“What?” I asked.
“You’re not real, not like the people on television.”
“WHAT!?”
He pointed his wing again. “Look. Much more real. It’s reality television,” he said with a happy nod, which he followed up by pecking back into the cheese puff bowl.
“They’re not real! It’s edited and cut and the people are fake and it’s all just awful stuff, Kiwi. A few minutes for a guilty pleasure are okay, but you watch this junk all the time!”
Kiwi cackled and clapped his wings together, his attention having been drawn back to the television by some fake drama on the screen.
“Are you even listening to me?” I asked him.
“Shhhh,” he responded, his eyes locked back on the screen.
I was about to carry on my lecture when my phone buzzed, giving Kiwi a brief respite from my wisdom.
It was Sarah.
“Hello?”
“Aria! Have you got the television on?”
“Yes,” I said unhappily. “We’re watching Dress Me for My Date.”
“A date!” corrected Kiwi.
I rolled my eyes and focused on the phone call.
“What? You don’t watch that garbage, do you? Turn it to the local news channel! Pronto!” The final word was said with such vigor that I had to hold the phone away from my head to protect my hearing.
I snatched up the remote from next to Kiwi and before he could even let out a squawk, I’d flicked the channel over.
“What’s going on?” I said to Sarah.
“Just watch! We’ll talk after!”
Kiwi let out a loud squawk of complaint.
“Quiet! Sarah said this is important.”
On the screen, they were showing a replay of the fight outside my shop. I glared at the television, wondering why Sarah wanted me to watch the embarrassing scene again.
I watched with a frown as Patricia Bledsoe and Carrie fought, while Brittany looked on. As Jack stepped in, a voiceover began. The narrator’s voice immediately sounded familiar, and it only took a moment for me to remember whose it was. It was Suzan, who had interviewed me just before the fight.
“Only hours later, one of the fighters was dead. Strangled with a veil inside the bridal store she had so excitedly been lining up to get inside. Her murder is still unsolved, and the story is still unfolding.
“What we’re going to show you next is brand new footage, which reveals more about this ongoing mystery. Have I, Suzan Kelly, solved what happened to the young bride and revealed the murderer? I’ll let you be the judge, after these important messages.”
“Oh goodness, what’s happening?” I said.
“Can you change it back during the ads?” asked Kiwi.
I snatched up a cheese puff and threw it at him. It bounced off a wing and he happily snatched it up.
“No! They’re going to show something on the news that’s either going to ruin us or save us!” I said.
Kiwi swallowed his cheese puff. “Or neither.”
I frowned at the feathered freak of nature. “This is some real reality television for you. It’s about us!”
Kiwi cocked his head at me. “But reality television has lots more screaming and shouting, and there’s dramatic music.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I’ll be screaming and shouting in a minute. Quiet now, it’s coming back on.”
Suzan was in the center of the screen, staring into the camera. “The shocking footage I’m about to show you may be the key to solving the mystery of Carrie Mallory’s death. Now watch...”
The live feed switched to some previously recorded footage. The camera zoomed in on a woman walking down the street. As the camera came into focus, it revealed the face of Zola.
I clenched my fingers together. Please don’t be a murderer. Please don’t be a murderer. Please don’t be a murderer.
“Zola Cates! Did you murder Carrie Mallory?”
On the screen, Suzan stepped into view, accosting Zola and blocking her path down the street. The camera swiveled around to get a side-on shot of the two women.
“No! What is this? Is that a camera! Go away!”
Zola tried to step around Suzan, but the reporter followed her move and carried on pressing her questions.
“An anonymous source told me that you stole Carrie’s dress designs, and I’ve seen the evidence to prove it. Will you admit that you killed Carrie to silence her?”
Zola was trying to cover her face with a scarf and I could see that she was trying not to cry. She pushed past Suzan, but that didn’t stop the reporter who carried on chasing her, thrusting a microphone into her face.
“I didn’t kill anyone! Leave me alone! I don’t consent to this interview! Turn off the cameras and leave me be!”
“Are you a murderer, Zola? Did you kill Carrie!?” said Suzan, her words now coming out in a shout.
“No! I didn’t! Leave me alone!” With a shove of her shoulder, Zola managed to get past Suzan and began to run down the street.
“DID YOU KILL CARRIE!?” shouted Suzan after the fleeing dress designer.
The screen cut again, back to the live feed of Suzan who was standing on Main Street outside of City Hall. The camera seemed to surprise her, as she was still pulling a tissue away from her nose when she was back on the screen.
“Excuse me,” she said with a sniff, before putting her I Am A Very Serious Reporter face back on. “Did I just come face to face with a vicious, cold-blooded murderer? A woman who would go to the most extreme lengths to protect her so-called reputation? Let’s have a look at the evidence I’ve uncovered.”
Reflexively, I dug my hand into Kiwi’s cheese puff bowl, withdrawing a handful and sticking it into my mouth.
Kiwi let out a squawk of complaint.
“Shh!” I urged him.
If my whole life was going to be ruined by Zola, I was at least going to watch it all come crashing down live.
