Dead, Bath, and Beyond

by Lorraine Bartlett

  Andy looked at her. “That’s how some relationships are built, you mean.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, a little annoyed.

  “Not everyone wants to be friends with everyone they meet,” he said. “Some people prefer to keep relationships businesslike and never move into personal friendships.”

  “So,” she said, an unreasonable irritation suddenly coursing through her, “are you saying that I’m too friendly? That I make people uncomfortable? That I’m nosy and push people into saying things they don’t want to say?”

  Andy continued eating.

  She sat there, bristling with annoyance. “Well?” she demanded, “what are you waiting for?”

  “To finish eating,” he said. “This dressing you make is outstanding. If I could sell it downstairs, I’d be begging you for the recipe.”

  “But I—” She stopped herself, said, “You are—” She stopped herself again, then leaned back into her chair and sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry for flying off the handle like that.”

  “Apology accepted.” Andy smiled. “You’ve accepted my apologies often enough. I can spot you this one, no problem.”

  “I’d say it won’t happen again, but it probably will at some point.”

  “You and me both.” He tapped the back of her hand. “Eat. I’ve known you long enough to guess that you didn’t have any lunch today, which throws off your blood sugar and is making you cranky as all get-out. It’s not you, see? It’s the lack of food.”

  Had she eaten lunch? She honestly couldn’t remember, but if skipping a meal was going to do that to her, she’d have to stop skipping meals. Andy didn’t deserve that kind of crankiness from her. Katie managed a weak smile. “I like the way you think.”

  She picked up her fork, and for a couple of minutes, the only sound in the room was that of forks scraping the insides of their salad bowls. After taking in a few bites, she did start to feel better. “And though I believe that all business relationships would benefit from a dose of personal connection, I think I have to agree that there are some uninteresting people out there who prefer to keep business relationships strictly business.”

  “I have a supplier like that,” Andy said. “All business, no fun. It’s not the way I want to go through life, but hey.” He shrugged. “That’s the way he is, and it’s his loss. And if our business relationship is improved by me backing away from any personal questions, well, I can do that. I don’t have to be friends with everyone.”

  “You know,” Katie said slowly, “maybe that’s my problem. I do want to be friends with everyone.”

  Andy leaned across the table and took her hands in his. “And that’s one of the things I love best about you. But not everyone is like you. Duncan just happens to be one of them.”

  Katie nodded. He was right, of course.

  Though what she was starting to realize, now that she had relived the scene in her head a dozen times, was that Duncan hadn’t gone all standoffish until she’d started asking about his boat.

  It was half an hour before opening the next morning when Katie, Rose, and Edie assembled in the Artisans Alley front lobby. Their mission? To work on the plan to decorate for the upcoming harvest sale and use as many of those elements as possible for Halloween.

  “And Thanksgiving, too,” Rose added. “There has to be a way to refresh the theme by rearranging.”

  Edie spread out her hands. “Halloween, sure, but I don’t get the difference between harvest decorations and Thanksgiving decorations.”

  “They’re mostly the same,” Katie said, thinking out loud, “but there’s still a difference. We’re thankful for more than harvest time. We’re thankful for all the good things that have happened in the year. We’re thankful for everything that we have. We’re thankful for family and friends and—”

  “That’s it!” Edie thrust her hands up into the air. “We can do a family farming theme. We’ll use the corn shocks from the harvest stuff, and I bet we can borrow wagon wheels from that booth upstairs. We can also borrow some antique photos of farming families from what’s-his-face upstairs and stick them inside some of Ray Davenport’s frames, temporarily, of course.”

  Her face grew animated. “And I bet if we take a walk around the floor we can find a bunch of other stuff to borrow that fits the theme. We can ask everybody to contribute something, that way no one’s left out.”

  Katie and Rose stared at her, then looked at each other.

  “I like it.” Rose nodded.

  “Me, too,” Katie said. “I like it a lot.”

  “I say it’s borderline brilliant,” said a voice from behind them.

