A Deal to Die For

by Josie Belle

  The women turned as one to see Sheriff Sam Collins close the door behind him.

  “Hi, Sam,” Ginger said with the familiarity of old friends. Claire and Joanne echoed her welcome as newer but no less sincere acquaintances. Maggie said nothing. She was still irked with him.

  “Help yourself to a sandwich,” Joanne said. “I brought too much—as usual.”

  “I don’t mind if I do,” Sam said.

  “Are Roger and the boys watching the game?” he asked Ginger as he slapped some meat between two slices of bread. Maggie noticed that the lettuce leaves and tomato slices did not make it into the sandwich.

  “Go Ravens!” she said.

  Sam smiled. He glanced around the shop, and Maggie realized he’d never been in here before. She felt oddly uncomfortable with his scrutiny, as if he’d caught her in her underwear.

  “I’m starting to fix it up,” she said. She gestured to the test spots on the wall as if she needed to explain the present messiness. “We were just considering paint colors.”

  Sam took a bite of his sandwich and studied the wall while he chewed.

  “I like them,” he said after careful consideration. “Very classy, and it won’t date itself.”

  Maggie stared at him in surprise.

  “What, a cop can’t have a sense of color?” he asked.

  “It’s not really what the profession is known for,” she said.

  They stared at each other. Maggie was abruptly reminded that the last time she had seen him, he’d told her she was cute when she was mad. Why she had to go and remember that now, she had no idea. As Sam studied her, she could feel her face grow warm.

  “Listen, Maggie, I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Alone,” he said.

  There was a beat of silence, and then Ginger and the others hopped off their seats as one. There was no mistaking the sheriff voice Sam used for his request, as in, it was not a request, and everyone needed to skedaddle ASAP.

  “I’ll catch a ride with Claire,” Ginger said, “so you can…uh…chat with Sam.”

  Joanne grabbed her purse, and said, “Put the leftovers in the fridge. If we’re painting tomorrow night, we can eat them then.”

  “Call me,” Claire said. “And be sure to seal up the paint cans so they don’t dry out.”

  The door shut behind them, and Maggie turned to look at Sam, who was making himself a second sandwich.

  “You sure know how to clear a room,” she said.

  “It’s a gift.”

  Maggie said nothing but waited for him to settle himself in the chair beside her. It occurred to her that this was the first time they had been alone, truly alone, in a private place with no one nearby, since they had dated back in high school.

  It made her nervous, which she knew was ridiculous, as they barely tolerated each other now and certainly did not suffer from the crazy head-over-heels passion they had shared so briefly in their youth.

  She just had to remember that, she told herself. They had agreed to try to be friends, and even though she was unhappy with him for questioning Doc yesterday, she had to try to maintain her cool and hear him out.

  “About Dr. Franklin,” Sam said after he’d demolished half of his sandwich. “What do you know of his relationship with Vera Madison?”

  Maggie had thought he was about to apologize for questioning Doc for so long yesterday. Apparently, not. She brushed some imaginary crumbs off her lap.

  “As far as I know, he didn’t have one,” she said. She was pleased that her voice sounded nice and calm. “Vera hadn’t been a patient of his for many years.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?” he asked.

  He was watching her as if trying to determine if she was lying. Maggie told herself it was his job and not to take it personally. She didn’t quite succeed.

  “Since I do all of the billing for Doc,” she said, her voice a bit sharper than before, “I can honestly say if she was his patient, I would know.”

  “Unless he wasn’t charging her,” Sam said.

  “You think Doc was seeing Vera in a professional capacity and not charging her? Why would he do that?”

  “Because he was in love with her,” Sam said.

  Maggie stared at him for a second, and then she laughed. She shook her head. She laughed some more.

  “No, no, no. Sam, that’s impossible. Look, I know you’ve been away from town for a long time, but even you have to remember that Doc and Alice Franklin have been together for more than forty years.”

  “So?” he asked.

  “So, they’re perfect together, and they always have been,” Maggie said. “They’re like ham and eggs, or bread and butter; you can’t have one without the other.”

  “Technically, you could have ham without eggs,” he said. “It just wouldn’t be as good.”

  “You’re being argumentative,” she said. “You know what I mean.”

  “You’re saying they are a perfect couple,” he said.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Then why is Alice Franklin so angry? Why didn’t she come with Doc to the jail yesterday?” Sam countered.

  “I’m sure she had her reasons,” Maggie said. She did not mention that she had asked Alice this very thing and had gotten nowhere. Instead she said, “Why are you asking me? Go ask Alice.”

  “I tried,” he said. “Both she and Doc are refusing to talk about Vera. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. Maggie hated the stirrings of panic she was feeling inside. She didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. Doc and Alice were like family to her. She didn’t like talking about them like this.

  She picked up her coffee cup, feeling the need for a burst of caffeine.

  “Doc is a good man,” she said. She decided to argue his case while she had Sam here, hopefully listening, in the quiet shop. “I know he didn’t kill Vera Madison.”

  “And yet she was found dead on his office floor with him leaning over her holding a suspicious syringe,” Sam said. “You can see my dilemma.”

