A Poison Manicure & Peach Liqueur

by Traci Andrighetti

  Magnolia came upstairs with a tray of food. "I had a can o' bean dip and some Jacked Ranch Dipped Hot Wings Doritos in the car, so I made us a passel o' nachos."

  "Those Doritos aren't the only thing that's jacked," Gia said, and I knew she was referring to Carlene's trunk.

  Zac entered and sat beside me on the couch. He slid an arm around my shoulders and kissed my hair. Then he looked at my aunt. "The food looks awesome."

  She beamed. "Help yourself. But be careful. It's as hot as a two-dollar whore on the Fourth of July."

  Zac gave a belly laugh, but my stomach went south.

  Magnolia slid the plate onto the coffee table, revealing her tray, and my stomach shot north.

  It was the Ouija board.

  "A board game." Amy clapped like a kid.

  I leapt from the couch and grabbed the box from my aunt. We weren't channeling Barry while Zac was present.

  "That ain't no game." Magnolia sounded offended. "It's a Oui—"

  "Wiggily," I interrupted. "Uncle Wiggily."

  Zac lowered his nacho. "Uncle who?"

  "It's from the 1950s." I mentally cursed the makers of that game and its catchy, disturbing name as I carried the Ouija board to the bar. "But I don't think it's right to play games so soon after someone has died."

  My aunt's forehead furrowed, and she confiscated my vodka glass, probably thinking I'd had a few too many pumpkin pies.

  Zac looked at the floor. "I wasn't going to bring up Sabine's death, but I'm glad you did." He raised his eyes and met our gazes. "I wanted to talk to you about Clark."

  "That schattenparker." Amy held up her glass and waited for the last drop to drain.

  Magnolia grabbed it from Amy's grasp. "No more vodka for you either, missy. You're slurring your words."

  "She's not," Gia said, slurring hers. "It's just German."

  Amy pointed at Zac. "It means a 'person who parks in the shade,' as in someone shady. And your boss was hiding behind a tree at the scene of Jade's murder."

  He bowed his head. "I didn't know about that."

  The hurt in his voice pierced me like an arrow. His pain was my fault for not confiding in him, and I had some making up to do. I just hoped he would forgive me regardless of who turned out to be the killer.

  Zac looked at Amy. "I've known Clark for almost seven years, and I'm convinced he couldn't murder anyone."

  I rubbed his back. "There's one way to find out. We think the killer's father had a mermaid tattoo on his chest."

  The muscles in his face relaxed. "Clark's dad had a tattoo there, but it wasn't a mermaid."

  "Was it a singing cod?" Gia joked.

  The look I gave her was so cutting it could've gutted a fish. Or a conniving cousin.

  "Uh, no." He stifled a smile. "It was the latitude and longitude of where Clark was born, like Angelina Jolie's tattoos for her kids. But we'll be caving tomorrow, so I can ask if he had another one."

  "Don't." In case he was wrong about the tattoo and Clark was the killer, I didn't want him taking any risks, especially not under the cover of those caves. "It might make him suspicious."

  "You're probably right." Zac ran his fingers through his hair. "He's been on edge lately, and I wouldn't want to add to his stress."

  Gia slammed her glass on the table. "And you're sure that stress isn't because of Jade's murder?"

  "Maybe it's part of it. But he started acting weird a week or so before that, after he got some letter."

  I touched his arm. "Do you know who wrote it?"

  He shook his head. "Clark was reading it when I went into his office one day. And he stuffed it in his desk drawer when I came in, like he didn't want me to see it."

  I'd searched that desk drawer, and there was no letter. He'd probably shredded it like he had the background report on Jade. "And you have no idea what it was about?"

  "All I know is he hasn't been himself since he got it." Zac reached for a nacho. "But again, this started before Jade's murder, so it couldn't have anything to do with her."

  Unless the letter was from her. And if it was, I had a feeling I knew what it was about.

  * * *

  "Everything okay, Aunt M?" I looked at her from the stairwell. I'd seen Zac and Amy out, and I wasn't expecting to find her waiting for me on the second-floor landing—in a green facial mask and black hairnet.

  "What in the devil is a witch doin' hangin' in the hallway?" She gestured to an Italian ornament my cousin had hung from a ceiling chandelier.

