by Ami Diane
Her thoughts elsewhere, she was just about to continue her trek, when the door next to Oyster Bay Realty opened.
Marge stepped out, wearing a leopard print dress. Her face lit up when she noticed Libby like they were old friends. Discovering a dead body together had that effect on people, she guessed.
“Looks like you discovered the bakery.”
“That I have.” Libby had forgotten her cookie in her talk with Steve. To be polite, she offered up part of the treat but was secretly grateful when Marge turned it down. She gestured with the cookie at the door the older woman had just exited. “Doing a little bit of shopping?”
“Nope. This is my shop.” Pride buoyed Marge’s voice.
Squinting up, Libby read the sign aloud. “Mother Nature’s Apothecary.”
“I’m a traditional naturopath of sorts… not a licensed ND.” She threw out the last bit with practiced ease like she’d had this conversation many times over.
“Huh. So… not a doctor?” Libby wasn’t too familiar with the medical world, not unless her five trips to the ER counted.
“No, not a doctor.” Marge’s cheeks flushed. “I’m an apothecary. Hence the name of the shop. We sell supplements and homemade remedies and elixirs.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Judging by the defensive tone in the woman’s voice, the topic struck a nerve, and she seemed accustomed to having to explain herself. Libby took a large bite of cookie to fill the awkward silence before alternating to the latte.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get that ginger root. I would’ve gotten some for you this morning, but that Adonis of a deputy said the whole greenhouse was part of the crime scene.” She paused as a thought struck her. “Hey, if I cross that tape, do you think he’d arrest me?” She winked salaciously at Marge, lifting the mood considerably.
After much insisting, Libby followed Marge into the apothecary shop. The heady scent of herbs and spices greeted her. Shelves upon shelves were lined with jars filled with dried herbs, essential oils, supplements, and other products. A young gal in a black ponytail and yoga pants sat at a cashier’s desk. When they walked past, she paused mid-filing of her nails to greet Libby.
“This is Julie,” Marge said, introducing the clerk. “She, uh, helps out part-time.”
Julie snapped her fingers as if she’d just remembered something. “Speaking of, Mike called.”
“Mike… Sampson? Smith?”
Julie’s eyes widened. “I’m not sure. The one with the…” She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a very loud whisper. “…you-know-what after you-know…” Her bulbous eyes magnified further, and she settled back in her seat satisfied at having delivered her message.
“Diarrhea after eating gluten?” Marge supplied.
The clerk nodded.
Libby puffed her cheeks with a breath. “That’s so much better than what I was guessing.” To Julie, she said, “I bet you’re great at charades.”
If she’d heard Libby, Julie didn’t let on, already engrossed in filing her nails again. Marge nudged Libby and motioned towards a door that opened into a hallway.
As they stepped into the corridor, the phone rang behind them. Its ringing continued as Marge led her to a small office. The noise faded and eventually stopped either because the person had given up or Julie had answered on the sixth ring.
“She seems… nice,” Libby said, finally settling on the least offensive adjective she could think of.
“She’s sweet.” Then, Marge added, “Even if she’s ambivalent towards her job and a few donuts shy of a dozen.”
“Nothing makes a better worker than someone not wanting to be here.” Libby slurped her coffee, eyeing the apothecary over the brim of her lid.
“Sarcasm?”
Libby nodded.
They sat in silence a moment, scrutinizing each other. If anyone knew where Arlene might have hidden her secret, it would be Marge.
For some reason, doubts and questions swirled in Marge’s eyes as well. What could the apothecary possibly be wondering about her?
Libby cleared her throat and picked off a cookie crumb from her sweatshirt. She gestured broadly at the window sill behind Marge. “You must like cats, especially glass ones.”
“Can’t stand the things.”
Libby’s mouth formed an “O.”
“But it’s about the only thing QVC is selling right now. Want one?”
