Chapter Five
It was a bit later when Sam heard the doorbell ring. She peeked out the side window before opening the door to Claire Brennan, the book club president.
Claire started out apologetically before Sam could say anything. “Hey there. I’m so sorry about dropping by like this. I didn’t have your phone number, so I just looked up your address online.”
“No, you’re fine. Come on inside. Coffee? Tea?” Sam automatically fell into hostess mode, even with a surprise guest.
“Actually, if you’ve already got coffee made, I’d love a cup. But don’t make a pot just for me.”
Sam smiled at her. “It’s already made. I needed an extra energy boost today.”
Arlo greeted Claire with a tail wag and an earnest expression on his face.
“And who is this cutie?” asked Claire, stooping down to rub Arlo. Arlo immediately flopped over on his back for a belly rub.
“Arlo. He’s clearly taken to you.” Sam walked into the kitchen to pull out the tray again and load it with a second round of coffees and muffins.
They settled in the sunroom. Arlo leaned up against Claire’s legs as she doctored her coffee. Claire said, “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here.”
“You’ve heard about what happened at the bookstore this morning, haven’t you?”
Claire said, “I heard something happened at the bookstore. Someone posted a picture on social media with crime scene tape and police cars all over the place. I did hear you and Charlotte were there. I tried calling Charlotte, but her phone is turned off. Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Just overwhelmed, I think.” Sam paused.
The police hadn’t told her to keep the information under her hat, but it seemed as if Margaret’s family should be notified before anyone else knew about her death.
“Before I say anything, do you know if Margaret has any family here in town? A husband?”
Claire shook her head. “No husband. And she doesn’t have anyone at all in town, from what I understand.
She’d said once, a while back, that she had a child she was estranged from.
Sadly, it didn’t come as a huge surprise, knowing how Margaret is.
” She paused, frowning. “Wait, did something happen to Margaret?”
“I’m afraid so. When Charlotte and I walked into her shop this morning, we found Margaret there. She was dead.”
Sam watched Claire’s reaction carefully. She saw shock pass over her features before something she thought might be relief replaced it. “I can’t believe it,” Claire breathed. “How did she get in there? Did Margaret break into Twice-Told Tales? Why would she do something like that?”
“It looked like she’d been in the shop all night. That she’d never left.”
Claire’s eyes widened. “You mean she died in that back room before we walked out of the bookshop.”
“The police haven’t said when she died. But at some point following the end of the meeting, yes.”
Claire was silent for a couple of moments, just petting Arlo. “So did she have some kind of medical emergency? But she couldn’t call out to us?”
“The police have to treat it like a suspicious death until they know more,” said Sam carefully.
Claire shook her head. “You mean somebody might have killed her somehow? What, strangled her?”
“That’s something the police are looking into,” said Sam.
“I just can’t believe it. I mean, a lot of folks had their issues with Margaret, but I don’t see anybody in our book club as a killer.
” She gave a short laugh. “I can’t even believe I’m saying those words.
Of course no one in our book club is a killer.
Margaret must have had a stroke or something.
She wasn’t the healthiest person out there, or the youngest.”
“Maybe that’s what the police will learn after the autopsy.”
Claire said, “Hey, I’m so sorry about all this. You thought you were joining a harmless little book club. And you’ve stepped into a real hornet’s nest.”
“It’s not anybody’s fault. The group seems great. I did notice some tension among the members and Margaret.”
Claire sighed. “Yeah, I guess that’s totally obvious. Margaret, bless her, could be a tough person to get along with. But she always had a different take on the book discussions.” She shook her head wryly. “We might have all loved a story, but Margaret would find something horribly wrong with it.”
“What did everybody make of that?”
Claire said, “At first, I think we all took it personally. But the point of art is what it makes you feel, right? And to pay attention to that, whether it’s a painting or a book.
It’s okay not to like something. Eventually, we got used to Margaret filling the role of the devil’s advocate.
Honestly, she added a lot to the book discussions.
It would have been a pretty boring club if all of us loved every book and didn’t have much to say about it. ”
“Did anyone seem to have anything against Margaret personally? Like I said, it did sometimes seem tense in the group last night.”