  Katie and the two other women turned to see a smiling Fred Cunningham walking toward them. “Morning, Fred,” they said, practically in unison.

  “And a fine morning it is,” he responded jovially, sounding an awful lot like Duncan the morning before. Were they buddies? “I’d intended to ask you ladies how things are going, but I can tell without asking that you have things well in hand. Nicely done.”

  They chatted for a few moments about the weather. Fred asked them to pass on his name if they knew anyone who was interested in buying, selling, or leasing property, and then he asked, “How’s it going with Brittany?” He gestured to the salon. “How’s the salon affecting your business at the Alley? Any problems? If it works well, I’d like to set up some other crossover enterprises, but I need to know about any problems, from both sides.”

  Rose’s and Edie’s heads whipped around to stare at Katie.

  Fred looked from them to Katie and back. “My acute powers of observation point to a potential problem. Would anyone like to tell me about it?”

  Katie sighed. “It’s not a problem with Brittany or her salon. She’s been great, and I’ve had a number of vendors say that having her here is bringing new customers to Artisans Alley. And she’s told me she’s cautiously optimistic that her projections were on the low side, which she attributes to being in this location.” She tossed her head, and a wisp of hair touched her cheek. She pushed it back. One of these days, she’d make an appointment with Brittany for a haircut. Soon, even.

  Fred adjusted his glasses. “That all sounds good. So what’s the issue?”

  “It’s the young woman who’s renting space in the salon,” Katie said. “She’s trying to start up a nail business and—”

  “She’s really talented.” Edie held out her hands, displaying fingernails that were painted navy blue and decorated with tiny American flags. “Don’t you just love it? And she does all the painting herself; no stencils, no stickies, nothing but freehand work.”

  Katie looked at the miniature artwork, and her admiration for Crystal grew. “That’s amazing,” she said.

  Fred nodded at Edie’s nails. “Nice. But where’s the issue?”

  “The acrylic nails.” Katie glanced over to Envy’s door, but it was still dark. “It’s a horrendous smell. The venting in this place is problematic, at best, and the fumes seem to settle in here.” She waved to the lobby. “And whenever the front door opens, the smell gets pushed deeper into the sales floor. We’re getting a lot of complaints.”

  “Hmm.” Fred rubbed his chin. “Well, if you ladies can figure out such a great autumn theme, I’m sure you’ll figure this one out, too.”

  Katie gave an inaudible sigh. She’d hoped to gain some astute advice from a man who’d been dealing with real estate issues for more than thirty years.

  Rose and Edie began discussing who could contribute what for the harvest decorations, and Katie pulled Fred off to one side.

  “I have a question,” she said. “The other day you told me that Marcie Kimper had put her house on the market.”

  His neck turned a light shade of mottled pink. “That’s right. Are you looking to buy?”

  Katie ignored this, as he knew perfectly well that she co
uldn’t even afford to buy a new car, let alone a Queen Anne Victorian in a tony suburb. “Listing a house takes some time and legwork, and I was wondering if you had any idea when Marcie started thinking about selling.”

  “Well, let me think.” Fred pulled his smartphone from his jacket pocket and started scrolling through its calendar. “It was at a Business-After-Hours event last month that the Fairport Chamber of Commerce sponsored. Marcie and I got to talking about Fairport’s historic homes. She mentioned something about listing her house in the not-too-distant future.”

  Katie listened intently, thinking fast. That event must have been held sometime before Labor Day—weeks before Josh had been killed. It didn’t prove anything, but it sure made her wonder.

  “Then I saw the house on the multiple listing service,” Fred was saying. “It couldn’t have been two days after Josh died. I was a little surprised that she’d move so fast after a tragedy like that, so I called to see how she was doing.”

  “I stopped by a couple of days after Josh died,” Katie said. “She seemed to be holding up remarkably well.”

  Either Fred didn’t hear her sarcasm or he ignored it.

