Kernel of Truth (7 page)

It was another
busy day at POPS. The
Sentinel
had led that morning with the news of the attack on Barbara with a little bit of speculation on whether or not it was linked to Coco's murder. I wasn't sure whether business was picking up on its own or if people were using a visit to the shop as an excuse to rubberneck at the closed sign on Coco's Cocoas. Annie said she was experiencing the same thing over at Blooms.

“The number of people who suddenly need fresh flowers for their front hallways or someone's desk has pretty much tripled,” she reported as she settled down at my kitchen table.

It was two o'clock and we were having an afternoon coffee break. “It's kind of gross.” I set out some of the popcorn breakfast bars that hadn't sold that morning. Apparently no one wants raisins in their popcorn. It had been worth a try.

Annie took one bite and set hers down. “Not one of your better efforts, Rebecca.”

“I realize that now. I'm a little off, I think.” I took a bite. On second thought, raisins in popcorn were not worth a try. I wondered what I'd been thinking when I'd decided to do that this morning. The answer was I hadn't been thinking about cooking. I'd been thinking about two older businesswomen in the community having both been hit on the head while working at night in their shops.

Annie patted my hand. “We all are. It's so weird to think that Coco won't be here. She's been such a fixture in all our lives.”

“More like a rudder for me. I can't count the times she's righted my course when I've veered off.” This kitchen, for instance, wouldn't have been possible without Coco. She'd lent me the money to remodel it into the kitchen I needed. I'd kept the old wooden cabinets, but the stove and the refrigerator were brand-new, state of the art.

Annie made a face. “Seriously? Sailing metaphors?”

I laughed. “You're right. I'm starting to sound like the honorable Mayor.” Which reminded me of something. “Have you seen him hanging around here again? He keeps popping up in the back alley like he can maybe swoop up Coco's shop before anyone notices.”

“Allen? Hanging around here?” Annie stood up to take the remains of her raisin popcorn bar over to the trash. “I hadn't really noticed.”

“Maybe it's just me, then.” Two sweet little old ladies get beat up and a person was bound to get paranoid.

She shrugged and brushed the crumbs off her hands. “Maybe. Well, time for me to get back to Blooms. I've got centerpieces for the Elks Lodge to start on.” She gave me a quick hug and slipped out the back door, little bells on her skirt jingling as she went.

*   *   *

After Susanna showed
up, I packaged up some breakfast bars (the ones with chocolate chips, not the ones with raisins), left Sprocket with Susanna and went over to the hospital to check on Barbara.

She sat propped up in the hospital bed, the threadbare gown hanging off her skinny shoulder. The gauze dressing had slipped to a somewhat jaunty angle on her head. “Hey, Barbara. How are you doing?”

She waved a hand taped with various tubes at me. “Fine. All this fuss is ridiculous. I'd be better off at home.”

“When are they going to let you out?” I pulled up a chair to sit down next to the bed. I was about to offer her the box of breakfast bars when I saw there was already a box of cookies on her bedside table.

“They say tomorrow or the day after. Some social worker has been around making noises about how I don't have anyone to stay with me at home. It's nonsense. I've been living alone since Gerald died and I've been fine. I can take care of myself.”

“Popcorn bars,” I offered.

She took a small piece, but didn't bite into it right away. “Jessica was already by with those.” She gestured at the cookies. “Some sort of gooey thing. Have one.”

I picked one up. A Nutella-stuffed cookie. I gave her props for difficulty. Then I took a bite and promptly took back my props. I'd be willing to bet she hadn't frozen the dough before she started scooping it out based on how flattened they were. I wrapped the remains of the cookie in a tissue and slipped it into the wastebasket.

Barbara snorted. “Not my sort of thing, either. I usually
like anything with hazelnut, but there was something about those that put me off. Maybe . . .” Her words trailed off.

“Maybe what?” I asked.

“It's strange, but I could have sworn I smelled hazelnut right before I was hit. It's like drinking too much and getting sick. You never want to drink that kind of booze again.” She laughed. “But it was nice of her to come by.”

