“Excuse me,” a woman said, tapping her perfectly manicured foot on the tile floor. I hadn’t noticed her earlier. She must have come in while I was assisting the other customers.
“Yes?”
“How long do I have to wait for a dressing room?”
How could I even begin to respond to a question like that? For starters, Palmetto Pink wasn’t that big of a store; it only had two dressing rooms. Normally this wasn’t a problem, as we didn’t have customers come in all at one time, but apparently this customer was above waiting like everyone else.
“As soon as one becomes open,” I said, trying my best to sound polite. I mean, what did she want me to do? Kick someone out of the dressing room?
She huffed. “I am a valued customer here, and this is exactly the kind of treatment that will keep me from coming back.”
And what the hell could I say to that? It was not my fault the other two customers got there first. “I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am,” I said, once again controlling what Aunt Lula called my “attitude.” “But I assure you, it won’t be long.” I prayed the other women trying on clothes overheard the exchange and took their sweet time.
“Well, your manager will be getting a complaint from me.”
Clearly she wasn’t local, or she would have known who Aunt Lula was. So much for being a “valued customer.” I knew this was her first time setting foot in the store. Because if she had known my aunt, she wouldn’t dare complain about having to wait her turn. Aunt Lula was a wealthy woman in her own right, but she couldn’t stand the pompous nouveau riche that trickled onto the island from time to time. Aunt Lula always said it was easy to spot the true affluent from the phonies. And this was a perfectly good example.
I’d had enough of pretentious customers from across the causeway. I took a chance that this woman didn’t know my aunt. “And tell her what exactly? That you don’t have the proper manners to wait your turn?”
The woman’s face turned beet red at being called out like a five-year-old. “Well, I never!” She dumped the clothing on the floor and stomped off.
“You’re fired,” Aunt Lula said after hearing about the scene.
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. She was firing me? I thought she’d be pleased when she found out I’d put that lady in her place. I knew damn well she would have done the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, I was elated at the news, but at the same time I was disappointed in myself. I couldn’t even hack it in retail.
“You heard me, dear. I do not like being wrong, and the good Lord knows I hate admitting defeat, but I know when to cut my losses.”
“I’m that bad, huh?” I should’ve been upset at being fired for the first time in my life, but I was delighted. “What will you do without the extra help?” As much as I was doing mental cartwheels at my sudden termination, I didn’t want to let my aunt down.
“Don’t you worry about that,” she said, a little too brightly for having just canned me. “I have a girl interviewing tomorrow morning. You remember the Duck girl, don’t you?”
I flipped through my internal Rolodex to match a face with the name. “I used to babysit her.” Little Sarah Duck had to be about sixteen or seventeen by now.
“She’s trying to save some money for college. Seems she’s interested in fall recruitment, and her parents have already flat-out refused to pay sorority dues,” Aunt Lula said. “Poor lamb.”
Of course Aunt Lula would believe joining a sorority was the cornerstone of a proper college experience. I should have been so lucky to have my parents balk at sorority dues. When I headed off to college that was one of the ongoing battles I’d unfortunately lost to Mom and Aunt Lula. It was one of the few times they agreed on anything, insisting I not only go through sorority recruitment but join ADPi like they had; I was considered a legacy. And to be honest, it actually wasn’t so bad. I made a lot of great friends, and it forced me to be more outgoing than I had been in high school.
“I’ll write her a letter of rec,” I said.
My aunt beamed. “That would be wonderful, dear. She’s very excited and determined to save enough money.”
“I hope she works out better at the store than I did,” I said.
Wait. Did she say the Duck girl already had an interview lined up for tomorrow? That meant Aunt Lula had been planning my replacement for a while. Now I felt like an even bigger failure.
Aunt Lula stroked my arm. “There now, you weren’t the worst sales associate I’ve ever employed,” she said. I knew she was lying for my benefit. “And now that you have more free time on your hands, you can concentrate on your investigation.”
I smiled. My aunt could be so transparent at times. I now understood the real reason behind my termination. It had more to do with finding Harvey’s killer than my lack of skills in retail—although they were pretty pathetic. Aunt Lula had just given me an out.
While I was relieved to be done with my tenure at Palmetto Pink, I couldn’t help but feel humbled by the experience. There should be a rule that everybody has to work retail, or even food service, at least once in their life. Those workers now had my utmost respect. Having to deal with rude customers on a daily basis was bound to have an effect on the human psyche. I’m not saying all retail clientele or restaurant customers are inconsiderate—they’re not—but even if you had to serve just one obnoxious customer, you’d probably think twice before being rude ever again.
I made a solemn vow right then and there to never rumple a shirt I didn’t intend to purchase, leave clothes in a heap on the dressing room floor, or waltz into a store five minutes before closing. In fact, I would continue to do my shopping online (and never make a return).
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
For the first time since coming back to Trouble, I finally had an opportunity to sleep in. Not having to work at Palmetto Pink gave me an extra hour of pressing snooze on my alarm. I can’t tell you how much satisfaction I got from pressing the snooze button on my phone.
