Booktown Mystery 15 - A Deadly Deletion

by Lorna Barrett

  “I’ve been trying to build up my stamina,” Angelica admitted. “But I’m just so angry at Becca for Ginny’s sake, I could bite her.”

  “She’d probably bite back—with poisonous fangs.”

  “No doubt.”

  Angelica limped another circuit around the room before returning to the chaise. She picked up her drink and took a healthy slug.

  “Did you get any work done today?” Tricia asked.

  Angelica nodded. “I had a phone conference with Trevor, the architect working on the plans for Ginny’s and Antonio’s house. He assessed what’s left of the building with a structural engineer and they decided it’s a total loss.”

  “I’m sure the insurance company thinks the same thing.”

  “But this gives us plenty of room to start from scratch. Ginny is determined to stay on that property, and I don’t blame her. All those trees and the lot is almost an acre in size. It’s just gorgeous, especially now when the leaves are so pretty. And to think they’ll be missing all that.”

  “They’ll be back in their new home next fall.”

  “It seems like forever right now, but it’s doable. And they’ll probably be stuck in some crummy little apartment for Christmas. My heart aches for them.”

  “When will you all meet with the architect?”

  “Hopefully next week. He’s got other clients. I’m just glad we called him in before the fire happened. At least we’re on his schedule.”

  “I guess that’s their silver lining,” Tricia suggested.

  “You bet.”

  Silver lining . . . the term was tantamount to a joke when the family had lost everything they owned. They’d spent the previous Christmas celebration at Angelica’s apartment, but Tricia knew Ginny wanted to establish her family’s own traditions. Maybe the following year—with a newer, bigger home—the Barberos could host some of their makeshift family’s holidays.

  It was with a pang of regret that Tricia realized she would always be on the sidelines of such events. She and Christopher had been too involved with their careers to plan a family . . . and then it was too late.

  It was what it was. Sometimes it hurt . . . but more often, Tricia had very few regrets.

  Yeah. It was what it was.

  She remembered her goal of finding tidbits of joy in every day. “So, what are we having for dinner?”

  Angelica grinned.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Sometimes Tricia managed to avoid an excess of drama in her life for months at a time. Those times seemed to be coming at shorter and shorter intervals. But it was apparent when Pixie arrived for work the next morning dressed in black that she was suffering from more than just the blues. Mr. Everett turning up with a bag of bagels caused her spirits to plummet even more.

  “I don’t dare have one,” Pixie lamented. “I’ve been eating a lot of oatmeal and soup. I’m afraid to even eat a cracker in case my tooth cracks off again. I had a friend who had a bridge. She bit into a soft cookie and all her front teeth were gone.” She shuddered. “I don’t want that happening to me.”

  Tricia wasn’t about to point out that the bridge had probably been cracked before she’d taken a bite of the cookie.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Everett apologized. “It was thoughtless of me to forget about your situation.”

  “No, no!” Pixie assured him. “You’re the sweetest person in the whole world and I’m just a fraidycat. I’m sure I could chew it on the other side of my mouth.”

  “I will not be offended in the least if you decline to eat one. Perhaps you could take it home to Fred.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Everett. I’ll do that.”

  Poor Pixie needed a pick-me-up. Tricia gazed around the store and knew just how to raise her spirits.

  “You know, I was thinking. With the good weather and wonderful fall colors, we’ve already seen an uptick in customers. Perhaps we should do a bit more decorating to make Haven’t Got a Clue even more welcoming to our guests. You know, play up the fact that we’re an autumn destination. What do you think?”

  Pixie’s eyes widened in delight. Of course, the month before, Tricia had had to restrain Pixie from adding faux leaves, pumpkins, and dried corn shocks until they threatened to take over the entire retail space. Tricia’s idea of decorating had always been “less is more,” whereas Pixie’s was “more is more is more” and then some.

  “What were you thinking about?” Pixie asked cautiously. Tricia had apparently dashed her hopes far too often.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you head downstairs, grab the fall decorations tote, put it in the dumbwaiter, bring it up, and we’ll go through it again to see what seems appropriate.”

  “Sure thing,” Pixie said, and practically raced for the stairs to the basement office and storeroom. Mr. Everett followed her and waited at the top of the stairs.

  While Pixie was gone, Tricia cleared the stacks of books and magazines that littered the big square coffee table in the reader’s nook, setting them temporarily on the floor. Of course, her actions immediately drew Miss Marple’s attention. The little cat liked to supervise any and all work that went on in the store—that is, of course, unless she was napping. She had her priorities, after all.

  Between them, Pixie and Mr. Everett carried the large blue plastic tote through the store and plunked it on the table. Pixie removed the lid and pulled out a long orange, yellow, and gold-leaf garland. Weeks earlier, Tricia had nixed its use, but now she let Pixie decide where to hang it.

  “How about above and around the washroom door? It’ll be in the back—not at all intrusive,” she said almost defensively.

  “That sounds lovely,” Tricia agreed.

  The door to the shop opened, the bell overhead ringing cheerfully, letting in a female customer dressed in a black ski jacket, knit cap, jeans, thigh-high black leather boots, and wearing sunglasses.

