Murder Sends a Postcard (A Haunted Souvenir) (12 page)

I HAD TO HAND IT TO MANDY. SHE WAS ONE HECK OF
a saleswoman. By the time she left, she had an order for five dozen shirts, a case of mugs, and several hundred postcards—all with full-color images of Bluebeard. And a deposit check for an amount that made me swallow hard.

She promised me that everything could be in the store in a week. Plenty of time, in her words, to “sell out and reorder before the end of the summer.”

I truly hoped she was right. It was a gamble that would limit the money I could put in my Buy-Out-Peter Fund. On the other hand, if it was as successful as she expected, I would have a lot more in the Peter Fund at the end of the year.

That alone made it worth the risk.

While we were finalizing the order, a man walked through the door. He didn’t fit in, just as Bridget hadn’t a week earlier. Didn’t seem interested in the merchandise exactly, just wandered around while I talked to Mandy and Julie waited on the customers who lined up at the register.

Julie walked Mandy out to her car, chattering about Rose Ann. I made a mental note that if the experiment was successful, she deserved a bonus for her idea, and a single mom could use all the help she could get.

The man who’d been wandering around finally approached me once we were alone. “Are you Miss Martine?” he asked.

His flat, Midwestern accent had a vaguely familiar tone. Lots of people come through Southern Treasures in the summer, and I’d probably talked to someone from his region recently. But he sounded exhausted, as though he hadn’t slept in several days, and his manner was hesitant, almost deferential.

“Yes, I am.”

“I, uh, I just wanted to thank you. My sister mentioned you and your parrot. She said he was quite flirty, but really sweet.”

I must have looked puzzled, which I certainly was. What was this stranger thanking me for? And who was his sis—

“I’m so sorry—” I began as the pieces finally fell in place.

“I’m sorry,” he said at the same time. “I should have introduced—”

We both stopped in one of those awkward conversational pauses, started to speak again, and stopped again. After a few seconds I rushed ahead.

“You’re Bridget’s brother.” It was a statement, not a question. I could see a family resemblance. “I heard you were coming down. I’m so, so sorry. I really liked your sister.”

He nodded and offered his hand. “Bradford McKenna—people call me Buddy.”

I shook his hand. “Gloryanna Martine. Please call me Glory. And again, I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” he said. He looked around the shop as if he didn’t know quite what to say next. “She said it was a fun place,” he continued, more to himself than to me. “Now I see what she meant.”

From his perch, Bluebeard followed Buddy’s movements with bright eyes. Did he see the same resemblance I did? Or was there more to his interest? I never knew when Uncle Louis would offer an opinion on something. Or someone.

Julie came back in, setting off the bell over the front door. At one time I had considered disabling that bell during the busy season, but I’d never got around to it. Right now, as the silence became uncomfortable, the interruption was welcome.

“Bridget told me about you.” Buddy spoke suddenly, as though the words had escaped from his thoughts. “She said you and your friend were the first people that didn’t treat her like she was trying to kill the town.”

“She had a job to do,” I answered, keeping my voice carefully neutral. Caution had returned when he mentioned Bridget’s introduction to Keyhole Bay—his motives for coming in to Southern Treasures might not be as innocent as he claimed.

“It was more than that.”

Silence stretched again. Julie fiddled casually with a display, her back to us, but I saw her fingering her cell phone in her pocket and I understood the gesture. She had my back in case of a confrontation.

“She got that a lot,” Buddy continued. “And she understood it. When the big guns from out of town arrived, people got nervous and scared. They didn’t know what the outcome of the audit might be, they felt threatened, and they wanted to protect themselves. That made sense to her.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I waited to see what he would say next.

“She always sent me postcards,” he said, turning to look at the spinner.

It was still tidy from my restock; was that only this morning? It seemed like a world away.

He ran a finger along the pockets, as though looking for something. He paused over a card of a fishing boat, then shook his head and continued his examination.

“This one,” he said, picking up a shot of the tiny bay that gave the town its name. “This is the one she would have sent.”

