Reap What You Sew (18 page)

And, just like that, the oldest member of the Sweet Briar Ladies Society Sewing Circle managed to accomplish what Debbie’s picture-perfect home couldn’t. Sure, the smile was one of amusement rather than true contentment, but still, it was a smile… .

Tori took a step forward and planted a kiss on the elderly woman’s gently wrinkled face. “Sorry, Rose. I didn’t know you were behind me. Guess I was lost in thought.”

“Milo do something stupid?” Without waiting for a response, Rose placed her hand in the crook of Tori’s arm and slowly made her way up the expansive porch steps.

She laughed. “No. Milo’s great.”

“Dixie set the library on fire again?”

Tori stopped mid-step and looked over her shoulder. “Shhhh! Do you know how long it’s taken to get Dixie to a place where she doesn’t talk on and on about the fire?” Resuming their slow and deliberate gait, she shook her head. “The only thing that quieted her down was seeing my renovated office and watching me move back in two weeks ago.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She rolled her eyes skyward. “She didn’t set the
only
fire we had, Rose. You know that. It was sabotage, remember?”

At the top step, Rose pulled her hand from Tori’s arm. “Then I’ll go with my first assessment. Did you lose your best friend?”

The Rose-induced smile slipped from her face. “I have many best friends, Rose.”

“Then which one of us is the reason behind that frown you’re wearing?”

Reaching around Rose’s frail body, Tori fisted Debbie’s front door with two quick knocks and then pulled it open, the movement causing the last of the ice cubes to clank against the sides of the glass pitcher. “I—”

The sound of footsteps behind them made them both turn in time to see Leona waltzing her way up the porch steps, a stack of travel magazines in one hand and a choker-wearing Paris in the other.

“Good heavens, Leona, are you trying to make Paris look like a streetwalker?”

Leona’s gasp echoed around them, Paris’s ears perking upward in the process. “A streetwalker?”

Rose stopped in the middle of the doorway. “All that neck thing is missing is a few spikes.”

Leona glanced down at the garden-variety bunny nestled in her left arm, her perfectly plump lips pursed. “The only people who would think that are people with no fashion sense.” Pulling her focus from her beloved Paris, Leona fixed it, instead, on Rose. “You know, people like you, Rose. People who think cotton is for something other than granny panties.”

“Ahhh yes, this from the woman who prefers dental floss for such things.” Rose’s left nostril flared ever so slightly as she turned back to Tori. “Really, Victoria, you should see the kinds of things Leona uses as undergarments.”

Tori lifted her free hand into the air and resisted the urge to shudder. “Ladies, this discussion has taken the path commonly known as Too Much Information. Truly.”

“You’re here! You’re here!” Debbie breezed into the foyer, removing the pitcher of tea from Tori’s hands while simultaneously bestowing Rose with a hug and acknowledging Leona with a welcoming nod. “Everyone else is already here and settled in the family room.”

“I want a chair as far from that woman as possible,” Rose mumbled as she extricated herself from Debbie’s arms and started down the hall. “In fact, if you don’t mind, perhaps you could put her in another room entirely.”

Debbie’s hand flew to her mouth in an attempt to cover the smile that was sure to agitate the elderly woman. Then, without breaking the eye contact she sought with Tori, she addressed the woman scowling in the doorway. “Leona? What did you say this time?”

Leona’s mouth gaped. “What did
I
say? Why does everyone always think it’s me?”

“Because it usually is?” Debbie laughed.

“Humph.” Leona looked down at Paris and shook her head. “This is why I don’t let you outside, little one. Intelligence and beauty invite jealousy.”

Debbie opened her mouth to speak only to shut it as Tori wrapped her arm around Leona’s shoulders. “Rose took the first shot this time.”

“And she took it at Paris.” The corners of Leona’s mouth drooped. “She was just sitting there, in my arms, minding her own business and twitching her sweet little nose when that old bat lashed out! Said Paris”—Leona reached across her body and covered the bunny’s ears with the stack of magazines—“looked like a—a streetwalker!”

Tori watched as Debbie’s gaze flitted downward, her lips twitching in response. “I think Paris’s choker is lovely, Leona.”

Leona’s face brightened. “Of course you do. You have taste, darling.” Pulling the magazines away from Paris, Leona started down the hall, her voice and demeanor void of any remaining hurt feelings.

