CHAPTER 24

C HAPTER 24

"Undoubtedly, there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable."

—Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

K atrina sagged slightly. I dashed to her and guided her to a chair by the sales counter. Tegan fetched her a glass of water and gave it to her.

"You lied?" I asked.

Katrina sipped the water and nudged the glass aside. "I . . ." She gulped in air. "I can't do it any longer. Guilt is eating at me."

I exchanged a glance with my pal. This was it. Katrina was going to confess to murder. Tegan was free. Case solved. We waited. The teens were still browsing YA books, and the mother had settled her brood into the reading nook and was showing them pictures in an alphabet book.

"My friend who's supposed to corroborate my alibi . . ." Katrina twirled a hand.

"The one on the three-week camping trip," I finished.

"Yes. Her. Even when she returns, she won't be able to confirm my story because I wasn't with her the night before or even on the morning Marigold died. But I do have an alibi."

My pulse started to race so fast that I was sure Katrina and Tegan could hear it churning. "Go on," I coaxed .

"See, when I'm not working at the Brewery, I'm a hostess." I gawked at Tegan, who shrugged her shoulders, as in the dark as I was.

"A hostess . . . online." Katrina wheezed as if it was taking all her effort to form words. "With clients. Male clients."

My mouth opened, but no words came out.

"I don't have virtual sex with them," she rushed to add. "I'm a listener."

"A listener," I echoed.

"Like a therapist?" Tegan asked.

"No. I'm not a therapist. I can't be. I'm not licensed to be one."

I recalled the Brewery article saying Katrina had wanted to become a psychiatrist, but hadn't been able to finish college because her mother had needed full-time care and funds were scarce.

"I'm more like a friend. A confidante. See, sometimes they . . . my clients . . . ask me to say things to them. Not to turn them on," she rushed to add, "but to bolster their ego. It's easy for me. I've always been good at listening. When I was dating online, I learned to keep it neutral, you know? Dates and places—"

"Your boyfriend Upton Scott figured out the truth, didn't he?" I cut in. "He threatened you."

Her face pinched with pain. "Yes. He hacked into my account. He took pictures of my clients' profiles. Some are well-known people. He wants to out them. He thinks they're perverts, but they're not. They're simply lonely." Tears pooled in her eyes. Tegan handed her a tissue. She took it. "I've decided to pay off Upton to make him bury his story. And I'll quit the business. I can get by on less money. But before I do, I wanted to tell you about the client I was befriending on the Saturday morning Marigold died."

Befriending . What a curious word .

"Saturday morning seems like an odd time to be talking to . . . clients," I murmured.

"It was the only time he had available. He's a workaholic." Katrina licked her lips and took another sip of water. "If he'll talk to the police, that should help me, right? That'll prove I didn't kill Marigold."

Not if our theory about the bottled water lying in wait for Marigold was correct, but for now, that was only a conjecture, and Katrina seemed so earnest that I wanted to believe her.

"Could this client see you?" I asked.

"He saw me, all right. I was dressed like a schoolmarm in glasses and a high-necked blouse. That's what he asked for. It wasn't kinky. He said he would take instruction better if I didn't look sexy. Many of my clients ask me to dress up. It's no big deal."

I said, "Katrina—"

"Katty," she cut in. "They know me as Katty. It's a nickname for Katrina."

I could've palm slapped my forehead. Wallis told Zach and me that Marigold had said to Katrina, "Don't be catty," and that was when Katrina threatened her. "Marigold knew what you were doing," I said. "She knew your secret identity."

Katrina nodded glumly.

"How did she find out?"

"She caught me. Behind the Brewery. Having a session. I was in my car on my cell phone. I hadn't driven away. I was . . ." Katrina toyed with a tendril of hair. "I was in a nun's habit."

Katty the nun. I couldn't picture it.

"The next day"—Katrina's shoulders rose and fell with defeat—"Marigold approached me and begged me to stop. She told me to reenroll in school and get my degree so I could become—"

"A real psychiatrist. "

"Yes, but that takes a lot of cash, which I didn't have. She offered to pay my way. I told her no." She wadded the tissue in the hand that was clinging to her key ring. "My pride wouldn't let me. I had to earn the money myself."

Aha! That was why Marigold had wanted Oly to sort out Katrina's pride.

"Will you help me smooth things over with the police?" Katrina asked. "I've written down all the dates I've met with people online."

The word "dates" joggled something in my mind. "Katrina, you mentioned that you'd learned the ropes when you were dating online, and you were about to say something more, but I interrupted after you said ‘dates and places.' Marigold had a contact in her directory for something named Dates and Places. Is it a business?"

She nodded. "It's a dating app. It's why I finally grasped how to interact with guys—what to do and what not to do."

Tegan said, "Allie, do you think Auntie decided to look for love again after all these years?"

"It's feasible."

"She asked me about it," Katrina said. "I told her I hadn't had any success. After a few encounters, I realized I didn't want to get involved with anyone."

Not in the romantic way, I mused.

"But it was that experience that made me figure out I could make money listening to guys like them, so I created my website KattyTalks, and then I touched base with a few previous dates to spread the word, and voilà."

