Chapter 13

Things were quiet at the shop for the next hour, and I was beginning to wonder if there was any reason to stay open when the front door opened. When Kelly Madigan walked in, my spirits fell a little. After the confrontation I’d just had with her uncle, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her at the moment.

She approached me, her gaze downward. “Christy, I came by to apologize for being so snippy with you before.”

That was a surprise. “I appreciate that,” I said.

“Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll look around a little.”

“That’s fine. After all, that’s why we’re here.”

It wasn’t that funny, but Kelly managed to laugh too long and too loudly, and it made me wonder if there was something else on her mind. I started rearranging some of the jewelry in the display case when I happened to glance up just in time to see Kelly tucking a black beret into her purse. It was marked for sale at a dollar, and she was stealing from me! I fought the urge to confront her on the spot and pretended not to notice what she’d done. After a few minutes, Kelly approached me and smiled. “Nothing struck my fancy today, but who knows? I’ll be back tomorrow. See you.”

She was nearly out the door when I reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What are you talking about? I already apologized,” she said defensively.

“Yes, and I accepted it. What I refuse to accept, though, is someone stealing from me. I saw you take that beret, Kelly.”

If she’d been the one who had attacked Cora and Midnight, I was pretty confident that I’d see something now.

I braced myself for an attack, so I was quite surprised when she started crying. They weren’t soft and simpering tears either, but a deluge that nearly doubled her over.

“Get control of yourself,” I snapped. Was I going to have to slap her to get her to stop crying?

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I have a sickness. Call my uncle, he’ll tell you.”

The last thing I wanted was to invite Jim Hicks into my shop. “I think I’ll call the police instead,” I said.

That pushed her the rest of the way over the edge. Kelly collapsed on the floor, and I raced around to see if I could help her. Based on her reaction to our confrontation, I couldn’t imagine that she’d attack Cora or Midnight under any circumstances. The real question now was what was I going to do with her?

“Get up, Kelly,” I ordered. I gave it every ounce of command I could summon in my voice, and something in my tone hit home.

She stood, retrieved the beret, and then put it on the counter, along with a twenty-dollar bill. “Can I go now?” she asked as though she were a child asking permission to leave the table.

“Not quite,” I said, refusing to touch the beret or the money. “You can’t keep stealing, you know that, don’t you?”

“I try to fight it, but sometimes it’s too hard, especially when I’m so stressed out.”

“You’re going to have to figure out a better way to cope with it than shoplifting,” I said.

“Please don’t call the police. I’m begging you!”

I had my hand on the phone, but could I do it? She sounded so pathetic, but then again, she’d tried to steal from me, and as the shopkeeper, I couldn’t allow that. Then again, if I had her arrested for a beret that cost a dollar, what might that do to my business? Morally, I wanted to call the sheriff, but pragmatically, I didn’t really need the hassle of having her arrested in my shop over such a trivial amount. I finally came to a decision, and took the beret, but left the twenty.

“Go on. Take your money.”

She looked at me, trying to see if I was messing with her, but when she saw my expression, she took the money and raced for the door.

Before she could get there, though, I said, “You are not allowed to come back here, and I mean ever. If you step across that threshold again, I’ll call the police and have you arrested. Do you understand me?”

Kelly looked shocked by the banishment. “You can’t do that!”

“You bet I can,” I said.

“You don’t even have any proof that I took anything,” Kelly said, her voice a bit cloying as she spoke.

“You must not have seen my new security camera,” I said as I pointed to the ceiling. She looked up, and I could see her shake her head in disbelief. I smiled at her, but there was no warmth in it. “Oh, yes.” Had I remembered to even turn it on this morning? I wasn’t sure, but then again, as far as Kelly was concerned, her theft had been captured there.

She left the shop without another word. I was having second thoughts about just letting her go like that, but maybe my punishment had been more severe than what the police would have done over a dollar item. In my view, stealing was stealing, but this was the best compromise I’d been able to come up with. One thing was fairly certain. Kelly wasn’t a killer, at least not according to what I’d seen earlier. I felt confident taking her off our list. I had a hunch she’d been upset about the necklace I was now wearing because she’d lost her opportunity to steal it for herself. If she wouldn’t pay a single dollar for a cheap beret, she wasn’t about to fork over a few hundred for a necklace.

Thinking of the necklace made me suddenly realize that there might be a way to eliminate or highlight another one of our suspects. I decided to phone David Whitman and see just how desperate he was to get it back.

“Mr. Whitman, this is Christy from Memories and Dreams.”

“Who? Oh, the girl I spoke to before. What can I do for you?”

