Taken In (21 page)

They were sitting at a handful of tables when Susie walked in, her identity easy to pick out amid the near constant parade of customers on account of the rapt attention she gave the dining area as opposed to the cupcake display.

“I think that’s her,” Tori whispered, prompting Charles to rise to his feet and offer a friendly wave to the pencil-thin woman.

“Susie?”

Caroline Trotter’s daughter answered by pushing a strand of silky black hair from her face and picking her way between the eclectic assortment of tables to reach the one Charles shared with Tori. When she arrived, she extended her hand and the confirmation he sought. “Yes, I’m Susie. You must be Charles.”

“The one and the only as my good friend, Victoria, here will confirm.”

Susie nodded at Tori in greeting then got straight to the point of their meeting. “I appreciate you taking the time to get my mother’s scarf back to her . . .” Susie broke eye contact as she scanned the area in front of and around Charles. “You did bring it, didn’t you?”

He nodded then gestured toward the empty chair between him and Tori. “Why don’t you sit for a moment and I’ll dig it out of my bag. It’s been in there since Victoria and I first tried to bring it to your mom last week.”

Tori watched the woman’s face for any sort of reaction, but if there was anything to note, it was merely a flash of sadness. Reaching across the table, she rested a gentle hand atop Susie’s forearm. “We stopped by her apartment building a couple of times, actually, in the hope we’d finally catch her home, but no such luck. No one has seen her in days. I hope everything is okay?”

She hadn’t meant to be so direct as to ask after Susie’s mother so soon, but sometimes direct was best. Time would tell if she’d made the right call.

“The doorman
told
you my mother hadn’t been seen in days?”

“Yes.”

Susie smacked her fist down on the table, surprising Charles out of his intentionally protracted search for Caroline’s scarf. “You would think with the money my mother pays in fees and tips to live in that building, the staff would be more discreet.”

Charles’s mouth formed a little
o
just before he abandoned his search for the scarf in favor of the conversation taking place across the table. “He didn’t just
volunteer
that she was gone. I told him she was expecting the scarf but that I was late getting it to her. He simply said she wasn’t there. When subsequent stops yielded the same answer, I inquired more.”

The fight left Susie’s demeanor and she exhaled slowly. “That’s encouraging to hear, although I’m not as much of a fan of that crew as my mother appears to be.”

“Oh?” Tori prompted in an effort to keep the woman talking.

“My mother is a rather wealthy woman, as I’m sure you can guess from having seen her apartment building and its proximity to the park.” At their collective nod, the woman continued, her chin finding its way onto tented fingers. “It’s a world I’ve never been terribly comfortable living in on account of the insincere people it seems to attract.”

“Don’t you just want to
slap
those types?” Charles mused to no one in particular.

“I saw it in my classmates in my private schools and again in college. The people who were raised with money, like I was, took it all for granted. And the people who weren’t seemed to want to be my friend in the hopes I might send some leftovers in their direction. Funny thing is, I always wished I could.”

She felt Charles’s eyes dart in her direction and hoped Susie didn’t notice. Everything they were hearing sounded sincere, yet it flew in the face of everything Timothy had said and insinuated no more than twenty-four hours earlier.

“It’s why I dropped out of college, much to my mother’s dismay. I’d had enough of my pretentious classmates and I’d had more than enough of those people who loved to judge me for what I had rather than what I was. That’s why I like my web design business. Most of the time, people never see my face. We just communicate via e-mail where I can be the me I am, rather than the me people assume I must be.”

Tori couldn’t help but laugh, earning her an odd look from Charles in the process. Susie, on the other hand, looked mildly offended. She rushed to explain before Susie’s attention returned to the scarf Charles had yet to produce. “I’ve always found the written word to be a great way to express my true feelings, too . . . but last night, in a book I was reading, the author said e-mail is often a way for people to lie about themselves.”

“I guess for some it might be . . .” Susie’s words disappeared briefly only to rush back in on the wings of a memory. “Come to think of it, that author is probably right more than anyone realizes. Sadly, those falsehoods people put out into the universe about themselves can hurt far more people that just themselves. Like my mother, for instance.”

