Pinned for Murder (22 page)

“Partly. But even more than that, I see it as a sign of our solid foundation no matter what.” Rose took the floss from Tori’s outstretched hand and replaced it with white and yellow. “Do you remember what these are for?”

She stared at the two separate bundles in her hand, her mind coming up blank. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“The white will be used for a picket fence and the yellow will be—”

“The sunlight!” She looked from the bundles to Rose and back again. “To symbolize warmth and friendliness.”

“Or gossip.”

“Gossip?”

Rose nodded as she reclaimed the bundles and added them to the lineup beside her chair. “When I see a white picket fence, I think of old busybodies hanging over them, spreading the kind of gossip that destroys people’s lives and reputations.”

“It’s not really that bad,” she said, remembering her own starring role as the town’s topic of gossip after Tiffany Ann Gilbert was found dead. “Eventually they get it right.”

“But not before making people feel bad about themselves. They”—her pale and wrinkled face grew crimson—“I mean,
I
, did it with Colby and Debbie, and now everyone is at it again . . . this time about Kenny. Then again, he’s been picked apart over fences since he was no bigger than my knee.”

“Why?” she asked, her interest aroused still further.

“He didn’t perform like the other children at academic fairs and school events. People couldn’t grasp the fact that he was handicapped in a way that didn’t require a cane or something outwardly obvious.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes it is. It’s even sadder knowing that he’s already been tried and convicted over every dinner table and picket fence in all of Sweet Briar before he’s stepped one foot in front of a judge.”

She leaned back in her chair, hooking her knee onto the seat cushion. “You said something once about Kenny . . . how he didn’t grasp the concept of money. Can you tell me more about that?”

“I suppose.” The woman paused her hand over the section of fabric she’d captured in a large embroidery hoop and sighed. “I noticed it when he was in my class as a kindergarten student. We were working on counting—which he did fairly well with. He tended to be okay when it came to reciting something by memory, almost as if the repetitiveness was able to seep into his head and hold on for dear life. Anyway, round about springtime, I introduced money . . . pennies, dimes, and nickels.”

Tori nodded to indicate she was listening, her mind commanding everything her friend said to memory for further scrutiny at a later date.

“But somehow he couldn’t transfer what he’d memorized about numbers to the coins. He simply couldn’t understand that the penny was the same as one, the nickel the same as five, the dime the same as ten. And then, when I tried to show the increased value in relation to an object of greater worth . . . he completely shut down.”

“Did he ever get it? Maybe as he got older and moved on through the grades?”

“No. Never. I tried taking him to the market with me one summer. Showed him a piece of candy next to a large roast beef. Asked him which was more important. He said the roast beef even though he was looking at the candy. But that was really no different than most kids that age. . . . Who wants a roast beef when they can have a swallow of sugar?”

Tori laughed. “I can relate.”

Rose lifted her head slightly so she could see Tori best. “No wonder I can barely see you when you turn sideways.”

“Is that why?” she joked. “Because Leona says I need a boob job.”

The woman snorted in disgust. “Sounds like Leona. Why there are times I would love to—”

Tori waved her hand in the air in an effort to cut the conversation off in favor of the previous one. Besides, when Rose got on a Leona kick, it wasn’t pretty. “Tell me more about Kenny and the money. Did you pay him for odd jobs around your house?”

“I tried to, but I knew it meant nothing to him. So instead of giving him the money directly, and risking the chance he’d toss it in the trash along with a candy wrapper, I started sending it to places where he might need money. I’d send thirty dollars over to Leeson’s Market along with a list of items he needed. When he showed up, they’d simply hand him the things I’d requested. And he was happy with that.”

For a moment Tori said nothing, her mind churning over everything Rose had said while her eyes followed every motion the woman made with her needle, the edge of the first brick taking shape inside the hoop. Finally a thought emerged. “So, if you’d told him to go down and buy himself some things to eat . . . and then handed him, say, a twenty dollar bill and told him to keep it under that . . . he couldn’t do it?”

“No. He simply has no concept of money and/or the value of an item. If he pulled it off, it would be sheer luck.”

Tori gripped the edge of her armrest, her subconscious feelings pushing their way to the foreground with undeniable force. “Then I don’t believe the chatter over the picket fence. Because it doesn’t add up.”

Rose looked up, a brief flash of hope firing through her tired eyes. “You don’t?”

She shook her head.

“Why?”

“Because Martha Jane’s money was missing . . . for real, after she was murdered.”

“Go on . . .” the woman said, her voice raspy with emotion.

“Well . . .” She stopped as ideas she hadn’t realized she’d even been entertaining started pounding on the inside of her brain, waiting to be released. “For starters, why was he so angry this last time?”

“Because Martha Jane called him a criminal. She accused him of stealing.”

“And he hadn’t. We know that because I was standing there when she pulled open the drawer and saw her cash exactly where she’d left it.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Can you imagine being so paranoid about your money you stuff it in a sock drawer and then forget when you switch the drawer out with another?”

“No, I can’t.” But that was beside the point. She continued, her mouth putting words to her thought process. “So then he was mad that she’d falsely accused him. Fine. We know that. We even know he was angry enough he wanted to make her pay.”

“We do?”

Uh-oh.

She averted her eyes from her friend’s for a moment as she tried to come up with something she could say that would lessen the impact of Kenny’s words. In the end, though, she simply relayed the comment word for word. Rose’s face drained of all color.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I? You were already hurting enough.”

Releasing the needle onto the fabric, Rose leaned back in her chair, her eyes staring straight ahead. Tori rushed to continue, to put Kenny’s damning statement where it belonged.