  He nodded. “Yes, wasn’t she? When I cautioned her about making such a big move so soon after her husband’s death, she said she’d been thinking about it for some time, that she wanted to move the girls to her hometown so they could grow up closer to her extended family. Marcie has a number of siblings and they all have children and it makes sense for her.”

  Especially, Katie thought, if her husband was suddenly out of the picture and she was also likely to get a hefty life insurance check.

  At one time, Katie had admired Marcie, who had presumably found at least one redeeming quality in the man she’d married. But now Katie questioned all that. Had Marcie had enough of the pompous little oaf? Good grief—could she really have wanted the twerp dead?

  Maybe.

  But there was the fact that whoever had hauled Josh’s dead-weight body out of Lake Ontario had had the strength to move him to Sassy Sally’s. If Marcie didn’t have that kind of strength, her paramour just might.

  Ten

  By the end of the day, Katie, Rose, and Edie had transformed the lobby of Artisans Alley from its normal, workaday, uninspired space to the inside of a barn in the midst of harvest time. Corn shocks had been tied in tall bundles and placed in every possible out-of-the-way corner. Edie’s wagon wheel idea had been carried out, and colored ears of corn had been wired to the hubs. Baskets overflowed with squash from the local vegetable stand, gourds huddled near the corn shocks and doors, and they’d hauled out the ladders and hung strings of white fairy lights overhead.

  “There,” Edie said, dusting off her hands as she came down the ladder for the last time. “That’ll do until we decorate for the holidays, don’t you think? One color fits all.”

  Katie flicked the switch. The lobby had been transformed into a place where magical things just might happen, or so Katie told herself as she stood there, admiring their work.

  The lobby’s front door opened and closed. “Oooh,” Sadie Davenport said, looking all around her. “This looks awesome!”

  Her sister chimed in. “It’s so totally different than it looked the other day.” Sasha turned in a circle, admiring the effect. “I didn’t know you’d be decorating for the fall. Look!” She pointed. “There’s even a scarecrow! How cool is that?”

  Edie grinned. “That’s the best reaction we could have asked for, and we didn’t even have to bribe you.”

  “Did you girls just get out of school?” Katie asked.

  “Uh-huh. We’re free until tomorrow morning,” Sadie said. “We thought we’d come by and see how many sales Dad’s had today.” She glanced at her sister.

  Sasha nodded eagerly. “He’s here, right?”

  “I have no idea.” Katie thought she’d seen Ray a couple of hours earlier but wouldn’t have wanted to swear to it.

  “I’m sure he is,” Sadie assured her. “This morning he said he was going to finish up some projects in the basement and bring them over here this afternoon.”

  Sasha chimed in. “Yeah, that’s why we wanted to come by, to help make sure he put the new stuff up right.”

  “His booth definitely needs a woman’s touch,” Sadie said with authority. “Poor Dad doesn’t have a clue. You wouldn’t believe the things he’ll try and wear out in public. Things our mother would never let him get away with.” The girl’s lower lip trembled, and she gave a shuddering breath. It was just about a year since she’d lost her mom.

  As though sensing her loss, Edie gave a cheerful laugh. “It’s what men do, hon. You’d better get used to it.”

  The two teenagers nodded, and started off to find their father, but Sasha turned back. “Ms. Bonner, would you come with us? I just know he’s going to have put up his new pieces all wrong, and he probably won’t listen to what we tell him. He might listen to you.”

  Katie’s eyebrows went up. “Do you really think so?”

  “Definitely,” Sadie said and nodded again, her ponytail bobbing. “He thinks a lot of your opinion. He’s said so.”

  Katie found that hard to believe, considering how the former detective had essentially ignored her opinions on more than one occasion, but she let herself be escorted to the Wood U booth. If the girls needed her support in their efforts to humanize Ray Davenport, she was happy to oblige.

  “Hey, Daddy-o,” Sadie called as they drew near. “Are you in there?”

