Exhausted, I slipped under the sea-blue comforter, waited for Pixie to do her circle routine by my feet, then pounded my pillows until they were the way I liked them, and closed my eyes.
Hours later, though it seemed like minutes because I’d slept so deeply, I felt Pixie alternately dancing on her hind legs and crashing onto the bedspread.
“What the heck? Kitty, cut it out.” I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and read the time on the digital clock: five a.m. “Pixie, settle down. I mean it. I—”
“Courtney.” Fiona appeared over the kitten’s head. She sounded out of breath. Had she flown the whole way to my cottage without assistance? “I warned you.” She alit on my forearm.
“About?”
“You have to see for yourself. At the shop.” She threw her arms wide. “It’s horrible.”
Chapter 3
Spread your wings and let the fairy in you fly.
—Anonymous
Fiona didn’t stick around to explain. She darted out of the cottage. A streak of sparkling fairy dust trailed her.
Quickly, I dressed in jeans, aqua sweatshirt, and Keds. Even more rapidly, I threw on my cross-body purse, grabbed Pixie, and ran the distance to the shop despite the chill of fog seeping through my clothes and moistening my face and hair. On the way I called Joss on my cell phone. I apologized for waking her and told her something was up. I wasn’t sure what. I begged her to meet me at the shop. She agreed.
When I arrived at Open Your Imagination, I screeched to a halt. The Dutch door was ajar. I didn’t go inside. I’d seen enough scary movies in my lifetime to know I needed to gauge whether it would be dangerous or not. I peered through a window. The lights were switched off in the shop, but the hazy glow of a streetlamp provided enough illumination for me to see that nothing looked amiss. No shards of tea sets or fairy gardens lay on the floor, and I couldn’t detect any strangers lurking in the shadows.
“Fiona?” I whispered.
She soared through the shop, her wings glimmering like silver, and hovered inside the front door. She signaled: follow me.
Adrenaline pumping, I pushed open the door. Fiona wouldn’t lead me into danger. That would really tick off the queen fairy. I set Pixie on the floor. She stood stock-still and lifted her chin. Her nose twitched. Her tail coiled into a question mark. I switched on the main store lights, which lit up the frosted glass sconces on each wall. Everything appeared normal, as I’d deduced seconds before. I breathed a tad easier. Maybe Fiona had been overreacting when she’d said something horrible had happened. Perhaps Carmel had suffered a teensy earthquake tremor and items had fallen off the shelves on the patio.
Fiona zoomed toward me. “Don’t dally. Come now.”
I followed her. The moment I passed through the French doors to the patio, I realized I’d been mistaken. Not about the tremor or minor damage. But something was very wrong.
Mick Watkins lay in a heap beside the fountain, his head craned at an odd angle. Dark shadows made his face look ghastly. Pixie pounced to him and sniffed. She recoiled.
“Mick?” I tripped the switch on the wall. The twinkling lights woven into the trees and trellises flickered on. I tiptoed closer. “Hey, are you all right?”
Mick didn’t budge. The carved gnomes on the fountain seemed to be gazing ghoulishly at him.
When I drew nearer, I gasped. Mick’s head was gashed. Blood seeped from the wound. Red-brown goo—more blood—clung to the fountain’s stone façade. I reached for Mick’s wrist. He had no pulse.
I clapped a hand over my mouth. Pixie rubbed against my leg, curious to know if I was okay. I assured her I wasn’t. Bile was rising up my esophagus. I raced around the patio and switched on all the lights. The floodlights in the corners blazed on. The reading lamps set by the tea tables shone brightly. Light did not make Mick look any better. Or any more alive.
I gagged and pulled my cell phone from my purse. I dialed 911 and waited through three rings. What would I say? I’d seen dead rats and roadkill. Every landscaper had. But I’d never come across a dead body. Heck, I’d never had to interact with the police for anything, not even jaywalking. Okay, yes, I’d had to answer to my father on occasion, back when he was a cop, before the incident that took out his knee and ended his career. He’d been a stickler about curfews.
