Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Betts said as she stood beside the long folding table, matching socks from a pile of neatly folded laundry.
The Laundry Club Laundromat already buzzed with the steady hum of washing machines and dryers even this early in the morning.
Warm air carrying the smell of lavender detergent, fabric softener, and fresh coffee drifted through the building while sunlight poured through the large front windows facing downtown Normal.
The old wood floors creaked every time somebody crossed the room, and every few seconds, a dryer beeped somewhere along the back wall before tumbling started again.
“No,” I confirmed to Abby, Betts, Dottie, and Queenie once I made it back across the grassy median.
I was carrying two cardboard trays loaded down with coffee cups from Trails Coffee along with a sack full of the cinnamon rolls, bagels, and pastries Hank had added onto my order.
“I called Ava on my way over here, and she said she went straight to the sheriff’s department like she promised, but Al refused to let Tex go. ”
I sat the coffee trays down on the low wooden table between the couches before unloading the pastries. The smell of warm cinnamon rolls instantly mixed with the fresh laundry scent floating through the laundromat.
“She told Tex not to say one word for twenty-four hours,” I continued while handing Dottie her espresso. “According to Ava, she practically threatened to duct-tape his mouth shut if he opened it.”
“So he’s just sittin’ down there doing absolutely nothing?” Queenie asked while perched nervously on the edge of one of Betts’s worn leather couches.
The laundromat’s sitting area looked more like somebody’s cozy living room than a business.
Three mismatched couches circled around the coffee table while a television mounted on the wall quietly played a morning renovation show nobody was actually watching.
Beside the windows, a half-finished jigsaw puzzle sat abandoned on a game table next to a basket of playing cards and crossword books.
Abby sat cross-legged on the floor, with the sleuthing notebook spread open across the coffee table while I helped Betts fold towels from the drop-off service.
Queenie paced beside the couches in full workout mode, wearing bright-coral Jazzercise leggings, white sneakers, and one of her glittery headbands, which was already sliding crooked from stress sweating.
“According to Gert, Ava told him to keep his mouth shut and let her handle things,” I explained while folding a fitted sheet so badly that Betts immediately refolded it behind me. “Honestly, Ava’s probably right.”
Dottie snorted softly while balancing a cigarette between her fingers and her coffee cup in the other hand.
“Tex talks too much when he’s nervous,” she muttered while standing near the front door, which she’d cracked slightly open for her smoke.
“That man’ll confess to crimes that happened in Tennessee, just tryin’ to be helpful. ”
“True,” Abby agreed while scribbling notes dramatically into the notebook. “He does overshare.”
The steady sound of washing machines filled the pause between us. Somewhere in the back, metal zippers clanked loudly against a dryer drum while the wood-burning stove in the far corner gave off just enough leftover warmth to make the laundromat feel cozy despite the chilly spring morning outside.
“I’m gonna step outside and call Glenda,” Dottie announced while grabbing her cigarette case off the table. She didn’t even wait for permission before pushing open the glass front door with her hip. “That woman’s liable to burn the campground down by now.”
“Good call,” Betts said while stacking folded jeans into a plastic laundry basket. “Let me get these put away and call the customer before they start complaining I’m holdin’ their underwear hostage.”
While Betts carried the folded clothes toward the back bins, I moved over to join Abby and Queenie near the couches. Abby already had three pages of notes written even though we’d been awake for barely an hour.
“Okay,” I said while lowering myself onto the couch beside Queenie. “I need to ask you something about the seating chart.”
Queenie immediately froze in mid-stretch.
“Who actually put the seating chart together?” I asked carefully. “You or Mary Elizabeth?”
Honestly, I’d assumed Mary Elizabeth handled it herself because those women operated practically the entire social ladder of Kentucky.
Florence Sparks, Tara Kelly, and Alice Charles weren’t exactly random tea party guests.
They were the kind of women people strategically placed beside one another at fundraising events for money and influence.
Queenie pressed one hand dramatically against her chest and made a tiny jazz-hand motion with the other. “Me,” she admitted while collapsing onto the couch cushions beside me. “Unfortunately.”
I told her about overhearing Tara’s angry phone call at the tea party and how she’d demanded to know who seated her beside “the adulterer.”
