“I wasn’t thinking straight. Otey, uh, Will, he wanted to take me to the hospital. By the time we got down to Main, I felt okay, so I talked him out of it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “So let’s say I believe you were attacked. I still don’t buy your explanation for why you were out at Skillet Road. You want to know what I think? I think you and Mr. Dickerson were out at Skillet Road to do a drug deal. You know why I think that? Because Skillet Road is isolated. It’s where about half the drug deals in this town happen.”
I guess I’d been hanging around Tim too long, because I guppied my mouth a couple of times. Then, I lost it. I laughed and laughed so hard that I couldn’t breathe. The detective looked super annoyed, but I just couldn’t stop. He finally got up and went out of the office, then came back with a paper cup full of water. By then, I’d sort of gotten myself under control. He handed me the water, then passed me a box of tissues.
“No. Not drugs.” I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue and blew my nose. “Sir, please promise me you won’t tell Tim, uh, Officer Unser, what I’m about to tell you. I want to surprise him. See, the thing is, Otey, uh, Will, he’s helping me to train. I was out at Skillet Road running intervals. I’m going to run in the Turkey Trot race Thanksgiving. Tim doesn’t know. He thinks I hate running. Well, all exercise, actually, but I don’t. Hate it that is. Not any more. I mean I don’t really love it....”
I realized I was babbling and stopped myself from going on and on about my love-hate relationship with exercise. “Well, anyway, I’d really appreciate it if you don’t tell him.”
“You’re getting into running? That’s great.” The detective’s demeanor was definitely looser and much, much friendlier. “I’m a marathoner. Love it. Trust me, you start racing, you’ll be wanting to do it all the time. I’m trying to qualify for Boston.”
I’ll admit it, I was completely confused. Happy though. “That’s, uh, that’s really great. So, uhm, I uh, I really need to get to work. Is it okay if I leave now?”
Winger was positively beaming at me. “Absolutely. I’ll send a couple of guys out there to Skillet Road to look for evidence, then tell them to run over to the Bottom and have a chat with Mr. Dickerson.” He handed me another one of his cards. I was amassing quite a collection of them. “If you think of anything else, or if you see or hear anything, call me. Next time, do it right away.”
Clearly, being a runner somehow gave me credibility that I hadn’t had before. I’d have to remember that. “Thank you sir.”
I got up to go, but remembered I still hadn’t told him about Vivi’s vaping. “There is one other thing. I actually left you a message the other day about it. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened right before Vivi, uh, right before she died, and, well, I remember that she took a hit off of her Vape pen and then she drank the coconut water. I just wanted you to know.”
“Thank’s for the information. We figured as much. Her vaping liquid and her pen both tested positive for cyanide. As did the coconut water.”
“Did y’all find out who sent the basket?” I asked.
He came around the desk and shook my hand. “Sorry, but I can’t comment on that.”
“Oh, uh, okay. Well, good luck. If you have any more questions for me, give me a call. I’ll be over at the gift shop working today and tomorrow. Until six. And, uh, remember, please don’t tell Tim about the running.”
He patted my shoulder and sort of ushered me to the door of his tiny office. “Absolutely. You have my word. Oh, and Miss Sheffield, please be careful. Stay aware of what’s going on around you. Contact us if you notice anyone following you. Thanks for coming in. Good luck in your race. You’re going to just love it. You’ll be running marathons before you know it.”
Well, that wasn’t going to be happening, but I didn’t want to get the Detective mad at me, so I kept quiet. I liked how I felt after I finished running, but I didn’t particularly love it. Still, I was glad that I’d told the detective about the training since he evidently believed me now. I couldn’t wait to tell Otey.
Heck, if being into running made that much of a difference, maybe I should put it on my resume before I started sending them out. In fact, maybe I’d just take out an ad on the radio, letting the people of Glenvar know I was now a runner, and, as such, was no longer untrustworthy. Then I’d talk Herb into doing another survey and I’d get my job back. Heck, they’d probably like me so much that I’d get a raise making double what I’d been making.
I was enjoying my little fantasy so much that I didn’t notice until too late that Giselle was headed into the police station, busily texting away, not watching where she was going. She smacked right into me, dropped her phone, and nearly fell off of her four-inch stilettos.
“Watch where you’re going, you imbecile!” she yelled.
That, by the way, was before she even looked up and saw that it was me she’d bumped into. Once she did, she went ballistic. “You! You did that on purpose, Marty Sheffield. I’m a good mind to...”
“To what?” I said. “What are you going to do, Giselle? Punch me? Tackle me? Throw one of your fancy kick boxing moves on me? Go ahead. I’m sure your boyfriend will be thrilled to see you involved in another fight.”
She said a couple of extremely filthy curse words. “You better watch yourself, Marty. Don’t forget, I know things about you. All I have to do is tell Jason a couple of them, and he’ll probably throw you right in jail. Everybody in town’s talking about how you keep getting involved in murders. Maybe they’re right. Maybe you’re actually guilty.”
I knew it was definitely not what Mom would do, but I cursed back, calling her a name that I’d never said before, not even once, in my entire life.
