“So it was an allergic reaction?” Flo said. “Terrible way to go.”
“Even more terrible that someone fed her the tarts knowing she was allergic, framing my mother and Freddie as they did it,” Moira said, finally successfully removing the cork from the bottle of wine she’d been struggling with. “I think they call that murder.”
“Perhaps it was an accident,” Caroline said, holding out her glass.
“Someone conked her on the head with the bell too,” Flo said. “Nothing accidental about that.”
“Insurance policy that she was really gone, more like,” Nadia said. “What are you all looking at? If I was going to kill someone I’d want to make sure I did the job. Maybe it was her ex-boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend?” Nancy, Moira, and I looked at one another. Had she been dating Beckett, Fred, Jason, or Jimmy? Because those were the only options on the suspect list. I mentally crossed Jimmy off that list. He may have a motive, but passion wasn’t one of them.
“Yeah. She came by the Corner Market one day last spring. I’d broken up with Tuck again, so she was trying to make small talk. Mentioned that she’d had a relationship that went on for months before she’d finally gotten up enough steam to break up with him. From what she said, I think maybe he’d been married, and left his wife for her.”
“How did you get her to tell you that?” I asked.
“I didn’t get her to talk to me. I listened, and didn’t judge.”
“We don’t judge,” Flo said.
“Please,” Nadia said. “You could be sitting on a jury, you’re judging so hard.”
I looked around the room and had to agree with the assessment. I wanted to let them all know about Kim’s hypocrisy, blackmailing Jimmy for a sin that—by the sounds of it—she was also committing, but it wasn’t my place. I’d put my notebook down on the counter when I’d come in, and my fingers itched to pick it up. I stood up, scooped up my notebook, and sat back down while everyone discussed the moral codes of Orchard.
“You know,” I said, over the din of the conversation, “Kim had a few enemies. Seems like the Hamilton family, including Fred and Freddie, are on the list.”
“Freddie couldn’t have killed her,” Nadia said, shaking her head. “She was so upset when she thought maybe she did.”
“But Freddie would do anything for her father,” Flo said, placing her glass down for emphasis. “Maybe he told her to make the tarts, and she’s covering for him.”
“I doubt it. First of all, she couldn’t lie to save her soul. Secondly, Fred wouldn’t mess around with a nut allergy. No guarantee it would work, for one thing. Kim was prepared to deal with her allergies. Even the bell isn’t his style. He’s more the blunt-object type,” Nancy said.
“Fred’s got a fierce temper, and there was no love lost with him and Kim. Still, I can’t imagine him killing her, can you?” Flo said.
“What about Jason?” Moira said.
“What about him?” Flo said, pouring more wine. I pushed the bowl of chips over toward her.
“Did he and Kim get along?” I asked.
“So far as I know,” Flo said. “He brought her prescriptions over from Marytown, and they always chatted when she came in to pick them up. Also took to picking up other things for her.”
“He does that for Harriet as well,” Caroline said. “Calls himself a sort of butler on call. Charges her a little bit extra, but she’s happy to pay it. Saves her a trip.”
“What does he pick up? Groceries?”
“No, health food stuff,” Flo said. “He’s got us carrying more homeopathic remedies and herbal medicine. He’s even got some tonics he’s adding to the stock. Says there’s a demand for it.”
“Herbs?” Nancy asked. “Harriet has him bring her herbs?”
“Swears it does her more good than the arthritis medicine the doctor prescribed. She’s not the only one he’s dosing with alternative medicine. Kim swore by his stress drops.”
“Jason has a lot of irons in the fire, doesn’t he?” Caroline said.
“Trying to forge a few more,” Flo replied. “He wants to take over the Emporium, make it his own.”
“Which leaves you and Ben where?” Nancy asked.
“Running the barbershop—”
“Are you going to stop calling it a barbershop soon?” Nancy said.
“We’re working on naming both the shops.” Flo sniffed. “Give us time. What are you, a sign maker looking for a job? Anyone who wants a haircut, they know where to come. We’re plenty busy.”
“Whoa, Flo, calm down. Don’t get your dander up,” Nancy said innocently.
Flo sighed, loudly and dramatically. The ruffles on the front of her blouse rustled when she exhaled.
“Ben and I had a long talk last night. I worry he’s thinking about making some changes in his life that don’t include running the store.”
Everyone turned and looked at me.
“He’s thinking about going back into the tech business,” I said.
“Leaving Orchard?” asked Moira.
“He’s working through a lot right now,” I said.
“You’re a smart woman, giving him space,” Flo said.
“Just don’t give him too much space,” Nancy said. “I’d hate to see him leave. Why can’t things just be the same for a while?”
• • •
The tea party broke up shortly after the third bottle of wine was empty. Nancy offered to stay and help me clean up, but I sent her home with Moira. Caroline went back downstairs to help Zane in the shop, and Nadia went upstairs to the office to check on the camera footage.
