Blended Bribes

by Jessica Beck

  “Why? Did she say what she wanted?” I asked.

  “She didn’t say a word to me, but you know she’s good friends with the hospital administrator, so we’re all doing our best to be as pleasant to her as possible.” In a lower voice, she added, “You can imagine how challenging that can be, given the circumstances.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. Gabby could be bristly on her best days, and this was certainly not one of those.

  “She didn’t ask for me too, did she?” Grace asked, clearly hoping that the summons had been meant just for me.

  “Your name came up as well,” Penny said with a grin. “She’s in 214.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Good luck,” she added as we walked down the hallway toward the elevator.

  I turned around and gave her a thumbs-up, though I didn’t feel all that confident about my ability to handle the situation. I had to wonder what Gabby would say when we showed up, but there was no point speculating.

  In a minute we’d find out what had happened directly from her.

  Or so I thought.

  “Suzanne, where have you been?” were the first words out of Gabby’s mouth the moment we walked through the door. “I’ve been asking for you for the last thirty minutes.”

  “As flattering as that is, why me?” I asked her.

  Instead of answering, she turned to Grace. “Hello, Grace. Thanks for coming with Suzanne.”

  “You know us. We’re a matched set,” she said. “How are you feeling, Gabby?”

  Gabby gently touched the padded bandage on the back of her head and sighed. “I’ve got a headache you wouldn’t believe, I’m having a little trouble breathing, and to top it all off, they won’t let me get out of bed without an escort. Besides that, I couldn’t be better,” she added with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Gabby, I’m so glad you’re alive,” I said as I touched her hand lightly. I was half afraid she’d recoil from my touch, but instead, she put her free hand over mine.

  “That makes two of us. Listen, I desperately need your help.”

  “We’ll do whatever we can,” I said. “What’s going on? Tell us what happened at the shop.”

  She pulled her hands away, and the look of anguish on her face was tough to see. “That’s the thing. I don’t remember.”

  “What part of it don’t you recall?” I asked her.

  “I don’t remember any of it,” Gabby confessed. “Our esteemed police chief just left, and he was having a difficult time believing that I wasn’t holding out on him. He thought I might be protecting someone! How insane is that? Why would I protect someone who tried to kill me?”

  “So, it wasn’t an accident?” I asked her.

  “No, of course it wasn’t. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I never would have plugged that toaster oven in, especially in my shop. I was putting together a bunch of things from the house and the shop so I could make a donation. That blasted thing has a short in the cord, so I had a note on it saying not to use it until it was repaired, that it was a fire hazard. How prophetic that turned out to be.”

  So we’d been right in our speculations after all. “I don’t know if anyone has told you yet, but ReNEWed is gone,” I said. I was a firm believer that bad news was best delivered quickly and without fanfare.

  “So I heard,” she said, dismissing it as though I’d told her that it was raining outside. “I had insurance, so I should be fine.”

  “Are you going to rebuild the shop?” Grace asked her.

  “I have no idea. At the moment, I have more pressing concerns. I need you two to find out who tried to kill me, and why.”

  “That’s kind of what we’ve been doing since the fire,” I admitted.

  That brought a smile to Gabby’s face. “Good girls. I knew you wouldn’t take this lying down.”

  “What exactly do you remember?” Grace asked her.

  “The last thing I can recall is opening the shop yesterday morning. It was business as usual, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in ICU! I’ve got to tell you, I just about had a heart attack.”

  “Did the chief fill you in on what’s been happening in the meantime?” I asked her.

  “He was about to, but then he was called away for an emergency. As if what I’m going through right now doesn’t count as an emergency, too.” She paused, took a sip of water, and then asked, “What do you have so far?”

  “We have some suspects,” I admitted. “Listen, it’s not going to be easy for you to hear what we’ve uncovered. Are you sure you’re feeling good enough to go through this?”

  “I need to know, Suzanne,” she said firmly. “Good, bad, or indifferent, it’s vital that we figure out what really happened.”

