Pies and Prejudice (17 page)

Dee sank back onto a nearby stool, her shoulders sagging in fatigue. She was breathing heavily, her back expanding and deflating as she drew oxygen into her lungs.

Ella Mae knocked loudly on the studio’s wide wooden door and waited for her aunt to slide it open.

“Why, Ella Mae.” Dee produced a tired smile. “What a nice surprise.” She glanced out into the yard. “Did you bring Chewy?”

“He’s making friends.”

Dee looked pleased. “Dogs are social creatures. You
should put him in a playgroup at Canine to Five. He’d get plenty of exercise and you won’t have to worry about him when you’re at the pie shop.”

“I’m supposed to be having coffee with Hugh Dylan right now,” Ella Mae answered gloomily. “Instead I was taken away from Bradford Knox’s funeral in a cop car. That always impresses the men.”

Dee gestured for Ella Mae to enter the studio. “I didn’t realize you were interested in impressing him.”

Ella Mae averted her eyes. “Before I met Sloan, I spent lots of time trying to get Hugh to notice me. I guess moving back here has got me picking up where I left off.”

Dee laughed a deep, melodious sound like that of church bells heard from a distance. “Just make him a pie and he’ll be yours.”

Walking over to the sheepdog sculpture, Ella Mae reached out her hand and then hesitated. “May I?”

“Of course. It’s not hot anymore.”

Her fingertips brushed the wire whiskers and then moved to cup the smooth stainless steel of the dog’s snout. Each of his marble eyes seemed to be infused with a single spark from the blowtorch. “I don’t know how you do it, Aunt Delia. I’ve seen you make fish, cats, dogs, hamsters, lizards, birds, guinea pigs, and even a snake or two, and their eyes all have this glow, like they really see you.”

With a nod, Dee gave the sheepdog an affectionate pat. “In a sense, they do. This guy will be a big comfort to his grieving family. The elements won’t bother him and he’ll still stand guard over their home for years to come. I’ve been told that he’s going to be placed on their front porch. That’s why I have him positioned like this.”

“Like he can see the family coming up the walk,” Ella Mae guessed. “He’s smiling, his tail is wagging, and any second now he’d going to bound down the steps to greet them.”

“Exactly.” Dee turned away from the sheepdog with a
hint of reluctance. “Let’s go into the house. I could use a glass of lemonade and something to eat. I think I forgot to have lunch today.”

As Dee fixed herself a tuna fish sandwich, Ella Mae examined the piles of envelopes lining the kitchen counter with astonishment. “Are all of these requests for your work?”

Dee nodded.

“California, Kansas, Vermont, Canada, Bermuda.” Ella Mae read off postmarks from all over the northern hemisphere. “How can you handle this many?”

“I can’t.” Dee sat down at her table and cast an apologetic glance at the envelopes before biting into her sandwich.

“Have you ever thought about hiring an assistant?”

Dee didn’t answer right away. “It’s not that simple, Ella Mae. There are only a few people who can do what I do. I met a similar artist at a symposium in England last year. She lives in France and is sought after by clients all across Europe.” Dee got up, grabbed a bag of potato chips from the counter, and dumped a mound onto her plate. “And there’s an older woman working in China. We’re the only ones using our…method to create animal memorials.”

“Couldn’t you train someone? Take on an apprentice?”

Dee broke a chip in half and studied the fissure she’d created. “There was a time when that would have been the norm. But times have changed.” She popped the pieces in her mouth and chewed. “Speaking of hired help, you’re going to need an extra pair of hands in the pie shop. Are you putting an ad in
The Daily
?”

Ella Mae poured herself a glass of Dee’s tangy lemonade. “I don’t expect to be that busy.”

“Then you are underestimating Verena’s bullying power. She’ll have every citizen in Havenwood at your grand opening or she’ll find some way to have them fined, jailed, or publically disgraced.” Dee put the tuna fish can on the floor. Two black-and-white kittens materialized from nowhere, licked the can clean, and scampered away again.

“I have a million little details to take care of before I can open, but first I need to figure out what happened to Bradford Knox. The police aren’t going to cross me off their suspect list now that they’ve found my prints on the murder weapon.” She hesitated. “That’s why I came, Aunt Dee. I need your help.” It was difficult to ask her aunt for assistance in the presence of hundreds of envelopes filled with the pleas of the hurt and grieving, but Ella Mae didn’t know what else to do.

