A voice made me jump. “Oh, Ellie. We’ll find out who killed that nasty reporter.” Astrid had come in when all my attention was on trying to decipher my boyfriend’s words.
Boyfriend.
I shook my head and forced a swallow. “It’s not that. Ritter just called.”
Her head tipped to the right. “And it was a bad conversation?”
“Oh, Astrid! It was no conversation at all.” The words tumbled out of me. “He’s gone for five more months, and I couldn’t even tell him what happened this morning. He didn’t know Blake was going to interview me in the first place. I could barely tell Ritter that I missed him. And then he didn’t say . . .” I trailed off.
“That he missed you?” she asked gently.
I sniffed. Nodded. Sniffed again.
She came around the counter and put her arm around me, squeezing me to her side. Astrid was five ten and I was a full foot shorter, so she put her chin on my head for a few seconds before stepping back and snagging my gaze.
When she was sure I wasn’t going to look away, she said. “He was your rebound. You know that, right?”
I stared at her. “Astrid!”
“He was a good rebound, but that’s still what he was. Got you back in the game, made you feel good about yourself after your ass of an ex-husband made you feel so bad. But Ritter Nelson is married to his work, and if that was going to change, it would have happened during the two months you were together.”
Shaking my head, I pushed away from her.
“I just don’t want to see you waste five months of your life waiting for him to come back again. Making up stories in your head about how it will be, or even how it was between you. Stories that aren’t true but that you want to be—”
“No.”
She blinked.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “I know you like to date lots of guys and have no intention of settling down soon—maybe ever.”
“Honey—”
“But I’m just not built like that, Astrid. I know it’s still hard for you to believe, but it was really difficult for me to divorce Harris, even after all he’d done.” I’d begun pacing and now stopped, took a deep breath, and repeated what I’d just been thinking to myself. “I’m going to make this thing with Ritter work on my end. What he does is up to him, but don’t you see?”
She frowned.
“I have to trust him,” I said. “That’s part of the deal. He’s a good guy, and I’m not going to start worrying that will change just because he’s in another state for . . .” I swallowed. “For a while.”
I met her gaze.
She was grinning. “You love him,” she singsonged.
After a few moments, I felt a ghost of a smile tug at my lips, too. I rolled my eyes. “Maybe. We haven’t said that to each other yet, but yeah. You might be right.”
“Ellie, just tell me you aren’t thinking about getting married again so soon.”
“What? That’s not . . . jeez. Not to worry. I’m just thinking about getting through the next few months.”
I was starting to feel self-conscious, so I changed the subject. Wiping a last smudge of wetness from my cheek and clearing my throat, I said, “That’s all well and good, but let’s talk about how to help Larken.”
Astrid looked surpried, but recovered rapidly. “Okay.”
“It sounds like Max Lang has made up his mind—again—and he’s wrong—again,” I said with a grimace. “When the autopsy is finished and the cause of death turns out to be deadly nightshade, he’s going to close Blake’s murder case as quickly as possible.”
She nodded. “To show the chief that he’s still a good investigator. After he messed up so badly when Josie was murdered, he has something to prove.” She looked thoughtful. “What about Detective Garcia, though? Maybe she can stop his one-man stampede.”
“Lupe tried to slow him down when he was so determined to make a case against me, that’s for sure. But the evidence against Larken is pretty damning. Lupe’s a professional, though, and I’m sure she’ll conduct a real investigation despite having to work with Max again. And she’ll listen to us if we find out anything.”
Astrid sat on one of the high stools behind the counter. “So how do we do that?”
I grabbed a notebook and pen from under the register. “Well, Blake was a local boy. At least once he was. So it could be someone who knew him a long time, or someone who just met him.”
“That’s not very helpful,” she observed.
I sighed. “No, it’s not. Are you sure you want to get involved with this? I shouldn’t assume. After all, you don’t know Larken from Eve.”
But my friend was shaking her head emphatically. “I don’t need to. I know you, and you’re my best friend in the whole world, and I’ll do anything I can to help you. You’d do the same for your brother, and he adores that girl—who, by the way, I liked as soon as I met her this morning. So that’s all there is to it.”
Dang if those tears I’d just tamped down didn’t threaten again. “Thanks,” I managed.
“Besides,” Astrid said with a wide grin. “I like this investigation stuff. It’s exciting.”
I rolled my eyes. So much for sentimentality. Tapping the pen against the notebook, I gazed out the window at Corona Street and mused, “So who would want to kill Blake Sontag?”
“So it is murder,” Maria said from the patio doorway. “And you two are smack-dab in the middle of it. I should have known.”
Shoot. I’d forgotten she was out there.
“Hey, Maria,” Astrid said easily. “I don’t suppose you have any books over at the library on crime investigation.”
Our friend came in and leaned one elbow on the counter. “Of course we do. What did you have in mind?”
Astrid looked at me. I raised my eyebrows as if to say, You asked her.
“Um, how about one on motives?”
Maria blew a raspberry. “You don’t need a book for that. Just talk to Cynthia.” She looked between us. “Which you were going to do already, right?”
