Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books!

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  The police had worked quickly, but every minute was agony. Our group was understandably shaken. Not only had they missed out on the good time they’d been promised, but they’d had a ringside seat at the ugly death of a colleague.

  “Yvonne’s death ruined our event.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, I cringed at how heartless they sounded. “We hand-wrote ‘raincheck’ notes and passed them out. Most of the women were too shocked to do much besides tuck the notes in their Cropper Hoppers. Some of the ladies started crying. It was a real mess. It couldn’t get any worse.”

  “Yes, it could,” said Sheila. “Things can always get worse.”

  4

  Before I left, Sheila handed me a plastic flat of flowers and a bag of potting soil. “I’ve changed my color scheme. Your front door could use a seasonal display to brighten it up. Take these pots, too.”

  The large faux limestone pots were gorgeous and exactly the right size to fit on my stoop. I thanked her profusely, touching the hot pink and white striped petunias, blue salvia, and marigolds with one fingertip.

  “There’s a box of coral geraniums and vinca in my garage,” she said. “I don’t need them. I’ll help you carry everything to the car. I don’t know what possessed me to buy so many plants.”

  We both knew she hadn’t done any such thing. Sheila was allowing me to save face. Anya must have told her I’d been longing for flowers to brighten up our front walkway. My budget simply wouldn’t stretch to cover such frivolous extras. Now Sheila had given me exactly the plants I’d been coveting, and I was grateful for her thoughtfulness.

  Anya and I drove straight home to let out Gracie, our harlequin Great Dane. She had all four paws crossed by the time she raced past us and into our fenced-in yard. Anya disappeared into her bedroom to chat on her cell phone with friends. My head was pounding from stress. The clothes I’d worn to the crop were soaked with nervous perspiration. All I wanted was to take a cool shower and go lie down. I stood under the meager stream of water and sniffed my lavender body wash for a long time. After I had dried, I changed into a pair of loose drawstring gym shorts and an oversized T-shirt.

  I was towel-drying my hair when the doorbell rang. Standing there was Chad Detweiler, the Ladue detective whom I’d met last fall when my husband died. Detweiler had become more than just a “friend.” He inhabited my fantasies, and he showed up at my doorstep on a pretty regular basis usually with a cheese pizza in hand.

  I kept waiting for him to make a move and kiss me, but he hadn’t. Mert and Dodie thought we’d moved along in our relationship, but I was too private a person to tell them he hadn’t even tried to get to first base. I kept coming up with all sorts of excuses—at first, I was a suspect, and of course, he had to maintain a professional detachment. Then I was injured by the killer, and maybe he thought he’d be taking advantage of my post-injury trauma. More time had gone by, and I was starting to worry. Did I have a bad case of dreaded halitosis?

  I had tried licking my forearm and sniffing it. (I’d read somewhere it was a surefire test, but all I got was a mouthful of body lotion.) Was he not attracted to me physically? His pupils widened as he stared at me—I took that as a sign he was attracted. And occasionally, when he thought I wasn’t looking, I noticed him looking. What was his problem? Was he worried about taking on a woman with a child?

  I was both frustrated and stumped. Had I more courage, I would have simply asked him.

  There he stood, pizza in hand and goofy grin on his handsome face. If he didn’t like me, he certainly was a glutton for punishment. Or maybe my house was the only BYOP (Bring Your Own Pizza) place he knew.

  “What is it with you?” he asked. “Did the Grim Reaper hire you as a personal assistant?”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed and felt guilty afterward. “Gee, and after that, I’m supposed to let you come inside?”

  “Only if you want a piece of pizza. Otherwise, I’ll stand on this side of your screen door, and we can talk through the wire mesh.”

  “Pizza or put-downs, which will it be?” I hesitated, but the truth was how could I resist those gorgeous eyes?

  “Let me guess. The mozzarella and tomato sauce wins. I’m just along for the ride.” His long legs stepped over the threshold. The cologne he wore—and wore lightly, he didn’t soak himself the way some men did—gave off a clean, spicy scent that smelled even better than the pizza.

