“You could always file a complaint with the Chamber of Commerce, although with her husband currently active in its ranks, it could get awkward when you explain the circumstances.”
“Speaking of Mark Jameson, before you got to the photo studio, I noticed that all Louise’s big portraits were copyrighted Mark Jameson Enterprises. What do you make of that?”
Angelica looked thoughtful. “Maybe he’s one of those male chauvinist pigs who can’t bear for his wife to have autonomy. Or maybe it’s just a shrewd business move to consolidate their assets, although I think I saw that Dr. Jameson has the initials LLC after his name on the sign in front of his practice. As a dentist, he could be sued for malpractice, and being a limited liability company would save his personal or other business assets.”
“Then how about the word ‘enterprises’? Do you think they’re just grouping Louise’s studio in with the wedding venue as one company?”
“It sounds reasonable. He probably hired a good attorney to draw up his contracts and file his incorporation papers.”
“Somehow, it all seems fishy to me.”
“Do you think he knew about Louise’s affair with Marshall and wanted to punish her—to keep her under his thumb?”
“Who says her relationship with Marshall was the first time she strayed?” Tricia remarked.
“Once a cheater, always a cheater. That’s been my experience with men,” Angelica said sourly.
“Not every man cheats. Christopher never cheated on me,” Tricia said. “And I don’t believe he was in a relationship during the time we were apart, either.”
“Why not?”
“He told me so.”
“And you believed him?”
“If nothing else, I don’t think he ever lied to me.”
“Such a paragon of virtue,” Angelica said flippantly.
“Well, you thought so after he saved your life.”
“Yes,” Angelica admitted contritely. “And I’m sorry. Except for his poor judgment in leaving you, he was a man of character. I’ll forever be sorry that he’s gone.”
As would Tricia. But that didn’t mean they would have gotten back together again, either.
“What else did you learn?” Angelica asked.
Tricia shrugged. “Nothing much. But Louise seems to think I’m going to rat her out to Mark.”
Angelica raised an eyebrow. “And will you?”
“No. It’s not my business. Marshall is dead and gone. Well, until Becca scatters his ashes in Hawaii, that is.”
“Why Hawaii?”
Tricia explained.
“Well, you didn’t want them anyway, did you?” Angelica asked.
“No. That would be creepy.”
“Would you have said that about Grandmother’s ashes?” Angelica asked.
No, Tricia wouldn’t. That’s because she loved her late grandmother unconditionally. But she deserved that kind of devotion. Tricia wasn’t at all sure Marshall did—from anyone.
Was it telling that she felt guilty just thinking that thought?
TWENTY-FIVE
No sooner did Tricia return home from dinner than her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and answered. “Hi, Becca.”
“Do you have a minute to talk?” Becca asked.
“Sure. What’s on your mind?” Tricia asked as she opened a cupboard door and removed a can of cat food. It was just about Miss Marple’s dinnertime.
“I wondered what your take would be on me running the Armchair Tourist?”
“Why would you want to do that?” Tricia asked, taken aback.
“Well, I’m obviously not going to be making the rounds touring with the senior tennis league,” Becca deadpanned.
Tricia took out a clean cat bowl. “I thought you said you didn’t want to be stuck in some crappy little town. East Podunk, I think you mentioned.”
“That was when I had the world at my command,” Becca remarked.
“And you don’t miss those days?” Tricia asked, switching the phone to speaker mode and setting it on the counter.
“Of course I do, but I’m also a realist. According to Gene, his shop made money. I was a great tennis champ, but not anymore. My endorsements dried up. I have to live, but I don’t want to hang out at malls and tennis clubs signing photos taken twenty years ago. What kind of pathetic creature do you think I am?”
“You mentioned it, not me,” Tricia defended herself while Miss Marple danced around her feet, eager for her supper.
Becca exhaled a breath. “Sorry. I’m a little touchy on that subject.”
And how.
“But you haven’t answered my question,” Becca insisted.
Tricia put down the bowl of food and reached for the water bowl. “What do you know about retail?”
“Absolutely nothing. But Gene had an assistant and he’d given her quite a bit of responsibility. I figured I might be more of a behind-the-scenes manager while she handles the day-to-day affairs. Hank told me about the elusive Nigela Ricita and how she’s almost single-handedly saved the village.” Bob Kelly got the original credit for that. NR Associates just built on that success—and had done a fantastic job. “It sounds like someone else could come in and do even more of the same in this part of the state.”
Tricia filled the bowl with fresh water and set it down. “What kind of niche business would you bring in?” Tricia asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t given it a lot of thought. I’d have to talk to some people. Maybe join the Chamber of Commerce and talk to a few people on the Board of Selectmen.”
“Yes, you could do that.”
“So, what do you think?” Becca pressed.
“Start off slowly. See how hard it is to keep a business afloat during the months when Stoneham isn’t a tourist attraction. That’s the real test.”
Becca sighed. “That does seem like prudent advice.”
“That’s the only kind I have to offer. But while you wait, do your homework. Find that niche product or service that locals and the tourist trade will support. Have you thought about giving tennis lessons?”
