by Gina LaManna
“What did I say this afternoon?” He crossed his arms over that glorious chest (scratch the glorious part and replace with average, or my mother will cackle to her grave), and leaned against the wall. “I hope you’re not here to talk about the investigation. I shouldn’t be socializing with suspects.”
“Well, that’s just stupid.” I dropped my finger and gave a shrug. “This is a small town. Everyone’s a suspect. June is a suspect, so I better not be seeing you getting a muffin from her until the murderer is caught.”
“And you have enough experience to teach me how to do my job?”
“Not exactly, but I have done makeup for half the actors on NCIS, and I’ve picked up a thing or two.”
He cracked a grin, which split his face into a nice-looking portrait.
“In fact, I’d be happy to style you sometime,” I said, changing the subject—albeit briefly. “If I could just have a thousand bucks and your measurements, I can have you a new closet in a week. You’ll be red carpet ready by Monday.”
His smile lost its luster. “Hollywood doesn’t interest me, Miss McGovern. Neither does your sales pitch.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just—you have the body for it, and...” I hesitated, my face heating with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. You’re not interested.”
If nothing else, my awkward blunderings had brought his grin back, which made me happy, oddly enough. He ran a hand through chestnut brown hair, leaving it standing on end. It should’ve made him look like a slob. It didn’t.
“I happen to like my clothes just fine,” he said. “But I’m touched by your concern.”
“Anytime.” I looked down, grinding my toe into the mat to avoid eye contact. “Anyway, I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Pick away.”
“Like I said, I worked on crime shows, and I know you can’t tell just from looking at a pair of shoes that my fingerprints are on them. Whatever heel you found in Grant Mark’s...” I hesitated, feeling queasy. “The murder weapon, I mean. You were bluffing.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But I suspect we’ll find a match when we get results back from the lab.”
“How are you so certain?”
“Possibly because I have four different people telling me they saw you hours before Grant’s death brandishing the murder weapon in front of his face. Usually, that’ll do it.”
“But those aren’t my shoes. I left them at the store,” I said proudly. “I only had those heels in my possession for a hot second.”
“For a what?”
“A hot second,” I said. “You know, only a little bit of time. Like I told you, my bags were lost. I only had these super cute fluffy boots that had any hope of surviving in the snow, but when I wore them, they got all soggy, so my mother let me pick some heels to wear for my appointment with Grant so I didn’t catch a cold. I found these fabulous chunky ones: powder blue, vintage—a perfect fit. It was like Cinderella in a thrift shop.”
“Go on, princess.”
“I left the shoes behind at the store after my confrontation with Grant. I was so sure my bags would be here by now that I didn’t even consider buying them to wear later.” I frowned. “I wish my bags were here. Remind me to call the airline, will you?”
“Um—”
“Anyway, if you find the person who purchased the shoes, you’ll find the killer.”
“You’re claiming that the shoes were not in your possession at the time of the murder?”
“Of course not!” I spread my arms wide. “I was snoozing in my old room at my Gran’s. Er, well, it’s my place now. If walls could talk, they would verify my alibi.”
He gave me a patronizing smile. “Walls can’t talk, but people can. I have you as the last person seen with Grant before his death.”
“That can’t be right because I didn’t kill him,” I said vehemently. “Have you never watched a crime show? Someone is framing me!”
“In Blueberry Lake.” Cooper looked skeptical. “Someone knew you’d lose your bags, wear the wrong shoes, and then not have an alibi for the time of the murder?”
“Okay, so maybe it wasn’t all premeditated,” I said. “But I still think the shoes are the key. If we follow them, I guarantee they’ll lead us to the killer. Whoever killed Grant had them in their possession. And we know they were at the store earlier this morning, so it had to be someone who came in during or after my session with Grant.”
“Does your mother keep records?”
“Records?!” I thought back to her dinky little calculator. “She has something better than records.”
“Dare I ask what?”
