Elizabeth Lynn Casey - Southern Sewing Circle 10 - Wedding Duress (20 page)

Waving at the cloud of kicked-up dust that hovered in the space between them, Charles brought his lips to within centimeters of Tori’s ear. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for insisting Margaret Louise meet us here instead of at the library.”

She craned her neck around Charles to get a clear shot of her cohort in crime now making her way across the parking lot toward their bench. After returning Margaret Louise’s wave, she reengaged her pal. “You live in New York City, Charles . . . Drivers like her are a dime a dozen. Only you pay to ride with them.”

“Oh no, I’m a subway boy all the way. And on the extremely rare occasion I
take
a cab, I sit in the backseat . . . behind glass . . . with my eyes closed. Unless I’m in it with one of you. Then I act brave.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get here, Victoria, but I
was sweepin’ cookie crumbs up off my floor when Charles called and I had to finish the job.” Margaret Louise dropped onto the park bench beside Tori and clapped her hands. “So when are Beatrice and the kids gettin’ here?”

Tori turned to answer her friend, but got momentarily sidetracked by Charles’s elbow in her rib cage and his breath in her ear. “It’s only been eight minutes since I called! She lives a good twelve minutes away. And that’s if she was sitting in a running car when she picked up the phone.”

“Here they come!” Margaret Louise stood and started waving toward the sidewalk on the opposite side of the park, the smile on her face due as much to the presence of children as the prospect of investigating, no doubt. “Woo-hoo, Beatrice, we’re over here!”

Tori looked from Margaret Louise to Charles and back again, the list of questions she wanted to ask the Brady children moving into the forefront of her thoughts. “Are you ready?”

“What do you need us to do?” Charles asked as he, too, stood and took a moment to smooth any visible wrinkles from his pants.

“She needs us to be her listenin’ ears while she’s askin’ the questions. And while we’re listenin’, we’re lookin’, too.”

“Looking? For what?”

“Hanky panky, that’s what.” Margaret Louise threw back her shoulders and tightened the drawstring on the waistband of her polyester warm-up suit. “And we’ve come across a lot of hanky panky in our investigatin’ days, haven’t we, Victoria?”

Tori stifled the laugh she felt building and turned it into a smile instead as Luke and the Brady children ran over. “Hi, guys, how are you?”

Luke thrust out his hand and opened it to reveal a paper plane. “I made this after school today and Miss Bea said I can climb to the top of the jungle gym and fly it from way up there.”

“Sounds like fun, Luke.” Tori gently tapped each of the Brady girls on the nose, making sure to address each one by name as she did. When she was done, she sent Sophie off to spot Luke’s airplane and gestured Kellie and Reenie over to the swings. When each girl was on a swing with a designated pusher strategically placed within earshot, she posed her first question. “I was wondering if you two remember who was at your house the night Miss Gracie fell.”

Kellie pumped her legs slowly at first as she got used to Charles’s push. “Mom was in the kitchen with the other moms. Me and Sophie were in the TV room with Miss Gracie and some of the other kids and nannies. Except Miss Bea wasn’t there. She was sewing one of her pretty things and Luke just came with his mom.”

Reenie giggled as Margaret Louise included an occasional tickle with her push. “Luke and me played blocks.”

“I know, I heard.” Tori climbed onto the empty swing between the girls and used her long legs to get herself moving. When she was at a similar swinging cadence with the children, she continued. “Jeremiah and Jordan Whitehall were there, right?”

“Yup.”

She smiled around the chains that separated her from Kellie. “And their nanny Miss Amanda, right?”

“Yup.”

“And Miss Stacy and the kids she takes care of?”

Reenie giggled louder. “She takes care of Ronald.”

“Were there any other kids there?”

“Maureen and Marcia were there in the beginning with their nanny, Miss Wendy, but they didn’t stay very long. Marcia had a tummy ache.” Kellie pumped her legs harder and harder until Charles finally stepped away and came around to the front of the swing set. “Anyone else?” he asked.

“Ra-Ra!” Reenie shouted.