A 911 operator answered. I alerted her to the problem, gave her the address, and was told to wait—like I’d go anywhere. She hung up.
“Did you see what happened?” I asked Fiona.
“No.” Her cheeks turned crimson. “I was out. Remember?”
“At the seminar. Right. When did you get back?”
“A few minutes before I showed up at your place.” She landed on my shoulder, plopped on her behind, and folded her legs. “Take pictures.”
“What?”
“With your cell phone. Take photographs. Record everything.”
I didn’t want to go near Mick again, but she was right. Before the police came and messed up the crime scene, I needed to snap a few shots. Our insurance adjustor might need to know what had happened. Oh, no. Would Emily Watkins sue me for Mick’s accidental death?
“See the straw and the dog hair and the—” Fiona motioned to a few cards lying next to Mick. “What are those?”
“Business cards.” I checked them out but didn’t touch them. One was for an attorney, another for Councilwoman Pauli, and a few others for local inns and restaurants.
“What’s that around his neck?” Fiona asked.
“What are you talking about? He’s not wearing a tie or a scarf.”
“The brown mark. Look closer.”
Stomach roiling, I crouched and inspected Mick’s neck. The brown mark was striated with red bands on either side.
“He’s been strangled,” I whispered. “With rope.” I’d worked with enough rope and cord over the course of my career to recognize ligature marks. Had the killer strangled Mick first and then shoved him, or shoved him and then strangled him? Did the sequence matter?
“Courtney!” Joss burst through the opened French doors leading from the shop to the patio, the flaps of her purple duster cardigan wafting. Her short hair lay flat on her head, making her look more elfin than ever. She drew to a halt and pressed a hand to her chest. The way she’d buttoned her purple-and-pink plaid shirt to her throat made her look uptight and tense. “What in the world? Is he all right?”
I shook my head. “He’s dead. He was murdered.”
“Murdered? Heavens to Betsy.” Joss turned pale.
I hurried to her and steadied her. “Do you need to sit?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” She drank in a huge gulp of air. “What is he doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did he get in?”
“The front door was open.”
“No, no, no. I locked all the doors.” She sliced the air with her hand. “You know I never leave without double-checking the locks.” Having been a bookkeeper, Joss was meticulous about details.
“He must have had a key,” I said.
“Why would he have a key? Uh-uh. No.” She shook her head. “Did you check to see if the lock on the Dutch door was jimmied?”
I hadn’t. Together we raced to the front door. Fiona trailed us.
Using the flashlight app on my cell phone, I peered at the doorknob and its lock. Pristine. Not a scratch. “Mick must have had a key,” I repeated.
“Or he came in some other way, and the killer went out this way,” Fiona suggested.
I gawked at her. “Some other way like via the pyramid skylight over the patio?” I raced to the patio and peered upward.
Fiona flitted to the skylight and inspected the locks. “Nope. These are secure. And the slatted air vents on either side are barely large enough for me to shimmy through.”
I said to Joss, “I’m going to examine the other doors.” There was an entrance on the patio and a door in our modest kitchen, both used for deliveries, plus a door near the office, which we never used. It wa
s there for emergencies.
“I’ll inspect the windows,” Joss said. “Did you call the police?”
“They’re on their way.” Methodically, I studied each door. No scratch marks on any of the locks. Nothing picked or jimmied. Everything was secure.
“No mess-ups on my end,” Joss yelled.
“For me, either.” I returned to the patio and spied Fiona inspecting a clump of vines. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll be right back.” She zipped out of the shop.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
Joss hustled to my side. “Where is she off to?”
Fiona returned a minute later. A shimmer of fairy dust trailed her as she ducked behind the vines she’d previously been inspecting. She hummed. Loudly. Fairies, she’d told me, liked to hum, especially righteous fairies when they were working an issue.
A moment later, she reappeared and, wafting upward, gestured to the spot she’d just left. “There.”
“What did you find?” I asked.
“See the vines? They’re broken. They’re covering a secret entrance.”