Tori watched her go, the woman’s poise taking her by surprise. “She just doesn’t get it, does she?” she mumbled beneath her breath.

“Doesn’t get what?” Debbie asked.

“How much trouble she’s in.” Lifting her hands to her sides, she let them fall back down just as quickly. “How much trouble her sister and I are in as well.”

All hint of lingering amusement was chased from Debbie’s stance by concern. “I haven’t been able to think of anything else since you left the bakery. It got so bad Colby stopped all discussion at the dinner table this evening until I explained my preoccupation.”

“What did you say?” she asked quickly. As much as she adored Debbie’s husband, the man did write a local column for the Sunday paper. The last thing they needed was for Chief Dallas to be given a road map to the masterminds behind Anita’s deadly brownie.

Debbie shrugged. “What could I say? You didn’t tell me anything other than Leona’s aversion to stripes and your concern for Margaret Louise should she be kept from her grandbabies.”

Realizing the burden she placed on her friend, she reached out, gently squeezed the woman’s forearm. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m ready to talk now.”

Looping her arm inside Tori’s, Debbie led the way down the hall and into the living room, a hush falling over the assembled circle members as they stopped in the entryway.

Beatrice jumped to her feet, her soft British accent breaking through the sudden bout of silence. “Victoria? Are you okay?”

Before she could respond, Margaret Louise patted the vacant spot on the sofa to the left of where she sat with her mother, Annabelle. “Come. Sit.”

Tori crossed the room, claiming the suggested spot with a mixture of appreciation and foreboding. Sure, she was glad to be there, surrounded by friends who would do anything for each other. But as comforting as that thought was, the notion of stirring up yet another hornets’ nest was also disconcerting.

“Hello, Victoria.”

Startled, she turned to Annabelle and smiled, the oddly familiar voice and greeting so reminiscent of Margaret Louise. “Annabelle, hello. I’m so glad you were able to make it tonight.”

“I’m grateful for the invite.”

She met Margaret Louise’s eyes, the delight in her friend’s face impossible to miss. The whisper in her ear only served to underscore the reason she already suspected.

“Mamma is having a good day today.”

“I can see that,” she whispered back. “And I’m glad.”

“So why the emergency circle meeting?” Georgina Hayes asked from her spot on the deacon’s bench to the right of the hearth. Pulling her straw hat from the top of her head, the mayor of Sweet Briar addressed Tori with unbridled curiosity. “Is there a problem at the library?”

Before she could formulate a response, Dixie chimed in. “Everything at the library is wonderful. Isn’t that right, Victoria?”

She nodded.

“Is something wrong with Milo?” Melissa placed a hand on her ever-increasing baby bump and lifted her feet onto the dark brown leather ottoman Debbie had no doubt positioned within striking distance of the mother-to-be. “I saw him at Leeson’s Market after school today and he seemed okay to me.”

“Milo is fine.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Beatrice asked once again. “You look a little peaked.”

Rose’s eyes widened just before a cough riddled her body momentarily. When she’d composed herself, the elderly woman sat forward in her rocking chair and surveyed Tori from head to toe and back again. “Please tell me you’re not sick, Victoria.”

Slowly, Tori looked around the room, the concern on Rose’s face matched on seven others.

She rushed to offer some semblance of reassurance, though how much reassurance reality would offer was anyone’s guess.

“I’m not sick. I’m just worried. About Leona and”—she leaned forward, peered at the woman seated beside her—“Margaret Louise.”

“And you, too,” Debbie interjected via a whisper.

She nodded. “And me, too, I guess.”

Leona lowered her travel magazine to her lap. “I can understand being worried about my sister—she doesn’t eat healthy at all. And I can understand being worried about yourself—your inability to retain my makeup tips is rather alarming. But being worried about me? I don’t understand that. I have the perfect life. Just ask Paris.”

At the sound of her name, Paris’s ears perked forward from the travel pillow Leona had lovingly placed beside the armchair she, herself, graced. “See?” Leona continued, pointing at the rabbit. “Even Paris knows life is good.”

Margaret Louise cleared her throat. “She’s worried ’bout us ’cause of our hand—our
perceived
hand—in Anita Belise’s death.”

Georgina gasped. “Lord Almighty, Margaret Louise, what on earth are you talking about?”

