Advance Notice (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

I flipped the store sign to open and unlocked
the door. Five days after the glass shattering in my hand, I was able to remove
the bandages and have more of my mobility. With it being Thursday, and the day
for the quilters to come in and inspect their new room, I didn’t want a glaring
reminder of my gun ordeal. I’d rather have my questions catch them by surprise.

Bruce pulled his squad car in front of the
coffee shop across the street, and I glanced at the clock. I should have left
the house early enough to stop before coming to work. Where was Mom? The moment
she showed, I would dash across the street for my morning java and maybe glean
some information out of our overworked officer of the law.

There she was! Before she could enter, I
dashed out. “Be back in a few.” I raced across the street and barged into the
coffee shop where I ran smack into Bruce’s back.

He bent over at the waist, flailed his
arms, and lost the battle with gravity. He hit the floor, taking a chair down
with him.

“I’m so sorry.” I rubbed my smashed nose
with one hand and offered him the other.

“You’re a menace.” He grabbed my hand.

Out of my concern for him, I’d offered
him my healing one. I yelped and released my hold, sending him back to the floor
on his rear. “Sorry. Bad hand.” I offered my other one.

“You wiped your nose with that one.” He
pushed to his feet.

“No, I didn’t. I rubbed it.” My eyes
still smarted from the bump to the nose and the crush of my hand.

“I don’t need your help, Marsha.” He
marched to the counter, keeping his gaze straight ahead.

Thankfully, few of the tables in the
joint were filled, but there were enough to have witnessed our interaction.
Chuckles bounced from table to table. Oh, well, I was used to embarrassing
myself, but if the redness on the back of Bruce’s neck was any indication, he
wasn’t.

I sidled up next to him and leaned
against the counter while he ordered. “Any news on the case?”

“What case?”

I lowered my voice. “The one where we’re
trying to keep Dottie safe.”

“You know I can’t share information with
you.”

“But I’m part of this investigation!”

He narrowed his eyes. “How so?”

“Someone shot at me and threatened me.”

“And you listened to them really well.”
He forked over the money for his cup of coffee. “I have someone patrolling in
front of your house and Dottie’s. That’s all I can do without a suspect. Try to
stay out of trouble. Duane really should put a leash on you.” With a nod toward
the barista, Bruce left the shop.

Whatever. I ordered my coffee and headed
back to the shop just as the first of the quilters were arriving.

I greeted them all with a grin, a couple
of them looking at me like I’d lost my mind, and tried to figure out exactly
how I could grill them for information. I could tell from Mom’s serious look
that she concentrated on the same thing.

After Lindsey’s reluctance to venture
into anything remotely dangerous, which made me happy as her mother, Mom and I
decided to cut the team down to two, with the occasional unwanted help from our
men. Unless I was hurt or scared, then I definitely wanted Duane.

I pushed off from where I leaned against
the door jamb and went to fetch the pitcher of iced tea. Still having no idea
how to subtly ask questions, I filled another tray with finger sandwiches and
homemade lemon squares. Maybe I could knock them off guard with treats.

Desserts served, I grabbed a doily I was
crocheting and pulled up a chair. If I had to be in the room, I might as well
get some work done.

Dottie glared at me. “The store owner
isn’t invited to join in, only to make sure our needs are met.”

Witch. I almost wanted to blow her up
myself.

“That’s rude,” Betty Larson, the leader,
said. “Anyone is invited to pull up a chair.” She gave me a smile. “I think
Dottie must be off her fiber this morning, bless her heart.”

I chuckled. No one can cut a person down
more sweetly than an old southern woman.

“That’s good.” Mom started pouring tea.
“We built this nice room for you ladies, and I would’ve hated going all Chuck
Norris on you.”

“You couldn’t karate chop a baby bird if
it was stuck in a trap.” Dottie tossed some quilt squares on the table.

“We could step outside and I’ll show
you,” Mom sputtered.

“Children.” I took the pitcher away from
Mom before she spilt something and ruined someone’s quilt. “Let’s work on our
sewing and try to get along.” Really. How old were these women, anyway? I felt
like I was supervising a bunch of elementary students on the playground.