  “Hi. Welcome to Haven’t Got a Clue. I’m the owner, Tricia. Let me know if you need any help.” The young woman gave Tricia a salute and ventured farther into the store.

  Tricia spoke to her employees. “Pixie, why don’t you and Mr. Everett hang the garland while I take care of the store. We’ll figure out what else we want to use when you’re done with that.”

  “Sure thing,” Pixie said.

  Tricia turned her attention to the stack of books customers the day before had decided not to buy. She picked up three of the books, intending to return them to the bookshelves. As she approached the Agatha Christie collection, she noticed her customer wasn’t browsing the shelves. Instead, she was on her phone, texting. Had she come into the store just to warm up? But then, dressed like that, she should have been more than warm enough on that sunny, early October morning.

  Tricia reshelved the books and saw that, armed with pushpins, Pixie was balanced on the second rung of the step stool, hanging the garland. Smiling, Tricia returned to the cash desk to retrieve the rest of the unwanted books when one slipped off the counter to land on the floor behind the display case. With a sigh, she rounded the cash desk to pick it up.

  It was then that the roar of what Tricia immediately identified as a motorcycle boomed out on Main Street. Tricia glanced out Haven’t Got a Clue’s big display window to see a biker, clad in black leathers and a full-head helmet, stop in front of her store. The rider threw back his left arm and lobbed something in the direction of her shop. Tricia instinctively ducked as the big glass display window shattered into what seemed like a million pieces, sending potentially lethal shards like shrapnel into the store.

  Tricia heard a yell from her customer and lifted her head to see the first few letters of the bike’s license plate as the powerful bike took off north.

  At the sound of the crash, Miss Marple skedaddled in the direction of the back of the store. Pixie and Mr. Everett came running past her as Tricia scooted around the counter and her customer made a beeline for the exit. “I’m getting out of here,” she hollered, wrenched open the door, and let it bang shut behind her
.

  “What happened?” Pixie demanded.

  Tricia looked down to see the brick that had landed just inches from the cash desk. If it had been six inches to the left, it could have destroyed the display case and severely injured Tricia.

  Mr. Everett bent down to pick it up, but Tricia raised her voice to stop him. “Don’t touch it! There might be fingerprints.”

  Mr. Everett straightened. “We should call the police.”

  “We should call the emergency enclosure people,” Pixie piped up. “Man, it’s gonna be dark in here until we can get the window replaced.”

  The last time the window had been broken—during the fire—it had been nearly six months until it and the shop’s front facade had been repaired.

  Tricia didn’t bother with the vintage phone on the cash desk—there was too much glass on and surrounding it—and pulled her cell phone from her slacks pocket, tapping in 911. “I want to report vandalism!”

  * * *

  * * *

  It was Mr. Everett who captured a distraught Miss Marple, calmed her, and returned her to Tricia’s apartment. Pixie was on the phone to the enclosure repair company while a gale blew through the aperture and an agitated Tricia scanned the street for the sight of a police SUV.

  June from the Cookery came by to ask if everyone was all right, as did Terry from the All Heroes comic-book store, and both melted away when Chief Baker showed up on foot to take the police report. And as usual, upon his arrival, Pixie became scarce, disappearing into the basement office. She always did that when law enforcement appeared on Tricia’s doorstep.

  Baker eyed the gaping hole.

  “Thanks for coming, Grant, but you don’t have to personally show up every time I have a problem,” Tricia said.

  He shrugged. “I was the only one available. Of course, if you’d like me to leave,” he said, his voice hardening, “I’m sure one of my officers could be here in four or five hours.”

  “No, let’s get this over with,” Tricia said affably, not wishing to aggravate him, despite his sarcasm.

  Baker asked the usual questions, filling in a form on a clipboard he’d brought along. “Was there anyone else in the store at the time of the incident?”

  “Yes. A woman came in. Now that I think of it, she seemed rather suspicious.”

  “In what way?”

  “Most of my customers are older. They come in looking for our vintage mysteries. The woman appeared to be about thirty and she wasn’t really browsing the bookshelves. I thought maybe she’d just come in to get out of the cold, because she had her phone out and was texting.”

  “And then the biker threw the brick through the window?”

  “Yes, not long after.”

  “Can you give me a description of this dynamic duo?” Baker asked sarcastically.

  Tricia told him what they looked like. “I didn’t see the entire license plate on the bike, but I got the first three letters: ZBR.”

  Baker scowled and shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. What idiot commits such an act in front of witnesses and in broad daylight?”

  “A thrill seeker. Or a fool,” Tricia suggested.

  “You got that right,” Baker said.

  “So, you think they were working together?” Tricia asked.

  Baker shrugged. “It’s possible. Could you identify the woman if you saw her again?”

  Tricia sighed. “Probably not. I mean, she had her hair tucked under her hat and wore sunglasses. I only got to see the lower portion of her face. When a customer comes in, I don’t immediately commit their features to memory in case I have to pick them out of a lineup.”

  “The shades should have warned you something was amiss,” Baker said, almost accusingly.

  “Plenty of people walk in here during the summer wearing them,” Tricia pointed out.

  “But don’t they usually take them off once inside?” he countered.

