A Sprinkling of Murder

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  “Gee, thanks for asking how I am,” Emily said passive-aggressively.

  Miranda blanched and, sufficiently chastised, lowered her chin. “I apologize.” After a moment, she met Emily’s gaze. “How are you?”

  “Distraught. Heartbroken. How are you?”

  “Obviously, I’m stunned.” Miranda clapped a hand to her chest. “And as brokenhearted as you.” She shot a meaty finger at Open Your Imagination. “I heard he was killed in there. Is it true?”

  Emily nodded.

  Mesmerized by Miranda Watkins’s abrasiveness and amazed by the amount of information she had already gleaned, I plunked onto one of the wrought-iron chairs. Where had she come from? Was she a local or an out-of-towner? She’d never ventured into my shop.

  “Why was Mick in there?” Miranda asked. “What possible reason could he have to go into a garden shop in the middle of the night? He hated flowers. They made him sneeze.” She drew a bead on me. Even though she didn’t know me, I recoiled. My pulse started doing a jig. “It makes no sense.”

  Emily said, “He stole in to search for fairies.”

  I gaped. Had I heard that right?

  “Don’t be absurd,” Miranda said. “There are no such things, and Mick of all people knew that.”

  “He left me a note, Miranda,” Emily said patiently, as if addressing a slow-witted child. “I’ve shown it to the police.”

  Miranda cocked her head. “Which means you were the only one who knew where he’d gone.”

  Good point, I thought. When exactly had Emily read the note? Why hadn’t she mentioned it when the police questioned her yesterday? Maybe she had.

  “Don’t attack me.” Emily wrapped her arms around torso, protecting herself from her sister-in-law’s wrath. “I did not kill my husband. I was away. At a retreat. I found his note when I returned home, after he was dead.”

  Had “looking for fairies” been Mick’s defense should he get caught having a tryst in my shop with the councilwoman? Or had he really been serious about encountering a fairy? According to lore, seeing your first one brought good luck. Had Mick hoped that seeing a fairy would change the course of his business woes or perhaps his affaire d’amour?

  “The police will find out what happened,” Emily said. “There will be justice for your brother.”

  I questioned that logic. If the murderer got away with it, there would be no justice.

  “What’s the business worth?” Miranda demanded, changing tactics. “If you sell it, I want my portion. I’m in his will.” So much for loving her brother and being stunned. Money talked.

  “I wouldn’t know if you’re in it. I mean, yes, Mick has written a will, but I’m not privy to the details.” Emily raised her chin.

  “Of course I’m in it. I’m his sister.”

  If Miranda was in the will, did that make her a person of interest in Mick’s death? I imagined a list of possible suspects: Emily because of jealousy, Miranda because of greed, and Logan because he’d wanted Mick and his business out, but Mick had refused. Which motive was strongest?

  “Listening in on a conversation is a bad habit,” a man said from behind me.

  I swung around and felt my insides snag. Detective Summers approached and towered over me, casting a shadow across my face. A chill ran through me. I lowered my shears lest he think I was dangerous.

  He jerked his head in the direction of the two women. “What have you learned so far? If you’re going to be a snoop, you might as well be a snitch.”

  I bridled at both words. “I wasn’t prying. I was tending to my plants. On my own property. Open Your Imagination prides itself on keeping an attractive entry. Is that a crime?”

  “According to CVC 21955, it might be.”

  I frowned. “CVC 21955 is the code for jaywalking, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Summers’s smile broadened. “So you’re up to date on your codes. Good for you.”

  “I’m a responsible citizen. I attend city council meetings. I like to know what’s going on in my hometown. Plus, I care for my fellow man. Including Mick Watkins.”

  Summers sat in the chair opposite me. Were the white shirt and khaki trousers his uniform? His skin was glistening and his eyes were sharp, as if he’d recently worked out. “How are you doing?”

  “Honestly?”

  “I prefer honesty,” he said. Dead serious, eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t like being a suspect. I hate that someone died on my premises. I’ve never seen a dead body. I’m having nightmares. But you probably don’t care about that.”

