Veiled in Death Read online

  But my celebration was premature. A moment later, Helene seemed to spot a small opening in the crowd before her and made a final run for it with the veil. Truman’s amusement slid right off his face.

  “Stop her!” He hefted his frame in an impressively quick fashion and motored off after Helene. He sprinted half a block and stopped when Faith rounded the corner from the other direction, her hands on her hips. Faith thankfully did not reach for her holstered gun, but she still meant business. She may have been young, but she exuded authority. Her youthful appearance didn’t take away from her stature as a policewoman. Faith gave one short, disapproving shake of her head, her blond ponytail swishing against her black policewoman’s uniform in apparent disapproval.

  Faith slipped her sunglasses down her nose and delivered a scathing gaze at Helene. Then she marched Helene back to us with her hand firmly clamped on the collar of Helene’s jacket, as if Faith were a scolding mama cat. But Helene was no cute kitten. She was the spitting image of an angry, bedraggled show cat sputtering in her Bill Blass suit.

  “What’s all this about?” Truman’s voice was stern. His previous mirth at this improbable situation had evaporated in the June sun.

  Bev, Helene, and I began talking all at once. Our voices grew louder and incomprehensible.

  “Whoa. One at a time.” Truman couldn’t suppress an eye roll as he delivered his order. I was a bit miffed at being scolded like a toddler. No way did I want to be lumped into the same category as Helene. I wasn’t the one to rip a rightfully purchased item from someone’s hands in broad daylight and try to abscond with it.

  Helene took a step forward, her defeated posture gone. She clutched the purloined veil to her middle with one hand, and puffed out her king-cobra pageboy hairdo with the other.

  “I was just liberating my long-lost family heirloom from these hooligans.” Her thin lips swathed in pearlescent coral lipstick settled into a smug, if not terse and triumphant, grimace.

  “What?!” Bev took offense to Helene’s name-calling and reached for the veil.

  “Bev.” Truman flashed a warning glance at the seamstress. Bev dejectedly took a step back.

  “We just bought that veil a minute ago!” Bev managed to restrain herself from manhandling Helene, but her voice was shrill.

  “That’s right. Bev and I bought this piece of lace right here at the Antique Emporium.” I gestured toward the brick storefront, willing any of the Battles women to emerge and corroborate my story. “I have the receipt and everything.”

  “Okay. Let’s see it.” Truman held out his large palm, now barely suppressing a smile. He sensed this kerfuffle would soon be solved and the spectacle on Main Street would go away.

  Let’s get this charade over with.

  I reached into the clear shopping bag from the Antique Emporium and stifled a cry.

  “It’s gone.” I held up the bag. It fluttered in the slight breeze, the plastic now in tatters. I’d been holding the thin receptacle in the same hand as the veil, and Helene’s barbaric swipe with her peach French tips had ripped the bag open with the precision of a velociraptor. My eyes tore up and down the sidewalk, seeking the slim white slip of paper receipt that had once nestled safely within the bag.

  “How convenient, Mallory, dear.” Helene gave a toss of her head, her icy eyes positively dancing with mirth.

  This time it was Bev who laid a steadying hand on my arm. I swallowed and urged myself to stay cool. The only thing keeping me from losing it was sending up a silent prayer of thanks that I’d had the good fortune and sense to not marry Helene’s son, Keith. I finally noticed the growing chatter around me. The crowd of early morning shoppers and walkers had grown. They clutched their iced coffees, scones, and donuts as if waiting for us to deliver a reality-show-worthy cat fight.

  “Truman, we have a copy of the receipt.” Claudia’s bell-like voice cut through the whispers as she emerged from the Antique Emporium with a restorative whoosh of cold air.

  I couldn’t suppress a giggle as I took in her getup. She must have started changing out of her reenactment gear when this melee went down. She wore bright turquoise capris with an embroidered pineapple pattern atop pretty melon-colored espadrilles. But her top half was still cloaked in a homespun shirt and rough-woven brown jacket, her tricorn hat still pinned on, but knocked askew. She looked like a time traveler caught in a comical mid-change back to the future. Claudia was Helene’s adversary, and now my knight in shining armor.

