Dying For Dinner Rolls Part 8

"Great."

"Ready?"

Bells attached to the tall gla.s.s door rang as we entered. We were greeted by a blast of cool air and the sweet aroma of potpourri.

"Smells like a florist." Annie Mae crinkled her nose.

A sixty-something-year-old pet.i.te woman with short, teased, brunette hair and wearing a lime-green and hot pink dress with matching stilettos walked forward and greeted us. "Welcome to Blue Belle. We are so glad to have y'all here."

She had a thick southern drawl. Her perfectly made-up face was taut, her nose very small, her eyes slanted upward. She had a surprised look on her face because her eyebrows were raised, even when her face was still. My guess was that she had undergone a full face-lift with nose and eye job, lots of fillers, and regular Botox injections, as well.

"Hi, I'm Catherine Thomson. My friends call me Cat." I shook her hand.

"I'm Scarlett Louise Montgomery." She pumped my hand. "You look familiar."

As we ended our handshake, I said, "My maiden name is Argall. You may know my family."

"Oh, yes." Scarlett let go of my hand.

"I'm Dr. Maple, but you can call me Annie Mae." Annie Mae stuck out her hand to the lady.

"A doctor?" Scarlett said.

"PhD in Fine Arts," Annie Mae said.

Scarlett opened her arms and turned slightly to the center of the room. "Are y'all looking for anything in particular? We have a wide variety of antiques mixed with a tasteful a.s.sortment of new contemporary items as well. Very eclectic. Something for everyone, I a.s.sure you."

Picture frames, candles, knickknacks, and paintings were interspersed on lovely display tables. Some fringed pillows along with lovely throw blankets were artistically displayed. Chairs, loveseats, lamps, ottomans, and other household items adorned the s.p.a.ce. A handful of crystal chandeliers hung from the cavernous, twenty-foot, wood-beamed ceilings. Jazz music played. A scent of fragrant flowers infused the air.

"You have a great store," I said.

"Why, thank you." Scarlett tipped her head. "Owning a business keeps me occupied. Mind you, there are only so many teas and luncheons that one can go to without being bored to death."

"I guess so." With four children and my family store, I had no idea what bored was. "Listen, when I have more time I would love to look around."

Annie Mae picked up a candle, stuck her nose near the wick, then tipped it over to look at the price tag. "Whoa. One hundred bucks?"

I shot Annie Mae a look that I hoped conveyed be good. "We're here to ask you some questions, if you don't mind."

"You're not trying to sell me something, are you?" Scarlett put her chin up. "My door sign clearly states no solicitors."

"I have nothing to sell. Unless you want four kids?" I joked.

"Heavens, no." Scarlett's face softened to a smile. "I raised two boys, and now one is a father to a sweet little girl, Biddy. She's always giving me her artistic creations. She's such a peach."

"I bet she is." I nodded in agreement. "My girls love arts and crafts, too. They're now into making jewelry. I can't tell you how many times I've stepped on those little plastic beads."

"My granddaughter is making pottery now, some of it pretty good." Scarlett beamed with pride.

"Seriously, a hundred dollars?" Annie Mae held the candle and looked at Scarlett.

"It's imported with the very highest quality wick and soy wax. And, you'll notice, it's in a crystal holder." Scarlett held her chin up. "Worth every penny."

"Not ten thousand of them," Annie Mae muttered under her breath.

"Do you have a few minutes to talk?" I asked Scarlett.

"About what?" Scarlett asked.

"One of your clients," I said. "We won't take up too much of your time."

"That should be okay. What do you need to know?" Scarlett asked.

The bells jangled, and a tall, medium-built man wearing a straw cowboy hat entered. He approached us.

"Pardon me, ladies." He took off his cowboy hat showing thick white hair. Wrinkles accentuated his tanned skin. He touched Scarlett's arm. "Am I too early for our meeting?"

Scarlett looked at her gold and diamond wrist.w.a.tch. "No, not at all. Excuse me, ladies. I just need a moment with this gentleman."

Annie Mae held on to the candle. "Is the wick made out of gold?"

Cowboy and Scarlett walked a few feet from us.

I overheard Scarlett say to the cowboy, "Can you come back today when we close? Around eight? I can give it to you then. We're packing it up so that it's safe for your journey." She kept glancing over at Annie Mae and me.

"I just can't believe you got it back. What luck," Cowboy said as Scarlett guided him farther from us.

Scarlett stammered and lowered her voice, "Yes. Lucky for you."

Then I couldn't hear them anymore.

"I mean, there should be a law against selling a candle for a hundred bucks." Annie Mae turned the candle in her hand.

"If I were you, I'd put it down. See the sign that says *You break it-it's yours'? You'd own the world's most expensive broken candle." I smirked.

Very slowly, Annie Mae set it on the display. Then she picked up a necklace and held it to my neck. "This would look great on you."

"Remember, I don't wear necklaces," I said.

"That's right. Your strangulation phobia. You know, there is therapy for that." Annie Mae smiled.

My parents said I was born with the umbilical cord tightly wrapped around my neck. Maybe that was why I had an aversion to all things to do with my neck.

The bell jangled as Cowboy left the shop. Soon, Scarlett was back at our side.

"We really don't want to be a bother, but can you talk with us now?" I asked Scarlett. "It's important."

Scarlett glanced side to side. "You're in luck. It's not busy yet. I might be able to spare a few minutes. Plus, I'm parched. Why don't y'all come to the back, where I can fix us a gla.s.s of iced tea?"

