Death Threads (11 page)

“Bless your heart, Victoria. Aren’t you a little ray of sunshine this afternoon.”

A ray of sunshine?
That’s not quite the description she’d use for her present demeanor. But if it worked . . .

“I’ve tasted your cooking, Margaret Louise. You’re a genius. That magazine should be begging you to be on their cover.”

“Are you tryin’ to sweet-talk me on my sister’s behalf?”

She dropped onto the stool and rested her head on the countertop. “Why would I do that?”

“Because she hasn’t even picked up a needle yet.”

“How’d you know?”

“We’re twins. I know everything about my dear sister.”

“Have you seen her today?”

“No. But I’ve only been home a short while. Melissa took Sally to dinner after swim class.”

Looking up, she noted the hands on the wall-mounted clock. “You mean lunch?”

“We call it dinner in the south. Hasn’t Leona taught you that yet?”

“Then what do you call dinner?”

“I just said that. We call it lunch.”

She shook her head. “No. I mean the meal the rest of the world refers to as dinner . . .”

“Supper.”

Tori dropped her head back down to the counter with an audible groan.

“You’ll catch on. Have faith. Now . . . what was that about Leona? Is she ready to concede the bet?”

Tori glanced up again, her eyes skirting the various reading chairs and research tables set up around the main room. “She has news. Ella May Vetter news.”

She pulled the phone from her ear as Margaret Louise’s shriek threatened to burst her eardrum. When the noise finally quieted down, she held it close once again.

“Really? What? What? Tell me!”

“And ruin Leona’s fun? Never.”

“Spoilsport.”

“I actually called because I have a question. What’s the name of that man who owns the moonshine distillery on the outskirts of town? The one you said gives samples?”

“Gabe Jameson.”

She repeated the name as she reached for a pen and pad of paper. “Okay, thanks. I just—”

“I know last night had to be hard . . . and trust me, Victoria, I’m just as torn up ’bout Colby myself but . . . you sure you want to be nippin’ at the bottle at this time of day?”

“I—”

“Cause if you are . . . I could use a little break myself. Jake Junior and the lot of them sure were wound up this mornin’,” Margaret Louise rushed to add.

“No. It’s not that. I just want to ask him a few questions. I mean, this column Colby wrote just blasted a long held Jameson family secret out of the water, you know?”

“You’re investigatin’ aren’t you, Victoria?”

“No, I just—”

“You can’t fool me. You’re investigatin’.”

She dropped the pen onto the counter, ripped the top piece of paper from the pad, and then shoved it into the small front pocket of her fitted summer jacket. “Okay, maybe just a little.”

“I’m in.”

“You’re in what?”

“I’m in for investigatin’. And maybe a few . . .” The woman’s voice trailed off into a mumble Tori couldn’t quite decipher.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I’m in for investigatin’.”

“I heard that part. It was the part after that I didn’t get.”

The woman cleared her throat then continued on, her normally booming voice a bit more subdued. “And maybe a few samples, too. For quality control purposes, of course.”

She looked up from the notebook she’d been jotting thoughts in all afternoon as Margaret Louise’s powder blue station wagon careened into the back parking lot and screeched to a stop just inches from where she stood.

Pulling the notebook to her chest, Tori leaned into the car through the open passenger side window. “Where’s the fire?”

“Fire? There isn’t any fire. My dear sweet sister drives like this all the time. Unless one of Jake’s is in the car. Then she drives like a tortoise,” Leona said with a groan as she closed her eyes and leaned against the vinyl backseat, her now red fingernails waving back and forth in front of her face.

“I’m surprised to see you, Leona. I didn’t know—”

“Get in Victoria, time’s a wastin’.” Margaret Louise reached across, unlocked Tori’s door, and then patted the empty passenger seat with her hand. “Leona just told me!”

“Told you what?” Tori yanked open the car door and stepped inside, her hand barely reaching for the handle before Margaret Louise pressed down on the gas pedal. “Whoa! What’s the rush?”

“We’ve got a stop to make before we head out to Gabe’s place.” The woman’s short, pudgy hand turned the steering wheel sharply to the left, her maneuver barely clearing the line of massive moss trees that were as much a staple of the property as the library itself.

Dropping her notebook onto her lap, Tori reached over her right shoulder and pulled the seat belt forward, locking it into place.

“Smart girl,” muttered Leona from the backseat. “I bet you hadn’t entertained the idea of an untimely death when you left for work this morning.”

She considered refuting her friend’s weary words but opted to remain quiet. Talk of Colby and his fate would come soon enough. Ignoring Leona’s continued mutterings, she cast a sidelong glance at Margaret Louise, the woman’s face-splitting smile impossible to ignore.

“Where are we stopping?” she asked, the fingernails of her right hand digging into the gap between the window and the door as Margaret Louise peeled out of the parking lot and headed west.

Looking up into the rearview mirror as they sped along, Margaret Louise giggled with glee. “A little birdie informed me that we have a bride-to-be in our midst. And it’s only proper that we stop by to offer our congratulations, don’t you agree?”

Ahhh, yes, it made perfect sense now.
Leona had finally tracked her sister down with the juiciest gossip to hit Sweet Briar since Colby blew the town’s claim to fame right out of the water.

“So Leona told you?”

“Sure as day . . . didn’t ya, Twin?” Looking into the rearview mirror once again, Margaret Louise winked at her sibling. “I have to say it was a surprise but sooner or later her fictitious man had to propose. Though it’s goin’ to be much harder for her to explain away his continued absence now.”

“Perhaps she can hire a stand-in from time to time,” quipped Leona in a voice that suggested her excitement hadn’t waned much since hearing the news herself earlier that morning. “There are places like that . . . not that I’d have any reason to know, of course.”

