The next day started late for Beatrice and Noo-noo, who found themselves sleeping in. In fact, it was so late when Beatrice woke up that she was startled at how high the sun was in the sky.
After taking Noo-noo out and feeding her, Beatrice looked to see what food Miss Sissy had left behind the night before. There were eggs in the fridge, but then she looked back at her stove and groaned. She didn’t immediately feel like cleaning up the huge amount of dried chemicals that the fire extinguisher had left behind. She imagined the task was going to involve rubber gloves and both sweeping and vacuuming, plus damp paper towels. Beatrice frowned and looked over at her paper towel holder. She certainly didn’t have nearly enough to tackle the job.
A few minutes later, she was headed to downtown Dappled Hills to the ‘breakfast-all-day’ restaurant for scrambled eggs, sausage links, hash browns, and a side order of grits.
Her cell phone chimed and Beatrice saw that it was Meadow.
“Where are you?” demanded Meadow when Beatrice answered the phone. “I’m at your house and I see your car is gone. I can’t believe you even have the energy to get out of bed!”
Beatrice took a sip of her coffee and said, “Oh, I had the energy to get out of bed. I just didn’t have the energy to clean off my stove so that I could make breakfast. I’m at Hens Restaurant, getting something to eat. I made sure to close the door to the kitchen so Noo-noo wouldn’t be able to get in there and into that foam mess.”
“I can completely understand. What a horror! I’ll see you whenever you get back, no worries. Take your time,” said Meadow hurriedly.
Beatrice did. In fact, she had a couple of refills of her coffee and somehow even managed to eat a fluffy biscuit after the huge breakfast she’d already consumed. While she was there, Piper called in to check on her.
“I saw your car was gone when I was heading out. How are you doing this morning?” she asked, a note of worry in her voice.
Beatrice said solidly, “I’m completely fine, Piper, believe me. I just ate a ton of food and am about to head back home. I’d much rather hear about how things are going for you.”
The worry immediately left Piper’s voice. “It’s going really well! Ash and I have plans for a nice, relaxing dinner in a few nights. We’ve talked a lot about the type of wedding we want and the word that comes to mind most is ‘intimate.’ We want it to be a joyful celebration with our closest friends and family.”
Beatrice felt relieved. She didn’t think that Piper would want a fancy or over-the-top wedding, but it was good to hear it confirmed. “I love that idea. How were you and Ash going to get that intimate feel?”
“I love what Wyatt’s sister, Harper, did for her wedding: incorporating quilts in the church and at the reception. Since quilting makes me happy and so many of my friends happy, I thought having quilts as part of our day would help make it even more meaningful for me.”
“I’m sure the Village Quilters would be honored for you and Ash to borrow quilts for the ceremony and reception. And I’d love for you to use some of my quilts, if you can handle the imperfections,” said Beatrice wryly.
“Your quilts are beautiful, and you know it. Of course I want them! If we’ve got quilts from you and our friends, then it will be as if we’re really making everyone we love part of our day, too.”
“Miss Sissy has some gorgeous old quilts, you know. She could probably cover the entire church with them. I think some of them were even her mothers. This all sounds like a wonderful idea,” said Beatrice. “It’s going to be a beautiful service. Have you had a chance to talk with Wyatt about a date?”
“I did briefly talk with him on the phone, and he has a good number of open dates at the church for a wedding,” said Piper. “And he was so happy for us! He’s really such a kind, warm man.”
“Sounds like you’ve been able to talk with Wyatt more than I have,” said Beatrice ruefully.
Piper said, “I know. I felt bad about last night for many reasons, but one of them is that your nice evening with Wyatt had to be scrapped. And not for the first time, either.” She paused. “Were you going to try to reschedule for tonight? Am I keeping you?”
“Oh, no. No, there’s plenty of time today for me to call Wyatt and see what his schedule looks like. After last night, I’m definitely taking it easy today, aside from scrubbing my kitchen out. Besides, I love the distraction of talking about your wedding—it keeps me from thinking about the horrid mess I’ve got waiting for me to clean up. Wyatt and I will surely talk today to plan something. Although lately, planning something has apparently been the kiss of death. Maybe we just need to do something completely spontaneously to break the curse,” said Beatrice with a sigh.
