Murder Takes A Bow - A Betty Crawford Mystery (The Betty Crawford Mysteries) (13 page)

When they were clearing the table, the doorbell rang. "I’ll get it," Betty said, dusting her hands against her jeans. She opened the kitchen door on Clarise and Sergeant Wes. They were both beaming, their hands were clasped together between them. Sergeant Wes was still dressed in his uniform, but Clarise was wearing the outfit Betty had brought her. Though there were still bags from lack of sleep under her eyes, she had lost the awful pallor from when Betty had seen her last. In fact, Betty thought, she might have even been blushing.

Clarise leaped at Betty the second the door was out of her way.

"I’m free I’m free I’m free!" she chanted, hugging Betty tight and spinning the two of them around in a circle. "I’m free!"

Betty laughed and stepped back, gently pulling herself out of Clarise’s stranglehold.

"So I see. What happened?"

"The prints from the lead pipe came back," Sergeant Wes said. "Hers weren’t on it. So they released her because they didn’t have any evidence."

"I’m free!" Clarise shrieked. She ran around hugging everyone in the room before stopping in front of Betty again. "Thank you thank you thank you!" she said. "If you hadn’t proven that Walter was lying, I’d probably still be in jail. Betty, I’m free! I’m cleared! They know I didn’t do it!"

"That’s wonderful Clarise," her mother said at the same time Betty’s father asked, "What about Betty?"

Clarise explained all about what had happened at the station with Walter’s media fiasco and how Betty had stormed out and set them straight. Betty groaned and put her head in her hands. Clarise made her sound like Xena Warrior Princess out to rescue the damsel in distress. Not that she didn’t love a little Lucy Lawless every now and then, but she’d hardly paint herself in the same light.

"It didn’t happen quite like that," Betty tried to interrupt.

"Shhh!" Clarise said, turning to her with a sadistic twinkle in her eye. "You were magnificent. I heard it all from Bill."

Thump! went Betty’s head on the table. The table felt cool against her face, and Betty knew she must be red. She shifted so that her head rested on her crossed arms.

"…Then they arrested Walter for giving false evidence and obstruction of justice," Clarise continued. "It turns out that his testimony was the only real proof they had against me. So they let me go, and I’m free!"

"Free to torture me," Betty grumbled into her arms.

"Yes, well…" Clarise said brightly, patting her arm. Betty looked up to glare at her. "You shouldn’t be quite so… valiant if you don’t want the credit." Clarise turned back to the remainder of her rapt audience. "And then Sergeant Bundy here offered to drive me home and I asked to come here first, because, well, I couldn’t have gotten out without you Betty, so I wanted you to be the first to know."

"Well!" Betty’s mother said, clapping her hands. "This calls for a celebration! Who wants some cake?"

Everyone else jumped at the chance. Mary Crawford’s cake was legendary.

"Betty?"

Betty refused to meet her eye. "No thanks," she said. "I’m still full from dinner."

Clarise frowned at her over the table. After years of friendship, Betty clearly read: You didn't tell them yet?

Betty shook her head. No.

Clarise raised a pointed eyebrow. Well, what are you waiting for?

Betty shrugged, half smiling with one corner of her mouth. I don't know. I'm nervous. Scared.

Clarise rolled her eyes. Just get on with it.

Betty’s father coughed. "Anything we should know girls?"

"No," Clarise said. "Just girl talk."

"What?" Sergeant Wes asked, looking from one to the other with confusion "How could you have girl talk? You didn’t even say anything!"

Chet grabbed the last of the dinner dishes and clapped Wes on the shoulder on his way to the sink. "Sergeant, when you’ve been around women as long as I have, you’ll learn. They say things they don’t mean, and mean things they don’t say except in a secret language we men will never learn. "

Mary Crawford hit her husband with a dishcloth. "See if I give you a piece of cake now!"

Chet caught the dishtowel and used it pull her close before pecking her lips. "Now Mary, you know I love that cake almost as much as I love you," he said seriously, looking into her eyes. "You wouldn’t be that cruel, would you?"

Mary laughed and pushed him away. "Oh, you! Go make yourself useful and put the kettle on for tea!"

Betty rolled her eyes at Clarise.

"I saw that!" her father said from the sink.

"You were supposed to," she shot back.

Sergeant Wes and Clarise didn’t stay much longer. Clarise wanted to get home to shower and sleep. Shortly after they left, Betty’s mother went out to a church meeting.

That left Betty and her father alone. She was about to go up the stairs to her room when he called her.

"Betty?" she turned towards him at the foot of the stairs. He was leaning back on the sofa, eyes closed.

"Yes?" she asked.

"You did a good thing with Walter today." Her father paused. Betty shifted, unsure of what to say. Compliments always had a way of putting her off balance, even when they weren’t effusive praise. She never knew how to react. you say thank you, or did that sound like you were agreeing with them and being prideful? Did you deny that you’d done anything of merit? Did you just continue on as normal, or was that rude? "You know," her father continued, "if there’s anything you need to talk about just say the word."

Clarise was right. She really didn’t have any good reason to put off telling them about her diabetes.

But the emotional upheavals of the day dragged at her eyelids, and her limbs were heavy with sleepiness. She was never at her best when she was tired, and an emotional conversation was the last thing she needed right before sleep.

