by Josie Belle
“I should have brought my pumpkin cake over here,” Ginger said. “I hate the thought of that she-devil digging into it.”
The inside door opened, and Molly’s face appeared. Her eyes were wide, and she was biting her lower lip. She looked anxious, but when she recognized Maggie and Ginger, she let out a sigh.
“Hi,” she said. “So, I suppose you heard?”
“Yes,” Ginger said. “We had the misfortune to meet Courtney. It didn’t go well.”
Molly pushed open the storm door and ushered them in. Her light brown hair tumbled past her shoulders, her face was pinched with worry lines and Maggie would have bet five of Ginger’s cakes that she hadn’t had a peaceful second since she’d been sacked.
They stood in the small living room, and Molly gestured for them to sit down. Maggie and Ginger took the sofa while Molly sat on the recliner next to it.
“Here’s the thing,” Maggie said. “I’m fairly positive that Courtney can’t fire you.”
“Really?” Molly asked. “’Cause it sure seemed like she nailed it when she said, ‘You’re fired.’ Donald Trump couldn’t have done a better job of it. She also said she’d have me arrested for trespassing if I didn’t clear out. She gave me five minutes to go. Needless to say, I went.”
She pressed her lips together, and Maggie could tell she was trying not to cry.
“If it’s any consolation, she threatened to have me arrested, too,” Maggie said.
“No!” Molly gasped.
“Yes, because I’m holding all of the Madison things from the flea market at my shop,” Maggie said. “She said she was going to have me arrested for theft.”
“She certainly likes threatening people with incarceration, doesn’t she?” Molly asked.
“Where’s Jimmy?” Ginger asked.
“In the kitchen,” Molly said. She gestured to the doorway behind her, and Maggie could see Jimmy, who was in his mid-teens with a thatch of unruly black hair and a sharp nose and strong chin, sitting at the table with a newspaper spread out before him.
“He likes to sort the newspaper when I’m done reading it. It’s Sunday’s, so this one should take a bit.”
“Is it a good time for you to talk then?” Maggie asked. “Are you up to it?”
“Sure,” Molly said. She appeared to shake off the bout of tears that had been threatening, and asked, “Can I get you two anything? Coffee, lemonade, water?”
“I’m fine,” Ginger said.
“Me, too,” Maggie said.
She glanced down at the coffee table where the magazines were fastidiously arranged.
Molly caught her gaze on the table, and said, “That’s Jimmy’s doing. One of the upsides to autism is that he is very orderly. He even caps all of my pens for me.”
“Molly, did you know that Buzz had been married before Vera?”
Molly blew out a breath. She looked as if she would rather not answer. Finally, she gave a small nod.
“Vera told me,” she said. “She never mentioned that he had a child, however. That came as a bit of a shock.”
“And what a child she is,” Ginger said. “She’s like having a feral cat decide it wants to live with you.”
Molly cracked a small smile, and Maggie was encouraged that Molly’s usual sunny disposition had not been completely squashed by Courtney’s power play.
“We spoke to Bianca, and she doesn’t want you to go,” Maggie said. “She’s struggling to deal with her mother’s death, and Courtney’s appearance just knocked the pins right out from under her.”
“I think Courtney threw us both for loop,” Molly said. “When I arrived this morning and Bianca told me all about Courtney’s midnight arrival, I could tell she thought she was having a wide-awake nightmare that would end at any moment. When I tried to tell Courtney that she needed to give Bianca some time to process all of this, she fired me.”
“Did Bianca protest?” Ginger asked.
“Bianca tried,” Molly said. “But after all of these years of living under Vera’s weighty thumb, well, she doesn’t have the sort of personality that could take on someone like Courtney Madison.”
“Which is exactly why you have to go back,” Maggie said.
“I don’t know,” Molly said. “I don’t want any trouble. I mean, what if Courtney could actually arrest me for trespassing?”
