Death of a Dapper Snowman (23 page)

“My sister did come in when you were here the other day,” she said. “Do you know she drives me crazy?”

“That’s what sisters do. My sister used to drive me crazy, too. Still does, actually.”

I pushed the box toward her and jiggled it until she picked out another—ginger caramel with coconut flake frosting.

“At least you two have each other,” I said.

She stuffed the cupcake in her mouth and rolled her eyes upward in enjoyment.

“Is Ruby in today?” I asked. “We can’t eat all these cupcakes by ourselves.”

She waved for me to head on through the doorway to the back room. I walked past the filing cabinets and store shelves, and on to the secret tea room.

Ruby Sparkes had a stack of invoices on the round bistro table and was tapping away on a sleek laptop. Her purple-red curls spiraled out in every direction, and she wore a plain cream blouse under a smart-looking leopard print vest.

She looked up at me over her purple-framed reading glasses and smiled.

“Stormy! Just the excuse I need to take a break.” She closed the laptop and patted the case, which was the same shade of purple as her glasses. “I don’t know about this technology. It used to take much longer to do the bookkeeping the old-fashioned way, with the paper ledgers, but what have we done with the time we’re saving? Pile on more work, that’s what.”

I took a seat across from her and set the unopened tray of cupcakes between us. I’d left the other dozen up front. Ruby looked at the cupcakes and sighed happily.

“What are you up to on that laptop?” I asked.

“More like what am I
not
up to.” She re-opened the laptop and turned the screen to share it with me as she did a run-down of all the social networking sites she was involved with. There were a few sites I hadn’t even heard of before—new ones, sprung up in the last few months. And Ruby was on all of them, posting inspiration photos and style tips. The woman was thirty years older than me, and more up-to-date than most people my age.

“Wow,” I said. “Should I get hooked up on some of these things, for the gift shop? You make me feel like a slacker.”

She pushed the laptop al the way over to me. “You could start with this site on the screen now. Have a look while I go get us some tea.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble, Ruby.”

She was already gone, whistling on the way to the kitchenette.

A few minutes later, she returned with hot tea. She poured us two cups of Creamy Earl Grey, then she showed me how she updated her various accounts with photos of the local mountain scenery, plus interesting merchandise.

I remembered the point of my visit and took out my phone to show her the pictures I’d taken in the city, at the pawn shop.

“Ruby, I believe this panther charm is from your shop. Mr. Michaels was selling some smaller items to a pawn shop in the city.”

“Yes,” she said heavily. “I figured as much. One of the Secret Tea Room Ladies was in the city last week and visited a few places. We were investigating Mr. Michaels, gathering evidence.”

“Evidence?” I took a sip of my tea, consciously slowing myself down so I didn’t overwhelm her.

“The panther charm was a trap. There are only two of them in existence, and I put one out when he was in the store, hoping he’d take the bait.”

I kept sipping my tea, playing it cool, but it was difficult to constrain myself. It sounded like these Secret Tea Room Ladies had their own detectives’ club, which was far more interesting than bridge.

She explained, “We wanted to see where the items were going, so we could present everything to the police. We were getting so close, but then Mr. Michaels went and got himself killed.”

“R&F Brokers,” I said. “That’s where I found the panther.”

She swore in frustration, then quickly clamped her hand over her mouth. “Excuse my language, sweetheart, but how did you figure that out?”

I gave her a sly wink. “Some of his mail wound up on my father’s porch by accident, and I saw the return address for R&F Brokers.”

She smiled and made air quotes. “By accident.”

“Ruby, I shouldn’t have winked when I said that. It really
was
an accident. Oh, plus there was a waitress at the diner who asked him about selling some of her own jewelry, and he straight-up recommended the place. Not exactly a criminal mastermind, right?”

She nodded. “He was an odd man. But you, my dear, are a genius detective.”

She looked like she was about to hug me, but the table was in the way.

“Not genius, just lucky.” I reached out and opened the tray of miniature cupcakes, letting the heavenly smell mingle with Ruby’s perfume and the scent of Earl Grey tea.

As Ruby sampled the baked goods, I asked her, “Do you have video footage of Mr. Michaels inside the store? I wonder if perhaps he had an accomplice. They might have stolen something of higher value at another local business, and perhaps the other person didn’t want to share. Could I review your security camera footage? I’ll do it on my own time.”

She waved her hand. “Honey, those security cameras are fakes.”

“Two of them are fake. I know, because I have the same brand in the gift shop. But the third one, pointing at the engagement rings, is real.”

She gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, but that one’s just a better fake than the others.”

“But… I was here when you were asking your employee if she jiggled the cable. You said you were missing a day of footage.”

Ruby sipped her tea and silently kept up the apologetic look.

I continued my train of thought out loud, “Of course, most retail theft is done by employees, so the cameras are there as much to keep an eye on them as on the customers. So, that means you have to lie to your new employees, to trick them into thinking they might be getting recorded.” She nodded to let me know I was right. “Very crafty,” I finished.

“This girl is a good one,” she said. “I felt bad doing that to her, just like I feel bad about all the
other things
.”

“Other things?” I gave her a side-long look.

“I make her clean all the display cases, then when she’s not looking, I put fingerprints on from the inside and make her clean again.” She sat up straighter in her chair. “That young woman needs to be in high school. The Secret Tea Room Ladies are in agreement that she needs to quit this job and get her education. We know she’s on the run from something, but that’s no excuse to throw your life away.”

I sat in stunned silence. These Secret Tea Room Ladies sounded like the nicest, sweetest group of older women that any town could have.

