Dead, Bath, and Beyond

by Lorraine Bartlett

  Soon, she told herself. She’d start an exercise program soon. Did the local high school allow the public to use their outdoor track? Katie made a mental note to ask Vance about it when she talked to him about employee possibilities for Andy. Though the track wouldn’t be of much use once the snow started falling in December—if not sooner.

  On the way to Artisans Alley, she took an extra turn around the Square before heading in, waving to Jordan Tanner, the baker, as she went past the second time. Jordan, who had been cleaning his front window, poked his head out the door. “Are you lost, young lady?” he asked. “Because I think you want to go that way.” He pointed across the Square.

  Katie laughed, a little embarrassed. “Just out for a walk on this fine morning,” she said. Just then, a crash of thunder made her jump. She glanced up and felt the patter of raindrops on her face.

  “Fine morning for an umbrella,” Jordan called to her as she began her trek across the Square and finally dashed into Artisans Alley. Inside, she stood on the front mat, trying to figure out what would be her next best step.

  “Oh dear,” Rose said. “Let me get you a towel.”

  Katie reached up and felt her hair. It was sopped. “Thanks, that would be great,” she said to Rose’s retreating back. She looked down at her clothes. How could she have gotten so wet in such a short time? Too bad Brittany’s salon didn’t open for a couple of hours; what better time to get her hair cut than when it was a huge, damp mess?

  Rose hurried back from her nearby booth and handed over a fluffy yellow towel. Katie knew better than to ask why Rose had a towel at the ready; the older woman was always prepared for any emergency from coffee stains to lost buttons to upset stomachs. “Thanks,” Katie said gratefully and blotted her hair with the towel. “Thankfully, I have a change of clothes in my office.”

  The T-shirt, jeans, and socks were left over from a project she’d finished up a few weeks ago, that of cleaning out the area Chad had been using in Artisans Alley as a living space in the time they’d been separated. The clothes wouldn’t be exactly clean—she’d meant to take them home and put them in the laundry, but somehow hadn’t gotten around to it—but at least they were dry, which was a huge step forward from what she was wearing.

  “See what exercise does?” she asked Rose, still toweling. “I would have been fine if I’d walked straight here, but no, I have to decide that today is the day I’ll start taking those extra steps.”

  “Did you get one of those fitness bracelets, too?” Rose held out a hand, showing off the light blue strap around her wrist. “I try to get in ten thousand steps a day. What’s your goal?”

  Katie laughed. “To get though the day in one piece.”

  “Setting the bar a little low, aren’t you?” Rose asked dryly.

  “Small, achievable goals can build to a substantial future,” Katie said.

  Edie Silver, who’d just come in through the front door, shut her umbrella and said, “Sounds like something out of a self-help book—or a fortune cookie.” She frowned at Katie. “Don’t tell me you’re reading that kind of crap.”

  Katie wasn’t, but she had in the past and wasn’t apologetic about it. “Don’t tell me you don’t think we’re all in need of a little improvement?”

  “Honey, I’m too old to improve.” Edie rolled her eyes. “If I haven’t fixed myself by now, there’s no hope for me. Say, you got a second?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  Edie looked pointedly at Rose, who took the hint and headed back to her booth. Edie moved closer to Katie, who said, “If this is something you’d like to talk about in private, we can go to my office and shut the door.”

  “No, no,” Edie said, “I can’t stay. Got an appointment on the other side of town to pick up some free supplies from a woman whose arthritis is too bad to let her keep crocheting. But after that meeting last night, there’s something I thought you should know.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Something that might have to do with that murder.”

  “Edie, you should go to the deputies if you have any information. I don’t—”

  “It’s about Vance,” Edie whispered.

  “Vance?” Katie asked, starting to look around for the slim Santa.

  “Shhh!” With flat palms, Edie made frantic shushing motions. “I don’t want him to hear, and I don’t want him to see the two of us going into your office together behind closed doors.”

  Katie didn’t see much difference between that and a whispered conversation in the lobby. “What did you want to tell me?” she asked. “Did Vance know Josh?”

  “No idea,” Edie said. “But I know something about Vance that might change what you think about him.”

  “Oh?” Katie had a hard time believing that. She’d known Vance for a while, and he’d been her assistant manager for almost a year. She couldn’t imagine a more dependable and responsible person. “What’s that?”

  “He has a boat,” Edie whispered.

  “A . . . what?” Katie asked. That didn’t make sense; never once had she heard Vance mention boating of any kind.

  “A boat.” Edie stretched her arms out wide. “A great big one. When you said that Josh had drowned in Lake Ontario, I just, you know, wondered. If Josh had been out with Vance and they had an argument, maybe . . . well, you know.”

  “I didn’t know they knew each other.”

  Edie shrugged. “No idea if they did or not. I just wanted to tell you that Vance owns a boat.” Giving Katie a firm nod, she said, “And now my job is done. See you later.” She marched to the door, unfurled her umbrella, and went out into the rain.

  “Okaaay,” Katie said to herself and headed for her office. She wanted to get out of her wet clothes before she started shivering.

  Halfway there, Sam Amato stopped her. “Hey, you got a minute?”