“That’s sweet of you, but it seems I have my own recently acquired collection at home to contend with, thanks.” Libby stifled a yawn. “I’m sorry. I’m not sleeping well.”
“Really?” Marge shot up much faster than anyone her age should be allowed to. Reaching into her handbag, she retrieved a semi-rusty skeleton key and stabbed it into the lock of an ancient-looking cabinet behind Libby.
Craning her head around, Libby spied vials and vials of liquid, ranging in colors from neon green to fuchsia. A few even seemed to give off a faint glow. The bottom shelves were taken up by containers with scrawling labels, loose bits of garlic and other dried herbs, and several mortars and pestles.
Before Libby could get a good look at a bottle with a skull and crossbones on it, Marge slammed the door shut and locked it, holding aloft a bottle of capsules.
“Take a couple of these while standing on your head before you go to bed tonight.”
Libby blinked at her several times before slowly grabbing the bottle and thanking the woman.
“Do you get many regular customers?”
“A few. We get your standard headaches, backaches, and digestion issues, with the occasional serious case. I’m seeing a woman right now who has cancer.”
Libby swallowed, picking over her next words carefully. “But she is seeking other treatment, too, right?”
“Oh, yes! Yes, of course. She’s going to an oncologist. I insisted on it. I’m merely a health consultant, here to manage her pain, enhancing her health so she can take advantage of the time she has left.
“Don’t get me wrong. I believe in holistic remedies and alternative medicine. But I also believe in Western medicine and pharmaceuticals.”
Loud, angry voices echoed down the hallway. Both Libby and Marge bolted for the door, reaching it at the same time. They performed one of those awkward dances of social etiquette, saying, “After you” and “No, no. After you.”
When the voices turned to shouts, Libby forced Marge out first and followed hot on her heels. A strange sight met them when they reached the shop.
Julie’s back was to them, barring their exit from the corridor while simultaneously barring entrance to it. She brandished an umbrella like it was an ax and she was Paul Bunyan.
“My brother taught me how to defend myself!” she warned two men.
Libby had to do a double take to be sure they weren’t twins based on their identical trench coats and fedoras. Upon closer inspection, there was nothing in their features or height to support this theory. That meant the two had intentionally chosen to dress like extras from the movie Newsies. What was this world coming to?
Shouldering Julie aside, Marge barged into the room. “What’s going on in here?”
The assistant’s voice quivered when she spoke, but her stance remained stalwart. “These two insisted on speaking with you, and I told them to shove it.”
Libby edged into the room, as much to back Julie up as to get out of the path of her umbrella.
The shorter of the two men pulled out a handheld camera and aimed it at Marge. “Is it true you were the one to discover John Waters’s body?”
Marge’s face turned a dangerous shade of purple. “Out.”
“The press has a right to know, Marge.”
“Get out, Marty.” She motioned the short, squirrelly-looking journalist towards the door. “You too, Richard.”
The taller reporter tilted back his hat, sizing the apothecary up. “Or what? You’ll cast one of your spells on me?” His eyes darted sideways to both Libby and Julie. “She’s a witch, you know
.”
“I don’t know,” Libby said. “She’s been pretty nice to me so far.”
Rich glowered at her. One of his eyebrows, as thick as a caterpillar, crawled up his forehead. “I’ve never seen you before.”
“You’re very observant. I just moved here.”
He sneered, revealing pearly white teeth. “I hope you like witchcraft then, because the place is crawling with the lot of ‘em. Of course, not if we have anything to say about it.” He jerked his head back, indicating the reporter cowering near the door who seemed to want to be anywhere else but there.
“We’re just after the truth,” the man called Marty said, almost apologetically.
Straightening the collar on his trench coat, Richard cleared his throat. A button pinned to his lapel caught the wan light from the window, and Libby made out the letters “A-W-C.”
“Someday,” Richard growled, “the world will know the truth about the women of Oyster Bay.”
“That they’re great cooks?” Marge asked.
