“What do you want?” I prepared a tongue-lashing, which would set his ears on fire. This jittery old toad was sweaty, overweight and smelled of stale beer. His beady eyes darted taking in the tiered cake plates and examining the Row’s chandeliers. If he tried anything, I would tackle him.
Holding my breath, I took a step back. “Whew! You planning on taking a bath?”
He stopped, glaring. “Mmm yeah. You know I’m a busy man.”
“More like a busybody.”
“Body’s got to stay busy; otherwise it’s a dead body.” He set his ratty backpack on the floor. From the state of his disheveled clothing, he was one step above homelessness.
He knows more about Veronica Lake than I do.
He pulled an older tablet from the backpack. “You got an outlet? Needs a charge.” Holding the charger, he pretended to plug it in. No doubt he couldn’t charge his tablet under the overpass where he slept last night.
“Sure.” Teddy installed a long breaker strip under the counter’s lip for our many devices.
“You gotta see this.” Mike grinned. “Lemme tell ya. It’s a doozy.”
“You know what? I’m gonna donate to your cause.” Picking up a knockoff flavor of Old Spice soap, I slipped the bar into his backpack. I hoped he’d get the hint. If he asked to use the bathroom, I wouldn’t turn him down.
“Why that’s mighty generous of you.” He dangled the computer plug in my face.
“Let me.” I went around the counter, stretched the wire across and plugged it into the outlet. I watched his every move. Don’t trust him with an ink pen.
“It’s gonna blow you away.” Two-seconds later, he said, “Nothin’s happening.”
“Oh? Right. I’ll turn on the electricity.” That meant I would leave Mike alone in the showroom. I glared at him hesitating. If he stole something, it would be my fault for letting him in the shop. Heading for the switch box on the back wall, I flipped on the breakers. The LED light strips worked perfectly and were so bright a pilot could’ve spotted them from thirty-thousand feet.
Had Teddy worked on the malfunctioning lights?
The air-conditioner cycled on. I was sweaty and stopped behind the swinging doors, taking a moment, letting the cool air blow on my back.
The sooner I got rid of Mike the better. Breath deep.
I clacked through the swinging doors, giving Mike fair warning, and put the counter between us, more for his protection than mine. If he picked his nose the wrong way, I couldn’t trust myself; he was due a good throttling.
He hunched over his tablet innocent enough and held up one finger. “One sec. Still charging. Kinda slow. Like me.” He grinned, a nasty smile, and his foul breath made me wonder if I could custom blend toothpaste for homeless photographers.
Jittering, he said, “I downloaded everything off my chip this morning. Swiped it clean. Gotta take more pictures.”
“Uh-uh.” My patience waned as he fiddled with the tablet.
“Here it comes.” He poked the screen with his pinky finger before the album opened. When it opened, he flipped through dozens of photos.
Then, I realized what he wanted. “Do you have photos of the girl?” I wasn’t about to ask if he sold them to the Sentinel.
“Maybe.” Grinning, he answered my question.
Why on earth would he want to show me photos of the victim? He and I were eyewitnesses to the melee on the sidewalk. Anything else he snapped of value, he should have shared with Dick. The sheriff’s department wasn’t in the habit of buying photographs, that’s why he went straight to the newspaper with my ugly face. He irked me to no end because he was all about making a fast buck.
“What about the two jerks with her?” Spats and the chauffeur knew what happened to Veronica. I didn’t need photos as prove.
He shrugged. “Dunno what all I got.”
I peeked over his shoulder and had to give him credit. The album contained hundreds of colorful photographs and a few black and white stills, and not all of them were of disparaged victims. He looked up and asked, “You don’t know who she was, do you?”
I glared into his weepy eyes. “I know enough.” I wasn’t going to mention the Sentinel’s headlines. He couldn’t believe I was that dense? He knew I knew he sold my face.
“When I heard she was in town, I followed her. Glad she stopped here. I snapped my doozy because of her.”
“Who was she?” I tried to act nonchalant. “It’d better be good. You’re wasting my precious time.”
With a dirty finger, he swiped sweat from his brow and wiped it along his jean leg.
