Deadly Greetings (Book 2 in the Cardmaking Mysteries) (22 page)

As Lillian started retrieving folded boxes
from the trunk, she said, “Honestly, get over what happened in the
bathroom. People die every day.”

“
You know, I’d forgotten to
even put that on my list,” I said.

Lillian didn’t look like she believed me,
but it was true. I didn’t associate Frances’s demise with my new
apartment, even with the rumors of her haunting the place. To be
perfectly honest, I wasn’t spending enough time there to know if it
was haunted or not. Oggie and Nash could have given a more informed
opinion about it than I could have.

Lillian shrugged, then asked me, “So what’s
on your bad list, if a suicide doesn’t even make the cut?”

I grabbed the rest of the boxes she’d
brought and said, “I’m not crazy about my neighbors. No, that’s not
true. I’m actually starting to like one of them.”

“
I was afraid you’d start to
feel that way,” Lillian said. “That Barrett is a handsome man,
isn’t he?”

“
If you like him, then you
can have him,” I said. “I was talking about Jeffrey
Wallace.”

Lillian put her boxes down and retrieved a
key. That would certainly make it easier than our original plan to
somehow break in so we could snoop around the place. “What in the
world could the two of you have in common? He’s quite a bit older
than you, you know.”

“
There’s no age limit on
friendship,” I said. “Besides, what were you saying before about a
man wanting a little sophistication sometimes?”

Lillian’s eyebrows shot up. “Dear child,
it’s one thing for a man to crave the wisdom and experience of an
older woman, but the reverse is completely unacceptable. I suggest
you find a man more your own age. I always thought Greg was a good
match for you.”

“
Why don’t you open the door
and we can talk inside?” I swear, sometimes the only way I could
get my aunt to change the subject was with a
sledgehammer.

Lillian gave me one of her famous looks.
Then she opened the door and we stepped inside. The boxes were
forgotten on the porch for now.

It was time to snoop around and see if we
could figure out what had really happened to Maggie Blake.

Chapter 13

The first thing that hit me when I stepped
inside was the mixed scents of a dozen different candles and
potpourris. It appeared that Maggie was an aroma freak, and she
didn’t mind in the least mixing lavender with cinnamon or apple
spice with sage. I started to open a window, but Lillian protested,
“Jennifer, we’ll freeze to death.”

“
It’s better than being
asphyxiated,” I said, ignoring her complaints as I went around the
place flinging open every window I could find.

“
If you insist on doing
that, then I’m turning the furnace on,” she said.

“
That’s fine by me. I wonder
if there’s a fan somewhere in here.”

She frowned at me and said, “Honestly, I
think you’re overreacting.”

I grabbed a trash bag from the kitchen and
started gathering up candles. “And I think your sense of smell must
be on the blink. You know what this stuff does to my
allergies.”

“
I think it’s delightful,”
she said as she sniffed the air.

“
Then you can take all of
this stuff home with you.” I finally got everything I could find
that had any aroma to it at all and tied the bag tightly before
putting it out on the porch. The air was definitely starting to
clear, but I wasn’t in any hurry to close the place back up just
yet.

“
I’m still chilly,” Lillian
complained.

“
So grab one of Maggie’s
sweaters,” I said.

“
Who realized you could be
so thoughtless?” Lillian snipped at me.

I wasn’t about to take that from her. “What
can I say, it runs in the family.”

That was a risk. It would either snap her
out of her little snit or she’d be impossible to work with the rest
of the night. Either way, though, I wasn’t about to back off. After
all, it wasn’t that cold inside. We weren’t even officially in
autumn yet, and though we were near the mountains, Rebel Forge was
still blessed with moderate temperatures most of the year.

Lillian paused a little longer than I would
have liked, then chuckled. “Sometimes you are exactly like your
grandfather.” It was the highest praise she could give anyone, and
I knew it.