Dee saw her niece’s guilty expression and knew precisely what troubled her. “I comfort as many as I can. You’re family, Ella Mae. Tell me what you need.”

Ella Mae showed her the list of names from the memorial service. “These are horse people. And you know what a tight group
they
are. Six families own the most prominent breeding farms in the region. The competition between them is fierce.”

“But you’d never know it when they’re together,” Dee added.

“Bradford’s office manager said that he’d been keeping strange hours at work. At the funeral, I overheard Loralyn mention a scheme that ended up costing her fiancé his life.” Ella Mae jabbed at the list of names with her finger. “This scheme has got to have something to do with these horse breeders. And if Loralyn’s involved, then money is at the heart of the matter.”

Dee looked thoughtful. “Well, Dr. Knox was an equine vet and if he took these thoroughbreds as clients, then he might have been using illicit methods to keep them on the track. Those poor racehorses are run until they drop. Maybe he found a way to keep them going longer or faster or for more races—or whatever results those owners and trainers needed.”

“That’s what I was thinking!” Ella Mae felt relieved that her aunt hadn’t dismissed her theory as being nothing but silly speculation. “My plan was to insinuate myself among this group by telling them that you’re now offering horse
sculptures. They could commemorate the finest champions of their stables and be the envy of their friends.”

Waving her hands in dismissal, Dee’s voice remained soft and gentle even as she shook her head in refusal. “I can’t do horses. They’re too big, Ella Mae.”

“Just one, Aunt Dee. And not to scale. How about the size of the ones you see on the weather vanes at all of those horse farms?”

“It won’t be the same. The finished product wouldn’t carry that spark, that memory of life that all my pieces do. It wouldn’t be a genuine Delia LeFaye sculpture.” She sighed. “Besides, these people don’t see their horses as pets or family members, but as an income source. I can’t work for those kinds of people.”

Ella Mae wasn’t quite sure how to respond to her aunt’s statement so she sipped lemonade and absently crunched on potato chips. The afternoon had turned languid. Heat settled on the tree limbs and rooftops and the sun stole the green from the leaves and grass. Both women gazed out the kitchen window at the yellow-tinged yard and sighed. The timing of their combined sigh caused laughter to bubble forth from their throats.

“I’ll do it. For you. A single horse,” Dee said, her grin disappearing. “With one condition.”

“Anything.”

Dee rose and handed Ella Mae the list of signatures. “I can only make a piece for someone who cherished their animal. You’ll have to find a candidate who really loved their horse, even if that horse didn’t make them a penny.”

Ella Mae readily agreed.

“How will you break into their circle?” Dee asked.

“I’m going to try to get Chandler Knox to invite me to the Mint Julep Gala,” Ella Mae replied. “And if he doesn’t ask me, then I’ll go anyway.”

Dee looked thoughtful. “You’re going to need a killer
dress. Don’t buy anything. I might have something you can use.”

After thanking her aunt, Ella Mae loaded Chewy into the bike basket and headed for home. She wanted nothing more than to scrub her hands, put an apron on, and plunge her fingers into a ball of homemade dough. She needed to make a pie so creamy, rich, and seductive that offering it to Chandler Knox would be the same as showing up at his office wearing a raincoat with nothing on underneath.

“I need to think about this one for a spell,” Ella Mae told Chewy.

Skipper Drive, the road to Partridge Hill, passed by the entrance to a small community park where Ella Mae had spent hours reading library books in the shade of an ancient oak tree. A shallow stream traversed a rolling meadow pocked with dandelions, and walking paths crisscrossed the grass and disappeared into the nearby woods.

Resting the bike in the dry grass, Ella Mae sat down with her back against the oak’s comforting trunk and ran her hands over the ridges and crevices of the bark. The leaves of the canopy shifted in welcome and she smiled, relaxing enough to be able to concentrate not only on Chandler’s pie, but also on the stock she needed to build up before opening the shop next Saturday.

Chewy dashed after squirrels, his tail wagging so fast that it became a white smudge against the grass, and then splashed into the stream. Ella Mae joined him, kicking off her shoes and wading into the cool water. The mud squelched between her toes and filtered sunlight speckled her hair and shoulders.