Tori sat up tall, her motion mirrored by Charles and the five bodies strategically placed at tables to their left and right. “Your mother?”

“I guess my mother was starting to see some of the positive things that came with my choices in life—the genuine friends who like me for me, the give and take I’ve established with them in the process, and the satisfaction I get from making things happen on my own. So unbeknownst to me, she decided to try it herself—to establish a relationship with someone who didn’t know her net worth.”

“And?” She silently cursed the eager tone to her voice and was grateful when Susie didn’t seem to notice.

“Sadly, she was led astray by someone she met online . . . someone who pretended to care about her. But it was just a trap to lure her in. Once they met and he discovered she had money, he knew all the right moves to get her to part with a little here and a little there. It was painful to have to point out to her what his true motivations so obviously were, especially when he’d done such a good job of convincing her he was a decent guy.”

“But she figured it out? With your help?” Tori asked.

Susie’s gaze lingered somewhere just over Tori’s head, the haziness to her eyes making it obvious she was picturing a different place, a different moment than the one housing her physical body. “It wasn’t easy. And at times, I felt as if I was the one breaking her heart rather than this guy . . . but eventually, she had to see it for what it was, whether she wanted to or not. It had simply become too obvious.”

Charles sucked in his breath. “I hope she gave him a big what-for!”

“Trotter women don’t handle trials like that, Charles. Me, I’m a karma girl. I believe the universe will always have the last say. My mother, on the other hand, reaches for her violin and plays music until she feels better. Or at least, that’s what she did before this creep made her doubt everything about the person underneath the wealth and privilege.”

“And after?” Tori prodded.

“She ran off to the Hamptons.” Susie dropped her hands to the table and shook her head sadly. “Alone.”

“Wait. You know where she is?” Charles asked, dumbfounded.

“As of thirty minutes ago, when the caretaker at my mother’s summer home called, yes.” Susie pushed back her chair and stood. “I guess if I’d stepped outside myself and thought of the situation from my mother’s perspective instead of my own, I’d have known where she went. But the thought that she’d actually mourn such a conniving creature was so far out of my realm of understanding that the Hampton house never entered my thoughts.”

Tori shot a questioning look at first Charles, and then each of her friends, the look of shock on their respective faces confirming what she thought she’d heard. “Did you say
mourn
?”

Susie nodded. “You have to understand my mother finally wised up to this man’s ways little more than a week ago, and it was with much reservation. Then, that night, as I was finishing up a client’s webpage, I clicked on a link for the local news and saw the initial story about his death. It was too late at that moment to call Mom, but I let her know what had happened first thing the next morning. In hindsight, I should have asked her what she was feeling instead of going on and on about karma. Maybe if I had, she wouldn’t have had to seek solace in an empty beach house instead of in the arms of her insensitive daughter.”

*   *   *

Tori was virtually certain she could have heard a pin drop the moment Susie walked out of CupKatery with Caroline’s scarf in one hand and two of their four suspects wiped from their list with a wave of the other.

“I suppose we should have put more stock in the fact that Caroline disappeared the morning
after
John’s fateful push,” Rose mused to no one in particular, earning herself a raised cup of coffee and a hearty “Amen” from Leona in return.

More silence followed before Margaret Louise took charge. “So we went sniffin’ in the wrong hole for a bit. It happens.”

“So what do we do now?” Beatrice said between glances at the cupcake case and the flavor of the day that had been vetoed by the group when they first arrived.

“We move on to the next person.” Charles pulled a sparkly purple cell phone from the pocket of his purple denim jacket and checked the time. “Who, according to my early morning phone call, should be arriving in about ten minutes.”

Leona pushed her now-empty coffee cup into the center of the table and rose to her feet. “And John’s neighbor?”

“In about twenty-five.” He returned his phone to his jacket then crumbled his napkin and tossed it into the empty cupcake box on the center of Beatrice and Debbie’s table. “I timed it that way to make sure Doug was really here when she arrived.”

