Deadly Greetings (Book 2 in the Cardmaking Mysteries) (15 page)

Howard must have realized he was talking
louder than he should have. “You don’t know what you’re getting
yourself into.”

“
That sounds like a threat,”
I said. I couldn’t believe this normally mild-mannered man had
turned on me.

“
However you want to think
of it, that’s fine by me.

He blew past me before I could say another
word, but before he could get to the door, Betty was after him.
“Where are you going?”

“
I’m leaving. Get your
coat.”

Her head jumped back as if he’d slapped her,
but she held her ground. “What are you going to do if I say
no?”

“
Tell you to get a ride
home. Do what you want. I’m leaving.”

His exit would have been a great deal
smoother if he hadn’t had to stop and unlock the door, but he was
gone quickly enough, and if my front door had been capable of
slamming, Howard would have knocked it off its hinges.

Instead of going after him, Betty stormed
toward me. “What did you say to him to set him off like that?”

I said, “I was just making conversation
about Maggie’s death.”

Betty wasn’t buying it. “There’s more to it
than that. I’ve been married to that man most of my life. What else
did you say, Jennifer?”

She was backing me up against the wall. Had
everyone in my club gone suddenly and utterly mad? “I asked him
where he was when she died. I wasn’t accusing him of anything, I
swear it. I’ve just been wondering where Maggie was going when she
died.”

Betty’s face went pale, and her voice was
suddenly so low I could barely hear her. “If you must know, she was
leaving our house and heading for home when it happened.”

I certainly hadn’t expected that. “What was
she doing there?”

Betty’s expression went dead. “Once upon a
time we were friends. I didn’t need her kind of friendship anymore
though, and she wouldn’t get the message.”

I felt my knees start to buckle. “Betty,
tell me you didn’t do anything to Maggie.”

“
I threw her out of my
house,” Betty said shrilly. “And I’d do it again. I caught her
making a pass at my husband during our last meeting here, and I had
to protect my marriage.”

“
So you killed her?” I
asked, my own voice growing weaker by the moment.

“
I didn’t hurt her!” Betty’s
shout of denial nearly blew my hair back. “She was fine when she
left our place.”

Lillian approached and put a hand on Betty’s
shoulder. “Are you certain of what you saw?”

“
You knew Maggie; she’d
flirt with anything wearing pants! Well, she wasn’t running off
with my husband.”

Lillian said softly, “No dear, it appears
he’s running off all by himself.”

Betty said, “Not if I can help it.”

After she was gone, I looked at Hilda, and
then at Lillian. “I swear I didn’t know.”

Hilda said, “Don’t blame yourself, Jennifer.
Betty even accused me once of making a pass at Howard. As if I ever
would. She’s been feeling threatened for the last six months.”

“
Does she have a reason to?”
Lillian asked.

Hilda shrugged. “All I can say is that he
never made a pass at me.”

“
But that’s not all you
suspect, is it?” Lillian pushed.

Hilda sighed. “It’s common enough knowledge
if you move in the right circles around Rebel Forge. I suspect
Betty’s paranoia wasn’t completely irrational, but I doubt Maggie
was the one in his life.”

“
But you don’t know,” I
said.

“
No,” Hilda admitted. “It’s
all just idle speculation, isn’t it?” She surveyed the food, still
plentiful after our abbreviated meeting. “I’ll be eating leftovers
for weeks unless you both help me with some of this.”

“
I’d be delighted,” I
said.

To my surprise, Lillian added, “I’ll take a
few crab puffs home with me.”

Hilda snapped the container shut that held
them. “Take them all.”

“
I couldn’t,” Lillian
protested.

“
Honestly, I insist.” I
wanted some for myself, but if it would seal the rift between Hilda
and my aunt, I supposed I could give the puffs up, as delightful as
they were.

Lillian acquiesced. “Very well. At least let
me help you carry these other trays back to your car.”

“
I’d be honored,” Hilda
said. Man, was she ever laying it on thick.

“
Lillian, can I speak to you
for a second?”

