by Leona Fox
Sadie let go of Hamilton’s arm and threw herself into his lap. Hamilton let out a big oomph of air but kept fighting. Now that he had his arm back he tried to lever it between his chest and Sadie’s back, planning to push her right off his lap. Betty had his other arm trapped against the side of the chair and was using the full force of her legs to keep it there.
Sadie grunted with effort. She was pushing back against Hamilton with everything she had – that being mostly her thigh muscles. Mr. B gave up barking at Hamilton’s boot laces, jumped on Sadie’s lap and then up onto the arm of the chair where he grabbed Hamilton’s pinky finger with his sharp little teeth and held on. He didn’t bite down or break the skin, but just applied enough pressure that Hamilton couldn’t pull his hand away without potential damage.
“No, Mr. Bradshaw,” Sadie cried, not because she was worried about Hamilton, but because she knew that Hamilton could toss the little dog across the room and harm him.
Hamilton was cursing but sitting still as Mr. B kept pressure on his little finger. Sadie noticed that not only was Mr. B holding tight with his jaw, but he was also hunched backward, pulling away from Hamilton. He was doing his best to keep Hamilton’s attention on his vulnerable little finger.
Mr. B was growling, Hamilton was swearing, Betty was muttering under her breath about scumbags with firearms and Sadie’s ears were still ringing from the gunshot.
“Lucy Shylock,” Zack’s voice came from the door, “what are you doing with that sidearm?”
Sadie, Betty, and Hamilton looked to where Lucy was standing with the gun. It looked as though she was trying to point it at Hamilton, but Sadie kept getting in the way. She bobbed the gun up and down to avoid pointing it at Sadie. Lucy’s face was grim and her hands were trembling.
Zack approached and took the gun gently from Lucy, who collapsed on the coach.
“I don’t even know how to fire that thing,” she said, shaking from relief.
Wilson came up the stairs after Zack, and then it seemed the room was full of officers. Sadie and Betty were guided away from Hamilton, although Sadie grabbed Mr. Bradshaw before Betty let his other arm go. No way was she risking Mr. Bradshaw. He was her hero.
Hamilton was led away in handcuffs and the three women collapsed on the couch. Zack stood at the balcony door and watched his officers lead Hamilton Cartwright off to the stationhouse and then turned to look at the women.
“Are you ladies unharmed?” he asked, but Sadie had the distinct feeling he was trying not to laugh.
“I fail to see what you find so funny, Zachary Woodstone,” she said.
“That maniac shattered my favorite teapot with his gun. And who knows what germs Mr. Bradshaw picked up.”
Zack’s smirk turned into a full-fledged laugh. “If you could have seen yourselves,” he said between guffaws.
“You two had Hamilton Cartwright beat – with Mr. Bradshaw’s help. I’ve never seen such naked frustration on a man’s face before. He was furious, but there was nothing he could do. And you, Lucy, holding that pistol like it might go off on its own at any moment. God help me, it was better than the Keystone Kops.”
“Chief Woodstone,” Lucy said, “If you are going to stand there and insult me, then I’m going home.” She started up off the couch.
“You misunderstood me, Lucy. I thought you all were fabulous. If my officers had the kind of tenacity you three and Mr. Bradshaw showed, we wouldn’t have any crime at all in Seagrove. I am so absolutely in awe of all of you.”
He swept off his hat and bowed to them. Betty looked at Sadie with her eyebrows raised.
“Is he for real?” she asked.
“Don’t ask me.” Sadie shrugged. “I don’t think he’s making fun of us, though. That’s not the chief’s style.”
“Of course I’m not making fun of you. I would deputize you if that kind of thing were still done.” His face sobered.
“But you’re not hurt are you? You are all okay?”
“We’re fine,” Lucy said.
“Except for Sadie’s teapot. That will need a decent burial.” She stood and picked up one of the shards that had fallen to the floor.
“Although, Sadie, you could make a mosaic top for your balcony coffee table with the pieces. It would be very pretty.” She handed the shard to Sadie.
“It would be nice,” Sadie said.
“And then I still would be able to look at the pattern and remember how pretty it was.” She handed the shard to Betty.
“Not only that, but I bet, after a while you’d start to see the beauty in the new patterns the broken pieces make,” Betty said.
“My friends,” Sadie said with a smile. “They know how to make the best of a bad situation.”
“Clearly,” Zack said, returning her smile.
“And they aren’t short of courage either. I need to get back to the station, but call if you need anything.”
“Wait,” Sadie said.
“Is it against the law for me to dump that chair over the balcony?” She motioned to the Best Armchair Ever.
“I thought you loved that chair,” Zack said.
“Not anymore. Hamilton Cartwright ruined it for me.” Sadie grimaced.
