For Letter or Worse

by Vivian Conroy

  “As if she suspected someone was watching her,” Delta supplied.

  “Exactly. Drake thought that the delivery was meant to demonstrate that someone she had been avoiding had finally found her, even here in this remote place, and was watching her. He wanted me to find out who that was.”

  Jonas shook his head. “I fell for it, Delta, while I knew I shouldn’t. Like I said, he flattered me and… It was dumb. Look what happened now.”

  “This isn’t your fault, and who says the murder is even connected?”

  “The perfume bottle seemed to be exactly what Drake was afraid of, and I called in the police because they can analyze evidence, take prints and follow up. I hoped they would find out who had sent the bottle and could do something about it, as I obviously can’t. But by involving West, I got him into trouble. The time of death has been established as between five thirty and six, so Sally Drake was actually killed while the local police were around, looking into the bottle. Drake is outraged, and…he wants to file some sort of charge for incompetence and get West removed from his post as sheriff. You can understand how West now thinks I set this up with Drake. We’ve never seen eye to eye, but I won’t have West lose his job because of some judgment mistake I made.”

  Some mess. Delta looked him over. “So, what do you propose?”

  “That I find out how it all fits together. The bottle with the skull, the murder. The groceries earlier. I need all the information I can get about the party, and I thought you might know a thing or two.” He gave her a hopeful look. “Hazel was there too, and Mrs. Cassidy.”

  “Hazel wants nothing to do with this investigation. She dreamed again about being locked up when Finn was accused of Vera White’s murder.” Delta bit her lip. “I’d hoped we could put all of that behind us. I feel so sorry for her.”

  “Okay, leave Hazel out of it then. Ask Mrs. Cassidy and that outlaw group of hers.”

  “They’re already on the case.” Delta sighed. “I have about two hundred messages on my phone.”

  “Great, can I see?” Jonas sounded eager to unearth a major clue.

  “Sure.” Delta pulled out the phone and handed it over. Jonas started to read. After a while, he glanced up. “It’s not really facts they deal in, huh?”

  Delta had to laugh. “Last time they did unearth a lot of useful stuff. They have eyes and ears in all public places. I hate the saying: ‘Where there is smoke, there’s fire.’ But it turns out to be true at times. And you can see there are already some claims in here that might be useful. Take Calvin Drake and Zara Kingsley—he got that girl into his home as a dog walker for his wife’s poodles. They seem to have met at the Lodge where Calvin Drake put an arm around her in a pretty friendly way, suggesting she’s not just some student he offered a job to.”

  Technically, Delta had gotten this information from Ray, but knowing how Jonas felt about Ray and the Taylors in general, she wasn’t going to specify that. Instead she added, “Oh, and you could go talk to Lydia and Clara of that design agency to see what their gripe was with Drake.”

  “Could you do that?” Jonas handed back the phone. “Maybe as an excuse for contacting them, you can fake interest in interior design for Wanted?”

  “I don’t think we can afford anything like that.” Delta looked him over. She really wanted to help out, but she had a suspicious feeling Jonas was going to load a ton of jobs onto her. “What are you going to do?”

  “Take a group birding.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “My schedule was filled up weeks in advance, so I can only sleuth in my free moments. I was hoping to rely on you and the crafting ladies.”

  Delta sighed. Irritation fought with excitement that they could go sleuthing again, like they had before. She had missed it. Had missed him. “I must admit I’m super intrigued, and I want to help you. But I can’t promise any results. I mean, last time I could easily ask a question here and there, since my link to Hazel and Finn explained why I was so interested in the murder and I wanted to clear their names. But I hardly know the people involved now, and…it might look very nosy.”

  “The murder will be the talk of the town. You can listen well. Your friends are at the important places: bakery, boutique, mining museum. They will hear things.”

  “I know, I know.” Delta gestured. “Shall I add you to the message group so you can hear our discussions firsthand?”

