Veiled in Death

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  Holy moly.

  There, looking back at us, was a smirking, haughty, quarter-century-younger Helene Pierce.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Leave it to me, Nancy Drew.” Truman took a swig of sweet tea and placed the sweaty glass back on the table with a satisfied sigh. It had been four hours since we’d found the wallet at the distillery site. There was no way I was going to miss Truman’s grilling of Helene if I could help it.

  I’d had time to drive Horace’s things over to the B and B and officially check him in, take a shower, and start prepping for a breakfast tomorrow, which would be a bit fancier than usual, now that I had a weekday guest.

  And in that time Truman had readied his strategy to question Helene about just how her wallet with its 1990s license had ended up buried with what was likely Ebenezer Quincy’s famed distillery.

  I craned my head up the back stairs to make sure Horace wasn’t snooping. When Truman arrived, the two engaged in heated conversation. I’d dipped onto the back porch to see what it was about. But they were only discussing the relative merits of the Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates, not a young Tabitha covered in Richard Pierce’s blood. And soon after that, Horace had retired to his room. Last I’d heard, he’d given in to a spate of heavy snores behind his equally heavy door.

  “This is all moot, Mallory.” Truman glanced at his watch. “I left a message for Helene to meet me at the station in an hour. I think she’ll comply, but with her attorney in tow. No matter. She’ll rush in to clear her name and incriminate herself in the process anyway. The poor thing can’t help herself.” Truman broke out into an anticipatory grin.

  “Fine. But play along with me. I at least want to know if my theories are correct.” I placed most of the cut fruit for a breakfast salad in a pretty crystal bowl to chill overnight in the fridge. But I set aside two smaller bowls to entice Truman to share his motive, means, and opportunity ideas with me.

  “The wallet makes it pretty clear that Helene moved the distillery equipment to this property.” I fished around in my bowl for a purple grape.

  Truman batted away my first point before he viciously consumed a chunk of honeydew melon. “That spindly lady didn’t move that equipment herself.”

  “True. She probably had her cadre of minions do it.” Helene often did employ various fleets of people to carry out her projects, some more nefarious than others. “But I think she oversaw the project. I bet she stole the artifacts and buried them at Thistle Park to bolster her erroneous claims of being a descendant of Ebenezer Quincy.” I remembered Keith’s promise and let out a giggle. “Keith is actually putting that to rest. He did one of those genealogical DNA tests. I bet it’ll show a very different story than the one Helene wants to tell.”

  Truman laughed. “Keith should worry about getting murdered.” We both turned momentarily somber.

  “Now back to my theory. What Helene wants, Helene gets. And if she moved a whole colonial-era distillery, there would be people paid off long enough ago, and cushily enough, to keep quiet.”

  Truman gave a nod. “If that’s true, and they exist, we’ll find them. But riddle me this, Mallory. Let’s say Helene moved the equipment there in the 1990s. There’s a chance she didn’t want it to be found for some reason we’re not thinking of. And if so, it would have been when she and Keith were trying to fleece Sylvia out of her land to build a housing development at Thistle Park.”

  I frowned. It was true. But we were still missing something.

  “Or,” I began, liking this scenario the least, “Helene was framed. She definitely wasn’t listening to a mixtape featuring P. Diddy in the 1990s. Maybe the person who really moved the equipment owned that tape and accidentally dropped it into that metal pot or kettle.” The theory sounded unlikely, even to my ears.

  But Truman was no longer listening. He was reading an email on his phone, and he looked up with a triumphant, if wolfish, grin. “Bingo.”

  I had a feeling this wasn’t about Helene.

  “We got the IP address report from the artifacts sold from the historical society on eBay. And it looks like your dear friend Tabitha was listing the items she was supposed to be curating for the town of Port Quincy from her very own personal laptop.”

  Truman gave me a slightly pitying look and continued. “I may have to put my questioning of Helene on hold, Mallory. I have bigger fish to fry with Tabitha Battles.”

  I sat wordlessly after Truman left, my fruit salad uneaten. It was no matter, as I was no longer hungry, but rather fighting off a feeling of nausea.

