Unlucky Charms

by Linda O. Johnston

  We’d also had some money taken, but not a huge amount. Even so, he was right. That could have been the real motive for what had been done to our stores.

  We talked a little more, speculating mostly about motive rather than who might have done it.

  But I couldn’t talk long. From where I sat, I could see the door to the coffee shop, and so I could also see when Flora came through it and approached us, wending her way among the patio tables.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave,” I told the others. “You can go ahead and continue brainstorming. Jeri can catch me up later if there’s anything I need to know.” Then, with a sigh, I stood, and so did Pluckie. “Hi, Flora,” I said resignedly. I didn’t want her to bother the others, so I picked up my mocha. “I was just about to leave.”

  “Great,” she said. “Hi, Brad. Hi to all of you.” She smiled at the Mardeers even as Brad glanced at her, gave an unconvincing smile, and mumbled his own hello. Had they met before? Were the Nereidas looking for a new home?

  Or was Flora hoping they were, as she was with me?

  I tried to use the opportunity to slip away, but Flora remained at my side.

  “I was just talking to Brie about some ideas for residences for Gemma and you,” she said. “I’ll walk you back to the Lucky Dog and we can talk about them.”

  She didn’t give up. Nor did she listen to my repeated admonishments that we weren’t in a hurry.

  She was, however, in a hurry to scoop us in and try to make a sale, or at least a rental.

  Lucky me.

  The walk to my shop was quick, and I turned to face her at the door. Pluckie took the opportunity to squat on the sidewalk, waiting for me.

  “I’ll be in touch when things slow down enough for me to start really thinking about finding a place,” I told Flora.

  Or not. I’d actually been okay with the idea last night, but I didn’t like being nagged about it. And now, given a choice, I wouldn’t want this pushy woman to get some kind of commission based on her unwanted aggressiveness.

  “I’d like to come in now and look around your shop some more,” she said.

  “Do you have a pet?” I asked. Maybe I could sell her something, then make her go away.

  A strange look came over her too-made-up face, almost causing it to pale beneath the blusher on her cheeks. “I used to,” she said softly. “Not now.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I assumed whoever her pet had been, he or she had crossed the Rainbow Bridge—a euphemism for a beloved pet dying and going to pet heaven.

  “Me too. Anyway, maybe another time. I like your store, but I just remembered I need to check with Brie about another client.”

  She pivoted, which was probably difficult to do considering the height of her stiletto heels, and walked off.

  Which made me glad, yet sorry I’d brought on pain. I hated to do that to anyone.

  Even to someone who was starting to drive me nuts.

  Nine

  Martha’s kitchen table was small, but it was large enough for four of us.

  It wouldn’t have fit five easily, so I’d allowed that to be the sort-of excuse I gave to Justin about why I couldn’t see him that evening. As I often did, I requested a rain check. He’d granted it immediately, and I’d almost regretted not inviting him along.

  Almost. If he’d been here, I suspected that whatever Arlen wanted to talk about would have turned into a benign superstition discussion—and I’d be driven crazy wondering what he really believed to be so important that he thought we needed to get together in private to discuss it.

  Not quite private. He and Martha considered me part of their family now, and I appreciated it. I also appreciated that they’d brought Gemma into the fold as well.

  Right now, we were just starting dinner. I’d offered to bring in pizza or even something more formal, but Martha had insisted on cooking. Which was a good sign. Even though she hadn’t been well when I’d first met her, now, despite her age, she was going strong. But she hadn’t yet booted me out as manager of her store, and I was glad about that. I hoped she never would. Sure, I’d considered trying to buy it from her, and I still had that plan, but I probably wouldn’t act on it, not as long as she was able to participate in the shop’s management.

  Tonight, Martha had made mac and cheese—delicious! I wasn’t sure which cheeses she had used, but there were several, and she’d also added bacon, with a slightly crispy coating of bread crumbs on the top.

  Apparently Arlen had helped her with the side salad, at least. Everything was great.

  Even the company. Especially the company.

  But we hadn’t yet started discussing the main reason for getting together this evening.

  Martha was wearing a pretty lavender housedress. She seemed alert as she finally joined us at the table, looking first at Arlen, her hazel eyes intensely peering from her wizened face. “So spill it, nephew. Why did you want us to get together tonight?”

  As always, Arlen looked good, even as he raised his brows at his aunt, his mouth puckering into an expression of wryness. “You aren’t going to like it.” But he said this not to Martha, but to me as he turned his head. “You neither.” This time, his gaze was on Gemma.

  My dear friend shrugged her shoulders as she took another bite of mac and cheese, then looked at Martha. “Even if I don’t like what Arlen has to say, this makes it worth my coming here.” She smiled.

  Gemma was still dressed in some of the librarian-like garb she wore while managing the Broken Mirror Bookstore, making her the most formal-looking person at the table. Arlen wore a red Destiny’s Luckiest Tours shirt, and I still had on a gray Lucky Dog Boutique T-shirt.

  “Why aren’t we going to like it?” I demanded lightly.

  “It’s about superstitions.” He looked at me from beneath furrowed brows, as if he anticipated I’d berate him for that.