He turned back to me, his eyes clouded. “She knew I liked boats. It’s the one she would have chosen. “

He carefully slid the card back into the rack, squaring up the corners as though trying to impose order on a world that had suddenly turned chaotic.

He was stalling. I was sure of it. There was something on his mind, something he had wanted to say from the moment he first walked in the door, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“She seemed like a nice person,” I said. “I only just met her, but Karen and I both liked her. We hoped we could be friends while she was here.”

“She hoped that, too,” he answered without turning back to face me. “She texted me on Saturday morning, from Biloxi. Said you’d recommended the trip. She was having fun, she said, and thought she might go on over to New Orleans before heading back.”

He hung his head and his voice dropped to a whisper. “That was the last time I heard from her.”

He finally turned to look at me. His pain was clear on his face. “Miss Martine, Gloryanna, I just came from the police station. They said they had the results of the tests they ran, but I don’t believe them. They’re wrong. They have to be.

“They said she died of a self-inflicted drug overdose.”

“THEY ACTUALLY
said
IT WAS SELF-INFLICTED?”

“Not in so many words,” he admitted. “They said she overdosed. No signs of foul play. It sounded to me like there wasn’t going to be much of an investigation.”

“Who did you talk to?” I asked.

“A detective, I think. His name was Sherman.” He fished in his pocket and came up with a business card. “Gregory Sherman. Yeah, he’s a detective. But he didn’t seem especially interested in doing anything about Bridget.”

“They’re pretty busy this time of year,” I said. “Maybe he was just in a hurry and didn’t express himself very well.”

“I don’t know. I got the impression there are a lot of people around here that would like this audit to just go away. She said she had the same impression, said you and your friend were about the only people who didn’t treat her like some kind of pariah.

“But just because Bridget is”—he struggled for a moment—“
gone
, it doesn’t change anything. That’s part of why I’m here. Bridget and I worked in the same department. She was a senior auditor—one of the best. I’m just a staff auditor. So far.” He added that last bit with a touch of defiance.

“They’ll send another senior person,” he continued. “But there wasn’t anyone else available on a holiday weekend, so they sent me. They knew I’d come anyway.”

“They let you work with your sister?” I was surprised. I thought most big companies had lots of rules about family members working together.

“Half sister,” he admitted with a shrug. “Our dad married my mom when Bridget was six or seven, I think. By the time I came along, she was ten and her mom had moved her to Chicago. We didn’t see that much of each other when we were growing up.

“I didn’t even know she was in the department when I started there. We weren’t that close, really, though we were beginning to build a relationship.”

I tried to imagine how anyone could not be close to their sibling. As an only child, I had longed desperately for a little brother or sister. In my early teens I had fantasized about an older brother. Especially an older brother with lots of cute friends. Instead I had Peter. Not a winner in the sibling-substitute sweepstakes.

But my folks never had any other children, and I never knew why. I had been too polite to ask my mother, too well behaved to question her about something so personal. After she was gone, I could have asked Linda. She might know. Heck, she probably
did
know; she and my mother had been good friends. But even if she would tell me, was I ready to know the answer, to know the intimate details of my mother’s life?

I’d filled the family places in my life with friends: my foster parents, Guy and Linda; and Karen and Riley, the siblings I never had. And now I had Uncle Louis. Sort of.

Buddy’s sigh brought me back to the present. “I guess there was more to my coming in here than just wanting to thank you,” he admitted. “I think I wanted to talk to someone who knew her. Someone who would believe me when I said she wouldn’t ever do drugs.”

“But if you weren’t that close, how could you be sure? Really?”

“There was an incident I heard about, right after I started at the bank. A couple of the junior accounting guys were getting high on the weekends, and word got back to the bank. They were gone within days. Turns out she was their supervisor, and she made it exceedingly clear that when she said she had a zero tolerance policy, she meant it.”

I was still struggling with something he had mentioned earlier.

“How could you not know she worked in your department?”

