by ACF Bookens
As I walked, I fought to keep my mind off Daniel – and off Max – and on Lizzie's murder. Clearly, someone had followed her here to kill her. Tuck had said her lease only began last week, and given that none of us had seen her around town, it was clear she hadn't been in St. Marin's long enough to make that kind of enemy of a person from here.
What I couldn't figure out was why someone would want to kill a woman who seemed so good and so, well, quiet. None of my internet searches had turned up anything beyond the bartending competitions she'd won, and Tuck said she had no criminal record. Her social media pages showed a few political posts, although nothing extreme by any definition, and a few photos of nature or new cocktails she was trying out. But no photos with friends or family, which seemed to support Davis's words about her. All in all, what we knew of her gave me very little to consider when it came to the motive for killing her.
Which meant I had no further trails for my mind to go down, and so I spent the rest of the walk wondering exactly why, when Max's foot had shifted against mine in the cafe, I hadn't moved my leg away.
6
By the time I got home, I had worked my mind around to absolutely no clarity about the men in my life, even that phrase caused me angst, so as I took off Mayhem's sweater and hung up my peacoat and Mart's latest scarf for my ever-growing "Mart-made collection" I decided that clearly my problem was hunger.
I set out the ingredients for a good old chicken and rice casserole and was grateful Mart had caved on her "no processed foods" rule to let me keep one can of cream of mushroom in the pantry. I prepped the parts of the casserole, filled the 9 x 14 pan, and popped it in the oven. I already felt better. I started to pour myself a glass of wine but opted for vanilla chamomile tea instead and had just sat down in my reading chair when my phone rang. Daniel.
My stomach plummeted, and I regretted that I had skipped the wine. But then I realized I liked Daniel. Loved him even. So why not talk to him? I almost had myself convinced when I finally answered. "Hey Stranger," I said.
"Hi," he answered warmly but without any vim. "Just wanted to check in since I didn't see you the past couple of days."
I thought back and realized he was right. It had been a couple of days since we'd talked, probably the longest we'd gone without talking since we met. I felt kind of bad about that but not sad. Guilty maybe.
"Wow, yeah, you're right. Sorry about that. I've just been caught up in everything I guess." I sounded lame even to myself, but Daniel didn't seem to notice.
"Yeah, me, too." There was an edge to his voice, something not quite there about it. "Listen, I want to talk about something with you. Dinner Friday?"
"Sure," I said as my heartbeat quickened. He didn't sound angry or upset. Just distant, and I wasn't sure what to make of that. "Pick me up?"
"Um, well, can you meet me in Easton? That Italian place you like?"
Daniel and I had never met up at a restaurant before. Not once, so I knew something was up. I hated when things were unsaid, and part of me wanted to press him to tell me what was going on. But since I didn't know what was going on with me anyway, I figured another couple of days to sort things might be good. "Okay. Six?"
"Great. Give Mayhem some ear scratches for me."
I ended the call and sunk back into my chair. I thought maybe I should be upset, but mostly, I was just puzzled . . . about a lot of things. I made another concerted effort to put the whole situation out of my mind and let myself escape into my newest read, A Pedigree to Die For, a cozy mystery recommendation from Galen that starred Standard Poodles. I felt myself missing Taco as I read and wondered, for a brief second, what it meant that I missed the dog and hardly thought about the man. Then, I disappeared into the world of dog shows and forced myself to forget.
When the timer on the oven went off, Mart walked in the door, as if the bell was ringing her home, and I was so glad to see her. I needed a friend tonight, one who got me, and who would always have my back, no matter what hair-brained thing I did. She slung her bag onto the counter and said, "That smells amazing. What is it?"
"Chicken and rice casserole. I'm just putting the peas on now." I took the bag from the freezer and dumped the veggies into the boiling water. "Tea or wine?" I asked as I turned back to my best friend.
"You're having tea, so I'll join you." She hung up her coat and threw her handmade hat into the top of the hall closet. Then she plopped onto a barstool, picked up the steaming mug I handed her, and said, "Comfort food and cozy tea. What's up?"
I sighed. "Can I tell you the real answer to that question after we talk about Lizzie?"
Mart shrugged. "Sure. So what's up with Lizzie?"
I told her about Davis and about what I'd seen – or not seen – in Lizzie's social media presence. "It just feels weird, you know? Like there's just something really big we need to understand for everything to make sense."
"Yeah, like why does a successful woman who works for a really amazing restaurant in Boston move to our town and assume a name?" Mart asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Precisely." I put down my fork on my clean plate and said, "I know I'm only supposed to be investigating the Lizzie Borden part of this, but—"
Mart interrupted me, "But you can't help it. You want to know more." She smiled. "You love people, Harvey, and you love a good story. Lizzie seems like she was a good person with a great story. I can see why you're getting drawn in . . . but." She looked at me.
I sighed. I knew there was going to be a but. "But this is a murder investigation, and I need to let the police do their job.
Mart nodded. "Ding. Ding. Ding. Of course, I know you won't do that, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn't at least try to dissuade you from this path?"
"Not a friend at all," I said as I cleared our plates. "I hear you, though, and I'm not asking questions, at least not beyond you and Max."
