Tying the Knot (16 page)

Wyatt's eyes were tired as he gazed at Beatrice. “All of it seems outside the realm of possibility. But the facts show that Daniel did have motive and opportunity. He had something to gain from Trevor's death. And if he thought that his secret—his mother's secret—needed to be protected at this late point in her life, I'm not sure how far he might go. He's very protective of his mother—something that I'd originally seen as a good trait and a sign that he might also be the same for my sister.”

“I still don't see him as the murderer. Or, even if I can imagine it, I don't want to. I'm planning on digging further to see what I can do to prove his innocence,” said Beatrice.

Wyatt was shaking his head, anxiety creasing his brow. “Beatrice, this person is dangerous, whoever he is. You've already encountered that once. Please don't keep asking questions. We must do the right thing and present the evidence we have to Ramsay, and let him decide how to handle it. Before more deaths occur.”

“And I will. But give me a little time before I do, Wyatt. Just a few days . . . until after the festival, maybe. Then I'll let Ramsay know,” said Beatrice.

Wyatt slowly nodded. But he didn't look happy about it.

*   *   *

After Wyatt left, Beatrice decided the first order of the day was to find her cell phone. She figured Posy and Cork would have discovered it if she'd left it at their house. So she headed off to the Patchwork Cottage to see if she'd left it there while she'd been visiting with Posy and Savannah.

Posy was once again surrounded by customers, so Beatrice walked straight over to the sofa where she'd sat the day before. Unfortunately, this time Miss Sissy had beat her to the shop and was already boisterously snoring there.

Beatrice glanced around and under the furniture, but didn't see the phone. Miss Sissy was sitting right on top of where she'd been. She softly said, “Miss Sissy?” But the old woman didn't stir. So she gently reached to the side of her to see if the phone had slipped under the sofa cushion.

Beatrice jumped as a wiry hand with a strong grip clamped around her wrist. “Pickpocket!” howled Miss Sissy.

“No, no. I'm looking for my phone,” said Beatrice, pulling away with some effort and then rubbing her sore arm. She gave a reassuring smile to several shoppers who looked her way with narrowed eyes.

“Why didn't you say so?” grumbled the old woman. She hopped up off the sofa. Beatrice pulled up the cushion and found her phone underneath.

Beatrice gave a sigh of relief. “Well, it's got a dead battery, but at least I found it. Sorry, Miss Sissy.”

Miss Sissy sat down again in a bit of a huff at having her nap disturbed.

Beatrice cleared her throat. She clearly needed to make amends for the interruption. “So, Miss Sissy, did you catch up with Savannah? And give Savannah her cat mat?”

Miss Sissy glared at her. “It wasn't
Savannah's
mat. And I wasn't there to visit Savannah. I was there to see Smoke.” She gave Beatrice a fierce look. “Smoke is my friend.”

Beatrice nodded. “Of course he is.” She sure hoped that Posy was able to find a cat soon, or else Miss Sissy was going to move in with Savannah and Georgia.

The shop's bell rang, and Beatrice turned to see that Georgia was, as a matter of fact, walking into the Patchwork Cottage. There was a sparkle in her eye and a lightness to her step. Beatrice decided that Tony was good for her.

“Hi, Miss Sissy,” said Georgia cheerfully. “We sure enjoyed seeing you yesterday. And Smoke loved having some extra playtime.”

Miss Sissy preened. “He liked the toy I brought.”

“That's right.” Georgia turned to Beatrice and gave
her a small wink. “Miss Sissy not only brought a precious cat mat for Smoke, but she also made a cat toy for him with string and a dowel. That is one spoiled kitty.”

“How are things going for you, Georgia? I haven't had a chance to catch up with you for a while,” said Beatrice.

Georgia blushed. “That's because I've been spending so much time with Tony. Apart from teaching, I mean. Even at the wedding. Sorry I didn't really visit with you then.”

“That's all right—it was a busy evening. It sounds like you and Tony are a wonderful couple. I'm so happy for you both,” said Beatrice warmly.

Tony, who ran errands and home repairs for Miss Sissy, was one of her favorites. She barked, “Tony is a nice boy!”

Georgia beamed at her. “Yes, indeed he is!”

“Do y'all have any special plans today?” asked Beatrice. Then she frowned. “Don't you have school?”

“Spring break,” said Georgia happily. “And we do have plans this afternoon. We're going fishing.”

Miss Sissy made a face.

Beatrice wanted to agree with Miss Sissy that fishing was hardly a romantic date, but Georgia seemed so excited about it. Clearly, any activity was romantic if Tony were there. “Well, I'm sure you'll enjoy just being together.”