  Truman is out to get Tabitha.

  My hackles had officially reached DEFCON 1.

  * * *

  I was relieved the next morning to observe the Founder’s Day celebration churning along at full speed, with nary a hiccup or dead body. Rachel, Pia, and I worked flawlessly to make sure the event went well. The extra security hired by the mayor had been a concern in the back of my mind. I didn’t want festival-goers to feel like they were in a police state, yet I wanted them to trust that the horrible incident at Cordials and Cannonballs would not reoccur. I needn’t have worried. Everyone was having a grand time under a cloudless sky, thankfully and safely devoid of even a bit of fog.

  Unfortunately, Helene still walked, a free woman. Or rather, she minced and strutted in her kitten heels and Anne Klein dress. A cloud hovered around me all day as I watched Tabitha man her booth for the historical society. She was still a free woman, too, but I knew Truman had probably rounded her up for an extensive and grill-worthy voluntary question session. Tabitha offered smiles and brochures to passersby, but the smiles didn’t reach her eyes. She spent an inordinate amount of time on her cell phone, and I wanted to warn her to stop, as the little device could become evidence.

  But if she’s innocent, you don’t have to worry.

  The thought soothed me enough to return to my tasks. I wondered if Tabitha had kept her questioning at the police station from Pia. It wouldn’t be hard to do. Tabitha rented a little house near the Monongahela River, while Pia was living with June this summer. The youngest Battles daughter still wore an air of sadness, but was smiling again at the end of the day.

  And the highlight of it all came as I chaperoned the Founder’s Day dance with Garrett. Summer hadn’t been too thrilled when she found out her dad would be watching her dance with Preston.

  “Mallory!” Summer dropped Preston’s hand as she entered the Community Center, where the dance was held. She gave me a little spin in her magenta throwback bubble dress.

  “You look lovely, kiddo.” I included Preston in my praise. “And you’re quite handsome, Preston.” Bev’s son blushed.

  “Son, I wanted to have a word with you.”

  Slow your roll, Garrett.

  My fiancé had moved toward his daughter’s date, his cross-examination game-face at the ready. Preston took a step back and gulped so hard his Adam’s apple was on full display.

  “Daaad.” Summer managed to stretch the one syllable word into about five. “Leave him alone.”

  Summer was in luck, while I was not. A kerfuffle was breaking out behind her in line.

  “I said, get off of me! Give me a chance to come in on my own steam.”

  It was Tabitha, taking tickets for the dance. Or she was, before Faith appeared to read her her Miranda rights. Tabitha convinced Faith that there was no need to cuff her, but she still had to submit to Faith leading her out to a police car for all of Port Quincy to see.

  The dance was abuzz about Tabitha’s arrest. Summer and Preston cut a rug under the watchful eyes of Garrett. Everyone had a wonderful time. The event would do a lot of good soothing people’s minds after Cordials and Cannonballs. But I couldn’t enjoy a single second of it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The next morning dawned clear and calm. The lovely weather seemed almost mocking, as if my dear friend hadn’t been unfairly arrested and thrown unceremoniously in the Port Quincy jail. There was the evidence Truman had pr
esented as incontrovertible. I wasn’t sure how the IP information had gotten onto Tabitha’s laptop. Wasn’t it possible the information was merely tracking that she’d just found the items on eBay and reported them, rather than uploading them for sale herself? My mind spun and whirred, trying to make sense of how Truman had botched Tabitha’s arrest and charge. There was no way my friend did what he’d said she had.

  I supposed it would all shake out. There was nothing else I could do about it, anyway. I headed over to June’s house to bring a contract for attorney’s services. Garrett had recommended a skilled and fair defense attorney for Tabitha, and June had agreed to pay the retainer. I was happy to help, but it felt like a joyless mission.

  “Hello, Mallory. I wish we were meeting for different reasons.” June ushered me into the home I’d just visited Pia in to gather the items for Miri.

