by Diana Orgain
Yolanda smiled at me. “Now you can go on your date with Officer Hot Pants, Maggie. You don’t need to worry about the Wine and Bark.”
* * *
After Yolanda dropped Rachel and me off, I headed to the local grocery to pick up a few things for Grunkly. I walked along the beach over to his house. In one arm, I held the bag of groceries and in the other, my shoes. I wiggled my toes into the sand as I walked, admiring the sun and surf. In the distance, I saw a couple walking hand-in-hand. They looked familiar and I hurried to see who it was. To my surprise, I made out the tall male figure. It was Officer Ellington.
What with Hendrick being arrested and Fran and Darla’s case being closed, apparently he had some free time.
The woman, had light brown hair secured in a ponytail and I realized with a certain degree of pleasure, that it was Cornelia. I was pleased that Ellington had found a potential love interest; he’d seemed so broken up about Fran’s death. Maybe Cornelia could soften him up. I smiled. Everyone loves a happy ending.
When I arrived at Grunkly’s, I rapped on his door and waited. “It’s me, Grunkly. Maggie!”
No answer.
I knocked again at the same time pulling my cell phone from my pocket. I knew Grunkly would tell me to use key under the doormat, but I hated the idea of barging in.
He picked up immediately. “Benny?”
Benny was my great-uncle’s bookie. “No, it’s Maggie. I’m at the front door,” I said.
“Magpie! You don’t have to call me. I’ve told you before, just use the key from under the mat. Come in!”
I hung up, dug the key out from under the mat and entered. I beelined for the kitchen to set the groceries down. “Good news,” I said. “Rachel is out of the hospital.”
Grunkly burst into spontaneous applause. “Thank goodness! I was worried sick!” He followed me into the kitchen and began unpacking the groceries alongside me.
“Yeah, it’s good,” I agreed. “What are you up to?” I maneuvered around the broken toaster, to put away the bread. Then, I unplugged the toaster and picked it up. “Can we toss this thing?”
Grunkly looked horrified. “The toaster?”
The toaster looked like a relic from the Titanic. There was no way it functioned.
“It could start a fire,” I said.
Grunkly shook his head. “No, no. It works perfectly fine. I like my toast extra toasty.” He pulled it out of my hands and clung to it as if it was a prized possession.
I sighed. I’d never win the declutter game with him.
He plucked out a few cans of Dinty Moore stew from the bottom of the bag and stuck them in a cupboard. “I thought you were Benny calling,” he said. “I’ve been waiting on his call all morning.”
“A hot new horse you have to bet on?” I asked.
Just as certainly as I’d never win the declutter game with Grunkly, I’d also never win the “You’re wasting your time and money gambling on horses” argument.
“Not a horse. I saw your friend on that cooking show.”
I paused. “Gus?”
“Yeah!” he said, his face lighting up. “He’s going to win that thing.”
“Grunk, he nearly got voted off last night!”
Grunkly laughed. “Not hardly. I heard all about it on my police scanner. The kid has quite a following. Anyway, I know how those shows work. They act like the guy most likely to win is ready to get axed, but nothing could be further from the truth. Anyway, I’ve sampled his cooking. I know he’s going to win.”
I couldn’t help but be cynical. “Let me guess. The odds are against him.”
Grunkly patted my shoulder. “Atta girl!”
I giggled. “Well, I’ll let him know you believe in him.”
We finished putting away the groceries and made our way out to the living room. Prominently displayed on the coffee table was a fruit basket.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A nice lady named Lois came by earlier. She just opened shop. A cat adoption center.”
Unexpectedly, despair clutched at my stomach. “What?” I asked. “Lois came here? Why?”
Grunkly walked over to the coffee table and picked up a card. He handed it me. “She was asking if I would consider leasing to her or selling the property that houses the Wine and Bark. She’s having problems with her location and she hasn’t even opened her business yet.” He showed me the flyer for the Kitty Corner’s grand opening. “I told her there was no way, no how, that’d I could sell the property.”
