A Deadly Deletion

by Lorna Barrett

  “Well, there is that dentist here in the village: Dr. Jameson.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard about him,” Pixie muttered.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. That not only is he expensive, but he’s mean to his staff, too.” Which corroborated what Grace had told Tricia the evening before. “He’s only been open a little over a year and already he’s gone through three receptionists and two hygienists.”

  Tricia could believe the part about the man being mean to his staff. He sure hadn’t shown her much—any?—respect during the Chamber recruitment meeting. “Why don’t you give the office a call and see if they can at least cement the crown back in until your dentist returns and can fix it permanently.”

  “I guess I could,” Pixie reluctantly agreed. “I can’t bear the idea of looking like a hillbilly for two weeks. You know how much I pride myself on looking my best.”

  Tricia could agree with that statement, at least in spirit. Pixie did look good in vintage skirts, blouses, and dresses. But were Tricia to make a decision on a crown, it wouldn’t be a gold one. But somehow Pixie managed to pull it off, and Tricia reminded herself that when people saw it for the first time they often smiled.

  “I’ll go downstairs and call from the office,” Pixie said.

  “And while you do that, I’ll get the coffee going.”

  Tricia filled the coffeepots with water and made two pots of java: decaf and high-test. Both pots were dripping steadily when Pixie returned.

  “They can fit me in at eleven. Will that be a problem?”

  That was fast. “Of course not.”

  “Apparently they had a cancellation,” Pixie explained, wringing her hands.

  Convenient.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  Pixie shook her head. “I brushed my teeth before I left the house. I don’t want to go in there with coffee breath.”

  “Well, it’ll be here when you return.”

  “Are you doing anything special for lunch?”

  “Just meeting Angelica—as usual.”

  Pixie nodded just as the door opened and a customer walked in. Pixie clasped a hand over her mouth before greeting the woman. “Mm mame im Mimmi. Mm I melp moo?”

  The woman looked taken aback. “What are you saying?”

  Tricia stepped up. “Welcome to Haven’t Got a Clue. I’m Tricia. Please let me know if I can be of any help.”

  “I’m looking for a book to finish off my Ross Macdonald collection. Would you have a copy of The Way Some People Die?”

  Pixie nodded vigorously.

  “Uh, yes, we do,” Tricia said. “Would you follow us?”

  Pixie homed in on the book like a hound on the trail of a fox, handed it to the woman, and then stepped back. She looked it over and nodded. “I’ll take it.”

  “May I take it to the register while you keep browsing?” Tricia offered.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Tricia smiled and took possession of the book. “Let me know if you need any other assistance.”

  “I’ll do that, thanks.”

  Tricia started for the cash desk with Pixie following in her wake.

  “Thanks for taking over,” Pixie whispered. “Jeez, I sure hope that dentist can glue my tooth back in.”

  “I’ll cross my fingers for you,” Tricia promised.

  * * *

  * * *

  It was always a joy when Haven’t Got a Clue could welcome visitors, and while there wasn’t a rush that morning, there was a steady stream of one or two people in the shop for most of the morning. Even without Pixie, Tricia could handle the customers, ringing up the sales and anticipating a few weeks of steady income. In between customers, she made calls to several of the former Chamber members she hadn’t been able to track down in person and wasn’t surprised when she received their voice mails. Like her, they all worked during business hours. She left messages, telling each they could reach her on her cell phone at any time, and hoped they’d return her calls. If they didn’t, she at least had done her duty.

  Pixie texted that she would return to the shop after her lunch break and got back to Haven’t Got a Clue just before two o’clock. Unfortunately, her sour expression had returned. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”

  “How did it go?” Tricia asked cautiously.

  “When I made the appointment, they said they had a cancellation.”

  “And they didn’t?”

  “There were no other cars parked out front, and I didn’t see any other patients, but I ended up sitting in the waiting room for almost half an hour before I got in to see the doc. And then they made me have X-rays, and then hold a wire while they shocked the tooth to see if it was dead, which it wasn’t. They didn’t tell me I was supposed to let go of it if I felt a jolt. So there I sat like a dummy getting shock therapy.”

  “What?”

  “I know—I know!” Pixie cried. “I told you that dentist was expensive. He charged me two hundred and fifty bucks just to glue the crown back on—and then he says he can’t guarantee the work!”

  “Wow.”

  “He told me not to eat anything hot, or anything cold, or anything hard, or sticky. I figure that leaves mashed potatoes and baby food. I guess that’s okay, though, since I had to empty our checking account to pay for it and won’t be going food shopping for a while.”

  For a moment, Tricia thought Pixie might burst into tears again. She knew that buying Angelica’s little house had put Pixie and Fred in a tight financial spot, but she didn’t realize things were that dire.

  “Hey, your birthday is coming up soon. Why don’t I reimburse you for the cement job as a gift?”

  “Oh, Tricia. I couldn’t ask you to do that. You already overpay me.”

  Apparently not nearly enough.

  “I insist.”

