Veiled in Death

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  “Are you paying?” Rachel was never one to beat around the bush. She hovered over the pretty wrought-iron café chair on offer to her. I was appalled at her question, until I remembered we were dealing with Becca and Keith.

  “Of course,” Becca said crisply, further raising my spidey senses. She must want something, and it must be big, too. Becca was nervous, patting her pretty pouting pink lips with her napkin in an officious manner. She wore a lovely seersucker shift dress to highlight her slender frame. She was slightly taller than Keith, but somehow wore a miniscule shoe size. Today she was wearing her usual favored sky-high heels, a pair of pastel patent Louboutins with her legs strategically crossed to show off the trademark red sole. I wondered if this impromptu meeting was somehow staged, and pictured Becca following me all around town, ready to leap from behind lampposts and hedges. I giggled and awaited what would surely be some over-the-top request.

  I had my answer over the first course of gazpacho.

  “I don’t want to waste your time.” Becca sighed and sent a longing look at Keith. “Running out of time is what has brought us to this dire juncture.”

  This had better be good.

  “I’d like for you to be our surrogate, Mallory.” Becca included a sheepish Keith in her warm smile.

  “Ugh! Watch it!” Keith leapt back just in time to avoid the spray of coconut LaCroix shooting out of Rachel’s mouth. My sister bent double she was laughing so hard.

  “This isn’t a laughing matter, Rachel Shepard. Fertility, or lack thereof, never is.” Becca sat back in her chair, a look of pain marring her icy good looks.

  That shut Rachel up fast. She cocked her head and regarded Becca. “I’m sorry,” she simply amended.

  “Thank you. Now, as I was saying, Mallory—Keith and I think you’re the perfect candidate.” She held up her hand to quell the thousand protestations rising from my lips. “You’re not getting any younger, so we need your help now. You’re relatively healthy, though to be my surrogate you will need to lose at least fifteen pounds. And I know you and Garrett aren’t having kids of your own, so why waste your fertility? Carrying our baby will be hard work, as I’ll be monitoring your appointments and nutrition. And Keith and I will pay you handsomely, though we were hoping you’ll do it gratis as a favor for dear friends.”

  Oh. My. God.

  Not much rendered me speechless, but this was it. I felt my mouth open and close like a beached carp.

  I finally found my voice, but it trailed out in a sibilant hiss. “I have no idea what gave you the inkling that I would want to do this.” I amended my response when I took in Becca’s wounded look. “I’m sorry Becca, but I need to focus on growing my own family before I help with yours at the moment.” There. Nice and diplomatic, though I was internally screaming.

  But Becca had an answer for everything. “You already have Summer.” She gave a careless wave of her demure French tips. “Plus, Garrett’s too old.”

  That was it. “Garrett is the same age as Keith!” My voice was now two decibels too loud, and the others dining on the patio turned to listen to my rant. Keith blanched at my assertion and ran a self-aware hand over his balding pate.

  “Becca, if there will be any pregnancy in my future, it needs to be with Garrett. Though I feel for your plight, and I agree that surrogacy is a wonderful gift. It’s just not one I’m entertaining at the moment.”

  Becca’s gorgeous face, so laden with hope, deflated in a whoosh of despair. Before I could feel for her, the despair curdled into annoyance.

  Becca wasn’t finished. “But you’re my last chance! Samantha is in Colombia. Whitney has to wait six more months after her C-section.” She rattled off the names of her apparently unavailable twin and her cousin. “You were my only hope. Way to dash a girl’s dreams, Mallory.”

  “Here’s a news flash, since you’re not getting the memo.” Rachel loved mixing her metaphors. “Mallory’s not renting out her womb to you two.” She grabbed her snakeskin purse and rose from her chair. Now we had an audience.

  “Best of luck!” I called out as my sister pulled me down the street. Despite being insulted, shocked, and appalled at Becca’s behavior, I truly did mean it.

