Sifting Through Clues

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  “Reneged on your deal,” I whispered.

  Crusibella placed a hand on her chest. “You must think I’m horrid, talking about a sale when her body isn’t even cold. Maybe I am. But I’ve had my heart set on owning the store for ages. Ever since she hinted that she was ready to bail.”

  “Do you know why she wanted out?” I asked.

  “Like I said, she’d had a heart scare. Plus, I think it was hard to always be excited about something she didn’t believe in.” Crusibella grabbed a pair of books from the Cupcake Mystery series and brought them to the checkout desk. “Wrap these up for Mrs. Sanders,” she told her clerk and then continued on, tweaking, as I often did at the Cookbook Nook, making sure book titles faced out and displays were neat. “By the way, it’s not a secret that Ivy didn’t believe. I’m not telling tales out of school.”

  “My aunt said something similar.”

  “When you’re selling items that are supposed to center the soul, you should believe in their powers, don’t you think? For heaven’s sake, the store is called Dreamcatcher. Not Reality 101.”

  Bailey bit back a laugh.

  “Bad, bad, bad.” Crusibella finger-combed her frazzled hair. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. She was a good friend.”

  I smiled supportively. “So you said the other day. Tell me about your friendship.”

  “We talked daily.” Crusibella hitched a thumb. “We’d meet in the alley out back, and she’d have a smoke, and I—”

  “Ivy smoked?”

  “Two cigarettes a day. She was very disciplined in that regard. We’d catch up on the latest gossip. Boy, that woman had her finger on the pulse of this town, let me tell you.”

  “If you bought her store, what would you do with Spellbinder?”

  “Keep it. I could never sell it. Books are my life’s blood. I can’t wait to come to work every day.” She pointed to the wall adjoining Dreamcatcher. “I plan to cut a door right there so customers can move freely between the two. It’s a perfect match when you think about it. Reading stirs the imagination, and the items in Dreamcatcher stir the soul.”

  Bailey let out a teensy moan.

  I gripped her elbow. “Are you okay?”

  “I need to sit down. My feet are swollen.”

  “Let’s go to the bar. I’ll buy you a sparkling water. Crusibella, come sit with us.”

  She fanned the air. “I would, but there’s so much to do. I have a book club coming in later to use the reading room. They’re discussing a very dark tale by Edgar Allan Poe. The room needs a proper dusting, and—”

  Boom, clack!

  Bailey shrieked.

  Something fell next door, then the walls rattled and a man swore. I ordered Bailey to sit and tore out of Spellbinder.

  Chapter 11

  The door to Dreamcatcher was ajar. I dashed in and found Alastair futilely bracing a rack of natural wood shelves against the wall. One of the two-inch support legs had come loose and lay beneath the lowest shelf. If he dared to move, all the items on the shelves, many of them breakable, would crash to the floor.

  Crusibella tore in after me. “Oh, my.”

  “All I did was remove a box,” Alastair moaned. “One. Darned. Box.” He glared at a toppled carton packed with smaller containers. “The moment I did, everything went haywire. I had to drop it.”

  “Crusibella, put your hand here.” I gestured to a spot midway along the shelving. “I’m going to screw in the support leg.” I glanced at Alastair, who didn’t look quite as Olympian as usual with perspiration peppering his upper lip. “Why are you here by yourself?” I asked him.

  “The executor for Ivy’s estate wants a complete inventory so her parents can prepare the place for sale. Everything has to come out of its box to ensure nothing is broken. I’m supposed to take pictures and send them to him.”

  “I told you they’d put it on the market, Jenna,” Crusibella said.

  Alastair hitched his chin in the direction of the wall. “I think I damaged it.”

  “It’s nothing that a little paint and spackle won’t fix.” I patted his shoulder. “Now hold still.” I knelt to the floor and scrounged beneath the shelves for the support leg. “Got it.” I peered up at Alastair. “Can you lift your side a smidge?”

  He did.

  I probed for the hole that the leg’s screw went into. “Steady.” I twisted the leg righty-tighty as my father had taught me. When it was secure, I said, “Okay, let’s see if that holds.”