  No doubt about it. I was falling for him, hard. I was just too old-fashioned to make the first move. However; if we kept up this physical détente much longer, I was going to give in and do something rash. Not that I knew what that might be. I just wasn’t sure how much longer I could stand the racing heart, sweaty palms, and an onslaught of hormones that bombarded me each time he was near.

  “Where’s Anya?”

  I nodded toward my daughter’s bedroom. Detweiler handed me the pizza, took off down the hall and rapped sharply on her door. His voice floated back as he asked her, “Want a piece of pizza?” He returned with Anya in tow. I poured iced tea for all of us and added a tossed salad to our feast. I tried to wipe the big smile from my face, but I couldn’t. The easy way Detweiler rounded out our family made me glow with pleasure.

  Even when Anya wasn’t interested in my company, she’d surface from her hiding hole to come out and say “Hi” to Detweiler. They chatted about the Cardinals, worried together over Albert Pujols’ pulled groin muscle, and made fun of Cubs fans. Anya still missed her father, but she seemed to accept Detweiler like she would a favorite teacher or older brother. Since her grandfather Harry, Sheila’s husband, died before she was born, and I had no brothers or living male relatives, I was glad for her to have an adult man as a role model. Detweiler shared her love of baseball, critters, sports cars and music. Hearing the two of them go back and forth about which American Idol contestant had a better voice, filled me with a sense of wholeness.

  Sure, I could—and would—raise my daughter all by myself, but having other people who cared about her couldn’t help but bolster her security and self-esteem. I never wanted her to feel awkward around men as I had.

  On the other hand, if I’d known a little more about men and how they thought, she might not be here. Had I been smarter, had I understood how frat parties worked, if I’d known what went into Purple Passion, I might not have tumbled into bed with her father—the first man with whom I was intimate—and she might not have been born.

  In the big scheme of life, who knows how things will turn out? What seems to be a disaster at the time can bring you joy you’d never imagined. What seems like the wrong road could be the right one. There are no right decisions, only decisions that seem to go more smoothly than others. There are no wrong turns only unexpected potholes in the road. And, at the end of the day, all you can do is keep moving forward even when it’s only an inch at a time.

  At this moment, I was happy. I loved my job, my oversized dog, and my daughter. I felt all warm and mushy about the man who sat across from me at my kitchen table.

  Anya left to watch TV, and Detweiler got down to business. “Tell me what happened this afternoon.”

  “How about you help me plant flowers?” I gave a jerk of my head toward where Anya sat in the living room. “That way we can talk privately.”

  As we dug in the dirt, I told him everything. He poked around in my memory as adeptly as he handled a shovel, asking a question, changing the subject, going back to the original question, and pausing to make notes. Since he’d questioned me when George died, I was familiar with his technique. Still, I marveled at Detweiler’s ability to pull minute details from the cluttered corners of my mind, details I was positive I’d forgotten or didn’t exist. The process was gentle, unhurried. We were simply having an intense rehash of the disaster until suddenly I realized he was too interested, too painstaking in his questioning.

  “Are you here on official business?” A sharp edge of anger formed in my solar plexus as I tucked the hot pink and white petunias into the trough Det
weiler had cut in the dirt. “This isn’t just professional curiosity, is it? Are you investigating Yvonne’s death? Am I a suspect? Because I was there and tried to be a Good Samaritan? What gives?”

  He turned over the last of the dirt in a path parallel to my short sidewalk. “Right now, there is no investigation. The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow. I’m trying to get a feel for the background, that’s all.”

  “That’s all? Are you being straight with me?”

  “Yes, I am. But …” His voice trailed off.

  “Spit it out, buddy.” I tucked the last of the blue salvias into its new home between the petunias. These alternated with the golden yellow marigolds. “Are you hankering for another stint on the Major Case Squad?” Since 1965, the squad has brought together specially trained, highly motivated law enforcement officials from around the six counties in Missouri and the four counties in Illinois. It was an honor to be asked to serve; their 80 percent clearance rate spoke to the competency of personnel involved.

