Elizabeth Lynn Casey - Southern Sewing Circle 08 - Remnants of Murder (17 page)

Her new book club …

Feeling the weight of Georgina’s stare, she scrambled for a way to extricate herself from the quicksand beneath her feet. “Since my being here is really just to see whether there might be any interest, I’ll have to get back to you with details. If we have interest, I’ll proceed ahead with definitive plans. If there’s not, I’ll let it go. Sound good?”

“No.”

The single word, spoken clearly and succinctly, hovered in the air between them, sending a skitter of unease through Tori’s thoughts. “Do—do you have a better suggestion? Something you think will work better?” she whispered.

Georgina’s nod was followed by an invitation from the woman’s index finger to move closer. “It doesn’t matter how many rocks you turn over, Victoria. When all is said and done, the man is still dead. So let it go.
Now
.”

Chapter 16

The monthly meeting of the Sweet Briar Business
Association was like every other meeting Tori had ever been to, save, of course, for the lack of glazed eyes and the cake that showed up in the center of the table just as the formal portion of the meeting was drawing to a close.

“I ordered the cake from Debbie’s Bakery last night and she had it ready for me at six thirty this morning.” Carter positioned a stack of small plates next to the cake and topped them off with a handful of forks. “Debbie was sorry she couldn’t make it today but Colby has some sort of publicity event in Columbia and he wanted her to go along.”

Lana Morris flipped to the back of her leather-bound day planner and tapped a finger to the lined page. “According to my notes, we don’t have any birthdays in the group this month.”

Carter made a long cut down the cake, stopping when he reached the edge. “It’s not a birthday cake.”

“It’s a celebration cake,” Bruce Waters said by way of explanation. “And that’s why I want my piece to be a whole lot bigger than that one you just cut, Johnson.”

Pulling the top plate from the stack, Carter set two pieces on it and passed it to the hardware store owner. “Take two. You’ve earned it.”

Tori leaned to her left, bringing her mouth in line with Leona’s ear as she did. “What are they talking about?”

Leona’s shrug was cut short by a throaty laugh from the opposite side of the table. Sure enough, all eight of Bud Aikin’s teeth were on display inside a smile that stretched from one end of the bar owner’s face to the other. “If all goes well, we’ll be eatin’ one of them cakes at every meetin’ once the cash finally starts flowin’ through all our registers. Heck, maybe you can even buy you some gold plates, Carter.”

Shelby Jenkins paused, a bite of cake midway to her lips. “We’re all still assuming the son’s gonna do the right thing, yes?”

“Beau Montgomery is a lot less pigheaded than his old man.” Granville Adams waved off the cake Carter tried to pass in his direction, and focused, instead, on the faces of the business owners assembled around the table. “And with Clyde finally gone, I don’t really see any reason Beau would stick around in Sweet Briar. Why would he?”

Call her slow but the meaning behind the cake and the conversation finally hit home for Tori, their collective landing making it difficult to breathe let alone think. Leona was right. The men and women who made up Sweet Briar’s business district were happy about Clyde’s death. Ecstatic, even.

Swallowing against the lump reality served up inside her throat, Tori allowed her gaze to travel to the end of the table and the woman she’d silently vowed to avoid for the remainder of the meeting. For as much as she wanted to see Georgina abstaining from the cake and the party-like chatter responsible for Tori’s unease, she also needed to consider adding the mayor’s name to the list she and Dixie had drafted.

“I’ll admit, Victoria,” Leona whispered in her ear, “I like a party as much as the next gal, but not this way. This is … this is just—”

“Weird? Disturbing? Highly inappropriate?” she interjected via a mumble as she studied Georgina’s relaxed pose and quiet demeanor with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. “Trust me, Leona, I feel exactly the same way.”

“Don’t get me wrong, dear, I’d like to see people flocking to Sweet Briar just as much as anyone else seated at this table. More people mean more shoppers. More shoppers mean more money for all of us. More money—at least for me—means more opportunities to travel and to meet new and exciting people.”

“You mean,
men
.” Under other circumstances, Tori would have followed the reflexive barb with more extensive teasing, but considering the atmosphere around them, it felt wrong. Very, very wrong. “You know something, Leona? I didn’t know Clyde Montgomery. I never saw him, never knew his house and that view existed. But sitting here, in this room, I can’t help but ache a little for his son and for Clyde himself. I mean, he was a person, Leona. A person just like you and me and everyone else in this room. Yet
these
people are”—she stopped, swallowed, and continued on—“
celebrating
the fact that he’s dead.”

“Cake?”

An elbow jab to her side stole her focus from Georgina and placed it squarely on the meeting’s host. She looked from Carter to the cake and back again, her stomach roiling at the sight of the decadent treat. “Um, no, that’s okay … I think I’ll pass—”

“Hey … Granville.” Bud Aikin, owner of Bud’s Brew Shack, leaned back in his chair with a smug smile. “Any chance now that Betty ain’t havin’ to send all her pies off to work with you that maybe I can land one sometime? Especially if it’s got some pecans in it?”

Granville Adams lifted his cake fork into the air. “I have to tell you, Betty’s the first person I called after the news came in. Figured she’d be relieved to know I wouldn’t be pestering her for baked bribes anymore.”