  Cautiously, Crusibella released her grip. Then Alastair. Everything remained stable.

  “Thank you. Whew!” He dusted his hands on his jeans and smoothed the front of his work shirt. “I had visions of my paycheck covering the damage.”

  I lifted the box off the floor. “Where do you want this?”

  “On the center counter. They’re the quartz shards we received Saturday. Ivy intended to—” His voice caught. “She intended to set them out yesterday. She hated when things were left in boxes. ‘Can’t sell anything people can’t see,’” he said in a female tone, making air quotations. “She really knew how to influence customers. She—” He winced. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “None of us can.” I placed the box on the glass and studied the surrounding trays. Many were beautiful in their own right. Some were ornately carved wood. Others were marble, china, or glass.

  Alastair sauntered to the sales counter, peered over his shoulder and bobbed his chin, mentally calculating items. Then he entered the information into a desktop computer.

  “Would you like me to help you unwrap the individual boxes?” I asked.

  Crusibella said, “I’ll help, too.”

  “Gosh, that would be great. Thanks. I suppose the executor will want me to repack them . . . after he inspects the photos I send him, of course. At some point, he said he’d stop by to take a closer look at those.” He motioned to an enclosed glass case filled with loose gemstones and semiprecious stones. “Don’t ask me when. It’s like waiting for a shoe to drop. Just set whatever you open”—he pointed to a velvet cloth lying between a cypress bonsai and a set of mining tools—“on that. Longest pieces to the left, shorter to the right.”

  Seeing the tools reminded me of the argument between Ivy and Crusibella and how Ivy had boasted that she’d gone on an adventure to learn about stones, pebble by pebble. Had she been lying to irk her friend? Was Crusibella to be believed about really being friends with Ivy?

  Bailey pushed through the front door as I pulled a box from the carton. “Is everything okay in here?”

  “Yes.” I withdrew a bubble-wrapped item and unfurled it. Inside was a sizeable piece of quartz. “Minor catastrophe averted.” I told her what had happened with the shelving. “If you’re up to it, help us unpack these.”

  She joined me, her baby bump pressing against the counter. “He’s kicking like crazy.”

  “Probably because you spooked him with your shriek.”

  “I didn’t shriek. Did I?” She gazed at Crusibella, who nodded. Bailey petted her belly. “Sorry, baby. Mommy didn’t mean to scream.”

  I smiled. She was taking to motherhood like a duck to water.

  “Ladies,” Alastair joined us and started unpacking a box. “I’m sorry but I’ve just got to know . . .” He worked his tongue inside his cheek.

  “What’s up?” Crusibella asked.

  “How did Ivy die? I mean, I’ve read accounts in the newspaper, but they don’t say anything other than—” He faltered. His face grew ashen. He wasn’t going to puke, was he? If he did, would that mean he was innocent? “All of you were there, right?”

  “Ivy was stabbed,” Bailey said.

  “With rose quartz,” Crusibella added.

  Alastair dropped the quartz he was holding. It hit the counter with a clatter.

  Bailey gasped. So did I.

  “Don’t worry,” Crusibella said. “Quartz won’t break. You need a hammer and plenty of brunt force to change the shape.”

  �
��Are you sure it was rose quartz?” Alastair asked.

  “Guys,” I said. “We shouldn’t—”

  “I’d know it anywhere,” Crusibella cut me off. “Why?”

  “It’s just . . .” Alastair pointed at the piece he’d dropped. “Rose quartz symbolizes unconditional love.”

  “She was not killed with love,” Bailey said.

  “No, of course not.” Alastair splayed his hands. “All I meant is Oren—Oren Michaels, do you know him?—he understood the meanings of the stones. Ivy schooled him about everything in the store. Maybe he—” The young man stopped short of accusing Oren. “He was madly in love with her but . . .”

  “But they broke up,” Bailey said.

  “Yes.”

  Crusibella shook her head. “Ivy had limited knowledge, which means Oren probably didn’t glean much.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” Alastair countered. “Ivy did all right as long as she was reading from pamphlets. She was trying to learn it all. She wanted to be a success.”