  Pixie lowered her gaze, looking embarrassed. “That’s really nice of you. If we didn’t need food on the table for the next couple of weeks, I’d say no. But even if it’s just mashed potatoes for me, Fred’s gotta eat. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll write a check out and when I get back from lunch, you can run to the bank to deposit it in your account.”

  “You’re the best boss in the world.”

  No, she wasn’t—but she tried to treat her employees fairly.

  “Now, I’ve got just enough time to write the check, and then I’ll be off for my lunch with Angelica.”

  Tricia hurried downstairs to her basement office, wrote out a personal check, and returned to the store up above. Waving a quick good-bye, Tricia flew out the door and headed for Booked for Lunch.

  Angelica hadn’t yet arrived but as Tricia was about to head to their reserved table in the back of the café, she spotted Claire Rawlings, who was seated at the table by the front window. Claire owned Tails and Tales, a shop dedicated to serving the needs of Stoneham’s pets, selling books, toys, and treats. She’d taken over the original Chamber of Commerce offices, which had once been home to a company that built log cabins—and had used its rustic décor as a backdrop for her own decorating scheme.

  “Hey, Claire. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. How have you been?” Tricia asked.

  Claire turned somber. “Not as well as I’d hoped.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, well, it is what it is,” she said bitterly. “These lulls in business between seasons are killing me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m part of the committee to recruit a replacement for the Chamber of Commerce president. Part of that mandate is to ask former members to trust us to nominate a candidate who’ll commit to work hard to rebuild the Chamber and get us all more promotion in this part of the state.”

  “Are you running?” Claire asked.

  “I’ve been asked not to.”

/>   “Whyever not? I voted for you last time. And Russ Smith proved he was incapable of replacing your sister.”

  “Thank you so much for saying so.”

  “What would you think if I voted for you as a write-in candidate?”

  Tricia laughed. “Flattered.”

  Claire nodded. “I suppose condolences are in order.”

  Suppose? Tricia waited for her to continue.

  “On the death of your friend Marshall Cambridge.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Tricia said politely.

  “I’m sorry, but I never did like the man,” Claire muttered.

  “Why not?”

  “Because when he first came to Stoneham, he owned that horrible little porn shop on the edge of the village.”

  Tricia hadn’t been enamored with the idea of the sleazy shop called Vamps. But Marshall’s primary interest was the true-crime section it maintained. Considering what she now knew about his past, it all made sense. And it seemed Marshall got out of the business just in time. The new owner couldn’t make a go of it and the business folded within two months of purchase. The big for sale or lease sign had already faded and the building on the edge of the village looked unkempt and abandoned.

  “Scuttlebutt around the village is that he was part of the government’s Witness Protection Program. Was he a racketeer?” Claire asked hungrily.

  Tricia gaped. Who had spilled the beans on Marshall’s past? “Uh, not to my knowledge,” Tricia said, feeling unnerved and pressed upon. “He was a kind and decent man.”

  “Not if he was a turncoat looking to save his own neck after working for a felon.”

  Tricia wasn’t sure how to respond to that accusation, so she ignored the jibe. “So, would you consider rejoining the Chamber?”

  Claire frowned. “It’s an extra expenditure, but if bringing in new blood will also bring in more tourist dollars, I guess I could be persuaded.”

  “Great. We’ll keep you informed.” Tricia nodded toward the uneaten half of a BLT that sat on the plate before Claire. “It was nice to see you again,” she said, and gave a smile and a nod of acknowledgment before proceeding to her table, taking the side that kept her back to the rest of the café. She wasn’t in the mood to accept any more less-than-genuine expressions of condolence that afternoon.

  It wasn’t long before Angelica arrived. She had ditched the crutches and hobbled in with a cane. She wasn’t wearing her sparkling footwear, however, and had on a pair of brown flats. Perhaps the sequins were just for special occasions.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she apologized, set her cane against the wall, and scooted into her seat across from Tricia.

  “It’s all right. I’m not sure I have much of an appetite anyway.”

  “Tell your big sisti all about it,” Angelica encouraged, but before Tricia could speak, Molly, the waitress, swooped over to take their orders. Once she’d left, Tricia explained.

  “On my way to the table, I stopped to pitch rejoining the Chamber to Claire Rawlings.”

  “Yes, I saw her on my way in.” Angelica shook her head. “I haven’t been in to buy some of her homemade doggy bones for Sarge since I had my surgery.”

  “Apparently she could use the business.”

  “I’ll send June over to get some this afternoon. What did Claire have to say?”

  “That she didn’t like Marshall.”

  “Why would she say that?”

  “Because he owned Vamps.”

  “Oh,” Angelica muttered, as though that explained everything. “Is she going to rejoin?”

  “Maybe. She said she’d do a write-in vote for me.”

  Angelica brightened. “What a marvelous idea.”

  “Who says I want the job?”

  “Who says you don’t?”

  “Me.”

  “Not very adamantly,” Angelica quipped.

  “She also mentioned Marshall being in the Witness Protection Program. How could she have found out about that? I haven’t told anyone but you.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t tell anyone. Do you think it could have been anyone in the Stoneham Police Department? Surely by now they all know, being as it’s such a small force.”

