1 Lost Under a Ladder (16 page)

Before I started listing Arlen and Serina and anyone else, Justin reached across the table and grabbed my arm, startling me.

“Bad idea, Rory,” he said. “Keep out of this. I know your intentions are good, but don’t you know it’s considered bad luck to poke around in something that’s not your concern?”

“It is my concern,” I contradicted, “since I care about Martha, and you apparently do, too, even though you still consider her a major suspect. And you know what? I don’t really believe in superstitions like that.”

But he did know about the superstition I’d come to this town to question …

I didn’t bring that up, but I did mention my thoughts earlier, thanks to my eavesdropping, about the killer being a stranger who’d read Tarzal’s book and had the superstition he—or she—had focused on go wrong. “That may be why you haven’t gotten enough evidence against anyone,” I said, “especially if whoever it was looked like a tourist and has already left town.”

“Interesting idea,” Justin said, not sounding particularly interested at all. Then, after taking a long sip of wine, he leaned toward me. “You know full well that I’m a superstition agnostic, too, Rory. But you’ve got to understand that, if you get in the way of our investigation, you will have bad luck. Ongoing. Because I’ll have to be involved in making certain that you back off. And I can be the source of all kinds of bad luck if you cross me.”

“Well, hell.” I glared at him. “You know, I’ve been doing a lot of research into superstitions since I arrived here. And whether or not you believe in them either, I think I can be the source of your bad luck in this situation, Justin, if you try to scare me off from helping Martha. Getting her well and back at the store is the only way I can be sure I’ll be able to leave here comfortably. If you want to get rid of me, let me do what I need to. I’ll stay out of your way … but until and unless I know you’ve got things wrapped up, and in a way that clears Martha, I’m going to continue to be the black cat crossing your path.”

nineteen

Surprisingly after our sort-of
confrontation, the rest of our dinner conversation was fairly congenial. We talked more about
Destiny and superstitions and some rather humorous kinds of crimes
Justin and his police force had had to investigate.

For example, some believers would steal nearly anything made of wood so they’d have something to knock on for good luck, and often assumed that the good luck would include absolving them of theft charges.

Also, most of the stores that carried tokens of superstition had stopped carrying agate, since it was reputed to cause invisibility and
was therefore a prime target of theft—although the cops were nearly
always able to find the culprits.

In turn, I regaled him with a couple of my favorite MegaPets scams. No superstitions involved there, but I’d met a number of customers who thought they could get away with anything—such as computer whizzes who manufactured manufacturers’ coupons for free dog food or other products and expected us to honor them. Sure, they looked legitimate, but all staff was under orders to check out any kind of coupon they hadn’t run into before. Genuine ones were nearly always used by a lot of different people and many appeared in our own store ads. It was the one-time wonders that were suspicious.

The food at the Black Cat Inn’s restaurant was great. The company was even better, once we got off the topic of murder. Pluckie seemed to enjoy it, too, since she got an occasional treat from me.

But as we finished—and, yes, this time he allowed me to grab the check, but not without a slight dispute about it first—I had to go back to our earlier topic of conversation since we hadn’t resolved anything.

I took my final sip of wine first and looked him straight in the eye. “I really don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, Justin—especially not yours or any other cops, particularly since I don’t know what superstitions there may be about that—”

“But you’re going to stick your very pretty nose into official busi
ness as often as you want to,” he finished for me. “And, no, I’m not sure if there are superstitions that involve noses, either.”

“Sounds as if I’d better check on superstitions involving body parts,” I said as I picked my credit card and receipt out of the tray the server had brought back after I’d paid.

“While you’re figuring out how to do my job as an amateur.” He didn’t phrase that as a question.

“I’m an excellent pet store manager,” I said. “I’ve no intention of
becoming a cop, amateur or otherwise. But if things occur to me that
might help Martha—and therefore let me feel more comfortable about choosing when I leave here—then I’ll have to look into them.”

“You could just tell me about them. Assuming there’s some sens
e to them.” Those blue eyes of his bored into me as if he was attempting to figure out my thought processes.

“That’s the big ‘if’ about the whole thing,” I countered. “You undoubtedly look at the murder and potential suspects and everything involved by using officially approved reasoning and protocol. Maybe it won’t be so bad for someone like me to look at things from a less official angle.” I paused. “And if that helps to clear Martha, how bad could it be?”

