Going Through the Notions (A Deadly Notions Mystery)

by Price, Cate

  At 5 p.m., I dutifully closed the store and went straight home.

  *

  “The next day, after a tearful good-bye to Peter, Sarah accompanied me to Sometimes a Great Notion. I had to admit I’d been a little misty-eyed to see him go, too. I didn’t know what the future held, but if Peter ended up being my son-in-law, I’d have no complaints.

  Martha and Eleanor burst into the shop a few minutes after we opened.

  “Good God, did you hear the news?” Martha was waving a copy of one of the New York newspapers over her head. “That crazy Fiona Adams? The one who had the meltdown at the auction? Her father’s new wife has just been found dead in her New York penthouse!”

  “What?” I grabbed the paper from her. “Let me see that. Do they know what happened yet?”

  Sarah was already scanning her phone. Before I’d had a chance to turn a page in the newspaper, she answered me. “Says here there seems to be no sign of foul play, as if she died in her sleep, but a toxicology report and autopsy are under way.”

  My mind was racing as Martha, Eleanor, and I stared at one another.

  “Do you think Wacky Fiona knocked off the trophy wife?” Martha asked in a hushed voice.

  Eleanor shrugged. “Well, I’m no lawyer, but if Fiona did it to get her hands on her father’s estate, I don’t know that she’d automatically inherit anyway. I think it would go to whoever is mentioned in the wife’s will. But if she didn’t have one, I’m not sure how that works.”

  Sarah frowned as she read further. “It must be weird to have a stepmother who’s younger than you.”

  “Heads up! Speak of the devil,” Eleanor hissed as Fiona Adams strode into the store.

  Martha took a step backward and landed on my foot. I winced and pushed her off with an effort, and we marshaled ourselves into a straggling line.

  “Good morning, good morning, everyone!” Fiona sang out. “How are we today?”

  She pointed a long finger at the newspaper I held. “I see you’ve read the wonderful news. Ding dong, the witch is dead!” she sang out. Then she laughed, but it wasn’t a normal laugh, more like a horrible hyena-like hacking sound.

  I shuddered involuntarily and glanced at my compatriots. Sarah was wide-eyed, Eleanor open-mouthed, and Martha looked frankly panicked.

  “Um—Ms. Adams,” she stammered, “you never sent me the bill for that white outfit.”

  “Oh, please, don’t worry about it.” Fiona laughed again, waving her hand in dismissal. “All water under the proverbial bridge now. I’m heading back to New York soon, but I wanted to say good-bye to you, Daisy. I didn’t expect to meet someone so cosmopolitan in this podunk town.”

  I could feel Eleanor’s thoughts stabbing me like a pack of embroidery needles. Who does this bitch think she is?

  Fiona took a quick glance around the store, making a grunt of approval. “Very nice. You have excellent taste. Just as I expected.”

  She paused, and the giddiness vanished for a moment. “I don’t suppose you ever found the stolen pens, did you?” She asked the question in an offhand way, but as I looked into Fiona’s eyes, I saw the chronic pain and deep-rooted sadness there, despite the surface merriment.

  That’s when I knew for sure she didn’t do it.

  Money didn’t mean that much to Fiona. She could afford to buy herself a duplicate set of the pens, with or without her father’s estate. She might have all the money in the world, but she could never buy his love or attention. I had one small memento that would mean the world to her hidden in the bottom of my pocketbook. I decided then and there to give her the pen. But not now. Not in front of everyone. If I was doing something vaguely illegal, I wasn’t going to involve my daughter and friends.

  After Fiona left, Sarah was the first to recover. “Jeez, that woman seems too happy for her own good.”

  Martha blew out a long breath. “It’s like she had a personality transplant or something. She’s as violently happy as she was violently angry before.”

  We didn’t have much time to recover from Fiona’s visit before the doorbell jangled again and Cyril marched in.

  “Ah found that part tha needed for yon car.” He gestured toward Martha’s Lincoln parked outside. I knew she had a tough time getting it serviced because it was so old. “Ah could come by later to put it in, if tha like.”

