Dangerous Alterations (22 page)

Pushing back her chair, she stood, her feet moving across the room almost of their own volition. It was as if they knew their movement helped her think, plan. “Will you go with me to talk to Fred Granderson tomorrow morning? I imagine he’ll want to talk to you and to Lulu, too.”

“Of course. Though I”—Margaret Louise rested her chin atop her hands—“can’t help but feel a little sorry for this girl. Can you imagine bein’ so caught up on someone that you take leave of all common sense? I mean, where is her
mama
?”

She stopped in front of the window that overlooked the side yard, a cornucopia of toys strewn across the grass. “Striking a match might be considered a rash act. But to unscrew a wall plate, rig a device to the inside, put the plate back on, and then wait for someone to use it? In a public building? That took thought.” Hearing the heightened pitch to her voice, she turned to face the table. “Margaret Louise, I’m sorry, I’m not angry with you. I’m just … I don’t know. Sad, frustrated, disgusted. And if she really killed Jeff, she deserves to be locked up.”

“You still have feelin’s for that man?”

Her mouth gaped open. “Feelings? For Jeff? No! I just don’t think he deserved to be murdered.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Was he a jerk at times? Absolutely. The worst kind of jerk, quite frankly. But that didn’t mean he should have his life taken from him.”

Margaret Louise dropped her hands to her side and shrugged. “I know you’re right, Victoria. I guess I’m just havin’ a hard time rustlin’ up any sympathy for a man who hurt someone as special as you. And I’m not the only one. Leona feels exactly the same way as I do. So does Rose. Milo, too.”

“You’ve talked to Milo?”

“Just last week. He needed a little help from Lulu with a project—”

“Last week? Last week, when?” She thought back through the weekend. “You mean Friday night?”

“No. I was at the cabin Friday night. This was Tuesday morning. I remember because we met Milo right after Sally’s swim class. It wasn’t quite noon, but I let him buy the girls brownies anyway.”

“He was here Tuesday? Why didn’t he tell me?”

Margaret Louise drained the last of her water glass and then wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “He said it had to be a quick stop and he didn’t want to upset you by breezin’ in and out so fast.”

She reclaimed her chair at the table. “Let me get this straight. He drove all the way to Sweet Briar to work with Lulu and then drove all the way back to his hotel that same day? Without telling me?”

“He drove here and back all in that same
mornin’
, actually. But don’t you fret none, Victoria. He wanted to see you, I can attest to that. He just didn’t want to upset you, is all.”

“Upset me? Why?” But even as the question left her lips, she knew the answer. Milo had offered to come back when they’d spoken on the phone Monday night, yet she’d begged him not to, reassuring him again and again that she was fine despite the conversation he’d overheard between her and Jeff.

“It’s a good thing he
didn’t
stop by the library after those brownies, ’cause you’d have been too preoccupied to pay him any attention, anyway.”

“Preoccupied?” She stared at her friend, her thoughts running in one unending loop of confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“He was here
Tuesday
, Victoria. The same day that ex-fiancé of yours was murdered.” Margaret Louise reached across the table and patted Tori’s hand. “That man is crazy’bout you, Victoria. Seein’ you shed so much as a tear over Jeff might have crushed him. Remember how you were last spring when his old college girlfriend blew into town?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I guess you’re right.”

“What matters is the fact that he’ll be home for good tomorrow evenin’, just in time for all this nonsense to be wrapped up.”

She met her friend’s gaze head-on. “You really think Kelly is the answer to all of this? The library, Jeff’s death?”

“I’d have to have my head examined if I didn’t.”

Margaret Louise was right. The pieces fit perfectly.

Rising from the table once again, Tori carried her water glass to the sink and set it inside. “It’s getting late, I better go.”

“What time should Lulu and I meet you to talk to Fred Granderson?”

“About nine, maybe?”

“We’ll be there.” Margaret Louise stood and followed Tori to the door, only to stop midway and double back. “I realized, in all the commotion, that Lynn’s pictures ended up in my purse. Any chance you could run them by her house on your way home? It’s a little out of your way but I feel bad havin’ them. Those flowers seem to give her such joy.”

