Invitation to Murder (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (25 page)

“
Okay,” I said, “so you
want to do this tongue in cheek. I get your humor, but will
Myrtle?”

“
Oh please, we’ve been
friends for ten years. How do you think we’ve lasted that
long?”

“
And you’re suggesting a
new line of these? Why not? Come up with five or six prototypes and
I’ll give you a corner.” I knew what it felt like to have my ideas
crushed by a family member, and I wasn’t about to stomp on
Lillian’s enthusiasm. We might even manage to sell a few. I wasn’t
cynical enough to write them, but Lillian wouldn’t have any problem
with that.

She looked delighted by my commission. “This
is going to be fun. Listen, lunch today is on me.”

“
You’re going to lose
money working here; you know that, don’t you?”

“
Money I’ve got plenty
of,” she said. “This is fun.”

“
Fine, I’m too tired to
argue about it,” I said. “Get whatever you’d like.”

She grabbed her purse and bolted out the
door, no doubt fleeing before I could change my mind. Twenty
minutes later Lillian was back. Blast it all, I knew I shouldn’t
have let her choose. She’d picked up two salads for us from
Sassy’s. It was Lillian’s idea of a feast, not mine.

“
I’ve been thinking about
something we need to discuss,” she said as she set them up on our
worktable at the window.

“
We’re eating here?” It
would feel like living in a zoo, eating my lunch in front of the
world.

“
Why not? We’re finished
with our orders, and there’s nothing pressing.”

“
Don’t remind me,” I said.
I couldn’t count on getting two orders for wedding invitations
every month, and the walk-in traffic was much less than I’d
hoped.

“
Don’t worry, dear. You’ll
succeed if it kills us both.”

“‘
Kill’ isn’t exactly a
word I’m fond of these days.”

Lillian said, “That’s what I want to talk to
you about.”

Chapter 18

“
I’m not in the mood for
one of your jokes, Lillian.” I looked at the salad, but I couldn’t
bring myself to try it. I enjoy a simple mixed green salad on
occasion, maybe with a few carrots and peppers thrown into the mix,
but there was something dripping off this one that I couldn’t
identify if my life depended on it. ‘“This is no joke,” Lillian
said after taking a bite of hers. Whatever it was didn’t kill her,
so I tried mine. It was a little salty, but I didn’t want any more
information than that, and there was no way on earth I was going to
ask her what I was eating. Lillian continued. “We’re going about
this all wrong.” That was enough. “Listen, I know you mean well,
but I’ve been planning this card shop in my mind for months, and I
think I’ve done a pretty good job. Maybe you should work here
longer than a week before you start remodeling.”

Instead of the scowl I’d been expecting,
Lillian started laughing. “Jennifer, I’m not talking about your
shop. I think you’ve done an admirable job.” “Then what are you
talking about?” “Our murder investigation,” she said, then took
another bite.

“
What else can we do?” I
asked. “We’ve talked to everyone we can think of, and nobody broke
down and confessed.”

“
This isn’t bad
television, dear; this is real. We need to make a list and quantify
our findings.”

“
What did you do, check a
book out from the library on crime solving?”

Lillian’s scowl came on full blast then.
“Don’t be nit. It doesn’t become you.” She took a bite, then said
“Herbert, my second husband, was a crime fiction man and he got me
hooked on the classics. A lot of famous literary detectives made
lists.”

I got up, grabbed a white marker board from
the back and handed her a pen. “Write away.”

If Lillian had any idea I’d just been
teasing her, she didn’t let on. She drew four columns on the board
and for the head of each one, she wrote “NAME, “MEANS,”
“OPPORTUNITY” and “MOTIVE.” Under the name heading, she wrote
“Donna,” “Beth, “Pam,” “Cam,” “Melinda,” “Anne” and “Larry.”

“
Have you lost your mind
completely?” I asked. “I know Larry’s a stretch, but he had an
earring too, and I’m certain that’s a telling clue.”

