by Laura Quinn
“Cash was her passport,” Lana said. “Believe me, she made sure she was untraceable there. She’s terrified that she could be charged with negligent homicide, for not calling for help. Or, she could be sued for wrongful death by Kim’s family. Either way, she’ll be questioned and the subject of the fake celebrity appearance will surface.”
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,” Claire thought aloud. “And that leaves you and the charity in a vulnerable position.”
“If not criminal. I’ve already given my statement to the police, without any mention of this whole mangled affair. That’s why I must beg you to help. I’ve heard about your interest in the case, and hope you can help. Anything you can do will be forever remembered. Even if you could just dig up some alternatives for the police to pursue, to take the pressure off Bunny.”
Claire assured Lana that she would try her best to get some answers and track down the real murderer. The socialite promised to have her assistant email the passenger list, and confirmed that both Larry Hamilton and Ken Bancroft had given up their tickets when the committee asked, making room for the faux star’s entourage. She also said she would send all the photos she had from the event.
“How was it?” Barbara asked after Lana and Claude drove away. “I bet the leather was soft as butter. Are you going to get a custom seat for Baron?”
“It was stunning,” Claire said. “I forget how much unlimited funds can buy.”
“If she keeps up this rate of shopping, maybe you’ll be able to afford a Rolls of your own. I asked Claude if we should send the bill for the custom order, but he said to put it through the card whenever we wish so to do. He told me only my honesty outshone my beauty. Isn’t he cheeky?”
“I wonder if he’s single,” Claire mused, glad of a distraction from Lana’s bombshell.
“No time for matchmaking, young lady. You’ve got to replenish the treats that just left the shop before our opening. I called the troops in early to help,” Barbara said. “Maybe Zac can set up something online for the VIP shopping service. Marti’s flyers are going to attract a lot of interest.”
With only an hour before their scheduled soft opening, Claire focused on making as many doughs as she could. Emma rolled and baked cookies while Zac worked on automating the VIP shopping project. After a quick consult with his friend Keckers, he created an app for customers to use and linked it to the calendar, which would send reminders to Claire about the appointments. Peggy worked with Barbara to finalize preparations for the store’s trial opening.
“What is she doing here?” Peggy said, pointing a rigid finger at Traci. “I heard her husband killed Kim Bancroft. She’s going to bring those bad vibes in with her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, girl,” Barbara scolded. “Go let her in, and not another word about it.”
Claire came out to greet her friend, who looked surprisingly calm and collected. As much as she wanted to talk to Traci about Larry and Kim, she didn’t have the heart to do so.
“Wow, you look frazzled,” Traci said. “How can I help?”
Claire requested that she take pictures and send them to Emma, who was in charge of social media posts for the night. The harried owner ran back to the kitchen when the timer buzzed, pulled out two trays of cinnayum rolls, then changed out of her baking clothes. She deftly swirled vanilla yogurt icing on top of the cooled cookies before joining Barbara and Baron just in time to greet the first guests.
Dottie brought a bottle of champagne for her newest client. “At least I did something right,” she said flatly, looking at the buzz in the new shop.
“I hope this bubbly is a bit more ebullient than you are,” Barbara said.
“I’m sorry, I just found out that Brendan Hughes won Midwest Agent of the Year. Everyone knows he does shady deals, but he still gets to represent the best properties.” Dottie took a deep breath and handed the gift bag to Claire. “But, if I didn’t get the smaller spaces, I wouldn’t have met you, so he can stick that award.”
As more people arrived, Claire flitted around the shop, juggling roles throughout the night. Business was brisk, augmented by a twenty percent pre-opening discount. Due in no small part to Peggy’s stories about what could happen to homeless pets, most patrons opted to donate the savings to a general donation jar, to be split between the weekend’s rescue groups. When the last customers left, Claire poured glasses of champagne and sparkling grape juice for her staff and friends. Everyone took turns toasting the new shop owner. Peggy’s inverted pronouncement that a great rehearsal leads to a terrible show was drowned out by the late arrival of Marti and her dogs.