“
Thank you kindly. So now
that we’ve got the place aired out, what say we get started?”
Lillian retrieved one of Maggie’s jackets from the front hall
closet and put it on, then said, “I’m ready if you are. Jennifer,
should we put the boxes together and pack as we search? That way we
can eliminate some of the clutter and still manage to
explore.”

“
That sounds like a good
plan,” I said as I collected the boxes from outside.

“
I’ll fold them, and you
tape the bottoms,” Lillian commanded.

Ordinarily I might have fought her out of
sheer stubbornness, but I’d already pushed her hard enough for one
night, and besides, I loved duct tape. After we had our containers
ready, it was time to start in earnest. “What room should we tackle
first?” I asked.

Lillian thought about it, then said, “Let’s
leave the public spaces for last. Why don’t we start with her
bedroom? That way we’ll get the hardest room out of the way
first.”

“
Do you really think it will
be the hardest to search?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It’s the most intimate
spot here. Jennifer, if we can disassociate this place from Maggie,
it will make all of this a great deal easier on both of us. Think
of it as a job and try not to remember her laughter, or the way she
smiled.”

I really wished Lillian hadn’t said that. Up
to that point, I had somehow managed to forget why we were really
there. Now that was impossible, though. Maggie was everywhere. I
took a few deep breaths, catching more than a hint of the banished
candles and potpourris. That helped. If I dwelled on the smells, I
might be able to forget about my lost friend.

The house was as neat inside as I expected
it to be. Lillian had been joking when she’d claimed that the place
was cluttered. Maggie had been nuts for organization, and like many
other scrapbookers who had gone into card making, I knew she’d
enjoyed using many of the same tools she’d used to create lasting
memory books to personalize her own greeting cards. As Lillian and
I walked to the back bedroom, I looked around for the scrapbooks
Maggie must have made over the years. Sure enough, there were a
stack of them on the shelves in the living room, but I did see an
odd-looking empty space with no dust on it toward one end. “Come
here,” I said to Lillian as I got a closer look.

My aunt glanced at me. “What am I looking
at, Maggie’s scrapbooks? Jennifer, we’re here to look for
clues.”

“
Don’t you get it?” I asked.
“I’m willing to bet she kept her most recent scrapbook here where
there’s an empty space.”

Lillian frowned at the shelf. “For all we
know, that’s where she kept her diary.”

“
That
might be a good read too, but I can’t imagine it being here. Look,
there’s no dust on the shelf at all. That means the missing books
haven’t been gone very long.” I picked up the last one in line.
“This one is dated two years ago. There have to be at least two
more missing, from the look of things. You and I both
know she got involved in card making because of
her scrapbooking, and I’m willing to bet that she didn’t just stop
making her scrapbooks.”

“
I honestly don’t know,”
Lillian said. “Do you think it’s important?”

Suddenly I was sure of it. “Think about it.
What kind of memories has she had lately that someone doesn’t want
us to know about? I’m willing to bet whoever killed her stole those
last few books. That probably means that whoever killed her was in
her it life over the past couple of years and not before then.”
Lillian sighed. “Jennifer, for all we know she gave up scrapbooking
when she started making cards, no matter what your theory is. She
was doing them long if before you opened your shop. Maybe she just
got tired of it.”

“
I know one way to find
out,” I said as I picked up the telephone. “Who are you
calling?”

I stopped dialing as I explained. “Where
would Maggie get her supplies if she was still scrapbooking?” I
finished dialing. Then before it could ring more than once, my
sister picked up on the other end. it “Sara Lynn, hey, it’s
Jennifer. I need to ask you something.”

She was short with me, even testier than
usual. “Can it wait? I’m just putting dinner on the table.”

I glanced at my watch. “My, you’re eating
awfully late, aren’t you?”

She huffed into the telephone. “If you must
know, Bailey’s still out of town.”

“
I thought he was supposed
to come back this morning.” That was odd. My sister’s husband was
normally as reliable as an engineer’s watch.

