Unlucky Charms

by Linda O. Johnston

  Celia’s response didn’t really matter. It was the pattern we’d established. I’d have to at least try talking to them.

  “They seemed like nice enough people. Maybe they’ll just figure I told you what they said so you felt you had to convince them of your innocence. But, yeah, might as well talk to them too.”

  I decided that wouldn’t happen until tomorrow.

  First of all, the established pattern required me to wait a day, and I really should stick to the established pattern.

  Second, I didn’t feel in the mood to stave off the Dresdans’ accusations, or even pretend that I didn’t know how they felt.

  Most importantly, I told myself, I’d already made an appointment to talk with Brie Timons about the possible new home for Gemma and me. And I intended to keep it.

  After my call with Celia ended, I walked back into the store and blinked, trying to get my mind back on track.

  I had pet items to sell. And there were, as was usually the case, a lot of customers here, some who looked like they needed assistance.

  I complied after placing my coffee cup on a shelf under the sales counter. My mood lightened quite a bit as I introduced a couple of Chihuahua mixes to Pluckie. Their owners, a young couple, bought not only some dog toys but also a lucky hematite amulet, similar to my dog-face one, and the man presented it to the lady—his fiancée, they informed me.

  The rest of the morning progressed similarly. Jeri had to leave to go help out at the Heads-Up Penny, and Martha took an early lunch break, possibly because she was tired. I was just happy to see her taking care of herself and relaxing for a while. She promised to be back downstairs from her apartment by one-thirty, though. I’d already told her about my two o’clock appointment with Brie, and she’d been delighted. It was, after all, another indication that I’d be staying in Destiny longer—even if we never talked much, or at all, about the possibility of my taking over the store someday.

  Things didn’t really slow down at noon, but I nevertheless encouraged Millie to go out and pick up sandwiches for herself, Martha, and me.

  She soon returned with a bag of food from Wishbones-to-Go, which was what I’d anticipated—as well as three wishbones. I let her go upstairs to eat with Martha as well as break a couple of those wishbones together. I’d save my wishbone but took some surreptitious bites of sandwich behind the counter while some of my customers made decisions on what to buy.

  Millie soon rejoined me and helped out with our now slightly smaller client group. Martha arrived back downstairs right on time at one-thirty.

  It was time for me to go.

  I thought about calling Gemma to go over any specific thoughts she had about what I should look for in this supposedly special rental, but I decided not to. For one thing, I might wind up looking at more than one possibility today, and I most likely wouldn’t sign a lease without Gemma with me anyway. Although if I fell in love with the apartment associated with lucky number seven and had to jump on it right away, I might go ahead and do that and hope Gemma ultimately agreed with me.

  I took Pluckie along, both for company and luck. As we went out the door she saw those two Chihuahuas walking by, and that delayed us just a little as the dogs all traded nose and butt sniffs again.

  Pluckie also needed to make a couple of stops along the way. She’d been a very good girl, as always, but I hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to take her out after our return from Beware-of-Bubbles.

  We soon made our way from Destiny Boulevard onto Fate Street, then west on Luck Street, and down a few blocks till we were outside the charming old-style offices of Rising Moon Realty. Pluckie and I walked up the six wide outside steps and through the door. Like the last time, when I’d been here with Gemma, only two of the four inside desks were occupied, and both occupants, the same man and woman, were on their phones.

  I glanced around. As far as I could tell, the photos of houses and apartments and townhouses were the same as when I’d been here before, and I gathered they were for decoration rather than to demonstrate available places.

  I figured I’d have to wait for someone to let Brie know I was here, but she came through the door at the back of the large room as if fully aware I’d arrived. Hey, she was into real estate–related stuff, so maybe she had a camera aimed at the front door so she could monitor who came in on a screen in her office.

  She wore a robin’s egg blue pantsuit today with a navy blouse, and her graying hair looked tamed behind a blue headband. “Rory!” she exclaimed. “So glad you’re here. Gemma said she’d rely on you to look at the property to determine if it’s right for the two of you.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  She gave Pluckie a quizzical glance, as if wondering if my dog would behave herself, but she didn’t ask. Instead, she motioned for me to follow her out the front door. “My car’s outside in the parking lot,” she said.

  Her car turned out to be an upscale, new-model Mercedes Benz. The real estate business must pay well, I thought. Either that or wealth was the impression Brie wanted to convey, whether or not she could actually afford this car.

  She opened the doors and motioned for me to put Pluckie in the backseat, and then I got into the passenger side. “It isn’t far,” Brie said.

  As she drove through town, past some shops and toward the main residential district, we chatted a little. I asked her how long she’d lived in Destiny as well as how long she had run Rising Moon Realty.

  Both were about four years. Before that, she’d lived in San Bernardino, which was where she’d obtained her real estate license and become not just a salesperson but a broker, too.

  “I’d imagine that people with businesses here aren’t inclined to sell them, at least not very often. Do you make as much money from sales or rentals of commercial property as residential?”

  Okay, I was being nosy. But she’d sort of asked about my salary, so it was fair to be inquisitive about her income. Or so I thought.