Mart lifted her eyebrow again at the mention of his name but said nothing.
"But I keep wondering what would make me run and hide. I mean I know about leaving some place and starting over, sure, but to leave and totally disappear?" I put the dishes in the dishwasher and then stood up and stretched my hands over my head. "Seems like the only thing that would make me do that was fear."
"Agreed." Mart got two wine glasses down. "People don't just give up everything from their own lives unless they have to. Do you think she was in WITSEC?"
"WITSEC? Who do you think you are Maggie from FBI?" I laughed. "And does that make me Omar because I'm okay with that?"
"If you are him, you don't get to date him, Harvey."
Mart was laughing, but I also saw a glint of something in her eye. And I wasn't ready to talk about that yet. "Good point. Although I do enjoy my own company. But no, I don't think she's in witness protection. I'm sure Tuck has already thought of that."
"So then let's imagine why we might leave. Scary ex? Crime? Blackmail?"
I took the glass of Chardonnay Mart had just poured me and went back to my reading chair. "All of those are possibilities, I guess. And maybe she had to come to a small town. I mean I hate to say it, but news of a really good, one-armed bartender would travel fast in a city. In a town with only one bar, though . . ."
Mart sipped her wine. "Plus, Lizzie probably couldn't know this, but St. Mariner's gossip but only amongst ourselves. We're fiercely protective. If she'd only been here a little longer, we might have been able to keep her safe."
I felt my sadness over this young woman's death sink deeper into my chest. Mart was right. If she'd made it a few weeks, she would have already had friends, or at least allies, here, and we would have had her back. "But she didn't make it that long," I said, and something lit up in my brain. "But that's it, isn't it? She had only just arrived, and still, someone found her and killed her before we could get to know her."
"Like they were afraid of what she might say." Mart bent before the fireplace and laid newspapers, kindling, and logs out. "She never stood a chance."
My p
hone rang on the coffee table, and I let out a little yip of frightened surprise. Guess I was edgier than I thought. I picked up the phone. "Tuck," I said to Mart and swiped to answer.
"Harvey, I wanted to give you a heads up. Lizzie's, I mean Cassandra's, mom is in town, and she's asking a lot of questions, not too kindly I might add. I think you can expect her at the shop tomorrow since I gave Marcus a heads up and told him to close a few minutes early tonight."
I glanced down at my watch. Six forty-five. "Thanks, Tuck. Rocky is there with Marcus, right? I don't want either of them getting ambushed alone."
"I'm here, too," he said, and I heard the slurp of a hot drink through the line. "I'm staying until they close up."
He must really be worried then. "Okay. Come by in the morning and prep me?"
"Sure thing. I'll be here at nine thirty. But don't turn the lights on until I arrive. No need to give her a head start."
"Aye, Aye, Captain," I said and hung up.
"What was that all about?" Mart asked.
"Apparently, Lizzie's mom is here, and she's scaring Tuck. "
"Must be pretty terrifying then. I don't think I've ever seen him scared," Mart said as she fed a bit more kindling into her now crackling fire.
I sighed. "Yeah, and apparently, she's coming to see me. As if I didn't already have enough on my mind . . ." I let my voice trail off, unsure about whether I really wanted to have this conversation or not.
Mart had no such hesitations though and launched in. "Okay, so Daniel . . ."
I sighed, and then I spilled. We talked late into the night, and when we were done, I wasn't sure what to do in three days, but I knew what I had to do in two. The thought of it made my chest hurt.
* * *
The next morning, Mayhem and I went into the store through the back door just in case Lizzie's mom was out front. I'd only gotten a few hours' sleep, and I really didn't need a confrontation before I'd even had caffeine. On my way in, I'd texted Rocky to suggest she do the same, and she came in right behind me.
"I guess this woman's a force," she said.
I shrugged. "Tuck say anything else last night?"
"Nope, just that she was a short, white woman with purple tips in her hair and that she wasn't interested in hearing anything but what she wanted to hear." Rocky shook her head. "It's going to be a fun Thursday."
I sighed. "Indeed. I just loving being asked questions that someone thinks they already have the answers to. It's my favorite." I pulled a headband into my unruly curls and started up the register in the semi-dark of the winter day. I wasn't about to bring on this woman's interrogation by turning on the lights, so I scuttled around in the shadows tidying up the shelves and waiting for Tuck.
He arrived a few minutes later, via the back door as well, and we settled into the dark corner of the store near the history books and away from the front windows. "The longer this skulking continues, the more I'm going to think this woman is an assassin," I said as Tuck and I held our warm lattes in our hands. "All this cloak and dagger."
"Kind of ridiculous, isn't it? But really, she's relentless. She had me trapped in my office for over two hours while she blasted me with a barrage of questions about the investigation, about why her daughter was in this, and I quote, 'God-forsaken, BFE of a place,' and what I would do when she ruined my reputation as a police officer."
"Good gracious. Who is this woman? And can she do that? I mean is she someone that people listen to, like Batman or something?"
