep my mouth shut,” I said. “Besides, I’m on your payroll, remember?”
“Well, it concerns—”
At that moment, Bradford’s radio went off. “Boss, I need you over on Hastings Avenue. We’ve got a hit-and-run, and it looks pretty bad.”
“I’ll be right there,” Bradford said as he started running back to his patrol car.
“Bradford, what were you going to tell me?”
“It’ll have to keep until later,” he said as he got into his car and sped away.
My brother couldn’t have devised a better way to drive me crazy if he’d tried.
There wasn’t much I could do about it, though, so I walked back to my shop. At least I’d gotten a lot off my chest. It felt good standing up to Bradford and Greg. Though I knew they both meant well, it wasn’t enough. I was a grown woman, perfectly capable of handling my problems in my own way. If I needed some furniture moved, I’d call one of them, but as far as the rest of my life was concerned, it was off-limits to their meddling from now on.
When I walked back into the card shop, Lillian was waiting by the door. “What did your brother want?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “He never got a chance to tell me.”
Lillian said, “You were gone an awfully long time. Have you just been walking up and down Oakmont by yourself?”
“I had some things I had to get off my chest first,” I said as I straightened a stack of envelopes that didn’t need it.
“Jennifer, what did your mother used to say about that?”
I was in no mood to have my mom’s pearls of wisdom dropped back in my lap. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Ignoring me completely, she said, “Her favorite saying was that you never learn a thing by talking.”
“I didn’t run him off for good; Bradford will be back. There was a hit-and-run he had to take care of first. Have you just been hovering by the door all this time waiting for me to show up?” I asked the last part with a slight smile, trying to get things back on a light footing. I loved my aunt dearly, but when she started quoting my own mother to me, it was time to put a stop to the conversation. Though she was Mom’s sister, I still thought I knew my mother better than Lillian did, whether that was true or not.
Lillian accepted the ab. “Of course I haven’t been idle. Actually, I’ve been studying your card offerings, and I have a suggestion.”
“Okay, I’m willing to listen to just about anything.”
Lillian chose one of my cards. “No offense, my dear, but these are just too sweet. If you’re going to compete with the giants, you need an edge.”
Fascinating. My aunt had been in the card business less than a week and she was already telling me how to compete with Hallmark. “Go on.”
“Here’s what I suggest.” She handed me a card, obviously one she’d just made while I’d been gone. “It’s a sympathy card. Well, kind of.”
I took it from her and saw a graveya
rd sketched on the front of the card. Lillian had always had a knack for drawing; I had to say that for her, even if I didn’t approve of her subject matter. “It lacks something, wouldn’t you say?” Something like taste, I thought to myself.
“Open it,” she suggested.
As I did, I saw that my aunt had made the card a pop-up. She had been doing her homework, at any rate. A tombstone lifted out of the ground, and on it was printed, “My sympathies for your upcoming nuptials.”
Despite my initial reaction, I had to laugh. “Did you have anyone in particular in mind for this?”
“Myrtle Entwistle is getting married to the most awful man in a few weeks. Believe me, I have nothing but sympathy for the poor woman.”
“Okay,” I said, “so you want to do this tongue in cheek. I get your humor, but will Myrtle?”
“Oh please, we’ve been friends for ten years. How do you think we’ve lasted that long?”
“And you’re suggesting a new line of these? Why not? Come up with five or six prototypes and I’ll give you a corner.” I knew what it felt like to have my ideas crushed by a family member, and I wasn’t about to stomp on Lillian’s enthusiasm. We might even manage to sell a few. I wasn’t cynical enough to write them, but Lillian wouldn’t have any problem with that.
She looked delighted by my commission. “This is going to be fun. Listen, lunch today is on me.”
“You’re going to lose money working here; you know that, don’t you?”
“Money I’ve got plenty of,” she said. “This is fun.”
“Fine, I’m too tired to argue about it,” I said. “Get whatever you’d like.”
She grabbed her purse and bolted out the door, no doubt fleeing before I could change my mind. Twenty minutes later Lillian was back. Blast it all, I knew I shouldn’t have let her choose. She’d picked up two salads for us from Sassy’s. It was Lillian’s idea of a feast, not mine.
“I’ve been thinking about something we need to discuss,” she said as she set them up on our worktable at the window.
“We’re eating here?” It would feel like living in a zoo, eating my lunch in front of the world.
“Why not? We’re finished with our orders, and there’s nothing pressing.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said. I couldn’t count on getting two orders for wedding invitations every month, and the walk-in traffic was much less than I’d hoped.
“Don’t worry, dear. You’ll succeed if it kills us both.”
“‘Kill’ isn’t exactly a word I’m fond of these days.”
Lillian said, “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Chapter 18
“I’m not in the mood for one of your jokes, Lillian.” I looked at the salad, but I couldn’t bring myself to try it. I enjoy a simple mixed green salad on occasion, maybe with a few carrots and peppers thrown into the mix, but there was something dripping off this one that I couldn’t identify if my life depended on it. ‘“This is no joke,” Lillian said after taking a bite of hers. Whatever it was didn’t kill her, so I tried mine. It was a little salty, but I didn’t want any more information than that, and there was no way on earth I was going to ask her what I was eating. Lillian continued. “We’re going about this all wrong.” That was enough. “Listen, I know you mean well, but I’ve been planning this card shop in my mind for months, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job. Maybe you should work here longer than a week before you start remodeling.”
Instead of the scowl I’d been expecting, Lillian started laughing. “Jennifer, I’m not talking about your shop. I think you’ve done an admirable job.” “Then what are you talking about?” “Our murder investigation,” she said, then took another bite.
