A Crusty Murder (12 page)

He stood close, his arm around my shoulder as we watched the city lights flicker across the water. I admit it, I cared for Aidan more than I’d realized, but what good would come of it? I wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of woman. Romance was wonderful, but reality prevailed. I had no illusions concerning the Scot. Like so many men, he’d take whatever I gave. Then, when his business was finished here in the States, he’d return to Scotland with no regrets.

I mentioned it was late and there was work to be done when I got home. Aidan peered at me, his face bland, and said, “Are you good, lass? You seem to have lost your spirit.”

That could have meant many things, but I figured he realized the spell was broken and his charm had run its course. He was right. It had. I was left with an emptiness I thought I’d never feel, or maybe I’d read too much into his invitation. Aidan’s intention could have simply been to enjoy a meal and spend some time with one of the few people he knew in Rhode Island.

I drew a deep breath. “Not at all, I’ve enjoyed our evening. You’ve taken my mind off things that have taken over my life and skewed my perception. Thanks for that.” I smiled, tucked my hand in his, and listened to his soft laughter.

“Good enough. It’s been my pleasure.” Aidan drew me close, tipped my head back, and kissed me gently.

This time, I wasn’t swept away by the delightfulness of his touch. Instead, I enjoyed the moment and his attention.

We left the riverside and walked the cobbled sidewalk. I spoke of the States and how young America was compared to the rest of the world. We, as a nation were proud of our heritage and what it stood for. He smiled as I described how Rhode Island had come to be and how Roger Williams had played such a huge part in our independence.

We’d arrived at my shop by the time I’d finished my history lesson. Aidan had been attentive and asked valid questions as we strolled along Wickendon Street.

He took the shop keys from my hand and unlocked the door, opened it, and held it wide. I walked inside, switched the lights on, and stood in horror at the wreckage.

I glanced at Aidan and found him as shocked as I was. When I’d have rushed into the kitchen, he held me back and pulled me out the door onto the sidewalk.

“Better to call the police, lass,” Aidan whispered.

I nodded, pulled my phone from my purse, and punched in the police department’s emergency dispatch number I’d come to know by heart. A dispatcher answered, told me to stay on the line and said an officer would be at my location shortly. Doing as I was told, I waited, tapping my toe on the sidewalk. What was taking so long? Why weren’t the police here already? It hadn’t occurred to me there might be other crimes to handle, or that I’d only been waiting mere minutes.

Sirens and lights filled the street. Two officers parked their cruisers at the curb and approached.

“What’s happened?” The taller officer asked me.

“When I went inside, I found the shop ransacked and the glass cases were smashed. We stepped outside for fear the intruder was still here,” I answered. My voice wobbled, just as my knees did. I cleared my throat and drew a breath.

“You didn’t touch anything?” the man asked.

I shook my head and watched the two cops enter the store. One headed toward my kitchen while the other stood to the side of the swinging door and waited. Lights flicked on when he hit the switch before they entered the room.

The first officer turned and nodded to his partner. When they returned, the tall policeman beckoned me inside.

“There’s no one here. It’s safe for you to come in,” he said. “You’re the owner, am I right?”

“Yes, I am.” I turned toward Aidan and introduced him as my friend. “I live upstairs. Would you take a look and see if the intruder is up there?”

Both officers nodded and I showed them the way to my apartment. I waited by the staircase for their return. The kitchen resembled the shop. Disarray was rampant. Tables turned over, supplies littered the floors, and flour covered everything in a heavy white blanket. This act of vandalism hit me hard, stabbing me in the heart. I loved my job, my shop, but I felt violated.

The policemen shuffled down the steps and into the kitchen. The tall officer, who had introduced himself as Patrolman Sykes, said there had been no sign of intrusion upstairs. I breathed a sigh of relief.

A tap at the door caught our attention. Patrolman Sykes stepped forward, placed his hand on his holster, and pulled the door open. BettyJo stood outside in a silk nightgown and matching robe. Fluffy slippers, laden with huge gemstones, completed her attire.

She hurried inside with a shiver. “What the hell happened, Melina?” she asked, her eyes huge and her face shocked.

“As you can see, I’ve had a visitor while I was out with Aidan tonight.” I waved toward the shop and said, “The damage in there is extensive.”