  Er, make that colonial-era garb.

  “See? We sold it to Mallory and Bev.” Claudia stopped to draw in a breath. She was feisty and in good health, but this kerfuffle seemed to have rattled the septuagenarian. “Excuse me, I’m a bit out of breath. I haven’t run out that door this fast in years. But it’ll be good practice for when I rush the field this weekend.” She couldn’t resist shooting Helene a little smile with her dig. Then she nearly doubled over and stifled a wheeze. She finally righted herself and laid a slip of yellow paper into Truman’s still-outstretched palm. “I gave them the top copy of the receipt.”

  The chief scanned the paper with keen hazel eyes. I blinked and realized with a start that Garrett was a near carbon-copy of his father, just twenty-five years his junior.

  “She just made that up!” Helene’s composure dissolved in a screech.

  “Oh, give me a break.” I was glad I hadn’t had a chance to don my sunglasses, the better for Helene to see my displeasure with her with a mighty eye roll.

  “It’s time-stamped seven minutes ago.” Truman glanced at the crowd and sighed. “I really don’t think this is a tough one to solve. This seems to be the end of the matter.” He handed the storekeeper’s yellow copy of the receipt to Claudia and laid his upturned hand out again, this time before Helene.

  “Relinquish the veil.”

  Helene’s eyes nearly bugged out of her skull at Truman’s demand. “I. Will. Not. And you of all people, Truman, should understand why.” Helene jammed the delicate lace into Truman’s face. He took a protective step back. But he couldn’t hide the flinch that slipped out when he got a closer look at the veil.

  Huh?

  Before I had time to process that puzzling exchange, the door to the Antique Emporium flew open again. Out streamed Pia and June, the latter expertly wielding a mint-condition Louisville Slugger. She’d no doubt nabbed the baseball bat from her stock.

  “Easy there, June,” Truman cautioned.

  June ignored the chief and directed her ire at Helene. “I was captain and the best hitter for the Quincy College softball team, class of 1978.” Her voice carried down the sidewalk as the small crowd of curious onlookers grew. I was more shocked at her outburst than anything. June was expertly persuasive in her store, but never pushy. If anything, the reedy redhead was serene and calm as she moved through her kingdom of antique treasures. This was a side of her I never expected to see. Her assertiveness mixed with her normally willowy, patrician air was strange to see.

  Truman cleared his throat to stifle a laugh. “That won’t be necessary, but thank you, June.”

  I saw Pia relax by a degree. She had been hovering behind her mother, looking ready to spring into action and restrain her if necessary.

  “We found the veil in the store this morning.” June seemed to come to her senses and let the thick wooden bat drop to her side. She’d win Truman over with reason instead of subduing Helene with threatened force.

  A dawning look of realization seemed to steal over Truman’s face, but it was fleeting. I began to doubt I’d even seen it.

  “This is ludicrous. Mallory and I bought this veil, fair and square. We found it in a—”

  But Bev was cut off by a nearly frantic Pia, who I now realized had baby Miri strapped to her front in the carrier.

  “You’re saying too much, Bev.” Pia’s gimlet green eyes, so like her sister Tabitha’s, were wide with caution.

  “Pia, she’s just setting the record straight.”June was a bit exasperated with her daughter
.

  “Mom, you need to stop talking, too.” Pia was firm, issuing her mother a demand.

  June was shocked enough to be quiet. She seemed to realize her mistake and instead sent her daughter a grateful look.

  I gave the young woman a shrewd glance. She’d make a fair attorney, in addition to her event-planning skills. Her instincts to keep our facts and case close to the vest in front of Helene were savvy and sound. No one should give Helene anything that she could later use to claim the veil was hers. June clammed up for good, but not before she mouthed a silent thank-you to her daughter.

  All was still under the now oppressive sun. The small crowd began to buzz again with pent-up energy. Truman once more held out his hand.

  “The veil, Helene.”

  The reigning queen bee of Port Quincy looked up and down the street in thought. She took in the gaggle of looky-loos and shuddered. She mounted one last attempt to keep the veil in her possession. “I think you need to keep it at headquarters, Truman, or better yet, neutral grounds.” She fluttered her thin lashes. “A place like my bank safe-deposit box. Just until this matter is cleared up.” Her plea came out in a desperate sputter.

