by Mel McCoy
“Solid alibi,” Sarah said.
“Grandpa,” Emma pleaded, “he could have just told you that so he has a solid alibi.”
“His bakery was closed,” Larry said. “And his car was gone. I even saw a picture today that Henry texted to me.” Larry pulled out his phone and quickly brought up the picture. “Boy’s taller than Henry now. And roughly fifty people were at the party and would have seen him.”
Sarah smiled. “That’s an iron-clad alibi if I’ve ever heard one.”
Emma slumped in her chair.
“Still…” Sarah started, then took her fork to her small piece of brownie, saving the cake for last.
Emma sat up. “Go on…”
“Well, I was just thinking about what Henry Fudderman said.”
“About?”
“About what Patricia said.”
“Oh, how’s Patty doing?” Larry asked.
Sarah ignored her grandpa. “As you might know, she’s a tenant of John Jacobs—”
“Oh yeah, she is,” said Larry, face now buried in the fridge.
“—and last week, Henry was at her Tea Room and overheard her say that she’d clobber Jacobs over the head with her cane next chance she got.”
“Because of the rent increase?” Emma asked.
“That, and I heard he also insulted her cookies. Said they were a bit too dry for his taste.”
“She can be a bit defensive when it comes to harsh critiques of her baked goods or tea. But she’s a sweetheart,” Larry said, closing the refrigerator.
“It’s a facade,” Emma said.
“Normally, I’d disagree with you,” Sarah said, “but she has a solid motive, and unlike Henry Fudderman, no alibi.”
“Not that you know of,” Larry said.
“Of course.”
“How do you know about all this stuff, anyway? Alibis and motives and the like?”
“Maybe from hanging around Adam every summer.”
Larry nodded. “Right.”
“Anyway,” Sarah said to no one in particular, “we should go talk to Patricia tomorrow.”
In the middle of eating another brownie, Larry stopped abruptly. “I don’t think you should.”
“Why not?”
“Let the police do their jobs. As far as we know, it was an accident. That’s what everyone has been saying.”
Sarah considered what her grandpa said. Perhaps she was jumping the gun, most likely being egged on by her cousin. Still, the whole thing seemed suspicious. Something was going on, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She decided to compromise, not wanting to rock the boat too much.
“Fine,” Sarah said. “I’ll call Adam tomorrow and tell him what I heard. Then I’ll leave this whole thing alone.”
“Sarah, c’mon,” Emma said. “The police will let the perp slip right through their fingers…”
“Listen to your cousin,” Larry said to Emma. “Focus on finding Winston’s rightful owners, and let the police handle the serious matters.”
Sarah noted Larry’s unusually serious tone coming out again. She didn’t like this side of her grandpa—preferring his whimsical side—but in this case, she was glad for the backup.
Emma picked up her fork, finally taking a bite of her soft chocolate chip brownie. “Well, one thing I know for sure is that we are all going to have belly aches tonight.”
“At least our belly aches won’t be a mystery,” Sarah said with a chuckle. Though, she couldn’t help but let what they had been talking about swirl around in her mind. Off to her left, Rugby, Winston, and Misty continued to play, ignorant to what was transpiring in the human world.
Of course, the John Jacobs incident was likely an accident, and the idea of Patricia Greensmith murdering him was absurd.
Sarah thought back to all of the other crazy things she heard in her life that turned out to be true. It was possible that this was one of them.
The next day, Sarah sat on a stool behind the counter of the boutique, finishing up a dog sweater she’d been knitting and waiting for the morning’s first customer to come in. Bored, she opened her laptop and scanned the websites of small, family-run vendors in pursuit of the next hot item to stock, while Rugby and Winston lightly snored behind her.
Rugby seemed to take a great liking to Winston from the start and the two seemed to get along well. They both slept in her room the night before without any fuss, and the morning went smoothly as they both ate breakfast together. The only one who seemed to oppose it was Misty, her cousin’s Persian cat. But Sarah made it a point to tell Winston not to take it personally. Misty wasn’t much of a dog lover, and she spent most of the morning up in her cozy spot on the shelf, overlooking the boutique.
Meanwhile, in the back office, her grandpa and Emma worked on finalizing the order she’d worked on the previous day. She had promised to cover the shop for two hours while they completed that task, then she’d take Rugby and Winston out on the town, mainly to try to track down Winston’s owner. She already had flyers printed out, ready to go.
The bell above the entrance jingled, and Sarah looked up to see a stocky man in overalls walking in.
Winston woke up and gave a little growl.
“Winston, no. That’s not nice.” Sarah turned her attention to the man. “I’m sorry about that, sir, I just found him yesterday wandering alone, and he isn’t used to the sounds here and people coming in and out of the store yet. Can I help you?”
“Is Larry here?”
“Yeah, let me get him.”
Back in the office, Sarah let her grandpa know someone was here to talk to him. He walked out with her and stepped up to shake the man’s hand.
“Hey, Bob. Thanks for coming out on such short notice,” Larry said to the man, who Sarah figured was the handyman.
