Deadly Notions (8 page)

Like Margaret Louise . . .

And Melissa . . .

And Beatrice . . .

And Rose . . .

And Leona . . .

And Debbie . . .

And Dixie . . .

And Caroline Rowen . . .

And Samantha Smith . . .

She gulped. “Chief Dallas, people say things out of frustration all the time. Especially when they’ve been pushed the way Ashley Lawson pushed them both last night and during countless other events for their children.”

“Go on . . .”

“People say stuff like that all the time. It doesn’t mean they’re going to run out and do it.”

“Say stuff like what, Victoria?” the chief prodded.

“Like, she makes me so mad I could strangle her. Or like, sometimes I could just kill her.” She raked a trembling hand through her hair as she tried to convince him she was right. “It’s normal, Chief. Everyone says that kind of stuff at one time or another. It doesn’t mean someone is actually going to
do
it.”

Chief Dallas shifted in his seat, his unreadable gaze fixed squarely on her face. “But see that’s where you’re wrong, Victoria. Someone
did
do it. To Ashley Lawson. In the very same manner that was volleyed around by as many as ten people yesterday evening.”

“Ten?” she repeated as her mind began to count the culprits.

He nodded and flipped to an earlier page in his notepad. “Margaret Louise Davis, her daughter-in-law Melissa Davis, Leona Elkin, Beatrice Tharrington, Dixie Dunn, Rose Winters, Debbie Calhoun, Caroline Rowen, Samantha Smith . . .”

She mentally followed along with his list, her thoughts sifting through the various names in order to come up with anyone who hadn’t uttered a derogatory word about the high maintenance mom who’d stood poised and ready to ruin Sally’s party any number of times. That is until her boss had shown up and cast an evil eye over their fun.

Ashley’s boss. Regina Murphy. The woman who had pointed Chief Dallas in their direction.

“Oh, and
you
, Victoria.”

At the sound of her name she snapped her head up. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

His eyes narrowed to near slits. “Did you express a desire to strangle Ashley Lawson, Victoria?”

Pushing back in her chair, she stood, anger clipping her words. “Was I one of the ones who verbalized a desire to strangle Mrs. Lawson? No. I wasn’t. I did, however, speculate it was a good thing the rope from the tire swing had been secured by a former Boy Scout.”

“And why would you say something like that?”

“Because Ashley Lawson brought new meaning to the word
rude
. And in doing so she rubbed everyone at the party the wrong way, including me. Only instead of saying the words your witness overheard on the tongues of many, I simply took the joke in a different direction.” She walked to the door of her office and waited, her actions making her intent crystal clear. “And that’s what those comments were, jokes. Jokes made in an attempt to diffuse the unnecessary tension spread across a special event by the victim. Nothing more.”

Chief Dallas rose to his feet, stuffing his notepad into his back pocket as he did. With several long strides he met and passed her in the doorway before stopping to swing his hat onto his head with an air of authority. “Murder is no joking matter, Victoria. You of all people should know that.” He stepped into the hall only to turn one last time. “I’ll be in touch.”

For the first time in more than a dozen or so visits, Margaret Louise’s home didn’t exude its normal happy aura. Sure, the alphabet magnets and finger-painted pictures that covered nearly every square inch of the proud grandmother’s refrigerator were in place just like always. Nothing would ever change that.

But as certain as those things were, so, too, was the downtrodden mood that threatened to suffocate the life out of that evening’s sewing circle.

“Do you know how many times I said I wanted to kill Thomas after what he did?” Georgina mused from her spot beside an overturned teddy bear on the navy blue sofa in the far corner of the room. “Why, when I heard what he’d done, I could have strangled him with my bare hands.”

Tori studied the town’s mayor from the sunlit corner she’d claimed as her own, the last of the day’s lingering rays growing weaker. For over a year now, the woman had forged ahead with dignity and determination despite the humiliation of having been married to a murderer. “But you wouldn’t have done that. You’re too good.”

“There were days in the aftermath of his arrest that I doubted that, Victoria. Especially after the hell he put you through.”

She held her hands up. “The truth finally came out, Georgina, and that’s all that really matters. Now it’s done and over and I’m doing just fine.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about strangling him, or tripping him just as he approached the edge of a cliff, or running him over with my car, or locking him in a cellar and watching him starve to death. These are the things I thought about back then. Still do on some days.”

“And that’s only natural if you ask me,” Rose grumbled from behind the portable machine she’d commandeered the second she arrived. “I think anyone in this room would be hard-pressed to say they’ve never had thoughts like that about someone who’s wronged them.”

Heads nodded around the room.

“But that doesn’t mean we act on them.” Dixie’s chin rose into the air. “Victoria wouldn’t be here if we did.”

“We?” Leona drawled.

Dixie’s face reddened. “Okay . . . me. But she took my job from me—a job I devoted my life to from the time I was her age.”

“Good heavens, Dixie, would you get down off that cross, ’cause someone else surely needs that wood.” Rose pulled the sweater she was hemming from the machine and stamped her foot on the ground. “Victoria didn’t take your job. She was given it. By the board. And they did that because it was time for you to retire.”

Dixie opened her mouth to speak only to slam it shut as Rose continued. “I don’t like being old any more than you or”—she lowered her chin and peered over the top of her glasses as she scanned the room—“Leona, over there, does. But it’s life. Get over it.”

“You’re the one who’s older than dirt, Rose.” Leona sat up straight in her chair, her latest travel magazine slipping from her flawlessly manicured hands. “I’m a good quarter century younger than you.”

“A quarter century?” Rose shook her head.

Margaret Louise let out her first laugh of the evening. “Twin, don’t you know that twistin’ the truth is like puttin’ perfume on a pig?”