“I’m calling about the necklace your mother sold us,” I said. “I’ve been able to track it down, and the buyer is willing to sell it back to you for what she paid for it.” Of course I was lying through my teeth, but David Whitman had no way of knowing that. If he was agreeable, I’d broker a deal without taking a profit, and then I’d see if I could pick something a lot less volatile, with Lincoln’s permission.

“Thank you, but after speaking with my mother, we’ve decided not to pursue it,” he said.

I hadn’t been sure what kind of reaction I’d get from my offer, but I certainly hadn’t been expecting that. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“I’m positive,” he said. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I’m late for a meeting.”

“That’s it,” I said.

After we hung up, I tried to figure out why he’d changed his mind so abruptly. And then one scenario came unwillingly to mind. What if David Whitman was going to report that the necklace in question had been stolen, and not sold? It was outright fraud, there was no doubt about that, but I couldn’t prove anything unless the insurance adjuster came to me and asked about the necklace, and that wasn’t going to happen. They wouldn’t even know that Cora had bought it. What was wrong with these people? I suddenly didn’t want to have anything to do with the necklace anymore, even if Lincoln wouldn’t allow me to change my mind. It had bad karma as far as I was concerned, and I didn’t want to wear it a minute longer. I took it off, and as I did, the phone rang.

“Hello?” I asked as I put it in the display case.

“It’s David Whitman. I’ve changed my mind. How much are you asking for it?”

What was going on here? I decided to push things a little to see what he’d say. “You’re going to have to double the original hundred we paid for it,” I said.

“That’s quite a markup,” Whitman said. “Do you have any wiggle room on that price?”

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“I’ll give you a hundred and fifty, but I don’t want a receipt. In fact, I insist on it.”

“I’m sorry, but we are required by law to keep track of the used jewelry we sell. The records go to the police at the end of every month so they can check their records against insurance claims that are made.” This too was a lie, but I was dying to see what David Whitman thought of this new development.

After a long hesitation, he said, “But this isn’t being sold; it’s being returned to its original owner. How about if we double it and make it three hundred if you forget to file the paperwork? Does that interest you?”

“Not one little bit,” I said. “Besides, we never agreed on one-fifty. My price was and is two hundred dollars, and I’m giving you a huge break as it is.”

“Are you actually going to try to hold me up for more?” he asked.

“No, that’s not it at all. I just don’t want to take a loss on this.” What was next? I wondered.

“Okay,” he said with some resignation in his voice. “You drive a hard bargain. Two hundred, and you file all of the reports you want to. I’ll be down this afternoon to pick it up. I trust it will be there.”

“It sure will, but you need to bring cash with you,” I said, remembering what I had heard about his money problems.

“That’s an odd request, isn’t it?” he asked. “Do you make all of your customers pay you in cash?”

“Call me quirky, but it’s the only way you’re getting the necklace back. I’ve got to pay my buyer today, and I won’t make her wait for the money until your check clears.”

“Fine,” he said, and then he hung up on me before I could say anything else.

While the shop would make a tidy profit on the sale, it could have been a great deal more, but I drew the line at extorting too much cash from our customers, no matter how sleazy they seemed to be to me.

I was losing faith in David Whitman as a suspect. He might have money problems, but I doubted the necklace would come anywhere close to solving them, not if what Cora had written about him was true. While I couldn’t take his name off the list entirely, it did make me wonder if I was following a bad lead by pursuing him as one of my suspects.

When the front door opened next, I expected to see David Whitman come in. Instead, it was Jim Hicks, and there were too many ways that I wasn’t happy about his presence in my shop than I could count.

I was about to snap when I noticed his smile. It was the first real one I’d seen since I’d met the man. What did he have to be so happy about all of a sudden? “What can I do for you?” I asked him.

“Actually, I came to thank you. I just spoke to Kelly. Thank you for not calling the police. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“I’ll be honest with you; I’m having second thoughts. She stole from me, plain and simple. How have you managed to keep her out of jail this long?”

“Many of the shop owners have been very understanding in the past,” he said. “She’s getting much better, if it’s any consolation.”

“Well, it’s nice. I suppose you’d like me to lift my ban of her from this store.”

I was about to give him all of the reasons that I wouldn’t change my mind when he surprised me. “That was a stroke of brilliance. I don’t know what you said to her, but she’s terrified that she’ll never be able to come back. It might just prove to be enough to allow her to stop once and forever. She used to be a fine, upstanding young girl, and then her parents died in a horrible car accident. She came to live with me when she was nine, and the poor kid has been scarred for life by the trauma of losing them both so suddenly.”