“Maybe so,” said Piper. “All right, I should probably go now. I just wanted to check up on you and then I ended up talking about the wedding the whole time! Thanks for your ideas. Let me know if I can do anything.”
“I will. I love you.”
Beatrice finished up her breakfast, paid, and drove back home. When she pulled into her driveway, she saw that Meadow was there. What’s more, Meadow appeared to have let herself in. She’d asked Meadow and Ramsay to take care of Noo-noo for her a month ago while she took a quick trip to Atlanta to visit old friends. But it was certainly unusual otherwise for Meadow to let herself into Beatrice’s house.
When Beatrice opened the door, she saw Noo-noo grinning at her, a couple of treats in front of her. Meadow was also grinning at her: wearing some industrial-looking kitchen gloves and cleaning the last remaining bits of fire extinguisher foam off the stove. In Beatrice’s dish drainer were the formerly-charred and now-gleaming pans from the night before. In addition, Meadow appeared to have mopped the floor and scrubbed her counters and switched out her kitchen towels for clean ones.
Beatrice felt strong emotions welling up in her and quickly hugged the surprised Meadow, who seemed a little uncomfortable with Beatrice’s gratitude.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Meadow. “Pish! Have I ever shared with you that one of my favorite things to do is really clean? Scrub, I mean. There’s nothing more satisfying, is there? You get an immediate result. Sometimes I’ll even take before and after pictures of what I’ve cleaned, just to gloat.”
“Meadow, thank you so much for this. I can’t tell you how much I was dreading coming back home and spending the morning cleaning. Because I have a feeling it would take a lot longer for me to clean that mess up than it took you to do it.”
Meadow waved off any further conversation about the miraculous transformation of Beatrice’s kitchen. “No, no. Now I know you probably had coffee at breakfast, but I’ve brought over some dessert coffee and half-and-half. This stuff is positively sinful, it’s so good. Let’s have some over in your living room. I’ll fill you in on what Ramsay told me this morning.”
Before Beatrice knew it, she was sitting in her living room, Noo-noo curled contentedly at her feet, and a cup of coffee in her hand.
Meadow quickly finished cleaning up, washed her hands, and joined Beatrice. She said, “I’m not going to be here for too long, because I promised I’d help Ash with a couple of wedding-related errands. But I wanted to make sure I checked in with you and made sure that you were all right. What a dreadful night last night! At least now everything is finally back to normal.”
“What did Ramsay find out?” asked Beatrice.
“Oh, that Julia confessed to everything. That’s the only decent thing the woman has done since this whole mess started. And it was all above-board, of course. Ramsay recommended that she get a lawyer, although Julia apparently didn’t seem much interested. She was ready to get it all off her chest. Still, they did get one for her and the lawyer did her best to get Julia to keep her mouth closed,” said Meadow.
Beatrice said, “But Julia kept on talking?”
“Ramsay said she seemed to want to get it over with. So she gave him all the details about Henrietta’s and Minerva’s deaths—why she’d killed them, how she’d gone about it, etc. It’s amazing to me that Julia would be so violent over that blog of hers,” said Meadow, shaking her head.
“I think she didn’t want to lose that book deal,” said Beatrice. “And she didn’t want all her blog readers to think that her ‘happy marriage’ was a sham. At any rate, it’s all over now. And at least we know that justice will be carried out.”
“What I didn’t understand is how you knew what had happened and why Julia was determined to get rid of you, too,” said Meadow. Her brow was furrowed.
“Honestly, Julia simply misinterpreted something that I said. I saw her at the library before the funeral. I asked her about Henrietta coming to the library every day and then I made some offhand comment about Ramsay giving me so much to read that I didn’t need to come to the library for a while, or some such thing.”
Meadow gasped. “So Ramsay’s short stories nearly got you killed! That Ramsay.”
“Well, indirectly. Julia thought I was threatening her—that I knew something. Maybe she even thought I’d blackmail her over the information like Henrietta had,” said Beatrice.
“But did you know it was Julia then?” asked Meadow impatiently. “Could you tell while you were at the library? Did you give yourself away and that’s why she came after you later?”
