Little Shop of Homicide: A Devereaux’s Dime Store Mystery

by Denise Swanson

  Great! Another thing to add to my to-do list. I slumped against the counter.

  “Devereaux.”

  Oops! Mrs. Ziegler hadn’t left. I twisted my head to look at her.

  “Stand up straight.” She winked at me. “Slouching makes your breasts sag.”

  I swallowed wrong and choked. When I stopped coughing, she was gone and I questioned my hearing. Had Mrs. Ziegler really said the word breasts? Shaking my head, I shrugged out of my coat and hung it in the back room. I didn’t have time to worry about what the principal did or didn’t say. I had to get to work.

  Good thing that those of us in retail always worked well ahead of the coming season. I already had boxes of Easter supplies stacked in my stockroom. My original plan had been to use this week to sell off the remaining Valentine’s Day merchandise at a hefty discount. Once it was gone, I’d begin displaying the pastel plastic eggs, bright green artificial grass, and chocolate rabbits. But with all that had happened since Monday, and now Principal Ziegler’s bombshell, I wasn’t sure when I’d have a chance to get the cute little chicks and bunnies on the shelves.

  Checking the clock, I saw that it was already going on one o’clock, and I hadn’t accomplished anything yet today. Better get moving. If I ate my lunch while I finished the baby shower basket, I might still have time to prep the sewing area for tonight’s Blood, Sweat, and Shears meeting before the after-school crowd descended on the soda fountain and candy counter.

  A half hour later, I popped the last bite of my boiled ham sandwich into my mouth, wiped my hands on a paper towel, and stepped back to admire my creation. For this basket, I had found an original copy of Bootsy, published by Wonder Books in 1959. The adorable black and white kitten on the bright blue cover seemed to be smiling his approval as I gathered up the cellophane and tied it closed with an enormous yellow and green bow.

  While I was restocking the magazine shelves, the sleigh bells over the front door jingled and I looked up just in time to see Jake striding over the threshold. His expression was guarded, and he looked as exhausted as I felt. His chin was stubbled with twenty-four hours’ worth of beard, and his eyes were deeply shadowed with fatigue. Maybe he hadn’t slept well, either.

  “Hi.” He took off his Stetson, fingered the brim for a moment, then put his hat next to the register and unbuttoned his jacket. “About last night…” He trailed off, seeming to be at a loss for words.

  I flashed back to our steamy encounter in his pickup and felt my cheeks redden and other parts of me tingle. Quickly, almost afraid he could read my thoughts, and because I definitely did not want to hear the end of his sentence, I interjected, “Let’s just chalk what happened up to chemistry or proximity or too many cosmos at the fund-raiser, and forget all about it.”

  “Why? Because you like guys who wear designer suits, drink champagne, and take you to the ballet?” His blue eyes were as hard as the Hope diamond. “I’m not your type, am I?”

  Was he serious? He had to be aware of how attractive he was. I’d bet there was at least one woman, maybe more, who lost her head over him on every case he worked. I just had to make sure I wasn’t the one this time. A love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of man didn’t work for me.

  When I saw his jaw tighten, I realized that he was still waiting for an answer, and I quickly assured him, “That’s not it at all.” His expression of disbelief made me add, “I just think we need to concentrate on the matter at hand. Emotions only mess people up.”

  Jake didn’t appear entirely convinced, so before he could probe further, I elaborated. “See, the thing is that I’m in a good place right now. I’ve accepted that there are things I may never have in my life, but at least I’m not getting my heart broken.”

  “You can’t make time stand still.” Jake seemed to be talking to himself as much as to me. “If you don’t keep moving forward toward a goal, you’ll fall back to where you were to start with.”

  “I’m not trying to make time stand still,” I protested, fighting the intensity of his gaze. “It’s just that I’m tired of men disappointing me, and I don’t want to get hurt anymore.”

  I was considering what he’d said when it dawned on me. Why was I the one on the hot seat? It was Jake’s girlfriend who had interrupted us. A girlfriend he had denied having only moments before kissing me. If anyone should be explaining himself, it was him.

