As for Fake Larry Butterball—who was he, why had he pretended to be someone else, and what had he wanted with me in the first place?
More importantly, why had someone killed him in my tea shop?
“What’s wrong with a little mystery when you get to live here?” Heidi dropped her overnight bag on the floor and continued to stare in awe at the beautiful décor. “Let’s face it, this place would go for a fortune in the city. The outside needs some work, obviously, but this place is fantastic.”
“Well, I remember Nan having great taste in clothes and jewelry. It doesn’t surprise me that she would decorate like this, though she was in her late seventies. I would think that this combination of modern and traditional designs wouldn’t have been her style at her age.”
I took my time spinning on the non-existent heel of my boots, taking in every nook and cranny of this place, not expecting Heidi to cry out in alarm. I instantly hunched my back and covered my head, certain that something horrid was going to attack me.
“There!” Heidi exclaimed, the rapid shuffle of her shoes bringing her ever closer. “Tell me you saw that, Raven. Did you?”
“See what?” I’d had about enough of her setting my nerves on edge when they’d already taken a flying leap into the abyss. I began to think that bottle of wine might steady my nerves, as well. I lowered my hands and was amazed to find Heidi on her hands and knees on the opposite side of the room, looking under a grand hutch that held beautiful wooden bowls, cast iron basins, and numerous items that I’d only ever seen in old television shows. “Heidi, what are you doing?”
“This is the second time I’ve spotted something…well, orange or black. And maybe furry, I don’t know.”
Fear kept my boots glued to the hardwood floor. I’d already mentioned that I was terrified of rats. Well, that included mice. I’m pretty sure it had to do something with their beady little red eyes.
“Do you think Paramour Bay is overrun with mice?” I managed to step to the side, trying to see around Heidi to the small space underneath the massive hutch. I saw nothing but the matching baseboard to the hardwood floor, with the exception of a dust bunny or two. “Are you sure that’s what you saw?”
Heidi leaned back on her calves, looking around the house in confusion.
“I don’t know. It was way too big to be a mouse. Maybe a possum? But they aren’t orange. Or black. Or that furry.” Heidi shook her head in defeat. “Do you have that bottle of wine?”
A bottle of wine sounded perfect to cap off this strange day. I’d even pushed aside wanting to find those boxes that Fake Larry had mentioned my Nan wanting me to look through. Those could wait until tomorrow.
Right now?
I needed some downtime with my best friend, totally ignoring the possibility that there was a possum in the vicinity that had disappeared into thin air.
Come tomorrow, I would be on my own with a murder investigation looming over me, a sheriff who didn’t know me, a strange giant living in my back yard, and a bizarre house that was incredible on the inside yet looked like a tiny hovel on the outside. Oh, and the tea shop that wouldn’t make any money unless I was eventually allowed to flip over that open sign.
Yes, tomorrow was another day with another adventure.
I had better be prepared.
Chapter Four
I glanced in the rearview mirror of my Corolla, ignoring the small starburst crack in the corner. A sad sight stared back at me once I was focused on my reflection. My nose was still red, my eyes were still bloodshot, and sadness was written across my features. It was more than evident that I’d spent the morning crying. It had been so hard to say goodbye to Heidi, even though she’d promised to borrow Patrick’s car to visit in a couple of weeks.
Those fourteen days were going to feel like an eternity, especially if I couldn’t reopen the tea shop after yesterday’s incident.
Which was why I was parked in front of the sheriff’s office and not the shop. I’d been here for quite a while, considering Heidi’s train had such an early departure time. I needed to be assertive in my claim that I be allowed to open the store for business. Besides, I shamelessly wanted to find out exactly who the Fake Larry Butterball was, as well as why he’d targeted me with his shenanigans.
Don’t think for a second that it didn’t cross my mind that my Nan’s will and the ridiculous request that I reside in Paramour Bay for twelve months was just as fake as Larry Butterball was, but I quickly buried that speculation as self-defeating.