He shrugged. “She was ten years older than me. I hadn’t seen her in years, and I always figured she’d gotten married and changed her name. Bridget isn’t that unusual a name. I knew there was a Bridget McKenna in the department, but I assumed it was her married name. She was out of the office a lot on travel assignments, and I’d been there several months before we actually met.”

The bell over the door jingled and a trio of twentysomething women in tank tops and shorts wafted in on a cloud of coconut-scented sunscreen. Julie moved quickly to intercept them and offer her help.

Buddy, seeing the new arrivals, shifted gears. “Thanks for your time, Miss Martine. I really appreciate it. I’ll be in town for a few more days, at least until we get another auditor down from Minneapolis.” He drew a business card from his pocket and scribbled something on the back before handing it to me. “My cell number,” he explained. “If you think of anything that might help, please give me a call. I know my sister didn’t take her own life, accidentally or otherwise.”

I remembered the trouble his sister had had finding a place to stay. Curious, I asked, “Where are you staying?”

“The other model home,” he replied. He lowered his voice to a discreet whisper. “The police haven’t released the house where, uh, it happened. But the bank owns both of the houses out there, and they arranged for me to get the keys to the other one.”

He thanked me again for my time, and headed out the door.

A few minutes later, Julie rang up the purchases for the three young women and locked the door behind them.

“Thanks,” I said to her as she came back across the shop.

“What was that all about?” she asked. “I tried to give you some space, but he seemed pretty intense.”

“Bridget McKenna’s half brother. The one the bank sent down here to take over for her. Temporarily.”

“But what did he want here? I mean, why did he want to talk to you? And what did he want you to help with?”

“Nothing really. A detective, somebody named Gregory Sherman—ever heard of him?—told him it was a drug overdose, and gave him the impression they were blaming Bridget. He thought . . . I don’t know what he thought. He wanted someone to listen to him mostly. Someone to believe Bridget wasn’t responsible for her own death.”

“And do you? Believe him, I mean?”

“I do, but not because anything he said changed my mind. I already agreed with him before he walked through the door.”

But now I had to wonder if anyone else shared my opinion.

I was still debating the question when Jake called about dinner plans. “I have fixings for chicken tacos,” I volunteered. “And there’s plenty for two. Why don’t you just come over here?”

“You don’t want to cook chicken.”

“It’s already cooked. We just have to nuke it.”

“Sounds like a plan then. Need anything more?”

“I’ve got sweet tea,” I answered. That should be no surprise. There was always a jug of sweet tea in my refrigerator. “If you want something else to drink, you should bring it.”

He chuckled. “I will be there with a six-pack of microbrew as soon as I see what your friend Linda has cold.”

I promised I’d leave the door open, said good night to Julie, and went to settle Bluebeard for the evening. He’d already had watermelon for a treat, and several of the shop’s customers had been allowed to feed him unsalted wheat crackers and shredded-wheat biscuits. I checked his food dish, added a couple apple slices, and gave him clean water.

Jake had just stepped through the front door when Bluebeard shook off his end-of-day lethargy and began squawking loudly. Jake hastily locked the door behind him and hurried to my side, where I was trying to calm the agitated bird.

Fixing Jake with a beady-eyed stare, Bluebeard ceased his squawking. The sudden silence was even more unnerving than the shrill noise had been.

Then he spoke, clearly and in Uncle Louis’s voice.

“Find the postcards, buddy boy.”

I THOUGHT I WAS USED TO UNCLE LOUIS USING BLUEBEARD
to issue cryptic clues and veiled warnings. But this was the first time he’d tried to give orders. And as always, he said something that didn’t make much sense.

“What postcards?” Jake asked.

But Bluebeard didn’t reply. He ruffled his feathers as though shrugging off our puzzlement, and retreated to his cage.

“What postcards?” I repeated Jake’s question, but I didn’t get an answer either. Not that I really expected one.

What I did get was a string of curses, and a final announcement of “Trying to @^@$^%* sleep here!”

