Chapter Twenty

Our shopping expedition was a great success.

The bridal shop Josie had chosen was small and beautifully appointed, not only for trying on and buying wedding attire but for entertaining friends. We flipped through the racks, each of us intent on finding the perfect dress. Our tastes turned out to be totally different. Tiny Stephanie who wore killer heels and power suits to work went for puffy dresses with enormous skirts and floor-sweeping trains. Grace, a public school teacher, wanted sleek and sexy with clinging fabric and plunging necklines. Maybe I’m more traditional than I thought I was, and the gown I favored had a boat neck, long sleeves, and full skirt. I thought it tasteful and elegant. “Stodgy,” said Steph, as she admired a dress I thought was straight out of the 1980s.

But Josie knew her own taste, and she politely but firmly turned down all our suggestions. It didn’t take her long to find one that suited her figure and her personality impeccably. We were made comfortable in armchairs with glasses of icy tea and bridal magazines while the shop assistant helped Josie to dress. Our friend glowed with pure joy as she modeled the gown for us, and we agreed it was absolutely perfect. Any other woman would have needed tucks and pinches and hems taken up or let down. Her being Josie, the dress fit perfectly as it was, and she didn’t need to leave it behind for alterations. We then went on to other shops and found a simple black knee-length, wide-skirted dress trimmed with black lace for me, shoes for both Josie and Grace, and a necklace and matching earrings for Steph to wear to the wedding. Josie wanted to keep her jewelry minimal. She’d wear only the small diamond earrings her mother had worn to her own wedding and leave her throat bare.

We’d eaten huge breakfasts at Pirate’s Cove, but no friends’ shopping day is complete without a lunch break, so we indulged in that too. Josie phoned the bakery staff to give them the good news and ask them to come to work on Monday. Other than those phone calls, she kept her mind off work and on her wedding, and I was glad of it.

At three o’clock we threw the last of the shopping bags into my full car and climbed in after them.

“That was fun, everyone,” Josie said. “Thank you so much for forcing me to come.”

“Are you going to tell your grandmother you snuck out and got your dress without her help?” Grace asked.

“I’ll have to,” Josie said, “the next time she brings it up. Which will be the next time I see her. I called Mom earlier and told her about Watson’s call. I suggested she tell Grandma and the rest they can go home now.”

“Do you think they will?” Grace asked.

“Probably. Grandma’s complaining that her cat will be missing her, and her neighbor can’t be trusted to water her plants properly, and she needs to go to her own doctor because her heart’s been acting up with all this stress. On and on it goes. I don’t think Aunt Mary Anna likes her mother’s company any more than the rest of us do, but she won’t leave without her. As for Florence, she’s enjoying an all-expenses-paid vacation at my parents’ house, but that can’t last forever. She returned her rental car and has been helping herself to Mom’s car whenever she likes. Mom had to hide the keys after one time when she needed to go out and found her car gone.”

“What is it they say about visitors and fish?” Grace spoke from the back seat, almost buried beneath a mound of shopping bags. “They start to go off after three days.”

“Can you drop me at the restaurant, Lucy?” Josie asked. “Jake’ll be starting dinner prep about now and I can give him a hand.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be having a day off?” Grace asked.

“Helping Jake isn’t work,” Josie said, the light of true love shining in her eyes. “It’s fun.”

“What about your dress?” Grace asked. “If you’re not going home, you don’t want to be carrying it around for the rest of the day.”

“How about I drop it at your mom’s,” I said. “It’s on my way and you can pick it up later.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” Josie said. “But you have to swear you won’t let Mom have a peek. Tell her to keep it locked up. I don’t want Grandma deciding my dress isn’t good enough for her granddaughter and taking it back to the store.”

I dropped Grace and Steph off at their respective houses, Josie at Jake’s Seafood Bar, and then drove to Aunt Ellen’s. I parked my car and walked up to the front door, the heavy garment bag draped over my arms. The bag was fully opaque, and nothing of the beautiful dress could be seen.

“A peek. A quick peek,” Aunt Ellen said, ushering me into the house after I’d explained what I was doing there.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “If you can’t resist the temptation, I have instructions to take it to the lighthouse.”

“I’ll be strong. Although it’ll be mighty hard. Come with me. We can put it in the back of Amos’s closet. No one will find it there, not even Amos. Quickly, before anyone sees us.”

“Is that Lucy, Ellen?” Gloria called.

