by Amy Lillard
“I signed the lease this morning,” he said. “I came by to tell you that the locksmith will be here first thing tomorrow morning to rekey the third-floor door.”
Perfect. Now she would get to see both exes every morning. Life was good.
“Okay.”
“You don’t seem very enthusiastic,” he commented.
She shook her head. “Chloe.”
“I understand.”
Arlo sighed. “I’m trying to take care of her cat—who by the way has separation anxiety—along with a bird that keeps calling him over, as if he wants to get eaten.”
Sam chuckled. “Tell you what. Let me get my desk and files moved in, and I’ll keep Chloe’s cat.”
“Really?” It was the best news she had heard all day. It might take a bit for Sam to get moved in, but surely she could stand a couple more days living with the orange beast.
“Sure.”
Arlo eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you being so nice?”
“I wasn’t nice before?”
“Well, yeah. But not now. I mean, is there an ulterior motive to your offer?”
He propped his hands on those slim, denim-clad hips and eyed her right back. “Way to put it all out there, Arlo.”
“Are you going to answer?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’re going to answer—or yes, you have ulterior motives?”
“Both. Have dinner with me.”
Arlo took a step back. He had broken her heart once. She wasn’t going to let it happen again. “I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both,” she answered.
“Heavens to Betsy.” It was Helen. “That girl.”
“Go out with him,” Fern hissed in a stage whisper, easily heard by anyone on the second floor.
“You know I’m going to keep asking,” Sam said. “And they’re all backing me up.” He gestured to the ladies, who nodded happily.
Arlo rolled her eyes. “And I’m just going to keep saying no.”
* * *
“You are the most stubborn child I have ever known,” Helen said once Sam had left.
Arlo shrugged. Do not engage. It was the best way. How could she explain to her godmother that Sam asking her out would be like her asking Mads on a date? Those ships had sailed and sunk. There was no going back to that port. Or whatever sailing analogy was appropriate. It wasn’t going to happen.
“Go away! Go away!” Faulkner screeched.
Arlo looked up from sorting through the box of second-hand romance novels that she’d had stored on the third floor. Anything she could do to help Sam get settled in and take Augie off her hands.
She had thought she would donate the lot to the nursing home but worried some might be a little racy for the residents. On further inspection she had been glad that she had made the choice to look them over. A few were a little questionable for the over-ninety crowd. But she was having a heck of a time finishing the chore. Auggie was in rare form this afternoon.
“Help,” Faulkner continued. “Go away.”
She jumped to her feet and raced over to his cage. Auggie let out a bloodcurdling “yeow” as he hung from the bottom two wires, his paws hooked in between. Faulkner alternately begged for assistance and pecked at the cat’s toes.
Halfway to his cage, she felt something slither down her front. She didn’t have time to register what it was before it fell to the ground with a small thud. Midstep toward yet another kitty rescue, Arlo kicked the object toward the bird’s cage. Auggie, not one to miss a pouncing opportunity, released his hold on the cage and dove after the small, wayward thing. His efforts pushed it under the fabric cover that surrounded the stand where Faulkner’s cage sat.
Arlo stopped.
“What was that?” Camille asked.
It could only be one thing. “Nothing,” she lied.
“That was a big noise for nothing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t hear anything.” Why hadn’t she put the jewelry box in her purse when she’d had the chance? Because she hadn’t had the chance with all the book club murder investigation that had been going on when she got back from the police station. And then she had simply forgotten to take it out of her shirt. Well, the truth was she wanted to forget about it, so she chose to ignore its existence.
“I heard it too,” Helen said.
Arlo opened her mouth to deny the existence of the one clue that could surely put Chloe away for life when Auggie batted it out from under the table cover. The small velvet box slid to a stop next to Camille’s rose-colored Nike running shoes.
Fern gasped.
“What is it?” Helen asked.
Camille retrieved the little purple box and held it up for the others to see, then snapped it open. One blaming, damning earring winked back at them.
“Is that what I think it is?” Fern breathed.
“If you think it’s the mate to the earring that Jason found upstairs, then I would say yes,” Helen said.
“Where did it come from?” Camille turned it from side to side to allow the light to catch the large diamond.
Arlo cleared her throat. “My shirt. I had it in my shirt.” She plucked the box from Camille’s fingers, then started to turn it in much the same way. Something about the diamond was mesmerizing.
“And you’ve had it all this time?” Helen asked.
“Couldn’t you have found a better place to carry it?” Fern frowned.
“Where did you get that?” Camille demanded.
Arlo sighed. “I found it in Chloe’s bungalow.”
“What? Where?”
“That can’t be hers.”
“I know.” Arlo snapped the box shut and tucked it back inside her shirt. She didn’t want to chance it being in her purse and out of sight for most of the day even though the cat had been let out of the bag, so to speak.
She looked to Auggie, who sat on his haunches and started to groom himself as if his work there was done.
