Dangerous Alterations (25 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Lynn Casey

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Dangerous Alterations
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Tori tightened her grip on her purse, the shock of the police chief’s words hitting her with a one-two punch. Somehow, someway, despite knowing it was true, hearing Jeff’s name in conjunction with the word
murder
was still shocking.
Chief Dallas looked up from the picture and pinned Tori with a stare. “What reason did she have to come after you like this, Miss Sinclair?”
She’d balled her fists at her side, but released her tension at the feel of Margaret Louise’s hand on her back. “I don’t know, Chief. Perhaps anger? Jealousy? Revenge? I don’t know, that’s your job to figure out, isn’t it?”
“Revenge?” he echoed.
Margaret Louise stepped forward, positioning her body between them and placing her hands on her round hips. “Were you ever a teenage girl? Or even a grown woman, Robert?”
Fred snorted.
The chief widened his stance, his hands still locked in an
X
at his upper arms. “I suspect you don’t really need me to answer that, do you, Ms. Davis?”
“Well then let me give you a crash course in what you missed. Teenage girls are always lookin’ ’round tryin’ to see who they’re competin’ with. And when they find it, they either tuck their tail between their legs and give up, or they come out fightin’. And that fightin’ is rarely fair.”
“Competing for what?” Chief Dallas asked with a hint of boredom in his voice.
“A boy.”
The chief peered around Margaret Louise. “Were you involved with the victim again, Miss Sinclair?”
“No.” It was a simple answer but it was all she owed the man.
His gaze lingered on Tori’s face for a full beat before meeting Margaret Louise’s once again. “Then why would this woman be angry enough to set fire to Miss Sinclair’s office?”
“Because girls never take their anger out on the boy. Oh no, they see the tomcat as the innocent party and sink their claws and their teeth into the competition instead.”
Fred leaned against the counter. “Happened with my best friend’s sister in college. Some girl was angry because her old boyfriend had decided to pursue my friend’s sister. Locked her in a dorm room closet for darn near twenty-four hours before they found her.”
Margaret Louise’s hand shot out. “Do you see?”
For a moment Chief Dallas said nothing, a silence that only served to further elevate the tension in the room. When he finally spoke, Tori found herself wishing for his silence. “So let me get this straight. The victim—Miss Sinclair’s ex-fiancé—came to town for his aunt’s funeral and fell for Miss Sinclair once again?”
“That ’bout sums it up.” Margaret Louise shifted her weight then pointed at the photograph. “Miss Kelly, here, didn’t take too kindly to that. Turned her claws on the competition based on what Lulu is sayin’.”
Fred released a sigh. “Makes you wonder if maybe this one broke the mold, doesn’t it?”
All heads turned to stare at Fred. “Mold? What mold?” Chief Dallas asked.
“Well, it sure looks as if she went after Victoria. Lulu’s story and what we found in the outlet pointing to that fact with the kind of clarity that’s pretty tough to ignore, yes?”
The police chief nodded.
“So we’ve got her for the fire. But you gotta admit it’s hard not to wonder if she went after the”—Fred looked at Margaret Louise for word clarification—“tomcat, too.”
Chief Dallas puffed out his chest. “I’m already thinking that, son.”
Tori felt the grip of tension ease from her body.
“But it’s also making me wonder.”
“About what?” Lulu asked sweetly.
Ignoring the little girl, Chief Dallas forged ahead. “I can’t imagine this competition stuff is gender specific.”
Fred pushed off the counter and came to stand beside Tori. “Girls are famous for it, but I’m sure there have been many men who have committed crimes of jealousy, too. It’s the dark side of human relationships, I guess.”
A spine-tingling glint flashed across the chief’s face as he nodded at Fred yet kept his focus squarely on Tori.
She swallowed once, twice.
“Is there any chance someone
else
knew about the victim’s intentions where you were concerned, Miss Sinclair?”
Margaret Louise hoisted her hands on her hips once again. “What are you gettin’ at, Robert?”
“Only an observation, really.”
“What kind of observation?” Fred asked.
Chief Dallas pursed his lips and shrugged. “About shapes. Squares, in particular.”
Lulu grinned. “Those have four equal sides.”