“So…anyone heard anything more about
whether or not Nina’s death was an accident?” I scanned the room, studying each
woman’s reaction.

Dottie rolled her eyes, Betty’s mouth
fell open and the other women, three in all, looked at each other with wide
eyes. Three sisters, I didn’t know the Bates women very well, just that they
lived together, dressed the same, and were all born within ten to twelve months
of each other. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to cozy up to them. They probably didn’t
miss much that went on in River Valley.

“Where are the other two women in the
circle?” Weren’t there two more last week?

“Well, Nancy is taking care of her
grandson, Timmy,” Betty explained. “He’s the school’s mascot. Seems he got into
a bit of trouble. Started a fire behind the nursing home and is now on house
arrest. How she can care for him, I’ll never know. The boy is a bad seed.

“Why,” she set her sewing in her lap. “I
heard him tell her the other day that old people should be forced into nursing
homes and put to sleep. Imagine.” She shook her head. “Now, I realize he’s most
likely just upset about his consequences, but still…that statement was uncalled
for.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean that,” Mom said.
“Teenagers say lots of things they don’t mean.”

“Well, they found all kinds of chemistry
sets and stuff in his room. I say he killed Nina and Mae.” Betty jabbed her
needle through her quilt.

My fingers itched for my notebook.
Hopefully, between me and Mom, we’d remember everything the ladies said during
their time together.

“That’s ridiculous!” Dottie shook her
head. “Everyone knows Stacy Tate is trying to get out of this town. She’ll do
anything for a big story.” She waved a lemon square, dusting everyone with
powdered sugar. “A teen boy wouldn’t know how to rig a house to explode. Use
your heads.”

“You can find out anything on the
internet.” Betty took a sharp breath through her nose.

Okay, so far we had the snake mascot as a
new suspect. No one seemed inclined to mention Frank and how the paper was
failing. I tied off my thread and grabbed another color for the border. Since I
now worked for the paper, I didn’t think it ethical to mention him as a
suspect.

“Sisters?” Addie Bates, the oldest of the
three, glanced to one side then the other. “What do y’all think? Who in this
town is capable of murdering old ladies? It’s obvious Marsha needs our help.”

Not exactly.
Especially since
moments ago, I’d wondered whether one of them could be a killer. I met Mom’s
glance, and shrugged. Might as well play along.

“It’s true that we don’t miss much,”
April, the youngest stated.

“Folks tend to overlook us,” Alice, the
middle one, added. “That’s what comes of being respectful and minding our own
business.”

“Are you saying we should stay out of
it?” Addie’s eyes widened.

“Not at all. It sounds like great fun.”
Alice smiled and folded her hands on the table. “In the Agatha Christie
mysteries, it’s always the least likely suspect. Who do we suspect the least?”

I giggled. “My mother.”

“That is not funny.” Mom grabbed a
cookie. “I am not a murderer.”

“Says some,” Dottie added. “You’re at the
top of my list.”

“Who would benefit the most from Nina and
Mae’s death, then from stating Dottie is next?” Why couldn’t Mom and Dottie
stay on track?

“Dottie’s next?” The three sisters all
clutched their throats. “When?”

“We’re down to two weeks now.” I stared
at Mom and warned her with my glare to keep her mouth shut. “But Dottie isn’t
taking the warning seriously.”

“Why not?” The sisters leaned forward to
get a better look at our next victim.

“Because it’s silly, that’s why.” Dottie
crossed her arms. “Putting someone’s name in the paper thirty days before they
die?
Creative, but a waste of time, in my opinion.
Why
not just shoot the person in the head and get it over with? Besides, worrying
won’t make it less threatening. Only God knows my time.”

“Blowing up someone’s house while they’re
in it is less personal,” April stated. “That way, the
perp
doesn’t have to see his victim when they die. They keep themselves removed from
the equation.”

The ladies impressed me. Obviously, they
gleaned a lot from mystery books.

“What we need to look for is motive,” she
continued. “People don’t kill other people willy-nilly. Even gang initiations
are for a reason.”

Mom spewed her tea all over Dottie’s
quilt squares.