It was my turn to smile at Cooper’s uneasy frown. “Mrs. Beasley.”
“Mrs. Beasley?” he asked, skeptical. “She owns the knitting store across the street. She also just celebrated her ninety-first birthday. How can she help?”
“She’s one of the women who lunched with my grandma and June every afternoon at the Blueberry Jam Café, which means she’s a gossip,” I said with confidence. “You can bet Mrs. Beasley was watching my mother’s store like a hawk. One visit to her, and you’ll have a full list of suspects.”
The chief exhaled a long, slow sigh and raised his hands. “Thank you for your concern, Miss McGovern.”
“Call me Jenna, please.”
“I hope you know this doesn’t clear your name.”
“Oh, but it will.”
“But it doesn’t yet.”
“No,” I said patiently. “But it will. Trust me. You’ll be handing me a detective badge before this is over, Chief Dear.”
“It’s Cooper.”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled, softer. “Call me Cooper when I’m off duty. We have to cohabitate in this small town, so I suppose we might as well try to be friendly.”
“Cooper,” I said. “Thanks for the warm welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Your cousin is probably ready to kill me.”
“She said Joe might have a word with you.”
“Your mother called me,” he said, an eyebrow inching up. “Just before you got here.”
“Really?” I feigned innocence. “What did she want?”
“To know if I was interested in playing Bingo on Sunday.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going,” he said. “You’re welcome to join if you’d like. Everyone will be there.”
I watched him carefully. “Are you asking me on a date?”
He visibly blanched. “Of course not. I can’t date a suspect—I’m trying to redeem myself and be civilized to you before May sends Joe to smother me in my sleep.”
“Thanks for the half-assed invitation from my mother. I think I’ll pass.”
“Jenna, wait—”
“Good luck finding the murderer,” I said, slipping my feet into my shoes and turning to leave. “You’re wasting time if you continue to look at me.”
“Jenna, look out!”
I took one step, missed, and went flying face first on a different ugly patch of ice. The snowbank hurtled toward me, and I landed with a soft thump in an upside-down snow-angel position.
“I tried to warn you,” Cooper said, climbing down and helping me to my feet. “Can I get you a sweatshirt? Hot chocolate?”
“N-no,” I said, shivering. “Just find the murderer before these shoes kill me, will you? I don’t want to be laid out at Franny’s Funeral Parlor in handcuffs. My mother would die.”
Chapter 5
The next morning dawned bright and sunny in a way that only the coldest, snowiest winter day can. Rays reflected from the sun off the gleaming white banks, sending fractures of light careening into my eyes.
I sunk lower in bed, hugging the thick, fluffy comforter to me and wondering how anyone in their right mind had possibly chosen to live in Minnesota. Why hadn’t all our ancestors moved to warmer locations? Snow was nice in a cute, festive sort of way, but more than that was just plain inconvenient.
Pulling my phone cl
oser to me, I huddled deeper into the warmth and told myself I was being productive by calling the airline company. (Spoiler alert, they hadn’t found my bags.)
With a sigh, I watched as my phone lit up again with my mother’s picture on it. Or rather, her nostrils. Last night at dinner she’d attempted to master the art of selfies and had inadvertently taken a photoshoot of her nose and locked it as her contact photo.
My mother, May, Sid, and I had finished the night off with dessert—a chocolate lava cake that was devilishly delicious and equally high in calories. Something I’d never have found in Hollywood. If I didn’t watch myself around these parts, I’d waddle back to Los Angeles after my mother’s shop was up and running looking like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float version of Jenna McGovern.
“Do you need a ride this morning?” Bea barked into the phone. “Sid plowed our driveway, so I’m taking the truck if you want. Isn’t he a doll?”
I wouldn’t call Sid a doll, but I’d take the ride. “Sure—what time are you swinging by?”
“I’m outside your house right now.”
“But mother! I’m still in bed.”
“It’s seven thirty!”
“In L.A., that means it’s five thirty. I’m still jetlagged.”