Claire offered to take her team out for dinner, but everyone had previous plans. Emma and Zac closed out their registers and ran the sales reports while Peggy made up envelopes for each of the rescue groups and divided the day’s donations equally between them. Barbara typed up a list of the most-often asked questions throughout the day and printed an FAQ sheet for opening day. Claire copied the information and posted it to their website. When everyone but Marti left, Claire placed an order for a pizza to be delivered and opened another bottle of champagne.
“I haven’t sat down all day,” Claire said. “It was so busy; I didn’t realize that until just now.”
“All I did today was sit, waiting for that damn judge to call my case,” Marti said, kicking off her shoes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help, but to make it up to you, I packed my overnight bag so we can have an all-nighter. I won’t touch the ovens, though, I promise.”
“You are the best! Baron, do you hear that? It’s a doggy sleepover.” Claire pulled out three slices of poochie pizza, to serve to the furry guests for dinner alongside their kibble. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you draw up a murder board while I start baking? I’ve got poster boards upstairs and the markers are in the drawer under the register.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help with anything else?”
“No, Peggy actually did a great job of restocking throughout the afternoon. She’s a hard worker, as long as she doesn’t get distracted by anything remotely unlucky,” Claire said. “She had a bit of a reaction when Traci arrived, so word must be out about Larry. I have some good news on that front, though.”
Claire pulled up the list of passengers she received from Lana, confirming that neither Ken nor Larry was on the list. The accompanying photos captured many of North Haven’s elite as they boarded the boat and shortly after they set sail. Lana had included a note that many of the later photos were not very flattering and asked her not to make them public. They scanned the images, matching photos against the list. The only discrepancy was Josh, who was on board, but not on the list, and Traci, who was on the list, but not in any of the photos. That confirmed what Jean and John said two days earlier.
Marti prepared the Mystery Mavens’ murder boards and took it a step further by creating an incident room upstairs, where they could hang and study the completed boards later that night. Claire pulled out the extra doughs she made earlier in the day and began baking snickerpoochies while the other doughs came to room temperature. Cinnamon and honey perfumed the air as the six trays baked. Dinner was announced by all three watchdogs, who hoped to partake in the delivery.
Neither having eaten lunch, the two women devoured the first slices of roasted vegetable pizza topped with salad. The beagles were similarly engaged in their dinner, though Baron did not share his friends’ gusto of the kibble. When they saw their owners pulling out notebooks and pens, they retreated to their beds.
“So, let’s go over what we’ve got while we finish eating,” Marti suggested. “Shall I go first?” She began reading off her notes, not receiving any response from Claire. To get her friend’s attention, Marti changed course. “Do you think it could possibly have been the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? Kim did sponsor that smores night last month. Maybe he suffocated her with his puffy arm.”
“Sure,” Claire responded randomly. She was still debating wh
ether or not she should tell her friend about Bunny Marshall. Although she swore to Lana that she wouldn’t tell anyone, Marti was a lawyer and was duty-bound not to disclose information, wasn’t she? How many times had the seal of confessional been invoked in the mysteries she read? Telling Marti would be like confessing to Father Brown or Father Dowling, she reasoned.
“Earth to Claire, do you read me?”
“Marti, will you be my attorney?”
“You didn’t kill Kim, did you?” Marti laughed.
“Just say yes officially. You can take the rest of the pizza as your retainer.”
“Ok, Clarissa Noble, I hereby agree to represent you as my client. Now what gives?”
The need for attorney-client privilege became clear as Claire reiterated the story about Lana’s rival. She pointed out that the lack of photos of Kim after boarding seemed to confirm Bunny’s story. This moved the poison timeline up substantially.
“Wow,” Marti said. “Every time I think I’ve heard it all, I’m proved wrong.”
“So, how are we going to include this on our board?” Claire asked. “We’ll have to give Bunny a fake name. Or, maybe we don’t need to put her on at all. We’re only looking for the murderer, not perpetrators of fraud.”
