I wondered right away if he intended to buy a Richy the Rabbit for Killer. I’d briefly considered not ordering any more after hearing from Brie about the enlarged rabbit’s foot stuck in Flora’s mouth by her killer. But I loved that design. And it wasn’t Richy’s fault, or mine, that he’d been used in such a terrible way.
Besides, most people didn’t know about that—at least not yet, while the crime was still being investigated.
But Justin knew … I was curious as to whether he’d buy a Richy and, if so, whether he wanted to look more closely at this toy that had appeared to be some kind of symbol in the murder.
As it turned out, though, the toys he bought Killer were ones with holes in the center into which treats could be inserted and removed as a dog played. The ones we carried resembled large rubberized acorns.
After he paid for them, he asked, “Would you and Pluckie like to go for a short walk with us?”
Ah ha. That must be the reason he was here. Was he going to ask me more questions? Give me a hard time again?
And in fact it was a little of both. “So how’s your investigation been going today?” he began as we started walking east on Destiny Boulevard. He carried a plastic bag with the items he’d bought.
I couldn’t help glancing toward the Broken Mirror Bookstore as we passed it, in case Gemma happened to be looking this way. If so, what would her comment be next time we saw each other?
“Me? Investigate?” I tried to make my voice sound completely shocked, and we stopped because Pluckie did. “I’m just living my normal life. How about you? How’s your official investigation been going?”
“Me? Investigate?” he mimicked. But then he added, “Same as last night—still ongoing. I don’t suppose you happen to have picked up any … ideas you’d want to pass along to me?”
“No,” I said. “And before you ask, you can see I’m doing just fine.” I started walking again, and so did Pluckie.
We’d crossed Fate Street, and, in the middle of a crowd of tourists, were facing the 7-Eleven. Continuing down Fate Street would bring us to the Wishbones-to-Go eatery. It was nearing lunchtime, so I decided to pick up some sandwiches—and wishbones—for myself and my fellow Lucky Dog workers.
“Let’s go this way,” I said to Justin.
“Sorry, I can’t. I need to get Killer home and return to the station. But I just wanted … Rory, you know I care about you. And worry.”
He’d made that clear last night, and not for the first time. I went all melty inside. Again.
We were facing one another now, and the expression on his wonderfully handsome face as he looked down at me made me want to reach up and pull his lips to mine. But we couldn’t do that till I was officially cleared as a murder suspect. Still, walking our dogs together must be at least somewhat okay. Kissing, less so.
“Thanks.” My voice came out as a croak. “I care—and worry—about you, too. But please hurry your investigation along and find the real killer fast.” I smiled as Killer looked up, having heard his name as I spoke. “Not you, sweetheart,” I said.
“I’m doing my damnedest to step things up,” Justin said. “And I know you’ll keep doing your own investigating no matter what I say. So, like I said before, stay safe.”
“I will,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.
That walk and conversation made me want to step up my own investigation. When Justin and Killer headed back down Destiny Boulevard in the direction of the police station, leaving Pluckie and me at the corner, we turned and walked along Fate Street toward Wishbones-to-Go.
I was getting hungry, yes. But I also realized there might be something else I could accomplish at the restaurant besides bringing lunch back to the store.
When Pluckie and I first walked in, there was a line at the order counter, as always. Arlen’s bosses were there: Evonne Albing, owner of Destiny’s Luckiest Tours, and the manager, Mike Eberhart. I saw them at this place often. They’d already reached the counter, and I waved hello to them a minute later as they left with bags in their hands.
That was good. I didn’t need to hold a conversation with them.
A few of the others in line in front of me looked familiar, but most didn’t. I believed they all were tourists.
I wouldn’t be able to sit down inside this place with Pluckie, even if I wanted to, but the owners seemed fairly relaxed about people coming in to order with their dogs along, probably because to do otherwise would turn off at least some of the tourist business. If it was against local sanitation laws, whoever enforced those apparently turned a blind eye.
I knew the menu, which was displayed above the counter, fairly well, so I didn’t have to stare at it to figure out what to order today. They always had chicken and turkey sandwiches as well as burgers, and they acquired a lot of turkey wishbones and handed them out with the meals.
Not having my attention distracted was a good thing. I noticed the owner, John O’Rourke, behind the counter talking with one of his staff. I knew who he was, had met him before, and saw him here often, but as was the case with Padraic, we’d hardly spoken over the few months I’d lived in Destiny.
I’d lose my place if I went over to talk to him now, but that was okay. “Excuse me,” I said to the many people already in line behind me as I moved up along the side of the counter. I waited quietly off to the side until John had finished his conversation, then called out, “Hi, John. Have a minute to talk?”
John O’Rourke was on the list of shopowners I wanted Celia to interview, since Carolyn had named Wishbones-to-Go as one of the victims of Flora’s vandalism. I didn’t think Celia had come in here yet, but I figured I might as well take advantage of seeing John now.
At my call, he turned to look at me. He was in his fifties, with hair that appeared thick but had started to gray at the temples. Surprisingly, he hadn’t overindulged in the good food he sold here. Or maybe he’d wished on an abundance of wishbones to stay slender, and it had worked.