  “Okay. Here’s what we’ve got so far. Our list of suspects at the moment is: Buster Breckinridge, Tyra Hitchings, Mindy Fulbright, and Manny Wright.”

  She didn’t look surprised to hear any of the names except Buster’s. “That pyromaniac’s back in town the day my shop burns to the ground? Why isn’t he in jail?”

  “He’s got an alibi, of sorts,” I told her. “He works for Manny at the Garden Center in Union Square, and they kind of cover for each other.”

  “But?” Gabby asked.

  “There’s a large enough gap in time where they were apart, so it doesn’t hold together.”

  “Okay. I remember a nice evening with Manny three days ago, or four or five I suppose, since apparently I’ve lost a few days along the way. Why would he want to kill me?”

  Now she was going to have to hear the news that he was a scoundrel all over again. I didn’t relish it, and I was still trying to figure out a way to tell her when Grace spoke up. “Evidently he’s been using the Internet to troll for lots and lots of women of a certain age, though he’s promised them all they were exclusive.”

  Gabby frowned for a moment, but then she fought it back and shrugged. “I should have known that he was too good to be true. Let me guess. He was also wooing Tyra and Mindy, is that right?”

  “Not Tyra, at least not that we know of yet,” I said. “That’s on our list of questions to ask her the next time we see her.”

  “Then why would she want to see me dead?”

  “The theory is that she came into the store and found out what you were charging for her things,” Grace said. “We have an eyewitness who claims Tyra stormed out of the shop not that long before the fire started.”

  “I’m a businesswoman,” Gabby said, “or at least I was. I deserve to make a profit, or why else bother?”

  “Evidently she had an issue with the size of your margins,” Grace said with a half smile.

  “Nobody held a gun to her head and made her sell me those things,” Gabby said. “She was certainly under no obligation to do business with me. The woman didn’t even dicker over what I offered to pay her, if you can believe that! Of course I lowballed her.” Gabby seemed to chew on all that we’d told her for a few moments.

  While she was thinking, I had something I needed to say. “Gabby, we’re working on the theory that whoever set that fire did so to cover up killing you.”

  “I’m not dead, though,” Gabby protested, quite rightly, too.

  “They obviously didn’t know that at the time,” I amended. “We believe that the arsonist hit you from behind in a fit of rage, and then, thinking you were dead, decided to cover up the crime. It’s not the first time it’s been done,” I said, thinking about our flip house project and what had happened to it, all in order to hide the facts. “Chances are whoever did it doesn’t know you’ve lost your memory of what happened. Has the doctor said anything about how long it will last?”

  “It could come back to me at any second,” Gabby admitted. “Then again, I may never remember what happened.”

  “The arsonist doesn’t know that, though. You’re not safe here,” Grace said.

  “Before you ask, we’ve already asked the police chief to post someone on your door,
but he claims he doesn’t have the manpower unless the threat can be substantiated,” I added.

  “I’m not his favorite person in the world,” Gabby admitted.

  “Hang on a second,” Grace said, rising to her boyfriend’s defense. “I’m sure that never even entered his mind. They’ve lost two officers in the past month, and he’s having a difficult time finding replacements. Chief Grant is stretched so thin that he’s even started taking shifts patrolling again himself. It’s not fair to assume that he’s not protecting you out of spite.”

  Gabby surprised me by being the one who was calm. “Take it easy, Grace. I know you’re right.” She thought for a few moments, and then she said, “I need to make a phone call.”

  I handed her my phone. “Who are you calling?”

  She ignored my request for information. “Jessie? It’s Gabby. The room is fine. I need a favor. Would it be okay if my nephew puts a chair outside my room and keeps an eye on things? I’d rather not say. How about forty-eight? Okay then, thirty-six. Good. Thanks.”

  “You’re getting your own guard,” I said. “I didn’t even know you had a nephew.”