  How could I, here in Destiny?

  “Why am I not surprised?” Gemma asked, covering her mouth as if she was yawning.

  “And … well, it’s speculation. But first I want you two to know that I’m aware of what happened in the shop last night.”

  I looked toward Martha, whose gaze was now pointed innocently toward the ceiling.

  “I won’t guess about how you learned,” I said dryly, “but let’s all knock on wood that the discussion, and this one, will not bring any of us bad luck.”

  We all knocked. Did I really believe it provided any protection?

  Heck if I knew.

  “Okay, then,” Arlen said. “I’ve heard rumors in town and on tours today that the break-in at the Lucky Dog wasn’t the only one recently. And the other reason I think you two aren’t going to like what I have to say is that I know you’re looking for a place to live other than the Rainbow B&B. Am I right?”

  “Possibly,” Gemma said. She took a bite of salad without removing her gaze from Arlen. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because Flora Curtival is your real estate agent, right?”

  “She wants to be,” I acknowledged. “Why does that make a difference?”

  “Because … well, I know it sounds odd, but I think she’s the one responsible for all the break-ins.”

  Dinner was over now. Martha, Gemma, and I sat on Martha’s fluffy yellow sofa facing Arlen, who occupied the chair across from us. Pluckie sat beside me on the floor.

  “So, are you going to tell our estimable police chief about my suspicions?” Arlen asked me.

  “Of course,” I said. “Even if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Plus, I suspect the police force can use all the possible angles they can find.”

  “Particularly in a town like Destiny,” Gemma broke in, “where what you’ve suggested might actually be true.”

  I took a sip of the after-dinner drink Martha had poured for us, a
little bit of sweet wine with a dab of whipped cream on top. I resisted chugging it. It tasted good—and my mind needed a bit of cleansing.

  What Arlen had related was that he had met Flora maybe a year ago. She’d come to town with her husband, and they had gone on several tours with Arlen.

  “I know I’m not the only one around here who talked to them on that visit,” Arlen had said while gazing over Gemma’s head and munching on mac and cheese. “They were around for maybe a week. Flora seemed to be all over her man, hanging on to him on the tour bus, clutching at his arm at each place we stopped. I might not have noticed, since we get all kinds of people on the tour, but there was one night when she came back alone to the tour office when everyone else was gone. I’d taken a late tour out and was just taking care of the administrative stuff afterward, and she burst in the front door.”

  I’d been to the Destiny’s Luckiest Tours office shortly after I’d come to town, before heading off on a bus tour with Arlen. It wasn’t one of the area’s most exotic buildings, being low and concrete and outside the middle of town where everything looked like it was built during the old Gold Rush days.

  But someone coming in after hours didn’t seem especially memorable to me—until Arlen continued.

  “She threw herself into my arms and started sobbing. She said she’d dragged her husband here to Destiny since they were destined to stay together. They had to be. He’d talked about leaving her before they came, and now they were going home tomorrow—and she still thought their marriage was doomed. But what could Destiny do about it overnight? What could I do about it right then?” Arlen had shaken his head. “I smelled alcohol on her breath, so I figured she’d been out drinking to try to ease her pain. And I kind of half expected it when she started tearing at my clothes.”

  “You’re kidding!” I interjected.

  “Nope,” he said. He related how he’d gently pushed her away—which apparently had only added to how upset she was. “She promised revenge on Destiny for not changing her luck. That was the last time I saw her—until she showed up at a Destiny Welcome a few weeks ago. I stayed away from her, but she probably saw me anyway.” Looking around the table, from me to Martha to Gemma, Arlen continued, “I know it’s pretty weird for me to think this, but is she getting her revenge on Destiny by robbing its shops and planting bad luck stuff in the places she hits?”

  I’d pondered his revelation and speculation throughout the rest of dinner—not surprising, since we kept talking about it. And now that I was drinking, too—albeit not the quantity I surmised Flora must have imbibed back then—I let my mind wander about superstitions and why Flora might have thought they could help her in her relationship, and whether there were any superstitions connected with how to exact revenge.

  Or she could have made up her own superstitions about revenge, which was more likely. Or maybe she was simply removing or ruining good luck stuff and replacing it with bad luck stuff as the best way to get back at Destiny’s inhabitants, even those who’d had nothing to do with her prior trip here and its apparent failure to ensure the result she wanted.

  So now I said, “The possibility of Flora being responsible for all this makes more sense than a lot of other potential reasons for what’s been going on here, Arlen. I’ll definitely let Justin know about it.”

  I’d also ponder what other ways there might be to determine the truth of what Arlen had said.

  Maybe even asking Flora about it.

  It was nearly nine o’clock by the time Gemma, Pluckie, and I departed from Martha’s and the Lucky Dog downstairs.

  Arlen remained in his aunt’s apartment after we left, as a good nephew should—assuming he was just keeping her company and taking care of her and not asking for money or something like that. But I’d never gotten that impression about Arlen. He’d moved here to Destiny after his aunt did. He had a job that he seemed to enjoy: taking tourists all around the area and showing them the fun stuff about our town and its superstitions.