  He grinned at me and shook his head. “It’s just a feeling. I don’t know. I guess my gut’s telling me something’s hinky.” He paused, “You can’t breathe a word of this, Kiki. Her allergist says she was highly allergic to only one thing: aspirin.”

  “So?” A familiar feeling of worry started in my mid-section.

  “The paramedics say she died from an anaphylactic episode.”

  “I know! I was there. She must have known what was happening because she grabbed her Epi-Pen and tried to use it.”

  “That’s what doesn’t make sense,” he squatted next to me, speaking softly in case his voice carried. “Think about it, Kiki. You don’t stumble across aspirin. It’s not like fructose or sodium that they dump into everything these days. How did she wind up with a dose of it? Where did she get it? And why was the Epi-Pen in her purse empty at the exact time when she had a reaction?”

  His green eyes darkened and his face closed down. I’d seen this version often of Detweiler. This was his “I’m on the case” expression.

  I couldn’t bear his gaze. I focused on his hands, clenched and tight around the wooden handle of the shovel. “You think it was done on purpose. You think this was murder, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, I do.”

  5

  We moved the big pots into place on each side of my front door, covering the drainage holes with rocks and adding potting soil. I arranged geraniums, vinca, and a few leftover marigolds to suit me. Detweiler lifted the heavy bag of dirt so I could fill in around the flowers. Since he’d been raised on a farm in Southern Illinois, he wasn’t shy about directing my efforts. Once I’d patted down the fresh soil, I turned on the garden hose and gave all my new friends a thorough dousing.

  After putting away the gardening tools, I let Gracie out back to do her duty and to love up Detweiler. He massaged her behind her ears and under her neck while the big girl (Gracie weighs more than I do) leaned against him with her eyes half-closed in a state of bliss. While they enjoyed each other’s company, I lit two citronella candles and poured us each a tall glass of iced tea, turning the area outside my back door into a “livable” space.

  In St. Louis, if the heat and humidity don’t get you, the ’skitoes surely will. A small personal fan with a cord trailing from my slightly open kitchen window added a refreshing, if limited, breeze for us. Detweiler sat down in a wrought iron chair, pulled from his back pocket a list of all the scrappers who had been in attendance at our ill-fated CAMP, and set it between us on the matching wrought iron table.

  “What can you tell me about each of these women?”

  I scanned the list of names. A few of the women were friendly with Yvonne, and I mentioned them. Of course, he already knew Dodie and Mert.

  “Thinking about what happened to Yvonne,” I started, haltingly, “you might want to look into Bama and her background. She showed up late the day of the crop. Unsteady on her feet, too.”

  “You think she’s on something or a drinker?”

  The bald-faced accusation made me squirm. “I wouldn’t go that far. She’s just off somehow. Has problems with her balance and weaves when she walks.”

  “Does she have a motive?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Not that I’m aware of. Anything that hurts our business isn’t good for Bama.”

  Detweiler tapped the pencil against his leg. “Other than her balance, what do you know about Ms. Vess?”

  “Not much. She doesn’t like me, and I don’t particularly care for her.”

  “Why?” Detweiler’s tone was frank.

  “We just don’t.”

  Maybe it was nothing more than a simple personality conflict. Then again, I’d seen Bama’s struggle for balance with my own two eyes. The woman was incredibly standoffish toward me when I’d been nothing but nice. My gut told me something was wrong with her. Something I couldn’t put my finger on to define.

  Dodie seemed to think the world of Bama, and Bama certainly acted like she was a bag of chips and all that. From the first day she arrived, my new co-worker hadn’t bothered to treat me with any respect. She never acknowledged that I’d been at Time in a Bottle longer than she or that I might know anything about scrapbooking or our customers. At every turn, Bama left me feeling like a loser.

  In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Detweiler stared at me while I struggled with my better self. I knew my feelings about Bama were colored by my fear of being second-best at my job. For the first time in my life I was given ongoing attention and praise for my talents. I’d gone from being an ignored wife, a dutiful mother, and an undesirable daughter-in-law to a person of worth, all thanks to my position at Time in a Bottle.

  Was I protective of it?

  You bet.