“She’s the singer Veronica. Was. She would’ve been famous. Like Adele.”
“That’s so?” It explained why she registered under the name Veronica Lake. Whose brilliant idea was it to copy the old actress’s stage name? If Spats was her manager or advisor, he was an idiot.
“She sang at the Arlington the night she died.” He slowed his search, putting his nose close to the tablet.
“Yeah?” I wouldn’t tell him Teddy told me about her performance.
“Yep. Here we go. You’re gonna just die.” He sniveled again, waving his hands. “This is hot… hot… hot. Whoa! There it is. See?”
He pushed the tablet across the counter. I leaned over, looking at a photograph of the outside of the shop. He sucked in air too fast, choked and pulled a refilled water bottle from his backpack. He took a big chug from it, smiled and croaked. “This has been my lifetime dream. It finally happened.”
Even after all my window cleaning efforts and falling off the ladder, in the photo, the windows looked streaked. An ugly reflection of yellow police tape reflected in the glass. As soon as Dick gave us the go-ahead to reopen the shop, I was calling a professional window washer.
“You took this when? The windows are dirty.”
“So, what? See that?” He pointed with a grimy finger. “Look closer.”
Squinting, I pulled the tablet closer… oh, my word… it couldn’t be true.
I held my breath unsure of what I was looking at. “You doctored this, didn’t you?” Faked photographs were the rage nowadays.
“No, ma’am, I did not doctor a thing. Ain’t that kinda mean?” He brushed his greasy bangs with his dirty fingers. “I’ve spent a lifetime in these old buildings hoping to capture a… an apparition… a true ghost. I finally got one.”
I closed my eyes. Take a breath. “Pish. Isn’t that just a reflection of someone walking along the promenade? Across the street.”
He puffed pushing the tablet my way. “Yeah, I knew you’d pooh-pooh it.” We pushed the tablet back and forth a couple times before I stopped, acquiescing and picked up the tablet.
It’s obvious. Fanny was clearly standing the window. Her hair was pulled into its loose chignon and she looked down. Her long-sleeve white blouse buttoned high at her collar and the red ribbon she sewed were easily recognizable. To the left, Mike caught his own reflection holding his camera posed looking into the window. Another yellow blur in the bottom right corner of the photo captured a cab rushing by.
I nodded. He bounced, grinning and snickering. “I didn’t see no woman standing in the window. I remember things like that. What’d you make of it? Do you think it’s an honest-to-God ghost?”
“I don’t believe in such things. It’s a reflection.”
I cast my eyes down and laid the tablet on the counter. I must remain cool. As far as I knew, he knew nothing about my accident, my ability to see, hear, and talk to Fanny or her signature on the bathroom wall. But now, if he asked to use the bathroom, I would steadfastly refuse. No sense tempting fate by leading him to her graffiti.
“Okay. I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” He giggled, picking up the tablet, flipped the page to the next photograph. “I got another. Look now.” He held it so I could see the screen.
I shook my head, but didn’t look at the next version. “Nope. I’m all done.”
“Give it one more look. I need you to give me your opinio
n.”
Across the room, Fanny flickered seeming all too real and up close. “Ugh! All right.”
The next photograph was taken when we… Fanny and I stood in the display window watching the chauffeur tussle with Spats beside the car. Mike snapped the images at the exact moment I walked inside and stood beside her. Funny, I was so focused on the two men arguing, I hadn’t noticed him taking photographs of us.
“Ain’t it grand?” Mike snorted disgustingly. I swallowed to keep from gagging, more so because he had captured Fanny’s likeness so well, than his snorts.
“You’re talking. See, your mouth is a blur. What are you talking about… with a ghost?” His lip curled and ghoulish laugh chilled my core. He sounded worse than a real ghost moaning.
Yet, the evidence he produced was damning, and it left me speechless.
Fanny was real. I didn’t need genealogy or records from the building department to prove her existence.
Mike Claiborne—of all people—photographed Fanny. My imagination couldn’t place her flickering image standing beside me in a digital photograph. He hadn’t tampered with a thing—and now, he knew she existed. He was the last person I wanted to know about her. I ran through how to put an end to Mike’s nosiness. I know how Mike makes his money, and I won’t let him sell this photo to anyone.
