A Crafty Christmas (18 page)

It was lunch time before Vera came padding down Beatrice's stairs and into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Jon said.

“Hmph, it stopped being morning about an hour ago,” Beatrice said. “Good to see you're still alive.”

“Thanks,” Vera mumbled. “Do I smell coffee?”

“Yes, indeed. Sit down, Vera,” Jon said.

“We just finished lunch. Plenty left,” Beatrice said, and pointed to the chicken noodle soup she'd made with the leftovers of the previous night's chicken dinner.

“Oh, that looks good,” Vera said. Jon brought her a bowl of the soup and her mother brought her a plate of biscuits. The two of them sat down at the table with her.

“You look great. Very tan,” Jon said.

Vera smiled. “Thanks. I feel pretty good except I'm worried about Sheila. She's not herself.”

“Of course not. A concussion is nothing to mess around with, then add to it all the trauma. . . .” Beatrice said.

“Have they found out who killed that poor woman and her lover?” Jon asked.

“I don't think so,” Vera said. “But you know there were some very strange goings on. Mmm. The soup is so good. It almost feels, I don't know, cleansing, after all the food I've gorged myself on.”

“What do you mean by ‘strange'?” Beatrice asked, leaning in a bit closer as she placed her elbows on the table.

“Well, the security guy thinks he's a vampire, for one thing,” Vera blurted.

“What?” Jon and Beatrice said at the same time.

“Apparently, he told Randy this. You see, they went on this date.”

Beatrice didn't know how to react to this. Of course the man must be certifiably crazy. She couldn't find words.

“Nonsense,” Jon said after a few beats. “There's no such thing as vampires. If the man was serious, you must report this back to the company. He's not right in the head.”

The words “no such thing as vampires” rolled around in Beatrice's old brain. That's what people always said about ghosts, too. And she knew they existed. Her husband's ghost had been with her up until a few years ago. Even now, though she couldn't see him like she used to, sometimes she still smelled him or felt him close to her. But vampires? That was a different matter. She remembered reading about people who thought they were vampires. Wasn't it a syndrome? Yes, she remembered—it was called Renfield's syndrome.

“But like Sheila said, if the man thinks he's a vampire, he may think he needs to kill,” Vera said.

“Did you tell the investigators all of this?” Beatrice asked.

“I didn't know it at the time. I did tell them about Theresa Graves,” Vera said, and dipped her spoon back into the bowl.

“Who?” Jon asked.

“She was a woman on the cruise. She's a big-time scrapbooker. Sheila had a meeting with her. And anyway, she came to our photo class on the island and she and this creepy guy heckled Sheila,” Vera said. “So I told the agents about it. They seemed pleased. They wrote it all down.”

“Heckled Sheila?” Beatrice said. “What?” It seemed that not everybody liked Sheila after all.

“Very juvenile,” Vera said.

“And just plain weird. Why would a grown person do such a thing?” Beatrice said.

Vera shrugged. “You know, I asked myself that a lot on this cruise.”

“I told you they were nothing but trouble,” Beatrice said.

“I know you did. But we're home safe and sound. So at least there's that,” Vera said, and took a large drink of her coffee.

“Between the weird security chief and the backbiting competitive scrapbookers, not to mention the juvenile ones, and all of the drinking, it was quite an eye opener. My God, the excess. And then the mention of Sharon Milhouse made me feel, I don't know, creeped out, or something,” Vera said. “I'm so ready for a peaceful, relaxing Christmas break.”

Jon and Beatrice exchanged looks of concern. “What?” Vera said. “What else is going on? Don't tell me there's been another murder!”

“No, now calm down,” Beatrice said. “Sheila doesn't know this yet, but when Steve came home a few days after they both had left, he found a threatening postcard in their mailbox.”

“What kind of threat? I mean, what did it say?” Vera said, her brows knitting.

“‘Die, die, die, scrapbook queen,'” Beatrice said.

Vera gasped.

“There was something else on the note. Bryant is checking it out and the forensics team in Richmond is looking at it. It may have been blood,” Beatrice said.

“Blood?” Vera paled.

