“Capital idea,” Gamma said. “That’s settled. Oh, Charlotte, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Mr. Grote’s cat.”
“The Houdini of cats.” The feline that had escaped and gotten into flour in the pantry, though we weren’t sure how yet. “What about him?”
“The cat is fine, secured in the kitten foster center, soon to be hotel,” Gamma replied. “The trouble is, I can’t figure out how the little blighter escaped. The secret passages in the center have been closed off.”
The Gossip Inn had many secret passages and areas, including one in this very library.
“I’m puzzled about it too. But we don’t know every passage, Georgina. There’s got to be some way the cat escaped.”
Gamma sighed. “Yes, I’ll look into it.” She got out of her chair and passed me by, pausing at the library door. “Call me if you have any plans to go adventuring, Charlotte.”
“I will. You can bet I will.” I needed my grandmother’s help and her full arsenal of spy gear if I was going to solve the case.
My grandmother left me to consider my path forward. I would talk to Brick, I would head on down to the Gossip Sewing Club headquarters, wherever they were, and I would finally work out what had happened to Tina Rogers.
And why. That was what bothered me the most about this case. I couldn’t see a good reason why Tina had been murdered. What was the motive?
16
I let myself out of the library after dusting the spines of a few more books while Sunlight played around the tables, darting to and fro. He had a serious case of the zoomies, but I didn’t mind. Sunlight’s antics put me in a good mood.
It was just past 10:00 a.m., and I’d be due to help Lauren start the lunch service soon. Time was of the essence—I needed to get out of the inn and go see Brick Jonas as soon as possible.
Hurriedly, I stored the feather duster in the hall closet then started up the stairs to go get changed. I paused on the second floor landing, my eyes widening.
The inn’s wooden halls with their trinket nooks were empty between meals. The guests didn’t mingle unless they had arrived at the inn together, and this week’s guests certainly hadn’t.
Then what, oh what is she doing?
Opal, the woman who had been arguing with Mandy at the start of the week, stood frozen in the hall, her back to me, her ear pressed against a door.
It hit me fast. A jolt out of the blue. That was the Rose Room! Mandy was staying there.
So, what on earth was Opal doing with her ear pressed to the door? Eavesdropping, obviously, but why?
I considered confronting her, but that would ruin the moment. It was more interesting to observe.
Quietly, I checked my watch then wriggled my nose back and forth. I couldn’t hang around much longer, anyway. I needed to get out, fast.
Opal pushed away from the door just as I was about to head up to my room. She spotted me, turning the approximate color of a beet.
“I-I was just—I—”
“No need to explain,” I said, and started up the stairs. I didn’t have time to waste, and then there was the fact that I had places to be. Opal wouldn’t tell me the truth about why she’d been spying on Mandy anyway.
Regardless, I made a mental note of it. If Opal was spying on Mandy, she might be a person of interest. Or it was completely unrelated and more of the usual crazy Gossip behavior. Only time, and thorough investigation, would tell.
Brick Jonas’ favorite haunt was the park, according to my grandmother’s grapevine. I headed over as fast as I could without breaking any speed limits, and parked under an oak tree, its leaves occasionally shaken by the wind.
Gossip’s park was vast and filled with green grass, trees, and a central pond where folks sat and chatted at their leisure. People walked their dogs, keeping them strictly on their leads as per park rules, and others pushed their children on a set of swings.
The usual small town atmosphere—pleasant and bubbling with an undertone of murder.
Maybe that was just my take on things.
I entered the park, tucking my hands into my pockets, and strolled along. Gamma had gotten me a picture of my mark from her database, whilst frantically updating it to include Brick’s dating history, and I kept an eye out for him.
In his thirties, blonde hair with a widow’s peak, nose too small for the face, large, expressive lips. The picture I’d seen of him made it look as if he’d been pieced together by an uninspired painter. Or a sculptor who’d inhaled too many paint fumes. Or wait, no, it would be the painter who—
My mind chatter cut off.
The mark was in my sights.
Brick wore a loose tank top, his muscular arms exposed, and his large hands grasping a football. “Go long!” he shouted at a man who was already going long. “Longer!” He had a voice like a foghorn.
Maybe I was being hard on the guy, but he didn’t give off a great first vibe.
Brick tossed the football at his friend, and the other guy caught it with a whoop of excitement.
“Yeah!” Brick yelled. “Throw it back, Todd. Throw it back.”
Todd proceeded to do as he was told. The football swooped through the air and bounced off my head. Todd needed to work on his aim.
“Ouch.” I held my head, even though it hadn’t hurt that much. It was time to play the damsel in distress card. “Ouch. Wow.”
“Oh man, are you OK?” Brick ran over to me, his dark eyes filled with concern. This guy was tall. He was the type of guy who was so tall it was intimidating. The type who would find it easy to overpower and kill a person.
“Ow. Man, that kills.” I held my head, glancing up at him from under my brow.
“Todd, you dumbo! You hurt the lady.”
“Aw, man!” Todd ran over too. “I’m sorry. Are you OK?”
