12
“Excuse me. Sorry.”
I adjusted my hold on my bags and turned so the young couple could pass. Despite wearing heavy gloves, they were holding hands and were reluctant to let go of one another. There was a murmured apology, a “Thanks,” and then they were gone, walking down the freezing sidewalk, still hand in hand.
I also continued on my way, but without the hand holding. I’d gone a smidge overboard during my shopping trip, but after all the negativity swirling around Pine Hills thanks to the murder, I needed to focus on something happy. My tree at home was already crammed full of gifts underneath, so I’d have to come up with somewhere else to put my most recent purchases, including the pack of new catnip-filled toys for Misfit. If I left them anywhere his nose could find them, they wouldn’t last an hour.
The tips of my ears were burning from the cold, as was my nose, so all I wanted to do was get back to my car, dump my purchases inside, and then grab a steaming hot cup of coffee from Death by Coffee before heading home to deal with my plethora of gifts.
But that plan was derailed the moment I started to walk past Andrew’s Gifts and saw movement inside.
Erin Carver was standing at the counter, back to me, shoulders hunched. She was making subtle movements, but from my angle, I couldn’t tell if she was working on something or if she was crying.
No one else was in the store, which was no surprise, considering. The lights were off, meaning Erin was standing in gloom.
Then, as if she’d sensed me watching, she abruptly turned. Her eyes were dry and she was holding some sort of package in her hand that reminded me of the older version of the army ration bags; MREs, I think they’re called. She set the dark brown, thick plastic bag aside, smoothed down her hair, and then approached and opened the door.
“Come in before you freeze to death,” she said, stepping aside.
“Thanks.” I entered and set my purchases down on the floor before flexing my stiff fingers. The blood rushed back into them, making them tingle. “They should make bags more finger friendly. I swear they’re designed to cut your circulation clean off.”
Erin managed a wan smile before she returned to the counter. She picked up the brown bag, considered it, and then rounded the counter to place it on a shelf underneath.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said. “This was Andrew’s haven. I don’t even know what’s going to happen to this place or everything in it now that he’s gone. Knowing my luck, I’m going to be on the hook for it all.”
“He didn’t leave a will?”
“He did, but the business wasn’t specified in it. And the details are . . .” She frowned. “Hazy is the best word I can come up with.” She glanced down at where she’d placed the brown package. “All of this was a part of Andrew’s life that I wasn’t much interested in. I wish I would have paid better attention or asked him some questions, but how was I supposed to know someone was going to kill him?”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I took a moment to glance around at the items on the shelves. Everything was priced higher than what was standard, though I wasn’t an expert. I had no idea how Erin was going to sell everything, or if she’d even be allowed to. I assumed that since she was Andrew’s wife, it would all pass down to her and she could choose to do with it as she pleased, but I couldn’t be sure.
I picked up a nearby board game, and on a whim, carried it to the counter.
“It might not help much, but if you’re willing to sell it, I have someone I could give this to.”
Erin took the board game and stared down at it for so long, I was worried she might reject the sale. She ran a hand over the top of it, almost lovingly. It was as if the game reminded her of Andrew somehow, and she was reliving a happy memory.
Finally, she took a shuddering breath and carried the game to the register. She rang it up and I paid without a word. Erin bagged the game—a gift for Yolanda and her board game group—and handed it over.
“Thank you for that,” she said.
“It’s not much.”
“No, but it’s more than you owe me.” She sniffed and rounded the counter. She walked past me, down an aisle full of name-brand toys. She touched each item as if it held some personal significance, much like she had with the board game.
I followed her, building up the nerve to ask her questions about her husband. Erin was hurting, that much was clear. But was she upset because Andrew was dead and she was left with his store with no idea what to do with it? Or was there something more to it? Could she be suffering from something he did to her? Something she did to him?
There was only one way to find out.
“I talked to the Komphs,” I said. “Or, at least, to Lee.”
Erin’s step faltered, though she didn’t turn around. “I see.”
“He seems very angry.”
Erin laughed. There was no amusement in the sound. “That, he is.”
“How well do you know him?” I asked. “Or his wife, Agnes?”
She ran a hand along a shelf before flicking a hanging price tag and turning toward me. “Okay.”
