Dark Drizzles

by Jessica Beck

  “Cindy wants to do a reading of Tom’s greatest hits,” Grace said, barely able to contain her grin.

  “Passages that have touched me over the years would be appropriate,” the superfan said, missing Grace’s jibe completely. “Such as from Last Night Alive,” she explained as she waved a hand over her ensemble.

  “I was wondering about that,” Paige said.

  “You recognize the Dark Widow, of course,” Cindy said.

  “Of course.”

  “I have an idea,” I said, trying to take Paige off the hook I’d just put her on. “I don’t think a reading from the stage will honor the author’s memory in an intimate enough manner. How about if you do it here in the park? We can find a podium for you, and you can read for anyone who cares to hear Tom’s writings.”

  “Will I get a microphone?” she asked me.

  “That’s hardly keeping with the spirit of things,” Grace said. “You want to keep things cozy and intimate, don’t you? Isn’t that what he would have wanted?”

  I knew for a fact if Tom Johnson had any say in it, which he didn’t, he would have wanted loudspeakers, fireworks, and a parade in his honor, but he wasn’t going to get any of that.

  “I see what you’re saying,” Cindy said. “When should I read?”

  “How about right after the donut demonstration?” I asked her. “That will give you plenty of time to prepare the proper readings. After all, this is important.” I stressed that last word, and that was the clincher for her.

  “Very well. I must go. I have a great deal of work to do.”

  With that, Cindy Faber was gone, cutting across the rest of the park and heading toward city hall, where we’d arranged to have the lot and some of the lawn set aside for festival parking.

  “What was that all about?” Paige asked Grace and me as the three of us stood there watching Cindy make her way.

  “It seemed like it was going to be the only way we got rid of her,” Grace said. “That was brilliant suggesting she do it in the park, Suzanne. With any luck, most of the people gathered will just think she’s another lunatic on the fringe instead of a part of your actual festival.”

  “Paige, is there really a character called the Dark Widow in Last Night Alive?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s a rather odd choice, isn’t it?”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked her.

  “The Dark Widow is the murderess in the book. As a matter of fact, we learn in the end that she was the one who killed the man she’d been stalking for three hundred plus pages. What a chilling coincidence.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence at all,” I said.

  “Do you honestly think that if she killed Tom Johnson, she’d have the audacity to come as the Dark Widow herself?” Paige asked.

  “I have no idea, but the woman certainly bears watching,” I said.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to pick up my to-go order from Trish. I’m afraid I’m going to have to eat at the shop again, there’s so much to do.”

  “Tell you what. We need to talk,” I said. “Why don’t you head back to the bookstore while Grace and I pick up your food? We can chat while you’re eating, so you won’t lose a precious minute of work time. How does that sound?”

  “I admit that it would help,” Paige said as she reached for her wallet.

  Grace said, “Put that away. It’s our treat.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she protested.

  Grace grinned at her. “We didn’t have to sic the Dark Widow on you either, but we certainly did that. You might as well give up now. We’re buying your food.”

  “Okay, I’m honestly too tired to fight you on it,” Paige said. “What exactly did you want to talk to me about?”

  “It can wait until we get to the bookstore,” I said. I wanted to run what we’d learned from Elizabeth past Paige to see if it rang true to her. I knew that my book club friend was thorough in her research, but I’d learned the hard way that not everything I read online was necessarily true, and I surely didn’t want to confront our authors with information that was sketchy at best. I had a hunch that if Paige didn’t know the truth herself, she’d have a reliable source that could at least verify the information with. After that, it was going to be time for Grace and me to tackle our authors before the panel and, if we could manage it, find and speak with Tom’s agent and editor as well.

  It was going to be a busy morning, but we didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  We were on a deadline that wouldn’t allow for any missteps.

  If we were going to find Tom Johnson’s killer, and the person who’d stolen our proceeds from the day before, we had to get busy.

  Chapter 15

  “Back again so soon?” Trish asked as we walked into the Boxcar Grill yet again. “I thought for sure what you had earlier would at least hold you until lunch.”

  “We’re both still happily stuffed,” I admitted. “We’re here for Paige. Do you have an order ready for her?”

  “It’s right here,” she said as she shook a bag sitting by the register. “Wow, I didn’t know you two were running a food delivery service too, on top of everything else you’ve been doing lately.” She leaned forward and asked softly, “How goes the investigation?”

  “It’s a little slow, but a lot of times that’s how it starts,” I said. “We’re still just gathering information right now.”

  “I’m glad you came by. You saved me a phone call,” Trish said. Though none of her current customers were all that close to us, she still lowered her voice so much that I almost missed what she said next. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “I want to hear it, but we promised to get Paige’s food to her. I’d hate for her breakfast to get cold,” I said.

  “I just hope it stays that way. She’s trying some new yogurt with a crunchy topping that Hilda is making herself.”

  “Wow, you guys do it all, don’t you?” Grace asked her. “I’d like to try that sometime myself.”

