23

Several hours passed by the time Winnie and Alison restored the upstairs room. Located above the front door, such rooms were known as “sleeping porches” by decades of Southerners enduring hot summer nights without the benefits of modern air-conditioning. They resurrected the wooden quilting frame, haphazardly torn apart by Ivy, placing it amid the oaks of the side lawn. Winnie managed to capture the elusive Jasper into setting the tent pegs and erecting the red-striped canvas. It lent a Mary Poppins-like carnival air to the grounds.

Velma and the rest of the quilters were thrilled with their temporary new digs. Alison sent up a quick prayer for no rain till the spring festival was over this weekend.

She poked her head around Ivy’s open door. “You wanted me to help Erica set up the fashion exhibit this afternoon, right?”

Huddled over her computer, Ivy didn’t bother to look up. “Go ahead.” She flicked her hand toward the door. “I’ve got to get ready for the board meeting.”

“Sure thing.” Alison half-turned.

“One more thing, Mrs. Monaghan.”

Alison bit her lip. What was with the Mrs. Monaghan?

Ivy’s eyes, like those of a bug-eyed tree frog, blinked. “I realize you’re a special friend of Hilary. But, in the future, let me handle personnel disputes. I had the situation under control. After all,” she smiled. “You mustn’t forget your place. If I need your assistance, I’ll ask for it.”

Alison fumed all the way to the main house. If she’d been Velma, she would’ve walloped Ivy right in that big mouth of hers.

She gave a swift kick to the gravel at her feet. “Mustn’t forget my place?”

Puh-leeze . . .

Reaching the gardens, she stopped to take a deep breath of the rose-scented air and tried to hold on to her temper.

She needed to focus and not allow Ivy or anyone else to sidetrack her from her real mission. One of these people she worked with on a daily basis at Weathersby committed murder. Someone, maybe more than one someone, was lying.

Alison found Erica in the third-story attic, the former house servants’ quarters. Layers of archival parchment tissue littered the wooden floor. Hatboxes and shoes were strewn about.

Erica’s face contorted. “Will you look at this mess?” She waved her arms. “No one is supposed to touch the linens, except for Ivy or me.”

Alison rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. And, another crisis.

“What’s wrong?” She stopped on the threshold, afraid to venture more than a foot into the room for fear of trampling priceless heirlooms.

“They’ve not been put back according to their ID tags.” Erica lifted a shirtwaist blouse circa 1900 off the floor. “Someone’s been playing dress-up here in the attic. They’re out of order.”

Alison reached for a taffeta crinoline skirt.

“Wait—” Erica extended a pair of white archival gloves.

“Sorry.” She slipped them onto her hands. “Who could’ve done this?”

Erica shook her head and scrambled to her feet. “Ginny locks up and sets the alarm most weeknights. And she’s been . . .” Erica glanced toward the attic window. “She’s not been herself lately. Or it could’ve been Natalie.” She gestured at the mess around her. “It’d be just like Natalie to borrow from the collection for her private use.”

“Do you have the only key?”

“No. All the board members have a universal key to the doors.”

Alison busied herself, tidying up the room. So where was Frank’s key?

Mike hadn’t found it on Frank’s body, and she hadn’t been able to find it after searching the house.

Had the key been what the burglar had been looking for?

Under close supervision, she followed Erica from room to room, dressing the mannequins set up earlier in the costumes representing the various historical eras in Weathersby history. In one bedroom, they dressed the mannequin in a brown wedding ensemble.

Alison straightened the brown lace collar around the mannequin’s smooth, alabaster neck. “Brown? For a wedding?”

“White is a modern wedding notion from around the turn of the twentieth century. A symbol of high social status if a girl could afford a white, to-be-used-one-time type of gown.” Erica nudged her chin at a portrait hanging above the fireplace mantel. “The bride, Prudence, married into the Weathersby family before the Civil War. Brown and bleak was a pretty good omen for her future married state.”

Alison draped a set of ocher beads around the mannequin. “Why do you say that?” As a garden docent, she hadn’t bothered to learn the family stories the tour docents memorized for their guests.

“Her husband, Oliver Weathersby, was a rake and a scoundrel by all accounts.”

Alison smiled. “A regular Rhett Butler?”

Erica tweaked the faded brown bonnet, tying the frayed ribbons in place. “That and more to hear Miss Lula tell it.” She shot a look over the mannequin to Alison. “You can learn a lot from old people like her. If you’ve got the time to hear them out.”

Remembering Robert’s admonition to act her age, she ducked her head so she didn’t have to stare at her own profile in the wavy antique glass of the vanity. Where exactly did the hip, young Erica categorize her?

Probably in the same category as Miss Lula.

“Not that Ivy allowed that in the official version.” Erica adjusted a sleeve cuff. “But you know, in those days, how some men who owned plantations viewed their property.” Erica clamped her mouth shut in distaste.

Alison’s eyebrows rose as comprehension dawned. “Oh.”