I waited for more, but nothing else appeared forthcoming. “Okay?”
“I know Lee and Agnes Komph a little better than I might have let on the last time you were here.”
She thinks I know something. But what? I decided to play it carefully, letting her continue to make assumptions and hope that she let something slip. “Lee got upset when I brought up Andrew. He insisted Agnes had nothing to do with your husband. We both know that’s not true.”
Erin dropped her eyes and started worrying at her hands. “No, it’s not.”
“But they did fight?” At her questioning look, I added, “Agnes and Andrew. You told me you saw them arguing.”
“Among other things.” Her jaw quivered. In anger? Or sadness? I couldn’t tell. “And not just here. I . . . he . . .” She took a deep breath and let it out in a soul-rattling sigh. “Agnes and I were once in a group together.”
“The one run by Doris Appleton?”
Surprise flashed across Erin’s face before she nodded. “It started out innocent enough, but Doris . . .” She frowned. “She grew too fervent in her faith. She chose a very strict path and if anyone in her circle strayed from that path, she rejected them. There was no room for growth, for other opinions.”
That definitely sounded like the Doris I knew.
“Things got so bad that if you even ate something Doris didn’t approve of, she’d call you out on it in front of everyone. She’d make it seem like you did it to spite her, to spit in the face of her faith, just because you craved an unapproved alcohol. So, I left.” Erin shrugged it off like it was no big deal. “Agnes didn’t like that one bit. She accused me of betraying my faith, which was ridiculous. I think Doris put the thought into her head and Agnes ran with it.”
“Was Andrew a part of the group?”
Erin grunted a laugh. “Not hardly. He wasn’t a man of much faith, not unless you counted money. That, he believed in wholeheartedly.”
“I bet that didn’t go over very well with Doris.”
“She didn’t like it, no. But her group . . .” Erin frowned, seemed at a loss as what to say. “She prefers surrounding herself with likeminded women. Men, she says, sway with the wind and can’t be trusted to stick to the righteous path, even with the guidance of a good woman. I was expected to keep Andrew in line to the best of my ability, and if he strayed, did something that angered Doris, it was my fault.” A pause. “My failure.”
Interesting. Doris obviously didn’t like how Andrew was exploiting Christmas for profit; she said as much at the church. She’d even made it sound like she didn’t even know Andrew, which struck me as strange. Could she have been trying to distance herself from him? Make it appear as if she didn’t know him so that when he died, she could claim she had nothing to do with it?
I wasn’t so sure how she thought that might work considering those around her knew Erin was once a part of the group, as did Erin herself. But if they were all afraid of becoming outcasts, then perhaps she expected them to fall in line and pretend right along with her.
But if that was the case, and Andrew’s murder had to do with his lifestyle, why target Jules?
Why target me?
“I saw Agnes with Andrew.”
I blinked, thrown off by the abrupt shift. “Excuse me?”
“Together.” Erin wiped at her eyes, which were blinking nearly nonstop now. “I’m not talking about that time I mentioned before where I’d seen them here in the store, but a few days before that. And it wasn’t here. It was at home.” She swallowed so hard, I actually heard it. “At my house.”
“Were they . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but Erin understood my meaning.
“Not when I saw them.” A tear slid down her cheek, fell from her chin. “I was visiting my sister in Levington, or well, I was supposed to be. I got halfway there when she called and told me that she had to cancel because her husband broke his arm at work and they were stuck in the waiting room. Can you believe it took three hours before a doctor saw him?”
“That’s awful.” It made me happy that I lived in a small town like Pine Hills where it was far easier to get in to see a doctor. We might not have hospital-quality facilities, but they could set a broken arm in a timely manner.
“Since I was already out, I went ahead and stopped by the Banyon Tree for lunch. If I hadn’t done that, I might have caught them doing more than talking. She must have showed up the moment I was out of the house because I wasn’t gone all that long before I went home and . . .”
“And saw Andrew with Agnes.”
She nodded. “They were in the living room when I got there. I could see them through the window. They were so wrapped up in whatever they were talking about, they didn’t hear me pull into the driveway. They were standing close and Andrew had his hand on Agnes’s shoulder. Their noses were practically touching.”
“Do you have any idea what they were saying?”