“How do you know she isn’t the murderer?” Marti asked. “We only have Lana’s opinion that she had no motive. Maybe Kim slept with Bunny’s husband too.”
“I didn’t even stop to think about that. What a rookie mistake! Lana could be covering for Bunny, which seems unlikely, or Lana may not know the truth. Ok, let’s put her on the board. We’ll call her Ester.”
“Ester Bunny - cute!” Marti added the new name to the board and read off the others as she wrote them. She cut out strips from the rainbow pack of post-its to emphasize key points.
Claire returned to her doughs, reading aloud from her notebook while cutting out large and small bone-shaped peanut butter cookies. She used her rolling docker across the rows to prevent air pockets from forming.
“Aside from Lana’s bombshell, I didn’t get any new information today,” Claire admitted. “With all the talk about Kim’s extra-curricular activities, we should probably start there.”
“Yes, I started a list of possible and confirmed lovers in this column. So far, I’ve got Larry and Josh, plus Ken, of course. Do we have any other names?”
“Nothing for certain, though I wonder if Mike will be on the list,” Claire said. “Remember how he was defending her the other night?”
“Yes, that did seem strange coming from Mr. Christian. I’ll put him down in pencil. Anyone else?”
“Olivia said her ex-husband, Brendan, had some type of relationship with Kim, but I don’t know if she meant personally or professionally. I heard raised voices between Kim and a man in the tent when I tripped on the rope. I was just trying to see who it was, when Agnes came over and started talking to me.”
“I’ll add Brendan’s name with a question mark, and put our mystery arguer in a different column, for conflicts. I better leave plenty of space there.”
“Agnes told me she overheard an argument too,” Claire said, looking through her notes. “Scratch that. She said she observed Kim’s throwing down the phone and storming off to have a smoke.”
“The police could find out who it was from her phone records, though I doubt they’ll share that with us. Bob should have some details, but he’s been so busy down in Springfield. He’ll be back tomorrow to cover your opening personally.”
“I’m honored,” Claire said. “The three of us definitely have to get together tomorrow night Do you mind dinner here again? I’m sure I’ll have to do more baking to restock again.”
“No problem, Bob can bring something. He owes us for all the work we’re doing tonight.”
Claire decorated the final batch of cookies as Marti finished filling in all the information they had gathered so far. The motive list was the most complete, with affairs dominating the board. Opportunity was wide open, as the poison may have been added to the bags at any point, or may have been administered in another manner completely. Means was empty. Claire still suspected cyanide as the agent, but they didn’t know for sure.
Once their information was exhausted, they took a break by walking with the dogs to get ice cream from Scoops. While she was there, Claire finalized the plans with the owner, who was sending her son to man the human ice cream stand the next day. They double-checked all the ingredients to ensure they were dog-safe, in case anything was accidentally shared with the dogs.
When they returned, Marti worked on signs and flyers for the rescue groups. She created a sign for Scoop’s ice cream, upping the suggested donation to five dollars per scoop and including close-ups of shelter dogs’ faces with the most soul-melting expressions and captioned them “thank you for saving us.” Claire finished baking, then moved on to prep for Saturday’s rescue fair. Marti suggested some last-minute changes to the table assignments, separating known combatants.
“Don’t you remember Fred and Terry’s history after the nature society’s schism? Best put them on different levels,” Marti said.
“I can’t believe I overlooked that. I was focused on keeping Terry and Chris apart, considering the Valentine’s Ball brawl.” Claire studied the map for a few minutes, deciding to move Fred upstairs and printing a revised chart. She made a dramatic stroke across her checklist. “We are officially done.”
“What about your speech for tomorrow? Did you decide what you’re going to say? Promise me you’re not going to sing a made-up song.”
“Ha ha. Mike’s secretary called to tell me he’s giving a speech, so that’s already going to be far too many words. I’m going to thank everyone for coming and welcome them. I’ve tried to get Baron to bark on cue, but he believes it’s undignified. Instead, he’ll conclude the ceremony by carrying the ribbon into the store.”