“Not at all. I’d like to say that I knew it was Julia then, but the truth is that I suspected her just as much as everyone else. But when I saw her at my door, I knew. Even though Julia was probably prepared to pass off her appearance at my house as a visit, I realized she was the killer.” Beatrice took a sip of her coffee to warm herself up after feeling that cold certainty course through her again.
“But how? I had no idea and I had the same information that you did,” said Meadow.
“The fact that Henrietta was at the library and that Julia was also at the library when I was talking to her was probably the trigger. Henrietta was using the library’s computers so that no one could trace her computer. The person who was the troll on Julia’s site wouldn’t have wanted to be traced if Julia reported harassing comments. Seeing Julia at the library reminded me of her blog and also made me wonder if Julia had been the one who hacked Posy’s email and sent out the message about Henrietta,” said Beatrice.
Meadow sighed. “Well, that’s smart of you. I don’t think those things would have occurred to me.”
“It wasn’t only that. In a flash, I also thought about what Miss Sissy had said about Minerva having an affair. I saw June Bug yesterday afternoon and she told me that Jim and Minerva had acted very close while in her shop. It seemed very likely that Minerva’s affair was with Julia’s husband. Julia’s blog offered a glimpse at an allegedly happy and rewarding marriage. She got a book deal because of this illusion. Julia wouldn’t have wanted news of an affair to leak out. It might even have made the publisher decide to back out of the book contract.”
“So Julia walked over here with a knife,” said Meadow in a deeply angry voice.
“She did. But she didn’t pull the knife out at once. Julia just suspected that I knew something and decided to come over to probe a little more,” said Beatrice.
“Why did you even let her in?” fretted Meadow.
“She pushed her way in. Besides, I was thinking it was Wyatt, running a bit early for supper. Or maybe you with a bottle of wine vinegar after all,” said Beatrice. “But once I saw Julia and realized she was the killer, she knew that I knew. At that point, she was ready to get rid of me, too.”
“Well thank heaven that you burned supper to a crisp,” said Meadow.
“I know. The smoke detector going off and Noo-noo going berserk created the perfect distraction,” said Beatrice.
“Sweet, brave Noo-noo,” said Meadow fondly. She reached over to rub the little dog and then stood briskly up, picking up her coffee cup and heading to the kitchen. “All right, I’ve got to head out to meet up with Ash,” she said as she busily hand-washed her cup. “Do you think you can go back to sleep?”
“I’m pretty sure I can’t. But I’m putting my feet up,” said Beatrice.
“That’s good. I talked to Piper this morning and we agreed that you need a very quiet late-morning and afternoon!” Meadow threw Beatrice a kiss. “Hope that you and Noo-noo can take it easy.”
A couple of hours after Meadow left, Piper surprised her by ordering lunch to be delivered to her house from one of her favorite cafés in Dappled Hills. Beatrice ate up the broccoli and cheese soup in the sourdough bread bowl and the delicious chopped chef salad that came with it.
Beatrice discovered that she actually could indeed take a nap. She fell asleep on the sofa and Noo-noo snored gently beside her for the better part of an hour. Then she spent time reading Ramsay’s stories, which surprised her by being far better than she expected.
It was suppertime when Beatrice’s cell phone buzzed at her. She hoped it was Wyatt, trying to reschedule their dinner for the umpteenth time. She squinted at her phone and sighed. It was a text message from Miss Sissy.
“Need ride,” the text succinctly stated.
“Where are you?” responded Beatrice. She hadn’t planned on going back out.
“At church.” Miss Sissy was fond of running by the church to visit with Wyatt.
Beatrice texted back, “But you live close by! You usually walk!” Her use of excessive exclamation points was a testament to the fact that she was chagrined at going back out.
“Hip is cranky,” read Miss Sissy’s crisp reply.
Beatrice was already walking in her bedroom to put on her shoes and to run a comb through her hair and touch up her makeup. In Dappled Hills, whenever she left the house without makeup or without combing her hair, she always saw every person she knew in the town.
“All right,” texted Beatrice. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“K. Will wait inside.”
