by Carol Schaal
I gave him a startled look. “Shoot, listen to me,” he said. “Didn’t mean to imply anything. That was horrible news about Bernice.” He glanced around, but no one was nearby. “I can’t get over the idea that there might be a killer around. Maybe even someone I know.”
We both surveyed the people filling the apartment, people who had welcomed me to the community when I bought Bernice’s store. The idea that one of them would kill someone also seemed impossible to me.
I did, however, want to clear up something. “Frank, what is the deal with you and Sarah? Every time you mention her, you don’t have much good to say. I thought you liked her.”
“Oh, I like everyone, that’s a fact. But Sarah always seems to be planning some nefarious deed.” He gasped. “No, no, no, not murder. Damn, need to be careful what I say. But she can be so freaking secretive, and you know me, I hate secrets. I’m pretty sure she’s hiding something. Several months ago, she asked Justin about what lawyer we used when we arranged to open this gallery. What would she want a lawyer for unless she was trying to get her name on Bernice’s store? And we know that didn’t work out.”
His news gave me pause, but in all my dealings with Sarah, I had never seen a sign of her wanting to take over the store. I had to agree that she was on the secretive side, witness her reaction when I knocked the papers off her desk.
Frank lifted his glass of orange whatever-it-was in a toast to me. “Pay no attention to me. I’m upset. All the merchants here are close, and Bernice being murdered is too terrible for words.”
Unlike their subdued behavior at that morning’s funeral services, people at the wake seemed, if anything, a bit giddy. It was a little weird, but it appeared Frank’s special orange stuff was doing its job. And I must have missed the meeting, but a group decision seemed to have been made to ignore the manner of Bernice’s death. The normally surly Dennis, looking sloppy in oversized, faded brown corduroy pants and a dark green sweater covered with pills, was laughing at something social media guru Kylie said to him, and Justin, usually reserved, was chatting easily to a circle of Alleton merchants. Even Sarah occasionally smiled, although I also saw her blink away tears as people would give her a hug and talk quietly.
“Hey Tami,” I said, approaching the woman who was standing by herself. “I really want to thank you for telling D.J. about my need for some help this week. He’s priceless.”
Tami smiled, a rare occurrence for her. “Yeah, he is a gem, even if I do say so myself. He don’t want to end up running Wooden Block, a shame for Dennis and me, but you won’t find a better worker.”
“I’ve heard mixed reports of how the holiday season went for some of the shops here,” I said. “How did the toys go?”
“We did good,” Tami said. She pointed at D.J., who was standing nearby, talking to an attractive blonde, and glowed with maternal pride. “Our sales were always best on the days D.J lent a hand. Soccer moms love that boy.” We both laughed.
As the wake continued, Justin constantly brought out more appetizers, Kylie offered drink refills, and Frank entertained the group with his stories about some of the gallery’s more outrageous artists. Even Dennis chimed in, telling about one of his toy shop’s obnoxious customers. “This woman got mad because we didn’t have a Lego set that featured a kid with a mullet. Her nephew was into that, and she wanted him to know she thought it was cool. Tami heard what was going on and came over right quick, knew I was about to lose my cool.”
The only time the laughter stopped was when Sarah raised her glass to the party-goers. “You are all so sweet,” she said, “and, and everyone has always been so nice to me. Frank, Justin, this means, this means so much to me. All of you, thank you for coming and for being at the funeral today. I, I know my mom would have appreciated your presence.” She faltered, and Frank quickly put his arm around her. “You know we’re all here for you,” he said. “You can count on us.”
Her speech seemed to mark a farewell, both to Bernice and to the party. Kylie offered to escort Sarah to her car, and once they were out the door the moratorium on the discussion of murder ended. I wandered around the room, eavesdropping on conversations.
“I still can’t believe it. Who would want to kill a nice lady like Bernice?” one older gentleman said. I guess the idea of not speaking ill of the dead meant no one would refer to her as the Dragon Lady, at least for a while.