Grunkly owned quite a few pieces of real estate around town. Anytime he’d hit it big with the racehorses, he invested in property.
“And you know, Magpie, I don’t ever sell my real estate!” he continued. “That’s for you and Rachel when I kick the bucket.”
I hugged him. “Thank you, I know.”
“Anyway, Lois said if I wouldn’t sell then she wanted to rent from me. But I told her Rachel is my niece and she has the lease for as long as she wants it.”
So the owner of the Kitty Corner wants to put the Wine and Bark out of business, quite literally.
“That’s right, Grunkly. Rachel has no intention of letting the business go. In fact, she’s getting a nice spread in Doggie Day magazine.” I left out the part about the whole breaking our backs redecorating and then un-decorating the Wine and Bark in order to get Vrishali to agree to it.
Grunkly beamed. “You girls have good heads on your shoulders. The business is going to succeed, and I’m delighted to hear Rachel is out of the hospital.” He rummaged through the fruit basket and pulled out a handful of chocolate-covered raisins. He offered them to me. When I shook my head, he popped them into his mouth and said, “These are delicious. Such a nice lady.”
* * *
I walked along the beach, but instead of heading home, I found myself heading toward the Kitty Corner. If Lois was desperate enough to seek out Grunkly to try and buy his property, I wondered what was wrong with her location.
As I turned onto the street where the Kitty Corner was, I could see there were preparations for the grand opening. A yellow banner was strung across the façade and in the window was an enormous cat tower designed to look like a tree. Kittens were scampering in and out of faux tunnels, hanging on branches, and sliding into each other. A young girl in pigtails pressed her hand against the glass. Next to her was a man dressed in plaid shorts and blue polo shirt. They stood at the window mesmerized by the cats.
The girl squealed and pointed at the cats as they romped after a pom-pom that rolled into one of the cubbies.
“Daddy, daddy. I’ve always wanted kitty. Can we get one? Please? Maybe the gray one.” She pointed to a kitten as he scored the pom-pom away from another kitten. “Or maybe the tiger-striped one.” She pointed to one snoozing in a tunnel. “Or the black-and-white one. Look at him. Isn’t he cute? We can call him Whiskers.”
Her father smiled. “They’re all adorable. But the store’s not open yet.” He indicated the grand opening banner. “We’ll have to come on Saturday and see if we can adopt one.”
Inside the store, Lois emerged from the back. She saw me at the window and scurried over to the open the door. We stood in the doorway, the little girl and her father looked on curiously, but soon moved down the street.
Lois said, “Maggie, right? It’s good to see you again. We’re not open yet, but you’ll come to the party on Saturday, won’t you?” Her voice lilted upward, her eyes sparkling as she waited for my reply.
“I’ll try,” I said. “But really, I came to talk to you because my uncle said you approached him about leasing the property where the Wine and Bark is at.”
She frowned, a deep crease appearing between her eyes. “Oh.” She pushed up her glasses and glanced around nervously. “Yes. It’s true. I was considering the locale. It has good foot traffic…”
I indicated a couple walking past and then a group of teenagers that were close by. “I don’t understand. This location has excellent foot traffi
c.”
Her lips pursed. “Moving wouldn’t be my first choice, after all, I haven’t even opened shop.”
“Then why are you researching other locations?” I asked. “Are you getting evicted?”
Lois folded her arms over her large bosom. “In a matter of speaking. The building’s been sold.”
“The new owner wants you out?” I asked.
She shrugged. “She did … but then…”
“What?” I probed.
“She died.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Blood rushed into my ears, creating a whoosh sound, and my legs felt like they might wobble out from under me.
Another murder in Pacific Cove?
“What do you mean she’s dead?” I stuttered.
Lois leaned in confidentially, “Oh, you hadn’t heard? That woman. The one who owned that ridiculous shop, Chic Chickie.”
Relief flooded me. There hadn’t been another murder in our small town; this was just the local gossip making its rounds.