“What did he do to it?” Zack examined the chair. “It looks fine to me.”
“He touched it,” Sadie said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“If you say so,” He picked up the chair and hefted toward the stairs.
“But if you don’t mind, I’ll put it in the staff lounge at work. No one there will mind that Hamilton touched it.”
“That’s good. And better than having to clean the pieces off the sidewalk after I throw if over the balcony railing.”
Sadie jumped up off the couch and ran to Zack to give him a kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks for coming to rescue me.”
“You didn’t need rescuing,” he said and kissed her back.
“No, but it’s nice to know you’re there when I need you. Even when I don’t need you.” She opened the door for him and he disappeared down the stairs hefting the chair.
Sadie turned back to Lucy and Betty. They were looking a little worse for wear. Part of Betty’s black hair had come loose from its ponytail and was curling around her face. Lucy looked pale.
“You two need something to eat,” Sadie said. “And then we should shop for armchairs on the internet.”
“Are we going to hunch over your laptop together?” Lucy asked. “Because that doesn’t sound fun to me.”
“Nope,” Sadie flipped on the TV that hung on the wall opposite the couch and hit the remote until the internet browser came on. She typed in the name of the pizza place down the street and ordered pizzas and soda.
“I’m treating dinner,” Sadie said. “But I’m not cooking it. I’m way too beat for that.”
“I was going to cook for you two,” Lucy said plaintively. “But I don’t think I can focus enough not to burn it now.”
“We are not cooking,” Sadie said. “That’s asking too much, especially when there is pizza down the street and they’ll deliver.”
She typed in a shopping site and searched for armchairs. By the time the pizza arrived Betty and Lucy were arguing over the most necessary features of an armchair and Sadie was feeling proud of herself. Lucy had lost the haunted look and Betty was smiling and her color was back to normal. Not to say they wouldn’t have nightmares for a few days, but mostly they’d put the scare behind them.
Sadie looked at the empty spot where her favorite chair used to sit and a cold chill went up her spine. She hurried down to the front of the store to get the pizzas, thinking it was time to rearrange her living room. That spot was going to haunt her for a while.
Chapter Six
Sadie woke the next morning to the sound of her phone. She picked it up groggily to find Justin Ives was waiting outside the shop.
“Can I speak to you for a minute?” he asked.
“What time is it?” Sadie asked squinting at her phone.
“It’s eight,” he said. “Don’t you usually open the shop at eight?”
“Look at the sign, Justin. The shop doesn’t open until ten. And today it may be noon.”
Lucy and Betty had stayed late and, in fact, had gone home only when Zack had come by at two a.m. He’d been driving by and seen the light on.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I could come back later…” he sounded a little sad.
“No. I’m awake now. Give me five minutes.”
Sadie got up, brushed her teeth and threw on some clothes. She stuffed her feet into a pair of Keds without bothering with socks, and then she went downstairs.
“Come on,” she said to Justin as she stepped out of the shop. “I need coffee.”
Justin followed her into the bakery, the shop next to hers. She ordered coffee and two pastries and sat at her usual table. John, the shop owner who normally would have sat with her, saw she had company and nodded, but stayed behind the counter.
Justin ordered a cup of tea and sat on the edge of the wooden chair across from Sadie. She took a couple of gulps of coffee and then waved her hand in a gesture for him to begin.
“I’m awake now,” she said. “What do you need, Justin.”
“I came by to tell you that Tamsin’s lawyer bought me a new car. You are a miracle worker.” He smiled at her tentatively.
“He never would have caved if you hadn’t done whatever you did.”
“I did what you should have,” Sadie said. She was tired and a little more direct than she might have been if she’d had more sleep.
“I found evidence that you were telling the truth and Tamsin was lying. If you’d had a little imagination, you could have done it yourself.”
“But how did you do that?” he asked.
“I asked to see the security footage from Town Hall,” she said.
“There are cameras all over that place. It clearly showed Tamsin running into your parked car. It also showed you walking down the street when it happened. Even Tamsin’s lawyer couldn’t dispute that.”
“I didn’t even think of that,” Justin said sheepishly.
“You need to start thinking for yourself. You’re a college professor, for Pete’s sake, you aren’t a child anymore, Justin.”
Sadie glared at him over her coffee cup. She hated being mean, but really, the boy needed to start taking care of himself or everyone in this town was going to take advantage of him.
“I guess I’m used to my mom taking care of everything for me,” he said. “But she couldn’t help with this. She was as clueless as me.”
“Well, it’s time for you to stop expecting other people to clean up messes for you. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t bring this on yourself. You need to learn to problem solve and figure out solutions to your problems. You need to take care of yourself. That’s what adults do.”
