If someone had bumped into me right then and there, I would have crumbled like a house of cards. All this time, Fabritzia had been worried because she’d signed a prenup, but in the end, she didn’t even have a marriage.
The question was, did she know? Had Myron even told her before he was going to attempt reconciliation with my mother?
Know what this also meant? Fabritzia just went back on my list of nonexistent suspects.
As Nadine and Francis continued to chat, I wanted to interject. I was dying to interject, but I was afraid if they became aware I was behind them, they’d clam up tighter than tight.
As Coco came to stand in line next to me after chatting with one of the bailiffs from the courthouse, I held a finger up for her to be quiet. I just need a second or two more.
“He was gonna win May back with a bag of prawns?” Nadine asked, astonished. “Do you know May Layne? Did that old fool Myron? We’re talkin’ about the same one who used his DVDs like flying saucers, right? Fat chance that was gonna happen.”
Francis laughed his familiar phlegm-filled cackle. “I tried to tell him, but Myron said the prawns were an old joke between the two of them, and it was as good a start as any. May loves prawns, and whenever they had an argument, Myron would woo her into forgiving him with a bag of ’em. He came in all the time when they were an item.”
That was the truth. Mom did love a good prawn, but not enough to forgive Myron for marrying Fabritzia, that’s for sure. No prawn in the land would do that. But it also explained where that prawn had come from. Not so random after all, I guess—even if the rest of the pound’s worth wasn’t on the scene. Maybe the killer liked prawns?
Still, what on earth had made Myron think Mom would forgive him?
Nadine clucked her tongue in distaste. “Do the police know about this? Did you tell them?”
“Sure they know. Questioned me for four hours the day after it happened when they found out he was over at my store.”
Okay, so I had to give the Fig police a high-five. They’d been way ahead of me on that one. I’d almost completely forgotten about the prawn since I’d found the pictures in Myron’s secret room. Which was decidedly careless on my part. Instead of focusing so much on Myron’s head injury, I should have retraced his steps the day he died.
Lesson learned, Sensei.
“So any thoughts on how he ended up in the Smoke and Petrol’s bathroom, of all the places? We were all wondering that at book club last night. It’s been the chatter everywhere I go since it all happened.”
“Nope,” Francis responded. “The cops’ lips are shut tighter’n fifty-gallon drums. Though I can tell ya, I’m not even supposed to be tellin’ you what I did. But I know you’ll keep it between us, Nadine, and all this has been bugging me somethin’ fierce. Feels good to let it out.”
I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I was sure to explode if I didn’t stick my nose into this. And leave it to Coco to notice I was ready to blow because she grabbed me by the arm and spun me around to stop me.
“Lemon, don’t you dare! I forbid it. Francis just said he’s not supposed to tell anyone about the information he gave the police. Now let it be.”
“Well yeah, that’s what he said, but he’s spilling his guts to Nadine just as sure as he spilled all those fish guts on his sweatshirt. And whoa. Hold that thought. What’s that you said? You forbid it?”
She made a sour face at me as Nadine ducked gracefully out of the conversation. “For-bid. That’s right, you heard me. You’re going to get someone killed,” she whispered fiercely. “What if the killer is listening right now?”
I looked around Gabby’s small shop, with its bright colors and pretty raw wood tables then made a face at her. “You mean like the three people in line ahead of us who are all over the age of eighty, or Nadine and Francis when they pretend to be Bonnie and Clyde?”
Her gaze narrowed. This was Coco’s especially unhappy face. The face she often gave me when I wouldn’t do as she thought I should. “You can never be too careful,” she responded with clenched teeth.
That was my cue to turn around and ignore her. Not a chance in Hades I was leaving Gabby’s without some answers.
I didn’t miss a beat when I tapped Francis on the shoulder. “Hi, Francis. Forgive the intrusion. I couldn’t help overhear you tell Miss Nadine that Myron saw you the day he died and that he was going to try to reconcile with my mother. Color me surprised. I know for sure Mom didn’t know. Why didn’t you at least tell my mother? Give her some kind of warning?”
Not that it would have made a difference. Mom was totally over Myron, that much was clear, but she’d been on to something when she’d said Fabritzia was no May Layne. Because if Myron still wanted Mom over someone as beautiful and young as Fabritzia, she was even more woman than I thought. And that was no slight intended to my mother. She’s cute as a button, but some men are known for not looking past the exterior.
Francis turned a pretty shade of red and stuttered, “First off, affairs o’ the heart ain’t my business. Second off, no one was supposed to hear that, Lemon.”
“But I did,” I reminded him patiently, pulling off my glasses so he could see the sincerity in my eyes. “So now it’s nothing that hasn’t been heard. But what I really want to know is, is there anything else that you can remember about that day? Anything at all you might have forgotten to tell the police?”
Francis looked uncomfortable and started to back away, tugging at his knit cap.
