Pinned for Murder (11 page)

Uh-oh.

“Gone the way of—” Rose stopped, slowly pushed her way up onto her elbow. “You thought I was dead?”

Jutting her chin upward, Leona crossed her arms. “We’d rather hoped.”

“Leona!”

“What? Did you hear what she said to me when she woke up?”

“What? What’d I miss?” Margaret Louise looked from her sister to Rose and back again before settling a questioning eye on Tori. “What’d she say?”

“She basically called your sister an old bat.” Tori waggled a finger in Leona’s direction. “Not that that’s an excuse for what
you
just said, Leona.”

Rose struggled to her feet, her slippers making soft sounds on the floor beside her bed. “Don’t mind Leona. She’s just jealous is all.”

“Jealous?” Leona sniffed.

“Are you deaf?” Rose hollered back. “Yes, jealous.”

“Why on earth would I be jealous of you, Old Woman?”

Rose stood and walked over to the window that overlooked her side yard. Lifting the curtain, she pointed outside. “Because you don’t have
him
.”

They crowded around the window, Leona’s sigh ricocheting its way around the room.

“I
could
have him.”

They looked at Leona.

“But he’s married,” she said with a wave. “And I don’t feel the need to encroach on someone else’s territory.” She pointed just beyond Doug, to the muscular man standing not more than ten feet away. “He, on the other hand, is a different story.”

Rose snorted. “Since when did you start plucking books off the children’s shelf, Leona?”

“Plucking? What are you—” Leona stopped, pulled her hand back, and used it as a fan against her reddening face. “He’s not
that
much younger.”

“And he’s not wearing a uniform either.” Rose spun around, hands on hips. “Isn’t that a prerequisite?”

Beatrice shook her head. “Apparently he is. Leona says his jeans and tool belt qualify.”

“As a
uniform
?” Rose asked, her thin white eyebrows inching upward.

“The uniform of a man who is proficient with his hands.” Leona stepped away from the pack surrounding the window and made her way over to the door. “I’ll catch up with the rest of you outside.”

“Makin’ your move, Twin?” Margaret Louise bellowed.

Leona made a face. “I don’t make
moves
, dear sister of mine. I
meet
—you know, say hello and welcome to Sweet Briar. Then I simply wait.”

“For?” Tori prompted.

“Moves, dear . . .
his
moves.”

If anyone had something to say, it went unspoken as they watched their poised-to-perfection friend head out the door in search of a temporary male companion. A male companion she’d no doubt land if her track record was any indication.

Margaret Louise broke the silence. “I think we came from different folks.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “You’re twins, aren’t you?”

Throwing her hands into the air, Margaret Louise shook her head. “Well
somethin’
went wrong. Somethin’ catastrophic.”

“Catastrophic?”

Leona’s twin nodded. “How else could you explain her?”

“How indeed.” Rose shuffled her way into the hall, her slippers making pitter-patter sounds on the floor. “So you thought I was dead?”

Tori followed, Beatrice and Margaret Louise in her wake. “I don’t know that we thought you—”

“We sure did. Figured he did you in, too.” Margaret Louise continued on despite Tori’s frantic hand-waving attempts to thwart further discussion of the subject. “Especially after Doug said he left here spittin’ mad.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed behind her bifocals. “The three of you thought
Kenny
had killed me?”

“I, uh . . .” Tori’s mouth clamped shut as Rose’s teeth clenched behind open lips.

“I, uh . . .” echoed Beatrice as she stepped behind a nodding Margaret Louise.

“Sure as shootin’ we did.”

Tori laid a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “It’s not that we came here thinking he hurt you. We didn’t. I just knew you’d planned to talk to him this morning and I was worried he might get angry.”

Rose turned her less than happy gaze on Tori. “And people can’t just get angry without murdering someone?”

“No. I mean, it’s just that—”

Margaret Louise muscled her way to the front of the group. “We don’t know what to think, Rose. We all like Kenny, we really do. But he has a history of a violent temper. You know that.”

“I knew you were going to talk to him today and I was afraid it would be a hard conversation for you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Tori pulled her hand from Rose’s shoulder and shifted from foot to foot. “Then, when we got here, Doug was out front. He said Kenny was furious when he left here. So furious in fact that Doug wasn’t comfortable engaging him in conversation. So we were worried.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked down at her hands, then back up at Rose. “If you believe in Kenny’s innocence, that’s good enough for me.”

For a long moment, the woman said nothing. She simply stood there, looking from Tori to Margaret Louise to Beatrice and back again, the fight in her eyes dissipating only to be replaced by something Tori couldn’t quite read.

Rose’s words filled in the blanks. “I want to. I thought I did. But now . . . I just don’t know anymore.”

Tori felt her mouth gape and closed it quickly. “You mean you’re questioning Kenny’s innocence now?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said sadly, her voice garbled.

“Why?” Margaret Louise asked as she leaned against the wall. “What’s changed?”

Taking a few steps, Rose lowered herself onto a kitchen chair, her pale white legs visible as the flaps of her housecoat parted. “I don’t know. Maybe
I
have.”

Tori, too, claimed a chair. “What do you mean, Rose?”

“I’ve heard that people grow suspicious of the world when they get old. Convinced that everyone is out to get them . . . to prey on their vulnerabilities.”

“You’re not like that!”

“Beatrice is right, Rose. You’re not like that. You’re very levelheaded.”

“I happen to find you rather ornery, but not in a paranoid kind of way,” Margaret Louise chimed in as she hoisted herself off the wall to claim the side of the counter instead.

Rose bent her arms at the elbows and rested them on the table, her chin finding the tops of her fingers. “But I’ve always believed in Kenny. I knew he could learn his alphabet even though it took him an entire year of near constant after-school tutoring to get it done. I knew he would make it all the way through school, provided each new set of teachers believed in him, too. When his folks died, I knew he could live on his own, that he could find a job that would fit his abilities. And he did.”