The idea of driving on the country roads that separated Sweet Briar from Lee Station sounded perfect at the moment. The time alone would give her a chance to think, process.

“I’d be happy to run them out to her house. But let’s hold on to the picture that had Kelly in it. Fred Granderson might want to see it for himself.”

“Good thinkin’.” Margaret Louise pulled the sleeve of pictures from her oversized purse and opened them, sifting through the contents for Kelly’s image. “You want to hold on to this one or should I?”

She waved aside the photograph and reached, instead, for the remaining pictures. “Why don’t you keep it? I’ve seen enough.” Tori brushed a kiss across Margaret Louise’s rounded cheek. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“The feelin’ is mutual.”

 

 

Tori paused with her hand at the door and inhaled deeply, second thoughts flooding her mind in rapid succession. What on earth had she been thinking when she agreed to bring the pictures out to Lynn? Surely she could have turned up the radio in her living room and belted out the lyrics just as loudly from the comfort of her armchair as she had in the car.

And if she had, she wouldn’t be standing on Garrett Calder’s front porch, trying to figure out what, exactly, one should say to a man about the death of a pseudo relative he wasn’t particularly crazy about in the first place. Especially when she had a history with said relative.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh,” she mumbled as she looked from the packet of pictures to the door and back again. “Nothing like walking into a hornet’s nest.”

Then again, Garrett had a mistress. So maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t even home.

She lifted her finger and pushed the doorbell, the sound wafting through the screen.

A chair squeaked somewhere inside, followed by the sound of footsteps and Lynn’s voice. “Who’s there?”

Her shoulders sagged with relief as the woman she barely knew came into view. Even if Garrett were home, she might be able to do the handoff and be gone before he even had a clue.

“Hi, Lynn.” She held the package of pictures up to the screen and smiled. “Margaret Louise asked me to bring these to you. I guess they got mixed up with her things at the bakery earlier this evening.”

“I think it’s more likely I forgot. Seem to be doing a lot of that lately.” Lynn pushed the screen door open. “Don’t know if it’s the stress of the last week or so that’s getting to me or not, but I just haven’t been feeling like myself these last few days.”

The instinct to decline the invitation disappeared as she studied the woman closely. Whatever strength she’d seen in Lynn’s eyes during treatment seemed muted at best, the woman’s hand self-consciously tugging at the bandana her chemo necessitated.

“Are you okay?” she asked as she stepped inside. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not really. I’m just having a down-on-myself kind of day.” Lynn led the way toward a small parlor off the hallway. “I have those sometimes. Comes with looking like this.”

Her heart ached for the woman who fought the kind of daily battle she could only imagine. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”

“A bald woman who looks like she’s in her late fifties instead of her mid-forties?”

Tori shook her head. “I see a woman with spunk and tenacity, a woman who has been thrown the kind of curve-balls that would make anyone stop and scream. Yet you keep standing. And fighting.”

A hint of crimson rose in Lynn’s face just before her gaze dropped to the ground. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t.” Tori swept her hand toward the couch, setting her purse at the base. “I have a few minutes if you’d like to visit. Are you alone?”

Discomfort morphed into amusement as Lynn lowered herself to the sofa. “Who else would be here? My faithless husband?”

She couldn’t help but pity the woman beside her, pity the loneliness and despair that surely came from navigating one’s way around life’s potholes alone. “Why do you stay?” she finally asked.

Lynn reached up, pulled the bandana from her head, and pointed at the peach fuzz that covered her otherwise bald scalp. “Staying is my only chance of survival.”

“Don’t you have family? People that could help keep a roof over your head while you fight this?”

“It’s not the roof I need. It’s the insurance.”

She stared at Lynn. “Can’t you get some sort of insurance when you first leave?”

“For three years, sure. If I’m dead inside that time, it works. But if I’m not, then what? No insurance company is going to want to touch me with a ten-foot pole. Not without charging me premiums only the wealthy can afford.” Lynn leaned her head against the back of the sofa and released a weary sigh. “And I am not a wealthy person.”