It was time to go in for the kill. “Francis, my mom’s reputation is on the line. Over the years, she’s probably bought a zillion pounds of prawns from you. She made you seafood salad when you had your hip replacement. Okay, so it wasn’t that great, and there were still some shells in it, but it’s the thought that counts. Not to mention, she’s sent countless customers your way. Do you want to see my mom locked up for a crime she couldn’t have possibly committed because the police don’t have any other suspects? Don’t you think you owe it to her to tell me everything you know about that day?”
“Lemon!” Coco hissed in my ear. “You’re just looking for trouble now. First off, you know good and well the police have probably forgotten all about May because while she might be the feistiest senior to ever live, no way could she have cut a hole in Myron’s head. You’re fishing just because you like to fish. And for heaven’s sake, put yourself in Francis’s shoes. He was told not to talk about what he told the police. Stop putting him on the spot!”
I’d do just that if this wasn’t my mother we were talking about. The police probably had ruled out my mother at this point simply because of the logistics of the crime. May Layne wasn’t physically capable of taking out someone as big as Myron. Coco was right about that. But I’d seen convictions with far less evidence, so I wasn’t taking any chances. I wanted her completely cleared.
And yes. You bet your bippy I wanted to catch a killer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.
That meant I had to ignore Coco’s protests and plod forward. I gripped Francis’s arm and gave him my best Bambi eyes—watery and round. “Please, Francis, any little thing at all could help clear her as a suspect. Maybe even something you don’t think is important.”
His eyes shifted toward the black-and-white checkered floor with clear guilt. He rasped out a sigh of aggravation. “There is one little detail I didn’t tell the police, but I was tired after four hours of nonstop questions shot at me like they were comin’ from a machine gun. Wore me out so bad, I almost forgot my own name by the end of it all. I just wanted to go home.”
“I get it, Francis,” I soothed, oozing sympathy. “I’m sure the questioning was grueling. But wouldn’t it be grueling to live with the idea my mother could go to jail if you knew something?”
Yes, yes. That was a very dramatic statement, I know. But it was times like this I lost all control of my impulses.
Francis blanched, his ruddy face going white. “Look, I don’t know if this means anything, but that afternoon—”
“So he came to the store in the afternoon?”
“Yep. Myron said he was going to the pawnshop before he went to see May.”
Alarms sounded in my head as loud as those at the Fig Harbor Fire Department. “And?”
“And that’s all I’m telling you,” he said stubbornly, wrinkling his bulbous nose.
I couldn’t figure out why the pawnshop kept coming up, but I’d love to know if the police ever found out anything about that receipt. Which reminded me, I still had yet to talk to Eugene about the four hundred dollars Fabritzia was so convinced Myron was owed.
“Did he give any explanation for why he was going to the pawnshop?”
Now he stomped his booted foot. “Dang it all, girl, I just told you I’m not telling you anything else.”
“Did he ever mention having an accident of any kind?” Maybe in all Myron’s gabbing, he mentioned the bank robbery. I was grasping at straws, but I couldn’t take the chance it was the one straw that held a clue.
Yet, Francis glared at me. “You heard me, Lemon. I love your mom, but we’re done here.”
Coco frowned hard at me as she untied her paisley scarf and stuffed it in her purse on a huff.
I got the message. It was unfair to put Francis on the spot—let it go. So I sighed in resignation. “Thank you, Francis, and I hope you’ll take this information to the police now. You never know what could be important to them.”
Coco smiled at me as though I was a small child who’d obeyed her. “Good girl, Lemon.”
We all stood in line in stoic silence after that, but as I placed my order for coffee, I decided it was time to talk to Eugene. After collecting my beverage, and waving goodbye to Coco, guess where I was headed?
* * * *
When I arrived at Lester’s Pawnshop, there was a sign on the door that ironically read: Gone Fishing. Too bad he hadn’t been with the mayor, I thought with a chuckle.
If I remembered correctly, Haskell had mentioned he’d hired Eugene from the community center and seeing as I had no idea where Eugene lived, that was my next stop.
But as luck would have it, just as I turned to leave, Eugene came ambling toward the store, his youthful face without a care in the world.
“Eugene!” I yelled and waved him down.
He approached with an easy rhythm to his step, stopping short in front of me. His wide hazel eyes scanned my face. “Hey, Miss Layne. Store’s closed today. I’m just here to do some inventory.”
I grinned at him. He exuded a hopeful, youthful vibe I picked up on right away. “That’s okay. I’m not here for the store. I just have a couple of quick questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
Eugene looked at his phone’s clock and grimaced at the time. “For me? Can you make it really quick? Mr. French is a stickler for time, and I have to get this inventory done before he comes back from fishing. I don’t mean to make him sound like a bad boss, but ex-cop and all, you know. He’s a little drill sergeant about stuff, and I can’t afford to lose this job. Gotta save for college.”
