Marked Down for Murder (Good Buy Girls)

by Josie Belle

  Maggie grabbed her purse and flipped the store sign to CLOSED as she and Claire hurried down the sidewalk to the police station.

  With each step, Maggie had the feeling she was one step closer to a showdown with Sam. It was not a pleasant thought. Of course, it would have helped if the high noon shoot-out music would stop playing in her head, but she couldn’t shake the sensation that if she and Sam did have a showdown, she was going to lose—him.

  Chapter 15

  “Hi, Dot,” Maggie said as they entered the police station and found Deputy Wilson manning the front counter.

  “Hi, Maggie, Claire,” Dot said. She then hurried around the counter to stare at Claire’s shoes. “Where did you get those?”

  Claire glanced down at her feet as if she’d forgotten what shoes she was wearing. They were a pair of deep purple suede pumps with gold buckles. “Oh, these old things?”

  “Don’t you ‘these old things’ me,” Dot chastised her. “I know the latest in Prada when I see it.”

  “Fine. I bartered for them,” Claire said.

  “Do tell,” Dot encouraged her.

  “Aren’t you on your lunch hour?” Maggie asked Claire.

  “Oh, yeah,” Claire said. “Sorry, Dot, no time for shoe talk. I came over to see if Summer wanted any books or magazines while she is . . . er . . . visiting the jail.”

  Dot looked at her. “Is that a new service the library is offering?”

  Claire nodded. “Very new. The idea came to me while I was remembering how long the days were during my own unfortunate incarceration.”

  Maggie had to glance at her feet lest she give away exactly how new the idea was by grinning.

  “Well, that’s right nice of you,” Dot said.

  “Librarians have layers,” Claire said.

  “So long as one of those layers tells me exactly who and how you bartered for those shoes while we walk back to Summer’s cell, it’s all good,” Dot said.

  She led the way to the back with Claire and Maggie following her. Dot noticed Maggie and abruptly stopped with one hand on her hip, “Now just where do you think you’re going?”

  “To see Summer,” Maggie said.

  “Why?” Dot asked. “So you can go all ‘neener neener neener’ on her? Don’t you think the girl is suffering enough? Really, Maggie, I thought better of you.”

  “I wasn’t . . .” Maggie began, but Dot cut her off.

  “No, you just go sit over by the window where you can’t get into any trouble,” Dot said. “And watch the phone for me.”

  “Why?” Maggie pouted. “Is it going somewhere?”

  Dot squinted one eye at her and Maggie spun on her heel and slouched over to the hard bench by the window. She huffed when she sat down, but Dot took no notice of her.

  “Now, you were saying about bartering,” Dot said to Claire as they disappeared into the back.

  Maggie kicked her feet out in front of her. She was pretty sure she had a sulk going on that could only be matched by a two-year-old in the throes of the terribles.

  Really, just because she and Summer had scuffed it up before there was no reason to think that Maggie was going to enjoy seeing her locked in a cell. Okay, maybe in the darkest corner of her heart, she might derive a smidgeon of pleasure at seeing Summer suffer, but who could blame her?

  The front door to the station opened and Maggie jerked upright. It would not do for Sam to find her there looking sullen. In fact, if it were him, she would be darn lucky she had stayed out front, as in out of it. It wasn’t Sam who entered, however; it was Blair Cassidy.

  Dressed in thigh-high black leather boots, a plaid mini skirt and a puffy red jacket, Blair looked like a tomato with legs. Maggie shook the mean thought aside. The woman’s husband had just been murdered. Surely she could find it within herself to be nice.

  Blair stopped at the front desk and looked around. Obviously, she was looking for someone to let her in to see Summer.

  “Dot just went in back,” Maggie said.

  Blair swiveled her head in Maggie’s direction. She tossed her black bob out of her face and looked down her nose at Maggie.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Maggie could tell by her tone that she was looking for a fight. Maggie refused to play.