Dottie growled and pulled them closer to
her. “If I’d wanted them antique looking, I would’ve soaked them in tea
myself!”

“Sorry.” Mom grabbed a rag and dabbed at
the spill.

Maybe I wouldn’t invite those two to the
next sleuthing meeting, although their feud kept things interesting. I grinned.
In addition to making a bit of money for the store, had the quilting circle
also become an opportunity to solve a mystery? Had my gumshoe group gone from
two to seven?

“Oh!” Dottie pointed a finger in the air.
“There’s that man who flipped me the bird at the diner the other day. I bet
he’s the killer. He had shifty eyes.”

“Had you ever seen him before?” Betty
asked. “Because, it’s hard to believe a complete stranger from out of town
would kill not one but two of our women.”

“Maybe not, but he did yell out that
elderly drivers should be euthanized. Maybe he’s related to the school’s
mascot.”

We all stared at Dottie like she’d
sprouted horns. If I’d learned anything from the last mystery, it was that the
culprit was usually someone we knew, which took us back to a motive. I could
tell from the look on the Bates sisters’ faces, that they were thinking
something similar. Or maybe they were off in their only Bates world. No telling
really.

Sighing, I put my doily back in the
basket beside me and stood. There had to be paper and a pencil somewhere. If I
had a willing group of people ready to help me, I wanted to take notes.

Finally. I grabbed a small spiral
notebook from under the counter and the pencil stub next to it just as the bell
over the front door jingled. I looked up to see Stacy, Darla, and Amber barge
in, all three trying to crowd through the door at the same time.

While the picture was humorous, the three
spelled trouble. I glanced over my shoulder at the work room. Why hadn’t we
insisted Leroy build a door? I was as sure as the sky was blue that all the
women back there were straining their ears to hear who’d come in.

“Where is my son?” Darla demanded.

“Well, I don’t know, maybe—”

Stacy planted her hands flat on the
counter. “Don’t tell this witch anything! She’s out to hurt my sister.”

Hmmm. “Amber’s your sister?” I glanced from
the meticulously made up Stacy to the Goth Amber. Never would have guessed that
one.

Chapter Fifteen

“You’re sister is a wanton girl who seduced my
boy.” Darla’s face reddened. She poked Stacy’s chest with her forefinger so
sharp, I almost feared she’d pop the silicone inside.

“It takes two to tango, missy.” Stacy put
her arm around Amber.

I glanced over my shoulder. Yep, the
quilting ladies all stared around the corner, not trying in the least to be
subtle. “Would you three like to take this somewhere private?”

“Nothing’s going to be private for long.”
A drop of spittle hung on Darla’s bottom lip. “Everyone in town will know
within two months.”

Oh. Danny was going to be a daddy. Well,
goodness. “It isn’t the end of the world, Darla. Young people jump into things
all the time.”

She spun on me like a cat after a
catnip-filled toy. “What would you know? You aren’t alone to raise that
daughter of yours. You have your mother. It’s been just me and Danny since the
day he was born. My mother was nothing but a drug user and died alone in her
apartment. No one discovered her body for a week. A week! So, keep your
opinions to yourself.”

How horrible. Darla might be a prickly
woman with the personality of a skunk, but my heart felt for her. I understood
a bit more why she never seemed happy at her job at the newspaper. She probably
never felt happy ever.

“I’m sorry to tell you, but Danny isn’t
here. If he’s working with Leroy today, they’re probably over at the house
working on a new porch.” I plastered what I hoped was a sympathetic smile on my
face. “Looks like he’ll need the money more than ever now.”

“Don’t simper at me.” Darla spun on her
heel. “We’ll have nothing to do with the brat.”

Amber burst into tears and buried her
face into Stacy’s blown up chest. My smile faded as fast as a falling rock. It
was hard to be sympathetic to a woman who oozed discontent, no matter how hard
a person tried.

“Come on, Amber.” Stacy guided her sister
toward the door. “I’ll take care of you. We don’t need them.”

“But Danny loves me. He said he did. It’s
that evil woman who’s behind this.” Amber raised her head. Mascara and black
eyeliner ran down her cheeks in dark rivers.