“Well, then, I’ll wait out here.”
“Give me two minutes,” I whined. “It’s not like I have a plethora of outfits to choose from.”
Groaning, I hauled myself from bed, lamenting every shiver and blink of snowflake that spiraled past my window. My trip here had been wrought with disaster so far, and my future wasn’t exactly looking bright.
This morning, I was going to my mother’s thrift shop to give the place a second chance. After all, my first one had ended in an inadvertent grope and a murder accusation. With any luck, I could find out who had purchased the shoes.
At the very minimum, I could find out who had been in the store yesterday morning, which would help in gathering a golden list of suspects. All I would have to do was match up that list of suspects with a person who wanted Grant Mark dead, and voila! Case closed; jumpsuit catastrophe avoided.
If only my mother had a true receipt program instead of a clunky old calculator, we could’ve tracked the murderer down over chocolate lava cake yesterday evening from the comfort of her house. As it was, I’d need to check the written record or ask Allie. My mother was hopeless at recordkeeping, and she hadn’t even realized the shoes had been sold.
Sometimes I wondered if my mother wasn’t a bit of a lost object herself—fitting, considering her passion. There were days she wore her shirt backwards for hours. I loved her, but the woman would forget her head if it wasn’t glued on tight.
I slipped into the outfit May had brought over last night. My cousin had a few more curves in the hips and bust than I did, so the jeans were a little loose and the shirt a tiny bit baggy, but it was better than digging in my mom’s closet or my grandma’s attic. They’d work until I picked out some clothes off the racks today.
May had also apologized for her hand-me-down boots. They were hideous, and it was no wonder she didn’t use them anymore. It pained my very trendy little soul as I slipped one foot and then the other into them. But May claimed they were effective, which was more than I could say for my heels.
I grabbed Louie and locked up the house before skidding my way down the front path to Sid’s ridiculously huge truck. It was a far cry from the new Tesla models that populated the streets of Los Angeles, all robotic and electric and futuristic. This was just one big fat truck that could cruise through two feet of snow without wincing. I was in a whole new world.
“Good morning, darling. Ready for a better day?” Bea, the perpetual sunshine, grinned at me. “I brought you a treat!”
My eyes landed first on the blueberry muffin and second on the piping hot cup of coffee sitting in the cupholder. “Both are for me?”
She nodded, reversing out of the drive. “Dig in, buttercup.”
“This is not healthy,” I said, digging into the muffin. “I’d be having a fruit smoothie out in California, not more carbs. You already stuffed me to the brim with that lava cake!”
“You can stand to gain a few pounds,” my mother said. “Relax. Enjoy. You need to fatten up for winter—it’s how we stay warm.”
“But my clothes,” I moaned. “None of them will fit.”
“Like it matters,” Bea said. “Don’t give me that look. If your clothes are never found, you’ll have to buy a new wardrobe anyway. Just buy it in Minnesota sizes.”
I harrumphed. Luckily, we arrived at the store shortly after. I sized up the Something Old sign, which was quirky in and of itself. My mother had fashioned it out of single letters she’d pulled from other various objects. The result was a mismatched hodge-podge of capital letters and small ones, big sizes and little sizes, and looked as if it’d been stapled above the store by a kindergartener whose definition of a straight line was sketchy at best. It was an OCD mathematician’s worst nightmare. I thought it was adorable.
“Here we are,” my mother said. “Are you excited to put your detective hat on?”
I gave her an odd sort of look. “I’d rather nobody was dead in the first place.”
“Yes...but Matlock.” At my blank stare, my mother gave me a look of incredulity. “We used to watch Matlock together every afternoon, and you always solved the case before he did. You should really consider detective work for your next career.”
“I’ll leave that to the police,” I said, thinking of Cooper Dear and his hoity toity badge. “I’m more of a fashion police sort of gal. Speaking of which, mother—the blue and orange color scheme you’ve got going on with your clothes is from the seventies. Can I please dress you?”