  * * *

  Becca’s request produced some pretty interesting dreams that night. I was happy to see daybreak the next morning and realize I was still in charge of my own free will and my own body. It would be a busy day. Jesse was true to his word, and had gotten permission from his doctor to head up construction on the house I’d someday share with Garrett and Summer. A house that would be completed in a mere two weeks, if Jesse had anything to do with it. I had my doubts, and wanted the job done right. Garrett surprised me by persuading me to give Jesse a shot. The next day construction began on the house Garrett, Summer, and I would someday reside in.

  I found myself at the hastily cleared patch of land that bridged the grounds of Thistle Park and the last few feet of Truman and Lorraine’s property, where Summer and Garrett currently lived. “It’s going to be awesome.” I looked down at my tablet and gave Jesse a smile. He was observing the breaking of the ground for my new abode, from the comfy confines of his own couch. I’d have preferred him to be here in person and in better health, but I was starting to trust Jesse and Garrett. This would work out.

  I tried to drown out the lingering protestations in my head, centered around the fact that though thorough, Jesse’s plans were somewhat hastily drawn. There was also another issue that made me nervous: Jesse’s promise come true of the city planning commission granting building permits in record time. I wanted this new venture to be careful and considered, not rushed and slipshod.

  “I’m here to see my plans for you realized!” My mother arrived on the scene and held a bottle of sparkling grape juice aloft. No one else seemed to share my concerns. “I want to toast to your new abode!” She struggled to pull the cap from the bottle, but seconds later was pouring me a celebratory plastic goblet of sparkling juice. “Here’s to a quick build and a bright future.”

  Garrett had a trial, and Rachel was helping Miles prepare for a catering gig. I was touched that my mom had shown up unannounced to see the house-building begin.

  “I’ll toast to that.”

  But the universe had other plans.

  Half an hour into digging with giant yellow backhoes, the construction crew hit something hard and unexpected in the soft earth.

  “Halt! Halt your digging!” The lead contractor, a man I recognized from many of Jesse’s projects, was capable and direct. If he ordered a stop, there must truly be an issue.

  The woman running the giant piece of machinery executed a graceful leap down from the driver’s seat and inspected the newly tilled earth with wonder. Jesse sat up from his perch on the couch, unable to truly see what was going on from his Skype connection.

  “What the heck is that?” I peered into the gaping hole in the earth, scared that the construction workers had found a body, or worse. But it was just a peculiar and rusted piece of metal.

  Jesse’s usual line of business was historical restoration. His men were experts in the field, and seemed to know what to do. “I think we need to call an archeologist.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “It’s distillery equipment.” Truman gave the verdict a mere four hours later. The lovely pink surveyor’s lines and stakes for my new yard were now replaced with crime scene tape.

  “Isn’t that a bit excessive?” I motioned toward the yellow plastic ringing the house, or what one day would be the house.

  At this rate? Yeah, right.

  “The crime tape is necessary when we suspect a crime. And finding what’s suspected to be Ebenezer Quincy’s long-lost distillery equipment buried at Thistle Park is indicative of a crime.”

  I rolled my eyes. Truman had just named the founder of our town, a man famed for his contraband whiskey. And long-lost distillery.

  Make that a found distillery.

  “Can we have one week around here when some fam
ous dude or lady’s artifacts don’t find their way to my property?”

  My exasperation drew out a much-needed chuckle from Truman. The coffee and lunch I’d ordered for the new crew and the old crew from this morning arrived, and the workers noshed while the archaeologist, local history professor, and Tabitha conferred on how to run what was now an archaeological dig slash crime scene.

  Tabitha and Truman were careful to avoid each other. I watched everyone’s work for a good forty-five minutes, before I gave up and went inside. Work on the cottage was paused while the site was to be examined and the equipment unearthed. It was possible my backyard would be deemed a site of historical significance, and I’d never be able to build there.

  As I walked through the gardens on my estate, I realized it might be for the best. Jesse was nearly apoplectic upon hearing the news via my tablet. He needed to rest, and a halt to this project was now unavoidable.

