Buy a Whisker

by Sofie Ryan

  Knowing Rose, it was possible it was actually a wonderful fabrication.

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with my original question, which you haven’t answered. How are you going to build North Landing without the bakery?”

  Elvis had come in from somewhere and jumped up on the workbench behind us. He bumped Jon West’s arm with his head, and West reached over and absently began to pet the cat. “I hope to buy the bakery from Lily Carter’s estate,” he said.

  “Did you kill her so you could do that?” Rose asked in the same tone of voice she might have used to ask if he wanted a cup of tea. “Lily wouldn’t sell to you when she was alive.”

  New resolve or not, I couldn’t just stand there while she accused the man of murder. I stepped between them. “Rose, this isn’t the place for this conversation,” I said.

  Jon West held up the hand that wasn’t stroking Elvis’s fur. “It’s all right, Sarah. I don’t mind answering Mrs. Jackson’s question. No, I did not kill Lily Carter. I wasn’t anywhere near that bakery.”

  Rose had had one hand in her pocket the entire time she’d been talking. Now she pulled it out. She was holding Mr. P.’s cell phone. “When I was a child we had an expression—‘liar, liar pants on fire,’” she said. She glanced down. “I think yours are about to start smoking.”

  She held up the phone so we could see it. It was playing what looked like some kind of security video. It was black-and-white, and the quality could have been better. Even so, I recognized the back of Lily’s Bakery.

  “What is this, Rose?” I asked.

  “Just watch, please,” she said.

  I saw a figure then, just at the edge of the picture. He or she slipped out the back door of the bakery and disappeared out of the frame. Whoever it was had on a heavy denim work jacket and a knitted cap. What looked like a long, dark ponytail poked out from underneath the hat. The person was careful to keep his or her face turned away from the camera.

  “Where did you get this?” Mac asked.

  “I have my sources,” Rose said primly.

  I had a feeling her source was over at the other end of the room.

  “That’s you,” she said to Jon West.

  West shook his head. “No, it’s not.” He looked at me. “You all can’t seriously think I killed Lily Carter over the North Landing development.” He jabbed a finger at the cell phone. “This is fake.”

  He’d stopped petting Elvis, who bumped him again with his head. He reached out and stroked the cat’s fur again.

  Rose shook her head. “No, it’s not. It’s from a security camera on the building next to the bakery.” There was a slight edge of accusation to her voice. “You were the one playing all those childish tricks on Lily, and when they didn’t work, you killed her.”

  “Stop,” I said sharply, holding up both hands. “Just stop.” I took the phone out of her hand. “Jon, this does look like you,” I said. “I’m not saying you killed Lily, but did you go there to talk to her?”

  The muscles along his jawline were tight, and I could tell he was gritting his teeth together. “I didn’t go talk to Lily the night she died. I wasn’t the person harassing her, and I didn’t kill her. I wasn’t even in town the night she died.” Anger made his voice rougher.

  He pulled his free hand back over his neck and turned to look at Rose for a moment. “You’re incorrect. The entire project is not in danger of falling apart. It never was. The town was going to expropriate that piece of land. All that’s happened now is that the timeline has been pushed back. The estate will be settled. We’ll buy the property instead of going to expropriation, and North Landing will go ahead. So yes, Lily made me angry enough that I had a moment or two when I wanted to strangle her, but I didn’t actually do it. I had no reason to.”

  Elvis shook himself and walked along the workbench to sit by Mac.

  West wrestled his emotions back in check. “Sarah, the project is still a go. It’s just on hold while everything is settled with the bakery property. Please, would you hold the chandelier for me? I’ll cut you a check for a quarter of the price as a deposit.”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.” He headed for the front door.

  Rose gave Mac and me a self-satisfied grin. “I think we solved Lily’s murder,” she said.

  I looked at Elvis, who was poking his nose in a box Mac had set on the workbench.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t think so?” Rose frowned at me.

  “The hair,” I said, gesturing to the cell phone she still held in her hand. “It looks fake. But before we get to that, where did you get that video? How did you get it?”

  “I have my sources,” she said. Her eyes met mine, and there was a stubborn set to her shoulders.

  I tipped my head in Mr. P.’s direction. “I’m guessing your source is sitting over there.”

  “If you think you know, then why did you ask?”

  I counted to five, took a breath and let it out slowly. “I told you I wasn’t going to fight with you about your investigation, but you can’t keep hacking into people’s computers when you want information.”

  “We didn’t,” Rose said placidly. “After Carl Levenger was here yesterday, I remembered what Charlotte had said about the bookstore having an old security camera that recorded Caleb Swift the night he disappeared. So I went to see him.”

  “So Carl gave you that video?”

  She shook her head. “No. The police already have it. I don’t think there was anything on it that was any use.” She held up her phone. “This came from the gift shop on the other side of Carl.” The look she gave me was more than a little smug.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She leaned over and patted my arm. “You’re forgiven, dear. Now tell me why you think that hair isn’t real.”

  Rose played the video again, and Mac leaned over to watch it with her.

