by Penny Plume
Jenna was still holding the iced drink, which was damp with condensation. She set it on the round table and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Nothing’s happened yet, Sherri. We’re all still fine.”
“Fine?” Sherri’s eyes popped wider than usual as she wiggled the cell phone. “That’s not what Bart says.”
“Bart,” Lawrence said, in a tone that should have been followed by Excuse me. “What else did he say? He’s sorry for what his daddy is doing to us poor peasants?”
“Oh, Harry’s a sweetie,” Sherri said. “He doesn’t mean any harm.”
Jenna shared a blank look with Wilford. Harrison Kavanaugh was absolutely not a sweetie, and his recent actions indicated he did mean harm. Or he just didn’t care who he harmed, which might be worse.
Belma crossed her arms over her ample front. “Did he promise you another shop in town after he demolishes yours? Because last time I checked, there aren’t any vacancies.”
“Bart said not to worry about it.” Sherri stepped to the table and popped one of the dark chocolate and sea salt caramels into her mouth. “So I don’t.”
“Problem solved,” Lawrence cheered. “Let’s all go home.” He scowled at Sherri and sank into a corner of the love seat.
Belma took the other end of the small couch. The seam on her jeans barely grazed Lawrence’s cushion.
Lawrence stared at the violation, aghast. “Are you kidding me?”
“What?” Belma said. “Folding chairs dig into my thighs. And the recliner is Wilford’s favorite chair.”
Wilford winked so only Jenna could see. They both knew he didn’t particularly like the chair, but he enjoyed these meetings a bit more when Belma and Lawrence bickered. He dropped into the plush recliner and sighed like he’d just returned home from a tour overseas.
Sherri perched on the end of a folding chair and put Mr. Wolfie in her lap, where he curled up and shivered into a twitching nap. Jenna sat next to Sherri, with the last open seat to her right.
Lawrence cocked an eyebrow at the chair. “Late as usual. I swear it’s on purpose, some kind of power play.”
“She’s very busy,” Jenna said.
“She also called this meeting,” Lawrence replied. “The least she could do is be on time. I’ll bet you one American dollar she’s sweeping sand.”
They were talking about Ingrid Gallagher, owner and operator of The Sanctuary Café, the last shop on the northern corner of the block. She came from one of Lost Haven’s founding families and didn’t really need to work, but she told Jenna she enjoyed staying busy and the sound of people talking, eating, and drinking.
And gossiping, Jenna would have added, but not out loud. Ingrid was the biggest gabber in Lost Haven, and nothing made her happier than rushing into Jenna’s store, closing the door behind her with a furtive look left and right, then turning to Jenna and saying, “Guess what?!”
And Lawrence was probably right about her sweeping sand. All of the shops suffered from the constantly shifting dunes beneath Lost Haven, but Ingrid’s café had it the worst. The gaps in her floorboards and the corners of her shop were always dusted with the fine grit, and she was constantly armed with a short broom for slapping it out the front or back doors.
The shifting sands were partially responsible for the legend of Sanctuary—the alleged ghost town buried beneath Lost Haven—and they were completely to blame for the lack of basements along Main Street and throughout most of the town. The ground just wasn’t stable enough to dig a hole and build a foundation, so most structures sat atop posts driven into the ground, which allowed the flowing sand to move around them like a river.
Belma reached for one of her own chocolates. “Ingrid’s just being dramatic. She told me she had something that was going to stop Kavanaugh in his tracks. She said—what was it—we were all safe and should consider ourselves lucky to be her friends. But she was hugging me when she said it, so I couldn’t throw up.”
Lawrence rolled his eyes. “Classic Ingrid, unfortunately for everyone ever.”
“What did she have?” Jenna asked.
“She said it was a surprise,” Belma said, “which means she has nothing. My guess? She’s gonna sell to Kavanaugh.”
Sherri frowned. “How would that help us?”
“It’s Ingrid sweetie,” Lawrence said. “Remember when she created that ordinance for separate plastic, glass, paper, and compost bins? She thought she was doing us all a favor, but all she did was cost us time and money.”
