A Novel Death: a Danger Cove Bookshop Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 10) (9 page)

My allergies kept my eyes watering and my nose running well into the evening, but the next morning, my head was clear again, and I dragged myself to the bookstore, preparing for a busy weekend. I had a long list of things to do, but my mind was still preoccupied with the split second after I'd sneezed and the look on Adam's face when I'd told him I was allergic to him. Had it been disappointment? I liked to think it was, but I also felt rusty at opposite-sex social interaction.

Not that I didn't have experience flirting. It was just a little dated. I'd been with Hunter for more than three years. And it wasn't like I didn't have experience talking with men. I'd worked in a nearly all-male company in a male-dominated industry. But those were nerds. None of them made me feel little shivers of excitement in my stomach when they leaned in close.

Not even Hunter, I realized.

I shook myself out of my thoughts as I let myself into the bookstore, unlocking the front door. I'd been avoiding the back door. Too many bad memories. This weekend was going to be a busy one—the funeral was Sunday, and I'd originally thought that we should close down so everyone could attend. Burt had convinced me that it was too busy to do that, and he volunteered to work rather than go to Cal's service. There really was no love lost there.

I was still hoping to see the ghostwriter so I could confront him about what he was doing at the store and why he was lying to me, and I was pretty confident that Cal's funeral would be a good place to stalk Gibson Knox.

Katya and Burt were already behind the counter, their heads together looking at something on the tablet. I was immediately interested because Burt treated the tech upgrades as if they were made of holy water and he were a thousand-year-old vampire.

"Good morning, guys," I said, stopping at the counter instead of walking straight back to the break room. "What's going on?"

"Katya gathered up all the photographs she could find on the society pages—"

"Social media," she corrected.

"Yeah, that. And there's about a hundred photos of the book signing, from all different angles," Burt said. "And you just pinch it like this"—he enlarged a photo with two fingers, and the screen filled with Karen Dale's unhappy face—"and it enlarges the picture."

Katya gave me a crooked grin. "I thought it might be helpful to find out who was at the book signing so you know who to investigate."

I glanced over at Burt, but he was shrinking and enlarging photos and chuckling to himself at the clever technology and completely ignoring me.

"I'm not really investigating anyone," I said. "I just thought there might be something I could do to help the police wrap the case up faster. So we can get back to normal."

"Whatever you say," Katya said with a wink. "But you really should see something. Show her that one photo with the old woman, Burt."

Burt squinted through his reading glasses and then stumbled through the steps to find the photo library before pulling up the photo Katya wanted.

"Good job, Burt!" Katya said with an encouraging smile. "Here, Meri, look at this."

She pushed the tablet toward me and zoomed in on three women standing near a display of Cal's books. Two were familiar—Karen Dale and Cecilia Evers.

"That's Ms. Evers. She's one of the drama coaches at the high school," Katya said. "She's also Mr. Montague's niece."

"Yes, I heard," I said.

It was the third woman standing a bit behind them and to one side that I was focused on. She wasn't very tall, and her long gray hair was on the frizzy side. Her shapeless dark sweater covered much of a mushroom-colored dress that hit her midcalf. She carried a large black handbag on one arm and was staring intently at the two women in front of her.

"Who is that?" I asked.

Burt zoomed in on the woman's face. We all stared in silence at the tablet.

"I have never seen her before in my life," Burt said.

"Me either," Katya said. "But wait. It gets creepier."

Her fingers flew over the tablet's screen, and she brought up another shot from a different angle. Karen and Cecilia had moved and were still chatting and smiling, now near the podium where Cal never got a chance to read to the audience. And the gray-haired woman was still standing a few feet away, staring at them.

"Yeah, that's a little creepy," I said. "But the store isn't that big. Maybe she was waiting to talk with Cecilia Evers."

Burt shook his head. "I don't think so. There are a half-dozen photos of that woman, and in each one, she's staring at Cecilia Evers and that publicist lady like she's putting a curse on them."

Katya brought up the photos, and Burt was right. It did look like she was giving them the evil eye.

"Katya, can you send a couple of those photos to my email? I'll show them to Karen Dale and see if she knows who the woman is."

With a few taps on the screen, the photos were off into the ether and then landed in my inbox.

"If anyone at this event looks like a murderer, it's definitely that woman," Burt said.

"Thanks, Katya. I'll send these to the police department too," I said, taking the tablet with me back to the break room. I dropped my coat and purse off, then made a pot of coffee before Burt could commandeer the coffeemaker. He would just have to suffer through a medium-roast Sumatra blend.

While the coffee dripped into the pot, I flipped through the rest of the photos that Katya had gathered, bless her social-media-addicted heart. The gray-haired woman lurked in the background of several and always near the people who were connected to Cal, usually Cecilia but sometimes Karen. I also saw several more shots of Gibson Knox before Karen ran him off.

I sent an email to Detective Marshall to let him know about Katya's social media search, apologized for not returning his call yesterday, and then poured my coffee and returned to the front of the store with the tablet. The door was unlocked, the lights were on, and there were no customers yet, so I took my time with the photos. Katya joined me and looked over my shoulder.

"Wait, go back! Is that Mr. Montague?" she asked as I flipped past a crowd shot.

I went back to the photo, and she tapped the screen. Sure enough, way in the back was a slightly blurred image of Cal talking with a young man with dark hair. From the back, it sure looked a lot like Gibson Knox. And from the apparent waving of hands, it looked like they were arguing.

In the next picture, Cal was gone, and the man had turned around, and it was definitely the ghostwriter. I zoomed in, and the photo didn't improve, but I recognized the shirt and the blurred face enough. Then I shivered a bit because that was probably the last photo of Cal before he was shot.