  It seemed as though he walked a little taller, his shoulders a little straighter these days.

  “That would be wonderful, thank you.” Martha’s cheeks were as pink as the rose-colored linen dress she wore.

  I ignored Eleanor’s dig in my ribs and refused to look at Sarah. I took pity on Martha and ransacked my mind for a conversation starter. “So, Martha, how’s everything coming along with preparations for the fair on Saturday?”

  She took a deep breath, gathering her composure around her like one of her fur stoles.

  “Well, all seems to be under control. The flyers are posted, the exhibits are lined up, and the volunteers procured. The only snag is that Ruth isn’t sure how many more tables she can get for the flea market. She’s pushing Precision Rentals as hard as she can to donate more, but they say they need to keep some on hand for their business.”

  “How about a boot sale like they have in England?” Cyril said.

  I don’t know why everyone looked to me for a translation. “For selling boots?” I asked faintly.

  “No, no,” he said impatiently, “you know, the boot—the trunk of the car. Everyone pulls their cars up in a big circle, opens the trunks with the stuff inside to sell, and Bob’s yer uncle.”

  “Oh. I see.” I glanced at Eleanor and she raised her eyebrows in approval.

  “Actually, that’s a pretty good idea. Sounds like the solution to all our problems,” she said dryly.

  “Well, I’d best be off.” Cyril hurried out the door.

  Under her breath, Eleanor murmured, “What have you done to that man, Martha?”

  “He looks like one of the lost members of the Rolling Stones or something,” Sarah said. “Sort of sexy in a way. For an older guy.”

  Eleanor grinned. “She’s an absolute miracle worker.”

  “Knock it off, you two,” I said.

  Sarah giggled. “I just have one question. Who’s Uncle Bob?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It wasn’t until Friday that I was allowed to visit Angus. The surgery had taken over fourteen hours, and then he’d been in ICU for a while. But he’d made it through, and for that I was truly grateful.

  It was around 4 p.m. I closed the store early. I’d have asked Sarah to stay, but I didn’t want her closing up by herself. The shooting had bothered me more than I’d realized.

  Hospitals freaked me out, too, but I’d make the effort for Angus’s sake. I walked for what felt like about a mile down the polished tile hallway at Doylestown Hospital until I found the right room.

  A tiny old man was sleeping in the first bed, his mouth hanging open. Around the blue curtain that didn’t go all the way to the floor was Angus in his bed. Even though his head was totally wrapped in bandages, his color was good, and one look into his eyes made me feel like cheering.

  Angus was back!

  “Hullo, Brat.”

  “What did you do? Climb over the wall or something?” I teased as I gave him a hug.

  “Something like that. I sure am glad to be out of that prison. Hell of a way to get sprung, though.”

  I dragged a chair closer to the high bed, careful not to bump the IV stand. I laid some collectible and antiques magazines on the blanket, plus the local auction listing newspaper. “Here you go. To bring you up to speed.”

  “Thanks, Daisy. You know, there’s some things going to change when I get home. I did a lot of thinking when I was sitting in that prison cell. No more drinking. Even without the brain tumor, I was a mess and I know it. I’ve not been a very good husband to poor Betty either. She’s had a lot to put up with.”

  I didn’t see any sign of Betty, and I didn’t ask i
f she’d been to see him.

  He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Thanks for sticking by me, kid. I know I was out of it for a while. At least that’s what they tell me. But you always believed in me. I remember that part, and I’ll never forget it.”

  “Sometimes a good friendship is like a good marriage,” I said. Sometimes more enduring. I’d come so close to losing him—either to a murder conviction or a meningioma.

  My eyes welled up and I plucked a couple of tissues out of the box on his bedside table. “Jeez, my allergies are so bad today.” Although in a climate-controlled hospital, who was I kidding?

  Angus leaned back against the starched white pillows with a sigh. “I’m going to be in physical rehab for a couple of weeks. They tell me I’ll be real tired for a while when I go home and not allowed to lift anything heavy. Might be a couple of months until I’m fully recovered. Sounds like Patsy’s been doing a good job. We’re thinking about hiring her part-time to help out. What do you think?”

