An Old-Fashioned Murder (7 page)

“Oh, that's right.” Aunt Emily nodded again. “You did tell me. I remember now. Too many lists bumping around in my head, I guess.” And she promptly dashed off once more, this time to the far end of the parlor where Lillian, Parker, and Henry Brent were engaged in a spirited dialogue regarding the merits of placing a candle stand next to a dwarf Meyer lemon tree.

“That stand looks ridiculous where it is!” Lillian snapped like an irate alligator. “The tree should be there alone. It's much too fine a plant—”

“Naturally
you
would take the lemon's side,” Henry Brent interjected with a laugh and a clack.

Parker laughed, too. Lillian's sour lips puckered.

“Of course you're right, my dear,” Parker said hastily, trying to be conciliatory. “It's a mighty fine plant. But I don't see what difference it makes where the candle stand—”

“It makes a difference,” she cut him off indignantly, “because the stand detracts from the tree.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. Of all the silly things to get indignant about. It was a mystery to her how Lillian managed to get out of bed each morning, considering the degree to which she was continually offended by everything and everyone. It was also a mystery why Parker hadn't packed a bag long ago and moved to the inn permanently.

“The candle stand should be in the other corner,” Lillian went on with her usual high-handedness. “Next to the tea table, where it could—”

“Tea!” Daisy exclaimed to herself. “I forgot all about my mama's tea.”

With a peck on Drew's cheek—which unsurprisingly elicited a severe glance from Lillian, although it didn't stop her from continuing her lemon tree tirade—Daisy hurried out of the dining room. The afternoon was quickly fading to evening. Surely her mama would be up from her nap by now. She was probably waiting for her. She had probably been waiting for quite some time, not that her mama would ever complain about her tardiness.

While Lillian took umbrage at almost everything, Daisy's mama—Lucy Berger Hale—was the exact opposite and took umbrage at nearly nothing. She had always been a very patient and gentle person, the kind who rescued baby birds after a windstorm when they had fallen out of their nest and who never failed to scrape an extra dollar or two out of her already meager purse for the sad soul with an empty stomach huddled around the side of the supermarket. Then life took a hard turn, and Lucy lost her husband, her home, and her health all in rapid succession. But instead of growing nasty and resentful, she became so accommodating and unfalteringly sweet-tempered that it was actually a cause for concern to her daughter at times. Daisy worried that one day her mama might be taken advantage of, that a not-so-sweet person would come along and exploit her boundless trust and kindness.

As she entered the kitchen to make the overdue tea, Daisy found Georgia sitting on the floor on a throw rug at the edge of the hearth. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, and she was leaning against the wrought iron log holder, which was stacked with wood.

“Hey there,” Daisy said, mildly surprised. She had never seen Georgia curled up in the corner before.

Georgia responded with a faint noise that sounded like the mewing of a lost kitten.

For a moment, Daisy considered sitting down next to her and trying to find out what—or who—was troubling her, but then she thought better of it. She didn't want to overstep. Secrets were secrets for a reason, after all, and Georgia was certainly entitled to keep hers private. Daisy picked up the kettle and filled it with fresh water.

“You okay?” she asked, deliberately keeping her tone casual.

The mewing repeated itself.

While she organized a cup and saucer and waited for the water to heat, Daisy glanced at Georgia as surreptitiously as she could. She wasn't crying, sulking, or hiding her face as one might have expected from her location and deportment. On the contrary, Georgia's chin was propped up on her knees, and her eyes were open and clear. But she wasn't looking back at Daisy. Her face was turned to the side, and she appeared to be looking over her shoulder at something above her head.

Daisy followed her gaze. There was no mistaking what Georgia was looking at. She was sitting alongside the old stone fireplace, and there was only one thing above her head. Aunt Emily's shotgun.

The Remington was a double-barreled 20-gauge, and it was nearly the same age as Aunt Emily herself. For as long as Daisy could remember, the gun had been kept on two wooden pegs on the kitchen chimney. An out-of-town guest—who apparently wasn't used to firearms sitting around in the open—had once asked Aunt Emily whether it wouldn't be better if the shotgun were stored elsewhere, presumably someplace more private and under lock and key. She had replied that if the wooden pegs and kitchen chimney were good enough for her grandpappy, then they were good enough for her.

