Murder and Salutations (Book 3 in the Cardmaking Mysteries) (7 page)

“
I like these,” she said as
she selected a small, flat bouquet of blue flowers. I took them
from her, grabbed a sheet of rub-on letters and a few scraps of
paper, and led her to our worktable by the window.

“
Let’s see, I know I’ve got
just the right punch here somewhere.” I searched through the box of
large paper punches, and found the one I wanted. I punched out a
vase shape from the dark blue paper, then laid Krystal’s flowers on
a sheet of the lighter blue stock. “Just put the vase over the
stems and see what you think.”

She did as I asked, then said, “It’s
beautiful.”

“
And easy, too,” I said. “We
have sheets of scripted sentiments made up if you’d like to just
say ‘Get Well,’ but if you’d like to personalize your card more,
you can use these letters. You just rub the letter you want onto
the paper with this burnisher and you’re all set.”

She took the stylus from me and said, “It’s
just a chunk of wood.”

“
Actually, it’s a carefully
sculpted piece of hard maple with a polyurethane finish, but you
can call it a chunk if you want to.”

She studied the layout of her card, then
asked, “Should I glue all this down before I do the lettering?”

“
The best way to approach it
is to figure out where you want everything to go first, then letter
on the flat paper before you start assembling your
card.”

She rubbed a message to her mother on the
paper, then I helped her arrange the vase and flowers with
doubled-sided tape. Then we matted three different pieces of paper
together, one just a little bigger than the next, to form a perfect
border. After that, we attached the front to another piece of
folded card stock and we were finished.

“
Now pick out an envelope,
and we’re set.”

She chose a blue one—surprise, surprise—and
I rang up her purchase. Krystal looked puzzled when she saw the
amount. “Is there something wrong?” I asked.

“
You charged me the same as
one of your regular cards,” she said. “It should be
more.”

“
I’d say you could leave me
a tip, but as the store owner I’d just have to turn it down.
Krystal, why on earth should I charge you more for something I had
fun helping with?”

“
I don’t know,” she said.
“It just doesn’t seem right.”

“
If you’d like, I could
always overcharge you next time you come in,” I said with a
smile.

“
No thanks, that’s all
right, but I’ll be back. That was fun.”

“
I’m glad
you enjoyed yourself.” After she was gone, I started to clean up
our mess, then I remembered that I needed to make a card for Addie
Mason at Heaven Scent. I’d liked the way Krystal’s card had turned
out, so I decided to make a bouquet myself. Not blue though, I’d
had my fill of that.
I chose a nice
pink and white collection of pressed flowers, then chose a
patterned pink-and-white paper for my cutout vase. After some
experimenting, I was happy with the results and set everything in
place with doubled-sided tape. I didn’t care about a personalized
message on the front, so I chose one that said, “With My Deepest
Sympathy” and affixed the sticker to the card. It was quite lovely,
actually, and I decided that as soon as Lillian came in, I’d make a
few for my shelves. I generated a fair profit selling my cards, but
the real joy came from the creative process.

Lillian walked in as I was finishing the
card, and said, “It’s too pink.”

“
What can I say? I was
inspired by your guest bedroom last night.”

She shook her head. “Then I’m going to
repaint this weekend. It always was a little too feminine for my
taste.”

“
I think it’s really very
nice,” I said. “I made this for Addie. Should I do another one
instead?”

Lillian shook her head. “It’s perfect for
her.” She glanced at her watch. “Is it too early to go over there
now?”

“
Lillian, what makes you
think she’ll even open the shop today? After all, her business
partner just died last night.”

My aunt said, “If you knew Addie as well as
I did, you’d realize she’d never pass up the chance to make a
dollar or two, no matter who died. Remember, Heaven Scent is her
life. Besides, where else is she going to go? But there’s one
factor that overrides everything else, that makes me positive we’ll
find her at the shop this morning.”

“
What’s that?”

“
I went by there on my way
here and saw that she was open for business. Are you ready to
go?”

“
I’d like to make a little
money first before we shut the place down,” I said.