Suddenly, the thought of calling an emergency circle meeting with the town’s mayor, of all people, didn’t seem like such a good idea. Tori swallowed, tried to think of a way to backpedal them out of the situation, but it was no use. Too much had been said already.

Instead, she worked to soften reality a wee bit. “I’m just a little concerned that Chief Dallas will latch onto the fact that Margaret Louise baked the ill-fated brownie most likely responsible for Anita’s death.”

“You did?” Georgina and Beatrice asked in unison.

Margaret Louise nodded. “My sister can be mighty hard to turn down when she starts beggin’ and pleadin’.”

Leona peered atop her glasses. “I did no such thing.”

“Oh no?” Margaret Louise challenged. “Then what do you call this?” Pushing off the couch, the plump sixty-something made her way over to a table in the corner of the room and leaned across it with a dramatic flair. “You’re such an amazing cook, Margaret Louise. I’ve always envied you that talent. If I had that ability, I’d be able to make Warren his favorite dessert of all—brownies with lots and lots of nuts.”

Leona’s face turned crimson at the imitation. “I don’t sound like that.”

“Yes you do,” chorused seven voices.

“Hmph.” Snatching her magazine off her lap, she raised it to her face only to let it drop back down. “It worked, though. You made the brownies just like I wanted you to. Just like
Victoria
suggested.”

She felt the weight of seven sets of eyes. “I didn’t suggest brownies. I made an offhand comment about a bag of nuts and having some time alone with Warren.”

“That would have been much too obvious, dear,” Leona mused. “The brownies were much more subtle.”

“I wouldn’t call murder
subtle
, Leona.” Georgina rested her head on the seat back and shook her head. “Will there ever be a murder in this town that doesn’t come back to someone in this room?”

“Not as long as Victoria is here.”

Tori’s mouth gaped along with the others in the room.

“Leona!” Debbie hissed. “You take that back.”

Bending her fingers to her palm, Leona studied the results of her latest manicure. “Why? It’s true, isn’t it? Until Victoria moved to town, there hadn’t been any murders here at all. Then, poof, she shows up bringing all that Chicago karma with her and look what’s happened.”

Tori laughed.

“How can you be laughing, Victoria?” Debbie asked as she rose to her feet and began pacing around the room. “Leona is saying awful things about you right now.”

“When does our resident hussy not say awful things?” Rose quipped from her rocking chair.

Leona’s eyes narrowed.
“Hussy?”

Rose glared back. “If the shoe fits…”

“Here we go,” Melissa mumbled, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “I am so glad the kids aren’t here to see this.”

Tori jumped to her feet, her fingers splayed in the air. “Ladies, please. I didn’t call this meeting so—”

Movement at the end of the couch cut her off mid-sentence. Turning, Tori saw Annabelle’s hands disappear into the infamous tote bag, a vacant stare on the woman’s heavily lined face.

Uh-oh.

A quick glance at Margaret Louise told her everything she needed to know. Annabelle’s antics had gone unnoticed—a good thing in light of the stress Margaret Louise was under.

“So, why, exactly, did you call this meeting?” Beatrice’s voice, quiet yet firm, broke through the verbal sparring taking place around the room. “What can we do to help?”

Pulling her focus from Annabelle, Tori fixed it, instead, on Beatrice, her words addressing everyone in the room. “For starters, we can stop the senseless arguing. That doesn’t help anyone. After that, we can try and put our heads together and create a list of people who had it out for Anita Belise.”

“From what I gathered during my time with Warren, there’s not enough paper in the world for a list like that.” Leona scooted forward on her chair, uncrossing and then crossing her delicate ankles once again. “She wasn’t liked, dear.”

Rose braced her foot against the floor and began rocking her chair. “Neither are you, Leona. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to kill you.”

Leona drew back as laughter bubbled up around her. “Well, I’ve—”

“
I’ve
been reading Agatha Christie lately and there’s always a number of possibilities,” Beatrice chimed in, her eyes gleaming. “Several of those even have motive. But only one was pushed past the brink enough to do it.”

Tori mulled the nanny’s words as heads nodded in every corner of the room. “You’re exactly right, Beatrice. It doesn’t matter how long or short the list of Anita-haters may be. Only one person hated her enough to kill her. We find that person, and everyone else is in the clear.”