Can't Judge a Book by Its Murder

by Amy Lillard

  “Right.” Helen nodded.

  “Oh, a stakeout.” Pure joy lit Fern’s features. “What will we wear?”

  “Do you think the hardware store will have one of those black knit caps?” Camille asked. “You know like the kids wear in the wintertime. Well, and sometimes in the summer. You know, right?”

  Yes, Arlo knew exactly. And she had seen these women at work together at school auctions, bake sales, and other fund-raisers. When they set their minds to something, there was no way of stopping them.

  Ground rules. That’s what they needed.

  Arlo came around the side of the couch and sat down near Camille and her purse. “Listen,” she started gently. “I know this is a big happening in Sugar Springs. And I know that you ladies care about Chloe and want to see her out of jail. But you have to be careful about what you do and say.”

  Sugar Springs might be the kind of town where a person could leave their door unlocked and not worry, but there was a murderer among them now.

  Chances were the killer had a direct problem with Wally and most likely wouldn’t kill again—unless their life felt threatened. Like with twenty to life for first-degree murder because some little old meddling grannies decided to play Law & Order. If the ladies were going to poke around, they needed to be careful.

  “Of course, dear.” Helen smiled.

  “I don’t want any of you going around questioning people or—” She had been about to say going on stakeouts, but she didn’t want them to get excited again. “Poking into things you shouldn’t. I know Chloe appreciates your love and concern, but you have to keep yourselves safe.”

  “But, love—” Camille started in protest.

  Arlo shook her head. “Safety is key.”

  “And what will happen to Chloe if we don’t find the killer?” It was the one thing on everyone’s mind, but only Fern was willing to say it out loud.

  “I’ll talk to Mads,” Arlo promised. She wasn’t sure what good it would do, but she would talk to him.

  “Didn’t you already do that?” Fern asked.

  “I’ll do it again.” And again and again, until she was blue in the face. Maybe that would convince him to release Chloe and drop these ridiculous charges.

  Helen pursed her lips and nodded. “I understand. You’re concerned for us.”

  “That’s right. And you can talk about what’s happening, but you shouldn’t start running around looking for clues that may or may not be there. It’s simply too dangerous.” Especially if the killer is desperate.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Camille said, sounding resigned.

  “Good.” Arlo smiled at the little group. “So you’ll meet here and talk about the case here, and then once you leave, it’s like a book. You put it down and walk away until you can pick it up again.” She was entirely too proud of the analogy.

  The ladies nodded.

  “Then we’re definitely meeting every day,” Camille said.

  “Absolutely.” Fern nodded.

  “I’ll have news from the inn,” Helen said. “Hopefully. Single men do like to talk.”

  Arlo sighed. “We can’t have book club every day.”

  The ladies turned to look at her as if she had lost her cotton-pickin’ mind.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Dear,” Fern started in that not-so-gentle voice of hers. Arlo had heard her use it many times before with her pre-teen Sunday School class. “Of course we’re not having book club every day. The bookstore store isn’t open on Sunday.”

  “We can meet at the inn on Sunday,” Helen added.

  Fern turned back to Arlo. “See? We can meet every day.”

  “And we should,” Camille said emphatically. “Until we get this killer behind bars.”

  * * *

  I’m not going to worry. I’m not going to worry. Arlo chanted the mantra silently over and over, hoping that she would actually stop worrying. But the words just made her remember all the crazy ideas the book club ladies had about the case and ways for them to get information—everything from prank- calling anyone involved in hopes that they would slip and reveal something to petitioning Mads for a police report.

  Thankfully, the rest of that meeting happened without any major incidents. They simply talked about people who were involved and made a list of everyone suspicious. Maybe by tomorrow they would grow bored with the whole idea and give it up permanently, but Arlo was not holding her breath.

  She parked her car in Chloe’s drive, grabbed the spare key from the birdfeeder that hung by the front door, then made her way inside.

  And then there was Auggie and his feeding. Not that Arlo minded, but she didn’t think the cat liked her all that much. He might let her pet him from time to time, but there were definitely some trust issues.

  As Arlo stepped over the threshold, her first thought was that someone had broken into Chloe’s tiny house. The freestanding lamp had been knocked over, the shade torn. The quilt Chloe kept on the back of the sofa had been dragged onto the floor and…was that a hole in it? It was. Yet Chloe’s laptop was still sitting on the coffee table. Arlo glanced around; other items that were considered valuable remained untouched.

  The one plant Chloe kept on the small kitchen bar had been knocked over and dirt was scattered across the floor. But it was the marks in the dirt that exposed the culprit.

  “Auggie,” she called. Of course he ignored her. What else were cats good for? “You dang cat.”

  Auggie meowed at her from the bedroom door, then sauntered down the hall toward the kitchen. His tail twitched as he slunk along. He stopped halfway and cast an amber glance over one ginger-striped shoulder, seeing if she had obeyed and was following him.

  “I know you want to be fed, but this mess needs to be cleaned up first. See, if you hadn’t made the mess, then you would be eating right now.”