  “Oh, I’m only in residential.” We’d reached a stop sign and she looked briefly toward me. “Commercial property is a whole other ballgame around here, and you’re right. It seldom comes on the market. There are a couple of other real estate companies with offices in town and they take care of them when anyone’s ready to deal in commercial.”

  As we started off again, I continued to look at her, feeling a bit puzzled. “But I understood that Flora was talking to at least one business owner in town about either buying or selling commercial property.” I could have been mistaken, but I was fairly certain that Brad Nereida had mentioned that. Not that I’d tell Brie, or she might start bothering Brad about it, too.

  “No, she couldn’t have.” Brie shot a quick glare at me now, her light brown eyes fiery. “You must be mistaken.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “She was my employee.” Brie’s voice was loud and shrill in the car, and her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I was training her. We talked about that, and she—never mind. She’s gone now.”

  She seemed to have almost gone ballistic for a minute, but then calmed almost immediately. Or was she? I didn’t know what Brie was thinking, but her eyes stared fixedly at the road.

  I wondered, then. I hadn’t focused much on Brie as a possible murder suspect, but she had certainly known Flora, perhaps better than anyone else around here, and she had even seen the body. She’d certainly gotten emotional at my suggestion that her former employee had done something she hadn’t approved of.

  It might have been a stretch to speculate about it, but what if Flora had wanted to go to work for one of those other real estate brokers in town—one dealing with commercial property? Or maybe even open up her own office, although from the little I knew about her, she seemed only recently to have gotten into the real estate business and might not have been qualified.

  In any event, had Brie learned abou
t Flora’s ambitions and gotten so upset about it that she’d killed her employee?

  Hardly likely.

  Yet my mind kept sliding around the possibility that Brie was a better murder suspect than anyone else I’d chatted with so far.

  Twenty-Seven

  All I talked about after that, though, was how eager I was to see the rental unit that was all about the lucky number seven. I even joked a bit, asking if the song “Lucky Ladybug” was piped into the air around it every day.

  “So you’re a real superstition lover,” Brie commented mildly when I stopped to take a breath.

  “Well … I do live in Destiny. And I came here to learn the truth about superstitions.”

  “So do you think they are true?”

  “Sometimes.” Maybe. After all, some appeared to come true. But others …

  We were just turning the corner onto Ladybug Lane. Brie slammed on her brakes, and I bent forward against my seat belt. I immediately turned to check on Pluckie. She’d slipped onto the floor of the backseat but appeared fine.

  “What—?” I began asking as I turned around again, but I didn’t need to finish my question.

  A black cat was just stepping elegantly onto the curb at our side of the street. Catrice, the cat lady, was there in the shadows near a building, apparently waiting for her charge. Fortunately, the cat looked unharmed.

  My nerves were another story.

  “We’d better get to that good luck property soon,” Brie said. “We need to counter this possible bad luck.”

  I just hoped the possible bad luck on my part wouldn’t be an attack from Brie, if she happened to be Flora’s killer.

  Well, I’d be careful. Gemma knew where I was going and who I was with. I could always remind Brie of that.

  She drove slowly for about a block. I studied the apartment buildings along the street. It was a charming neighborhood. The structures had the aura of Gold Rush days about them, but they appeared a whole lot newer than that.

  Brie soon parked in front of a development of townhomes—connected units with two stories each, in similar style. This had to be 7 Ladybug Lane. It didn’t take me long to spot unit number seven.

  My first impression was that it appeared inviting. Should I hope I hated the inside? Otherwise, I might wind up doing business with this woman who I suspected could be a murderer.

  Fortunately or not, as it turned out, what I thought of the place wouldn’t matter. We got out of Brie’s car and walked up the narrow path through a rock garden that Pluckie immediately started sniffing. I let her for a minute, then we continued till we reached the entrance. The door opened and several people walked out.

  “Well, hello, Brie,” said a woman who dressed as businesslike as Brie did. “My clients here have just signed a lease on this place. You can show it as an example of this development, but unfortunately it’s no longer available.” The couple with her were beaming. Obviously this was about to become their home.

  Mixed emotions passed through me.

  I did let Brie show Pluckie and me around the inside on a brief tour. Had the place still been available, I wasn’t sure what I’d have done. I liked it and would have recommended it to Gemma, had it been available.

  According to Brie, it was the only unit here that was currently up for rent, and it was certainly the only unit number seven, although, thanks to the rest of the address, maybe the other units could be claimed to be somewhat lucky too. In any event, Gemma and I weren’t moving yet—and one good thing about it was that I wouldn’t have to do business with Brie.

  Her attitude about the situation was surprisingly good. Or maybe she was just a seasoned enough real estate broker not to get upset if she lost out on a transaction, especially if she thought she still had potential clients on the hook if she found something else for them.

  She certainly was acting differently now from the moments after I’d suggested Flora was getting involved in real estate transactions that Brie’s office didn’t handle.

  Which relieved me a little. No matter what my concerns were regarding Brie, I didn’t feel I had to run to Justin or anyone else to let them know my suspicions … yet. I hadn’t gotten any sense, either, that the life of the landlord’s realtor was in danger from Brie, which was a very good thing.