  “What about Courtney Madison?” Maggie returned.

  She drained her coffee and leaned forward to put her empty mug on the table. Sam put his plate on the table next to hers.

  They were mere inches away from each other, and Maggie could see the deep blue of his eyes. They appeared darker than usual, as if troubling thoughts caused the color to deepen. Neither one of them moved back, and Maggie wondered if it would become a contest of wills to see who needed to retreat to their own personal space first.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “What about her?”

  Maggie felt her skin grow warm in such close proximity to him. She no longer cared if this was a contest, she was fine with retreating—for now.

  She leaned back in her chair, trying to appear casual. His eyes narrowed as he tracked her movement, and a small smile played on his lips, letting her know she hadn’t fooled him a bit.

  “It’s highly suspicious that Courtney blew into town a day and a half after Vera’s death, don’t you think?” Maggie asked.

  She glanced at the window and noted that the sky was darkening into evening. It made the atmosphere in the shop seem intimate, and she cleared her throat in an effort to keep herself on track.

  “And the minute she got here she fired Molly Spencer, the Madisons’ longtime housekeeper,” she said. “So, given that this heir to the Madison estate just appeared after the surprising death of Vera Madison, how do you know Courtney didn’t have something to do with what happened to Vera?”

  “Well, for one thing, I already checked out her alibi,” he said. “She was on a plane on her way here when Vera was found dead. Her plane ticket and airport security verify her whereabouts at the time of death.”

  “Maybe she has an accomplice,” Maggie said. “Someone could have been here committing the murder while Courtney was en route.”

  Sam gave her a look that sa
id he thought she was reaching. Maggie blew out a breath. It would do Doc no good for her to lose her temper with Sam.

  “Don’t tell me. Let me take a wild guess—you think her partner in crime is Summer Phillips,” he said.

  “Aha, so you think so, too,” Maggie said. Finally, the man was beginning to see reason.

  “No, I don’t,” Sam said. “As far as I know, those two met today for the first time.”

  “According to who?” Maggie asked. She was woefully disappointed. For a second, she’d really thought she and Sam might be on the same page.

  “Courtney,” he said. “I ran into both of them at the Daily Grind just a little while ago, and they told me how they had just met.”

  “And you believed them?” she asked. Her voice was full of scorn, and he raised one eyebrow, obviously surprised by her tone.

  Maggie didn’t dwell on the dark feeling that twisted inside of her. She refused to acknowledge it or examine why the mental picture of Sam talking up the two lovelies with big hair bothered her so much. She just hated seeing the head of the local law enforcement department being taken in by a couple of scheming shrews. Yes, that was it.

  “I have no reason not to believe them,” he said. “Especially when, as far as I know, Courtney has never set foot in St. Stanley before. How could she and Summer possibly know each other?”

  Maggie rose from her seat with a loud humph! She began gathering the cups and mugs and walking them to the small kitchenette in the back of the shop.

  “Here’s what I think,” he said as he grabbed some mugs and plates and followed her. “Something was going on between Doc and Vera. Something that neither Doc nor Alice will talk about.”

  “Probably because it’s personal,” Maggie said. “Maybe Vera was terribly ill and she was consulting Doc as a second opinion.”

  “Then why is Alice so angry?” Sam asked. “Why would she care, if it was a medical situation?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she just didn’t like Vera,” Maggie said. She strode back into the shop and began wrapping up the leftovers. “Vera could be very difficult, you know.”

  “Maggie, that’s not it, and you know it,” he said.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “I don’t know anything, and neither do you.”

  She shoved a plate of cold cuts at him, giving him no choice but to carry them into the back while she took the bread and condiments. She piled the items into the mini refrigerator while trying not to listen to him as he kept talking.

  “This is what I know,” Sam said. “Courtney has an attorney who has filed a motion with the courts to throw out Vera’s will and leave the entire estate to her as Buzz Madison’s firstborn child.”

  “She can’t do that,” Maggie said. “How can she possibly think that she can just cut Bianca out like that?”

  “Courtney says that she only found out that she was Buzz Madison’s daughter a few months ago, when her mother passed away, and she was going through her papers and found her parents’ marriage license and her real birth certificate.”

  “That must have been a shock,” Maggie said. She tried to feel some compassion for the woman whose life had been turned upside down, but she couldn’t quite muster it, given that Courtney had threatened to have her arrested.

  “A big one,” Sam said. “She also said that she sent Vera Madison a letter, telling her that she was coming. Vera knew about Courtney, and she knew Courtney was planning to come here. I think Vera told Doc. I think Doc knows more than he’s saying.”

  They were silent for a minute. Maggie had to shove the door on the mini refrigerator hard to get it to close and stay closed.

  “So it’s not that you think Doc killed Vera so much as you think he knows what was going on with Vera right before she died,” Maggie said.

  “Yes, that’s why I need to know what Doc knows,” Sam said. “I can’t figure out what really happened to Vera until I know what it is.”

  “I can’t help you with that,” Maggie said. “I can’t ask Doc to betray a confidence.”

  They stared at each other. Sam looked like he wanted to argue his case with her, but he knew it wouldn’t be received well.

