Entitled to Kill

by A C F Bookens

  A more polite person might have waited for a natural lull in the conversation, but I wasn’t that person and simply waited until my dad took a breath to ask, “So how long are you guys staying? Headed back tonight?” Wishful thinking on my part.

  “Oh, we’re going to be in town for a couple of days at least. We saw all the wonderful things you advertised to do here and thought we’d take a few days of vacation here. One of the perks of retirement.” Mom’s voice was so casual that I braced myself. “Since your new assistant manager is starting tomorrow, maybe you can take the day off and show us around?”

  The last thing I wanted to do – behind chewing on gravel, reading James Joyce’s Ulysses (I hated that book), and eating raw oysters– was to give my parents a tour.

  I must have looked panicked because Daniel quickly said, “Oh, man. I know you’d love to do that. But you have that whole training schedule for Marcus, don’t you? I mean, maybe Mart could—“

  “Dang. That’s right. And Mart is away in Virginia consulting with that new winery outside Norfolk, so she can’t take over.” I had never been so glad Mart had a business trip as I was right now. “I’m afraid I can’t give you a tour. But maybe we could all have dinner tonight, and we could make a plan for you all to be your own guides?”

  My mother looked a bit crestfallen, and I almost felt guilty. I had no plan to train Marcus. He already knew everything, and while I had intended to be at the shop tomorrow just in case, I knew he’d have everything well in hand without me. But I wasn’t about to let my mother know that.

  I looked over my parents’ heads to avoid making eye contact with them and saw Marcus and his mother, Josie, come into the shop. I waved, and they made their way over. I stood up and gave Josie a hug. She’d been writing a great review column for our newsletter, and like her son, she was part of what was growing our business. Plus, she was such a charming person.

  “Marcus, Josie, please meet my parents, Sharon and Burt. Mom and Dad, Marcus is my new assistant manager, and this is his mother, Josie.”

  I saw it happening. The notching up of the charm as my dad shook first Marcus’s hand and then Josie’s. “It’s a true pleasure to meet you both. Marcus, Harvey tells us that your first day is tomorrow.”

  When Marcus glanced over at me, I gave him a hard stare and hoped he knew that meant, “Just go with it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Marcus said, turning back to my father. “I’m very honored to be working with your daughter. She’s a great boss, and I love this shop.”

  Dad gave him a clap on the shoulder hard enough to rattle Marcus’s thin frame. “Well, I’m glad you’re giving her a hand. I’m sure after training you’ll be fit as a fiddle.”

  Marcus flicked his eyes to me, and I could feel his mom looking at me, too, but they didn’t betray a thing. “Yes, sir. I’m sure that’s the case.”

  “Are you in town long?” Josie asked.

  My mom put on her biggest smile. “Just a couple of days. We wanted to see what Harvey was up to here.”

  Daniel came over and took my hand. My mother wasn’t lying – she really believed that’s why they were here – but it still stung when clearly this was, yet again, about making her feel good, not about what would actually matter to me, even though she was saying it was entirely for me.

  Josie looked at me, nodded, and turned back to my mother. “I know that Harvey and Marcus have a busy day here tomorrow, but I’m free. Would you like me to give you a tour of the area?”

  I’m pretty sure my mouth actually fell open.

  “That would be lovely, Josie. Thank you so much.” My mom was practically melting. “I love this coat of yours,” Mom said, taking the edge of Josie’s emerald-green, wool coat between her fingers. Fashion was my mother’s love language.

  Dad stepped forward. “That’s a very kind offer. Thank you. Should we meet you here? What time works for you?”

  Josie turned to me and winked with the eye my parents couldn’t see. “I think we should start with the most important place in St. Marin’s, the bookstore. So let’s meet here at ten for coffee, and then we’ll begin the tour from here.” She fluffed the back of her short stacked hair and smiled at me, her brown skin rosy around her cheeks.