“You love it here, don’t you, boy?” she asked her dog, who responded with a full-body shake, covering her face with droplets of water.

Ella Mae laughed and then reached into her pocket for Sloan’s letter. Her hands seemed to act of their own accord,
folding the letter into sharp creases, tucking folds into one another, and folding again. She made a perfect little paper boat whose sails were embellished with words that no longer formed logical sentences. Ella Mae set the craft into the stream’s lackadaisical current and watched until it bobbed past the oak and disappeared from view.

“We’re not going back,” she told Chewy and, to prove her conviction, tore Sloan’s check into several pieces and deposited the fragments into the nearest trash bin. “I don’t need a man to fulfill my dreams. I’ve got everything I need right here.” She wiggled her ten fingers at her terrier.

She spent the long bike ride home considering Loralyn and her equestrian acquaintances. Once again, she wondered what scheme Loralyn had devised to make herself wealthier and how Bradford Knox fit into the plan.

A line from
Pride and Prejudice
floated into her mind.

“‘It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us,’” she murmured. “Is that what’s going on with me? Do I want Loralyn to be guilty of a crime so badly that I’m not seeing other possibilities?”

Ella Mae mused over this worrisome thought until she pulled into the garage. Chewy leapt out of the bike basket before she could come to a stop, barking to announce his hunger until Reba appeared at the back door with his dinner dish in her hand.

“Hugh Dylan called while you were traipsin’ all over the county!” Reba shouted over the heads of the rosebushes. “Seems you stood him up this afternoon!”

Stunned, Ella Mae began to walk toward Reba, her heart beating faster with each step “He called? I didn’t think—”

Reba set Chewy’s bowl on the ground. “Stop hollerin’ and get your…” She trailed off, her eyes narrowing and looked in the direction of the guest cottage. As she passed Ella Mae, she grabbed her by the elbow and spun her around.

“Why are you sniffing the air?” Ella Mae asked. “That’s how Chewy looks whenever I cook bacon.”

Reba was inhaling deep breaths through her nose. Her face had turned hard.

“Someone’s here,” she growled lowly and increased her pace.

A shiver crawled up the back of Ella Mae’s neck. She was alarmed to find that she could no longer detect the scent of her mother’s roses or Reba’s signature aroma of strawberries. A block of thunderclouds had obscured the sun, and though this was a typical occurrence during summer afternoons, Ella Mae sensed a change in the atmosphere in the garden that was more significant than the impending rain.

Upon reaching the door of the guest cottage, Reba pointed at the paper object protruding from the brass mail slot.

“Do you know what that is?” she asked, her eyes darting wildly about.

Ella Mae couldn’t reply. She moved forward slowly, as if she were slogging through snow, and reached out to grasp hold of the paper boat she’d released at the park twenty minutes ago.

It wasn’t even damp.

“It can’t be….” she whispered and unfolded the letter in disbelief. Sloan’s check had been tucked into one of the creases and Ella Mae examined it in astonishment. It had been taped together so neatly that at first glance, it appeared unblemished.

“Was that writin’ on that there before?” Reba pointed at the words written in block letters on the back of Sloan’s missive.

GO BACK WHERE YOU BELONG,
it said.

Now it was Ella Mae’s turn to send crazed glances around the garden, inside the garage, and toward the path leading to the lake. She crushed the letter in her hands and shouted into the darkening sky, “You just try to get me to leave! I belong here!”

Reba stood still as a stone, listening hard. “They’re gone.”
She reached out for the paper. “I’ll take care of this. You keep your mind on pies.”

Ella Mae curled her fingers into fists. “Someone feels threatened by me. This has to be connected to Knox’s death.” She looked at Reba. “Did the cops come for the rolling pin?”

“They sure did. Wouldn’t even let me hand it to them, even though you had it all bagged up.” Reba was relaxing her stiff posture. The muscles in her face loosened and her tone resumed its blend of sassiness and verve. “I’d have put up a struggle in the hopes of being handcuffed, but neither officer was decent lookin’. And that’s saying somethin’, considerin’ how much I like a man in uniform.”

Ella Mae couldn’t help but smile, but then her eyes fell on the note in Reba’s hand and her mouth compressed into a thin line. “Is Daddy’s old gun collection in his office?”

Reba nodded. “Sure is. Your mama’s mighty fond of those guns, though we don’t clean them half as often as we should.”