CHAPTER 7

C HAPTER 7

"I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

—Captain Frederick Wentworth, in Jane Austen's Persuasion

I was walking into my house when my cell phone jangled. I tossed my keys on the foyer table and pulled my phone from my purse. Zach was calling.

"Caught the killer?" I asked.

"Not yet," he said. "I was hoping you might want to go on a hike with me."

"Don't you have to work?"

"I need to clear my head."

"Sure, okay. Have you eaten lunch? Are you hungry?"

"Always."

"I'll pack a picnic. You bring a blanket. Give me a half hour." I didn't need to change anything but my shoes. For a dash of color, I threw on the sage-green scarf Marigold had given me for Christmas. Then I put together a picnic and stuffed it into a backpack.

Thirty minutes later, Zach knocked on the door. I liked a man who was punctual. My ex-fiancé always ran fifteen minutes late. Tegan told me it meant he wasn't committed to the relationship. How true that had proven to be.

Zach looked ruggedly handsome in a plaid shirt over a burgundy Henley, jeans, and hiking boots. "Ready? "

"Yep." I told Darcy I'd return in a few hours, hoisted the backpack, and off we went in Zach's silver Jeep Wrangler.

Bramblewood Hill Park Trail was located north of town and boasted one of the most beautiful views of the mountains. We walked in companionable silence until we neared the pinnacle. The ground was damp, but it wasn't slippery. The scent of white pines was heady. The blossoms on the redbuds and dogwoods were incredible in varying shades of pink, red, and white. There were other hikers in front of and behind us, but no one spoke above a reverent whisper.

When we found a spot, Zach spread out a waterproof blanket, and I pulled out pita wraps filled with salami, Swiss cheese, and chopped veggies, as well as paper plates and napkins. "For dessert, chocolate butterscotch cookies." I jiggled a baggie holding four of the cookies I'd baked yesterday.

"Can I start with dessert?" He grinned.

Oh, that dimple. "I won't say no." I offered him a cookie, took one for myself, and crossed my legs, comfortable in his presence.

He bit into the cookie and swallowed. "Wow, so good."

"You are definitely a cookie guy."

"Team Cookie all the way. Don't get me wrong. I like pie—in particular, pumpkin pie—but cookies travel well, and when I need a pick-me-up, cookies do in a pinch."

I smiled. My fiancé had eschewed anything sweet. That might have been why he was such a sourpuss. I took a bite of cookie and brushed crumbs off my lips with my pinky. "I know it's only been a little over twenty-four hours, but is there anything new in the investigation?"

"We're canvassing the shops near Feast for the Eyes. It being Sunday, very few are open. Bates is following up with some of Marigold's friends, like people in the theater foundation, her bridge group, and such."

"Did you go through the customer list at the shop? "

He arched an eyebrow.

"Tegan was pretty sure the police rifled through the filing cabinets."

"We did," he admitted.

"And the shop's computer, et cetera?"

He nodded.

"You should poll Marigold's neighborhood, too." I told him what Lillian had said about the suspicious activity at Graham's house a week ago.

"Why didn't Miss Bellingham tell us when we questioned her?"

"She didn't know. One of her customers lives near Marigold, a woman named Celia Harrigan. She came into Lillian's shop for a fitting late yesterday."

"Gossip," he muttered.

"Marie Curie said, ‘Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.' "

"Wise woman." He polished off his cookie and took another.

"Tegan said Marigold was muttering about Graham the other day, wishing he'd get his act together."

Zach tilted his head. "The two don't seem to equate."

"I thought I'd loop you in on what I heard. Also you should know Marigold owned other jewelry, in addition to the pendant." I outlined my theory about her going to the bank and the killer, possibly Graham or someone hanging outside his house, stalking her to steal it.

"I'll consider that angle." His mouth quirked up on one side and his awe-inspiring dimple appeared. "Are you going to be looping me in a lot?"

"You know, caterers and bakers have an eye for detail. I also have a steel-trap memory when it comes to books, as well as remembering things people say."