  Maybe. Tricia wondered if she should ask Baker. But then, she really needed to stop calling him whenever she had a question. Even though she’d told him she wanted them to remain friends, it wasn’t really true.

  “What else has got you down?” Angelica asked.

  Tricia sighed. “Pixie lost her gold tooth to a toffee apple. And her dentist is on vacation.”

  “Oh, how awful.”

  “She went to see Mark Jameson and he charged her an arm and a leg to cement it back in.”

  “Poor Pixie.”

  Tricia waved a hand in the air. “I took care of it.”

  “Aw, you’re a good boss.”

  Tricia gave her sister a smile. “I learned from one of the best.”

  “You’re only saying that because it’s true,” Angelica said, and laughed. “Anything else happen today?”

  “Not yet, but later this afternoon I’m going over to the high school to lob tennis balls at Becca Dickson-Chandler.”

  “What?”

  “She needs to practice.”

  “Well, you certainly aren’t up to her level.”

  “Like I didn’t know that. But she asked me to hit some balls across the net for her to return. I can certainly do that.”

  “Are you sure you want to? It’s only been four months since you broke your arm.”

  Tricia frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, and rubbed her forearm. It had been a compound fracture and Tricia had undergone surgery to fix the break, which had been repaired with a rod and screws. “What am I going to tell her?”

  “That you’ve got a stand-in.”

  ‘Who?”

  “Well, me, of course.”

  “You can’t even put weight on your foot for a full minute, how are you going to whack a dozen tennis balls across a net?”

  “Hopefully, with a racket.”

  “I’m serious,” Tricia said.

  “So am I. My knee scooter has a stop on it. That’ll keep me in place.”

  “Yes, but in order to throw the ball in the air and then hit it, you’ll have to throw your upper body into it. That’ll send you butt over teakettle.”

  Angelica scowled and then sighed. “I guess you’re right.” She glanced at the big clock with the circle of pink neon around it and looked thoughtful. “We have two hours and forty-five minutes. I will figure something out.”

  Molly arrived with their sandwiches and soup, setting the dishes on the table before them.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone around here who’s any good at tennis would you, Molly?”

  The waitress shrugged. “Now? No. But my daughter used to play doubles on the Stoneham High tennis team.”

  “Would she be available to play this afternoon?” Tricia asked.

  Molly shook her head. “She moved to Boston. There are more IT jobs there than here in little old Stoneham.”

  Tricia’s heart sank.

  “What about her other teammates? Do any of them still live in the area?”

  “Oh, sure. Ginny Wilson, for one.”

  “Our Ginny Wilson?” Tricia asked.

  “The one and only. I’m surprised you didn’t already know that. She was good, but she missed out on a scholarship. If you need a partner, why don’t you ask her?”

  “I’ve got her on speed dial!” Angelica said, taking out her phone.

  “Thanks, Molly,” Tricia said, and the waitress gave her a nod before turning to check on her other customers.

  Tricia put a hand on Angelica’s arm to stop her from calling. “We can’t ask Ginny to play against Becca. She’s
pregnant.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean she’s an invalid. For your information, Serena Williams won her twenty-third Grand Slam title at the Australian Open while pregnant.”

  “Yes, but she’s a trained athlete.”

  “Ginny isn’t going to play Becca. You said it yourself, she just wants someone to lob tennis balls in her direction.”

  Tricia picked up her half grilled cheese sandwich and shook her head. “I doubt she’d do it. I mean, she’s so dedicated to her job, she felt guilty for taking just one day off after the fire.”

  “She won’t if I ask her to do it.”

  “She’d do it because you asked her to do it.”

  “Do you think Ginny would turn you down?”

  “Yes, if it takes her away from her work—and I wouldn’t want to give her that opportunity.”

  “She only works until five. She could leave a few minutes early.”

  “What about Sofia? Someone’s got to get her at day care.”

  “Antonio can do that.”

  Tricia bit into her sandwich, savagely chewing, while Angelica sampled her tomato and roasted red pepper soup. They didn’t speak for a minute or two until Angelica broke the quiet. “Well, are you going to call her?”

  Tricia swallowed a spoonful of soup, her frown returning. “The minute I get back to Haven’t Got a Clue.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The store was empty of customers and Pixie had left to go to the bank to cash Tricia’s check when Tricia pulled out her cell phone and tapped Ginny’s number on her contacts screen. Answer, answer, answer, she mentally begged as it continued to ring. Just before it would have gone to voice mail, Ginny spoke. “Hi, Tricia. What’s up?”

  “Hey, Ginny. How are things going?”

  “I love the structure of being back at work. The suite at the Sheer Comfort Inn is beautiful, but it’s just not home. I miss my own bed. I miss my beautiful yard. I miss my favorite coffee cups.”

  Hearing the sadness that tinged Ginny’s voice was heartbreaking.

  “But you didn’t call to hear me complain.”

  “You’re not complaining. And even if you were, no one would blame you. Have you heard from the fire chief today?”