by Leona Fox
“She sent it to you?” Betty looked incredulous.
“Yes. It was dropped off by special delivery this morning. Postmarked the day before she was gunned down.”
“How do you get yourself all tangled up in these things?” Betty asked. “Trouble hunts you down.”
Sadie shrugged. “Weren’t you on your way somewhere?” she asked. “You don’t need to be hanging out at work all night.”
“I’m not leaving unless you feel safe. I can stay all night if you need me to.” Betty looked around as if scoping out the best place to sleep.
“I’m fine,” Sadie said. “I’ve got Mr. Bradshaw to keep me company. And Zack will come by if I ask him.”
“If you are sure,” Betty said.
“I’m sure.”
Sadie walked Betty to the back door and stood letting the light from the shop illuminate the alley until Betty was safely in her car with the engine on and the doors locked. Then she went upstairs to find Mr. Bradshaw standing on the back of the couch staring out the window.
Sadie went to the window, standing in the dark behind the curtain, and looked out. Hamilton was still on the sidewalk, scowling up at her balcony. Mr. Bradshaw growled low in his throat and Sadie put a hand on his head to quiet him. Then she pulled out her cell phone and called Zack.
Ten minutes later a squad car with lights flashing pulled up outside the front of the shop while Sadie let Zack in the back. Sadie could hear the officer asking Mr. Cartwright what he was doing loitering on the street. Then the officer lied and told Hamilton that several neighbors had called and complained. Sadie would have put money on the fact that no one else even noticed Hamilton Cartwright in the street.
Hamilton made his excuses to the officer and strode down the street away from town. The cruiser gave one quick blast of its siren as it pulled away and then all was quiet again. Zack took a long look at Sadie.
“It’s off to bed for you, young lady,” he said.
“I’m not having you get sick because of all this excitement.”
“But Zack,” Sadie started, but he cut her off.
“I’ll sleep out here,” he said. “Where I can keep an eye on the street.”
Sadie gave in, then went to the linen closet to get bedding for the couch, which she set down on the arm.
“Shall I make it up for you?” she asked.
“No need,” Zack said. “I don’t plan on doing much actual sleeping.”
With Zack in her living room, Sadie slept well. When she wandered out of her bedroom the next morning she found Zack sitting in the Best Armchair Ever, asleep with his feet stretched out in front of him. Sadie let him be and crept quietly down the stairs with Mr. Bradshaw to take him for his morning walk in the park. They picked up coffee and pastries to-go from the bakery and climbed quietly back up the stairs.
Zack was in the bathroom so Sadie set the coffee on the coffee table – that’s what it was for, after all -- and went to get a plate from the kitchen to put the croissants and donuts on. But when Zack reappeared he said he couldn’t stay. Sadie gave him his coffee and donut to go and watched from the kitchen window as he drove away down the alley.
Sadie was ready when Zack pulled up at exactly 10:45 later that morning. She’d opened the shop with some trepidation, but then she’d noticed the squad car parked across the street. She pointed it out to Betty when she arrived so Betty wouldn’t worry about Hamilton harassing her while Sadie and Zack were at Chomps finding out things.
Chapter Three
They sat in the manager’s office and waited for thirty minutes before he showed up. Sadie thought he was waiting to see if they would go away, and when they didn’t, finally gave up and came to talk to them. Sadie also thought they should have been seated in the restaurant to wait where they might have had some coffee.
Chomps manager was a short, balding man with a round stomach named Frank Stearns. He wiped his forehead with a paper napkin before he sat down. He looked uncomfortable and rubbed his hands on the maroon shirt that gaped over his belly.
“I understand there was some sort of disagreement between Tamsin and one of your employees,” Zack said. “What can you tell me about that?”
“Tamsin got someone fired?” Frank asked.
“I would have known about that.” He saw Sadie’s confusion.
“I’m not the only manager,” he said. “And the owner does the hiring and firing. Who did Reggie say got fired?”
“His girl Joanna,” Zack said.
“Joanna never really worked here,” Frank said.
“She would come and hang out in the kitchen. She got in the cook’s way so we let her act as hostess. She worked for tips. Like I said, she was never an employee.”
“What happened to her?” Sadie asked.
“The owner caught her with her hand in the till and kicked her out. Said if she ever came back he’d press charges. We never saw her again. Reggie was moping around, acting like an idiot until we threatened to fire him as well. That straightened him out. He’s not the sharpest tack, but he takes his work seriously.”
“And none of your employees had a run in with Mrs. Woo?” Zack asked.
“I’m sure they did. Tamsin was very exacting. She liked things a certain way. When things weren’t how she liked them, she complained. A lot. Eventually, everything was how she liked it. Until a server quit or moved to a new shift. Then we’d start all over again. But no one ever got fired.”
“So was Reggie just making things up when he said Tamsin deserved to die?” Sadie asked.
“He likes to make himself look important,” Frank said.
