Elizabeth Lynn Casey - Southern Sewing Circle 08 - Remnants of Murder (12 page)

• Sweet Briar Business Association—find out who is on its roster.
  

• Councilman Adams/wife Betty.
  

• Track down all food deliveries—what/from whom.
  

• Compare all to the start of Clyde’s visual decline.
  

When she reached the end of her list, she glanced up to find Dixie now staring at her.

“What kind of list is that?” Dixie snapped.

She took in her notes and shrugged. “It’s a to-do list, of sorts.”

“I thought we were supposed to be drafting a list of suspects.”

“We are. This to-do list will help us do that.” She spun her notebook around to face Dixie then watched as the woman took in each and every entry. “We find out these things, we just might be able to narrow our list of suspects down to the right one.”

Dixie’s finger tapped Tori’s second line. “Why do you have Betty Adams on here?”

“She apparently sent along some home-baked treats when her husband would try to plead the town’s case.”

“I went to high school with Betty’s older sister. I don’t think she’d be party to something like murder.”

Murder.

That’s what all of this talk came back to …

“Dixie, if we’re going to consider the possibility that Clyde was murdered, we’re going to have to accept the reality that someone did it. That someone could be
anyone
. Even the sister of an old high school chum.”

Chapter 11

Tori propped herself up on her pillows and carefully
studied the names who’d made their way into her notebook before she and Dixie had parted ways.

Many, like Carter Johnson and Lana Morris, were longtime business owners who stood to gain immeasurably if a resort opened up on the outskirts of Sweet Briar. Carter’s diner—one of the only restaurants in town, and Lana’s gift shop—chock-full of the sorts of souvenirs that tourists craved, stood to reap the kind of rewards most small business owners could only dream about.

Bruce Waters at Waters’ Hardware had proven a harder sale for the list as vacationers had little to no reason to shop in his store.

No, the stores that stood to truly benefit from the sale of Clyde’s lakeside property were the ones that would appeal to those who flocked to Sweet Briar for a little rest and relaxation. Places like Elkin Antiques and Collectibles, Calamity Books, Shelby’s Sweet Shoppe, and Bud’s Brew Shack all fit that bill, just as their respective owners claimed a spot on the list she and Dixie had drafted.

She’d wanted to cross out Leona’s name the second Dixie added it, but left it for appearance purposes. Leona was, indeed, a local shop owner. The possibility the sixty-something had anything to do with Clyde’s accelerated demise, though, was virtually nonexistent.

Then, there were the council members most closely aligned with the businesses along the town square. They, too, stood to gain from a resort by way of votes from grateful constituents in the next election. Travis Haggarty and Granville Adams made that portion of the list as did Granville’s bribe-baking wife, Betty.

Stifling a yawn behind her hand, Tori turned her head and took in the clock on her nightstand, the digital numbers on its face shoring up what her subconscious seemed to know without the visual confirmation …

Ten o’clock had come and gone without Milo’s nightly phone call.

Unease washed over her as she retrieved her cell phone from its spot beside the clock and flipped it open to check the time. Sure enough, her clock radio was right. And sure enough, there wasn’t a missed call indicator anywhere to be found.

Positioning her finger over the speed dial number she’d assigned to her fiancé, she took a deep breath and pushed, the near-instant ringing in her ears difficult to hear over the sudden pounding in her chest. Milo’s ten o’clock call was a given. In fact, it had become as much a part of her bedtime routine as brushing her teeth and scrubbing her face. For him not to call meant something was amiss.

He answered on the fourth ring with a simple “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” She tried to make her voice sound as carefree as possible but she knew her effort wasn’t totally successful. “Is everything okay with Rita?”

“Mom’s fine. Talked to her a little while ago.”

“Did you fall asleep?” she asked.

“Nope.”

She cast about for something else to explain the sudden break in their nightly routine. “Get lost in a TV show?”

“Nope.”

“Phone call?”

“Nope.”

Suddenly wary, she decided to change topics completely in the hopes of getting more than a one-word reply. “So Dixie and I compiled a list this evening.”

“Oh?”

She nibbled her lip inward. “Uh-huh. We figured we need a starting place. You know, people to start looking at more closely while we wait to hear whether Chief Dallas will even order the autopsy.”

Silence filled the space between them, magnifying Tori’s tension tenfold. “That way, if he autopsies the body and it’s determined we’re right, we’ll have a jump on finding the person responsible.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Finally, a real response …

Scooting lower on her pillows, she gazed up at the ceiling as she did every night when they talked, the sound of Milo’s voice a comfort she not only counted on but needed, as well. “What do you mean?”

“All this list making … won’t it be a waste if he
doesn’t
do the right thing
, as you say.”

She rolled onto her side and stared at the framed photograph of her and Milo on a picnic shortly after they started dating. One of many pictorial souvenirs of their ever-deepening relationship, this particular one was her favorite as his smile was both captivating and contagious. Even eighteen months later it still stirred up the parade of butterflies in her stomach that were normally reserved for their face-to-face encounters. “I thought that, too. But after talking to Dixie, I have to agree that someone took this man’s life. And if we hit a brick wall in one place, we need to back up and take another route to the truth.”