She pulled off an orange scarf as we entered the store and frowned. “No. I like being quirky.”
“You can be quirky and modern.”
“I’m not young and hip,” she said. “Let me be old and quirky.”
“You’re barely fifty.”
“Well, I do have more romance in my life than you,” she said, giving me the side-eye. “I don’t know if that means I’m young or you’re old.”
“Romance has no bearing on age!”
“I sure hope not,” she said. “Because you’re almost thirty. Didn’t Cooper look nice when you went to visit him last night? He’s living all alone in that single-family home. Do you hear the words single and family? Family, dear. He’s looking to start a family, and he just needs the jelly to his peanut butter.”
“I’d like to shove jelly somewhere special for him,” I said bitterly. “He accused me of murder, mother.”
“He’s just doing his job. A very noble profession, I might add,” she said. “His move into a single-family home—again, do you hear my words?—is very telling. He’s subconsciously wanting a family, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”
“Nope!” I hummed. “I’m not hearing any of your words anymore. How are you this morning, Allie?”
The door jingled as the bright-eyed employee entered the store, looking very vibrant in her choice of clothing. The brightness reached new heights as Allie slipped off her jacket and displayed pants that resembled some sort of complex illusion with all the jagged white lines and black swirls, topped with a rosy pink sweater. It made me dizzy if I stared at her thighs for more than a few seconds at a time.
“I’m great. My cat isn’t though. Freddie had the grossest hairball this morning.” She nonchalantly brushed fur off her sweater before looking up. “Besides that, all is good. What about you?”
“Been better,” I admitted. “I assume you heard about Grant Mark’s untimely demise?”
“Oh, yeah. Someone got him good, they’re saying.” Allie leaned forward and whispered. “What if he was smuggling drugs across the border and someone blew him up?”
“I don’t think that’s what happened,” I said gently. “But it’s an interesting theory.”
“Oh.” Allie’s shoulders slumped.
“Well maybe he was a terrorist, and someone forced him to eat a cyanide pill and before he could die, a sniper shot him in the face.”
“I don’t think—” I started, but my mother interrupted.
“Allie, are these plots of the books you’ve been reading?” Bea cocked one eyebrow in a very motherly way—that sort of eyebrow cock that encouraged only the truth. (I’d seen it a few times myself.) My mother turned to me. “Allie is quite the bookworm. Her imagination is...active.”
Allie gave a huge sigh. “It’s just that regular old murder is boring.”
“Unfortunately, not boring enough,” I said. “If I had it my way, there would have been no murder at all.”
“I mean, Grant Mark basically attacked you yesterday,” Allie said, looking skeptically at me. “You’re not at all happy he’s the one who ended up dead?”
“What sort of question is that?” I whirled on her. “Of course not. I wouldn’t wish anyone dead. I might have wished him a bad case of the stomach flu, but that’s the extent of it.”
“That would do it.” Allie nodded knowingly.
“Since we’re on the subject, I actually had some questions for you.”
“Oh, oh! This is the amateur sleuth moment, isn’t it? You’re going to go all Nancy Drew on me.” Allie gave a sly nod. “I read you. Well, if you need a sidekick, I’m available for duty.”
“Thanks, but—”
“Who do we think killed him?” Allie asked quickly. “Frankly, if this were my book, you’d be the first person I’d look at for murder charges. You had a huge, public fight with the victim right before he ended up as toast.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “You’re a real great sidekick.”
“I’m just saying—objectively,” she added. “But it would be nothing more than a red herring. It’s never that obvious.”
“No offense, Allie, but it doesn’t matter what you think, or even what I think. What matters is proving to the police that I didn’t do anything.” I eased out of my own jacket and hung it on the old-timey coat rack behind the register. Popping around to the other side, I faced Allie across the desk while my mother began tidying up behind me. “There was a pair of powder blue heels here yesterday. Right over there.”