  Katie closed her eyes. “Don’t tell me. It’s about a boat.”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “Oh, these things get around,” she said, sighing. “Do you know how big it is?”

  “Well, I think she said it was thirty-three, but I could be wrong.”

  Katie’s attention, which had been wandering, suddenly focused. “She? We’re not talking about Vance?”

  “Uh, no. Gwen Hardy. She has this great big sailboat on Lake Ontario. After you said that yesterday, about Josh Kimper drowning there, I thought you might want to know. Gwen gets her insurance from an agency here in town, but still.”

  Katie thanked Sam and excused herself. She’d just unlocked her office door when Liz Meier, the stained glass artist, sidled up close. “Morning, Katie. Do you have a minute?”

  “Is this about a boat?” Katie asked listlessly.

  The woman’s eyes flew open wide. “How on earth did you guess?”

  She smiled wanly. “Just lucky.”

  With her eyes darting left and right, Liz told Katie that Duncan McAllister, the new vendor who did the amazingly lifelike bird sculptures, had a boat that he kept at a marina not too far from McKinlay Mill.

  Katie thanked her for the information and, at long last, shut herself into the office so she could change out of her wet things.

  Boats. There certainly seemed to be a lot of boats involved, from meeting Josh for that last time at the marina to all the vendors who happened to have owned one. Not that she really suspected Vance, Gwen, or even Duncan, of course, but it was starting to make her wonder a little.

  On Friday night, Katie stopped by Angelo’s Pizzeria to kiss Andy good night and then drove over to Seth’s house for dinner. Once there, she leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping a glass of wine, while he cut, chopped, and whisked.

  “I could help,” she offered.

  “No, no,” he said quickly. “You’re my inspiration, standing there like that. My muse. The reason for cooking at all.”

  Katie fake-gagge
d. “More like you don’t want me in your way.”

  “That, too,” he agreed. “I am a control freak and don’t you forget it. Why do you think I’m still living alone?”

  “Because you’re ugly,” she said.

  “Ah.” Seth nodded sagely as he continued to chop away. “I had a feeling it was something like that.”

  Katie laughed. Her friend was slim, fit, still had a full head of hair in his early forties, and was anything but ugly. “I have an even better feeling that you just haven’t met the right guy yet.”

  “I hope I meet him soon,” Seth said, “or I’ll get so set in my ways that I won’t be fit to live with.”

  Katie held up her glass. “To your future mate, wherever he may be.”

  “Hang on.” Seth looked around for his own glass. He grabbed it, reached out, and their glasses make a tinking sound as they touched. “To my future mate.” After they drank, he asked, “Speaking of future mates, how is it going with Andy? Seems as if you spend as much time with me as you do with him.”

  “We have lunch together every other day,” Katie said. Or almost. “And once September settles down, he’s going to take a couple of nights off a week.”

  “Tell him he’d better treat you right or your Uncle Seth will get after him.”

  “Uncle Seth?” Katie giggled and realized that she’d better slow down on the wine if she was going to drive herself home that night. “The only uncle I ever had was named James, and he died fifteen years ago of liver disease.”

  Seth shrugged. “Andy doesn’t need to know that.”

  Another giggle escaped. Katie put her wineglass down on Seth’s granite countertop and made an effort to think of something serious.

  Her exercise program?

  She did an internal eye roll.

  Artisans Alley?

  No, she was here to have a good time with her friend, not to think about work. Of course, work had turned a little strange, what with all those people telling her how many vendors owned big boats. Two of those vendors, she’d learned later, had also been clients of Josh’s.

  “What’s going on in that busy brain of yours?” Seth, passing by with a pan of chopped onion in one hand, tapped her forehead with the other. “No prevaricating, young lady. Tell me what’s putting furrows into that brow.”

  Katie smoothed out her face, not wanting it to freeze that way. “Would you like to hear everything I’ve learned about Josh Kimper?”

  “His life or his death?” Seth flicked on one of the cooktop’s burners.

  “Both.”

  “Nothing graphic?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Then go right ahead.”

  So Katie did. She told him about her visit with Marcie, that the new widow hadn’t appeared to be grieving and that she was being comforted by a deep kiss from another man. She told him that Josh had drowned in Lake Ontario and been moved. She told him that Marcie was selling both the insurance business and the house. Katie told him that Josh had replaced her with a young and attractive office manager who’d cried whenever Josh’s name was mentioned. Told him that after she’d asked her vendors to pass on any information they might have about Josh to the police, she’d subsequently been advised that at least three vendors owned large boats moored on Lake Ontario.

  By that time they were sitting at the jet-black dining table with the flames of strategically placed candles reflecting in the table’s clear sheen. When she finished, Seth had just picked up his chopsticks and started eating the steaming chicken stir-fry.

  Katie’s hand hovered over her chopsticks but landed on the fork. “So,” she asked, “what do you think?”

  He swallowed, then asked, “About what?”

  “Any of it.”

  “Well,” he said, picking up another bite of food, “I’m thinking that you don’t know that Kimper’s agency was one of the biggest in Rochester.”

  “It . . . what?” Katie’s fork stopped moving, and she stared at Seth. “What are you talking about? Josh’s agency was midsized, at best.”

