“No.”
“Did your great-grandmother’s sewin’ machine finally conk out?” Margaret Louise asked. “Because if it did, I’m sure Jake would take a look. It don’t matter if it’s a car engine or the motor in a vacuum cleaner . . . that boy has been fixin’ things since I gave birth to him thirty-three years ago.”
“No. Gram’s machine is still going along fine.” She looked down at the notebook in her lap, tried to focus on the reason for this car ride, but she couldn’t. Milo Wentworth was front and center in her thoughts now. “Milo and I . . . we had—”
“Cover your ears, Margaret Louise,” Leona cautioned as she sat forward, leaning her forearms across Tori’s seatback once again. “You had what, dear?”
“We had a fight.” Pulling the notebook to her chest, she hugged it closely, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “And I’m not sure it’s something we’re going to be able to work through.”
Margaret Louise reached across the seat and gently patted Tori’s leg. “Of course you’ll be able to work through it. Fights happen sometimes, it’s natural.”
“And if you didn’t fight, you couldn’t make up.” Leona rested her head on her forearms. “That’s the best part you know . . . the making up part.”
“How would you know, Twin? You’re never with anyone long enough to make up,” Margaret Louise quipped.
She had to laugh. Not because she felt any better or held out a sudden hope that things would be right with Milo again, but because Leona and Margaret Louise just made life fun.
“Is that a laugh I heard?” Margaret Louise pulled her hand back and placed it on the steering wheel as Pike Road morphed into County Road 6. “See? Things are never as bad as they seem.”
“I only wish that were true. Things are pretty awful right now for Debbie and the kids. I mean . . . someone broke into their home and took Colby, leaving his blood splattered everywhere.” She set the notebook back in her lap and slowly fingered the cover’s black and white pattern with her index finger, her thoughts replaying the previous night’s tragedy. “It was just awful.”
Tightening her hands on the steering wheel, Margaret Louise shook her head resolutely. “Now don’t you talk like that, Victoria. Colby Calhoun is a good and decent man, an honorable husband, and an adorin’ father. No one who values their life would dare hurt that man.”
She looked at her friend in surprise. “You’re not mad at him?”
The woman pulled her gaze from the road in front of them and fastened it on Tori’s face. “Mad at Colby? Why, in good heaven, would you think I was mad at Colby?”
“Because everyone in Sweet Briar seems to have commissioned him as the town’s most hated individual. So much so he received a death threat, Debbie had no business at the bakery other than Ella May, and the kids were taunted on the playground.”
“Suzanna and Jackson were taunted?” Margaret Louise’s foot pressed down on the gas, a motion that pulled Leona against the backseat with a resounding thud and a string of unladylike mutterings. “Who was mean to them? Was it that little Shelby Pruitt? That child is as nasty as her bleach blonde mama. Or was it Tucker West? That little good-for-nothin’ has tried to make trouble for Lulu in the past . . . until I took to his face with a stare that child won’t soon forget.”
“I’m not sure. Debbie didn’t say. But I know both were feeling much better Monday evening thanks to your grandchildren. They played all evening with each other.” Tori rested a calming hand on Margaret Louise’s shoulder until the woman eased up on the gas pedal once again. “I only wish the grown-ups had played as nicely that evening, because Debbie needed it almost as much as Suzanna and Jackson did.”
Margaret Louise sighed, her ample chest rising only to fall once again. “I heard about that part. Melissa told me all ’bout it when I babysat for the kids this mornin’.” The woman peered into the rearview mirror at her sister. “Leona, you wouldn’t have been one of the ones who was rude to Debbie, were you?”
Tori looked over her shoulder in time to see Leona shifting in her seat as her face took on a pinkish hue. To Margaret Louise she said, “Leona didn’t say anything. She was a little, um . . . preoccupied.”
“About what? Wait. Don’t say anything. My twin only gets preoccupied with one thing.” Margaret Louise looked back at the road. “Now as for Debbie, we’ll get her business back on track. Folks can’t stay away from her bakery for long. And Colby? Do we know who sent that letter?”
Tori shook her head as her words rushed to confirm the action. “The killer I imagine. Though why he’d send a note beforehand seems a little strange.”
“Did you get a chance to at least read it?”
