Little Bookshop of Murder

by Maggie Blackburn

  Once again, Aunt Agatha looked her age, and a pang of sadness moved through Summer. Agatha has lost her sister. They’d been together their whole lives.

  They ate the soup and biscuits in quiet. Summer couldn’t get Rudy’s rudeness out of her mind.

  Could he have killed her mother? Just to expand his arcade business? Summer hated the bloody arcade, but it did bring a lot of people to the boardwalk. Sometimes mothers brought their kids to the arcade and then wandered over to Beach Reads to browse.

  “I see you’ve been reading Nights at Bellamy Harbor. What do you think?” Agatha said with a glimmer in her eyes.

  That was a loaded question. Summer had never read a commercial romance in her life. She was a classics person all the way around and had been vocal about people filling their brains with trashy books. She drew in a breath. “It’s not as bad as I imagined it would be.” Truth was, she found it entertaining, but Summer wasn’t ready, quite, to admit that yet.

  Piper laughed. “Told you the romance genre isn’t quite what it used to be. The female characters are strong, feminist types a lot of the time. I relate to them. The romances from when we were kids? Not so much.”

  “All those heaving bosoms,” Agatha said and laughed.

  “Not to mention the consent issues. Men just helped themselves apparently.”

  Summer rolled her eyes. Men. She’d not had a man in her life for at least a year. It just never seemed to work out for her. According to Doc Gildea, it was unusual for a woman who grew up without a father to not feel an immense need for men in her life. Summer filled that void in herself with education and independence.

  But men? No, she’d not been able to manage a relationship for longer than six months.

  Maybe she’d take after her mother. Just have lovers, no real commitment. But even that didn’t happen for her. She didn’t have the time to manage any kind of relationship.

  “What next?” Agatha said. “Have we found any more clues to who may have killed Hildy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It has to be Rudy, right?” Piper said. “Who else?”

  Summer shivered. “I just don’t know where else to look.”

  “Tomorrow, we need to look in the bookstore. Her office,” Piper said.

  That was the best idea Summer had heard in a long time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Beach Reads was still closed after Hildy’s death. She’d be turning over in her grave if she had one. Summer had said she’d help Agatha and Piper out, but none of them had taken any steps forward to open the store.

  The three of them entered the shop, keeping the lights off so no confused customers would come traipsing in. They moved through the front end of the store into the back end, where unopened boxes of books were piled in haphazard stacks.

  “Someone has been letting shipments in,” Piper said.

  “Maybe Poppy.”

  “Yeah, I’ll call her. We need help to get this organized.”

  Summer drew in the scent of cardboard and books. A scent of full of memory. One task she loved to help her mom with was opening the boxes—it was almost as good as Christmas. Even though she didn’t like the books, she adored the spectacle of the covers.

  “There’s magic in those boxes,” Hildy would say. “There’s nothing better than a good book.”

  As a child, Summer imagined fairy dust, mermaids, unicorns, and sparkles every time her mom said those words. As an adult, she imagined words, pages, and beautifully fashioned leather-bound books. Okay, maybe some fairy dust sprinkled within. She smiled to herself.

  The three of them made their way to Hildy’s office, in between the full cardboard boxes.

  Summer opened the door, expecting to find what Hildy had always called her “happy mess.” Instead, it was tidy and smelled as if it had just been cleaned.

  “What is this?” Summer asked.

  Agatha shrugged. “She’d been trying to be more organized, but I didn’t know it had gotten this far.”

  “It’s freaky,” Piper said. “I don’t like it.”

  Summer turned around. Three hundred and sixty degrees. “It’s almost as if it’s not her office.”

  “Where are the stacks of files?” Piper asked.

  “In the filing cabinet?” Agatha shrugged and banged on the thing. She opened a drawer. The three of them peered inside at the neatly labeled and vertically stacked files. “I don’t understand it.”

