Authors: Traci Andrighetti,Elizabeth Ashby
"Who?" Amy asked.
"She's the owner of Ocean View Bed & Breakfast, and she's a salon regular," I replied.
"Because she's got an unnatural need to have her eyebrows done once a week," Gia added. "If she can get those two lawns weeded at a discount with a free drink thrown in, she'll step over a dead body to get into the salon."
Maybe she was right. There had to be other people like Bree who would take a chance on The Clip and Sip. We just had to try harder to find them.
"Sorry for the wait, ladies," a thirtyish brunette said. "My name's Hope, and I'll be your server tonight. Can I start you off with something to drink?"
What I really wanted was a Shiner Bock beer from home—with some barbecued brisket and blackberry cobbler smothered in Texas's own Bluebell vanilla ice cream. Wait. Nothing with "blue" in the name.
"You got any grog, lassie?" Gia asked, affecting a pirate accent.
"Uh, no," Hope replied as she passed out menus and bar napkins. "But our drink special tonight is a Creole Custa, which is a rum and fruit base infused with chili."
Gia stuck her tongue out. "Fruit and chili? Where are we, Mexico? We'll just take a round of good old-fashioned coconut vodka shots, please."
"And three Rainier beer chasers," I added.
"Coming right up," Hope said. She grinned at Gia before heading for the bar.
"Did you see that?" Gia flailed her arm in Hope's direction. "She gave me a funny look, just like everyone else here. They're all staring at us, you know."
"How?" I asked, gesturing toward the anchor.
"They can see us when they walk by."
I put my finger to my lips. "Maybe they can't peel their eyes off your pirate patch and disco-ball mouth."
"Or they're bedazzled by your bra," Amy added.
"Then it's because they recognize fashion when they see it," Gia said, taking a sideways glance at Amy's Snow White sleeves.
Oblivious to Gia's jab, Amy reached for the menu. "What's everyone getting to eat? They make a mean basket of fish and chips."
Gia wrinkled her lips. "Nothing. I've got
agita
."
Amy furrowed her brow. "They're going to have a band tonight. Maybe you should work off your nervous energy on the dance floor."
"Not
agitated
," I said. "
Agita
. It's New Jersey Italian for heartburn."
Gia frowned. "I think I ate some spoiled
gabigol
."
"You ate garbage?" Amy closed her menu. "Well, that explains why you have heartburn."
"What she means is that she ate some
capicola
, an Italian deli meat."
Amy scratched her head. "I'm not sure I can keep my ears open either, Cass."
"Oh, dear Lord," I mumbled.
Gia stood up and lifted her eye patch. "Who's that hottie with Zac Taylor?"
"Where?" Amy shot from her seat like a cannon.
I slid from the booth and hid behind the anchor, peering around one side. Zac and a friend were seated at the bar and surrounded by bottled blondes—in dire need of root jobs, I might add. "Well, he certainly doesn't look injured."
"What?" Gia asked.
"Nothing," I snapped. I was in no mood to tell her about Clyde Willard and the boat-repair accident at the Pirate's Hook Marine Services, especially since Zac was clearly in fine form and doing what he did best—hitting on women. "I'm going to the ladies' room. I'll be right back."
Of course, I didn't need the bathroom. What I needed was a break. I headed toward the restrooms but then slipped out a door marked
Beer Garden
for a breath of fresh air.
As I stepped outside into the night, a ship's horn blared in the distance. Perhaps because of the gloom, the deck was empty. I took a seat at the first table to my right, which was directly behind a massive pine tree that had been preserved in the middle of the deck. Then I leaned my head against the red brick wall of the building, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.
"It was that Conti girl," a male voice whispered from the darkness. "She's been asking questions."
I bolted upright. The voice came from straight ahead, but I couldn't see who it was because of the tree.
"You don't say," a female said.
I froze. I knew that voice. It belonged to Bertha Braun. But who was the man?
"For the record, you've been duly warned," he said in a low voice.
"Just why
are
you warning me?"
He sighed. "It's the right thing to do."
"And we know that you always do the right thing," she sneered.
The ship horn blasted again, and the pair fell silent.
I seized the moment to tiptoe to the tree. I held my breath and peeked around the wide trunk. The man was Dr. Windom!
A crowd of people came onto the deck, and I slunk behind them to the back door. As soon as I stepped inside, I came face to face with PTA mom and meddler extraordinaire, Mallory Winchester.
She crossed her arms. "I saw you spying on that couple just now. I can't say I'm surprised to learn that you're a voyeur."
"Likewise," I said as I pushed past her—okay, shoved—and hurried to the table.
"Guess who showed up?" Amy asked, elbowing an already uncomfortable-looking Lucy.
"I'm so glad you came," I said. "But—"
"I tried to order her a drink so that we could all make a toast," Gia interrupted, "but she doesn't want one."