Belma pointed the remaining half of the chocolate at Lawrence. “He’s right. I bet her big surprise is she’s doubling her price, thinking it will raise the market value for all of us.”
Jenna hoped that wasn’t it. She didn’t want to sell at all, no matter what the payout was. But she asked, “Will it?”
Belma snorted.
Wilford shook his head. “Those families go way back. They have their own rules of business—tax write-offs, trusts, things we’ve probably never even heard of. Whatever Ingrid and Kavanaugh agree on won’t mean a thing for the rest of us.” He sighed, then leaned forward, the first of many steps for extracting himself from the deep chair. “I’ll go get her.”
“No no, I’ll run down,” Jenna said. She patted Wilford’s knee and scooted through the display racks and shelves to the front door, dragging her anchor of keys from the front counter on the way by.
A little fresh air before things really got serious would be nice.
Lost Haven’s Main Street was one long block with businesses on the east side of the narrow lane. The shops looked out at Lilac Park, an oasis of grassy picnic spots, winding paths, and hidden ponds. The park was about the size of a football field and sloped gently toward the marina to the west, and when its hundreds of lilac trees were in bloom the entire town smelled like spring in heaven.
It was early June, so the blossoms had been gone for a few weeks, but Jenna still took a moment to enjoy the lake breeze filtering through the park, where it picked up hints of peony and lily.
She turned and walked past Belma’s shop. The front windows were softly lit to display the dozens of different chocolates and assorted sweets—almond crescents, oatmeal bites, magic cookie bars, and some pink marshmallow balls Jenna hadn’t seen before but decided she needed to try, just so she could honestly recommend them to tourists.
Wilford’s art gallery was dark except for the front windows. The first one had a vintage bicycle with a stuffed dummy on the seat, holding the handlebars. Its face was an iPad showing a loop of cars driving off cliffs.
Art, apparently.
The window on the other side of the entrance had a soft spotlight falling across a canvas painted orange with a single black dot in the bottom left corner. The small plaque next to it said $7,000.
“Good luck,” Jenna muttered, and kept walking.
The display at Lawrence’s Elegant Confections was breathtaking. Tiers of delicate pastries, cookies, and cakes fell from the top of the tall, narrow window like a waterfall of delight to a reflecting pool (actually a mirror) scattered with orchid petals. Also on the mirror, in a flowing script of glittering sand like it had been left by a gently receding tide, were two words: Treat Yourself.
I will, Jenna thought. As soon as she got back she’d take a heaping scoop of those lemon bars and not feel a bit of guilt about it.
Sherri’s Beach Life Fashion Boutique had bronze mannequins with carved abdominal muscles and blank faces wearing day-glo bikinis and camouflage board shorts. Each one had sunglasses perched on a hairless head and carried a cell phone. For living the beach life, none of them seemed to be having any fun.
Jenna wove her way through the wrought iron tables and chairs on the sidewalk outside The Sanctuary Café and peered through the window in the front door. The café was mostly dark inside with a shaft of light cutting across the floor from the partially-open door into the back.
Jenna could smell the earthy coffee beans mingling with a bouquet of herbal teas. She knocked on the glas
s, expecting Ingrid to poke out from the back room and wave. The woman always seemed rushed, even when she had no reason to be, and showing up late to everything was evidence to the world of just how busy she was.
Jenna knocked again with no response. The café felt empty, no vibrations from someone walking around inside. Maybe Ingrid had gone out the back to add her trash, recycling, and compost to the multiple bins? Jenna tried the thumb latch on the door handle: locked.
She hefted the keyring and sorted through until she found the one labelled “Café.” The lock turned easily and she pushed the door open a few inches. “Ingrid? We’re all ready for your meeting.”
Nothing.
Shoot, Jenna thought. If Ingrid had walked along the back of the shops, they would have missed each other. Ingrid was probably sitting with the others at that moment, saying she was too busy to go back out and fetch silly Jenna.