The tall journalist seethed, flecks of spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. With an abrupt turn, he stormed out of Mother Nature’s Apothecary.
A tense silence settled, quickly broken by Libby.
“He seems nice. One of those laid-back, down-to-earth types.”
Marge shrugged. “His articles in the Oyster Tribune are as dry as his steaks at the annual cookout.”
“Don’t worry,” Julie said, resting one of her hands on her boss’s shoulder while the one holding the umbrella knocked a cluster of cinnamon bark off a nearby shelf. “Nobody believes that stuff anyway. Magic and sorcery and whatnot.”
“About as believable as Bigfoot,” Libby agreed, adding her encouragement.
“Oh, Bigfoot’s real.” Julie’s luminous eyes widened, reminiscent of Orchid.
Libby covered her chuckle with a cough when she realized the clerk was serious.
“I saw a Bigfoot crossing the highway a few months back,” she insisted, flipping back her black ponytail.
“You sure that wasn’t one of the Wilson brothers?” Marge bent and replaced the cinnamon bark. “They’ve got more hair than skin.”
“Must be nice in this weather,” Libby said.
“Just don’t shave your legs,” Marge suggested.
After saying goodbye, Libby stepped outside. Remnants of her cookie still decorated her sweatshirt like the bedazzled sweater Marge had worn the day before.
She tossed her empty coffee cup into a nearby trashcan then strolled back towards her Honda. Two steps later, her mind churning, she swiveled and crossed the street, following a hunch.
CHAPTER 3
LIBBY STEPPED INSIDE the business creatively titled, Realty of Oyster Bay as opposed to Mr. Waters’s Oyster Bay Realty directly across the street. She was greeted by the scent of room deodorizer and the clacking of a keyboard.
She closed the distance to the front desk in two steps. “Hi, I’m looking—”
A receptionist held up her manicured finger. She had a cell phone glued to her ear, using her shoulder to keep it in place while one hand typed and the other continued to stave off Libby. “No way! What’d he say to her?”
Libby arched an eyebrow and begrudgingly admired the woman’s dexterity. Off to the side, an office door stood open, and a female in business attire bustled about inside. Thinking her chances of getting help better in that direction, Libby strolled into the office.
“Knock, knock.”
The woman paused mid-riffle through a stack of documents. “Can I help you?”
Thick swaths of purple shadow adorned her lids beneath overly plucked eyebrows. Her frizzy hair was teased and styled in a way that would’ve made Cyndi Lauper envious. Then, she wondered if the singer was still performing and what had ever happened to her.
“Are you looking to buy or sell?” the woman asked when Libby had taken too long to respond.
“Oh, um. Sell, I guess? But not right away.” She explained how she’d just bought Arlene’s place.
“The Castillo house?” The woman dropped her files and shot her hand forward for a hearty shake, her lips spreading in a sickly sweet smile. “Stacy Blackwood, at your service. I’ve been trying to get my hands on that real estate for years, but Arlene never wanted to sell. Then, she up and dies, and that snake of a man snipes it from under me.” She paused for a breath.
“How inconvenient for you. You know, Mr. Waters is dead, right?”
“I heard something like that.”
“Word of advice? You might want to feign sympathy, or at least don’t smile like a shark when people tell you that. Otherwise, they might think you had something to do with his death.” Libby couldn’t help her acerbic tone. The woman seemed one step of evolution away from a vulture. A lawyer, Libby thought, might have been a better line of work for Ms. Blackwood.
Stacy waved the comment aside, shoving a business card into Libby’s hands. “When you’re ready to offload that dump, call me.”
“It’s not a dump.” Sure the place needed a few coats of paint, a trip to the actual dump, and a plumber who knew how to remove sinks from living rooms. Also, maybe an exorcist for the relocating bed. But it wasn’t a dump.
Libby walked out, a bitter taste in her mouth and an even worse impression of John’s competition. As she wandered back to her car, she tossed Stacy’s business card into the first available trashcan.
