Jam Up and Jelly Fright

by Donna Walo Clancy

  “There’s your answer, Sheriff. Bea must have taken her somewhere, and I’m really glad she did,” Tabby stated. “A mother will go to any lengths to keep her child safe, you know.”

  “Yeah, so will a best friend,” he commented, shaking his head. “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee and head out.”

  Tabby fell into the counter once he went out the door. Janice sat down at the consultation table. Both women let out a sigh of relief.

  “Janice, you saved my bacon, thank you,” Tabby said, walking over to the table and sitting down.

  “I know how worried everyone has been about Jen. When you were only gone for five minutes, and he came storming in here, I put two and two together and figured out what you had done,” Janice said, smiling. “She is somewhere safe, I assume?”

  “She is with her mom, but you can’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Bea is going to nurse her back to health, and then we will find out what kind of hold Alex had over her. Only Greg and I know what happened, and now you.”

  “I’ll take it to my grave,” Janice swore.

  “Good. How about some lunch?” Tabby asked. “I’m starving. Talking about bacon…how about BLTs from the diner?”

  “If you’re paying, I’m having extra bacon and extra mayo on mine, please,” Janice said, licking her lips.

  “I’ll call it in and walk up to the diner to pick up the order. I want to see if Alex is still in the bookstore on the way by,” Tabby stated.

  “Be careful,” Janice admonished.

  “I don’t think even he is stupid enough to do anything out on a public street,” Tabby replied.

  Tabby called in the lunch order and was told it would be ready for pick up in fifteen minutes. She casually strolled by the bookstore, peering in the windows. It was in total darkness, and the closed sign was hanging on the door.

  I bet he’s out looking for Jen…he’ll never find her.

  Tabby picked up lunch and returned to her shop. They sat in the back room eating while taking turns waiting on customers. As Tabby was placing money in the register drawer, people running up the street caught her attention. She went to the front door and stepped out on the sidewalk. A crowd was gathering in front of Jen’s bookstore.

  “Janice, I’ll be right back,” Tabby yelled, leaning in the door.

  She worked her way to the front of the crowd trying to see what was happening in the bookstore. Sheriff Puckett was standing next to the counter with Deputy Small, and they were both looking down at the floor. The sheriff turned and spotted Tabby in the crowd. He waved her in, and Deputy Clark who was guarding the door let her by.

  Laying on the floor with a knife in his back was Alex Keyes. It looked like he had been stabbed twice and the second time the knife was left in his back.

  “How did you find him? The place was closed and in darkness,” Tabby asked.

  “I came to talk to him about Jen’s disappearance. I could see cash lying all over the counter and knew Alex wouldn’t just leave money out in the open like that. He was very protective of Jen’s money; almost too protective. I tried the door, and it was unlocked which was even stranger,” he answered. “So, I came in and looked around.”

  “It had to have happened in the last hour,” Tabby stated. “He was just at my store threatening me.”

  “We need to talk, Miss Moon,” the sheriff demanded. “Follow me.”

  They stepped out the back door. He crossed his arms and stared at her. She started to fidget because he wasn’t saying anything, just staring.

  “Well, say something,” Tabby finally said.

  “You do realize how this looks, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” Tabby asked.

  “My top two suspects are you and your missing friend,” he answered gravely.

  “Me and Jen? Are you serious?” Tabby gasped.

  “Dead serious. Alex threatens you and you are seen near his store shortly after. Everyone knows how concerned you were for your friend and you made no secret about how much you hated Alex. No one knows where Jenny is; she could have come back and killed him,” the sheriff stated. “She could have been hiding somewhere in the store and attacked him when he returned.”

  “It’s Jen’s store, not Alex’s,” Tabby mumbled. “I only walked by the store to go pick up lunch at the diner for Janice and myself.

  “Don’t call me out on a technicality. If you know where Jen is, now would be a good time to tell me,” he insisted.