  “No, please.” Jonas put up both hands, palms outward. “I have an idea how those discussions go. You condense it and share it with me. You made a very nice concise overview last time. We can uh…meet up for regular strategic discussions?”

  She looked into his probing eyes. Was this really about the case or…? Hazel had said Jonas liked her, and she should take the opportunity to get to know him better. Date. Discussing a murder case wasn’t dating, of course, but still… It was a chance to spend time together and see how they got along.

  “Sure, strategic discussions sound good.”

  Jonas’s expression relaxed into a relieved smile. “I knew I could count on you. Thanks so much. We’ll be in touch.” He backed up and waved at her. “See you later. Come along, Spud.” And with the dog trotting by his side, he walked off.

  Delta exhaled. Did he even notice what sweater I’m wearing?

  Still, he had called her earlier contributions valuable. And that smile when he had said he had known he could count on her…

  They were officially on a case again.

  Together.

  A wave of excitement ran through her chest, and with a grin, she jumped on her mountain bike to race into town.

  * * *

  On the last bit downhill, carried by the forward momentum and the wind at her back, Delta was contemplating the good in her life when a big, black shape shot out into the road ahead of her. In a reflex, she hit the brakes of her bicycle and steered away, sending the bike skidding across the concrete and veering into the bank. She managed to stay in her seat but didn’t have enough control to avoid the bushes. Twigs broke all around her, and the bike hit an exposed root and came to a full stop. With adrenaline pumping through her system, Delta reached up to wipe the sweat off her face. A burning sensation in her left cheek suggested twigs had grazed the skin off. She took a deep breath and turned her head to check how her neck was functioning.

  “I’m so sorry! Are you all right?”

  Delta twisted her upper body toward the voice and saw Zara Kingsley staring at her with a worried frown. Her strawberry-blond hair looked fiery in the morning sun. She wore a short leather jacket with skinny jeans and sneakers. By her side, one of Lena Laroy’s poodles tore at the leash. The other one was nowhere in sight.

  Delta sighed. “That black thing running right in front of my bike was your other dog?”

  “Pearl. She’s off again. I can’t control her.” Zara burst into tears.

  Delta untangled herself from the bike and bushes. Plucking twigs from her sweater, she went over to the girl. As she put a hand on her shoulder, it struck her how ironic it was that she was the one almost in an accident because of the runway dog, and she was now comforting the dog walker. But it had all ended reasonably well, so no need to upset the girl any further.

  “They do seem to be a handful,” she said, leaning down to calm Emerald.

  “They are monsters,” Zara burst out. “They don’t obey; they are practically untrained. They are spoiled rotten and think everyone exists purely for them.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you like dogs at all.” Delta tilted her head.

  “Oh, I do. Just not these two. They are so badly behaved.” Zara sniffed. “They should have hired a dog trainer instead of a dog walker.”

  “If you can’t control them, you have to stay away from the road. Suppose Pearl had run right in front of a car. If the driver had panicked and steered away…” Delta grimaced. “You can take them for walks in the forest behind t
he villa, right?”

  “Where the murder happened? No way.” Zara hugged herself. “I could be next.”

  “You think the killer is some maniac targeting random women?”

  “Why not? It’s full of tourists here.” Zara swallowed hard. “I can’t see why someone would want to kill Sally Drake. She was a quiet person. Not likely to get into an argument.”

  “I heard she had trouble with her ex-husband.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. She left the place where she lived and came here. Maybe for vacation?” Zara shrugged. She stood with her head down, staring at her feet.

  “Don’t we have to look for Pearl?” Delta asked. Her heart clenched at the idea of the poodle running into trouble. Maybe the dog had never been trained properly, but that was not the animal’s fault. Out on her own, she could get hit by a car or hurt, and Zara didn’t even seem to care.

  “I don’t know where she might be. Maybe she ran home?” Zara sounded less than enthusiastic about a search for the missing poodle.

  “You could give the villa a call to ask if the dog has come home,” Delta suggested.

