by ACF Bookens
Mayhem was laying at the edge of the garden, waiting for me to be done so she could go inside and lay on her bed, the soft kind. “This sucks, girl.” She wagged her tail in commiseration, but whether she was showing sympathy for the awful feeling in my belly or her dirty resting accommodations I couldn’t be sure. “Let’s go inside.”
She didn’t hesitate and was on her feet and heading toward the door before I could even get out of the planter box. I took my time going in, not eager to encounter Mart. But when I reached the door, she was there, two wine glasses and a fresh bottle in hand. “Harvey Beckett, you may have been able to fool those other women, but did you think you could fool me?”
I almost tripped on the door sill. “What?! What are you talking about?” I could hear how unconvincing I sounded.
“You are no more capable of believing an innocent person guilty than you are of convincing me of one of your lies. What in the world is going on?” She pointed to the couch and poured us each a glass of wine while she walked. I would never in a million years achieve that without at least spilling the wine. More likely, though, I’d trip, spill the wine, break the glasses, and cut open my hand. Grace had never been – and would never be – my forte.
I took a long sip from my glass. “What gave me away?”
“You want a list?”
I stared at her. “That bad?”
“That bad. Let’s start with the ‘I mean.’ You only say that when you’re trying to convince someone of something that you feel kind of bad trying to convince them of. Then, there’s the fact that you wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone. Plus, the tell where you try to push your glasses up on your face even though you have your contacts in—“
“Okay, okay,” I interrupted. “I get it. You knew. But you can’t tell anyone, no one, okay?”
“Tell them what, Harvey? I don’t know what on earth is going on.”
Aslan climbed into my lap, and for one moment I thought she was maybe offering comfort. But then she began pitty-pattying with her tiny pinprick claws that went right through my yoga pants, and I realized this was, of course, about her. Typical cat.
“Okay, but really, you can’t say anything.”
Mart dropped her chin and stared hard at me. “Got it. Now spill.”
Over the bottle of wine, I told Mart about Tuck’s plan, and when I was done, she clapped. “I didn’t think we had much made-for-TV stuff here in our sleepy little town, but this is good enough for one of those police dramas with the actors who are far too attractive to be able to be inconspicuous. I love it, and I’m in.”
I laughed but then swallowed. “Mart, I don’t know. This cannot get out.”
“I know. But I lie better. At least let me tell your parents and Daniel. You know they won’t buy your lies for a second.”
She had a point, and so I agreed to let Mart spread the rumor that I believed Henri was guilty of murder. “You have to sell it, Mart.”
My friend stood and held the empty bottle of wine over her head. “We just doubled the price of this bottle of wine by putting a new, metallic label on it.” I glanced up at the shiny stag’s head on the label. “I can sell anything.”
I sighed. She could, and she would.
* * *
She wasted no time either. By lunchtime on Monday, Mom had texted to ask if I had a high fever that was causing me to be delusional, and Daniel had insisted on having tacos so we could talk about what I was thinking. He didn’t look happy – in fact, he looked kind of peeved, and Daniel wasn’t easily peeved. Once again, I felt terrible.
Then, I began to worry. Was this kind of deception dangerous to our relationship? I mean I was lying to him. I had hoped he would just avoid the subject, but at lunch, he said, “Do you really think Henri did this?” And I had to lie. Boldly. It felt awful.
Compound that with the fact that I was also still mulling over the bank employees and considering doing a little digging – quietly – into their relationships with Wilma, an act that Daniel would wholeheartedly disapprove of, and I was fairly certain I was sending an amazing thing right down the toilet.
By late afternoon, I felt so horrible about my deception that I thought about going to the station and telling Tuck I couldn’t go through with it. I would have done it, too, I think, but then Deputy Dillard stopped by.
He was out of uniform, but I wasn’t sure if that was because he was trying to look casual or because he was actually casual. He had on Dad jeans – a little too acid-washed to be cool – and a novelty T-shirt of Ramen noodles. “Nice shirt,” I said.
“Thanks. My mom bought it for me. I love Ramen.”
“Your mom knows you well.” I chuckled.
He smiled. “You doing okay?” He started walking toward the nature section, which struck me as funny given that those ramen noodle packets that you can buy for forty-nine cents are about as far from natural as you can get.
“Aside from the gut-eating guilt and sheer terror that I’m leading my love life into the crapper, yep, I’m doing fine.”
He winced. “Ugh. That’s rough. Not a deception-prone person then?”
I shook my head.
“An admirable quality, in my estimation.” He pulled a fly-fishing book by Jay Zimmerman off the shelf and started flipping through the pages. “So other than heart-breaking guilt, no trouble.”
“Nope, nothing. Just normal business here.”
“Good.” He paused at a picture of what looked like a giant wooly worm to me. “I’m not sure why Tuck wanted me to ask this, but here goes. Are you considering doing any investigating yourself?”
I chuckled. The sheriff did know me well. “Not particularly.”
The deputy looked up from his book. “That’s not a no.”
I blushed. “No, it’s not.”
He whistled. “Alright, so what you got?”