“These photos are of a scrapbook. They look like any typical teenage girl’s, right? Well, one who was into dresses. Look at this.” On the screen, a photo of a hand-drawn wedding dress appeared. “And now, look at this.” The next shot was one of Zola’s wedding dresses, which looked remarkably similar to the drawing.
“Looks like the initial design, then the final product, right? It certainly does. But the thing is—that drawing was done by Carrie Mallory, not Zola Cates. Now, just one similar design would be a coincidence, but we have evidence of over a dozen Zola Cates designs being taken directly from the drawings in Carrie’s scrapbooks.”
“Oh no,” I said again. “This looks really bad, doesn’t it?”
Kiwi bobbed his head in agreement, though I wasn’t sure if he was agreeing that Zola’s situation looked bad, or just that this program wasn’t up to his normal reality TV standards.
“But these designs I’ve shown you aren’t the only evidence. An anonymous source has exclusively revealed to me that the police are in possession of another of Carrie’s scrapbooks, and in this one Carrie carefully cataloged each and every one of Zola’s dresses that had been ripped off of her original designs.
“Now, I’m no detective,” said Suzan directly into the camera with a self-deprecating smirk. “But it doesn’t take a detective to see that Zola Cates had the perfect motive to murder Carrie in cold blood. If word got out—as it now has—that Zola had stolen Carrie’s designs, it would be the end of her career. So did Zola take Carrie’s life to protect her name? What do you think? Call us now and let us know your thoughts. I know what I think.”
The segment ended with Suzan staring directly into the camera lens, her expression as cold and serious as death itself. A number flashed on the bottom of the screen for viewers to call or text with their thoughts on the story. After the uncomfortably long stare, the program finally shifted back to commercials.
“Sarah? Are you still there?” I said into my phone.
“Yeah. It doesn’t look good for Zola, does it?”
“Or us
.”
Kiwi started to edge his way toward me with little steps.
“Do you think she did it?” asked Sarah.
Kiwi edged closer, standing right next to the remote that was placed beside me.
“I don’t know! She didn’t seem like a murderer. But all the evidence sure seems to point that way.”
Kiwi bobbed his head down to press at the remote, but I snatched it up before he could change the channel. I shook my head at him. He screeched in response and then sat down with his head under a wing as he sulked.
“It is all still circumstantial though,” said Sarah, her tone cheerier than mine.
“Yeah, but circumstantial is enough, if there’s a whole heaping pile of it. And even besides that, Zola Cates’ reputation is going to be ruined because she stole her dress designs. The sale would be a bust now anyway, no matter what happens.”
“Well, don’t give up yet,” said Sarah. “Let’s just wait and see what happens. Look, it’s back on!”
I turned back to the television to see Suzan again, though this time she had a new person to ‘interview.’ She was still outside City Hall, but now with Mom’s paramour, Mayor Donovan Charlston.
“...but Mayor, with this amount of evidence, why haven’t the police arrested Zola yet?”
Donovan was red-faced and looked confused. He must have been ambushed by the reporter.
“I, uh, have no comment on the matter,” he said, gently trying to push the camera away but with little success.
“We have evidence that would give Zola a massive, almost overwhelming, reason to kill Carrie. Shouldn’t the police be arresting her right now?” she pressed.
“This is a police matter, for the investigation team, not for the mayor’s office. I have no further comment on the matter. Please take it up with the police.”
“But May—”
“NO comment!” said Mayor Donovan sharply, before turning around and heading back into the City Hall building.
I supposed he’d exited to head home, but now he’d be holed up inside until the reporter left. I hoped he wasn’t supposed to be meeting Mom, because if he was, that reporter would be in real trouble.
“There you have it, folks. The mayor won’t do anything despite the proof I’ve provided. Which is going to lead us to our next segment—What Do They Do For You—and here’s a hint: not a lot. Join us after the break for that fascinating segment and we’ll keep you up to date on the Zola Cates-Carrie Mallory Murder Story.”
I pressed the button to switch off the television.
“Sarah?”
“Yes?”
“I think I brought a murderer to Sequoia Bay.”
Chapter 14
I had become almost convinced that Zola Cates was indeed the murderer—the evidence seemed overwhelming—until one tiny little thing changed my mind.
The morning after watching the breathtaking report on the local news, I was sitting on the counter of my shop, swinging my legs back and forth and doing precisely nothing productive. Kiwi was sitting atop the bookcase, watching me do nothing.
“What shall we do, Ki?” I asked.
“Go home and watch TV,” he answered so fast he must have had the line prepared already.
“That’s not going to help.”
Kiwi didn’t respond. I looked out over the shop. The dresses were still mostly set up on display or on their rails, as if we were about to open and start the sale at any moment. A sale which was no doubt never going to happen.
“Shall we start packing everything up?”
Kiwi didn’t respond. He was probably daydreaming about date clothing and shrieking women.
With nothing better to do, I figured I might as well make a start. I hopped off the counter and, slowly but methodically, I began to remove one dress after the other from the display rails and carefully wrap them, before placing each one inside its box which I retrieved from the stock room.