I had just fallen back asleep—for ten minutes, until my alarm beeped again—when I heard a different ring on my phone. A quick glance told me it was Abby Lee. If she was calling me this early in the morning, it couldn’t be good news.
“Someone broke into the restaurant last night,” Abby Lee said in a hurried panic.
I shot straight out of bed. “Oh my God! Did they take anything?”
“No. Well, at least I don’t think so. They trashed the office, though.”
Since Abby Lee had taken over The Poop Deck, I had been privy to the back office. While I’d hardly call the small broom closet an office, it was large enough to accommodate a desk and a chair. That was where she did all the ordering for the restaurant. I wasn’t sure what all they could have damaged.
“They were looking for something,” I said, confident in my estimation of the situation.
Abby Lee, however, wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know. Whoever did it also left a big mess at the bar,” she said. “Who’d want to vandalize my restaurant?”
I could think of only one person: Sheila. “I think the mess they made was to steer you off track. I’ve seen your office, and my bet is that they were looking for something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Does your office have a safe? Do you keep cash around?”
“All deposits are done nightly. We only leave cash overnight in the safe in an emergency, and then it’s deposited first thing in the morning.”
I let out a long breath. “OK, let’s think about this for a second. Do you think it’s possible someone like Sheila would ransack the place just for spite?” I knew the answer to that one without even having to ask—yeah, she would.
“Anything is possible, I guess. Do you really think she’s the one responsible?”
“You said it yourself, anything is possible. The only thing left to do is comb through the
office ourselves and see if we can find whatever it is they were looking for,” I suggested. “I’ll be over there in a few.”
I scrambled to put myself together in a hurry. I didn’t want to leave Abby Lee to sort out the mess alone. There was a killer on the loose and now a burglar. They could be one and the same, but I wasn’t taking any chances. It wasn’t safe for her to be there by herself.
I’d almost made it out the door when Daddy called out from the kitchen. “Jules, you’re up late today.”
I still hadn’t told my parents about being fired from Palmetto Pink. Even though Mom wasn’t happy about me working there to begin with, she’d worry everyone would think I was incapable of selling overpriced resort wear.
“Yeah, about that. I’m not working for Lula anymore.”
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t bother to ask. I watched as he continued to man the skillet. “Have a seat. I’m making breakfast tacos.”
Yum. I was starving, and his breakfast tacos were the best. “I’d love to join you, but I really have to get over to The Poop Deck.” I didn’t want to worry him, so I neglected to mention the break-in.
“Not before you have breakfast. I don’t know what all the rush is with you kids. And don’t think for one moment I don’t know what y’all are up to—getting involved in Harvey’s murder. You even managed to get Lula all wrapped up in this,” he said, pointing a wooden spatula in my direction. “Make your old man happy, and eat something before leaving the house.”
My daddy, the voice of reason. Before he’d retired from his position as an oil executive, he would be gone for weeks, overseeing oil rigs, often leaving me and Mom alone to fend for ourselves. It was there on those trips that he learned how to make the best chorizo and eggs from Benito, a cook on one of the rigs, who, in turn, had learned from his mother, who was originally from Guatemala. Or was it Guadalajara?
“How about we split the difference? I’ll eat breakfast if I can take it to go,” I said.
“Deal,” he said. I watched him crack the eggs into a bowl while the chorizo simmered in the pan. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s troubling you?”
“You mean Abby Lee?”
“No. I already know about that. Is there something going on between you and a certain young man?”
Was I that obvious? Damn, now I wished I had turned down breakfast. There’s nothing worse than talking to your dad about your love life, or lack thereof.
“How did you know?”
He gave me a wink. “I had the same pathetic look when I was trying to date your mama.” He was never one to mince words.
“Nothing to get all worked up about, Daddy. It’s nothing,” I said.
He gave me a knowing smile. “I’m sure Deputy Chief Harper doesn’t think it’s nothing.”
What? My dad caught me totally off guard.
“I wasn’t talking about Justin.” I had been thinking about Hartley. I had hoped that he would call or come back to the island to talk, but no such luck. Not that I blamed him. I had basically humiliated him.
My dad wrapped my breakfast taco in foil and passed it over to me. “Then I guess you ought to figure out whatever needs figuring out.”
Gee, thanks, Daddy. “I’ll do my best. Thanks for the advice.”
I devoured my taco on the way to The Poop Deck. Oil from the chorizo dribbled down my arm as I walked the quarter mile to the restaurant. Thankfully, it was still early in the morning and no one was milling about yet.
Once I arrived, Abby Lee handed me a paper towel to clean my orange-streaked forearm. “You look a mess,” she said.
“Daddy wouldn’t let me leave the house until I was properly fed.”
“And speaking of messes, we have our work cut out for us,” she said, allowing me to survey the damage.
“You weren’t kidding.” The place hadn’t just been broken into; it’d been ransacked. Dishes lay broken and discarded around the main dining room floor. Wineglasses and beer mugs had been smashed, and bits and pieces covered the perimeter of the bar. Burglars who broke into businesses went straight for the cash register or back office to look for quick cash. Whoever did this either tossed the place looking for something of value or was trying to send a message. Maybe it was a little bit of both in this case.
