Lily stood at her kitchen counter, dicing celery to add to the macaroni salad. She intended to bring it to tonight’s potluck dinner at Marlow House, where the friends had agreed to gather to discuss the recent unsavory events of Beach Drive.
She glanced over to her husband, Ian, who sat at the breakfast bar, looking down on his cellphone, while Connor napped in his bedroom. “Who are you texting?”
Ian looked up from his phone. “I’m not texting anyone. You sure I can’t help you?”
“Nah, I got this.” Lily resumed her dicing, and Ian turned his attention back to his phone.
After a moment of silence Lily stopped what she was doing and looked back to Ian. “I forgot to tell you. With the bomb scare and everything, it just slipped my mind.”
Ian looked up at Lily. “What?”
“Yesterday, when Dani and I were having lunch at Lucy’s Diner, before you guys showed up, your sister stopped at the diner. She had been at Adam’s office picking up some information on new listings. She said something really funny.”
“I suspect you’re not talking funny, ha ha.”
“Not unless you find humor in your mother’s tears.”
Ian frowned. “My mother’s tears?”
“Yeah. Your sister said she stopped by your folks’ house to discuss having the wedding at Pearl Cove.”
“She’s accepting the offer?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, when your sister started talking to your mom about the wedding, your mom broke into tears, started crying. She wouldn’t say why she was crying, but she made your sister promise not to tell you about it.”
“And of course, Kelly promised not to tell me, yet did not promise not to tell you. And she told you, and now is waiting for you to tell me, so I can, in turn, tell her why Mom was crying, assuming I know.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “Wow. You know your sister well.”
Ian shrugged. “This is pretty typical Kelly reasoning.”
“So?”
“So what?” Ian asked.
“Do you know why your mom was crying?”
Ian let out a sigh and set his cellphone on the counter. “I think so.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I suppose. But I would rather discuss this with Kelly myself, so if she asks you about it, tell her to come to me directly.”
“But won’t that be breaking her promise to your mother?”
“Not really.”
“So why was your mom crying? What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did anything?” Ian asked.
“It obviously has something to do with you.”
Ian let out another sigh. “I’m not positive, but I have to assume Mom may have broken into tears because of a conversation I had with her the other day. It certainly was not my intent to make her cry, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense. She must be upset over what I said.”
“What kind of conversation?”
“You might say I set down some boundaries with Mom. I told her if she could not respect those boundaries, then we might not attend her Sunday dinners, and we probably would not see them as much in the future.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “Wow.” Instead of asking questions about the boundaries he set, she resumed making her macaroni salad and told herself if Ian had wanted to elaborate, he would have told her about the conversation with his mother before now. Lily would respect that. Plus, she had a good idea what the conversation was about, because like Ian knew his sister well, she knew her husband.
After a moment of silence, Lily looked up from the macaroni salad to Ian, who sat quietly staring off into space, no longer looking at his phone. “Hey, Ian,” Lily began in a quiet voice, “I don’t know if I have mentioned it today, but I love you. And I hope your mom is going to be okay.”
Ian smiled at Lily. “I love you too. And me too, I don’t get any pleasure making Mom cry. I love her, but she will get over this, and when she does, all of us will be happier.”
I hope you’re right, Lily said to herself.
Danielle placed the food along the buffet in the dining room. She had made fried chicken, Lily brought her macaroni salad, Heather brought sourdough bread and mashed potatoes, Brian brought dessert from Old Salts, and Chris picked up coleslaw and beer at the grocery store.
After filling their plates, they sat around the dining room table, Walt, Danielle, Lily, Ian, Connor, Heather, Brian, and Chris.
“Do you have any leads on this Olivia look-alike?” Lily asked.
About to take a bite of chicken, Brian paused and glanced at Lily. “Unfortunately, no. And nothing adds up.”
Danielle looked at Brian. “Did you ever talk to Josephine? I remember you said you were trying to interview her again.”
“Yes. She repeated much of what she told us before. She didn’t get back to the library until after the letter opener was gone. But she gave me a list of people who checked out books or returned them on the days the letter opener could have been taken, along with which employees worked those days.”
“I thought you knew what day the letter opener went missing?” Chris asked.
“According to Becca Hammond, she stopped at the library on Saturday morning to pick up the letter opener, since that was the last day of the exhibit. But when she got there, Betty explained that while Saturday was officially the last day, it wouldn’t end until the library closed on Saturday, and they planned to change the display on Monday,” Brian explained. “Becca regrets not returning right before the library closed on Saturday and asking for the letter opener back, instead of waiting until Monday. After all, at that point, it wasn’t necessary to leave it in the case since they were closed the next day and breaking down the display on Monday.”