“She has a scheduling director,” Queenie explained while rolling her eyes hard enough to nearly hurt herself. “And she made it very clear who Tara was and was not supposed to sit beside.”
“Who’s the scheduling director?” Abby immediately asked while uncapping another pen.
“Brittany Dales,” Queenie answered. “And that woman takes herself way too seriously for somebody carrying around clipboards all day.”
“Write that down,” I told Abby. “That had to be who Tara was talking to on the phone.”
Abby immediately scribbled the name inside the suspect section of Tara Kelly’s notebook.
“Good luck getting Brittany Dales to answer any questions,” Queenie huffed while getting back up to pace again. “That woman guards Tara tighter than Fort Knox.”
“Please sit down,” Abby begged while watching Queenie start another round of nervous Jazzercise lunges beside the folding table. “You’re making me motion sick.”
“If I sit down, I’ll chew every nail off both my hands,” Queenie shot back while twisting at the waist and pumping her arms. “This is stress cardio.”
The laundromat door jingled softly as Dottie stepped back inside, carrying fresh cigarette smoke with her. She shut the door behind her and immediately narrowed her eyes toward Queenie bouncing around the room.
“You look like Richard Simmons having a breakdown,” Dottie muttered while dropping back onto the couch.
Queenie ignored her completely.
“What exactly happened with the seating chart?” I asked again because Queenie was very obviously circling around something she didn’t want to say.
Queenie finally stopped moving. Completely.
The room seemed quieter all of a sudden except for the tumbling dryers and soft television noise in the background. Even Abby lowered her pen slowly. Dottie had come back with that cigarette unlit in the corner of her mouth.
“Alice is the one who asked me to seat her with Florence and Tara,” Queenie admitted quietly.
“Oh no,” I breathed while immediately sitting forward.
Betts returned from the back room just in time to catch the panic spreading across Queenie’s face. “What happened?” she asked while hurrying over.
Queenie looked seconds away from crying. “Alice told me if I seated her at that table, she’d increase her donation by ten thousand dollars,” she confessed while wringing both hands together tightly. “Brittany Dales specifically told me not to move anybody around, and I did it anyway.”
Abby’s pen practically flew across the page as she wrote notes.
“I figured maybe they’d all just act like grown women for two hours,” Queenie continued while her voice cracked. “But Florence knew immediately somebody changed the seating arrangement.”
“What did she say?” I asked carefully.
Queenie laughed nervously, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “She cornered me outside the bathroom during the tea service.”
That got everybody’s attention instantly.
Dottie slowly lowered her cigarette. “What do you mean ‘cornered’?” she asked while narrowing her eyes.
Queenie swallowed hard before answering. “Florence grabbed my arm hard enough to leave marks,” she admitted quietly. “She asked me who gave me permission to change her table placement.”
“Oh my goodness,” Betts whispered while sitting beside her.
Queenie nodded miserably. “I tried explaining donor requests and community politics, but Florence didn’t care. She told me certain women in Kentucky understood their place and certain women clearly didn’t.”
“Well, that sounds pleasant,” Dottie muttered flatly.
“She threatened me,” Queenie admitted finally while tears filled her eyes. “She said if I embarrassed her publicly again, she’d make sure the Historical Society never saw another dime connected to her fundraising circle.”
The room fell quiet again except for the steady hum of the machines.
“She also said,” Queenie continued softly while staring down at her hands, “that women who made social mistakes sometimes found themselves pushed out permanently.”
A cold feeling slid down my spine.
“And somebody heard this?” I asked immediately.
Queenie nodded quickly. “The waitress did. The younger girl from the tea party.”
The second she said it, my brain focused.
“The one who spilled the water?” I asked.
“Yes,” Queenie answered. “She came around the corner, carrying a tray while Florence was threatening me.”
“What’d Florence do?” Dottie asked.
“She stopped talking immediately and smiled like nothing happened,” Queenie answered bitterly. “Then she told the waitress I needed another lemon tea because I looked overheated.”
Dottie let out a low whistle and leaned back against the couch cushions. “That woman really was somethin’.”
Queenie finally sat down heavily beside me and pulled the glittery headband off her forehead. Without it holding everything together, her short blond hair flattened unevenly around her face, and suddenly she looked exhausted instead of energetic.