Beatrice’s face brightened. “Can we get another round of cupcakes while we wait? I’m still rather peckish.”

“Good heavens, if I eat another treat, I’m going to explode.” Rose struggled to her feet then gestured toward the door. “I need to go for a walk. Who’s with me?”

Reluctantly, Beatrice followed suit, along with Debbie, Leona, and even Charles.

“Charles?” Tori asked. “Don’t you want to stay and see what happens with Doug?”

“I think Margaret Louise should get this one,” Charles said over top of Rose’s head. “You two have been at this Nancy Drew thing together for a while now. Maybe our luck will change if the correct duo is in place.”

She opened her mouth to protest but closed it when she felt Margaret Louise’s elbow in her side. “That’s what I like ’bout you, Charles. You don’t wear no blinders.”

“Thank you, Margaret Louise.” Charles nodded quickly at Tori then pushed open the door and waited for Beatrice, Leona, Debbie, and Rose to exit onto the street. “Good luck. Call me when you’ve nailed the sucker.”

A feeling of unease washed over Tori as her friends disappeared from view. She knew she needed to be strong, knew she needed to continue the fight, but suddenly the mountain that had seemed merely overwhelming for the past week appeared completely insurmountable at that very moment.

The elimination of Caroline and Susie Trotter from the list of suspects left them with just two. If Doug and Ms. Steely Eye fell off the list, too, they’d have to start from square one all over again.

“Margaret Louise,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

“I know that and you know that, but ain’t nobody else who needs to know that,” Margaret Louise replied as she settled into the chair vacated by Charles. “In fact, my daddy once said, if you’re outnumbered, it’s best to keep your mouth shut. Keeps ’em from tearin’ your butt up like a tater field that’s just been plowed.”

Tori managed to laugh through the fear, the sound and its momentary reprieve from stress proving to be exactly what she needed at that moment. Maybe they would have to start at square one come morning. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t.

Time would tell.

After
they talked to Doug . . .

Margaret Louise reached across the tabletop and squeezed Tori’s hand in much the way she had at similar moments in the past. It was a gesture Tori found immensely comforting, even as the words that accompanied it set her thoughts running. “You gonna be ready with your sleuthin’ questions when he walks through that door?”

“You bet I am.”

Tori was struggling with the order in which to ask her list of questions when Margaret Louise pulled a small black spiral notebook from her cavernous tote bag and smacked it down on the middle of the table.

“You don’t need to try ’n keep all those questions in your head, Victoria. That’s what notebooks are for.” Leona’s twin sister reached into her bag a second time for a pen and handed it to Tori. “I’ve been watchin’ them detective shows on TV for a long time, and I finally went out and found the kind of notebook they use for all their interrogatin’.”

“Did you get one of those swinging lights, too?”

Margaret Louise made a face. “Quit your teasin’ now, you hear? Writin’ things down isn’t always a bad idea. Keeps you from forgettin’ things when your grandbabies start yappin’ their jaws all at the same time.” At the mention of her son’s offspring, the woman’s wide shoulders pitched inward along with a heavy sigh. “I miss my grandbabies, Victoria. I miss ’em somethin’ fierce.”

Tori reached past the notebook and tapped the table in front of her friend. “I know you do, Margaret Louise. I miss seeing them, too. But that’s why we’re here, waiting to confront Doug.”

“You really think he did it?” Margaret Louise asked.

“I can’t be sure, but there’s an awful lot of things pointing in his direction.”

“Like?”

She took advantage of the question to take stock of what she knew thus far. “Well, first up, his mom was one of John’s victims. And unlike Caroline, who will get past the hurt and humiliation in due time, his mother is dead, and her final days far sadder than they should have been thanks to John.”

Margaret Louise nodded emphatically. “My Jake would be none too happy if someone treated me like that. Why, I reckon he’d be spittin’ mad.”

“Exactly.” Tori pulled the notebook and pen closer to her spot and flipped the cover open, her hand instinctively grabbing for the pen. “We’ve also got the possibility that Doug was outside John’s door the night before the murder, threatening him.”

