Little Shop of Homicide: A Devereaux’s Dime Store Mystery

by Denise Swanson

  “Are you accusing me of murder?” Nadine’s self-control snapped. “I wouldn’t dirty my hands on that little piece of white trash.”

  “White trash?” I glanced at Boone, who seemed as confused as I was. “I had heard that Joelle was part of the country club set.”

  “Be that as it may.” Nadine’s eyes glittered with loathing. “No matter how expensive her clothes were, where she lived, or what kind of car she drove, she was nothing but a two-bit tramp.”

  “Really?” Interesting, but then again maybe not. Nadine had probably said the same thing about me. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because unlike my son”—Nadine gave an elegant snort—“I am able to tell the genuine article from the ones who are just pretending.”

  Not having an answer to that statement, I repeated the most important question. “So, where were you Saturday night between six and seven?”

  “I was at an anniversary party, as were our esteemed police chief and his charming wife.” Her words rang with confidence, but I could sense the relief coming off her as I walked away.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Couldn’t you have just died at Nadine’s expression when you walked in the parlor?” Boone chortled as we drove away from the party.

  “That was a moment to treasure, all right.” I felt a surge of satisfaction at having bested a longtime nemesis. Even if she had an alibi, Nadine had spilled her guts to us.

  “She sure hated Joelle.” He curled his upper lip in an imitation of his hero, Elvis Presley. “Not that that was a big shock.”

  “Nope.” I stared out the windshield as we zipped past the old homesteads—their neat barns, railed fences, and snow-covered fields reminding me of a simple, less-complicated time.

  Boone was taking the long way back so we could rehash our triumph, but I was worried that Jake might arrive at my house before we did. Just before we’d left the mansion, I had slipped into the bathroom to call him, and I told him I was on my way home. Not that it was a big secret that Jake was coming over; I just didn’t want Boone to jump to the wrong conclusion. Or even the right one.

  “Nevertheless, it was still good to hear Nadine’s take on Joelle.”

  “Yep.” I blew out such a gigantic breath of regret that condensation formed on the inside of the Mercedes’ passenger-side window. “But I wish she had been alone that night. I really, really wanted her to be the murderer.”

  “Nadine could have hired someone,” Boone offered, reaching over to pat my knee. “She doesn’t seem like the type who’s willing to get her own hands dirty.”

  “Maybe.” I leaned my head against the back of the seat. “But the way Joelle was killed seems too personal for that. Too full of hatred.”

  “True.”

  “Will you call Poppy when you get home and fill her in?” I knew our friend would be chomping at the bit to hear about our evening.

  “Sure.” Boone looked at me strangely. “I thought you’d want to talk to her.”

  “Uh.” Shoot. I should have had an excuse ready. “My cell is dead. I forgot to charge it. And if I use the landline, I might wake Gran up. Her bedroom is right off the kitchen.”

  “I keep telling you to get a new cordless system like mine. It has three bases that you can plug in at any electrical outlet.” Boone steered the big sedan into the lane leading to my property. “That antique you have on the wall is from the Stone Age. I can’t even imagine living with only one phone.”

  “And I keep telling you, not only can’t I afford unnecessary extras, but Gran has problems coping with changes.”

  “Oh. Right.” Boone stopped the car in front of the steps. “Sorry.”

  Phew! There was no strange vehicle parked in my drive. Now I just had to get rid of Boone before Jake arrived. “Thanks for giving me the fund-raiser ticket and for the ride and for helping me with Nadine.” I quickly hopped out of the car. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And tell Poppy I’ll call her in the morning.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief when Boone’s Mercedes vanished into the shadows, but before I made it into the house, a set of headlights pierced the darkness. Had Boone seen my late-night visitor’s arrival?

  Even if I hadn’t been expecting him, I would have known Jake was the owner of the truck that pulled up next to me. The massive Ford F-250 exuded strength and toughness and determination, traits it was clear that Jake possessed in spades.