“You’re kidding.” I tiptoed closer.
“No way,” Joss murmured, trailing me.
“You can’t see the entrance easily,” Fiona went on. “It’s on Eighth Avenue. But I had a gut feeling.”
Did fairies have guts? Of course they did. They could live and die. They had to have organs. Fairy organs.
“Dig through the broken vines,” Fiona ordered. “You’ll see. That’s how Mick got inside.”
Sure enough, behind the vines was a two-foot by two-foot door, which was ajar. How had I missed it? Why hadn’t my landlord warned me about it? It didn’t have a lock.
As I stood up, a siren pierced the air. Then another.
“The police,” Joss yelped.
With a whoop, the sirens ceased.
I hurried to the front of the shop and greeted a tanned male officer and a dark-haired female officer as they strode through the door, he in street clothes and she wearing the official Carmel Police Department blue uniform.
“Good morning,” I said, even though the sun wasn’t up. “No. Let me revise that. Not so good morning. What I mean is”—I massaged the locket with my mother’s picture—“it’s a very bad morning.”
The male officer said, “I’m Detective Summers. Dylan Summers. My partner is Officer Rodriguez.”
Rodriguez nodded. She had a tight ponytail and a tighter smile.
Summers flashed his CPD badge. “Where’s the body?” In khaki trousers and white shirt with sleeves rolled up, he resembled any other local who spent hours at the beach or on the golf course. But he wasn’t like any other local. I’d seen Summers once at a city council meeting. A seasoned detective, he had talked about community safety. After the meeting, a middle-aged woman told me he’d been married once but was a widower. His wife had died in a car accident a week after they said I do. If I hadn’t gotten the scoop, I wouldn’t have known he’d ever suffered sorrow. He had an easy smile and a commanding presence.
“Follow me,” I said to Summers and Rodriguez as I led the way to the patio. “I’m the owner of the shop. Courtney Kelly. I...” I couldn’t say my resident fairy had found Mick. I could, but would they believe me? No. Lie number one, coming up. “I came in early for work and found him like this. He’s my neighbor, Mick Watkins. He owns Wizard of Paws, across the courtyard. I think he’s been murdered.”
“Please don’t theorize, Miss Kelly. Leave the deductions to us.” Summers smoothed his tawny hair and crouched beside Mick to get a better look. “Ligature marks,” he said over his shoulder to Rodriguez. “Strangled. Head injury first, I suspect.”
Fiona fluttered beside my ear. “You were right.”
“Did you argue with him?” Summers asked me as he rose.
I blanched. “No. He was like that. When I arrived. I didn’t—”
“It’s cold out here,” Rodriguez said. “He could have been dead for hours.”
“We close at six p.m.,” I said.
Summers was tall. I had to tilt my head back to make eye contact. Given the crow’s-feet around his eyes, I gauged him at about fifty to fifty-five, not far from my father’s age. “Why was Mr. Watkins here?” He pulled an old-fashioned notebook fastened with a rubber band from his pocket, opened it, and removed the attached pen.
“I’m not sure.”
“How did he get in?”
“The front door was open, but my assistant is conscientious about locking up. We... my assistant and I—” I indicated Joss, who was standing next to the French doors, arms wrapped around her teensy body. She waved her hand. “Her name is Joss Timberlake. She and I”—I still didn’t mention Fiona—“think Mick stole in through a hidden door behind the vines.” I pointed. “I didn’t know about the hidden door. I had no idea it was there until—”
“Did you mess with those vines?” Summers asked.
My cheeks warmed. I pushed away my embarrassment and squared my shoulders. “While I was waiting for you to arrive, I did a bit of, um, investigating.”
He grumbled. Rodriguez made a similar noise.
“By the way,” I continued, “the killer might have followed Mick through the secret entrance and run out the front door, which would be why it was open when I arrived.”
Summers scowled and made another note without making eye contact. “I repeat, don’t theorize.”
My shoulders stiffened. His tone reminded me of my father’s whenever he would reprimand me.
