Shayna sobered. “I didn’t buy a set. I just have these two.”
“Where did you get them from?” I asked, folding my arms in front of myself and moving closer to her.
She licked her lips. “They were given to me. They were a gift.”
“Who gave them to you?” I asked.
She frowned. “Why? What difference does it make?”
Christy came out from behind the counter and stood beside me.
“Because a murder victim ended up with a very similar pair of barrettes near her body,” Christy said. “That’s why she’s asking.”
Shayna’s eyes went wide. “I didn’t kill Hailey. Is that what you think?”
“Didn’t you?” I asked. “Maybe you were angry at her for setting you up and making you look foolish about that fake job offer at Betty Mays’ dress shop. And maybe you took it out on her.”
Her eyes got bigger. “How do you know about that?”
I shrugged. “Things get around town. I wouldn’t blame you for being angry at her. But I would blame you for murdering her.”
She shook her head and turned toward me fully. “I swear. I never touched Hailey. I wouldn’t do something like that. Sure, I was mad. Hailey was always doing stupid stuff like that, and I guess I should have known better than to fall for it. I was angry, and I told her I was done with her a few weeks before she died. I decided I had just had enough, but I never touched her.”
She looked sincere when she said it, but I was suspicious. “Where did you get the barrettes from?”
She swallowed. “Joey Harper. He gave them to me. I knew he had given Hailey the white pair, so I almost didn’t take them from him, but in the end, I did. I don’t know why.”
“You’re dating Hailey’s boyfriend?” Christy asked incredulously.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not dating him. He did ask me out, but I told him I would think about it. And then he gave me the barrettes. He said he got them from an online auction site. They’re vintage from the 1970s. I know they’re for little girls, but there’s something sweet about them, and I admired the ones that Hailey had.”
“So the white ones really did belong to Hailey?” I asked. We had made the assumption, but we didn’t know for sure.
She nodded. “Yes. She had a pair of white ones with poodles, and a pair of blue ones with cats.”
I glanced at Christy. “I think I want to go get a coffee now.” I turned back to Shayna. “Go ahead and keep dusting the shelves, Shayna. I’ll let Mom know we’re going to go get a coffee.”
Shayna nodded slowly and turned back to the shelf and started dusting it. I went to tell my mother that we were going to step out for a few minutes so that Linda could come up front and wait on customers.
Chapter Eighteen
“Where are we going?” Christy asked as we walked down the sidewalk.
“The shoe store,” I said.
“Joey Harper killed Hailey?”
I nodded. “Looks to me like he did.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Ethan. The phone rang and eventually went to voicemail. I hung up and stuck my phone back in my pocket.
“No answer?” she asked as we walked quickly down the sidewalk. She was dressed as Dora the Explorer and I was dressed as Minnie Mouse. In any other town, we would have looked ridiculous, but this was Pumpkin Hollow and we fit in perfectly.
“No answer,” I confirmed. “Maybe he’s in a meeting or something.” I was starting to breathe a little harder. We were walking as fast as we could without breaking into a run.
“What are we going to do?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But the shoe store is open right now. There’ll be other people there. Maybe we can just ask him a few questions and see what happens, and then give Ethan a call later.”
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s a public place, so it’s not like he could do anything if we did accuse him of murder.”
I glanced at her and chuckled. “We aren’t going to accuse him of murder. We can’t do that.” I knew better than to do that sort of thing, and the reason I knew better was that I’d done it a couple of times. Ethan didn’t appreciate it, and I told him I wouldn’t do it again. But we had just asked Shayna some pointed questions and had almost come out and accused her of it minutes ago.
“We really need to get to the gym,” Christy panted.
I chuckled. “The gym? Why do you say that?”
She shrugged. “Because we’ve only walked three blocks and we’re out of breath.”
“Speak for yourself. I am breathing perfectly normally.”
“Oh, the lies we tell ourselves. You hate exercise as much as I do, but one of these days a killer might chase after us and we will appreciate having gone to the gym. If we don’t go to the gym, we will really, really regret it someday.”
I glanced at her. My sister was over-thinking things.
“Dump the backpack. It will make the load lighter.”
“I can’t dump the backpack. It’s part of my costume.”
The shoe store was nine blocks away from the candy store, and by the time we got there, I regretted not getting in my car and driving us over. What were we thinking?
We paused at the door to catch our breath. Christy laughed at me. “So, you’re breathing normally, are you?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “All right, maybe you have a point about the gym. But we don’t have to go to the gym. We can just get out and do some walking around Pumpkin Hollow. As soon as fall gets here. I like being outdoors anyway during the fall with all the leaves turning colors.”
She nodded. “Sounds like a plan then.”
I pushed open the door and inhaled the scent of leather. There were two other customers in the store and we went over to the boot display to wait until they left.
“Still no sale,” Christy said and picked up the rust-colored suede boots she had looked at the other day. “I need these boots.”
“I’d like to have a couple of new pairs of shoes and boots,” I said, picking up a black suede pair of boots. They went to mid-calf and folded over and were a little slouchy.
