Bookplate Special (11 page)

It was
after five when the phone rang. Since Ginny was at the counter, she picked up the telephone. Tricia looked up from her position at the coffee station. She was proud of that phone, a relic from another age. She liked to imagine that Harriet Vane used the same kind of instrument to talk to Lord Peter Wimsey. The look of distaste on Ginny’s face, however, gave Tricia pause. Ginny laid the receiver on her chest to muffle the mouthpiece. “It’s Angelica. Does she have to remind everyone she talks to that she’s”—she dropped her voice to a whine—“
about to be published
, and then give the daily countdown?”

Tricia flipped off the switch on the coffeemaker, removed the filter and grounds, and dumped them in the wastebasket before heading for the register and the phone. She took the receiver, which Ginny held out as if it had cooties. “Hey, Ange, what’s up?”

“I need your help,” Angelica said, her voice filled with drama. “Jake has taken off again, and I’ve got no one to help me, and—”

“Ange, I have a store to run—”

“Then can you loan me Ginny or Mr. Everett?”

“Mr. Everett has the afternoon off.”

“Again?” Angelica wailed.

“What do you need?” Tricia asked.

“I’ve got the kitchen back in shape for tomorrow’s lunch crowd, but I need help bringing my garbage over to the Cookery. Captain Baker took one of my garbage carts, and the other one is overflowing. I’ve got bags of trash I have to dump somewhere. I may even need to put some in your Dumpster. Will you help me, please?”

The last thing Tricia wanted to do was soil her pretty peach sweater set, but she couldn’t very well ask Ginny to ruin her clothes, either.

“I can give you ten minutes. No more.”

“That’s all I need. Now get over here, will you? I’ve got paperwork to finish over at the Cookery. Why I ever thought I could run two businesses at the same time . . .”

Tricia hung up the phone and shifted her gaze to her employee. Ginny didn’t look pleased.

“I’ve got to help Angelica with her trash problem,” she said, and forced a smile. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”

Ginny folded her arms across her chest, but made no comment.

Tricia headed for the door without a backward glance. Why should she feel guilty? After all, they weren’t exactly inundated with customers, and Angelica was her sister. She was short-staffed and—

Why was she making excuses—if only to herself?

She crossed the street and found Angelica had piled several black plastic trash bags outside the door to Booked for Lunch, and was already locking the door for the day.

Tricia came to a halt at the edge of the pavement. “You needed help for four bags? Couldn’t you just make a couple of trips across the street by yourself?”

Angelica turned hard eyes on her sister. “Don’t start with me. I’ve had a rough day. You should wait on eighty-seven customers while wearing heels and no one to do food prep.”

“For heaven’s sake, buy some sensible shoes.”

“I don’t have time to buy new shoes. I don’t have time to scratch my—”

Tricia held up a hand to stave off the rest of that statement. “Never mind. I’ll grab two of these bags. You get the others.”

“Be careful, they’re heavy,” Angelica warned.

Tricia grabbed the first bag and nearly staggered under its weight. “What have you got in here? Lead?”

“I told you they were heavy. It’s paper, mostly. Napkins, milk shake cups, et cetera. And food waste.”

Tricia picked up the other bag, holding it at arm’s length, her muscles straining under the load. “Let’s hurry up. I’ve got my own end-of-day chores to do at Haven’t Got a Clue.”

The sisters hefted their bags, waited for a minivan to pass, and staggered across the street.

“Do we have to walk around the block to get to your Dumpster?” Tricia asked.

“It’s too far,” Angelica said. “We’ll walk straight through the Cookery. But for heaven’s sake, don’t drop those bags. If one of them splits on my carpet—”

The cheerful bell rang overhead as Angelica opened the Cookery’s door and led the way. “Coming through,” she told a surprised Frannie, who stood at the register with a woman customer.

Tricia plastered on a smile as she nodded a hello to Frannie and the well-dressed tourist who clutched a Cookery shopping bag in one hand. “Hi,” she said, and shuffled after her sister.

Angelica had just punched in the code to disarm the security system when Tricia caught up with her. She opened the door. “If my Dumpster’s full, we can put the overflow into—” Her words ended abruptly as she gazed at the top step outside the Cookery’s back exit.

Tricia remembered the two bowls that had sat on the step earlier that day. “Let’s get this stuff into the trash before a bag splits. Remember your carpets,” she admonished.

Angelica turned, leveled an icy glare at Tricia, and then hefted her own bags of trash before trundling down the concrete steps to the metal trash receptacle. She grunted as she slam-dunked her two bags of trash into the Dumpster, then took Tricia’s from her. Tricia refrained from speaking and followed her sister back up the steps to the store. Angelica paused on the top step, retrieving the empty food bowl and tossing aside what was left in the water bowl.

