Diva 03 _ Diva Paints the Town, The (33 page)

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Authors: Krista Davis

Tags: #Murder, #Winston; Sophie (Fictitious Character), #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #General, #Dwellings

BOOK: Diva 03 _ Diva Paints the Town, The
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“You should have allowed them to find my husband’s corpse to begin with, Teddy.” We all turned to see Bedelia standing in the doorway. “If you’d only left well enough alone. Mordecai’s students would have found the grave, everyone would have thought Mordecai killed his wife’s lover, and that would have been the end of it. But you’ve gone and told the whole story to these people—three of them. I’m so disappointed in you. I thought you would keep our little secret. And now the best place in Old Town to hide corpses has been revealed.” She
tsk
ed. “What to do, what to do?”
THIRTY-SEVEN
From “THE GOOD LIFE” :
Dear Sophie,
 
My wife and I are furnishing our new Arts and Crafts-style home. We have some artwork we’d like to hang in the foyer, but it seems like all the frames are too ornate or too plain. How can we make them stand out without going the gilded route?
 
—Frameless in Fruitville
 
 
Dear Frameless,
 
Use inexpensive square or rectangular frames in the Craftsman style. But cover them with bright, one-inch-square glass tiles. Your artwork will pop, no gilding necessary.
 
—Sophie
“I have everything under control, Mrs. Ledbetter,” insisted Ted.
“Teddy, I’ve been so worried about you. I’m afraid you’ve lost control. Sweetheart, you never kill a cop. That’s a fine way to make sure the rest of the men in blue get agitated. You’re such a dear, but now you’ve gone and gotten us into a terrible mess.”
“You knew your husband was buried under this house?” I blurted.
“Darling, he was a worm. He announced his intention to leave me for Jean. Leave me without anything. No house, no money, no savings. I would have been penniless. There was only one way to save myself.”
“You hired Ted to kill him?” Beth asked, aghast.
“Some things you have to do for yourself. Jean’s insulin worked quite nicely. He was woozy and barely noticed the injection. But I paid Teddy to get rid of him for me. I had no idea what he might have done with his will and couldn’t take the chance his body would be found. So much easier to divorce him in absentia and simply keep everything.” She
tsk
ed. “Poor Mordecai. I hear he never came out of his funk. I do feel a bit guilty about that. I started the rumor that he’d killed Jean to frighten people. I guess it worked. He must have wondered who carried the body to the crawl space and buried it for him. I imagine he lived in fear of being blackmailed. He knew he and Jean would be prosecuted if anyone found out.” She shook her head in disbelief. “He spent his life protecting a woman who cheated on him.”
“It’s sort of romantic. If only Aunt Jean had known how much he still loved her.” Beth wiped a tear from her face.
“Drink your turpentine and you can tell her when you see her in heaven. Now drink up,” demanded Ted.
“Wait!” I cried.
Where was Wolf ?
“Beth, did Jean know Ledbetter had died?”
“I suspect she did, because she refused to ever step foot in Virginia again. She cried all the way to Nevada. I remember trying to console her by saying that Mr. Ledbetter could join us in Nevada. Little did I know . . . she just sobbed.”
“Ted, if you didn’t kill Mr. Ledbetter, why did you try to prevent the discovery of the grave?”
Bedelia shuffled over to Ted and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Teddy has been doing odd jobs for me since he was a little boy. I knew he needed seed money to get his business off the ground. All he had to do was bury my dear dead husband where he wouldn’t be found.”
“Ted, I thought you loved Mordecai,” I said. “Why would you do this to him?”
“To him? I did it for him. Don’t you see? The insulin, the public argument, Jean’s affair—everything pointed to Mordecai and Jean as the killers. Kurt and I did the only logical thing. We got rid of the body to save Mordecai, Jean, and Bedelia. It was the only way to protect all of them.”
“Then you were the one who mugged Nolan?” asked Mike.
“We were short one key.” Ted grinned. “And I knew Nolan had it in his wallet. I had to keep Posey from getting it and opening the wall.”
The front door slammed open. Thank goodness! Wolf had finally made it. But it was Nina’s voice that echoed through the house from the foyer, “Sophie! You left me alone again.”
Things happened very quickly after that. A green blur shot through the air, aimed directly at Bedelia’s oversized glasses. Hank latched onto them with his beak and Bedelia shrieked, trying to beat the bird away.
Ted looked on in surprise, and I figured the commotion was our only chance. I lunged at Ted and smashed handfuls of broken glass into his face. Beth jumped up, ran behind him, and doused him with the turpentine in her glass, and Mike tackled him at the knees.
Nina was trying to rescue Hank, who beat his wings wildly. Bedelia threw her glasses to the floor and Hank landed on them, screaming, “She’s a witch!”
At the top of her lungs, Beth yelled at me, “Duct tape?”
I thought there was a roll in a box of painting supplies we’d shoved in the corner. I dumped the contents on the floor and grabbed the duct tape.
I hoped Bedelia was too old to do us much harm, especially without her glasses, and hurried toward Ted and Mike, who wrestled on the floor. When Mike almost had Ted pinned, Beth sat on Ted’s legs in an effort to hold them so I could secure his ankles with duct tape. It worked.
We flipped him over, but it wasn’t easy pulling his hands behind his back to wrap duct tape around his wrists. When we succeeded, I was out of breath.
I gazed up at Nina and Bedelia and saw that Nina had cleverly used one of Bedelia’s necklaces to bind her hands together.
It must have seemed chaotic to Wolf, who barged in with handcuffs. He nodded his approval and looked over at me. “You’re bleeding.”
I looked down at my hands. I hadn’t even noticed.
THIRTY-EIGHT
From “THE GOOD LIFE” :
Dear Sophie,
 
My new husband and I are retiring to the mountains. We’d love to have a bedroom for each of our grandchildren, but it’s not financially possible, and they would be empty most of the time anyway. Bunk beds seem too childish, and we’d like them to have some degree of privacy. Any suggestions?
 