“Why not outside?” asked Beatrice. “I’ll be right there! You could wait outside.”
Miss Sissy stubbornly texted, “Sitting down.”
Beatrice groaned in frustration, grabbed her car keys, gave Noo-noo a pat, and left. The only thing good about this was that at least Miss Sissy wasn’t driving herself around. She was a menace to society when she did. Miss Sissy was very fond of driving on sidewalks.
Beatrice pulled up to the old church, appreciating once again how it seemed to blend in with the nature surrounding it. Its stones were moss and ivy-covered, and the building was surrounded by flowering trees and bushes. She always felt calmer when she was here.
She parked out front and hesitated. Where exactly ‘inside’ was Miss Sissy? In the sanctuary? In the Sunday school building? Or in one of the other areas of the church? Beatrice walked down the brick walkway that led to a few steps at the front of the church and pushed open the wooden doors that led to the sanctuary.
She walked into the dim room, with its arched ceiling and beautiful old wood that was lovingly polished to gleam. “Miss Sissy?” she called, wincing as her voice echoed around the sanctuary. Clearly, no one was here. Even if Miss Sissy had fallen asleep in the brief interval before Beatrice arrived, she’d have heard that echoing call.
She walked down the aisle to the doors leading out to the rest of the church. She walked down halls laid with red carpet, past empty Sunday school rooms. “Miss Sissy?” called Beatrice, feeling exasperated. Miss Sissy had said the church, not Wyatt’s house.
After a couple of minutes, she reached the church’s formal dining room, which she peered into. Nothing but a room of tables set up for the next church dinner.
Finally, she opened the door to the church’s smaller, more intimate dining room across the hall. And caught her breath.
Wyatt was standing inside, smiling tenderly at her. Candles were lit on each of the small, round tables covered with starched white tablecloths and on each table were freshly-picked flowers of all sorts in church vases. There were also flowers on the sideboards, which seemed to be loaded with delicious-smelling foods—a shrimp pasta, vegetable casserole, mixed fruits, and pies.
“Wyatt?” asked Beatrice, barely able to speak.
That’s when Wyatt dropped to one knee. “Beatrice, would you do me the great honor of marrying me?”
Beatrice gave a gasping laugh. “I will. I will, Wyatt.”
And the next few minutes were spent in silence.
Minutes later, Wyatt had Beatrice, glowing with happiness, sit in one of the ancient wooden chairs where he served her a feast.
“Wyatt,” she said with a laugh, “have you been cooking all day? You’re putting my poor pork chops to shame.”
“I have a confession,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Piper knew I was going to ask you and she wanted to cook, too. So the food is from both of us, with love.”
“Piper knew? She keeps a secret better than I knew,” said Beatrice, watching as Wyatt helped her plate with shrimp pasta.
“She’s known for a while,” admitted Wyatt. “And she helped me pick all the flowers here from our yards and some off the church grounds.”
Beatrice’s eyes opened wide. “Oh! You’ve been trying to propose all this time?” She covered her mouth with her hand. She thought of Piper following up with her, asking her whether she’d planned another date with Wyatt. Thought of her consternation that the previous dinners and picnic hadn’t gone as planned.
“It just took a while longer than expected, through no fault of our own,” said Wyatt.
“And Miss Sissy? She was obviously part of the plot, too,” said Beatrice.
“Miss Sissy was apparently listening in very closely last night. When I took her home, she demanded that we have our dinner tonight instead of waiting any longer. She told me that she wanted to help. And we’d had such bad luck when we planned for dinner that the spontaneous approach with Miss Sissy giving a trumped up excuse seemed like a better way.” Wyatt grinned at her as he helped his own plate. “She picked some of the flowers, too.”
“I didn’t even know Miss Sissy had flowers,” said Beatrice, thinking of the little house covered with vines like something out of Sleeping Beauty. She wondered where Miss Sissy had picked them. “Everything is so beautiful.”
“May I say a blessing? I’ve got so much to be thankful for,” said Wyatt, his voice wavering a little.
And as he blessed their food and their lives together, sitting in that candlelit church dining room that was brightened with flowers from her family and friends, Beatrice had never felt more loved in her life.