Patrolman Sykes wrote notes for his report and said the rooms would be dusted for prints. He noted BettyJo’s entrance with a slight smile at her attire and glanced at his partner who smirked and turned away.

“The doors weren’t forced. Do you keep an extra key hidden somewhere?” Sykes asked.

“Never. It would be easy to break in, though. A credit card would do it. This is an old building. These doors aren’t set up for major safety. I’d told the landlady time and again, to no avail. She must have had an inspector in her pocket, because every time there was an inspection, there weren’t any violations filed. At least, none that I know of.” I shrugged and ran a hand across my forehead. Could things get any worse?

With a nod and a promise to have an officer here soon to check for prints, Sykes and his buddy left.

“You can’t stay here, lass,” Aidan murmured.

BettyJo stepped forward and laid her hand on my arm. “Aidan’s right, you’ll stay with me for the night.”

“I’m fine. I should be here when the fingerprint tech arrives. Besides, Sykes said nobody had been in my apartment. Thanks for your concern.” I squeezed BettyJo’s hands as tears threatened to overflow. I’d held them back, but my emotions were raw.

“I’ll stay, then, lass. You shouldn’t be alone,” Aidan insisted, a note of finality in his voice.

“Then I’ll stay, too,” BettyJo piped up.

“I’m going to change my clothes and think you should do the same, BettyJo. This place needs a good cleaning, starting with the mountains of flour.” I just wanted a few moments to myself, couldn’t anybody see that? My store had been totaled, my life was in shambles, and someone had it in for me, big time. I left the two of them standing in the kitchen and rushed up the stairs mixing white footprints with those left behind by the policemen.

Kicking my shoes off at the door, I ran into my living room, slumped on the sofa, and cried. Damn it all to hell, I’d never done a thing to bring this on. Why was I the victim of such foul deeds? I wiped my face and changed my clothes, sniffling all the while.

I wiped the floor of white footprints where the men’s shoes had tracked flour. I’d managed to clean the steps as I went back down. When I reached the kitchen, I found Aidan and BettyJo using snow shovels to scoop flour into trash bags. I chuckled at the sight of them covered in white dust. Flour is difficult to control. Cleaning it up isn’t a chore for the lighthearted. I pulled the Shop-Vac from the closet and began to suck the white powder from atop my work surfaces, the ovens, and my office.

A policeman, carrying a kit of sorts, arrived while we were hard at work. He added his measure of dust to the rest of the mess, pulled prints from wherever they surfaced, and then left without a word. I’d watched him work, his efficiency was impressive. Not even
Law & Order
, my favorite program, showed crime scene fingerprinting that was as good as his.

The sun had begun to rise, and the sky had turned a light shade of gray by the time we’d finished with the kitchen. Our clothes were dusty white. The room, clean as a whistle. Now we’d move on to the front room. I dreaded the thought of all the work, and cost it would take to replace what was no longer usable. I heaved a sigh, fought another onslaught of tears, and replaced my bereft feelings with anger over the intrusion.

“You need a break, Melina,” Aidan noted when I grumbled under my breath. “We all need one. I’ll make a pot of tea. BettyJo, you go get some breakfast, and we’ll have a rest.” He handed BettyJo some cash and sent her out the door. “You’ll need to call your insurance company, Melina,” Aidan advised me.

“I know. I’ll do it later. Thanks for staying. You didn’t have to, Aidan,” I said in acknowledgement of his helpfulness.

“I know that,” Aidan said with a grin. “It seemed the right thing to do. You might get in touch with Seanmhair and tell her not to show up today.”

I nodded and said, “I hadn’t thought of that.” I glanced at my watch. It was just after five. We’d been working for hours. “She doesn’t come in until seven, so I have time.”

BettyJo returned with a bag of bagels and containers of cream cheese. Aidan carried cups of Earl Grey tea to BettyJo’s Tingly Tarots reading room.

Subtle lighting gave the room a tranquil atmosphere, a perfect setting for the glowing globe in the center of the table. Its internal light made it appear as though a cloud swirled gently inside the orb. I shuddered and turned away from it. Why it gave me the willies, I couldn’t say. I’d never responded well to the crystal ball from the first time I’d set eyes on it. I supposed a psychiatrist would say I had a hidden memory attached to the thing. Frankly, I just didn’t like the spookiness of the globe’s appearance.