  I stood dumbfounded for a few seconds before I realized my parents were looking at me. “Oh, yes, that sounds great. Thank you, Ms. Dawson.” I winked back at her and then said to my parents, “You’ll have a lovely time, and we can meet for dinner.”

  “That’ll be lovely dear,” Mom said as she patted my arm and began to move toward the door. “I think we’ll go to that charming little art place down the road. That is, if they’re open.”

  “They’re open.” I could hear the edge in my voice. My mother had a way of making even the most serious work seem small if it wasn’t done to her scale. “Cate, the director, is probably there herself. Should I call to ask if she can give you a behind-the-scenes tour?”

  My dad stood up a bit taller. He was just as bad as my mom. Special treatment always felt like just what they deserved. “That would be wonderful. Thank you. Tell her we’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll ask if she’s available.” I tried to not jab the phone out of my hands as I entered my passcode and opened the messaging app. Cate’s reply was immediate. “I’d be thrilled to meet your parents.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” I mumbled, and Daniel gave my shoulders a quick squeeze.

  “I’m headed that way. Why don’t I walk you down?” Daniel said with a cheery lilt to his voice. Then, more quietly he whispered, “This way, I’ll have a chance to warn Cate.”

  “Good thinking,” I said as I hugged him quickly.

  “See you for dinner at our place, Mom and Dad. Seven p.m. I’ll cook.”

  My mom looked a little stricken, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the idea of eating at my house or eating my cooking. Either way, she couldn’t do much about it now. If she refused, she’d look rude, and it was absolutely unthinkable for my mother to look rude.

  She gave me another one of her stiff hugs, and they headed off with Daniel.

  As soon as they were out the door, I turned to Josie. “Oh my word. How did you know?”

  “Oh, woman, I know the look of parent fatigue and frustration when I see it. They seem like lovely people, but I expect they’ve failed you in some major way, given the number of times you sighed while they were here. They won’t bother me nearly as much as they bother you, and we’ll have a good time.” She stepped forward and pulled me into a hug.

  I felt tears pooling in my eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Marcus, that girl in the café looks like she needs a little loving, too, and I need a big ole cup of coffee. Besides, I think you and Harvey need to chat, right?”

  I saw a flash of color run up Marcus’s neck, but he nodded slightly. “I’ll be over in a minute,” he said.

  I stepped in front of the register and leaned back against the counter. “What’s up?”

  “I really didn’t want to bother you with this. I thought maybe I should just tell Sheriff Mason, but Mama thought I should run the information by you first.”

  “Alright.” I stood upright, spread my legs apart, and put my hands on my hips. “I’m ready.”

  Marcus gave me a half-smile. “I know who the witness who identified me is.”

  I really stood up straight then. “You do? Who is it?”

  He took a quick look around the shop. “Huckabee Harris’s daughter, Miranda.”

  “Miranda Harris-Lewis put forth a false statement about her own father’s death.” I didn’t know Miranda well. She and her twin daughters, Maisy and Daisy – their given names were worse than mine – had been in the shop a few times. She wasn’t my favorite person – a little too prim and too demanding for my taste. She’d asked me to vacuum the floor around the small table and chairs we had in the children’s section because there were crumbs. “I’m modeling good hygiene for my daughters, and I don’t want them t
o think that it’s acceptable for places of business to be filthy,” she’d said. I had told her I’d get right on that, and then I’d purposefully forgotten for the rest of their visit.

  On their second visit, she’d asked which of the books had just arrived. “I don’t want the girls touching things that might be,” she shivered, “covered in germs.” I had assured her that I had personally sterilized every book in the store that morning, trying to make a joke out of a weird moment, and she’d thanked me profusely, not a hint of irony in her gratitude.

  For their part, the girls were actually wonderful. They picked up after themselves and asked me great questions about the next books in their favorite series, The Magic Treehouse. I didn’t think they loved the entirely pink, matching outfits their mother put them in – I had watched them slip a pair of glittery hairbows behind the picture books one day – but I can’t say as I blame them for that.