  I smiled at him. “I think that’s a great idea. She seems to have a knack for this business. And more importantly, the passion.”

  “Even when I’m back on my feet, I don’t want to work all the time like I did before. I want to enjoy what’s left of my life. The doctor said the five-year survival rate is pretty good for the type of tumor I had.”

  I blinked rapidly. I wasn’t going to cry. But thinking about the rest of his life in terms of a handful of years? I was determined to make the most of every minute with him in the future. I’d never complain about getting up early to go picking again.

  His eyes misted over, too. “The doctor said I can expect to go through all kinds of emotions in my recovery.” He blew his nose loudly. “And I still wanna know who killed my friend Jimmy. I know he wasn’t perfect, Daisy, but he didn’t deserve to die.”

  I wanted to tell him about Jimmy’s abuse of his wife, and the gambling, but in the unforgiving light from the fluorescent bar over the bed, Angus still looked fragile, so I kept quiet.

  A comfortably plump nurse came in with a tray full of pills and a syringe.

  Angus groaned. “Here’s Ms. Misery. Probably here to stick more needles up my ass.”

  “Now, now, Mr. Backstead,” she said in a thick Jamaican accent as she grinned at me. “Try to be a good patient.”

  I slipped out of the chair. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “See you. Love you, Brat.”

  “Love you more.”

  In the hospital parking lot, the Subaru hesitated before it started, and then sputtered out again. I pumped the gas and turned the key, holding my breath until it fired up. I raced the engine, kept one foot on the brake, and quickly threw the car into drive.

  Once I was back out on the main road, I called Joe to tell him I had a couple of errands to run before I came home. There was one last piece of the puzzle to slot into place before I could truly let this whole thing go. Joe wouldn’t be pleased if he ever found out, but it was something I had to do.

  Hey, perhaps I could star in a new reality show on TV, I thought as I turned off Sheepville Pike onto Forty Acre Road. Ex-Schoolteachers Behaving Badly.

  Fiona’s driver was loading luggage into the trunk of the Mercedes roadster as I pulled onto the graveled driveway of the Four Foxes. Just in the nick of time.

  I got out of the car and was about to ask him where she was when I heard a rhythmic clatter and Fiona appeared at the brick archway, the wheels of her rolling suitcase bumping over the flagstones on the patio.

  “Daisy! What are you doing here? Any news about the pens?”

  “Not exactly. I do have something for you, though, but you must promise me you’ll never tell anyone where you got it.”

  “How intriguing.” She handed the suitcase to the driver. “Do I need some kind of code word? Like Rosebud?”

  I rolled my eyes. Again. “Just promise, okay?”

  “Yes, yes.” Fiona waved her arms impatiently.

  I dug into the recesses of my pocketbook and handed over the precious Parker Duofold Lucky Curve pen.

  “Oh my God. Is this what I think it is?” She grabbed the pen and held it up to the light.

  “Yes.” My smile was so big it stretched the skin on my face.

  Suddenly Fiona’s eyes narrowed. “How much do you want for it? Where’s the rest of them?”

  The driver moved closer.

  “Oh, no, Fiona, you’ve got it all wrong,” I said hurriedly. “I found this at the Kratzes’ farm when I was looking around on my own. I think the killer dropped it when he was fleeing the crime scene.”

  I didn’t tell her about Jasper digging it up and slobbering all over it, knowing how fastidious she was. “I should hand it over to the police, but as I know how much it means to you, I wanted you to have it.”

  Fiona took a deep breath. “Thank you, Daisy, and you’re right. It does mean the world to me.”

  At that moment, Detective Serrano and Joy came strolling around the other side of the garage.

  Oh, boy.

  Fiona clapped a hand to her mouth.

  Joy came up and hugged me. “Daisy! What a nice surprise!”

  Serrano looked at me and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Oh, um, hi, Joy, and um, Tony, I was saying good-bye to my friend Fiona here. She’s going back to New York.”

