A Deal to Die For

by Josie Belle

  Maggie strode back into the tent to retrieve some boxes. Sam helped, and they hauled several to Tyler’s truck before turning back to get more.

  “Did you find anything of interest while packing it all up?” he asked. He held out his arms and Maggie loaded boxes into them.

  “Loads of stuff, if you’re into vintage clothing,” she said. “But nothing if you’re trying to find out more about the person who owned the clothes. She had amazing taste—that’s about it.”

  “Not terribly helpful,” he said.

  Maggie picked up a large box, and they walked toward the waiting pickup.

  “How is Bianca holding up?” she asked as she hefted her box into the bed of the truck.

  “As well as can be expected,” he said. “Considering her mother was murdered.”

  Chapter 8

  “What?” Maggie gasped. “But who? How?”

  Sam glanced around them and shook his head. “Forget I said that. I spoke out of turn. It’s just—”

  “Just what?” she asked.

  They moved aside to let Ginger and Joanne load their boxes into the truck. Sam took Maggie’s arm and led her out of earshot of the others.

  “I don’t know exactly,” he said. “But I don’t like anything about this situation.”

  He looked grim.

  “Are you sure you’re not overreacting?” she asked.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He looked affronted.

  “Sam, you worked homicide in Richmond for over twenty years,” she said. “I read the paper. I know that Richmond’s murder rate has been ranked five times higher than the national average.”

  “It’s dropped significantly over the past several years,” he said. “The Richmond PD has done amazing work.”

  Maggie could hear the pride in his voice, and she tucked her smile into her cheek.

  “No doubt in large part because of you and your fellow detectives,” she said, trying to appease him. “But look around you. Does St. Stanley look like Richmond?”

  Sam turned and looked over the town green. Maggie followed his gaze. The dogwoods had changed color, and their large spoon-shaped leaves were a vibrant scarlet that would drop and be gone in just a few days.

  Sam took a deep breath in, and Maggie noticed that the smell of the donut booth nearby permeated the air with the scent of frying dough.

  Groups of neighbors chatted with one another while they shopped the flea market. Children ran around the tables and tents beneath the watchful eyes of all of the grown-ups who were present.

  Despite the horror of what had happened to Vera at Dr. Franklin’s office, St. Stanley was a busy, happy place with residents who genuinely cared about one another. Yes, occasionally someone overstepped their bounds and got into her business, but Maggie could live with that if it meant that the burdens she had to carry were shared as well.

  “The buildings are shorter,” he said.

  “Really, Sam?” she asked with a laugh. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”

  “Maggie, you’ve lived your entire life here in this town,” he said.

  Maggie waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

  Instead, he looked at her with eyes that had seen too much pain and too much suffering to forget what human beings were capable of doing to one another.

  Maggie felt an overpowering urge to hug him tight, just like he had done to her earlier, to try and make the horror go away. She thrust her hands in her pockets to resist any such foolishness.

  “That’s true,” she said. “And I know I haven’t been exposed to the things you have, but still, that doesn’t mean Vera’s death was murder.”

  Sam put a hand on the back of his neck. He gave her a rueful glance. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I haven’t acclimated just yet.”

  “Maggie, we’re done loading,” Tyler called. “Do you want to meet me at your shop?”

  “Thanks, Tyler,” she said. She glanced at Sam to be absolutely sure this was okay, and he nodded.

  “I trust you,” he said.

  Again, Maggie felt a surge of warmth from the inside out. Why this made her feel good, she had no idea. In fact, she didn’t particularly want to dwell on any feelings in regard to Sam Collins. She dipped her head and studied her shoes.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  When she looked up, he was gone.

  “Are you ready, Maggie?” Ginger asked. “I’ll give you a lift.”

  “What?” She was scanning the booths of the flea market, but there was no sign of Sam.

  Kim Chisholm, who was working the donut booth, came over with a heaping plate of donuts.