Lucy smoothed the skirt of her green goddess-style dress and attempted a smile. "I'm just here to support the salon."
"I appreciate that," I said. "But something's come up, and we need to leave."
"We just got here," Amy whined.
"It's important. Trust me."
Gia looked me in the eye and nodded. "Let's toast to the salon and then split."
"If we're going to toast to anything," I began, "it should be to Margaret's memory."
Gia raised her glass. "
Salud
!"
I looked at her open-mouthed. "
Health
? That's how you toast her?"
Duncan Pickles appeared from behind the anchor wearing a
Cove Chronicles
press pass and holding a highball glass. "To properly toast Margaret Appleby, you should have ordered a round of blue sharks."
Amy's eyes narrowed. "Why would we order those?"
"Because, as it turns out, Margaret Appleby was worth a small fortune," he replied. "Three million dollars, to be precise."
This was news to me. From all appearances, Margaret had lived a modest life. She wore inexpensive clothes, took public transportation to the salon, and always asked me for the senior-citizen discount. "What does that have to do with us?"
Duncan slipped his free hand into the pocket of his slacks. "Based on my investigation, I'd say you turned the old lady blue because you're all a bunch of money-hungry sharks. Your business is failing, your cousin here wants to start her own business, and Lucy's been trying to get enough money together to move to Sweden and marry a chef."
"Like
the
Swedish Chef?" Gia's eyes danced. "Why did no one tell me this?"
I put my hand over her mouth and glowered at Duncan. "You can't possibly think that we did something to Margaret."
"I don't know whether you were all in on it or not." He looked at Lucy. "But I know
you
were. Why'd you do it? Were you trying to get money out of Margaret, and she refused? Maybe she even threatened to report you to the police?"
Amy stood up and clenched her fists. "Does Lucy look like the type of person who could extort money from a little old woman and then murder her?"
"No, but she was convicted of felony assault," he said.
Felony assault? I looked at Lucy, who'd turned as green as her dress.
"I… It's true." She lowered her head. "I pulled a girl's hair for trying to kiss Sven at our senior prom, and her mother pressed charges."
"That's it?" Gia exclaimed. "You yanked some chick's hair?" She rolled her eyes. "Well, then I should be in the slammer for socking Tina Squarcialupi at my prom after she threw pizza on my dress."
Amy's chin started to wobble. "At least you girls got to go to the prom."
"All right. Time to go," I announced. I had to get Lucy—and Gia and Amy—out of the tavern before this situation deteriorated any further. "Please step aside, Mr. Pickles. We'd like to leave."
"So soon?" He gazed at me over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of his drink. "I thought we could sit and chat for a moment."
Amy grabbed Gia's purse, pulled out the Prada, and drenched Duncan.
"What the—" He stepped backward and rubbed his eyes.
"Serves you right,
sauertopf
!" Amy shouted. "Let's roll, ladies."
As we hurried from the tavern, my mind was reeling, and it wasn't from Gia's perfume—at least not entirely. I couldn't fathom the ramifications of Lucy's arrest record on her current situation, but now I understood why the police were focusing on her. The question was—what did Lucy's prior conviction mean for Bertha? If Bertha had poisoned Margaret, would she get away with murder? And if she did, what did that mean for me? Now that Dr. Windom had tipped her off, she knew that I suspected her of killing Margaret. Given Bertha's history, that could only mean one thing.
I could be next on her hit list.
The view up Gia's skirt as she knelt on the high countertop of our living room bar only served to underscore the double entendre of the original, hand-carved
Bottoms Up
name placard hanging on the wall above.
"Want some cake vodka?" she called as she rummaged in a cabinet.
"Definitely not." I kicked off my heels and curled up on the pink sheet covering our crimson Victorian couch. "I need to keep a clear head."
She hopped to the floor with a highball glass in one hand and raised a jar of Betty Crocker white icing with the other. "I've got frosting to go with it."
"You're actually going to eat frosting with that?"
"Yeah," she replied with a shrug. "And if I had frosting vodka, I'd eat cake with it."
I cocked a brow. "Why not simplify and have iced cake vodka instead?"
Gia pulled a bottle from the mirrored bar. "Because that's not good for you," she explained as she poured a few inches of vodka into her glass. "You need to have something in your stomach when you drink."
I chewed my thumbnail and then mumbled, "Right now I couldn't put a thing in my stomach."
"Well, I can. It's seven o'clock, and I haven't had dinner." She took a seat beside me and placed the frosting between her thighs.
"What about your
agita
?"
"Everyone knows that sugar kills acid. That's why you put a teaspoon in tomato sauce." She placed her glass on the end table and turned on the fringed fuchsia lamp. "So, did Bertha kill your appetite?"