  The pickup was as shiny as if it had just left the dealership, and since I knew that unlike a lot of men who drove huge trucks, Jake actually used his on a working ranch, I wondered if he had washed it just for me. However, I quickly dismissed that thought as wishful thinking. There might be a physical attraction between us, but polishing his truck would imply more than that. Which was silly, since we’d met less than twelve hours ago.

  The passenger door popped open, and Jake leaned out. “Hop in.”

  “Uh.” My heart pounded erratically. Yep. The magnetism was still there. “Why? Uh, I mean, why don’t you come into the house?”

  “We might disturb your grandmother.” He grinned. “If she’s anything like Tony, she hits the sack right after the ten o’clock news.”

  “Good point.”

  Jake was even more stunningly handsome than I remembered. His thick ebony hair curled over the collar of his denim shirt, giving him an untamed, rebellious appearance that his full, tempting lips reinforced. The close quarters in the pickup’s interior were not a good idea if I wanted to maintain control. “But—”

  “Come on.” His voice held a silky persuasion. “We’ll go for a ride.”

  “Um.” I searched for an excuse. “I should check on Gran. She’s had a rough time with what’s happened.”

  “We won’t be long.”

  “Well, it is a pretty night.” Giving in, I gathered the full skirt of my dress, placed my foot on the lighted step, and used the grab handle just inside the doorframe to hoist myself up. Geesh! It was like scaling a rock wall to get into the damn cab. Which was probably no problem for Jake, who was redwood tall and superhero muscular. But for me at five-six, with no upper-body strength, it was a major undertaking. Maybe I should start lifting weights.

  “Need some help?” His sapphire eyes glinted with amusement as I settled myself into the brown saddle-leather passenger seat.

  “Not now,” I huffed. “But next time maybe you can throw down a ladder.”

  He chuckled good-naturedly. “So how was the shindig at the Lee Mansion?”

  “Decadent, but interesting.” The cab was toasty warm and I unbuttoned my leather coat. “Nadine Underwood detested her son’s fiancée.”

  “From what you told me this afternoon, I’m sure her dislike of her future daughter-in-law wasn’t a revelation to you.”

  “No.” I studied him as he turned down a gravel road that wound charmingly between stands of snow-laden fir trees. His striking blue eyes were fringed with dense black lashes that any woman would envy, and that I could achieve only with an eyelash curler and several coats of expensive mascara.

  “Did you get anything else from her?” Jake stopped the pickup in front of a frozen pond, but didn’t turn off the engine.

  His blatant waste of fossil fuels and flagrant disregard for our environment shocked me for a moment, until I realized that I had been so brainwashed by everyone in the city preaching about “going green,” I had forgotten that those of us who lived in the country were green long before most people ever thought about it. We’d been growing our own food, composting, using windmills for power, hanging clothes out to dry, drinking well water rather than bottled, borrowing from neighbors, and using natural cleaning products for hundreds of years. To my mind, every once in a while we were entitled to keep our motors running.

  “Nadine claims she was with the chief of police during the time of the murder.”

  “Alibis don’t always prove someone is innocent,” Jake assured me.

  “That’s what Boone said.”

  “Boone?”
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br />   “Boone St. Onge,” I explained. “He’s the guy who came into my store just before you left. I forgot that I didn’t get a chance to introduce you.”

  “Are you and St. Onge involved?” Jake’s voice was even, but a crease had formed between his eyebrows and his hands were fisted.

  “He was the one who took me to the fund-raiser and helped me question Nadine.” I considered claiming Boone as my boyfriend in order to combat the ripple of excitement I felt at the realization that Jake was interested in whether or not I was free. But knowing how fast he would find out the truth, I discarded the idea. “He’s been one of my best friends since he sliced off my braid in kindergarten.”

  Jake quirked an eyebrow, so I explained, “We were playing cowboys and Indians. I was the cowboy.”

  “Ah. That makes sense. I guess you were lucky he didn’t go for true authenticity and scalp you.” Jake unfastened his seat belt so he could turn toward me. “I’m glad that’s all he is.”

