Invitation to Murder (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (27 page)

“
Donna, could I ask you
something?”

“
Anything,” she said,
admiring the dress in the sunlight.

All of a sudden I didn’t know how to ask her
for an alibi. She looked so pleased holding that dress up, as if it
were her ultimate good-luck charm. So I chickened out. “How long
did it take to have it altered?”

“
Let’s see. Angela worked
on the fitting all Tuesday afternoon. It took her four hours to get
it just right, and I have the pinpricks on my chest to prove it.
She had to make sure it was perfect.”

“
When did you get
started?” I held my breath as I waited for her answer.

“
She closed early, a
little before three o’clock. I remember how hungry I was when we
finished.” Donna added softly, “I’m watching what I eat before the
ceremony. I want to look good for Larry.”

“
I think you look great
just the way you are,” I said, suddenly deflated. If Donna was
getting the dress altered when she said she was, that knocked
another suspect off my list. “Your mother must have been so proud
to see you wearing her dress.”

Donna frowned for an instant. “She would
have been if she were here with me.”

“
She didn’t come with you
for the fitting?” Donna shrugged. “She had to interview caterers.
It’s unbelievable how much work goes into a wedding. I’m just glad
I’m only getting married once.”

I wasn’t about to dispute that claim while
the woman was holding her own wedding dress. There was a toot of a
car horn behind us and I saw Larry blocking traffic. “Let’s go,
Donna,” he said impatiently.

I wouldn’t have minded a few words with him
alone, but I didn’t see how I could talk to him without Donna
hovering nearby, and that wouldn’t be a good time to ask him if
he’d gotten another girl pregnant lately. If she was perturbed by
his abrupt summons, she didn’t show it. “Thanks, Jennifer. It was
good seeing you.” Before I could reply, she said to Larry, “Now
don’t look at my dress. It’s bad luck for you to it.”

“
The superstition is that
I can’t see you wearing on our wedding day,” he said.

“
Well, I still don’t want
to take any chances,” she said.

Since Mrs. Albright couldn’t back up her
daughter’s story, I decided to go inside and talk to Angela.

“
May I help you?” she
asked.

“
I was just in here with
Donna Albright. She’s thrilled with the beautiful job you did on
her wedding dress.”

Angela beamed. “It took forever, but I
finally got it just right.”

“
Donna said it took most
of Wednesday afternoon,” I said.

“
No, it was on Tuesday. My
kids threw a fit because dinner was so late. I told them if they
were hungry, they should fix it themselves without waiting for me!
Do you have kids?”

“
No, Ma’am, I
don’t.”

“
I love them, but they
drive me nuts sometimes.”

A man came in with four suits thrown over
his arm. “How long will these take?”

She glanced at me, then said to him, “Let’s
see what you’ve got.”

I left the dry cleaner’s with my proof. I’d
purposely named the wrong day, and Angela had corrected it on the
spot. So it looked like Donna had an airtight alibi after all.

I drove back to Custom
Card Creations, but there were no parking spots nearby. That’s when
I remembered the barbeque festival in the square at the other end
of Oakmont near Sara Lynn’s shop. I finally found a place to tuck
the Gremlin into, then I walked to my card shop. Lillian was gone,
the lights were off, and the sign was flipped to
closed
. I thought about
grabbing a bite and going home, but I was too restless to do that.
Sara Lynn was having dinner with her husband; Bailey had been so
lonesome for his wife that he’d even offered to take her out to
eat, so I was on my own.