Tori stopped moving her legs and rode out the built-up motion for as long as she could. “Are you wanting to be a cheerleader when you get older, Reenie?”

“Okay, everybody, watch this . . . I’m going to jump,” Kellie warned. And then, just like that, Kellie was on the ground, smiling triumphantly over her perfect landing.

Charles grabbed hold of the now vacant swing while Tori’s slowly drifted to a stop due to lack of leg power.

“Reenie doesn’t want to be a cheerleader. Ra-Ra is our aunt, Tara. Reenie couldn’t say her name very well when she was little so she just called her Ra-Ra. Now we all do it.”

“So your aunt Tara was there that night, too?”

“For a little while. Until Miss Cindy finally left.” Kellie wandered over to her sister and watched as the girl swung back and forth. “I’m glad she was there. Mommy would have been upset if she’d seen Miss Cindy.”

“Yeah,” Reenie agreed as she, too, stopped pumping her legs and drifted to a tickle-free stop in front of Margaret Louise. “I don’t think Mommy could whisper yell like Ra-Ra did.”

Tori stepped off the swing and squatted beside Reenie’s. “So wait a minute. It was your aunt Tara you heard yelling at Cindy when you were in the closet with Luke?”

“Uh huh. She scared me a little. Luke, too!” Reenie’s eyes widened just before they, too, turned to look at her friend as
he readied his paper creation for flight. “You’re not gonna tell Aunt Tara I was hiding in the closet with Luke, are you?”

“Would that upset her?”

“When Miss Cindy came into the TV room, Aunt Tara pulled her out and told us to watch TV.” Reenie toed at a rock on the ground by her left foot and then played with the hem of her shirt. “But the TV was boring.”

“I don’t know your aunt, Reenie, so there would be no reason for me to tell. Besides, I don’t think anyone would get upset with you for finding something quiet to play.” She followed the girls’ attention back to the jungle gym and then stole a peek at Charles and Margaret Louise over the top of Reenie’s head. At their collective nod, she sent the little girls on their way.

When they were out of earshot, she sank onto her backside and plucked a small twig from the ground. She twirled it to the right and then the left as she replayed everything she’d learned.

“So the yelling Luke and Reenie heard was just a family member telling Cynthia to leave. Sounds pretty innocuous when you know the facts, doesn’t it?”

Charles snapped two points of his imaginary triangle and then pulled out Tori’s list. “So the kid was a dead end. We still have two more stops to make before we call in Sweet Briar’s finest.”

“You haven’t met Chief Dallas, have you,” she mumbled as she reached out to Charles for help in standing.

*   *   *

Tori turned left out of the parking lot and headed east toward a side of Sweet Briar she rarely drove through, let alone visited. For several blocks she said nothing to
either of her companions, opting instead to focus on yet another set of questions she’d brewed in her head throughout the latter part of her work day—a set that was reserved for her once prime and only suspect.

“I bet it’s nice to let someone else do the driving once in a while, isn’t it, Margaret Louise?” Charles swiveled his upper body so as to be able to peer into the backseat of Tori’s compact. “You get to enjoy the sights of Sweet Briar better this way, huh?”

“I look at all sorts of sights while I’m drivin’. Don’t I, Victoria?” Margaret Louise scooted forward and rested her chin, puppy dog style, on the back of Charles’s seat. “Why, just last month, I read an entire billboard—includin’ the fine print—out on Route 100 on the way to the shoppin’ mall, isn’t that right, Victoria.”

“And you’re still alive?” Charles whispered to Tori.

“Of course she’s still alive, Charles. I’m a grandmother of eight youngin’s, I know how to multitask with the best of ’em.”

Tori winked at her friend in the rearview mirror and then turned her full-wattage smile on Charles. “She can read, sing, and drive sixty-five in a thirty-five like no one’s business.”

“Now, Victoria, don’t go tellin’ tales. I was driving sixty-three. Not sixty-five.”

Tori pulled her right hand from the steering wheel just long enough to gesture toward Charles. “I stand corrected. Margaret Louise can read, sing, and drive sixty-
three
in a thirty-five like no one’s business.”