“Cute,” Marti said. “It’s just as well you’re keeping your part short. Everyone will be focused on Baron anyway.”
Hearing his name, the spokesdog checked in with the ladies.
“Come on kid,” Claire said. “Let’s take you and your pals out for the night then go to bed.”
Chapter 10
Friday, July 8th
Opening day was heralded by Claire’s digital alarm clock, then Marti’s phone alarm, then Claire’s phone alarm. Claire got ready first, while Marti completed her morning meditation, the latest weapon against her temper. The murder boards were placed face-down on the desk, away from prying eyes. The dogs were the last to wake up, snoring until “walkies” was called from downstairs.
Claire and Marti wore Posh Pup shirts with matching bandannas for their fur kids. Claire’s ponytail was tethered by her new scrunchie, courtesy of the Golden Oaks seniors. Waking up on time allowed the quintet to take a long walk before heading to the bakery for coffee and pastries. Claire recognized the woman under the large white hat, reading a fashion magazine in the corner.
“Bonjour, Simone.”
“Bonjour, ladies. You look very calm. I was a bundle of nerves when Le Bon boutique opened.”
“That’s the benefit of having been in marketing for so many years. No matter what, never let them see you sweat,” Claire said.
“You’ll be fine,” Simone assured. “Peggy said your soft opening went very well.”
“That’s unusually enthusiastic for her,” Marti said.
“Actually, she said it was ok, but that is very high praise, believe me,” Simone said. “She’s been especially agitated since her horoscope warned her about something or other.”
“Any last-minute advice, about the opening?” Claire asked.
“Enjoy the day. You’ve worked so hard; enjoy your moment in the sun.”
“Merci,” Claire said. “See you at eleven?”
“Of course,” Simone said. “We’ll all be there.”
Claire and Marti returned to the shop, greeted by Barbara and several vases of flowers.
“Isn�
�t this marvelous? So many people are thinking of you and wishing you luck on your big day. That one is from your parents. I left it for you to unwrap.”
Claire read the note aloud. “Dearest Clarissa, we wish we could be there. Everyone will love your new venture! We hope this Pawchira aquatica will bring you luck. Love, Mom and Dad.” Claire laughed as she unwrapped the money tree decorated with paw prints. “Dad and his Latin.”
Barbara followed with her gift, a white Belleek porcelain frame accented with shamrocks. Handwritten beneath a spot to mount her first dollar was a modified Irish blessing:
May your shop be filled with happy woofs,
May your pockets be filled with gold, and
May you have all the happiness your dear heart can hold.
“Thank you so much, it’s perfect.” Claire hugged her and displayed the keepsake on a shelf, high enough to keep it from being broken. The store owner packed up all the gift wrappings and took them out to the recycling bin. When she returned, she took a final tour of the sales floor with Baron. Emma and Zac captured the serene moment for a post.
“Hashtag CalmBeforeTheStorm,” Zac said.
“Don’t jinx us,” Peggy said. “Lightning deaths are most common during the summer months.”
Emma jumped at the girl’s sudden appearance. “You should wear a bell or something.” She turned to her brother to correct his social media faux pas. “You should use something positive, like hashtag CountdownToDoggyBliss. That’s marketing 101, right boss?”
Claire looked at the picture and begged a redo with the whole team. She suggested a new hashtag for the selfie, SomeBarkSomeScreamWeAllTeamForIceCream. The teens groaned, but sent out the selfie with that, and better hashtags. They took photos when the Scoops wagon arrived, capturing closeups of the flavors for human customers.
Everyone was assigned a station and checklist, and soon the shop was ready for the big event. Claire and Barbara created signature sundaes for Baron, Clarence and Darrow as a final trial run and Zac took more photos. Emma and Peggy welcomed the shelter representatives and handed out badges. Nick arrived in full dress uniform, despite being off-duty.