“You know, I hate to say it,” I heard someone else say, although she didn’t hate it enough to stay quiet, “but I wonder if the police have checked on Sarah. Was she really away on vacation?”
No one paid much attention to me until a woman named Natalie, owner of one of the town’s three clothing boutiques and a fan of gaudy costume rings, reached out and tightly grasped my hand. “I’m so glad to see you’re freshening up Bathing Beauty,” she said. “It looks bad for the town to have empty or run-down shops, which happened during that terrible recession. Poor Bernice was struggling, and so were a lot of us.
“To make it worse, she and Sarah were having terrible arguments.” She let go of my hand and took a sip of her punch. “That girl wanted Bernice to dump some of the cheaper product lines and invest in high-end stuff. I ask you, if people couldn’t afford the cheap stuff, how could they pay for the expensive stuff?”
I murmured a noncommittal reply. I didn’t tell her that Sarah had made the same suggestion to me, and my own research had shown that she was on the right track. Even during the recession, the idea probably would have worked. Sarah knew her customer base and figured out that the well-to-do still could afford luxurious body care products. They may have stopped buying high-end shoes and purses and designer clothes, and Natalie had no doubt felt that pinch, but $10 extra for private-label botanicals wouldn’t break their golden piggy banks. That, at least, was my not-so-expert opinion.
“Well,” Natalie said, “I wasn’t surprised when Bernice decided to sell and didn’t hand the store to Sarah. People thought it was a terrible way to treat her daughter, but that Bernice, she had standards, and I know she was afraid Sarah would drive the shop into deep debt.
“You wouldn’t know this, but when Sarah’s then-husband took off with all the money in their accounts, it was Bernice who gave her a place to live. People forget that. So you can’t fault her. At least Bernice protected her investment. Don’t know about the will, but I bet Sarah did just fine.”
Natalie, apparently out of gossip, nodded at me and marched off in the direction of the bar. Well, one mystery solved, I thought. I didn’t know whether Sarah or Bernice had been in the right, but now I knew why Sarah didn’t get a chance to buy Bathing Beauty. Ah, family dynamics.
The wake was winding down, and several people were collecting their coats. A few feet from me, I saw Dennis, heavy winter jacket in hand, waving to Tami. He looked a little unsteady, and I hoped he wasn’t driving. Someone needed to intervene. Then I saw Tami, keys clutched in her hand, and relaxed. She obviously knew better than to let him take the wheel. As the two moved toward the stairs, Dennis dropped his coat. He looked around, appearing confused. He took another step, then staggered against Tami, who almost lost her footing. Justin, standing nearby to bid farewell to the departing guests, reached over to steady her.
Dennis took another step, gave another look at his wife, and collapsed to the floor. Justin, who had moved from Tami’s side in a fruitless attempt to stop Dennis’s fall, bent down and cradled Dennis’s head. He leaned over, his ear close to Dennis’s nose and mouth. The guests grew quiet, watching as Justin gave Dennis a couple small shakes. Finally, Justin lifted his head and looked around the room.
“He’s not breathing! He’s not breathing! Someone call 911!” While Justin pleaded for help, several people pulled out their cell phones, punching in the digits. Tami dropped to her knees and grabbed Dennis’s hand. D.J. raced over, and he took his mother’s other hand, his eyes on his father.
Kylie, who had earlier returned to the wake, rushed up and roughly pushed Justin away from Den
nis. “I can do CPR,” she cried. “I can do it!”
She knelt beside Dennis, her face intense. “Get back! I got this.”
After several minutes of Kylie compressing Dennis’s chest, stopping on occasion to breathe into his mouth, then continuing with the compressions, Justin tried to pull her from the unresponsive man.
“No!” she yelled, knocking Justin aside. “I have to keep doing it. It’s not too late.”
9
When the medics arrived, one of them bodily lifted Kylie away from Dennis, while the other bent down to continue the CPR. She didn’t, however, but instead looked up and flashed Kylie a smile.
“It’s okay,” she said, “you did a perfect job. He’s breathing.”