  A grumpy noise emanated from the depths of the booth. Then, “Don’t you two have homework?”

  “Sure,” Sasha said, “but we wanted to see the booth after you brought over the new merchandise.”

  Katie and the girls drew abreast of the booth and were greeted by the sight of their father standing in the middle, with boxes and packaging strewn across the floor.

  Ray held a small wooden box and looked at the new arrivals. “Oh, really?” he asked dryly. “Just wanted to see it? Didn’t have anything to do with wanting to make sure your dumb old dad didn’t mess up the booth’s display?”

  “Speaking of mess.” Sadie got down on her knees and started picking up the packaging materials.

  “Yeah, Dad.” Sasha grabbed one of the empty boxes and held it out for her sister to fill. “You yell at us for leaving our room a mess, and then you do this. That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Well,” Ray said, giving the box a polish with a cloth he was holding, “you know what I say to that.”

  Sadie made a face. “We know, Dad. Don’t expect life to be fair.”

  Ray looked over at Katie. “If they know, why do they keep expecting fairness?”

  “Because,” she said, trying to keep from laughing, “hope springs eternal.”

  “Hope was what was left at the bottom of Pandora’s box,” Ray muttered. “Small consolation, I’d say.”

  Though Katie actually agreed with him, she was here to support his daughters. “That’s beautiful,” she said, gesturing to the box he was still dusting. Its lid was inlaid with different shades of wood in the shape of a rose in full bloom.

  Ray shrugged. “It’s something I thought I’d try. It didn’t turn out too bad.”

  Sadie jumped to her feet. “Sasha and I are going to take this packing material out to your truck.”

  Her sister blinked at her. “We are?”

  “Yes,” Sadie said firmly. “Grab those boxes.”

  In seconds, the two were gone, leaving behind a sort of hazy energy that Katie half believed she could see hanging in the air.

  Ray looked down the aisle. “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “No idea,” Katie said. “They asked me down here to back them up in case you’d done something horrible to their displays.” She and Ray looked at each other and simultaneously shrugged. “They’re great kids,” she said. �
�You’re lucky to have them.”

  “I know, but don’t tell them that.” He gave the box one last rub and put it on a shelf. “Think that will pass their inspection?”

  She laughed. “I have no idea, but it looks fine to me.”

  “If only my daughters were so easy to please.” He studied the placement of the box, then moved it a fraction of an inch. “So have you learned anything new about Kimper?”

  Katie smiled. “Ray Davenport, are you saying that I shouldn’t necessarily leave all the investigating to the Sheriff’s Office?”

  “Let’s just say it’s harder to walk away from police work than I thought it would be, especially when there’s a murder investigation going on right in front of me.”

  She thought the “right in front of me” was a stretch but didn’t call him on it. “I’m really thinking about Marcie.”

  “The widow?” Ray crossed his arms and squinted at her. “Why do you say that?”

  Katie told him all she’d learned, that Marcie had a love interest three days after the murder of her husband, that she’d sold the business lock, stock, and barrel, and that she’d talked to a real estate agent about selling the house weeks before Josh’s body turned up in the Sassy Sally’s bathtub.

  “I just don’t see it,” Ray said.

  “Oh?” Katie asked, puzzled. “Why not?”

  “Do you know how hard it is to move a body? Kimper weighed at least fifty pounds more than his wife, maybe seventy-five. Hauling that kind of dead weight around?” He shook his head. “I just don’t see her having the strength.”

  “Maybe that attorney, Rob, helped her.”

  “I still don’t see it,” Ray repeated. “Sure, she’d lose half the assets in a divorce, but murder is too risky for most people. We’re all about reducing risk these days. Tamper-proof lids on everything, air bags, warning signs on ladders, for crying out loud.”

  Katie sensed this was probably a hot-button issue for him and knew she needed to quickly distract him to keep him on topic. “Do you know anything about your fellow vendor Duncan McAllister? I talked to him the other day, and he got all closemouthed the second I asked him a personal question.”