I pondered playing it off, trying to make more eye contact and avoid touching my face in any way, but then I decided it was better I just fess up. I couldn’t do deception for two different purposes. “Yesterday, two bank employees came in.” I told him about Cynthia and Ariel and how I had been wondering if they might have been able to pull off this kind of thing.
He tucked the book under his arm and pulled out his phone. “Probably worth looking into.” Then he looked up at me. “By us, I mean. Not you.” Then he studied my face. “That’s why the sheriff wanted me to ask, isn’t it? You have a tendency to do a little, um, investigating?”
I looked away, which was answer enough I guess.
“We’ll look into it, Harvey. Meantime, keep spreading the word. We’re getting somewhere, and as best we can tell, no one knows that.”
I felt my heart pick up the pace a bit. “Getting somewhere? Meaning you have a suspect?”
Dillard took the book out from under his arm and headed toward the register. “Tuck said you liked questions.”
“I guess that means you’re not going to answer,” I said as I rang up his purchase.
“Thanks for the book, Harvey. I’ll be back tomorrow to check in, but you have my cell. Don’t hesitate.”
I felt slightly chastened when the deputy left, but I knew he was just doing his job. Still, I wondered who they were investigating.
* * *
Daniel came by as I was locking up. “Walk you home?” he said quietly.
“I’d like that,” I said, with the hopes that the tension from our lunch conversation would be gone. It wasn’t, but at least he had come by.
We walked a few blocks with Taco twisting his leash around Mayhem, and Mayhem trying to make me need shoulder surgery. Neither of us spoke. I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t make things worse.
Finally, he took Mayhem’s leash and then held my hand. “Harvey, you and I may disagree about Henri’s guilt, but I know you must have your reasons. I trust you.”
I felt like someone had shoved a baseball down my throat. He trusted me when I was deliberately deceiving him. I couldn’t take it.
I stopped walking and felt my arm pull as he took another step ahead before turning back. “I can’t do this. I don’t believe Henri is guilty.”
“You don’t? Then, why would you say that you did?” He looked sad, disappointed.
“Because the sheriff asked me to.”
Daniel pursed his lips. “He did?”
“Yes, yesterday, and he made me promise not to tell even you or Mart.”
A small smile peaked out the corner of his mouth. “Mart figured it out, didn’t she?”
I jerked my head back. “How did you know?”
“It’s all making sense now.” He squeezed my hand and pulled me down the sidewalk. “She was really putting on a show in the shop earlier when she came in for the oil change she obviously didn’t need. I thought she just wanted to vent, but now I see—“
“She was lying for me.” I sighed. “I’m so sorry.” I tried to stop him so I could show him how concerned I was, but he kept walking.
At first, I thought he was angry, but then I noticed a little bounce in his step. “You’re not mad?”
“Nope.”
I walked a bit further, trying to figure out what was going on. “I would be mad.”
“Well, I’m not.”
A few steps further and then I dragged all four of us to a stop again. “Okay, what’s going on? You aren’t mad at all?
He turned toward me then and took both of my hands in his. “I’m not mad, Harvey. Maybe a little hurt, but mostly I’m happy.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Happy?”
“Yep. Because the way I see it, you couldn’t bring yourself to lie to me. First you had Mart do it, and then, you couldn’t even hold up her lies.” He turned and started back down the road. “I like that. Means you care about what I think.”
“Of course I care about what you think. More than I care about what anyone thinks. I didn’t like this idea from the start, or at least I didn’t like the lying part, but I knew the sheriff wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Agreed. And I totally understand why you agreed. He needed your help, and you like to help.”
I couldn’t disagree.
“Plus, this way, there’s the added win that you can’t be all sleuth about other possible killers. You have to play this role.”
I paused and then said, “Right.”
This time, Daniel stopped. At this rate, we would never get to my house. “Harvey? You aren’t looking into potential killers are you?”
I sighed. “I had some ideas, but I shared them with Deputy Dillard. No sleuthing for me. The undercover gig is too important.”
It was Daniel’s turn to sigh, and we resumed our walk. We were almost out of town when a bicycle whizzed by going north on Main Street toward Route 13. It was Ollie Blessing, and he was flying.
Before I even thought about it, I shouted, “Be careful, Ollie. Don’t go so fast that the cars can’t see you.”
He looked back over his shoulder and waved. “You got it, Ms. B.”
I waved to him slowly as he sped further away, but then I turned to Daniel. “The only other person who calls me Ms. B is Marcus.” I studied his face for a moment. “It’s not sleuthing if I just ask if they know each other, right?”
Daniel squinted one eye. “As long as it’s actual curiosity, not investigation.”
“Definitely.” I meant that. Well, at least I wanted to.
4
The next morning, Marcus and I both opened. New books were released on Tuesdays, and we both enjoyed the excitement of getting those new books on the shelf and selling the special orders to the die-hard fans. This week, N. K. Jemisin’s new speculative fiction book was out, and we had several orders for it. The interest had been so high that we’d offered to host a discussion group at the end of the month for readers. So far, we already had twelve sign-ups.
Reworking our new book tables and shelves gave me the perfect opportunity to not-so-casually mention that Ollie had called me Ms. B the night before.