“Exactly. Which is rather unlike triangles which only have three sides, isn’t that right, Miss Sinclair?”
Chapter 25
One by one they filed through her front door, sewing boxes, tote bags, and foil-covered plates in hand. Only this time, instead of feeling the burst of excitement she usually felt when it was her turn to host a circle meeting, she was aware of a very different emotion.
Dread.
It wasn’t that she’d suddenly grown a distaste toward her nearly lifelong passion for sewing, because she hadn’t. Sewing was as much a part of her life as reading and breathing. In fact, in addition to being a link to her late great grandmother, sewing had also become a tried-and-true form of therapy whenever life threw a curveball.
Unless, of course, the curveball had her worried to the point of being unable to sit still.
Leona leaned over Tori’s table and plunked her powder blue bakery box smack-dab in the middle of the sea of covered plates. “Everything looks so … so
homemade
this evening.”
Rose lowered herself onto the wicker rocker Tori had dragged into the room from the front porch and winced, a flash of pain in her eyes making the reason crystal clear. But before anyone could comment, she volleyed a barb across the room at Leona. “And this is different from any other Monday night because why?”
Leona fairly sashayed across the room to the plaid armchair she’d claimed as her own nearly two years earlier. “It’s not, really. But that doesn’t mean I’m not continually astonished by the effort everyone goes to for these meetings when Debbie’s Bakery is on the way to virtually everyone’s home.”
“This
from the woman who calls herself Southern Woman of the Year,” mumbled Rose.
“
That
from a woman whom I’ve appointed as guardian to an offspring of my precious Paris.” Leona lowered her chin long enough to peer over the top of her glasses at Rose. “Unless, of course, you’re too infirm to care for Patches now.”
Tori sucked in her breath. “Leona! That’s enough.”
Rose’s laugh morphed into a quiet gasp, summoning Tori, Beatrice, and Georgina to her side.
“Rose? Are you okay?” Beatrice asked shyly.
Shooing all concerned sewing sisters back toward their seats, Rose said, “Nothing a few pain pills and a good nap can’t address. Now scram, all of you. I don’t need to be hovered over as if I’ve got one foot in the grave.”
“Before you do, may I suggest Prada or Jimmy Choo?” Leona reached into her bag, extracted a magazine, and flipped it open on her lap. “They would be so much more stylish than”—she peered across the room at Rose’s feet—“
those
.”
Debbie clapped her hands. “So, how are everyone’s pillows coming along?”
“Dandy,” Georgina announced, raising two pillow covers into the air. “They’re really quite simple to make.”
“I found this fabric at the sewing shop in Landover on the way home from the cabin yesterday morning.” Beatrice’s gaze skirted nervously from face to face before making a dive into her lap. “I thought it might be cheerful for the pillows.”
Rose nodded. “Looks fine to me.”
Relief chased uncertainty from the nanny’s face, culminating in a quiet smile. “Thank you, Rose.”
Leona turned her attention on Tori. “You’re mighty quiet today, dear. Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine.” She settled onto the couch beside Margaret Louise and opened her wooden sewing box. “I’m just a wee bit tired, I guess.”
“Who wouldn’t be after that interrogation this afternoon. All that was missin’ was the windowless room and the swingin’ light.” Margaret Louise shook her head then pulled one of the portable sewing machine’s rolling carts to a stop between her knees and the coffee table.
Georgina looked up from her latest pillowcase, a threaded needle poised between her lips. “What interrogation?”
Tori opened her mouth to steer the conversation in another direction but she was too late. Margaret Louise, seizing the opportunity afforded by Georgina’s question, rushed to answer, her loud, booming voice putting her front and center. “Chief Dallas was questionin’ Victoria as if she was some kind of psychic.”
“A psychic? On what?” Debbie inquired as she bent over her own pillow cover, stitching the edges by hand.
“The mind-set of her ex-fiancé’s killer.”
Georgina pulled the needle from her mouth. “I’m sure Robert is just being thorough, you know, not leaving any stones unturned.”
“Perhaps he could work on turnin’ more than throwin’.” Margaret Louise slid her pillowcase up to the machine and flipped the power switch, the answering whir audible for mere seconds before it was turned off. “Would you believe he had the nerve to—”
“I don’t think we need to discuss this now, Margaret Louise.” Tori looked at her watch and then gestured toward the kitchen. “Should we get started on dessert?”