“Martina Gayle Sheffield!” My mom, with her impeccable timing for showing up pretty much every time I do even the least little thing that’s unladylike or embarrassing, walked up to Giselle and me just then.
She shook her finger at me. “I am stunned that you would use that sort of language. Particularly that word. And in public no less! You apologize to Giselle this instant. No matter what sort of language she might have used first, you, of course, were raised better.”
Leave it to my mom to not only scold me, but to also throw some serious shade right at Giselle.
Giselle screwed up her face. “Takes one to know one. Like mother, like daughter.”
I couldn’t help myself. Family honor and all that crap. “You’re right, Mom. I do know better. Unlike some people. Giselle, I’m sorry I called you a --.” Yes, I did say the word again.
And yes, after Giselle stalked off into the police station, Mom did give me a bunch more grief, telling me that if I didn’t get my act together, I was going to turn out like my dad’s third cousin once removed, Devlin, who’d lost three toes in an unfortunate porn movie debacle that I still didn’t know the details about despite many a late night Internet search.
“Besides, Martina,” Mom said, wrapping up her diatribe, “Even if you’ve got a bone to pick when you’re speaking of the devil, you know a picture paints a thousand words.”
Oddly enough, her crazy, mixed-bag of an idiom actually made sense and hit the nail on the head when it came to Giselle and what I’d called her.
“Exactly, Mom,” I said. “As always, you’re exactly right.”
19
My interview with Detective Winger had sparked my curiosity. He wouldn’t tell me who had sent the basket, but there was no reason I couldn’t do a little investigating on my own. After I left Mom, who, mercifully had been so mad about my language that she didn’t even think to ask about the big goose egg on my head, I walked down the block to Tina’s Ye Olde Floristry to see what I could find out. I pulled the card out of it’s hiding place down in the bottom of my tote bag and handed it to the older gentleman working the front counter.
“This was delivered to me at WRRR on Tuesday. You wouldn’t happen to remember who ordered it, would you?”
He pulled a pair of reading glasses
from the front pocket on his shirt and took his sweet time cleaning them and adjusting them on his face. Once he was satisfied that they were sitting just right on his nose, he took the card and studied it. He turned it over and studied the other side, then handed the card back to me. “It’s not ours.”
Clearly he was senile. “Of course it’s yours.” I pointed to the logo at the top of the card. “See. It says Tina’s Ye Olde Floristry right there.”
“Young lady, I don’t appreciate your condescending attitude. Of course I see it. I’m not blind you know.”
“Look, I’m not trying to be condescending. But, of course it’s your card. It has your logo on it. Are you saying that there’s another shop called Tina’s Ye Olde Floristry around?”
“That’s not at all what I’m saying. Let me tell you, missy, you are barking up the wrong tree if you think you’re going to come in here acting all high and mighty with me.” He took his glasses off and shook them at me. “Who did you say you were again?”
I took a deep breath and tried the “what would Mom do” thing. I pitched my voice a little lower and vainly attempted to sound sweet and kind and thoughtful.
“Sir, please, with all due respect, I am not trying to cause problems. I’m Marty. One of the people whose name is on the card. I’m just trying to find out who ordered the basket so I can, uh, so I can thank them properly. I would really, really, really appreciate any help you might be able to give me.”
He didn’t seem to buy into it all the way, but he was a little less hostile. “Like I said, it’s a forgery. Here look at the card. It’s cheap card stock. Ours are printed on high quality paper and have a glossy finish.”
He plucked a card out of a neatly labeled box and handed it to me. “See. Look on the other side. The one you got, it’s missing the name of the printer. Ours has the printer name on it, right there in tiny letters at the bottom. We only use the best quality stuff.”
He was right, of course. I thanked him and left, even more puzzled than I’d been before. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble, I guess to make the delivery seem legit. Who, though?
I thought about it while I walked back over toward Charli’s gift shop and finally resigned myself to the fact that if I wanted to find out anything else, I was going to have to visit the radio station, even though it was the last place I wanted to go. At least I had a good excuse for showing my face there. I still had to sign my termination papers.
Since it was already past noon, I stopped by the coffee shop and grabbed a latte before I went over to open the shop. I still hadn’t found my keys. May Lynda had texted me to let me know they weren’t at her house. She’d also checked around her grandmother’s front yard and still no luck. I was a little concerned, but not particularly worried. They were on a plain key ring, separate from my car and apartment keys, and weren’t labeled. Unless I’d left them in the door to the shop, no one would really know that’s what they opened.
I sipped my latte and strolled across the street and around to the back of the shop. The weather was definitely taking a turn again. The wind had picked up, the temperature had dropped, and the sky was gray and gloomy. I pulled my jacket hood up and shivered, wondering if we were going to get an early snow, maybe even a white Thanksgiving.
When I swung around the corner at the end of the block, to my surprise, Tim was sitting on the loading dock steps. He wore jeans and my favorite sweater, the ones that bring out the blue in his eyes.
“Hey, sweetie. What are you doing here? I thought you were going to come over about two.”
I gave him a kiss, but he didn’t kiss back. In fact, he pulled away.