“Molly, can you afford to lose that job?” Ginger asked. Her voice said she was trying to state it delicately but couldn’t quite manage it.
Molly looked around her living room. The furniture was threadbare and the coffee table looked as if holding up its small pile of magazines was all it could bear. The interior of the house needed painting as badly as the exterior, and the curtains seemed to be hanging mostly by force of will.
“No,” Molly said. Her voice was low and rife with fear. “I don’t know what I’ll without that job. It pays well, and Vera set up benefits so Jimmy can have therapy and attend the Parker School for Autistic Children.”
“You’ve worked for the Madisons for how long?” Ginger asked.
“Almost twenty years,” Molly said. “It was my first job out of high school.”
“Definitely a wrongful termination suit,” Maggie said. “I’ll have Max draw up the papers.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Molly licked her lips nervously. “I was sort of hoping that once Courtney got what she wanted out of the estate and left, then I could go back and work for Bianca.”
“Did you get the impression that Courtney was planning on leaving anytime soon?” Ginger asked.
Molly opened her mouth, but then it seemed the reality of the situation sank in and she shook her head.
“That woman is like a tick on a dog’s ear,” Maggie said. “She’s not leaving until she sucks that estate dry. Bianca will be lucky if she’s left with the clothes on her back.”
“What can we do then?” Molly asked.
“That depends,” Maggie said. She knew Molly wasn’t going to like her proposition, but the more she thought about it the more she thought that it was the only solution.
“Depends upon what?” Molly asked cautiously, obviously hearing something alarming in Maggie’s tone.
“How do you feel about becoming a spy?”
Chapter 14
“A what?” Molly choked. “I couldn’t. I’m not anywhere near sneaky enough. Would it be dangerous? What if I got caught?”
“Breathe, Molly,” Maggie said. “You’re just going to go back to work tomorrow and keep an eye on Courtney Madison. You don’t have to do anything dangerous or even illegal, but if you observe her doing anything suspicious, like selling the family china out from under Bianca, you could let us know, and we’ll let the authorities know.”
Molly fretted her lower lip between her teeth. “Well, I guess that would be all right, assuming she lets me have my job back.”
A noise from the kitchen brought Molly’s attention back to her son. Maggie glanced over her shoulder. She could just see him in the sliver of light coming from the overhead lamp in the kitchen. Jimmy was rocking in his chair while he sorted the newspaper. He was humming softly under his breath.
“I’ll do it,” Molly said. “For Jimmy.”
Maggie and Ginger left her after giving her a stern pep talk about not letting Courtney run her off again. Molly had looked relieved and determined.
“Do you think she’ll be able to withstand Courtney in full hissy-fit mode?” Ginger asked as they drove back into the center of town.
“She has sufficient motivation,” Maggie said. “There’s no way she can afford to take care of Jimmy without a job.”
“Sort of feels like we’re throwing a lamb into a lion pit,” Ginger said.
“I think the lamb has more lion in her than we’re giving her credit for,” Maggie said. “She did work for Vera for twenty years.”
“True,” Ginger agreed. “So, what’s the plan now?”
“Claire was going to go to Home Depot this morning, and she said s
he’d check out the Oops paint pile for me,” Maggie said. She glanced at her watch. “I’m supposed to meet her and Joanne at the shop in half an hour. Did you want me to drop you off at home?”
“Are you kidding?” Ginger asked. “Monday Night Football is on tonight, and it’s the Steelers vs. the Ravens, an ugly rivalry. My house is going to be on testosterone overload.”
“In that case, would you like to come to the shop with me?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Ginger said. “I think your new shop may become my sanctuary.”
“Excellent, I’ll put you to work,” Maggie said.
They drove through the center of town. Maggie was just driving past Summer’s Second Time Around when she saw Courtney Madison coming out of the shop. She slammed on her brakes, causing Ginger to jerk forward.
“What the—was it a cat? You didn’t hit it, did you?” Ginger asked, looking in the road to see if Maggie had hit anything.