“And Danny is too spineless to stand up
to his mother. We all know that.” Stacy ushered her outside.

Well, it had been an interesting morning
so far, and I couldn’t write any of it in the gossip column for tomorrow’s
edition. I grinned. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to mention Darla would be a
grandmother. Maybe making it public knowledge would force her to take some
measure of responsibility or force her no-good son to man up. I could also be
opening a huge can of worms, considering Darla knows I write the column.

###

The next morning, having dug up a few
more tidbits while eating at Wanda’s Diner the night before, I slid the folder
across the conference table to Frank. I also managed to sell a couple of ads at
the last minute, by practically
begging friends of Mom’s
who owned their own businesses. Because of this, Frank sat grinning like a
fool.

Which was almost as scary looking as his
scowl. Instead of his eyes disappearing under a hanging brow, they now
disappeared behind wrinkled cheeks covered by a big-toothed grin that reminded
me a bit of a shark.

He tapped the folder on the table and
glanced at Stacy. “Well, what have you got? Any good stories?”

“No, sir.” Stacy slumped in her chair.
“Family problems interfered.”

Frank’s grin turned to a frown. “That’s
unacceptable. With the problems this paper is having, we can’t afford to have
sloppy work. I want a newsworthy story in my email before midnight tonight so
we can squeak it into this weekend’s edition.”

“What do you want me to write about?”

He slammed his fist on the table. “I
don’t know! You’re the reporter. Must I go out and drum up stories myself! I
have before, and can again. But that’s what I pay you for.”

Feeling sorry for her berating, I almost
offered her the story of getting shot at, but considering that happened a few
days ago, it was hardly newsworthy anymore. I searched my mind for something
else…and came up empty. There wasn’t much that went on in River Valley. Oh!

“Why don’t you write about the names that
are appearing in the obituaries thirty days before the person dies of
suspicious circumstances?” There.
The answer to her problem
and, quite possibly, a more legal upfront way of me finding out information.

“What’s this?” Frank asked. “People are
dying?”

“Technically, people die every day,
Frank.” I fought not to roll my eyes. “But in this instance, people’s names are
showing up
before
they die.”

“Why hasn’t anyone told me?” He glanced
from me to Stacy.

“Hasn’t Officer Barnett questioned you?”
Darn that Bruce. He told me he would investigate.

“No one has said anything to me.” Stacy
studied her manicured nails. “It might make an interesting story. Especially if
I’m the one who solves the mystery.” The sliver of a smile flickered on her
lips. “Reporter goes after story, finds herself in danger, and solves the
murders. Of course, I won’t really put myself in danger. That would be
elaboration for the paper.”

I narrowed my yes. Did Stacy confirm my
suspicions that someone was killing people they thought would be expendable in
order to sell more papers? “Are any of us in danger of losing our jobs if the
paper does poorly?”

“Of course we are.” Frank shook his head.
“You need to sell more ads, and Stacy needs to write better news breaking
stories. If the paper folds, it won’t be just one of us out on the streets,
it’ll be the whole staff.” He grabbed the folders in front of him and stood.
“So, get your rear ends out there and do your jobs.”

Of course, Country Gifts from Heaven was
my main job. The newspaper was for extra cash, and the opportunity to snoop
under cover of working on the paper. I’d gotten myself in a jam. Country Gifts
provided my living, but a good work ethic wouldn’t allow me to do a shoddy job
on the paper. Now, the lack of time to effectively do both jobs teased me.

“Go!” Frank banged both hands on the
table top, sending Stacy and me to our feet and crashing into each other on our
way through the door.

“So, Stacy,” I said once we were in the
hall. “I didn’t know you and Amber were sisters.” I smoothed the skirt of the
dress I wore. “I love the boutique she works at.”

“The one my mother owns?” Stacy turned
and glared. “Well, stepmother. Amber and I are half-sisters.” She stopped. “Why
am I telling you this? It’s none of your business what kind of drama goes on in
my family.”

“True, but I’ve always been told I have a
very sympathetic ear.”

