50% Off Murder (Good Buy Girls) (21 page)

They all nodded, and Sam glanced around the room at each of them. Before he could detain them, however, they dashed out into the rain and Maggie shut the door behind them.

“Why do I have a really bad feeling about that?” he asked.

“I can’t imagine,” she said.

“You’re not taking this further than you should be, are you?” he asked.

“Meaning?” Maggie turned away and went back to the sun porch to start cleaning up. Perhaps if she stayed busy, he’d leave sooner.

Sam followed, placing his hat on a chair arm before helping her carry into the kitchen the dishes left behind by the mass exodus.

“You are not, I repeat not, supposed to go poking any further into the murder,” he said.

“Now why would you think I’d do that?” she asked. She opened the dishwasher and began to rinse and stack the dessert plates inside.

Sam looked at the lone piece of cobbler in the pie dish on the counter beside her.

“Go ahead,” she said. She handed him a clean plate and a fork but he only took the fork.

“No need to make more dishes for you,” he said as he tucked in.

“Gee, thanks,” Maggie said.

She shook her head as she continued with the dishes. She had forgotten what it was like to have a man in her kitchen. They took up too much room, she decided, and they ate too much. Honestly, she had no idea how Ginger put up with five of them under foot. The woman should be sainted.

“So, what did Claire say?” he asked.

“You know,” Maggie said, “technically you left before I agreed to tell you everything that she said.”

Sam paused while chewing and stared at her hard.

“I didn’t agree, we didn’t shake on it—in fact, we didn’t even pinky swear—so I think that makes your demand for full disclosure null and void,” Maggie said.

Sam very carefully put the pie plate on the counter. Maggie glanced into it to find it empty. She took it and the fork out of his hand, rinsed them and loaded them into the dishwasher, too.

“Maggie, if you don’t tell me what she said, I can’t help her,” he said. “Whatever bad feelings you have about me, you shouldn’t let them get in the way of helping your friend.”

“I don’t have any feelings about you, good or bad,” Maggie argued. “And I certainly wouldn’t let them get in the way of helping my friend.”

His gaze met hers. He looked like he didn’t believe her. He looked like he wanted to call her out on it, but he didn’t.

“Fine,” he said. “Then tell me what she said.”

“I can’t,” Maggie said. “I don’t know how it will affect things for her at the preliminary hearing, and until I do, I can’t just blab out what she told me.”

“You know, I could arrest you,” he said. “Obstruction of justice, impeding an investigation, etc. and so forth.”

Maggie felt her heart hammer in her chest. The thought of being arrested terrified her. Then she saw a tiny sparkle in his blue eyes, and she lost her temper and snapped her dish towel at him.

“But I gave you cobbler and cookies!”

He backed away from her, and a grin broke across his face. His voice was low, and he said, “You always take me by surprise Maggie O’Brien.”

They stared at each other for a moment until Maggie looked away.

“It’s Gerber now,” she said. Her voice was softer than she would have liked, but it was weird hearing her maiden name after all these years.

“That’s right,” he said. She glanced back at him and saw his smile fade like afternoon sunshine. “You married Charlie Gerber. I heard he was a good man.”

“He was,” she said.

They fell silent. Only the rain dripping off the roof in time with the kitchen clock broke the silence.

“Listen, Maggie,” he said. “I’m going to be honest.
I didn’t expect a murder my first week on the job. I’ve been away from St. Stanley for a long time, and I don’t know it like I used to.”

Maggie watched him. He looked as if the words were caught in his throat and he was forced to choke them out or suffocate.

“What are you trying to say?” she asked.

“Maggie, I need your help.”

Maggie raised her eyebrows. She lifted a hand to her ear and cupped it as if she were hard of hearing. “What was that? I couldn’t quite make it out.”

“You heard me.” He wasn’t smiling now, but his lips twitched.

“You’ll have to forgive me, it sounded like you need…”

“Help!” He reached out and grabbed the dish towel in her hand and pulled her close. He took the towel and dropped it on the counter and then laced his fingers between hers in a gesture as familiar as if he did it every day. “There. I need your help. Are you satisfied?”

Maggie glanced down at their hands. Her breathing felt oddly constricted, and she pulled her hand out of his, patted her upper chest and coughed.

“Okay, then, I’ll help you,” she said. She turned away from him and led the way back into the sun room.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Me? I’m fine,” she lied.

A pot of honey and an army of fire ants would not get her to admit that she’d about keeled over when he grabbed her hand. After twenty-something years, he shouldn’t have that sort of impact on her. Obviously, she needed to start dating again, and soon.

“It’s getting late, so let me tell you what I can,” she said. She gestured for him to sit and he did. She felt his blue gaze on her face, but she kept her eyes on the windows as if she was watching the storm as it meandered its way out of the valley.

She took a deep breath and told him what Ginger had discovered about Templeton’s business scheme to destroy and sell the local mom-and-pop shops. Sam took notes, asked intelligent questions and seemed pleased with the additional information.

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

“No, I think that’s it,” Maggie said. “If you want me to tell you what Claire told me, you’re going to have to subpoena it out of me. It is her life, and it just isn’t my place to say.”

She turned away from the window and met his eyes. He gave her a slow nod.

“I’ll let it go, for now,” he said. “Nice work on Templeton. Did you ever consider a career in law enforcement?”

“No,” she said. “When Charlie was killed, that pretty much curbed any enthusiasm I might have had for a career with the sheriff’s department.”

Sam nodded. He gave her an empathetic look. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“My partner was killed,” he said. “We were deep under-cover,
trying to bust up a drug ring. One of the suspects got twitchy and the next thing I knew we were in a full-on shootout. My partner was hit and died before they could get him airlifted to the hospital.”

“So, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Maggie didn’t talk about how Charlie had died. She didn’t need to. It was enough to know that Sam understood what she had gone through.