Erica smirked. “Oh, yeah. He’s that fat, pompous guy over the mantel in the front parlor. He gives me the creeps. I always feel like his beady green eyes are watching me no matter where I am in the room.”

“An artist’s trick?”

“Whatever.” Erica fluttered a hand. “He got what was coming to him during the War.”

The War—all good Southerners knew—referred to the Civil War, not the more recent global conflicts.

They shifted their attention to a smaller child-size model set up inside an elaborately carved wooden crib. Erica buttoned the tiny calico blue pinafore. “They had one daughter, Opal, and her husband, a carpetbagger, took the Weathersby name to preserve Fatso’s posterity.”

Alison bit back a laugh. She’d hate to think what Herself would think of Erica’s youthful euphemisms for the scions of the Weathersby clan.

Erica moved into another bedroom, laying out glittering flapper-era costumes and feather boas. “They had one son, Malcolm, but the Yankee didn’t last long, either. Then, it was just a bunch of old women and the little boy.”

“Sounds healthy,” Alison noted with dry humor as she helped Erica pin garnet and amethyst brooches onto the mannequins.

Erica grinned and shivered. “Sounds positively gothic to me.”

She smiled. “Southern gothic.”

“Are you coming to the ball on Friday night?” Erica secured a boa in place. “You’re supposed to wear a costume from an era of the Weathersby house.”

Alison shrugged. “I hadn’t given it much thought, what with . . .” She angled away, struggling to control the tremor in her voice.

“Oh, I’m such a dope. I forgot about—” Erica peered into her face. “And here I am chattering on about crazy people dying.”

Except for the body piercing in her navel, Erica reminded Alison of Claire with her youthful exuberance and naïveté. She sent a swift prayer to heaven that body piercings and tattoos were not in Claire’s future. With Claire, one never knew . . .

Alison squared her shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’m adjusting. I keep busy so I don’t have too much time to think about how much my life has changed.”

Erica fisted her hands on her hips. “Well, you should come then. To the ball, I mean. Do you good to get dolled up. Probably what our mysterious intruder was doing, looking for accessories to add to their costume for the ball.”

Alison nodded. “Could be.”

Like all the board members, Frank had pre-purchased two tickets for the ball, but she’d not given her attire a second thought after Frank was killed and her entire world went off-kilter. Was it too soon for a widow to appear out in public? Or was that too old-fashioned?

“Did you know my husband, Frank?”

Averting her face, Erica bent to sort the box of bead-encrusted slippers on the bed. “A little.”

Alison narrowed her eyes.

Twenty-three-year-old Erica was a lovely strawberry blonde with a willowy build. The old Frank couldn’t have helped but notice her.

“How little?”

The rustling stopped and Erica stilled. “I have a boyfriend. He’s a drummer in a band.”

She gently rotated Erica. “How well did you know Frank, Erica?”

Erica refused to meet her gaze but blushed a becoming rose pink. “I’d rather not say.”

Alison lifted Erica’s chin with her thumb and forefinger. “I’m under no illusions about my late husband, Erica. You can tell me the truth. I promise I won’t be angry at you.”

Erica’s eyes filled with tears, twin blueberry pools. “When I graduated and got this job last year, after a board meeting one night, Frank invited me out to celebrate. He was so friendly and cute. In an older way.” Erica sank onto the bed. “I was flattered. I swear I didn’t know he was married, Mrs. Monaghan.”

Back to Mrs. Monaghan.

Did she want to hear this? The old weariness and defeat settled upon her. Was she doomed to spend the rest of her life encountering the lurid remnants of Frank’s betrayal?

But this might be important. She pushed the darkness from her mind. “Of course you didn’t, Erica.”

Unlike Ginny’s story, this tale sounded like Frank’s modus operandi. “How did you learn the truth?”

Erica sniffed and drew one gloved finger under her eye, swiping at a tear. “After dinner, I invited him to my apartment. While he was getting the car, Ivy and Henry showed up at the restaurant. She’d seen Frank in the parking lot and guessed the rest. She set me straight, and they took me home.” Her mortification radiated off her even after all these months.

Alison’s temples throbbed. “That must have been embarrassing for you. Ivy can be—”

Erica touched her arm. “Oh, no, Mrs. Monaghan. She was so kind to me that night. Like an older sister, looking out for me. I’m ever so grateful she prevented me from doing something in ignorance I would’ve been ashamed of the next day. And then a week later, I met Travis, my boyfriend, and we fell in love.”

Alison sighed. “On behalf of Frank, I apologize for his deceitful behavior. Thank you for telling me.” She traced an imaginary circle with the toe of her shoe.

Erica grasped Alison’s hand. “Oh, Mrs. Monaghan, it’s not your fault. Nothing of what happened was your fault.” Glints of anger—was there something else, too?—sparked out of her baby blue eyes. “I deserve better than that from him or any guy. And so did you.”