The man grabbed his tools and followed Larry to the other side of the boutique, in the back, to fix whatever needed fixing. Above her paygrade, she mused.
She stared out into the empty boutique, praying for customers, much like farmers would pray for rain.
She let out a sigh and looked at the time displayed on the righthand corner of her laptop’s screen. Seeing the time, she let out another sigh. Another hour to go…
Her eyes opened wider when she had a flash of realization. She forgot to call Adam Dunkin to give him the hearsay from Henry Fudderman about Patricia Greensmith. Surely, he would laugh at the notion of the little old lady doing such a thing, though she felt the responsibility to pass on such information to the authorities, and Adam was her direct line to the fine men and women who served and protected the Cove and its occupants.
She reached into her pocket to retrieve her cell phone. When she pressed a button on the side of the device, she saw that she’d missed a call from Adam. Apparently, she’d forgotten to take her phone off its silent mode.
“Looks like he left a message.”
She accessed her phone’s voicemail and listened to Adam’s message.
“Hi, Sarah, it’s Adam. Just calling to give you an update on what we talked about yesterday. Give me a call back when you get this.”
Sarah immediately dialed Adam and waited.
On the third ring, she expected to hit voicemail at any moment.
“Hello?” came the voice.
They said their hellos and Adam got right to the point: “Listen, Sarah. I’m still at work now, so I don’t think I can talk…”
“Want me to call you later?”
Adam’s voice was a bit quieter as he continued, “Here’s the thing, I learned more about that thing we were talking about yesterday.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“Autopsy came back. There was a bump on the back of his head.”
“A bump?” Sarah nearly dropped the phone. Her mind immediately fixated on the little old lady and her cane.
What if…
“Yeah,” Adam said, interrupting her thoughts. His voice was barely a whisper. He must’ve been afraid someone would overhear him, though
she was uncertain why he would risk getting in trouble giving her this info. They went back a long way, and she had a feeling he might’ve had feelings for her, but still…
“So are they saying it’s foul play?”
“Not exactly. Could have still been an accident, but now they’re looking into it more.”
“Will you be interviewing people around—”
“Not me.”
“Why not? Don’t you do those sorts of things?”
“They got me on desk duty now. Long story.”
“Wow, sorry,” Sarah said. She couldn’t get her mind off of what Patricia said, the cane, the bump on the head…
And, most importantly, the motive.
Maybe Emma was right…
She took a breath, let it out quickly, and spoke without thinking any further. “Adam, I heard that Patricia Greensmith was upset that her landlord—you-know-who—had raised her rent by twenty percent. She made a comment that was overheard by someone…basically, she said she’d clobber him over the head with her cane next chance she got.”
“That’s hearsay,” Adam said, voice firm.
“But she has motive, she has the means, and even opportunity…I’m sure she was around the night of the…event.”
Sarah had to catch herself from saying the M word.
“Again, no solid evidence.”
“Should I file a report at the station?” Sarah asked.
“You could, but I doubt that would do much. And even if they did talk to her…well, let’s just say most people aren’t comfortable talking to the police about such matters, especially when such questions provoke the person to feel like they are being accused in any way.”
“I could talk to her.”
Adam was silent on the other end.
“Adam?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“She knows me. I grew up here, and I’m not wearing a police uniform. I’ll talk to her as a friend, see what I can find out.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I could talk to her, and then I’d let you know everything I found out. Maybe it could help in some way to bring justice to the deceased…”
Adam let out a huff. “Fine, but be discreet. And under no circumstances should you accuse—”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “I have plenty of experience with delicate matters. You know my background.”
“Right. Okay, well, I have to go. Endless paperwork is in my future…”
“Good luck.”
“You too.”
Adam ended the call, and Sarah put her phone back in her pocket.
She stared at the clock on her computer again, counting down the seconds until her grandpa and Emma finished their work. Once she let Emma know about the latest bit of information, she knew her cousin would say, “I told you so,” but that didn’t matter to her.
All that mattered was answering the questions that burned inside of her. Soon, she’d talk to Patricia Greensmith. Until then, all she could do was bide her time and come up with a plan of what to ask the sweet, little old lady who was now the first suspect in the suspicious incident of John Jacobs.
Maybe she had nothing to do with it, and an alibi would be quickly discovered.
Or maybe Emma was right, and Patricia Greensmith was a cunning old woman with a knack for putting up a masterful facade.
Only time would tell what Sarah would uncover.
Chapter 6
Time crawled by like an exhausted poodle, and Sarah thought Emma and her grandpa would never come out from the back office.
“What’s taking them so long?” she wondered aloud, looking at the clock, urging the time to move quicker.
Sarah let out a sigh. Rugby and Misty walked out of the room together, and Sarah noted that those two seemed to be getting along much better. Next to her feet, Winston napped—the corgi hardly ever left her side.
A noise behind her and to the left caught her attention, and Sarah turned to see her cousin plodding out. Her eyes looked puffy and red, her hair disheveled.
“You look like you’ve been working in a coal mine,” Sarah said.