—Newlyweds in New Port Richey
 
 
Dear Newlyweds,
 
Consider built-in beds. Each bed can be painted to reflect the child’s personality. Build bookshelves at the head and the foot and they’ll have plenty of room to stash their gear. Plus, the drawers underneath the beds eliminate the need for dressers. Make sure everyone has a closet space and you’ll be set!
 
—Sophie
Four days later, the family room of Mordecai’s house showed no signs of the drama that had taken place there. The turpentine had eaten the finish off the floor in one spot, but Bernie and I had sanded, buffed, and applied polyurethane, so it was only visible to those of us who knew where to look.
I strolled into the living room, where Nolan cast a critical eye at his turquoise walls.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“You heard about the divorce, I suppose.”
I nodded. “What are your plans?”
“Thankfully, my share of Mordecai’s bequest should enable me to buy Camille out of her portion of the antiques store.”
“You know the value of Mordecai’s paintings?”
He huffed. “I
am
in the business. I knew they had to be here somewhere. For years an absentee bidder had been outbidding me at auctions. I always suspected Mordecai. He had a good eye.” He bowed his head. “My only regret is that Tara isn’t with me.”
“So she hadn’t broken it off with you?”
“She had—but she would have married me, I’m sure.”
Posey emerged from the dining room. “Don’t believe him, Sophie. She wanted nothing more to do with Nolan and had her sights fixed on Wolf—someone who wouldn’t have to cut the cord with his wife’s bank account.”
Posey and Nolan glared at each other, and Nina broke the tension by arriving with a basket of kittens. She handed two to Posey. “Where’s Bernie? He’s taking the other two.”
Natasha must have overheard, because she barreled in from the kitchen. “No way. Bernie lives above my garage, and I won’t have animals there.”
Beth followed Natasha into the living room. “I’ll pick up Hank and Mom Cat when I leave this afternoon.”
“Hank?” I was delighted that he’d found a home. “I didn’t know you liked birds.”
“Mike and I are taking Mom Cat. But when my dad heard that Hank sings Hank Williams songs, he had to have him.”
Nina nodded. “He’s retired, so Hank won’t be so lonely and get into mischief.”
The front door opened and voices drifted to us. Natasha patted her hair. “Nolan, you should have hung a mirror in here. Everyone to your rooms.” She clapped her hands like a schoolteacher. “The Guild judges have arrived.” Natasha started for the foyer, turned around, and said, “And get those animals out of here. I don’t want the judges to see them.”
Nina and I scooted through the foyer, past the judges, to the family room, and I peeked from the doorway. Natasha was in her element, wearing her TV face to welcome them. Camille carried a fluffy little dog wearing a pink collar embellished with rhinestone hearts.
I beckoned Nina. “Is that Emmaline?”
She grinned. “I thought the two heiresses might understand each other.”
I hugged my friend. “Good call.” Bernie stepped in from the kitchen. “Reporting for inspection duty with team Sophie. Are those my kittens?”
“Natasha doesn’t want cats on her property.” I hated to break the news, but it was better for him to find out before he bonded.
Too late. He lifted the squirming kittens from the basket and cuddled them. And then he grinned at me. “If I can’t keep them at Natasha’s place, I suppose we’ll just have to move.”
“Did your husband finally make it home?” I asked Nina. “Are you still married?”
“We never even got around to talking about Kurt and Mordecai. You know the woman I was worried about? The one who had the hots for my husband? Someone pushed her overboard!”
“Not your husband, I hope.”
Nina snorted. “He’s far too proper for that. If he were to kill someone, he’d drop something toxic into the victim’s martini. It seems one of the other wives had enough of the trollop and tossed her over the rail. Turns out it’s a good thing Detective Kenner has records of my presence here at home—I have a perfect alibi!”
Natasha whispered loudly in the foyer. I thought I’d better make sure she wasn’t expelling Posey’s kittens, but I needn’t have worried.
Natasha glared up the stairs at Beth. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the room I decorated.”
“You?
You?
” sputtered Natasha.
Beth took advantage of Natasha’s surprise and sprinted up the steps.
“Iris gave her a room,” I said.
Natasha was not amused. In a dead voice, she said, “Don’t tell me. The pretty romantic one.”
I smiled.
“I can never get ahead. Why does everything happen to me? I never should have hired someone who seemed knowledgeable. Let that be a lesson to you, Sophie.” She retreated to the kitchen, still muttering.
After the judges viewed the family room, which they appeared to like, we waited impatiently for them to finish looking at the upstairs rooms. At long last, the judges and decorators gathered in the foyer.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Camille, “I’m delighted to announce a unanimous decision. The room we’d all love to have, that showed ingenuity and love, the best room in the Show House, was decorated by Beth.”
Applause broke out, but not before I heard Natasha release a disgusted sigh.
Camille sidled up to me. “Did you see my little darling, Emmaline? She’s such wonderful company. We’re both in the same boat, you know. She lost Mordecai, and I lost Nolan.”
I stroked Emmaline’s head.
Camille leaned in and whispered, “Iris is winning the Guild Award this year. Mostly for managing to pull off this house in spite of Natasha.”
After the judges departed, I took one last look at Mordecai’s wall unit, thinking about how much he must have loved Jean to hide their secret all those years. I heard giggling, and found Mike and Beth in an embrace behind me. They opened their arms to include me in their hug.
“Natasha fired me,” said Beth with an enormous grin.

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