“I'm packing a picnic lunch for the boat, with a bottle of wine for us to share. So it should be a lot of fun. The weather is gorgeous. And then we have the festival coming up, too. It's really going to be a wonderful week.”

Miss Sissy nodded. “Festival. Food!” Her eyes gleamed greedily. If there was one thing Miss Sissy loved above all else, it was a good snack.

“Well, I'm not sure how much food we'll be eating at the festival. Tony's won the pie-eating contest for the past few years, and he wants to maintain his title. So maybe I'll have some cotton candy, but we'll have to protect Tony's appetite for the competition.” Georgia sounded as serious, as if the competition meant a national tennis title. She gave Beatrice a shy look. “Are you and Wyatt going together to the festival?”

“Yes. But no worries—I'm pretty sure he has no plans to compete in the pie-eating contest.” At least, she certainly hoped not. “His talent lies in horseshoes, or that's what I'm led to believe.”

Georgia nodded. “Maybe we'll see y'all out there. Have you got any other plans with Wyatt? What kinds of things do you like doing together? Tony and I are always looking out for fun things to do.”

What
did
she and Wyatt do together? Unfortunately, not as much as they'd like to. “Well, this afternoon, we're spending time together assembling casseroles at the church,” said Beatrice dryly. “And we spent much of the day visiting the Mountain Vistas retirement home last week.”

Georgia looked about as impressed with Beatrice's dates as Beatrice and Miss Sissy had at Georgia's fishing date. “Isn't that nice?” she said quickly, in a bright voice.

Beatrice was walking into the parking lot near the Patchwork Cottage when she again saw Lyla Wales there, carrying a grocery bag, her car parked right next to Beatrice's.

When Beatrice's key's jangled as she pulled them out of her purse, Lyla swung around with a wary look on her face. She relaxed as she saw Beatrice. “Oh, it's you. We meet again, hmm? Sorry at my reaction. I've been having some issues lately.” She grimaced.

“Issues?” asked Beatrice, opening her car door.

“I thought you might be Eleanor. She simply won't leave me alone,” said Lyla between gritted teeth. “She blames all of her many problems on me. Eleanor follows me to work and sits in the parking lot for an hour or more. Or she'll show up there when it's time for me to head home, and just look menacing. I felt sorry for her at first, but I'm about to have to tell Ramsay about it. Maybe I should get a restraining order or something.”

“I can completely understand your feeling that way,” said Beatrice. “But maybe it would be a better idea if I ran by and talked to her. I don't know Eleanor all that well, but she seemed receptive to me the last time I visited with her. Maybe I can help her realize that there are better uses for her time. Besides, she probably needs someone to check up on her.”

“If you want to,” said Lyla with a small shrug. “That's nice of you. I wish I could summon some sympathy for Eleanor, but I simply can't seem to right now. I know she has issues, though.”

“I'll try to call on her either this evening or tomorrow. I've got a commitment this afternoon.” Beatrice paused for a moment. “Hope you don't mind an off-topic question, Lyla, but could you tell me what you were doing last night?”

“Last night?” Lyla's forehead creased in a frown. “When?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe at nine o'clock?”

“Who knows? I was home with Julian. We'd have been watching the news or something. I would have been quilting as I watched. I'm not sure exactly what time that was, but that was basically our whole evening before I turned in. Early.” Lyla tilted her head to one side. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing. Sorry. It's just something I was following up on. Thanks, anyway.” Beatrice hopped into her car before Lyla could follow up with any more questioning. But she saw her still standing, watching her as she drove away.

Beatrice blinked as she entered the church kitchen. There were five or six women and a couple of men
lined up in stations. Each person had a good amount of a single ingredient in front of them—cheese or ham or cooked pasta. There was a stack of foil casserole containers, too. It looked as if they were planning on making quite a few casseroles, but Beatrice was relieved to see that even though the kitchen was fairly modest, befitting a smaller church, the oven was industrial-sized.

“This is quite an operation!” murmured Beatrice to Wyatt.

“It is, isn't it?” said Wyatt with a smile. “We can make a lot of meals, too. We're not trying to rush the process too much, but we've made as many as twelve casseroles in ninety minutes.”

One of the volunteers called out, “A record that's begging to be broken!”

“So, these go to members of the congregation who've lost someone or had a new baby?” asked Beatrice.