  “Oh.” I felt a shiver of awareness, but fought to ignore it. I had to keep my mind on the fact that I was the number one suspect in a murder investigation.

  “Do you have someone special in your life?” Jake’s tone was casual, but there was something about his expression that made my mouth go dry.

  “No.” It felt as if I were sucking on a cotton ball, and I had to clear my throat in order to continue. “Not right now.”

  In truth, although I would never admit it to anyone, I’d only ever had three lovers. None of them had particularly turned me on, which was fine with me. They were calm and sensible, and after the drama and chaos of my teenage years, the last thing I wanted was a tumultuous romance. Or so I had told myself at the time.

  Apparently my desire for a tranquil existence had changed, since, without realizing I was going to ask, I heard myself say, “How about you?”

  “Nope.” He stopped, then abruptly added, “It’s tough having a relationship in my line of work, and I’m not the easiest guy to get along with.”

  “Oh.” I was captivated by the silent sadness of his face, and wondered what or who had put it there. “I think that can be said for most of us, especially if you’re used to being on your own.”

  “Maybe.” Jake flipped up the console between us, creating a bench seat. “But what I don’t understand is how all the guys in Shadow Bend let you get away.” He slid over next to me. “Or maybe you’re too many horses for them.”

  I stared straight ahead, not allowing myself to be beguiled by the enthralling scent of what I was coming to think of as eau de Jake—a mixture of lime, saddle soap, and sexy man.

  He pushed the button to release my seat belt, then cradled my cheek in his palm.

  I tried to breathe normally, but his lips were a fraction of an inch from mine and his gaze searched my face. The feel of his body pressed along the length of mine made me hotter than a flatiron. The warmth of his palm as he slid my coat off my shoulders made me gasp. And when he moved his hand to the neckline of my dress, his fingers trailing over my collarbone, a delicious shudder ran down my spine.

  His face was so close to mine, his blue eyes so dark with desire, that I was mesmerized. I was waylaid by an attraction more potent than any I’d ever felt before, and erotic images flashed through my mind.

  I tried to tell myself that I didn’t want him. That he wasn’t my type. That I needed to concentrate on finding out who killed Joelle so I didn’t end up in prison. But a rebellious voice in the back of my mind urged me on.

  Before I could gather my resolve, his head dipped and he kissed me, hard. This wasn’t a tentative first-date kiss. He took my breath away as he licked into my mouth, making me squirm against him as he pressed me against the warm leather seat. And all the while, he moved against me, his shirt and skin and heat creating a friction that made me quiver. Unable to keep from pulling him closer, I surrendered and scraped my fingernails hard down his back. Suddenly my earlier waxing episode didn’t seem quite so foolish.

  I knew this was too much, too soon, but he drew me like chocolate-dipped sin. My common sense was beginning to lose the battle it was waging against my lust, and his hand was heading toward the triangle of black silk that covered ground zero when his phone rang. It took us both a long moment to understand what we were hearing, but the repeated strains of “Yellow Rose of Texas” finally penetrated our fog enough for him to lift his head.

  With one last kiss he reached into the backseat, grabbed his cell from his jacket pocket, and growled, “Yeah?”

  From the phone’s speaker, I heard a distinctively feminine voice purr, “Hope I’m not interrupting something hot and heavy, sugar britches. You sound out of breath. You better not be messing around behind my back.”

  Nothing like being slapped in the face with the competition to douse your desire faster than a cold shower. I slid my arms into my leather coat, buttoned it, and refastened my seat belt. Playtime was over.

  “Can it, Meg.” Jake frowned, watching me. He narrowed his eyes, then turned his attention back to the cell and asked, “What’s up?”

  “The trail on Joelle Ayers begins about a year ago in KC when she used a birth certificate belonging to a deceased infant to get a driver’s license.” Meg rattled some papers, then said, “Prior to that, nada. It seems your vic is a Jane Doe.”

