“Yes, I do. I’m afraid of her; not only her, but her family as well. My mom used to tell me stories about the Peletroni family and they weren’t nice ones. She wanted me to know what kind of people I would be dealing with in the future if I pursued getting to know Anthony Capri.”
“You’ll have to sit and tell me some of those stories sometime,” Tabby insisted.
“I will, but right now I have to get back to work. I just wanted you to know what I thought in case something happens to me like it did to my dad.”
“Gage, you be careful and stay away from Isabella. Stay with your friends and don’t go anywhere alone; do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll stay in town where there are plenty of people around to see me. Although, from what my mom told me, that didn’t help the men that disappeared because of the Peletroni family henchmen,” Gage said, sighing. “I’m surprised my dad was alive as long as he was.”
Ma’am?! thought Tabby. I’m only six years older than him.
“You just be extra careful and I’ll find out what I can for you, okay?” Tabby insisted.
She let him out the back door. He disappeared into the dark of the night. Tabby was concerned for him. She knew Isabella’s temper and had been on the opposing end of it more than once. Could she be capable of murder? Tabby wasn’t sure, one way or the other.
She didn’t want to say anything to Gage, but she believed that Isabella would stop at nothing to protect her name and her family’s name; it was instilled in her being to do so. It would not be in her best interest to have an illegitimate child of Anthony’s wandering around the town of Whipper Will Junction, especially when Gage looked so much like his dad and people could put two and two together and come up with father and son.
Tabby would tell a few people in town who she could trust to keep a watch over the young man. Sheriff Puckett would be one of the first ones she would relay the entire story to as he might want to talk to Gage about his dad.
As she finished locking up the shop her mind wandered back to the fact that it was a holiday. This was the first year that she could remember her and Jenny not sharing a picnic on the town green celebrating Labor Day. It was their own private way of welcoming the Fall and all that came with their favorite time of year.
But, at least her best friend was safe and on the road to recovery. Next year, she would make sure they had their picnic together, no matter what.
Things had definitely changed since Tabby opened her shop. Her time used to be her own and now it was centered around running Jellies, Jams, and Weddings. This was her future and she knew that. But, she also knew that she had to have a life besides work so she wouldn’t suffer from burnout. There had to be a way to balance things so she could have a happy medium and not lose herself and her personal life in the process.
Marmalade crawled up the side of her leg and broke her out of her thinking trance. She had to finish what she was doing because she would already be late meeting Greg. They were going to have dinner and talk to Judy and Tom, the owners of the diner, about Bea keeping her job.
She alarmed the shop, fed her hungry fur babies, and left for the diner. As she walked, she had a funny feeling she was being watched. She couldn’t shake the feeling, so she walked faster out of fear. As she reached the diner a dark sedan shot past her up Main Street.
I knew someone was watching me. Shake it off, woman; they’re gone.
Greg was waiting just inside the door for her. He saw the sedan go racing by and demanded to know what was going on. She told him she didn’t know, but she felt like she was being followed when she left the shop.
“Is there ever going to be a day when I don’t have to worry about you?” Greg asked frustrated.
“I don’t know. It’s just who I am I guess,” Tabby answered, smiling, “Let’s eat; I’m starving.”
They took their regular booth near the back. Things had slowed down considerably with all the tourists returning home to get the kids ready for the beginning of the new school year. The diner was more than half empty. It was also a holiday and a lot of families were having cookouts as a last hurrah to the end of the summer.
Judy came to take their order as they had let most of the staff take the day off for the holiday. Tabby started to explain Bea’s situation to her boss, but Judy cut her off saying Sheriff Puckett had already been in to talk to her and her husband to explain the situation. She assured Tabby that Bea would still have her job when she got back from Larsen with her daughter.
They were also giving Bea the month of September off, with pay, so she could stay with Jenny and help her at the bookstore until Jenny was ready to run it herself again. Bea had called the diner to let them know that her daughter was being released from the hospital on Wednesday and would be returning home.
She reached in and gave Tabby and Greg big hugs.
“That’s for being heroes and saving Jenny. I don’t know what Bea would have done if something had happened to her daughter…I hate to think,” Judy said, walking away to put in their order.
Tabby and Greg enjoyed a quiet supper together. They decided to go apple picking soon and would invite Bea and Jenny to go with them.
Tabby admitted to Greg about her fear of the shop taking over her life. He told her that he felt the same way at times and that they would have to make the best of their days off together and spend the time with friends and family. Tabby liked that idea vowing never to lose touch with Jenny again after almost losing her. Their discussion changed over to Halloween.
Saturday was the start of Halloween on Main Street decorating. The stores had the month of September to decorate their front windows. The first Saturday in October was the judging. No one knew who the four judges were that would decide the winners of the window display contest. They had all day to individually walk around Main Street and view the windows and then would meet at five in the evening at a secret location to discuss who the winners would be.
Tabby still wouldn’t even give a hint as to what her window was going to look like. Greg admitted he had purchased a bride and groom skeleton set and was going to decorate the window with dyed black roses and a stunning Halloween wedding display. He taunted Tabby saying his window was going to be tough to beat. She just smiled.