“Of course,” I said breezily.
Astrid grinned.
Well, we would have once we’d gotten a plan together.
“And Blake’s sister,” Maria said.
Her, too. “Her, too,” I said.
“Well, that should give you a start. Let me know if I can help in any way.” She straightened. “I have to get back before story time is over. It’s amazing how much damage a bunch of toddlers can do after cupcakes and a rousing rendition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”
Astrid gazed after her as she left. “Well, I guess we have marching orders. Next time we decide to make a plan, let’s just call Maria to start with.”
“Amen, sister.”
• • •
ASTRID had been late meeting me at Scents & Nonsense because Dr. Ericcson was having trouble with the computer at the vet office and needed her expertise. I’d never known anyone to get as flummoxed by technology as he did, and Astrid not only served as his veterinary assistant but also his unofficial office manager. It was late afternoon by the time Maria left, and since Astrid had told her boss she’d come back and get the system straightened out, she promised to go with me the next day to see Joyous Sontag.
In the meantime, I’d track down Cynthia to get her scoop on the murder victim. However, I couldn’t really leave the shop until after six, so I decided to telephone someone else who might be able to share a nugget or two of information on the Sontags.
I had to wait until a woman and her two young daughters had tracked down every fairy scene in the Enchanted Garden. It was kind of like a treasure hunt, and usually I relished helping with hints and smiling encouragements of “hot” and “cold” and “Oh, you’re getting warmer now!” But this afternoon I just wanted them to finish their lavender lemonade and go fly
a kite. Or at least go next door to buy a kite.
After they’d found every one of the tiny troves and gnome doors tucked into the niches and alcoves all over the garden, played with Dash, and scritched a purring Nabby, the mother bought a set of scented markers, a bundle of scratch ’n’ sniff stickers, and a stamp pad that smelled like strawberries. Because of the number of young people who came to see the Enchanted Garden, I’d started stocking more in the children’s section of Sense & Nonsense. Despite my impatience that afternoon, I was glad to see it paying off.
When the door had swung shut behind them, I grabbed the phone and dialed the Florida number I knew by heart.
Wynn answered. “Sweetie! How are you?” My stepmother hadn’t used the word “hello” to answer a telephone since the advent of caller ID.
“I’m good,” I said, a knee-jerk answer that, in this case, completely belied the truth. “Well, actually, it’s been a pretty weird day. I was wondering—”
“Weird? What do you mean ‘weird’? What’s wrong? What happened?”
I felt a small smile creep onto my face. My stepmother was a lot of things—go-getter, social butterfly, beach enthusiast, a former first runner-up for California Dairy Queen, and a woman who believed that with enough positive thinking and the occasional discreet visit to a medical aesthetician, she would never age—but she was also a born nurturer and as intuitive as a swami when it came to her kids.
She had not been happy to learn after the fact that I’d nearly been arrested for murder a few months back.
So she should be glad I was calling now, right?
“Well,” I started. “Um.”
“Elliana Elizabeth, I love you dearly and adore how you hedge around things, but will you please get to the point?”
“There was another murder,” I said.
Silence. Then, “Are you in jail?”
I laughed. “No, of course not.”
“Good,” she declared emphatically, and I pictured her settling back in her chaise lounge on the lanai of their Fort Lauderdale condo. “Now, spill.”
“Do you remember the Sontags?” I asked, easing into it.
“Bette and Jonah? Good Lord, yes. They used to throw the best parties.”
“And their son, Blake?”
“Right. Blake and that sour little princess of theirs, Joyous. I do not know what was wrong with that child. Perhaps she was born on a Thursday.”
“What?”
“You know, Thursday’s child . . . never mind. Ellie, why are you asking . . . Oh my heavens. That’s not who died, is it?”
“Blake Sontag, yes. A housekeeper found him in his room at the Hotel California this morning.”
“Murdered?” she whispered.
“It does look that way,” I fudged. “And unfortunately, Larken Meadows is a prime suspect.”
“Who?”
Uh-oh.
“Um, Larken? You know—” Oh, God. Why did you keep her such a secret, little brother? But I was too far in now. “Colby’s girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend!” Wynn shrieked. Moments later I heard ice cubes tumbling into a glass. My stepmother didn’t ascribe to happy hour on a regular basis like the somewhat older crowd she and my father hung out with after he took early retirement. However, a solid nip of rye whiskey for medicinal purposes would be a requirement to process such shocking news.
“Colby’s there?” she asked in a slightly calmer tone.
“Um, yeah. Showed up out of the blue yesterday.”
“With a girlfriend.”
“Um, yeah.”
“Stop saying, ‘um,’ Ellie. It makes you sound dim.”
I blinked. She must be really upset.
“What’s she like?”
So much for the news of Blake’s murder. “She’s nice,” I said. “Clean.”
“Clean?”