“More like a panther,” Maggie said. Before traffic could back up behind her, she pulled over to the side of the road into a vacant parking spot along the town green.
“What are you talking about?” Ginger asked.
“Look!” Maggie pointed.
Courtney and Summer were standing just outside Summer’s shop. Courtney tossed her hair and waited while Summer locked the front door. Together they strolled down the sidewalk to the Daily Grind, where they turned in to the shop, presumably to have a cup of coffee together.
“Is there some sort of she-devil network of which we’re unaware?” Maggie asked Ginger as they watched the two women over the back of Maggie’s seats.
“Apparently,” Ginger agreed. “It must be like a magnetic force field, and they’re just drawn to each other, or maybe they shine a light with the shadow of a stiletto in it into the sky like Batman.”
Maggie looked at her. “You spend too much time with teenage boys.”
Ginger laughed. “No doubt, my entire life is a cartoon.”
“Well, I can’t think of two people who deserve each other more,” Maggie said. “This is a game changer, however.”
“In what way?” Ginger asked.
“If Courtney’s plan is to sell the family fortune out from under Bianca—and I am pretty sure that is a safe assumption on our part—then I can’t really turn over Vera’s stuff to Courtney, not while she’s cozying up to Summer. I’m sure Summer would be oh so happy to take all of Vera’s vintage couture off Courtney’s hands and sell it for her.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“Storage facility,” Maggie said. “I know Drew Constantine has one on the outskirts of town. If I rent one of the units and lock the property up, then I can give the key to Bianca so she can make sure Courtney doesn’t just hand it over to Summer for a bargain-basement price.”
“Shrewd maneuver.” Ginger nodded.
Maggie pulled back out onto the road and drove past her own shop. The window was bare, and the door badly needed a coat of paint. She hoped Claire had been successful at the hardware store.
She parked around the corner from her shop, and she and Ginger walked back. Glancing over at the pretty lace curtains now adorning Summer’s shop made Maggie feel like she was running a three-legged race with one leg going in the wrong direction.
“What color would you call that exactly?” Ginger asked, tipping her head to the side and studying the wall.
Claire had bought several gallons of Oops paint from Home Depot at a sweet five dollars per gallon, and they had tested one of them on the wall. The only problem was, they couldn’t really decide what color it was.
“It looks like a type of gray to me,” Maggie said.
“It’s supposed to be a pearlescent pewter,” Claire said. She was frowning at the lower half of the wall in concentration, as if she expected the pearlescence to appear. “Maybe it needs two coats.”
The door to the shop opened, and in walked Joanne bearing a deli platter from More than Meats, the deli/butcher shop she owned with her husband.
Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten, and the sight of the salami and marble rye spread before her made her put down her paint roller in the paint tray and clear off an old table for Joanne to set the food down on.
“What are you staring at?” Joanne asked.
“Claire’s Oops paint,” Ginger said. “Oh, is that olive loaf?”
“Just for you,” Joanne said.
Maggie helped herself to one of the big garlic pickles and crunched while she considered the walls. Even if the gray was more prison drab than pewter, it was a damn sight better than the pea green color that lived beneath the coat of primer she had painted on the wall for their test area.
Claire opened the other gallon and poured a bit into a clean tray. Using a small roller, she rolled the paint out above the gray in a one-foot-square area. She stepped back to examine the contrast.
“Oh, I like that,” Joanne said. “It makes the gray below it shine. What’s it called?”
“Aqua Chiffon,” Claire said. “Apparently, the woman who ordered it had more of a teal in mind, so she demanded her money back.”
“Her loss,” Maggie said. “That is gorgeous. And look, it does make the gray take on a pearly sheen. Claire, you nailed it. I knew your artist’s eye would pick the perfect colors.”
“Thank you.” Claire looked pleased.
Joanne nibbled her sandwich as she stepped closer to the wall to examine the paint. “This would look really lovely in a nursery, wouldn’t it?”