  I risked a glance back at Fiona, who smiled tightly and nodded, but didn’t say anything. She was wearing a sleeveless top, and a tight linen miniskirt with no pockets. Where the heck had she put the pen? She had no sleeves to shove it inside, and if she’d stuck it down her skirt, well, it should have made some kind of outline.

  However, Detective Serrano was currently focused on one person. “Daisy, I’ve been checking the marketplace for those pens, but there’s not a whisper of them for sale anywhere. They seem to have vanished into thin air.”

  He frowned as he did his scanning thing of the courtyard, the Mercedes, a stray wandering duck, Fiona, the driver, and then back to me. “There’s something very odd about this whole affair. I bet they’re right in front of us and we just can’t see them.”

  I made a sound that I hoped sounded like agreement. After a few moments, Joy and Serrano moved on, with Joy leading the way to the main house.

  Once the coast was clear, I turned to Fiona. “What did you do with it?” I hissed.

  She didn’t answer, but simply opened her mouth and slowly pulled the pen out of her throat, like a snake regurgitating a thin mouse.

  “Holy moly!” And here I had worried about her being squeamish because Jasper had picked it up.

  Fiona shrugged. “What can I say? I dated a sword swallower in college.”

  I shook my head as I gave her my handkerchief. “Why don’t you keep this to wrap it in?”

  If Fiona were anyone else, we would have hugged. As it was, we shook hands, but the unexpected warmth of her touch and the sparkle in her eyes made me grin like a fool all over again.

  “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, Daisy. If there’s ever anything I can do to repay the favor . . .”

  “Don’t mention it. Have a safe trip. And a good life.”

  I watched the Mercedes ease down the driveway and waved until she was out of sight.

  As pleased as I was with myself, I needed to get a move on and get the heck out of there before the detective came back. I was the world’s worst liar, and I knew I couldn’t fool him for long.

  I jumped in the Subaru and turned the key. Click. Nothing.

  Damn it. I pounded a hand on the steering wheel of the old car. I felt like pounding my head on it, too. I was going to be so late.

  A shadow appeared at the driver’s side window.

  “Car trouble?” Serrano inquired politely.

  “Yes, it appears so.” I suddenly realized there was no police car parked in the courtyard. “Hey, where’s your car?”

  He nodded in the direction of the organic farm. “I came in that way and walked up to the main house, s
o as not to alarm the guests. This was a social call.”

  Social call? Joy was an attractive woman in her early forties. Guess the detective was a fast worker once he arrived in a new town.

  “I was hoping I might run into Robin Tague,” he said, doing the mind-reading thing again. “See if I could get a handle on the guy. It’s a long shot that he’s involved with the fountain pen murder, but you never know.” He pointed at me. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

  In a few minutes, the cruiser rolled into the courtyard and Serrano parked nose to nose with the Subaru. But once he’d attached the jumper cables and told me to try to start it, the Subaru’s engine refused to turn over, even with a powerful V-8 attached.

  “There’s probably something wrong with the alternator or starter motor,” he called to me. “Do you need a ride home?”

  I knew that George Hildebrand would have closed the garage by now. I should leave the car here, get home at a reasonable hour to appease Joe, and deal with this tomorrow.

  “Fine. Thanks.”

  I’d never ridden in a police car before, and I always wore a seat belt anyway, but I was glad I’d buckled mine now because Serrano drove the way he moved, fast and fluid. The scenery whipped by, and he cut lines through the twisting corners like a downhill skier.

  I breathed in a whisper of intoxicating aftershave. It was silly, but being alone with this devastatingly attractive man in a high-performance vehicle made me suddenly tongue-tied.

  “You miss the New York delis, Daisy?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said, grateful for the opening gambit. “Although there’s a deli in Doylestown that’s pretty good.” We chatted for the next few minutes about wonderfully safe topics such as smoked salmon and what constituted the best pastrami sandwich.

  We passed the Kratz farm as we headed up Sheepville Pike, and I tried to breathe as evenly as possible and not look too guilty about giving the one piece of evidence away.