“… notions for your wedding dress.” Vera’s voice penetrated Lexy’s thoughts.
“What?” Lexy asked.
Notions?
Weren’t notions sewing things … like the leaves Vera had appliquéd to the garish shirt she wore? Lexy had a sudden image of her beautiful sophisticated gown cluttered up with oversized pieces of lace, buttons and colorful leaf appliqués.
“I don’t think my dress needs any
notions,
” Lexy said. “I had it custom designed, you know. I want it exactly the way it is.”
“Custom designed?” Vera frowned at Lexy. “I hope it wasn’t that Philippe guy … I heard about the messy business at his shop.”
Lexy’s stomach pinched. “Oh? What did you hear?”
Vera leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He was murdered … along with some young girl. Maybe his lover … he was almost seventy but still looked quite good for his age. Anyway, I heard he had gotten into financial trouble so that probably had something to do with the murder.”
Lexy exchanged a look with Ida and Nans. “Where did you hear about the financial trouble?”
“Oh, you know—around town.” Vera waved her hand in the air. “Anyway, I’m not changing anything on your dress … I just need some pieces so I can let it out a bit. According to my measurements, it’s a little small for you. Did you gain weight since you had it fitted?”
Lexy bristled at the comment, then remembered how the bust
had
seemed a little tight when she last tried it on in the shop. She didn’t think she’d gained weight but she’d been so busy with wedding plans she hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the scales.
“Oh, here comes our food,” Vera announced saving Lexy from having to think any more about her weight gain.
The waitress set the plates in front of them and all conversation stopped while everyone focused on their lunch. Lexy leaned against the cushioned Naugahyde backrest and contemplated her grilled cheese. Cheese was fattening, wasn’t it? Maybe she should have ordered a salad. Her stomach grumbled in disagreement. She picked up the sandwich and nibbled on an edge.
Her attention drifted across the street to
Chez Philippe
. Someone was definitely in there … going from the front room to the back. She needed to get over there right away, but how could she brush off her parents without hurting their feelings?
“Are you going to eat all those fries?” she asked Nans while covertly jerking her head toward the window.
“Help yourself.” Nans turned her plate so the side with the fries was facing Lexy. “Is something wrong with your neck?”
Lexy widened her eyes and looked toward the window. “No.”
Nans squinted at her, then her face dawned with understanding and she looked out the window, her eyes lighting up when she realized where Lexy was looking.
Nans shoved the last of her burger into her mouth then reached for the stainless steel napkin holder on the end of the table. Pulling out several small square napkins, she used them to wrap the rest of her fries and shoved the package into her purse.
“Well, we’d better hurry,” Nans said.
Ida looked up from her pie. “What? I’m still working on the whipped topping here.”
“We don’t want to miss your orthopedic shoe appointment,” Lexy said feeling a little dismayed at how easy she came up with the lie—almost as easy as Nans. Maybe lying ran in the family.
Ida scrunched up her face. “But I don—”
Lexy kicked her under the table and gave her ‘the look’. Ida’s eyes went wide and she continued.
“—t want to miss that appointment. No siree. I missed it last week and there was hell to pay.” Ida shoved the rest of the pie in her mouth and blotted her lips with a napkin.
Lexy’s father pushed his empty plate away. “I’m ready to go myself. What about you Vera?”
“Oh sure,” Vera twittered as she sipped the last of her coffee. As if on cue, the waitress brought the check. Lexy’s dad insisted on paying.
“You guys go so that you can get to your appointment.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Lexy gave him a peck on the cheek before sliding out of the booth. She blew her mom a kiss while she herded Nans and Ida toward the door.
“There’s someone in
Chez Philippe
!” Lexy said as soon as they were outside. Nans and Ida looked over at the store just in time to see a shadow move in the corner.
“I see it! Let’s go confront them—we have the element of surprise on our side!” Ida started across the street and Nans grabbed her arm to pull her back.
“Not yet,” Nans said. “We have to move Lexy’s car, otherwise Vera and Roy might recognize it in the parking lot when they leave.”
