by Penny Plume
Jenna took a moment to banish that image from her mind for all of time. “Have you seen Wilford?”
“He was puttering around this afternoon, loading some stuff into his car. Not since then, though.”
“What stuff?”
Lawrence shrugged. “Art, I assume. It was all bound up in bubble wrap and tape.”
“You didn’t offer to help him?”
“As a matter of fact I did, Miss Hasty Judgement. He said he was just fine, which was even more fine with me. If I have to bend over and pick up anything heavier than my face, I’ll pass out.”
Jenna crossed her arms and looked at the darkened gallery for a moment. “These things he was moving—they were heavy?”
“Jenna, Wilford makes a pencil look heavy. Who knows?”
She thought about that, and the fact that Wilford didn’t have a cell phone. She couldn’t call or text him to make sure he was okay, or find out what the heck he was up to. This was not a good time to be sneaking around doing suspicious things, if that’s what he was doing.
“If you see him,” she said, “tell him to come down to the Shoppe. His chair is waiting for him.”
Lawrence grinned, and it seemed to make him turn a light shade of green. “You should make a Bat-signal in the shape of a recliner. He’d come running from anywhere in town.” He contemplated the last half of the croissant. “I need to lay down.”
“You can have the whole couch to yourself,” Jenna said. She was stepping away from his doorway and caught a glimpse of the display in Sherri’s Beach Life Fashion Boutique. “What the…”
Lawrence pried himself off the doorframe and joined her. “What?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Jenna, tell me what you’re seeing. Because I’m starting to think I’m going blind here.” Lawrence blinked at the setting sun. “Was I that drunk?”
“The mannequins!”
Lawrence stared at the display windows. “Oh no…I can’t see any mannequins…”
“That’s the point. Sherri asked me if I thought it would be rude to expand her display into the café, and I told her yes, of course it was rude, obviously. But look!”
The edgy beach scene in the front windows was partially dismantled. The bronze mannequins were gone, along with their day-glo suits and flashing cell phones. Maybe Sherri was just reworking her own space, but after their earlier conversation, Jenna feared for the worst.
She tried the front door and found it locked, stepped next door and peered in the café windows. No mannequins, at least not so far. Sherri was probably trying to find a key, or convince Detective Olson her gaudy wares wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene.
“Uh oh,” Lawrence said. “I’ve seen that look once or twice. Sherri’s gonna get it, isn’t she?”
Jenna stared at the empty boutique windows and chewed down some choice words.
Lawrence said, “Well I can’t miss that. I’ll be over as soon as I can, and if you see her before then, Jenna? Please?”
Jenna glanced at him. “What?”
“Wait until I get there to give it to her.”
Jenna steamed back down the sidewalk toward The Welcome Shoppe.
She had Detective Olson’s card.
She could call him and warn him not to let any of the Kavanaughs get inside the café, a thought that led her to wonder if Harrison Kavanaugh was manipulating poor Sherri into contaminating the crime scene for him.
Maybe there was something in the café the investigators hadn’t found yet, and Kavanaugh wanted it destroyed.
But what could Jenna do about it?
Who could she trust?
It was frustrating, bordering on infuriating.
She needed an outlet, something to unleash her wrath upon before an innocent bystander caught the full brunt.
The Jeep…
Jenna slapped a neon pink Post-It note on the front door of the Shoppe with a note to Belma and Lawrence: BACK SOON.
She had the foam key fob out and her hand on the Jeep’s door handle, her head filling with scenes of sand dune rooster tails and scattering gulls as she tore across the beach—maybe a few June sunbathers as well, if their music was too loud—when a flash of blue caught her eye.
She glanced to her right, where Second Street crossed Main, and there it was.
Bart’s convertible BMW.
And inside, Bart and Sherri.
Jenna forgot the Jeep.
“Hey!”
Bart turned and lifted a hand, nodded behind his Aviator sunglasses. Sherri was wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat and even bigger sunglasses, and she didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge Jenna. Still pouting—unbelievable.