I nodded, wishing I had something to wash down the cookie remnants. “That's Jessica. Always nice.” At least on the surface.

Barbara eyed me as if she could read my thoughts. “I've never trusted that one completely. She's way too interested in what other people think and way too good at manipulating those impressions.”

I almost hugged her, but then realized it would probably hurt her. “I think you and I are the only ones who think that.”

“I'm a bit of a maverick.” She grinned, but then the grin faded. “I think my maverick days may be done, though. I tell you, Rebecca. I'm thinking maybe it's a sign. Maybe it's time to close up shop.”

I sat back in the chair. “But you're a downtown fixture, Barbara. It wouldn't be the same without you.”

She rolled her eyes. “For a day. Maybe two. In a month, people would have already adjusted and in a year no one would even remember I ever had a shop there. Folks are fickle.” She narrowed her watery blue eyes at me. “You should know that, girl. Your shop might be your life's blood, but to everyone else it's just a shop.”

“Fine. But then your shop is your life's blood, too. What would you do if you closed it?” Barbara still walked a mile along Lake Erie every day. No way she was ready to sit in a rocking chair and knit.

She snorted. “I'd retire. I'd take the money Allen Thompson
has been offering me for the house and property and hightail it out to Arizona. I love that dry heat.”

Mayor Thompson again. It was like he was everywhere. At least, everywhere that little old ladies were getting clunked on the head. “Allen's been trying to buy your shop?”

“Allen's been trying to buy every shop he can get his hands on since he was out of diapers.” Barbara took a bite of popcorn bar.

I knew he'd been trying to get Coco's shop, but I hadn't realized he'd been after Barbara's as well. The similarities between the break-in at Barbara's and the one at Coco's started to sicken me. It had to be more than a coincidence. Two older women shop owners at their stores late at night. Both hit on the head. Both back windows broken. “What were you doing there so late, Barbara?”

She smiled. “I started an online store. There's only so many antiques a person can sell to tourists who come through Grand Lake. I've been listing smaller items online and doing quite well with it. Amazing how much more demand there is if you open it up to the whole world.”

Another parallel with Coco. Barbara still had plans to expand her business. I wanted to ask her more about the online store, but realized I'd better get back to my own shop if I still wanted to have a business, too. “Is there anything I can bring you? Toothbrush? Nightgown? Slippers?” I asked as I started to gather up my things.

“I wouldn't mind some clothes to go home in. Do you think you could stop by my place and pick up some clean stuff? They made a mess of the dress I was wearing when I came in.” Barbara plucked at the hospital gown. “I don't exactly want to go home in this haute couture.”

“Of course. I'll bring them by tonight.” Sprocket and I could stop by after we closed POPS.

“Thank you. There's a spare key under the second flowerpot on the right from the front door. Grab my velour tracksuit from the second drawer of my dresser and my sneakers from the closet. Oh, and give me another piece of that popcorn bar. Good stuff, kiddo.” She winked at me. “Good on you.”

*   *   *

When I opened
the back door to take the garbage out to the Dumpster, I saw a figure hovering in the shadows. I froze. “Who's there?” I called, feeling a little stupid for laughing at Dan asking about mysterious strangers lurking in the area.

The figure stepped out of the lengthening shadows. Tom Moffat. One of Jasper's buddies from the park. “Hi, Rebecca,” he said, his voice gruff.

He was cleaner than Jasper generally was, but he had that same stoop-shouldered shuffle that Jasper had. “Hi, Tom. What are you doing back here?”

“I, uh, well, was hoping that maybe you might still put out the popcorn you didn't sell. Jasper said you used to do that for him and that it was pretty good.” I could see him looking up at me out of the corner of his eye, like he wanted to see my reaction but didn't want to meet my eyes.

I didn't particularly like Tom Moffat, but it wasn't like I was all that fond of Jasper, either, and it always seemed like a waste to throw out food if someone could use it. “Sure,” I said. I held out the bag that contained the leftover popcorn.

He scurried up to the porch and took the bag from me, backing away quickly. “Thanks.” Then he shuffled off down the alleyway. I watched him go, slightly uneasy that there was another person who might have a reason to come in and out of the alley.