For safety purposes—considering that there were visitors and children regularly roaming about the inn—the Remington was kept unloaded. But the shotgun shells were invariably close at hand. They were stored in Aunt Emily's needlepoint bag, a fact that she was careful not to publicly announce. Daisy's gaze went to the wall directly behind the log holder. The needlepoint bag was hanging from its usual hook, raggedy and bulging with shell boxes, although none was visible. Aunt Emily was careful about that, too.

Daisy's eyes returned to Georgia, and she frowned. There was something about the way Georgia was looking at the shotgun that made her a bit uncomfortable. She wasn't quite sure why. Georgia had been in the kitchen every day since her arrival at the inn, which meant that she must have seen the gun on its pegs at least a hundred times over the past few weeks. There wasn't anything new or suddenly startling about it now. Except Daisy had never seen Georgia staring at the Remington before, and she had just seen her staring at somebody in the dining room and the parlor with the same puzzling intensity.

“Georgia…”

Daisy didn't continue. She felt as though she should ask her something, but she didn't know what.

“Are you making tea for your mama?” Georgia said, abruptly snapping her head forward like she had just awoken from a trance. “I put those favorite bags of hers in the Rhett Butler cookie jar.”

“Did you? I was wondering where they went.”

“I figured it might be a good idea to separate them from the rest. That way if we run out of the others—some of the guests can get a little piggy—we'll still have plenty left over for your mama.”

“Thank you, Georgia. That was very thoughtful.”

It was so thoughtful, in fact, and seemingly mature that it made Daisy begin to doubt whether Georgia would have raced out of the dining room due to youthful shyness.

“Your water is boiling,” she said.

“Right.” Daisy removed the kettle from the heat and reached for Clark Gable's ceramic head.

Over the years, Aunt Emily had amassed an extensive and unusual collection of cookie jars. They varied widely in age and condition, and ranged from animals and cartoon characters to movie stars and historical figures. Somehow word had gotten out that Aunt Emily had an affinity for them, and ever since, they kept appearing with wearisome regularity on all birthdays, holidays, and as hostess gifts. The funny thing was that Aunt Emily didn't actually like cookie jars. She didn't think that they kept cookies particularly fresh, and she was annoyed at always having to make space for the new ones, some of which could only be described as bizarre, such as an abominable snowman wearing spurs and a cowboy hat.

The Clark Gable as Rhett Butler cookie jar was considerably more attractive than most of the others, although Clark's lips were such a neon shade of purple that it looked like he had been frozen in time sucking on a grape lollipop. It sat just about in the middle of the line of cookie jars, with a grinning pink hippopotamus on one side and a slightly lewd dancing girl on the other. The cookie jar shelf was on the wall above the old farm double sink. Without the aid of a stepladder, Daisy could reach it only by standing on her tiptoes. She stretched a hand blindly into Clark's cutaway and pulled out one of her mama's tea bags.

“I could barely reach it, too,” Georgia told her. “But I figured the bags would be safer that way. Less chance of pilfering guests poking their sticky fingers where they don't belong.”

Daisy raised a curious eyebrow. Georgia was apparently not only thoughtful but also somewhat cunning, at least when it came to choosing hiding places.

“I hate sticky fingers.” Her voice cracked, then rose. “You shouldn't take what isn't yours! It isn't right!”

The eyebrow went higher, although Georgia couldn't see it, because Daisy had her back to her while she steeped the tea. Daisy agreed with her in principle, of course, but the moral outrage seemed a tad excessive.

“Are we still talking about tea bags?” Daisy said, having the distinct impression that they weren't.

There was a momentary hesitation on Georgia's part. Daisy turned around to look at her. The gray eyes were locked on the steaming cup and saucer. Daisy couldn't tell if Georgia was thinking hard or hardly thinking. After a minute, she rubbed her freckled arms and jumped up from the floor.

“We don't have enough potatoes for dinner,” she declared, a bit too chirpily.