“Whatever.” Her heels tapped out an angry
rhythm as she marched away. “My stepmother is nothing but a worthless old hag
who belongs in a nursing home. Making Amber take care of her after her stroke.
It’s inhumane—” She clamped her lips closed and continued on her way.

Well,
alrighty
then. That raised a bunch of new questions. Ones I hoped Mom could answer.

Oh, no! Catching a glimpse of a calendar
hanging in someone’s cubicle, I fished my cell phone out of my cavernous purse.
“Mom? Do you know what tomorrow is?”

“Of course I do. It’s Lindsey’s sixteenth
birthday party.”

“I’m going to be a little late coming in
this morning. I still haven’t ordered her cake, or purchased decorations.
Please tell me invitations went out.”

“Over a week ago. What in the world would
you do without me?”

I continued my way to the lobby. “I’d be
a total failure.” Once this mystery was solved, I could get back to my own
version of an organized life. Which wasn’t very organized, but it was all I
had.
That and my aspirations to do better.

When I stopped in front of Darla’s desk,
she turned her computer screen away from me and cupped the mouth piece of the
phone. “I don’t care what you want. I’m the boss here, and I say she has to
go!”

Interesting. I stepped closer to her
desk, now looking for something, anything, in my purse. My hand curled around a
tube of lipstick that had to be from the 90s. When was the last time I wore
anything other than a clear gloss?

“I’m not sure you realize who you’re
talking to.” Her voice hissed, sending a shiver down my spine. I got the
impression Darla was not a woman to get on the bad side of. “You said you would
go with me tomorrow… I don’t care if I wasn’t invited…You can’t go back on your
word. We’ll discuss this later. Marsha, may I help you?”

I’d been so engrossed in looking
busy,
I hadn’t realized when she’d hung up the phone. “There
it is!” I held up the lipstick, ignored the gunk gathered around the lid, and
pulled the top off to smear the ruby red color across my lips. If I’d paid
closer attention before actually acting as if I wanted to wear lipstick, I would’ve
realized it was left over from a prior Halloween.

“That isn’t really your color.” Darla
crossed her arms. “And you have lint stuck on your bottom lip. It looks like
you’ve been kissing someone’s belly button.”

Heavens! I picked at the fuzzy stuff on
my lip and tried to come up with a reason for stopping by her desk.

Darla sighed. “Well? Did you want
something, or were you eavesdropping on my phone conversation?”

Boy, she was good. If she wasn’t on my
list of possible suspects, I’d enlist her help. “Uh, do you have any possible
leads for advertising? Frank’s on my case about the paper needing money, and
well…”

“You want me to do your job, in other
words.”

“No, but you’ve been here longer, and
might know the type of businesses that would pay for advertising.”

“Any business that wants to increase
their profits will want to advertise.” Darla turned back to her computer. “All
you have to do is pound the pavements and ask. Some will say yes, some will say
no.”

“Thanks.” I guessed. Tossing the old tube
of lipstick into a nearby trashcan, I headed into the mid-morning sun and
glanced up and down the street.

River Valley was not a metropolitan city.
Main Street consisted of maybe twenty businesses, ten on each side of the
street, with one street branching off to form a plus sign. That side road had
maybe four shops. Thankfully, one of them sold party goods. Then, a quick run
by the grocery store and I’d have the important elements of Lindsey’s
party—oh, my gosh, we’d need food.

Sub sandwiches would do. I high-tailed it
to the party store and made a beeline to the party lights and teen section,
most of which was, thankfully, hot pink with some black thrown in. I was pretty
sure no one would want me to come up with a color scheme on my own, and Lindsey
loved pink and black. Arms loaded down with lights, streamers and all the paper
dishes I could carry, I rushed toward the counter.

“I will kill you.” A voice drifted from
the aisle behind me. “If you touch her, say anything to her, I will cut you so
deep, you’ll cry for your mother.”

I whirled and knocked over a stack of
stuffed animals. Somehow keeping my grip on my things, I thrust them into the
cashier’s arms, “I’ll be back,” then dashed out the door.

All I needed was for someone threatening
murder to catch me eavesdropping.