CHAPTER 8

C HAPTER 8

"All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

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

W orking at home with the kitchen door closed, I prepared a variety of doughs and batters and finally slogged to bed at half past eleven. But who could sleep? I tossed all night thinking about Tegan and why she was being circumspect with me. If she was innocent—of course, she was innocent!—she knew she could tell me anything. She couldn't have been stalking her soon-to-be ex if he was out of town. Was she embarrassed about whatever she'd been up to? Wasn't she more concerned about being considered the number one suspect in her aunt's murder? I also couldn't stop mulling over what Wallis had told me and Zach. Had Marigold stumbled onto Katrina's secret, or had Katrina confessed to Marigold, hoping she would give her advice and take the secret to her grave? The notion made me shiver.

At five a.m., Darcy picked up on my frazzled mood and crawled up the comforter to my face. He nuzzled my nose with his.

"Yes, sir, it's time to rise and shine," I said. "Mondays wait for no one. "

He meowed.

"Of course, I'll feed you." I chuckled. The cat was like a teenager with a hollow leg. He never gained weight, even though he ate twice as much as my previous cat.

I scrambled out of bed, my feet instantly chilled by the wood floor. I slipped on my fifteen-year-old moccasins—I'd never replace them if I could help it—fed Darcy, did my ablutions, and took twenty minutes to perform my stretches, a habit bred in me by my high-school basketball coach. I'd jog in the afternoon if I could fit in the time. Then I slipped on black leggings and a white V-neck sweater and packaged up all the baked goods.

At seven a.m., I was out the door. At nine, after all the deliveries were made, I went to the grocery store to pick up supplies so I could test out a few of the recipes for the memorial, and I proceeded to Dream Cuisine. I emptied everything onto the granite counter. Herbs and veggies to the right, meats and liquids to the left. I made a pot of coffee at the Cuisinart beverage center and switched on music.

While sipping coffee and listening to Haydn's Symphony No. 94, "Surprise," a lilting air with occasional cymbal clashes, I began preparing the veal stock for the white soup. Making stock wasn't for the faint of heart. It could take hours. The recipe I'd stumbled upon asked for three pounds of veal chops, one small chicken, a bunch of vegetables and herbs, and twelve whole cloves. To allow the stock's flavor to mature, after removing and shredding the cooked meat to save for later, the recipe instructed me to let the stock sit refrigerated overnight. I'd be adding cream, almond milk, and breadcrumbs to the recipe tomorrow.

While I chopped and diced vegetables, I ran through the clues Zach had revealed so far.

"Tetrahydrozoline." I processed thoughts better when I said them out loud. "It's found in nasal sprays and over-the-counter eye drops."

I recalled Zach asking whether Tegan was good at science. Would an amateur chemist like her know the drug's effect? How would it have been administered? What if the killer held Marigold steady with one hand, thus causing the bruise, and shoved her backward? She hit her head on the counter, which dazed her. While she was incapacitated, the killer lowered her to the floor and poured the poison into her mouth.

I gasped as another scenario took shape. "The empty water bottle," I said aloud. "What if the killer laced Marigold's water with poison? Does it have a taste? I don't have a clue. What if she drank it, with the killer present, and suddenly realized she'd been poisoned? Panicking, she groped for balance and knocked books to the floor. In her last-ditch effort, she seized Pride and Prejudice. "

I texted the theory to Zach. To my surprise, he responded within seconds with a frowning-face emoji. Did that mean I was on the wrong track, or that he was upset with me for touching base? I pushed the latter notion aside and pondered another angle.

"How did the killer get inside the shop?" I murmured. "Did Marigold let him . . . or her . . . " I paused on that notion. Which was it? "Did she let him or her in, or did the killer have a key?"

Again I recalled the incident when Marigold had searched for her keys, only to find them stuffed at the rear of a cluttered drawer. Was it possible the killer swiped, copied, and replaced the shop's keys, accidentally putting them in the wrong spot, and then waited until Saturday to use them? Who would have had access to her key ring? I supposed a customer could have easily nabbed it off the hook where it hung on the pegboard behind the desktop computer.

I bundled sage, bay leaves, rosemary, and thyme in cheesecloth and added the bundle to the soup. "If I'm right, that means Marigold didn't die at the hands of a robber. It was, indeed, planned."

I poured myself a second cup of coffee and queued up another song, Beethoven's "Sunset, The Return to Ulster." A renowned Beethoven historian once said of Beethoven's Irish folk song arrangements that they had a sophisticated artlessness. I would agree.

I resumed stirring the soup, and my musings about the poison continued. "A robber wouldn't have come armed with tetrahydrozoline. A knife or a gun would have done the job faster. On the other hand, a person who knew about Marigold's valuables, and had been staking out her house in order to follow her, might have known about her dehydration issue."