The shop doorbell rang and Arlo whirled around, a bit guiltily.
Once again Sam was invading her personal space. Or at least it seemed that way.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Wh-what?”
“You put something in your shirt after showing the book club. I’m a member of the book club. What was it?”
“What are you doing back here?” Arlo countered.
“I came to remind you that the locksmith will need the old keys in order to change the lock. Not sure why. Maybe to prove it’s your place?”
“In Sugar Springs?” she asked.
“Right.” He nodded. “So what is it?”
“Tell him, love.”
No. And Way.
“I don’t think—”
“It’s the earring. The mate to the one the police found.” Fern nodded with a satisfied smile.
“Hush, Fern. You have a big mouth,” Helen admonished.
“I think he needs to know. He’s right. He’s part of the book club too.” Fern crossed her arms, content with her position and not moving from it.
A wave of curiosity and something she couldn’t name washed across his handsome features, but in a second it was gone, only to be replaced by a look of genuine interest and care. “Where’d you get it?”
Arlo shook her head. “I don’t want to say.”
“Chloe’s?” he asked, though the one word was far from a question. It was as if he already knew.
Arlo gasped, then shook her head with more force. But it was too late to deny it now. “Lucky guess.”
“I’m a private dick.”
“I wouldn’t go around telling just anyone that.” She snorted.
He shot her a look.
“It’s not Chloe’s,” Arlo
said. “Obviously.”
“Okay.”
“That’s why I can’t take it to Mads.”
“So you’re withholding evidence?” he asked.
Arlo threw up her arms and stalked away. “Not you, too.” For lack of anything else to do, she started herself a cup of coffee in the Keurig. She missed her partner, missed the laughs and the fancy coffee drinks.
“Everyone else thinks you should turn it in to Mads?” Sam asked.
“Just Chloe,” Arlo sighed.
“We hadn’t gotten there yet,” Helen added.
Arlo whirled toward the reading area where they were all sitting. “You guys too?”
They nodded in unison.
“Fine. I’ll take it to Mads. But it makes Chloe look guilty.”
“But she’s not, love,” Camille said. “And we are going to prove it.”
Helen nodded. “Now get your butt down to the police station before Mads comes up here and arrests you too.”
* * *
Arlo stepped into the well-lit lobby at the police station and blinked to allow her eyes to adjust. There was plenty of light in the room, but it wasn’t bright at all compared to the blazing Mississippi sun.
Frances wasn’t at her desk, so Arlo went back toward Mads’s office.
He had been in there the other day talking to Sam. She had been surprised to see them together. After all, they were old nemeses. But it seemed they had let bygones be bygones.
“I need to get out more,” she muttered and knocked on his office door.
“Come in.”
She let herself in, then stopped, all her confidence gone. Was what she was about to do going to seal Chloe’s ill fate?
“Hey, Arlo.”
She nodded. “Mads.”
“You need something?”
“I, uh…I’ve been feeding Chloe’s cat, Auggie.”
Mads nodded and settled in, as if he expected her story to be filled with unnecessary information and he might as well get comfortable.
“He knocked over some things and I found this.” Her hand trembled as she set the little purple box on the scarred wood of his desk. It looked so out of place there next to a natural rock paperweight and a leather blotter. All this masculinity and one delicate velvet box.
One incriminating velvet box.
Mads looked at it, looked at her, and then opened the drawer to his left. He pulled out a pair of latex gloves and opened the lid.
“Where was it?” he asked.
“Under the couch. There was… Auggie knocked over the plant and I used the hose to suck up the dirt. I thought it was a cat toy.”
“So you touched it.”
She nodded.
“Anyone else?”
She grimaced. “Maybe Camille.”
“Camille?”
“Sorry.” Please don’t ask me to explain. “But no one else. Not since I’ve had it.”
He looked up and pinned her with one of those hard stares of his. “How long have you had it?”
“I found it last night.”
Mads closed his eyes. “If you find anything else, bring it to me immediately.”
“Right.”
“And tell those ladies of yours that they need to stop snooping around. No one wants Chloe to be innocent more than I do, but the evidence is the evidence.”
“The ladies?” she asked.
“Your little book club thing. They’ve been asking questions around town. Inna came in today and complained that Helen questioned her incessantly the entire meal at the inn. That’s harassment.”
Arlo sighed. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You do that.”
Arlo started for the door.
“And, Arlo?” Mads called. She stopped with her hand on the knob. “That no snooping rule goes for you too.”
* * *
Arlo fumed all the way back to the bookstore. Who did he think he was telling her not to snoop into her best friend’s case? What kind of friend would she be if she didn’t snoop? Not a very good one as far as Arlo was concerned. If she had been accused of murder and she had been the one arrested, she would hope that Chloe would be looking for the truth to buy her freedom.
“What’s wrong?” Helen asked as she stormed back into the store.
“Mads,” she growled. “He told me to stop snooping around. You too.”