"Thanks, Dad." She said. "But not tonight. Okay?"

He nodded from the sofa, already half asleep himself.

Upstairs, Betty checked her blood glucose level. She made a note that the reading was "after a meal," and saved the number. She still wasn’t clear on what the numbers meant, but she figured that she should get into the habit of checking her levels after she ate.

CHAPTER 20

The next morning, Betty checked her e mail before even changing out of her pajamas. In her absence, Betty’s e mail had flooded. It never ceased to amaze her how many pieces of spam she received on a daily basis. Didn’t people understand that spam made her less likely to take their products seriously? She weeded through, flagging the e mails from actual clients and stores whose e mail lists she wanted to be on so she could find them easier.

She responded to the clients first, making sure that there were no further problems. One of her replacement shipments had arrived with no problem, for which both she and her client were exceedingly grateful. The other one, to 3 Rings Organic Clothes a few towns away, had arrived with three extra pairs of jeans in the box.

That was quite enough of that. Betty glared at the screen. It was blatantly clear that someone was tampering with her packages. How dare they? This was her business. She couldn’t afford to be unreliable. She’d have to start looking into this, today.

Staples.com had sent her their latest flyer. Shipping supplies were on sale. Immediately, Betty went to their website and used her coupon code to order more boxes and packing tape. She was running low, and buying them last minute at the post office or shipping store always cut into her profit margin far more than ordering them ahead of time. She added legal pads and some more storage containers for good measure, and pasted the cost of the items to her "expenses paid" spreadsheet. She made a mental note to look into drop shipping at the local Staples copy center. It had to be easier than the post office and might save her some money compared to Whitt's.

A box had arrived for her at Whitt’s Copy and Shipping, and her copies were ready for her to pick up. Good. Those were the last costumes and extra scripts for the theater. If she hurried, she could swing by the store to pick them up before her afternoon meeting. It was also a good place to start investigating who was tampering with her products.

Betty grabbed her glucose meter and put in her purse before heading out. The extra weight was barely noticeable, but her bag seemed to take extra effort to carry.

~

Betty walked in to Whitt’s Copy and Shipping, only to have her prepared line of questioning entirely derailed by the sound of Henry Whitt performing a dramatic reading from behind the back counter. She made her way quietly to the back of the store. He was actually quite good. His voice had a deep tone, and his slightly snooty accent was perfect for the butler he was portraying. Once he came in sight, Betty could see that he was standing behind the counter, back ramrod straight and his chest puffed out, one hand pulled behind his back. Normally, Betty only saw Henry as a tall, gangly red head, still awkward and acne laden in his late teens. But the way he was standing made his gangly frame seem regal, and his normal awkwardness was replaced with an air of disdain. "Yes, Sir," he said, bowing slightly to the air in front of him.

Betty applauded, and Henry started, dropping the script. "Sorry, sorry," he stammered, scrambling to pick up the papers that had scattered on the floor. "Sorry Miss Crawford, I won’t charge you for that one. I’m terribly sorry."

Betty smiled. There was the Henry she knew. "Don’t worry about it." The transformation was amazing. He was at least as good an actor as Walter, if not better. In fact… "Actually, would you like to keep that copy? I’ll still pay for it, but if you can learn lines quickly, we do need an understudy for the Butler. As far as I’m concerned, you just passed the audition."

Henry’s ears and cheeks turned red. "Really Miss Crawford? I mean, I’d love to, but don’t you need to talk to the director?"

Betty shrugged. "I’m on the board of directors for the theater, and the director is my best friend. Not to mention, I fill in as director whenever she can’t make it. We need an understudy. Why not come to the next practice?"

"Well, if you’re sure it’s alright," Henry said. His eyes shone, and his back straightened. Betty gave an inward cackle. She loved helping to infect people with the theater bug. She had a feeling that, after this one play, Henry would become a regular at the theater. Being on stage would do his confidence some good, and the theater would get a wonderful actor. Exactly as it should be.

"Absolutely. You’re fantastic. Give me your e mail, and I’ll make sure you get the updates for practice times."

Once information had been exchanged, Betty picked up her packages and paid for her copies. The sight of boxes sharply recalled her to the second reason for her visit to the store.

Briefly, she explained what had been going on to Henry. His expression darkened. "That’s terrible!" he exclaimed. "I don’t know who would do something like that!" His face was red again, but this time in anger, not embarrassment. "It’s… it’s… Oh Miss Crawford, I hope you know that no one here would ever do anything like that. Why, we’re family run. It’s only me and my Dad working here, and this business means too much to our family to ever do anything like that. I’d swear on the bible, or tell a judge, or whatever you want, just please believe me! We’d never  "

Betty held up her hand, forestalling the rest of his protest. "I didn’t say I thought you’d done it Henry," she said kindly. "Understand?" He nodded. "But someone has been tampering with my business, and it’s only since I moved back here. Do you think you could keep your eyes open? Let me know if there are any other reports of shipping mistakes, and ask your father to do the same? Whoever is doing this has to be stopped."

"Of course!" Henry said. "I’d do that without you asking Miss Crawford. I’ll even send out a request to everyone on our e mail list, asking people to keep an eye out."