  Our town? Again I recognized that I’d begun thinking of Destiny as my town. Which was why, whether Arlen was right or not, I really wanted to figure out who was trashing our stores—including mine—and trying to change our good luck to bad.

  If it was Flora? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to get my real estate business, but she would get something from me. Revenge of the arrest kind, at least—if I could do anything at all to help collect the evidence that Justin and his crew would need.

  “Why are you so quiet?” Gemma asked as we turned the corner onto Fate Street.

  The November night was cool but dry, and we’d both donned jackets before setting out onto Destiny’s sidewalks, now nearly tourist-free in the downtown retail area.

  “I’ll bet you can guess,” I answered wryly. For one thing, Gemma knew me well. We’d been friends for a long time in LA before moving here. For another thing, after the discussion we’d had with Arlen, she could have undoubtedly figured out my thoughts even if we’d been strangers.

  In short, we now had a potential suspect for all the nasty stuff that had been happening in town—including at the Lucky Dog.

  And that suspect wanted something from us. Something that she believed would result in a commission.

  “I’m going to play Justin here,” Gemma said. She stopped walking, drew herself up a little taller, and appeared to attempt to broaden her shoulders—a not-very-good imitation of Justin, if that was what she was doing. I laughed as she said in a deeper voice, “Don’t do anything foolish, Rory. Tell me what you know, then let me do the investigation. Got it?”

  “I hear you, Justin,” I said, batting my eyelashes so Gemma could see them under the nearest Destiny streetlight. Then Pluckie and I continued walking.

  “You hear him a lot,” Gemma huffed, catching up to us. “But do you obey him?”

  “What do you think? And do you think I’d have been able to figure out the murder you were all but accused of committing if I’d gone all girly and done everything the police chief said?”

  A few cars passed by, and one pulled into the B&B’s parking lot just as we arrived there. I didn’t recognize the two couples who started to pile out—tourists, I supposed.

  “You’re right, Rory.” Gemma stopped outside the B&B’s door, letting the newcomers file in ahead of us. “Let me know what he has to say about your new suspicions.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I think I’ll go ahead and call him tonight.”

  After our walk, Pluckie didn’t need another outing, so we went upstairs with Gemma. I didn’t see the tourists, so they must have hurried up to their rooms.

  “Good night,” I called to my friend, whose room was farther down the second floor hallway than mine was.

  “Good night. Will you be joining me for breakfast?” she asked.

  That was our usual arrangement, so I said, “Sure.”

  “Good. Oh, and by the way, Stuart is supposed to arrive in town tomorrow for a short stay.” Gemma’s smile looked casual, but I knew better. She had gone through a breakup with her former boyfriend a few months ago, and a couple of other men had stepped in, vying for her attention. Stuart Chanick had seemed like the winner—even though, when Gemma had followed a superstition by eating an apple and looking into a mirror to see the face of her true love, she hadn’t seen Stuart. She didn’t recognize who she’d seen, actually. Still, she and Stuart remained in touch. Close touch, I’d gathered.

  Plus, Stuart had made an offer to buy the Broken Mirror Bookstore. As far as I knew, that was still pending.

  As the editor of The Destiny of Superstitions, Stuart had been the one who’d helped Gemma get started as the new manager of the Broken Mirror. His publishing house was located in New York, but he did manage to come to town every few weeks, ostensibly to ensure that the company’s bestselling book remained that way. But I knew he also came to see Gemma.

  “Great,” I sa
id. “Will you be talking to him tonight, too?”

  “Yes, to make some plans.” She paused. “We can compare notes tomorrow if you’d like.”

  Our conversations with Justin and Stuart, respectively, were likely to be very different. “We’ll see,” I equivocated. Then I found my old-fashioned key, appropriate at this place that imitated Gold Rush days, and Pluckie and I entered our room.

  Ten

  I decided to call Justin right away rather than get ready for bed first—which is what I often did when we spoke late at night, especially when we hadn’t spent the evening together.

  Not that it replaced a real evening or night with Justin. And, yes, we were now engaging in close-up fun on some of those occasions.

  But sex with the good-looking guy I was seeing wasn’t on my mind that night. Well, it took second place to what else I was thinking about.

  I sat down on the edge of my bed, beneath the canopy and on top of the coverlet, and pulled my phone from my pocket. Pluckie must have understood phones to some extent, since she lay down on the floor, cradling her muzzle in her paws. I pressed in Justin’s number, not trying to suppress the smile I felt at the thought of talking to him.

  “Hi, Rory,” he said almost immediately. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “Are you in bed?” I asked spontaneously, then basked in his deep laughter.

  “Not yet, but I can still think of getting you there again one of these days.”

  I laughed, too. Then I grew serious. “I know full well that it’s supposed to be bad luck to talk about—”

  “About the stuff we’ve been sort of talking about,” he finished. “And I know it hasn’t stopped you from discussing it before. So—what do you want to say about it?”

  Taking a deep breath, I related what Arlen had told us.

  When I was done, there was silence at the other end of the phone.