CHAPTER 12

C HAPTER 12

"Books—oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings."

—Elizabeth Bennet, in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

I couldn't stand it. I liked Piper Lowry. I had to find out the truth. After Lillian and Stella left the bookshop, I pulled up Piper's contact in the Rolodex by the computer and dialed her using the landline.

"Hello? Who is this?" Piper answered breathlessly.

"It's Allie Catt."

"Oh, hi." She whispered my name to someone nearby.

"Piper, I'll be direct. I heard you came into Feast for the Eyes on Sunday."

"Why does it matter to you?" she snapped, then said quickly, "I'm sorry. That was rude. I . . . I miss Marigold. I know you do, too. I can't believe she's dead. I hope the police will find the killer. Do you know anything about how the investigation is going?"

"That's sort of why I'm calling. You see, Tegan is a person of interest." Was a person of interest. She wasn't any longer . Zach had cleared her. "She's my best friend. I can't stand for her to be a suspect. So I'm sort of looking into Marigold's murder to clear Tegan's name."

"Aren't the police doing their job? "

"Of course, they are. Detective Armstrong is a good cop, but as Hercule Poirot said, ‘Suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.'" I juddered. Who had taken over my body, and why was I spouting famous lines from Murder on the Orient Express ?

"Are you saying Tegan is acting strangely?"

"Not at all, but I want her to feel confident that no stone has been left unturned."

Piper whispered again to whomever she was with. "Listen, Allie, I've been thinking about Marigold's murder a lot, too, but I'm sort of busy. Can I call you at another time? We can bat around theories. Thanks for understanding. Bye." She hung up.

I stared at the phone wondering why she'd ended the call so abruptly but decided that was not evidence of guilt. She'd sounded as grief-stricken as Chloe had made out. Grappling with the loss of a beloved friend was difficult.

Chloe said, "Everything okay, Allie?"

"Uh-huh."

Tegan sagged against the sales counter, a fresh glass of water in hand. "Is everyone going to have an opinion about who killed Auntie?"

"It's only natural," I said. "Curiosity shows interest, plus we all want resolution."

Chloe ran her fingers through her tousled hair. She turned pale. "Oh, golly, am I a mess?"

"You look a tad harried," Tegan said tactfully.

Chloe stepped into the stockroom to consult the mirror on the other side of the archway and gasped. In seconds, she returned. "Better?"

"Much," Tegan said.

"It's been nonstop today." Chloe resumed organizing books that customers had brought to the sales counter but hadn't purchased.

Tegan's cell phone pinged. "It's Vanna." She read the message and talked to us as she typed a response. "I'm telling her to come here so I can bring her up to speed about what we discovered from Ms. Ivey, and she can update us about Auntie's house and whether she found any valuable items."

"What did you learn at the bank?" Chloe asked.

Tegan rattled off our findings.

"You and your sister are going to be rich," Chloe said. "Are you sure she didn't kill your aunt?"

"Chloe!" Tegan exclaimed.

Chloe propped a fist on one hip. "She thought you did."

"Because of the letter," Tegan replied. "FYI, you should know Allie will be inheriting one-quarter of the bookshop."

Chloe whistled.

Tegan rushed to add, "I'm sure Auntie would have included you in her will, Chloe, if she'd been certain you'd commit to running the shop as your career."

Chloe batted the air. "Don't worry. I won't take offense. I'll come into plenty of money one day. My family's well-off. They've established a trust fund. Besides, I don't want to own anything. I want to be free to go wherever the wind blows me."

"From bookstore to bookstore," Tegan said.

"Well, duh." Chloe pulled a face. "Marigold knew this about me, and besides, she's known Allie forever."

One of my fondest memories of Marigold was when she'd joined Tegan and me for a tea party to celebrate Tegan's birthday. I was eight and attended in pink shoes with satin bows and my prettiest dress, a pink frilly one I'd begged my mother to buy. Marigold gushed about my sense of style. Later, when Tegan opened my gift and saw it was a copy of A Wrinkle in Time —would any child ever forget how scary yet exhilarating that story was? — her aunt praised me for being so considerate. Reading, she said, developed one's mind. After that, Tegan fell in love with fantasy stories.

"I'm excited to have you on board," Chloe said, and hugged me. When she released me, tears sprang to her eyes. "I really loved Marigold. She is going to be missed. She was so wise and, well, you know, so . . . so . . ."

"So Marigold," I finished.

Chloe covered her mouth and fled into the stockroom.

Tegan's cell phone pinged again. "It's Vanna. She can't make it. She'll touch base tomorrow."

The door to the shop opened. Noeline strolled in. Rick followed. Each was holding a to-go cup from Ragamuffin.