I shook my fork at her, getting into the
debate with d out meaning to. “Tina kept referring to a ‘she’ on
the phone with me. Larry couldn’t have done it.”

Lillian frowned, then erased his name with
the back of her hand. “I just hated seeing all those women names
without having a man there, too.”

“
Lillian, our reasoning
could be faulty. What if the murderer wasn’t tied into the wedding
at all?”

“
That I refuse to
believe,” my aunt said. “Tina was back in town to meet with Donna
about her wedding. We mustn’t forget that you found that earring in
the bathroom, one that Beth couldn’t find anywhere in town. No, it
has to be one of these women.”

“
And you think Melinda or
Anne Albright could have done it?”

Lillian frowned, then said, “Melinda seems
sweet but what if she didn’t want her son to marry Donna so badly
that she was willing to kill to stop it?”

“
Then why didn’t she just
murder the bride instead?”

“
And kill her own
grandchild in the process? No, if I were determined to stop this
wedding, killing Tina would be the perfect choice,” I pushed my
salad away, more interested in working n the list than eating. “If
that’s the motive, you can strike Anne Albright’s name off, then.
Nobody wants see those two get married more than that woman, and
that includes the bride and groom.”

Lillian started to erase her name, then
hesitated. “Let’s leave her up there for now, shall we?”

I shrugged. After all, it was her list.
“What about the others? Do you think any of them had motive?”

“
I admit, that’s the
difficult part. The weapon was in the house, so anyone could have
killed her with it. As to opportunity, none of them have to give us
alibis, do they? The only thing we can play with is
motive.”

I studied that part of the list again, then
said, “Beth has one. At least she might believe she does. Who’s the
one person that we know profited from Tina’s murder?”

It was Lillian’s turn to look shocked. “Are
we really willing to consider the possibility that she killed Tina
get her job as maid of honor? It’s a little extreme, wouldn’t you
say?”

“
You didn’t hear her in
the kitchen,” I said. “Beth made it sound like she and Tina had
been battling for years.”

Lillian circled Beth’s name. “So there’s our
killer.”

“
Not so fast,” I said. “We
still need to talk about the other three women.”

“
Do you think we can find
motives for them, too?”

“
Lillian, if we’re going
to do this right, we can’t just jump on the first likely
suspect.”

“
I suppose that’s true,”
she said as she removed the circle with her thumb. “How about the
others?”

“
That’s the problem. We
don’t know Cam and Pam well enough to guess their
motives.”

“
So let’s leave them for
now,” Lillian said. “Donna is the only one left on our
list.”

“
Again, I can’t think of a
motive for her.”

“
I didn’t say this method
was foolproof, but I would like to talk to Beth myself. Why don’t
we go get some lunch?”

I pointed to my half-eaten salad. “I thought
we already ate.”

“
Nonsense. I know how much
you love red meat. I’m going to treat you to a
hamburger.”

“
At Hurley’s, right? We’re
going to go talk to Beth again.”

“
If we happen to sit at
her table, we’ll naturally chat with her a little.”

There were a great many reasons I probably
should have said no, and shutting my card shop down again was just
one of them, but that salad had done little to satisfy my appetite,
and I did want to talk to Beth. “Let’s go.”

“
That’s the spirit,”
Lillian said as the front door opened. So much for our plans to
investigate the murder.

The man who walked in looked bewildered by
the array of cards up front. “May I help you?” I asked

“
I’m sorry, but could I
see a menu?”

“
Excuse me?”

He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not sure I want
eat here,” he said as he looked around. “But I saw you eating
salads in the window, and they looked good to me.”

I shot Lillian a dirty look, then directed
him Sassy’s. After he was gone, I said, “That’s the last time we
eat up front.”

Lillian shrugged off my stern language.
“Let’s go. You can berate me along the way.”

“
Hang on
one second.” I took the time to make a sign up that
said
closed for lunch, back soon.”
i
stuck it in the window; then we walked
to Hurley’s to interview one of our suspects, and get me a little
protein in the process.