Libby stood in her kitchen, holding one of her shoes up like a weapon as she stared out into her backyard. There was definitely somebody out there, in broad daylight no less. She’d glimpsed a figure ducking under the crime scene tape and behind the greenhouse a moment before.
Her heart pounding, she made sure she had her phone in one hand, ready to call 9-1-1 if need be, then she tiptoed out onto the cool grass. Her first thought was that the trespasser was an officer. It would make sense, considering the circumstances. However, there’d been no car, unmarked or otherwise, in the circular driveway out front.
Stealing across the lawn, one shoeless foot getting soaked with every other step, she plunged around the corner of the greenhouse and hollered, “Freeze!”
The figure spun at the sound of her voice and drew a gun faster than she devoured cake.
“Ms. Slade, are you trying to get yourself killed?” Deputy Jackson lowered his weapon, perhaps a little too slowly for her liking.
Libby lowered her shoe. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? What are you doing sneaking around here, anyhow?”
“I wasn’t sneaking.” His chest stuck out, and Libby noted he wore plain clothes, dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans like herself. “I felt bad that you couldn’t use your greenhouse, so I made sure all the documentation from last night was good. I came out to move the tape. You still can’t go into the grass, but at least you can access this structure now.”
“That’s very kind of you, thanks.” Much of her fight evaporated. “When I didn’t see a car then saw someone in the yard, I thought it was an intruder.”
“I live just over there,” he said, pointing at the tree line abutting the back of the property.”
“Wait, we’re neighbors?” Libby hopped on one foot as she struggled to put her shoe back on.
“Don’t sound so thrilled.” He offered an arm, his mouth twitching with amusement. “Let me get this straight. You thought you had an intruder, and your first weapon of choice was… a shoe?”
“A Sketchers shoe,” she corrected as if that was somehow better.
“Didn’t you come through the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“With all the knives?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” She did.
Both shoes back in their proper places, she straightened and smoothed out an invisible wrinkle in her sweatshirt. How were there still cookie crumbs in the folds?
She sniffed. “I met some of the local color.”
“Namely…?”
He was standing awfully close, she thought, enou
gh for her to catch a whiff of aftershave on the ocean breeze and see that scar bisecting his brow. “Two goons from the local paper.”
“The Oyster Tribune.”
“Sounds like a newsletter for a seafood club.”
“It’s a rag, but occasionally, they’ll print a good story. Mostly, it makes for good lining in bird cages.”
“Considering I just inherited a bird, thanks for the tip.”
He finished relocating the crime scene tape so that it ran the length of the decorative fence. She waited until he’d disappeared into the giant pine forest, not wanting him to see how eager she was, before she plunged into the greenhouse.
It was the only section of property she had yet to search, and that included the dusty, cob-web filled attic. Her heart sank slightly when she surveyed the frost-colored, polycarbonate structure. It was silly to hold a sliver of hope she’d find what she was looking for in there. She’d already been inside and had seen nothing but plants and gardening tools.
Inside, the greenhouse was humid and smelled of baking earth. She made quick work of sifting through the shelves in the corner, finding nothing but pots, fertilizer, watering cans, and a myriad of shears and digging utensils.
Next, she attacked the potting table beside the shelves but found nothing more than soil, fertilizer, and more gloves. Smearing her sweaty forehead with her dirt-covered hand, she stretched her back and stared the length of the aisles. Unless Arlene had buried her secret in the dirt, it wasn’t here.
Libby kicked the rocks that served as ground cover, muttering curses under her breath. So, that was that. It really had been for nothing. She needed to regroup.
Her stomach protested at having been neglected, and she realized that, save for the cookie, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Frustrated, she stomped back to the house and cooked an early dinner of boxed macaroni and cheese.
While she sat at the table, overlooking her backyard, she contemplated her situation. Guilt pulled at her chest as she realized that she was being selfish. A man had died out there, on her property. A man who had family, and she knew what that loss felt like.
