“W
hy did they arrest Flip? Did he confess?” I asked Jillian, slapping my left leg.
“No.” I could hear her gulping something. “His prints were on the camera, and he didn’t have a good alibi. That was enough for the cops.” She gulped again. “Abby, this is a nightmare.”
“What are you drinking?”
“Coffee with brandy. Ursula made it to steady my nerves.”
“Caffeine and alcohol? Wouldn’t those ingredients work against each other?”
“At this moment I don’t really care.”
From the corner of my eye I caught sight of Simon peeking around the corner. Seeing that I was preoccupied, he came in to try the leg rub again, but I crouched down before he could make contact, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could keep him at arm’s length. Always a sucker for a good chin scratching, he sat on his haunches and began to purr.
“Pryce says the cops aren’t investigating any other leads now because they have their suspect,” Jillian said. “You’ve got to help, Abby. You’ve got to prove Flip didn’t do it. Claymore says we can’t get married if there’s a cloud hanging over the wedding.”
“Let me guess. It wouldn’t be seemly.”
“His very words.”
Pryce’s words, too, when he’d called off our wedding. For that reason alone I wanted to help, although I knew I’d be in for a stern lecture from Grace. My parents wouldn’t be a picnic either. I didn’t even want to think about what Marco would say.
“Just to play devil’s advocate, what if I find that, say, Onora did it?” I posed. “Is the wedding still doomed?”
“You’re kidding, right? Do you actually believe the Osbornes would let Claymore marry a woman who associates with murderesses?”
I was surprised they were letting him marry a woman who associated with
me,
but I wasn’t about to say so and give her something else to fret over.
“Besides,” Jillian added, “Onora’s prints weren’t on the camera.”
She could have worn gloves, but I decided to keep that thought to myself, too.
“Please, Abby,” Jillian wailed. “You’ve got to find this mystery woman and prove she did it.”
Fortunately for Jill, there were several factors working in her favor: 1) If Claymore called off the wedding, I was stuck paying for an ugly dress I wouldn’t wear to a costume party; 2) I had lots of bills to pay; and 3) The police should not have stopped investigating other leads just because Flip’s prints were on the camera. Why wouldn’t they be on the camera? He owned it.
“Where is Flip now?” I asked.
“Sitting in that horrid jail. Pryce says they don’t grant bail for people charged with murder. Will you help, Abby? Pretty please?”
“If I say yes, you’ll have to promise not to tell anyone. I’d rather work behind the scenes—undercover, so to speak.”
“I promise. So is that a yes?”
I sighed loudly, just so she wouldn’t think I was happy about it. “I suppose.”
“I wub you, Abs,” Jillian cooed and hung up.
“Yeah, I wub you, too.”
Simon looked at me in disdain and marched off, tail twitching. He wasn’t one for baby talk.
But I had more to worry about than Simon’s disdain. First and foremost, I needed Marco’s advice on where to start my investigation. He’d bet me that I would only pay him a call when I needed his help, so unless I wanted to provide him with seven big bundles of roses, I had to make it seem otherwise.
“So you’re going to investigate,” Nikki said, settling on a counter stool with a cup of tea.
I shrugged. “Looks like it.”
“You’re loving it, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t go
that
far.”
“Yes, you would. Just so you know, I’m here if you need my help.”
I gave her a hug and reached for my toothbrush, planning how to explain my decision to Grace. If I handled it right I might escape a lecture.
“Trust me. I didn’t go looking for this. It just found me.”
Too passive, and she wouldn’t buy it anyway.
“I can’t let my cousin down and have her suffer the same horrible embarrassment I did when Pryce called off our engagement.”
No good. Grace knew Jillian had been the one to cancel her prior engagements, and besides that, Jillian wasn’t easily embarrassed.
“You want me to trust the police to solve this?”
Better than the first two, but still debatable.
“This wedding must go on, Grace. I need the money.”
She couldn’t argue with the truth. Well, yes, knowing Grace, she probably could.
How about I don’t tell her?
There you go.
“Hey, Nikki?” I called from the bathroom doorway. “Don’t mention anything about my part in the murder investigation when you talk to Grace, okay? I don’t want her to know.”