Emma nodded. “I love Grandpa, I really do. But he can’t seem to ever make up his mind. I’m literally pulling my hair out.”
Sarah rose from the stool and stepped toward her cousin. “Emma, I heard something you might be interested in.”
Emma looked at Sarah, expectantly. Sarah told her about what Adam Dunkin had said over the phone.
Emma’s eyes lit up. “A bump on the back of the head?”
Sarah nodded.
“See, I told you…Looks can be deceiving.” Emma put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Her whole ‘nice old lady’ schtick is a facade.”
“Maybe. We still don’t know for sure.”
“It’s too bad,” Emma continued. “I really like her tea.”
Sarah was about to repeat herself about them not knowing for sure it was Patricia but thought better of it. Sarah, herself, was becoming skeptical and a bit antsy to speak to her and find out. “Where’s Grandpa?”
“Still back there poring over the order. It’s finished, has been for an hour, but he insists on putting more elbow grease into it. He’ll ‘overcook it,’ is what I think.”
Sarah stepped over to her laptop and closed it, placing it in her backpack on the floor next to the stool.
“Where are you going?” Emma asked.
“I’m going to talk to Patricia.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not the police…”
“Yesterday you were all gung-ho, and now—”
“I’m just saying, you’re not the cops. Where’s Adam?”
“Tied up. I talked to him, it’s cool. I’m not going to ask anything that’ll sound like I’m accusing her of anything. I’m just a citizen talking to another citizen. It’ll be innocent-sounding, so I might even have a better chance of getting some info to feed to the authorities.”
“I’m going with.”
“No, you stay here. We both know Grandpa is probably going to be back there awhile yet, and someone needs to watch the storefront.”
“Aren’t you going to take Rugby?”
“No. Patricia isn’t a big fan of dogs, especially in her fancy establishment.”
Emma nodded and took Sarah’s place behind the counter without another word.
“Be right back,” Sarah said, and hurried out of the shop before her cousin could protest her decision.
Sarah made her way to Patricia’s Tea Room, and once inside, saw the same young man behind the counter. Off to her left, a petite woman sat, occupying one of the tables. She sipped tea and stared out the window onto the street.
“Mrs. Greensmith?”
The woman turned to look at Sarah, a puzzled look on her face. Then, as if a light switch had been flipped, her face lit up in recognition.
“Sarah? Is that really you?”
Sarah nodded. “How are you, Mrs. Greensmith?”
The woman tried to correct her posture, wincing in pain. “I’ve seen better days. Been a bit under the weather lately. Speaking of, nasty storm last night, eh?”
“Yeah, it was wicked. Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m a lucky old woman to have both of my grandkids to help out around the shop.” She motioned toward the man behind the counter, who nodded at them, aware he was being talked about.
Before Sarah could reply, a young woman—perhaps about Sarah’s age—came into the shop from the rear boardwalk entrance.
“Danny,” the woman said, “take your break.”
Danny gave a relieved look, and poured himself a cup of tea. He stepped out the back of the shop, probably eager to relax outside in the late-morning sun.
The young woman saw Sarah and came over, waving.
Patricia Greensmith said, “Sarah, you remember my granddaughter, Nancy?”
“Of course. Ho
w are you, Nancy?” Sarah asked.
“I’m good. Just hustling to get things ready for the season,” Nancy said with a smile.
“Oh, Nancy is such a peach, always helping me out,” Patricia said. “And Danny, too, of course.”
At the mention of Danny, Sarah caught Nancy flashing a momentary sour face, quickly correcting herself before her nana noticed.
“The boy has really turned a new leaf,” Patricia continued, without skipping a beat. “He came for a visit for a few weeks, and just in time, when Nancy and I really need the extra help.”
“Nana, you know I would’ve been able to take care of everything just fine. I always do.”
“I know, dear,” Patricia said, taking Nancy’s hand and patting it, “but you need breaks too…and a life. I feel I’m keeping you from finding a nice boy and settling down.”
Nancy’s cheeks flushed pink from her Nana’s statement, but her eyes were kind. “No, Nana. Don’t ever think that. I love helping you.”
Patricia smiled.
Nancy looked at Sarah. “Nana thinks she’s a burden.”
Sarah chuckled.
Just then, a customer came through the door, bells jingling. “Well, sorry to cut this short,” Nancy said, “but I’m being summoned. Would you like me to bring you anything?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks,” Sarah said.
“Don’t be silly,” Patricia said, waving her hand at Sarah. “At least have some tea. On the house.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t.”
“I haven’t seen you in a while, what? How long has it been?”
“At least two years,” Sarah said.
“I’ll bring you our tea of the day,” Nancy said. “Let me just take care of this customer and I’ll bring it to you.” Nancy turned to her Nana. “Nana, you want your chamomile green tea?”
Patricia nodded. “Thank you, dear.”
Nancy trotted off. Sarah could hear her greeting the customer in the distance. “So, Nancy really helps you out around here.”
“Why, yes. Always has. Since she was a teenager in high school, she would work part-time, after her studies, of course, and full-time in the summer.”