  “I’m waiting for a friend,” she said. At least it was the truth.

  “So your boyfriend isn’t in his office?” Blair asked. “Maybe he is finally doing his job and tracking down my husband’s real killer. I registered a complaint with the mayor, you know. Maybe that lit a fire under his backside.”

  Maggie popped out of her seat. She could feel her temper getting the better of her, and she knew she should keep her mouth shut, but that cow was out of the barn before she could shut the door.

  “A murder like this can’t be solved in one day,” she said. “Oh, then again, it seems to me he has a suspect in custody already.”

  “Summer did not do this,” Blair snapped. “She loved Bruce. She had no reason to harm him.”

  “Well, someone did,” Maggie said. “Who had a beef with him? His last wife? A mistress? A surly relative?”

  “No!” Blair stomped her foot. “Bruce didn’t have a wife before me, and definitely not a mistress. Why would he need one when he had me? And he had no family other than me and Summer.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes, I am,” Blair insisted. “You’re just a nasty, vile person trying to make me doubt my beloved Bruce.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “Really? Think about it, Blair. How well did you know him? You were only married for two years. He was in his sixties. He clearly had a long life before you. What makes you think you know everything about him?”

  “I just do,” she seethed. “Bruce and I didn’t have secrets. We had a love someone like you could never understand.”

  “Actually,” a voice interrupted, “Maggie’s right. Your husband was married before—to a woman named Sela.”

  Maggie and Blair both turned toward the door. Sam stood there, looking none too happy.

  “That’s a lie!” Blair said. “You’re obviously listening to her vicious gossip instead of doing your job.”

  Sam pushed his hat back on his head and studied Blair. “Mrs. Cassidy, I understand that you’re upset, but I can assure you the information I have comes directly from a standard law enforcement background search on your husband.”

  “But that’s impossible,” she said. Her face went visibly pale and Maggie wondered if she was going to faint again. Sam must have thought so, too, because he moved forward so he could be in range if she toppled.

  “I’m sorry. I know it must be a shock,” Sam said.

  “But he told me he had never been married before. You have to be wrong. You have to be!”

  “Come into my office, Mrs. Cassidy . . . er . . . Blair, and we can talk about it,” Sam said. His tone was gentle, and Maggie felt such admiration for his compassion.

  Blair nodded and Sam opened the half door for her that led into the back.

  “My office is the first door on the right,” he said. “Can I get you water or coffee?”

  “Green tea with honey and just a dash of lemon would be lovely,” she said.

  “Yeah, water or coffee is pretty much what we run on here,” Sam said.

  “Oh.” She looked so distraught that Maggie almost offered to go out and get her tea. “Water will be fine.”

  “I’ll be right in,” Sam said. He watched until she disappeared into his office. Then he turned on Maggie. She was pretty sure the look in his eyes was not “hey, I’m glad to see you” but more “oh, man, are you gonna get it.”

  “Wow, would you look at the time,” Maggie said, gesturing at the clock on the wall. “I just popped in to say hi so, uh, hi, and I’d really better get back to the sh
op. See ya! Call me!”

  She was almost home free, and she would have made it, too, if Dot and Claire hadn’t appeared right at that exact moment.

  “Maggie, wait up,” Claire said. Then she noticed Sam standing there looking like a thunderhead about to rumble. “Oh, hi, Sam.”

  “Hey, boss, what’s cooking?” Dot asked.

  “My temper,” he said.

  “Oh, that can’t be good,” Dot said.

  “Deputy Wilson, do me a favor and bring Mrs. Cassidy, who is in my office, a bottle of water?”

  Dot glanced at the three of them. “On it. And I will get an explanation later.”

  She said it as a statement and not a question before she walked back the way she’d come to go to the break room.

  “Sit!” Sam barked, pointing to the hard wooden bench by the window.

  Both Maggie and Claire sat on the bench. Maggie was studying Sam’s face to see how much trouble they were in when Claire elbowed her and bent her head forward, whispering, “Go for repentance.”