“But what everyone is missing, is this . . . even if he killed Martha Jane—which I don’t believe is the case—he wouldn’t have stolen the money. And I say that for two reasons. First, money meant nothing to him, so why on earth would he take it?”

“And two?”

“And two, he was angry because she accused him of something he didn’t do, right?”

Rose nodded. “He may have been deficient in a lot of things, but that boy—that man, now—knew when people made fun of him or spoke ill of him and it hurt him deeply. He wanted to show them they were wrong.”

The words confirmed what was on the tip of her tongue. “Then stealing the money for real made no sense. All it would have done was prove her right and him wrong.”

The flash of hope she’d seen for the briefest of moments ignited in Rose’s eyes as the woman pushed the fabric off her lap and sat forward in her chair. “It would have proved her right and him wrong! That’s it!”

Tori held up her hands, palms out. “But it’s not enough. Not yet.”

“He can’t stay there, in that cell, it’s killing him.”

Reaching over, she patted her friend’s hand. “I know that. And it’s why I haven’t been able to ignore this nagging feeling that he didn’t do it.”

“Then what do we do? How do we get enough proof to make everyone see he didn’t do this?”

How indeed.

“Well, I think I—”

“
We
, Victoria,
we
. I want in on this, too.”

She considered protesting, her protective side wanting to call out all the reasons Rose needed to stay out of it—her poor health, her high emotion, her age . . . In the end, though, she simply encouraged her in the one area she could excel more than anyone else. “You are . . . by keeping Kenny’s spirits up. Visit him. Tell him that there are people who believe in his innocence.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Well, I think there’s one fact we can’t ignore. Proving Kenny’s innocence is going to be mighty hard when he can’t do much to help us. Add that to the fact that there are a lot of arrows pointing in his direction for this murder and, well, I think I need to go at this from a completely different angle.”

Rose’s brow arched.

“I need to do exactly what I did when every finger in the town was pointing at me for something I didn’t do, either.”

The woman’s eyes dulled momentarily. “Not
every
finger, Victoria.”

She squeezed Rose’s hand. “You’re right. Not every finger. And that alone backs up what you need to do. He needs to know there are fingers that aren’t pointing in his direction. It will carry him through the rough spots just like it did for me.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what
you’re
planning on doing.”

“Instead of trying to prove Kenny
didn’t
kill Martha Jane, I’m going to focus on someone else entirely.”

“Who’s that?” Rose asked.

“The person who
did
.”

Chapter 20

There were times she simply didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. It was the people pleaser in her that reared its head every time someone asked her to help—whether it was leading a tour, talking to a group of librarians for the state, adding an extra story-time session for a local scout troop, or making sixty-plus homemade scarves and hats over a two-week time period. Regardless of the request, she always said yes.

One might think she’d get a clue, as nearly every phone call that came into the library these days resulted in adding yet another red circle to her already overcrowded desk calendar . . . but no.

She just kept on adding circles.

Only this time, she wasn’t sure if a red circle was truly appropriate. Trying to catch a killer seemed as if it should call for more. . . .

Dark purple, maybe?

“Miss Sinclair?”

Dropping her red pen onto her desk, she mustered a smile at her assistant, a woman she treasured more and more with each passing day. “Hey, Nina, what’s going on?”

“The man from the insurance company is here.”

“He is?” She looked down at her calendar, saw the faint circle that had been overpowered by a larger one for yet another daily to-do. “I remembered this the other day . . . I even told Milo about it.”

Nina cocked her head to the side, a sympathetic look lighting her dark eyes. “Should I send him in or do you need a minute first?”

“Where is he?”

“At the information desk.”

She pushed her chair back and stood, then rounded the corner of her desk to join Nina in the doorway. “I’ll see him there. If I can reduce the small talk and go straight to the reason he’s here, maybe I can move on to the next thing before it’s time to call it a night.”

“Sounds like a good idea. Duwayne is big on not wasting time he doesn’t have to waste.” Nina trailed behind as they headed toward the main room, the hushed voices of their patrons bringing a smile to Tori’s lips.

It didn’t matter how chaotic her days were, or how overwhelmed her life was on any given day. The moment she stepped foot in her library, everything suddenly seemed not only doable but surmountable as well.

Entering the main room, she made a beeline for the dark-haired gentleman beside the information desk, his displeasure at the delay evident in everything from the tightening of his hand on the handle of his briefcase to the way he glanced at his watch again and again. “Mr. Fielding? I’m Victoria Sinclair, head librarian.”

The man nodded and shook her hand, his grip limp at best.

“I know we’re both busy people so I figured we’d get straight to the damage if that’s okay.”

His shoulders perked upward. “That sounds good. Real good. Lead the way.”

Mindful to keep her voice as low as possible, she led the way around the room, pointing out the water line from the storm. “Essentially the bottom row, around the entire room, was affected by the water, though by the time I got in here, it was beginning to recede.”

“You sure got everything cleaned up quickly.”

“I didn’t see any point in keeping any storm reminders around longer than absolutely necessary. Now, as you can see, that bottom shelf has been cleared of all damaged books.”

“You didn’t throw them away, did you?”

“No. They’re in a series of boxes elsewhere in the building.”

“What about the rug?”

“We got it up, turned a few power fans on it, and it bounced back fairly well.”

“I see that.” He scribbled something in a notepad. “If I determine the rug is salvageable—and I must say, it appears as if it is, thanks, no doubt, to your quick action—I will recommend a thorough and professional cleaning to remove any potential odor.”