I nodded. "Even if she's not the murderer, you know she's vindictive. Now that she knows I suspect her, she'll get even."
Gia popped the top off her frosting. "I still can't believe that douchebag doctor would tell her about your visit. Talk about breaking patient privacy laws."
I gave her a look. "Do you really think Dr. Windom would worry about my privacy when a murder is involved?"
"Are you saying that you think they're in on this together?"
"I'm not sure." I pulled a gold pillow to my chest. "But it sounded like he was just letting her know out of a sense of obligation."
Gia spooned a glob of frosting into her mouth, took a sip of vodka, and swished it around. "Well." She stopped to swallow. "I think we learned one thing for sure tonight."
"What's that?"
She pointed her spoon at me. "You need to start doing background checks on your employees."
"Okay, I deserve that. But you're not suggesting that Lucy killed Margaret, are you?"
"I don't know." She jabbed the spoon into the thick frosting. "I still think she acted weird during the 9-1-1 call. And now that I know she's a convicted hair puller, I'm even more suspicious."
"Let me get this straight," I said, turning to face her. "You're more suspicious of Lucy for pulling someone's hair than you are of Bertha for poisoning a patient?"
Gia licked some frosting from her tiger-striped fingernail. "Well, yeah. I mean, Lucy was in cosmetology school her senior year."
"So?"
She rolled her eyes at my cluelessness. "So, what kind of stylist pulls hair, especially in the age of extensions? That's just wrong."
It goes without saying that I saw the fault in Gia's logic. But as a stylist myself, I had to agree with her about one thing—extensions were off-limits.
"And," she continued, "the fact that Bertha gave some woman medicine that she was allergic to doesn't make her a killer."
"I get that." I rested my chin on the pillow as Dee's words of warning came to mind. "But it certainly shows that Bertha's capable of going to extremes when she's mad. And we have no idea how far she'll go."
"If you're so worried, then why don't you go to the police?"
"And tell them what?" I exclaimed, tossing the pillow at the arm of the couch. "I don't have any proof against Bertha, and they already know about the incident with the patient since Dr. Windom reported it."
She tapped the spoon against her bottom lip. "You could tell them about the Barbicide."
"Then they'd probably accuse Lucy of using it since it was right there on her station." I stood up and started pacing in front of the fireplace. "Besides, if I'm right about the Barbicide, then the lab will find it in Margaret's system soon enough. You heard Amy say how indestructible the stuff is, and there can't be too many substances that make you turn as blue as… Well, never mind."
I flopped back onto the couch, causing Gia to spill her vodka.
"Crap!" She jumped up and began removing the wet sheet from the couch.
"Sorry. But you can leave it. The alcohol will actually kill the cooties instead of just covering them."
"What you need are furniture condoms," Gia said, heading for the bar with her empty glass.
"Did you have to use that term?" I huffed. "All I want is for this to be a nice, normal home and salon."
"It's never going to be normal, Cass." She poured herself another inch of vodka. "Not even if you gut the place."
That was the understatement of the century. Or, in this case, of the past century and a half.
Gia raised her glass and took a sip of vodka, sans frosting. "But it is nice. Whenever you watch one of those home renovation shows, they rave about Victorians that have the original fixtures and furniture like yours does. I'll bet that home renovator from Finials and Facades would tell you the same thing. By the way, didn't she say that these houses were called 'painted ladies'?"
"Yes, but I'd rather avoid that phrase for obvious reasons. And I guess I hadn't thought about the place that way," I admitted, although I was confident that as a renovator and a woman, Alex Jordan would understand my cootie concerns about the furniture.
"Maybe it's time you did." She took a seat in a violet, velvet high-back chair. "It would be so much easier to just embrace its history, like Vinnie did."
I glanced around the room. Now that the Sadie statue had been removed, it wasn't half-bad—except for the picture of Hope, Faith, and Charity above the fireplace, of course. There was the little matter of the floor-to-ceiling—and just ceiling—gilt mirrors, not to mention a tall coffee table against the wall that might not have ever been a coffee table, if you get my drift. But the furniture did have a lot of character (some of which I hoped that a good steam cleaning would remove). And there was an antique player piano next to the bar.
"The only thing I would get rid of," Gia began, "is that picture of Hope and the girls. I always feel like they're looking right at me."
"That's what bothers you about it? Not the brazen beaver shots?"
"It's not my policy to stare at people's privates," she said with a pointed look. "And anyway, why haven't you given that thing to Amy yet?"
"Because it's bolted down, and I haven't gotten around to figuring out how to remove it."
Gia brought the glass to her lips and then froze. "Why would anyone bolt down a picture?"
"I imagine things got pretty wild in here. I mean, the clients were all loggers."
She leapt from the chair as though she'd been pinched by a lumberjack. "Vinnie's money! I'll bet it's behind the picture." She grabbed a stool from the bar and placed it next to the fireplace. "Quick, get me a big wrench."