  Maggie mimicked her friend’s posture, bowing her head in shame. After a moment, Maggie glanced up to see if it was working. Judging by the tic in Sam’s right eye, she was guessing no.

  “What were you two thinking?” he asked. His voice was calm, which in many ways was more alarming than if he’d been yelling at them.

  Claire looked at Maggie, and Maggie knew she was silently asking how much she should say. Before she and Sam were together, Maggie would have gone with radio silence on what they’d found out about Bruce, but since she and Sam were now a couple, she really had no option but full disclosure.

  “Go ahead and tell him what you told me,” she said.

  Claire’s eyes went round behind her rectangular black frames. “Really?”

  Maggie nodded. Then she braced herself for Sam’s reaction, which she knew was not going to be pleasant.

  Claire cleared her throat and told Sam what she’d discovered about Bruce Cassidy being married before but finding no record of a divorce or death for Sela Cassidy.

  Sam paced while she talked, and when she wound down, he stopped in front of them. He craned his head back as if searching the ceiling for patience. Maggie followed the line of his gaze, but unless the old pop-in tiles offered something of which she was unaware, there was no patience to be had overhead.

  “This is all information that I uncovered using proper police protocol,” he said. There was heavy emphasis on the word proper.

  “So you already knew Bruce was married before to a woman named Sela?” Claire asked.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “And that there was no record of a divorce or death for Sela Cassidy.”

  Claire nudged Maggie with her elbow again. “Wow, he really is good.”

  “However, I was hoping to interview Blair myself about her husband’s past,” he said. He frowned at Maggie, who squirmed in her seat.

  “Sorry,” she said. “She just made me so mad—”

  “That excuse doesn’t work, Maggie,” Sam said.

  “It’s not an excuse,” Maggie protested. If he thought she was going to stand there and listen to someone criticize him, he was seriously mistaken.

  “Being chewed out comes with the job,” he said. “It’s not personal.”

  “It was personal to me,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry, but I am not going to tolerate her insulting you like—”

  “You have to,” Sam cut her off. “It’s going to happen, especially in cases like this, where a family has been ripped apart.”

  Maggie knew he was right, but she hated to admit it.

  “Now we have a bigger issue here,” Sam said. He gave her a dark look. “You promised me, just a few hours ago, no less, that you would steer clear of this investigation.”

  “Oh, but it wasn’t Maggie’s fault,” Claire said. “She didn’t ask me to do any searching. I did it all on my own, and when I told her about it, she insisted that I come here and tell you.”

  “And when I wasn’t here, you just decided to go and visit Summer and fish around about what she knew, is that right?” Sam asked.

  “Originally, yes,” Claire said. Her cheeks blushed a faint pink with the acknowledgment. “But when I was back there, well, I just couldn’t bring myself to ask her about Bruce. She still seems so traumatized.”

  “Which is why you never should have approached her,” Sam said. He turned to Maggie. “And you should have shut Claire down immediately, not come here with her. But did you? No.”

  “Sam, I’m—” Maggie started, but he interrupted her.

  “No, I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “I’m trying to keep you safe and you’re doing your level best to put yourself in harm’s way.”

  “I’m not,” Maggie protested. She felt the icky, sticky twist of guilt in her gut. She should have handled this differently. She knew that now.

  “Look, I have to get back to Mrs. Cassidy,” Sam said. “I think you two should leave.”

  To Maggie, it felt as if Sam had slammed a door in between them, and she couldn’t blame him. She had handled everything wrong. Tyler, Ginger, Claire, all of them. She had promised to butt out, and then she hadn’t.

  Sam had every reason to be furious with her. When she glanced at him, she didn’t see anger, however. She saw cold, implacable resignation, and that scared her far more than any anger he might have shown. She feared this signaled the beginning of the end for her and Sam.