Bluebeard was quite clearly done talking.

Jake and I took the hint and retreated upstairs.

“Any idea what that was about?” Jake asked.

“Not a clue,” I answered. “In fact, I cleaned up all the postcards this morning. Oh! And I ordered Bluebeard postcards this afternoon! Julie’s friend Mandy was here from the print shop.”

I launched into an explanation of Mandy’s visit, talking about the designs we’d chosen and what merchandise I’d finally settled on for my first order. Soon Bluebeard’s outburst was forgotten in the excitement over my new venture.

“It’s still a big gamble,” I said. “And I’m a little scared at the amount of money I’ve committed to this. But Julie and Mandy are confident it will work.”

Jake watched me pull ingredients from the refrigerator. “What can I do to help?”

I pointed to the domed plastic cover over the whole roasted chicken. “How about shredding the chicken?”

Jake nodded and took a pair of forks out of the drawer. He set to work removing the meat from the bones and using the forks to separate it into shreds. The man had some definite kitchen skills.

“Have you been watching the Cooking Channel?” I asked lightly. He had to have acquired the know-how somewhere.

“I used to, back in California. I did a fair amount of cooking for a crowd, once upon a time.”

“Restaurant?”

“Naw.” He tossed a handful of expertly shredded chicken in a ceramic bowl, ready for the microwave. “Just friends.” His tone said the subject was closed for now.

I pulled on a pair of latex gloves to protect me from the peppers, and set to work on the salsa. With a sharp knife I slit open a couple jalapeños and carefully removed the seeds and membranes. Then I removed the stems from a handful of tomatoes, quartered and peeled an onion, and washed a bunch of cilantro.

I tossed it all in the food processor with garlic, salt, and pepper, and pulsed it a few times, just until the vegetables were chopped.

Jake’s California roots weren’t really a secret; I’d known all along he was from the West Coast, and I’d learned several months ago that he was from California specifically.

So far I had resisted the temptation to try digging into his history online, even though I knew with Karen’s help I could probably find out anything I wanted to know. It was up to Jake to decide what he was willing to share, and I told myself I had to trust him just as I wanted him to trust me.

One thing I did know was how much he loved avocados. I started peeling and mashing the bright green flesh for guacamole and was rewarded with a broad smile.

“You better eat this,” I joked. “Because this is one leftover Bluebeard can’t have. Avocados are right up there with coffee on the bad list.”

“I’ll make that sacrifice,” he said. “I wouldn’t want him to get sick, after all.”

We finished the dinner prep, heated the chicken in the microwave, and sat down at the table with our plates and beers.

“So how was your day?” Jake asked. “You said you had a story when you came back this morning. Oh, thanks for the change run, by the way. Good thing, too. I got two more big bills this afternoon.”

I had to stop and think. This morning seemed a long time ago. “Well,” I said, trying to reconstruct the day, “it started way too early.”

I told him about the delays at the bank, and the grocery store, and the visit to Sly in between.

“I agree with him,” Jake said, his voice somber. “That’s an awful thing to say about anyone. And in your case, it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“Thank you. But how do you know about anybody?” I asked. “How can you tell? I mean, I still don’t want to believe that Bridget had anything to do with drugs, but how else do you explain what happened?”

He shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe she got involved with something over in Biloxi.”

“Her brother did say she texted him from there,” I said, thinking out loud.

“Her brother? When did you talk to her brother?”

“Half brother,” I corrected. “He came into the store just before closing.”

I repeated the story Bridget’s brother had told me, emphasizing the part about the lab results. “They told him she died of an overdose, and there was no sign of foul play. What else could it be?” I still didn’t want to think it was true, but I was having trouble coming up with any other explanation.

“I don’t know, Glory.”

I helped myself to another tortilla and carefully assembled a second taco. “I need to change the subject,” I said. “This is just too depressing.”

Jake nodded. But try as we might, every conversation seemed to circle back around and trip over the one topic we were trying to avoid, and we lapsed into silence.

