At twenty, she came to Chicago to compete in Miss World. A wealthy older man on the judging panel happened to be in the market for a trophy wife. That man was Oriole Point native and real estate magnate Cole Bowman. Cole and Natasha married soon after, but the union turned as sour as Cole’s business dealings. The larcenous Cole moved back to Oriole Point with his young wife, where he was subsequently murdered. This left twenty-eight-year-old Natasha a wealthy, beautiful, and merry young widow. One who planned to open a spa called Peacock. A venture that had so far required about five hundred paint swatches to agonize over.
“And Katrina has experience in decorating,” Natasha went on. “She once have boyfriend who own spa in place called the Head of Hilton.”
“Hilton Head,” I corrected her.
“This Head of Hilton,” she said, ignoring my comment, “is resort for rich people. And he ask Katrina to use feng shui to design their salt caves.”
“Impressive.” I’d heard about Katrina May’s qualifications before, but I still didn’t know what a salt cave was. “Although I’d rethink her plan for the cactus scrub room.”
Katrina had advised Natasha to turn one of the treatment rooms into a facsimile of the Mojave: a sand-strewn floor, potted cacti, and lighting fixtures that rivaled the wattage of a baseball stadium.
“A cactus scrub room must be like desert,” Natasha insisted. “One hundred degrees! For clients to sweat out primesi.”
I assumed she meant “impurities”. “Make sure clients don’t sweat out every drop of moisture in their bodies. Or you’ll need to revive them when the scrubbing is done.”
She waved my comment away. “I now must change color of cactus scrub room. Is too orange. Is why I need my kraski.”
“Try the sunroom. That’s where your moving boxes are. And I made coffee about ten minutes ago. It’s strong today. I need the caffeine to help me memorize my lines.” I held up the script, hoping she’d get the hint.
“Nyet. I only drink tea on mornings it snows.” She gestured at the white vista outside the expansive bay window. The snowfall had finally slowed down.
“What does tea have to do with snow?” I asked.
But Natasha and Dasha were on their way to the kitchen. Panther scampered after them. The kitten adored Natasha’s Yorkie. Even if it did take a week of cautious observation before Panther regarded the small dog as a playmate rather than a threat.
I loved Natasha. After Tess, I regarded her as my closest friend. Naturally, I invited her to stay with me after she sold her house before her luxury condo was ready to move into. Only I didn’t think it would take the entire month of December. At times it felt as if she and Dasha had been underfoot for months.
I began to repeat, “ ‘It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel—’ ”
The doorbell rang. Dasha raced out of the kitchen, yapping at the top of her lungs. Minnie responded with her favorite line: “Whassup?”
“Whassup indeed,” I muttered.
Who could be at my door unannounced at nine in the morning? During a snowstorm, no less. Whoever it was deserved to have me greet them in my Snoopy flannel pajamas and Santa socks. Although maybe one of my neighbors wanted to borrow a snow shovel or needed a jump start for a car battery.
Instead, Oriole Point’s power couple, Piper Lyall-Pierce and her husband, Lionel, stood on my covered porch. I swung open the door.
“Hi, guys. Did we have an appointment no one told me about?”
Ignoring my question, Piper stamped the snow from her boots. “Don’t keep us standing out here. It’s freezing.”
“Sorry for showing up on your doorstep like this,” Lionel said as I ushered them inside, “but my wife insisted we come straight over after breakfast.”
As Dasha’s yapping reached frenzied heights, Piper removed her gloves, teal-blue coat, and cashmere scarf. Piper flung the outerwear at me as if I were a servant in Downton Abbey.
“Stop barking this minute!” she commanded Dasha.
The Yorkie turned tail and ran. No one had imperious down like Piper. Trying to be a gracious hostess, I hung their coats in the foyer. Then led them into the living room.
“You have far too many Christmas trees, Marlee,” Piper announced with disapproval.
“I have plans to bring in another. A real one. And at least none of my trees are the size of a redwood.” I gave her a pointed look.
She pretended she hadn’t heard me.