“Never! No one could afford that kind of expertise.”
“What about starting a tennis club? You could hire the past and present high school stars to teach the basics.”
“Oh, please.”
“Didn’t you say you started out on a crummy asphalt court?”
Becca sighed. “Yes, I did.” She was quiet for a moment. “I guess I’ve become a snob.”
“Well, the locals won’t like that. You need to be nice to people.”
“I’m never not nice.”
“Becca!”
“Okay, sometimes I’m a little snarky. I often think I’ve earned it.”
Tricia let out an exasperated breath before continuing. “There’s something else you need to think about.”
“What’s that?”
“How do you explain that Marshall—and that’s how everyone around here knew him—was married to you? All anyone has to do is look you up on Wikipedia to find out you’ve only been married once, and the man’s name wasn’t Marshall Cambridge.”
“Oh, dear. And I’ve already introduced myself as his ex-wife—but only a few times.”
“A few too many times,” Tricia said.
Becca sighed. “I’ll have to concoct some story.”
“Do you still have any PR contacts from your old life?”
“Maybe,” Becca said, drawing out the word.
“Give them a call and see what you can do in the way of damage control.”
“I could just say it was none of their business.”
“And if the press noses around? If nothing else, you are still considered a tennis celebrity.”
“Crap!” Becca barked. “I’d better hang up and start making some other calls. We’ll talk again soon,” she promised, and ended the conversation.
Tricia shook her head, considering their talk. The one thing Becca hadn’t mentioned was what Marshall’s employe
e thought of working for the Armchair Tourist’s new owner.
Tricia decided she’d investigate that first thing the next morning.
* * *
* * *
Tricia’s phone rang just before eight o’clock the next day, and she was pleased to see it was from the window contractor.
“We’re in the area and we’ll be at your store around nine. Is that okay?”
Tricia let out a breath. That put her plan to visit the Armchair Tourist on hold for a few hours. Still, Ava wouldn’t be around to open until close to ten anyway. “Sure. It’s so dark in the shop, we’ll be glad to have daylight once again.”
After hanging up the phone, Tricia decided to dress warmly. The forecast called for another day of sunshine, but the high was predicted to be only in the midfifties. Tricia was glad she’d had her photo taken the day before. She decided she’d wear a cap and knew that by noon she’d be suffering from a bad case of hat head.
Miss Marple was not happy to be left behind when Tricia closed the door to her apartment. But at least the cat would be warm and safe until the window replacement was complete.
It was Mr. Everett’s day off, so Tricia texted Pixie to tell her what to expect and asked if she minded stopping at the Coffee Bean to pick up a dozen doughnuts for the installation crew, not wanting to leave the store in case they arrived and she was nowhere to be found.
“Sure thing!”
The workmen arrived not ten minutes later and immediately set to work. They’d already removed the plywood that covered the aperture when Pixie arrived for work dressed in her big, moth-eaten full-length fur coat, with a matching hat sitting jauntily on top of her head. It wasn’t a look Tricia wanted to emulate, but she had to admit the style complimented the covers of some of the vintage mysteries that lined her shelves.
Tricia made a couple of pots of coffee and tried to keep warm by walking up and down the length of the store, while Pixie sat in the reader’s nook in perfect comfort. After an hour of drafty air wafting in, Pixie’s coat began to look downright chic.
If tourists were wandering Stoneham’s main drag, Tricia never saw them. And she was beginning to sweat about her lunch with Ginny when her phone pinged.
Sorry to cancel lunch, but Antonio and I have to meet with the insurance adjuster. See you on Sunday.
Much as she looked forward to those lunches with her niece by marriage, Tricia was glad not to feel quite so rushed. She quickly texted her sister to act as a stand-in.
You bet! See you at the café, Angelica answered.
After hours of futzing around, the men had the new window in place and even put a coat of primer on the raw wood around the frame.
“Thanks for the doughnuts and coffee!” the guys called as they finished packing up their gear and drove off.
By then, it was Pixie’s lunch hour—in fact, she was an hour late.
Tricia turned up the heat and was starting to feel antsy about ever getting a chance to take care of her own agenda.
While Pixie was gone, Tricia waited on a couple of customers interested in filling out their collections and sold seven Ellery Queen novels and four by Josephine Tey. Not bad, considering they’d had no traffic the entire morning.
When Pixie arrived back from lunch, Tricia scooted out the door to seek out Ava and see what she thought about Becca taking the reins of the Armchair Tourist.
Tricia entered the store, which was bereft of customers, and found Ava standing at the counter with a laptop before her.
She looked up. “Oh, hi, Tricia. What brings you here today?”
“I came to see how you’re doing.”
Ava shrugged. “Okay. Marshall’s life didn’t go on, but mine does. And so does my job here. In fact, I’ve been given more duties.”
“What do you mean?”
“Marshall saved a lot of the ephemera from Vamps.” The porn shop Marshall had run at the edge of the village. “He was selling it off piecemeal on eBay and Etsy. Becca gave me the passwords and asked me to keep those shops alive . . . at least until they find out Marshall is dead. Then we’ll probably have to set up new shops. But we can name them something similar and, hopefully, his clientele will still find us.”