“Fran?” I asked.
Lois nodded. “Yes, Fran! She wanted to expand and tried to get the lease for this property here. But I hired a very savvy attorney. The nice one, lady from Bradford and Blahnik. She has a little dog. She frequents the Wine and Bark, I think.”
“Brenda. I know her.”
Lois smiled. “Yes, Brenda.” She nodded in unison with me. “Well, if it wasn’t for her, Fran would have swiped the lease right out from under me! But as it was, Brenda wrote in some terms that really swayed the owners.”
I frowned. “So what’s the problem?”
“When they rented to me, Fran became furious and she put in an offer to buy the building, with one stipulation, of course.”
“That you be evicted?” I asked.
Lois nodded. “She wanted the space. She was ruthless.”
“She was murdered,” I said, watching Lois’s face carefully.
“I know,” Lois said, her eyes flicked back toward the shop. “I can’t say that I’m exactly brokenhearted about it.” An orange kitten darted toward us. Lois picked him up deftly by the scruff of the neck. “No escaping, Little Archie.” She stroked the cat between the ears, and he let out a ferocious purr that sounded like a lawn mower. Something on his neck, flashed in the sunlight.
My breath caught.
Little Archie has a bejeweled collar!
“Oh, what a cute little guy,” I said. “May I hold him?”
Lois passed me the kitten and I discreetly examined the collar. The jewels were blue, not green. It wasn’t a match. Still, I suddenly felt the wild desire to check every collar in the store to see if there was a match.
The kitten squirmed in my hands and Lois took him. She released him back to the floor and he scampered inside to romp it up with his friends.
“I thought the new owner might be more reasonable,” Lois said.
“The new owner?” I asked.
She nodded. “That man, Hendrick. He inherited the property from Fran, but he told me he needed to wait for the estate to settle before he could commit to anything.”
“So you’ve spoken with him already?”
“Oh, yes,” Lois said. “As soon as I heard about Fran. My attorney told me not to approach him. But I couldn’t help it.” She wrung her hands as she spoke, and a sense of desperation seemed to waft off of her. “I’ve put so much into this business already, and we haven’t even had our grand opening yet.”
I nodded. “I know how much goes into launching a business.”
Lois tsked, her face almost a mask of agony. “The best I can hope for is to have a successful launch and try to land another lease, in case Hendrick moves forward with the eviction.”
“But Fran wanted the space for her store, right? Maybe Hendrick will let you continue to lease?”
Lois filled her cheeks with air and let it out in a great big huff. “I don’t know. It’s unfortunate now that he’s under arrest. I’m sure that will drag things along even more.”
She knows about the arrest. What else does she know?
Lois seemed to have a pulse on the latest Pacific Cove gossip.
“Just out of curiosity,” I said. “When did you visit with Hendrick?”
Lois squared her shoulder to me and tilted her chin in defiance. “Monday.”
Goosebumps grew on my arms.
Monday was the day Darla was murdered.
“At Verdant Vines?” I asked.
Lois nodded, keeping her eyes on mine. “Yup.”
* * *
I hurried home, marveling at how I ran late all the time. I’d had plenty of time to pick up Rachel from the hospital and shop for Grunkly, but stopping at the Kitty Corner had thrown off my entire schedule.
Even though I hated the feeling of rushing, I had newfound energy. Lois had a bone to pick with Fran. She’d been very upset about being evicted. What if they’d had a confrontation at Chic Chickie that ended with Fran’s death?
What about the gem I’d found at Chic Chickie? Could it have come from one of Lois’s kittens? The unsettling feeling I’d had while speaking with Lois grew. Something was off. She was distressed about her business, that much was clear.
But how far would she go to ensure success?
Could she have shot Fran in a rage over the eviction?
Once home, I quickly changed into a fresh shirt and khakis. Nothing too fancy for the Charcoal Corral. I reapplied my lipstick and ran a brush through my hair. I was out the door when my phone buzzed.
“Maggie, it’s Brad.”