"Darling," Noeline said to Tegan. "I stopped by to tell you all the memorial invites have gone out via email, and nearly everyone has responded yes. I've sent you and Allie emails as well, with a head count. I think it's about a hundred."

"A hundred?" I whistled. I'd have to enhance my menu and freeze some baked goods along the way so I'd have enough for everyone. Luckily, I had plenty of time before the event. "The bookshop will be crowded," I said.

"I could apply for an ordinance to allow tables outside," Tegan suggested.

"You'll need to rent heaters."

"Nah. People around here can handle the cool spring weather," she said. "We're cold-blooded."

"Oh, my," Noeline responded.

"Not cold-blooded in that way, Mother. Not in the murder-mystery kind of way."

Noeline said, "At least, we can rest assured knowing everyone we're inviting isn't a murderer."

Rick said, "How can you be certain?"

Tegan blinked. "He's right. One might be. Allie, you and I have to keep coming up with suspects."

Noeline gawked. "You two are discussing this? "

"Allie is investigating." Tegan hooked her thumb in my direction. "I'm her sounding board."

I swatted her. "I am not investigating. Not officially. But I am trying to come up with theories that I can share with the police."

Noeline frowned. "The last I knew, neither of you attended the police academy."

"Mo-om," Tegan carped, stretching out the word. "We want answers."

"We all do, darling. Even so, that's no reason for you to put yourselves in harm's way."

"Relax, sweetheart," Rick said. "They're bright young women. They'll be fine." He slung an arm around her and gave her a supportive squeeze. "I'm going to use the restroom. I'll be right out. Then let's go to Mosaic. You said there's something you wanted to see there."

Mosaic was a fine-arts shop down the street.

"Yes, let's."

For the next minute, Tegan filled her mother in on what we'd learned at the bank. Noeline wasn't surprised by the value of Marigold's estate. She and her sister had regularly discussed finances.

After she and Rick left, I opened the email Noeline had sent the two of us, and the idea that I'd raised in the car resurfaced. "We need to check your aunt's messages and such."

"I told you, the police took her iPhone."

"Do you know if she was set up for iCloud services? If so, her messages will be stored in the cloud, meaning we can see them on any device."

"You're right. Follow me." She led me to the office, which was fitted with a desk; a metal storage bin; two oak cabinets, which held Marigold's antiquated card catalogue files; a hermetically-designed bookshelf filled with rare books; a pegboard for receipts; and a whiteboard for orders .

On the desk stood Marigold's laptop computer, a Rolodex, and an in-and-out box for orders. I sat in the chair and awakened the computer. I sighed when I realized I needed a password to access it. I asked Tegan if she knew it.

"Type prejudice." She spelled out. "P-r-e-j-u-d-i-c-e."

"Really?" I gawked. "Her password is ‘prejudice'?"

Tegan said, "Would you have guessed it?"

"Nope."

I typed it in, and the computer came to life. I clicked her email browser, which did not require a password. She had a few new messages—all spam—but I was surprised to learn she had no cache of previous messages. Had she erased them? I was not in the habit of deleting mine. Oh, sure, I eliminated junk, but if I wanted to see a previous message, I stored it in a file I'd named as Future to Keep. Her similarly named file was empty.

"Did she have a computer at home, too?" I asked.

"Nope. She left this one here so she could devote her time to reading at home and wouldn't be tempted to go online." I studied the screen. There were opened documents. "Do you mind if I view these files? I have a bee in my bonnet."

"Be-e-e my guest." Tegan buzzed .

I clicked on the Mission Control app. The Calendar page, Browser page, Contacts page, and two Word documents appeared. One of the Word documents was a letter-in-progress addressed to the Bramblewood Community Theater Foundation donors. It laid out Marigold's plan for the year, detailing events and how its funds would be spent. It wasn't complete. It ended midparagraph regarding expenditures, which explained why the document would've been open.

The other file read like the beginning of a mystery novel. It was new and hadn't been saved. It didn't have a title.

"Tegan, look at this."

Chapter One

Heart pounding, Josephine Bellamy stood beneath the gaslight at Broadway and 34 th , the hem of her plaid silk dress dusting the street. She peered into the dim night. Which way to go? Where to turn? The killer's threats had been real, she had no doubt. She knew the truth, but she dare not tell anyone. She couldn't. If she did, her family would be a target. Josephine was barely eighteen, but she knew things other girls her age didn't. Elizabeth Bennet would have liked her. She observed. She spoke out of turn. She was always underestimated.

A whisper of fear crawled down my spine.

Tegan whistled. "It's not bad."

"Did she tell you she was writing a book?"