  Zara’s head shot upright. “Are you crazy? I can’t tell them I lost her. Then I will get fired.”

  “If you can’t handle the dogs and believe they are monsters, why don’t you look for another job anyway? It can’t be much fun to have to work this way.”

  “It’s not about fun. I…need the money.” Zara gave her a pleading look. “You won’t tell them either, will you?”

  “No, I won’t call them right away, but…it can’t go on like this.”

  “I’ll look for Pearl.” Zara turned away and pulled the other poodle along. “Pearl! Where are you?”

  Delta shook her head. She went back to the bush and extracted the bike, straightening the handlebars. Then she climbed back on it and tested it to see if she could move the pedals without trouble. Everything seemed to function all right. She put the bike into motion and called out, “Pearl! Pearl, good girl, come here.”

  * * *

  When Delta arrived at Wanted, Hazel’s voice rang out, “There you are. I was just thinking I’d have to do it by myself. There is this fun package with… What happened to you?” She closed in on Delta and put a hand on her arm, scanning her face with a worried expression. “Your forehead looks all red, and there is this odd graze on your left cheek.”

  “One of Lena Laroy’s poodles ran into the road ahead of my bike, and I sort of crashed. It was nothing serious, but Zara was rather upset, and I helped her catch the dog.”

  “Zara was upset? How about you?” Hazel gestured for her to come along into the kitchen area in the back. “That graze needs to be washed with hot water.”

  While Hazel poured water onto a cotton pad, Delta sat on a chair, telling the full story. “Pearl hadn’t gone far. She was simply walking about in circles, barking. She doesn’t seem to be a truly badly behaved dog; she’s just naughty and testing how far she can get with Zara.”

  “Zara doesn’t seem very experienced as a dog walker,” Hazel stated. “Now hold your breath, this may sting.” She applied the cotton pad to the graze.

  Delta hissed a moment, then relaxed. “Zara asked me not to tell a thing to Lena or her husband. Apparently, she needs the job because of the money involved. I guess she does really need it for something, since she seems so unhappy with her work but is still determined to stick it out.” The graze burned, and she sucked in air. “Of course, I could hardly ask her why money was such an issue. I mean that would have been rude, and she wouldn’t have told me the truth anyway. Especially not if she’s having an affair with Drake. Him being married and a lot older than she is.”

  “Right.” Hazel threw the pad in the wastebasket. “That should be a bit better. I don’t have any disinfectant here.”

  “No need for it. It’s just a little graze. It could have been much worse, so I’m happy. Too bad the chat with Zara didn’t deliver the jackpot for Jonas.” She told Hazel what Jonas had shared with her about wanting to look into Sally Drake’s death because of his assignment for Drake.

  Hazel whistled. “So, Lena Laroy was seriously under threat, even before the party? Maybe the wrong woman was killed.”

  Delta made a so-so gesture. “They wore dresses of a similar style and color, but that doesn’t make them identical twins. If you want to kill Lena and you’ve been targeting her for some time, you don’t suddenly come and kill the wrong woman.”

  “Maybe the killer was waiting for Lena, and then Sally showed up and recognized him, and he had to kill her to silence her.”

  “Recognized him?” Delta tilted her head.

  “Yes, maybe she had seen him before, hanging around, or she knew who he was from a prior occasion. She was Drake’s sister; she might have stayed with them before.”

  “Good thinking. As Drake’s sister, she must have known about a lot of things. And rumor has it she wanted into the company as well. She might not have known a lot about interior design, but her brother might have taken her on board purely to support her after her old job ended.” Delta frowned hard. “Drake mentioned to me that Sally had left her job. It sounded as if that had been her own decision. But then he also said her husband had maligned her, and she had been fired. So, did she leave of her own accord or not?”

  “Does that matter?” Hazel perked up as a tinny ring sang through the shop. “The store bell. I’ll go serve the customers; you sit quietly for a bit to get over the shock of the near accident. Oh, there’s a pie in the fridge. Jane brought it right before you came. It’s a new idea from the bakery we have to test.”