“Ingrid?”
She pushed the door open further. It thudded against something, like a rolled-up floor mat, and Jenna reached down to move it.
Then she stopped, her fingers an inch from Ingrid’s open, lifeless eyes.
2
Jenna banged through the front door of her shop. Her cell phone was on the counter next to the cash register, and when she picked it up she had to stop and think for a moment before the unlock code came to her.
“Let me guess,” Lawrence said from the love seat, “she’s going to keep us waiting even longer.”
Jenna had 9-1 dialed on the phone. To Lawrence, she said, “Well…” then dialed the other 1.
Wilford leaned forward in the recliner. “Jenna, what’s wrong? You’re pale as a blank canvas.”
“Ingrid…” Jenna said.
Belma shook her head. “She sold out to Kavanaugh, didn’t she? The one chance we had, poof!”
A female voice answered the phone. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“Heather?”
“Jenna? Is that you? Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Ingrid Gallagher is dead.”
She couldn’t hear anything from the phone after that. Heather ran the Lost Haven Police dispatch center and asked for details about what happened, but Jenna’s Welcome Shoppe had exploded in questions from Belma, Lawrence, Wilford, and Sherri. They rushed toward her in a mass—Wilford a few steps behind—making all sorts of confused noise. Mr. Wolfie howled at the ceiling fan.
Finally Heather shouted, “I’m sending Garrett!”
Jenna hung up and thought: Oh, man. That’s all I need…
Belma hooked one arm and Sherri grabbed the other. They hauled Jenna back to the love seat and wedged into it with her in the middle, three gallons of people poured into a two-gallon container. Maybe three and half, with Belma.
“Calm down, sweetie,” Belma said. She patted Jenna’s knee. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“I’m fine right now,” Jenna said.
“You’re just in shock,” Sherri said. “When it wears off we’ll be here for you.”
Jenna frowned. Was she in shock? It didn’t feel like it, but maybe that’s what shock felt like. “I’m pretty sure I’m okay.”
Lawrence was perched across from her on one of the folding chairs. “Was there, you know. A lot of blood?”
“Lawrence Donald!” Belma crowed.
“What? I want to know if she keeled over from being too dang busy all the time or if she was murdered.”
Sherri put a hand to her chest. “Murdered?”
“If she was,” Lawrence said, “we might all be in danger.”
Wilford scoffed. “From who?”
“Um, hello,” Lawrence said. “The billionaire on the hill who wants us all gone so he can build his hideous resort?”
Kavanaugh, Jenna thought. Would he?
She realized everyone was staring at her, waiting. “What?”
“Blood,” Belma said. “Was there blood?”
Jenna flashed back on Ingrid’s dead body. The blank eyes, open mouth. That was all she’d really seen before running back to her shop. She pried herself out of the love seat, went behind the counter and found the small but powerful flashlight she kept with the pens and utility knife. Everyone watched from the reading nook.
“Jenna, dear,” Wilford said, “what are you doing?”
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
And before the protests from the nook could change her mind, she headed back to The Sanctuary Café.
Jenna stood among the metal tables and chairs, staring at the front door to the café. She knew there was a dead body on the other side. It was the first she’d ever seen, other than funerals, but those didn’t count. Those bodies were prepped and perfumed—they were basically dolls.
This was a corpse.
No, she told herself, it’s Ingrid.
And someone may have killed her.
Jenna willed her feet to step forward. They ignored her.
She pointed the flashlight at the large window set in the front door. Maybe she could see everything without going inside…nope. The beam just reflected off the pane, turning the window into a blank screen.
“Well,” she said, “here we go.”
She didn’t move.
The wind coming through Lilac Park—the same breeze that had carried soft tones of peonies and summertime about five minutes earlier—was now cold and heavy with damp, earthy scents. It smelled like someone was digging a hole somewhere in the dark foliage.
You’re being ridiculous, she thought. There’s no one—
“Hey Jenna!”