Flo wrapped up the leftover sandwiches and went to put them in the refrigerator.
“That’s an impressive amount of leftovers,” she said, holding the door open.
“I know. Most are from last night, though Ben used some to make an awesome omelet this morning.”
“He said that you both had a good talk,” she said.
“We did. You too?”
“Yeah. He’s a good boy, always has been. We lost him for a while, back when his business took off and he married that woman.”
“That woman?”
“That’s what I call her. She Who Shall Not Be Named. Not good for Ben, not at all.”
“Flo, we shouldn’t talk about—”
“Of course we should. I’ll blame it on the Bubbling Burgundy if anyone asks. She was self-centered and cared about herself first and foremost. Which worked out well, since Ben only cared about her too. Lost himself for a while, made himself what she wanted.”
“Sounds like my ex and me.”
“Something else the two of you have in common. Everything got wrapped up in her and the success of the business, not the business itself.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, rinsing a wineglass and depositing it in the drying rack.
She shut the fridge. “The tech business suited Ben, you know? Ben loves developing ideas and hiring the right folks to make them work. It went well for a long time. Then he spent too much time working on a dud of an idea, and his investors got scared. He lost the business, and that woman left him.”
“Broke his heart,” I said quietly.
“More than that. She broke his spirit.”
I took a deep breath and thought about my letter from Eric. He’d broken my heart, but he hadn’t broken my spirit. Not by a long shot. My heart had healed, stronger than ever. Ben had wheedled his way into it. But what about Ben? Was he still in love with his ex? Did he miss his old life? Did he want it back?
“You’re the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time,” Flo said, as if she’d been reading my mind. “Maybe ever. Promise me two things.”
I knew better than to argue, so instead I asked her what the two things were.
“First, that you won�
��t give up on Ben. Fight for him.”
“I’ll fight to make him happy,” I said. I hoped I was part of the picture, but I didn’t want to discuss that with Flo.
“Second,” Flo said, “keep working on figuring out what happened to Kim. I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this and we need to get this solved as soon as possible.”
“So do I,” I said, nodding. “Jeff and I talked this afternoon. I’ll help however I can, even though he’ll never ask. He’s going to figure it out.”
“Jeff may figure out what happened to Kim, but I’m talking about getting to the roots of the influences around her. Figure them out, and made sure they’re pulled out.”
“Why do so many people think I’ve got this superpower to be able to fix things?” I said, drying my hands on a dish towel.
“Because you’ve got the mind for it. So did your grandfather. Where some people see bits of metal, you see the makings of a clock. You care about making things run, and run well. Kim was a broken cog. Let’s get rid of the rest of them, otherwise Orchard will never run right again.”
chapter 22
“How can I help you, Ruth?” Jason asked. He’d come out front a few seconds after the door chime went off in the Emporium.
“Are you still open?” I said. I’d decided to take a walk down the street and talk to Jason—he was one of the only people on my list I didn’t have a whole ton of information about. I wondered why he’d gone into the vestibule, and the only way I’d find out is if I asked him.
“Till six.”
I checked my watch. It was four thirty. “Whew. I remembered you said you have some allergy meds here. I usually don’t have problems, but this year something is bothering me.”
“We had a wet winter. Tough spring for allergies.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “I’m trying to train for a 5K this summer, and running is tough— What are you laughing at?”
He was covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking.
“I’ve been here for four months, and you’ve been training for a 5K the entire time I’ve known you.”
I laughed. “I never get much past week two,” I confessed. “This week I’m blaming it on allergies. Next month I’ll blame it on the heat.”
“Well, let’s help you with the allergies. Any preferences? Side effects you worry about? Interactions with other drugs?”
“I don’t take any other drugs. I don’t like taking medicine unless I really have to. I hate pills, for one thing.”
“You know, most pills come in a liquid form. Or your pharmacist can make them into a liquid. You just have to be really careful to shake them up every time, so you get the right dosage every time.”
“Good to know.”
“If you get this”—he pointed to a familiar brand name—“you’ll be able to breathe, but it will make you tired.”
“I don’t want anything that makes me tired. Tired clockmakers are careless clockmakers. Harriet told me there are some natural alternatives I might try?”
“There are alternative medicines. Homeopathic meds give you a little bit of what you are allergic to so you build up an immunity. We carry a line of them. Those are the blue bottles over here. I’ve been experimenting with some myself, making them into drops that may help with immediate relief.” We walked over to a section that featured blue bottles, brown bottles, and vats of protein powder. Jason handed me a little blue bottle.
“I thought you were a pharmacist,” I said, leaning in to read one of the labels on the little bottles.
“I’m a realist. Folks are looking for other paths to health. I need to understand how they work, what the interactions are with traditional medicine.”
“Interactions?”
“Just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s safe. A lot of herbs have effects that are similar to drugs. If you are on a heart medicine, you need to make sure you don’t take an herb that gives you high blood pressure. Sometimes people don’t understand side effects, and they need to. Call it my new mission.”