  “Here you go,” she said. She was short and stocky with blonde hair that she wore under a baseball cap. Her apron had grease splatters, and streaks of powdered sugar covered her arms. “I heard about what happened to Vera. You all deserve this for helping Bianca out.”

  “Aw, thanks, Kim.” Tyler reached over Maggie and grabbed two.

  Ginger gave him a sharp look, but Kim had been generous, and there were at least ten more donuts on the plate.

  There were a chorus of thank-yous, and then Kim’s husband, Steve, came over with a pitcher of apple cider and several cups.

  “I heard it was a heart attack,” he said. “Did Dr. Franklin say that?”

  Maggie felt everyone’s eyes upon her. She knew better than to mention what Sam had said, so she went for a vague answer, which was nice because it was also the truth.

  “I don’t think they know what the cause of death was just yet,” she said.

  “I heard from Bill Parsons—he and his wife play bridge with Vera—that Vera goes to her doctor in Dumontville three times a week,” Steve said.

  “Did she have a condition?” Joanne asked. “I mean, she always seemed to be in good health.”

  “According to Bill, she was in excellent health but was a complete hypochondriac. If she had a headache, it was a migraine. If she had heartburn, she was having a heart attack. You know the type.”

  “And how,” Ginger said. “I had an aunt like that. She spent every day of her last fifty years always about to die.”

  “Well, now I feel bad,” Kim said, “for not being more patient with her when she was complaining.”

  “At least Vera can have the last word,” Claire said.

  “What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

  “She can have an epitaph put on her grave that reads, I told you I was sick,” she said.

  “Claire!” Joanne chastised her and then burst into a nervous giggle.

  “What?” Claire said. “It’s a famous epitaph.”

  “Well, if anyone would put it on their headstone, it would be Vera,” Ginger said as she finished off her second donut.

  The group nodded in agreement. Vera was well known for her strong opinions and controlling nature. Given her position as the wealthiest resident in the community of St. Stanley, no one had wanted to cross Vera Madison.

  “All we can do now is try to help Bianca through this difficult time,” Maggie said. “She’s going to have a lot to deal with. I just hope Vera left everything in order for her.”

  “Poor Bianca,” Joanne said. “When she’d come into the deli with Vera for lunch, you could see her always trying to guess what her mother wanted. Vera could be very difficult.”

  “How is Bianca taking her mother’s death?” Kim asked.

  “She’s pretty distraught,” Maggie said. “Molly Spencer is looking after her.”

  “Molly is a good woman,” Kim said. “She’ll help her through it.”

  “Well, time to go,” Tyler said. He was looking forlornly at the empty donut plate.

  Maggie shook her head. Tyler should have a sign around his neck that read, Will work for food. She was pretty sure that if she stabbed a hot dog with a stick and held it out in front of him, she could get him to do anything she asked.

  “We’ll meet you at the shop, Tyler,” Ginger said.

  “Can you pull around to the bac
k so we can put these boxes in my storage room?” Maggie asked.

  “Will do,” Tyler said. He climbed into the cab of his truck, and with a wave he pulled out into the street.

  “Thanks again for the donuts and cider,” Maggie said to Kim and Steve.

  “Anytime,” they said in unison.

  Maggie and the Good Buy Girls left the flea market and strode across the street to the corner, where her shop, My Sister’s Closet, was situated. Maggie unlocked the front door and let them in.

  The space still needed a lot of work, but it was coming along. She tried to ignore the feeling of panic that hit her as she realized she had purchased nothing at the flea market, and if she didn’t get a move on, she was going to have a grand opening with a whole lot of nothing to sell.

  Then she thought of Vera and Bianca, and she realized that what she had to deal with was minuscule in comparison. Perspective.

  Maggie woke up early the next morning. Mostly because her grandnephew, Josh, had climbed into her bed in the middle of the night. He was a little mover and shaker in his sleep and just before the sun came up, he had flopped his body across the bed, firmly lodging his big toe in her ear.

