An Old-Fashioned Murder (19 page)

“Then he obviously realized that someone was coming after him,” Drew replied. “Why not try to defend himself?”

“I can only assume,” Daisy chewed on her lip, “that he didn't think it would get that far. He knew that someone was upset or angry. He knew that they might act rashly with a gun in their hands. But he must have figured that once he took the gun, he could talk to them rationally, calm them down, and it would be all right.”

“Except it wasn't all right. They just found a different way to kill him.”

“Yes, but
why
? That's what I don't understand. What would make someone want to kill him? Henry must not have fully understood the reason, either, or he underestimated it somehow, because otherwise, I believe you're absolutely right. If he had thought that he was about to be killed, he would have tried like the dickens to defend himself—with the shotgun and everything else in sight. The man may have been ninety-four years old, but he certainly hadn't yet lost his zest for life.”

“And if we can't figure out why,” Drew said, “then we also don't know whether that same someone wants to kill anybody else.”

Daisy sucked in a ragged breath. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“Which leaves us with an unidentified—and potentially unfinished—murderer roaming about the inn.”

She tightened her grip on the Remington. “At least they don't have the gun.”

“That's one thing in our favor,” he agreed. “What do you want to do with it?”

“Well, it definitely can't go back in the kitchen. Even without the shells, it makes a nice weapon. It's heavy enough to be used as a club.”

“Good point.”

“To be really safe, we need to put it somewhere no one will go, like the attic or—” Daisy cut herself off. “I know the perfect place! My mama's room.”

Drew was hesitant. “Are you sure that's wise?”

“Oh, yes. It's the ideal spot. With her cold, my mama can't leave the room, so no one can possibly find the gun or even look for it in there. It's almost better than hiding it in the barn under three tons of muck and hay.”

“Considering the weather, I don't think the barn is an option at the moment,” he responded with a slight smile.

“If it were, the sheriff would be able to get here, and we wouldn't be in this situation.”

The clock on the mantel in the parlor could be heard softly chiming the hour.

Daisy hastily stood up and began straightening the bed. She didn't want to leave behind any sign of their visit. “They could all still be in the sunroom, finishing up dessert. If we hurry, we might be able to sneak out and get upstairs without any of them seeing us.”

Drew returned the chair to the desk, then he helped her adjust the draperies. When they were done, they took a step back and looked around. Everything was orderly and just the same as when they had arrived. Aside from the Remington tucked under Daisy's arm, it was like they had never been there at all. They moved toward the door, but Daisy stopped with her hand on the knob.

“There could be one problem,” she said. “Georgia. She loves to lurk in the kitchen, especially during mealtimes when nobody else is there.”

“I can distract her,” Drew replied.

She laughed. “I bet you can.”

“You shouldn't joke. The girl is scared, Daisy.”

“We should all be scared with a murderer on the loose.”

“That's not what I mean. She's scared of you.”

“
Me!
” Daisy exclaimed. “Why in heaven's name would Georgia be scared of me? Nobody's ever scared of me. I'm as harmless as a flea.”

“She says while holding a double-barreled shotgun,” Drew retorted wryly. “And fleas aren't harmless, as you well know.”

Daisy responded with an arch smile.

“Georgia's scared of talking to you,” he explained. “She's worried that if she tells you something important, you'll tell Emily.”

“Well, she's right. If it's something that Aunt Emily should be made aware of, then of course I'll tell her about it. She's my family, blood or not. And she's given me and my mama a home when we needed it the most. My loyalty will always lie with her, particularly over someone I've known for barely a month.”

“I told Georgia that. I also told her that you were fair and wouldn't jump to conclusions. You'd probably tell Emily, but you wouldn't automatically hold it against her.”

“This doesn't sound good,” Daisy grumbled. “What is it? What did she do?”

“It's not so much what
she
did—”

“It's what somebody else did?” She was suddenly apprehensive. “Does Georgia know something in connection to what happened to Henry?”

“I'm not sure about that.” Drew frowned. “I did ask her, but she wouldn't give me a straight answer, which makes me think that maybe she does.”