I mean, what would I do if that even had a sliver of truth to it? Return to New York City dead broke, where my landlord would no doubt tell me he’d already rented out my one bedroom apartment? I couldn’t blame him, though I had promised to send him my back rent as soon as I had time to go over my newfound inheritance.
I sat back in my seat, adjusting the rearview mirror into place. It gave me time to look around the quaint little town. All the regular tourist storefronts had the Norman Rockwell vibe. The cobblestone intersections added to the picturesque scene, as well as the old Gaslamp formed lampposts every twenty feet bearing the town’s stylized crest decked out in the season’s colors.
Halloween was this Wednesday.
Someone had even gone to the trouble of bundling cornstalks around each and every lamppost. Almost every store had a couple of pumpkins out front with additional decorations. Scared cats, flying bats, and scarecrow silhouettes cut from quarter-inch sheet metal painted black seemed to be a popular choice.
I made a mental note to decorate the shop the same way when Sheriff Drake allowed me back inside the store, not wanting anyone to think I didn’t want to partake in the holiday festivities.
A light breeze ruffled the top of the cornstalks, a few loose leaves skipped across the cobblestone crosswalk, and the red light at the second intersection hadn’t changed color since I’d been parked alongside the curb. Had I not spied the church’s parking lot on my way back into town, I might have assumed everyone had deserted the town in the wake of the recent murder. No one was milling around the sidewalks like they had been yesterday, but there was a good reason for that.
It was only going on eight o’clock on this Sunday morning. The churchgoers were most likely sitting in the pews and listening to the pastor’s sermon recounting the wages of sin for the tea-drinking newcomer.
And I didn’t even drink tea!
Would there be mention of the town’s recent homicide?
I was a bit taken aback when a woman got out of the vehicle parked in front of me. As I’d mentioned before, I had been sitting in my car for over an hour, which meant she’d been doing the same. A bright smile adorned her face, but my eyes were drawn to her hand which she was waving at me as if we were long lost friends from high school.
A quick glance over my shoulder to the sidewalk assured me that this older woman was definitely waving at me and not someone behind my car. I tried my best to smile back, hoping that the redness in my nose and eyes had somewhat dissipated by now.
It wouldn’t do me any good to let everyone know that I was about to burst into tears at the departure of my best friend, who had left me in the care of an abnormally tall Colossus, who I still wasn’t completely sure was human. Then there was the small inconvenience that I might be a suspect in the town’s first murder in a half century.
I’ve got to tell you, it was becoming a bit overwhelming.
“You must be the lovely Raven Marigold,” the woman exclaimed after I’d opened my car door. It wasn’t like she’d given me any choice with her headlong rush. She’d walked right up to my Corolla and kept smiling at me until I grabbed my purse and exited the vehicle. Her heavy dose of perfume overpowered the faint scent of bacon coming from Trixie’s Diner. “I’m Eileen Weepler. I answered your 911 call yesterday. It’s not like we have a big office, so you got me. As a matter of fact, I’m practically on call twenty-four seven. You’ll always get me. It’s no big deal, really, considering there’s hardly any crime to report in
Paramour Bay. I just route the lines to my home phone when I’m not here at the office. It’s just me and Sheriff Drake. Plenty of room for the both of us. By the way, has he called you this morning? He wanted to talk with you.”
I must not be the only one who liked coffee, because Eileen’s constant chattering had me thinking the tea shop might benefit her. Maybe I could do some sort of intervention. It might actually be good for business.
“Um, no. I was dropping my friend off at the train station,” I explained, wondering how on earth Eileen had managed to slide her hand into the crook of my arm the way she did. She really didn’t give me much of a choice but to let her guide me to the glass door of the sheriff’s office. I was beginning to wonder if I’d been apprehended. “Why was Sheriff Drake going to call me?”