  Auggie meowed again, then ignored her as she set about to straighten up.

  In under fifteen minutes, she had almost everything back in order.

  “How did the quilt get a hole in it?” she wondered.

  Auggie blinked his golden eyes at her, but he didn’t have a comeback. He was standing next to his dry-food bowl, as if that alone would show her that it needed to be filled. Not that it was empty. It never was, but Auggie liked fresh food every day. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for that.

  “Just a little longer,” she told him, then she went to the hall closet to get out the vacuum cleaner.

  Auggie saw what she intended to do and bolted under the couch.

  “Dumb cat,” she muttered, although deep down she liked the orange beast. Tuna breath, moody temperament, and all.

  The vacuum cleaner whooshed to life. Auggie’s tail stuck out from under the couch, swishing rapidly back and forth. Arlo wondered what would happen if she touched it. That cat would probably jump through the roof.

  She turned off the vacuum and shooed Auggie down the hallway and back into Chloe’s bedroom. He would be happier there while she cleaned. The dirt from the plant had managed to get under the sofa. Arlo unhooked the hose and added the attachment to clean under the edge of the couch.

  The nozzle hit something, maybe a cat toy, and the suction attached whatever it was to the end of her hose.

  She pulled it out from under the couch.

  It was a small velvet box, deep purple in color and made of velour. It was the kind of box that jewelry came in. Expensive jewelry.

  Arlo opened the box and gasped. It contained an earring—not two, but one—one earring. One earring just like the one Jason found at the crime scene.

  She snapped the box closed, then opened it again to be sure. Yep, one three-carat diamond earring. Only one.

  “Meow.” Auggie wound himself between her legs, looking for attention and food. Mostly food.

  “Fine,” she mu
ttered, then closed the box once again. She didn’t want to look at it. It sent too many questions flying through her brain. Like where Chloe had gotten such an earring. Why wasn’t there a pair of them? And what was this earring doing underneath the couch?

  Arlo filled Auggie’s dry-food bowl, gave him fresh water, and gave him the can of special food that Chloe provided each night. Arlo suspected the choice treatment made the cat a bit spoiled, but she could find no fault with it. Especially not tonight.

  She picked up the little velvet box from where she had placed it on the table and opened it once again. Nope, while she had been feeding and caring for Auggie, the second diamond hadn’t magically appeared. She snapped the box closed and put it back on the counter. She shouldn’t have moved it. She shouldn’t have messed with it at all. What if that was the other earring to match the one Jason had?

  What was she saying? She knew it was. The question was what was it doing in Chloe’s house?

  12

  Arlo was pretty sure she looked like death warmed over when she walked into the police station the next morning. She had spent a near-sleepless night trying to figure out how the earring got into Chloe’s house, where it had come from, and if her best friend was capable of murder.

  The first two questions had no answers but the last one was an emphatic no. Chloe was not capable of killing Wally. Unfortunately, she still loved him very much—a fact she brought up every time she’d had too many piña coladas at the Round Up, the local watering hole just outside of Sugar Springs.

  Chloe had loved Wally since they started high school and she loved him still. He was the father of her child and despite all the controversy and adversity they had suffered through the years, Chloe could never have killed him.

  “Good morning,” Arlo said as she neared the front desk.

  Frances looked up with a smile. “Here for Chloe’s breakfast?”

  Arlo held up a paper sack containing two bagels and a container of strawberry cream cheese. The small purple jewelry box was tucked into the front of her bra, and she was careful how she moved her arms for risk of exposing it.

  “Go on back.” Frances went back to the crossword in the morning Commercial Appeal as Arlo slipped past.

  She was nervous, as if she were sneaking in a file or a gun. The earring was nothing so useful or lethal as the two, but she had a feeling it held a power all its own.

  “Morning, Dan.” She waggled her fingers in an almost-wave at the other full-time officer in Sugar Springs. Dan Hayden had been on the force as long as Arlo could remember. He was as big as a mountain and as sweet as pie. A gentle giant. Over the years his hair had turned gray and his demeanor had further mellowed, but no one had the heart to tell him it was time to retire. Not much happened in Sugar Springs anyway. So what did it matter if one of the officers was a little slow on the draw?

  “Morning, Arlo.” Dan nodded his head in time with his deep voice as Arlo walked past.

  It took everything that she had to walk slowly down the hall to the room where Chloe was being held. She was sure she looked suspicious, guilty even, as she smuggled in the small velvet box, but no one stopped her as she entered the room that contained the cells.

  “Hey.” Chloe’s voice was as tired as she looked. As tired as Arlo felt.

  Arlo pasted on a bright smile and held out the sack. “I have breakfast.”

  “Is there fruit?”

  “There is if you consider strawberry cream cheese a fruit.”

  Chloe sighed. “I guess it’ll have to do.”

  “I’ll have one of the ladies bring you some watermelon later, okay?”

  Chloe nodded. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.”

  “I know.” Arlo took the bagels from the sack and handed one to Chloe.