  “Actually, I do.” He folded his hands on the table. “FYI, I got a call from your father.”

  Good old Dad followed through. Swell. “What about?”

  Summers grinned. “You, of course. He’d like me to back off. I can’t. But I appreciate that he vouched for your integrity.”

  So my father wasn’t as almighty powerful as he thought when it came to working with the police. That had to be a blow to his ego.

  Summers leaned back in his chair. “How’s business?”

  “We just opened,” I said, “but I’m hoping the incident won’t affect us for long.” I placed my tools on the tabletop. “By the way, that’s Mick Watkins’s sister, Miranda.”

  “I know.”

  “Miranda wants her share of the estate. Is it possible—”

  “Stop. Miranda is not guilty. She was in New York the day of the murder, scouting out antiques.” He smirked. “Yes, we’re doing our due diligence. The woman has a solid alibi with plenty of witnesses. She flew in to San Francisco airport about two hours ago.”

  “She lives here?”

  “Yes.”

  The fact that Summers was verifying alibis should have made me feel better. It didn’t.

  Summers said, “If I were you, I’d worry about your own situation.”

  Worry and situation didn’t sound good. I put on a brave face. “You said your tech crew would determine whether my alibi about being online in a chat room was credible. Have they?”

  “We’ve done some legwork. There are time stamps for your conversation, but as I said before, you’re not out of the woods. No lawyer can prove, even by a time stamp, that you, yourself, were at that computer.”

  “I have a physical printout of the chat if you’d like to see it. One of Joss’s friends worked it up.”

  Summers held up a hand. “Not necessary.”

  I shifted in my chair. “Maybe somebody saw me sitting at my desk in the living room.”

  “Like a Peeping Tom?”

  “I don’t close the drapes. A neighbor could have seen me.”

  “You should close the drapes.”

  I leveled him with a glare. “You sound like my father.”

  He chuckled. “Are you suggesting all cops, even former cops, sound alike?”

  Fiona soared to me and hovered by my ear. “Tell him who you think did it.”

  I flicked my fingers to make her stop.

  Undaunted, she flew to my other ear. “I can’t do it for you. He’s not a believer. He can’t see me or hear me. Do it.”

  “How much is Mick Watkins’s estate worth?” I asked.

  “That’s being evaluated.”

  I drummed the table with my fingertips. “You know, if Emily inherits everything—”

  “Got it. Follow the money. Don’t worry. I took Investigating 101.” Summers bit back a grin, realizing his sarcastic response had irked me.

  “Emily told her sister-in-law that Mick left a note saying he wanted to go into my shop to look for fairies.”

  “I read it.”

  “When did she find that note?”

  “When she got home.”

  “If she knew Mick had come here—”

  “Whoa.” Summers held up a hand. “We’ve checked out of her alibi. She went to the Equestrian Inn as she stated.”

  “Are you positive?”

  Fiona cried, “The straw! From horses.”

  I thumped the table with my
fingertips. “There was straw on the patio floor by the fountain. What if it came from horses? What if Emily—”

  “According to sources, Mrs. Watkins was at the inn all night and didn’t leave until morning.”

  “Which sources? Did you speak to them personally or—”

  Summers stared daggers at me. I sighed. If only I had a badge.

  I said, “Logan Langford and Mick really went at it on Wednesday outside Wizard of Paws. Logan threatened Mick.”

  “I know.”

  Of course Summers knew. That was why Logan had said he’d have his attorney contact the detective.

  Summers propped both elbows on the table. “Look, Miss—” He stopped himself. “Look, Courtney, you have good instincts. You have your father’s grit. But like I said before, I don’t want you to theorize. That’s what I’m here for. It’s my job.” He stood up. “I’m good at what I do.”

  “I’m sure you are, Detective, but when did you last solve a murder in Carmel? You skirted that answer with Councilwoman Pauli.”