  Marcus nodded. “She did. Harriet, the office manager at the sheriff’s office, and Mom are good friends. She let it slip.”

  I snickered. “And I bet Ms. Dawson had nothing to do with bringing about that little slip of the tongue.”

  “Nothing at all. Nope. No way.” Marcus laughed. “I was as surprised as you. I don’t even know that woman, I mean besides from the couple of times she was in here. Why would she try to implicate me in her father’s murder? I mean doesn’t she, maybe more than anybody, want the right person found?” His voice got a little high at the end.

  “I suspect you were, sadly, the first person she thought of when she wanted to point the finger away from what really happened.”

  “Because I’m a black man.”

  I blew a puff of air out of my lips. “Yeah, probably so.”

  Marcus’s muscles worked under his jaw, and I could tell he was angry, as he had every right to be. But he kept his cool. “So what do I do, Harvey? I don’t think it will help to confront her. It would probably make things worse.” He looked down at his shoes and then scuffed them against the carpet. “Do you think you could talk to her?”

  I had been thinking that very thing. “Yep. I can totally do that. Let me think about how though, okay? Now, you need to go take that amazing mother of yours out for lunch, don’t you think?”

  I looked over at the café, and Rocky was laughing at something Josie was saying. It looked like Mama Dawson had struck again with just the right intervention.

  3

  I couldn’t figure out what motivation Miranda Harris-Lewis would have for trying to frame Marcus, but I was determined to find out. I didn’t like that she’d messed with my friend, and I could feel my curiosity carrying me away.

  Sheriff Mason and Daniel both had warned me about sleuthing. The adage about curiosity and the cat had come up several times, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was just one of those people who always had questions. I wanted to know the filming locations for every movie I loved. I had IMDB bookmarked so I could see who was married to whom on my favorite TV shows. And if I heard a word I didn’t know, I went right to Dictionary.com to look it up. I hated unanswered questions, and I loved finding the answers. It was a delightful combination for a student and a useful one for a bookseller. It was, it turned out, a dangerous one for an amateur investigator.

  Still, I couldn’t be stopped, and I had a plan to figure out what Miranda Harris-Lewis was up to.

  Thus far, the children’s section in the shop was one of the most underutilized areas, and I really did want to change that. So I decided to solicit input from parents about what books and children’s activities might interest their families.

  I started with the parents I knew – namely Miranda Harris-Lewis – by sending out a FB message from our bookstore page asking for her input on our shop’s children’s programs. I had long ago learned that people love to be heard, and if you can give them a chance to give their perspective on something they know a lot about, they almost always jump at the chance. Miranda obviously knew a lot about her children and clearly was not shy about sharing her opinions, so I was hoping this tactic would work.

  And it did. Fast. Miranda, Maisy, and Daisy were in the store before three p.m. I gave the girls a couple of the newest Treehouse books and set them up in the café with chocolate milk, asking Rocky to let us know if they needed anything. I expected they’d be just fine since they were already engrossed in the stories as their mom and I walked away.

  Miranda was wearing jeans that I was fairly sure were ironed and a cardigan that looked so soft I had to resist touching, it both because that was weird and because I was certain my hands did not pass her standards of cleanliness. I felt pretty frumpy in my baggy jeans and knit-top that was supposed to be a dress for a much tinier person. Some days, I really did wish I cared about fashion.

  We sat in the chairs by the psychology section, and she said, “I’m so honored to have been solicited for my perspective on your store. I see so much that can be, well, improved here.”

  I blinked a few times, took a deep breath, and said, “Thank you for coming in.” Then, I steered the conversation to our specific focus and told her about our hopes to have regular children’s programs – a total truth – and our desire to involve local parents and grandparents in our ordering plans – another truth. She nodded and smiled politely before she pulled a four-page, single-spaced list of book titles she recommended we carry out of her purse.