“Oh shut up, Margaret Louise,” Leona groused as she pulled her magazine off her lap and opened it in front of her face.

Feeling the corners of her mouth twitching upward, Tori took a moment to savor the momentary burst of playful energy that was synonymous with their group—a burst that disappeared the moment Melissa opened her mouth.

“I know I said some unkind things about that woman after Sally had opened her gifts but she’d pushed me to the brink. She really did.” Melissa jumped to her feet and peeked outside the window, the path of her gaze no doubt traveling in the direction of her own home. “But I couldn’t hurt a flea. Just ask my Jake.”

“Oh, Melissa, there’s not anyone in the world who could think you would hurt another human being,” Beatrice said, her soft British accent making them all pause. “Police Chief Dallas will figure that out soon.”

“There ain’t no difference between a hornet and a yellow jacket when they’re both buzzin’ in your pants,” Margaret Louise said from her spot just inside the doorway. “Every single one of us in this room ’cept Georgina is guilty of saying somethin’ off-color about that nasty woman. And there’s not a one of us who could hurt a flea, either, yet the chief’s still circlin’ like a vulture waitin’ for his supper, ain’t he?”

Heads nodded again.

“Which is why fingers are going to start pointing before long, you just wait and see.”

“They already have,” Tori said as she glanced in Dixie’s direction. “How do you think Chief Dallas knew about the comments?”

“How
did
he know?” Debbie mumbled around the needle she held between her teeth.

“I imagine it was Regina Murphy. She showed up at that point during the party when everyone had hit their limit with Ashley Lawson, remember?”

Beatrice’s face paled. “Oh no, you’re right. She heard me say—” The nanny sat up straight, shock and fear skittering across her face. “Oh no!”

Debbie pulled the needle from her mouth. “Don’t you worry none, Beatrice. Everyone said something at one time or another. And Victoria is right, Regina heard just about every last comment. But just as she was getting ready to give us a piece of her mind, Samantha got a hold of her and started gabbing away.”

“That’s probably why she was practically frantic to talk to Ashley by the end,” Margaret Louise mused. “Woo-eee that Samantha Smith can talk.”

Dixie cleared her throat, halting all further conversation. “That’s not the finger pointing I was talking about.”

All eyes turned in Dixie’s direction. “What are you babblin’ about, Dixie?” Georgina asked as her hand paused above the blouse she’d been working on for the past month. “Who’s pointing fingers?”

“We all will be if it serves us well.”

“What are you talking about?” Beatrice whispered.

Crossing her arms in front of her stout frame, Dixie took her moment in the spotlight. “If Chief Dallas were to show up at your doorstep, Beatrice, and badger you about what you said regarding Ashley Lawson what would you say?”

“I—I . . .”

Dixie turned to Leona. “And if he showed up at your doorstep and badgered
you
, what would you say?”

Leona lowered her magazine. “I’d tell him I was only repeating what I heard Rose say.”

Rose gasped along with everyone else.

“Leona!”

“It’s okay, Victoria.” Rose leaned forward in her chair and narrowed her eyes to near slits as she stared at Margaret Louise’s twin sister. “And when he showed up at my door telling me what you said Leona, I’d tell him it’s always the dirty dog that howls the loudest.”

“You wouldn’t,” Leona spat.

“Try me,” Rose countered.

“I rest my case,” Dixie said as she settled back against the cushions of the rattan chair she’d claimed for the evening. “It’s just like I said, fingers will start their pointing sooner than any of us realize. You mark my words.”

Tori swallowed over the lump that sprang to her throat. Was Dixie right? Would everyone start throwing each other under the bus that was Ashley Lawson’s murder simply to save their own skin?

“There is another way.” Debbie’s voice, quiet yet firm, rang out from her place beside Margaret Louise.

“What’s that?” Beatrice asked.

“We band together.”

Dixie looked up. “As a united front?”

“No. As friends.” Debbie pulled a spool of thread from her sewing box and held it to the lamplight on her left. “We all know we didn’t do it. So why on earth would we give the impression otherwise?”

“Someone had to have done it,” Georgina interjected. “And you must admit that the way in which it was done is more than a little curious in light of everything I’ve heard about Sally’s party.”

“You’re right, someone did it. But let’s not forget the fact that two of the women at that party are not in this room right now.” Debbie unraveled a piece of the baby pink thread and threaded it through the eye of her needle. “And they were every bit as fed up with Ashley Lawson as the rest of us.”

Beatrice bristled. “Caroline Rowen and Samantha Smith are no more capable of murdering someone than any of us are.”

“That might be true if Ashley hadn’t insulted Caroline’s daughter.”

“But if you follow that logic, then you’re just as much of a suspect,” Melissa pointed out.

Debbie set her needle and thread down. “How do you figure that, Melissa?”

“Ashley may have commented on little Zoe’s red hair, but she also called your son a troublemaker. Even refused to let her daughter sit anywhere near him during the party.”

Debbie’s face turned crimson. “Can you imagine anyone saying that about my precious Jackson? That woman was out of her mind.”

“I seem to remember you were, too, after you heard what she had to say about him.” Dixie scooted to the edge of the rattan chair and struggled to her feet. “
And
your cake.”

Margaret Louise turned and looked at Debbie. “She said something about the cake? I didn’t hear that.”

“Neither did I,” Tori said.

Gritting her teeth, Debbie flashed a look of annoyance in Dixie’s direction. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Oh no?” Dixie’s stout frame moved across the sun porch. “Then why did you point to the rope the kids were swinging from and speculate how much it would take to wrap around that woman’s neck?”