Later that night, after Greg had walked her home and she was lying in bed, she realized where she had seen the black sedan before. It had to be the same car that had been speeding down the dirt road away from the Capri house. Why were they following her? Was this Isabella’s doing? She fell asleep deep in thought.
The next morning Thelma returned to work from her mini vacation. Her and Janice manned the shop while Tabby ran to the town hall to get the information she needed on the Pelton property.
Tabby went to the town clerk’s office in search of her friend, Bertha Knowles. She had been the town clerk for over fifty years and knew everyone in and everything about Whipper Will Junction. Unlike Gladys Twittle, who was The Town Mouth, Bertha kept everything she knew to herself; and she knew a lot. The elderly woman was sitting at her desk, buried behind volumes of open ledgers.
“Hello, Tabby,” Bertha said, looking over the rim of her glasses and smiling. “Are you working on another mystery?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. I need some information on the old Pelton place. You know, the history of who owned the property, say over the last seventy-five years,” Tabby replied. “I need the exact names on the registered deeds, please.”
“I can get to it this afternoon. Right now, I am looking up things they need for the selectmen’s meeting tonight. Can you come back tomorrow morning?” she requested.
“I sure can and I really appreciate your help, Bertha,” Tabby said, laying a box of the clerk’s favorite chocolates from the local candy shop, Chocolate Motion, on the desk next to the ledgers.
“Bribery will get you everywhere,” she beamed, picking up the chocolates.
“See you in the morning and thank you,” Tabby said, chuckling
as she exited out the door.
She returned to the shop and picked up the pile of mail that had just been delivered. Sitting at the work table, she started sifting through it. Two different envelopes caught her eye. One was postmarked Lakeville, Florida, and the other Whipper Will Junction.
The manilla envelope from Florida had a little jingle to it when she picked it up. Opening it and dumping the contents onto the table she was pleasantly surprised it was from the Swanson Family Trust. It contained a set of keys to the snack bar at the deserted drive-in and a letter giving Tabby permission to use the property for the haunted house while it was still in the Swanson family possession. Her phone call asking for help had worked.
Her mind raced with a million new ideas. They could set up the haunted house like a working concession stand only run by dead people. Skeletons could be the workers, wormy food and gross snacks could be set up on the serving counters. A mummy could be popping out of the popcorn warmer. They could call it Snack Bar Spooktacular.
She pulled out her key chain and snapped on the set of keys so as not to lose them and then turned her attention to the second envelope mailed locally. It was a thick envelope that required extra postage. She opened it up and gasped. A Last Will and Testament for Anthony Capri, dated one week before he was murdered, along with several bank passbooks had been sent to Tabby.
A letter from Anthony Capri reinforced what he had told Tabby in person; he was afraid something was going to happen to him. He had felt that he could trust Tabby to get the enclosed documents to the right people. Isabella could not get her hands on the legal papers because they would conveniently disappear as she was no longer named in his will after what she said and did to Gage and what she admitted to Anthony while they were arguing.
Yes, he knew about his son. Anthony had seen him in town in August when Gage first arrived to settle in for school and started working at the market. He knew immediately that he was his son and called his one and only true love, Angelina Salmeri, to verify the fact, only to find out that she had passed on. So he went straight to the source and asked Gage himself.
The farm deed was in Anthony’s name only and he wanted it to go to his son. Isabella could return home to her family near Boston where she already owned a house passed down to her from her grandfather. She really didn’t want to be at the farm anyway; she preferred the city life. She had been sent there by her father to protect the family secret.
The bank savings books had been changed to Gage’s name to help hire attorneys to keep the current will intact as he knew Isabella and her family would fight it all the way through the courts to keep the land. Anthony’s attorney would be in touch with Gage in the event of his father’s death.
He thanked Tabby for being a good and trusted friend. If he did die, he knew Gage would be in good hands. Tabby knew what she had to do. She had to get the documents to Sheriff Puckett. He’d know what to do with them.
She wondered what Isabella admitted to Anthony that made him change his mind so drastically. It had to be something to do with the bones, but what? Were the bones the family secret?
The bell on the door signaled someone had entered the shop. As Tabby was collecting the mail to put it in her in-box on her desk, the sheriff entered the back room to get his daily cup of coffee.
“Are you staying out of trouble?” he asked, chuckling, while filling his travel cup.
“As a matter of fact…”
“I knew it; that was a really dumb question to ask you. I do have some information for you. We are still waiting for the warrant to search the property. Some judge has filed paperwork in Boston to block the issue of the warrant and we can’t figure out why.”
“Have you got the coroner’s report back yet on Anthony?” Tabby inquired.
“Yes, they found a needle puncture wound behind his right ear and he died from poisoning. Sound like someone we know?”
“Alex Keyes, or rather Alexander, a.k.a. Poison Man, Martinelli. But, how is he related to Anthony and did he even kill him?” Tabby pondered out loud.