  “I can ask Hilda to whip one up for you right now if you’d like,” Trish offered.

  “Thanks anyway, but I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  “Just let me know,” Trish said.

  “What did you find out?” I asked her.

  “I overheard two of my customers talking about the murder last night,” Trish said, and then she looked at me with a hint of remorse in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to remind you of it.”

  “Trust me, it’s never far from my thoughts,” I told her, “whether you say anything or not. What did you hear?”

  “Nick Williams was telling his cousin, Clementine, that he was surprised to see one of the authors from the panel yesterday hurrying from near your shop a little before dusk,” Trish said. “Evidently she had one of those cloth shopping bags that everyone is using these days, and it was clearly stuffed full of something. Anyway, Nick said that he approached her for an autograph, but the woman practically ran away from him! He didn’t get a good look at what was in the bag, but he said by the way she was carrying it that it was clearly packed with something. Does that help?”

  “It might,” I said. “Did she happen to say anything to him when he tried to stop her?”

  “Just that she’d be at the festival today, and she’d be glad to sign something for him then, preferably one of her new cookbooks.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “I thought so, too. What do you make of it, Suzanne?”

  “I’ll let you know,” I said. “What do we owe you for the yogurt?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it from Paige the next time I see her,” Trish said.

  “We offered to buy her breakfast, though,” Grace said. She put a ten down on the counter. “Will this cover it?”

  “That’s way too much,” Trish said, and she started to make change.

  “Just apply what’s left over to my next meal,” Grace said with a smile.

&
nbsp; “I can do that,” Trish said. “If I hear anything else, I’ll keep you posted.”

  “That would be great. Just don’t go out of your way to grill anyone, okay? There’s a killer loose in April Springs, and I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”

  “That makes two of us,” she said with a grin as a diner came forward holding her check out.

  “We’ll touch base later,” I said as I grabbed the bag of breakfast.

  Once Grace and I were back outside, she asked me, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That the bag she was so protective of might have had my money in it?” I asked her.

  “You got it in one try, Suzanne. Well, what do you think?”

  “I’m not sure, as much as I’d love it to be that easy. We need to remember that we don’t know for a fact that she was hurrying away from my shop, or that Tom was even dead at that point, not to mention the fact that it could have been something completely innocent in that bag. The only way we’ll find out with any certainty is to ask her.”

  “If she tells us the truth,” Grace said.

  “There’s always that, but if she lies to us, I trust the fact that one of us is going to be able to tell.”

  “Yes, our truth detectors are usually pretty accurate,” Grace replied.

  “Usually,” I answered. “Let’s get this yogurt to Paige and see what she has to say about what Elizabeth uncovered concerning our main suspects.”

  “I’m right behind you,” Grace answered.

  It wasn’t meant to be though, at least not so directly. Paige was on a phone call when we walked in, and from the sound of it, she was having trouble with one of her suppliers. From listening to one side of the conversation, I could tell that she needed more books, and fast, but she wasn’t getting any answers she liked. I put the bag down in front of her, and she mouthed the words “Thank you” and pointed to the back room, where she had things set up for the visiting authors before they took the stage for their panels, her green room. “Wait for me,” she said softly, and then she returned to her call. “I was promised delivery in full. If you don’t have someone bring me those books before the next event in a few hours, I’m afraid I’m going to have to have a word with your supervisor.”

  Grace and I walked into the back room, and I saw that, though she might be short on some books for the festival, there were actually several already there, strewn about the tabletop. I idly picked up one by Hannah Thrush and was surprised to see that not only was it autographed, but it was also personalized. “To Amanda, Can’t Wait To See What You’re Cooking Up In Your Next Book, Hannah.” I pawed through the other books on the table and found a paperback mystery by Tom Johnson under his Janice Davis pen name. This one wasn’t to anyone in particular, but the message gave me chills as I read it.

  “No More Warnings. Don’t Be Stupid. Actions Have Consequences.”

  “Grace, look at this,” I said as I showed it to my sleuthing partner.

  She read the inscription and shook her head. “Wow, that’s not exactly what you expect to find in an autographed book, is it?”

  “But who was it meant for?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but we need to take this with us,” she said as she slipped it into her oversized purse.

  “Should we at least tell Paige we’re grabbing it?” I asked. I hated to do anything sinister when it came to my festival cosponsor.

  “Let’s keep this our little secret for now,” Grace said as Paige walked into the room.

  “Sorry about that. My supplier had to have his arm twisted, but he’s on his way with more books for this afternoon’s signing. I threatened to tell his daddy, knowing full well that he’s terrified of the man.” She looked at me oddly. “What’s going on, you two?”

  I thought about telling her about the book then and there when Grace stepped in. “I’ve been telling Suzanne that she should write a donut cookbook. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Paige said with obvious delight. “It’s a shame it isn’t already written. We could sell copies to the people at the festival.”