"Modesty becomes you." He chuckled and tapped his cookie to mine as a toast. "You know, you left the bookshop pretty fast yesterday, once I was done with Tegan."

"Wasn't I supposed to?"

"I wanted to ask you a few things."

Worry swelled in me like a hot balloon. Was that what this was? An interrogation, not a date? Suddenly my interest in him waned. If he was going to be a sneaky Pete . . .

Testily I said, "Fire away."

"Tell me about your timeline Saturday morning."

"Mine?" I uncrossed and recrossed my legs in the other direction. "Am I a suspect because I was the last one to speak to Marigold?"

"No," he replied, but he didn't say it with conviction.

"Fine." I recapped my mundane morning. Getting up. Feeding the cat. Packing up the food. Loading the van. Calling Marigold. "At eight, I went to wake Tegan, but she wasn't there."

"Once you got to the shop, what happened?"

I replayed those movements. Parking the van. Noticing the crowd. Wedging through the throng to the front door. Seeing Piper and Graham, as well as Noeline and her boyfriend. "Everyone was concerned. I told you, Graham spied Marigold in their neighborhood earlier, didn't I?"

"You did. Did you believe his account?"

"He didn't seem to be lying, but I'm not a human polygraph." As much as I might like to be. I hated when people lied to me. Did Zach's ruse of going on a hike constitute as one? "Look, I loved Marigold. I would never—"

He held a fingertip to my lips. " Shh. I know. I just wanted you to repeat your account, to make sure I hadn't misunderstood any of it. In the early stages of an investigation, we have to pay attention. Stories change. Alibis fluctuate."

Needing to cool my jets—he didn't really suspect me, did he?—I downed another cookie. After a long silence, I said, " Tegan and I are going to have a memorial tea for Marigold. That's okay, isn't it?"

"You can have a memorial anytime."

"You're invited, by the way. It'll be at Feast for the Eyes. Two weeks from yesterday." I told him our plan to honor Marigold's favorite book by serving food appropriate to the Regency Era and that we'd be asking attendees to wear costumes.

"Unique idea."

We sat in reverent silence for a moment.

"Why was she holding Pride and Prejudice ?" I murmured, my voice rife with emotion. Not knowing the answer was driving me nuts. "It's got to be significant. There were all those other books to choose from."

"How are Tegan and her sister and mother?" he asked, avoiding my question.

"Half sister," I corrected. "They're managing. Tegan and Noeline went to church." I set the pita wraps on paper plates and pushed one in his direction. "Did you find fingerprints on the books that buried Marigold?"

He cocked his head. "Are you trying to wheedle information from an officer of the law?"

"You aren't na?ve enough to believe I'd go on a hike with you and not ask questions."

Another smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, but he tamped it down.

"Did you?" I pressed. "You dusted the books. There was gunk on them. Did you dust the door handles? Was everything wiped clean?"

"We think the killer used gloves."

"Of course. So you didn't find any telltale DNA."

He hummed.

"Or did you? From the struggle? Did Marigold scratch the killer?"

He didn't answer .

I twisted the pita wrap on my plate but didn't pick it up. "How did the killer get in? Through the rear entrance?"

"Both doors were locked."

"A closed-room murder," I said, a touch of awe in my tone. I enjoyed reading closed-room murders. There were plenty written during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction by authors like Christie, Sayers, and Marsh, but my latest favorite was a present-day mystery titled Under Lock and Skeleton Key, about a female magician who moved home to help her father. His construction company built secret staircases.

"It wasn't necessarily a closed-room murder," Zach said. "If the murderer had a key to the shop—"

"Tegan did not kill her aunt!" I didn't mean to sound so shrill, but I had to defend my friend. "Sorry."

"You care. I get it."

"Noeline didn't do it, either. Or Chloe. Those are the only people who have keys."

"What about the cleaning crew?"

"Yes, I suppose they'd have one," I conceded. "Which means there could be others that have access, like a pest control company," I said, recalling that mine had a key to Dream Cuisine. "Or the alarm company. Or the IT guy who overhauled the shop's computer system last month."