“We haven’t had much luck on identifying the skulls. The DNA from the molars was too decomposed to get a match. We have a specialist reconstructing the facial features to see if we can match the license pictures to them. We did run the license names and they were all bodyguards that worked for the Salmeri Family back in the nineties. They each disappeared suddenly and have never been accounted for.”
“Did you say the Salmeri Family?” Tabby asked surprised.
“Why? Does that name mean something to you?” Sheriff Puckett asked.
Tabby handed the sheriff the envelope she had received in the mail.
“This just came in today’s mail. I was going to bring it to your office later. I really don’t know what to do with the documents and I think they would be safer in your possession than here at the shop. Anthony’s letter will explain everything. He had an affair with an Angelina Salmeri which produced a son. A twenty-year-old son named Gage Salmeri who just moved to town for school and is living and working with the MacAveys.”
“Unbelievable,” the sheriff stated. “You are always one step ahead of me.”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Tabby answered, smiling.
“Tabby, I need your help,” Janice said, peeking through the curtains. “This lady would like to place a rather large order for her shop in New Hampshire. She’d like to talk to you.”
“I’ll take these papers and look them over. I’ll let you know what I decide to do with them,” the sheriff said. “Be careful and try to stay out of trouble.”
He topped off his coffee and went out the front door whistling. Tabby talked to the lady who placed an order for twelve dozen jars of assorted flavors of jelly to sell in her shop. She was leaving for home in three days and wanted to take them back with her. Most of the requested jellies were already in stock. A few would have to be made to fill the order, but not many. Tabby promised they would be ready.
Next, Tabby called Judy, the chairperson of the Haunt-A-Thon, to tell her about the use of the drive-in snack bar for the haunted house. She was extremely relieved that they had secured a place to use and there would be a haunted house this year as this was one of their biggest moneymakers for the Children’s Christmas Party in December.
She grabbed a pad of paper out of the desk drawer and started to jot down notes to be used the following day when she began to decorate the shop for Halloween. Janice was off on Wednesdays so Tabby had the whole day to transform the shop. Thelma could run the register to leave Tabby free to decorate to her heart’s content.
There were over a dozen boxes of Halloween items that had been purchased for the picture window and the interior of the store. Chocolate Motion and The Whipper Will Drugstore had already decorated their front windows for the contest. Jellies, Jams, and Weddings would be the third shop on Main Street to be ready for the holiday.
This year she was sure to beat her mother’s window display at Mystic Happenings.
Tabby was so engrossed in what she was doing that the afternoon passed and she didn’t realize it until Janice poked her head through the curtain to tell her boss it was closing time. They locked up the place and Tabby retreated to her apartment upstairs to cook the jellies needed for the special order.
Greg was in Larsen for the evening meeting potential buyers for his grandmother’s Victorian and would not be home until morning when his flower shop opened. Tabby made herself a grilled cheese and ham sandwich with a side of tomato soup and ate quickly before she began cooking.
She filled the required number of jars and went to bed early anticipating the fun time she would have the following day.
CHAPTER 12
* * *
Tabby stood in the middle of her shop picturing in her mind where all the decorations would go. Halloween was her favorite holiday and she hoped it would show in her decorating skills. She decided to start on the front window first. Reaching in over the partition, she grabbed as many items as she coul
d hold to start emptying the existing display. People waved as they walked by and watched as she crawled in and out of the display area. Finally, the whole area was empty.
First, she rigged up a line of twinkle lights to various spots on the ceiling above the open space. She ran the cord along the wall, down to the outlet on the front of the partition. Next, she took a staple gun and tacked up a midnight blue cloth sky six inches below the lights so they would shine through the holes that had been punched out representing the stars at night.
A clear plastic tarp was across the floor of the display area. Tabby brought out two bags of white sand which she spread evenly over the clear tarp. Thelma entered the store and snickered.
“Trying to beat your mother this year, are you?” she asked as she passed by Tabby and took her seat at the register.
“Yes, I am, and I am going to do it,” Tabby stated defiantly, walking by her into the backroom.
She came out with three buckets of seagrass plants that Greg had special ordered for her. The buckets were set in a triangle in the back corner and a third bag of sand was emptied over the buckets to make it look like the grass was growing out of the sand.
“Interesting…” Thelma muttered as Tabby disappeared into the back room again.
To Thelma’s amusement, Tabby returned with a large wooden pirate’s chest that she was struggling to carry because of its weight.
“Do you seriously think that you are going to lift that big chest over the partition wall?” Thelma asked.
“I can do it,” Tabby insisted, huffing and puffing as she walked.
“Yeah, and I’m a multi-millionaire,” the elderly clerk mumbled.
“I heard that,” Tabby said, just barely making it to the front window before dropping the chest on the floor. “I can do this; just you watch.”
“You and what army?” Thelma asked nastily.
Tabby picked up one end of the chest and struggled to maneuver it around to balance on the top of the three-foot partition wall. She moved to the end that was still on the floor and lifted it to push the chest up and over. It slipped off the wall and hit the floor with a loud bang.
Bloody Good Marmalade (Jams, Jellies and Murder Book 2) Page 10