“We wanted to see you before you opened the shop for the day,” Lionel explained as Piper took her customary seat on the glider rocker.
I gestured for Lionel to sit on the adjacent leather club chair.
“I’m not going in until noon. Gillian’s on the schedule to open. Would you like coffee?”
“Don’t trouble yourself.” Lionel still looked sheepish about their visit.
“Coffee would be perfect,” Piper said. “Cream, one sugar. Stevia, if you have it. Lionel prefers tea. Earl Grey, cream, no sugar.”
Before she put in a request for Belgian waffles, I hurried into the kitchen. I was now grateful Natasha drank tea on snowy days. Her electric teakettle had just finished heating the water.
“We have guests.” I noticed Dasha had taken refuge beneath a stool at the kitchen island.
Natasha frowned. “Who comes to house?”
“Piper and Lionel.”
“I like Mayor Lionel.” She lifted the lid of the cake dish on the counter and removed a slice of cranberry coffee cake. “He has manners of dzhentl’men. But Piper act like czarina. And hair dye is wrong for skin. Make her look like scarecrow.”
“Keep that observation to yourself.” I removed a few slices of coffee cake, too.
“That took long enough,” Piper remarked when I returned.
Even though I regretted answering the door, I handed them their cups of tea and coffee, then pointed at the tray of pastries I’d placed on the coffee table. “Theo made extra coffee cake for the shop yesterday. He knows how much Kit loves it. And this cranberry-cream coffee cake recipe is the best I’ve tasted.”
“Day-old pastry?” Piper said in a reproving tone. “Is the coffee reheated, too?”
“Say one more rude thing and I’m kicking you out.” I smiled. “Just you. Not Lionel.”
Piper knew me well enough to keep quiet. I was one of the few people in town unimpressed that the Lyall family had founded Oriole Point. Or that she was the richest person I knew, her fortune increasing ten years ago when she married Lionel Pierce, a wealthy retired executive. She wasn’t normally this obnoxious. Entitled? Yes. But something must have happened to amp up her patrician attitude. I wondered if her upcoming fiftieth birthday played a factor.
I sat on the loveseat, letting them enjoy the first sips of hot coffee and tea. Lionel handed a fork and dessert plate to his wife, then did the same for himself.
Minnie launched into her Beach Boys tribute, “Ba-ba-ba ba-ba ba-ran,” as Piper took a cautious nibble of cake. A delighted smile followed.
“Good, isn’t it?” I asked her.
“A shame Theo refuses to work for me. My personal chef has no talent for pastries.”
My mouth fell open. “You tried to hire Theo away from The Berry Basket?”
“I may have broached the topic. The young man should be commended for his loyalty.”
“Unlike you, Piper, I thought we were friends.”
“We are. Why else do you think Lionel and I came here this morning?”
“Is this about the Hollyberry Festival? Please don’t ask me to volunteer for anything else. Not with the play to study for.”
Lionel finished his bite of cake before saying, “We haven’t come here for that. And the town appreciates your offer to serve free hot chocolate at your booth in the park.”
“Berry-flavored hot chocolate. My store doesn’t stock plain hot cocoa. But free samples are a nice way to introduce people to berry cocoa.” I grew suspicious. “
If you’re not here about the Hollyberry Festival, what’s the problem?”
Piper answered with another question. “Is your detective boyfriend upstairs?”
“No. Kit’s at his apartment in New Bethel.”
She looked disappointed. “I assumed he often spent the night here.”
“Once or twice a week. But he spends a lot of time in New Bethel, where the county sheriff’s office is.” I glanced at the script beside me. At this rate, I’d never learn my lines. “Is one of you going to tell me what this is all about?”
Lionel cleared his throat. “Everett Hostetter.”
“What about him?”
“It appears he had something to do with an associate of your houseguest,” Piper said. “Is Natasha here?”
“She’s in the kitchen.”
The sound of the microwave being turned on confirmed this.
“And Katrina May?” Piper asked. “Is she a houseguest, too? I assume that’s her car in the driveway. No one else I know drives a red Miata with a SPIRITED vanity plate.”