Her voice was so full of longing that Maggie felt her heart clench in her chest. Joanne was in her mid-thirties and for the past five years she and her husband, Michael, had been doing everything they could to conceive a baby. So far, no luck.
Claire was not known as a hugger, so it was especially poignant for Maggie to see her put her roller down and wrap an arm around Joanne’s shoulders.
“It will look lovely in your nursery,” she said.
Joanne gave her a tremulous nod and then bit into her sandwich as if determined to believe.
“Only if it’s a boy, though,” Ginger said. Her tone was lightly teasing. “I, for one, would really appreciate it if you could get Michael’s sperm to pony up two X chromosomes and give us a girl.”
“Oh, they had a really pretty shell pink paint in the Oops pile,” Claire said. “Can you imagine?”
Maggie sighed. “I’ve always liked pink.”
Joanne shook her head. “Michael has pink issues.”
“What?” Maggie, Ginger and Claire all asked at once.
“He says too much pink and she’ll turn into a princess,” Joanne said.
Ginger and Maggie exchanged a look and started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Claire asked.
“Laura,” they said together.
Claire and Joanne joined them at the table. Maggie had pulled up a few of the mismatched chairs left by the previous owner. Ginger passed out coffee mugs and poured fresh cups of coffee from the pot that had been brewing since they’d arrived.
“I don’t understand what is so funny about your daughter and the color pink,” Claire said.
“When we found out we were having a girl, Charlie went a little nuts and painted the nursery bright pink.”
“Not just a little pink; picture flamingo pink,” Ginger cut in. “Even Roger didn’t have the heart to tell him it looked like liquid antacid.”
“And when we were buying the bedding,” Maggie continued, “I wanted teddy bears, but oh no, he had to have all princesses, castles, unicorns and rainbows.”
“That’s sweet,” Claire said.
“Very,” Maggie agreed. “Sadly, Laura came out as the biggest tomboy known to man. Charlie passed away when she was two, so he never got to see what she did to her room, but I know he would have laughed. He was good like that.”
“What did she do?” Joanne asked.
“Laura did not like pink. She refused to wear it or anything
girlie, including dresses for that matter, and when she was seven years old, she started collecting the colored comics from the Sunday paper. One day I walked into her room, and she had stapled the comics over the princess, rainbows and unicorn wallpaper from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I had hundreds of comic strip Garfield cats staring at me. It was mythic.”
“I can see Laura doing that,” Claire said with a laugh.
“Me, too,” Joanne agreed, chuckling.
“So, you and Michael are still trying?” Maggie asked gently.
“Oh yeah,” Joanne said. She stared off across the room with a look of such longing that it made Maggie sigh. “We’re trying and hoping and hoping some more.”
“It’ll happen for you, honey,” Ginger said. “I know it will.”
Joanne gave her a small smile, and Maggie sensed she was about to cry, so she said, “And by the time we get done tackling this place, we’ll be ready to take on a nursery.”
“And if we do go for pink, we’ll just tell Michael it’s not pink, it’s light red. How can he argue with that?” Claire asked.
They all tucked into their sandwiches, and Maggie and Ginger told the others about their visit with Bianca and her half sister, Courtney, as well as their quick visit with Molly.
Both Joanne and Claire were outraged that Courtney had fired Molly, and they agreed that Courtney was probably going to try to swipe the estate from Bianca.
When Ginger said they had seen Courtney going for coffee with Summer, no one was surprised that the two had found each other so fast in such a small town.
“One thing, though,” Claire said. “Don’t you find it odd that Courtney showed up two days after Vera was found dead?”
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but who stands to gain the most by Vera dying?” Claire asked.
“Bianca,” Ginger said.
“Unless there’s another heir, such as an unknown half sibling,” Joanne said. “Claire, are you saying you think Courtney murdered Vera?”
Chapter 15
“So, it seems you’ve met Courtney Madison,” a voice said from the door.