"I didn't have a clue."

To preserve the file, I saved it with a simple title, Marigold _book_draft, and then clicked on the Google browser page. In the search line was the word "gaslight." The initial website listing was the dictionary definition of the word, both noun and verb. As widely as Marigold read, I imagined she knew what gaslighting meant in present-day lingo. Thanks to the classic movie Gaslight, with Ingrid Bergman, to gaslight meant to use psychological methods that made a person question his or her own sanity. I guessed Marigold also knew when gaslighting was introduced in New York, so why would she need to research the term? I scrolled down to view other links, all of which pertained to the film.

Wondering what else Marigold might have delved into, I opened her search history and was surprised to see that, except for the current page, it had been cleared out the day she died. Had she done so, or had someone else? Why?

"Who else had the password to your aunt's computer?" I asked .

"Me, Chloe. That's it."

"Then explain this." I pointed to the date when the history had been wiped clean.

She yelled, "Chloe, c'mere!"

Chloe rushed in.

"Did you erase the Internet search history on this computer?" Tegan asked.

"I never touch that computer," Chloe said. "I mean, I can open it, but I never do. Marigold said it was private, and I should only access it in an emergency. I use the desktop in the shop." She hooked her thumb in that direction.

The chimes over the front door jangled. Chloe left to tend to customers.

I revisited Mission Control and viewed the other opened documents. The Calendar reflected appointments for the theater foundation donors' meeting last Friday and the tea scheduled for Saturday. Sunday was blank. On Monday, Marigold was scheduled to have lunch with Evelyn Evers, her second-in-command for the theater foundation. On Tuesday—today—she'd planned to have coffee with Oly Olsen, who owned the Brewery. Why would she have needed to meet with him? Was he a donor?

I clicked on Contacts and saw the D page was open. Lo and behold, Oly's contact appeared. The company noted on it was Due Diligence, not the Brewery. Odd name for a parent company. "Due diligence" was a legal term that typically meant conducting research, an analysis, and an investigation to verify facts about a particular subject. Had Marigold called Oly the morning she died or the evening before? I dialed his number on my cell, put the call on speaker, and waited.

He answered on the second ring. "Ja?" A hint of his Danish heritage was ever-present in his accent, even though he'd relocated to the States as a boy.

"Oly, it's Allie Catt. You knew Marigold Markel, right?"

"Ja. "

"Did she call you the other day?"

He didn't respond.

"A Contact page is open on Marigold's computer, with you listed as the point person for a company named Due Diligence. We're trying to figure out if and why she reached out to you. You were scheduled to have lunch with her."

He remained silent for a long time. Tegan gestured, urging me to squeeze him for an answer.

"Oly? Are you there?"

After a long moment, he said, "She wanted to hire me."

"To do what? To make a private batch of beer?" I couldn't imagine Marigold ordering suds for the theater foundation event, but odder things had happened. Personally, she preferred champagne or wine.

"To look into something for her. I investigate things occasionally," he said obliquely.

"I see," I murmured. "That explains the company name. Due Diligence is a detective agency."

" Ja. Years ago, my uncle brought me into the business. He said it would keep me out of trouble when I wasn't brewing. I was a hellion as a teenager."

"Did Marigold give you a hint of what she wanted you to investigate?"

"She asked if I had read Pride and Prejudice. "

Hmm . That was odd. "Have you?"

"Indeed. With my girls. When they were in high school. Their mother and I both did. I don't understand the fascination. Marigold said she had a case of pride that needed to be handled. But that was our last phone call. She was going to send me an email explaining, but she didn't. Sorry I cannot be of more help."

I thanked him, ended the call, and slung my arm over the back of the desk chair. "A case of pride? What the heck? Why was your aunt so enthralled with the darned book?"

"Pride could be a code word," Tegan said .

"True, but it doesn't give a hint as to whom she wanted Oly to look into."

"It's time to call Zach. Tell him everything. He'll be open to our thoughts." She jutted a hand.

I tapped in his number. When he answered, I said, "It's me, Allie."

"I've got eyes." He chuckled.

If my name came up on his screen, it meant he'd added me to his contacts. That pleased me. I told him about Marigold's search history being erased and about the phone call to Oly, who happened to be a part-time PI, and about the mission she'd planned to assign him—something that might have to do with Pride and Prejudice— but Marigold didn't follow through.

He sucked in air but didn't say a word.

Then I plunged into the rest, ending with the hundred thousand dollars that Marigold took from the bank . "I think she put the bank's envelope into the ‘Private and Confidential' one."

"That's conjecture," he said. "However, if she did, it supports my theory that her death was a result of a robbery gone wrong."