  “Technically he’s a cousin, but I doubted Jessie would go for that, so I bumped him up in status,” Gabby said as she dialed another number.

  “Bo, it’s Gabby. Yes, I’m awake. I need to see you. Of course I’m still at the hospital. No, tomorrow won’t do. Be here in half an hour.”

  “Are you sure he’s up to the task?” I asked her after the call ended.

  “He’s not a cop, but he used to play high school football, and he’s a scary-looking brute with a full bushy beard and tattoos up and down his arms. I doubt anybody’s going to try anything with him outside. I could only buy you thirty-six hours, though. Do you think you can solve this in that amount of time?”

  “We’ll do everything in our power,” I said. “Is there anything you can tell us that might help? Anything at all?”

  “I’m at a loss,” Gabby admitted. “I don’t have to tell you that I’ve never been the most popular girl in school, not like you, Grace, or someone with hundreds of friends, like you, Suzanne.” We both tried to protest, but she raised a hand. “I’m too tired and too sore and too old to listen to your protests. My point is that while I know a great many folks in April Springs don’t care for me, I don’t know of anyone who would actually want to see me dead.”

  “Is that just in April Springs?” Grace asked with a glint in her eye. “How about outside the town limits?”

  It was a risky time to joke, and I would have warned her not to do it if I’d known what she was about to say, but Gabby took it with a smile after a few moments of hesitation. “True enough, but let’s focus on folks in the immediate area for now, shall we?”

  “We shall,” Grace said.

  As we got up to leave, Gabby asked, “Grace, would you give us a minute?”

  “Of course,” Grace said. “I sincerely hope you’re feeling better. We were worried about you.”

  “Just knowing that you two are helping is making me feel as though I’m on the mend already,” she said with one of her rare smiles.

  After Grace was gone, I asked, “What is it?”

  “I may have misjudged that girl,” Gabby said, reflecting on Grace for a moment.

  “I think so, but that isn’t what this is about, is it?”

  Gabby shook her head. “No, I suppose not. Suzanne, if Buster did this to me, he could be after you, too. Have you considered that possibility? It’s not all that hard to believe that he would try to burn both of us out of business with one match, or more specifically, one toaster oven. You need to watch your back, do you hear me?”

  “I’m being as careful as I can be,” I said, touched by Gabby’s concern for my welfare.

  “I understand that, but you’re making a target of yourself by going around snooping into other people’s lives, and if anything happened to you because you were doing something I asked you to do, I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

  I patted her hand lightly. “Gabby, we were already working on this even before you asked us to do anything. Grace and I are determined to find out what happened to you, and ReNEWed. If anything should happen to either one of us, which I’m sure it won’t, it won’t be on your head, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said reluctantly.

  “Should we stick around until Bo shows up?” I asked.

  “Oh, he’ll be here soon, I’m sure of it,” Gabby said.

  “Fine. We’ll keep in touch, and if you remember anything, no matter how trivial it might seem to you, tell us immediately, okay?”

  “I will,” she said. “Now run along and find out who did this, Suzanne.”

  “We’ll do our very best,” I promised.

  Chapter 15

  I found Grace out in front of Gabby’s room, sitting in a chair that someone must have already provided.

  “Wow, Jessie Hassop doesn’t waste any time, does she?”

  “The administrator didn’t do this,” Grace said. “I asked Penny for a chair, and she got this one for me. Suzanne, should we just leave Gabby unguarded until Bo gets here? I don’t feel right about it.”

  “Neither do I,” I said with a grin. “I was about to suggest the same thing. Let’s hang around until he shows up.”

  We didn’t have long to wait. Less than ten minutes later, a hulking young man with flowing black hair and a bushy beard approached us. He had sleeves of tattoos on both arms, and I had no doubt this was the infamous Bo we’d been waiting for. There was a well-worn canvas messenger bag tucked under one arm that looked as though it belonged to a child, it was so small by comparison to the man who carried it.