Their outfits were classic Lost Haven Marina deck wear, and to Jenna’s irritated eye, it looked like Sherri was playing up the mourning friend to garner sympathy for Ingrid’s death and the trauma she’d experienced at Jenna’s hands.
Ridiculous.
Bart did a rolling stop into the intersection, going straight across Main toward the southern edge of Lilac Park.
“Hey,” Jenna yelled again. She walked toward the car, angling to catch it before it scooted away.
Bart cranked the stereo up and accelerated. Sherri never even glanced over, though Jenna caught a self-satisfied grin below the sunglasses. She watched the car until it disappeared behind a screen of fading lilacs, headed toward the marina.
Jenna considered following them and making a scene on the deck, but what would that accomplish? Probably exactly what Sherri wanted: Jenna would look like a big meanie right after Sherri’s dear, dear friend Ingrid was murdered.
Then the outpouring of condolences, and of course she could move her display into the café windows, who would ever be so cruel to suggest otherwise?
Well, screw that.
She went back to the Jeep, but the visions of hooting and laughing across the beach had turned sour. Now she imagined herself screaming as the Jeep burst into flames and plummeted off a sheer cliff (she didn’t know of any true cliffs in Lost Haven, but still) while Kavanaugh watched from Horizon House, a grim smile on his face.
Jenna took a step back from the Jeep, expecting it to explode at any moment.
What had she been thinking?
The man she suspects of murdering Ingrid gives her a vehicle out of the blue, and she happily jumps in to go for a joy ride, all by herself?
And even if it wasn’t a deathtrap (which it probably was), she didn’t want to have anything to do with the Kavanaughs or Sherri for the rest of the night. They could all go sit at the Marina Grill and drink their fancy drinks and do whatever rich people did when they were exhausted from stomping on the rest of the world all day.
She unlocked the front door of the Shoppe, ripped the note off the glass, and slammed the door behind her.
Jenna was in the reading nook with a cup of creamy coffee and a legal pad and pen, outlining what she knew so far about Ingrid’s death.
It was woefully brief.
She also had a series of columns with letters above them: B, B, K, L, S, W. The letters stood for the names of her suspects, in alphabetical order, and though it might stand up against a cursory glance from a toddler, she knew her secret code wouldn’t fool anyone. She’d have to hide the pad somewhere before anyone arrived for the evening.
Below each letter was a list of alibis, hard evidence, solid suspicions, and personal notes about each suspect. At first Jenna resisted venting her anger into the columns for Bart, Kavanaugh, and Sherri, but stream-of-consciousness writing sometimes uncovered gems in her personal writing, so she cut loose.
When she came out of the spell and looked up, the streetlights were on and she had a cramped jumble of words stacked below Kavanaugh and about half as much beneath Bart and Sherri—although those two columns had phrases like “Stupid eyebrows” and “Walks too loudly,” which probably didn’t have anything to do with Ingrid’s murder.
The columns for Belma, Lawrence and Wilford were strictly alib
is and possible motives, except for “grumpy drunk” beneath Lawrence’s name.
Taking it all in, she realized she couldn’t just hide the sheet of paper—she needed to burn it lest anyone find it and read what she’d written about them. The top sheet and the next few, in case somebody got clever and tried that pencil rub trick or some other voodoo.
Then a thought that made her feel a bit silly: Who on earth would give a rip about what you wrote down?
Followed by: Oh, I don’t know, maybe the person who tried to kill me today?
Ah, right. Carry on with the paranoia.
Jenna reviewed the notes for Lawrence and Wilford. Wilford’s alibi at the time of Ingrid’s death was weak—napping—but his fragile physical state was an alibi all by itself. There was no way he could have found the strength to bash Ingrid over the head hard enough to crack her skull…yet Lawrence had seen him loading unidentified, and possibly heavy, objects into his car that afternoon.