Anxious to find something, anything to lessen the charge she felt in the room, Tori inventoried their surroundings, her gaze moving across shelves of books and knickknack strewn tables before coming to rest on the framed photographs that graced the wooden mantel. Most of the faces she recognized as ones she’d seen in Jeff’s albums—a youthful Vera at the beach, an older Vera on the day she married Garrett’s father, and Jeff as he crossed the finish line of his very first marathon nearly a decade earlier. In the opposite corner was a smaller framed photograph of a much younger, healthier Lynn on her wedding day, surrounded by her bridesmaids.

They were the kind of pictures you expected to see in a person’s house with one exception. Not a single, solitary shot of Garrett could be found anywhere.

“I’m surprised there’s a picture of Jeff on your mantel,” Tori said aloud, her mouth putting words to her thoughts. “I never thought he and Garrett were terribly close.”

“If it was our mantel, it wouldn’t be there.”

She pulled her attention from the photographs and fixed it on Lynn. “What are you saying?”

Lynn tossed her bandana onto the coffee table in front of them. “This was Vera’s house.”

“Vera’s house?” she echoed. “But why? I thought Vera and Garrett locked horns all the time.”

Bitterness replaced fatigue in Lynn’s voice. “They do—I mean, did. But when you take your paycheck to the horse track each week and have a girlfriend to wine and dine, a home mortgage can be rather draining.”

She swallowed back the desire to scream. “So you stay here and put up with this man because why?”

“So I can live.”

Reaching across the cushion that separated them, Tori patted Lynn’s knee. “I’m so sorry. I truly am.”

Lynn shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. Vera was actually pretty good to me most of the time.”

“So what happens now that Vera is gone? Do you get to stay here?”

Relief swept across the woman’s lined face. “I do. She left the house to me.”

“You mean to Garrett?”

“No. To me.”

She laughed. “Wow. That must have made him mad.”

A smile played at the corners of Lynn’s lips. “I imagine it did, though that’s not what had his undies in a bunch when Vera’s attorney stopped by after her funeral.”

“What then?”

“She left her money to Jeff, not Garrett. He was only named as a secondary to appease her late husband.”

Ah yes, the inheritance that had emboldened an already bold man to show up on Tori’s doorstep and ask for a second chance.

“Well, it’s that move that probably cost Jeff his life,” she mumbled.

“I couldn’t agree more.” Lynn pushed off the couch and walked to the center of the room. “Can I get you something to drink? Eat? I have some freshly made lemonade in the refrigerator.”

She glanced at her watch and noted the late hour. If she didn’t get going soon, she wouldn’t be able to call Milo before bed. “I’d love to, Lynn, I really would. But I have to get home and get some sleep. I have a big day ahead of me. I’ve got to get a cleaning company into the library to see what they can do about the smoke smell.”

Lynn wandered over to the mantel and swiped her hand across the dust-covered surface. “I heard about the fire. I’m sorry.”

“So am I. Though, now, thanks to your pictures, we know who did it.”

“I was wondering what all those looks between you and Margaret Louise were this evening. I wanted to ask but I got the impression you didn’t want to talk about it in front of the granddaughter.”

“Thank you for that,” she said, flashing a smile at Lynn. “Seems Jeff’s latest girlfriend had an ax to grind with me—an ax she opted to grind after Jeff got his money and came knocking at my door.”

The woman’s brows furrowed. “Kelly?”

Tori nodded. “The best I can figure is she was jealous about Jeff trying to get me back and decided to seek a little revenge.”

“Kelly started the fire?”

“Looks like it.” Tori hoisted her purse onto the couch and rooted around inside it for her keys. When she located them, she rose to her feet and headed toward the front door. “And you know what? If I was a gambler like Garrett, I’d put my money on Kelly as a suspect in Jeff’s murder as well.”

A low mirthless laugh followed her out onto the porch as Lynn let the screen door shut between them. “If you did, you’d be living under someone else’s roof, too.”

By the time she got home and finished her call to Milo, she was exhausted. Absolutely, positively exhausted.