“Why, he’s found out who was pretending to be Larry Butterball,” Eileen declared, stepping inside and announcing their presence. “Sheriff, you’ve got yourself a pretty little visitor this morning. Now, Raven, don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t make any sense that a man from up north in Wethersfield would be here pretending to be someone he certainly wasn’t. Larry is on his way back from his annual vacation in Venice Beach, Florida. So, it’s possible he can provide us with some answers once he gets back to town.”
“Eileen, I’ll take it from here. Thank you.”
Sheriff Drake stepped out of his office, wearing pretty much the same type sheriff’s uniform as yesterday, with his badge attached above the pocket while the patch was just below the shoulder on the opposite side. His holster was slung low on the right side of his hip, eliciting a smile to my lips as I wondered where his cowboy hat had gotten off to. Eileen’s comment about there being little crime in Paramour Bay had me doubting he’d ever drawn his firearm.
My gaze dropped to his left hand out of habit.
I blamed Heidi.
He really was a handsome man, and he was kind about Eileen running on about the case when it really should have been him giving me the update, but he seemed a bit too much of a type A personality for my taste.
“Ms. Marigold, please come into my office. Can I get you anything? A water? Tea, perhaps? Eileen has one of those Keurig machines for the office.”
He most likely suggested tea because of my grandmother, but my glands were salivating over the rich aroma of his coffee that permeated the office’s air. Would it hurt the shop’s business to know that the new owner preferred coffee over tea? Probably. I couldn’t bring myself to take that chance, at least not until I knew for certain that my Nan’s reputation was in good standing.
“I’m fine, but thank you anyway.”
I took in the small desk that was presumably Eileen’s, also noting that there was a copier machine, a cute coffee stand sporting her Keurig appliance positioned next to a mini refrigerator, and what appeared to be a bathroom located in the corner. Sheriff Drake’s private office appeared to be an addition off the main space.
Eileen had been right.
It was only the two of them seeing to the constabulary need of this town.
That was either a good sign, telling me that they had both been right about the amount of crime in Paramour Bay, or it meant that this local police department was way understaffed, all but forcing them to refer the more serious crimes to either the state police or the county sheriff.
“I should have taken the time to give you my proper condolences yesterday. Your grandmother was a well-respected pillar of the community and a member of the town’s chamber of commerce.”
I took the well-worn wooden chair available in front of his desk. The other one was filled with numerous papers and files, pushed back into the corner. For a town with little crime, there seemed to be quite a bit of case files in that pile. He was also being overly polite when it came to my grandmother, because his statement had been rather impersonal.
“You didn’t like her much, did you?” Remember, I was from New York. I didn’t like beating around the bush. “Why is that?”
Sheriff Drake was noticeably taken aback by my bluntness, but someone had been murdered in Nan’s shop. I wanted to know why.
While I waited for Liam Drake to decide if he was going to answer me honestly or somehow evade my question altogether, I was able to study his personal domain. There were quite a lot of pictures of him fishing with an older gentleman, as well as one with him and a pretty woman. They were both smiling, but it was easy to tell that she was related to him from the shape of their noses. I was betting on a sister.
The most prominent and extremely surprising wall hanging that told me he was proud of his accomplishments was the graduation certificate from the New York City Police Academy. I had to read it twice, because there was no way the man sitting in front of me was from New York. Everything about him screamed country bumpkin.
“I never said that I disliked Rosemary,” Sheriff Drake countered, tentatively taking a seat in the rolling chair so that he was directly across from me. His reaction proved to me that he couldn’t have been in New York long. “Your grandmother accomplished a lot during her life here, from the tea shop to establishing the book club at the library. She also hosted several small charities throughout the year, all benefiting our wax museum.”
I wanted to ask about the wax museum and the significance it had on this town, but I didn’t want to get distracted from my real purpose here. Is that why he’d brought it up? Hoping that I would lose focus on the topic we’d been discussing?