“You sure you want Betty baking you a pie, Bud?” The smack of Bruce’s hand on Bud’s wide back echoed around the restaurant. “’Cause it seems to me you might want to stick around awhile and actually get to hold some of that money we’ve been waiting to see for so long.”

The councilman popped his last bite of cake into his mouth, glanced at his watch, and then rose to his feet. “Now, Bruce, you keep talking like that and I’ll have to consider assessing that doghouse your wife keeps sending you to every time you get home late from one of your fishing trips.”

“Eh, I don’t mean no harm, Granville, you know that.” Bruce tossed his napkin onto the table and pushed back his own chair. “I know Betty’s pies are the least of Bud’s problems.”

“Hardy, har, har.” Councilman Adams stopped beside Shelby Jenkins and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “If you find yourself craving sweets, Bud, Shelby has a lot more time on her hands these days now that she doesn’t have to spend her Fridays trying to satisfy that old codger’s sweet tooth.”

“At least he was a loyal customer,” Shelby drawled while batting her lashes at the handsome bookstore owner to her right.

“Trust me, Shelby, you’ll make a lot more on the folks your daddy is going to bring into this town in the course of three months than you would have in three years of hand dipping cherries for Montgomery.”

“Bruce is right,” Councilman Adams said as he lifted his hand into the air, signaling his impending departure. “Y’all take a few moments over the next few days to really enjoy this victory, you hear? It’s not every day your plans fall into place the way they did this past week.”

She tried to smile and be polite as the various members of the business association began to push back their chairs and head toward the door, but it was hard. Clyde Montgomery was dead. And while Tori had never really met Dixie’s Home Fare client, she couldn’t ignore the sudden connection she felt to the man who’d valued things like routine and tradition.

Maybe he truly didn’t need all the land he had. Maybe a resort on Fawn Lake really would help the residents and business owners of Sweet Briar. But the fact was, it was Clyde’s land. He’d grown up in that same house, looking out at that lake each day of his life just as his father and his father before him had done. Some people had no problem turning their back on that kind of tradition in the interest of cold hard cash. Clyde Montgomery just hadn’t been one of them.

Unfortunately, his preference for tradition stood in the way of cash for just about everyone else, or so it seemed.

“I’ll be honest, Victoria, I thought this whole thing with Dixie was merely a way for her to get attention. But now I’m not so sure.” Reaching down, Leona retrieved Paris from beneath the table and tucked the garden-variety bunny into the crook of her arm. “In fact, the way I see it, figuring out who
didn’t
kill Clyde might be every bit as hard as figuring out who
did
.”

She wished she could argue, but she couldn’t. Leona was right. Virtually every single person around the table that morning stood to benefit from the elderly landowner’s demise. The question was how far they went—either singularly or as a group—to achieve that end.

Slowly, she rose to her feet beside Leona and headed toward the door, her thoughts whirling with everything she’d seen and heard since walking into the diner some sixty minutes earlier. She’d come hoping to get a better look at some of the suspects on her list. She was leaving knowing that every name on that list not only belonged there but also demanded far more of her time and energy than any breakfast meeting could ever afford.

Chapter 17

Tori was just setting the pitcher of sweet tea on the
dining room table when she heard the first knock. A quick check of her watch as she made her way to the door confirmed what she already knew—it was seven o’clock, the official start time for the weekly Sweet Briar Ladies Association Sewing Circle meeting. And with the official start time came the arrival of the Queen of Punctuality …

“Dixie, hi! Welcome.” She stepped back to allow the woman access to her cottage, sweeping her hand toward the living room as she did. “Somehow, I managed to get everything wrapped up at work in time to get home and actually straighten up a little.”

Dixie took two steps inside, pressed her covered dessert dish into Tori’s free hand, and hoisted her sewing tote farther onto her shoulder. “So? How’d it go? Did you figure out who did it?”

“Are you talking about the business owners’ meeting?” she asked as she made her way around Dixie to add the latest dessert to the display of brownies she’d already set out. “Because it was okay, I guess. No one person jumped out at me in terms of Clyde.”

Dixie’s shoulders sank. “No one?”

“No, I mean there were lots of people who gave me pause.” She gestured Dixie toward the various chairs she’d grouped around the room yet remained standing herself in anticipation of the next knock. “But most of the time I was just sad.”

“Oh?” Dixie settled into the rocking chair to the left of the couch. “Did something happen?”

She shrugged, her words whisking her thoughts back to the breakfast meeting that had left her more than a little unsettled throughout the workday. “It was like they were happy a man had died. Like all that mattered was the fact that a hotel can now be built on his land … assuming, of course, his son doesn’t feel as strongly about heritage as Clyde obviously did.”

“Young people don’t care about tradition anymore,” Dixie groused before pulling her sewing bag onto her lap and retrieving a piece of rectangular fabric from its depths. “I’m going to propose a new project for the group this evening. Something that’ll make—”

“Hello? Anyone here?” Margaret Louise herded her mother through the door then followed closely in the ninety-something’s steps. “I brought a pie, and Mama brought some chocolate chip cookies.”

Tori closed the gap between the living room and the new arrivals with several easy strides, planting a kiss on each woman’s forehead before securing the covered plates from their hands. “Annabelle, it is so good to see you. I was hoping you’d be here with all of us tonight.”

Annabelle grinned in response, the clarity in her eyes no doubt responsible for the lighthearted twinkle in Margaret Louise’s.