“You’ve got a wedding to pay for, you can’t afford new boots,” she said. “But I don’t have a wedding to pay for.”
I looked at her. She was making sense now, and I didn’t appreciate it. “I know, no new boots until the wedding is over and done with. But you have a bridesmaid dress to pay for and new shoes for the wedding, so it’s not like you can just splurge on new boots.”
She shrugged and put the boot back. “Fine. Be a killjoy.”
“Have you gotten many of your things packed up? And did you give notice at your apartment?”
She nodded. “I gave notice and I’ve got nine boxes packed. It always surprises me how many boxes it takes to pack my belongings. I swear that I don’t have much stuff, but then the truth is told once everything goes into boxes.”
“You can say that again. Are you going to get a storage shed to put it in until Ethan moves out of his little house?”
She looked at me, a black suede oxford in her hand. “No, I think I’m going to store everything in Mom and Dad’s garage. I don’t think they’ll mind.”
I chuckled. “You don’t think they’ll mind.”
When Joey had finished waiting on his customers, he smiled at us and came over. “Hello, ladies,” he said with a nod. “Are you having second thoughts about buying those boots?”
I turned and smiled at him. “We would love to buy new shoes and boots. Actually, I’d love to buy several pairs of each, but I’ve got a wedding to pay for and she’s got a bridesmaid dress to pay for. We’re still waiting on the sale.”
“When will these boots go on sale?” Christy asked, indicating the rust suede boots.
He shrugged. “We don’t know very far ahead of time when the sales are going to run. About a week before the sale starts, they’ll let us know. I haven’t heard anything about those. Would you like me to get a pair of them in your si
ze from the back so you can try them on?”
Christy looked at me, grinning. “Why yes, why don’t you get them for me? I wear a size 6 1/2.”
He nodded and headed to the back room.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What are you doing?”
She shrugged. “I want to see if they feel good. If they don’t, there’s no use pining over them.”
She had a point. But I knew better than to try on any of the shoes. No way could I resist once I had them on my feet.
Joey was back in a minute with the boots. We went over to the chairs and sat down, and Christy removed her shoes.
He pulled the stuffing from the boots. “Here you go, try these on,” he said, handing her the box.
Christy slipped one of the boots on easily. “This feels wonderful.” Then she slipped on the other boot and stood up. “They feel really good. More comfortable than I had imagined.”
“We’ve had a lot of compliments on these boots,” he said. “They’re going to be very popular for fall.”
I eyed him. “Joey, how are you doing? You’ve been on my mind. I know losing Hailey had to be a terrible loss for you.”
He turned to me and frowned. “I still can’t get over it. She’s gone. I keep thinking I’m going to pick up the phone and call her, but then I remember she’s not here anymore.”
“It has to be incredibly hard,” Christy said, walking in a small circle near where I was still seated.
He nodded. “I never thought I would have to live through something like this. When you’re young, you don’t think about things like that.”
“That’s the truth,” I said sympathetically. But how broken up was he? He had already asked another girl out and given her similar barrettes to the ones he had given his deceased girlfriend. “You know what was odd?”
He looked at me and shook his head. “What’s odd?”
“When Hailey’s body was found, there was this cute little white plastic barrette found nearby. And then the matching barrette was found a week later. At first, we thought they probably belonged to a child who played on the playground, but then we realize that these were vintage barrettes and most kids today wouldn’t be wearing a pair like that. Isn’t that odd?”
He stared at me and swallowed. “Vintage barrettes?”
I nodded. “And then what’s even odder, is Hailey’s best friend, Shayna Gates, came to work for us at the candy store today and she was wearing a similar pair. But hers were yellow ducks, and Hailey’s were white poodles. They look like they probably belonged to the same set.”
He swallowed again and went pale. “I gave those barrettes to Hailey. I thought they were cute when I saw them on an auction site. And I gave a pair to Shayna, too.” He shrugged. “Hailey always liked vintage things, and I intended to give the yellow ones to her, but she died before they came in the mail. What else was I going to do with them?”
“You gave your girlfriend’s barrettes to another girl? Her best friend?” Christy asked. “And then you asked her out?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I guess I did. Like I said, what else was I going to do with them. Shayna’s just a friend. It wasn’t a date date. Just dinner.” He shrugged again.
“Did you also kill your girlfriend?” Christy asked. “Did you kill her so you could be with her best friend?”
I stared at Christy, but she ignored me.
“Are you out of your mind? I would never kill her.” His hands clenched into fists and his eyes went wide. “You know who killed her? It was Betty Mays. She couldn’t stand Hailey. I told Hailey to quit her job and stay away from her, but she wouldn’t do it. Or maybe it was her college professor. That guy is creepy. I don’t know who did it, but I know I didn’t.”
“Why should we believe you?” Christy asked.
“I guess you don’t have to believe me, but just because we argued once in a while doesn’t mean that I would kill her. Why would I? I don’t have a reason to kill her.”
“Because you thought she was fooling around with her professor,” I reminded him. “And he’s some old guy, and it hurt your pride to know she was doing that.”