As for Lawrence, he had a solid alibi for the murder, but his motives were still in question.
The pen was poised above the sheet, and all Jenna wanted to do was start crossing off her friends so she could stop thinking of them as murder suspects.
But so far, no one was totally in the clear.
She sighed and sipped her forgotten, lukewarm coffee, then held the coffee in her cheeks, listening as someone tried to sneak in through the Shoppe’s back door.
The first noises were quiet, hesitant, but the sound carried through the back room and to the silent nook.
A sliding and clicking.
Someone was turning the knob back and forth to see if it was locked.
Of course it was locked. And deadbolted twice, with a wide-angle peephole that let her check both sides of the door before she opened it. Jenna had purchased all of it the day she became owner of The Welcome Shoppe, helped install everything with Claude from the hardware store, and even had the setup approved by Garrett at one point.
Lost Haven didn’t have much crime, but she saw no sense in tempting anyone with a flimsy door accessible by the back alley.
She heard the knob turn again, then nothing.
Was nothing good?
Or terrible?
Jenna eased the coffee mug, pad and pen onto the table and stood up. Her limited view of the front windows showed an empty street and sidewalk. Across Main Street, Lilac Park was mostly dark with dots of pathway lights winking through the foliage.
She checked the clock: 9:35.
Where the heck were Belma and Lawrence? It took time to close their shops and prep for the next morning, but weren’t they usually done by now? If that was one of them at the back door, wouldn’t they knock?
The knob turned again, a loud ratcheting clack-clack.
Now whoever was in the alley wasn’t trying to sneak in anymore—they were trying to break in. Jenna took a slow step toward the closed door to the back room, listening, reaching…
She stretched her hand toward the door and plucked her phone off the bookshelf next to it.
She bypassed 911 and called Garrett’s cell phone.
He answered on the second ring. “Jenna?”
She tried to talk and realized she still had a mouthful of coffee. She worked it down, rolled her eyes and kept her voice low: “Somebody’s trying to come through the alley door of the Shoppe.”
“Right now?”
“Right now. They’re testing the locks.”
“Okay,” Garrett said. “I’m across the bridge by the boat landing, I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Jenna could hear his patrol car’s engine open up through the phone. Then his siren kicked on, and a moment later she could hear it coming from somewhere to the south of town.
“I guess I’ll wait here,” Jenna whispered.
“Jenna, don’t you open that back door. Promise me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Just don’t. Sit on the couch and stay on the phone with me.”
“Okay.”
Garrett paused. “Are you moving? You sound like you’re moving.”
“No,” Jenna whispered as she opened the door to the back room and stepped through.
The door to the alley was at the other end of the room. She slipped her shoes off and padded between the storage shelves, past the small kitchen counter and sink, and stood off to the side of the door.
Garrett said, “Jenna, talk to me.”
“Hold on,” she whispered.
“Aw, man…” The car’s engine climbed again.
The peephole was right there.
Jenna leaned past the knob and eased her eye toward the dark lens. Just a quick look.
BOOM BOOM BOOM
The door shook in its frame as someone pounded on the other side.
Jenna leaped back in case the locks or hinges gave way.
Through the phone, Garrett’s voice said, “What was that? Was that knocking?”
Maybe with a battering ram, Jenna thought. She didn’t even want to whisper into the phone in case whoever was outside caught a hint of it and tried even harder to get in.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
Jenna flinched again from the noise and had a vision of her door collapsing, tearing off the frame and getting trampled as the crazed murderer swarmed in. That was a bit unsettling, certainly, but it also made her mad. First her car gets totaled, now her door?
Well, screw that.
BOOM BOOM BOOM
She stepped up to the peephole and looked through. The lens brushed against her eyelashes every time the door shook from the pounding, and she had to blink, which made it hard to be sure she was seeing things correctly.
The face on the other side of the peephole was familiar, and bloody, and staring right back at her.
“What do you want?” Jenna said.
The face on the other side of the peephole pressed closer. “I need help. I need to talk to you.”