One after the other. The Silver Sands, the Fairy Float, the Desert Wind, the Angel’s Dream.
Each beautiful dress—which I suppose we had Carrie to thank for—was wrapped up and shut away. I felt like I was committing a crime with each one.
“These dresses deserve to be seen! To be worn!” I said.
“Do they?” said Kiwi quizzically. “They’re just dr—”
“Stop! Don’t even say it.”
Kiwi shrugged his wings and hopped off the bookcase into the air, fluttering behind the counter and then hopping through the ajar door that led to the stock room.
After I’d put half a dozen dresses away, I took a little break, sipping some calming chamomile tea while I stared out at the remaining wedding gowns. Something caught my eye.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” came a screeched voice from the stock room. I ignored it.
There, on the floor in front of the counter, was a pink, plasticky looking thing.
For half a moment, I thought it might have appeared when the bath bombs were smashed, but there hadn’t been any bits of pink plastic in the bath bombs, so that didn’t make any sense.
I bent down and picked it up, holding it up to the light and examining it. When I held it out in my fingers, I realized what it was and tossed it onto the counter with a start.
“Kiwi! Come here!”
There was a crash from the back and then he quickly appeared and hopped up onto the counter.
“What’s that?” he asked, putting his head down right next to the object to try and identify it.
“It’s a nail. A coral pink nail.”
“Throw it away,” he said and then flew up onto the bookcase.
“Don’t you remember?” I asked him. “Who had coral pink nails before?”
He cocked his head and then gave an excited hop. “Patricia! She had them.”
“Yep, she sure did. And do you remember what else?”
“You told her they were nice,” said Kiwi. “You were trying to suck up to her.”
I chuckled.
“Yes, I was, wasn’t I? And a good thing, too. I noticed just after she arrived that she’d lost one of them. And I asked her where she’d got them done. What was the name of the place?”
“Mailed it.”
“Umm, not quite. But so close. Nailed It!, that was the shop.”
He shrugged his wings. “Mail, nail. Neither concern me.”
“Well they do now. I’m sure she didn’t lose that nail when she entered. I’m sure it was missing already.”
“Maybe she lost it in the fight?”
I hmmed. While that would make sense, the fight had been outside the shop not inside, and despite how crazy the two combatants had seemed, a nail wouldn’t have flown that far.
“Would have been outside.”
“Maybe it got kicked in, by a policeman.”
“Police officer,” I corrected absentmindedly. “I guess that’s possible. But I’m pretty sure it dropped out of one of the dresses while I was putting them away. I would have noticed it on the floor before now otherwise.”
“So...”
“So it must have been list the night of Carrie’s murder!”
Kiwi let out a long, low whistle. “You’re like Ironside!”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Call the police!”
I probably should have, but I didn’t. It was only a false fingernail after all, it was nothing compared to the mountain of evidence the police—and the media—had against Zola. No, something like this would be cast aside as an interesting little nugget but quickly forgotten.
I needed more than this little scrap of evidence.
And what did it mean anyway? Could Patricia really have killed Carrie? There’s a difference between obnoxious and murderous and I wasn’t sure that Patricia was the latter.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
“Someone’s at the door,” said Kiwi, stretching out his wings.
“Thanks, Ironside’s sidekick.”
“Sidekick?” Kiwi let out an angry squawk and fluttered off out back again.
Curiously, I looked out the window. I should have guessed. It was the reporter, Suzan Kelly.
I hesitated before opening it—even though she could already see me through the window—because after seeing her on the television the night before, she intimidated me more than she had when I was first being interviewed.
But I had to put my business above my own personal feelings.
If I could just get her to do another story about Blue Moon Bridal, explaining how we were unfortunate victims of circumstance—though of course not as unfortunate as poor Carrie—maybe I could claw back a little goodwill for the shop and save its reputation. Fluff pieces were the specialty of local news—when there weren’t murders to be investigated, that is.
“Good morning, Suzan,” I said as I pulled open the door.
She greeted me with a sneeze quickly followed by an apology.
“It’s my allergies!” she said while wiping her nose with a tissue. “I’m almost over it but they’ve really been acting up lately.”
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” I said with a friendly smile. “Please, come in, sit down.” I pointed to one of the armchairs that I had along the wall, usually used by mothers and grandmothers of brides while they shopped and tried things on.
“Oh, I won’t be here long.” She wiped a tissue over her nose again. “Did you catch my little piece on the television yesterday?”
I nodded. “It was very… impactful.”
“That’s what I thought. Hard hitting. It’s stories like that which’ll get me on the national news. Don’t you think?”
“I imagine it might be,” I said warily. “I don’t know too much about journalism, to be honest.”
She nodded as if of course I wouldn’t know about that.
“But today I’m here for the other half of the job—the half that takes ninety percent of the time.” She laughed at her own ‘hilarious’ statistics joke while I smiled on politely.
“And what’s that then?”
“Research. Digging dirt up.”
“Ah. Can I interest you in some tea? I have a mint mix that does wonders for clearing a stuffed nose.”
Wedding Bells And Magic Spells Box Set Page 29