  “Look, I don’t know if Bama and Yvonne had ever laid eyes on each other until today. You asked me what I knew about anyone else and I thought of her because Bama gives off weird vibes. That’s it; that’s all. Aren’t you clutching at soda straws here? Maybe Yvonne swallowed that aspirin by mistake. I carry all sorts of stuff in my purse. Maybe she borrowed a Tylenol from a friend and it was tainted. Maybe it rubbed up against an aspirin in a pill case. Could that have been what happened?”

  “It’s possible but highly unlikely.” The detective’s handsome profile was silhouetted by the sun disappearing behind the trees. I liked looking at Detweiler. The stark planes of his features were so masculine. His kind eyes and gentle hands were the perfect balance to his more rugged features and build. “This could have been a simple case of tampering.”

  “Tampering?”

  “Sure. Fingers in chili, cyanide in pill bottles, razor blades in apples, that sort of thing.”

  “But you don’t think that’s what happened, do you?”

  “Mrs. Gaynor had a pretty unusual allergy. Aspirin doesn’t usually kill. Plus, there’s the issue of timing. The victim didn’t have a reaction until after she had eaten. She still had food in her mouth when she died.”

  This was getting worse by the minute. I thought of all the work we’d put into the crop. I thought of Dodie and the store, and how I loved my job. I couldn’t go there. I didn’t want Detweiler to, either. “You’re really getting ahead of yourself. Maybe Yvonne had other allergies that hadn’t been diagnosed. They don’t test for everything, you know. I’m allergic to horsehair, and no one regularly tests for that. What if Yvonne’s reaction was to a chemical on a plant? It might have taken awhile for her to react.”

  He cocked his head and gave me the smile of a nonbeliever. “It’s remotely possible that Mrs. Gaynor had some sort of experience that set off an allergic reaction. But what were the chances that her Epi-Pen wouldn’t work? Sorry, but that’s too convenient for me.”

  When he investigated my husband’s death, Detweiler told me he didn’t believe in coincidences. Taken in context, it seemed suspicious that Yvonne’s Epi-Pen failed her.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Here’s the thing: Yvonne must have thought
it was functional because she jabbed herself with it. It’s a shame because Yvonne should have been in her glory.”

  “Explain.”

  I told him about the Scrapbook Star award turning Yvonne into a highly desirable commodity.

  He raised an eyebrow to question me. I continued, “This popularity was a turnaround for her, because she could be a real stinker. She had this amazing ability to walk into a place and leave ten minutes and four new enemies later.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “I’ve heard most of this secondhand from Dodie, but a couple of times Yvonne accused her of price-gouging. She’d stand there in the middle of the store, talking in a loud voice and telling people they could buy items cheaper online. Once she demanded Dodie give her a refund for a pad of paper after she ripped out the pages she wanted. I’ve heard from our customers about Yvonne sneaking in drinks and dumping them all over people’s pages. Yvonne loved wasting people’s time. Once she even insisted that Dodie match all the papers in a magazine layout for her.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” At the querulous sound in his voice, Gracie rose from her pre-bedtime nap. Resting her head on his thigh, she rotated Tootsie Roll eyes upwards at her main man. Much as she loved Anya and me, she’d have ditched us in a heartbeat to take off with the detective. I hoped it never came to a showdown at OK Corral, or we’d be minus a dog.

  “Magazine photos are notoriously inaccurate with color. Even in the pickiest of publications, color can get altered during the printing process.”

  “What you’re telling me is …” Detweiler stopped. He waited for my answer.

  “The woman was a real pain in the butt. If this was murder, you should have no shortage of suspects.”

  Shortly after, Detweiler stood up to leave. I followed him to my doorway. Anya had disappeared back into her room, leaving us alone. I thought sure he was going to kiss me goodbye. We stood there as I thanked him again for the pizza and the help with my plants. Reaching for my shoulder, he pulled me close. I tilted my face and shut my eyes. I could feel his breath on my lashes. After what seemed like ages, I opened them in time to watch him pull away with a tortured expression on his face. My stomach dropped to my feet, and a flush of embarrassment spread through my body.