“Yes, it is.”

“Invite her in. There’s fresh coffee in the pot.”

“No coffee,” I said, once the dress was secure in the depths of my uncle’s closet, “but I’ll pop in and say hi.”

Gloria was in the kitchen with Mary Anna and Florence. Mary Anna was typing away at her iPad and Florence was reading wedding magazines. Who knew such an endless supply of wedding magazines were available?

“That should do it,” Mary Anna said as I came in. “Nothing’s available tomorrow, but we’re booked on flights to New Orleans Monday afternoon. It’ll be so nice to get home. We should leave here around eleven thirty.”

“As long as you’re sure I’m not needed, Ellen,” Gloria said. “I can stay if you want me to.”

“If anything more comes up in the investigation,” Ellen said, “you’re not far away, and the police have your phone numbers.”

“I meant with the wedding plans. We never did discuss the expanded guest list. I wrote to my cousins in France with the news, and they’d be delighted to come. Provided they get an invitation, that is.”

Aunt Ellen picked up a dishcloth and wiped down the immaculate counter tops.

“Do you think we’ll ever learn what happened to Mirabelle?” Mary Anna asked.

“It’s possible we never will,” Aunt Ellen said.

“Maybe it was a random thing,” Florence said. “Someone causing trouble and not caring who they hurt.”

“I hate to think there are people like that in this world,” I said.

The doorbell rang, and Aunt Ellen threw her cloth into the sink and hurried to answer. She was soon back, leading Detective Yarmouth. She gave me a worried look.

His rumpled suit was about ten years and ten pounds out of date and his tie was askew. His eyes narrowed as he studied each of us in turn. “Glad I caught you ladies all in one place.”

“Not you again.” Gloria thumped the floor with her cane. “We’ve told you everything we know. This is becoming most tedious.”

“We heard the news,” Ellen said. “Josie’s bakery can reopen, and no charges are going to be laid. Thank you.” In an exceptional breach of southern manners, my aunt did not offer her visitor refreshments or even a seat. She didn’t even sit down herself. She just wanted him gone.

“No charges are going to be laid at this time,” he said. “I’ve ordered the body released, and you can take Ms. Henkel home whenever it’s convenient.”

“My nephew, Mirabelle’s father, is making those arrangements,” Gloria said.

“Do you have anyone else in mind for the murderer?” Florence asked.

“If I do,” Yarmouth said, “you will not be the first to know.”

Florence flushed and ducked her head.

Gloria tut-tutted. “Don’t ask such foolish questions.”

“Don’t presume Josie O’Malley’s in the clear,” he said. “The investigation remains open, and you’ll be hearing from me again. I’ll concede that the baked goods containing the drugs were left in such a place for enough time to allow almost anyone to tamper with them. Her staff confirms that she took them out to her car at quarter past eleven and then came back inside and worked until shortly before one. That doesn’t necessarily mean Josie O’Malley didn’t add the fatal ingredient herself.”

Ellen’s face tightened. “My husband is at the office, catching up on the work he missed being away last week. Shall I call him and ask him to come home?”

“That’s up to you, Mrs. O’Malley, but I don’t think I’ve accused anyone here of anything.” Yarmouth turned to Florence, who’d once again buried her head in her magazine. “Do you have anything more to add to your previous statements that Josie was particularly angry with Mirabelle?”

“I … I …” Florence said.

“Something about her having designs on Josie’s fiancé and trying to disrupt her wedding plans?”

Florence looked at Aunt Ellen. She looked at me. Then she ducked her head, her bangs fell over her eyes, and she mumbled, “No.”

“And you, Mrs. Bergman,” he asked Mary Anna. “You said Josie and Mirabelle bickered constantly. Your words, not mine. Do you have anything further to add to that?”

“No, I do not,” Mary Anna said. “As I told you before, bickering is what our family does. We think nothing of it.”

“Christmas dinner at your place must be a ball of laughs. Ms. Richardson, you overheard Josie threaten to kill her cousin at least once. Have you remembered any other instances of threats being uttered?”

I turned to my aunt. “Perhaps you’d better call Uncle Amos. These questions are getting way out of hand. If anything, they’re no longer accusations but attempts to put words in our mouths. What do you think you’re getting at, Detective? You can’t come here and start making these sort of ridiculous statements.”

He raised one eyebrow. “I can’t? Whatever makes you think that?”