“Which we’ll know for certain once his neighbor arrives . . .”

“Maybe.” She sketched a small door while continuing her verbal run-through of everything they knew so far. “But she only caught a glimpse of him through her peephole as he went running by. There’s no guarantee that quick blur will be enough for a positive identification. If it was even him at all . . .”

“Don’t know why he’d have lied ’bout that article in the paper you told us ’bout if he wasn’t guilty.” Margaret Louise dug another pen from her bag and used it to add a peephole to Tori’s door. When she was done, she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms just below her bosom. “I think we got ’im, Victoria. I think we got ’im good.”

Any and all caution she wanted to offer over getting too excited was thwarted by the swoosh of the kitchen door as it swung open behind the counter and the same dark, curly-haired man they’d been waiting to see finally stepped into the room.

“He’s here!” Margaret Louise whispered in her not-so-good-at-whispering voice.

She started to
shhh
away the warning, but it was too late—Doug’s head snapped in their direction, followed by a look of casual recognition and then a much-needed moment to recover thanks to the string of bells above the front door tasked with announcing customers.

“Did you see the way he looked at you, Victoria?” Margaret Louise gushed. “I think he recognized you. Either that or he’s taken by just how pretty you are.”

“I’m thinking he probably just recognized me,” she whispered back, only to pop up from her chair as his deliberate approach removed any conjecture that remained.

“I take it your return means CupKatery is a hit with at least one southerner?” Doug offered his hand and smiled broadly when it was accepted.

“Actually it’s a hit with two if you count my friend here.” Tori nudged her chin toward the still-seated Margaret Louise. “Six if you count the four who just left to take a walk.”

“Don’t forget Dixie,” Margaret Louise reminded. “Charles said she liked them cupcakes you brought her in jail the other day.”

Uh-oh.

Doug stepped back a half step, only to reclaim it just as quickly. “Did you say
Dixie
?”

Somewhere in the back of her head she knew there were probably a half-dozen or so ways she could play the question, but every one of them escaped her at that exact moment. Instead, she nodded while Margaret Louise filled in the blanks.

“Dixie Dunn. She’s our friend from Sweet Briar. She came here with the rest of us to be on
Taped with Melly and Kenneth
. Only she got herself arrested for pushin’ a man to his death.”

A storm cloud whipped across Doug’s face just before it erupted through his mouth. “John Dreyer was no man. He was a lying, cheating sack of—” He stopped mid-sentence, held his hands outward, and doubled his earlier step backward. “No, I won’t finish that sentence. Not in front of ladies anyway.”

“Your mama would be proud to hear that, just like any mama would be.” Margaret Louise settled her back against her chair and reached into her tote once again, this time retrieving a pocket-sized leatherbound album that Tori recognized immediately. “It’s not easy in this day and age to raise a boy into a man, but it can be done. My Jake is proof of that, too.”

With a flick of her plump wrist, Margaret Louise opened the album to the first page and the picture of her only child and the father of her eight grandchildren. “This is Jake.”

Doug made himself look, despite the tension that still had him clenching and unclenching his fists at his side.

“That’s your mama over there on the wall behind the register, ain’t it?”

Tori wanted nothing more than to place her hand over her friend’s mouth but knew such an effort would be futile. When Margaret Louise got on the subject of mothers, there was no derailing that train.

He didn’t need to follow the path of Margaret Louise’s finger. Instead, he just nodded, the angry set to his jaw relaxing ever so slightly.

“She looks like she was a mighty special person. Real happy.”

The tightness was back, accompanied by a noticeable darkening of his eyes. “She was until she met that lying, cheating sack of—” Again, he stopped, but this time with even more noticeable reluctance.

A series of clucking sounds emerged from between Margaret Louise’s lips. “He hurt her, didn’t he?”

“Worse. He made her doubt herself.”

Suddenly, all thoughts of forcibly shutting Margaret Louise’s mouth fell away as the reality of what was happening in front of her became crystal clear.

Doug was talking.

That was all that mattered.