  Maggie gently pushed his feet away from her head and gazed in wonder at the towheaded little man beside her. It seemed like just yesterday her own daughter, Laura, had been this size, and now she was a sophomore at Penn State. She would be home in a few weeks for Thanksgiving break and Maggie couldn’t wait to see her.

  Laura was even more excited about Maggie’s shop than Maggie was, and Maggie could certainly use a blast of her daughter’s optimism right now. After the disaster that was yesterday’s flea market, Maggie was beginning to fear she was in over her head.

  She slipped out of the bed, even though the sun wasn’t completely up yet, and carefully tucked Josh back in. He didn’t even notice, and she envied him his ability to sleep so soundly.

  Not wanting to disturb her niece, Sandy, she kept the lights off while she crept to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. She and Sandy were perfect coffee buddies, as they both tended to make it strong. Maggie wondered if it was a motherhood thing. A woman needed serious jet fuel to spend her days chasing a toddler.

  While the coffee brewed, she went outside and retrieved the Sunday paper. She had thought about giving up her newspaper, since the cost of home delivery had gone up again, but the coupon-clipper inside of her just couldn’t let go of her Sunday circulars. When she’d done the math, she’d figured out that the amount of money she saved in coupons from the Sunday paper more than made up for the money she spent on the paper itself.

  She sat down at the kitchen table and skimmed the front page. There was nothing about Vera’s death in the local section, so she hoped that Sam had been wrong and that Vera’s death had not been a homicide as he feared.

  Maggie had finished with the paper when Sandy came into the kitchen. Her reddish brown hair, so like Maggie’s in color, was sporting a rooster-worthy case of bed head.

  “Rough night?” Maggie asked.

  “Fell asleep on my laptop,” Sandy said. “I had a nice imprint of the keyboard going across my face.”

  Maggie squinted at her. “Well, it looks like it’s faded.”

  “Thank goodness,” Sandy said. “I really didn’t want to sit in my human growth and development class with a space bar on my cheek.”

  Maggie laughed. “You’re almost done. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” Sandy said. “It’s going to be so nice to finally be able to call myself a nurse.”

  “You’re going to be great,” Maggie said. “You’re smart, and you have a definite way with people, firm but kind.”

  “Thanks,” Sandy said. “Speaking of firm, I wanted to talk to you about Thanksgiving. I know Laura is coming home, and I wondered if the two of you would like to come to Florida with Josh and me to visit my mom and Grammy? I really think it would be nice for four generations of O’Briens to be under one roof.”

  O’Brien was Maggie’s maiden name and the name that Maggie and her sister, Melodie, shared before they both got married. Maggie stared at Sandy for a moment and then burst out laughing.

  “You’re looking for buffer,” she accused.

  “No, I’m not,” Sandy protested. Her face flamed bright red, however, and Maggie knew she had nailed it.

  “Oh please, I know how you and your mother get on,” Maggie said. “Like fire and gas.”

  “That’s only because she is a big, bossy know-it-all, and you should talk, since you and Grammy get on about as well,” Sandy said.

  “That’s because Grammy is the queen of the You shoulds,” Maggie said.

  “What?” Sandy asked. She gave her a confused look.

  “Every time I talk to that woman it turns into ‘You should do this’ and ‘You should do that,’” Maggie said. “It drives me bonkers. I’m forty-one years old. Do I look like I need someone to tell me what I should be doing?”

  “So, you’ll come?” Sandy asked with a big grin.

  “They’re coming up for Christmas, right?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes,” Sandy answered.

  “I think that’s all the shoulding I can handle during the holidays,” Maggie said. “Sorry, hon. I love them dearly, I do, but don’t forget the day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday, the biggest bargain-shopping day of the year. The GBGs will be working it.”

  “You could work it in Florida,” Sandy said.

  “I can’t give up my home-field advantage,” Maggie said.

  “It’s all right, I understand,” Sandy said. “It’s just four days. Surely, I can buck up for four days, which if you think about it is only ninety-six hours, and if I sleep for eight hours each day, that makes it only sixty-four hours. Doable, especially since I will have to study during some of that time.”