  But that still didn’t remove my suspicions of her in relation to Flora’s death.

  On the ride back to Rising Moon Realty, Brie’s attitude remained stable and friendly as she told me she was putting together some other listings for us. I said nothing that would allow her to believe I didn’t trust her in any respect. Even so, Gemma and I wouldn’t have to work with her any longer if we didn’t choose to.

  Maybe that black cat crossing our path had been an omen of good, not bad, luck.

  Or so I thought was possible … at first.

  Getting out of the car, I said a quick goodbye to Brie before Pluckie and I set off at a brisk walk back to the store. I breathed more naturally on the way and found myself smiling as, once we reached Destiny Boulevard, the typical crowd of tourists sauntered along the sidewalks, avoiding cracks and picking up heads-up pennies.

  When I opened the door to the Lucky Dog, I let Pluckie in first. Then I swallowed hard.

  Detective Richard Choye stood there talking with Martha near one of the tall shelf sets full of dog toys. She must have glanced toward me, since he turned and aimed a big, snide smile at me.

  Whatever good mood I’d been in immediately evaporated.

  I hadn’t wanted to be alone with Choye, but he suggested it, and it was probably better than remaining in front of my fellow Lucky Dog staff and our customers, since I didn’t know why he was at my shop.

  Of course, I realized he was there to talk about Flora’s murder, but was he going to tell me they’d caught the perpetrator and I was off the hook?

  Not likely. And especially not since I now thought the person who’d done it had been in my company a lot of this afternoon.

  So was he here to arrest me?

  I kept Pluckie with me for moral support as we went into the rear storeroom and I waved Choye toward one of the chairs around the card table.

  As usual, he wore a detective-serious suit, black this time. “Thanks, Rory,” he said as he sat down. His politeness didn’t fool me, but his sitting made me feel slightly better. At least he wasn’t whipping out handcuffs and pulling my hands behind my back.

  Where was Justin? Did he know about this visit?

  I thought about acting like the perfect hostess, offering to brew coffee or even give him a dog treat. Or I could always run out to buy something to give him … and not come back.

  Instead, I said nothing and offered no refreshments, just waited for him to begin.

  “I’m here today because I spoke earlier with Celia and Derek Vardox.”

  My heart began racing immediately. I knew Celia still considered me a suspect despite the little game we were playing. Did her brother? Had they made accusations about me to Choye?

  “I’ve spoken with Celia now and then recently,” I said truthfully. We might have been seen together occasionally, so that wouldn’t be much of a surprise. “I think she’s working on a story about Flora Curtival and what happened to her.”

  “Exactly. I’ve had to tell the two of them to back off, since they’ve apparently been getting pushy with a number of locals we’re considering as possible suspects.” He paused, aiming his dark eyes toward me in an inquisitive stare. “Has she been pushy with you, too?”

  “Not too bad,” I said. I didn’t want to get into the nature of any of our conversations in case he was just bent out of shape by the reporters talking to so many suspects, and even possibly accusing them. At least a reporter on a story had an ostensible reason to talk to people.

  A suspect like me also had a reason, but it might not be acceptable to the cops.

&nbs
p; Should I tell him my suspicions about Brie? I had nothing to back them up. And she’d certainly not shown any indication of a bad temper after potentially losing a commission for that residential unit.

  It had only been earlier, when we’d talked about Flora …

  Choye was still speaking. “Well, before I told them to back off, I asked their opinion about who’s their most likely suspect and why. And guess who was at the top of their list.”

  I suddenly wanted to confront Celia and tell her once more that I was being framed.

  Or maybe I was just the easiest person for her to suggest while she conducted her interviews and looked for answers.

  Could she have considered the possibility of Brie? If so, why?

  “Since you’re here, I can guess,” I replied drolly, trying not to let my nervousness show too much. “But I’ll tell you once again that I didn’t do it. The fact that Flora stole some of my dog toys doesn’t mean I’d kill her, and I’d have had to be pretty stupid to use one of those toys as a symbol. If you think you have any other evidence against me, tell me what it is and I’ll let you know my opinion.”

  “Oh, you’ve played games with detective work long enough to realize I can’t tell you anything like that. Just be careful, Ms. Chasen.” He stared at me once more, then smiled again. “I think you know enough to do that, at least. And in case you’re wondering, Chief Halbertson didn’t know I was coming here today. But I’ll let him know I saw you—and that although you didn’t immediately jump up and confess, I didn’t see any reason to aim our investigation elsewhere, either.”

  He stood up and, without another word to me, strode out of the storeroom, leaving me there staring after him.

  What was that really all about? I couldn’t exactly run after him and ask him.

  Was he trying to make me so nervous that I’d jump up and confess, as he’d described it?

  Or was there something else on his mind?

  I didn’t leave the storeroom right away. Maybe I wasn’t under arrest yet, but I was clearly not off the hook. In fact, maybe I was on the hook and the line was being drawn tighter and tighter before I was reeled in and arrested.