  If that was true, why had she been willing to sell?

  “She was teaching him,” Alastair went on.

  Okay, the guy was definitely trying to implicate Oren. Why? To divert suspicion from himself? What would he gain by killing Ivy?

  Bailey whispered to me, “I’m with him. Oren is a good suspect.”

  I pictured Oren joking with his father and again wondered whether he could be a killer. Maybe the killer didn’t have a clue about the meanings of the stones. On the other hand, why pose Ivy’s body and why put the stones on her eyes and in her hands?

  “Polished gold quartz were placed on her eyes,” Bailey said, as if channeling my thoughts.

  I threw her a disgruntled look. She mouthed What? and shot an accusatory look at Crusibella, as if giving Alastair more details was her fault.

  Alastair shuddered. “That’s creepy. It reminds me of a myth my Greek grandfather used to tell me—”

  “About the stones being meant as payment to transport the body across the River Styx,” Bailey said.

  “Exactly,” Alastair said. “Were there eyes drawn on the stones?”

  Bailey shook her head. “I don’t know. Jenna?”

  I folded my arms.

  “It matters,” Alastair said. “If there were eyes on them and the eyes faced downward, the deceased’s soul would be left behind and might wander the River Styx for hundreds of years as a restless spirit. If the eyes were turned upward, the soul could find safe passage.”

  Did not knowing about the stones’ presence at the crime scene as well as not knowing which way they were placed on Ivy’s eyes exonerate Alastair? Or did his knowledge of the myth incriminate him? Maybe the killer had deduced Alastair was Greek and had planted the stones to implicate him. But why? What was his motive?

  Uncomfortable with any further discussion, I said, “Really, guys. I don’t think we should reveal anything else.”

  Crusibella flapped her hand. “Details are bound to come out, sweetie. Why, just yesterday, I overheard Pepper telling someone about the aventurine the killer put in Ivy’s hands.”

  “Aventurine,” Alastair echoed. “What color?”

  “It comes in colors?” Bailey asked.

  “A lot of them. Brown, orange—”

  “These stones were green,” Crusibella said. “Aventurine is a healing stone meant to erase negative energy in the lungs, liver, and sinuses.”

  Bailey said, “Was Ivy sick?”

  “Not as far as I know, but she was as bitter as—” Crusibella swatted her leg. “Bite your tongue, woman. What is wrong with you?” Mumbling to herself, she left us and orbited the shop, touching stones and admiring the plants.

  Alastair whispered, “Aventurine can also erase negativity in the heart. Some people believe it’s a love stone.”

  “You mean it works like a love potion?” Bailey asked.

  He shrugged. “Some think it might.”

  I recalled Pepper saying Alastair was head over heels for Ivy. Had she returned the sentiment? I couldn’t outright ask him. Instead I said, “Alastair, you relocated here a year ago, is that right?”

  He picked up the rose quartz he’d dropped and polished it with the tail of his work shirt. “Yep. I was born and raised in San Jose, but I moved because I couldn’t stand it there. I had a good IT job at Apple. That’s information technology, if you didn’t know.”

  I did.

  “But the traffic and the rat race started to get to me. Not to mention living with my dad. He was a drunk.” He hesitated. “Is not was. He’s not a mean one, just a sad one. I worried that if I stayed with him, I would never live a fulfilling life. I remembered, as a teenager, visiting here with my mom and loving it. I didn’t know what I was going to do for a living, but I knew Crystal Cove was where I belonged. When I saw Dreamcatcher was hiring”—he scanned the shop—“it seemed a natural fit. I studied rocks as a kid.”

  “Being a clerk in a little shop must have been a step down,” I said. “Financially as well as ego-wise, from your previous job.”

  “I didn’t mind. Money isn’t my thing. Never was.” His voice drifted to a whisper. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without Ivy.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Was he admitting he loved her?

  “You know, when Dreamcatcher is sold. I’ll have to find another job here. I’m not moving back to San Jose.”

  “You’ll have one if someone buys the store and keeps it open,” Crusibella said from across the shop.