  “You must be Bo,” I said as I offered my hand.

  His grip swallowed mine, but I was surprised to find that his touch was delicate and quite gentle. “Guilty as sin,” he said with a bright grin. “You’ve got to be Suzanne, and that would make you Grace,” he said as he nodded to each of us in turn. “Thanks for looking out for Gabby. She’s just about all I’ve got left in the world since my folks died. She’s quite an old gal, isn’t she?” He said it with such obvious affection that I could tell that the two of them had a special bond. “Is there anything in particular I’m supposed to be watching out for?”

  “If anyone, and I mean anyone, goes into her room, keep an eye on them while they’re in there,” I said. “If everything goes well, I’m afraid you’re going to be bored to tears for the next thirty-six hours. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Bo said. “I’ve got a poem I’ve been working on for ages that’s been giving me fits. I can’t tell you how much trouble I’m having composing in iambic pentameter.”

  “You’re a poet?” Grace asked him, clearly as startled as I was by the news.

  His grin lit up his entire face. “I know, I don’t fit the mold of what most people think a poet should look like, but what can I say? When I blew out my knee playing football in college, I had to find something else to do with my life, and literature found me. As for me being a poet, all I can say is that I’m an aspiring one, which is about as useless as a buggy whip manufacturer these days, but what can I say? It’s my passion.”

  Clearly this man had a great many layers.

  “You’re going to need to take breaks every now and then,” I said. “Should we try to get you some reinforcements?”

  “Thanks, but I have a few friends who have already agreed to pitch in,” he said with a grin. “They’re all pretty scary looking, but every last one of them has a good heart. Trust me, nobody’s going to mess with Gabby while we’re on watch.”

  I couldn’t imagine who Bo might describe as scary, given his own general appearance. It was funny how I’d judged him unfairly on his appearance the moment I’d first seen him. If we’d been speaking on the phone, I would have thought I was talking to a refined young man with intelligence and self-deprecation, not the tattooed giant before me. I liked this young
man, and I was happy that Gabby had him in her life. “After this is all over, come by Donut Hearts, and I’ll treat you to some goodies,” I said.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a gluten allergy,” he said with a sigh.

  “I’ve got a few that are gluten free on the menu every day,” I said.

  “Then I’ll take you up on your offer,” he said with a smile. “Let me pop in and tell Gabby that I’m here. Thanks again for looking out for her. She’s talked about you two a lot in the past, so I know that she trusts you both completely.”

  It surprised me to learn that Gabby had talked about us both to anyone, let alone in glowing terms, but I was going to take it with a smile. “We’ll do our best to make this all go away.”

  “If you can, I’ll owe you both, and that’s not something I say lightly,” Bo said seriously.

  “We’re doing it because we care about her, too,” I said.

  “I know that. That’s why I made the offer,” Bo said. He saluted us both and then walked into his cousin’s room.

  “Well, Gabby certainly seems to be in good hands,” Grace said as we walked out to the Jeep and headed back into the heart of downtown. “He’s an interesting fellow, isn’t he?”

  “I like him,” I said with a smile.

  “Me, too,” Grace replied. “I know we don’t have a lot of time left before you have to go to bed. Is there anything you want to do tonight, or should we stop now and get busy tomorrow after you close the donut shop for the day?”

  “We don’t have to wait that long,” I told her. “Tomorrow is Emma and Sharon’s turn to run the shop. I’m free if you are.”

  Grace coughed a moment as she grinned at me. “You know, I may be coming down with something, Suzanne. It might be a good idea for me to take a sick day off from work.”

  “Only if you can afford to lose one,” I said.

  “Are you kidding? I never use all of the days I get. How early should we start? Bear in mind that I’m not used to getting up at the crack of 2:30 in the morning, and neither will anyone we need to speak with.”

  “Let’s have breakfast at the Boxcar at seven a.m.,” I said. “Is that still early for you?”