by Tim Myers
“Hi, Ben,” Melissa said, “I just got back a few minutes ago. I’ve been gone three days, and I loved every minute of it. The Blue Ridge Parkway was stunning, I absolutely adore going there in the summer. I drove up through Virginia and had a blast. I even dropped in a little on the Skyline Drive while I was up that way. I hate to admit it, but I wasn’t looking forward to coming back.” She hesitated, then added, “Maybe I need a change of scenery. I’ve been thinking about closing the store and relocating to a different part of the world. Do you ever get wanderlust, Ben? You must, with that huge family of yours. What do you say, want to hit the road with me and see what there is to see?”
I laughed, as the spirit of the offer intended. “Had you planned the trip for long?”
She shook her head, smiling all the while. “You know, that’s one of the joys of owning my own business and not caring if I run it badly. I can put a gone fishing sign up whenever I feel like it. So why are you here? Did you need some craft supplies?”
This was the part I hated, and I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be free of the burden of sharing this particular piece of bad news. “No, but I’ve got to talk to you. Have you heard about Jerry Sanger?”
Melissa grinned. “Oh yes, I’ve known about, his dalliances for some time. Don’t tell me he finally got caught. How delicious. Tell me more.”
There was no other way to put it, so I said, “Somebody killed him on the steps of our shop yesterday.”
Melissa acted as though she didn’t believe it at first. “You’re kidding, right? That’s not even funny as a joke, Ben.”
“I wouldn’t kid about something like that.”
Melissa frowned, then said, “Why Ben, that’s just terrible. Who would do such a thing?”
“That’s what I was hoping you might be able to help with.”
Melissa looked startled by the statement. “Me? How could I possibly know anything about something that happened at Where There’s Soap?”
“He was your supplier, too, wasn’t he?”
Melissa finished stocking the register and closed the drawer as she said, “It was nothing like what he carried for you folks. I saw him once a month. We chatted off and on, but he never made a pass at me. I used to wonder why he wasn’t interested, since he was going after every other woman in sight. Not that I would have done anything about it, you understand, but still, a girl likes to be asked every now and then.” Melissa added, “That’s just terrible news. Did they catch the killer yet?”
“No, the police are still looking. Say, Bob told me you’ve caught the soapmaking bug.”
Melissa gave a short bark of laughter. “Your brother has a tendency to exaggerate. I’ve played with it some, but I like to spread my hobbies around. That’s why I opened this shop. I’ve tried my hand at weaving, crocheting, candle-making, model building—I even built my own rockets with those cute little engines. This place is a playground for me. Say, I’ve got something you might like.”
She leaned over and retrieved a ship-in-a-bottle kit. “You should get one of these. I understand they’re very relaxing.”
It was the last thing on earth I wanted to do. “Thanks, but I’ve got more than I can handle now.”
“If you change your mind, I’ve got dozens of projects around here.” She grinned, then added, “I don’t carry many soapmaking kits, though. I’m willing to leave that to you experts.”
“Thanks for your time, Melissa. I’ll see you later.”
“Think about my offer,” she said, laughing. As she retrieved a dainty watering can for indoor plants, she said, “Bye, Ben. You know you are welcome here any time. Now I must see to my little indoor garden. I’m afraid I’ve been quite negligent lately.”
I left Melissa to her plants and headed out to my Miata, wondering where I should go next. Bob had said that the Kents leached their own lye at one time, and I wondered if their granddaughter Heather had acquired the skill, or some of their production run. At the very least, I wanted to look around and see if they had the herbs found on Sanger’s body growing around the shop. I hadn’t had the chance to explore Monique’s place when I’d been there, but I’d have to swing by there later. No doubt Molly’s crime scene investigation was going full force, and I didn’t want to step on her toes again if I could help it.
Heather startled me by smiling as I walked into A Long Lost Soap, but that disappeared the second she recognized me. It had taken her a few seconds to realize that I wasn’t a customer looking for something to buy. Funny, I thought I was more memorable than that. As her smile faded into a frown, I said, “Now is that any way to be?”