“Georgia—”

“And we wouldn't want anyone to go hungry,” she added with equal blitheness, spinning on her heel toward the cellar door.

The stairway leading down to the cellar was on the opposite side of the kitchen chimney. It was a true old-time country cellar, rather than a modern concrete or cinder block basement. The narrow stairs were steep and rickety. The walls were mortar and stone. And the ground was bare dirt. There was absolutely nothing decorative or finished about it. But it held all the inn's essentials—baskets of onions and potatoes; jars of jams, jellies, and assorted pickled products; oil lanterns with gallon bottles of the necessary fuel; and a veritable stockpile of rusted gardening implements and cast-iron cookware.

Georgia tugged at the glass knob on the cellar door. Over the years, the door had warped, so it tended to stick in the frame and was difficult to open. Nevertheless, the door was always kept closed. Otherwise in winter, the drafts from the cellar made the kitchen too cold, and in summer, they made it too damp.

“Georgia—” Daisy began once more.

She stopped tugging.

“What Drew said earlier … I really am a good listener…”

Her brow furrowed, and she rubbed her arms again, harder this time.

“If you ever feel like chatting or whatever,” Daisy went on lightly. She could see from the way Georgia had tensed—both earlier with Drew and now with her—that although she was clearly unsettled by something, she also wasn't comfortable discussing it. “If not, that's okay, too. No pressure. Just thought I'd mention it.”

Georgia's mouth opened. She started to respond but then evidently thought better of it, and her lips clamped shut.

“Well, I'm here if you change your mind,” Daisy concluded with a shrug.

Meeting her gaze, Georgia shrugged back at her. It seemed like a shrug of futility—an aged, world-weary futility—and in that moment, Georgia looked exhausted and many decades beyond her years. A second later, she gave the cellar door a determined yank. It wrenched open, and she inelegantly went half skipping, half skidding down the steps, suddenly not so mature, after all.

 

CHAPTER

7

“It's late. I know. I'm sorry.”

Balancing the teacup and saucer in one hand and a plate stacked with a generous serving of shortbread in the other, Daisy pushed open the slightly ajar door to her mama's room with her shoulder.

“Hi, honey.” Lucy Hale smiled warmly at her daughter from the bed. She was lying under a large patchwork quilt, her neck and shoulders propped up by a quartet of thick feather pillows. “There's no need to apologize. I woke up just a little while ago, and Beulah's been keeping me company.”

Beulah greeted her from the yellow painted rocking chair at the side of the bed, her stocking feet propped up on the edge of the mattress after a long day of cuts and colors. “You need any help?”

“I'm good. Thanks.” Daisy had not the least difficulty walking, talking, and carrying hot beverages all at the same time. Once a waitress, forever a waitress. “But I am surprised to see you up here. How did you manage to sneak into the inn past the lovely group in the parlor?”

Tucking an unruly red curl behind her ear, Beulah grinned. “No sneaking necessary. I came in the front, and the door squeaked like it always does. Except Lillian Barker was, well, barking so loud that no one heard it. I was going to stop and be all polite, but then I realized that no one heard me either. Lillian and Henry Brent were too busy sniping at each other like a couple of wet ferrets.” The grin grew. “I figured they didn't need me interfering in their business, so I went right by and came upstairs.”

“Smart girl,” Daisy complimented her.

“Lillian's here?” Lucy asked, astonished.

Daisy grimaced in affirmation.

“Oh, dear.” Lucy looked at her daughter with concern. “I assume that she's her usual charming self? Has she said anything about—”

“About Matt?” Daisy supplied, when her mama hesitated. “First words out of Lillian's mouth, practically. She was even delusional enough to think that he might be coming to the party this weekend. And she keeps trying to stare down Drew, as though he were committing some mortal sin just by standing next to me. I should really go and rescue him, but…”

She let the sentence trail away with a sigh.

“Drew will be just fine without you for a few minutes,” Beulah assured her. “From what I saw, he was entertaining the Fowler sisters quite nicely. I don't think they've had that much attention from a man—let alone a young and handsome man—for a good many years.”