Chapter 12 #3
The silver-haired man walked toward Alice’s desk and looked around with visible disgust. “I cannot believe Tara allowed herself to get photographed beside Florence Sparks for months, knowing the rumors already existed.”
“She didn’t have much choice,” another man answered while opening the bedside drawer. “Florence practically ran half the charity circuit in Kentucky.”
Dottie leaned closer toward me again. “This just got juicy,” she breathed softly.
I shot her a horrified look, only to get a slight shrug like she couldn’t help herself.
The sound of papers scattering suddenly filled the room. One of the men had moved over toward Florence’s luggage stacked near the wall.
“If the governor finds out we missed something…” the younger man started nervously.
“He won’t,” the silver-haired man interrupted sharply. “Because we are handling this before anybody starts connecting Florence Sparks to Frankfort politics.”
My stomach twisted harder. This wasn’t just rich-people gossip anymore. This was dangerous, and it was a motive.
The silver-haired man moved closer toward the bathroom doorway, and I immediately flattened myself harder against the vanity while Dottie crouched beside the tub. My only saving grace would be that they’d see her first, thanks to her bright-red hair, giving me a chance to at least not be noticed.
“If Tara Kelly talks to police again without counsel present,” he continued while adjusting his cuff links, “she’ll panic and say something stupid.”
“She claims the affair ended months ago.”
“She also claims Florence stopped contacting the governor.” The man snorted softly. “Meanwhile, Florence dies in the middle of a fundraiser after threatening half the state’s social ladder.”
I swallowed hard. Threatening. The word stuck in my head. That meant Florence had been actively causing problems before her death.
The younger man suddenly stopped shuffling papers.
“Sir,” he said carefully, “what if the First Lady actually committed the murder?”
The entire room went quiet.
The silver-haired man slowly turned toward him. “Then we make sure there’s no evidence and she stays as far away from it as possible.”
That sentence settled over the room heavily enough to make my skin prickle.
One of the men zipped Florence’s suitcase closed loudly. “Nothing in here.”
The silver-haired man checked his watch. “Then move to Tara’s room.”
The bedroom door opened, followed by their footsteps moving away from us and down the hallway toward Tara’s suite.
When we heard the door to Tara’s room close, Dottie slowly leaned backward against the bathtub and fanned herself dramatically.
“I just saw the bright white light,” she whispered.
I pressed one hand against my chest while trying to steady my breathing. “We have to get out of here.”
“No kiddin’,” she said, shuffling quickly to her feet while straightening her shirt.
I carefully cracked the bathroom door just open enough to peek into the hallway, which fortunately sat empty and quiet again. The men had apparently moved farther downstairs, judging by the muffled voices drifting faintly up from somewhere near the kitchen.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”
We slipped back into Alice’s room as quietly as possible, both of us moving fast now that our nerves had fully kicked in. I headed toward the bedroom door before something near the closet caught my attention.
The cardboard box the man had tossed over sat partially crushed against the wall, with broken porcelain scattered across the hardwood floor around it.
Teacups.
Dozens of them.
Not fancy matching sets either. Vintage cups in every color and pattern imaginable. Tiny roses. Gold trim. Delicate blue flowers. One had a faded hummingbird painted on the side while another had tiny pink violets circling the rim.
“What are you doin’?” Dottie hissed quietly from near the door. “Mae, this ain’t the time to go shopping.”
“Hold on,” I whispered back while crouching carefully beside the box.
I reached down and picked up one of the cups that luckily hadn’t shattered. The second I turned it over in my hand, my stomach tightened.
A faded masking-tape sticker still clung to the bottom.
$4.00.
I knew that handwriting.
Everybody in Normal knew Buck Davis’s handwriting because the man wrote every single price tag at Tough Nickel Thrift Shop himself, using thick black marker to print crooked letters that leaned sideways.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered.
“What?” Dottie rushed over beside me and crouched down hard enough her knees popped. “What is it?”
I held the cup upside down so she could see the sticker.
Dottie shrugged because she didn’t know about what Cheryl had told me.
“That’s Buck’s handwriting.” I looked back toward the overflowing box again. “These came from Tough Nickel.”
“So…” The word quickly left Dottie’s mouth.
“I’ll tell you in the car,” I said, putting the cup back and trying to put my conversation with Cheryl at the tea party fundraiser out of my mind.
My eyes slowly rose back toward the shattered porcelain scattered across Alice’s floor before we tiptoed down the hallway and down the steps.
We slipped silently back out of the Milkery kitchen, jumped into my car, and sped off without looking in the rearview mirror.