“Afraid of getting a lecture?”
“You betcha.”
I was on my way out the door when the phone rang again. Nikki waved me off, and as I pulled the door shut behind me, I heard her say, “I’m sorry, Grace, she just left, but let me tell you what happened last night.”
Let’s hear it for Nikki.
Nikki did her job well. By the time I arrived at Bloomers Grace had heard the whole complicated story and had passed it along to Lottie. Both were waiting with coffee and sympathy, especially when they saw my pathetic-looking legs. Neither mentioned my role in the investigation, which meant Nikki had followed my instructions.
“Sweetie, why didn’t you wear slacks?” Lottie asked. “People will see your bites in that skirt.”
“Anything touching my skin makes the itch even worse.”
“Is that why you’re wearing flip-flops?”
“Yes, and I can barely stand
them.
”
“Why not try an oatmeal bath?” Grace said.
The thought of soaking in a bathtub made me shudder. I like
clean
water on my skin, not used water. But if I told her that, she’d pull up some old quote about a bath being a curative, or some such thing. So instead I said, “Sure. I’ll give it a try. Any messages?”
“Two from your mother.”
“Let me guess. Dinner at the club tomorrow night. You didn’t mention anything to her about me being at the murder scene, did you? You know how she frets.”
Grace assumed her statesman’s pose. “As René Descartes once said, ‘It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.’ ”
That meant no. Lottie and I gave her a round of applause.
“Sweetie,” Lottie said, following me through the curtain to the workroom, “I hate to spoil the mood, but your mother knows.”
“How?”
“You didn’t see the morning paper, did you?” She handed me the front section. In big bold letters the headlines stated: MURDER AT THE DUNES. Underneath were two black-and-white yearbook photos, one of Punch and one of Flip. In the article’s second paragraph it announced that both men had come to town for the wedding of Jillian Knight and Claymore Osborne.
“I don’t see the problem.”
“Turn the page.”
There it was, on page two: a photo of me talking to Reilly, with Jillian and company standing just behind us. “Now I see the problem.”
Oh, yes. My mother knew. But as long as Jillian kept her mouth shut, my mother wouldn’t know I had agreed to look for the killer.
Lottie glanced at her watch. “I’d say you have about five minutes before she calls again. Got any errands to run?”
“Do I have time?”
“Plenty. Only two orders came in over the wire last night.”
Even more reason for me to make sure that wedding went off as planned. “I’ll be back shortly.” I opened the cooler, took a handful of brightly hued daisies, and started for the curtain.
“Sweetie?” Lottie said, as she climbed a step stool to reach a pot on a high shelf. “Are you sure you want to get involved?”
“Involved in what? I’m just going down to the bar and grill.”
“You know what I mean.”
I peered through the curtain to make sure Grace wasn’t hovering nearby. “Did Nikki tell you?”
“She didn’t have to. I know you too well.” Lottie snagged the pot she wanted and brought it to the table.
“Jillian asked me to help, Lottie. I didn’t want to say anything because I know how everyone will worry. Do you think Grace suspects?”
“If she suspected, she’d say something.”
“A lot of somethings. It would be in my best interests if word of this doesn’t get out.”
Lottie began to cut green foam to put in the pot. “She won’t hear it from me.”
That was exactly what I’d been hoping to hear. I gave her a hug. “Thanks, Lottie.”
Flowers clutched in one hand, I hurried up the sidewalk to the Down the Hatch, rehearsing what I was going to say to Marco. Bringing him a bouquet wasn’t the best excuse for stopping by, but it was the only one I could come up with on ten seconds’ notice.
I cupped one hand around my eyes and peered in the glass door, rapping lightly when I saw people inside. The bar and grill didn’t officially open until eleven o’clock, but since the staff knew me, they always let me in.
“Marco’s on the roof,” a scrawny, middle-aged waitress named Gert told me, her voice deep and rough from too many cigarettes. “Last time it rained water got in and worked its way down to the kitchen. This morning we found an ugly brown stain on the back wall. Marco didn’t think the health department would like that, so he went up to fix the problem.”