She gritted her teeth to keep a yelp from escaping. Lawrence, Belma, Wilford, Sherri, and Mr. Wolfie stood outside The Welcome Shoppe, huddled together like a reluctant family photo.
Lawrence shouted again: “Is it bad?”
“I…” Jenna said.
You’re what? Too chicken?
“I don’t want to contaminate the crime scene.”
That sounded good. Legitimate.
“Didn’t you already do that?” Lawrence yelled.
She made a mental note: Get Lawrence.
But he was right, and now they were all watching. Even more importantly, she realized there was no record of a murder in any of the books in her shop. People certainly died in Lost Haven, mostly of old age and accidents, but even those were rare. The elderly typically moved to Arizona or Florida to escape the Lake Michigan winters, and their deaths were discovered via obituaries and estate sales.
If this was indeed the first murder in Lost Haven, it would be town history. And as town historian, she had a responsibility to know the details. So it wasn’t bravery or morbid curiosity that finally made her step forward and push the door open—it was duty.
And maybe a little morbid curiosity.
“Ingrid?”
Jenna whispered the name through a two-inch crack in the doorway. Ingrid didn’t answer, which was probably the best result. Jenna reached above her head and touched the end of the flashlight to the heavy door—a spot where she hoped there would be no fingerprints to disturb—and pushed.
The door swung in. Before it could open far enough to hit Ingrid’s body again Jenna hooked the flashlight around the edge of the door and stopped it. She took a deep breath. Rich coffees, tangy teas, and running underneath it all like a rip current: coppery blood.
For history, she thought. For books.
Then: Never tell anyone you just thought that.
She poked the flashlight beam around the door and looked down.
Ingrid was still there, still dead, and still staring back at her with dull eyes.
It matched exactly the image burned into Jenna’s mind, so there was no shock this time. Dead Ingrid was expected, and there she was.
Hooray?
Jenna ran the beam down Ingrid’s body. She wore her brown Sanctuary Café apron with a short-sleeved athletic t-shirt underneath, designer jeans, and running shoes. Ingrid had been a runner and avid yoga practitioner, and while she liked to dress casuall
y, everyone knew her simple wardrobes cost thousands of dollars. They knew because Ingrid told them.
Jenna leaned further into the café and checked the far side of the body. No blood that she could see. Then she swept the beam over Ingrid’s head again. The top of her skull seemed odd—too flat—and her thick, dark hair was splayed out in a fan shape on the floor. Through the strands Jenna caught a red gleam.
She knelt and put the flashlight directly above the hair. A small puddle of blood was hidden in the strands. Had Ingrid been shot? Bludgeoned? Jenna eased her own head down, down, until her cheek nearly brushed the floor. Her nose was a few inches away from Ingrid’s ear. She couldn’t tell if the odd bumps were from Ingrid’s skull or her mussed hair. Jenna thought: Maybe if I just tip-toe around to the other side…
From four feet behind her, a man yelled, “Step away from the body and put your hands up!”
Jenna was so startled she levitated—just for a moment and without moving a muscle—then dropped back to the floor in the exact same position.
When she’d recovered, mostly, she said, “Garrett, you cannot do that to people.”
“Sorry Jenna.”
She could hear the grin in his voice. That sideways grin with the dimple that had made girls say and do stupid things all the way back to middle school. It had been cute while they were dating. Toward the end, and especially now, it was infuriating.
Jenna stood up without touching anything and stepped backward out of the café. She turned and Garrett was there. Tall, on the lanky side of lean, and in full Lost Haven Sheriff’s Department regalia. Garrett Bower looked good in uniforms and knew it. He’d been an all-star for the Lost Haven Mariners in three sports as a pitcher, forward, and wide receiver, and after school had gone to the community college to play more sports and study criminal justice.
Jenna suspected he’d chosen that path partially—maybe mostly—for the uniform.
Garrett looked over her head into the café. “Ingrid’s dead, huh?”
“Yes. I found her.”
“Did you kill her?”
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