“That’s not how she lived her life. She lived it with a smile and with hope. She was an optimist in the truest sense of the word. Yet because of him, that smile had been tested, that hope shaken.” He lowered himself onto a neighboring chair and stared up at the ceiling. “That had no business being a part of her final weeks on this earth. No business at all.”

“You’re right, it didn’t.” It was Tori’s first real contribution to the conversation at that point, but it was time. Somehow, someway, she had to start asking the questions that needed to be asked. “But I imagine knowing he got his in the end has to give you at least some measure of comfort, yes?”

“Heck yeah, it does.” He brought his gaze down to hers in time for her to see the smile now creeping its way across his mouth. “How could it not?”

“Well, when it’s your friend who’s being framed for his murder, there is no comfort to be had.”

“Framed?” he echoed, his expression unreadable.

“That’s what they call it when evidence of a crime is planted on your person even though you weren’t anywhere near the scene of the crime.”

He exhaled through pursed lips, shrugging as he did. “I imagine that could be a tactic to try and get your friend released.”

A familiar face appeared outside the window then made its way toward the front door, the woman’s arrival emboldening her in a way she’d yet to find until that moment. “Maybe a better tactic would be to find the real murderer instead.”

“Real murderer . . .” The echo died on his lips as he looked toward the door and the customer its bell announced. Instantly, the color drained from his face as John’s neighbor lifted her hand in a wave at Tori, only to drop it to her side as her gaze fell on Doug.

“It’s him, ain’t it?” Margaret Louise shouted across the shop. “He’s the one who went runnin’ by your door the night before John was pushed, ain’t he?”

Moving in an almost trancelike state, John’s neighbor crossed the narrow entry foyer in their direction, her mouth moving a full minute before any words actually emerged. “You were the one. The one I saw across the street that day. Does it still haunt you like it haunts me?”

Tori shot a sideways glance at Margaret Louise and saw the same confusion she now felt. “Across the street? I thought you saw him through your peephole as he went running by.”

John’s neighbor shook her head hard. “No. He wasn’t the one outside my door that night. That fella was tall. This man”—she pointed at Doug—“was across the street when I ran to my balcony to see what that awful noise was the next day. He was every bit as horrified as I was to see John’s shattered body lying on the street like that.”

“Horrified might be a stretch.” Doug used his right hand to crack the knuckles on his left hand, then switched to repeat the process on the other side. “Shocked was more like it. Especially when I realized it was that lying, cheating sack of . . . you know.”

She tried to make sense of what she was hearing, but it didn’t add up. Not entirely anyway. “I was here, in the shop, when you pretended to read about John’s murder in the paper. But the details you read aloud weren’t anywhere in that paper except Dixie’s name. Why would you do that if you weren’t trying to cover something up?”

He straightened his right hand then raked it through his hair as pinpricks of pink appeared on his cheeks. “I found my mother’s diary a few weeks ago and read the page where she talked about the hurt and humiliation she felt having fallen for that creep. At a loss for what to do, I ripped it out of that book and sent it to him with my return address clearly marked on the envelope.”

Doug’s eyes returned to the ceiling, albeit briefly. “I guess I actually thought he’d realize the error of his ways and apologize. Stupid, huh?”

When no one responded, he continued, his voice void of anything resembling emotion, except perhaps exhaustion. “So when I heard nothing, I decided to make him apologize . . . under extreme duress, if necessary. I’d been telling my staff for weeks that I was going to make him sorry for hurting my mom, but I hadn’t done a thing other than talk a good game. So I took advantage of a window of opportunity I had in between vendor meetings at the Connecticut store that day and I drove back down here with the sole purpose of roughing him up a little.”

Finally it made perfect sense.

John’s murder, coupled with the threats Doug himself had uttered aloud, would have had a number of fingers pointing in his direction if he could have been placed in or around the scene of the crime on the day in question. Especially when he’d told his employees he was out of state at the time.

Tori felt Margaret Louise’s eyes on her yet couldn’t make her head turn to meet them.

They were down to just one suspect and that suspect’s gender didn’t match the one on the other side of the neighbor’s peephole.