Her words were short and clipped as she said, “Mr. Perkins, what brings you back to my grandparents’ shop? I thought we were finished with our business.”
I shook my head and offered her my most insincere smile. “Heather, I’m just getting started. Have the police interviewed you yet?”
“Briefly,” she admitted, “but I’m more than willing to speak with them any time they’re interested in talking to me. I want to see the killer caught and punished as much as anyone else does.” She had put all of her emphasis on “them”, no doubt to let me know that my questions weren’t all that welcome since I was a civilian, just like her. That was just too bad if she didn’t like it. I wasn’t there to be popular; I was trying to clear my sister.
I said casually, “I notice you have chamomile and lemon balm growing outside.” I’d paused long enough at the door to confirm my earlier suspicions. Knowing the Kents, there had been little doubt in my mind they’d find a patch of ground to plant some herbs in, even if it meant digging up the sidewalk in front of their shop, and I’d been right.
She frowned at me again, and I almost told her that if she didn’t stop that, she was going to have a face like a road map in twenty years. In a condescending voice, she said, “Certainly we do. My grandparents believe in only the freshest ingredients for their soaps.”
I wanted to tell her to save the sales pitch for her customers. “Does that also include freshly leached lye as well?”
“It does,” she said. I’d gathered as much by the ash bin out back when I’d been snooping around before going inside the shop itself. It was amazing what you could find out if you didn’t mind getting caught.
Trying to keep my tone conversational, I asked, “Do you leach any lye yourself?”
She nodded. “I have in the past.” Tersely, she asked, “Is there a point you’re trying to get to, Mr. Perkins, or are you one of those dreadful middle-aged men in love with the sound of their own voices?”
Now that stung. “Hey, I’m in my early thirties; I haven’t hit middle age yet, at least I hope not. And what happened to Ben? I thought we’d graduated to first names.”
She bit her lower lip, then said, “Listen, I understand what you’re trying to do for your sister, but I’ve already told you, I can’t help you, and I’m not about to give you anything you might try to twist into something against me.”
I shrugged. “Fine. I’ll let the police officer in charge of the investigation know that you’re finished talking to me. I’m sure she’ll be willing to give you more attention herself than you’ve been getting so far. Have a nice day.”
As I started for the door, Heather called out, “That’s not what I... I didn’t realize ... What else can you possibly ask me?”
I was stretching the truth that I would talk to Molly about our conversation, but I hadn’t broken it, since it was still a possibility, no matter how remote. Since Heather had been emphatic about being finished talking to me, I was actually considering telling Molly about the ashes, and the young woman’s response. If Heather leaped to the conclusion that I was working on the case with Molly, I couldn’t do anything about that.
I took a deep breath, then said, “Frankly, I’m not satisfied with your explanation about your relationship with the victim.”
Heather frowned. “I told you before, we dated, but it as never anything all that serious. I did
n’t know about the other women in his life, but I wouldn’t have minded. It wasn’t a big deal.”
I didn’t buy that for a second, not from the way she’d rested when I’d first told her of Jerry Sanger’s fate. “Does that imply that there are other men in your life as well?”
She stiffened, and I thought she was going to throw me out, but after a few seconds Heather calmly said, “There aren’t any other men, at least not anymore. I’ve decided to go back with my old boyfriend. I never realized how good I had it with Hank until recently.”
“Good for you,” I said. “When did you decide that?”
“Yesterday,” she said. “Is that all?”
“All I can think of at the moment. Thanks for your time.”