“We just got here,” Melissa protested. “Besides, we need to get as many pillows done as possible, isn’t that right, Rose?”
Rose pinned Tori with a knowing stare. “I don’t think Victoria is trying to shortchange the pillows. I think she’s just trying to get Margaret Louise to put a sock in it.”
Reality dawned on Margaret Louise’s face and she turned to Tori, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry, was I not supposed to say anything about Chief Dallas and his insinuations regardin’ Milo?”
Beatrice’s head snapped up. “Milo?” she whispered.
“What on earth?” Debbie chimed in.
Melissa’s mouth dropped open. “He can’t be serious.”
Tori closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the couch, the dread of earlier rapidly reappearing.
“He started spoutin’ ’bout triangles and squares right there in front of Lulu!” Margaret Louise turned the machine on then flipped it off once again. “As if Milo Wentworth is even capable of murderous
thoughts
.”
Tori pushed off the couch. “Would anyone like a drink? I made a fresh batch of sweet tea not more than thirty minutes ago.”
Beatrice set her pillowcase off to the side and rose to her feet. “I’ll help, Victoria.”
Grateful for the opportunity to escape further discussion regarding Milo and Jeff’s murder, she gladly accepted the nanny’s offer, tasking her with counting hands as she disappeared into the kitchen. When Beatrice followed suit with the official count, Tori forced her lips into a smile. “Thanks for helping, Beatrice.”
The girl looked at the floor, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m sorry you’re going through this sort of thing again.”
She flung open the cabinet to the right of the refrigerator and counted out six glasses. “Who doesn’t want a glass?”
“Rose and Dixie,” Beatrice said. “They said they’ll have hot tea when it’s time for dessert.”
Stepping to the left, she yanked open the refrigerator and extracted the pitcher of sweet tea. “Hot tea, check.”
“You’re not worried, are you?”
She cast a sidelong glance in Beatrice’s direction. “No, hot tea will only take a moment.”
Beatrice shook her head. “I meant about Milo.”
Her hand shook as she tipped the pitcher to the first glass. “That Milo had anything to do with Jeff’s death? Of course not.”
Tea dribbled down the side of the second glass as her hand shook more. Without saying a word, Beatrice took the pitcher from Tori’s hand and completed the task with efficiency and ease. When she was done, she held a glass out for Tori. “Just because someone says something doesn’t mean they’re inclined to do it.”
Tori wrapped her hands around the glass yet said nothing.
“Think about how many of us expressed thoughts of doing away with that awful woman last spring.”
She knew Beatrice was right, yet she couldn’t shake the nagging reality that put Milo in town at the time Jeff died. For a visit he was still hiding from her today.
Toss in the threatening statement he’d made toward Jeff the night before the murder and, well, it was enough to give her pause.
The fact that Chief Dallas was sniffing around the same bandwagon turned the pause into genuine concern and fear.
“I just want to know
how
Jeff died,” Tori whispered, the statement surprising even her.
“They do. Georgina said it was a drug-induced heart attack.”
She stared at Beatrice. “Drug-induced? Are you sure?”
Beatrice blushed. “I know I wasn’t supposed to be listening but it was hard not to when Georgina was talking into that phone of hers at the top of her voice in the car just now.”
“Do you know who she was talking to?”
“I don’t know but she has the strangest rings on her phone,” Beatrice whispered, peeking around the corner into the living room as she did.
“Do you remember what song it was?” she asked as she crossed the fingers of her free hand.
“When I asked afterward, she said it was the theme song from something called Quincy.”
She sucked in her breath. Quincy had featured a medical examiner and had been a show her great grandmother used to enjoy. “Did you hear anything else?”
“Only that it was a drug he hadn’t been prescribed by his doctor.”
“Prescribed?” she echoed as her mind worked to dissect the information. “So it wasn’t a recreational drug?”
Beatrice averted her gaze to the floor. “Oh, Victoria, I shouldn’t be telling you this. I was eavesdropping.”
Setting her glass on the counter, she pulled the young woman in for a hug. “Would it help ease the guilt if I told you I’m less worried now?”

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