“Did you call the police?”
“I was afraid to. You’re the first person I called.”
I sighed. “Look, I know how you don’t want them to get involved, especially since you’re a suspect in their investigation, but we can’t get to the bottom of this unless you call them. It can’t hurt. Besides, there’s enough damage done you’ll need a report to file with your insurance.”
She looked doubtful. “I suppose,” she said. “But what if they think I did it?”
“What? That you trashed your own place to cast suspicion on someone else? That only happens on TV—and really bad crime novels,” I said. “I’m sure if you report it, they’ll believe you.” I knew this was a small island town, but the police weren’t that dense.
I was wrong. Chief Poteet himself made an appearance after Abby Lee reluctantly made the call. Every time I ran into him, I had flashbacks from when I was a kid watching The Dukes of Hazzard reruns with Daddy. The chief reminded me of Boss Hogg, minus the white suit and cowboy hat.
“Did you really think we’d buy into the whole ‘someone broke into my restaurant’ routine?” Chief Poteet asked the second he walked into The Poop Deck. “You’re still a person of interest in the Boyette case. No break-in is going to change our minds.”
The beefy chief of police loitered around the restaurant for a few minutes, mumbling to himself about wasting his time, but out of courtesy—there’d be hell to pay if it actually did turn out to be a burglary—had his boys take a formal statement.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how pigheaded he was,” I said after they left us to clean up the mess. “I mean, does he really think you made all this up just to throw suspicion off yourself?” If Abby Lee wasn’t already in enough trouble, I would have told him where to shove it; I was that pissed off. No sense in getting her into deeper waters with the head of the police department.
Abby Lee’s disposition was grim. “Oh, he’s a jerk, all right. I know from experience. He’s married to my aunt Gail’s cousin on her daddy’s side.”
I’d gotten to know her aunt Gail well while we were growing up and had always considered her a nice lady. It was hard for me to imagine a cousin of hers being married to an oaf like Poteet.
“And he’s gone out of his way to treat family this way?” I thought of how he had one of his officers haul her in for questioning for a crime she didn’t commit and conducted a bogus search on her home and business, and now this. I’d worked in law enforcement long enough to know that officers couldn’t go easy on a murder suspect, even if they were somehow related, but still. A little tact between family members would have been understandable.
“Oh, Aunt Gail and her cousin can’t stand each other. It’s been a feud going on twenty years now. Something about my grandmother’s china.”
“Ah.” Despite our relaxed island atmosphere, the town still held traditional, old Southern customs, like the passing down of the heirloom china and crystal. I’d be inheriting Aunt Lula’s one day—if I ever got married. “I’m sure this whole situation makes for some interesting dinner conversations,” I said, trying to liven up the situation.
“You’re telling me,” Abby Lee said. “Mother won’t even take Sally Poteet’s calls anymore.”
“Come on, let me help you clean up this mess before we search the office.” It might not have looked like your garden-variety break-in, but I was sure there was something they were after, and my gut was telling me it was hidden in that back office.
“What are we even looking for?” Abby Lee asked after about an hour of pulling the office apart.
“I don’t know, but this wasn’t a random act of vandalism, that’s for sure. Someone was looking for something.”
“And you really think it’s here?”
I shrugged. “Your office is just as good a place to hide something as any.” Harvey didn’t strike me as being the creative sort, so if he’d had something he wanted hidden, it would be in his office.
Despite the office being trashed, it still remained somewhat organized. In an office the size of a tin can, everything had a purpose and was arranged accordingly. Everything except the calendar above the desk, dated 2011, which should have been a huge tip-off to anyone looking. I pulled it off the nail that hung from the wall.
Perhaps I’d underestimated Harvey. They say that if you want something to be well hidden, hide it in plain sight. If that’s true, then you’d think burglars would stop searching for hidden compartments and safes and take a look at what’s right in front of their noses. I certainly didn’t at first, yet there it was.
Pay dirt.
Taped behind the back of the old calendar was Harvey’s will. From the looks of it, it appeared to be an older version. It certainly wasn’t the one that was read at his funeral. This had to be what the burglar was looking for. How did the burglar know to even look for it here?
“Abby Lee, check this out,” I said. “Did you know Harvey kept this in the office?”
“No. Where did you find it?”
“Taped to that old calendar over his desk.”
“Clever, Harvey. I always wondered why he had an outdated calendar from 2011. But what does it matter now? We already know what it says,” she said.
“Not exactly,” I said, pointing to the document. “This looks like it was drawn up prior to the one that was read after his funeral. It names Sheila as sole beneficiary—for everything.”
“You’re kidding! Then why—”
I cut her off, knowing what she was thinking. “At this point we’ll never know what Harvey was thinking when he changed it. But this does put Sheila in a bad position. If she knew this existed, she could’ve been the one to break in, hoping she could use it against you if she decided to contest the will.”
Destined for Trouble (A Jules Cannon Mystery Book 1) Page 16