“Brad, I’m so sorry I’m late. Hang tight and I’ll be there.”
He sighed. “Oh, I’m glad you’re not there yet. Listen, I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to postpone. Can you give me a rain check?”
“Of course, I understand,” I said, trying to mask the disappointment in my voice. I felt deflated. I’d been looking forward to our lunch and now he was canceling.
“I hate to do this to you, Maggie. It’s just that something’s come up.”
“Is it about the Hendrick case?” I probed.
He chuckled. “You know I can’t discuss the case with you.”
Still something in his voice gave me a jolt. “Has there been a development?”
He was silent for a moment, then he said, “I heard Rachel is out of the hospital.”
Boy, he was smooth at changing the subject.
“Yes. I picked her up this morning.”
“I’m happy to hear that. I know you must be relieved.”
“I am. We’re all happy she’s back home. Well, really she’s at the Wine and Bark. Looks like we might get the cover of Doggie Day, after all.”
“Great,” said Brad. “Well deserved. I’ll talk to you soon, okay, Mags?”
“Yes … but wait, before you hang up…”
“Hmm?”
“I stopped by Kitty Corner. To talk to the owner, well, it’s a long story. But she mentioned to me that she’d been up at Verdant Vines on Monday. That’s the day—”
“Maggie! You’re not investigating again—”
“No, no. Nothing like that, it’s just that—”
There was a break in the line, the kind that comes when another call beeps through.
“Uh. I have to get this one, Maggie. Stay out of trouble!”
* * *
I puttered around the house, looking for something to occupy myself. I fussed around in the kitchen and realized I didn’t have many groceries because I’d planned to be on the cruise right about now. While I was making a shopping list for myself my phone rang.
“Hey there, beautiful,” Gus’s voice filled the line. “I had a break and wanted to give you a call.”
I relaxed just hearing his voice. “Hi, Gus! How’s the show going?”
“I made the next round.”
“I had no doubts,” I said. “And I’m sure Grunkly will be happy to hear it. I think he’s placed a couple of bets on you.”
He laughed. “I’ll tr
y not to disappoint.”
Suddenly I missed him like crazy. “If you go all the way on the show, when will you be home?” I asked.
He made a little tsking sound. “Couple weeks still. We only tape one show a week and the elimination round is live. Why? You miss me?”
“Of course.”
“Especially since you’re not dancing your head off in the Mexican Riveria, right?”
“Dancing my head off? More like working another part of my anatomy off. I don’t think they let pursers dance.”
“You should have applied for cruise director, like Julie McCoy,” he said.
I laughed. “No no. There’s too much dealing with people in that role. Like I do at the Wine and Bark. It’s what drives me crazy. With numbers, there’s a right and a wrong. Things balance. With people, there’s no telling.”
Gus was silent for a moment.
“Are you there?” I asked.
“Yeah. I was just thinking. Why don’t you do the books for the Wine and Bark? Rachel hates that sort of thing. Come to think of it, so do Norma from the Meat and Greet, and Camilla from Piece of Cake. If you wanted to, you could run your own bookkeeping service. In fact, once I get back into town and reopen DelVecchio’s I’ll be your very first client.”
His suggestion stunned me. Part of me wanted to travel, but the other part wanted to stay put in Pacific Cove and await his return.
As if he sensing my anxiety, he said, “If you have the travel bug so bad, you can come see me in New York.”
“I just left there not too long ago.”
“Great,” he said, without missing a beat. “You can show me your favorite hangouts.”
“Well, smarty-pants. I need funds for that.”
“Pfft. If money is a problem I’m happy to send you a ticket.”
“Of course, money is a problem,” I teased. “And not just for the ticket, but for rent. You know. Otherwise, I might have to move in with Grunkly.”
Gus burst out laughing. “No! You’d get lost among the boxes, Maggie. We’d never see you again.”
I giggled. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“No, no! I like being on his good side,” Gus said.
“Right. Don’t get on his bad side. It might cost you a veal piccata or two.”