"For your information, we found Marigold's set of keys."

"Meaning the killer didn't take them."

I recalled an event a couple of weeks ago when Marigold was searching for her key ring. She always hung them on a hook on the pegboard behind the desktop computer. Mumbling that she never misplaced anything— never, never, never —she scrounged through drawers, in the wastebasket, under the counters. Frustrated to the point of breaking, she wondered aloud if she was losing her mind. When she cried, "Here they are! "—they were stuffed into a remote corner of the shallow pencil-and-pen drawer and hard to see upon first glance—I laughed along with her and told her how many times I'd lost a measuring cup or cookie cutter to a remote corner of a kitchen drawer.

"What about the empty envelope?" I asked. "Do you have any idea what was inside it? Like money or jewelry or a document? Could whatever it was be crucial to the investigation?"

"The techs are studying it."

"I noticed they bagged the empty water bottle and the teacup filled with tea."

"They procured a lot of things."

He took a big bite of his sandwich, I nibbled the corner of mine, and the two of us fell quiet again. For a long while, we listened to the sound of birds chirping in the trees.

When a squirrel skittered up the trunk of a nearby redbud, I dared to pose another question. "Lillian said your people were searching the alley behind the shop. Did they find any clues, like footprints or, I don't know, dirt deposits, or . . ." I twirled the hand holding the wrap.

He frowned.

"C'mon. Give me something." I dropped the wrap on my plate. "How about the bruise on Marigold's neck? Did the coroner determine if it was caused by a book nicking her?"

Zach took another bite of his sandwich and pointed to his mouth, meaning too full to speak.

I narrowed my gaze, sensing I'd landed on something. "Okay, a book didn't do it. What else might have caused it? Did the killer inject her with something, like a heart-stopping poison or a sedative, so he or she could overpower her? Done hastily, that might leave a dime-sized bruise. The last time I had blood drawn at the blood bank, the volunteer was in such a hurry that she poked me too hard, and the crook of my elbow turned black and blue."

"It's a bruise," he said. "Nothing more, nothing less."

"That's it? That's all you're going to give me? "

He swallowed hard and set his wrap aside. "Look, you've known Tegan since you were a girl. Does she have a knack for science?"

I squinted. What an odd question. "Um, yes, she won the science fair in her freshman year of high school, and she—" I halted as dread crawled up my esophagus. "Marigold was poisoned, wasn't she? It was murder." I held up a hand. "Tegan didn't do it. She gave up science and computers and everything geeky when she fell in love with the written word." Booklovers could be geeks, too, but that was beside the point. "Plus she has an alibi."

"Which she won't divulge."

My appetite vanished. I packed up my pita wrap and stowed it in the backpack. "She was with a girlfriend."

"Name?"

"I don't know."

"Sounds lame."

It did, but I didn't want to give voice to my own doubts. The cool air cut through my clothes. I began to shiver.

"Let's go," Zach said. "I'm chilly, too." He held out a hand to help me off the blanket.

The scent of him, all rugged and leathery, made me want to grasp the collar of his plaid shirt and pull him close, but I held myself in check. Right now, he was the enemy of my friend.

"Want to grab a beer at the Brewery?" he asked.

"You're not mad at me for prying?"

"Like you said, I expected you to ask questions. I simply can't provide more answers."

"At least tell me whether or not Marigold was poisoned," I said, batting my eyelashes as Piper had at Graham yesterday morning—and hating myself for it. I was not an eyelash-batting kind of girl.

"Yes. "

"With what? Arsenic? Strychnine? Cyanide?" No, none of those. They would have made her vomit.

"With tetrahydrozoline."

"Never heard of it."

"It's a decongestant used to relieve red itchy eyes, readily available over the counter. It can come in nasal spray and eye drop forms." Then he gravely added, "I'm warning you if that information gets out, I'll know you're the source. We haven't looped in the media."

On the drive to the pub, I gazed out the window, drinking in the waning sun, the wisps of clouds striating the sky, and the distant skyline of Asheville. I had enjoyed living in and near Charlotte, but I was so glad I'd moved home. I loved Bramblewood. The Blue Ridge Mountains. The beauty. The art scene. The local flavor. Our town was large enough to be designated a city but small enough for me to know just about everyone I ran into.