  “Tabby, are you okay?” Greg asked breathlessly, running up to the back of the bookstore. “What’s going on?”

  “Where have you been the last three hours, Mr. Stone?”

  “Mr. Stone? I was in Larsen picking up my weekly supply of flowers from the outlet,” Greg answered. “Why?”

  “I’m asking the questions around here. Alex Keyes is dead; someone put a knife in his back. If you can prove you were in Larsen, you are in the clear.”

  “I just unloaded my flowers into the cooler at the shop. I have the receipt from the outlet,” Greg admitted.

  “Tabby, I’m going to ask you again. Where is Jen?”

  Greg looked at Tabby.

  “I knew it. Where is she?” the sheriff demanded.

  “She’s in Larsen with her mother,” Tabby admitted, quietly.

  “We took her out the back door when Alex went to the bank. I drove her to Larsen, picked up Bea from a motel she stayed at last night, and drove them both to my house in Larsen,” Greg explained. “I returned the rental car, picked up the flowers, and just got back.”

  “You have a house in Larsen?”

  “It was my grandmother’s house; I inherited it. That is where you will find them.”

  “That alibi clears Jen of the murder.”

  “Which only leaves me, right?” Tabby asked, hesitantly.

  “Seriously? You think Tabby did this?” Greg asked, shocked.

  “No, I don’t. But what I think is not going to stop Gladys from running her mouth that she saw Tabby near the shop around the time of the murder,” he answered.

  “I should have known it was The Mouth,” Tabby replied. “She’d love nothing better than to get even with me over the prank that Greg and I played on her.”

  “You need to stay away from the bookstore. I mean it, Tabby, you have to listen to me this time. It’s a crime scene and once Gladys opens her mouth some people will suspect you did it,” the sheriff insisted. “We’ll leave Bea and Jen where they are for now even though Alex is dead, and I think she’s out of danger. I am going to insist that she be checked into Larsen General to be examined.”

  “You said Alex was stabbed in the back twice?”

  “Yes, it appears he was counting the money on the counter, and someone came up behind him. The first wound wasn’t deep enough, so the killer stabbed him again,” he replied.

  “Maybe now you can take his fingerprints and dental records to find out who he really was,” Tabby commented.

  “Tabby, you’re doing it again. Stay away from this whole mess or I will be forced to do something drastic,” the sheriff threatened.

  “What are you going to do, throw me in jail?” she inquired.

  “That’s exactly what I am going to do if you interfere with this case in any way,” he said, sternly.

  “It had to be someone that knew him. If it was a robbery, whoever did it would have taken the money with them,” Tabby said, thinking out loud.

  “Greg, get her out of here now,” the sheriff ordered, frustrated that his words were being ignored.

  7

  Tabby was at the shop all day on Saturday. The Labor Day Weekend was busy, and the shop staff was shorthanded with Thelma being at her daughter’s house visiting. She did receive a surprise call from Jen who was already feeling better under her mother’s care. Jen wanted to let Tabby know that she was checking into Larsen General under Doc Holden’s care. He wanted to run some tests to try to figure out why she was so sick.

  Jen was still weak and ju
st talking on the phone tired her out. Tabby promised her that she and Greg would visit her at the hospital the next day. Both their shops were closed on Sunday and for the holiday on Monday. Tabby hung up the phone and sat in the back room crying. Just talking to her friend and knowing she was going to be all right over time created a wave of relief that Tabby couldn’t keep inside.

  She pulled herself together and turned to her laptop. She still needed to find out who Alex Keyes really was and what he wanted with Jen; or her bookstore. How did he know that Jen was single? He conveniently showed up right after she broke up with Damian. Who else in town knew him and hated him enough to kill him? She had to find the answers to all these questions, or she could find herself accused of murder.

  An hour later and no closer to any answers she shut down the computer to cover the register for Janice’s lunch. Gladys Twittle sauntered into the store. Today made at least a dozen times in the last year that she had come into Tabby’s store and not bought a thing. She came in to be nosy and nothing else.