  He pursed his lips and his eyes wavered, making him look, dare I say it, vulnerable. I felt horrible for being so blunt, but worry and fear and a whole host of other emotions were roiling inside me.

  “I can solve it and I will,” he said evenly. “I’m seasoned. I’ve gotten to the bottom of plenty of art heists and home break-ins.”

  “But not murder.”

  “Carmel is a sleepy town when it comes to crime. People are kind to one another. They’re decent.”

  “Sir”—I scrambled to my feet and raised my chin to meet his gaze—“someone knocked my neighbor out and strangled him. Someone decent didn’t do that. Look”—I shot out a hand—“I theorize because I’m a suspect for no reason whatsoever other than location.”

  “You know what they say in the real estate business: location, location, location.” Summers splayed his hands in an effort to soften the message.

  It didn’t work.

  Chapter 9

  A rustle in the wind reminds us a fairy is near.

  —Anonymous

  Close to eleven in the morning, a confident woman in a simple ecru dress approached the sales counter. “Courtney Kelly?” Her kind eyes and the way she wore her hair in a loose chignon reminded me of my mother.

  Breathing easier, certain she hadn’t been sent by Summers to arrest me and take me to jail, I abandoned the paperwork that I’d been attacking—I’d been trying to decide whether to purchase an entire closeout selection of garden fairy replicas—and said, “I’m Courtney.”

  “Victoria Judge. I’m a defense attorney. Your father hired me.”

  A moan escaped my lips. Quickly, I apologized. “Miss Judge, there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re a person of interest to the police. We need to get on top of this. Where can we talk?”

  Joss sidled up to me and whispered, “Are you okay?”

  “I would be if I could knock off my father and get away with it.”

  “Ha! Don’t we all wish we could? Fathers. What a pain.”

  I introduced Joss to the attorney and said, “We’ll be in the office.”

  A half hour later, I had agreed to allow Miss Judge to oversee my case. I didn’t alienate her. I didn’t demean my father. If I really needed her to defend me, I wanted her to think I was the best and most compliant client ever. To clear my name, I gave her the printout that Joss’s tech had provided, and to seal the deal, I sent her off with a fairy figurine, one with a deep purple petal skirt. Miss Judge was honored. Purple, she told me, represented justice. I actually knew that. My superstitious ex-fiancé had worn purple ties when he’d taken the bar.

  After she left, I returned to the main showroom craving something sweet.

  As if fate were smiling on me, Lauren skipped into the shop and offered me a bag with the Sweet Treats logo. “Courtney,” she chimed. “We’re back. Are you hungry? Mommy and me—”

  Her mother, who was right behind her, cleared her throat.

  Lauren blushed and began again. “Mommy and I”—she stressed the I; someone was getting grammar lessons—“ just went to the bakery, and we brought you cookies as a thank-you.”

  I accepted the gift and peeked inside. “Sugar cookies. Yum. My favorite.”

  Lauren picked up a white shopping basket. “We’re also here to pick out a couple more things for my garden.”

  Her mother said, “Lauren has the itch.”

  “I warned you,” I said. “Many of our clientele get it.” I remembered making my first fairy garden. It had taken me hours to pick out all the pieces.

  “If it makes her feel creative,” her mother said, “I’m all for it.”

  “Mommy says you can’t use up creativity,” Lauren chirped. “The more you use, the more you have.”

  Her mother smiled. “Actually Maya Angelou said that.”

  Lauren scrunched her nose. “I thought you said it.”

  “Darling”—her mother waved a hand, as if she were a fairy godmother—“tell Miss Courtney what you want.”

  How I loved doting parents. They were the bread-and-butter of a craft industry.

  “Is Fiona here?” Lauren dashed to the patio to seek for her. “Follow me, Courtney.”

  Truth be told, I wasn’t sure where my fairy had gone. Pixie was sound asleep on the white oak bureau behind the sales counter.