“Oh yeah, I was telling him about you. He’s a big reader, too, but mostly from the library. Kind of tight on cash.” Marcus was actually casual when he shared that information, but of course he would be because he knew nothing about the fact that Ollie was a suspect in Wilma’s murder.
“Oh yeah. How do you know him?” I tried to convince myself I was just making conversation, but in my heart of hearts, I knew I was sleuthing. Daniel would be disappointed in me. Still, I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“We went to college together. Dropped out together, too. It just didn’t take for either of us.”
I nodded. “He told me he liked art.”
“He does. He’s actually really talented. He does these mixed media pieces with found paper and fabric. Sort of graffiti-inspired but really amazing. I know he’s hoping that working at the co-op will give him a chance to get some studio space there.”
As I finished the last few displays at the front of the store, I thought about Ollie as an artist. He certainly looked the part, and I wondered if his cluelessness might be a bit of an act, a façade he wore to protect himself maybe. I’d done that for a lot of my life, pretended I didn’t care much about something – my work, the books I loved, my friends – when really I cared so very much.
Or if he was acting, it could be a deliberate deception. The question was, how did I figure out what exactly was going on behind those bright red gauges in his ears?
“Marcus,” I shouted as he headed back to the storeroom with our empty boxes. “Think Ollie might be willing to show me and a couple of friends some of his work?”
He shrugged. “Probably, especially if someone might buy something.”
I grinned. “You know Stephen and Walter have all those big walls to fill.”
Marcus laughed. “They do. I’ll text Ollie in a minute, see if he can bring some stuff by sometime.”
“Thanks!”
Either way, whether he was a starving and scared artist or a not-so-starving and scared thief, we’d get a chance to know our suspect just a bit more. I kept feeling like there was far more than meets the eye to Ollie Blessing.
* * *
The quickness and eagerness of Ollie’s reply to Marcus’s text seemed to confirm my first sense – that he was innocent and feigning – or maybe just actually a bit oblivious. He was so excited that he offered to bring things in the next morning when he came in for his shift. Well, what he said was that he could bike home, pick up a couple of pieces, and bike back during his lunch break, but that felt extreme, especially for a potentially bogus sales opportunity. Plus, I needed time to prep Stephen and Walter for their roles.
My two friends were always nervous about my sleuthing, too, but they also had a spirit of adventure. I knew they’d get it . . . and they were also big art supporters, so if they could actually buy art and help a young artist, I knew they would.
Sure enough, when I filled them in over barbecue sandwiches at Piggle and Shake during dinner that night, they were on board. Of course, it helped that they still thought I suspected Henri of the murder. At least I had been able to fool somebody, but then, that was only because I’d let Mart tell them. Now, I was just hoping they wouldn’t bring up the murder.
I told them Ollie was the young man from the co-op, that I felt bad that I hadn’t gotten to know him more, and that Marcus said he was talented. That’s all it took. Like me, my friends liked to help when they could, and their recent move from San Francisco to our slightly economically depressed Eastern Shore had left them in good stead financially. They weren’t wild with their money, but they had it to spend if they wanted to spend it.
“Oh, I hope it’s good,” Stephen said. “I have a tendency to shop out of guilt.”
Walter rubbed circles on his husband’s back. “That’s why you have me. I feel no guilt in saying no, even to a very nice, very in-need person.”
“Good. I’m not looking for charity here. Just a chance to get to know Ollie a bit. Maybe I’ll ev
en think about giving him a show in the shop soon.”
Stephen spewed his Dr. Pepper. “Where, Harvey?”
“In my shop,” I repeated.
“No, I mean where would you hang the pieces. You have filled every square inch of that store’s wall space with bookshelves. You couldn’t display a collectible spoon in there.”
He was right. Sometimes my desire to help overrode my logic circuits. “Well, maybe I can talk with Cate and see if he can get a studio in the co-op if I help sponsor it. Maybe then he could live here in town. Did I tell you that he bikes from Wye Mills every day?”
Walter smiled. “Harvey, you are too kind for your own good. I don’t look at your account books, but I know you can’t have that much to spend. Let us help Ollie, if we agree that his work warrants some support.” He looked at Stephen. “We might get to be art patrons.”
“The Medicis of our time,” Stephen beamed.
“Didn’t the Medicis kill people they didn’t like and turn on each other, too?” I said.
“Don’t be such a spoilsport what with your history and all that, Ms. Beckett.” Stephen feigned a pout.
I laughed. “Thanks, guys. I really appreciate this. He’ll be at the store at noon during his lunch break.”
“We’ll be there.”
The guys looped up to our house and dropped me off before heading back to their waterfront house south of town. The moon was full, and I imagined the view from their back deck was amazing. It wasn’t the first time I had been jealous of their house, but then, I was glad I got to visit there as much as I wanted.
* * *
Wednesday morning’s opening was easy. Just one customer waiting for coffee, a tourist here for the week who had come to appreciate our locally roasted beans. She also picked up a cozy mystery each day – today’s choice was Poison in Paddington by Samantha Silver – so I imagined she was relaxing and reading by the water somewhere. It sounded like a delightful way to spend a vacation.