  “You think it’s a wig?” she said.

  I nodded. “I do. I know it sounds crazy, but watch.” I pointed at the small screen. “See? There. Whoever that is just adjusted their hair.” The person in the video put his or her hand up and moved their entire head of hair slightly forward. “That hair is probably not real at all.”

  Rose studied the video as she weighed my words. “I can’t tell,” she said finally, “but I trust your judgment.”

  “So if that’s not Jon West, someone put in some effort to make it look like he was at Lily’s,” Mac said.

  Rose took off her glasses and cleaned them on the hem of her sweater. “I think Alf and I need to do a little more digging.” She bustled back toward Mr. P., who had been diligently typing on his laptop for the previous ten minutes while sneaking little peeks in our direction.

  Mac leaned over and scratched the top of Elvis’s head. “Stay out of that,” he said quietly. The cat immediately dropped his paw and stopped rooting in the box.

  “Why does he listen to you when you tell him to stay out of something but ignore me when I tell him?” I asked.

  “It’s a guy thing,” Mac said.

  Elvis meowed his agreement.

  “So are you going to tell Rose the other reason you think Jon West is innocent?” Mac asked.

  “What would that be?” I said, feeling my cheeks get warm.

  Elvis, with his uncanny sense of timing, meowed loudly.

  Mac didn’t say a word. He just looked, pointedly, from the cat to me.

  “Fine. I was watching while Jon was petting him.” I glanced at Elvis, who seemed to smile at me. “I don’t think Jon West had anything to do with Lily’s death because my cat, the feline lie detector, told me so. Nothing crazy about that.”

  “It’s not so far-fetched,” he said. “Elvis has better night visi
on than we have. He has a better sense of smell. Why is it so crazy that he can sense the physiological signs that someone is lying?” He nudged me with his shoulder. “You think it was a coincidence that Elvis seemed to know who killed Arthur Fenety before the rest of us did?”

  “I was kind of hoping it was,” I said.

  Mac laughed. “Elvis being able to tell when someone is lying is not the strangest thing that’s happened around here,” he said. We headed out into the shop.

  Avery and Charlotte were standing by the front window. Actually, Avery was standing in the window, gesticulating wildly while Charlotte nodded from time to time. Mac raised his eyebrows.

  “Point taken,” I said.

  I went back up to my office and spent the next hour putting together an offer for the items we wanted to buy from Malcolm Thomas’s family. When I came back downstairs, Charlotte was waiting on a customer who was holding two quilts and Avery was dusting a set of bookshelves that Mac and I had made from an old pantry cabinet.

  I was glad I’d said yes to her window display idea. I didn’t know a lot of the details behind Avery’s problems at home, but I could see it had been good for her to be with Liz and spend time with Rose and Charlotte as well, just the way it had been good for me when I’d been her age.

  Avery came over to me. “I talked to Sam,” she said. I could see from the grin on her face that he’d said yes, she could borrow the KISS costumes. I made a mental note to thank him the next time I saw him.

  “And he said yes?” I said.

  She nodded.

  “I can’t wait to see what you and Charlotte come up with.”

  Her expression grew serious, and she slid the stack of bracelets up and down her arm. “If you like it, could I maybe do a window all by myself sometime?”

  I nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  She threw her arms around me. “Thank you, Sarah,” she said.

  I hugged her back. “You’ve been doing a good job,” I said. “I’m glad I hired you.”

  She pulled back out of the embrace and rolled her eyes at me. “You mean because Nonna forced you into it.”

  “Your grandmother didn’t make me hire you, Avery,” I said.

  She looked surprised. “Really? I thought maybe she knew some embarrassing story about you or something.”

  That idea made me laugh. “Avery, there are dozens of embarrassing stories about me floating around. So many there’s no blackmail potential left. Nobody made me hire you.”

  The woman at the cash register had picked up one of the teacup gardens. “Look,” I said. “Your teacup gardens sell out as fast as we get them made. They were your idea.”

  “I’ll bring the rest of them out as soon as I finish this shelf,” she said.

  I nodded and headed for the storeroom.

  Mac was still at the workbench talking on his phone. The top of a mantel clock was lying in three pieces, and I could see he’d gotten a couple of clamps out. The clock had been another yard-sale find, the wooden case in several pieces, but for two dollars it seemed worth the investment of a little time. Mac set his cell on the workbench, pulled one hand over his neck and uttered a couple of swearwords almost under his breath.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He made a face and shook his head. “The place where I’ve been renting my apartment has been sold. I have six weeks to find a new place.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Maybe I should see if Rose is interested in being roommates.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I had another apartment, I’d let you have it. If I had any space other than the little storage closet you saw under the stairs, it would be yours.”

  Mac managed a smiled. “Thanks. I appreciate the thought.”

  “Why don’t you let Mac move in here?” Avery was standing behind us, probably on her way to get the tiny planters.

  I looked around the space. “Avery, this is a storage room,” I said. “Mac can’t live here.”

  She gave me the look teenagers have been giving adults for millennia. That “how dumb can you be” expression.