  I planned on spending the day scrubbing my office of the last vestiges of the crime scene techs. There was still a good deal of polishing to do. I’d vacuumed up most of the fingerprint dust, which had not turned up any prints other than mine and Rachel’s near the broken safe. The rest of the office was another matter. I regularly had families, brides, grooms, and partners in the space. The front part of the office, and the tables and smooth furniture surfaces were littered with many different prints. But I knew it was all for naught. Our savvy killer and veil absconder probably wore gloves.

  Imagine my surprise to find none other than Helene Pierce, suspect numero uno, seated in a wicker chair on my back porch.

  “Can I help you?” I peered behind her, half expecting another service processor to jump out of the wings with some gotcha action filed by my nemesis. Why, she may have caught wind of the distillery work in the back of the property and have come over to stake her red-taloned claim.

  “May I come in?” Helene rose imperiously to her feet. Her question was anything but, and more akin to an outright order.

  I stared into the woods, realizing Truman and Faith were close, yet strangely far away. I knew Truman and Faith’s cell numbers by heart, but the reception was a bit spotty in the woods. I hoped clearing a few more copses of trees would alleviate the problem if I ever did get to build a new home on that land.

  But for now, I wasn’t sure if I could trust Helene in my B and B. We would be all alone save for my cats.

  “Arf!” Helene’s little Yorkie, Baxter, had accompanied her on this trip. I was a sucker for pets, and almost let her in. The big bad witch couldn’t be so bad when she was accompanied by this little innocent fluff ball, right? Baxter blinked up at me in a beseeching manner.

  Totally not fair.

  But it was Helene’s uncharacteristic, bizarre entreaty that sealed the deal. “Mallory, I need your help.”

  I half expected a passel of pigs to appear in front of me, flapping their wings in unison.

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me! Don’t make me say it again.” Helene’s lips, swathed in their usual pearlescent coral shade, twisted into a lined and disapproving frown.

  That’s more like it.

  Against my better judgment, I let Helene into Thistle Park. She sat primly in the parlor. Until she tossed back the cream sherry I’d served at her request. She was strangely sloppy in her nervousness, and the ice cubes in the cut-glass goblet hit her teeth. Her bejeweled hands shook. She was dressed as simply as I’d ever seen her, in a plain robin’s-egg St. John dress and cardigan, her pantyhose with a tiny run.

  It was my sign that Helene Pierce was officially losing it.

  “Everything is starting again.” Helene gave a fearful glance out the front window. “It’s time to bury the hatchet.”

  Interesting.

  This could all be an Academy Award–worthy performance, but so far, Helene seemed as flummoxed and worried about recent events as I had been.

  “I lost my dear Richard over twenty years ago, and I want no more harm to be done.” She absentmindedly stroked the soft, cream and tan fur of her Yorkie. “I never thought I’d see that veil again. Seeing it in your hands on Main Street? It’s all tied together. It brought back vivid memories of losing him as if it were yesterday.”

  I reflected on Helene’s love of things, and how she inextricably tied up her loss of the veil with the loss of her husband.

  She seemed to consider the room we were in. “Of course, you remember that this is the house where my husband was raised. There are signs of him everywhere, in the gifts he gave his mother, Sylvia, and in some of the design choices themselves.” Helene’s eyes seemed to comb the room. “He was an owl aficionado. See that clock, for instance? He picked that up for Sylvia on one of our trips, that one to Japan, I believe.”

  I gave the pretty enamel owl I kept on a shelf in the parlor an appreciative nod. “I would think it could be hard to see reminders of a loved one you’ve lost.” It was time to let her know that I knew. “Especially one who was murdered so uncouthly.”

  Now I’ve got her attention.

  I didn’t try to throw my knowledge of Richard’s peculiar demise in Helene’s face. But I wasn’t entirely sure I could trust whatever game she was playing.

  “Who told you that?” Her voice had dropped in volume to a barely perceptible whisper. “Never mind. I can guess.” Helene sighed and grew wistful. “If only that oaf Jesse hadn’t quit his protection duty for Richard the day before. I still think that may have been coordinated.”