“What else can we do?” I asked. “We’ve talked to everyone we can think of, and nobody broke down and confessed.”
“This isn’t bad television, dear; this is real. We need to make a list and quantify our findings.”
“What did you do, check a book out from the library on crime solving?”
Lillian’s scowl came on full blast then. “Don’t be nit. It doesn’t become you.” She took a bite, then said “Herbert, my second husband, was a crime fiction man and he got me hooked on the classics. A lot of famous literary detectives made lists.”
I got up, grabbed a white marker board from the back and handed her a pen. “Write away.”
If Lillian had any idea I’d just been teasing her, she didn’t let on. She drew four columns on the board and for the head of each one, she wrote “NAME, “MEANS,” “OPPORTUNITY” and “MOTIVE.” Under the name heading, she wrote “Donna,” “Beth, “Pam,” “Cam,” “Melinda,” “Anne” and “Larry.”
“Have you lost your mind completely?” I asked. “I know Larry’s a stretch, but he had an earring too, and I’m certain that’s a telling clue.”
I shook my fork at her, getting into the debate with d out meaning to. “Tina kept referring to a ‘she’ on the phone with me. Larry couldn’t have done it.”
Lillian frowned, then erased his name with the back of her hand. “I just hated seeing all those women names without having a man there, too.”
“Lillian, our reasoning could be faulty. What if the murderer wasn’t tied into the wedding at all?”
“That I refuse to believe,” my aunt said. “Tina was back in town to meet with Donna about her wedding. We mustn’t forget that you found that earring in the bathroom, one that Beth couldn’t find anywhere in town. No, it has to be one of these women.”
“And you think Melinda or Anne Albright could have done it?”
Lillian frowned, then said, “Melinda seems sweet but what if she didn’t want her son to marry Donna so badly that she was willing to kill to stop it?”
“Then why didn’t she just murder the bride instead?”
“And kill her own grandchild in the process? No, if I were determined to stop this wedding, killing Tina would be the perfect choice,” I pushed my salad away, more interested in working n the list than eating. “If that’s the motive, you can strike Anne Albright’s name off, then. Nobody wants see those two get married more than that woman, and that includes the bride and groom.”
Lillian started to erase her name, then hesitated. “Let’s leave her up there for now, shall we?”
I shrugged. After all, it was her list. “What about the others? Do you think any of them had motive?”
“I admit, that’s the difficult part. The weapon was in the house, so anyone could have killed her with it. As to opportunity, none of them have to give us alibis, do they? The only thing we can play with is motive.”
I studied that part of the list again, then said, “Beth has one. At least she might believe she does. Who’s the one person that we know profited from Tina’s murder?”
It was Lillian’s turn to look shocked. “Are we really willing to consider the possibility that she killed Tina get her job as maid of honor? It’s a little extreme, wouldn’t you say?”
“You didn’t hear her in the kitchen,” I said. “Beth made it sound like she and Tina had been battling for years.”
Lillian circled Beth’s name. “So there’s our killer.”
“Not so fast,” I said. “We still need to talk about the other three women.”
“Do you think we can find motives for them, too?”
“Lillian, if we’re going to do this right, we can’t just jump on the first likely suspect.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she said as she removed the circle with her thumb. “How about the others?”
“That’s the problem. We don’t know Cam and Pam well enough to guess their motives.”
“So let’s leave them for now,” Lillian said. “Donna is the only one left on our list.”
“Again, I can’t think of a motive for her.”
“I didn’t say this method was foolproof, but I would like to talk to Beth myself. Why don’t we go get some lunch?”
I pointed to my half-eaten salad. “I thoug
ht we already ate.”
“Nonsense. I know how much you love red meat. I’m going to treat you to a hamburger.”
“At Hurley’s, right? We’re going to go talk to Beth again.”
“If we happen to sit at her table, we’ll naturally chat with her a little.”
There were a great many reasons I probably should have said no, and shutting my card shop down again was just one of them, but that salad had done little to satisfy my appetite, and I did want to talk to Beth. “Let’s go.”
“That’s the spirit,” Lillian said as the front door opened. So much for our plans to investigate the murder.
The man who walked in looked bewildered by the array of cards up front. “May I help you?” I asked
“I’m sorry, but could I see a menu?”
“Excuse me?”
He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not sure I want eat here,” he said as he looked around. “But I saw you eating salads in the window, and they looked good to me.”
I shot Lillian a dirty look, then directed him Sassy’s. After he was gone, I said, “That’s the last time we eat up front.”
Lillian shrugged off my stern language. “Let’s go. You can berate me along the way.”
“Hang on one second.” I took the time to make a sign up that said closed for lunch, back soon.” i stuck it in the window; then we walked to Hurley’s to interview one of our suspects, and get me a little protein in the process.
Hurley’s had a nice crowd, so Jack frowned when he saw us. “Back again so soon? Now’s not a good time.”
“For lunch?” I asked as innocently as I could.
“Don’t be smart, Jennifer. Would you two really like a table?”
Lillian said, “If we can have one in Beth Anderson’s area.”
“She doesn’t have time to answer your questions, Ma’am,” Jack said.
Lillian didn’t reply; she merely kept looking at him intently until he broke. “Fine, I’ll seat you in her section, but you’re here for lunch, understand?”
“Of course we do, dear boy.” I didn’t know how Lillian managed it, but she could get her way without saying a word more often than I could by using every argument I could think of. I was beginning to realize that my aunt could teach me a thing or two about dealing with people, if I just paid attention.