“That's right. Although we don't currently have anyone who's in need. What we do is assemble these casseroles, label them with heating directions, and then store them in the freezer to keep until they're needed. You wouldn't think that a small congregation would have much need, but we've found that this is a ministry that is constantly tapped. So we do our best to fill it,” said Wyatt.

“Oh, okay. So they don't even need to be baked today—they go in frozen and are baked by the recipients. What are we making today?” asked Beatrice.

“We've got a few different kinds that we're assembling, actually. That way, we can provide several casseroles to one member of the congregation. Today it's . . .” He looked to one of the others to help him out.

An elderly man quickly said, “Tex-Mex chicken casserole, hash brown potato casserole, and cheeseburger casserole.”

“I have a feeling I'll be starving by the end of this process,” said Beatrice dryly.

“We get really good reviews on the casseroles,” said Wyatt with a smile.

Wyatt briefly introduced Beatrice to the rest of the volunteers and handed her a pair of plastic gloves, and they were ready to start.

Beatrice had tried to listen and remember the volunteers' names as Wyatt had listed them, but had gotten hopelessly lost by the end. She kept trying to do better with names, but it was a constant struggle for her. She smiled at the woman standing beside her. “I'm Beatrice Coleman,” she said. “I'm sorry—I don't remember what your name was.”

The woman was about fifty years old, with black hair laced with silver. She wore a good deal of makeup, but somehow it was a look that suited her. “I'm Denise Finley,” she said.

Beatrice started a little. She remembered that Meadow had mentioned that Patrick Finley sometimes volunteered at Dappled Hills Presbyterian. Was this the doctor's wife? “It's good to meet you,” she said. “Are you, by any chance, related to Dr. Finley?”

“I'm his wife,” she said with a smile.

They got to work assembling the casseroles after Wyatt thanked them all for being there. Beatrice had the frozen hash browns, and carefully layered them into the containers as they were passed her way.

Denise Finley was a chatty worker and spent a long
time asking Beatrice how she was enjoying Dappled Hills. She told Beatrice that she'd lived in Dappled Hills most of her life and had met her husband in college.

Beatrice said, “It seems as though it could be really challenging being married to a physician. Their hours are all over the place, aren't they? Is he on call much?”

Denise nodded as she stirred in a mixture of cream of chicken soup, sour cream, cheese, and onions into the hash brown potatoes. “He is. But that's because he's a surgeon, and you never know when someone might need emergency surgery. He was out last night for a long time, for instance. But I've gotten used to the unpredictability of his life—and mine.”

Denise continued talking about various holiday meals and other events in the past that had been interrupted by her husband's erratic schedule, but all that Beatrice could focus on was the fact that Patrick Finley was out during the time that her intruder had shown up. How tied up at the hospital had he been? Could he have gotten away in between surgeries? Had he even gone to the hospital at all? Surely Ramsay was checking on these alibis—whether Lyla had actually been with Julian and whether Patrick had been in an operating room.

There was a pause in conversation, and then Beatrice said, “Your husband probably knew Trevor Garber, too. He was an acquaintance of mine.”

Denise pursed her lips in disapproval. “He did know Trevor. I hope I'm not offending you when I say that he and Trevor weren't getting along in the weeks before Trevor's death, however. I always hate to speak
ill of the dead, but I guess you probably know that Trevor wasn't exactly acting normally before he died.”

“I'd heard that, yes,” said Beatrice. “So he and Trevor had a falling-out, then.”

“Very abruptly,” said Denise. “And Patrick never really said what it resulted from. I got the impression that it had something to do with an incident at work, and Patrick never really talks very much about his work. But it was very odd. Before that point, they spent a good deal of time together—golfing, going out to eat, or having a drink together. Then, one night, he never wanted to speak of Trevor again.”

“But he never said exactly why?” asked Beatrice.

“No. Only that Trevor wasn't the same person. I thought it was a shame, because they'd gotten along well in the past,” said Denise.

Someone on Denise's other side started asking her about the Sunday-school class they both taught, and Beatrice lost the thread of conversation. But she'd gotten her confirmation that Patrick's break with Trevor was abrupt—just as it would have been if Patrick had been blackmailed (as Daniel was), and that Patrick was conveniently out at the time of Beatrice's intruder.

Although the casserole assembly was an easy project, Beatrice found that her back was hurting her by the end of it. On the upside, they'd made more than a dozen casseroles for church families. And Wyatt and she had spent some time together, as they'd cleaned up the kitchen afterward. On the downside, though, she didn't feel up to visiting Eleanor that evening. She knew sitting down was a bit of a challenge there, and Beatrice wasn't sure that she wanted to stand any
longer that day. She decided to check in early in the morning—in fact, she'd make it a double good deed and ask Meadow if she wanted to walk. Meadow was clearly feeling left out with Beatrice's different activities with Wyatt, and this would be a good way to make amends. She called her.