Marshall had never mentioned online sales, at least not to Tricia, and she said as much.
“Oh, sure. That was a big part of our income. When the stacks of magazines and prints run out . . . well, I’m not sure we can survive through the winter. Although . . . just last month, I set up a way to sell the products we carry directly on the Internet with a buy button on our website. Marshall thought buying in bulk and undercutting certain other websites might draw in customers.”
Marshall had had it all figured out.
“How do you like the idea of working with Becca?” Tricia asked.
Ava’s mouth curved downward. “Not so much.”
“How come?”
The young woman scowled. “She seems kind of . . . money hungry.”
“What do you mean?”
Again Ava shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too critical, but Marshall loved his pinup girl prints. He wanted to sell them to people who would love them as much as he did. Becca could care less.”
Tricia had to admit, some of those pinup pictures from the 1940s had captured her heart, too. The women depicted could have been stand-ins for the characters in so many of the vintage mysteries she loved and sold. Of course, many of those books had been written by misogynist men, but there were quite a few women who wrote during those times, too. Women like Dame Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, and Ngaio Marsh, to name a few.
“I must admit, I’ve found Becca to be a bit brusque,” Tricia admitted.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Ava grated.
“But do you think you can work with her in the long-term?”
Ava shrugged. “We’ll see. I like this job, and because Marshall gave me a lot of responsibility, I’ve learned a lot. But if this one goes sour, there are other jobs out there and I now have more skills if I have to sell myself to a potential employer.”
“Is there anything else he kept from Vamps you can sell to keep the business afloat?”
Ava shrugged. “Just the old true-crime magazines and books. I guess he had a self-storage unit on the edge of town. Becca said she was going to go and have a look. I hope I don’t have to take pictures and sell all that stuff, too. Some of the photos in those books are positively gruesome.” Tricia had read more than her fair share of them, and the crimes reported were often grisly. She didn’t envy Ava taking on that task. Had Marshall been attracted by that kind of reading material because of his own criminal past?
Curiosity nibbled at Tricia’s mind. She sure would like to see what else Marshall had squirreled away in that storage unit. She wondered if she could convince Becca to let her go with her when she inspected it.
There was only one way to find out. By asking.
Tricia glanced at her watch. She had just enough time to call Becca before she was to meet with Angelica for lunch.
“I’d better get going. Good luck with all your new duties.”
“Thanks,” Ava said.
Tricia left the shop and walked next door to Booked for Lunch, but instead of going in, she pulled out her phone and made her call.
“Hey, Becca. I was just talking to Ava at the Armchair Tourist. She says Marshall—er, Gene—had a storage unit on the edge of town.”
“Apparently.”
“Have you had a chance to open it?”
“I was going to do that this afternoon before I meet Ginny for practice. Why?”
“I’m curious. Can I tag along with you?”
“I guess.” She paused. “If there’s anything of value, maybe you can help me load up my car. I’ll want to empty the thing before the next month’s rent comes due.”
“Great. Text me when you’re ready to go and I’ll make myself available.”
“You got it.”
/> The call ended.
Tricia couldn’t imagine what else Marshall could have stashed in the unit. She’d thought he’d parted with all his inventory when he’d sold Vamps, but it looked like he’d let go of only the worst of the pornographic material. Were those books and magazines now moldering in his former shop or had the person who’d bought the business sold them in liquidation? She really didn’t know or care. But somehow Tricia felt strongly that Marshall’s storage unit would hold something her friend with benefits would have wanted to keep secret.
What that was, Tricia had no idea.
TWENTY-SIX
Angelica was already waiting in their reserved booth when Tricia arrived at Booked for Lunch just five minutes late.
“There you are, I was beginning to worry.”
“Sorry. The guys fixed my window this morning—”
“So I saw. It’ll look as good as new once the paint is finished. If the weather holds, maybe Mr. Everett can do that tomorrow.”
“Good idea. I’ll ask if he’d be interested. Otherwise, I can do it myself while he holds the fort. Anyway, I spoke to Ava at the Armchair Tourist.” They ordered, and Tricia gave her sister the rundown, but Angelica seemed antsy, wanting instead to talk about the proofs she’d received from Louise Jameson. While she spoke, Tricia pulled out her phone and checked her e-mail. As she suspected, she hadn’t received hers. If they didn’t show up that afternoon, she’d give Louise a couple of days before inquiring. She was already prepared for an excuse such as Oh, I accidentally deleted them. Until then, she’d give Louise the benefit of the doubt.
They were just finishing their meal when Tricia’s phone pinged. She looked at it and shoved it back in her purse. “I’ve got to go.”
“Go where?”
“To the self-storage units near the highway.”
“For what?” Angelica asked, confused.
“I’ll tell you all about it after closing tonight. Thanks for lunch! See you then.”
Tricia grabbed her coat and practically flew out the door.
She met Becca in the municipal parking lot, standing beside her vehicle and dressed in purple sweats. She jerked a thumb toward the passenger seat. “Get in.”
Booktown Mystery 15 - A Deadly Deletion Page 20