  Tricia didn’t bother answering.

  Baker decided he didn’t need to interview Mr. Everett or Pixie, as they had been at the back of the shop when the incident occurred. He did pull out his cell phone and take a few pictures, as did Tricia—Baker chronicling the evidence for the crime report, whereas Tricia needed pictures to forward to her insurance company.

  Baker withdrew a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and deposited the brick into a paper evidence bag. “I’ll send this to the state forensic lab for fingerprints, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s not likely anything will come of it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Think about it. It was a coordinated effort. The woman came in, texted her guy to let him know the coast was clear, and he struck. She disappeared. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d done this same hit-and-run deal before.”

  “But why target me?”

  Baker shrugged. “A one-in-a-million chance.”

  Tricia wasn’t sure she believed him. As he’d mentioned after the fire at Ginny’s and Antonio’s home, she and her loved ones seemed to be experiencing a period of unsettling events.

  Why was more than one someone deliberately trying to make her life miserable?

  Tricia changed the subject. “Did you get a look at the autopsy report for Joshua Greenwell? Was there gunpowder on his hands?”

  “No.”

  So, Greenwell’s death had now been officially deemed murder. “Did they determine what kind of gun killed him?”

  “What is this, an interrogation?” Baker asked.

  “You know I’m interested in such things,” Tricia insisted.

  “Now you’re just being ghoulish. It’s not your best trait.”

  Tricia ignored the insult.

  “It was a Glock. There. Are you happy?” Baker asked tartly.

  “That’s interesting.”

  “It’s actually a pretty common handgun. In fact, it’s one of the most popular guns on the market here in the US.”

  Which she already knew, proving the point, since Marshall had owned the same weapon. And it was missing. And now Tricia felt uncomfortable because . . .

  She gave herself a mental shake. She didn’t want to go there.

  “What else can you tell me?”

  “I really shouldn’t be telling you anything,” Baker said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Ah, but he wanted to get back into her good graces. Just how much should she push him?

  “What happens now?” Tricia asked.

  He shrugged. “We keep investigating. Someone somewhere knows what went down.”

  “The killer, obviously. But he—or she—isn’t likely to volunteer that information.”

  “We’ve been poking around and have a few leads I’m not at liberty to share with you,” Baker said.

  “About Marshall’s previous lovers?”

  Baker’s eyes narrowed. “You know about that?”

  “I’m assuming you learned about it the same way I did—from Becca Chandler.”

  Baker frowned. “Yeah.”

  “Well, please make that clear to the parties involved,” Tricia said, not wanting to name names in case he was fishing. “I had no intention of outing Marshall’s former lover.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because it’s none of my business who he was with before we got together.”

  “That’s very noble of you,” Baker stated. “It seems to me that anyone with an ounce of curiosity would want to know all the juicy details. And you, of all people, have more curiosity than ninety-nine percent of the population.”

  Was he baiting her? It seemed as though he was, and she was not about to take that bait.

  “Are we done?” Tricia asked.

  “You let me know we were done last Monday night,” Baker said, his voice flat.

  Tricia shook her head. “We were done two years ago, and we both moved on. I have no idea why you’d have thought my feelings would have changed in the interim.”

  “I made a mistake.”

  Not his first, either. />
  Baker gathered up the evidence and his clipboard. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Tricia said as almost an afterthought.

  Would he finally get the message she wasn’t and would never be interested in him again?

  She sure hoped so.

  With Baker off the premises, Tricia called for Pixie to come back to the shop to help her clean up the glass.

  As Tricia picked up the jagged chunks, Pixie hauled out the vacuum cleaner.

  It was going to be a long, long day.

  TWENTY-TWO

  An agitated Angelica called not long after Baker’s retreat, demanding answers, which, of course, Tricia didn’t have. She assured her sister she’d tell all later. “But we may have to cancel our lunch. I’m waiting for the emergency closure team to arrive. Mr. Everett and Pixie will need to go to lunch, and I honestly don’t want them getting chilled, although Mr. E can work down in the office for the rest of the day if he wishes to stay.”

  “I don’t want you getting chilled, either. Why don’t you close up for the day?”

  Tricia sighed. It was probably a good idea. Customers weren’t likely to shop in a store that doubled as an icebox. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Let me know about lunch later. If you can’t make it, I can open a can of tuna. But you will come for dinner, won’t you?”

  “You bet. Talk to you later.”

  Tricia spent the next hour or so pondering why anyone would want to target her or her store.

  At the top of her list of suspects: Bob Kelly. He was serving a twenty-five-year-to-life jail sentence for murder—and he blamed her for his situation. Ha! Killing a man in cold blood—in front of a myriad of witnesses—had put him behind bars, not Tricia. Although, she was the state’s star witness. The jury had taken only an hour to convict him. Still, Bob had convinced someone to target Tricia. That that person was now also in jail for the accidental death of another should have put Bob’s vengeful ideas to rest, but sometimes Tricia would wake in the night with thoughts that someone else might again seek revenge on Kelly’s behalf. Before his arrest, Bob had had many friends in Stoneham. People who felt they owed their success to him for reviving the village by establishing it as Booktown.