“So ask her harder!”

He shook his head. “It won't work. She's too jumpy, and she'll just clam up. Then she'll go hide in some cranny where no one can find her until a week after the storm has cleared and everybody has gone home.”

Daisy gave a little grunt. “That's not really such a bad idea. Maybe we should all do it.”

Drew grinned. “Only if you and I can hide in the same cranny.”

“Then it'd better be far away from Lillian's.”

He chuckled for a moment, then returned to the matter at hand. “But Georgia did see something. It doesn't have anything to do with Henry. Or at least, it doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with him. And she's afraid that if she tells you or Emily, she might lose her job. She's very concerned about that. She doesn't want to leave the inn.”

“Why don't
you
just tell me?” Daisy prodded him.

“I can't. I promised her I wouldn't.”

Her gaze narrowed.

“It's nothing that would harm you,” Drew said quickly. “Or your mama or Emily. Of course I'd never keep anything like that from you. Georgia simply saw something yesterday afternoon that she wishes she hadn't.”

“Yesterday afternoon?” Daisy echoed thoughtfully. “Wait a second. Does this have any relation to her dropping that tray of glasses in the dining room when everybody was first admiring the secretary?”

Drew nodded.

“I thought Georgia might have recognized someone and was staring at them in surprise,” she went on.

“Surprise, yes. Recognize, no.”

“I don't follow.”

“If I say any more,” he answered apologetically, “I'll have told you. And I really shouldn't, Daisy. In a way, Georgia's just a kid. She needs to learn to have more confidence in herself. I hate breaking her trust over something like this, because then she might not trust anyone again for a long time.”

Although she certainly wasn't keen on Drew keeping secrets from her, Daisy couldn't argue with his reasoning. She knew firsthand—courtesy of Matt—how hard it was to trust after having your faith shattered.

“Okay,” she said. “Maybe if Georgia believes that she can trust you on this, then she'll also trust you with anything that she might know in connection to Henry.”

“Maybe,” Drew agreed, his brow furrowed. “It's hard to figure her out exactly. Even for a kid, she's a bit peculiar. When I was talking to her on the stairs earlier, she kept mentioning your mama's tea.”

Daisy blinked at him. “My mama's tea?”

He could only shrug.

“She does seem to like my mama,” Daisy remarked, remembering how Georgia had decided to hide Lucy's favorite tea bags in the Rhett Butler cookie jar to protect them from so-called sticky fingers. “And she worries a lot about her tea.”

As Drew shrugged once more, Daisy turned the knob and swung open the door. A minute later, she was down the hall, up the steps, and in her mama's room, depositing the Remington and the needlepoint bag full of shells, which she had snatched from the hook in the kitchen along the way.

 

CHAPTER

18

“We missed you at lunch,” Parker said to Daisy, as she walked into the parlor where the guests were gathered. “But of course you needed to take care of your mama. How's she feeling?”

“A little better, I think. Thanks for asking. Her cough isn't quite so—”

Lillian cut her off mid-sentence. “You weren't at lunch, either,” she observed sharply in Drew's direction.

He turned toward her from the scuffed leather smoking chair. Lillian was in her usual spot on the gold-brocaded settee, with Parker next to her. Edna and May sat across from them on the emerald-brocaded settee. The Lunts occupied the damask armchairs. Bud Foster had chosen a straight-backed chair from one of the tea tables. Georgia, to no one's surprise, was absent. And Aunt Emily was busy at the liquor cart, taking stock of the decanters and murmuring occasionally to herself.

“I don't suppose you were taking care of Lucy, as well,” Lillian continued to Drew in a derisive tone.

“Now, my dear—” Parker began.

She didn't pay the least heed. “So what were you getting up to? Where have you been poking around?”

When Drew didn't immediately answer, Lillian pursed her lips at Daisy and tittered. Daisy understood her perfectly. She was trying to prove that she had been right earlier—Drew wasn't trustworthy, and he was engaging in some sort of shady behavior. What Lillian didn't know, of course, was that Daisy hadn't been taking care of her mama during lunch, either. She and Drew had been poking around together.