“Rodriguez,” Summers said. “Check the secret entrance from the outside.”
“On it.” She disappeared through the main store.
I said, “Detective, if you fingerprint the Dutch door’s knob, you might—”
He shook his head. “We won’t get anything. The killer was probably wearing gloves.”
“What if he wasn’t?” I countered.
“He could have been a she,” Summers said.
Why had he or she strangled Mick? And when, exactly?
Summers brandished a hand. “Plenty of other people will have touched that knob.”
“Not since then. When I came in, I used the exterior knob. Won’t prints layer over other prints? Won’t the topmost be the most recent?”
Rodriguez returned and whispered something to Summers. He nodded, then directed her to examine the front door and jotted in his notebook.
I said, “I also noticed pet hair and some straw on the floor beside the business cards. My assistant cleans the place spotless every night before leaving. The floor should have been dust-free. Of course the pet hair could have come in with Mick since he works with animals, or the killer might have—”
“Stop,” Summers said abruptly.
“I wasn’t theorizing.” My cheeks blazed with heat. Of course I was theorizing. I’d been a problem solver all my life.
Rodriguez returned and showed Summers a few pictures on her cell phone. “Don’t pretend to be a lab tech, either,” she said to me.
Was this their typical routine? Bad cop, worse cop?
“How many episodes of CSI have you watched, Miss Kelly?” Summers asked.
Far be it from me to admit that I’d binge-watched every episode after my breakup with my fiancé. I’d had a few murderous thoughts. Seeing professionals catch the bad guy every time had put me off the idea of killing him. Besides, I wouldn’t look good in an orange jumpsuit.
“A few,” I replied.
Summers smiled, trying to disarm me. It didn’t work. When I had been a landscaper, one too many clients had dismissed me because I was young and female, another of the many reasons I’d set off on my own journey.
“By the way, have you considered that Mr. Watkins wasn’t the intended victim?” he asked.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s your shop,” Rodriguez said. “What if the killer meant to kill you, but Mr. Watkins just happened to appear?”
I gulped. “No way. I’m never here lat
e at night.”
“Maybe the murderer was lying in wait,” Summers said.
“For me?” I shook my head. “I don’t have any enemies.”
“Everyone has enemies,” Rodriguez chimed. “Even Dylan.”
Summers chortled and turned a page of his notebook. “What can you tell me about Mr. Watkins?” He gazed at me somberly.
My mind was reeling, but I continued to answer as best I could. “Like I said, he owns... owned Wizard of Paws, the pet-grooming shop across the way.” I jutted a hand. “He liked animals. He was married to—”
“What’s going on?” a woman cried from the front of the shop. “Have you seen my husband?”
I whirled around. Emily Watkins, clad in a short-sleeved white blouse and khaki pull-on breeches fitted with a fashionable leather-and-rope belt and tucked into brown riding boots, was being detained by a third officer, a lanky redhead in his early thirties. Emily’s right hand and forearm were wrapped in a wide elastic bandage with a Velcro-style fastener. When had she injured herself? She was carrying a brown leather jacket and a Michael Kors tote bag.
“Why are the police here?” Emily shrieked. “What happened? Mick, are you in there?” She pulled free from the officer and charged into the shop. “Courtney, I see you. What’s going on? Where’s Mick? Have you seen—” She drew to a halt beneath the arch of the French door and gasped. “Mick!”
She raced onto the patio, toward her husband.
In one swift move, Summers pocketed his notebook and grabbed her. He held her firmly at bay. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You shouldn’t be out here.”
“That’s my husband. I’m Emily Watkins. Is he all right? Did he fall? What happened?”
“Red,” Summers said to the red-haired officer, “secure the crime scene and get officers down here ASAP to help tag evidence.”
“Sir.”
Summers addressed Emily. “Please, ma’am, exit the shop. Wait in the courtyard for me.”
“Not until you tell me what happened.”
“It appears your husband was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Her jaw fell open. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“Please, ma’am, go to the courtyard.”
A Sprinkling of Murder Page 4