Pinned for Murder (7 page)

“He’s . . . hurt. And understandably so in my opinion. He was there to help. But instead, he ended up down at the police station trying to explain away something he didn’t do.” Rose’s voice lowered to a near whisper. “He’s convinced it’s because he’s dumb.”

Tori felt her throat tighten. “He thinks he’s dumb?”

“Of course he does. It’s how he’s been treated since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

“Do you really think that’s why Martha Jane accused him so readily?”

“She wouldn’t be the first,” Rose mumbled as she preceded Tori down the hallway toward the back of her tiny cottage. “Even when he was in school, kids would blame him when things went missing from their book bags.”

“But why?” Tori asked, her feet slowing as they reached the door separating them from the subject of their conversation.

“Because he was different. He moved different, spoke different, acted different. And
different
in our world means
wrong
.” Rose grabbed hold of the doorknob, then stopped. “That’s something you know firsthand, isn’t it, Victoria.”

And she did. When she moved to Sweet Briar she was different. She spoke differently, dressed differently, and acted differently in a town where everyone spoke, acted, and dressed the same.

Like Kenny, she had been the unknown in a sea of known and, hence, a perfect murder suspect when the town’s former sweetheart turned up dead shortly after Tori’s arrival.

She got it. She really did. And it made her heart ache for the mentally challenged man scooping up sticks on Rose’s patio.

The mentally challenged
colored
man . . .

Shifting the tray to the opposite hand, Tori covered Rose’s hand with her own. “Nina said something the other day that got to me. And after what just happened I have to wonder if maybe she’s right.”

“She thinks his color is the issue?” Rose waved a dismissive hand in the air then reached, again, for the door. “Martha Jane is racist, of that I have no doubt. But her racism isn’t confined to the color of someone’s skin. It’s anything that makes a person different. Kenny just happens to have two strikes against him in her eyes.”

A gust of warm air whooshed into the house as Rose opened the door, the sun’s rays playing across the stone patio. “Look who’s here, Kenny.”

The thirtysomething man looked up, one hand clasped around a piece of rope while the other held tight to an unruly bundle of sticks.

Extending her free hand outward, Tori smiled. “Hi, Kenny. I’m Rose’s friend, Victoria. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

A shy smile tugged at the man’s thin lips, sending his dark bushy eyebrows upward. “You’re the book lady, aren’t you?”

She set the tray down on Rose’s picnic table. “I work at the library in town, yes. Do you like to read, Kenny?”

His smile disappeared. “I used to. When Ms. Winters was my teacher.”

Rose reached out, rested a reassuring hand on Kenny’s broad shoulders. “He’s a good reader, he just lacks confidence. But we’ll find it one of these days, won’t we?”

Kenny kicked at a stick on the ground, his cheeks drooping as a piece of stonework lifted with his toe. “Ms. Winters, I’m s-sorry.” Dropping to a squat, the man set the stone back in place, his hand shaking as he worked. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine, Kenny.”

Sensing the sadness in Rose’s guest, Tori gestured toward the table and the tray of dinner plates. “I brought lunch with me, Kenny. Enough for you and me and some of the workers. Would you like some?”

The man looked up, a hint of surprise evident in his eyes as he looked from Rose to Tori and back again.

“Of course he’d like some.” Rose’s voice, clear and firm, cut through the melody of chain saws and hammering in the distance. “Kenny has been keeping me company all morning and I’m sure he’s worked up quite an appetite. Talking to old people can do that, I reckon.”

Jumping to his feet, Kenny took hold of Rose’s hand. “Ms. Winters t-takes g-good care of m-me.”

Tori lifted a plate from the tray and handed it to Kenny. “From what I hear, you take good care of Ms. Winters, too.”

A flush rose up in Kenny’s cheeks as he reached for the food, Tori’s words bringing a momentary smile to his face. “I try t-to. She be-believes in me. Even when—when . . . nobody else d-does.” And like that, his smile was gone, his sweetly shy demeanor replaced by something resembling controlled rage. “Mizz Barker said I r-robbered her m-money. She c-called the police and . . . and t-told them I was b-bad. Very, very b-bad.”