Tuck laughed. "She drove away in a Toyota Corolla, and she has nothing on Christian Bale for deep voices, but she does seem to think she has some power and influence. My research on her, though, is that she's simply a normal person, works as an office manager in one of Boston's biggest accounting firms, and has two children, Cassandra and her brother Claudius."
"And is clearly a fan of the classical world." I said. "A prophetess and an emperor. Talk about naming with ambition."
"I thought the same thing," Tuck took a long pull from his mug. "Part of me wants to believe this is just a grieving mother who is channeling her pain into bullying, but I'm puzzled by something."
I sipped my mug and looked over the rim at him.
"How did she know Lizzie was murdered?" Tuck's shoulders dropped.
"You hadn't notified next of kin yet?" I asked without reproach.
"The Boston PD was supposed to do it today as a favor and courtesy. It's sort of a standard thing to try to notify people about a death in person if we can. I've done it for other police forces when people have died here." Tuck sat forward and put his hands on his knees. "But yeah, they were going this morning."
"So someone told Mrs., um?"
"Mrs. Leicht."
"Someone told Mrs. Leicht." I sat back and let my mind bounce from idea to idea. "Could it have been Davis?" That seemed most likely since he might have at least known Lizzie's parents' names.
"Nope, Mrs. Leicht was on a flight down here yesterday morning."
I pushed my head back into the seat. "So before Davis even knew that Lizzie, er, Cassandra, was dead?" I didn't think I could ever really think of her as Cassandra and wasn't sure I should even try. She had changed her own name after all.
Tuck nodded and sipped his drink. "Something is going on here, and we just aren't seeing it yet. But we will."
I looked at him playfully out of the corner of my eye. "We?" I waggled my eyebrows to press my point home.
"Well," the sheriff sighed. "Yes, we." He looked almost forlorn as he said it, but my heart ticked up a notch.
"You need me to ask Lizzie's mom some questions you can't ask." All morning I'd been pondering what I was going to say to this woman, and somewhere along the way, it had occurred to me that I had an opportunity that the sheriff just didn't – I could be anonymous, at least relatively. No one suspected a bookstore owner to be investigating per se.
"Exactly," Tuck said with yet another sigh. "I need you to find out how she ended up here and why she thinks Cassandra came to town."
"Maybe I can look into the Lizzie Borden angle a little, too, explore that with her mom." My mom would know if I had an obsession with an alleged murderer, and I was betting Lizzie's mom did, too. If she didn't, that might be worth knowing, too.
Tuck stood up but was careful to stay out of the glow cast from the security lights. "Just be cautious, Harvey. We don't want to tip her off that you're working with me."
"Right, that would ruin the point," I said seriously.
"Well, yes, but more importantly, it might put you in danger." He gave me a long stare before he made his way along the shadowed bookshelves and to the back door again.
Now, my heart was really all a-patter, but a quick look at the clock on the wall said it was time to open. Most people in St. Marin's wouldn't notice or care if my store opened a few minutes late, but I was betting a big city woman who was seeking information would definitely notice.
As I walked to the front of the store, I tried to look as casual as possible while also texting Rocky to let her know what was up and to be on standby if I gave the signal, which I had decided needed to be appropriate in context but not too subtle. "If I say, man, 'I miss those peppermint lattes from the holidays,' text Tuck."
"Got it," Rocky wrote back, and when I looked over, she gave me one solid nod. My backup was ready.
And sure enough, as soon as I opened the door, a short, stocky woman with short silver hair tipped in purple bustled in, barely giving me time to open the door. She headed straight for the counter and then corkscrewed her head violently as she looked for someone to help her. Oddly enough, her gaze never landed on me at all, so when I approached and asked how I could help, she frowned deeply.
"I'm looking for some man named Harvey. Owner of this store." Her voice was thick with old-school Boston, or at least I thought it was old-school Boston because that's how Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had talked in Good Will Hunting.
"Well, I'm not a man, but I am Harvey, the owner. How can
I help?" I tried to sound cordial, easy-going.
She looked at me in the face and said, "Hmph. Well, whatever. I have some questions for you."
Mrs. Leicht was not the first person to dismiss my gender as incidental, but it still stung every time. I could have any name I chose, and I was the gender I was . . . and yet people's expectations about what my name defined about me, well, they were annoying far too often.
"Well, hit me. I love recommending books." I knew I was laying it on a little thick with the unaware bookseller routine, but I didn't want her knowing in the least that I was expecting her.
She glanced around quickly as if noticing for the first time that she was, in fact, surrounding by books and then made a sound like she was going to hock up a loogie before saying, "I don't read." with a smugness that would have been more appropriate for the sentence, "I just won the Pulitzer," or "I just ate the forty-ounce steak at that waterfront place."
"Oh, I see." I let a little disdain slip into my tone because, well, I felt it. It was okay if people didn't read, but being arrogant about it just struck me as ugly.
She either couldn't tell I was annoyed or didn't care because she didn't even look at me as she said, "So you're the one who founds Cassandra's body?"
Now I understood why she wanted to talk to me. If someone I loved was murdered, I'd probably want to meet the person who found them that way, too. But Mrs. Leicht didn't sound like she was here on a mission of grief. Revenge? Maybe? Rage? Definitely.