“There are other suspects, you know,” I said. “I hope Detective Watson told you about Toni Ambrose.”

“Who’s that?” Aunt Ellen picked her phone up off the kitchen counter, but she made no move to place a call.

“No need to call in the lawyers,” Yarmouth said, “unless you know something incriminating you aren’t telling me.”

“She does not!” Gloria pounded her cane on the floor.

“In answer to your question,” he said, “yes, he did tell me, and yes, I’ve spoken to Ms. Ambrose.”

“Unlikely she confessed,” I said. “But you have to agree she had a motive, not for killing Mirabelle but to cause trouble for Josie, and like any number of people she had the opportunity.”

“Who’s Toni Ambrose?” Aunt Ellen asked again. “Do you know someone by that name, Gloria?”

“Never heard of her, but then I’m always the last to know anything. For example, I didn’t know Josie was going to buy her dress today, until I was returning from the restroom and saw Lucy carrying a bridal shop bag into Ellen and Amos’s room.”

“She did?” Florence said. “I didn’t know that either. I thought Josie wanted my help.”

Detective Yarmouth’s eyes flicked back and forth between the women. He probably thought we were trying to distract him from his line of inquiry. Nope; we might be talking about murder and motives, but Gloria had something more important on her mind: her only granddaughter’s wedding, and her place in it.

“Right now,” Yarmouth said, “I don’t much care who bought a dress when or why or why you think you need to be involved. Lucy, Detective Watson told me you think of yourself as some sort of hotshot private eye.”

“That’s nonsense. I doubt he said anything of the sort. I’m only trying to help by pointing out things you might not be aware of, not being familiar with the people involved.”

“Getting familiar with the people involved is why I’m here, asking questions. I wonder why you object to that.”

I bristled. “I object to that because you seem to be single-mindedly focused on Josie, to the exclusion of other viable suspects. You put some pressure on Blair, didn’t you? To get him to tell you what you wanted to hear.”

“Obviously you’ve spoken to the kid, and equally obviously you bought what he told you hook, line, and sinker. Let me give you a word of warning, Lucy. Some people are good liars.”

“Who’s Blair?” Gloria asked.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s suppose he did lie to me. Have you then considered that when he told you about this so-called threat, he totally had a reason to point the finger at Josie: so she won’t fire him for incompetence?”

I expected Detective Yarmouth to reply with a sharp, scathing retort. Instead, he laughed. “Now you see why we can’t have amateurs doing the work of the police. If this man did what you suspect and accused Josie of murder to keep his job, he’s not very smart, is he? If she’s in jail, he doesn’t have a job to be fired from.”

I mentally floundered around, like a fish flopping on the bottom of Ralph Harper’s charter boat, trying to sort out my thoughts. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You don’t know what you meant,” Yarmouth said. “And that’s your problem.”

Aunt Ellen was still holding her phone. She laid her other hand lightly on my arm. She said nothing, but let it rest there. I took a breath.

“You’re very rude.” Gloria’s eyes flashed. “Did your mother raise you to behave like that?”

Aunt Ellen almost choked. Florence studied a picture of a winter wedding in her magazine with enough intensity that she might have been expecting a test later, and Mary Anna watched a sea gull who’d landed on the deck railing and was peering in the window, watching her in return.

“I like to think my mother would be proud of me,” Detective Yarmouth said.

“Not if she knew you were badgering respectable ladies,” Gloria said.

“I’ll do what’s necessary to get at the truth.”

“As you see it,” Gloria said.

“As the law sees it.”

“You think they are one and the same?”

“Thank you for your time,” he said. “I have your contact details if I need to be in touch.” He headed for the door.

I jumped to my feet and followed him out. “What about Toni Ambrose? You said you spoke to her. What does she have to say for herself? What did you learn?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, Ms. Richardson, but I’ll tell you anyway. I learned that she was with Jake Greenblatt at the time in question. Have a nice day.”

I opened my mouth. I closed it again. Toni had been spending time with Jake? While Josie was getting ready for her bridal shower?

I didn’t believe it.

I had to believe it. If that was Toni’s alibi, then Jake must have confirmed it.

Unless Yarmouth was lying, but why would he lie to me about something like that?

Maybe he was trying to cause trouble. Was that his detecting style? Stir the pot enough and see what rose to the top and leave the innocent to sort out the problems he’d caused? If so, I didn’t think much of it.

And what did “spending time with” mean, anyway?