  Before I could say all that, he stepped toward me. My back was to the magazine rack and he put his hands on either side of my shoulders, resting them on the wooden shelves. A shiver shot through me at the realization that I was trapped and had no desire to break free.

  With his face close to mine, he teased, “So it sounds as if you’re planning to live the rest of your life as a nun.”

  “No.” My voice held an uncertain tone that I didn’t recognize. I was rarely unsure of my decisions. What was this guy doing to me?

  Jake’s lips brushed mine, and I knew I was less than a nanosecond away from lust overtaking my good intentions, so with my last rational thought I confronted him. “Detective Woods paid me a visit this morning. Your girlfriend called him about Joelle’s fingerprints, and now he’s more convinced than ever that I’m the murderer.”

  “Shit!” Jake jerked away from me as if I had stuck a cattle prod in his groin.

  I took the opportunity to move away from him and walked to the register. Flipping open the counter, I stepped behind it and quickly closed the opening. Putting some distance, not to mention a physical barrier, between Jake and me seemed like a prudent move.

  “What in the hell did she say to him?” Jake ground out the question between clenched teeth.

  As I began cleaning up the basket-making paraphernalia, I repeated Woods’s accusations, ending with, “Then when he was leaving, he said, ‘Your boss may have weaseled out of serving prison time, but someone is going to pay for losing my retirement money.’”

  “What a jerk.”

  “Yep.”

  Once my work space was spick-and-span, I hauled out the first of four long folding tables that needed to be set up for the sewing circle. Jake mutely brought out the other three while I put them up.

  He finally broke the silence between us by saying, “Meg’s my ex, not my girlfriend.”

  “You called your ex-wife for information?” I nearly dropped the sewing machine I was carrying. “Did you ever consider she might not want to help you? Even if you had one heck of an amicable divorce, there are usually some hurt feelings or resentment. Didn’t you think it was possible that she’d want to sabotage you and set off Woods on purpose?”

  “She’s the best researcher in the service.” His expression was a mixture of stubborn and sheepish. “Besides, she left me, not the other way around. She has no reason to want to get back at me.”

  “Okay.” I drew out the word, indicating my incredulity at his utter lack of understanding of the female mind, but I didn’t bother to argue. If Jake really believed his ex-wife didn’t have any ill will about their failed marriage, then there was no point wasting my breath trying to persuade him otherwise. “If you say so.”

  “I’m sure whatever happened when Meg spoke with Woods wasn’t intentional on her part.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “She wouldn’t be that unprofessional.”

  “Uh-huh.” I made sure he didn’t see me roll my eyes. “Anyway, considering how well our investigation has gone so far, I think it’s probably best that we stop now before we make things worse for me. Maybe if I don’t draw any more attention to myself, Woods will lose interest.”

  “You know that’s not what will happen.” Jake shook his head. “Woods is like a rock. And it doesn’t matter if the rock hits the glass or the glass hits the rock—it’ll be bad for the glass.”

  “Yeah.” He was right, even though I hated to admit it and really wanted the whole situation to go away without any further effort on my part. Still, it was always better to be proactive than reactive. At least that’s what I told myself as I admitted, “You’
re probably right.”

  “I spoke to Joelle’s attorney, Riyad Oberkircher, just before I came over here.” Jake explained about the scene his uncle had witnessed at the bank.

  “How did you know he was her lawyer?”

  “There are only three attorneys listed in the Shadow Bend phone book. Since I assume St. Onge would have mentioned to you if he represented the vic, I went to see the other two.” Jake shrugged. “I had to flash my badge to get the information, but Oberkircher finally told me that Joelle had no next of kin listed in her will, but there’s not much money or property involved, and everything goes into a trust for her dog.”

  “So, just as you and Tony suspected, she was nearly broke.” I digested that tidbit, then said, “Do you think she was only marrying Noah for his money and he discovered that and killed her?”

  “The only way to find out is to talk to Dr. Underwood.”