  June seemed to have the baby on her mind, too. “I saw Miri a few hours ago. She is so happy and content and thriving with Becca and Keith.” Her face fell and a teardrop quivered at the end of her nose. She nabbed a tissue from her sideboard and dabbed at her face. “I feel like I didn’t do such a great job with Tabitha and Pia.”

  “Of course, you did,” I soothed. “Pia is the most wonderful addition to our team that my sister and I could ever imagine. And Tabitha didn’t do what Truman is accusing her of, I’m certain. She has been a shining light in this town, teaching and educating and curating history. She was also one of my first friends here. She’s gracious and kind and smart, and she couldn’t have done what Truman said.”

  Hearing the litany of her daughters’ positive attributes only further agitated June.

  “Then where did I go wrong? Why was Tabitha selling items from the historical society?”

  Uh-oh.

  For some reason, it was extremely important to me that June consider her daughter innocent.

  Because she is.

  But even my dear Garrett had startled me last night at the dance by discussing in low tones Tabitha’s best possible defenses, with a focus on the assumption that she had indeed smuggled out and sold the items she should have been curating and protecting.

  Truman must have gotten to June. And she’d had enough troubles lately as it was. The thick scarf wound around June’s neck slipped down, and I was treated to a mottled array of bruises the colors and shapes of camouflage fabric. The poor woman’s voice was still raspy from her time under the chandelier. I shivered at all that had befallen the house of Battles. It wasn’t fair. Claudia was gone, someone had attempted to murder June, and now Tabitha was in the clink for unrelated and erroneous charges.

  June began to pace around her combination farmhouse-kitchen and dining room. She gesticulated as she went, threatening to knock the myriad ceramic figurines and ornaments from the shelves and sideboard. “I haven’t always made the best decisions.” She seemed to size me up before she went on. “I’m honestly embarrassed about the identity of Pia’s father. I never told her who the guy is. I thought if I forbid her to know about him, she’d drop it.” She gave a mirthless laugh and chastised herself. “Parenting one-oh-one, June. That move was guaranteed to create an obsession. I’ve held off far too long. I’ll let Pia know soon enough.”

  It was a start, but it also omitted the part about how she’d tried to pass off one of her professors as Pia’s real dad. But I wasn’t about to bring that up.

  “And imagine my surprise when I learned that Tabitha and my own mother were working together in cahoots to fleece the town of Port Quincy.”

  Come again?!

  June nodded at my surprise, then shook her head with disgust. “Claudia tried to sell some colonial weapons to Quincy College. Thank goodness, their archivist and your stepfather refused. They’d recently been donated to the historical society.”

  Uh-oh.

  Doug’s own words two weeks ago corroborated this story. I recalled him telling me, Rachel, and Pia about how he and the archivist at Quincy College had given Claudia a pass.

  “But what if Claudia was just working alone? Did Tabitha necessarily have to be involved?” I didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but I would be okay with this whole nefarious plan having been Claudia’s work, with no input from Tabitha.

  “But who gave her the weapons? It must’ve been Tabitha.” June nearly moaned and proceeded to rip her damp tissue into shreds. “My once-sweet girl and my very own mother, working together, just not in a way I can be proud about. And I’m sorry about your ring.” June looked like she was about to vomit. Her voice dropped to an even raspier whisper. “I think she took it when she did this to me.”

  Oh, heck no.

  June. Listen to yourself. Did you just insinuate that Tabitha knocked you out and tried to hang you?!

  This conversation has jumped the shark.

  June stilled her nervous hands and willed herself to drag her now-rheumy eyes to meet mine.

  “Something happened when Tabitha was thirteen.”

  No, no, no!

  “The day that horrible man, Richard Pierce, died in a car accident? I found some of Tabitha’s things covered in massive amounts of blood.” June had turned a sickening shade of green. “And then when she thought I’d gone to sleep, she carried the whole lot out to the grill and burned them into charcoal.”

  I decided to break the promise I’d made to Tabitha, if only to convince her own mother she wasn’t some kind of bad seed. “What if she just tried to help him after his accident?”

  June looked up sharply and considered my question. “I guess that’s possible. But why hide that? Why burn the clothes?” June sighed once more, a rattling, sad sound. “The person who hit me at the Antique Emporium swung like a lefty.”