“What is wrong with you, Marty?” he said. He wasn’t yelling, but he might as well have been. “You didn’t think to tell me someone tried to kill you out on Skillet Road? Were you planning on keeping it a secret from me?”
Oh crap. “I was going to tell you. I swear. I just didn’t want to do it over the phone and I was already late opening the shop and I figured I’d better tell Winger first. You know. In case he wanted me to keep it quiet or something.”
He stood up and jammed his hands in his coat pockets. “Marty, I’m a cop. I’m also your boyfriend. That’s not something you should keep from me.”
“How’d you find out anyway? Did Winger call you?”
“No, Marty. Otey told me. He called to see if you were okay because he couldn’t reach you. He wanted to make sure you weren’t dead on the floor or something.” Tim’s face was beet red and he was about as angry as I’ve ever seen him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before now. But really, Tim, you’re overreacting. I’m perfectly fine.”
In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have said he was overreacting. If he’d been mad before, he was livid when I said that.
“Overreacting? You think I’m overreacting?” Now he was yelling. “You really don’t get it, do you? You could have been killed. What were you even doing out on Skillet Road anyway? You said you had some errands to run and that you were going to work. Then, come to find out, you didn’t even bother to call in the attack. You should know better. You’d have called it in when it happened, they might could have found the person that did it right away. Now, it’s probably too late.”
I leaned down, resting my forehead on the metal stair railing so he couldn’t see the tears forming in my eyes. “Go away, Tim. I don’t want to talk to you right now. Not if you’re going to yell at me. Yes, I probably should have made a police report right then. I should have come over and told you about it. I should have done a lot of things in my life.”
I turned around and faced him. “But if we are going to be together, if we’re going to have a future, you have got to stop treating me like I’m some dumb kid. You’ve just got to, Tim.”
He did his guppy impression. I wasn’t the only one fighting back tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Look, I love you. I worry about you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Ever. I can’t bear the thought of losing you. I’m sorry if you think I’m treating you like a kid. I don’t mean to.”
“Yes you do. And it’s not just you. Mom and Dad do it too. So does Charli. Y’all all treat me like that.”
I pitched my voice so that it sounded like I was mocking and sneering. “It’s always “Marty do this, Marty do that, Marty you need to get your life together, Marty you need to act like an adult.” Well, I’m sick and tired of it and I’m not going to put up with it any more. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get the shop open.”
I pushed past him and pulled Charli’s keys out of my tote bag.
“Marty, wait. Babe, come on. We need to talk about this.” He grabbed my arm but I shrugged out of his grasp.
“Not now, Tim. You need to leave now before we both say something we really regret. I’ll see you tonight when you get off work. I’ll come over. We’ll talk about it then.” My hands were shaking so much, I could barely get the key in the lock. “Please. Just go. I love you. I just can’t do this now.”
I finally got the door to the shop open and stumbled inside, pushing it closed in his face just as my tears finally caught up with me. I slumped down on the concrete floor of the back room, my back against the door and for the second time that day, cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.
20
Once I finally managed to stop bawling, I decided to try not to let the fight with Tim consume me for the rest of the day, even though I knew it probably would.
I stuck my latte on the desk in the little office that sits between the huge store room and the shop floor and went to unlock the front door and take down the “closed due to family emergency” sign we’d had up for the past couple of days.
I took a minute to admire the gift shop. It’s a lovely old building with exposed brick, tin ceiling, and time-worn oak floors. Charli and I had been working extra hard to get the place more organized. She’d also redone the display windows so that they were not only attractive, but also let in more light.
Once I got all of the opening routine tasks completed and the cash register set up, I popped into the little kitchen in the back to grab something to eat since I’d told Tim to just forget about bringing me lunch.
I was surprised when I opened the cabinet where I keep my snack stash. It was completely empty, even though I was pretty sure I’d replenished it a couple of weeks back. Maybe I was wrong, Maybe it had been longer than that since I’d restocked it. Or, maybe Charli’s kids had been over to the shop with her and had gotten hungry. Bummer. I’d really been looking forward to having some peanut butter crackers and a couple of chocolate chip cookies.
Since I was starving, I called in an order for a pizza delivery and went back to the office to check the on-line orders. Besides the ones Charli had mentioned, there were nine new ones. I printed them off so I could fill them while I waited for my pizza and some customers to show up.
As it turns out, my sister is pretty amazing at running a business. She’d sought out a lot of fabulous locally made items and negotiated exclusives for them.
She was also in the process of expanding the business by opening the wall between our shop and what had been an insurance agency. Her plan was to lease booth space to local artisans who wanted a retail presence, but didn’t want to open their own shops. That part was coming along nicely and was set to be ready to open in time for the holiday season.
I took the orders to the backroom to pull the items from our inventory. I had just finished taping up the boxes and affixing the shipping labels when the bell telling me someone had come in through the front door jingled.
“Be right there,” I called, figuring it was my pizza delivery.
“It’s just me,” Charli called to me. “Jaelyn finally feels better, so Mom’s watching her for a little bit so I can run some errands before the boys get home. I thought I’d swing by and see how you’re doing. Did you get those orders filled? If not, I can do it.”
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