Erin shook her head. “I couldn’t hear them and I never asked Andrew about it. I couldn’t bear to think . . .” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “If something was happening between them, I didn’t want to know. I thought maybe Agnes was trying to get back at me, or that she was attempting to convince Andrew to talk me into coming back to the group.” She closed her eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know what I thought. I want to blame her so badly, but what if Andrew was the one who called her over?”
I was about to ask her point blank if she suspected Andrew and Agnes of sleeping together when my phone rang.
“Go ahead and answer that,” Erin said. “I need a minute.” She turned and walked to the back of the room, leaving me free to answer the call.
A quick look at the screen showed me a Californian number, but no name. I answered with a tentative “Hello?”
“Hey, Krissy, it’s Valerie.”
Confused, I replied with a simple, “Valerie?”
“Kemp. You remember me.”
Oh, yeah, did I. Valerie had been an absolute terror for me growing up. To this day, I still thought of her as my personal bully despite us living so far apart. Lately, she kept popping up in my life in odd places. At a coffee convention. Outside of Death by Coffee. And now, on the phone.
I wouldn’t say these recent interactions were completely unpleasant, but they weren’t something I looked forward to.
“I remember,” I said, trying to keep the distaste out of my voice. “What can I do for you, Valerie?”
“Oh, not much. But I do I have a quick question for you if you can take a moment from . . . whatever it is you do.”
I ground my teeth together to keep from saying something snarky. Valerie knew what I did for a living. This was the pettiness I’d come to loathe.
Across the room, Erin appeared to have composed herself and was pulling on her coat as if preparing to leave.
“Look Valerie, this isn’t the best time right now, so if you—”
“How much are you paying your employees?” she asked, completely ignoring my dismissal.
“What?”
“How much money are you paying them?” Spoken slowly. “I was thinking minimum wage, but isn’t there some way you can pay them less than that? Like, they take tips or something and you can get away with less?”
My mouth opened and closed, yet I couldn’t come up with anything to say other than, “Why?”
“Because employees need to be paid?” I could visualize the massive eyeroll.
“No, but why do you want to know?”
“It’s part of my research. You remember, right?”
“I remember you taking pictures of my store.”
“Right. So, I could make plans of my own. You know, improve on . . .” She didn’t finish the thought, which saved her from having me hang up on her.
“I’m not going to get into the details of what Vicki and I pay our employees,” I said. Erin was bundled up and motioned toward the door. I nodded and waved a finger at her: One minute. “I’ve got to go, Valerie. Perhaps—”
“Just a hint? I need a baseline here. It’s not like I’m asking you for their checking accounts or anything.”
I really should have hung up on her right then and there. I owed Valerie Kemp nothing, but I also didn’t like being rude if I could help it. “They get more than minimum. I really do—”
“More?” Valerie sounded scandalized. “How could you pay them more? They’re not doing anything but serving coffee!”
I so didn’t want to get into this with her right then. Or ever. “They earn it,” I said. “And if you want your employees to stick around, you’ll need to understand that they do more for you than just serve coffee.”
“But—”
It was my turn to cut her off. “I’ve really got to go, Valerie.” And then I clicked off with only a slight pang of guilt. “Sorry,” I told Erin. “Old acquaintance.”
“I understand.” She stepped up to the door. “I’m sorry, but I have something I need to do.”
“Yeah, no problem. I don’t want to keep you.” I gathered my bags, including the board game I’d just purchased, and waddled to the door. Erin held it open for me, followed me out, and then locked it securely behind us.
“Take care,” she said before hurrying to her car. She climbed in and sped off like she was fleeing the scene of a crime.
Which, I supposed, she was.
Still, I watched her go with a sense of trepidation. Something about how she’d rushed off didn’t sit right with me. Our conversation had been upsetting; I got that. But why flee like she was afraid I might call the cops? Was Erin worried that she’d revealed too much?
If she caught Agnes with Andrew and thought they were sleeping together, she very well could have killed him for it.
Or told Lee. An angry man like that might act before he thought about the consequences of his actions.
But even if Lee or Erin killed Andrew for sleeping with Lee’s wife, how did Jules play into it? How did I? Or Jacob? I needed to talk to Jules again, see if he knew anything about the Komphs or Carvers that would make them want to hurt him.