  It was an old argument between the two of them. Arlo had grown up eating quinoa before it was cool, kale and bran and wheat germ and all the other disgusting things that were considered healthy. If she never saw another kale leaf in her entire life, it would be too soon.

  Chloe, on the other hand, loved to eat anything green and everything healthy. It was the one big thing that separated them.

  They spread the cream cheese on their bagels, then started to eat.

  “Anything interesting happening?”

  Arlo nodded. “There was one thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Two really.

  “Yeah?”

  “Auggie is acting out. He trashed the living room last night.”

  Chloe closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the cinder block wall. “I was afraid of that.”

  “What?” Arlo took another bite of bagel and waited for her to answer.

  “Remember Cancún?”

  Arlo smiled. Did she ever! Cancún was among her all-time favorite memories. They’d had such a good time. Danced, drank, flirted with men, and walked on the beach—alone and with said men. But… “What does that have to do with Auggie?”

  “He did the same thing while I was there. I think it’s separation anxiety.”

  “Separation anxiety? In your cat?”

  Chloe nodded miserably.

  “But he’s…a cat.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Arlo said.

  “What can I say? He loves me. Plus, he was a shelter cat, so I’m sure he’s been abandoned before. He’s afraid it will happen again.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Take him home with you?” Chloe suggested, but it was almost a question.

  “So he can trash my house? I won’t be there during the day either.”

  “To work then.”

  “Faulkner—”

  Chloe shook her head. “Please. Faulkner can hold his own. He’s almost as big as Auggie is anyway. And if he’s in his cage, Auggie won’t be able to get to him. Perfect.”

  It was far from perfect, but what else could Arlo do?

  “Fine.” She sighed and dumped her trash back into the paper sack, then held it open for Chloe. “Last night, when I was cleaning up the mess, I found something.”

  “What?”

  Arlo looked to the security cameras they had on the front corner and turned her back to it. Anyone watching wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing. She hoped anyway. “I found this.” She fished out the velvet box and showed it to Chloe.

  “What?” she asked. “You found that in my house?”

  “Are you listening?”

  “I’ve never seen that before. What is it?”

  Arlo flipped open the box and showed Chloe what was inside. She recoiled like it was a snake.

  “Wh-where did you get that?” she whispered.

  “Under the couch.”

  “In my living room?”

  “Do you have another couch I don’t know about?”

  Chloe shook her head. “But how did it get there?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you would tell me.”

  Chloe closed her eyes as if trying to put everything in focus. “This really messes me up.”

  It was the only piece of evidence that didn’t fit.

  “Have you told Mads?” Chloe asked.

  “Are you crazy?” Arlo’s words were an urgent, incredulous whisper.

  “You have to.” Chloe seemed resigned to the fate that would fall if Mads knew.

  “I don’t.”

  “You can’t withhold evidence.”

  “Thank you, Judge Judy, but I know it doesn’t belong to you. So whose is it and how did it get in your bungalow?”

  * * *

  “Only two people have earrings like that in this town and neither one of them live here, so I say it’s a bust.” Helen threw up her hands and let them fall back into her lap.

  The book club meeting was not going as planned. There had been
no breaks in the case other than the earring Arlo found in Chloe’s house, and Arlo had not mentioned that to the ladies. That information would stay between her and Chloe.

  After promising to take Chloe a fresh set of clothes appropriate for the reading of the will, Arlo went back to the bookstore and did her best to act like nothing important had happened. She had been holding the secret for an entire day and it was starting to wear on her.

  “Help! Help!” A loud squawk came from Faulkner’s cage.

  “Bad kitty,” Camille said, jumping to her feet. She tried to shoo him off the top of Faulkner’s cage. Auggie wasn’t budging.

  The cat was barely balanced on the thin wires. Faulkner continued to holler Help though every time Auggie’s foot slipped through the tiny bars he nipped at it.

  It was clear the tabby had found himself in a situation that wasn’t as he expected.

  Arlo rushed over, jumped onto the couch, and pulled him from the top of the cage. “How did you get up there?” She hugged the cat close as she hopped to the ground. Auggie held on for dear life, digging his claws into her shoulder and stomach as she escorted him from the reading area.

  “Go play upstairs,” she said, releasing him onto the staircase.

  Auggie hissed, like he was a mean cat, then scampered up the stairs and disappeared among the large bookshelves.

  Arlo shook her head. Maybe bringing him to the store was a bad idea.

  “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” Faulkner called.

  “Hush, Faulkner.”

  A deep masculine laugh sounded close to her and she turned to find Sam Tucker standing next to her.

  How had he gotten in? Had she been so preoccupied with the bird and cat situation that she hadn’t heard the bell?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Hi to you too.” He smiled. “I am part of the book club, and we’re meeting every day to get Chloe out of jail. Aren’t we?”

  “That’s right.” Fern raised her arms above her head in triumph. So far there had been nothing to celebrate. At least her enthusiasm was encouraging.

  “Plus, I’m your new neighbor.” He pointed toward the third floor.

  “Seriously?” She smiled at Sam but the motion felt a bit forced.