Under different circumstances, Daisy would have simply let the matter slide and brushed aside Lillian's snickering spitefulness as another fruitless attack on Drew in support of Matt, but she saw that the entire group was now looking at Drew. And they were looking at him with considerable interest. Lillian had sparked a general curiosity with her comments, and it couldn't just be ignored. Presumably somebody in that parlor was a killer, and Daisy couldn't let them think that Drew might be poking around their secret. It was too dangerous.

The lamps in the parlor chose that moment to flicker, and it gave her an idea.

“What was he getting up to, Lillian?” she replied. “While you were lounging in the sunroom and tucking into that cherry pie, Drew was working. For your benefit, I might add. As I'm sure you're aware, the inn's wiring is old and not the most reliable during storms. With the lights sputtering like they have been, Drew was afraid that the power might go out, so he was organizing wood for the fireplaces.”

It wasn't actually a lie. When they had passed through the kitchen from Henry Brent's room, and Daisy had grabbed the needlepoint bag from the wall behind the wrought-iron log holder, Drew had noted that the holder was only half full. He had then remarked that he should talk to Aunt Emily to find out if she wanted him to bring in some more wood from the larger stack on the porch.

“How very thoughtful,” Edna said.

“Yes, indeed,” May agreed. Her fingers fiddled with the lace on her handkerchief, which had moved permanently from her skirt pocket to her hands. “But—oh, my—do you think that we could really lose power?”

“It's nothing to be concerned about,” Drew told her in a comforting tone.

“Nothing at all,” Aunt Emily chimed in, glancing up from the stack of cocktail napkins that she was meticulously straightening. “There are already candles in every room. We have an army of oil lanterns waiting in the cellar. And there's a big enough pile of firewood out back to keep us warm and fed from the Dutch oven for a month.”

“Stay here for a month?” Lillian echoed sullenly. “Not on your life, thank you.”

Daisy concealed a grin. Her little ploy had worked. Everyone's attention had been diverted from Drew poking around where somebody might not want him to, and as an added bonus, she had also managed to dampen Lillian's mood. Maybe that would silence her lemon lips for a bit.

“I don't like the cold,” Sarah Lunt squeaked, as she huddled in her chair.

“No worries there,” Drew responded in the same comforting manner that he had with May. “We can build you a roaring blaze.”

“I'm fully capable of looking after my wife,” Kenneth snapped at him.

Drew frowned. “I wasn't suggesting that you weren't.”

“It seems to me that you were.”

“I'm glad your mama's cough isn't getting any worse, Daisy,” Parker interjected, trying to change the subject.

“Me, too—” she started to answer.

“That blasted cough kept me up half the night,” Kenneth complained. “I could hear it through the wall like it was in my own room.”

Daisy was tempted to reply that her mama could hear him, as well, especially when he and his wife talked about wanting to buy the inn, but she restrained herself.

Aunt Emily must have been thinking something similar, because she said, “Thin walls make for careful neighbors.”

Not catching the hint, Kenneth retorted, “Neighbors should mind their own business.”

Sarah responded with a shiver and a sigh. “It would be nice to have neighbors like this. Everybody is so friendly around here.”

Her husband gave a snort.

“There are lots of wonderful groups in this area to join,” May told Sarah. “Something—”

“—for everyone,” Edna concluded.

“I was just saying to Edna,” May went on, “that at our next Daughters of the Confederacy meeting as president-elect she should nominate Henry for a memorial award.”

“What a lovely idea!” Aunt Emily exclaimed.

Daisy smiled. She had no doubt that Henry Brent would have been tickled pink at the prospect of a memorial award. That was partly because he was a great enthusiast of history and heritage, having been a dedicated supporter of the Pittsylvania Historical Society for most of his life. And also because he had always enjoyed teasing the Fowler sisters about the humongous floppy dress hats and white gloves that they so frequently wore to Daughters of the Confederacy events, particularly when those events involved awards.