She nodded absently, and I decided to leave before she banned me from the store for life. I’d tried to stir things up with her, and I’d managed, at least a little, but she hadn’t broken down with a confession. Neither had Monique, and I’d had her dizzy from a head trauma and hung over to boot. The only confession I’d heard that day was from Melissa, and she’d cheerfully admitted to having no relationship with Jerry Sanger whatsoever. As I left the Kents’ shop, I headed back to Monique’s business. If Molly was till there at The Soap Bubble, I planned to confess my interview with Heather to her and offer to exchange information. If she wasn’t there, it might be the perfect time to do a little snooping on my own. The circumstances around Monique’s troubles were unsettling, and I had the feeling someone may have been trying to get rid of her before she had a chance to come clean.
Molly’s squad car—along with all the others—was gone when I drove up. I parked in the lot next door and 1 walked around to the back of The Soap Bubble. The Miata was pretty easy to identify as mine, and I didn’t want anybody to know I was there snooping around. At first I couldn’t find the herbs in question. There was a garden plot in back of her shop, but it was overgrown with weeds and volunteers, making it tough to identify anything but morning glory vines in the mess. The garden hadn’t been tended to in at least a couple of years, and I wondered why Monique had ever bothered. Then I spotted a row of pots in her back windowsill, including the two varieties I’d been searching for. But there were no ashes, at least none that I could see. I was looking inside a couple of cans under the back porch when I felt something hard nudge me on the shoulder.
In a voice I knew only too well, I heard, “Find what you’re looking for?”
I turned and gave Molly my brightest smile. “I have now that you’re here.”
From the expression on her face, charm alone wasn’t going to get me out of this. “Can it, Ben, what are you doing?”
“Looking for ashes,” I confessed simply. It shocked me as I uttered the absolute truth to her, but what other reason could I give?
“So you finally decided to share that little tidbit with me, did you?”
Busted. “Are you telling me you knew what the ashes meant all along?”
A slight smile cracked her grim expression. “Not at first, but I started looking into lye production, and that led to the history of it, and we both know where that ended up.” The grin faded as she added, “Why didn’t you tell me the truth earlier?”
“I wanted to talk to my brother Bob first,” I admitted. ‘He’s the resident family expert on the subject, and I’m not all that up on leaching.”
“He’s a good source to have, isn’t he? Your brother filled me in right after you left him, and I could tell it wasn’t his first question about lye today.”
Molly had dug in faster than I could cover my tracks. I was suddenly glad I’d decided to come clean with her.
I nodded my agreement. “Yeah, but did he tell you that the folks who run one of the other soap shops still use lye, including their granddaughter, who happened to admit to me that she’d been dating Jerry Sanger?”
Molly started to cloud up, and I added quickly, “Hey, I came to you first with this, didn’t I?”
She shook her head and bit her lower lip, a sign I recognized as agitation beyond the norm. “Ben, I just found you digging through trash cans. Are you going to have the audacity to stand here and lie to me as well?”
It was time for a little indignation. “Hey, I resent that. Okay, so I decided to swing back by here first before I talked to you, but you were the next stop on my list.”
“I’m sure that’s the case,” she said.
“Molly, I’ve never lied to you, not directly. I’m not saying I haven’t kept things from you in the past, but I’ve never intentionally deceived you.”
She shrugged. “I suppose that’s true enough.”
“You know it is,” I said.
“Don’t get self-righteous with me, Benjamin Perkins, you know as well as I do that you can lie just as easily by not saying a word.”
I shrugged. “I was going to talk to you next. It’s the truth, take it or leave it.”
Molly accepted it, then said, “So what else did Miss Heather Kent have to say for herself?”
“She told me she was getting back together with her old boyfriend. She actually tried to convince me that she was dating Jerry on the side just for fun.”
Molly shook her head. “I wonder about her definition of fun. Listen, is there anything else you’re holding back? I mean anything. I need to know, and I need to know right now.”
I wasn’t about to tell her about Louisa at the dam, and I’d already come clean about everything else. Well, almost. I might as well make a total sweep of it.