“
I suppose,” she said. “What
would you like me to do this morning?”

“
You could make more pink
cards,” I said, just to see the look of disdain on my aunt’s face.
“Or you could watch the shop while I make them.”

“
That one, I choose that
one,” she said with enthusiasm.

I was working on a card when Bradford came
in, a look of distress replacing his usual smile.

“
What’s wrong?” I asked
him.

“
Sara Lynn just blew me
off,” he said. “I can cut her a little slack, but if she keeps this
up, I’m going to have to take her in on general
principle.”

Lillian said, “She’s had quite a shock, what
with Bailey walking out on her and all.”

“
So you knew about the
affair, too.”

“
Come on, Bradford,” I said.
“We’re family. She told us last night.”

He shook his head. “I’ve known about it for
a few weeks. I hated to tell her about it, but she had a right to
know. Now she’ll barely speak to me.”

To our surprise, Lillian patted Bradford’s
arm lightly. “Shooting the messenger has been a well-respected
reaction to bad news throughout the course of time. You did the
right thing telling her.”

“
Thanks. That’s something, I
guess.”

Before Lillian could retort and end the
pleasantries between them, I asked, “Is she really a suspect in the
murder?”

“
Jen, I wish I could say she
wasn’t, but I’d be lying. The whole town knows how much she and
Eliza hated each other, and that was before Bailey started sleeping
with Eliza. She had an argument in the kitchen last night not two
feet from where we found the body half an hour later. You do the
math. I’m getting heat from the mayor’s office, and he’s
threatening to call the governor if I don’t arrest our big
sister.”

“
Can he do that?” I
asked.

Bradford shook his head. “I doubt the
governor of Virginia has time to take his call, but you never know.
I’ve been trying to eliminate Sara Lynn as a suspect all morning,
but every time I find something, it looks even worse for her than
it did before. She won’t answer my questions, and I can’t help her
if she won’t talk to me.”

“
Would you like me to talk
to her?” I asked. “She might tell me something she’s holding back
from you.”

Bradford slammed his palm down on my
worktable. “She’s got to get it through her head that I’m trying to
help her. I swear, she’s more stubborn than you and Lillian put
together.”

“
I doubt that,” Lillian
said. “Let us talk to her, Bradford. You can come along if you’d
like.”

“
No thanks,” he said,
shaking his head firmly. “I’m I going back over there and I’m not
leaving until I get some answers from her. Thanks for the pep talk,
though.”

Grady Farrar, owner of Farrar Hardware and
now interim president of the Rebel Forge chamber of commerce, came
into the shop as Bradford was leaving, he was holding a paper bag
in his hand as if it contained something valuable.

“
Did I miss something?”
Grady asked.

“
Nothing that matters,” I
said. “What brings you here, Grady? Are you looking for a card for
that lovely wife of yours?”

“
Jennifer, if I brought a
card home to Martha, she’d think I was up to something. No thank
you, trouble like that I don’t need.”

Lillian said, “So if you’re not here for a
card, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

He held the paper bag out to me. “I forgot
all about this in the excitement last night. Here, this belongs to
you.”

I took the bag and opened it. Inside was the
golden anvil I’d won last night just as Eliza’s body had been
discovered.

I tried to hand it back to him as I said, “I
can’t take it.”

“
Now, Jennifer, don’t make
me scold you in public. You won it fair and square; it belongs to
you. About that speech I made last night,” he added softly, “those
were Eliza’s words, not mine. I’d never have read them if I’d
realized how hurtful they were going to be. She had no right to go
after your sister like that.” Grady looked flustered. “And here I
am speaking ill of the dead. It was a long night and a short sleep
for me, but that’s no excuse. If you ladies will pardon me, I’ll be
heading back to my hardware store.”

After he was gone, I put the paper bag on
the counter. Lillian asked, “Aren’t you even going to take it out
of the bag? Let me see it, Jennifer. I’m curious about it, even if
you’re not.”

“
They never should have
given it to me in the first place,” I said. “And I have a sneaking
suspicion they wouldn’t have if Eliza hadn’t seen it as a way to
take a jab at Sara Lynn.”