  “Right?” Summer said. “Mom didn’t do this. Come on. I love her. But she was …”

  “Organized in her own way. But nobody else could make sense of it,” Agatha finished the statement.

  “It must be Poppy. She’s been working here awhile.”

  “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Summer said. “Should we just divide the files?”

  “What are we looking for again?” Piper cocked an eyebrow. “Another one of those notes?”

  “Yes, and anything odd, like … I don’t know … offers on the bookstore.”

  “Or uncashed checks. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Agatha said and grinned.

  “You’re dreaming now,” Summer said. Her mom went through money as quickly as she could get her hands on it. “It’s for spending. That’s what is for!”

  Agatha reached in and grabbed a handful of folders, handed it to Summer, then did it again for Piper and herself. The three of them sat at Hildy’s old desk. Piper flipped on the radio. They sorted through the files to the sound of Billy Joel, Madonna, and Elton John.

  “I’m not finding anything. Just boring stuff. Receipts from publishers, bills for website design—that kind of thing,” Piper said.

  Summer glanced up at her and a photo caught her eye. “Look at that, would ya?” She reached for it. A photo of her and her mom walking on the beach. Summer wished she remembered the day this photo was snapped, or the circumstances, or who snapped it. But she didn’t. Her mom looked happy and peaceful, and Summer grinned up at the photo. “Did you take this picture?” She showed it to Agatha.

  “I doubt it. How am I supposed to remember something that specific?”

  Piper examined it. “Doesn’t look like our beach. Maybe this is on the other side of the island.” She set the photo down and kept sorting through files.

  “I don’t remember ever going over there. But that doesn’t mean we never did.”

  “Here’s something interesting,” Agatha interrupted. “An offer for the bookstore. But it was made five years ago. This probably has no bearing on anything today.”

  “Maybe they came back. What’s their name?” Summer took down all the contact information. She’d definitely follow up.

  “Marilyn and Glads are coming over to help with the stock,” Piper said, holding up her phone, which had just gotten a text messages from them.

  “Fabulous. There’s just too much of it for us,” Agatha said. “This exercise doesn’t appear to be getting us anywhere.” she dropped a folder.

  “We need to keep looking,” Summer said, opening the next file, which had a few letters from someone named Rita Mae Elison. As she read the letters over, she figured that Rita was a romance author who had visited the bookstore. “Letter from Rita Mae Elison.”

  “Oh, she was such a wonderful author and person. She died a few years back.”

  “Why would Mom be saving her notes?”

  “She was just so nostalgic,” Agatha said. “She saved everything from every author she’d ever met.”

  They continued sorting. When they reached the end of their piles, Summer stood and gathered all of the folders. “Nothing interesting, not even any more notes from authors.”

  Piper opened the drawer for her. “I think it’s suspicious. Like someone came in here and cleaned up after she died. To hide something maybe.”

  “Could be,” Agatha said. “But we’ve two more drawers to look through and then the boxes in the basement.”

  “Basement?” Summer’s heart jumped. Spiders lived in basements. Summer didn’t do ba
sements.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll bring the boxes upstairs.”

  “No! The spiders will travel in them,” Summer said in a harsher voice than she intended. “You two will have to take care of it.”

  Agatha and Piper exchanged looks. They didn’t have to say anything. Summer’s cheeks heated, aware of what they were thinking—what everybody thought: Why is she so frightened of spiders?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Where’s your third wheel?” Agatha asked as Glads and Marilyn walked into the office.

  “Doris’s husband isn’t having a good day,” Glads said. “She needed to stay with him.”

  “What does that mean?” Summer asked, shoving the last of the folders from the second file drawer into the drawer. “Is he ill?”

  Marilyn reached over the desk to where a group of box cutters hung on a nail. “Yes. Very bad. Who cleaned up in here?” She walked back out of the office.

  “We were hoping you’d know.” Summer said, following her into the storeroom, with her own box cutters in hand.