The rest of them remained silent as the elderly woman continued, her words alternating between raspy and broken. “And when Martha Jane accused him of stealing her money, I knew he hadn’t. Money doesn’t hold the same meaning for Kenny that it does for other people. He’s simple and innocent. Completely untainted by a materialistic world.”

“Sometimes people make bad choices,” Margaret Louise stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

Rose nodded gently against her fingers, her eyes—magnified by her bifocals—fixed on some faraway spot. “And, in some cases, I suppose that’s true. But not in this one.”

“Then what’s different about Martha Jane’s murder?” Tori asked as she reached out and smoothed a strand of hair behind Rose’s ear.

Forcing her gaze onto Tori, Rose shrugged, her bony shoulders rising beneath her ill-fitting housecoat. “The one thing Kenny struggled with, that I couldn’t fix, was his temper. He was suspended from school for starting fights with classmates, he lost his first job for screaming at a customer, and he’s been picked up by Chief Dallas on a number of occasions for breaking things.”

“But those were just fights.”

“Fights that happened in reaction to something,” Rose explained, her voice assuming the faraway quality her eyes had held just moments earlier. “Kids teasing him over a mistake he made, a customer complaining he’d packed her groceries poorly, neighbors who took issue with the way he painted his house . . .”

Margaret Louise nodded her assent.

“But they were fights. I knew a kid who picked fights all the time in school.” Tori looked from Rose to Margaret Louise and back again, their train of thought escaping her.

“They were always violent fits of rage on people who had wronged him in one way or the other.” Rose pulled her gaze from Tori’s face and planted it on a still nodding Margaret Louise. “Then Martha Jane wronged him. And now she’s
dead
.”

Chapter 9

When she needed a little space, music was the best medicine—preferably blasting from her car radio as she maneuvered narrow country roads. When she was scared or unhappy, Milo’s warm arms and soothing kiss made everything a million times better. When she was stressed about money or an unforeseen issue at work, sewing calmed her soul and brought clarity to her thoughts. But when it came to feeling thoroughly helpless, chocolate was her therapy of choice.

Fortunately for Tori, Debbie Calhoun’s bakery was less than a block from the library, its endless supply of decadent treats a sight for sleep-deprived eyes. Peeking into the glass case closest to the register, she scanned its contents closely—brownies, cupcakes, tarts, mousse cups, donuts, cookies . . .

“Good morning, Victoria. Emma told me you were here.” Debbie wiped her hands on her apron and leaned against the counter, her dirty blonde hair swept off her face in a French braid. “And while you haven’t been in Sweet Briar all that long, it’s been enough time to know that a prework visit from you means something’s wrong.”

Her head snapped up. “Am I really that transparent?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

She looked back at the case, her gaze lingering on a chocolate-dipped donut drizzled with caramel, and swallowed. Hard.

“You can deny it if you want to, but I’ll know you’re lying. You look as if you haven’t slept in days. Maybe even months.” Debbie reached in through the back of the case, extracted the object of Tori’s affection, and placed it on a doily-covered plate. “So what’s wrong? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Reaching for the plate Debbie held in her direction, Tori closed her eyes briefly, the aroma of warm chocolate wafting its way into her nose. “Mmmm. You just did.”

Debbie folded her arms across her flour-dusted chest. “While the business woman in me is happy with your answer, the friend side isn’t.”

She stared at the plate.

“Everything okay with you and Milo?”

The corners of her mouth tugged upward. “Milo is great.”

“Is there more damage at the library than you thought?”

“Nothing I didn’t know about on Monday.” Setting the plate on the counter, she pulled her backpack purse from her shoulder and unzipped the top compartment. “How much do I owe you for the donut . . . oh, and for a hot chocolate in a to-go cup, too?”

“Nothing,” Debbie said as she set about the task of making the hot beverage.

“Debbie, I can’t take this.”

The woman waved her off. “You’re not. I’m giving it.”

“Thank you,” she whispered as she took the cup and looked down at the plate. “And you’re right. There
is
something wrong.”

In an instant, Debbie was out from behind the counter, her hand taking hold of Tori’s upper arm and leading her to a table in the corner of the bakery. “Tell me.”

Exhaling a piece of hair from her forehead, she dropped onto a wire-backed chair and reached for her donut. “It’s Rose. I’m worried about her.”

Debbie paused, her hand on top of a chair. “Why? Is she sick?”

“No. Nothing like that.” Tori slumped her shoulders as she leaned back, the allure of the donut dissipating in record time. “It’s just this whole thing with her former student and Martha Jane’s murder. It’s affecting her deeply and I don’t know how to help her.”

“Affecting her how?”

She sat forward, her elbows resting on the table as her hands sought the warmth from her to-go cup. “I’m not sure, exactly. Near as I can figure it’s a horrible case of disappointment . . . maybe even denial. Either way, she’s spent nearly three decades championing this guy—helping him, nudging him, teaching him, and believing in him. In that time she’s celebrated his successes and taken him under her wing whenever a challenge came up. Now, all of a sudden, he’s a very real suspect in a murder. Try as she might to discount the possibility as hogwash—

Hogwash . . .

Debbie sat down. “Tori? You okay?”

Hogwash . . .

“Huh? What?” Pulling her focus from some distant place, she forced herself to get back on task, to explain Rose’s situation to someone she respected for the ability to be levelheaded. “Oh. Sorry. I guess I kind of zoned out there for a minute. Anyway, try as she might to discount the possibility that Kenny was involved in Martha Jane’s death, Rose is realizing there are a few facts that simply can’t be explained away.”

“Like what?” Debbie prompted.