“My goodness,” Camille gasped.
“I didn’t think we did anything wrong.” Fern looked to the others for confirmation.
“Apparently Inna complained to him this morning about her supper at the inn.”
“I oughta go straighten him out,” Helen said, pushing back her shirtsleeves.
“Hold on,” Arlo told her. “There’s no need for you to do that.”
“There most certainly is,” Helen argued. “Inna was the one who brought up the subject last night, talking about the reading of the will today and intellectual property. Whatever that means.”
“It means the rights to Wally’s work,” Arlo said.
“Wouldn’t that go to Daisy?” Camille asked. “She is his wife.”
“It would unless he’s designated someone else to get the rights.” Arlo tried to explain the little she knew on the subject.
“Like Inna?” Helen said.
“Or Chloe,” Camille added.
“Did you know that Chloe’s father’s business is in trouble?” Arlo asked.
A round of nods went around the room.
“Why am I always the last to know?” Arlo groused.
“Because you only cut your hair three times a year,” Camille explained.
Arlo lifted a hand to her waist-length tresses. Her hair was long, dark, and straight, a throwback to the sixties. It seemed you could take the girl out of the hippie commune, but you couldn’t take the hippie commune out of the girl. Her hair had looked like this since she was four years old. She saw no reason to change that now. “That’s all it needs.” But seriously, she needed to hang out at Dye Me a River. It seemed the salon was better than a newspaper. Maybe she should start getting her nails done…
“Mads seems to think that’s another piece of evidence against Chloe,” Arlo said.
“That she would kill Wally to get her father some money?” Helen shook her head. “She loves that boy. She always has.”
And Arlo was afraid that she always would. In jail or out, even beyond the grave. “So what do we do now?”
Helen shot her an innocent smile. “Come to supper tonight. We can talk about it then.”
13
“Fancy seeing you here.” Arlo pasted on a smile as she met Sam in the front yard of the Sugar Springs Inn.
Helen had bought the building that housed the inn after her husband died from pancreatic cancer. He worked for the railroad and the insurance payout was good. She overhauled the house, painted it herself, inside and out, and the Sugar Springs Inn was born. To Arlo it was home. At least the home she had known the longest.
Arlo’s parents still breezed through Sugar Springs from time to time, and her brother liked to come every year for the strawberry festival, but other than that, Helen was her family.
Family she was going to strangle if she didn’t stop trying to set her up with her high school sweetheart. She wasn’t even sure sweetheart was the right word.
“I think Helen is trying to get us back together.” Arlo made an apologetic face. At least she hoped it looked that way. Together they made their way up the walk to the large wraparound porch.
Sam laughed. “I thought I might be the only one who noticed.”
Arlo shook her head. “I noticed all right.”
“Would that be so bad?” he asked as he opened the door for her.
Would it? She would have to give it some thought, but she was saved
from answering as Camille met them at the door. She held a glass of something in one hand and motioned them in with the other. “Come on in. Helen’s made drinks.”
Arlo eyed her glass. “I thought you couldn’t drink because of your heart medication.”
“Poppycock,” Camille said. “Fern, can you whip up something for Arlo to drink?”
“And Sam too,” he joked.
“I don’t drink anymore,” Fern said, a glass of amber liquid in one hand. Her drink didn’t look mixed; it looked lethal. Single malt, aged twenty years lethal. “But I don’t drink any less.”
Everyone laughed.
The whole group was packed into the front common area of the inn. It was the largest room in the house, connected to the dining room and for the guests to enjoy. And they appeared to be enjoying it all right. Inna was there, along with Daisy, the book club members, and the inn’s other guests—Ty Daniels who graduated the year after she and Sam. He’d become a state senator. And Frankie Dell who…well, no one was sure what Frankie did for a living but since it was suspected he had New York and Chicago connections, no one dared to ask.
“Here you go, sweetie.” Helen handed her a drink with a quick wink.
Arlo took one look at the dark amber liquid and resisted the urge to pour it into the nearest potted plant. But what had the plant ever done to her? The drink looked like a straight shot of sour mash whiskey. Hopefully nothing higher proof. “I’m not sure—”
Helen patted her arm and put a stop to her. “Oh, you’re going to love this.”
Arlo eyed it skeptically.
“Drink up,” Helen said. She raised her glass in toast.
“Za vashe zdorovie!” Inna raised her glass and drained what was inside. Not willing to be outdone by her deceased husband’s assistant, Daisy did the same. She winced as the liquid slid down her throat. When Arlo was told to come to supper, she had no idea they meant to have a party.
She took a cautious sniff of her drink, then another. It didn’t smell strong.
“Here, Sam. This is a special drink for you.” It was amber like the one Arlo had in her hand. So what made it special?
“Take it easy on that,” Camille teased. “You don’t want to wake up in the morning with a lampshade on your head.”
“I don’t?” he asked.