Tori shook her head as she looked over her shoulder. “You two just don’t quit, do you? Why do you think Billy isn’t real?”

“Billy? You know his name?” Margaret Louise pinned Tori with an amused stare as she blew through a four-way stop and turned north, her foot pressing more firmly on the gas pedal as they sped along. “It took years before she finally gave us a name. Before that it had always just been her man or her gentleman. Remember that, Twin?”

“I do, indeed. When I moved here nearly six years ago she was still being mum on his name. She’d say she didn’t want to take a chance that sharing particulars might disturb the relationship.” Leona leaned forward and rested her right forearm on Tori’s seatback. “I think it took me all of about ten minutes to realize she was the one who was disturbed.”

Tori glanced down at the black and white marbled notebook in her lap, recalled the list of potential suspects and motives she’d crafted in lieu of doing the work she should have been doing around the library. “If you both dislike her so much, why on earth are we stopping there? I’d really like to get out to this Gabe person’s place as soon as possible. Debbie needs us.”

“In the south, Victoria, we believe in celebratin’ one another’s triumphs as well as mournin’ each other’s tragedies.” Margaret Louise let off the gas pedal long enough to make a wide turn onto Lantern Drive. “I want to help Debbie just as much as you do. And we will. But it would be right rude of us not to acknowledge Ella May’s news and . . . offer our assistance.”

“You mean your nosiness?” she asked as the corners of her mouth drifted upward.

“Our assistance,” Leona repeated firmly. “There is a difference, Victoria.”

She laughed. “Oh yes. Give me a moment.
Nosiness
means sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.
Assistance
—or, rather, assistance according to the two of you—means getting permission for your nosiness under the guise of being helpful.” Glancing from Margaret Louise to Leona and back again, she cocked an eyebrow in their direction. “Am I right?”

Leona sat back against her seat in dramatic style, her fingers once again fanning her face as the car slowed to a crawl. “My work here is nearly done, Victoria. You really are getting the hang of southern ways in much quicker fashion than I could have imagined . . . especially in the beginning when you were so wholly inept.”

“Wholly inept?” she repeated.

“Non-southern, dear.” Leona glanced out the window as the car came to a complete stop, her nose crinkling at the mailbox beside them. “People who are not disturbed don’t have black and white polka-dot mailboxes.”

“With a big white weather-resistant bow on top,” added Margaret Louise. With a quick turn of her hand, she removed the heavy key ring from the ignition and dropped it into her oversized purse. “Shall we?”

Tori held up her hand. “Wait. I’m curious. What kind of assistance are you planning on offering, Margaret Louise?” She felt her eyes narrow as she caught an exchange of curious looks between the sisters—looks that made the proverbial hair on the back of her neck snap to attention.

“What?”

Leona cleared her throat daintily. “Assistance we’re all offering, dear.”

“We’re offer—wait! Wait just a minute. I’m not going to be roped into your campaign to invade this poor woman’s life.”

Running her hands down her neck, Leona simply stared back at Tori. “Victoria, dear, don’t you want to learn our ways? Don’t you want to be a true member of this community rather than a constant outsider . . . from the north no less?”

Tori threw her hands into the air then glided them through her hair in frustration. “For the last time, I only lived in Chicago for eight years. Before that I lived all over. But I was born in
Florida
, Leona. Flor-i-da.”

The woman snorted. “As I’ve told you before, dear, Florida does not count. It’s the leech on southern society, an imposter.”

She leaned her head against the seatback and looked out the front windshield, her gaze roaming across the lovingly shabby Victorian that was home to Ella May Vetter—a woman who simply valued her privacy, her fiancé, and, judging by the near-constant activity across her front yard, her bunnies. Her hundreds and hundreds of garden variety brown bunnies . . .

“Leona told me what you said about Ella May hirin’ Debbie to gussy up her weddin’ cake,” Margaret Louise interjected. “We just want to find ways we can help with the special occasion as well. That’s all, Victoria.”

Setting the notebook on the empty expanse of seat between them, Tori crossed her arms in front of her chest. “What do you propose?”

“Well . . . Debbie can make the cake . . .”

“I’m thinking she probably has other things on her mind right now.” She wasn’t trying to rain on their parade, she really wasn’t, but facts needed to be faced. The biggest of all being who killed Colby.

“Debbie will make the cake. I just plain refuse to believe Colby has been harmed.” Margaret Louise cut her hand through the air, effectively ending that line of thinking for the moment. “So, like I said, Debbie’ll make the cake, and I can cook the supper for the reception . . .”

“Who says she is going to have a reception? Maybe the two of them will simply have a quiet ceremony. With a wedding cake for two.”

“Spoilsport.” Leona huffed from the backseat.

“I can cook the supper for the reception,” Margaret Louise continued, unfazed. “And you can find just the right poem to commemorate their special”—the woman looked at her sister through the rearview mirror once again and grinned—“love.”

“And?”

“And what, Victoria?”

“And Leona? What will she offer to do?”

Margaret Louise’s shoulders slumped. “We haven’t come up with that yet.”

“Perhaps an antique from my shop. You know, dear, something along the lines of a bunny trap from the 1800s?”

Tori rolled her eyes upward, her gaze resting momentarily on the spot where the ceiling fabric caved inward a smidge. Swiveling her body to the left so as to afford the most clear-cut view of the passenger in the backseat, Tori flashed a smile that made Leona shift in her seat. “I have an idea, Margaret Louise. It goes hand in hand with your bet. You know, the one about Leona learning to sew.”

“Oooh, do tell.” Margaret Louise rubbed her hands back and forth against each other.

“Well, you both know that famous saying about something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue . . . right?”