“Monday was the day Josephine returned from vacation?” Lily asked.
Brian looked to Lily. “Yes. But she didn’t come into the library until later that day, after Betty discovered the letter opener missing. According to Becca, when she stopped at the library on Saturday morning, the letter opener was still in the display case. But we really aren’t sure when it was taken. It might have been gone when they closed up on Saturday. And the library is closed on Sunday. Betty didn’t notice it missing until about an hour after the library opened on Monday, and that was when she went to switch out the display and found the case unlocked.”
“It would sure make things a lot easier if they had cameras in the library,” Danielle muttered.
“I’m surprised they don’t,” Chris said.
“But I found out something interesting. It seems our ex-handyman, Kenny, has a record for theft.”
Danielle looked up from her plate to Brian. “Really? Are we talking jewel thief or grand theft auto?”
Brian looked at Danielle. “Neither. He was working at a warehouse in Washington and helped himself to some of the merchandise. He spent a little time in prison.”
“Wow, did Josephine know that when he applied for the job?” Danielle asked. “Kenny said that’s who hired him. I wonder if Adam knows.”
“Not sure about Adam,” Brian said. “But Josephine was aware of his record before she hired him. After talking to him, I ran a background check. When I talked to Josephine again, she brought it up before I did. She told me about his record, but insisted he was innocent. From what he had told her, someone had set him up, and he made a plea deal to reduce his sentence. I think she felt sorry for him.”
“Let’s say the handyman is the one who took the letter opener,” Chris said. “I don’t imagine someone like that takes an antique letter opener because he thinks it’s pretty.”
“Supposedly, it was worth about five hundred dollars,” Brian said.
“I’d think he would want to sell it,” Chris said.
“It disappeared a little over a month ago,” Ian reminded him. “Not sure that’s enough time to find a buyer. It’s not like he can list it on eBay or Craig’s List. If I were the letter opener’s rightful owner, that’s where I’d be checking.”
“While I can understand why he would still have the letter opener after a month, even if he intended to sell it, I can’t come up with a scenario where he ends up using that letter opener to kill Betty. Why?” Danielle asked.
“We need a motive or what led up to the murder,” Brian admitted. “But if we can find who took that letter opener, we are one step closer to finding the killer.”
They debated the topic a few minutes longer when Connor reached toward his mother’s plate and said, “Bread!”
Lily relinquished her bread to her son and then stood up, preparing to replace hers from the basket of bread Heather had set on the buffet. Ian, seeing his wife about to get up, told her to sit back down, and he would get her the bread. But then Walt stopped them both and offered to do it. The next moment, the basket of bread floated across the room to the table while all the friends watched.
“Hey, Walt, think you could bring that platter of chicken over here?” Chris asked.
“I suppose I could do that.” After the basket of bread landed on the table in front of Lily, Walt turned his attention to the platter of chicken. It lifted from the buffet and floated across the room toward them.
“Please don’t drop that,” Danielle teased. “I’d hate to see all that fried chicken land on the floor.”
Like a flying saucer, the platter made its way to the table, and as it prepared for landing, it hovered above the center of the tablecloth for a few seconds. Yet, instead of making a slow descent, it abruptly dropped the two feet to the table, sending pieces of fried chicken bouncing across the tablecloth.
“Walt!” Danielle started to scold, yet quickly noticed Walt’s attention was no longer on the platter of chicken, but on something on the other side of the room. Danielle looked to see what had captured Walt’s attention, as did everyone else at the table.
Danielle’s first thought: how did she get in here? Their new neighbor, Olivia Davis, stood at the end of the dining room next to the kitchen. Eyes wide, Olivia stared at the table for a moment. By her expression, she had obviously just witnessed the platter of chicken flying across the room. Olivia then looked at the faces now turned in her direction. The next moment, she vanished.
“Holy crap!” Heather blurted.
“Did you guys just see that?” Danielle squeaked.
“You mean Walt dropping the plate of chicken?” Lily asked. “What are you guys staring at?”
The mediums exchanged glances.
“Can someone explain what just happened?” Brian asked. “Aside from Walt trying to be funny.”
“He wasn’t trying to be funny,” Heather said.
Ian stood up and began picking the chicken up off the table and returned it to the platter, which, fortunately, hadn’t broken in the fall. “You guys saw something. What was it?”
“Brian, I think we have a problem,” Heather announced.
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Brian groaned.
“I think what Heather is trying to say,” Danielle began. “Whoever was trying to murder Olivia, it looks like they have succeeded. Her ghost was just here.”