“Katrina felt anxious about driving back to Grand Rapids in the snowstorm, so I asked her to spend the night.”
“Where is she now?” Piper looked around the room, as though she expected to glimpse Katrina behind one of the Christmas trees.
“Upstairs bathroom. If Minnie stops singing her fifth chorus of ‘Barbara Ann,’ you’d hear the water pipes rattling.”
Lionel leaned forward. “Do you keep anything valuable upstairs?”
“Designer bags?” Piper asked.
“Where do you keep your jewelry?” Lionel said.
“Are you serious?”
“Are you serious?” Minnie repeated my question. This was how my parrot had acquired a vocabulary of three hundred words. With more added every time someone spoke in her presence.
“You know I don’t own anything worth stealing,” I continued, “except for this house.”
My three-story Queen Anne overlooking Lake Michigan with its own private beach was indeed valuable; the house and lakeside property were worth over a million dollars. Not that I would ever sell it. My great-great-grandfather Philip Jacob built the house in 1895 as a wedding gift for his bride, Lotte. He even painted it robin’s-egg blue, her favorite color. The family had kept it the same color since then. Just as we had cherished and maintained every turret, balustrade, and gable. It had been handed down to a Jacob female for generations. I was the latest grateful recipient.
“What is this all about?”
“Ms. May is a fraud,” Piper informed me with an air of satisfaction.
“How so? When Katrina was still a teenager, she won Miss Washington. She became a certified feng shui consultant in her twenties. And she has an office in Grand Rapids where she gives psychic readings.”
Piper snorted. “Quite the Renaissance woman. Does she plan to add juggler to her résumé next year?”
“You thought highly enough of Katrina two months ago when you asked her to give a feng shui workshop at your Harvest Health Fair.”
Piper’s sharp gaze grew steelier. “I had an entire week of workshops to fill. And Councilwoman Mims suggested I ask Katrina to take part. But I never even spoke to the woman. My assistant contacted Katrina to arrange for her appearance.”
“I didn’t hear any complaints about Katrina’s workshop. That’s how Natasha met her. Natasha hadn’t even heard of feng shui before then. Now Natasha is almost as fascinated with feng shui as she is with interpreting her dreams every morning.”
“I’m not surprised Russian Barbie would be taken in by that woman.”
“I don’t get this, Piper. What is your beef with Katrina?”
“We believe Ms. May is not to be trusted,” Lionel announced in his booming voice.
I gestured at him to keep his voice down. “Shhh. The pipes have gone silent, which means she’s done in the bathroom. Natasha is within earshot, too.” Although I heard the TV go on in the sunroom, which meant Natasha had taken her tea and cake to another part of the house.
“She’s a fraud,” Piper repeated.
“Because of the psychic medium thing? I think she’s the real deal. Do you know she sensed I have a ghost in my house?”
“Of all the ridiculous things I’ve ever heard!” Piper exclaimed.
Lionel shook his head. “Don’t be taken in by her, Marlee.”
“You don’t understand. I’ve always known about the ghost. All the Jacobs have stories to tell about her. She was my great-grandparents’ cook.” I nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “I hear Mary in there sometimes. That was her name. Mary Cullen.”
“Katrina no doubt encouraged this delusion.” Piper frowned.
“It’s not a delusion. Besides, Mary’s a friendly ghost. Like Casper.” I smiled. “When she wants to remind me she’s here, Mary makes the pans hanging over my kitchen island clang together. It’s rather sweet. Not frightening at all.”
Lionel and Piper looked as if I had just disrobed in front of them.
“Katrina mentioned Mary last night,” I continued. “She does seem to have an intuitive gift.”
Piper pursed her lips. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. Some people are gifted with psychic abilities. My Grandma Jacob, for instance. Last night at dinner Katrina gave me a message from Grandma. She told me things only my grandmother or I would know.” I had been most impressed, and a little freaked out.
“I never took you for a gullible young woman,” Lionel said.
“Gullible, gullible, gullible,” Minnie murmured. “Give me cashew.”