Just as quickly as I had the nice feelings, though, I also felt suspicion. This little club of Ruby’s seemed just squeaky-clean enough to get away with murder.

I reached for a cupcake and said, casually, “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who’s in this club, will you?”

Ruby just grinned and poured me a fresh cup of tea.

“Sorry, I can’t reveal that… yet.”

“Is my father’s girlfriend, Pam, in the group?”

Ruby wrinkled her nose.

“That’s understandable,” I said with a chuckle. “How about the wife of Mr. Jenkins?”

“Nice lady, but no.”

“Peggy Wiggles? The new rookie cop?”

Ruby smiled and lifted the tea cup toward her lips. “Not anymore,” she said.

“So, she was a member? And it made her want to become a cop for real?”

Ruby sipped her tea, then licked her lips. “I’ve said too much.” She mimed zipping her mouth shut.

Chapter 30
 

Once I was full
of tea and cupcakes, and certain that Ruby wasn’t going to give me any more clues about her detectives’ club, I thanked her for the tea and left her to her laptop work.

I found her young employee, Harper’s half-sister, cleaning the top of a display case furiously.

I leaned over and said, “Are those finger prints on the inside?”

“How would they get there on the inside?” she sputtered.

I watched as she opened the case from the side and started cleaning the inside. This time, the fingerprints came off easily.

She finished making the glass sparkle, then set the cleaning products aside in a bucket with a moody sigh. She reached for the tray of the mini cupcakes I’d left up front.

“You and your sister live in my friend Jessica’s building,” I said.

She gave me a funny look.

I continued, “What I mean is, I’m friends with your sister. Harper told me about why you’re in Misty Falls.”

She selected two cupcakes and stuffed both in her mouth at once, acting every bit the rebellious, moody teenager. I knew that no matter what I said to her, she was going to find me old and out-of-touch and ridiculous. Honesty might help, I decided.

“Your sister must really care about you,” I said.

Around the mouthful of cake and icing, the girl said, “She wants me to go to high school, but I don’t know. High school is boring.”

I looked around at the empty jewelry store and the container of cleaning products sitting on the end of the counter.

“Is high school more boring than wiping fingerprints off stuff all day?”

She frowned. “I dunno.”

“Do you have any hobbies?”

She shrugged.

I kept going, asking, “Do you play any musical instruments?”

“I like the guitar. But I only know five chords.”

“They’ve got a fantastic music program at the high school. I was in the marching band, but there are less geeky options, too. We’ve got a lot of talent here in Misty Falls. Maybe you could get yourself into a local band.”

“Really?”

“Sure. But you might want to learn more than five chords.”

She gave me side-eye. “You’re not just saying that to trick me into going to high school, are you?”

I shrugged. “You got me. The high school pays me a bounty for every one I recruit. Sometimes I drive around neighboring cities in a van covered in candy.” I let my expression turn serious. “You should call the office, or just show up and ask for a tour.”

“Hmm.”

I walked over to the window and made a palm print on the smooth surface. “But I can understand how high school doesn’t measure up to the thrills and chills of wiping fingerprints off these windows.”

“You’re right. And so is my sister. I hate it when she’s right.”

The door jingled, and I turned to see Harper walking in.

“Speak of the devil and she appears,” grumbled the little sister.

Harper held her palms up and said to me, “I’m unarmed. Please don’t hit me with anything.”

I shook my head and looked down at my boots in shame. “Sorry about that. You’ll never let me live it down, will you?”

Harper explained to her sister, “Whatever you do, don’t make Stormy mad. Especially if she’s armed with an industrial-sized jug of laundry detergent.”

“You two are so weird,” said the little sister.

“How are you doing?” I asked Harper.

“Feeling better,” she said. “I’m just taking things day by day. Things are looking up.”

“That’s great to hear. Misty Falls really is a wonderful town, and it’s so…” I was going to say it was a safe place to call home, but I couldn’t say that with a murderer still on the loose.

“Picturesque,” Harper finished. “Like a postcard.”

“Exactly.”

The little sister interrupted us to say, “Harper, I thought about it, and I’d like to try the high school. I think we should stay here in this town. It feels like home, you know?”

Harper nodded. “Sure. We can give it a shot. I’ve already made two friends.” She gave me a timid smile. I returned the gesture with a big smile of my own to let her know it was true—she had made two friends, between me and Jessica.

The three of us talked for the next half hour about the local high school, and what extra-curricular activities the school offered. I found myself admitting I’d been a cheerleader back in the day, which made both of them laugh hysterically.

“What? I don’t look like I’d be a good cheerleader? Just you wait. Jessica and I will get out the old uniforms and you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your faces.”

After we stopped giggling, there was a lull in the conversation and we all glanced over at the shop’s front window as Mr. Jenkins walked by. He saw me inside and gave me a quick wave, but, to my relief, didn’t come inside.

“Do you know much about that guy?” Harper asked me.

“A little too much, honestly. Why? Do you know him?” I thought back to the day I’d seen Mr. Jenkins talk to Harper, when I’d been watching through the store’s secret window.

Harper scrunched her face. “I wouldn’t want to know him. He made a terrible impression on me. I was crossing the street on my way in to see my sister. I’d heard about what happened to Mr. Michaels already, back at the diner, but this woman stopped me on the street and insisted on telling me again. I guess that man overheard, because he said the most awful thing to me, about how the shops around Misty Falls would be more secure now that the town’s most notorious shoplifter was gone.”

“That was wrong of him to say. I’m so sorry. He couldn’t have known your connection, but even so, it was wrong. I guess after eating what he did, he was bound to open his mouth and have some of it come right back out.”