Tami let out a shriek, D.J. reached over and hugged her, and everyone else in the room took a deep breath, as though breathing for Dennis. Kylie hugged the other medic, who gently returned the hug then turned his attention back to Dennis.
The medics didn’t put Dennis on a stretcher and move him until they were satisfied that he was breathing at a steady rate. They told Tami she could go along in the ambulance. D.J., face so pale it looked like he would be the next to collapse, told his mom he’d take the car and meet her at the hospital.
Once they were gone, those of us remaining helped Frank and Justin clean up by gathering dishes, picking up bits of trash, rinsing glassware. When that was done, we all joined the hosts at the bar and dipped into the punch bowl, seeking a fortifying nightcap.
“Thought I was going to have a heart attack myself,” Frank said, rubbing his forehead with his apron. “I’ll go to the hospital now and send out a message with an update. But Den’s a strong guy, he should be okay.”
* * *
The next morning, I was happy to see that several cars were parked on the streets of downtown Alleton, maybe a sign that customers were still in a buying mood. People bundled against the cold hurried into the few open shops, trying to avoid the chilly wind. The boutique across the street from Bathing Beauty, one that specialized in designer clothing for fashionable women of a certain age, was packed with bargain-hunters for its annual January sale. And Frank’s latest message had good news. Dennis had survived through the night.
D.J. was supposed to meet me that morning to continue stocking inventory, but his father’s brush with death meant he was keeping his mom company at the hospital. Frank’s message had said Dennis was in the intensive care unit. I sighed and picked up a box cutter. The work had to be done, even though all I wanted to do was curl up at the condo with some hot tea and gaze out at the frozen expanse of Lake Michigan.
Two hours into the job, my focus directed on unpacking and shelving various products, I was startled when someone pounded on the shop door. I went over, lifted the shade, saw Kylie standing here, and quickly let her in.
The young woman’s face was drawn. She dropped the two boxes she was carrying on the front counter. “Your Keurig,” she told me, her usually perky voice low, “and some K-cups. I didn’t know what to do today and thought maybe some errands would make me feel better.”
I gave her a tight hug. “Oh, Kylie, you were fabulous last night. We all thought he was dead, but you wouldn’t give up. You should be celebrating this morning, you saved Dennis’s life.”
“Yeah,” Kylie said as she removed her long, wool coat. “But it’s not good. I stopped by the hospital, and D.J. told me his dad is still in bad shape, he might die. I don’t know what I’ll do if he dies. It’s not right. I tried so hard. He can’t die.”
She sniffed and then pointed at the Keurig box. “Can we set that up? I need some hot chocolate. I don’t know what else to do. Oh, Lauren, it’s all so awful.”
We busied ourselves with the coffee maker. I went back to the office area and returned with some cups, and she made herself hot chocolate while I went with tea, both of us relaxing a bit as the smell of chocolate spread through the room. Eventually, Kylie reached into her laptop bag and pulled out some papers, spreading them out on a nearby counter.
“I brought by some samples of my plan for your website. You want to look? It would take my mind off last night.”
I was impressed with the sketches, how in all of them Kylie had managed to portray Bathing Beauty as the place that could serve “a woman for all seasons.”
“This is my favorite,” I said, pointing to the more subdued of the three options. It featured a lake scene in the background and a woman who looked to be in her early 20s, wearing a bathing suit and one of the shop’s trademark hats, standing on the beach, stretching her arms to the sky, an Adirondack chair nearby. A change of the lake view for each season and adding warmer clothes to the celebrating woman, Kylie pointed out, would make the sketch work year round.
We discussed the drawing for several minutes. I kept waiting for Kylie to mention my lack of a personal social media presence, but the subject never came up.
Kylie, whose downcast demeanor had been replaced by her typical perky attitude, checked her phone again. “I need to get going,” she said. “I want to go back to the hospital and see if D.J. might want to talk. Poor guy. His dad can be a jerk and he makes Tami’s life hell, but still, the thought of losing your dad is scary, even if you have to wonder sometimes if it might be for the best.”
“It’s probably too soon to know,” I said, “but have you heard about what caused Dennis’s collapse?”