  I knew that, but I didn’t want to accept what had to be done. Facing my high school boyfriend after so many years of avoiding him would be awkward at best and very possibly downright excruciating.

  Noah and I had been friends since the first time we’d been paired up for dance lessons when we were six years old. Our ancestors had been among the five founding families of Shadow Bend, and we were constantly together at town social functions. Once we became teenagers, it had seemed natural for us to become sweethearts, and once we started dating we were inseparable. Each of us became the most important person in the other’s world. Until Jake walked into my life yesterday, I had never felt that same passion toward any other man.

  Jake put his hands in his jeans pockets. “What time will you be finished here?”

  “The meeting ends at nine, but it’ll take me fifteen or twenty minutes to clean up and get the store ready for tomorrow.”

  “I’ll pick you up at quarter after.”

  “That’s not a good idea.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Explaining Shadow Benders to folks who hadn’t grown up here was always tough. “People around these parts keep to a pretty rigid schedule. ‘Early to bed and early to rise’ isn’t just an old proverb to them.”

  “Fair enough.” Jake buttoned his coat. “Since the store’s only open half a day tomorrow, how about I come by to get you at noon?” He picked up his hat. “I checked, and the Underwood Medical Clinic closes at eleven thirty on Thursdays.” As he left, he said, “You need to figure out where the doc will be after he finishes there.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” I called after Jake, but he was already gone. I muttered to myself, “I’m not even sure he’s back at work. After all, his fiancée died just a few days ago.”

  CHAPTER 13

  At quarter to six the sewing circle members started to arrive. The first to pull up, squealing into the prime front-of-store parking spot, was a dented old muscle car with a duct-taped front grille and a spiderweb crack on the windshield. Between the primer and the rust, it was hard to determine the vehicle’s original color.

  A girl in her early twenties unfolded from the driver’s seat. With her carrot red hair and bright clothing, she was a dead ringer for a grown-up Pippi Longstocking. People often underestimated Zizi Todd, just as they did Hannah. Zizi’s appearance suggested an airhead, but in fact she was in graduate school studying to become a clinical social worker.

  I greeted Zizi, but she rushed past me, calling over her shoulder as she thrust open the bathroom door in the back of the store, “Traffic was heinous and I’ve had to pee for the past hour.”

  A few minutes later she joined me in the craft corner just in time for the arrival of Winnie Todd, Zizi’s mother. Winnie was the original flower child. Her long gray hair was a froth of frizzy curls down her back, and her tie-dyed T-shirt sported a peace symbol.

  She’d left Shadow Bend to live in San Francisco during the mid-sixties, but had returned, sans husband, in the late eighties to have her only child. Several of the townspeople had expressed concern that she was not only a single mother but also pregnant at forty-three.

  Winnie made it clear that she had plenty of money, having inherited a sizable estate from her grandparents, and that the doctors had assured her the fetus was healthy, but her words fell on deaf ears. Which was no surprise to me. Being of sound and logical mind in Shadow Bend doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be understood or appreciated.

  I put down the tape measure I’d been holding and relieved Winnie of what looked like a mutated sewing machine, asking, “What do you have here?”

  “It’s a serger so we can finish the edges of the blankets,” she explained. “Did you get the satin binding I e-mailed you about?”

  “Yep.” I pointed behind me. “It’s on the cart with the bolts of fleece and the thread.”

  Both Winnie and Zizi cared deeply for their fellow human beings, and together they had cofounded this sewing circle dedicated to supporting the county’s homeless shelter. Currently the group consisted of twenty women ranging in age from sixteen to eighty-three. Each member paid for her own materials and donated the finished products either directly to the shelter or to the shelter’s resale shop.

  While Zizi and Winnie hugged and exchanged news of their day, I slipped into the storage room and phoned my grandmother. I hated leaving her alone for twelve hours, but at least Wednesday was the only day the store was open past six. Birdie assured me she was fine, and she seemed disappointed to hear I would be coming home right after work rather than meeting up with Jake.