“I honestly thought she hated me enough to ruin my life,” Queenie confessed quietly while staring at the floor. “And now she’s dead.”
Betts immediately wrapped an arm around her shoulders while Abby slowly lowered her pen. Even Dottie softened slightly while watching Queenie unravel in front of us.
The steady tumbling sounds from the laundry machines filled the silence while outside, downtown Normal kept moving like nothing had changed.
Tourists laughed beneath the grassy median trees.
Coffee cups clinked outside Trails Coffee.
Somebody walked past the front windows, carrying flowers from Sweet Smell Flower Shop.
Meanwhile, inside the Laundry Club Laundromat, one of our own sat trembling on the couch, convinced she’d just handed herself over as a murder suspect.
“We need to talk to the waitress,” I said, reminding myself how we already agreed last night to go see her by getting the information from Coke Ogden. “Did you talk to Glenda?”
“Yeppers.” Dottie nodded. “Glenda said Al and Tucker are over at the pamper camper right now,” Dottie continued while turning away from the window. “Apparently, Tucker’s going through every oil bottle, towel, and massage table Tex owns. She and Ava are there overseeing it.”
My stomach immediately tightened. “At the campground?” I asked.
Dottie nodded once. “Which means nobody’s over at the Milkery.”
Abby slowly lowered her pen. Queenie stopped pacing in mid-step. Even Betts paused folding a fitted sheet.
“No one should even be there,” I said more to myself than anyone else. “Al made everybody leave last night.”
“Exactly,” Dottie said while pointing at me. “That big old farmhouse is sitting empty.”
Outside the laundromat windows, downtown Normal tourists wandered along the sidewalk and grassy median.
If Florence’s room is sitting untouched over at the Milkery… The thought wouldn’t leave my head.
The laundromat door jingled softly as another customer walked in, carrying an overflowing laundry basket balanced against her hip. Betts immediately shifted back into business mode and greeted her with a smile while pointing her toward the open machines near the back wall.
The steady clanking of zippers against dryer drums filled the room while somebody started another load near the oversized machines meant for camper bedding.
Queenie suddenly looked down at her phone and gasped. “Oh no.”
“What now?” Abby asked.
“I’ve got Jazzercise in fifteen minutes down in the undercroft at Normal Baptist Church.” Queenie shot up off the couch so fast her headband nearly slid off again. “Half those women already paid for the month, and if I cancel now, they’ll know something terrible happened.”
“Most of them already know something terrible happened,” Dottie muttered. “They are all on the prayer chain.”
Queenie grabbed her oversized tote bag from beside the couch and shoved her water bottle inside. “If anybody hears anything involving Tara Kelly, Alice Charles, or Brittany Dales, you text me immediately.”
Abby closed the sleuthing notebook with a loud snap and stood up from the floor.
“I need to get to the library before the homeschool group gets there.” She tucked the notebook beneath her arm and adjusted the strap of her purse.
“I’ll dig into Alice Charles and see if Florence publicly fought with her over funding projects. ”
“Good idea,” I said. “And see what you can find on Brittany Dales too. Like her hours in the office and all those things.”
Abby grinned. “Already planned on it.”
Queenie hurried toward the front door while Abby followed her, carrying the notebook.
The bell over the laundromat door jingled twice before they both disappeared into the busy downtown morning.
Through the windows, I watched Queenie speed walk toward the church while Abby headed in the opposite direction toward the library, with the sleuthing notebook tucked tightly against her side.
Betts returned from helping another customer and let out a long breath while rubbing her forehead. “I’m buried in laundry orders today,” she admitted apologetically. “Tourist season always wipes me out.”
“You stay here,” I told her. “We can handle things.”
Betts narrowed her eyes immediately. “What exactly does ‘handle things’ mean?”
Dottie crossed her arms and leaned one shoulder against the folding table. “It means Mae’s thinking about snooping around the Milkery.”
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t need to,” Dottie replied.
Betts pointed directly at me with a dryer sheet still in her hand. “Do not get arrested inside Mary Elizabeth’s bed-and-breakfast.”
“No promises,” Dottie answered for me.
“I heard that,” Betts snapped.
Dottie shrugged innocently.