“Of course, she’s not OK. Look at her. She’s practically crying.” Brick whacked his friend on his burly chest. “Help me get her over to a bench.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really.”
“See, she’s OK.” Todd gave a grin that was the opposite of enigmatic. He jogged off again, calling to his other friends and leaving me with my mark.
Perfect.
This couldn’t have gone better. Minus the ball to my head, but whatever.
“You sure you’re OK?” Brick asked.
“I’m OK,” I said. “Thanks. I’m Charlotte, by the way.” I straightened, sticking out a hand and hamming it up with a wince.
“Brick. Brick Jonas,” he replied, squeezing my hand so hard he crushed my fingers together. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Wait,” I said. “Wait a second. You’re Brick?” Here goes nothing.
“You know me?”
“I know of you,” I said. “My friend Tina told me all about you. Tina Rogers?”
Brick’s concern fell from his face like scales from the eyes. “Oh.”
“Sorry, did I say something wrong? Tina told me so much about you. You’re her boyfriend, right?”
He folded his muscly arms. “Nope.”
“Wait, what? You’re not? I’m so sorry. I thought… she told me…”
“We broke up.”
“Oh, man, I’m so sorry. How did I manage to put my foot in my mouth about this?” I slapped my head and remembered to act like it had hurt. “Ouchies. Sorry about bringing up Tina. I haven’t spoken to her in a while,” I said, leading him in the conversation. This had to work. “I’ll have to call her later to catch up.”
“You can’t.”
“I can’t?”
“No, you can’t,” he said. “She’s dead.”
I sucked in a gasp. “She’s… no. What? How?”
“Somebody killed her.” He pronounced “killed” as “kilt.”
My jaw dropped, and I gaped at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yeah. She’s dead.” And that was it. Not even an attempt to act like he was upset about it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s terrible.�
�
He shrugged. “You sure you’re OK, lady?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. I gotta go.” And off he ran.
That was like getting blood from a stone. The man was as his name proclaimed, but that meant I couldn’t get much without sustained prodding. Regardless, Brick hadn’t shed a tear for Tina.
And I didn’t have any useful information from this conversation.
On to the next lead.
17
The headquarters of the Gossip Sewing Club weren’t far away, so I opted to leave my grandmother’s Mini-Cooper in the shade of the old oak at the park and take a leisurely stroll through Gossip. I needed time to drag my heels and sulk over my lack of progress.
I wasn’t a private investigator or an ex-cop. I was good at wringing people for information—assuming they had enough personality and intelligence to be wrung—and finding hidden Intel. But actually following leads?
I’d helped solve a couple cases, but this had grown complex.
Three people had visited Tina. She’d died in what was essentially a locked cage. And I had no idea about the cause of death.
Keep chipping away at it. Mrs. Rogers is counting on you.
I turned into Baker Avenue before noon, checking my phone in case Lauren called to ask me where I was. I’d texted my grandmother and asked her to fill in for me in the kitchen while I finished following a final lead. Hopefully, Lauren wouldn’t need my help soon.
My feet carried me past The Little Cake Shop, doing a roaring trade thanks to The Bread Factory’s lack of offerings, and past the entrance to an alleyway a few doors down.
A shout tore through the air.
I spun on my heel, searching for the source of the disturbance. The calm that I’d been trained into descended.
There!
A hooded figure had a woman pressed up against the wall. The glint of a knife in the figure’s hand.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Don’t move.”
Adrenaline kicked in, and I launched into action, darting toward the hooded attacker. They released their victim, instantly, and took off for the opposite end of the alleyway. There wasn’t a fence to block their passage.
I pumped my arms back and forth, regretting the extra cupcakes I’d eaten at the inn over the past couple of months. But the person was too fast. They escaped into the busy street opposite.
I exited onto the sidewalk, nearly slamming into an old woman with her Chihuahua in her purse.
“Watch it,” she yelped.
“Sorry.” I skidded to a halt, casting wild looks left and right, but the figure was gone. They had disappeared, either into one of the stores on the street or down another alleyway. “Did you see—?
But the woman I’d bumped into had already headed off, huffing under her breath about rude young ladies.
“Darn.”
A soft cry from the alleyway drew my attention. Of course! The woman who had been attacked.
I hurried back to her, slowing once I was a few feet away.
It was Josie. She sat against the brick wall of the alleyway, sucking in breaths, her hand pressed to her pale forehead.
“Are you OK?” I asked. “Were you hurt? Did they stab you?” I brought my cell phone out of my pocket to call 911.
Josie shook her head. “I’m not hurt.”
“I’ll call the cops.”
“It’s fine,” Josie said. “You don’t have to do that.”
I stared at her as if she’d sprouted a set of horns. “You’re kidding, right? Josie, did you hit your head? That person just attacked you.”
“Yeah.” Josie squeezed her eyes shut and took deep breaths. “I’m aware of that, but I’m fine. I just need a minute to calm down, that’s all. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal.” Why didn’t Josie want me to call the police? She’d been attacked, for heaven’s sake. This wasn’t normal. “Josie, you need to report this. If there’s a serial mugger on the loose—”
“I told you, I don’t want to,” Josie snapped. “Help me up.”