Whoa. What? I didn’t focus on anything but the idea Haskell French had been a cop. “Ex-cop?”
Eugene gave me a sheepish glance from under his One Direction haircut. “Ah shoot. I probably shouldn’t have said that. My mom sometimes says my mouth is quicker than my brain.”
I held up a hand and looked at him. “Is it a secret that Haskell was a cop?”
He shrugged his wide shoulders, shuffling in his high-top sneakers. “Well, I don’t know if it’s a secret. He kinda told me after a few beers. Look, Miss Layne, I like working for Mr. French. Please don’t tell him I said anything. He doesn’t really talk about where he came from before Fig, so I suppose that’s the way he wants things.”
“No worries, Eugene. Your secret’s safe with me. Anyway, the reason I wanted to talk to you—”
He shot five slender fingers up in the air to thwart me. “Before you say anything, I just want to tell you no way, no how I believe Mrs. Layne had anything to do with this junk with murder and zombies or whatever. No way you could get me to believe that sweet little old lady hurt Myron Fairbanks.”
Oh, my mother would love to hear she’d been called sweet, let alone old. “About Myron, did Haskell mention to you the question I had about the receipt you gave him for an item he sold to you? It was dated the day he died.”
Eugene scratched his head. “Sold? Miss Layne, Myron didn’t sell something that day, he bought a bracelet. The receipt was for the money he paid. I already told the police that.”
“Did he say who the bracelet was for?”
“Nope. But he sure seemed pretty happy about it.”
“Would you mind describing the bracelet for me?”
He whistled his appreciation. “It was a really nice, if not modest bracelet. Mr. Fairbanks said it would match a pair of earrings he was going to give his ladylove. It was a bunch of teeny, tiny diamond chips—cheap mind you, but still diamonds—with a little heart-shaped emerald. I remember Mr. Fairbanks saying how clever it was that emeralds were the birthstone for the month of May.”
May.
So, I’d bet my eyeballs and my spleen Myron bought that bracelet for my mom, and he thought it was clever not only because her name is May, but because her birth month is May.
“My mother,” I mumbled without thinking.
Eugene gave me an odd look. “You know, I don’t know what he thought was so clever about it. Mr. Fairbanks talked a lot, and I feel bad, but if I’m honest, sometimes I tuned him out.”
So did this mean Myron had the bracelet on his person when he was murdered? If so, why hadn’t anyone found it? The police had scoured the bathroom and the surrounding woods as far as I knew.
Or maybe the police had found it, and they were keeping that quiet?
In any event, I stuck my hand out and offered it to Eugene. “Thanks for your help, Eugene, I sure appreciate it.”
He wiped his palm on his jeans before he took mine. “Anytime, Miss Layne. You tell your mom, I’m Team Layne all the way.”
With a chuckle, I left Eugene, feeling slightly defeated as I got back into Lou-Lou, shutting out the wind and rain.
So what next?
I looked up at the ceiling of my car and asked just that. “What now, Dad? I have almost no suspects unless you count Fabritzia and her Latvian lover. And still, I remain steadfast in my belief they didn’t kill Myron. I have a bunch of pictures that lead nowhere but to some eyewitness testimony and the names of a couple of cops who were on the scene of the bank heist. Maybe I should be talking to the eyewitnesses at the scene?”
But seriously, how could they help any more than they already had when they gave their statements to the police? Were they going to give something up to me they hadn’t given to the police?
It was time to go home and make a list of the witnesses from the articles Myron had and start locating some of them.
Until then, talking to Fabritzia again probably wouldn’t hurt. Though, after last night, when she sees me coming, she’s probably going to turn tail and run as fast as she can. Yet, I have to find out if she knew her marriage to Myron wasn’t legal—because it definitely gave her motive to kill him. I wanted to kill him myself for behaving the way he had.
What a cad, to so happily skip off and try and reunite with my mother after Fabritzia had come to this country just for him. It made me a little angry.
As I drove back toward the center of town, I was happy to see everyone had mostly cleared out, leaving only a few straggler zombie hunters lining the sidewalks. If the Fig Harbor police didn’t catch this killer soon, I can think of a few people who’d be willing to run them out on a rail—myself included.
They’d turned our sleepy little seaside burg into a madhouse.
I was so distracted by my own thoughts, I only heard the sickening thud of my tires running over something rather than seeing what it was.
Panicked, I came to a screeching halt in the middle of Main Street, the car jolting so hard, I almost cracked my head on the steering wheel.
With my heart crashing against my ribs, tears began to form in the corners of my eyes before I even got out of the car. What if it was Mr. Walowitz’s sweet schnauzer, Murray, who was infamous for getting out of their fenced-in backyard? Or…
Sweet Pete—what if it was a person?
I couldn’t live with myself if I’d injured someone—anything.
Gulping hard, I bolted from the car and ran around the front end to see, to my horror, a leg, bloodied and bruised and poking out from under Lou-Lou’s tire.