She wasn’t sure how, and she wasn’t sure that she liked it, but as she showed Sam to the door, she felt as if a truce had settled between them, at least for now.

Maggie took Josh to story time the next morning. The library had reopened, but it seemed odd without Claire there. They got to see Linda, who looked ready to drop that baby any second, and Freddy. And, of course, Josh very proudly showed his hand stamp to everyone he met.

The rest of the morning was spent on chores, baking a strawberry rhubarb pie and playing trains. The summer air after the storm was surprisingly cooler and drier, as if the storm had pulled the mugginess away with it. Maggie and Josh worked up quite a thirst weeding the garden—well, she weeded and Josh played with the worms—but still, it was a nice morning all the same.

When Sandy returned from her class, Maggie had lunch waiting and, afterward, she put Josh down for his nap so Sandy could hit the books. Once the house was quiet, Maggie decided to walk into town and treat herself to a coffee
at the Perk Up. She didn’t have a coupon, but she could get her first hole punch on her new card.

She changed from her muddy gardening outfit to a cotton sleeveless blouse and denim shorts. She glanced at her fair, freckled skin in the mirror and sighed. There was no hope for it; with the sun at its brightest, she was going to have to wear her ginormous sun hat and slather on the sunscreen.

She stopped by the office on her way out. Standing next to Sandy, she propped her hip on the desk.

Sandy had her own red hair twisted up onto the top of her head and held in place by several pencils. She was tapping an eraser on the page of her textbook, as if trying to commit it to memory with a Latin beat.

“I’m going to take a quick walk into town,” Maggie said. “Need anything?”

“Someone to tell me what the O antigen of Enterobacteriaceae is.”

Maggie looked around at the walls and then slowly backed out of the room.

“I think I hear Josh calling me,” she said. She covered her mouth and said in a high-pitched voice, “Aunt Maggie!” She lowered her hand and said, “Yep, that’s definitely him. Gotta go.”

Sandy started laughing. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to know my homework questions.”

“You know, you could always ask Dr. Franklin,” Maggie said. “He lives for that stuff.”

“I may have to put him on speed dial,” Sandy said.

Maggie walked back in and kissed the top of her niece’s head. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Aunt Maggie, can I ask you something?”

Something in her tone alerted Maggie that it wasn’t about microbiology.

“You can ask me anything, you know that,” she said.

“Is there something between you and Sheriff Collins?”

Maggie sucked in a breath.

Sandy shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. It’s just that he looks at you…”

“Like he wants to bite me?” Maggie asked.

“Yeah,” Sandy said and then grinned. “But not in a bad way.”

Maggie felt her face grow warm, but she shook her head. “Sam Collins and I have been at war since we were Josh’s age. I don’t see that ending anytime soon.”

“I don’t know,” Sandy said. “I think there’s more there, at least on his part.”

Maggie thought about the uneasy truce that had seemed to form between them and the way he had held her hand last night. Could he feel more for her than annoyance?

Nah. The man seemed to goad her every chance he got. If they were getting along right now, she was sure it was temporary.

“That man goes out of his way to aggravate me. I sincerely doubt he feels anything but irritation at my presence.”

“If you’re sure,” Sandy said.

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. She scooped up her hat as she headed out of the room.

Maggie locked the front door behind her and plopped her hat firmly on her head. Today was one of those days when it just felt wonderful to be alive. The sun was warm,
and the breeze was cool. The birds chirped in the trees as if they, too, were just happy to be.

She hopped down the steps onto the walkway that led to the sidewalk. She turned in the direction toward town and thought about how she was going to broach the subject of John Templeton with Gwen if she was at the shop instead of Jay. The woman had already made it clear that she hadn’t met him and was convinced that Claire had done the deed. If this thing went to trial, Maggie sure hoped Gwen wasn’t called up for jury duty.

She was lost in thought, and it took her a moment to register someone calling her name.

“Maggie! Maggie Gerber!”

She glanced around until she saw old Mrs. Shoemaker, two houses down, standing on her front porch waving at her.

Mrs. Shoemaker was ninety-one going on sixty. She was short and stout and favored floral-print house dresses and sensible black shoes that she wore laced up tight. Her gray hair was worn in a tight bun at the back of her head, and her pale blue eyes twinkled behind her silver-rimmed glasses. She moved quickly for a woman of her years, and she was off the porch and hurrying down the walk before Maggie had reached the gate in her white picket fence.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Shoemaker,” she said.

“Well, look at you, Maggie Gerber, aren’t you a pretty picture today,” Mrs. Shoemaker said.

“Why, thank you,” Maggie said. “You look lovely as always.”

Mrs. Shoemaker patted the bun on the back of her head.
“Mr. Shoemaker, God rest his soul, always liked my hair this way. He said it reminded him of Kate Hepburn.”

“He certainly had fine taste when it came to the ladies,” Maggie said.

“Oh, go on.” Mrs. Shoemaker waved a hand at her. When Maggie was silent, she said, “No, really, go on.”

Maggie laughed. She had always had a warm spot for Mildred Shoemaker.

“Morning, Mrs. Shoemaker, Maggie,” a voice called from behind them.

Maggie spun around to find Rich Hardaway approaching them from his mail truck.

“I have a package for you, Mrs. Shoemaker,” he said.

Mrs. Shoemaker clapped her hands together and took the small box from his hands.

“Mrs. Shoemaker,” Maggie said. “Did you buy more cookie cutters?”

“Just two,” Mrs. Shoemaker said. She clutched the package closer to her chest as if Maggie might take them away. “They’re vintage and very rare. I got them on eBay for two dollars.”

Maggie looked at the happy light in Mrs. Shoemaker’s eyes and didn’t have the heart to diminish her joy.