“The truth …” he echoed.

Nodding, she willed herself to hear the unfamiliar edge to his voice as end-of-the-day exhaustion rather than the anger it most resembled. “And we’ve got some really good places to start. People who will stand to gain tremendously should Clyde’s land be sold to Nirvana Resorts & Spas or any of the other companies who have tried and failed to open up shop out on Fawn Lake.”

She glanced at her notebook and began reading off names, pausing to give a reason why each had been added and then waiting to see if he’d weigh in with a comment or disagreement. When he said nothing, she’d move onto the next name. All too soon, though, she reached the end of the list and the reality of the silence in her ear. “Of course this isn’t an exclusive list. More names will be added as we go along, but at least it’s a start.”

“Well, that’ll certainly keep you busy.”

“It sure will. It’ll also have me navigating some tough waters when you consider the fact that I’m acquainted—and
even friends
—with some of the names on the list. If I don’t find a delicate way to get the information I need, I could very well turn back into Tori Sinclair the Yankee, rather than Tori Sinclair the Yankee-Librarian-with-the-Sweet-Briar-Seal-of-Approval.”

“It could certainly get a little dicey.”

When his comment wasn’t followed up with his usual offer to help, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling for a second time, her thoughts running in a million different directions. Something was wrong.

“Um, so how was work today?” she finally asked.

“Good.”

“Any funny stories to share?” She closed her eyes and waited for the normal onslaught of tales that left her both laughing at the ways in which third graders saw the world and wishing she’d had a teacher like Milo when she was nine.

“Gibson Jenner licked the basketball pole on the playground to see what would happen to his tongue if it touched warm metal.”

“Warm metal?”

“Apparently he’d gotten into some of the Christmas movies his father had been late to pack up. Gibson was intrigued by the kid’s tongue getting stuck to the cold pole. Said he wanted to see what happened if it was warm.”

“And?”

“He didn’t see the mosquito guts until it was too late.”

She savored the welcome release her laugh afforded until she realized she was laughing alone. “Anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Any impromptu staff meetings after the kids left?”

“Nope.”

So they were back to “nope” again …

“So tell me about the rest of your day. Did you do anything after work?”

“I did.”

She waited for him to respond, but when he didn’t, she inquired further. “O-kay … What did you do?”

“I stopped at Debbie’s and had her box up your favorite dessert. Then I came home, picked out a movie, and made dinner. While it was cooking, I culled through all the brochures for the best ones. I lit the candle in the center of the table. And then I sat out on the front porch and waited.”

Bolting upright, she made a halfhearted attempt to grab the notebook before it slipped off her bed and onto the floor, but it was too late. “W-W-Waited?” she stammered even as reality reared its ugly head from the pit of her stomach.

“For you, Tori. I waited for
you
.”

Chapter 12

Tori wasn’t entirely sure how long she had laid there
with the still-open cell phone pressed to her ear and tears rolling down her cheeks at the mess she’d made with Milo. But it didn’t really matter.

In some ways, she wished he’d yelled and screamed at her for her forgetfulness. At least then they could have cleared the air. Instead, he’d merely said he was tired and needed to go to sleep, his normally cheery farewell heartbreaking in its simplicity.

How could she have been so thoughtless? How could she have forgotten an evening she’d committed to not more than twelve hours earlier? Especially when it meant so much to Milo?

Yet even as the questions lined up, one behind the other, she was well aware of the matching answer for each one.

She was trying to be there for Dixie, trying to heed the woman’s pleas for help. Plain and simple.

Or was it plain and simple? Was she really just trying to help Dixie or was she—as Milo implied earlier in the day—seizing on just about anything she could find in order to dodge the subject of their approaching nuptials?

Unsure of what to do, Tori snapped the phone closed inside her free hand and jumped when it vibrated in response. But as quickly as hope rushed in at the thought of a second chance phone call, it rushed back out via the ID screen and the name it boasted.

For a moment, she contemplated letting the call go to voice mail, the self-chastising she’d undergone since hanging up with Milo not completely done. Then again, if she didn’t pick up, she ran the risk of a frosty shoulder at the next sewing circle meeting.

Sighing, she flipped the phone open and held it against her damp cheek. “Hi, Leona.”

“Victoria? Are you okay?”

On some level she knew she should be surprised Leona’s antennae had risen so fast. After all, the sixty-something’s main focus in life was almost always on one of three things—herself, her beloved Paris, and whatever hot young male had crossed her path that particular day. But just as sure as those three things were, Tori also knew that beneath Leona’s all-about-me exterior was a sensitive soul.

She closed her eyes against the instinct to pour out all her fears and, instead, found herself pushing everything aside for a moment or two of normalcy. “I’m fine. Just a busy day, I guess.”

A slight hesitation gave way to the sound of the phone being moved as Leona addressed her faithful, long-eared sidekick. “Our dear sweet Victoria is upset about something, Paris. But she doesn’t want to talk about it right now. So we’re going to play along for a little while and pretend like everything is okay.”