Fortunately, Aunt Ellen hadn’t come with us to the door. She hadn’t overheard that part of the conversation. I went into the kitchen to say goodbye.

“Don’t you look at me like that,” Florence was saying to Gloria. “I only told the police the truth. Josie was angry at Mirabelle. Mirabelle was flirting with Jake. Mirabelle and her over-the-top ideas did threaten Josie’s wedding. You can’t pretend that didn’t happen, Aunt Gloria, just because you don’t want it to.”

I glanced at Aunt Ellen. She’d dropped into a chair and rested her elbows on the table. She saw me watching her and grimaced.

“The truth doesn’t always have to be shared with outsiders,” Gloria said. “We O’Malleys do not wash our linen in public. And certainly not in front of the police.”

“Do I have to remind you,” Florence said, “that Mirabelle is dead?”

“I have not forgotten.”

“I never suggested Josie might have killed Mirabelle over it. I told them what I saw. What we all saw. It’s my duty to help the police in any way I can, family laundry or not.”

“Nonsense. You’re enjoying being the center of attention. Having the detective listening to your every word. Taking you seriously.”

“Will you two stop it!” Mary Anna burst into tears. “All you do is bicker, bicker, bicker. I can’t stand it. I’m going for a walk.” She ran out of the kitchen, sobbing.

“That girl always was too sensitive for her own good,” Gloria said. “I’m going to have a nap before dinner. Help me to my room, Florence.”

For a moment, Florence looked as though she might refuse. Then she let out a heavy sigh and stood up.

I kissed Gloria on her papery cheek and wished her and Florence a safe trip home.

“Not much longer until we’ll be back for the wedding,” Gloria said. “Although I do wish Josie would invite more of the family. Crystal is going to be crushed if she has to miss it. Josie and Jake are not still insisting on canapés at the reception, I hope.” Her voice faded away as, leaning heavily on Florence’s arm, the old lady made her way slowly down the hall.

When they were gone, Aunt Ellen let out a long sigh. “I honestly don’t know if I can put up with this much longer. Amos never goes in to the office on Saturdays, but he was quick enough to escape this morning directly after breakfast. I should have known better than to let Yarmouth ask his questions without insisting Amos or Stephanie be here. But that man has a way of getting everyone defending themselves.”

“Chin up. They’re going home the day after tomorrow.”

“And then they’ll be back for the wedding. I might end up being the one who elopes.”

I hugged her. “I bet my mom could handle Gloria.”

A smile broke out across Ellen’s face. “Do you know, dear, you might be right.” When my parents met, my mom had been a girl from an Outer Banks fishing family with no more than a high school education who’d never been outside the state of North Carolina. She managed to make her way in the backstabbing, gossiping, one-upping, disapproving world of my father’s blue-blood New England family and the Boston social elite. That life had made her hard, and although I loved my mother very much, sometimes I didn’t like her.

“Do you think she and your father would want to stay here?” Aunt Ellen asked.

My mom always stays in a hotel when she visits Nags Head. She says she doesn’t like to impose, but what she really wants is room service and housekeeping. She doesn’t get that at Ellen and Amos’s. Mom always comes alone or with her children; my dad hasn’t been to the Outer Banks since the summer he met Mom. “Let me have a word with her. I’ll tell her you need a buffer between you and your mother-in-law. Mom’ll understand. Her mother-in-law was a tyrant.” Suzanne Wyatt Richardson, I thought, could eat Gloria for breakfast.

“Your father, of course, is welcome here,” Aunt Ellen said, somewhat begrudgingly. They’ve never gotten on. “I didn’t get a chance to ask. How’s Josie today? She must be very relieved.”

“That’s for sure. Our day out was a lot of fun, and we managed to keep her from rushing off to the bakery to dive headfirst into work. She’s opening Tuesday morning.”

“I don’t see why you’re refusing to help!” Florence’s voice came down the hallway, high-pitched, angry.

“Because you’re a stupid, flighty girl, that’s why,” Gloria said. “You’re exactly like your father, and I’m not throwing good money after bad.”

A door slammed.

“What’s that about?” I asked my aunt.

“Mirabelle’s death has left Florence and her business in dire financial straits. She wants Gloria to give her a loan. As you can hear, Gloria refuses, but Florence can’t take no for an answer. I suspect she stayed on here after Mirabelle died in hopes of bringing Gloria around. Instead, as I could have told her, Gloria has simply dug her heels in further.”