Hilda took the hint. “I’m down that way.
I’ll meet you there.”

After she was gone, I asked my aunt, “Did
you say anything about Timothy?”

A look of horror crossed her face.
“Jennifer, I completely forgot! Everything happened so quickly. I’m
so sorry.”

“
Don’t be,” I said. “I
forgot all about the mysterious cousin myself. It’s just as well
neither one of us brought him up.” I gestured toward Hilda. “What’s
going on with her?”

“
I wish I knew,” she said as
she headed off in Hilda’s direction. After she was gone, I shut the
lights off, locked the door behind me and walked in the other
direction. I couldn’t get my mind off Howard’s reaction as I drove
home. What could have possibly set him off like that? Could Betty’s
suspicions have been on the money? Why else would Howard react so
strongly? He could have felt guilty about the last time he saw
Maggie, but unless he’d had an affair with her after all, would he
be so outraged by my fairly innocent questioning? I wasn’t any
closer to the truth when I got back to my apartment. Thankfully
there were no notes or flowers waiting for me, but there was a
message on my answering machine.

The second I hit the
play
button, I felt my
heart twinge. It was Greg’s voice, and he was more hurt than I
could ever remember hearing him. “Hi, Jennifer. Guess you changed
your mind. I just went by the card shop and the lights were all
off. You should have had the decency to tell me to my face.
Bye.”

Oh, no. I’d forgotten all about our late
dinner date. I looked Greg’s pottery shop up in the phone book and
dialed the number, but there was no answer. I tried his home
number, and the machine kicked in before it could ring a third
time. “Greg? Are you there? Pick up. I didn’t stand you up, I swear
it. At least not on purpose. I’m sorry, something happened at the
meeting tonight. No, that’s no excuse. Call me, Greg. I’m
sorry.”

It was a pitiful apology, but until the next
day, I wasn’t going to be able to give him a real one. I even
thought about driving over to his apartment, but Sara Lynn had told
me he’d moved recently, so I didn’t even know where to look. There
was a chance she might know, but I realized that if I called my
sister after eleven, she’d have a heart attack or, worse yet, give
me one. Patching things up with Greg would just have to wait until
tomorrow.

For the moment, all I could do was go to bed
and hope the nightmare of a day I’d had would fade away once my
head hit the pillow.

No such luck. I was haunted again in my
dreams, with Maggie frowning at me in disappointment.

I didn’t blame her. So far, I’d bungled
things up pretty well, but I decided to take a page from Scarlett
O’Hara. Tomorrow was indeed a new opportunity to muck things up
even more.

I was walking downstairs the next morning
when I saw the renter below me open his door. My first reaction was
to bolt for the front door, but I knew I was going to have to make
peace with this man whether I liked it or not, since he was my
neighbor. All I knew him as was “J. Wallace,” and that was from his
mail slot instead of any formal introduction. He was dressed in a
stuffy suit and very conservative tie, and I half expected him to
have a bowler hat perched on his head.

In a rush of words, I said, “I’m really
sorry about the other night. I can assure you that I’m normally not
like that.”

He didn’t want to talk to me any more than I
wanted to talk to him, but I was standing too close for the man to
ignore me. “That’s fine,” he said, trying to brush me off, but I
wouldn’t hear of it.

“
I’ve been meaning to thank
you for your concern about me renting the place,” I said. “I wish
I’d had all the information I needed before I took it.”

“
I felt it was the least I
could do,” he said. Was the glacier in his voice actually warming
up some?

“
Well, it was more than
neighborly. It was the right thing to do. Did you know Frances
well?”

“
We had a passing
acquaintance,” he said. “Not much more than that. If you want to
know anything about her, I suggest you ask him.” The last bit was
said with a gesture toward Barrett’s door.

“
Are you two friends?” I
asked.

“
Hardly. I can’t think of a
single thing we have in common.”

“
Except addresses,” I said,
trying to be light and cheerful. He wasn’t making it any easier on
me. “By the way, we didn’t have a chance to really meet before. My
name’s Jennifer Shane.” The way I put my hand out to him, he would
have had to knock it away to move anywhere but backward, and I
intended to follow him inside his apartment if that was what it
took to get the man’s first name out of him.