  “Not down here, duh,” she said. “There’s that big space upstairs that we don’t even use half of for storage. Why can’t Mac live there?”

  Chapter 13

  Mac said, “No,” at exactly the same time as I said, “What do you mean?” He spoke first the second time. “No,” he said again.

  I pictured the second-floor storage area Avery was talking about. The big room that faced the side parking lot was actually two rooms with doors that slid back into the wall. In one of the building’s previous incarnations, it had been a private smokers’ club. There had been a wet bar at the end of the bigger of the two rooms, and the plumbing was still in place.

  “Hang on a minute,” I said. “Avery might be onto something.”

  “I am,” she said. She didn’t lack confidence in her ideas. “There’s not that much stuff up there. I know because I was just upstairs to get a couple of the quilts for Charlotte—nothing really big because it’s too hard to get big stuff up the stairs in the first place. And we still have under the stairs and even the sunporch until spring because the Angels have their office in here now anyway. And Mac could even use the back staircase because it’s only sort of blocked off, and then he wouldn’t have to go through the store all the time.”

  I held up both hands. “Avery, take a breath.”

  “No,” Mac said for the third time.

  It could work, I realized. “Mac, we should at least take a look.”

  “We should,” Avery echoed. She tucked her dark hair behind one ear. “I already have some ideas for how you could do the layout.”

  “And I’m sure they’re good ones,” I said. “But we’re just going to take a quick look. I need you down here with Charlotte for now.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Come take a look,” I said to Mac, inclining my head in the direction of the stairs.

  He shook his head in resignation. “All right.”

  He didn’t say a word until we were at the top of the stairs. Then he turned to me. “Okay, we’re here. Just count to ten and then we’ll go back downstairs and say it won’t work.”

  I pulled my keys out of my pocket and took a moment to study Mac. He looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You want to keep your work life and your private life separate. I understand that,” I said. “As you pointed out a little while ago, this isn’t a typical workplace. But if you’re interested at all, I think Avery might be onto something.”

  After a long moment, he nodded slowly. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to take a look.”

  I unlocked the door and we stepped inside. Overall, the space was bigger than the studio apartment Jess had lived in downtown before she found her current place. It was definitely bigger than the first apartment she and I had shared in university. And Avery was right. We really didn’t have much stored up here at the moment because it was just too much of a hassle lugging things upstairs and then having to cart them back down again a week or so later.

  “I know those sliding doors work,” I said. I walked across the room and looked at the space on the other side of the two panel doors. “There’s room for a bed and a dresser in here. Maybe even a chair.”

  Each of the rooms had a good-sized window that let in lots of light. And the old house had been well insulated during the original conversion years ago from a home to a business, so it was warm.

  “The floors are in decent shape,” Mac said, reaching down and swiping a hand across the wide wooden boards.

  I pointed at the end wall. “There’s plumbing in that wall. It wouldn’t be that hard to make a galley kitchen there and then go through that closet and connect to the bathroom in the hall.”

  “What would we do for a staff washroom?”

  “Do a little work on th
e one downstairs. We could put in a new sink and a new toilet, maybe find an end of vinyl or some tile for the floor and let Avery paint the walls.” I pulled a pen and a scrap of paper that had a short grocery list scribbled on it and sketched out a rough floor plan with a tiny galley kitchen on the back. I handed him the piece of paper. “Could you build that?”

  Mac studied my drawing for a moment, pulling a hand over his mouth.

  “We worked pretty well together on Rose’s apartment,” I said.

  He smiled. “Yeah, we did, didn’t we?”

  “So can you build it?” I repeated.

  He nodded. “Uh-huh. Except for the basic rough-in of the plumbing, I can do this.”

  “So now the big question—do you want to do it?” I said.

  Mac looked around the room. I knew he was intrigued by the way he was eyeing the end wall as though he were picturing a run of cupboards. “We could think about it,” he said. “On the condition that I pay the going rent. No special deals, Sarah.”

  I nodded. “Agreed. And I have a condition.”

  “What is it?”

  “If this arrangement doesn’t work out for either of us for any reason, we say so—no hard feelings.” I held out my hand. “What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

  Mac hesitated, but only for a second or two. He took my hand, smiled and said, “We have a deal.”

  Mac and I spent about an hour after the shop closed measuring the storage space and roughing out a floor plan with measurements scribbled on the side. Avery had wanted to stay and help, but I’d promised she could help us work on the downstairs washroom.

  That evening, after a scrambled-egg sandwich and a clementine for me, and some Tasty Tenders for Elvis, I got a pad of grid paper and a pencil and started turning my rough drawing into a rudimentary floor plan. Elvis sat beside me, craning his neck and poking his head in my field of vision every few minutes. He put his paw on the page at one point and looked at me. “There for the sink?” I asked.

  “Merow,” he answered.

  I took a look at the spot on the drawing where he’d rested his paw. He was right. I set my pencil down, stretched my right arm over my head and reached for the phone. Elvis stretched as well and then sprawled over the floor plan as I punched in my parents’ number.