His rueful smile called more attention to his dark five-o’clock shadow. No, actually, his eight-o’clock shadow. “I’d like her to be cleared as much as anyone, Rory. You know that. Maybe more than anyone else. But it can only be done by our finding an even more compelling suspect, and so far—”

“So far, you’ve got a lot of suspects,” I inserted. “Maybe a whole town full. And beyond.” I stood, and so did Pluckie, who rubbed my right leg with her sweet little body. “We’ll go back to the B&B and get you your real dinner now, sweetheart,” I told her.

“The scope isn’t quite that wide,” Justin told me as I started skirting around other diners and walking out of the patio area.

“Maybe you should let the scope widen in your mind,” I said, turning my head back toward him. “Anyone who was in this town that night could be a suspect.”

“You?” He smiled, which softened the suggestion a bit.

“Maybe,” I said, which resulted in that grin melting. “If I happened to have had motive, means, and opportunity. Aren’t they what you look for?”

“You and everyone else had the means,” he reminded me unnecessarily.

We were on the sidewalk now. It was less crowded than before, but people nevertheless still filled it. Pluckie pulled toward the side of the nearest building and squatted.

“Anyway,” I told Justin, “I didn’t do it, but you get my drift. And it’s not really my intent to do your job. But if—”

“If you find a way to clear Martha and get out of town, you’ll do it. I get that.”

“Good.” I wanted to ask when I’d see him again if I didn’t call with
an idea about a new suspect. I liked the guy and our repartee. Plus, it was important to me to be kept informed—to the extent I could
extract stuff from him—about how the investigation was going. But
I figured I could always call him and make up an idea to get him to scoff at it and maybe counter with something real. “Anyway, see you around. Oh, and one of these days I really want to meet Killer.”

“I’m walking Pluckie and you back to your B&B,” he told me in
a tone that didn’t easily allow for denial. “And I agree. Sometime soon,
when I’m off duty, I’ll bring him into the Lucky Dog and all four of us can go for a walk.”

_____

Justin walked us up to the door and I hurried to use my key to open it. This had felt the most like a date between us than any other get-together we’d had so far, and I didn’t want to get into the awkward position of having to duck away from a goodnight kiss.

But Justin didn’t even get close as I pushed open the door. Instead, he just said goodnight and left. Which made me feel unhappy and even a little ashamed. We were more than acquaintances by now. Friends. Platonic friends, which was how it should be.

Even so, my feelings were hurt. I might not want anything more, but I wanted Justin to want more. Maybe.

I realized I was confused about my reasons for staying in Destiny and helping Martha. But I was even more confused, at least tonight, about what I wanted from Justin.

A relationship? No. Too soon.

But if I believed he was genuinely attracted to me, that might
help me continue my life without Warren—
might
being the key word.

“Hi,” said a voice as Pluckie and I walked through the lobby toward the stairway. A female voice. Serina’s.

“Hi,” I said in return, my voice soft and sympathetic. “How are you?”

Did I really think she’d tell me? When I’d lost the man I loved, I’d
thrust away most of the advice I got to talk about it and kept my thoughts pretty much to myself, except sometimes—such as with my dear and kind friend Gemma.

But that was me.

“I’m doing okay.” But Serina’s tone belied her words. She came around the welcome desk toward me. She wasn’t in one of her standard Destiny Gold Rush outfits, nor was she in pajamas. Tonight she wore a long-sleeved but short blue dress in a print with the lucky number seven in various sizes and colors on it.

Impulsively, I drew closer to her, with Pluckie, still on her leash, following me. I gave Serina a hug. “I know how hard it is to lose someone close,” I said. I regretted it at once since I didn’t want to explain whom I’d lost, but fortunately she didn’t ask.

“Yes,” she said softly. “And the thing is, I feel even worse that we’d been arguing before. We wasted time that we could have spent together.”

She seemed so mournful that I couldn’t really consider her a sus
pect in Tarzal’s murder … could I?

They had been arguing, after all, even if they were attempting to reconcile.

But that left open the question … “What were you arguing about,
if you don’t mind my asking?”

I figured she’d mind a lot, but instead of jumping on that she walked toward the small room just off the lobby and sank onto its sofa. I followed and joined her on the couch, and Pluckie, good dog that she is, lay down by my feet on the ornate area rug on the hardwood floor.

Serina looked toward me, her light brown eyes red from crying.
That area of her face was swollen, too, which erased her wrinkles but
nevertheless made her appear older. “What else, around here? We argued about superstitions.”

I shouldn’t have felt surprised, but I did. “What about them?” I
urged, though I was fully prepared for her to tell me to mind my own
business.