Claire rubbed her face as if she were exhausted. “Not to the degree that someone would decide to take her life, no. Of course not. But we probably all had our beefs with Margaret.” She hesitated. “I did, too. I’ve been working on writing a romance for, oh, what feels like most of my life.”
“Really? That’s amazing.”
Claire gave Sam a rueful look. “Is it? It feels like such a slog right now. And every time I think I’m done with it, I keep fiddling with the plot or the characters.
Or I’ll read an article online about a cool writing technique and try to add it to the story.
I’ve probably edited all the life out of it at this point.
Anyway, I was stupid enough to give it to Margaret to read. ”
“That took a lot of courage.”
“You’re not kidding,” said Claire. “I must have been out of my mind. But then, in some ways it makes sense. Margaret was a literature professor for her entire career. She was an expert at ferreting out what’s wrong with a book or a paper and telling you how to fix it.
I thought that might be the best way to get an objective opinion on my story.
Because, by that time, I’d totally lost my perspective on the book.
I didn’t know if it was good or bad anymore. ”
“I’m guessing sharing it with Margaret didn’t go well?” asked Sam.
Claire gave a short laugh. “It did not. She ripped it to shreds. But then, I’d basically asked for it. The last thing I wanted was to give it to someone like my mom, who’d tell me it was absolutely perfect. That would have been useless feedback.”
Claire sounded as if she’d handled the critique very well. But Sam could see stress lines appearing at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She wondered if it had been as easy to accept the feedback as Claire made it sound.
Claire continued, “I wasn’t the only one Margaret hurt, of course. I don’t even know what happened between Gerald and Margaret. He’s been acting so strange lately.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Just very nervous and jumpy. Agitated, I guess you’d say.
He barely said a word at the meeting and that’s not like him,” said Claire.
Then she frowned. “But I love Gerald. I’m not saying he had anything to do with whatever happened to Margaret.
I think everybody in the book club has probably run afoul of her at some point.
It makes me wince whenever we have a new member.
Margaret did make things uncomfortable sometimes.
I figured you’d pick up on that.” She gave Sam a small smile.
“Are we going to be able to tempt you to come back?”
“Absolutely. I’ve already started reading Middlemarch for next month and am making notes.”
“Perfect,” said Claire. She gave Arlo one last rub, then stood up. “I should be heading out. Thanks for filling me in. If you do happen to hear anything else, please feel free to let me know. As president of the book club, I should know what’s happening.”
“Of course I will,” said Sam.
After Claire left, Sam said to Arlo, “Maybe you and I need to have a walk.”
Arlo’s ears pricked up, and he gave Sam a doggy grin before making a quick run in a circle. She laughed. “Okay, you think so, too. We need to stretch our legs. And maybe I need some air while I process everything.”
Arlo gave joyful leaps as Sam got his leash and harness out of the coat closet.
They headed outside, sunshine beaming through the trees.
They’d barely made it past the third house when Nora emerged from her front door.
Nora was Sam’s elderly neighbor. She kept the entire neighborhood on its toes.
And somehow, she managed to know just about everything that was going on.
“Here we go,” said Sam in an undertone to Arlo. Arlo wagged his tail in agreement, although he really liked Nora. But then, his relationship with Nora was less complicated.
The old woman strode up to them. “Good morning, Sam. I saw you had a visitor early this morning. Wasn’t it Claire Mills?”
Sam smiled at Nora. “You’re right. She was coming by for a brief visit. I’ve joined her book club at Twice-Told Tales.” Sam had no intention of sharing anything else with Nora, who would take it and run with the information. That was how the entire town of Sunset Ridge would find out.
But Sam should have known that Nora was already aware of what had happened. She said, “I heard what happened at the bookstore this morning.” Her mouth twisted down in a frown. “Horrible. I don’t know what the world is coming to. Margaret Brennan, of all people.”
So word had somehow apparently gotten out.
“She might have passed from natural causes.”
But Nora was already shaking her head. “It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”
“How on earth did you find out about this, Nora?”