  I stared at the pieces of paper for a long moment before I thought to say, “Thank you” again. The list was mostly books from the 1950s and ’60s, some classics – The Secret Garden was on there – but a lot of obscure older books, titles I didn’t even recognize and only knew the publication records of because Miranda had written each listing up as a full-on MLA citation, complete with publisher city, name, and date.

  A lot of people are nostalgic about books. We like to give children the books we loved ourselves as children, but these books predated Miranda by about twenty-five years, so I was puzzled. Another question to ponder . . . but not my top priority today.

  Suddenly – at least I hoped it seemed sudden – I threw my hand to my mouth and said, “Oh, Miranda. How insensitive of me.” I stood up and put the papers on the chair behind me as I knelt beside her. “I can’t believe I asked for your help with this on the day after your father died. I’m so callous and selfish.” I took her hand in mine. “I hope you can forgive me. We can pick this up another time.” I felt a little overdramatic. I had never in my life knelt at anyone’s feet, but she seemed unfazed by my mediocre acting.

  She gazed down at me and then gave me a bemused smile. “Oh, right. Don’t worry about that. Dad and I weren’t close.”

  You’d think that I, the woman who had just done everything she could to avoid spending a day with her own parents, would understand her perspective. But something about her tone gave me pause. It was too casual, maybe. At least I felt a little embarrassed about how much my parents infuriated me, but she was talking about her father with as much tenderness as she might show for the person who took her toll payment on the Golden Gate Bridge.

  I stood up and said, “Oh. Okay. Well, then.” I was very articulate when I was befuddled. But then I took a deep breath, sat back down, and realized I probably didn’t need to tread so lightly after all. “Still, I was sorry to hear he died.” I lowered my voice like I was a bit embarrassed by my nosiness and said, “Forgive me asking, but how did he die?”

  She said, at full volume, “He was murdered. They think it was poison in his nicotine gum. He was always chewing the stupid stuff, so it wouldn’t have been too hard to get it into him, I guess.” She was adjusting the pink bows on her jeans, trying to make them symmetrical, but it still sounded like she was talking about what she had for dinner last night.

  “Oh, poison. Gracious. I mean, I don’t know much about murder, but don’t they say that poison is what women use to commit murder and wouldn’t someone have to get pretty close to your dad to get poison in his gum? ”

  She looked up at
me then, but not with concern, more with piqued curiosity. “Is that what they say? On TV? Or is that an actual police practice?”

  I didn’t know how to answer her question, not only because it seemed like a strange thing to ask when someone had just suggested that your father was murdered by someone he knew . . . but also because I didn’t know the actual answer. I had picked up a fair amount of my knowledge about murder and murder investigations from TV shows, as the sheriff had noted, so I wasn’t that confident of my statement. But she didn’t know that. “Police lore. A friend of mine who is a profiler mentioned it.”

  Now, she was more than just curious. She was downright enthusiastic. “You have a friend who’s a profiler? Like on Criminal Minds? Do they live here? Can I meet them?” Her knees were bouncing, and she had moved to the edge of her seat.

  “Um, well, she likes to keep a low profile. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.” Darn right, I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have lied, and then I shouldn’t have compounded the lie with another lie. “Anyway, do you think someone who knew your dad poisoned him?”

  It took her a minute to answer, like she was trying to pay attention to what I was actually saying, but eventually, she said, “What, oh no. That kid who works here killed him.”

  Well, that got us right to the point. “What kid who works here?”

  “You know, the black one.”

  I sat perfectly still and just stared at her for a minute while she picked an invisible something off her sweater. I was dumbfounded. She had just called another person, a person I cared about, “the black one.” I wanted to ask her to leave my store, but only after I had a long talk with her daughters about how Mommy was a racist.

  I needed to get answers for Marcus. though, so instead, I gathered my thoughts and said, “You mean Marcus Dawson, my assistant manager? I would appreciate it you would refer to him as Mr. Dawson from now on.”

  Her eyes darted up to mine, and she gave her heard a little shake. “Well, he is black, isn’t he?”