  Truman raised an eyebrow and looked irritated. He waited a beat and instead chose to laugh at her gall. “The idea that our police headquarters is not neutral is hysterical.”

  Helene went for the jugular. Her icy gaze swept over me. I suppressed an incongruous shiver in the now-glaring sunlight.

  “It appears we’re witnessing some regrettable, but predictable favoritism.” Helene’s spine grew ramrod straight for this speech. The crowd quieted. “Mallory here is engaged to Chief Truman’s son, as you all know.” Helene gave a pitiful and staged sigh. “I think the town of Port Quincy should know you can never get a fair shake if you go against Truman Davies’s near and dear.” She sent a sinister smile my way.

  You wretched woman.

  This time I felt the steadying touch of both Bev and Claudia on either arm. Their presence barely kept me from lashing out at Helene. Truman was used to such claims and better able to brush them off. He seemed genuinely amused.

  “That’s so preposterous, I can’t even get riled up, Helene.” Truman almost patted her arm, then retracted at the last second as Helene recoiled and took a stumbling step back in her kitten heels.

  “Don’t patronize me!”

  Truman’s eyes filled with kindness. “I wouldn’t do anything of the sort, Helene. If you have an issue with what happened today, you can file a report.” But as he said it, his face took on a worried cast.

  Helene shook her head, finally capitulating. “There doesn’t need to be an investigation, Truman. I know the truth now.” Her usually haughty expression dimmed belying an emotion I’d never seen her reveal.

  It’s almost like she’s going to cry.

  I wanted the icky twilight-zone feeling to go. Because I was feeling something I’d never felt. A genuine flash of sympathy for Helene Pierce, my mortal enemy.

  Now that she couldn’t command Truman to give her the veil, the weight of defeat wilted Helene more than the intensity of the midday June sun. Her narrow shoulders sagged in capitulation. A trickle of sweat marred her carefully powdered countenance. Her lips actually puckered, the coral lipstick bleeding into her frown lines. Her dowager-empress façade frizzled in the heat. She usually looked so composed, icy, and mean.

  She was still impeccably dressed; that is, if the time machine that looked like it brought Claudia back from the late 1700s made a pit stop in the 1980s and picked up Helene. But all her shoulder-padded elegance and imperiousness had wilted. Also, she bore a second expression that belied something I realized I’d never seen before, in addition to her sadness.

  Helene looks downright scared.

  The might and main of being the biggest mover and shaker in our little corner of the world was turned upside down. I couldn’t help but feel a smidge of compassion for the woman who had once been slated to be my mother-in-law, even though she rarely sent a speck of kindness my way.

  But it was short-lived. Helene seemed to stiffen and change course.

  “My business here is done. But Claudia, I’ll have you know, you will not be setting foot on that reenactment field.” Helene had lost the battle over the veil and resumed her original fight with Claudia over women participating in the mock battle at Cordials and Cannonballs.

  “Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try to stop me.” Claudia stepped forward and pushed her sleeves up and readied her fists.

  “Over my dead body.” Helene issued her threat as a hiss, and the crowd audibly gasped. But Helene wasn’t done. “I will get you fired, Mallory Shepard, from your event-planning duties at Cordials and Cannonballs if a single woman sets foot on that field.”

  I snorted at her threat. This was the Helene I was used to. I was even able to tamp down a flash of worry that Helene would get me fired. Helene hadn’t been happy I’d been appointed to do the event, but she’d played nice. Well, nice for her, which translated to icy indifference and well-timed sighs and eye rolls about my planning choices. Which was downright cordial considering our past feuds. I’d offered my event-planning services to the town at a steep discount and was happy to do it. Helene had tried to meddle with my past events, but it wouldn’t work.

  Elvis the basset hound had been napping a comfortable distance from Bev. His long leash allowed him to doze in a patch of shade under a nearby store’s awning. I wished I could have snoozed during this whole show, too. Elvis chose this moment to awaken like a doggie Sleeping Beauty, execute a magnificent stretch, and settle down at Bev’s feet with a luxurious yawn.