  Gia exited the bathroom dressed like Princess Jasmine. "Good question. What are you doing in the hallway?"

  It was well after midnight, and I was too tired for the witch hunt. I stepped onto the landing and massaged my head. "It's La Befana, Italy's version of Santa. On the Epiphany, she flies on her broom and passes out gifts to kids."

  "Which is a lot more believable than a fat man flying a sleigh," Gia said.

  Magnolia recoiled, taking the Santa slight like a slap. "Don't them Italians know witches are a Halloween thang?"

  Gia pursed her lips. "Personally, I think the Barry balls are more terrifying."

  I couldn't argue with that.

  "Well, I've heard of cultural differences, but a Christmas witch is plum crazy." Magnolia tightened her hairnet to restore order to her world. "I'm glad you reminded me about Barry, though. We cain't hit the hay till we talk to him about Sabine."

  Gia glanced at her bottle bedroom as though she planned to make like a genie and disappear.

  But I wasn't going to hang out with my aunt and Mr. Manilow alone. I grabbed the strap of her beaded bra and pulled her to the living room. "Let's take a magic carpet ride, Jasmine."

  The Ouija board was set up on the coffee table. We assumed our positions, and my aunt hummed and swayed until it was time to put our fingers on the planchette.

  "Barry, darlin'. It's Magnolia again. Do you have time to conversate about this bad business down in Danger Cove?"

  We watched our fingers, and the planchette moved to Yes.

  My aunt crossed her leg and flapped her slipper against the sole of her foot. "Since we last chitchatted, the salon was spray-painted—"

  The planchette jerked, cutting off my aunt in midsentence. It darted to two-dozen-plus letters and stopped.

  Gia shook her arms. "If Barry keeps blathering on like that, my biceps'll grow as big as Donatello's. What did that even spell?"

  "A song I luuuv." Magnolia's hand went to her heart. "'What Are You Doing on New Year's Eve?'"

  Gia's lower lip drooped. "We went through all of that so he could ask you out?"

  "Hogwash. With me lookin' a fright like this?" My aunt fumbled with her hairnet and probably blushed beneath her mask. "It's a message about the vandalism."

  "Is it going to happen again on New Year's?" I knew better than to believe in Barry, but with the way things had been going, I needed to ask.

  Magnolia stroked her dried-green chin. "I think he means that there's a beau behind this fix. Did one of you date a dishonorable young man?"

  Gia's face went flat. "All of my boyfriends are dishonorable."

  Another point I couldn't argue with.

  "But they have nothing to do with this, Barry." Gia rapped on the Ouija board as though knocking sense into his head. "Ivy's the one vandalizing the salon."

  "You mean the killer," I corrected.

  Magnolia put her fingers on the planchette. "Mr. Manilow, you got any insight on who murdered Sabine?"

  The planchette spelled "weekend" and continued to move.

  "Ugh." Gia bowed her head. "This is about New England again."

  I shared her frustration. It was irritating that Barry spoke only in songs.

  A shout came from the front yard, and we leapt from our seats.

  I looked at Gia. "That was Donatello."

  Magnolia held her hive. "It sounded like a stuck pig."

  We stormed the stairs and charged through the salon to the porch.

  Officer Stallone wasn't in
his patrol car. He was facedown on the lawn—with two assailants on top of him.

  "Lord a'mighty, we've got ourselves an insurrection. I'm going for backup." My aunt ran into the house.

  But I stayed put. Because I'd seen a flash of long, black hair. "Ivy?"

  "And The Ferret!" Gia pointed to Tiffany Ferres, who'd taken down her buns and was sitting on Donatello's.

  "Get these girls off me, baby," he yelled.

  "Baby?" Tiffany gave his arm a twist.

  "Girls?" Ivy twisted the other.

  Gia rushed into the yard in only her Jasmine jammies, but I grabbed a jacket inside the salon and took my time. If that was the best protection Officer Stallone had to offer, then I wanted to let Ivy and Tiffany toughen him up.

  My cousin lunged at Tiffany like an Arabian luchadora. "Get your freakin' claws off my boyfriend, Ferret."

  "Ow." Donatello kicked his feet. "Ladies, please."