“There’s one more thing. I found the herbs you discovered on Jerry Sanger’s pants at two other soap shops, but it’s nothing to go on. There were even herbs growing in the borders outside The Crafty Comer, and plants inside the store, too. Chamomile and lemon balm aren’t exactly exotics, you know. It seems like everywhere I go, I’m seeing them. It’s the white truck syndrome.”
“What are you babbling about now?” she asked.
I’d had this discussion with my brother Jeff a few days before. “We tend not to notice something until it’s significant to us. The next time you drive down the road, count the white trucks you see. I’m willing to wager you’ll find them everywhere, but if I hadn’t just mentioned it, you’d never have noticed them.”
“You’ve lost your mind completely, you know that, don’t you? I do have to admit that I’m seeing herbs everywhere I look. They’re turning up in the oddest places.” She gestured back to The Soap Bubble, then added, “We didn’t find any here, though. I had a man search the grounds this morning.”
“Did you have him look on the windowsill?” I asked, pointing to my discovery.
She looked where I was pointing, then said, “No, he must not have thought of that.”
It was time for a question of my own. “Did you happen to find any ashes inside Monique’s place?”
“No, but then again, we missed the plants, didn’t we? I’m going to have a talk with Pickers; he should know better than miss something so obvious.”
“I’ve got another question. Have you heard how Monique is doing?” I asked, remembering the gash on her forehead.
“I checked in five minutes ago. She broke her wrist when the bookcase fell on her, and the cut on her head took nine stitches.” Molly added, “The hangover didn’t help matters. She admitted to tying one on last night.” Molly scratched the dirt with her shoe, then asked, “You got to her before anyone else. Did she tell you what happened?”
“No. I figured she might have said something to you.”
Molly said, “The only thing she remembers is the shelf hitting her from behind. Still, it’s probably a good thing you found her when you did. That head wound could have been a lot worse.”
“I’m just glad I could help. So what are you going to do now?”
“That’s police business,” she said automatically, then added, “but since you gave me the tip, I’ll tell you. I’m going to go have a conversation with Heather Kent.”
“Want some company?” I asked.
“She just loves having me around.”
“I thought you had a soap shop to run.”
I laughed. “Are you kidding me? Between my mother, my brothers, and sisters, not to mention my grandfather, I’m amazed they still keep me around.”
“Me too,” she said. “Ben, I meant what I said. Stick to what you know best.”
When I didn’t respond, she said, “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”
“What’s that?”
“Lying to me by not opening your mouth.”
I just smiled, and after a second she shook her head and walked away. I went with her and said good-bye as she drove off. I wasn’t about to promise I was finished snooping. Louisa was still a suspect in Molly’s mind—she would have told me otherwise if she was having second , thoughts—and as long as my sister was under the microscope, I wasn’t about to back off.
If only I could figure out a place to start stirring things up again.
I headed back to Where There’s Soap, hoping that something else had come up, anything that might help me clear Louisa. If it didn’t, I’d grab some lunch, teach my class, and get back out there.
It was the only thing I could do.
Chapter 7
I walked into Where There’s Soap ten minutes before my class was ready to begin. Not wanting to leave my lunch to chance again, I’d grabbed a burger on the way in this time. I knew better than to go through the drive-through window, but I was in a hurry. I’d asked for a hamburger loaded with everything but mayonnaise; I’d said it twice. So what did I get? Mayonnaise only, and a lot of it. At a stoplight I scraped all of it I could off the bun, but it still had a lingering taste that ruined the quick meal for me.
When I walked in the door, Mom said, “What’s wrong, Benjamin? Has something else happened?”
“No, I just got reamed at the drive-through,” I said.
She shook her head. “That’s what you get for eating fast food. You should do something about your diet, Benjamin.”
I patted my stomach. “That’s easy enough, since I’m not on one.” Sure, I was ten or twelve or fifteen pounds overweight, but unlike Molly, I wasn’t doing anything special to fight it besides walking every morning before work. I added, “Besides, every time I try to lose weight, you tell me I’m too skinny and bake more treats.”