She closed her eyes, the contents of the blood-spattered note cycling through her thoughts for the umpteenth time since it all happened. With as much accuracy as she could recall, she recited the threat aloud. “The people of Sweet Briar are most unhappy. Of that, you will soon see. Their beloved home you’ve made a laughingstock, an easy target for others to ridicule and mock. Revenge is, indeed, their battle cry. But I . . . I can’t sit idly by. Article or not, I see who you are . . . and who you’re not. And now . . . now it must stop.”
“That’s it?” Margaret Louise pulled her eyes from the road and fastened them on Tori. “That’s the note?”
“As best I can recall, yes. Well, except for the last line.”
“Wait. I remember that one,” Leona interjected. “Debbie told it to us at the circle meeting. Something about Colby’s life coming to an end . . . right?”
Tori nodded.
“I don’t remember her saying it rhymed though.”
She considered her friend’s words. “I never really noticed that. I just knew it was oddly worded and that the crayon made it even worse.”
“Crayon?”
Nodding, she pointed toward the road in an attempt to get Margaret Louise’s attention back where it belonged. Before they all died. “Tougher to write with and thus easier to disguise, I guess. Anyway, I do know that two separate people were overheard making threatening statements about Colby and his article at the festival on Sunday.”
“By whom?”
“Excuse me?” she asked as she peered across the seat at her friend.
“Who overheard these threats? Stories tend to get bigger ’n life in this town, Victoria.”
“I heard one of them and Milo heard the other.” She glanced out the window once again, the moss trees giving way to larger expanses of empty fields dotted with dilapidated farmhouses and various other outbuildings.
“We’re almost there ladies, Gabe’s place is right over this hill.” Margaret Louise let up on the gas pedal as the tires left pavement in favor of a gravely dirt road that wound around a grove of trees. “Who did you hear, Victoria?”
“Carter Johnson. He was furious after reading Colby’s article. I overheard him telling his grandson that he ought to burn down the news tent.”
“Brainless and ignorant and not the slightest bit out of character for ol’ Carter Johnson, but that’s not a threat to Colby outright.”
She swung her gaze back to Margaret Louise as they followed the dirt road farther into the trees. “True. But the rifle he wanted to bring back with him sure was.”
Margaret Louise slammed on the brakes, causing Leona to slide off her seat and add a few additional unladylike mutterings to her repertoire for the day. “Carter Johnson was going to take a rifle to Colby?” Leaning her head against the seatback, Margaret Louise let out a deep, hearty laugh. “Carter Johnson couldn’t hit a target if it was two inches from his face. Unless, of course, it’s a raccoon who happened to throw himself in front of the barrel . . . Mind you, Victoria, this is the man who serves carton eggs to his customers . . .
carton
eggs, Victoria.”
“You didn’t see him and you didn’t hear him that day. He was mad.”
Again the woman laughed. “Carter Johnson was mad? Victoria, that man is always mad. It’s his ordinary face. The only variation is whether he’s spittin’ mad or just plain mad.”
“He was spitting mad.” Tori craned her neck forward, her gaze traveling down the remaining stretch of dirt road that extended beyond the car and coming to rest on the dilapidated gray clapboard shack with a rotting front porch and a series of skewed shutters. Beyond it stood an even larger building with the same colored exterior and barnlike doors—the type of place where it was easy to imagine a body stashed amongst the decay.
Could Colby be here?
“And the other one?”
“The other what?” she asked distractedly as she continued to study Gabe Jameson’s less than tidy property on the outskirts of Sweet Briar.
“Who was the other person who threatened Colby at the festival?” Margaret Louise kept her foot on the brake as she, too, scanned their surroundings. “Truvie Jameson—God, rest her soul—would be mortified if she saw what’s become of this place.”
“Yeah it’s pretty bad.” Tori scanned the grounds for any sign of life but saw nothing. “The other verbal threat was made by Dirk Rogers . . . you know, the guy who owns the garage out on—”
The car lurched forward only to stop on a dime as Margaret Louise’s foot returned to the brake. “Did you say Dirk Rogers?”
“Whoa.” She grabbed her stomach as a wave of nausea threatened to bring their little excursion to a halt. “Could you maybe watch the foot thing, please?”