We entered the Brewery and found two swivel chairs at the bar. Katrina was tending, but her typically flashy smile was missing in action. By now, I imagined she'd heard about Marigold's death and was in mourning, like the rest of us. However, the moment she spotted Zach, she perked up.

"Hello, handsome," she said in typically sassy fashion. She wiped down the counter in front of us as we sat, tossed the towel in the sink behind the bar, and set down two cocktail napkins. "Long time no see."

"I've been working a few cases," Zach said.

So the Brewery was one of his hangouts, too. We obviously came in on different nights of the week. Otherwise, I would have noticed him.

"Allie, I'm sorry about Marigold," Katrina said. "I heard you were there. At the shop. You found her. That had to be awful. Is that why you two are hanging out?" She gazed between us, as if trying to figure out if we were on a date. "Are you swapping stories? Can you share any details?"

"No," Zach and I said at the same time.

Katrina threw up both hands. "Okay. No prob. I care, you know. Marigold was good people. I was never a reader before going to Feast for the Eyes. I'd like to see justice served."

"Wouldn't we all," I muttered.

Zach ordered a Spruce Goose for each of us. I wasn't hungry, but he requested a hot soft pretzel with spicy mustard, saying he'd share if my appetite returned.

After setting our drinks down, Katrina said, "I have to leave in thirty. This is my one early shift a week. So, if you don't mind, I'll ask you to settle up."

I reached for my purse.

Zach said, "I've got this."

He paid the thirty-dollar charge with a couple of twenties and told her to keep the change. Big tipper, I noted. She thanked him with a wink.

Both of us swung around on our chairs and nursed our beers while watching a Charlotte Hornets basketball game on one of the TV screens. There wasn't any sound. Closed captions were turned on.

"Do you like basketball?" Zach asked.

"I do. I was a point guard in high school." A player in that position was expected to run a team's offense by controlling the ball and making sure it got to the right teammate.

"Ha! I would have thought you'd devoted all your time to reading."

I smiled. "A girl likes to run. And a bossy girl likes to be in charge."

He chuckled. "Did your dad play?"

I nearly did a spit take with my beer. "My father? He has never worked up a sweat. He is a dollars-and-cents guy." All his life, Jamie Catt had relished working with numbers. After graduating college with a master's in economics, he became a venture capitalist and ranked right up there with the best. That was how he and Fern had earned enough money to become world travelers. "No, a guy friend in junior high taught me moves."

"I'll bet he did."

I punched his arm.

Katrina brought the pretzel with three choices of mustard and told us Wallis would be tending bar when she left.

Wallis had a winsome smile but was reserved in a dainty kind of way, reminding me of Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Jane was modest and sweet-tempered and quick to defend someone when Elizabeth suspected them of having shortcomings. Even Wallis's delicate cameo necklace made me think of jewelry Jane might wear.

"Need anything?" she asked as she swapped out our cocktail napkins for new ones.

"I'll take another Spruce Goose," Zach said.

"One's my limit," I answered.

Wallis pulled a tap and filled a new glass with the golden liquid. She brought it to Zach, checked over her shoulder, and leaned in, voice hushed. "You're handling the murder, right?"

Zach's eyes widened. "I'm off duty."

"Yes, but you're it. The lead guy."

"Why?"

"I really liked Marigold."

"We all did," he said.

"Well, Marigold and Katrina argued last week."

"What about?"

"I'm not exactly sure, but I heard Marigold say, ‘Don't be catty,' and Katrina said, ‘If anyone finds out, I'll know it was you who told them.' "

I shuddered, recalling the warning Zach had given me at the end of our hike .

Wallis worked her teeth over her lower lip. "I don't usually talk out of school, and I really like Katrina, but she seemed steamed. Later on, she was in the staff room slamming doors right and left."

If anyone finds out what? Did Marigold discover a secret that Katrina would have killed to keep quiet?