Deadly Greetings Part 18

There was a sudden intake of breath on the other end. "You wouldn't," he said. "No, strike that. You'd tell for the fun of it, wouldn't you?"

Lillian said, "I'm going to ask you this one last time. Did she or did she not inherit everything Frances owned?"

With obvious reluctance, the lawyer admitted, "There wasn't much, but whatever Frances had went straight to Maggie. As I recall, there were a few books, some property in the middle of nowhere that no one in their right mind would want, and a box of personal things like paperweights and rocks, if you can believe that. I drew all of the wills up at the same time, so there were no real surprises."

"And what was the nature of their relations.h.i.+p?" Lillian asked. Lillian asked.

"Come on, do you really expect me to answer that?"

"I do," Lillian said, and then she simply waited. I thought for sure he'd hang up on her, but after nearly a minute, Patrick said, "Maggie and Frances were friends, no more and no less. The way it was explained to me was that neither of them ever had children, had I no close relatives at all, and they wanted their things to be handled with respect in the end."

"And there wasn't anything more to their relations.h.i.+p than that?" Lillian asked.

"I'm certain of it, and that's the bottom line. I've heard the rumors too, but sometimes folks in this town need something else to talk about, you know? When the truth runs out, they start making things up as they go along. Can I go now?"

"You did a fine job, Patrick. And don't worry; your secret is safe with me."

"Until you need something else," he grumbled before he hung up.

Lillian smiled at me. "There, that wasn't all that difficult, was it?"

"Do I even want to know what you've got on him?" I asked my aunt.

"Now, Jennifer, you just heard me pledge my silence to him. I'm not going to say another word about it."

I was ready to pump her for more-I could tell Lillian wanted to share-but suddenly the front door opened and Sara Lynn stormed inside.

"That was cute, Jennifer, calling me and then keeping the telephone off the hook so I'd have to drive over. Now that you've got me here, what do you want?"

I'd nearly forgotten about calling my sister. "Sara Lynn, I swear it was just an accident."

"What, you just happened to hang up after giving me this number?" She looked around at the boxes, then asked, "What are you two doing here, anyway?"

Lillian said, "We're working. Jennifer's telling the truth. Someone else called as soon as she got off the line."

: Sara Lynn sat on the couch. "I don't see any card-making supplies around. What kind of work are you doing?" Sara Lynn sat on the couch. "I don't see any card-making supplies around. What kind of work are you doing?"

Before Lillian could say anything, I chimed in.

"Maggie's attorney needed somebody to clean the place up, and we took the job to supplement our income." Well, most of it was true, though I'd left out parts of the rationales behind our actions.

It didn't look like Sara Lynn was buying it, though. "Don't bother to embellish any more. You two are snooping around again. I can't say I'm shocked, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed." on Lillian said, "Then perhaps you should leave."

"You called me, remember? What was so urgent that it couldn't wait?"

Lillian said, "You know what? Perhaps it's not important after all. Sorry we bothered you at home.

Why don't you get back to your dinner? I'm sure it's getting cold by now."

Sara Lynn's voice faltered, then she said, "That's not all that's getting cold. I've lost my appet.i.te lately for eating alone."

That softened Lillian immediately. "Child, every marriage has troubled times."

"Coming from you, I'd say that qualifies as expert testimony," Sara Lynn snapped.

Before things could escalate, I said, "The reason I called you was for some information. Did Maggie quit sc.r.a.pbooking cold turkey a few years ago?"

"What? Of course not. She started making cards around then, but she was still buying supplies at For ever Memories right up until she died."

Lillian asked, "When was the last time she was your shop?"

"Why do you two want to know?" Sara Lynn asked "Please, just humor us, okay?" I asked. "Do you need to check your receipts before you answer?"

"Would you have to?" Sara Lynn asked me. "Two weeks ago she bought a new sc.r.a.pbook and some stickers. She said she wanted to make a present for a new friend."

"It wasn't for a man, was it?" I asked.

