Twenty-Three

I didn’t ask him that, though. At least not yet.

“Fine,” he said. “And you?”

“Fine, too.” Was Brad’s response as potentially false as mine? Not likely. And really, I was fine. At least for now, while I remained free and not under arrest, although I wished all the suspicions of me were eradicated and the real culprit caught. “Grabbing a little lunch here?” Boy, was my end of this conversation exciting. I wanted it to lead to more, assuming I had the time and felt comfortable that no one was listening in. But I wanted what I said to sound perfectly innocent.

“Yes, for myself and my staff,” Brad said. As usual, he looked and sounded a bit tired.

“Too bad we didn’t contact each other.” I had to raise my voice a little since the crowd here was growing, both in size and noise level. “I’m here to get lunch for my helpers at the Lucky Dog, too. Maybe we could have coordinated things so just one of us had to come out here.”

His face seemed to brighten a little. “That would be a good thing to do in the future. We’re busy at Wish-on-a-Star, and though I’ve left my couple of employees on their own before, it always helps for me to be there with them.”

“I hope they’re doing a great job,” I said, then added, “Are Lorraine and the kids back yet?” If so, he might not need both of those helpers for long, since his wife helped him run the store when his kids were in school. But since he was here, I figured I knew the answer.

“No.” He paused, and his smile looked rather lonely to me. “Her mom is a little worse, so they’re staying in San Diego for a while longer.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Was that why they went now, because her mother’s ill?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

I glanced over his shoulder as another customer picked up his meal. Brad looked around, too, and we were able to move up a little, Pluckie staying right with me.

“Well, I hope your mother-in-law gets well fast,” I said. I searched my mind for how to address the vandalism at his shop while standing here in this crowd of people who might eavesdrop—and came up with nothing except, “Hey, you know, I’ve got some other ideas of things we might be able to do together to help both of our shops.” Like I could let him buy some of the toys I’d designed; a few might work for kids as well as dogs. Or so I’d tell him. “If you don’t mind waiting for a couple of extra minutes after you get your food, let’s walk back together.”

Brad didn’t look exactly thrilled, but I added, “Please? I really think if we retailers here in Destiny combine our ideas and resources, we’d all make a lot more money. And I do have some ideas. Okay?”

“Well, okay.”

I ignored the reluctance in his voice and said, “Great!”

It took only about five minutes till we’d both given our orders and been handed our bags of sandwiches and wishbones. By the time I got mine, Brad stood near the door beyond the still-growing line of customers. Pluckie sat right beside me, nose in the air as she sniffed the smells of sandwiches being made and wishbones being given out.

I glanced around once more before leaving the cash register area, looking for John. I glimpsed him through the open window to the kitchen. No way could I call out to him that I wished he’d just come clean and confess to killing Flora. Instead, I waited till he appeared to look out at the burgeoning group of hungry clients, and I smiled and waved.

He only scowled back. Not exactly a sign of guilt, but neither was it proof of his innocence.

Then, pulling Pluckie’s leash slightly so she’d keep up with me, I scurried as quickly as I could past the line of people till I reached Brad at the door. I still couldn’t believe my luck, getting this opportunity to talk to four people who might have had a reason to kill Flora. “Might,” of course, being the operative word. Considering John’s attitude, maybe “might” would become “did”—although his having a motive, or even acting like he did, wasn’t enough to prove him guilty.

I’d have to reassess Brad, though, now that I was considering him a suspect. And I was about to have an opportunity to question him, it seemed.

“Sorry,” I said as I reached him, without saying what I was sorry for. He could take it to mean I felt bad about delaying him, if he wanted. One thing it wasn’t was an apology for the conversation I hoped to have with him on the way back to our shops.

We set off. I nearly tripped over a tourist who was bending to pick up one of the heads-up pennies with which the sidewalk here, too, was seeded. I caught myself, said “Excuse me,” and with sweet and concerned Pluckie still at my side, hurried to catch up with Brad. He hadn’t stopped even to be polite and wait for me, let alone make sure I wasn’t hurt.

Well, I didn’t have to like his ungentlemanliness to keep on talking to him.

“Okay,” I said, “I wanted to let you know a little about the dog toys I’ve designed and manufactured. Some may be cute enough for kids, too, so you might want to look at them and consider them for your shop.”

“Like the stuffed rabbit with the large rabbit’s foot?” His tone sounded so wry that I turned to stare up at his face as we walked.

“Then you heard … ” I chose not to finish, hoping he’d do it for me.

“That Flora was found with that foot in her mouth? Yeah.”