Lillian ignored me and took the anvil out of
the bag. “Nonsense, it’s your award. Where should we put it?”

“
How about back in the bag?”
I suggested.

“
It needs to be displayed,”
Lillian said, ignoring me completely. “I know. Let’s have a shelf
installed for it above the register. That way everyone will know
you won it.”

“
Lillian, let me have
that.”

She reluctantly handed the anvil to me, and
I put it in the display counter under the cash register.

“
Jennifer, you can hardly
see it there.”

“
Lillian, if I catch you
moving it, you’re fired, and I mean it.”

My aunt took in my stern stare, then said
somberly, “We can’t have that, can we? I don’t know how I’d manage
to squeak by without my salary from the shop.”

After a second, we both burst out laughing.
Lillian could buy and sell my shop a dozen times over, and we both
knew it. Besides, she didn’t draw a dime in pay, if I didn’t
include the supplies she freely used.

“
So when are we going to
Heaven Scent?” Lillian asked. “I’m going crazy just hanging around
here.”

“
Okay, you wore me down. Let
me hang the sign on the door and we’ll go.” I’d invested in a sign
that offered the adjustable hands of a clock and set it for an
hour’s time. It would be enough time to talk to Addle, and
hopefully I wouldn’t lose too many customers while we were gone.
Business had really picked up since I’d first opened the card shop,
but I knew that I could fail at any moment if I ignored the
clientele I’d fought so hard to build. Summer was coming, and with
it an influx of tourists who would hopefully keep me in the black
for the year, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave the shop as
easily as I could now. That was how I justified my sketchy hours
from time to time, knowing how busy I was going to be very soon. If
Sara Lynn’s shop Forever Memories was any indication, I’d probably
have to hire a few part-time college kids to help me keep up. I
knew just who I’d like to hire, too. I’d babysat for Corrine Knotts
a long time ago, and she’d grown into a very capable and friendly
young woman now in college. I’d have to ask her mother for her
phone number so I could hire Corrine before somebody else nabbed
her. It was just one more item for my to-do list.

“
Honestly, Jennifer, let’s
go.”

“
I’ve never seen you this
eager to go anywhere in your life,” I said as I put the sign up on
the door.

“
I’m worried if we don’t do
something soon, your brother’s not going to have any choice. If he
has to arrest Sara Lynn, I doubt she’ll ever speak to him again. We
all have our differences from time to time, but we’re all the
family we’ve got, and I won’t see our bonds destroyed.”

“
Hang on a second,” I said
when we were outside. “I forgot something.”

“
Jennifer, is it absolutely
necessary?”

I grinned at her. “It’s going to be hard to
give her a sympathy card if we don’t take it with us.”

I grabbed the card, and then dead-bolted the
shop door. Heaven Scent was just down the block, so at least we
didn’t have far to walk. It was a good thing, too, because as we
made our way down Oakmont, it started to rain. Though the day had
been warm enough, the raindrops were chilled and stung as they hit.
We made it to Heaven Scent just in time. As Lillian and I rushed
into the store, the sky opened up and we were in the middle of a
full-scale rainstorm.

“
Where did that come from?”
Lillian asked me as we caught our breath.

“
I’m not sure,” I said as I
looked around the shop.

I’d been in Heaven Scent a
few times in the past, but the mixes of aromas were stronger than
I’d remembered. The shelves were lined with bath soaps, fragrances,
candles and batches of potpourri. If it contained a scent and a
tourist might want it, Heaven Scent was bound to carry it. There
were also wind chimes and dream catchers hanging in the
window,
along with a vast selection of
stained-glass trinkets that must have caught the sunlight and
spread it around the room. If there’d been any sunlight, anyway.
Eliza also ran an accounting service on the side from the back room
of the store. She’d approached me about keeping my books when I’d
first opened, but I could keep track of my corporate assets with a
checkbook and a calculator. At the time, Eliza had told me that she
ran the small operation mostly just
to
keep her hand in her former profession, but scents and aromas were
her first and true love.