Needing more than my own agreement to work through the clues, I phoned Tegan to see if she could break free from the shop for a bit. She said when customer traffic died down, she would come over, but at the moment, the place was overrun with people wanting to know where the murder happened. She couldn't leave Chloe on her own.

"Why do you want to see me?" she asked.

"I was wondering if you, your mother, or the bank might have a record of valuables Marigold kept in her safety-deposit box."

She didn't.

"Also would you bring a list of Feast customers who might be doctors or scientists or even food-safety experts?"

"Are you investigating?" Tegan asked.

"I'm thinking outside the box."

Seconds after I ended the call, my cell phone jangled. I glanced at the readout, expecting it to be Tegan saying she couldn't make it, but it was my mother.

I pressed Accept. "Hi, Fern. Is everything okay?" My parents seldom telephoned me. They texted photos of their adventures. "Is Jamie okay?"

"Your father is fine. You worry too much. "

I did, because I'd had to grow up faster than other kids. When I turned five, my parents encouraged me to make adult-type decisions. I established my own eating and sleeping schedules. I created menus. I cooked dinners.

"What about you, Allie?" Fern asked. "We read the news about the murder."

Be still, my heart! My mother never wanted to know how I was doing. And since when did she and my father read the news? All my life, they'd acted like ostriches, keeping their heads in the sand as it pertained to world events. Oh, sure, Jamie read articles about economic trends, and Fern received direct feeds from journals that would inform her about statistical physics, combinatorics, and other mathematical breakthroughs. She didn't want to be distracted by real news.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "Marigold Markel owned that bookstore you love."

My head started to spin. My mother actually remembered which bookstore I patronized?

"I'm fine," I replied, "but we're all heartbroken. Marigold was so lovely. She didn't deserve—" My voice trembled.

"Tell me what happened. You were there. What did you see? Will you solve the mystery?"

I gulped. Had she mentally picked up on my morning musings? No way. She did not have ESP. She disdained all things magical or paranormal. "Me? Solve it? Get real."

"Cookie, c'mon."

That was the one endearing phrase she had ever called me. Never "sweetie" or "honey." I had to admit that I liked the nickname. Although my parents had granted me a lot of leeway growing up, they had put their feet down when it came to eating anything sugary. A cookie a week had been their one indulgence. Odd, wasn't it, that my baking skills became my strong suit?

"You were never good at math, Allie. You could barely grasp the square root of anything. But you've always been a mystery buff."

Hello. Was that a compliment?

"Do you remember when you were a girl and you wanted to grow up to be Nancy Drew or Judy Bolton?"

Or Trixie Belden, I added to the list, a famous teenaged detective who'd struggled with math, as I had; although chemistry, which was akin to baking, I'd grasped. Go figure.

"What are you trying to say, Fern?"

"Don't trust the police to do their job. They never have and never will. Solve this murder yourself."

Yes, my parents had a beef with the police, because twenty years ago, someone stole my father's prized chess set, and the culprit was never apprehended. The chessmen, rare collectibles from Thailand, never showed up on the open market, either, suggesting a collector must have swiped them.

"That's not true, Fern," I said. "The police get it right ninety-five percent of the time." I happened to know, because I'd viewed BPD's statistics when I'd checked out Zach on the police forum. Yep, the moment I met him, I'd wanted to know more.

"All I'm saying, Allie, is she was your friend. Your mentor. And Tegan's aunt." Tegan was the only friend my mother had ever liked. "You have every right to investigate."

"Okay, thanks, Fern. Say hi to Jamie. Um, where are you?"

"Timbuktu."

"No, really."

"Really. We've visited the Djinguereber, Sankoré, and Sidi Yahya Mosques. They're from Timbuktu's Golden Age. And we've viewed so many ancient manuscripts I'm starting to speak Korya Chinni. That's a Songhay variety."

Good to know. Not.

"Plus we visited the Grand Marché. That's their bazaar. Jamie is an incredible haggler. He negotiated for a Tuareg knife and paid half the asking price. I purchased a unique bangle." She stressed the word, meaning it was not in the least rare, implying the vendor had tried to snooker her, but she'd been on to him. "You cannot get one-of-a-kind anything for ten American dollars, but it's pretty."

I considered Katrina's bracelet fetish and wondered if that could have anything to do with her secret. What if she'd stolen a bracelet? What if she was a kleptomaniac and had lifted other things?

"You know, a fair rule of thumb," my mother continued, "is to offer about a third of the first price they quote. That way, when they haggle, you counteroffer and wind up paying half."