  Chapter 16

  “Oh, Maggie, I’m so sorry,” Claire said as they left the building. “You tried to tell me that you were staying out of it and I completely ignored you and now Sam is mad at you. Gah, I’m a horrible friend.”

  “No, you’re not,” Maggie said. “Yes, we probably shouldn’t have gone to the jail and no, I really shouldn’t have said anything to Blair, but Sam keeps forgetting that this is a small town. People talk. People care about what happens to their fellow residents. He’s just going to have to embrace this way of life.”

  “You sound very pragmatic,” Claire said. “But I think that’s easier said than done. I mean, he was in Richmond for a long time.”

  “I know,” Maggie said. “Good thing he has me here to help him adjust.”

  “So you’re not upset with me?” Claire asked. She paused as they reached the end of the walkway. She had to go back to the library in the opposite direction than Maggie would take to go back to her shop.

  “No way,” Maggie said. “You’re a Good Buy Girl. I could never be irritated with you unless you scooped me on an amazing sale. Besides, this situation is not your fault. I should have stayed in the shop and had you call Sam and tell him what you found out.”

  “True, but then I wouldn’t have gotten this extensive book order from Summer,” Claire said. She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and glanced at it. “After all my years of being a librarian, people still surprise me with their individual reading tastes.”

  “Why, what did she ask for?” Maggie asked.

  “Not what you’d guess,” Claire said.

  “No glossy magazines or steamy romance novels?” Maggie asked.

  “No. In fact, she wants cookbooks,” Claire said.

  “Summer cooks?” Maggie asked.

  “Apparently, very well,” Claire said. “Her preference is for French cookbooks, but she’ll take anything gourmet. She says reading recipes relaxes her.”

  “Okay, yeah, I totally didn’t see that coming,” Maggie said.

  “Call me later,” Claire said. “Tell me how things shake out with Sam and, if you get the chance, please apologize to him for me again.”

  “Will do,” Maggie said. She gave Claire, who was not a hugger, a quick squeeze before they set off in different directions.

  As she stepped around a few icy patches left over from last night’s bitter temperatures, she wondered wh
at she was going to do about Sam. She hoped that once he calmed down, he’d see reason, but she had to admit she didn’t really picture it going that way. The big city and a small town were worlds apart, and she and Sam were just going to have to navigate the differences together.

  Maggie spent the rest of the day in the shop, trying not to think about Bruce Cassidy’s murder, the fact that he had been married before and Blair hadn’t known, and that Sam was miffed at her.

  Thankfully, she had a flurry of customers who kept her occupied. In the best deal of the day, she sold the two armchairs in the shoe section to a young woman who was furnishing her first apartment. The young woman was a good haggler, but Maggie threw in a lamp and was able to keep the original price.

  She was just prepping the shop for closing when her phone chimed. She hoped it was Sam and that their dinner was still on, since it would give them a chance to talk things over. Instead, it was a text from Michael. It declared in all capital letters that Joanne was in labor and they were on their way to the hospital.

  Maggie quickly texted Sam that she was going to meet them and would keep him posted, then she dashed out the door. She wondered if Joanne’s water had broken or if she was dilated at all.

  Her phone kept chirping with texts and she figured it was Ginger and Claire checking in. At the stoplight, she paused to check. Yes, they were on their way. She noted there was nothing from Sam. She hoped this did not mean that he was still annoyed with her.

  Maggie parked in the visitor’s lot and hurried to the maternity ward. Joanne was already in a room, so she took a seat and waited. She picked up a magazine, but then her attention kept straying to the double doors, where Joanne was, and to her phone, which still had not shown a text from Sam.

  It was okay, she reassured herself. He was working a murder case. He was probably tracking down a hot lead and was too busy to text her back right now. This was life with a police officer, and she just had to be patient.

  The need to be in motion had her up and moving, and before it was even a conscious thought, she was walking to the front doors of the hospital to wait for Ginger and Claire in the lobby.