I glowered at him, and for once, he stood still waiting for my answer. He wasn’t Sandy, I couldn’t shove him underneath the counter to contain him.
I struggled to gain some composure. “It isn’t what you think—”
“Yeah? What is it then?”
“I don’t know what you think, but it wasn’t a ghost. I guarantee that.” Pain pinged behind my eyes, but it wasn’t caused by brain damage. My nose grew an inch. When would I ever stop telling lies?
“Can you email me these?”
“I knew it… I knew it!” Mike jittered. “I’ve finally photographed a ghost.” He danced a happy, demented jig and Fanny wasn’t poking him with her sewing needle. “Oh, happy day!” He clapped and waved his hands in the air. “Oh, happy day!”
“How much do you want to keep this quiet?”
18
Rat Poison
I had no sooner gotten rid of Mike when my cell phone rang, and I didn’t recognize the number. Something might be wrong with Ally or, worse yet, Craig wrecked his big rig.
Filled with dread, I answered it. “Hey? Who’s this?”
“Pattianna, this is Dick.” My dread mounted exponentially. Anyone other than him calling would’ve been far better. He didn’t skip a beat. “You little ladies can’t reopen the shop.”
I closed my eyes and let his words sink in. We listened to each other breathe, until I finally asked, “What did you find?”
“We got us a sit-chee-wation,” Dick drawled, dawdling.
Spit it out! “What? You want me to guess?”
“Ah…” He paused for too long again. “Well.”
“Just say it, would ya? You know how long I worked at the sheriff’s department.”
He huffed, and I could almost smell his bad breath. “There was a problem with the bath bombs. Big time.”
Big time? Either Dick was playing me or trying not to tell the truth. I bit the inside of my lip, praying whatever the problem was, it would only be minor.
I rasped, “Spit it out.” I had no spit. My throat had dried out and I pressed my legs together in case I pee my pants, unsure of the state of my panicked bladder.
“Yeaahh…” He said yeah with ten vowels. “Looks like rat poison.”
“NO!” The air rushed from my lungs with the word. I slumped onto the stool holding tight to the counter. “Murder?”
“Ah, probable.” Dick’s tack lacked finesse, but at least he hadn’t made me guess. Ruination! We will be the laughing stock of Hot Springs.
“Picrotoxin. Pretty rare stuff,” Dick deadpanned. “Epsom salts and water activated it into a gas. She asphyxiated. Quick like.”
Quick like? Rat poison? Kill me! My racing heart churned on, grinding away and I remained alive. Why can’t a person just will their heart to stop? I gasped like an oxygen deprived guppy and sweat spouted from my pits. I grabbed a tissue and swiped my brow.
Dick droned on, but I couldn’t hear a word. A buzzing bee had burrowed into my eardrum.
Feels good.
My muddled mind settled on one small but damning detail—the brown paper bag Teddy carried while he tossed rat poison pellets around upstairs.
Not Teddy. But why? What was his motive? I retraced the route we walked as he did Myra’s bidding tossing rat poison hither and yon. I couldn’t calculate how much poison he tossed out. Hundreds of pounds. Tons. Then my overactive imagination envisioned him lacing my bulk bags of Epsom salts with rat poison.
It couldn’t be?
Finally, over my pounding heart, I heard Dick’s voice again. “That’s the skinny from Little Rock. Rat poison. Thing is, you can’t buy Picrotoxin in the States anymore. We’re scratchin’ our heads. You buy stuff from China?”
“Rat poison? Maybe. Yeah.” I had purchased the supplies on online. Where else would I buy giant bags of ingredients for my bath bombs? I didn’t have a clue about the origin of those bulk products.
Images of Sandy’s puckered pouty lips filled my overwrought thoughts. She would have another epic meltdown. Only this time, it wasn’t because Sherwin-Williams mixed the shop’s paint colors wrong.
“Did you call Sandy?” Maybe he could break it to her gently, like he had me.