She'd shared this advice in the past, but I would never need it. I had no desire to go to a market and barter for anything. I'd wind up paying double.

The front door opened and Tegan strode in.

"Fern, I've got to go. Tegan's here."

"Tell her hello."

I blew a kiss. She didn't blow one back. I stuck out my tongue as I pressed End.

"Let me guess, your mother?" Tegan asked.

"Yep." I loved Fern, but she could rattle me.

"Here are the things you requested." Tegan handed me a cluster of three-by-five cards bound with a rubber band. "Man, Auntie was old school when it came to her records. Card catalogues. Rolodex. All of which she duplicated on the computer." She shrugged out of her jacket to reveal a T-shirt featuring an angry-looking Pokémon Pikachu. My guess? She'd worn it to convey her inner feelings. "Mmm." Her nostrils flared. "That smells fragrant. What is it?"

"My first attempt at white soup. I want it to be perfect for the memorial."

"I'm detecting a hint of cloves."

"More than a hint. "

"Where are your parents this time?"

I told her.

"Who the heck goes there?" She threw her arms wide. "Isn't it dangerous?"

"So is Bramblewood. In our sweet little town, we have murder."

"Allie, how . . . how Bingley sister of you. That was insensitive." Tears sprang to her eyes and leaked down her cheeks. She mopped them with her fingers and licked them off her lips. "Honestly!"

"Sorry." I rounded the counter and clasped her in a hug. "You're right. It was crude and thoughtless. Forgive me." I was testy because of the conversation with Fern. Was my mother right? Would the police mess up the investigation? Did I have to intercede? I released my pal and sorted through the packet of three-by-five cards. "Do you know the customers personally?"

"Every one of them. I can't imagine any is a killer. I work with two of the nurses at the blood bank. One of the doctors delivers babies. The other one is a psychiatrist who treats PTSD. They're all good souls. Why did you ask for their names?"

"It's a hunch." I couldn't tell her about the tetrahydrozoline or the fact that Zach had been asking about Tegan's science skills. He'd made me swear. "Look, this morning, I've been going over the clues the police have so far."

She shuffled to the tuxedo-cat cookie jar I'd added to my work kitchen for a touch of home, reached in, and withdrew a sugar cookie. She downed it in two bites, then fetched an I Love Bramblewood mug, one with a cute Deco image of the town's buildings, and poured herself a cup of coffee from the Cuisinart beverage center.

"It's cold," I warned. I'd switched off the machine after my second cup. "Use the single-serve option on the right."

"You have a microwave." She zapped her mug for one minute, pulled it out, and took a swig. " Aah. So much better than the crud Chloe made this morning. I swear, why can't she measure properly?"

"She probably has a pod-style machine at home and never has to."

Tegan perched on a stool and wrapped both hands around the mug. "Talk. Why do you know which clues the police have so far?"

"Zach invited me on a hike, and—"

"Ooh." She waggled her eyebrows in comic fashion. "You and Zach went on another date?"

"Don't get ahead of your skis. It wasn't a date. He cajoled me into it in order to question me."

"The devil. He doesn't think you're guilty, too, does he?"

"No. And because I'm crafty, I was able to pry a few tidbits out of him."

"Like . . ."

I filled her in on the ones I could share. That gloves were used, meaning the killer left no prints. That the techs were studying the empty envelope. "Maybe they'll find something on the envelope that will prove the killer's identity." I told her about the police locating Marigold's keys and that both doors of the shop had been locked.

She bobbed her head. "The police asked me for names of services Auntie might have given her keys to. There were four. Did you learn anything else?"

"No," I said, hating that I couldn't spill the tea. "We went to the Brewery later on."

"That's definitely a date!" She thrust a finger at me.

"Possibly. I don't know." I pulled items from the pantry so I'd be ready to make my baked goods, once I was done with the meat stock. "While we were enjoying our beer, Katrina left for the night, and Wallis took over the bar shift." I recapped Wallis's account.

"What do you think Marigold discovered?" Tegan asked .

"No idea. The police will question Katrina." I wondered if Zach had followed up on that yet.

"Mom chatted with the estate attorney. He said he'll present Auntie's will tomorrow morning at ten a.m. He'll meet us at Feast for the Eyes. Will you come? I don't think I'll be able to handle Vanna with only Mom as backup."

"I'd be glad to support you."

"FYI, my lovely sister sent a scathing response to my text about the memorial. She's such a diva."

It was to be expected, I supposed.

"Did you tell Zach what Lillian's customer said about seeing something suspicious at Graham Wynn's house?" she asked.

"I did."

"And?"

"He'll be checking that out, too."

Tegan glanced at her watch. "You know, I have time before I have to relieve Chloe. Can your stock sit?"