Garrett’s voice from the phone: “Who said that? Jenna, go back to the couch! I’m almost there…”
“Why me?” Jenna said to the door.
“You’re the only person I can trust. Something terrible has happened.”
Jenna squinted at the peephole. The tone of voice, the way his face had sagged with relief when she first spoke.
“Garrett’s on his way here,” Jenna said.
The eyes on the other side grew wide. “I can’t trust him. Please.”
Garrett yelled, “Jenna, what’s going on?”
Jenna considered the phone for a moment, then told the door, “Hold on.”
She stepped away and put the phone on the counter—still connected to a hollering Garrett—and slid the nearly full pot of fresh coffee out of the machine.
She held that in her left hand and turned the deadbolts with her right, then backed away from the door.
“Come in.”
The knob turned and Jay Cabo stood in the doorway. His suit was wrinkled and splashed with fresh blood. The blood was smeared on his hands and specked across his face. His eyes were frightened.
“Mr. Kavanaugh is dead,” he said.
Jenna froze. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.
“Harrison Kavanaugh is dead?”
Cabo nodded.
Jenna’s grip on the coffee pot tightened. “Did you kill him?”
“No. But I don’t think anyone will believe me. I’m being set up.”
“Why should I believe you? You could be here to kill me too.”
Cabo’s hands opened and he shook his head, unsure what to say.
“Jenna, did you open that door? Tell me you did not open that door!”
They both looked at the phone.
“Garrett?” Cabo said.
Jenna nodded.
“May I speak to him?”
“Sure,” Jenna said, a tiny corner of her brain whispering, This ought to be good.
Cabo picked the phone up. “Sheriff Bowers?”
Jenna heard Garrett yell something
but couldn’t tell what it was.
Cabo winced away from the phone, then said. “This is Jay Cabo. I’m at The Welcome Shoppe with Jenna Hooper. I mean her no harm, and I didn’t kill Harrison Kavanaugh.”
The phone was silent except for the engine and siren, which also grew louder in the alley outside the doorway. There was a slight delay on the phone speaker, so the effect wasn’t quite stereo.
Cabo handed the phone back to Jenna. “I think I need to sit down.”
Jenna looked him over. She put the phone to her ear and told Garrett, “We’re fine. I’ll see you here in a few.”
She hung up on whatever he said, stepped back and tilted her head toward the front of the Shoppe. As Cabo moved closer she lifted the coffee pot a bit, ready to hurl it if need be.
Cabo headed for the doorway. He glanced at the steaming pot and seemed to notice it for the first time.
“Oh, no thanks. I don’t drink coffee.”
Cabo fell into the recliner and closed his eyes, then jerked halfway back up and stared at the blood on his suit, checking to see if he’d gotten any on the furniture.
“Oh man, I’m so sorry. Your chair…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jenna said. “I bought upholstery I can hose off. Some tourists…never mind.”
Cabo stood up and let his suit coat drop down his arms. He folded the jacket and held it in his lap so it wouldn’t touch anything. The front of his white shirt and tie were tacky with blood, and Jenna tried to focus on that instead of the way his muscles made the fabric jump.
Cabo pulled his tie loose and popped the top button on his collar, which had been tight enough on his neck to leave a red line on the skin.
The siren pushed through the back room and began to fill the front.
Jenna sat on the couch, her knee almost touching his. She still had the coffeepot and found a magazine to set it on. “Tell me about Kavanaugh. No, wait. You said you can’t trust Garrett. He’ll be here in about twenty seconds—tell me why.”
“Jenna, I can’t trust anybody here. I’m a complete stranger, and soon after I get to town Ms. Gallagher gets murdered. Now Mr. Kavanaugh. I see people whispering, eyeballing me, and Detective Olson and Officer Bowers had these private meetings with Mr. Kavanaugh. Who knows what they talked about? If the cops are in on these murders, I’m an easy guy to pin them on.”