“I've talked with Steve and Bryant about it. We're all wondering who would have it in for Sheila.”

“Bryant? You talked with Detective Bryant?”

“Hmph. More than I wanted to,” Beatrice said, sitting back and crossing her arms. “But he hasn't been too cocky these days.”

“That's suspicious in and of itself,” Vera said. “Does Sheila know about any of this?”

Beatrice shrugged. “I don't know if Steve's told her about it yet. But we decided not to tell her while she was on the cruise. Thought she had enough to think about.”

Vera thought a moment. “Maybe so,” she said. “As far as I know, Sheila has no enemies. Unless it's someone from afar that we know nothing about. I mean, I know everybody she does. I can't think of anyone except Sharon and that was so many years ago.”

“I suppose Bryant is looking for her,” Jon said.

Beatrice nodded. “I hope he finds her, too.”

Vera's spoon clanked on her bowl as she scooped up the last of her soup. “I'm sure he will. I'm sure she's somewhere far away and there's nothing at all to worry about. I'm putting it completely out of my mind. It's Christmas and a joyful time of the year. I'm going to do my best to give Lizzie a good one.”

Beatrice stopped herself from rolling her eyes at her only daughter. Try as she had over the years to vanquish the Scarlett O'Hara streak Vera had, it had never gone away. Sometimes she could almost see her daughter as Vivien Leigh, putting off today what she could do tomorrow.

It had served Vera well most of her life. This time Beatrice wasn't so sure.

Sheila had just finished hanging all the Christmas wreaths in her windows. She stepped out into the front yard to see if she had them all straight. She had a very good eye for straight. The wreath that hung in Jonathon's bedroom window seemed a bit off. She went back in, walked up the steps to his room, and fixed the wreath. When she came back down, Steve was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. One of the great things about his business was that he sometimes had a lot of time on his hands and could spend a lot of it with her.

“What are you doing, hon?” he said.

“Working on my wreaths,” she said.

“Ever hear of a day of rest?”

“You know me better than that,” she said, leaned down and kissed him. “Be right back.”

She went outside again, welcoming the cold. Being in the Caribbean sun had felt unnatural to her. She walked to the edge of her yard and looked at her house. Each wreath in each window appeared fine. But something was off. She stood there a moment, trying to put her finger on what it was. Her house was the same, but it also somehow looked different. It wasn't simply the Christmas decorations she had added. Something was missing. Her old butter churn was gone!

She took a deep breath. Maybe Steve had done something with it.

“Steve?” she yelled toward the house.

It was a butter churn she had found at a yard sale a few years back. She had painted it and sat it on her front porch. It had been sitting there for years. She started to walk toward the house and a dark figure caught her eye as it moved around the corner. She caught a glimpse of the face—it couldn't be! It was the creepy man from the cruise! She was certain.

What was he doing here? Well, damn if she wasn't going to find out! He was on her turf now. She started to take off after him when her husband came out onto the porch.

“What?” he said.

She kept moving.

“Where the hell are you going?” Steve chased after her.

All her years of running were going to do her good. She'd catch him and force him to tell her what he wanted with her. Why was he in Cumberland Creek?

“There's a man,” Sheila said. “I just saw him.”

She ran to the end of her street, her heart thrumming, blood rushing. Where did he go? She scanned Ivy Lane. Nobody was out. A car passed. She didn't recognize the driver.

Steve caught up with her and grabbed her shoulder. “What's going on?”

She explained about the creepy man on the cruise and how she'd seen him.

“Here?” he said. He seemed incredulous. “Did you get a good look?”

Mrs. Blackburn came walking down the street and smiled at them. “How do?” she said.

“Did you see a man dressed in a long dark coat?” Sheila asked.

“No,” she said. “I've not seen anybody out. Right before supper for most folks, I guess. Merry Christmas, if I don't see you before.”

“Same to you,” said Steve.

Damn!
thought Sheila.
Where did he go?

“
Sheila, let's go back in the house and talk about this. I don't see anybody at all. Are you certain you saw someone?”

She nodded as he led her back to their house. She stopped in front of it.