  “Maybe it used to be,” Seth said, “but in the last year or so it had tremendous growth.”

  “How do you know?” Katie asked.

  Seth grinned. “I have my sources. And I have complete confidence that they’re reliable.”

  “But . . .” Katie stopped her protest before it got going. But, she wanted to say, I was the only reason he’d succeeded as much as he had. She had been so sure that he’d lose clients after she left, with her gone and no one to take care of the agency’s real business. How on earth could he have grown the business without her?

  She poked at her dinner halfheartedly. Her fantasies of the business crashing and burning in her absence had been just that—fantasies. Obviously, her presence hadn’t made any difference to the agency. Or, if it had, maybe it had been a negative presence. Maybe, somehow, she’d been the one holding him back.

  “And,” Seth was saying, seemingly oblivious to her hurt and confusion, “you have a bizarre fixation on boats. Half the people in McKinlay Mill own a boat. Are they all murder suspects?”

  “Half?” Katie’s eyebrows went up.

  “Well, maybe not a half,” Seth admitted. “How about a quarter? No? Well, even five percent is still going to be a lot of people.”

  “Yes, but how many of them had insurance policies with Josh?” Katie asked. “And don’t you think it’s more than a coincidence that Josh’s body was moved to Sassy Sally’s after being drowned in the lake, that Artisans Alley has at least three owners of big boats, and that they had policies with Kimper Insurance?”

  “Coincidence is one thing,” Seth said in his slightly deeper attorney voice. “What the law requires, however, is proof.”

  “Fine,” Katie said. “If that’s what they need, then I’ll get it.”

  And she knew exactly where she’d start.

  Eight

  Saturday dawned—traditionally the busiest day of the week at Artisans Alley. Katie bounced out of bed bright and early, and after a quick shower, a thorough cat snuggle, and the subsequent necessary stint with a lint roller, she headed out the door, down the stairs, and landed smack in front of Angelo’s Pizzeria. She turned the corner and proceeded down the block, turned at the intersection, and power walked another two blocks to the little strip mall that housed not only the village’s sole grocery store, but Del’s Diner.

  “You’re a little ahead of schedule, aren’t you?” Sandy asked as she set a glass of water and a mug of coffee onto Katie’s table.

  Katie smiled. It was nice, going to a place so often that the waitress knew what you wanted without having to ask for it. Next time she went to another restaurant, it was going to take her a minute to remember that she had to actually order coffee. “I need a couple of minutes with Del,” she said. “Is he busy?”

  Sandy, who’d been pulling her order pad from a pocket on her black apron, stopped and stared at Katie. “Honey, you know if you have a problem with me or the food, all you have to do is say so. You don’t need to talk to the boss.”

  “Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” Katie reassured her. “It’s just that when I was in the other day, Del mentioned something about a boat, and I just wanted to hear a little more.”

  “Yeah?” Sandy appeared supremely uninterested. “I got tired of hearing Del talk about boats ten years ago. Listening to a boat nut talk about boats is worse than hearing my husband talk about his golf game. You getting two scrambled, raisin toast, bacon, and home fries with orange juice today?”

  Katie sighed. “No. Not today. I’d like a bowl of oatmeal. No brown sugar.” If she wasn’t going to exercise, she could at least have a healthy breakfast.

  “Really?” Sandy’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s what you want?”

  Katie laughed. “No, but it’s what I’m going to order.”

&n
bsp; “If you say so.” Sandy shook her head and wrote the order down. “Be back with that in a jiffy, missy.” She headed to the kitchen, her thick-soled shoes soundless on the tile floor.

  After adding cream to her coffee, Katie sipped the hot brew, thinking that she should have brought a book to read. The restaurant was nearly full, but she didn’t see a soul that she knew. She was on the verge of getting up to borrow an obviously used newspaper sitting next to the cash register when Del himself came out of the kitchen and over to her table.

  He was also carrying a tray that held her oatmeal, a tiny pitcher of milk, and a miniature bowl of brown sugar. “Here,” he said, moving the items from his tray to her paper place mat with its scalloped edges.

  “I know you said no brown sugar, but that doesn’t make any sense to me, so you’re getting it anyway.” He tucked the tray under his arm and sat on the end of the bench seat. “Sandy said you were asking about boats. What do you want to know? I been spending every second I can on the water since my momma let me go out alone in a fourteen-foot johnboat. Any boat question you got, I bet I have the answer.”

  “Not boats in general,” Katie said.

  “No?” Del looked around the room, then, apparently satisfied that he wasn’t needed anywhere else at that particular moment, turned back to Katie. “Are you looking to buy something?”

  “No, but you were,” she said. “Remember I was in here the other day and found that boat brochure under the front counter?”

  “Sure do.” In the time it took him to say those two words, Del’s face went from open and pleasant to closed and unfriendly. “What of it?” he asked roughly.

  Katie took in his changed attitude and adjusted herself accordingly. “Well, nothing, really, but it seems like every time I turn around these days I either hear that someone I didn’t know was interested in boating at all has one, or that someone I never figured had insurance policies with Josh Kimper actually did.”