“Could you get rid of that thing?” I asked BettyJo as I pointed to the object.

She snickered, knowing full well I had an intense dislike of it. Lifting the globe from its perch, BettyJo clicked the button on the base to the off position. The light and cloudy swirl instantly disappeared. I breathed easier.

“Your aversion to this is weird,” BettyJo remarked as she set it back in place.

I shrugged. “It’s creepy. I know it’s a prop, but honestly, it’s spooky.” I munched a bagel and sipped some hot tea. My watch read nearly six. I put in a call to Seanmhair and told her the shop would be closed today.

“Why?” Seanmhair wanted to know.

I fiddled with my napkin, hesitating over how much to say. “There was an incident and the place now needs repairs and cleaning.”

“Repairs? What kind of repairs? What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.

“There was a break-in last night while I was out with Aidan. The cases were smashed and the kitchen was quite a mess.” I could hear her intake of breath and interrupted as she was about to start talking. “We’ve cleaned and organized the kitchen, but I still have the front room to deal with. Then I’ll check the equipment. I’d rather you stayed home or went out with your friends.”

“And I’d rather come in and help. If you are sure you can handle it, I’ll stay out of the way,” Seanmhair said. “Can I call the insurance company for you? Mr. Whithers will want to know what’s happened.”

“Splendid idea. You have his information, right?” I asked.

Seanmhair said she did and would get on the phone to Mr. Whithers immediately. She begged me to stay in touch and hung up.

We lingered over our tea, discussed the break-in, and then went back to work.

As we returned to work, I asked BettyJo if she’d heard any noise throughout the evening while I was out. She shook her head.

“After my clients left, I went out for a couple hours with Kristina,” BettyJo stated. “That was around nine. I didn’t get back until eleven or so.”

Aidan and I hadn’t arrived long after her, then.

I’d brought a large trash bin into the shop. BettyJo and I filled it with thick shards of counter glass. Aidan continually emptied it into the dumpster out back. It was arduous work. I thanked my stars I had two people who willingly gave their time to help me out. We’d gotten the room emptied and neatened when Detective Graham strode to the door and rattled the handle.

Once inside, Graham studied the room with his usual intensity. “Sorry about this, Melina. You must be upset.”

Aidan stood in the doorway, the trash bin in his hand. He left it on the floor and motioned BettyJo toward the other room. She went, albeit reluctantly. Her interest in what Graham had to say was plain by her eager expression.

We watched them disappear through the swinging door. Graham said he’d brought the results from the crime scene technician. He hesitated.

“Jack, are you going to tell me or let me wonder all day?”

He smirked, withdrew a single sheet of paper from his pocket, and read it over.

“There were too many smudged prints to make specific identification of everyone who’d been here. Although, Freddy found two sets of prints that were discernible and matched those in our database. A set belongs to one of your neighbors and the other to a person of interest.” He glanced at me, tipped his head to the side to see past mine, and then motioned for BettyJo and Aidan to join us.

“You may as well come in here,” Jack called. “You’ll only continue to listen at the door, anyway.” Jack chuckled and murmured, “They were peering through the round glass window in the door. Not too obvious.”

My trusty workers stumbled through the door and took a stance on either side of me. Aidan asked, “What are the findings?”

His eyes narrowed. Jack took in Aidan’s every detail in one glance. He looked at BettyJo, smiled and dipped his head, then told them both what the report contained.

“You have to be kidding, our neighbor? Which one? And who is the other person?” BettyJo asked.

A sudden burst of a siren sounded outside. Jack turned toward the front windows of the shop and waved the driver on. The police cruiser glided by. Jack’s attention turned to us. He said, “I’m not at liberty to say. One person we’re interested in is about to be taken to the station for questioning. We’re looking for the second person now. Any suspicious people been around in the last day or two?”

Like bobble dolls, the three of us shook our heads. I gave BettyJo a sideways look. When I glanced at Jack, he’d caught my reaction and stood staring, waiting for me to own up. To what? I hadn’t any idea.