  By the time I returned to the craft area, most of the other seamstresses had arrived. Coats were off, fleece was being cut into two-and-a-half-yard lengths, and sewing machines were whirring.

  As I moved closer to the tables, I noticed that there was an unusually high volume of whispering and clucking going on. My heart skipped a beat. Had word of Woods’s investigation of me gotten out?

  Ducking behind a rack of scrapbook pages, I listened to the discussion.

  Cyndi Barrow, the Country Club Cougar whom Poppy had suggested we interview, was one of several women whom I hadn’t expected to join the sewing circle, yet she had shown up for the first meeting and faithfully attended all the subsequent ones. She finished touching up her lipstick and said, “I really wasn’t at all surprised to hear that someone had killed her.”

  Zizi paused in midcut, her shears half open. “Why is that?”

  Cyndi tucked the golden tube into her purse and said, “I hate to speak ill of the dead.”

  “But… ?” Winnie’s unconventional features rearranged themselves into an encouraging smile.

  “Well.” Cyndi’s voice sank to a whisper and I had to abandon my cover and move closer to hear her next remark. “She was just so mean.”

  “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” Zizi frowned. “I thought you two were friends.”

  “We were, but…” After a predictable show of reluctance Cyndi continued. “About a month ago a bunch of us were shopping in Kansas City, and when we came out of the restaurant where we’d had lunch a guy walked up to Joelle and said, ‘I haven’t eaten anything in four days.’ The rest of us were searching our purses for change, but she stared him straight in the eye and said, ‘God, I wish I had your willpower.’ Then she and Anya and Gwen just strolled away, laughing their heads off.”

  “Okay. You’re right.” Zizi nodded. “She was a pathetic excuse for a human being.”

  Apparently word of Joelle’s murder had spread, but my involvement had not. Since no one had taken any notice of me, I allowed myself a relieved sigh.

  After that exchange, talk turned to the weather, how bad it had been; television, how bad it had been; and children, how bad they had been. The women took a fifteen-minute break at seven thirty, and for five dollars each, I provided coffee, tea, and a selection of cookies and pastries.

  Payment was on the honor system—the women put their money in an old cigar box—so after making sure there were plenty of cups, plates, utensils, and napkins, I went back to working on the store’s books. I sat on a
stool with my laptop on the smooth marble counter and lost myself in the world of Quicken.

  Only a few minutes had gone by when I jerked my head up, suddenly interested in a conversation between Zizi and her mother.

  “Are you coming to the lunch meeting tomorrow for the shelter committee?” Winnie took a sip from her mug, then a bite of chocolate chip cookie.

  “I thought it was canceled.” Zizi licked the icing off a red velvet cupcake.

  “Me, too.” Winnie frowned, spreading wrinkles across her face like ripples in a pond. “But Dr. Underwood insisted we have it. Do you know that since his fiancée’s death, he didn’t even take a day off from the clinic? He said Joelle wouldn’t want his patients to suffer on her account.”

  “He’s such a good man.” Zizi had a dreamy expression on her face.

  I ground my teeth. Noah had everyone fooled. His choirboy good looks were such a deceptive image. It might have been thirteen years since he dumped me, and he might be a good doctor, but I still didn’t trust him. Maybe if he’d apologized once we were adults, I would’ve been able to forgive and forget, but he hadn’t, so my hurt feelings had never healed.

  Winnie smiled fondly. “Yes, he is.” Her smile turned rueful. “If his mother wasn’t such an ogre, I’d suggest you ask him out once he’s over losing his fiancée.”

  At least Nadine’s true colors were evident to others, and I now knew where Noah would be tomorrow afternoon. Correction: I would know as soon as I found out the luncheon location.

  At eight fifty, I announced that the sewing circle had ten minutes to finish up, and then I returned to the register to handle any final purchases the women might have. I loved ringing items up on the old brass cash register. Its distinctive ding always made me smile.

  Winnie was the last to leave, and when she came over to say good-bye, I said as casually as I was able, “I heard you and Zizi talking about the shelter lunch meeting. Where’s it being held?”