Deadly Notions - By Elizabeth Lynn Casey Page 0,42
the ceiling, her own words looping their way through her mind.
We need to work together. We need to figure out who killed Ashley Lawson.
“Since when did you become Nancy Drew?” she mumbled beneath her breath.
Since you left Chicago and moved to Sweet Briar.
Turning her head to the left, she took in the time on the digital clock beside her bed.
10:00 p.m.
Was it too late to call? To give Leona a little comeuppance?
Feeling the first real semblance of a smile since the Davis kids breezed into Melissa’s kitchen, Tori reached for her cell phone and dialed the familiar number.
One ring morphed to two and then three before Leona’s voice filled her ear.
“Yes?”
“Leona, it’s Tori.”
“Good heavens, dear, do you have any idea what time it is?”
She pushed away the momentary bout of guilt to lay out the facts as she knew them. “I do. But I also know that your favorite TV show just ended so you haven’t gone to bed yet.”
“Did you see it? Did you see how completely and utterly fantastic Ray Morgan looked when he took off his shirt and ran into the water to save that poor pathetic wretch of a woman who was drowning?”
She laughed. “No, I didn’t.”
“It almost made me wish I could be that pathetic if only for a few moments.” Leona sighed into the phone. “Then again, if I was, I would make sure I was wearing my most attractive bathing suit and that my nails were at least manicured. I mean, really, who would summon a lifeguard like Ray Morgan with the kind of nails that woman had? What was she thinking?”
“It’s a TV show, Leona. The woman was a hired actress.”
“A hired actress with hideous nails.”
Touché.
“Oh, Leona, you have no idea how badly I needed this kind of banter tonight.” She scooted her head up to the pillow and pulled her afghan with her.
“Bad day, dear?”
“I’ve had better.”
“What time did he stop in and see you?”
She gripped the phone tighter. “He? You mean Chief Dallas?”
“Who else, dear?”
“Around ten-ish, I suppose. He saw Melissa at eleven and Beatrice sometime after that.”
“Beatrice was at noon, then. He got to the antique shop around one thirty and he mentioned having stopped for lunch after visiting with her.”
“Visiting? Is that what he called it?” she asked.
“When you offer someone chocolates and wine—as a good hostess should—it’s a visit, dear.”
“Chocolates and wine? I didn’t offer him anything.”
An exasperated sigh echoed from the phone. “Why ever not?”
“Let me count thy ways,” she mumbled.
“Victoria, was that a mumble I just heard?”
She gulped.
“Victoria?”
She swallowed harder. “Um, kind of? I’m sorry, Leona, I just find it hypocritical of Chief Dallas to show up at my workplace completely unannounced, badger me with questions for nearly an hour, and then run off on his merry way, leaving me stressed ever since.”
“He is conducting a murder investigation, dear.”
A murder investigation.
Determined to wipe away the stress before bed, she allowed herself to focus on the aspect that had perpetuated the late night call to her friend. “Hmmm. Seems to me there’s been a lot of that going around Sweet Briar this past year or so.”
“I know, can you imagine such a thing?”
She felt the grin as it stretched across her face. “You’d think I could after living a few years in Chicago, wouldn’t you? But, well, I can’t. Sweet Briar is unique in that way.”
The silence in her ear made her smile even bigger. “Leona? Are you still there?”
“Did you call simply to gloat, dear? Because if you did, it’s most unbecoming.”
She laughed out loud. “I wish I could say I didn’t but, well, I did.”
Leona’s voice dropped an octave as she addressed someone Tori couldn’t see. “Victoria interrupted your sleep to try and make a point but it’s fallen on deaf ears.”
She looked at the clock again as a feeling of remorse swept in. “Oh, Leona, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company.”
“Would my baby like a carrot to make up for Victoria’s insensitivity?”
Rolling her eyes skyward, she felt the smile return to her face. “Please, pass my sincerest apologies along to Paris.”
“Paris, darling? Did you hear that? Victoria is very sorry for her boorish behavior. She realizes the error of her ways.”
Boorish? Error of my ways?
“I wouldn’t go that far, Leona.”
“Shhh. You don’t want to upset Paris further, do you?” Leona hissed in her ear.
She stifled back the laugh that threatened to result in her friend hanging up. “Um, Leona? Paris is a bunny. I think he’s probably fine with what I