He studied it a moment longer than I would
have liked, then took my hand gingerly in his. “My name is Jeffrey
Wallace.”

“
Mr. Wallace, it’s a
pleasure to meet you.” I considered for a moment calling him
Jeffrey, but I was afraid he would bolt for sure if I did
that.

“
Ms. Shane,” he said with an
air of formality.

I was dying to ask him what he did for a
living, but I ultimately decided to let it go for the moment. We’d
made great progress so far, and I didn’t want to ruin it.

“
Well, it was nice meeting
you, Mr. Wallace. I hope we have the chance to chat more another
time.”

“
Yes,” he said, “that would
be fine.”

To my surprise, he followed me out the front
door. As we walked to the parking pad for our cars, he said, “Ms.
Shane, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d be careful in my dealings with
Barrett if I were you.”

“
Why is that?” I
asked.

Mr. Wallace looked around before he spoke.
“He entertains a fairly wide range of young women in that apartment
of his. I’d hate to see him take advantage of you.”

I touched his arm lightly, and could feel
him tense up. Obviously Jeffrey Wallace was not a big fan of body
contact in any guise. “Thank you for your concern, but nobody’s
taken advantage of me since the second grade. You might want to
warn him about me, though.”

Was that a smile that broke through his
stern countenance for a moment? “Perhaps we’ll let him discover
that for himself, shall we?”

“
It’s a lot more fun that
way,” I said as I unlocked my Gremlin. Mr. Wallace was driving a
Mercedes, but mot a new shiny one as I’d suspected. This one was at
least twenty years old, and though he’d obviously done his best to
keep it up, the signs of wear and age were pretty
obvious.

“
That’s an interesting
vehicle you’ve got there,” ‘tie said.

“
I like a car with
character,” I said. “I like yours, too.”

He nodded, then got into his Mercedes and
drove away. I sat there a minute wondering what had brought three
such different people together to live under the same roof. It was
funny. I usually knew right off the bat if I liked someone or not,
but I’d met Jeffrey Wallace twice and I still didn’t have a clue
how I felt about him.

As I drove through town to the card shop, I
stopped at the bakery and picked up a couple of bear claws for the
store and then decided to grab an apple fritter for Greg. Flowers
or balloons might have been more appropriate for an apology, but I
knew Greg’s weakness for the confections, and I needed every
advantage I could get to make up for last night. I parked in the
lot near the store, then bypassed my front door and walked to his
pottery shop. He had some pieces with a beautiful green glaze
displayed in the window, and I could swear they shimmered as I
walked past them. Greg was a decent potter, but it was his
wonderful glazes that set his work apart. I could see a light on in
his back room, so I was pretty sure he was there.

I banged on the door, then heard him shout,
“We’re not open for an hour.”

“
I’m not here to buy
anything,” I shouted right back.

He opened the door suddenly. “Jennifer, I’m
surprised to see you here.” Greg wore an apron over his blue jeans
and T-shirt, and his dark hair was more disheveled than usual. I
had to wonder if he’d slept at his shop again, but now wasn’t the
time to bring it up.

It was time to plunge in with my apology.
“Listen, I’m so sorry about last night.”

“
I am too,” he said. “If
that’s it, I’m working.”

Boy, he really was miffed. I held up one of
the bags from the bakery. “I brought you a present. Can I come
in?”

He seemed to think about it, then
reluctantly stepped aside. “Fine, but just for a second. I’m trying
something new in back.”

“
Can I see it?” I knew how
reluctant Greg was to share his unfinished work with anyone, but I
was hoping if I showed enough interest, it might help break the
chunky block of ice between us.

“
Sorry, it’s not ready for
the world yet.”

While it was a denial, I could see that Greg
appreciated the attempt. I could read that man’s face like a
paperback. And why shouldn’t I? We’d been together for a long time.
Maybe that was part of the problem.