“Nope. I thought you’d…”
“Right.” I couldn’t call her casually and tell her brother was the bath bomb murderer. I just couldn’t. Maybe a text message? Think not.
Teddy’s cute, killer blue eyes replaced Sandy’s puckered mouth. He picked random bath bombs and stuffed them full of rat poison? He and Sandy don’t get along, but this was extreme. Why would he want to do that to us?
Dick sighed. “The ones we confiscated from the shop weren’t tainted.”
“Okay.”
Did Teddy spike the very three bath bombs I plucked out of the bin to put in the box for Veronica? How did I pick the right three bombs? That’s mathematically impossible.
My voice vibrated. “The ones found at the scene?”
“Yep, poisoned. We had hazmat come in. Listen, I’m going to make a statement. Anyone who bought bombs needs to turn them into the station. Better not open them either.”
My thoughts ran amok, trying to remember who bought bath bombs, the list was endless. We gave away more than were purchased. We would need to call every girlfriend we invited to the Row’s semi-open house. Unfortunately, the tourists who paid cash, like Veronica, were on their own. I was powerless to help them.
Talk about gossip—there wasn’t enough Black Lily Shea soap to tar and feather both Sandy and me.
“When will you make it?” I needed time. Dick didn’t need my permission to announce the news. His goal was to protect the public. If anyone else died using one of my handmade bath bombs, I might as well book a room at the state prison in advance. Do they allow a decorator to design the prison cell space? I’m already missing Anita’s garage sale style, which was far better than pink painted concrete blocks. Although, I probably wouldn’t decorate since I’d spend so much time with my prison psychiatrist.
Breaking this news to Sandy would require a delicate touch, one I might not have time before the rumor mill got around to her.
“Sooner than later. Need to get the word out.”
“I’ll call the people I know.” I could only imagine making those calls—Hey, girl, how you doing? You know the bath bomb I gave you… its poisoned.
“We’re gonna make it as easy as possible.”
“Okay.” I croaked out the word. If I didn’t die of a coronary, I’d choke to death. “Why’d you call me?”
“I only had your phone number, but I knew you could handle the news.”
I was steadfast on the job at the sheriff’s departm
ent. Other employees would run for the nearest bathroom to hide during a ruckus, but I stayed on enjoying the battles until the bitter end. “Right.”
“You remember anything else about the girl? What? Yeah… yeah be right there.” Someone on his end asked questions. “No, no, I haven’t a clue.”
I listened, holding back, knowing now wasn’t the time to reveal what I saw outside the Row on the sidewalk. The words stayed on my tongue, and I searched for the reason was I holding back.
Teddy.
I wouldn’t tell Dick about watching Teddy lace our entire building with rat poison, not until I talked to him.
“Let’s keep a lid on this, would ya? I just wanted you to know I didn’t close your new shop for no reason.” Not a single soul in this gossipy little village was keeping a lid on this situation.
“I’ll tell Sandy. And Myra.” Where was Myra and what was she saying? As a registered certified Hot Springs gossiper, it wasn’t like her to disappear in the midst of such juicy turmoil.
“I was kinda hoping you would. Tell ‘em to keep quiet, would ya?” Dick asked, chuckling. Sure, he could laugh at my problem. He wasn’t facing twenty-to-life for murder.
“I’ll do my best.” Keeping Sandy quiet was like asking water to freeze in July on the promenade.
“I’ll update you as soon as I know something else. Get you up and running. Oh… and check your suppliers, would ya?” He hung up without saying goodbye. I looked at my phone before I laid it on the counter. Altogether, Dick was surprisingly nice.
I struggled into the stockroom and threw myself onto the loveseat.
What a mess! This couldn’t be real. Our Teddy? He must know how much trouble he’s in, goodness gracious, he was an ex-cop.
I took a deep breath and allowed the loveseat to swaddle me. My heart settled, but the throb behind my eyes began anew. A dark quiet room with a large dose of ibuprofen—on another planet—would be great about now, but I knew I wasn’t going to get any peace or quiet.
Fanny flickered into view sitting on the loveseat’s arm. “I heard. Sounds bad. What happened? You said something about—”
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