  Her case against her daughter was nearly complete. Tabitha, of course, was left-handed.

  “Please tell me you didn’t tell Truman about Tabitha’s bloody clothes.”

  But June’s stricken look gave me the answer. “I had to, Mallory. I guess I didn’t do a good enough job protecting my daughters when they were little, and I’m trying to do the right thing now.”

  I left June to her sorrows, and toted out the last of Miri’s baby things at her behest. If Tabitha didn’t even have her own mother in her corner, it would be very hard to prove her innocence. Innocence that no one apparently believed in except me.

  * * *

  Imagine my surprise when my mother answered the door at Keith and Becca’s house.

  “Surprise, Mallory!” My mother spun around in a circle to show off her decorating work. Painters swarmed the peach monstrosity of a great room, obliterating all vestiges of Helene. The gold, sea-foam, and seashell furniture had been spirited away, replaced by buttery suede and leather couches in shades of hunter green and slate.

  Wow.

  Keith must finally be over Helene if he was willing to cover up her stamp on his and Becca’s house. All around us rollers flew up walls to transform them into a chic navy, gray, and cream canvas.

  “All of this is with Miri in mind, too,” my mother gushed. She showed off a new coffee table with a sleek padded leather edge to keep the baby safe when she started toddling. The immense gas fireplace had a new, padded grate, and I realized all of the paint should have been giving me a headache, but wasn’t. I mentioned it to Carole, and she explained the lack of paint smells.

  “I used no-VOC paint for Miri, too. No chemicals, no headaches.”

  I was glad my mom was getting all of her baby-related practice with Miri instead of demanding a grandchild from me. If only Helene were more accepting of her own new grandchild.

  But thinking of the sour dowager empress of Port Quincy always seemed to drag her out from under her rock. The pretty lacquer doors jiggled open, and in walked Helene. She carried a large flower arrangement designed to match her version of the interior, a muted blend of peach roses and mums and cream lilies. The vase and flowers crashed to the ground. And Helene began to scream.

  “What is this abomination of a room?! No one consulted
me!”

  Becca’s gorgeous and giant Maine Coon, Pickles, stretched in his cat condo and then leapt from its top level to approach Helene. The big guy gave a loud growl, clearly not up to taking her shenanigans today. And neither was my mother, who held her own.

  “Sorry Helene, but I take orders from the owners, not you.” My mother tossed a grateful look at the stairs, which I realized with a start she must have had her contractors fill in, the open staircase now transformed into a regular set of steps, probably also as a safety measure for Miri. Down came Keith and Becca.

  “Settle down, Mother, or you’ll wake my baby.” Keith proudly used the possessive pronoun for Miri. He nearly sent Helene into a tailspin.

  “Get this woman out of the house!” Helene instead chose to order Keith and my mother to do her bidding.

  But Keith wasn’t done. “I had Dad’s accident records unsealed, Mother. And instead of hearing it from you, I got to read too many decades too late that Dad was targeted and smashed against his own driver’s-side door, not in an accident. Dad was murdered in an apparent cold-blooded hit.”

  A pin could have dropped. The painters even stopped rolling up the walls to see where this was going. Becca placed a soothing hand on her husband’s arm, and he in turn clasped it close.

  “I was just trying to protect you.” Helene’s voice was a whisper laden with sincerity, the truest I’d ever seen her. But it was too little, too late.

  “I knew a lot, Mom.” Keith’s voice was pitying. “I knew about Dad’s affair.”

  “What?!” Real alarm crossed Helene’s face. “You knew her?”

  But Keith just shook his head. “Not by sight or name, no. But I knew he was stepping out on our family. Isn’t that enough?”

  Miri’s initial stirrings of wakefulness were transmitted over a monitor in the kitchen. Helene stiffened as her wails began. Becca started up the steps.

  “You will not add her to the family, Keith.”

  “It’s too late, Mom. Too late for you, but the best decision ever for me. Miri is my family now, and you are not. Now give me your key.”