  Bailey dragged her finger along the counter’s edge. “Alastair . . .” Her voice rose to that flirty pitch she often used to get her way with Tito. What was she up to? “I heard a little rumor that you were in love with Ivy.”

  “What? No. I mean . . .” He fiddled with the collar of his shirt. “Okay, sure, I liked her. And I told her so. But she said I was too young and she had no interest.”

  “None?” Bailey asked.

  He sighed. “She said she really appreciated me as a clerk and didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship. She’d fired quite a few clerks before me. In the long run, I knew she was right. A huge age difference can be divisive. We didn’t even like the same songs. I’m into heavy metal. She liked the Rolling Stones.”

  “Speaking of stones, you didn’t give her any aventurine to, like, win her heart, did you?”

  He gasped and gawked at my pal. And then me. “No. No way. I didn’t . . .” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t kill her.”

  Bailey tilted her head, mulling that over. Did she believe him? Did I?

  “I’ve got to take a load off,” Bailey said.

  “Sit for a second,” I said. “We’ll just stay another minute.” I pointed at a stool near where Crusibella was browsing books and refocused on Alastair. “Have the police questioned you? Did they ask where you were the night it happened?”

  “Yeah, some young cop came in. Can’t remember his name. I told him I was here Saturday night. Doing our weekly inventory.”

  Crusibella rejoined us. “That’s sort of a feeble alibi, don’t you think?”

  About as feeble as being home alone making a cheese platter, I mused.

  “We did it every Saturday at the end of business,” Alastair replied. “But that night, because Ivy wanted to go home early to prepare for the book club gig, I offered to do it myself.”

  Ivy wasn’t around to dispute him. Was he lying? He had easy access to the quartz and aventurine, and he knew the significance of the eyestones. He lowered his gaze to focus on removing more items from the carton.

  “Do you know if Ivy was interested in Hank Hemmings?” I asked, cutting him a little slack by changing the subject.

  “Hank.” Alastair scoffed. “He reminds me of a guy I worked with at Apple. As phony as a two-dollar bill. No depth and a bit sneaky, if you ask me. But I’m not female. I suppose he has his appeal. Why?”

  “Were he and Ivy dating?”

  Alastair’s teeth gritted for an instant, but then his fac
e grew placid. “I don’t think so. On the other hand, maybe that’s why Ivy dumped Oren.”

  And didn’t pick you, I noted.

  He jerked a thumb. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to attend to. Thanks again for your help.”

  We hadn’t nearly finished, but he obviously wanted us to leave, so we did. Crusibella glanced wistfully over her shoulder as she passed through the doorway and headed to her shop. Bailey and I followed her and stopped on the sidewalk.

  “Wow, did you detect how much animosity Alastair exuded toward Hank?” Bailey whistled.

  “Hank is older and financially set. He has more to offer a woman.”

  “Alastair seemed to be okay with Ivy’s rejection of him, though, don’t you think?”

  “That could be a ruse. He sure tried to implicate Oren in her murder.”

  “I agree.” Bailey’s stomach growled. “I need something sweet to snack on. Where should we go?”

  The beauty of living in a tourism-driven town was the plethora of dessert shops.

  “How about Sweet Success?” The shop was directly across the street and boasted some of the best chocolates.

  “Perfect.”

  Wind kicked up as we stepped into the crosswalk. I clapped a hand on my sunhat so it wouldn’t blow away. Bailey pinned down hers, as well. A woman by the tent named Books, Books, Books wasn’t as quick. While trying to grasp the string of her child’s balloon, she was struck by a gust of wind. Off flew her hat. I hurried to help, but the hat, like the child’s balloon, soared out of reach. The woman hissed out a frustrated breath.

  I said, “If you’re interested, you can replace it at Great Threads.” I pointed to the haberdashery, which was located next to Sweet Success.

  “Thanks,” she said and then continued her transaction with the book vendor.

  “You know, I need a new hat,” Bailey said slyly and hitched her chin. “Hank is inside looking quite elegant in his navy suit. Maybe he could pick one out for me.”