“Yes, please,” Leona groaned.
“Dirk threatened Colby?” Margaret Louise asked as she waved off her occupants’ protests.
“All I know is what Milo said when we caught up by the news tent during the festival. Dirk was apparently furious over Colby’s article.”
Margaret Louise drummed her fingers against the top of the steering wheel. “That one’s a loose cannon. Has been since he was a young-un in school with my Jake. He’s sneaky and plays anythin’ but fair.”
Tori leaned over and grabbed her purse, her fingers instinctively finding the zipper and then a pen. As she shoved the purse back onto the floor of the station wagon, she flipped open her notebook and sought the page with Dirk Rogers’s name. “So you think he could be a real threat?”
“Do I breathe?”
“Just because he might have stolen a few marbles from Jake on the playground twenty-five years ago doesn’t mean he’s capable of murder.” Leona smoothed her pants with a practiced hand as her chin jutted upward. “I mean really, Margaret Louise, don’t you think you’re being a bit extreme?”
Margaret Louise reached upward, tilted the rearview mirror as to afford the best possible view of her twin. “Marbles were the start, Leona. His sneakiness extended well into adulthood. Why do you think Jake’s garage hit that rough patch a few years ago? Why do you think he started workin’ two extra jobs while Melissa was tryin’ her best to keep up with five little ones and a newborn Sally?”
“Why?” Tori asked.
“Because Dirk Rogers started spreadin’ rumors. He started questionin’ Jake’s business practices and leadin’ people to believe he was chargin’ for work he wasn’t doin’.” Margaret Louise’s fingers encircled the steering wheel in a death grip. “And while I’m not the kind of mama to think my son is perfect, I do know a few things for sure. First and foremost I raised an honest boy.”
“I—”
Cutting her sister off midsentence, Margaret Louise continued on, her fingers turning white against the chocolate brown steering wheel. “And then . . . when people started comin’ back to Jake’s garage because they realized he was fair, his buildin’ was suddenly ransacked. Thousands of dollars in tools disappeared.”
“You think Dirk Rogers took them?” Tori’s pen-holding hand paused above the opened notebook.
“I don’t think he did it himself. Oh no, Dirk Rogers likes to keep his hands clean. But I think he knows who did.”
“Why wouldn’t he say?”
Margaret Louise returned the mirror to its original position and then looked at Tori. “Because he wouldn’t want the person who did it to point a finger at him.”
“For what?” Tori asked.
“For hirin’ him to do it.”
She let her friend’s words float around in her thoughts as she tried them on for size. If she’d learned anything about Margaret Louise over the past few months it was the woman’s propensity for maintaining an open mind.
And being fair . . .
And good . . .
And a loyal and true friend. Qualities that were a little rarer than she’d originally thought.
“Then he’s officially on our list of potential suspects.” Tori underlined Dirk’s name with three separate marks and then closed the notebook. “At least that gives us a good place to start. After this place, of course.”
“Why, exactly, are we here again?” Leona drawled, boredom dripping from her voice. “Other than to give my dear sweet sister a reason to take a few nips from the bottle.”
“Isn’t that why you came, too?” Tori asked with a laugh as she tucked the notebook under her arm and hoisted her backpack purse back onto her lap.
“Me? Never.” Leona shifted in her seat as a soft red glow sprang into her cheeks. “I’m here simply as moral support.”
“
Moral support
my behind.” Margaret Louise glided the car forward a hundred yards and then shifted into Park. Glancing at Tori, she gestured her head toward the shack that was home to Gabe Jameson. “You ready?”
She nodded, placed her hand on the door handle, and then looked back at Leona. “If Colby’s facts are right, Sweet Briar didn’t burn to the ground because of Yankees over a hundred and forty years ago. It burned to the ground because of moonshine made on this very property by Gabe Jameson’s kin. Which means if Colby is despised because he let the cat out of the bag, Gabe Jameson has to be hated every bit as much.”
“And so why are we here? To offer him protection from the same lunatic who killed Colby?”
Margaret Louise’s pudgy hands rose to her ears as her mouth started moving. “There is no reason to believe Colby is dead, Twin.”
“Blood isn’t a reason?” Leona asked as one of her perfectly tweezed eyebrows arched.