“Have you tried to get her help?” I asked. I hadn’t realized what she’d been through, but at least in my mind, that still didn’t excuse her thefts.

“We’re still looking for the right answer for her,” he said. “But I believe that we are finally getting close. She’s been good for months. I don’t know what triggered her today, but she assures me that it won’t happen again.”

“Well, I can guarantee that it won’t, at least not here. I can’t afford to have my merchandise keep disappearing.”

“About that,” Jim said as he pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet. “This should more than make up for the trouble.”

“I wouldn’t take Kelly’s twenty, and I’m not going to accept your hundred, either. What’s she going to learn if you keep buying her out of trouble?” I was lecturing the man, and I hated the sound of my voice as I did, but somebody had to say these things to him, no matter how hard it was for all of the parties involved.

“Fair enough,” he said as he tucked the bill back into his wallet. “May I at least buy the beret in question?”

“I’m not exactly sure that’s the right signal, either, are you?”

“I want it as a reminder to her that she can’t just steal things when she’s feeling frustrated or alone. It’s a valuable lesson, don’t you think?”

“I do. In fact,” I said, “let the beret be my gift to you both. A dollar profit is worth losing if it helps her straighten herself out.”

“I can’t accept this,” he said as I put the hat in a bag and handed it to him.

“Don’t make me call the police,” I said, adding a grin so he could see that I was just teasing.

“We don’t want that,” he said as he took it from me. “Thank you for your understanding, and your compassion.”

“It’s just a dollar,” I said, uneasy with his praise.

“It means a great deal more than that to us,” he said. “I won’t be bothering you any more about selling this place. You’ve at least earned that from me today.”

“Then I’m the one who’s coming out ahead,” I said.

“What’s that?” Jim asked as he looked at the counter. I’d shoved Cora’s notebook under a bag, and when I’d given the hat to him, the journal was suddenly exposed.

I put it under the counter as I said, “It’s just some of my musings.”

“I didn’t know that you were a writer,” Jim said with a smile.

“I’m not. At least not yet. Someday, maybe.”

“I’m certain of it,” he said. Holding the bagged hat aloft, he said, “Thank you again for your kindness.”

“She deserved one warning, but that’s all that she’s going to get from me,” I said.

“I’m sure that will be sufficient,” he said, and then the real estate agent pulled out a sales flyer and folded it in half. After jotting something down, he handed it to me. “This is my cell number. I owe you one, so if there’s anything I can do for you, call me.”

“Thanks, but I can’t imagine the circumstances.”

“Still, you’ve got it if you need it,” he said, and then Jim Hicks left the shop. I put the flyer on the counter and promptly forgot all about it.

Lincoln came in ten seconds later. “I’m here to take you to lunch,” he said. “Hey, was that who I thought it was leaving your shop just now? Jim Hicks isn’t still pestering you about selling this place to him, is he?”

“No. As a matter of fact, he told me that he’s asked for the last time.”

“And do you believe him?” Lincoln asked.

“Where there’s life, there’s hope.” That’s when the other shoe dropped about Lincoln’s appearance. “You’re here for lunch.”

“Is that a question, or a statement?” he asked.

“I can’t. I’m so sorry, but there’s no way I can leave the shop. Is that okay?”

“It’s fine,” he said, and then Lincoln headed for the door.

“That doesn’t mean that you have to just rush off,” I said. Had I hurt his feelings with my rejection?

Lincoln just smiled as he walked away. I’d blown it now. Just when things were starting to look promising, I’d run him off. I was sad to admit to myself that it wasn’t the first time, and I was fairly sure that it wouldn’t be the last, either. Oh, well. Such was the life of a single shopkeeper.

I had to eat something, though. I started to make a sign that I could put in the window that said I’d be gone for ten minutes when Lincoln surprised me by coming back in, this time holding a large brown bag in his hands. “If you can’t go to lunch, then lunch will come to you,” he said with a smile.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said with a smile. What was I smelling, Celeste’s French fries? I could feel myself drooling at the very thought of them.

“I didn’t have to,” Lincoln said. “I wanted to. Where shall we dine?”

“How about back here behind the counter?” I asked. “Is that okay with you?”

“I’ll go wherever you’d like me to,” he said. “Now, what say we start our little feast before we’re interrupted?”

“I think that’s a marvelous plan. What are we having?” I asked as I peeked into the bag.

“Two hamburgers, two fries, and two sodas,” he said as he started withdrawing food from the bag. “Do those selections meet with your approval?”

“More than you could ever know. I’m starving,” I said as I reached greedily for one of the burgers.

“I managed to work up quite an appetite myself,” Lincoln said.