"Do you mean a boyfriend? No, I was fairly sure ii was a woman, given the cover she chose. Honestly, at what age does it cease being 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'? Surely we can come up with a more dignified set of labels for later in life."

"I prefer 'paramour' myself," Lillian said.

"Okay, maybe I spoke too soon," Sara Lynn said "'Boyfriend' might not be so bad after all."

"You didn't happen to get a name, did you?" I asked.

"No, sorry. Let me look at her books a second and I can tell you immediately. There they are."

It only took my sister two seconds to notice something was wrong. "At least two are missing, do you realize that?"

I was glad to have some independent confirmation. "That's what we've been trying to figure out. It's a lot harder to tell what happened by what's missing than what's there, isn't it?"

"So what do we do now?" Sara Lynn asked.

Lillian wasn't having any of that. " 'We' aren't doing, anything. You are going to go home while Jennifer and I stay here and work."

Sara Lynn shook her head. "I believe I'll stay here with you, if I'm welcome. Right now the last thing I need to do is rattle around in that house alone, and to be honest with you, I could use something productive to do."

I could tell from the set of Lillian's jaw that she was about to throw Sara Lynn out despite my sister's plea, but I could tell she needed me, and I didn't have the heart to say no to her. "Of course you can help us. We'll even cut you in on our earnings." My sister nodded. "Thank you, but I'm willing to do this for an old friend."

That touched me. "I think of you as a friend, too," I said as I put an arm around my pet.i.te sister. She pulled instantly away. "I was referring to Maggie. You will always be my baby sister."

"I knew that," I said, trying to hide my frown. It didn't help matters that Lillian had found the display life amusing and wasn't trying to hide her delight in any way. "Enough talk," I said, ready to move on. "Let's get to work."

Sara Lynn said, "The first thing we need to do is close the windows. Are you two trying to heat all of Rebel Forge?"

"Talk to your sister. She's the one with the fresh-air fetish," Lillian said.

Great. I'd reached out to my sister in her time of need, and I'd ended up being on the wrong end of a majority vote. Sometimes it just didn't pay to be nice.

"Let's do this in an organized fas.h.i.+on," Sara Lynn said, stepping into her usual role of leader director president. "We'll mark boxes 'Personal,' 'Charity' and 'Trash.' Any objections?"

"No, that sounds fine," Lillian said, smiling behind Sara Lynn's back but holding it long enough for me to see. It wasn't mocking, just an acceptance of how my sister worked.

"What room were you two going to do first?" she asked.

"We'd thought about starting with the bedroom," I admitted. "Where would you like to begin?"

"The bedroom's fine," she said. "Ladies, we all knew Maggie and cared about her, so it's perfectly fine to shed a tear along the way."

That was another side of Sara Lynn, an emotional woman to balance the efficiency in her. I didn't doubt she was a hard person to live with; hadn't I experienced that myself? I just always thought of her marriage to Bailey as a goal I hoped to achieve someday. Hearing about their problems was not a part of my fantasy, and I was sad to hear that it was a part of her reality.

"Let's do the clothes first, shall we?" Lillian suggested. "They're always the hardest for me."

Sara Lynn nodded her agreement. I didn't care where we began, just as long as I could look for clues about what had really happened to Maggie.

Sara Lynn asked, "Who is her main beneficiary? Does anyone know?"

"I could always call Patrick back," Lillian said.

"No, let's leave him alone tonight unless we really need him," I said. I couldn't bear the thought of Lillian making him squirm again. "We'll just do the best we can."

Sara Lynn said, "I'm not just being nosy; it's an important question. Who knows why one person holds something as sentimental? You'd be amazed at the things I've kept over the years."

"Like what?" Lillian asked, clearly intrigued as she opened the closet door.

Sara Lynn started neatly folding the first dress after she put the hanger in a box she'd already labeled "Hangers." "I've got an entire box this size full of c.o.c.ktail napkins, matchbook covers, silly fluff like that that wouldn't mean a thing to anyone else in the world."