We followed Scarlett through the maze of displays in the showroom to the back of the store. Scarlett pushed aside a thick tapestry curtain. We entered a hallway leading to an office.

Scarlett escorted us into a room with a huge mahogany desk, two overstuffed Victorian chairs, one leather chair, a coffee table, file cabinets, a refrigerator, and a small round table with a coffeepot and a potted plant. A floral rug covered the dark wood floor.

The scent of potpourri still permeated the air. There were several pictures on the wall. One showed Scarlett, an older gray-haired man, and two tall boys, two women, and a young girl. I a.s.sumed it was a family picture.

Scarlett stood in front of the refrigerator. "I hope you don't mind, is sweet tea okay? Even though we have loads of out-of-town visitors, I just never got into the Yankee way of making unsweet tea."

Annie Mae and I both said yes.

She poured three gla.s.ses of tea and handed us each a gla.s.s.

"Thank you," I said. We sat across from each other. "I'm sure you've heard by now about Lucy Valentine."

Scarlett stopped in mid sip, her neck reddened. "Oh my. Yes. What horrible news. She was one of my best customers."

"That's what she told me," I added.

Scarlett placed her tea gla.s.s on a tile coaster on the coffee table. "She could spin a tale."

"You got that right. She was a hoot." Annie Mae sighed. "Still can't believe she's gone."

A jagged raw pain hit deep in my gut and twisted around. I missed Lucy. "Actually, that's why we're here." The tea drenched my taste buds in pure, liquid sugar. I winced. "Do you remember the last time you saw her?"

Scarlett got up and walked to her desk. She flipped through a book. "A week ago."

The day she died. "What do you remember about her visit here?" I asked.

"Why are you asking so many questions?" Scarlett shut the book and looked at her watch.

"Forgive me. Lucy was a dear friend of ours. We want to piece together everything that may've happened to her, to try to figure out why she..." My eyes watered up.

"Died," Annie Mae reached over and squeezed my hand.

"Why?" Scarlett's voice rose. "Didn't the police take care of that?"

"Yes, but we need closure," I said.

"Hmm, I see." Scarlett shifted her stance.

"So what happened a week ago?" Annie Mae asked Scarlett.

Scarlett stood in the doorway, her back to us.

"Lucy mentioned a mystery box," I said.

"Oh, right. Sometimes we have orphan items that don't sell or have been around for a while. In order to make room for new merchandise, we gather them in a box and sell the whole lot sight unseen for one price." Scarlett looked down the hallway then back at us.

"I love surprises." Annie Mae pointed to the potted plant on the coffee table. "Hey, I just got a plant like this. They're supposed to be easy to take care of. Are they?"

"Yes, very easy. I don't have time for finicky plants." Scarlett touched a leaf of the plant.

"I hear you." A crooked grin lit up Annie Mae's face. "I'm going to name mine Marvin. This time I'll have a guy that's low maintenance."

Scarlett let out a giggle. "I never thought about naming a plant."

"Why don't we call yours Croce? After Jim, the singer. Your plant has that seventies vibe going on," Annie Mae said.

Scarlett nodded. "I guess so."

Needing to get back on track, I asked Scarlett, "Do you remember anything more about that box?"

Scarlett placed the palm of her hand on her forehead. She sat down. "My nephew, my new a.s.sociate, a.s.sembled the items in the box Lucy got."

"Oh?" Annie Mae raised an eyebrow.

"I shouldn't have let him." Scarlett wrung her hands. "He's new, and I wanted to make sure there was a mixture of useful items and such. Since I didn't oversee things, let's just say that it didn't go as planned."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Nothing. Nothing." Scarlett's lips tightened. "He just didn't have the knowledge to know what went in the box and what shouldn't."

"Lucy told me she loved the plates, and especially a vase that was in the box." I took in a deep breath, holding back my emotions from overcoming me when I thought of Lucy.

"That vase was hideous. No offense to your store and all, but you sold that here?" Annie Mae shook her head.

"Hideous?" Scarlett sucked in a breath. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Fearing Annie Mae might have insulted Scarlett, I quickly changed the subject. "What do you remember about the last time you saw her?"

Scarlett crossed and uncrossed her legs at her ankles. "Let me see. She came by the day of her accident. She said her sorority group planned a dinner that night at a friend's house." She shifted in her seat as though sitting on pebbles. "That's really all I know. You may want to talk with that group of hers."

It struck me as odd that Scarlett referred to Lucy's death as an accident. But then again, maybe I was just oversensitive about Lucy. "Sorority group?"

"Her Bible study group at church only meets in the morning," Annie Mae said. "What group did she mean?"

"Let me think." Scarlett tapped a skinny finger against her cheek. "If my memory serves me, it had three C's in the name, or it could have been a sorority such as the Tri-C's? I was a Delta Zeta at UGA."

Then I thought for a second. "It's not a sorority. It must be the Chubby Chicks Club. Our group."

"Why would any female purposefully call herself chubby?" Scarlett looked shocked. But then, she had that taut face with permanently raised eyebrows and that stretched mouth, so who really knew?

"Um, do you see me? I'm a full-figured woman." Annie Mae adjusted her pastel blue blouse over her midsection.

"We aren't even all chicks." I grinned sheepishly.

Scarlett folded and unfolded her hands on her lap. "Lucy was a part of this chubby girls' club?"

"Absolutely. And we aren't even all female. One token male." Annie Mae took her index finger and slid her eyegla.s.ses up.