“I’m not gullible.” I didn’t bother to conceal my exasperation. “But I am impatient. Please get to the point of this visit.”
“I told my wife we should wait before speaking to you. Especially since I was going to see you at rehearsal this evening.” Lionel took a sip of his tea. “No need to rush over here.”
“I disagree,” Piper said. “Marlee should know about Katrina.”
My glance fell on the script beside me. “I don’t think I should. If I don’t learn my lines in time for dress rehearsal, Suzanne’s next panic attack will land her in the hospital.”
“And I had a panic attack when Ginger Ferris called me this morning.”
“Ginger arrived a little early for her annual holiday visit,” I remarked.
Ginger Ferris moved away years ago after marrying an executive for Chrysler. Since then she split her time between their homes in metro Detroit, Kauai, and Santa Fe. We only saw Ginger at Christmastime when she returned to visit family. And to remind the rest of us that we were chumps for spending winter in a place where it snowed.
“Ginger is here to attend her niece’s wedding,” Piper informed me. “When she had lunch yesterday at San Sebastian, she spotted Natasha and Katrina sitting at a table by the bar.”
“San Sebastian is the most expensive restaurant in town. Natasha eats there all the time. As you and Lionel do.” I finished my coffee. “Although I didn’t realize Ginger knew Natasha.”
“She knows of Natasha,” Piper said. “But she recognized Katrina. Ginger called this morning to ask how long Katrina May had been in Oriole Point.”
“Why does she care about Katrina?” I asked.
“Because she’s a criminal!”
“She’s a criminal!” Minnie screamed.
“Quiet, please.” I was ready to put my hands over Piper’s mouth and Minnie’s beak.
“I don’t care who hears. You need to know what Ginger told me. And that was before I realized that woman spent the night here. You are far too trusting, Marlee.”
“And I trust you have something to back up this accusation.”
“We only want to make certain you’re not putting yourself in danger,” Lionel said.
“Am I in danger?” I asked.
“I certainly hope not. I’d hate for anything to happen to Marlee,” said the woman who observed us from the entrance to the living room.
“Piper, Li
onel.” I waved my hand in her direction. “This is Katrina May.”
Chapter Six
“Good morning.” Katrina gave us a pageant-perfect smile. “Of course I recognize both of you.”
“Do you?” Piper asked.
“Everyone knows the mayor of Oriole Point.” Katrina nodded at Lionel, who got to his feet.
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. May,” he said.
“Can you fly?” Minnie asked of the room at large.
“And your wife invited me to appear at her health fair in October.” Katrina turned her attention to Piper. “A shame we never got to speak while I was there. I wanted to thank you for the opportunity. I received several new clients out of it.”
“I’m thrilled my fair allowed you to shill for customers.” Piper took a long sip of coffee. “A pity I didn’t ask for a finder’s fee.”
“Piper can be so droll.” I threw her a warning look.
Katrina shut her eyes. “Don’t be alarmed, but I sense an older male figure standing beside you, Mrs. Lyall-Pierce. I believe he’s your grandfather. First letter of his name is H. Henry, perhaps?”
“The Lyalls founded Oriole Point and continue to be its most important family,” Piper said in a bored voice. “It’s hardly surprising you know my grandfather’s name.”
“He has a message.” Katrina cocked her head to one side, as if listening. “He wants you to know he’s pleased you married a politician. And one who is African American. It was time for the family to become more diverse.”
Lionel raised an amused eyebrow. “The afterlife has had quite an effect on Grandpa,” he said to his wife.
“Indeed,” Piper said. “My grandfather had little use for anyone who wasn’t a descendant of a founding Dutch family. This change of heart is illuminating.”
“The Other Side is a more evolved place,” Katrina said.
“Apparently.” Piper sniffed. “He also had no use for hucksters who pretend to speak with spirits.”
“I don’t pretend.” Katrina’s smile didn’t waver. “But the spirits of your ancestors tell me that you do.”
“Tell your ancestors it’s a shame they never taught you manners,” Piper shot back.
Hollyberry Homicide Page 5