“That’s better.” Margaret Louise tapped Tori’s shoulder as they turned left at the stop sign and proceeded toward Cynthia’s street. “And while you’re standin’ and
correctin’ anyway, I think it’s only right I point out the fact that you
do
know Reenie and Kellie’s aunt. Or if you don’t know her, you’re surely aware of who she is.”

She slowed at the next four-way stop and then accelerated a bit as she got out onto the open road. “I don’t know anyone named Tara. Not here, or in Chicago.”

“Okay, so you don’t
know
her know her. But you know
of
her.”

“I do?”

“Sure. She’s the one who gave all these girls their jobs in the first place.”

“What girls? What jobs?”

Margaret Louise rolled her eyes at Charles. “It’s like I told you. The most important thing we can do in this investigatin’ is be her eyes and ears.”

“Please, Margaret Louise, get to the point.”

“Tara owns the Nanny Go Round Agency that employs Cynthia, Amanda, Stacy, and anyone else who works—”

Tori swerved onto the gravelly shoulder and quickly corrected with a decrease in speed. But it was too late; Charles was already white-knuckling the passenger door.

“Are you sure?” she asked the woman in her rearview mirror.

“That’d be like me askin’ you if you’re sure ’bout who wrote a certain book. You’re a librarian, Victoria, you know books. I’m a gossip. Knowin’ who’s who is in my job description. If I don’t know who’s who, I might as well take down the fence in my backyard.”

“So wait a minute,” Charles mused as he tentatively released his hold on the door. “This Julie Brady fired a nanny who works for her sister and then totally dissed
her sister even more by going to a different agency to find a replacement?”

She nodded along with Charles’s recap but was saved from saying anything when he continued on.

“Sisters at each other’s throats? I’m calling family tension in the Brady household right now.”

“Tara isn’t Julie’s sister,” Margaret Louise shared. “She’s Jim’s sister.”

“Oooh, even better. Fighting between the in-laws is even more volatile.” Charles turned, draped his hand across Margaret Louise’s, and squeezed. “Tell me you saw last week’s episode of
Explosive Secrets
.”

Tori cleared her throat in an effort to nip the ensuing conversation in the bud, and when that didn’t work, she simply pulled over to the shoulder and stopped.

“Now that I have your attention, ladies and gentleman, we need to consider this latest wrinkle.”

Charles crinkled his nose. “I don’t like wrinkles.”

“Wrinkles are life’s road map, young man. They tell a story ’bout where you’ve been.”

“A story I don’t intend to tell with my face.” Charles turned back to Tori and waved for her to continue.

“Was Tara yelling at Cindy to leave because she knew the girl shouldn’t be there? Or was she yelling at her for being a lousy employee—hence the suggestion she go wash cars instead?”

“Seems to me there’s only one way to find them answers, Victoria.”

Charles’s front pocket began to ring, causing him to wiggle around in his seat until he was able to retrieve the device and check the Caller ID screen. “It’s Leona.”

“Ignore it,” Margaret Louise groused as she threw her body against her own seat back.

Tori rolled her eyes and then nodded at Charles to take the call. “You need to make sure she’s okay. She is, after all, home with Rachel.”

“After what she did to you last night, Victoria, I can’t believe you’re wastin’ one iota of your energy worryin’ ’bout my twin . . .”

She considered telling Margaret Louise that Rose now suspected Leona was right about Tori’s diamond, too, but she opted to stay silent as Charles took the call.

“Hi, Leona . . . Yes, gorgeous, I’m with Victoria . . .” He listened to whatever Leona was saying and then slid a sideways glance in Tori’s direction. “I don’t know, Leona . . . Is that really necessary right now? Don’t you think you should lay low for a little—”

Reaching across the center console, Tori plucked the phone from Charles’s hand and held it to her own ear. “I’m here, Leona. What’s up?”

“I didn’t say what I said last night to hurt you, dear. Please tell me you know that.”

She pulled back onto Route 25 and continued on their journey, the investigation into Miss Gracie’s fall a distraction she really didn’t want to see end just yet. Still, she hated to hear Leona hurting more than she already was. “I know that, Leona.”