"It needs to simmer for two hours."

"Perfect. I've got an idea. Come with me. I'm driving." Tegan didn't wait for me. She slipped on her jacket and raced out the door.

"Be there in a sec," I called after her.

Rather than leave the stock on the stove with an untended gas flame, I transferred it to a slow cooker and set it on low with a two-hour timer. I snatched my coat and scarf and zipped after my pal.

She'd parked her MINI Clubman, a black-and-white version that suited her, in the driveway.

"You added a new sticker," I said.

"Yep." The rear bumper was plastered with clever sayings she'd purchased online, like Only ugly people tailgate and I brake for goth girls. The newest read: Equality is not rocket science. "Auntie always told me to make a statement, so I do. "

"Where are we going?" I buckled my seat belt.

"To my aunt's neighborhood. I want to see for myself what Celia Harrigan saw."

Marigold had lived in a charming home on Oak Knoll Lane, north of Main Street. Most of the houses in the area were Queen Anne style architecture. Many boasted wraparound porches and steeply pitched roofs. Marigold's was a simple pale blue with white trim.

"That's Graham's house." Tegan parked and pointed across the street.

It was anything but subtle. Though it was white, the trim was a mishmash of pink, blue, lavender, and yellow. The steps leading to the front door were painted a bright bold coral.

"He once told Auntie that he finds color stimulating. His store, GamePlay, is painted ten different colors."

Each to their own, I mused.

"Look!" Tegan exclaimed. "There's the letter carrier. Let's ask him if he's noticed anything weird lately. In particular, a week ago Saturday." She bounded from her car.

The letter carrier, an older guy with a weathered face and thinning hair, was on foot, a mailbag slung across his hefty torso. His truck was parked at the far end of the street.

"Sir!" Tegan waved as she approached. "Do you have a minute?"

"You bet I do." He grinned. "Wait a sec. I've seen you around here. You're Marigold's niece."

"That's right."

"Aw, what a shame. I liked her a lot. She was good to everyone except—" He balked. "Nope. Nope. I won't speak out of turn."

Tegan exchanged a look with me and refocused on the man. "C'mon, who wasn't she good to? You can tell us."

He shifted feet. "Well, see, it was Graham Wynn who was the object of your aunt's disapproval. Why, the other day, she was going at him something fierce. Finger wagging. Stomping her foot."

I couldn't see Marigold ever stomping her foot, but if she was having a heated argument, she might have. She'd told Tegan she hoped Graham would get his act together. "What did they argue about?" I asked. "Did she accuse him of spying on her?"

"Don't know."

"Did he throw loud parties? Did he use the wrong color palette for his house? Did he leave his trash cans by the curb too long?" I had a neighbor who despised when people did that, claiming it made the neighborhood look bad.

"I was too far away to overhear."

"Could she have been upset about the loiterer?" Tegan asked.

"What loiterer?"

"Celia Harrigan saw someone in a hoodie hanging around Graham Wynn's house a week ago Saturday. She thought the person might have been staking out my aunt's place."

"Haven't seen anyone in a hoodie." He scratched his stubbly chin. "But I've got a regular schedule. If Celia Harrigan saw someone before or after my shift, I could've missed them. Why don't you ask her? Celia!" He waved to a woman strolling down the street. There were no sidewalks, just gravelly dirt berms that could make walking on them treacherous. "Hiya, Celia." He winked at us. "We all go by first names around here." He raised his hand in greeting again. "Ma'am, these young ladies have a question for you." He bid us good day and proceeded on his route.

Celia Harrigan, a full-figured woman in a knee-length coat and exquisite boots, reminded me of Darcy's pompous aunt in Pride and Prejudice. Lifting her chin, she approached us with a skeptical gaze. "Who are you, and what is your need of me?" Even the tone of her voice matched what I thought Lady Catherine would sound like .

Tegan explained our purpose.

"That's correct. The person had on a gray hoodie," Celia replied. "Whoever it was also wore nondescript boots. You know the kind. Unisex, I think they're called." She sounded dismissive of the term. "However, I can't affirm that the person was watching your aunt's house. It was a supposition. Perhaps the individual was checking out the street action before sneaking to the rear of Graham's house."

"Why would you presume that?" I asked.

"Because I've seen others stealing to the rear yard, always during the day, some very early in the morning. I can't say for certain"—she tapped a finger along the side of her fleshy cheek—"but Graham has been acting strangely. Lately those beady eyes of his dart this way and that. I've been wondering if drugs might be involved. I happen to know his business has been suffering. Perhaps he's a dealer."

That was a huge leap.

"If drugs are involved," Celia went on, "then it's possible the person in the hoodie had nothing to do with Marigold."