I walked down the avenue to the nearest
vendor, bought a sandwich and a Coke, then returned to my shop.
After I ate what was some pretty decent pork barbeque, I got
Lillian’s whiteboard out and ran a red line through Donna’s name.
That left Melinda, Anne, Pam and Cam. I still couldn’t believe the
sisters had anything to do with the murder, unless one of them was
pregnant, too. If that was the case, I was sure Larry would have
been the murder victim and not Tina. That just left the two
mothers. Melinda seemed to accept the upcoming nuptials, trying to
put a good spin on them, but Anne Albright had been driven from the
beginning. I thought about her first visit to the shop, and the
phone call I’d gotten. Did the timing work out? It would have meant
that Mrs. Albright had killed Tina soon after leaving my shop.
Maybe she’d run into her outside on the street, gotten her into the
car on some pretext, then murdered her daughter’s competition.
There were a lot of ifs involved, and I didn’t have a shred of
evidence I could take to my brother.

But maybe I could set a trap that would give
me something other than conjecture that I could take to Bradford. I
wished Gail were in town. It always helped talking things out with
my best friend, and the habit I had saved me from doing some
colossally stupid things over the years. But I didn’t have her
there to be my sounding board, so I was just going to have to go
ahead with my plans. If my suspicions turned out to be correct, it
was going to end up being the worst “ wedding party in the history
of Rebel Forge, and that was saying something.

I was still considering the best way to trap
Anne Albright when there was a tap on the glass by my table. It was
the woman herself! What could I do? I considered ignoring her
summons and calling Bradford, but what could I say to him? Even if
he believed me, I’d look pretty foolish if it turned out I was
wrong. It would have been nice to have Lillian in the shop as my
backup, but that wasn’t happening, either.

The keys tapped on the glass again. I was
going to have to do something; that was certain. Then I remembered
the festival outside. It was dark out there, but at least there
were people milling about, and that had to be safer than being
alone in my shop with the woman if she was indeed a murderer.

I held one finger up to her, then shut the
lights of and walked outside.

“
Jennifer, I was hoping we
could talk inside,” she said.

“
Sorry, but I’m really
late.”

“
This won’t take a
moment,” she said. “It really is quite important.”

“
You can tell me as we
walk to my car,” I said, searching for a familiar face somewhere
around I could call over to join us. All I saw were tourists,
though. Unfortunately, I was parked on the other end of the avenue,
away from the direction the crowds was heading. Should I go there
anyway and forget about my car for now? Yes, that was my best hope.
If Bradford wasn’t there himself, at least one of his deputies
would be, and at that point, I’d even take Wayne.

Mrs. Albright caught my arm before I could
get two steps away from my door.

“
Your car is that way,”
she said, pointing toward my Gremlin and away from the
crowd.

“
What makes you think
that?”

“
I’m parked right in front
of you. There are entirely too many people walking around
tonight.”

Not enough for me. I had no choice now.
Taking a deep breath, I started walking quickly toward my car, with
Anne Albright right on my heels.

Chapter 20

“
Would you slow down,
Jennifer? I can’t talk to you at this pace.”

That was my plan. “Sorry, but I’m meeting
someone for dinner. It’s my brother. He’s the sheriff, you know.”
Okay, it wasn’t the smoothest lie I’d ever told in my life, or even
in the past couple of days, but it was the best I could do on the
fly.

“
He won’t mind. This is
important.”

Finally, I was at my car. I had my key in my
hand ready to jump in, when Mrs. Albright stepped in front of me
and cut off my access. “You’ll talk to me right now,” she said with
a growl.

“
What do you want?” I
asked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

“
I want to know why you’ve
continually refused ignore my warnings,” Mrs. Albright said as she
brought a long kitchen knife out from under her coat.

“
Are you insane?” I
screeched at her.

“
Don’t say that to me! I
wouldn’t allow the doctors to say it, and I certainly won’t stand
for it coming from you. You had to keep digging, didn’t
you?”

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about,” I said as I saw a movement in the bushes nearby.
Was Wayne still stalking me? If he was, I didn’t know that I would
have a problem with it at the moment. I had to keep Mrs. Albright
talking until he could make his move.

“
Don’t toy with me. What I
want to know is, who else have you told?” She hesitated, then
added, “I think I know one person.”

“
You answer some of my
questions. Then I’ll answer yours,” I said, fighting for
time.