  Delta’s mouth watered. It was the best thing to have a baker’s wife for a friend.

  Hazel disappeared into the front, and Delta peeked into the fridge. The pie looked amazing, with a chocolate cake layer, cream with raspberries, meringue, and chocolate chunks on top. She took it out of the fridge, cut off two large slices, and put them onto plates. She then poured coffee into two mugs and put everything on a tray. She peeked into the shop. Two women were just leaving, Hazel guiding them to the door and saying goodbye. As she turned into the shop again, Delta carried out the tray with their coffee and pie. Hazel grinned at her. “Perfect timing. Oh, that does look good. Jane said to evaluate how we like it.”

  Delta dug her fork into the meringue and took a bite. “I already like it,” she mumbled.

  For a few minutes they ate their pie, sipped their coffee, and enjoyed the sun slanting into the shop, shining light on the notebooks for sale. Delta took in the newest display, an array of planner fillings. It was a recent addition to the shop, so people could vary the color and pattern of the sheets in their planner. Delta had fallen in love with the botanical designs and purchased two, even though she didn’t own a planner. But the paper was too pretty to resist.

  She closed her eyes a moment and enjoyed the happiness of being in her own shop among the scent of paper and ink, eating pie with her best friend in the whole world. This was the perfect life.

  The graze on her cheek stung, and opening her eyes again, she realized with a sigh of regret that even in the perfect life not everything went as planned, and with a dead body found at a party, things were getting complicated again—fast. The only good thing was that this time Finn wasn’t involved, and via him, Hazel, so their shop wasn’t caught in the line of fire. She had barely completed the thought when the door opened, and Marc LeDuc rushed in. He held out his phone and moved it up and down as if scanning for something. He came to the counter and eyed the pie. “Celebrating, are you? A bit callous after a death.”

  “We’re testing a new pie for the bakery,” Hazel snapped. “And what do you want?”

  “Information about the party yesterday.” He held the phone close to her. “You gave a workshop there. You must have noticed something. Did you see Sally Drake’s ex-husband there?”

 
“Her ex-husband? I thought he was in LA.” Delta knew very well that Drake had told her the day before how his brother-in-law had popped up in Tundish, but she wanted to find out exactly how much Marc knew. And what was more, how he knew it. Who was tipping him off? Delta studied Marc. “Do you know for certain he is around town?”

  “I’m asking you questions.”

  “Well, you can share a little. It would be pretty sensational. After all, their marriage ended, so why would he want to come after her?”

  “For money maybe?” Marc leaned back on his heels. “It seems that he’s a big spender, and her job at the museum and various art galleries provided for his needs. But after she left, well…” He tutted. “It’s not nice to be cut off, I guess.”

  “So, you think he would have been…persuasive to get her to start paying again?”

  “But why would he kill her?” Hazel intervened. “That makes no sense at all. If she has to pay him money, he would only be hurting his own interests.”

  “Unless he knew he’d inherit from her. They had only recently split up, and the divorce hadn’t come through yet. Maybe she hadn’t changed her will either. You know how spouses often make each other their beneficiary…” Marc beamed. “I think it’s a very interesting angle. He could actually have killed her to get the money before the divorce ensured he lost it all.”

  “Yes, but I don’t see why you’re here then. Naturally, Sally Drake didn’t discuss her upcoming divorce or a possible change of her will with us.” Delta took a sip of coffee. “We barely saw her at the party.”

  “That’s odd, because someone told me she had been looking forward to the 3-D card–making. Wasn’t that what you offered?” Marc leaned in. “I bet she came into your party tent and made a card, and while working on it, talked a lot. Like women do when they’re at the hairdresser’s and all.”

  “There was a nail studio there,” Hazel said in a musing tone. “Maybe she had her nails done and spilled about her unhappy situation? The tension with her husband, how he hounded her.”