“Like he knows more than he does. He was probably trying to impress one of the waitresses. Since Joanna left, he’s been spending a lot of time chatting with the girls. Looking for someone to replace her, I think.”
“So Joanna didn’t just disappear from the restaurant, she also disappeared from Reggie’s life?” Zack asked.
“Gone like yesterday,” Frank said. “He never saw her again.”
On the way back to the shop, something occurred to Sadie.
“Reggie had to know we would find out the truth,” she said. “So why did he lie?”
“Good question,” Zack said.
“Probably to gain a little time to make up a better story. If Frank’s assessment of him is correct, he’s probably feeling a little scared right now. He has to figure out how to get himself out of this mess without losing face.”
“Hmmm...” Sadie thought about that for a minute. “I think he’s going to say it’s a plot. That everyone else is lying to frame him.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Zack said. “Do you want to come back to the station with me?”
“I can’t. They are reading the will today. The lawyer called and requested I be there. We can exchange notes later.”
Zack dropped Sadie at the shop. She waved in his direction and then ran in through the shop and upstairs to change. She grabbed a black dress and low heels, took a quick shower and made herself look respectable. She gave Mr. B a scratch behind the ears and promised him a run in the park when she got home.
The lawyer’s office was upstairs in a brick building across from Town Hall. The ground floor housed a flower shop and a small café that only opened for lunch. The upper floors were various professional offices. The law office was done in traditional wood and glass, and Sadie thought it was outdated and boring. Tasteful but dull.
A receptionist led Sadie to a conference room filled with a large wooden table surrounded by at least twenty-five chairs. Eight already were filled. She sat two seats down from Tamsin Woo’s widower and whispered her condolences. He nodded his reply but did not speak.
The room continued to fill until all the seats at the table were taken and the receptionist began dragging in more chairs. Sadie saw Hamilton Cartwright slide into one of the chairs at the back of the room, a sour look on his face. He probably thought he should have the place of honor instead of Mr. Woo, Sadie thought. Fi
nally, all the chairs were filled and people were standing, leaning against the wall.
The lawyer made them wait another fifteen minutes before he came in and began the proceedings, which Sadie thought was a mistake on his part. He put a document case on the table and opened it, drawing out a two-inch thick sheaf of papers that he placed in front of him. Sadie’s heart dropped. She hoped they didn’t have to sit through the reading of the entire thing. It would take hours.
Then the receptionist came back in and pressed a button that lowered a screen in the front of the room. The lawyer cleared his throat and the room got quiet.
“Tamsin Woo left bequests to each of you and she required you all be here to witness the reading of the will, which she will do via the miracle of video.”
The lawyer looked up as the door opened and another woman squeezed into the room.
“I apologize for any distress this may cause you, I did caution against this approach, but she wouldn’t listen.”
He clicked the remote and the lights dimmed. A moment later, Tamsin appeared on the screen at the front of the room. She’d made the video recently. She looked much the same as she had the last time she was in Sadie’s shop, young and vibrant. In all her adult life, Sadie had not been able to guess Tamsin’s age.
“My dearest friends and family,” Tamsin began.
“If you are sitting in my lawyer’s boardroom, I fear I have died. In fact, I’ve suspected for a while that someone was attempting to murder me. If that is the case, Sadie, I hope you will help your Chief Woodstone solve the crime. Look around you now, I believe my murderer will be in the room. Watch the faces of my beneficiaries as they hear what they are to receive, because I fear the murderer is going to be very disappointed.”
Sadie looked around the room. Many faces displayed confusion, some were distressed. Two women and a man were openly crying. Mr. Cartwright and Mr. Woo were angry. Woo had his jaw clenched and his face was flushed red. Cartwright’s hands were balled so tightly into fists that his knuckles were white. One older woman with a curly silver crop of hair was beaming with delight and Sadie wondered if she was suffering from dementia. Sadie thought the whole production was horrid.
Tamsin Woo was manipulating almost everyone who knew her from the grave. If that wasn’t macabre. Sadie realized Tamsin was still talking.
“Hamilton, my old nemesis, you almost certainly are going to be disappointed. I am leaving the backward running pocket watch to Sadie Barnett. She will know what to do with it. I am leaving you, Hamilton, this pocket watch.”
She held up a smaller, less ornate version of the one she had left to Sadie and Hamilton ground his teeth in frustration.
“Franklin, my love, I’m not leaving you anything. You have more money than God, you certainly don’t need any of my treasures, and you wouldn’t know what to do with them if I did leave them to you. You have so little taste, my dear, and I’m afraid you would just sell everything to the highest bidder without any thought as to what kind of people you were selling to. You will have the house, of course. We purchased it in both of our names. And I’m sure you will sell it for a healthy profit when you decide to move on.”