“Steve, what happened to my butter churn?” she said.

“Your what?”

“My butter churn. You remember, I painted it green with daisies down the front of it. We had it sitting on the front porch for years,” she said.

He looked off toward their porch. “I don't know,” he said. “I didn't even know it was missing.”

“Someone took my butter churn? Right off the porch?”

“We haven't been home,” he said. “Maybe we should have secured it elsewhere. I didn't even think about it. Bryant asked me if anything was missing and I told him no.”

“Bryant?” Sheila said.

“Sheila, I've been waiting for the right time to tell you this. Let's go inside. Seems like you've got something to tell me, too. Who is this man you think you saw?”

Sheila took a deep breath and told her husband about the man on the cruise ship.

Steve reddened and looked like he was about to explode, but then took a deep breath. “Sheila, I'm so glad you're home. I didn't like you being gone. Not one bit,” he said, and hugged her.

She didn't tell him that she'd almost accepted a job that would require her to travel to New York City once a month. Oh, she wanted that job so bad she could taste it. Working for David's Designs would be a dream come true.

“What's on your mind, Steve? What is it that you need to tell me?”

He then filled her in on the postcard.

She watched her husband's mouth form the words. And though she heard what he was saying, it somehow refused to sink in.

“Sheila?” he said after a few minutes.

Her chest pressed heavy against her lungs. She gasped for air and fell back on the couch. “Who?” she managed to say.

“We just don't know,” Steve said. “Bryant sent it to the crime lab in Richmond. I didn't realize anything was missing. I better call him. Are you okay?”

Sheila nodded. But she wasn't certain she was. What was happening to her well-constructed and controlled life? She'd done everything that was expected of her and more. She was a good wife and mother, a volunteer in the classroom and community, and she had built a good business based on good products and a solid reputation. She thought she was well liked. But lately she wondered. And it had all begun when she won that scrapbooking contest. She was in the news—everywhere—and some people seemed genuinely pleased for her. Others had developed an attitude with her, like they thought she had gone beyond her upbringing. She had caught the looks and heard the chatter. She tried not to pay attention to it. But now it seemed she would have to. Someone had stolen her butter churn and placed a threatening note in her mailbox. She would have to fill out a police report.

Beyond all that, no matter what Steve believed, she was certain she'd seen the man from the
Jezebel
walking down Ivy Lane today.

“That's crazy,” Annie said when Vera told her that Sheila thought she saw the creepy man from the cruise. “Don't you think?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Vera said. “But I do think it's a stretch, even though the man seemed to be infatuated with Sheila for most of the cruise. I mean, he stared at her. Then all of a sudden he was with that Theresa, who was heckling Sheila. Then we never saw him again.”

“Maybe he wasn't infatuated. Maybe he didn't like her at all,” Annie said. “And we know Theresa doesn't like her.”

“Well, whatever; Sheila noticed it and it made her uneasy even before she tripped over Allie,” Vera said.

“How is Sheila's head?” Annie asked.

“Still bruised. But she said she was feeling better. I tell you, Annie, I'm so glad to be home. First the murder, then the storm, then the heckling.”

“But what about the rest of the cruise?”

“Eh,” Vera said. “The food was good. And so was the scrapbooking. I've been using doilies and making some great patterns on my pages. We also learned about gels, chalks, paints. It was fun. And it was awesome seeing Sheila get that award. She was glowing that night, you know? All these years of hard work . . .”

“I'm sorry I missed that. But you all took pictures, right?”

“Of course. By the way, Annie, happy Hanukkah.”

“Thanks. We've had some wonderful evenings. My Hanukkah scrapbook is filling up.”

“I can't wait to see it. You are coming on Saturday?”

“Yep.”

“Mommy!” Ben cried. He had been sleeping and awoke suddenly.

“I gotta go,” Annie said, and turned to find her son walking toward her, drenched in sweat. He didn't have strep, but the doctor thought it could be the flu and they were still waiting for the test results. He fell into her arms, burning with fever. She glanced at the clock—it was time for another round of ibuprofen.