  “Can I help you with something, Gladys?” Tabby asked, irritated that she had the nerve to pull this repeatedly.

  “No, just browsing,” was the same old answer.

  Tabby watched Gladys move from group to group of people listening to what they were saying. People would turn when she got too close and were shocked when they were faced with a purple haired woman in a dress covered with matching purple lilacs. Several customers left because of the nosy busybody. Tabby was done with her meddlesome ways.

  “Gladys, can I see you outside, please?”

  They walked to the door, but Gladys refused to leave standing just inside the doorway.

  “What is your problem, Miss Moon?” Gladys said, loudly.

  Tabby knew what she was doing, and two could play at this game.

  “You are my problem. You continue to come into my shop just to be nosy and to listen to what my customers are saying. I have been open over a year, you have been in here over a dozen times and never bought even so much as a jar of jelly. Go spy on people in your own store,” Tabby ordered.

  At this point, everyone in the jelly shop was staring at Gladys, but she wasn’t going to let Tabby get the better of her again.

  “You better be a little nicer to me, Tabitha Moon. I saw you at the bookstore where that nice man was murdered. I may have to go to court and testify that you were the only one in the area when it happened,” Gladys threatened.

  “Get out of my shop and don’t come back,” Tabby said, shoving the hefty woman out the door.

  “See, you all saw that. She has violent tendencies. You are all my witnesses,” Gladys screamed as she waddled up the street to her own store.

  “That woman drives me crazy,” Tabby muttered, closing the door.

  She turned to see customers setting down jars of jelly and then trying to get around her to leave the shop. Tabby was furious. Not only was this hurting her reputation, but it was hurting her livelihood as well. The only way she could set things straight was to find Alex’s killer.

  Janice returned from lunch. She didn’t look happy.

  “Is something wrong?” Tabby asked, concerned for her employee.

  “I just came from the Tilted Coffee Cup. Gladys is in there telling everyone how you could have murdered Alex and that you threatened her here in your shop when she mentioned it,” Janice replied. “She had a large audience, I’m sorry to say.”

  “If I go down there and confront her it will make things look worse,” Tabby sighed. “That’s not what happened, by the way.”

  “I didn’t figure it did, but she sounded pretty convincing.”

  “Gladys is going to have the whole town convinced that I did it,” Tabby lamented.

  “The locals who know you won’t pay attention to a word she is saying,” Janice said, trying to comfort her boss.

  “It’s not the locals I am worried about. I need the tourist sales to keep this shop open,” Tabby replied. “And they don’t know me from Adam.”

  “You’ll have to figure out who the killer is to shut Gladys up and make her look like the fool again,” Janice stated.

  “I was thinking the exact same thing,” Tabby agreed.

  The rest of the afternoon Tabby watched people walk by the shop shaking their heads. Gladys had done more damage to her reputation than Tabby first thought. After three hours of watching people walk by and not come into shop, Tabby had had enough.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said to Janice.

  “Don’t sink to her level,” Janice yelled as her boss blew out the door.

  Tabby entered The Penny Poor Antique Shop; it was void of customers. Donald Twittle sat behind the counter near the register reading his daily paper. Gladys came from the back room and froze in her steps the minute she saw the object of her gossip standing there. Donald looked up as Tabby advanced to the counter. Gladys ran for the stairs to the upstairs apartment.

  “GLADYS!” yelled Donald. “Get back here, now!”

  The stout woman turned and walked slowly back to the counter to face her husband.

  “What has she done now, Tabby?” Donald asked.

  Tabby quickly repeated everything Gladys had gossiped about at the Cup. She told Donald how word was spreading around town that Tabby was a murderer and people were afraid to come into her shop. Not only had Gladys placed Tabby’s reputation in question, but she was ruining her business as well. Donald listened intently to every word Tabby said and then he turned to his wife.

  “Well? Is it true?” he asked.