I took off in the opposite direction. I'd made a list of the items Barbara wanted and wanted to stop off at her place
on my way home to gather things up. It was a little later than I wanted it to be and it was already starting to get dark when I got to her house on Magnolia Street. Barbara may have specialized in overstuffed Victorian doily-covered furniture at her shop, but her own house was as sleek and modern as a spread from a Danish design catalog. A black leather couch faced a flat-screen television wider than my bed. A bowl of green apples sat on a glass and chrome coffee table.

Her bedroom was more of the same. A queen-sized platform bed with black-and-white bedding dominated the center of the room. A stark abstract print with swirls of red and orange topped it. I went to the dresser and found the tracksuit exactly in the drawer where she'd said it would be. I grabbed some underthings and was getting the sneakers from the closet floor when I heard the
whoop whoop
of a siren out on the driveway.

I looked at Sprocket and he looked back at me, his doggy eyebrows all askew. I went to the bedroom window and looked out in time to see Huerta get out of his squad car and run toward the house in a low crouch. I heard the front door bang open—I hadn't locked it after I walked in—and then Huerta yelled, “Police! Come out with your hands up!”

*   *   *

I crossed my
arms over my chest and glared at Dan from across his desk. “Hand to God, Dan! Barbara asked me to pick up some stuff for her! You can ask her yourself!”

“Huerta's asking her right now.” He squared his desk blotter with the edge of the desk and leaned back in his chair.

“Dan, be serious.” This was ridiculous. He knew what I'd been doing there. He'd even had Huerta take the bag of clothing and toiletries I'd gathered up for Barbara with him to the hospital. “Who even called you guys?”

He eyed me for a second. “Jessica James. She said she was cruising by Barbara's to make sure everything looked okay there and saw the lights on in the house. She thought maybe whoever broke into Barbara's place would know she wasn't there and might take advantage of that.”

Jessica. Of course it was Jessica. “What a busybody.”

“What happened to the elbow of your sweater, Rebecca?” Dan leaned forward and pointed to my arm.

“My what?” Then I remembered. I'd snagged my sweater on the broken glass in Barbara's back window. Speaking of busybodies . . . “I, uh, must have caught it on something.”

Dan pulled a plastic bag with a few threads in a color that looked suspiciously like my sweater out of his desk and set it down between us. “Like maybe the back window of Barbara's shop? The broken one?”

I sank down in my chair. “Maybe.”

“Want to tell me how that happened?” he asked.

I sat back up. “Don't you think it's kind of strange that the scene behind Barbara's shop looked exactly like the scene at Coco's?”

Dan stared hard at me. “Not if we're looking for one person who might have broken into both stores.”

“Exactly. I was looking at it and realizing that the setup at Barbara's is a little different. There's no way to reach the doorknob from that broken windowpane. I tried. You know how long my arms are.” Seriously, I'm like a gorilla. “Someone broke that window to make it look like the break-in at Coco's. There was no other reason to do it. What self-respecting serial burglar makes it that clear that he's on a crime spree? Someone went to a lot of effort to make sure you linked both crime scenes. And that someone couldn't possibly be Jasper.”

Dan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know. I can't figure
out why. It's almost as if someone wants to make sure we know Jasper is innocent.”

“But really this only proves that someone else knew what the back of Coco's shop looked like and that Jasper didn't bonk Barbara on the head,” I said. Sprocket stood up, turned around three times and then lay back down again as if to settle in for a long night. I was afraid he might be right.

Dan leaned forward on his elbows. “Who else knew exactly what Coco's back porch looked like?”

“I don't know. Whoever did it and me, I guess.” I shrugged.

Dan looked at me meaningfully.

What he wasn't saying finally dawned on me. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Rebecca, it's not funny and I'm definitely not kidding about it. You do remember that Jasper is still in jail, right? There's no way he was at Barbara's. You knew what happened at Coco's better than anyone else around here except the police. Now I find fibers from your sweater in Barbara's broken window? What am I supposed to do with that?” He threw his hands in the air.