“I understand missions. I feel like that about clocks, though it is a little different. Clocks can’t save people’s lives.”
“They can’t kill people either,” he said. “My sister was on antidepressants after her husband left her. Didn’t understand the drug interaction they’d have with other things she was taking. She was driving home one night and got into a terrible accident. They say she fell asleep at the wheel. She never regained consciousness.” Jason picked up a bottle of vitamins and started tossing it from hand to hand.
“That’s terrible,” I said, set slightly off-balance at his sudden openness. The pain of the memory was evident, and I was sorry to have brought it up.
“It is the worst thing that ever happened to me. Trust me, that’s saying something. But it did give me a new mission. A couple of them, actually. One was to better understand medicine and explore what it can do more fully.” Jason put the vitamins back on the shelf with more velocity than he expected—he bowled over a few other bottles.
“So, if I go the homeopathic route, will that get rid of the allergies?”
Jason nodded and forced a smile. “I don’t know if it will get rid of them, but it would make it easier to live with them. If it works for you.”
“It doesn’t work for everyone?”
“Depends on the type of allergy, and how bad they are.”
“Phew, that’s a lot to think about.” I picked up another bottle. “What does this do?”
“Good for migraines.”
“Not a problem I have, thankfully.”
“You’re lucky. I sell a lot of this,” he said. “I take it myself.”
“Good to know. Do you use the allergy stuff?”
“I don’t, but I do sell a lot of it.” Jason started to straighten out the bottles of vitamins.
“I heard that Kim had pretty bad allergies,” I said.
“Very bad ones, and all sorts. She carried an EpiPen with her at all times just in case. There was also one in her office, and in her car.”
“What exactly do they do?”
“They are a shot to get someone through a bad reaction. Portable. Looks like a big plastic pen. It should have helped her, always had in the past. I’ve heard that she died of an allergic reaction. Is that right?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard the same thing.”
“Such a shame. If only someone had been there to help her. To administer the medicine or call for help.”
“You went back to the portico during the party, didn’t you?” I asked, attempting to make this obvious interrogation seem more casual.
Jason looked at me, then walked over to the cash register and started moving things around on the countertop. “No, you must be mistaken.”
“Really? I thought I saw you head back after the speeches were over.”
“Oh yes, you’re right. I didn’t go to the portico, only to the kitchen. I went back to see if there was any more sweet iced tea. I love that stuff, though it is terrible for you. Sugar and caffeine. Still, my summer vice. Who made it? Please tell me it is a Sleeping Latte summer special.”
“It is,” I said. “Moira makes it from a secret family recipe Caroline gave her. It is one of my vices as well.”
“Delicious. Anyway, I went looking for more in the kitchen.”
“Did you see Kim?”
“Was she there then? I didn’t see her.” Jason looked right at me and didn’t blink. Either he was telling the truth or was a good liar.
“That’s a shame. You probably could have helped her. All right, let’s try some of this homeopathic stuff,” I said. “Might as well try and head this off at the pass.”
“Let me pull what you need and write up some directions. Make sure you follow them exactly, otherwise it won’t work the way it’s supposed to. We
can always make adjustments. Of course, if it gets too bad, there’s always over-the-counter.”
“Thanks, Jason,” I said. I looked around the store, waiting for Jason to finish up. I looked over at the corner near the back office and noticed a bicycle wheel resting against the wall.
“How’s the bicycling going?” I said.
“Good. I train for a century ride like you train for a 5K—never get much past the first month. But maybe this year will be the one where I do the hundred-mile ride.”
“Why is your wheel in here? Did you need to get it fixed?”
“No, old habit from city living. Make it less attractive for a thief. The rest of the bike is chained up outside.”
“Orchard isn’t exactly a hotbed of bike thieves,” I said.
“I know. Like I said, old habit. Like wearing my bike shorts under my pants.”
I looked over at Jason, wearing his uniform of khakis and a button-down shirt. Red striped today. He caught me looking, and winked at me. “Nothing worse than bike grease on my pants,” he said. “I hate not looking my best.”
“You always do,” I said, arranging my mouth into something I hoped resembled a smile. The image of him in bike shorts was now seared in my brain.
• • •
I walked back to the Cog & Sprocket and let myself in the front door. Nadia was working at the front counter and looked up when I came in.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“Went down to get allergy meds.”
“I didn’t know you had allergies,” Nadia said.
“I don’t.”
“Why, Nancy Drew,” she said, grinning, “were you sleuthing?”
“Stop. I thought that since Jason’s on the list—”
“What list?”
I sighed deeply. Trying to act innocent around Nadia wasn’t worth the effort. Actually, Nancy Drew was a bit of a badge of honor. She was one of my childhood favorites. I suspect Nadia knew that.
“Remember when Moira texted you asking for names of who went back past the tables into the vestibule? We’re figuring that one of those people went out to the portico and killed Kim.”
Chime and Punishment Page 20