“How’s the website going?” Jake asked.

“Slowly. I’m making progress, but it takes time I usually don’t have in the summer.”

“For sure,” Jake answered. “Did that last book help?”

In answer I got up and went to get my laptop. Setting it on the table between us, I navigated to the Southern Treasures page and showed him the latest additions.

“You should put up an announcement about the new T-shirts,” he suggested.

“Good idea.” I opened my to-do file and made a note.

As I was closing the file, my phone rang. Distracted, I didn’t check the caller ID before I answered.

I wished I had.

“Glory?”

My cousin Peter’s drawl leaned dangerously close to a whine, and I scowled at the phone.

“Yes, Peter.”

Jake rolled his eyes. He knew how annoying Peter could be, how much I resented his intrusions into the running of Southern Treasures, and how crazy his suggestions were. Just because he had a lot of schooling didn’t mean he understood a thing about running a retail business, and his visit on Sunday had just reinforced that. I guess he was a good engineer—he held a high-level job doing something that I didn’t understand—but a master’s degree in engineering had nothing to do with a souvenir shop.

“Glory, I was thinking.”

That was a bad sign. It meant he was about to suggest some dang fool scheme again. It also meant I had to count to ten before I could speak, or risk using words I’d learned from Bluebeard.

“What, Peter?”

“Do you think we ought to consider branching out? Maybe finding another location?”

I held my tongue between my teeth for several seconds as I did a quick ten count, then took a deep breath.

“I don’t think we’re in a position to do that, Peter.”

“But I’ve been hearing that the Gulf Coast is making an economic recovery, that tourists are back and spending like they used to, before Katrina and the oil spill. We should position ourselves to take advantage of that.”

I tried to imagine where he was getting his information. I got to six before I blurted out, “Where did you hear that?”

“One of the guys at work. He showed me an article in
U.S. News
that said tourism spending is growing every year, and I keep hearing how the hotels down there are filling up every weekend. You told me the same thing when I was there on Sunday.” His voice dropped into a lower register, as though he was trying to sound more authoritative. “The indicators are for improved cash flow in the second half of this year.”

What?
That sentence didn’t even make sense.

“What indicators? Where did that information come from? Who’s making these predictions?”

“Now, Glory,” he said, his voice dripping with condescension. “It’s all very complex economics. Very complex. I don’t expect you to be able to—”

This time I didn’t even try to count.

“Peter, I don’t know who you are listening to, but for right now, you listen to this.

“I am on the ground here, and I see
exactly
how the economics are working in my town. I know how much money is being spent, where, and how. I take care of the sales and the expenses for Southern Treasures, and I send you your share of the profits every month. Take a look at those checks, and you tell me if there’s enough there to consider opening another store.”

I drew a ragged breath, fighting to control the adrenaline rush brought on by anger. “Have you looked, really looked, at those checks, Peter? Or do you just hand them to your wife to put in the bank?”

“Now, Glory—”

“Don’t.” The word came out quietly. “If you want to open another store, if you want to take on that expense and that risk, you can. Don’t let me stop you. But don’t expect to use the Southern Treasures name, and don’t expect me to assume any responsibility for it. I have more than enough on my plate here, and like I told you Sunday, this is not the time to consider expansion.”

I took another gulp of air, and tried to calm down. “Peter, you’re my family, and I don’t mean to yell at you. But you have to trust me on this. I am here twenty-four/seven, and I know what is best for Southern Treasures. Believe me when I say I want the shop to succeed; it’s how I pay my bills. But you need to give me credit for knowing my business, just like I give you credit for knowing yours.”

Okay, that last part was only kind of true. Right now I didn’t give him credit for knowing a blasted thing.

Peter stammered a sort-of apology, promising to trust my judgment, and hung up.

I couldn’t look at Jake, ashamed of my outburst. I had overreacted to Peter’s suggestion and taken my frustration out on him.

It wasn’t his fault that Bridget died, or that I was having trouble accepting the fact.