They hustled over to Lexy’s car and drove around the block until they saw the RV drive away. Lexy pulled into a spot in front of
Chez Philippe
and they tumbled out of the car and sprinted to the door.
Lexy stopped short, her hand on the cold metal door handle. “This could be dangerous.”
“Great! We love danger, right Ida?” Nans looked at Ida who nodded.
Lexy took a deep breath and tried the door. It was open. She slipped inside with Nans and Ida right behind her.
Light filtered into the main room from the back and Lexy could hear muffled noises. Someone was back there.
“Should we announce ourselves, or surprise them?” Ida whispered.
“We don’t want to tip them off. Let’s keep quiet and maybe we’ll catch them in the act.” Nans tiptoed toward the back room. Lexy’s stomach tightened as she followed her. That could be the killer back there—maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
Nans stood against the wall next to the opening to the back room. She poked her head around the doorway, then motioned Lexy and Ida to follow her in. Lexy stood in the doorway, confused. Standing with her back to them and holding one of the drawers from her sewing cabinet was Philippe’s seamstress.
“Millie?” Lexy asked.
Millie whirled around. The box fell from her hands clattering on the floor, beads and pearls bounced all over the place. She had her silver hair up in a bun; some strands had loosened and framed her heart-shaped face. For the first time Lexy realized that Millie was still quite attractive for a woman nearing seventy.
Millie’s hands flew up to her heart. “What are
you
doing here?”
Lexy immediately felt bad for frightening the woman. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She ran over to the fallen box and started herding the beads back into it.
“We saw someone in here and came to investigate,” Nans explained. “Isn’t the shop closed due to the … umm … events of the past week?”
“The police are done with their investigation,” Millie said briskly. “I came in to finish up some of the dresses. Even though the shop is technically closed, the brides still need their gowns.”
“It’s such a shame … what happened,” Ida said.
“So senseless, I mean why would someone kill that nice man?” Nans question sounded innocent enough, but Lexy knew it was designed to get Millie to talk about any suspicions she had. Lexy was finding the job of rounding up all the errant beads impossible so she shoved as many of them as she could into the box and stood up, holding the box out to Millie.
“I have no idea,” Millie said snatching the box from Lexy.
“Well, if something was amiss in the business … or Mr. Montague's personal life, I’m sure you would have noticed.” Nans winked at her. “The assistants always know everything.”
Millie put down the box and grabbed scissors and a roll of lace with trembling hands.
“There was nothing amiss here,” she said sharply, her eyes darted around the room to avoid looking directly at Nans. “Now if you ladies don’t mind. I need to get to work on these dresses.”
“Of course. Sorry to bother you,” Nans said and turned to leave.
Lexy and Ida muttered good-byes and followed Nans out to Lexy’s car. As they buckled themselves in, Nans said, “Well, I’d say our day today was very productive. Let’s go back to my place and fill everything in on the board.”
“Yeah,” Ida said. “And we might move Millie to our suspect list.”
Lexy’s brow creased. “Why is that?”
“Did you see the way her hands were shaking?” Ida asked. “I can guarantee she must have been very nervous about something.”
“How do you know?”
“She can’t be that shaky normally—no seamstress could sew worth a darn with quivering hands like that.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lexy settled into the recliner in Nans’ living room savoring the bitter taste of the strong coffee in the mug she held in her hand. She needed the caffeine to get her through the rest of the day—keeping up with Nans was exhausting.
“So, did you uncover any new clues?” Helen stood next to the white board, which was directly in front of Lexy.
“Yes. And we knocked off some items from our ‘to do’ list,” Ida answered from a chair on the other side of the room.
“You tell us what you found first, and then I’ll tell you what I found.” Ruth pulled a dining room chair over next to Lexy, setting her iPad and a cup of tea on the side table.
“Well, we went to the museum first thing. They have some great displays there, we really should go some time,” Nans said.
“That’s nice.” Helen shot Nans a sarcastic look. “But did you find anything relevant to the case?”
“I’m getting to that.” Nans walked over to the white board and pointed at one of the lines. “We talked to Stuart Wiggins' friend at the museum … Eddie something his name was. He seemed unusually nervous, didn’t he Lexy?”