Now, he stared at me through his thick glasses, as if assessing who I was and whether he wanted to respond.
“Hi,” I said again, smiling and gesturing with my head sideways, slightly, to indicate that I wanted us to step aside to talk.
Fortunately, he agreed. “Hello, Rory,” he said, proceeding to walk the length of the counter and come around the far end toward me. Pluckie and I joined him there. He looked down at my dog and said, “Let’s go outside.”
“Sure.”
In a minute, we were on the patio at the front of the restaurant. Like the inside, it was furnished with a few small bedraggled tables with uncomfortable chairs. Wishbones-to-Go was designed to be mostly a takeout place, not a full-service restaurant.
John led me to the far outside corner of the building. “How are you, Rory?” His tone suggested he was just being polite and didn’t really care.
“I’ve been better.” I tried to make it sound as if I preferred not to answer. “And you? I mean—well, I understand that your place was broken into and trashed, like the Lucky Dog was.” I glanced tellingly toward the window into Wishbones.
“Yeah, it was.” The lines in his thin face deepened as he frowned down at me through his glasses. “And I heard all about how Flora Curtival chewed out everyone in town at the end of the Destiny Welcome on Friday, saying she’d done all this damage in retaliation for our good luck superstitions not fixing her marriage during her earlier visit with her husband. What an idiotic idea, even for Destiny. But I supposed her anger must have included me, since my place was vandalized.”
I hadn’t noticed John that night at the Welcome, and I gathered from what he was saying now that he hadn’t been there.
Which hadn’t kept him from hearing what had happened, of course, despite it supposedly being bad luck to talk about it. Or maybe after Flora’s outburst, people weren’t worried anymore about talking about it.
Had he worn white when he’d killed Flora and stuffed a Richy the Rabbit’s foot in her mouth? He certainly appeared strong enough to have hit her in the head and then smother her, the way she’d apparently been murdered.
Startled by my own thoughts, I looked up at John again. Of all the people I’d spoken with, he was the first one that my subconscious thoughts had begun to imagine as a possible killer.
Why? His attitude didn’t seem particularly bad. But there was something I couldn’t explain—yet—that dug at me.
I decided right there to make sure Celia not only interviewed him quickly but that she brought Derek along. I suddenly didn’t trust this guy, although I couldn’t say exactly why. I definitely wanted their impressions of him, too.
But of course my impression of him, and theirs, wouldn’t be enough to sic Justin and the police department on his tail. Not without evidence.
“So how did you kill our friend Flora?” John asked, in a voice full of both irony and accusation. “She accused you of setting the cops on her before you got to her, I heard.”
Startled, I felt my head shake as I looked up at him. He believed I was the killer.
Or was he taking that position to protect himself? Maybe that’s what I was sensing.
“Yes, she did,” I responded in a low voice. “And that’s a good reason for me not to have hurt her, since I’d be so obvious a suspect.”
“Well, aren’t you the obvious suspect?” John hurled back at me. “And aren’t you not under arrest because you’re putting out for our police chief?”
I gasped, stepped back, and glared, feeling my right hand clench and release as if it couldn’t decide whether to slap or punch him. Pluckie, standing at my feet, obviously sensed my anger and started to growl.
“Shut that creature up before I kick it out of here,” John said, loudly enough that a couple of people at nearby patio tables glanced at us.
“You will not kick my dog,” I hissed at him. “And you will not get away with murder.” I straightened my shoulders. “You know, I came here to buy lunch for myself and several others, which I still intend to do even though I hate the idea that you’ll derive profit from it. But you are not going to ruin my lunch, no matter how much of a murderous lunatic you are.”
I pivoted away from him, realizing that I was shaking. And he hadn’t even admitted to murder. Far from it. Instead, he’d accused me of it.
Yet his sometimes-restrained, sometimes-belligerent manner? I could see him killing a person that he wanted to retaliate against.
But how on earth would I ever prove it?
I ignored him and everyone else as Pluckie and I reentered the restaurant and I got at the back of the line, still trembling.
That’s when I noticed who was standing right in front of us: Brad Nereida, of the Wish-on-a-Star children’s shop—the other person Celia had interviewed yesterday, who I was supposed to talk to today in order to determine if he was a viable murder suspect.
Heavens. This was a regular Wednesday, but my luck today was very good. One way or another, I was about to engage in my fourth interview, with yet another person on my suspect list.
I saw John pass me on his way back behind the counter. Fortunately for him, he wasn’t near enough for me to trip him.
Instead, I moved around just a little in the line and said to the man in front of me, “Oh, hi, Brad. How are you?”
And what did you tell Celia Vardox? Something that indicates you’re a viable murder suspect?
Twenty-Three
I didn’t ask him that, though. At least not yet.
“Fine,” he said. “And you?”
“Fine, too.” Was Brad’s response as potentially false as mine? Not likely. And really, I was fine. At least for now, while I remained free and not under arrest, although I wished all the suspicions of me were eradicated and the real culprit caught. “Grabbing a little lunch here?” Boy, was my end of this conversation exciting. I wanted it to lead to more, assuming I had the time and felt comfortable that no one was listening in. But I wanted what I said to sound perfectly innocent.