Where was Heidi when I needed her? Oh, that’s right. Escaping at lightning speed, the fastest a locomotive could muster. She was on her way to my mother’s apartment so that I could call and tell her that I’d left the city without saying goodbye. I would also need to explain why the police were going to be calling her shortly to question her about Fake Larry. I was lucky they hadn’t done so already.
I suddenly had a hot flash at what her reaction was likely to be.
“You never said you liked my grandmother, either,” I pointed out, proud of myself that I hadn’t gotten distracted. I set my purse on the floor beside me before leaning back in the chair so that I appeared at ease. In actuality, I was a nervous wreck about the fact that the man who deceived me ended up dead in my shop. It didn’t help my disposition that the killer was still out there. “Look, I’ll be honest. I haven’t spoken to my grandmother since my eighteenth birthday. I don’t know why she left me her tea shop, but I promise you that I will do my best to keep it running until such time that I can sell it without breaking the crazy little clause in her will and default on my obligations. I will also do my best to keep the shop in good standing within the town’s usual standards of business.”
See?
I could be professional when it was warranted.
Sheriff Drake looked as if he wanted to either swallow his tongue or say something regarding my assurance, which had been quite a feat for me considering I liked to keep to myself. I wasn’t the central focus of the party, the way Heidi tended to be. It was probably one of the reasons we got along so well. We kept to our own side of the road. Either way, it would take me awhile to become adjusted to life in a small town.
Of course, there was still the tiny problem of the murder.
“Eileen mentioned that you found out the identity of the man pretending to be Larry Butterball.” There was no reason to prolong this visit, especially if I was finally able to get back into the tea shop and get things ready for the grand reopening. I’d never been in charge of anything myself, so a part of me was eager to get started. “What was his name?”
“Jacob Blackleach.” Sheriff Drake reached for the lone file on his desk, though I still wondered about the ones in the chair beside me. He flipped open the top cover and turned it to face me. “The state police detective who I called in to take this case ran the victim’s fingerprints through the system. He got a hit. Apparently, Jacob Blackleach was from a central Connecticut town called Wethersfield. It’s basically north of here, though his surname has no connection with anyo
ne here in town, as far as we know. We’re honestly at a loss as to why he’d impersonate Larry, which is why I was going to call you this morning. Are you sure you didn’t cross paths with this Blackleach character at any time over the last few months?”
“No.” I was absolutely positive I’d never seen the man before. “The first time I’d ever come in contact with him was that first phone call to tell me that my grandmother had passed away.”
“Interesting thing about that,” Sheriff Drake said, his speculative tone telling me that he had a lot more to share. “Everything Jacob Blackleach told you about your grandmother’s last will and testament is completely true.”
A part of me sighed in huge relief that I hadn’t uprooted my life from the city to come here on a fool’s errand. The other part retained the fear I’d experienced upon seeing Blackleach’s body, because there still had to be a reason he’d targeted me in the first place.
“Larry—the real Larry—should be pulling into Paramour Bay by this evening. He’s driving back from his vacation in Florida to take a look around his office to see if anything is amiss. He knows of only one other person with a key to his workplace, and that’s his mother.” Sheriff Drake leaned back in his chair as he scooped his coffee cup off his desk. I managed to hold myself back and not snag it out of his hands. “Ms. Marigold, I’ve got to ask—”
“Raven, please,” I requested sincerely, trying not to wince at the way he’d addressed me. It only reminded me of my mother and the fact that I still had to make that dreaded call. “So, what you’re basically telling me is that some random conman decided to take over Larry Butterball’s business for the day, and I happened to be the sole client he chose to service before an unknown assailant killed him?”
I was so confused as to why and how someone besides my Nan’s estate lawyer could have arranged her funeral, as well as a reading of the will, without getting caught. Everyone knew everyone in small towns. Besides, why would someone do that? What did they have to gain by doing any of it?
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