I stuck out my hand and pulled her up. “Did you know that person?”
“Don’t be dumb,” Josie snapped. “How would I know them? They were wearing a hoodie and a face mask thing. Sometimes, I wonder what that Georgina sees in you. Why employ a woman who is so clueless?”
Every inch of me wanted to bite back at her, but that wouldn’t help the case. “How did this happen, Josie? How did the attacker sneak up on you?”
“I don’t know,” Josie said.
“What were you doing out here?”
“None of your business!” Josie marched off, disappearing into the street.
I stared at the spot where she’d been, trying to piece things together. Josie had been out in this alleyway alone, doing what? The person who had attacked her had run instead of confronting me. Did that mean that the attacker was the murderer? And if that was the case, was Josie innocent?
Then why the weird behavior? Why lie?
I shook my head and set off, moving back onto the sidewalk on Baker Avenue. I would get to the bottom of Josie’s behavior, but first, I had a glove maker to question.
18
Not technically a glove maker. The head of the Gossip Sewing Club sat in a fusty armchair covered in floral print, her ankles crossed, and her hands in her lap. She wore her gray hair in curls, tight against her scalp, and had wrinkles that’d come from smiling.
First impressions should tell me that she was a harmless old lady who meant well. But I had a grandmother who could incapacitate a grown man with a debilitating nerve pinch maneuver using all of three fingers.
Experience said, “Don’t trust the book’s cover or the book.” Unless it was written by Agatha Christie.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to drink, dear?” Mrs. Willows asked.
Bridget Willows, the third suspect on my list and the last to visit Tina before her death, ran the Gossip Sewing Club from her home, and, according to my grandmother, the community center, where the women met twice a week.
“Dear?”
Gosh, me getting lost in my thoughts again. “No, I’m good thank you, Mrs. Willows. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. I know it might be strange that I’m asking questions about Tina.”
“It’s not strange,” Mrs. Willows said, patting her curls. “I’m close with Tina’s mother, Ursula, and she mentioned that you might stop by. I’m more than happy to help, whether it’s with the case of Tina’s missing glove, the break-in at The Little Cake Shop or Tina’s…” Mrs. Willows paused to clear her throat, apparently choking up. “Tina’s passing.”
I gave a sympathetic nod. Play the part. “Thank you for offering to help,” I said. “And for inviting me into your home.”
The living room was small, but neatly kept, even if the furniture was outdated. The house itself was a single story tucked between two others of its kind, with a miniscule front yard and no porch to speak of.
So, Mrs. Willows wasn’t exactly rich, but she didn’t stand to gain anything from Tina’s death. Unless it came out that Tina had left her The Bread Factory. Unlikely, given that Ursula was now running the place. Into the ground.
“What was your relationship with Tina, Mrs. Willows?”
“I was her mentor,” she said, proudly. “Tina was a part of the Gossip Sewing Club and the Young Ladies Business Club. I run both of them, and for a select few young ladies who show significant promise, I offer personal mentoring.”
“What type of mentoring?”
“How to navigate society and the business world. How to become better at being a member of the community. Networking. Business training and so on. The young ladies are selected according to their business acumen, so it’s a small group.”
“And Tina was a part of that group.”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Willows mentored people from her tiny home? “Do you run a business yourself?” I asked, trying to find a nice way to ask the question
.
“I used to. And I was a large part of my husband’s success before his passing.”
“What does your mentoring include?” It might not be relevant to Tina’s death, but I was curious about the dichotomy. Of course, business success didn’t equal mansions and cars, necessarily, but you wouldn’t get weight loss tips from somebody who ate junk food and nothing else.
You can talk, cupcake queen.
“We go away to conferences, and I give them exclusive access to my business course, as well as other networking opportunities.”
“Cool,” I said, smiling. “Very nice. This might be a touchy subject Mrs. Willows, but may I ask what you and Tina discussed on the morning… it happened?”
“Yes, of course. I visited her to tell her that she had my faith, and that I would be praying for her, and that I had managed to put off the business trip we had been planning and move it to another date.”
A straight answer. It was refreshing after Josie’s question dodging.
“How did Tina seem to you when you talked to her?”
“She was upset. As she rightfully should have been given the circumstances. She was angry that she was behind bars.”
“That’s all she was upset about? There was nothing else bothering her?”
“There might have been,” Mrs. Willows said. “But I didn’t ask. We focused mainly on business topics and comfort for her unfortunate situation.”
I nodded. “OK, got it. What about brownies? Did you bring Tina brownies?”
“No, I didn’t.” Bridget seemed confused. “Brownies?”
“Did she have any brownies on her while you were there?”
“Not that I could see.”
Dead end. “And, about Tina’s glove...”
“Oh, dear, the glove that caused this mess? Yes, Tina was aggravated about that. She mentioned a meeting with you later and that she’d be talking to you about it, but nothing else.”
The Case of the Waffling Warrants Page 7