Sadie took a bite of her pastry. It was wonderful, as usual in the bakery. She closed her eyes and savored it.
“Can you teach me how to solve problems?” Justin asked. “Help me figure it out?”
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“Let me think about it. Maybe if you get stuck, but I think you just have to start thinking for yourself. Instead of running to your mom, or to me, start by thinking about what needs to happen and then see if you can do what needs to be done.”
He sipped his tea. “I guess I could try that,” he said. “But could I call you when I get stuck?”
“You can call, but not until you’ve tried everything you can think of first. When you’re good and stuck, then you can call me. Deal?” She held her hand out for him to shake.
“Deal.” He shook her hand, already looking more confident.
“Good,” she said. “Now go teach classes, I need to go see someone.”
“Okay,” he said, looking a little confused. “But you haven’t finished eating.”
“I’ll just take it with me,” Sadie said. “There is someone I need to see.”
Sadie took Mr. Bradshaw for a walk in the park with a plastic bag to pick up the results of his morning constitutional. Her bag deposited in the dumpster behind the shop, she drove out to Chomps to talk with Reggie Smith.
It wasn’t until she got out there that she remembered Chomps wasn’t open for breakfast. She took Mr. B down the road to a public beach for a run. She wouldn’t wait around until noon, but they might as well take advantage of the empty beach while they were here.
Sadie let her terrier off his leash and he ran down the beach, chasing waves and the shadows of the gulls on the sand. The breeze was brisk and chased any remaining sleepiness from her head. She remembered she’d seen Reggie Smith’s address when she was at the police station watching him be questioned.
She let Mr. Bradshaw run a while longer and then loaded him back in the car for the ride down the coast to Reggie’s apartment.
It was a little collection of tiny houses in a three-sided square around a patch of lawn. Reggie was sitting outside his little cottage smoking a cigarette when Sadie walked up. He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it as she and Mr. B approached, and stood to greet her.
“You were with the police chief the other day, weren’t you?” he asked. He looked nervous.
“I was,” Sadie agreed. “And you can sit down, I’m not a cop.”
“I wondered,” Reggie said.
“Cops don’t usually travel with tiny dogs.”
He sat down and motioned for her to sit in an identical plastic chair. She sat cautiously, not trusting the chair to be sturdy or steady, but it held.
“This is none of my business,” she said.
“And I’m not here from the police or anything like that, but I feel compelled to give you some advice.” He paled a little and nodded.
“You’ve heard the adage ‘Never speak ill of the dead’?” she asked. He nodded.
“Well, that goes doubly when the person has been murdered. You got yourself in some hot water saying things about a person you didn’t really know. Do you realize what you said wasn’t true?” she asked.
“I didn’t then, but I do now,” he said. “I believed someone I shouldn’t have.”
“Exactly. You were repeating something you heard, not something you knew. My advice to you is not to spread rumors. If you don’t know something is true first hand, then keep it to yourself. You’ll keep yourself out of trouble that way.”
She stood up and Mr. Bradshaw looked up from the patch of grass he’d been sniffing. Reggie put his hand on Sadie’s arm.
“I never, ever want to go to jail again,” he said.
“So I am going to take your advice and keep my mouth shut. Unless I know something to be true, and then I’ll tell the cops, not a customer at work. I promise.”
Sadie patted his hand, proud of herself for getting the mom thing down. “Good for you, Reggie. Now the other thing you can do is to think about continuing your education and getting a job that uses your skills. Any fifteen-year-old can be a busboy. It’s time you figured out what you want to do with your life.”
“I’m the dishwasher,” Reggie protested.
“Same difference,” Sadie said.
“Anybody can be a dishwasher, Reggie. You are smart enough to do something with your life. Make a difference in the world. Not that clean dishes aren’t important, but you are capable of more. Do something with yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“That’s right. You need to occupy your mind with real life problems and solving them. You have too much time on your hands if you don’t have anything to say about a dead woman except that she deserved it.”
“I know.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Learn, Reggie. Take it all in and learn from your mistakes. And, just in case you haven’t figured it out, never speak ill of the dead. Actually, never speak ill of anyone – at least in public.”
“I understand.” He still wouldn’t look Sadie in the eye.
“Reggie, look at m
e,” she said.
He looked up reluctantly.
“It’s okay to make mistakes, Reggie, as long as you learn from them. You do not need to be ashamed.”
She hugged him even though she knew it was violating his boundaries. He probably didn’t even know he had boundaries. He hugged her back and smiled ruefully as they parted, which made Sadie feel better. She patted him on the arm and pulled a business card from her bag.
“Here,” she said, handing him the card. “You can call me if you ever need to talk.”