Hurley’s had a nice crowd, so Jack frowned
when he saw us. “Back again so soon? Now’s not a good time.”

“
For lunch?” I asked as
innocently as I could.

“
Don’t be smart, Jennifer.
Would you two really like a table?”

Lillian said, “If we can have one in Beth
Anderson’s area.”

“
She doesn’t have time to
answer your questions, Ma’am,” Jack said.

Lillian didn’t reply; she merely kept
looking at him intently until he broke. “Fine, I’ll seat you in her
section, but you’re here for lunch, understand?”

“
Of course we do, dear
boy.” I didn’t know how Lillian managed it, but she could get her
way without saying a word more often than I could by using every
argument I could think of. I was beginning to realize that my aunt
could teach me a thing or two about dealing with people, if I just
paid attention.

Beth greeted us at our table without making
eye contact. “Welcome to Hurley’s,” she said automatically. “What
can I get you to drink?”

“
Hi, Beth,” I said,
putting as much warmth into my voice as I could. “We’d love a
couple of iced teas.”

“
Oh, hi, Jennifer,” she
said. “I’ll go grab them.”

While she was gone, Lillian said, “Dear, I
know this is your investigation, but would you mind terribly if I
interrogated her myself?”

“
Be my guest,” I said.
“But you know Jack’s going to get mad if we upset Beth.”

“
Trust me, my child,”
Lillian said as Beth returned with our drinks.

As she slid them in front of us, she. asked,
“Are you ready to order, or would you like a few minutes?”

“
What would you
recommend?” Lillian asked.

“
The soup’s good today.
It’s cream of broccoli. That’s what I had for lunch.”

“
Then I’m sure you’re
right. It sounds delicious.”

Beth nodded her agreement, looking pleased
with Lillian’s affirmation. “How about you?”

I was willing to appease our waitress, but
there was no way I was eating at Hurley’s and just getting soup.
“I’ll have a Jack Stack Burger,” I said, not even looking at the
menu. Jack had created his own hamburgers by throwing everything in
the kitchen on it, and being Jack, he had named it after
himself.

Beth nodded and left to place our orders
with the kitchen.

“
I thought you were going
to interrogate her,” I asked after I took a sip of sweet
tea.

“
In due time,” Lillian
said. We spent our time waiting chatting about some of Lillian’s
other card ideas. They were witty and dry, and some of them were
just a little mean. In other words, we would probably manage to
sell quite a few of them. I’d have to be careful how we displayed
them, and I certainly didn’t want Lillian’s humor to be on the
first cards to greet our customers. Maybe I’d tuck them into one of
the back corners and direct any folks with a wicked twinkle in
their eyes to them.

We were still chatting
when Beth returned with our food. Lillian again stroked her ego,
but Beth was gone before she’d asked a single question about her
alibi.

“
You’re not much of an
investigator, are you?”

“
I’m getting around to
it,” Lillian said as she tasted the soup. “She’s right, you know.
This is excellent.”

I looked at my burger with a smile. “I’m
sure this is, too.” I considered picking it up to eat it, but there
was no way I could manage it without walking out of there with half
the thing on my shirt. Taking the knife; I cut it into sections,
making it much easier to handle. Even if Lillian didn’t get a
single answer out of on waitress, it had been worth the trip.

Beth came by to check on us a little later,
and Lillian asked for the bill. As Beth handed it to her, Lillian
“You know, you look awfully familiar to me.”

“
I’ve been here forever.”
Beth said as she waited for the money.

“
No, this wasn’t where I
saw you. Let me think. I’ve got it. Last Tuesday night I saw you at
the video store arguing with the manager. You were complaining that
he was charging you for a late fee you didn’t deserve.”

“
No. it wasn’t me,” Beth
said.

“
My dear, I’m positive. I
thought you were fully justified in complaining. They’ve done the
same thing to me. What movie was it, by the way?”