“No, I don’t mean she showers. Which, of course, she does. Shower. But she’s, I don’t know how to put it. Clear. Down-to-earth. Real, you know?” I hadn’t thought of Larken in any of those terms until Wynn put my feet to the fire. “I guess I mean she’s this sweet, straightforward, earthy type who says what she means and means what she says.” I stopped, realizing that I was saying Larken seemed to possess no duplicity. There was no way she could have—or would have—killed Blake Sontag.
My stepmother was quiet for several seconds. Then she said, “I think I understand. You were always such an intuitive person, even as a little girl. I’m sure she’s lovely, and I’m glad Colby managed to find someone even if he insists on living like a carney.”
“You’ll like her,” I said, hoping she’d have a chance to meet Larken outside of a prison. “But back to the Sontags. Are you still in touch with Bette and Jonah?”
“You’re doing it again, aren’t you? Investigating a murder. Only this time it’s for Colby.”
“Wynn . . .”
“No, it’s okay. It’s good, I mean. You’re a kind woman, and smart as a whip. I’m sure you’ll fix this for your brother in no time.”
No pressure. Still, her vote of confidence meant a lot.
She sighed. “But I’m afraid you won’t be getting any information from Blake’s parents. A couple of years after they moved to Arizona, they were caught in a flood and killed.”
“That’s terrible!”
“It was, indeed. But that’s what you get for camping in an arroyo during monsoon season, I guess. They should have known better.”
Ouch. Did I mention Wynn didn’t suffer fools gladly?
“Butterworth!” she shouted at full volume, and I held the phone away from my ear. Wynn was the only person on earth who called my dad by his given name. Everyone else called him Worth.
A grumbling in the background, followed by Wynn’s rapid-fire tones, and a quick, “Bye, Ellie. Here’s your father.”
“Ellie? What’s this about a murder? Is it really the Sontag kid?”
Well, he’d been older than me, so, “kid” . . . anyway.
“Hi, Dad. Yes, I’m afraid Wynn got it right.”
“And Colby’s girlfriend is in trouble. What can we do to help?” Bless my practical father.
“I called to find out whether you were still in contact with Blake’s parents. Wynn told me what happened to them.”
“Why did you want to talk to them?”
“Honestly? I’m just flailing around at this point. Blake hadn’t lived here for a long time, but then he shows up to interview me for Conscience Magazine, and boom, he’s killed.”
“He was there to interview you?”
“Oh, God, Dad. Yes. But that didn’t end up happening. Please don’t put Wynn back on. I promise to e-mail with all the details about the interview that never happened, okay?”
“I was just going to say that I hope Max Lang doesn’t make too much of Blake being in Poppyville to interview you.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Merde.
“So Joyous is the only owner of that parcel of land now.”
It took me a moment to drag my thoughts back from Max Lang. “Wait. What land?”
“The land that’s been in the Sontag family since, well, since before there was a town.”
Everyone knew the Sontags had been in Poppyville for generations. Blake’s great-great-great-grandfather was one of the city elders with my own ancestor Zebulon Hammond.
My father continued. “Owen Sontag claimed that big chunk of land south of town by the river around the time of the Rush. You know, off of River Road after you pass the trailhead to Kestrel Peak?”
“I thought that was public land,” I said, trying to remember the last time I’d driven beyond the trailhead.
“Most of it is. Jonah’s father deeded most of that property to the state with the stipulation that it be added to Clary State Park. But the family kept th
e parcel where the old cabin was built. It’s about thirty acres, I think. Jonah had a couple too many Scotches one evening and went on and on about how he was going to keep that land in the family even though his kids thought he was being sentimental and wanted to sell it.”
“How was he going to do that?”
“He and Bette willed it to their children in a joint trust. When either Blake or Joyous had children, it would automatically go to them, still held in trust until they were adults. If neither of them had children by the time they were both thirty-five, the trust would be dissolved and the land would go jointly to them.
“It was just a stopgap because, when they were in their twenties, both of his kids had already said they’d rather have the money than the land. Jonah’s hope was that they would keep the old place in the family for many more generations. Actually, he used the word ‘forever’ when he told me about the whole thing. That’s why he came up with the idea of the trust, just in case something happened to him and Bette.” Dad sighed. “Which, unfortunately, it did. Of course, his assumption was that he’d still be around at that point, that he’d know his grandchildren—maybe even his great-grandchildren—and that he could convince them all to follow his wishes.”
“Hmm,” I mused. “Joyous is about a year older than me, so would have turned thirty-five recently. Blake was older than her, so the trust has already been dissolved.”
“Does Blake have any children?” he asked. “Because if not, Jonah’s will stipulated that if one of the siblings died, the ownership of all the land would automatically revert to the other one.”
I hadn’t even thought about Blake having kids. I’d assumed from what Maria had said about Cynthia considering Blake for husband number three meant he was single, but he could have been divorced. My throat tightened as I considered who might be grieving his loss.
“I don’t know if he has children,” I said. “Is the land worth anything?”
“Well, all land is worth something,” Dad said. “But value always depends on what someone is willing to pay. A few people made a run at Jonah to develop those acres, but he always held out.”
My stepmother’s voice echoed down the line. “Butterworth! We’re late for tango lessons!”
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