“Any food left? Or did you eat it already?” Doug strode around the corner of Rose’s house, Curtis in tow. Flashing a smile that rivaled the light from the sun, Doug wagged a finger in Tori’s direction. “You can’t get a guy all excited about fried chicken and then eat it before he gets back.”

“I couldn’t eat all of that chicken if I tried,” Tori said, her laugh temporarily stilling the tension that had descended over the patio like a smog-ridden cloud. Scooping up Doug’s plate with her left hand and Curtis’s plate with her right, she handed the food to the men.

Doug’s gaze slid slowly down her body before returning to meet hers. She felt her cheeks flush as his lips spread outward in yet another face-lighting smile. “I suspect you’re right. There’s not a lot of room in that little body of yours to fit that kind of food. Us, on the other hand”—he smacked his empty hand against Curtis’s chest—“could eat that entire bucket if we tried, couldn’t we?”

Curtis simply nodded, his mouth already busy on a chicken leg.

“There’s a place to sit right over there if you’d like.” Rose lifted a shaky hand in the direction of a wood-stained bench positioned halfway between her home and Martha Jane’s, its proximity to the patio an indication she wanted a little breathing room. “Feel free to come back for seconds if you want.”

Nodding, Curtis turned in the direction of the bench, his long legs making short work of the divide as he feasted on yet another piece of chicken. Doug followed the drifter with his eyes before setting off in the same direction, dimples carving holes in his cheeks as he looked over his shoulder at Tori and Rose. “Thanks for the chicken, ladies. It was right kind of you.”

“You’re welcome.” Rose waited until Doug reached the bench before lowering herself to the patio’s lone rocking chair. Hunching forward ever so slightly, the elderly woman resurrected their earlier conversation at the exact place it had been abandoned. “I don’t want you worrying about what Martha Jane said. It’s over now, Kenny. You hear me? It’s over.”

Tori’s gaze swept across Rose’s former student, an angry set to the man’s jaw taking her by surprise.

“She told them I was b-bad,” Kenny repeated, his words echoing across the lawn. “All I did was try to help. But she still told them I was b-bad . . . very, very b-bad.”

“Kenny, it’s over,” Rose said, her voice patient yet firm. “Over.”

“All I d-did was try to help.” Dropping his head in line with his shoulders, Kenny stared down at his plate, his hands fisting into tight balls. “And her m-money was r-right there, r-right in her sock drawer like it was s’posed to be.”

“Martha Jane made a mistake, Kenny.
I
know that.
Rose
knows that. And now, even
Martha Jane
knows that.” Eager to soothe the worry from Rose’s brow, Tori searched her arsenal of words for something, anything, that would soothe Kenny’s agitation. “She probably feels just awful about her mistake. In fact, I’m betting she’s probably sitting inside right now trying to figure out the best way to say she’s sorry.”

“Sorry?” Rose snorted. “That woman wouldn’t say sorry if her life depended—”

Kenny’s fist flew upward only to come crashing back to the table. “Mizz Barker won’t s-say s-sorry to s-someone like m-me. I’m t-too d-dumb.”

“I will not listen to that kind of talk, young man. I didn’t listen to it when you were five and I won’t listen to it now.” Rose struggled to her feet, her voice doing little to disguise the anger she felt. “Victoria, I’m going inside for a spell. You stay out here and talk with Kenny for a bit, will you?”

She considered arguing but knew better than to go that route. Rose Winters was a sweet woman, her bristly personality nothing more than an outer covering for a soft interior. But if there was a time the claws stayed, it was when a demand was deliberately ignored. The key was differentiating between a Rose-issued demand and a true question.

The part about staying with Kenny was most definitely not a true question.

“I’d be happy to,” she said as she, too, stood and planted a kiss on the woman’s forehead. “I’ll be in to check on you before I head back to work.”

“No need. Just talk some sense into him before you leave,” Rose mumbled as she shuffled her way up the steps and into her house.