“Yes, for myself and my staff,” Brad said. As usual, he looked and sounded a bit tired.
“Too bad we didn’t contact each other.” I had to raise my voice a little since the crowd here was growing, both in size and noise level. “I’m here to get lunch for my helpers at the Lucky Dog, too. Maybe we could have coordinated things so just one of us had to come out here.”
His face seemed to brighten a little. “That would be a good thing to do in the future. We’re busy at Wish-on-a-Star, and though I’ve left my couple of employees on their own before, it always helps for me to be there with them.”
“I hope they’re doing a great job,” I said, then added, “Are Lorraine and the kids back yet?” If so, he might not need both of those helpers for long, since his wife helped him run the store when his kids were in school. But since he was here, I figured I knew the answer.
“No.” He paused, and his smile looked rather lonely to me. “Her mom is a little worse, so they’re staying in San Diego for a while longer.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Was that why they went now, because her mother’s ill?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
I glanced over his shoulder as another customer picked up his meal. Brad looked around, too, and we were able to move up a little, Pluckie staying right with me.
“Well, I hope your mother-in-law gets well fast,” I said. I searched my mind for how to address the vandalism at his shop while standing here in this crowd of people who might eavesdrop—and came up with nothing except, “Hey, you know, I’ve got some other ideas of things we might be able to do together to help both of our shops.” Like I could let him buy some of the toys I’d designed; a few might work for kids as well as dogs. Or so I’d tell him. “If you don’t mind waiting for a couple of extra minutes after you get your food, let’s walk back together.”
Brad didn’t look exactly thrilled, but I added, “Please? I really think if we retailers here in Destiny combine our ideas and resources, we’d all make a lot more money. And I do have some ideas. Okay?”
“Well, okay.”
I ignored the reluctance in his voice and said, “Great!”
It took only about five minutes till we’d both given our orders and been handed our bags of sandwiches and wishbones. By the time I got mine, Brad stood near the door beyond the still-growing line of customers. Pluckie sat right beside me, nose in the air as she sniffed the smells of sandwiches being made and wishbones being given out.
I glanced around once more before leaving the cash register area, looking for John. I glimpsed him through the open window to the kitchen. No way could I call out to him that I wished he’d just come clean and confess to killing Flora. Instead, I waited till he appeared to look out at the burgeoning group of hungry clients, and I smiled and waved.
He only scowled back. Not exactly a sign of guilt, but neither was it proof of his innocence.
Then, pulling Pluckie’s leash slightly so she’d keep up with me, I scurried as quickly as I could past the line of people till I reached Brad at the door. I still couldn’t believe my luck, getting this opportunity to talk to four people who might have had a reason to kill Flora. “Might,” of course, being the operative word. Considering John’s attitude, maybe “might” would become “did”—although his having a motive, or even acting like he did, wasn’t enough to prove him guilty.
I’d have to reassess Brad, though, now that I was considering him a suspect. And I was about to have an opportunity to question him, it seemed.
“
Sorry,” I said as I reached him, without saying what I was sorry for. He could take it to mean I felt bad about delaying him, if he wanted. One thing it wasn’t was an apology for the conversation I hoped to have with him on the way back to our shops.
We set off. I nearly tripped over a tourist who was bending to pick up one of the heads-up pennies with which the sidewalk here, too, was seeded. I caught myself, said “Excuse me,” and with sweet and concerned Pluckie still at my side, hurried to catch up with Brad. He hadn’t stopped even to be polite and wait for me, let alone make sure I wasn’t hurt.
Well, I didn’t have to like his ungentlemanliness to keep on talking to him.
“Okay,” I said, “I wanted to let you know a little about the dog toys I’ve designed and manufactured. Some may be cute enough for kids, too, so you might want to look at them and consider them for your shop.”
“Like the stuffed rabbit with the large rabbit’s foot?” His tone sounded so wry that I turned to stare up at his face as we walked.
“Then you heard … ” I chose not to finish, hoping he’d do it for me.
“That Flora was found with that foot in her mouth? Yeah.”
“I guess word’s getting around.” Hey, as much as I hated realizing that maybe the whole town was learning that ugly little fact, maybe I could use it in my favor now. “I didn’t kill her, Brad. Honest. Yes, I was irritated with her after she announced she’d been the one to vandalize all our shops—and steal nearly all the toys I’d designed, by the way, including that particular one. It’s no surprise she had it with her when she was killed. Given her rant at the end of the Welcome, I figure the real killer jumped on the opportunity to use the toys, especially that rabbit foot, to try to frame me.”
“Mmm-hmm.” It wasn’t easy for me to hear his ironic mumble with the usual sidewalk conversations and other noises going on around us.
But I figured I could use his apparent dubiousness in my favor, somewhat, at least. “You sound as convinced as Celia Vardox did when she interviewed me. Did she interview you? I gathered she and her brother are trying to talk to everyone whose shops Flora trashed for a series of articles they plan to write for the Star.”
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