Sara Lynn snapped, “As did I, but I don’t
control his schedule. I will call you back after I eat.”

She hung up before I could
say another word, so I hit the
redial
button.

“
Hello,” she said tensely.
It sounded like something was definitely wrong in her paradise, and
I wondered if I was interrupting more than her dinner.

“
Sorry, it’s me again.
Listen, I’m not home. Call me at this number when you get the
chance.” I rattled off Maggie’s number, conveniently printed in
script and taped to the phone in the slot meant for it. It was just
one more example of the woman’s eye for detail, which I sorely
lacked.

“
Where are you?” Sara Lynn
asked abruptly.

“
I’m at Maggie Blake’s
place,” I said, then hung up.

Lillian asked, “What in the world did you do
that for?”

I grinned, held up my fingers and started to
count. Before I could get my third finger in the air, the phone
rang. “Hi, Sara Lynn.”

“
Sorry?” a man’s voice
asked.

“
Oh, excuse me. Hello.” Who
on earth was telephoning Maggie’s house?

“
Is Lillian
there?”

“
One moment, please. May I
tell her who’s calling?”

Instead of supplying the information, a
reasonable request as far as I was concerned, he said, “Just put
her on, please.”

I handed the phone to my aunt. Lillian
asked, “Who is it?”

“
He wouldn’t say, but
whoever it is, he’s in a pretty foul mood.”

“
We’ll just see about that.”
She took the phone from me. “Hello? Patrick, why are you calling?”
She held the phone away from her ear so I could hear, too. “I want
to be sure you’re not overstepping your bounds there.”

“
And whatever gave you the
idea that I might?”

Lillian asked in a saccharine sweet voice
that set my teeth on edge.

“
Don’t do it, woman. I don’t
know what you’re up to, but you wheedled that job out of me, and I
expect you to perform, do you hear me?”

“
Of course,” she said,
dismissing his complaint, “While I’ve got you on the telephone,
would you mind telling me if it’s true that Maggie Blake inherited
everything that Frances Coolridge owned?”

The attorney exploded again. “I can’t tell
you that. Don’t even ask me, do you hear?”

“
They’re both dead, so don’t
bore me with that attorney-client privilege nonsense. I was once
married up to a lawyer, if you recall.”

“
That
didn’t make you one, any more than sitting in a garage makes you a
car.” Lillian’s voice had a steel edge to it the next
time
ok
she spoke. “Patrick, are you certain you want to poke this
particular bear? The world might be fascinated to hear about your
trip to Las Vegas three years ago.”

There was a sudden intake of breath on the
other end. “You wouldn’t,” he said. “No, strike that. You’d tell
for the fun of it, wouldn’t you?”

Lillian said, “I’m going to ask you this one
last time. Did she or did she not inherit everything Frances
owned?”

With obvious reluctance, the lawyer
admitted, “There wasn’t much, but whatever Frances had went
straight to Maggie. As I recall, there were a few books, some
property in the middle of nowhere that no one in their right mind
would want, and a box of personal things like paperweights and
rocks, if you can believe that. I drew all of the wills up at the
same time, so there were no real surprises.”

“
And what
was the nature of their relationship?”
Lillian asked.

“
Come on, do you really
expect me to answer that?”

“
I do,” Lillian said, and
then she simply waited. I thought for sure he’d hang up on her, but
after nearly a minute, Patrick said, “Maggie and Frances were
friends, no more and no less. The way it was explained to me was
that neither of them ever had children, had I no close relatives at
all, and they wanted their things to be handled with respect in the
end.”

“
And there wasn’t anything
more to their relationship than that?” Lillian asked.

“
I’m certain of it, and
that’s the bottom line. I’ve heard the rumors too, but sometimes
folks in this town need something else to talk about, you know?
When the truth runs out, they start making things up as they go
along. Can I go now?”

“
You did a fine job,
Patrick. And don’t worry; your secret is safe with me.”