  The crowd laughed at his seeming dismissal of Helene, and I couldn’t help but join in. Maybe this was the bit of levity we needed to end this charade. The laughter seemed to snap Helene out of her funk. She stormed off without the veil, her suede kitten heels striking the sidewalk with angry force. The crowd parted around her like the Red Sea, no one eager to get in her way.

  I felt the defensive energy that was racking my body flow out in a whoosh.

  “That was intense.” I turned to Bev and witnessed her shoulders sag, too.

  “Not what I expected after the lovely morning we’d had planning my wedding.” Bev gave a shiver.

  I turned to Pia. I needed to salvage what we’d set up inside the Antique Emporium. “Are you still interested in interviewing for the assistant position tomorrow? I promise my interactions usually aren’t as fraught.”

  Pia laughed, then toned down her voice to avoid the now-napping baby Miri. The little one had been surprisingly unfazed throughout this whole ordeal. The sweet baby had slipped into a blissful snooze midway. “Those were some crazy fireworks we just witnessed. We need to keep those for the festivities surrounding Founder’s Day and the Fourth of July.”

  Bev’s eyes twinkled merrily. My friend seemed to have recovered somewhat from the last half hour. “Or save those fireworks for a joint wedding with me!”

  I groaned at my friend once more pushing me to move up my wedding.

  Truman happily took Bev’s bait. “When are you two finally tying the knot?” The few passersby laughed and finally moved along. It was the town joke apparently that the wedding planner couldn’t seal the deal on her own wedding. I thought this dramatic melee would finally get people’s minds off of my lack of a finalized date with Garrett. I sent my soon-to-be father-in-law a withering sigh and an arched brow as my answer.

  Bev and Truman roared with laughter, and I found myself joining in. It was a lovely, if now too-hot day, the sky a vivid and cloudless periwinkle. The little crowd had finally completely dispersed. Pia and Miri, Claudia and June returned to their store, with firm plans for Pia to interview for the assistant’s position the next day. All was well.

  For now.

  I couldn’t shake the incongruous look of fear in Helene’s eyes.

  “Here.” Truman motioned me over and gently and reverently divvied up the two jagged halves of the veil to Be
v and me.

  I glanced down at the swath of lace. It was still lovely, except for the violently ragged edge where it had been torn asunder.

  “Is this even possible to mend?” Bev moaned. She sent a glance down the sidewalk, seeming to expect Helene to reappear out of the ether. “Why don’t you keep my half with yours in your safe?” She reunited her piece of the veil with mine, seemingly happy to offload the veil we’d both desperately wanted just a bit ago.

  I wrapped the scraps of ancient, delicate fabric in what was left of the ripped plastic Antique Emporium bag and deposited the lot into my own bag. The light lace veil seemed to weigh heavily within. The coveted fabric had not been rent carefully with Bev’s capable seamstress’s shears, but by the hands of Helene, administered with her white-hot anger. I couldn’t suppress a shiver.

  * * *

  “Truman’s right, you know.” My mother whirled around from her stance at my kitchen sink and sent me a smirk. She dried her hands on a pretty floral apron embossed with cheery sunflowers and daisies. The apron occluded her more formal business look beneath. Today she’d donned a purple sheath dress with matching jelly sandals and a poplin headband. Her temporary look with the summer floral apron echoed Bev’s wedding style. “You need to hurry up and get hitched, missy. What in the world is keeping you two from following through?!”

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  I didn’t suppress my eye roll as I took the delft blue pitcher from my mother’s hands. I was rewarded with the tart, pleasant scent of freshly squeezed lemonade. I was hoping to quench my thirst and relax after the crazy happenings earlier in the day. Instead, it felt like every denizen in Port Quincy was poking fun at me. My mom’s not-so-subtle nagging usually rolled right off my back. But not today. I wanted my home and B and B to be a den of calm. I ignored her barb and carefully poured the lemonade into two cut crystal glasses. I plastered what I hoped was a serene smile on my face and gestured for my mom to sit down. She seemed irritated I wouldn’t take the bait.