There was a vein pulsing in Franklin Woo’s forehead and Sadie was afraid his head might pop right off. His knuckles were as white as Hamilton Cartwright’s, clutching the arms of his chair. The little old lady at the back of the room laughed in delight. If the murderer was the person most disappointed, then it definitely wasn’t her. She was pleased as punch at the proceedings.
“Mary Ellen,” Tamsin said.
The old lady perked up and said, “Oh, that’s me!”
“You were my mother’s closest friend. She loved you better than a sister and I know you loved her. You loved me like a mother and comforted me when she was gone. I am leaving you her savings, her antique quilt collection, and her china. I hope you enjoy them.”
“Oh I will, Tamsin, I will!” She clapped her hands with glee and then sat back to enjoy the rest of the show.
And what a show it was. There were at least thirty people in the room and Tamsin mentioned them all. Some were given bequests that were valuable or sentimental – often both. Others couldn’t keep their disappointment from their faces when she left them something less valuable than what they were hoping to get.
“Sadie,” Tamsin said, winding down now, “I hope you have been watching. I know my murderer is in that room with you. Find who it is and put them away. Oh, and I’m also giving you the rest of my collection of watches and the box of oddities I brought back from my travels in the dark corners of Europe."
There was a sharp noise from across the table. Sadie couldn't tell if it was Franklin Woo or Hamilton Cartwright, but she was pretty sure the sound came from one of them. The lawyer stood at the head of the table and Sadie shifted eighty percent of her attention to him. The other twenty was keeping an eye on the rest of the room.
No one did anything untoward while he explained how everyone could obtain their bequests, but the minute he left the room, shutting the door behind him, pandemonium broke out. Mr. Woo let loose a string of expletives that questioned the parentage of his dead wife. Mild swearing didn't bother Sadie, but the words spewing from Mr. Woo's mouth were quite offensive. He stomped from the room and swore at the lawyer and receptionist who were talking together in the waiting room.
Hamilton Cartwright whirled to face Sadie. "How much do you want for that pocket watch?" he demanded. "I suppose you’re going to jack up the price now that you know I want it."
"No," Sadie said, "I'm not. But I'm also not going to sell it to you." She saw the look on his face and added, "Or anyone else."
Hamilton towered on the other side of the table and Sadie was glad she wasn't alone in the room with him. Most of the eyes in the room were on them. Mary Ellen, the little gray-haired woman, was bright-eyed and excited. Sadie thought she was hoping for a brawl of some sort.
Hamilton was taking deep breaths and Sadie saw him unclench his hands and stretch out his fingers. The effect was creepy even though it seemed as though he was trying to calm himself. When he spoke, it was in a calm, quiet voice, which unnerved her more than the temper tantrum. He smiled and her blood ran cold.
“I’ll drop by the shop in a few days, shall I? When you’ve had some time to think.”
Then he nodded at the room in general and left. Mary Ellen clapped her hands excitedly and called out “Bravo!”
Several people shot glances of total disbelief her way and one older man was shaking his head.
Sadie let out her breath. Not that she wanted to see Hamilton at her shop, but at least she and Zack could come up with a strategy for dealing with him. She nodded to the others and left the room, ignoring Mr. Woo having a tantrum in the reception area. Really, the man was richer than God, what did he think he was going to do with Tamsin’s money? Hoard it, she supposed.
“Betty?”
Sadie called as she pushed through the shop door. Mr. Bradshaw ran out of the office to greet her, dancing around her feet. Betty followed after.
“How did it go?” Betty asked.
Mr. B was alternately springing up and bouncing his front paws off Sadie’s thighs and running to the door with a toss of his head that clearly indicated he was waiting for her. And not patiently.
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Sadie said. “I don’t think Mr. Bradshaw can wait a minute more for his constitutional.”
She dumped her purse in the office and grabbed the leash from its hook by the door, clipping it to Mr. B’s collar before heading out the door and across the street.
It was a breezy afternoon and leaves swirled down from the trees and littered the path with the reds and golds of autumn. The breeze was invigorating and she shuffled her feet through the crispy carpet of color. She had come up with that saying when she was ten or eleven – crispy carpet of color – and it had stuck in her head. Even after all these years.
Mr. B surged forward and Sadie looked up to see Justin I
ves pacing down the path toward them, head down, lips moving. Then he abruptly changed direction as Mr. B pulled at the leash, dancing on his hind legs.
Sadie stopped and watched Justin for a moment. Just about the time she had decided to hurry after him and find out what was wrong, he turned and started back toward her. His head was down and he hadn’t noticed Mr. Bradshaw straining at the end of his leash making small, welcoming barks.
“Justin?” she said. Justin looked up, disoriented.
“Ms. Barnett,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Walking Mr. Bradshaw,” she said.
“What are you doing, Justin? You look distressed.”
Justin bent down to pet Mr. B., who put his paws on Justin’s lower legs and licked his hand. When he felt he had been properly greeted, the terrier went back to rooting through the leaves for interesting smells.