“D.J. didn’t seem to know,” Kylie said as she fixed another cup of hot chocolate, her rush to get to the hospital apparently forgotten. The poor girl seemed to feel the need to talk. “He told me once his dad had some sort of heart problem, but I wasn’t paying that much attention.”
“So,” I said, “how are things between you and D.J., if you don’t mind my asking.”
Kylie blinked and bit her lip. “Well, we’re mostly friends, I guess you could say. He’s busy with school, and I’m always running around trying to keep my business on track. I think we might have different long-term goals. And I noticed at the wake that he was spending a lot of time with that cute blonde. I don’t know who she is, maybe a niece of Natalie’s.”
I didn’t detect any spiteful jealousy. I also realized that D.J.’s side of the story might not have been completely correct. Sounded like both had priorities that didn’t include a serious romance. Which was a shame, they seemed to be a good match. But I wasn’t about to push romantic advice.
Kylie looked at her phone again, sighed, and pushed her second cup of chocolate away. “I really should go. Enjoy your coffee maker, the bill’s inside the box. Since you like my idea, I’ll come back in a day or two with the final designs that show the change of seasons. Sarah might like a look, too.”
I turned off the front lights after Kylie left and headed to the tiny office area at the back of the shop. Enough with the interruptions. I sat at the office desk, closed my eyes for a second, and took some deep breaths. Then I scrolled down the list of contacts on my cell phone and clicked on one of the names. The phone rang several times, and I was about to give up when it was finally answered. I felt a sense of joy when I heard my brother Greg’s voice.
“Egg!” I said, “Hey, it’s Victoria, you got time to talk?” The “Egg” nickname was from the days when I, two years younger than Greg, couldn’t quite pronounce his name.
“Don’t call me that!” His familiar rejoinder did my heart good. “But yeah, I can talk. It’s good to hear from you, Vic. I thought you had forgotten us.”
I bit my tongue to keep from telling him that the phone worked both ways. And I knew that his “I can talk now” had nothing to do with how busy he was and everything to do with the fact that his wife, Carmen, wasn’t nearby.
Carmen was Drew’s sister, and it was at Greg and Carmen’s wedding that I met Drew. He had just returned from his final deployment in Iraq. He was a groomsman, and I was a bridesmaid.
We were married a year later. Drew, honorably discharged from his military service but unable to forget about some of the nightmarish
action he had faced, went back to his job as an electrician. I continued my work as a database analyst at the University of Tampa, a job I found less than exciting.
“You always wanted to start your own business,” Drew told me once when we strolled along the Tampa Riverwalk, admiring the many people out promenading with their dogs. “That’s cool. Think about it.” He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss.
Two years later, I was a widow.
Carmen had not joined the chorus of those asking questions about Drew’s death, but their cousin Raul’s suspicion about my involvement put her in a tough spot. She stopped inviting me to some of her immediate family events. My brother told me he didn’t agree with Carmen, he thought I should always be welcome. But Carmen, like Drew, had bouts of depression, and Greg was worried about an argument bringing on another episode in his pregnant wife.
The trouble for me started when Raul announced widely that he figured Drew’s death had not been an accident and perhaps his widow knew more than she was telling. The accusation spread online, and soon I was being hounded by nasty messages and name-calling by anonymous trolls. Even worse, I was snubbed by some of Drew’s friends and relatives, and even some of my friends began to act uncomfortable in my presence.
But for Carmen, Greg’s wife and Drew’s sister, to pull away from me, and for Greg not to take my side, had caused me the pain that drove me to begin searching for a life away for Florida, away from the friends and family I held dear.
Greg’s voice interrupted my dismal reverie. “Did you get the latest picture I sent of Roberto? He’s so big now. And he loved the toy horse barn you sent for his birthday. And are you loving the cold up there?”
I refrained from asking how Carmen had responded when the gift arrived, but apparently Roberto had received it, so that made me feel better. Roberto was a blood nephew to both Drew and me, and his presence made me feel as though something of Drew lived on.