“Tomorrow morning for a walk?” Meadow's smile beamed through the phone. “Oh, we'd love to!”

“We?” asked Beatrice with some concern. She knew
we
didn't include Ramsay, who found exercise rather abhorrent and would much rather sit in a comfy recliner with a good book. So she was very much afraid that
we
included—

“Boris and me, of course. Boris adores the exercise and is so much better for it. Really, he doesn't try to escape nearly as much if he has regular walks,” explained Meadow.

“Oh, but I didn't explain one part of the walk,” said Beatrice, desperately trying to forgo the Boris part of the activity. She'd have to make the next bit sound as appealing as possible. “You see, we've got a secret mission, too.”

“Secret mission?” asked Meadow in her loud voice.

“Shh!” said Beatrice, rolling her eyes. If she really did have a secret mission, it would certainly be blown by now. And, honestly, she wasn't particularly keen on Ramsay knowing about her plans, considering his concern over her safety last night. “Is Ramsay there?”

“No, he's out. What secret mission?”

“I think we need to check in on Eleanor,” said Beatrice.

Meadow's voice sounded somewhat deflated. “Is
that all? I mean, I agree with you—she certainly seems kind of . . . mentally fragile, and it would be very neighborly of us to check in with her and make sure she's all right.”

“Make sure she's all right and maybe carefully, gently question her some more. I ran into Lyla Wales earlier today, and she said that Eleanor has been hounding her. She's followed her to work and sat there in the parking lot. Lyla said that Eleanor clearly blames her for Trevor's death because they were having an affair,” said Beatrice. “But it all made me wonder if maybe . . .”

“Maybe Eleanor really
does
have some information on the case that we don't know about,” said Meadow thoughtfully. “All right. It's a plan. What time do you want to check in?”

“Could we make it early? My day today got completely filled up in no time. Is Eleanor an early riser?”

Meadow said, “She seems to be. I've seen her out in the yard pretty early the times I've walked by. How about eight o'clock? And if we don't see her out in the yard, let's tap on her door. We can tell her we were worried about her, considering that Dappled Hills has become such a hotbed of crime.” Meadow heaved a huge sigh.

*   *   *

The next morning wasn't exactly a picture-perfect day for a walk. It was raining steadily at seven forty-five and it was foggy, as well. Beatrice belatedly checked the forecast and saw that the rain was supposed to continue until the afternoon.

The phone rang, and Beatrice picked it up to hear Meadow's voice. “We're still going, aren't we? After
you called me, I couldn't get Eleanor off my brain. I even dreamed about her last night. We should definitely check on her.”

“We could visit without going on the walk, couldn't we?” asked Beatrice, still looking outside at the rain hitting the windows.

“A little rain won't melt us, right? I've got a rain slicker and boots and a golf umbrella. I won't get a drop on me, anyway,” said Meadow. “Don't you have rain gear?”

“I've got a very dainty umbrella that wouldn't even keep Noo-noo dry,” said Beatrice glumly.

“Well, put on a raincoat and drive over here. I've got another big golf umbrella I can lend you. That way we can tell Eleanor that we were just walking by her house—being dedicated to our physical exercise as we are—and thought we'd pop our heads in and see how she was doing and if she needed anything,” said Meadow.

“And that's less obvious than driving up in a car?”

Meadow said, “I think driving up at eight a.m. is rather ominous, don't you? Like we're about to grill her or something. No, this will be a friendly, spur-of-the-moment visit during our usual walk.”

As she took the large umbrella from Meadow minutes later, Beatrice grimly reflected that the walk itself seemed completely bizarre. By then the rain was sheeting down, and she could barely even see Meadow as she walked next to her. The only reason she
could
see her was because Meadow was bedecked in safety-yellow rain gear, from her boots to her long slicker and her hat. In the getup Meadow was wearing, she should technically have been able to be seen from outer space.
And she did seem to be drier than Beatrice, who was wearing an old brown raincoat that was only tea length.

“I don't suppose we'll see Eleanor out gardening,” said Meadow loudly, trying to be heard over the wind.

“Not unless she's taken complete leave of her senses,” agreed Beatrice. “But this is probably an easier way to finagle a visit with her—she'll take pity on us and bring us in out of the storm.”

“Absolutely,” said Meadow. “Eleanor loves us.”