His eyes went big, and he shook his head. “Look, I don’t really know that she was ever fooling around with her college professor. I just wanted her to stay away from him because he’s creepy. Those parties he had were creepy, too. But I never accused her of having an affair with him, and to my knowledge, she didn’t.”
I sat back in my chair, taking this in. Had we jumped to conclusions when he talked about Frank Gillespie? I’d been sure that he thought Hailey was having an affair with him.
He crossed his arms in front of himself. “Look, the only killer in this town is Betty Mays. She called Hailey and asked her to meet her at the park to look at their booth for the Vendors’ fair Thursday evening. Hailey was annoyed because it was her day off, but she went anyway. I worked late, and I didn’t expect to see her until the next day, but she never called me.”
“You really think Betty did it?” I asked, feeling a bit deflated. A minute ago I had been certain he had killed Hailey.
He shrugged. “Or maybe it was her college professor, like I said. Maybe he was hitting on her, and she refused him, and he killed her. I told that to the detective. He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”
I nodded. “Yes, he is.”
“Well, I was here at work the night she died. You can ask my boss. Not that it’s any of your business.”
I glanced at Christy. We’d forgotten to ask if he had an alibi or not.
Christy sat down in the chair and removed the boots, and put her shoes back on. “When these boots go on sale, I’ll be back in to get a pair.”
He snorted and shook his head. “I don’t care if you ever come back into this store again. Did I kill my girlfriend?” He shook his head. “You two are crazy.”
“Oh, don’t be that way. I need these boots,” she said. When she had her shoes on, we hurried to the door.
“Better find them at another store then. You aren’t welcome back here.” He grabbed the box of boots and stomped to the backroom.
“That didn’t go so well,” Christy said when we were outside on the sidewalk.
“You think?” I asked her.
We had just made another mistake. Ethan was going to have a fit if he found out what we’d done.
Chapter Nineteen
We stepped out onto the sidewalk and I turned back toward the candy store.
“Wait a minute, where are you going?” Christy asked.
I turned and looked at her. “Back to the candy store.”
“Why? The clothing store is only two blocks away, and it’s this direction,” she said, nodding her head down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.
“Christy, we’re not doing very well today. We practically accused two people of murder, and I’m reasonably sure that we were wrong. Actually, you did accuse Joey of murder. Besides, we’ve got to get back to work.”
“What do you mean get back to work? We just eliminated two suspects. The odds are in our favor.” She stubbornly crossed her arms in front of herself. It was cute, her being dressed as Dora.
I groaned. “Christy, Ethan’s going to have a fit if we go down there and accuse Betty Mays of killing Hailey. Besides, she’s mean. She isn’t going to let us walk away if we’re wrong.”
“Now, we won’t tell Ethan unless she really is the killer. Then we’ll tell him and he can arrest her. He’ll thank us for doing his job for him.”
I looked at her incredulously. “Are you out of your mind? Ethan does not want us running around accusing people of murder.”
She shrugged. “Possibly. But I’m also on the trail of a killer. Don’t give up now. Good things come to those who wait.”
“Good, let’s wait for the police.”
“Wait, that was the wrong idiom. It’s supposed to be something about people who don’t give up receive the prize. I know I heard something like that somewhere.”
I chuckled. My siste
r could always make me laugh, but going after one more suspect today might be the death of us. Literally. “I think it’s a bad idea.”
“I know, I know. But look on the bright side. We could help put Hailey’s killer behind bars. Justice is calling.”
I may have thought it was a bad idea, but I walked with her down the street toward the clothing store anyway. What if it was true? What if Betty Mays really had killed Hailey Strong? Yes, we should have allowed the police to handle this, but the temptation to catch a killer was too great.
I sighed.
“Sometimes I like bad ideas,” Christy confided as we walked.
“No, really?” I said sarcastically.
“Hard to believe, but true nonetheless.”
My phone rang, and I pulled it from my pocket. It was Ethan. “Hey,” I said answering it.
“Hey yourself. I saw I missed your call. What did you want?”
Uh-oh. Now I had to come up with a story. “Oh, I was just checking to see how you were. How are you?”
“I’m great. Still working on the case and hoping to have a break shortly.”
I stopped. “You’re hoping to have a break shortly? Like today?”
“Well, you never can tell when a break is going to present itself.”
“Okay, so nothing definite.”
Christy and I started walking down the sidewalk again.
“Wow, that’s not very supportive,” he said, chuckling. “What are you up to?”
“Right now? At this very moment?”
“Yes, right now at this very moment. Why are you talking like that?”
I shrugged, but of course, he couldn’t see me over the phone. “I have a hunch about Betty Mays. What about the security cameras at the park? I know they don’t point to the playground, but they do point to the parking lot, don’t they?”
“Yeah, there are cameras on the parking lot. Why?”
“Who all came to the park that day that Hailey died?”
He chuckled. “Everyone. It was the two nights before the vendors’ fair so there were the construction workers, people from the City Council, and lots and lots of vendors going to check out their booths. Why?”
Pumpkin Spice Lies: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 16 Page 10