“I’ll bet that didn’t put him in the best of moods.”
She coughed for about five minutes before she could say, “You got it.”
“I’ll come back later.”
“Good idea.”
I thrust the flowers at her. “For you. And take care of that cough so I don’t have to send the next bunch to the funeral parlor.”
I walked back to Bloomers still pondering a way to pick Marco’s brain without him catching on. I stopped to glance up at the top of his building, which, like mine, was three stories high with a flat, tar-papered roof. It had to be hot up there. Perhaps I could drop by later to take him a cold drink. Or a picnic basket for a surprise lunch.
That was it! I’d pick up deli sandwiches and a bottle of chilled chardonnay and throw him a picnic. Once he’d filled up on food and wine, I’d casually ask what I needed to know.
Way to go, Abby!
As I stepped inside Bloomers, Lottie hung up the phone at the front counter. “You just missed a call from your parents. I told them you were just fine.”
“Timing is everything.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Lottie said, heading for the workroom. “Your mother will be here in half an hour.”
“She’s not bringing another one of her sculptures, is she?”
“Lordy, I hope not. I’m still recovering from the last one.”
We both glanced at the multiarmed object in the far corner. Yep. Still there.
I spent the half hour before my mother’s arrival drawing up plans for Trudee DeWitt’s Fourth of July party. Thanks to Nikki’s antihistamine I had stopped scratching, but for some reason I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I chalked it up to a lack of sleep.
The next half hour was spent assuring my mother that I hadn’t been in any danger at the dunes and that I certainly wasn’t going to get West Nile Virus from sand fleas. She hadn’t mentioned a word about my part in the investigation, which meant Jillian had kept her promise.
We were sitting on stools at one end of the worktable, both of us with cups of coffee provided by Grace. At the other end, Lottie was putting together an arrangement of her own creation called the Red Hot Mama Bouquet—cherry red carnations, vivid orange Gerbera daisies, a fiery explosion of blooms from the firecracker plant, and green button mums.
“Your aunt Corrine is absolutely beside herself with worry that the wedding will be canceled,” my mother told me. “You know how much she wants Jillian to get married.” She sighed wistfully, leaning her chin on her hand. “Isn’t that every mother’s dream—to watch her daughter march down the aisle into the arms of a financially responsible male, then turn her bedroom into an exercise area?”
“You didn’t wait for
me
to get married before turning my room into your exercise area.”
My mother patted my hand and smiled obliquely. “Abigail, by the time that happens I’ll be too old to climb onto the treadmill.”
“I’m not the one who called off the wedding,” I reminded her, mentally sharpening my dueling sword.
Sensing a brewing storm, Lottie decided to make herself scarce and nearly collided with Grace at the curtain. She stepped back, and Grace whisked in with a thermal pot in her hand. “More coffee?” she offered with a smile. Grace had the uncanny ability to step in at just the right moment. I think it came from her habit of eavesdropping.
“Yes, thank you,” my mother said, sliding her cup forward. She stirred in cream and sugar and took a sip. “It’s wonderful. Thank you, Grace. Now, Abigail,” she said as Grace left the room, “about this groomsman the police have charged—Fonzie—Flipper—what was his name?”
My hands went cold. Had Jillian blabbed? I glanced around to be sure Grace was gone. “His name is Flip.”
“What an odd name. Anyway, your aunt Corrine said you’d offered to find—”
“Will you look at the time!” I exclaimed, tapping my watch. “ I’d love to chat longer, Mom, but I have so much to do.”
“But I haven’t finished my coffee yet.”
I jumped off the stool, grabbed my purse, and threw it over a shoulder. “I’ll walk you to your car. I’m heading that way, anyway.”
She took a quick slurp and set the cup down with a clatter. “I don’t understand your hurry. Are you that busy?”
I hooked my hand through her arm and nearly dragged her through the curtain, telling her all about Trudee DeWitt’s party to distract her. We zipped past Grace and were at the door when my mother interrupted my chatter to say, “For heaven’s sake, if you’re busy why on earth did you offer to help find the murderer? The success of the entire wedding is now resting on your shoulders.”