  “No. I was here a couple of days before Hildy—” She stopped when Summer’s eyes met eyes met hers. “I’m sorry.” She plunged the box cutter into the seam of the box and yanked open a box flap, then pulled out brightly colored books. “Oh, it’s the new Jessica Walters.” She held it up as the bright sunflowers tattooed on her forearms caught the light. “I’ve been waiting for this one.”

  Summer opened another box full of books with bright covers and cats. “Must be a cozy mystery.”

  “They’re so much fun!” Piper said as she came into the storage room. “I love a good cozy.”

  Summer held her tongue. As far as she was concerned, the word cozy was enough to put her off. Then again, she felt the same way about most popular fiction and hated romances. But she had to admit to a slight warming up to the book she was reading for her mom’s book club. Nights at Bellamy Harbor was very well written, which she hadn’t expected at all. There was no flowery language. No out-of-date euphemisms. And the main female character was kick-ass.

  “Hand me those books, Summer,” she half-heard a voice say. “Summer Merriweather? Where are you?”

  “Right here. Just daydreaming a bit.” She smiled. About Nights at Bellamy Harbor she kept to herself. Piper and Agatha would never let her live it down. She’d been so vocal and adamant about “trashy” books in her youth. Um. And maybe just last year at Christmas. She aspired to be one of those magnanimous teachers and people. You know, the kind who would say, “As long as your son or daughter is reading” … but no … just no. Her philosophy: Read the good stuff. You have so much time on this planet, don’t fill your head with badly written books.

  However, Bellamy Harbor was … not bad.

  “They’re too clean for me,” Marilyn said. “I like sex and violence. Love me some good romantic suspense.”

  Summer flinched at the word sex coming out of the town librarian’s mouth. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen her dancing naked around in a circle of women.

  “And I love the new dark suspense books,” Marilyn said as she opened the box. “Although I do like a few cozy series too. I like a good puzzle to solve.”

  “Then solve this.” Agatha entered the room with another sheet of black construction paper. “Look what I found.”

  “Not another one,” Summer said.

  “Hildy didn’t pay any attention to them,” Glads said. “But I wish she had.” Her jaw stiffened. “She and Doris both considered it a joke. I told them she should go to the police.”

  “I agreed,” Marilyn said.

  “Doris?” Summer imagined her in her mind’s eye: pink-haired, double-chinned. “Why would Mom listen to her over you two, her most trusted friends?”

  They exchanged glances and went back to work. Enough said. Or not said, as it were.

  Out of the mouths of babes … or old women, as the case may be.

  “‘Oh time, thou must untangle this knot. It is too hard a knot for me to untie!’” Summer said in sarcastic jest.

  The two women looked as if they’d been caught with their hands in the till, not in a box of books. But they said nothing.

  “If you don’t have anything nice to say, it’s best to not say anything at all,” Piper said, allowing them to exhale and go back to work.

  “Something is rotten in Denmark,” Summer muttered.

  “I’ve never been to Denmark,” Agatha said. “They say it’s lovely this time of year.” She giggled and walked out the room with an armful of books. “I’m off to shelve these books. It’s Piper’s favorite shifter series!”

  “What?” Piper lifted her head. “Bring those back.” She dropped what she was doing and ran after her mother into the store.

  Summer smiled and shook her head. Those two would never change. And she wouldn’t want them to.

  She mulled over what they’d learned today, and tried to process and come up with a plan. They’d found another note, an offer on the bookstore, and—most telling of all—her mother’s office was neater than she’d ever seen it. Evidently it was still a mess a few days before Hildy had died. Summer figured someone had come in the day of or the day after and cleaned up. But why?

  “Why would someone clean Mom’s office?” she said out loud to no particular person.

  Marilyn shrugged. “They were being nice. People sometimes go in and clean a house when someone is sick or dies. Maybe that’s it.”

  “But wouldn’t someone know about it? Who would?”

  “We can ask Poppy when we find her.”

  Summer’s heart skipped a few beats. “You can’t find her?”