  “Shit!” Jake tapped his fingers on his knee. “Okay, this is what I want you to do. Tell the local LEOs you got a tip she was involved in a federal crime and request her fingerprints. Maybe she’s in the system and we can come up with her real identity that way.”

  “Won’t the detective investigating the case do that for us if we tell him that Joelle Ayers is an alias?”

  “He’s fixated on a particular suspect, so I don’t trust him to be thorough in pursuing other leads.”

  “Gotcha.” Meg paused. “Oh, I also checked out that other name you gave me. Dev—”

  “Gotta go.” Jake pressed the OFF button as he hastily slid back behind the wheel and shot me a guilty glance.

  Between Meg and his checking up on me—not that I really blamed him for the latter—I was finally able to drag my thoughts back to the investigation. Pretending we hadn’t just been involved in heavy-duty lip-lock, I commented, “So Joelle wasn’t really Joelle. That’s got to mean something, don’t you think?”

  “It’s a start.” Apparently Jake, too, had decided to ignore our makeout session.

  After an awkward silence, I asked, “So, what did you think of Anya Hamilton?”

  “Let’s just say that if zombies were attacking, she’d be safe.”

  I snickered. Jake’s looks and sense of humor would be hard to resist.

  He continued: “Anyway, now that I hear this news, what Anya said makes more sense.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Essentially she claimed that Joelle was secretive and never allowed anyone inside her condo.”

  “Which, if you’re hiding your true identity, would be the prudent thing to do.” I tapped my chin with my index finger. “I wonder if the cops found anything when they searched her place. They would search it, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Any chance this new information about Joelle will get Detective Woods off my back?” Maybe I’d misheard what Jake had said to Meg.

  “I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

  “You’re probably right.” In fact, I knew he was. “Still, a false hope is better than no hope at all.”

  “Maybe.” Jake’s gaze was sympathetic. “But we need to stick to our previous plan to find another suspect for Woods.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  CHAPTER 9

  When my clock radio clicked on Wednesday morning, I woke with a smile on my face. It took me a few seconds to figure out why I felt so happy; then I remembered my dream. Jake and I were back in the cab of his truck, but this time his phone hadn’t interrupted us.

  Hell! My fixation on a man I hadn’t known for even twenty-four hours was ridic
ulous. I wiped the grin off my lips and stomped into the bathroom. Having sex with Jake would just complicate my already muddled life. It was time to get hold of myself and concentrate on my impending arrest. Just because I hadn’t been this attracted to a guy since high school didn’t mean it was okay to forget about everything else—especially when the “everything else” was me ending up in jail.

  Gran was folding laundry when I entered the kitchen. I looked around for Banshee and saw him perched on top of the fridge. It was one of his preferred launching pads, so I gave the appliance a wide berth in order to avoid having him leap on my head as I walked by.

  My favorite breakfast, puffy French toast with a side of crispy bacon, was waiting in the warming oven, and Gran slid it in front of me as soon as I sat down. She couldn’t wait for me to tell her all about the CDM fund-raiser. She loved hearing about the clothes, food, and decorations, but her real interest was in my conversation with Noah’s mother.

  “Nadine’s always been a few cookies short of a dozen, but it sounds as if even the ones she has left are crumbling.” Gran gathered up our dirty plates and took them to the sink. “Ignorance of what a fish knife looks like does not qualify someone as an uncouth lowlife.”

  “Exactly.” I put away the butter and syrup. “All it means is that unlike most of the girls who grew up in Shadow Bend, Joelle wasn’t forced to go to Miss Ophelia’s etiquette classes on excruciatingly correct dinner behavior.”

  “Hard to believe that parents are still making their children endure such torment,” Gran deadpanned.

  “Isn’t it?” I had hated those lessons.

  “And I heard Miss Ophelia required that this year’s young ladies take out all items stuck in their various piercings, other than a single pair of earrings in their ears, and cover up any visible… uh…”

  “Tattoos.”

  Gran nodded, then handed me a stack of clean clothes and changed the subject. “Who are you talking to next?”