When she was gone, Tori turned her attention to the man still sitting at the table, a man with hands still fisted and shoulders still tense. “Martha Jane’s mistake doesn’t reflect on your intelligence in any way, Kenny. Please know that.”

“Don’t m-matter w-what I know . . . or w-what Mizz Winters knows. Everyone else treats me like I’m d-dumb. I’m used to that. Mizz Barker tried t-to m-make them think I w-was a c-crook, too.”

Reclaiming her spot at the picnic table, she reached out and touched his forearm with a reassuring hand, the coldness of his flesh making her draw back in surprise. “But you’re not a crook, Kenny. That’s all that matters.”

“She d-don’t know what it’s l-like to have p-people s-staring at you all the t-time. She don’t know w-what it’s like to have p-people sp-spit at you and m-make f-fun of you. But you w-wait . . .” Fisting his hands still tighter, Kenny continued on, his wooden rant drowning out Tori’s reassurances. “You w-wait . . . you j-just w-wait and see.”

A sharp chill shot down Tori’s spine. “Wait and see what, Kenny?”

“You w-wait and see,” Kenny repeated. “She m-might not s-say s-sorry to s-someone d-dumb like m-me . . . but—but someone d-dumb like m-me can—can m-make her sorry.
R-Real
sorry.”

Chapter 5

She ran her left hand across the pale pink Polarfleece in her lap, the baby soft material warm and cozy beneath her skin. From the moment Tori had decided on hats and scarves as her contribution to the women’s shelter in Chicago, she’d known it would be a labor of love.

On its own, a single hat and scarf set was the kind of project that could be started and completed in a matter of an hour or two. But when you multiplied that set by sixty as she intended, the time involved ballooned significantly.

She’d known that. Had embraced it, even . . .

Until tropical storm Roger blew his way into Sweet Briar, mandating more hours at the library, thinning out her sewing troops, and leaving a general feeling of malaise in his wake.

“If you don’t mind, Roger, I think I’ll pass on the thank-you note,” she mumbled as she grabbed her fabric scissors and began to cut, the blade gliding easily through the fleece. Turn by turn she maneuvered around the fabric, securing the 16 by 22 inch rectangular piece that would be the foundation for her second hat.

Dropping the scissors onto the sofa, she reached for the heart-shaped pincushion that had been her first sewing project as a child. One by one she removed pins from the red satin, depositing them, instead, into the pink fleece, temporarily adhering the two shorter sides together in preparation for the sewing phase.

Once the pins were set, she scooted forward on the sofa and unlatched the wooden sewing box she’d set on the coffee table. Spools of thread in varying shades and colors covered the bottom of the box, the perfect pink calling to her from its spot in the right corner.

Pulling the chosen thread from the box, Tori settled back against the seat cushions, her hands itching to sew for the first time all week. But like all good things in life, it came with a hurdle to cross—this one coming in the form of a knock at her front door.

She considered ignoring it, pretending the music in her ears had drowned out the sound. But that would be a double lie. Which would make the guilt twice as strong. . . .

Groaning outwardly, she shifted the strip of fleece to the coffee table and rose to her feet, a second knock propelling her steps forward. Somehow, someway, she’d get the hats and scarves done, even if it meant a week of sleepless nights.

“Good evenin’, Victoria, look who I found on the porch.” Margaret Louise stepped into the glow cast by the hallway light, her head tilting in the direction of a taller, leaner, younger shadow. “Apparently I’m not the only one lookin’ to spend a little time with you.”

Bobbing her head to the left, Tori felt the corners of her lips spread outward as Milo Wentworth stepped from the shadows of her front porch, a bouquet of fresh yellow daisies in his hand. “Hi there, Tori.”

“Hi.” It was amazing how shy she could still feel in the teacher’s presence, the excitement of their relationship still alive and well between them. There were times she actually pinched herself to make sure she was awake. Sure, she’d read romance novels with the perfect hero—the guy who held doors and lost himself in his companion’s eyes, the guy who loved hour-long conversations and moon-lit walks, the guy who knew how to make a woman feel special—but after the fiasco with Jeff she’d assumed that kind of stuff simply existed on the library’s fiction shelf.