“How was court this morning?” I asked, and then I took a bite my mother would have never approved of. Well, she wasn’t around to critique my eating habits, so I was going to eat as it pleased me.

“My client was a complete and total boob,” Lincoln said. “He got caught robbing a convenience store, and then, to make matters worse, he tried to steal the police cruiser they placed him in upon his arrest.”

“How did he manage that?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

“One of the officers failed to secure his door properly, so while their backs were turned, he calmly got out, walked around to the driver’s door, and got in.”

“How far did he get?” I asked, this time failing to conceal my laughter.

“Not a foot. It turns out that he doesn’t know how to drive.”

“Why didn’t he just run away, if they weren’t paying any attention to him?” I asked.

“The very question I asked him myself. He claimed that they were trying to entrap him, so he wanted to show the world just how devious the police are.”

“What happened to him?”

“He’ll be out on bail in a few days, but after that, he’s on his own. I was filling in for a colleague, so after this, they’re both on their own.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” I said as I took another healthy bite of my burger. “It’s good to have a guy like you around.”

Lincoln’s back stiffened, and I wondered what I’d said. “Hey, that was a compliment, in case you didn’t know.”

“Christy, you sounded as though the next words that were going to come out of your mouth was what a good friend I am.”

I’d been close. “What would be so bad about that?”

“Pardon me for saying so, but I have enough friends, thank you very much. I like you, and not in a way that could be misconstrued as friendship. Let me say it simply, and boldly. I have a romantic interest in dating you, and if things go well, I may even try to woo you. Would you be opposed to that?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t been wooed in a long time,” I said.

“Are you making fun of me?” he asked with carefully chosen words.

“No, I think it’s kind of sweet, to be honest with you. Okay, go ahead. Woo me. Let’s see where it goes.”

“First we try a date or two, and then I’ll decide if there’s any wooing in our future.” He said it with a grin, and I responded in kind.

“We’ll try a few dates, then, but you be sure to tell me if we advance to the wooing stage.”

“Oh, believe me, you’ll know.” He stood, and then cleaned up the bags. “Where should I put these?”

“There’s a trash can in back,” I said. “But just leave it. I can take care of it later.”

“I respectfully decline your offer,” he said. Sometimes talking to him was like a trip back in time, but in all honestly, I kind of liked it.

He was gone ten seconds when my phone rang. I was about to let it go to voice mail when I saw that it was Trudy from the library.

“Hey, Trudy. Give me one second, would you?”

“I can give you three, if you need them,” she said with a laugh.

I walked into the back as Lincoln was walking back in, and we nearly collided in the doorway. For one second, he had his arms around me to keep me from falling, and I had to admit that I didn’t mind it, not one bit. “I’m so sorry, but I have a call I need to take.”

“I understand,” he said. “Are you busy tonight?”

“I’m not sure yet. May I call you?”

“I’ll wait, but not forever,” he said with a grin.

After he was gone, I could still smell traces of his cologne in the air. Snapping myself out of it, I put my phone back to my ear and said, “Sorry about that. Someone was here.”

“Someone tall, dark, and handsome, I hope?” she asked.

“I suppose you could say that. How’s the search been going?”

Trudy laughed. “So, that’s all of the details I’m getting out of you. Is that right?”

“Pretty much,” I agreed.

“I understand,” she said. “I just called to tell you that Professor Jenkins has an unshakable alibi, so he needs to be taken off your list.”

“I’d love to hear what it is,” I said.

“On that fateful day, he was at a conference on the west coast. I called a few places to confirm it, and it’s true.”

“Trudy, did you come right out and ask him for his alibi?” The woman had more moxie than I did, that was for sure.

“Of course not. I spoke to a secretary at the college, and she told me. We took a class together in continuing education once.”

“Dare I ask what the subject was?”

“We were both getting our scuba diving certifications, as a matter of fact,” Trudy said. “Wendy was going on vacation to the Bahamas.”

“How about you?”

“It just sounded like fun to me,” she said. The woman had levels that I was just discovering, and the deeper I dug, the more I liked her.

“Do you trust her?”

“I do, but that’s not an issue. I went online and downloaded his lecture. It was time and date stamped, so there’s no discussion. He’s in the clear.”

“Thank you so much,” I said. “You should get a merit badge in detection.”

“I’m a librarian. What makes you think that I don’t already have one?” she asked me. “I’ve got to run. I have a few more feelers out, so sit tight. We’ll have this thing solved in no time.”

“I have a hunch that the police don’t know what a valuable asset they are missing out on,” I said.

“Oh, they know,” she said, and I could hear the grin in her voice as she said it.