“I guess word’s getting around.” Hey, as much as I hated realizing that maybe the whole town was learning that ugly little fact, maybe I could use it in my favor now. “I didn’t kill her, Brad. Honest. Yes, I was irritated with her after she announced she’d been the one to vandalize all our shops—and steal nearly all the toys I’d designed, by the way, including that particular one. It’s no surprise she had it with her when she was killed. Given her rant at the end of the Welcome, I figure the real killer jumped on the opportunity to use the toys, especially that rabbit foot, to try to frame me.”

“Mmm-hmm.” It wasn’t easy for me to hear his ironic mumble with the usual sidewalk conversations and other noises going on around us.

But I figured I could use his apparent dubiousness in my favor, somewhat, at least. “You sound as convinced as Celia Vardox did when she interviewed me. Did she interview you? I gathered she and her brother are trying to talk to everyone whose shops Flora trashed for a series of articles they plan to write for the Star.”

“Yes, Celia talked to me yesterday,” Brad replied. “Not sure I’d call it an interview, exactly. More like an accusation.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

We’d crossed the street and were now walking north on Fate Street. We weren’t far now from the Lucky Dog, but I didn’t want to end this conversation.

Accordingly, I added, “Look, you already know I’m considered one of the top suspects. Maybe the top suspect.” I half waited for him to say something acknowledging this, but then went on. “Flora damaged your shop, too. If I go there now, can you show me what she did and where? I assume you’ve fixed it up by now, but I’m still trying to learn all I can in case it somehow helps me to clear myself.”

“Sure, come on,” he said, not sounding at all thrilled about the idea. As a result, Pluckie and I crossed Destiny Boulevard with him.

“How long ago did she vandalize your place?” I continued. No one crossed with us, so I wasn’t too concerned about any eavesdropping.

“A couple of weeks,” Brad said.

“Oh, then your wife was still in town then?”

“No, she and the kids left before that.”

“Then your poor mother-in-law has been ill for a long time. That’s a shame.”

He came up with another “Mmm-hmmm.”

We reached the Wish-on-a-Star shop and its quaint Gold Rush architecture. I recalled having wished on the display in the front window right after I’d reached Destiny a few months earlier—a large star-shaped light that zoomed across the top of the window like a shooting star. The window also displayed good-luck-themed children’s items, mainly toys and clothes.

I considered stopping to wish on the star again, just in case it actually did produce good results—like getting an innocent person out of the spotlight of being a murder suspect. Previously, I’d wished on it to help me make the decision about whether to stay in Destiny. I’d decided to stay, and until recently I’d believed it had been the right decision.

Not so much now.

Instead, I decided I’d better try to ask Brad my last question, since talking in front of his staff wouldn’t be a good idea. “Just one thing,” I said to him, maneuvering a bit so I stood in front of him at the door. “I’ll want you to point out what Flora did, like I said. But I’m also trying to figure out why she chose only particular shops to vandalize. Had you met her before?”

He glared at me, then looked down at the bag of food in his hand and back up at my face, clearly trying to convey that he wanted to get inside and feed his staff. But I just stood there, an expectant smile on my face. Or maybe, in fact, it was just a hopeful smile. He might choose not to respond.

“Sure I’d met her,” he said after another beat. “She came to my shop in her real estate guise, trying to get me to list this property with her. Of course I said no. Wish-on-a-Star isn’t for sale, period. I assumed, when she admitted she was the person who’d trashed the place, that that was the reason why—revenge for my not wanting to sell it and give her a commission.”

That made sense, I figured. Or as much sense as anything else about why Flora chose to exact her revenge on some shopowners in Destiny but not others.

“I see,” I said. When I moved out of the way, he held the door open for Pluckie and me.

There were only a few customers in the shop and none of them appeared ready to decide what they wanted. They browsed along shelves that, like mine, held a variety of toys, but unlike mine had games and many kinds of clothing—all for kids. Brad distributed the sandwiches and wishbones to his helpers, a guy and girl who both appeared college-aged. Maybe they were here visiting Destiny to do research for school papers and happened to want jobs while they were in town. Or maybe they’d just fallen in love with the place and decided to move here. Or maybe none of the above; I might just be allowing my imagination to run wild.

When the assistants walked off behind some of the tall shelves, most likely to eat their lunches, I looked at Brad. “Tell me about the vandalism,” I said, and he did. Some of the wooden shelves had been thrown to the floor, scattering children’s toys such as several board games of tic-tac-toe, where the pieces to be placed on the board consisted of green shamrocks and white horseshoes.

“They were all salvageable, fortunately,” Brad said. “So were the T-shirts and luck-themed baseball caps, which were tossed all over the place.”

“And was anything unlucky left on the floor?”

“Yes.” It turned out to be the standard broken mirror pieces and salt.

“Did you have any idea, at first, who did it?” I couldn’t help asking.

“If what you really want to know is whether I killed Flora for doing it, do you think I would tell you that?” His expression looked both wry and irritated.

“I think that would be a no,” I said, and he nodded.