  I approached Ivy, but I didn't dare touch her. "What's going on?"

  She released the officer as though he were an afterthought. "I couldn't sleep, so I came to get your take on Sabine's murder." She stood and brushed off her jeans. "And this big goon tackled me."

  "I thought you were her." Donatello jerked his pinned arm at Tiffany.

  Gia grabbed her rival by the hair in a move befitting a wrestling princess. "Drop my Donatello, and pronto."

  Tiffany yanked her mane loose but kept her grip on the officer. "He's mine. The other day he asked me out for New Year's Eve."

  Her mention of the holiday almost knocked me off my feet as Barry flitted through my mind.

  Donatello looked wide-eyed at Gia over his shoulder. "She's lying, baby. I was asking about her plans."

  Gia knee-dropped onto his back and twisted his free arm, and Tiffany upped the arm-twisting too.

  I looked at Ivy. "We should help him out."

  She shrugged, and we pulled Gia and Tiffany from Donatello.

  "Officer Stallone." I used his title to remind him he was working for me. "How exactly did you end up on the ground?"

  He rose to his feet and puffed out his chest, trying to salvage what was left of his pride. "I saw Tiffany in your yard. When I got out of the car, she ran around the side of the house. So I circled around the place—"

  "And assaulted me on the sidewalk," Ivy interrupted.

  "Yo, it's dark, all right?" He raised his hands in surrender. "And you two have the same hair."

  "So does Gia." I gave a pointed look at Tiffany, because I was pretty sure she was the one my aunt had seen by the garage two nights before.

  Ivy gave an annoyed flip. "Anyway, then he mistook me for Gia, and this little weasel ran from the bushes and jumped me."

  "She's a ferret," Gia corrected.

  Tiffany's beady eyes locked on my cousin. "He called her 'honey buns.'" Her arm flailed at Ivy. "That's what he called me."

  Gia shoved Donatello. "You gave me that animal's pet name?"

  He shrugged. "Yeah, but I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about you."

  If my cousin had a sword, he would have lost his head.

  I turned to The Ferret. "You haven't told us why you're here."

  She glanced at my aunt, who came down the sidewalk and handed Gia a coat, and then looked toward the street.

  At a yard sign that read #naughty.

  Ivy's lips slithered into a smile. "Looks like she set up a social media attack on the salon." Her tone was told-you-so. "And you kept blaming me."

  "Can you blame me?" Gia quipped, slipping on her coat.

  Magnolia laid a Texas Ranger–style stare on Tiffany. "Good thing you didn't mess with my paint job, or you'd be talkin' to Tag."

  Donatello shot a skittish look at my aunt. "Who's he?"

  She pulled a yellow device from her robe pocket. "My Taser."

  We all took a big step back.

  My aunt shook Tag at Tiffany. "Now why don't you tell the officer why you put up that godawful sign?"

  The Ferret looked at Donatello. "I'd like to speak to my lawyer."

  Although her request wasn't a reply, I didn't need her answer.

  Gia and I had both been wrong about the vandalism. And my aunt—and maybe Barry—had been right. Because Tiffany, Donatello's jilted ex, was the salon saboteur.

  What I had to find out was whether she also stole the client list and gave it to the Cove Chronicles.

  And if so, whether she was conspiring with the killer.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Gil Torres, director of the Danger Cove Historical Museum, slid her key into the lock of the archive room. "You want 1950s photographs of only fishermen and crabbers?"

  "With tattoos." Amy's smile was so lusty that I wondered whether she'd suggested the archives to help me hunt for clues or to ogle hot men.

  Gil opened the door and waited for Amy and me to enter. "Before I took over as director, there was a rotating exhibit on the local fishing industry, but I believe it's on loan to another museum." She brushed back her dreadlocks and glanced at the storage cases that lined two of the walls. "One of my colleagues would know. Let me see if she's come in this morning."

  She closed the door behind her, and I turned to Amy, who was inspecting antique coverlets displayed on the walls. "That doesn't sound promising. Are you positive there aren't any pictures of fishermen in the library?"

  "I told you. After I left your house last night I searched our catalog and the Cove Chronicles database. So if Gil can't find anything, Clark, Randall, and The Reverend are your only options."