But she apparently needed to talk. “He’d lived in Destiny for about
ten years. He’d researched some of his book on superstitions before moving here and apparently it taught him that this was the place to be if he wanted to specialize in the field. I’ve lived here most of my life, so I met him as soon as he arrived. The way I grew up and learned to deal with the town’s main focus was that I could believe whatever I wanted, but I had to portray total belief and adoration of superstitions to the world—and that portrayal, if nothing else, helped me actually to believe.”

She looked at me as if wanting approbation for her belief. I nodded out of encouragement for her to keep talking, not necessarily because I bought into what she said.

“That was Tarzal’s manner, too, at first,” she continued. “But recently, he began doubting. The rationale he told me was that yes, he’d been lucky, but his luck had resulted from his own intelligence and diligence. It had nothing to do with crossing his fingers or anything else he wrote about. He was considering moving away again and revealing all—even though there really was nothing to reveal. People either believed or they didn’t—their choice. And that choice didn’t really control their lives or luck, but just how they interpreted what happened to them. The more they believed, the more foolish they were.” She sighed. “He really hurt me by his attitude, not only about superstitions, but that he could leave this town—and me—to make his point.”

“I see,” I said. “I’m sure the whole thing really was hurtful.”

She nodded. “Especially to someone whose destiny revolves around
Destiny, like me.” She gave a small smile.

That gave her a motive to kill him. But it wasn’t proof.

I couldn’t help asking, “Do you have any idea who’d wanted to hurt him? I mean, I guess anyone in town who also loves or makes a living from superstitions could be on that list, but who do you really suspect?”

She hesitated. “Martha, maybe, since they were in some negotiations to buy her property. And if they’d been successful … well, Tarzal was finally leaning toward staying after all. That was why we were attempting to reconcile.”

I wondered what had changed his mind, especially considering how he’d disrespected superstitions and the town at the welcome meeting.

“The police are apparently looking closely at Martha,” I said tactfully. “But if it wasn’t her, who else do you suspect?”

“Have you met Martha’s nephew Arlen?”

I nodded.

“He’s another possibility, since I have the impression he’d like to take over the Lucky Dog someday.”

Nothing new there. But I just tilted my head a little to encourage her to continue. “Anyone else?”

“As you said, it could be nearly anyone. I’ve even considered our
police chief. I know you’ve met Justin Halbertson. What do you think
of him as a possible killer?”

I knew my eyes widened. “He’s one of those who’s looking closely
at Martha. Why do you suspect him?”

“Oh, Tarzal and he were always bickering about Justin’s going
after tourists who committed minor crimes in the name of testing superstitions and their luck. Tarzal said that they should be left alone —and in fact their petty crimes should be publicized outside of town to encourage even more people to come and visit since even petty crooks would have good luck here and wouldn’t be prosecuted.”

Interesting to hear, especially after my earlier dinner discussion with Justin.

“That’s quite a motive,” I said. “I’ll have to ponder it. I have to
admit
that I’m trying to help Martha clear herself, even though Chief
Halbertson wants me to keep my nose out of it.” My pretty nose,
was what he’d said. Which was sweet. Sort of. And I probably
shouldn’t have admitted as much as I had to Serina, whom I now considered to be a suspect, though not the most likely.

I wasn’t considering Justin to be a suspect, though. Not for such a dumb reason.

Or maybe I just wanted him to not be guilty even more than I believed in Martha’s innocence.

“I figured you were, since you’re helping to manage Martha’s store
now. I assume you still don’t have an idea how long you’ll be in town.”

“Martha seems a little better,” I said, “but if she’s arrested for mur
der she’ll need help longer. And that’s one of the reasons—besides just liking the nice lady—that I’d love to help figure out who really killed Tarzal.”

I realized that, if Serina was guilty, I’d just given her a reason to
attack me, too. But I already knew I had to be careful in my quest for
the killer. Even someone I didn’t suspect could come after me if
who
ever it was thought I might stumble onto something that would reveal
them as the murderer.

“I’d love to help,” Serina said quietly. “Maybe knowing who it is would help me reach some kind of closure about losing him.”

I knew just how she felt, of course. My search for closure was different from hers but just as necessary.

“If you think of anything helpful, let me know. Although if you learn
of something that could be actual evidence, you should contact the police.”

“Chief Halbertson?” she asked wryly.

“Well, if you really consider him a suspect, you might instead contact Detective Alice Numa. She’s the one who questioned me after I found poor Tarzal.”