“Yes. And he said Veronica and Ramona were acting strange.”
Helen’s brows shot up. “Oh really? Do you think they were up to something?”
“Hard to say,” Nans said. “But let’s write that down on the board.”
Helen turned and scribbled on the board. “Should we put this Eddie under suspects? What about Veronica and Ramona?”
Nans pressed her lips together. “I think so … we might as well list everyone who acts strange and then we’ll work on weeding through the list to see who had motive and opportunity.”
“Of course, we still don’t know what the motive is,” Ida mumbled around a mouthful of cream cheese brownie.
“I might have a line on that,” Ruth said. Everyone turned to look at her. “I was able to get into Philippe’s bank account and it seems he had a very large deposit a few months ago.”
“How large?” Nans asked.
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
Ida whistled. “That sounds like a lot … but with a business like his, maybe that's not so unusual.”
“That’s the thing,” Ruth said. “It wasn’t in his business account. It was in his personal account. He normally didn’t have deposits anywhere near that high.”
Lexy chewed her bottom lip. “I wonder if that has anything to do with what my mom said about his business being in trouble or the break in at
Chez Philippe
?”
“Yeah, maybe he needed money to save his business, so he did something underhanded that paid good and someone broke in to steal the money,” Ida said.
“Yeah … but what would he have done for fifty thou?” Nans asked.
Ida shrugged. “Who knows? I saw an episode of
Castle
where the guy got laid off from his job and needed money so he ended up being a drug mule.”
“Well I highly doubt Philippe would do that. And even if he
was
up to something, how do Stuart, Victoria, Ramona and Eddie play into it?” Ruth asked.
“And don’t forget Millie,” Ida added.
“Millie?” Helen’s brows creased.
Ida nodded. “At lunch today we saw someone skulking around inside
Chez Philippe
. So we went in to apprehend the perp. It was this Millie lady … his seamstress I guess, right Lexy?”
“Yep.” Lexy sipped her coffee. “She said the police told her she could go in and finish the gowns they had on order. She
did
seem rather nervous … and not at all friendly.”
Ruth tapped the marker on the whiteboard. “If Philippe was into something shady, it makes sense that Millie might know about it.”
“She’s been his seamstress for a long time so she might be protective of him, too,” Lexy added.
“Or in on it with him,” Ida said.
“It doesn’t make sense that Veronica and Stuart would have anything to do with it, though,” Ruth said.
Lexy sighed. “Right. This is all so confusing.”
“Well at least we have more of a clue about the motive. If we could just figure out where that money came from.” Nans turned to Ruth. “Can you dig around to find the source?”
Ruth nodded. “I can try.”
“And we also need to talk to this Ramona. She’s the only one on the list we haven’t talked to.”
Lexy cringed. “I don’t know how we’re going to do that … she hates me.”
Ida snapped her fingers. “I know!”
“You do?” Lexy asked.
“She was Veronica’s best friend, right?”
Lexy nodded.
“Well then it makes sense she would be at the wake,” Ida said with a gleam in her eye.
‘That’s right!” Nans said. “We need to find out when the wake is and attend it. You know what we always say …”
Lexy, Ida, Ruth and Helen chorused the answer. “The best place to find out about the murder is at the victim’s wake!”
***
Lexy coasted to a stop in front of her house. Quietly closing her car door, she tiptoed past the RV. She wasn’t avoiding her parents—she just needed some quiet time to think about the day’s events and tend to some of the wedding tasks she’d been putting off in favor of investigating the murders. She still had a lot to get done, like picking out the flowers for her bouquet, choosing the appetizers for the reception and deciding which music to use for the ceremony.
Was her wedding really in a few days? She pushed away the panic that clutched at her chest as she slid her key into the lock on the front door. Her heart stopped when the door swung wide open before the key even made it all the way in.
She stood frozen in the doorway, her stomach sinking … her house had been ransacked!
Drawers had been flung open. Everything had been ripped from the closet and thrown on the floor. Even the cushions had been torn from the couch. Tears welled up in her eyes, and then fear seized her.