  “Maggie!”

  A voice called her name from the front of the store, and Maggie took it as an excuse to step out of the break room and back into the shop.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Sam, relieved to put some distance between them.

  “Hey, there you are!” Pete Daniels stood in the shop, looking completely out of place and totally unconcerned by it.

  “Hi, Pete, what can I do for you?”

  “Well, after you left the shop today, I realized I didn’t get to try out my newest joke on you,” he said.

  Maggie smiled. Pete and his jokes. For a funny guy, his timing was way off at the moment. She glanced over her shoulder, but there was no sign of Sam. She wondered if he was waiting to finish their conversation. He was in for a long wait, because she had no intention of discussing the Doc situation until she spoke to Doc herself.

  “So, a ghost floats into a coffee shop and asks for an espresso, and the barista asks, ‘Would you like scream with that?’”

  Pete looked at her so expectantly that Maggie couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “That’s a keeper,” she said.

  “I wish I’d thought of it two weeks ago for Halloween,” he said. He glanced around the room. “This place is really coming along.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I feel as if I’ll never be ready to open.”

  “I’m pretty handy with a paintbrush.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Listen, Maggie, I didn’t really come here to tell you a joke.” Pete shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the toes of his shoes. “The truth is, I was wondering, well, would you go out to dinner with me sometime?”

  Chapter 16

  “I…uh…” Maggie knew it was bad form to stutter at an invitation to dinner, but she couldn’t have been more surprised if the man had dropped to one knee and busted out a ten-carat diamond ring.

  “You don’t have to answer right now,” Pete said. He seemed to sense that he’d stunned her. “It’s casual, just as friends.”

  He looked so nervous that Maggie felt bad for him, especially given that he had no idea Sam was in the back room undoubtedly hearing all of this.

  Maggie knew she couldn’t humiliate Pete by saying no, even if he didn’t know they had an audience. She felt she had no choice but to say, “Sure, I’d like that.”

  His brown eyes were clouded with doubt.

  “Really,” she added. “You just caught me by surprise, that’s all.”

  “Excellent!” Pete said. He strolled to the door and looked back with a grin. “Friday night at six. I’ll pick you up?”

  “I’ll be here, working on the shop,” Maggie said. “Can you meet me here?”

  “Will do,” Pete said. “Night, Maggie.”

  “Night, Pete,” she said.

  The door closed behind him, and Maggie noted that it was completely dark outside now. She glanced over her shoulder and waited for Sam to appear. She had no doubt that he would tease her mercilessly about this. She waited. He didn’t show.

  She walked through the shop, aware of how her feet echoed on the floor. She so didn’t want to hear what Sam had to say about her date with Pete. She remembered the morning of the flea market, just before they had found Vera Madison dead, Sam had been teasing her because he had heard that Pete was going to ask her out, and now he had—in front of Sam. The irony was almost too much.

  When she got to the break room, she felt a chilly draft. The room was empty, and the door that led to the alley was just closing.

  Maggie sprinted around the boxes of Vera Madison’s stuff and pushed the door open. When she peered outside, she just caught a glimpse of Sam as he disappeared around the corner of the building.

  She opened her mouth to call him back, but she didn’t. What could she possibly say to him? Obviou
sly, he had overheard Pete’s invitation and had done the mature thing and left, not wanting to embarrass all of them. Maggie had to give him credit for that. In the old days, he would have mocked her to the brink of tears or, even worse, kissed her.

  And, just like that, she remembered the very first day Sam Collins had placed his lips on hers. She had been walking home from working at Doc Franklin’s. Sam had been passing around a football on the town green with his buddies when the ball flew right at Maggie, narrowly missing her. Sam had run across the street to get the ball, and she had studiously ignored him like she always had.

  He had thrown the ball back to his friends and then began to follow her. She refused to acknowledge him. She turned the corner and kept pretending he wasn’t right behind her, breathing down her neck, even though it made her conscious of every step she took.

  “I heard you have a date with Butch Carver from Rosemont,” he finally said.

  Maggie ignored him.

  He caught up to her and walked beside her. “Is it true?”

  “Why would I tell you if it was?” she asked him.

  They were walking down Maggie’s shortcut now. She always cut through the alleys to her home because it took five minutes off her walk. Unfortunately, the tall red-brick buildings boxed them in, making Maggie walk closer to Sam than she would have liked.

  “You can’t date him,” Sam said. He sounded outraged. “Rosemont is our biggest rival.”

  “Since I don’t play football,” Maggie said, “I really don’t see it that way. Besides, you graduated, so they’re not your rival anymore. Aren’t you leaving for college soon?”

  “In a few months,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Butch Carver is a lousy QB.”

  “Yeah, I’m not scouting him for a team,” Maggie joked. “I’m just going to a movie with him.”

  “Aha!” Sam stopped short, grabbed her by the elbow and spun her to face him. “So, you are going on a date with him.”

  “Yes, okay? I’m dating Butch Carver,” Maggie said. She shook his hand off her elbow. “Why do you even care?”

  Sam moved with lightning quickness, and before Maggie had tracked him getting close to her, she was in his arms and he was kissing her.