"Katya, can you tell from this when it was taken?"

Burt walked over with the bundle of newspapers to put in the display rack and glanced at the screen. "Hey, I saw that guy this morning," he said.

"What? Where?" I asked.

He tilted his head and stared at the image. "He was walking over near the park. The end by the high school. I recognized the shirt."

I frowned and zoomed back out to try to get a better image of the shirt, but it looked like an orange logo on a dark-blue T-shirt.

"What is that?"

"The Seattle Aquarium logo. I took the grandkids there last summer, and we all got shirts. I have that same one."

"Are you sure it's the same guy and not just a guy wearing the same shirt?"

He nodded. "Yeah, messy brown hair, medium build. Early thirties. Carrying that same messenger bag."

"And you saw him this morning?"

"Yeah. Who is he?"

"His name is Gibson Knox. He was Cal's ghostwriter. And he may also have been the last person to talk to Cal before the shooting."

Burt let out a harsh laugh. "I knew it! I knew that idiot couldn't write his own name."

He swapped out the newspapers, still chuckling. I'd never seen him so happy.

"I'll keep looking for more photos online," Katya said.

"We need to talk with Gibson Knox," I said.

"Who is 'we'?" Katya asked, her brow furrowed.

"I guess it's just me," I said.

"You can't go alone," Katya said. "What if he murdered Cal Montague?"

"Well, I can't take a teenager," I said.

Burt stood up from the newspaper rack. "I'll come. And I'll bring my gun."

"What? No! No guns! Plus I don't know where he's staying," I said. "And I don't even know that he's dangerous. He lied about his name, which is suspicious, and he fought with Cal, which could be a motive. But that's not like real evidence."

Burt tilted his head, and his eyes narrowed. "Actually, that sounds like evidence."

I sighed. "Maybe I should call Detective Marshall and tell him about the argument."

Burt nodded. "Probably a good idea."

Katya shrugged and went back to the children's section to set out the new arrivals on a display table, and I found myself thinking of the street by the high school where Burt saw Gibson Knox.

The ghostwriter was still in town, but why? I figured he was probably waiting for the funeral. Since it was still slow, I slipped into the office and called Alicia.

"Katya found a whole bunch of photos online of the book signing," I said.

"Forget the murder. What's this I heard about you and Doc Whitaker?"

"What?"

"Susan Tippler saw him drop you off at your house, and she said it looked like he gave you a kiss good-bye."

"No! Oh my God. We weren't kissing. I was sneezing."

"Oh," she said and sounded so disappointed that I almost defended myself by explaining the whole story. But I didn't have time to get into that, and frankly, I was just happy that the rumor mill hadn't gotten wind of the real story.

"He had cat hair on his shirt. I had an allergy attack."

"While you were kissing?" Her voice took on a hopeful note, as if that would have been a better situation.

"There was no kissing!"

"Oh."

"Sorry to disappoint you. It wasn't like that. Pippa Montague's dog was in my yard, and I went with Adam to return him."

"That dog is a menace," Alicia said. "He gets into our pool all the time."

"Did you know that Pippa is planning Cal's funeral?"

Alicia made a gasping sound. I loved her enthusiasm for gossip. It matched my own.

"That's odd. I mean, she has a new husband. Well, newer, anyway."

"I didn't know she had remarried."

"She and William have been married for about ten years or so."

"Why didn't she take his name?"

"Maybe she didn't want to be Pippa Biggar."

That did sound like a character in a children's book. "I guess that's a good reason," I said. "Look, I just wanted to confirm that you're okay going to the funeral tomorrow. I think the ghostwriter is still in town, and I bet he'll be there."

"Oh, I'll be there," Alicia said with a resolve that made me smile.

"Great. I need to talk to Cecilia Evers too. Do you know her?"

"Not personally. None of my high schoolers are into drama. But ask Katya. I think she knows Ms. Evers," Alicia said. "Where is the ghostwriter staying? Have you tried to track him down at the B and B?"

I nearly smacked myself on the head. Of course he'd have to stay somewhere in town. And Danger Cove didn't have that many options. He could stay at a motel in one of the towns over, but if he was walking around, as Burt had said, then he was probably close.

I confirmed a time to meet Alicia before the funeral, then called over to the Ocean View Bed & Breakfast to try to reach Gibson Knox. It briefly crossed my mind that I should call the cops and just tell them about Gibson's apparent argument with Cal, but if he didn't do it, I didn't want to point the finger at an innocent man. Not that he was completely innocent, since he had lied to me about his name.

Unfortunately, the ghostwriter wasn't a guest at the B&B, so my half-assed plan to confront him was put on hold for now.

With no other plan of attack, I picked up the phone to call Detective Marshall. My gut filled with dread as I waited for him to answer, fully expecting him to ask me to come down to the police station so I could be booked for Cal's murder.

Instead, I got his voice mail again. At the sound of the tone, I let out a long relieved sigh that was probably recorded.

"Hi, Detective Marshall. It's me, uh, Meri Sinclair. Again. I'm sorry to bug you, again. But my employee Katya…you know, the teenager who works part-time…anyway, she found some photographs of the book signing, and there are some pictures of someone who might be arguing with Mr. Montague, and actually it's his ghostwriter. They had had a fight, and Mr. Montague fired him, so that guy may have some motive. And you should check the other photos I sent you, because there's a woman who might be staring at—"

I broke off midsentence, a tardy attempt to control my rambling. "Uh, I mean, she's not familiar, and she may be someone you want to talk to. Call me!"