“Sit down, sweetie,” Annie said. “I'll get you some water and some medicine.”

He curled up on the couch. By the time she brought the water and pills to him, he was softly snoring. Poor boy. She gently shook him awake to take the pill, which he did before promptly falling back asleep. She grabbed the throw from the back of her couch and wrapped her boy up in it.

Her phone rang again. It was the school nurse. Sam had come down with the same thing, apparently. “I'll try to get there soon. But I need to find someone to stay with Ben.”

“Understood. We'll keep him in here on the cot until you come for him. He's not going anywhere,” the nurse said.

Beatrice and Vera were out of the question. That afternoon was Elizabeth's Christmas concert at her preschool. DeeAnn was working. She called Sheila, who said she'd be happy to come right over.

When Annie opened the door, she was surprised to see Sheila looking so pale—and the bump on her head was still there, quite visible.

“Thanks for coming, Sheila,” Annie said. “I shouldn't be long. Your bump is still there?”

Sheila nodded. “It's much smaller than it was, believe me.”

“I can't wait to catch up,” Annie said. “But I've got to run.”

“I'll be here,” Sheila said, and stepped forward into the foyer. “Don't worry about us.”

“Okay.” Annie turned to leave and then shut the door. She heard the clicking of the lock. Odd. Sheila must still be a bit spooked.

But as she headed to her car, she spotted a man walking by her house and looking it over with some interest. Annie's reporter instincts kicked in.

“Can I help you?” she said, her eyes locked on him. He looked up at her, surprised. He shook his head and shrugged.

She walked toward him. “Do you need some help? Directions?”

He kept walking. “I'm going for a walk, enjoying the day,” he said, and then moved quickly away.

Annie stood on her sidewalk and watched him disappear around the corner. Who the hell was that? Was that the man Sheila thought was her creepy guy from the cruise? He
was
creepy—soft looking, with watery brown shifty eyes, and wearing a ski hat, long black coat, and boots. This man did not belong in the neighborhood. Waves of fear rolled through her as her heart thumped against her chest.

She took a deep breath. In the meantime, she had to pick up Sam from school and get back home to tend her two sick boys. But if this was the man Sheila had witnessed wandering the streets earlier, Annie could see why she was freaked out.

Soon she had both of her sick, feverish sons home, each in his own bed with a bucket next to him.
Please, God, don't let them throw up again.

She walked out to her living room, where Sheila was perched, watching television and eating fresh rum cake that she had brought over with her. Annie told her about the man she'd observed.

Sheila's jaw dropped. “I told them! I told all of them. He's here! I know that's him.”

“Just a minute, Sheila. Stop and think. Why would he be here, in Cumberland Creek?”

“I have no idea . . . unless he wants me . . . wants me for some perverse reason,” Sheila said, dropping her cake onto the plate.

“He came all the way from Florida so he could stalk you?” Annie said, trying to calm Sheila. But she knew stalkers had done worse and gone further for their victims. Annie sat back and lifted a cup of tea that Sheila had made to her lips. She was pleased that it was still warm.

Sheila's shoulders dropped. “I suppose it does sound a little crazy. But if that's not him, the guy really looks like him. I saw him for five days straight on the cruise. He was at the next crop table over. Almost every time I looked up, he was staring at me. It wasn't like, I don't know, a nice stare. It was full of hatred.”

“Why would the man hate you?” Annie asked.

“I've asked myself that question,” she said, and flung her arms up. “But people are crazy. Look at what happened to poor Allie. I don't know why anybody would want to kill her.”

“But you didn't know her that well, Sheila,” Annie pointed out. “Who knows what she was really like, what she was involved in, and so on?”

“Whatever it was, she certainly should not have been killed for it,” Sheila said. “I was shocked by the competitive nature of some of these big scrapbookers. But I really can't see any of them as killers.”

Annie nodded in agreement, then said, “But come to think of it, if there's one thing I've learned over the years it's that human nature is so complicated. I'm usually surprised to find out who killers actually are.”

“You know, that's true,” Sheila said. “Sometimes it really is the boy or girl next door.”