  “It wasn’t Truman,” I quickly told her. “And if you speak ill of Jesse Flowers one more time, you’re out of this house.” I didn’t want to further her narrative of me getting special treatment from the chief just by dint of being engaged to his son. And for the briefest nanosecond I considered letting her know I knew about Richard’s affair, too. After all, I still wasn’t sure Helene hadn’t killed the man herself, or rather had one of her proxies do it. But it would have been too cruel of a volley, so I withheld the information.

  “Fine.” Helene got over her initial shock that I knew Richard had been purposely felled standing by his car, not killed in a more innocent hit-and-run. “Your knowledge of what happened just fuels my eventual point. I bet you didn’t know this, though. Someone tried to help my Richard after he was run into and crushed against the driver’s door.”

  Helene didn’t mince words, though I wish in this instant she had. “Oh?” I cocked my head, unwittingly intrigued.

  “Yes. The police found prints on his belt buckle and glasses case, made in his own blood. Someone touched him after the incident, but before first responders arrived. They never were able to match the mystery prints.

  Tabitha.

  I tried to keep my voice level as my heart threatened to beat out of my rib cage. I was certain Tabitha didn’t know she’d left prints behind as a thirteen-year-old. She’d had the wherewithal to know how it would look, a young teen spying on the town’s biggest scion as he conducted a clandestine affair. Then showing up at home with his blood all over her hands and skirt. She may have had the foresight to burn the bloody clothes, but not to wipe off prints in the moment. Her leaving them behind had been driven by a herculean act of kindness, a mere child trying to help the dying man she’d just witnessed getting hurt.

  No matter. Tabitha was a straight shooter. She ran a tight ship at the historical society, and had no reason to cause anyone to take her prints.

  Uh-oh.

  Except now Truman personally doubted her report that pricey artifacts were going missing at the historical society. Right now, several acres back on my property, Truman and Tabitha were no doubt examining the distillery site, but keeping a cool, professional distance. I know my friend was hurt. Hurt that she’d lost her grandmother in cold blood just this week, and also that Truman would think so low of her, and suspect her of selling out her own place of business and one of Port Quincy’s cultural treasures.

  “What do you know, Mallory? I can see it in your eyes.” Helene let out a low whistle
, causing Baxter to sit up at attention. “Do you know who tried to help my Richard?!” A dark look crossed her face. “Or maybe the prints were left by his murderer.”

  I shook my head so fast that the small pair of citrine earrings I’d donned this morning for good luck in breaking ground on the new house hit the sides of my neck like small ping-pong balls. I guess I didn’t have the best poker face, after all.

  “I’m not sure many, if anyone at all, knows what I will tell you next.” A real look of pain stole over Helene’s features. “My Richard was stepping out on me, Mallory.” Helene got up and poured another glug of cream sherry with shaking hands. She imbibed it in a swift gulp. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell Truman. And Richard was so sly and skilled, I’m not sure even Truman knew that sordid tidbit.” She shook her head. “That’s my one regret. That piece of information may have helped Truman’s investigation.” Helene resumed her perch on a divan, looking as defeated as I’d ever seen her.

  I pretended to look surprised at the knowledge of Richard’s affair. My better acting job this time must have passed muster with Helene.

  “There, there.” I awkwardly fished for a box of tissues and handed one to my usual arch-nemesis. It was bizarre to find myself comforting Helene.

  “It still stings,” Helene got out in a whisper. “Even after all these years.”

  Now this admission almost made me snort. I was keenly aware of the hypocrisy of Helene not caring that Keith cheated on me with Becca. Why, after I canceled our wedding, Helene lobbied to get us back together, arguing that boys will be boys. But I let that annoying part of our personal history slide. It was common when dealing with Helene to find a lumpy rug left in her wake, what with all of her cavalier practices of sweeping dirty laundry, and anything she disagreed with, under it.

  Helene drew in a rattled breath and seemed to steel herself. “I ask you this with great regret. Will you investigate the death of my husband, Richard?”

  I stared at Helene for a full half minute before answering. Baxter the Yorkie seemed to be awaiting my answer as well. He even gave a tiny doggie yelp. Once again, I fell for it. Helene knew I loved animals, and I was even beginning to view her decision to bring the sweet little Yorkie today as a way to ensure that I’d be on board with her cockamamie scheme.