  Where had Grace come up with that idea on the spur of the moment? I’d never even considered doing a cookbook, but was it really all that bad an idea? After all, I had the recipes, and some interesting stories about how they’d come to be. Maybe I’d do it after all, if I ever got a little spare time. “I might just do that.”

  “I’m not accepting anything but a full-blown commitment to write it,” Paige said. “I can help. If you can compile the files, I’ve got a friend who can lead us through the ins and outs of publishing it ourselves. I think it sounds like great fun, don’t you?”

  “I’m on board,” I said. “How was breakfast?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to eat it yet,” she admitted.

  “While you’re eating, could we ask you about some of the things Elizabeth found online about our panelists?”

  “I’ll help if I can,” she said. “What have you got?”

  “There are specific details, but the gist of it is that evidently Amanda Harrison physically threatened an editor in New York who rejected her mystery, Hannah Thrush tried to run over an estranged boyfriend with her car, Hank Fletcher accidentally killed a man who was harassing a favorite waitress of his, and Tom Johnson had more faults than an earthquake zone. He was not just handsy, as Elizabeth put it, but he loved exposing dirt on fellow panelists at conventions to make them look small. Over the years, he’s humiliated more than one fellow writer, and evidently the man had a nasty streak when it came to unmasking anything he considered sensational.”

  “Wow, she’s really good at digging, isn’t she?” Paige asked as she took a bite of her yogurt. It must have been good, because she quickly took another bite, smiling as she did so.

  “Do you mean that it’s all true, then?” Grace asked her.

  “I’d heard about most of it,” Paige said, “and none of the rest of it really surprises me all that much.”

  “And you still invited them to the festival?” Grace followed up.

  “Try to find an author who doesn’t have some kind of skeleton in their closet willing to come to our festival for what we are paying them. Most of them maybe aren’t as bad as the four I got, but they were the only ones willing to come to April Springs without charging us a fortune for travel, food, accommodations, and honorariums to boot. Our budget was limited, so we pretty much had to take what we could get.”

  Grace and I both saw that she’d struck a nerve with her question, but before I could repair it, Grace did so herself. She put a hand on Paige’s and smiled gently. “I wasn’t being dismissive of the job both you and Suzanne have done. I think it’s amazing,” she said, and it was clearly heartfelt.

  “Thanks. As much of a disaster as this is turning out to be, we certainly put the work into making it happen.” She finished her yogurt and set the container aside. “Ladies, as much as I’d love to hang out back here and chat, I’ve got so much to do before you go on again, Suzanne, that I need to be twins at the moment.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “How’s your demonstration coming along?” she asked me.

  I’d nearly forgotten about my hasty promise, but if there was one thing I could do off the cuff, it was make donuts, and supplying the patter as I did it would make it as interesting as creating donuts could be. “I’ve got it covered,” I said.

  “Good. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before. It was brilliant of you to suggest it yesterday.”

  “To be honest with you, I came up with it on the spot. Sometimes my mouth gets me into trouble.”

  “Sometimes?” Grace asked me with a grin.

  “Okay, it actually happens more often than I’d care to admit,” I said as the back room door flew open and Amanda Harrison came barging in, unannounced and uninvited.

  “I’ve saved the day!” Amanda said dramatically as she heaved a cloth shopping bag onto the tab
le in front of us. Was she about to turn the money from the theft over to us right then and there?

  I could only hope so.

  Chapter 16

  “What’s in the bag, Amanda?” I asked as I tried to sneak a peek.

  “Books,” she said as she emptied its contents on the table. There were at least a dozen hardback cookbooks, all written by her. “When I heard that your supplier was getting balky yesterday, I decided to do him one better and bring you some of my personal stock for you to sell today.” Before Paige could say anything, Amanda added, “I’ll need to charge you what I paid for them, so your profit margin won’t be as high as it would probably be with your supplier, but at least you’ll still make some money.”

  I wondered if she’d gotten those copies free from her publisher, but I wasn’t about to ask her. Paige smiled thinly as she stacked the books up and handed them back to Amanda. “Thank you, but it won’t be necessary. I’ll have plenty of copies here in time for the panel.”

  Amanda looked disappointed by the refusal. As she jammed them back in the bag, she said, “I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “And I appreciate it,” Paige said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to see to something up front.”

  After she left, Amanda started to follow. I couldn’t let that opportunity pass us by, though. “Amanda, do you have a second?”

  “What could you possibly want?” she asked me with disdain.

  “I’d like to talk to you about what someone witnessed last night that involved you,” I said.

  “Why on earth should I discuss anything with you?” she asked archly.

  “Mainly because it implicates you,” Grace said.

  She turned to my friend with a hard look in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “You were seen scurrying away from Donut Hearts around the time of the murder last night with a full bag, that bag I dare say, tucked under one arm even as we speak.”

  Amanda moved so quickly I wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but the next second, she was an inch from Grace’s face with hers. “You need to be very careful about what comes out of your mouth next.”