Aha. I hadn't found any social networking presence for her when I'd researched her online because I hadn't known her alias.

Katrina lifted the hand holding the wadded tissue and key chain. "See this fob?" It was red and curved, with a jagged edge. " Dates and Places gives them to its clients. It's half of a heart. It's what you show someone when you're meeting them on a blind date. The app owner says it's like getting the license plate of your Uber driver to make sure you climb into the right car."

Tegan pointed at the key chain. "Hold on. Rick has that same fob. I saw him twirling his keys the other day. The red thingy caught my eye. He is cheating on my mother, Allie. I told you !"

I remembered seeing the fob and thinking it reminded me of something on a dog's collar.

"Auntie knew it!"

Did she? Was that why she'd asked Katrina about Dates and Places? Had she discovered Rick had a profile on the app? Had she planned to tell Noeline what she'd uncovered? Would Rick have killed her to keep the secret? That seemed farfetched. For all we knew, Rick and Noeline might have met through the app, but Noeline fibbed to her daughters, claiming they'd bumped into each other at a grocery store, so they wouldn't worry.

I said, "Katrina, would it be possible to get your profile info so we can sneak into the app and scope out Tegan's mother's new boyfriend?"

"Sure. Give me your phone, Tegan."

"Mine's in the office," Tegan said. "Use yours, Allie."

I handed my phone to Katrina. She uploaded the Dates and Places app and then entered her user name and password.

"Here." She gave it back to me. "You can explore by first name, if he's using his real first name, as well as by zip code and age range. There are even filters for ethnicity. Some people are really lame about only dating someone who has the same skin tone, so that's required for all profiles. Photos too, though lots of those have been photoshopped. Believe me, I know."

"What about by profession?" I asked .

"If he's honest about it, sure."

I typed in as many keywords as I could think of: Rick, Rick O, Rick O'Sheedy, white male, banker, financier, investor, moneyman. I added our zip code and the descriptors: sixty to seventy and silver hair.

"Are his eyes blue or green?" I asked Tegan.

"Blue, I think."

Not being certain, I left eye color blank and hit Enter. There wasn't one Rick O'Sheedy , but there were twenty Rick O listings, and well over one hundred profiles for Rick . Some of the names merely matched one keyword. I started with any Rick O in our zip code but didn't find any that resembled Rick O'Sheedy. Most of the men were in their forties. None did any work related to money matters. I moved on to the selections of Rick, with no initials, who were living in or near our zip code.

"Ma'am, we're ready to check out." The teenaged boys approached the sales counter.

Tegan excused herself and handled the sale.

Katrina rose to her feet. "I should go. I have an appointment."

An online appointment, I surmised by how anxious she was becoming.

"Thank you for listening," she added. "Will you, you know . . . with the police?"

"I suggest you go to them directly and tell them everything."

"I was hoping you'd smooth it over for me before I did. You and Detective Armstrong seem to get along so well."

The singsong way she said it made me uncomfortable. Had I been giving off a way-too-interested vibe? Was that why Zach had cooled to me?

I rested a hand on her shoulder. "I'll text him and tell him that I believe you, but you have to do this yourself."

She lifted her chin. "You're right. It's time to bite the bullet. "

Or suck it up, as my father would say.

When Katrina left and Tegan, who'd finalized the sale, moseyed to the aisle by the front window to advise an elderly woman who was waving for help, I texted Zach. I didn't see the three ellipses hovering like he was planning to respond, so I closed Messages and resumed browsing the profiles.

Before I'd scrolled through three, the mother and her children arrived at the sales counter. The children were clearly restless. The oldest, who looked to be about seven, was doing her best to quiet her siblings, but to no avail.

"I'm sorry," the mother said, wearily setting down ten children's books and Lost Luggage, a humorous mystery I'd thoroughly enjoyed.

"These are good selections for your children," I said. On occasion, I rifled through picture books, dreaming of the days when my mother, acting like a mother should, had taken me to a library. "The artwork in the alphabet book is super, and this mystery"—I tapped the book's cover—"is written by one of my favorite authors. The protagonist, Cyd Redondo, is a hoot. There are more in the series, if you enjoy it."

"Thanks." She paid with a credit card. After I bundled the books into one of the shop's gift bags, the woman shepherded her squirming children to the front door.

"Found anything on Rick yet?" Tegan asked me when she returned.

"Zilch."

"Let me have a go."

I gave her the cell phone.

Fingers tapping and swiping, she landed on Rick's profile within minutes. She grunted. "Honestly? His nickname is Ricochet? How cheesy."

Ricochet. Get real! "Um, do you think your mother has a profile, too?"

"I sure hope not." She keyed in her mother's name and, finding no one, not a single person named Noeline or any facsimile of the name, she breathed easier. "I've got to tell her he's doing this."

"You don't know that he's active. This could be an old profile."

"Except he still has that fob on his key chain."

"So does Katrina, and she's no longer using the app."

"I suppose."

"Let's table it for the rest of the day," I said. "We have the book club to prepare for. After that, you'll come up with a way to break it to your mother. She might find it funny."

"Hardy-har." Tegan grimaced. "Not."