"Do I look like I have a wrench?"
"Right." She removed the spoon from her jar of frosting, licked it clean, and then jammed the handle between the frame and the wall.
I moved to the edge of my seat. I didn't want to get my hopes up about a possible cash stash, but it
was
weird that the picture was secured. "What are you going to do? Pry it off the wall?"
Gia pressed her head and shoulder into the wall and tried to peer behind the photo. "First I'm going to work the spoon around the frame and see if I feel something."
"Okay. But if you damage that thing, you'll have to answer to Amy."
"She still has to answer to me for dumping my Prada Candy on Duncan. That stuff ain't cheap, even though it's made to make you smell like you are." She climbed from the stool and moved it to the opposite side of the frame. "But if I find the money, I'll be able to buy myself all the Prada I want, perfume and otherwise."
At the mention of unlimited Prada, my heart fluttered in my chest. "Just how much money are we talking?"
"Well, my dad told me that Vinnie bragged to him about some side business he had that was super lucrative. But Carla once said that she wouldn't be surprised if he had ties to the Atlantic City Mafia. If the mob angle is true, then we could be talking millions."
I fell backward against the couch. My aunt Carla had never mentioned that bombshell to me, but I didn't talk to her very often—or my father, for that matter—since they both lived in New Jersey. But now I was starting to wonder whether Uncle Vinnie had been whacked.
Gia inserted the spoon into the bottom of the frame. "It's really tight here." She paused as she tried to move the spoon forward. "Now it's stuck."
"Maybe the bolt is tighter on that end." I stood up and held the stool for support.
She grasped the spoon with both hands and pulled downward. When it finally came out, a black daily planner slipped from behind the frame and fell to the floor.
We stared down at the book like it was a nineteenth-century prostitute back from the dead.
"Holy freakin' cannoli," Gia breathed as she climbed from the barstool. "I think it's one of those little black books that men always talk about in old 1950's movies." She picked it up and began to flip through the pages. "But it has a bunch of men's names in it."
I looked over her shoulder. "Maybe it's the brothel's client list?"
She turned to the front of the book. "It was printed in 2013, so it had to be Vinnie's."
My eyes widened. "He slept with men too?"
"Please!" Gia waved. "Based on what I've heard about him and the so-called 'ladies of Danger Cove,' he wouldn't have had the time or the energy."
"Yeah." I put my hands on my hips. "Because it's not like he discriminated based on age."
"Hey. Look at this," she said, pointing to a page. "Beside the list of names there's a column of numbers marked
bd.
Whaddaya suppose the
bd
stands for?"
"Uh,
birthday
?"
"Nah, it's probably two words."
I bent my head in thought. "Oh my gosh." I grabbed Gia's arm. "Do you think it stands for
blue dye
?"
Gia went completely still, and then she shook her head. "It can't be. I mean, what would all these numbers represent? The bottles of blue hair dye these men were buying from The Yankee Clipper? You and I both know that there just aren't that many people wanting blue hair."
"Yeah, and there wouldn't be any reason to hide the book, either. So, do you think those numbers have to do with money? Like for bets or something?"
"That's it!" Gia snapped the book shut. "Vinnie was a bookie! And this is a record of the bets he was placing for his clients in Atlantic City."
"Maybe the
b
is for 'bets,' and the
d
could be for dollars. So, like 'bet dollars' or 'bet in dollars'?"
"You're a natural-born sleuth, Cass."
"But this is all just conjecture."
Gia sat on the barstool. "No, we're onto something. I can feel it. And you have to admit that it fits with what Carla said about the mob."
I hated to think that my uncle could have been involved in organized crime, but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. The Mafia had a long and storied history in Atlantic City. "If he was mixed up with the mob, do you think they put a hit on him for some reason?"
She nodded. "And maybe Margaret too."
"Here at the salon?" I sank onto the couch. "I can't believe that."
Gia shook the book at me. "If the two of them were connected, then it's possible. And you heard what Duncan said about Margaret's millions. How did a little old lady get so much money?"
"Those are good questions," I said as I massaged my temples to keep my head from spinning. "But I still need some kind of proof."
She threw her arms into the air. "Then let's go get it."
I looked up, surprised. "Where?"
"Margaret's house," she said, flipping her hair. "Where else?"
"Gia, we can't just go break in. That's a crime."
She crossed her arms. "Would you do it if your life depended on it?"
"Well, of course, but—"
"Then go change," she said, pointing in the direction of my room. "Bring a pair of gloves, and wear something dark and slinky."
I stared at her as the horrible reality dawned on me—Gia, my happy-go-lucky cousin who saw only life's possibilities and never its problems, thought my life was in danger.
I stood up on shaky legs and did as I was told.
* * *