  “Kind of…maybe…” she stuttered.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered.

  “Go where,” Gladys whined.

  “To the Tilted Coffee Cup,” Donald stated firmly.

  “Oh, no. I’m not going there with you,” Gladys insisted, glaring at Tabby.

  “We ARE going to the coffee shop, and you are going to make an announcement that everything you said earlier about Tabby was not true. And then you will apologize to Tabby in front of everyone there,” her husband ordered.

  “But I did see her near the bookstore,” Gladys confirmed.

  “Yes, you saw me walking up the street and looking in the front window on my way to picking up lunch at the diner,” Tabby said, angrily. “That’s a long way from murdering someone.”

  “Well, there was that other woman…” Gladys started.

  “What other woman?” Tabby asked immediately.

  “The lady in the scarf,” Gladys answered. “I couldn’t see her face, and she came out of the bookstore right before you walked by.”

  “Are you telling me you saw someone else near Jen’s store and you still lied about Tabby being the only one there at the time that young man died?” Donald asked, his blood pressure rising with every word his wife uttered.

  “I was just mad…”

  “What color hair did she have? How tall was she?” Tabby inquired.

  “I told you, she had on a scarf; I couldn’t see her hair. She was about your height, but other than that I don’t know anything else about her,” Gladys insisted.

  “I have a better idea. First thing tomorrow morning, we will be at the Cup to make your announcement when the place is full, and word will spread faster around town,” Donald said. “Right now, you owe this girl an apology for what you have done.”

  “I’d just as soon eat a bucket of nails,” Gladys blurted out. “And I will not be at the Cup making any announcement tomorrow morning.”

  She stormed up the stairs and slammed the door to the apartment. Donald apologized on behalf of his wife and assured Tabby that she would be there first thing tomorrow morning making the specified announcement.

  “You know, if you want to hit Gladys where it hurts and teach her a lesson, get your attorney friend, Charles, to pay her a visit here at the shop and inform Gladys that you are filing a lawsuit for defamation of character and loss of income,” Donald said, chuckling. “It might teach her the lesson that I haven’t been abl
e to teach her for the last forty years.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Tabby laughed.

  Tabby went straight to the sheriff’s office to tell him about the scarfed woman that Gladys saw leaving the bookstore. He promised to go question Gladys right away. He told Tabby that they had lifted fingerprints in the upstairs apartment, and after excluding her and Jen’s, they were running Alex’s prints through CODIS to find a match.

  “Let me know if you find out anything. Greg and I are going to visit Jen tomorrow after church,” Tabby said. “I have to get back to my shop.”

  Janice met Tabby at the door.

  “There is a lady here insisting she has to talk to you. She wouldn’t leave even after I told her I didn’t know when you would be back. She’s at the wedding table.”

  Tabby walked to the rear of the store. Isabella Capri was sitting at the table waiting to speak with her.

  “Isabella, you wanted to see me?”

  “Si, I mean yes. When you spoke to my husband before he left, he said he would be back on Saturday morning, no?”

  “Yes, he did. Why? Is there a problem?” Tabby asked.

  “He does not answer his cell phone, and he is not home yet,” Isabella answered, obviously upset. “Did he say to you where he was going?”

  “No, I have no idea where he went,” Tabby answered honestly. “He just said he was going to Boston.”

  “I do worry about my husband. Sometimes, I think his brain is failing him,” Isabella admitted. “Bones, skulls, and secret writing… I just don’t know him anymore.”

  “I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon. He may have already come home while you were here in town,” Tabby stated.

  “Si, I will go home,” Isabella said, standing up. “I know I was not nice to you when you were at our home, and I am sorry. I do not trust people easily, but Anthony seems to trust you so I must also.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be home soon,” Tabby advised the nervous woman.

  “Thank you,” she said in her thick accent as she disappeared out the door.

  “That’s Isabella Capri? She’s a beautiful woman, but a little on the crazy side, don’t you think?” Janice asked.