  “We’ve not seen her since the funeral. She took it pretty hard,” Glads said. “Well, we all did.” Arms full of books, she left the room for the front end of the store.

  “It may be crazy”—Marilyn shrugged—“but maybe someone wanted to hide something that was in the office.”

  “You know what, Marilyn? That’s exactly what I was thinking. I just didn’t express it.”

  “‘You know you’ve got to express yourself, hey, hey, hey!’” She sang a Madonna song.

  Once again, Summer marveled at how strange her life had gotten, unpacking books she didn’t care for in her mother’s bookstore, discussing scenarios for her murder—and then a Madonna song enters the picture, sung by the town librarian with floral tats all over her body.

  Summer grinned. A tableau her mom would have greatly appreciated.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Agatha and Piper meandered into the basement to sort out the books and files there, leaving Summer alone with Glads and Marilyn, who were unpacking and stacking books like pros. And every once in a while, Marilyn whooped and wiggled to the music.

  “Your mother always said dancing while you worked was the key to happiness.”

  “I remember that, Marilyn,” Summer said and smiled. She wasn’t going to do a little two-step or the hustle or anything. Summer was all business.

  “Hello, ladies.” A male voice startled Summer. She looked up and saw Rudy.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “How did you get in?” Marilyn said, eyes slanted.

  He laughed. “Door was open. You all need to be more careful.” His patronizing tone was enough to make any thinking woman sick, let alone a feminist who’d just lost her mother, a very successful businesswoman.

  “Perhaps, but you shouldn’t be walking into a closed business,” Summer said. “What can I help you with?”

  “Help me?” He straightened, placing his hands on his hips. “Get the cops off my back. They came back over to question me about Hildy. She died of a heart attack. Why are they bothering me?”

  Summer wanted to throttle him, to just blurt that out in front of Glads and Marilyn. “We still don’t have the final autopsy results yet. We’ve got no idea what killed her.”

  “Listen, Rudy,” Glads stepped from behind the box she was unpacking. “Everybody kn
ows you and Hildy had words all the time. And we all know you wanted the bookstore.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” He flailed his arms around. “She died of a heart attack. Unless there’s something I don’t know?”

  Summer wanted him to leave. She didn’t want the women to spread rumors or get strange ideas.

  “It’s best that you leave, Rudy. I don’t want to discuss this here.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to discuss this, hey?” he said, with air quotes around discuss. “Hoity-toity,” he said, turning his back and storming out of the storeroom.

  Hoity-toity. The word pierced through Summer. She blinked. That was it. That was the way most of her mom’s acquaintances felt about her, wasn’t it? She thought she was too good for them. Too smart. Too modern to live on St. Brigid. At home. Which is, after all, where she belonged. According to them. Her heart ticked in her chest as she felt her face heat.

  She went back to work.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Glads said. “Sour grapes. That’s all. Beach Reach is prime property. He wants it bad.”

  “Bad enough to kill?” Summer said without thinking.

  Gladys and Marilyn both stopped what they were doing and looked at Summer.

  “What’s going on here?” Agatha said, interrupting the moment—for which Summer was grateful.

  “We’re just about done,” Summer said.

  “I see that. You’ve been busy.”

  “I’m so glad you didn’t come downstairs,” Piper said. “I killed about three spiders.”

  Summer’s heart sped. “Good. Nasty little buggers.”

  “You missed Rudy,” Glads said.

  “Rudy was here?” Agatha squealed.

  “I guess the police have been visiting him again,” Summer said.

  “But why?” Glads said. “Why Rudy? Do they think he—”

  “I don’t know what they think. I mean it’s Ben Singer, right?” Summer tried to laugh it off. She wasn’t sure what her mom’s oldest friend would say about her mom’s possible murder. She wasn’t sure how to tell them.

  And besides, even though she hated to admit it, they both were suspects. All the clues—as scant as they were—pointed to someone close to Hildy. It seemed a very personal gesture.