“
Please, I already know
what you’re going to ask. I knew you’d finally gotten it when you
asked my daughter for my alibi. You were so transparent. Did you
honestly think she wouldn’t tell me about your little
conversation?”

“
I was asking her about
her alibi,” I said. What was Wayne waiting for, a handwritten
invitation?

Mrs. Albright laughed. “You honestly think
my sweet child could do anything so vile?”

“
If she’s so sweet, why
are you letting her marry Larry? You know what he did, don’t
you?”

I saw the knife tighten in her hand from the
glow of the street lamp. “He made a mistake. That tramp Tina
seduced him in a moment of weakness. She was demanding that Larry
marry her instead of Donna, can you imagine that? At least he had
the good sense to come to me with it. There was no way I was going
to stand by and watch Tina Mast wreck everything. I needed to take
action, and I did what had to be done to preserve the sanctity of
the wedding. Larry was going to meet her at the abandoned house to
discuss it, only I showed up instead. Now that Tina’s out of the
way, I believe Larry’s going to work out just I fine.”

“
And you trust him to stay
quiet about all this?”

She shook her head. “Jennifer, you don’t
understand. We’re going to be family soon, and I explained to him
carefully how a family protects one another.” Mrs. Albright paused,
then added almost wistfully, “It’s a shame you’re going to miss the
ceremony. It’s going to be a lovely wedding.”

“
Even if it means your
daughter is marrying a man who is unfaithful? Is that really what
you want for her?”

Mrs. Albright said, “He was just sowing his
last few wild oats. As soon as he’s married, I know he’ll come
around. Larry comes from fine stock.”

That was more than I could say for Donna. I
was about ready to shout at Wayne to do something when the person
lurking in the bushes shifted his weight. It was only for an
instant, but I caught his face clearly. It wasn’t Wayne in the
bushes after all.

It was Frank, the homeless man I’d run into
earlier. It looked as though if I was going to be rescued, I was
going to have to do it myself.

“
So the earring I found at
the house was yours,” I said, trying to figure out how I was going
to battle that knife with just my purse and a lunatic.

“
Honestly, for what they
cost me, the backs should have held better than they did. I knew
you’d found it the second you walked out of that house.”

“
I was in disguise,” I
said. “How did you know it was me?”

“
Please, you can play
dress up all you want; you couldn’t hide that loping gait of yours
if you tried. Your walk gave you away. Now enough of this talk. I
can’t trust you to keep this to yourself, and I’m not about to let
you ruin everything I’ve so carefully planned.”

“
I won’t tell anyone. I
promise.”

Mrs. Albright didn’t believe it any more
than I did. There was only one more thing I could do “Frank,” I
called out, “She’s holding a knife on me. Are you going to let
somebody threaten your wife like that?”

Mrs. Albright said, “How stupid do you think
I am? That’s insulting.” She started to raise the knife over her
head, and I prayed my idea would work. Frank came out of the bushes
moving so fast I couldn’t believe his speed, but I still didn’t
think he could get to her in time. I thought about trying to dodge
out of her reach, but Mrs. Albright had me thoroughly pinned
against my car. The blade was six inches front my chest when Mrs.
Albright was jerked violently to one side. I heard the snap of her
wrist as Frank broke it, and then all she did was sob. He stood and
stroked my hair. “Are you all right, honey?”

“
I’m going to be,” I said
as I collapsed against him.

Then a floodlight hit me full in the face.
“Step away from her or I’ll shoot!”

“
Bradford, stop!” I
shouted. “You don’t understand. He just saved me.” My brother took
in the scene, glancing at Mrs. Alright, who was still on the
ground, moaning and cradling her ruined wrist in her other hand.
“He attacked her. I saw it.”

My brother’s gun didn’t waver. I did the
only thing I could do. I stepped between Frank and that revolver
and said, “If you’re going to shoot him, you have to kill me first.
Anne Albright is the one you want.”