  I gave her a get-real glare. "Like they're going to give me pics of their dads."

  "What about Gia?" She gazed at a quilt. "Does she have any ideas?"

  "She's been holed up in her bottle since last night." I took a seat at the metal table in the middle of the room. "She wouldn't even come out when Donatello came over this morning to apologize to me."

  Amy spun so fast her glasses fell below her nose. "Was he seeing you on the side too?"

  Fortunately, she was blind to the hostile takeover happening on my face. "Tiffany confessed to stealing my uncle's client list, and Donatello was the one who tipped her off to it."

  "He was dating you, and he ratted out Gia to his ex?" She straightened her glasses and blew out a breath. "You and Tiffany had better hide your aunt's Taser."

  I drummed my fingers on the table to stop them from forming a fist. "I did not date Donatello."

  She took a seat across from me. "Then how did he know about the list?"

  "From Gia." My pitch packed a punch, and I had to remind myself that I was in a museum. "He was the officer who responded to the call when the plumber discovered the Viagra in my uncle's bathroom wall, remember?"

  "Right, but you and Gia didn't find the list until later."

  "And when we did, she confided to her beloved boyfriend that she'd kept a copy in her closet." I stood to walk off my irritation at my cousin's indiscretion. "Tiffany told Detective Marshall that she heard Donatello laughing about it with some cops one morning at The Apple Tree. That's when she came up with a plan to discredit the salon so Gia would lose her job and go back to Jersey."

  "That's diabolical." Amy's tone was dark but her eyes were alight in a clear case of her schadenfreude showing. "Did she poison the products too?"

  "She denies any knowledge of the killer or the poison." I glanced at my nails and thought of Jade's red polish. "And I still think the killer snuck into the salon with the cyanide after Duncan published the list."

  Amy stuck her hands in her hair. "Oh, what a tangled web Tiffany weaved."

  Her comment brought me back to The Reverend's Elizabethan nativity. "No Shakespeare, please."

  "That was Spannagel, not Shakespeare." She gave a smarty-pants smile. "But actually, you mean Sir Walter Scott."

  Another hostile takeover happened, and that time she saw it.

  She smoothed her hair. "Are you going to press charges against Tiffany?"

  It was tempting, but I'd ha
ve to press charges against my cousin and Donatello too. "I'm not comfortable with sending her to jail. But I don't know what the police are going to do."

  Gil entered the room with a coffee table book. "My colleague confirmed that the exhibit is at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry. But all the photos were published in an indexed collection, and we had this copy in the gift shop downstairs." She placed the book on the table. "Would you mind returning it on your way out?"

  "Absolutely." I rushed to the table and grabbed the book. "Thanks so much for your help."

  Her brown eyes twinkled, and her lips twitched. "Any time you ladies want to look at sexy fishermen, I'm here."

  After Gil had gone, Amy raised her brow in a that-was-embarrassing look. "You should really try to control that libido of yours."

  I rolled my eyes and scanned the index for John Graham in case Zac had been wrong about his tattoo. His name was cross-referenced with Jim Olcott, and my stomach fluttered. "Clark's and Randall's fathers are listed together."

  Amy looked over my shoulder and gave me a shove. "Check the V's."

  "I'm getting there, okay?" I scooted my chair away from her and skimmed the list. The flutter moved to my chest. "There's one for Joe Vickers too."

  I turned to the page with John and Jim. There was a black and white picture of the two of them that must've been taken before Jim quit working for John and started his own company, because they were laughing as they hauled in a large net full of fish.

  "They're wearing fisherman's sweaters and coats." Amy lips puckered in a pout. "No chests for us."

  "You mean tattoos." I flipped to the page on Jim Vickers.

  "Wait. Go back." She slammed my hand to the book.

  "Did you see something?"

  "Yeah, some highly developed muscles."

  It was a good thing for Rico that Amy hadn't been with me in Seattle. "I know who needs to control their libido, and it isn't me. Now would you please focus on finding the killer?"

  She folded her lips and lowered her gaze to the book.

  There was an enlarged photo of Jim on a dock. He held a huge crab and wore a partially unbuttoned shirt underneath a fisherman's apron.