"If it was important to Maggie, she'll have it tucked safely away as well," I said.

"True," Sara Lynn said as she gently laid the first dress in the bottom of another box. "Tell you what, I'll start on these. Lillian, why don't you work on the chest of drawers, and Jennifer, you can pack away the knickknacks and photographs. They're everywhere, aren't they?"

I agreed. "It looks like Maggie enjoyed being surrounded by things that gave her joy." As we worked, each of us on separate tasks but together in the same room, we chatted about dozens of things. It was a sad occasion and a working one in more ways than one, but the Shane women were together, and that part of it was good indeed.

There was a marked absence of real clues there, though. After we'd stripped the room of everything personal in it, Sara Lynn carried the last box of donations out of the room. I jumped on the opportunity and said to Lillian, "I was expecting to find something in here that might help."

"Jennifer, there may not be anything of use to us in the entire house. After all, we've already discovered something." I nodded. "The missing sc.r.a.pbooks-I know-but it's going to be hard to tell if it means something or not if we don't know why they were stolen."

"There's more to do yet," Lillian said as Sara Lynn rejoined us.

With a little more delight in her voice than I'd expected, she said, "We'll be at this half the night. Let's do the kitchen next. I'll make coffee."

"Make it strong," I said, fighting a yawn. It had been a long day, and it looked to be an even longer night.

I found something while I was working in the kitchen at the desk where Maggie did her bills. Sara Lynn was disposing of the food, keeping a few things to the side for a late-night snack while Lillian cleaned out the cabinets full of pots and pans. In a letter holder on the desk behind a few bills, I found a distinctive envelope I recognized from the shop with Jeffrey Wallace's name and address printed on the front.

"Does this look familiar?" I said as I held it up to Lillian.

"It's from one of those ghastly new papers you've been making recently," she said.

I nodded, though I didn't agree with the "ghastly" designation. "That means Maggie made this card within the last week."

Sara Lynn said, "It's got a stamp on it, so go ahead and mail it."

"But it's not sealed, is it?" I said as I started to lift the back flap. Many of my card makers enjoyed cutting out their own envelopes so they'd have matching stationery, and Maggie was no exception.

Sara Lynn s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of my hand. "You can't read that. It's private."

Lillian said, "More private than what we're doing now? Let me see it."

Sara Lynn hesitated, but the tone of Lillian's voice was no doubt hard to refute. My sister handed her the card, saying, "I still think you should mail it."

"Perhaps after we've seen what it says," Lillian said. As she pulled the card from the envelope, I moved beside her so I could read it along with her. Sara Lynn kept working, her silence showing all the disapproval she needed it to express.

On the front of the card, there was an anatomically correct stamp of a heart split in two, shaded the ghastliest red hue I'd ever seen. The heart had been cut right down the middle, and as I studied the card closer, I could see that she'd glued the pieces in place. The front said, "My Heart Is Broken." I wasn't sure I had the heart to read the rest of it, but Lillian didn't hesitate. Inside, Maggie had written,

Jeffrey, we're finished. Leave me alone, I mean it. Don't take the last thing I have left between us, my memories, Maggie.

So she'd broken up with him recently, and he wasn't taking the hint, from the look of the card. Funny that Jeffrey hadn't mentioned the fact that he'd just been dumped to me when we'd talked about Maggie that afternoon. It appeared that he'd taken it pretty hard, too. I couldn't help wondering if he'd been angry enough to kill her. I took the card from Lillian and tucked it into my purse.

Sara Lynn saw what I was doing. "What on earth are you going to do with that?"

"You said I should mail it. I'm going to do one better. I'm going to hand deliver it myself."

"Is that wise?" Lillian asked.

"Probably not, but I want to see what he has to say for himself."

We were still clearing out the kitchen when the telephone rang. I reached to pick it up without thinking.

"h.e.l.lo?"

In a m.u.f.fled voice, I heard someone say, "Get out of there or I'll kill you all."

Chapter 14.