  “That’s my girl,” Maggie said. “Just learn to smile and nod.”

  “I can always use my secret weapon,” Sandy said.

  Maggie shot her a questioning glance.

  Sandy gave her sad eyes, and said, “Josh’s puppy face. I’ll have him bust that out and completely distract them.”

  “Nice,” Maggie said with a smile.

  The phone on the counter rang, and Sandy checked the caller ID.

  “It’s Cheryl Kincaid,” she said. She grabbed the receiver out of its cradle and handed it to Maggie.

  “Hello,” Maggie said.

  Cheryl was Dr. Franklin’s nurse practitioner. She’d been with Doc almost as long as Maggie, and they’d become good friends over the years.

  “Maggie, I’m glad I caught you,” Cheryl said. “I’m at the coffee shop. I just heard from Pete Daniels that the police picked up Dr. Franklin and brought him in for questioning in the death of Vera Madison.”

  Chapter 9

  “What?” Maggie asked. She shook her head. This wasn’t computing. Obviously, her coffee intake this morning had not been sufficient. “That’s not possible.”

  “Which doesn’t make it untrue,” Cheryl said. “I’m going over to the jail. I called the house, but no one answered. Alice must be beside herself.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Maggie said. “Give me ten minutes.”

  She hung up the phone and saw the worried look on Sandy’s face.

  “Doc’s been taken in for questioning. It’s okay. I’m sure Sam is just being very thorough,” she said.

  She didn’t know if she was trying to convince Sandy or herself, but judging by the look on Sandy’s face, she didn’t feel any better than Maggie.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Sandy asked. “I could come with you.”

  “No, Josh isn’t even awake yet, and I don’t think he should be hanging out in the sheriff’s station, do you?” she asked.

  “No,” Sandy said. “But if there’s anything I can do—”

  “Maybe you could call Max Button and let him know I might have need of his legal expertise,” Maggie said.

  “Consider it done,” San
dy said. “Call me when you know what’s happening. I have a special place in my heart for Dr. Franklin since he took such good care of me when I was pregnant.”

  “I will,” Maggie said, and she gave Sandy a reassuring hug.

  She hurried from the kitchen to put on some clothes, freshen up and grab her purse. She could feel a low level of rage simmering below the surface. She was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but honestly, how could Sam do this? He knew Dr. Franklin would never harm a soul.

  Twenty-four years gone from St. Stanley and he had obviously forgotten how decent folks treat one another. Hauling Doc in on a Sunday, no less; what could he be thinking?

  Well, she was just the woman to remind him that this wasn’t the city, this was St. Stanley, and things were not done in such a heavy-fisted manner here. He needed to know that he’d better adjust to small-town living before he put everyone off and found himself to be the loneliest sheriff in Virginia.

  Maggie dressed quickly in jeans and a long-john shirt with a denim shirt over it. She brushed her hair into a ponytail that she clipped at the nape of her neck, and put on just enough make up to make her pale eyelashes visible. She finished her look with her brown leather half boots with the chunky heels to give herself some added height. Grabbing her purse from the table where she kept it, she was out the door in five minutes.

  She parked behind the police station, and when she walked toward the door, she saw Cheryl sitting on a bench next to the building. Cheryl was nursing a very tasty-looking frozen coffee with some sort of caramel drizzle on top of a pile of whipped cream.

  “Any word?” Maggie asked.

  Cheryl heaved a sighed. “I was too chicken to go in by myself. What if they have him in handcuffs? Or worse, what if he’s wearing one of those hideous Day-Glo orange jumpsuits? I couldn’t stand it.”

  “I don’t think they handcuff you or dress you in a grown-up onesie just for questioning,” Maggie said.

  “I was afraid I’d cry,” Cheryl said. She looked like she might cry anyway.

  Maggie held out a hand and helped her up from the bench. Despite her tough exterior—Cheryl was short and stocky and managed the town’s local softball league—she was also the world’s biggest marshmallow, which made her a fabulous nurse when it came to taking care of patients.