Deadly Notions - By Elizabeth Lynn Casey Page 0,5
ten minutes ago.”
Beatrice’s face flushed still deeper. “Dixie, my apologies for being late. Luke got rather upset when it was time for me to leave and I felt it only fair to help settle him down for his mum.”
Dixie nodded, her crop of white hair barely moving as she turned her scowl in Tori’s direction and waited.
“I had a few last minute things to tie up at the library this evening before I could break away.” Tori stepped back as Dixie pushed the screen door open and motioned them inside. “Then it was just a matter of running home and grabbing the cookies and my supplies and—”
“It’s simply a matter of getting better organized, Victoria. Why, when I was head librarian, I had the door locked every day at five o’clock on the dot.”
Biting back the urge to toss around words like flexibility and public service, she simply smiled instead, her propensity toward good manners winning out. Besides, some battles simply weren’t worth fighting. Especially when the other side was elderly and still carried a grudge where her forced retirement was concerned.
Dixie’s nose scrunched. “Do I smell gingerbread?”
“You do. I made some this morning before work.” Tori held the plate in the host’s direction.
“You made gingerbread men? In spring?”
“I made gingerbread flowers.”
“Oh.” Dixie sniffed and reached for Beatrice’s covered plate instead. “And what did you bring?”
Beatrice gulped. Loudly. “I helped in Luke’s classroom this afternoon and lost track of time. Before I knew it, it was too late to whip anything up on my own. So I stopped by Leeson’s Market and ordered up a few blueberry scones.”
A soft yet noticeable cluck emerged from Dixie’s mouth followed by a sigh to end all sighs. “Things are certainly different these days, aren’t they? Good manners and grace have simply gone right out the window.”
“Yes, apparently, they have.” Tori looked down as a sheet of white paper was thrust into her free hand. “What’s this?”
“That, Victoria, is an example of organization.”
“Organization?”
“It’s our agenda for the evening.”
She looked from the paper to Dixie and back again, the reality of what she was hearing and seeing taking root in some dusty corner of her brain. “An agenda? For sewing circle?”
Dixie turned on her penny loafers and headed down the hallway from which she’d just come, the flick of her hand an indication they should follow. “That’s right. It will keep us on task.”
Setting the gingerbread cookies on the kitchen table along with the various offerings from her fellow circle members, Tori hurried to follow, her brain processing the words on the page in her hand.
7:00 p.m. Arrival
7:10 p.m. Sewing commences
7:30 p.m. Moderated discussion
7:40 p.m. Return to sewing
8:00 p.m. Dessert
8:15 p.m. Final round of sewing
8:30 p.m. Departure
“It’s like this all the time when we meet here,” Beatrice whispered as they fell in step with each other, their hostess leading the way amid grumbles about the perils of tardiness. “It’s why I said what I said earlier.”
“And no one says anything?”
Beatrice’s too-thin shoulders rose and fell. “Margaret Louise and Georgina speak at will anyway. So, too, does everyone else. But it’s met with eye rolling and exasperated sighs from Dixie.”
“No wonder she’s irritated with us,” Tori said midchuckle. “We’ve arrived when sewing is supposed to be commencing.”
Dixie looked over her shoulder, her chin grazing the bold floral print of her housecoat. “Shhh . . .”
“Good heavens, Dixie, who are you hushin’ out there?” Margaret Louise’s voice bellowed into the hallway, earning a sigh from Dixie in the process.
“It’s just us,” Tori said as she rounded the corner and drew to a stop in the doorway of what appeared to be Dixie’s version of the Sweet Briar Public Library, right down to the rickety table and chairs Tori had thrown out shortly after taking over the position of head librarian. “Is that the same—”
“Come sit with me, dear, I’ve saved you a spot.” Leona Elkin lowered her latest travel magazine to her lap and patted the rusty folding chair on her left, her voice dropping to a level only Tori could hear. “It is one and the same. Only she’ll deny plucking it from the trash in favor of something much more martyr-like. And if you inquire, she’ll find a way to go at you for throwing it away in the first place. Need I remind you of the way Dixie likes to accuse you of stealing her job out from under her?”
“Roger that.”
“Roger that?” Leona looked over her glasses at Tori. “I’m fairly sure that’s not