  “Mommy, remember this?” Lauren sprinted to a demo fairy garden, the one I’d made a month ago featuring a girl standing on a park bench holding a kite. “See the cat figurine?” Beneath the bench, a teensy white porcelain cat lay sleeping. Twinkle Toes, the cat I’d had as a girl, had looked just the same. “This is the one I was telling you about, Mommy. She’ll have fun in my fairy garden, don’t you think?”

  “There’s a cat just like that one on the shelf,” I said.

  “And we need books. Any fun day in a fairy garden should include books.” Lauren whizzed to one of the display racks and selected the squirrel toting the stack of books. “Isn’t he adorable?” She twisted him in front of her mother’s face.

  “Adorable.”

  Lauren added it to her basket and gathered the mushroom and the butterfly she’d had her heart set on the other day, too. With her selections complete, she drew near and whispered, “I don’t see Fiona anywhere. Is she all right?”

  I crouched to her level. “She must be investigating something.”

  “Investigating?” Lauren didn’t understand the word.

  “Looking for answers,” her mother explained.

  “Answers about what?” Lauren asked.

  “Life,” her mother replied.

  Or death, I thought glumly as I followed them into the shop to complete their purchase.

  As Joss attended to them, more customers entered. A steady flow of them. A few regulars came to check on me. A couple wanted gory details of the murder, which I refused to provide, claiming the police would frown on my discussing the case. One woman, an elderly shop owner who, thanks to making a fairy garden, had found the childlike spirit she thought she’d lost, brought me a tuna fish sandwich. She was concerned that I might starve myself with worry. Each and every do-gooder’s support gave me hope that although a murder had occurred on the premises, once it was solved and I was cleared of the crime, business would thrive.

  After lunch—the tuna fish hit the spot and the sugar cookie was the perfect dessert—I decided to do what Joss and I had drummed up. I made a sign, set it outside, and a half hour later, held an impromptu free demonstration in the learning-the-craft corner of the patio.

  Six adults and two redheaded children—a boy and a girl—sat on the benches. Everyone but the boy was eagerly watching as I gathered items for a brand new fairy garden. No script. No plan.

  “I need a theme,” I explained to my eager audience. “Yoo-hoo.” I crooked a finger at the boy who looked to be about seven. “Want to help me?”

  He shook his head. “Fairy gardens a
re girlie.”

  “Let’s make one that will appeal to you.” I walked to the shelves of figurines and opened my hand. “Do you like cars or bicycles or boats?”

  “I like spaceships.”

  I grinned. “Terrific. Let’s make a moonscape fairy garden.”

  “There aren’t plants on the moon,” he said, still resistant.

  “But there are rocks,” Fiona said, flying into view. Pausing midair, she stretched her arms and yawned. “Sorry, Courtney. I needed a nap. Did I miss anything?”

  “We’re making a moonscape.” Being the teacher, I could repeat myself without upsetting those who couldn’t see or hear Fiona.

  “On it. C’mon.” Fiona circled the boy’s head. “Let’s see what we can find.”

  The boy glanced upward and leaped to his feet, his interest piqued. Without question, he could see her.

  “We need to create rocks and rivers and caverns,” Fiona said.

  “I want it to be blue,” the boy cried.

  “Good choice,” I said. “Deep blue is perfect for outer space.”

  Over the next few minutes, with my guidance, he selected a handful of different sized rocks, a bag of blue crystal for a river, and a boy fairy with blue wings and blue hair. A miniature fishbowl, my young helper said, would serve as his space helmet, but then he changed his mind.

  “Do you have a cowboy hat?” he asked. “I want my fairy to be a cowboy astronaut so he can lasso those aliens with a rope when they show up.” He swung an imaginary lariat overhead. “Yee-haw.”

  The crowd chuckled at his enthusiasm.

  Me? I flinched as the memory of the murder scene scudded through my mind. Had the killer strangled Mick with rope as a metaphor for capturing him and hauling him to justice? Had Mick done something illegal? Had Emily deemed his affair with Petra Pauli against the law?

  “Which plants should we add?” Fiona asked the boy.

  He huffed. “Nothing grows on the moon.”