The store was devoid of customers as she stalked through the aisles of books, halted at the cash desk, and slammed the bowls onto the counter. “Frannie, I’ve asked you not to encourage that cat to come around, and you’ve gone and done it again.”

Frannie managed a strangled laugh. “Done what?”

“You’re feeding that stray cat when I’ve asked you not to.”

“But it’s hungry. And the nights are getting colder. I wouldn’t want that poor kitty to be hungry, let alone cold.”

“It’s wearing a fur coat,” Angelica stated.

“It’s got bare feet,” Frannie countered.

Angelica turned to Tricia. “Are you going to help me out here?”

Tricia shook her head and shrugged. “I think it’s wonderful that Frannie wants to help this little cat.”

“Well, I don’t. I don’t want a store cat like you’ve got. Can the two of you understand that?”

“I wasn’t trying to catch her so she’d be the official Cookery mascot, although I think it would be a wonderful idea,” Frannie said. “I want to take her home—make her my pet.”

Angelica blinked. “Oh. Well. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“Jumping to conclusions, eh, Angelica?” Tricia asked.

Angelica leveled a withering glare at her sister. “You stay out of this.” She turned back to Frannie. “And how are you going to catch this cat? I didn’t see a trap.”

“I’ve got to gain her trust first. I’ve already talked to Animal Control. They’re going to loan me a Havahart trap.”

“When?”

“I thought I might try to trap her in the next couple of days.”

“Well, make it sooner rather than later, will you? I don’t want it hanging around my store. It might have fleas, or some cat disease that could infect my customers.”

“Cats don’t have—” Tricia started.

Angelica whirled on her. “What about allergies? I could get sued if one of my customers has allergies, enters my store, and has a seizure or something.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. None of my customers has ever so much as sneezed because of Miss Marple.”

Angelica leveled a glare at her sister. “I believe I asked you to stay out of this.”

“Fine. I’m leaving. Good luck catching Penny,” Tricia said to Frannie.

“Penny?” Angelica asked.

“My cat,” Frannie said, and smiled.

Tricia shut the door. The wind had picked up as the sun sank toward the horizon. She wrapped her arms around her chest and stalked back to Haven’t Got a Clue. The leaves on the trees were ablaze with color, and already the leaf peepers were descending on the village. That was good for business but bad if she was going to be shorthanded, with Mr. Everett going on his honeymoon.

She was preoccupied with thoughts of the busy week ahead when she caught sight of a Hillsborough Sheriff’s Department patrol car moving toward her. She paused, squinting to see who was at the wheel; it was Deputy Placer. She realized that she had hoped it would be Captain Baker.

A gust of wind made her shiver.

Now why would she want to see
him
? Because he’d called and hadn’t left a message? Or was it those maddening green eyes that reminded her of her ex-husband, Christopher?

And why think about him at all when she had a date with Russ in just over two hours?

The cruiser rounded the corner as she opened the door to Haven’t Got a Clue.

Don’t even think about that man
, Tricia chided herself as she resumed her position behind the sales counter. But for the next hour, she kept finding herself looking out the big glass display window, on the lookout for another Sheriff’s Department cruiser.

EIGHT

Tricia showed
up at Russ’s house at precisely seven thirty. He met her at the door, looking relaxed in a beige sweater with suede elbow patches. Light from the sconces that flanked the door glinted off his glasses, and his hair curled around his ears. At that moment, he reminded her of an absentminded professor. He leaned forward to give her a kiss. This time his lips actually landed on hers, and she found herself returning the kiss with enthusiasm.

“Whoa, come on in,” Russ urged, holding the door open for her, a bit overwhelmed by her greeting.

After a year of what her grandmother would’ve called “courting,” Tricia felt at home at Russ’s house. She shrugged out of her jacket and he took it from her, hanging it in the closet. As usual, there was a platter of cheese and crackers on the coffee table in his living room. She usually had to ask him to turn off his police scanner when she dropped by, but this night the scanner was silent. Instead, soft jazz played on the stereo. Perhaps things were looking up on the romance front.

As usual, a cut-glass carafe of sherry and glasses sat on the coffee table as well. Tricia took her accustomed seat on the couch, and Russ soon joined her.

“You look tired. What have you been up to all day?” Russ asked, pouring sherry for them both.

Tricia leaned back against the soft leather. “Besides selling books and annoying Angelica? Thinking a lot about Pammy Fredericks. I even went to see Libby Hirt at the Food Shelf, to ask her if she knew why Pammy would want to talk to Stuart Paige.”

He handed Tricia her drink. “And did she?”

“No. Did you know Pammy was a freegan?”

“One of those weirdos that eats garbage?”

“I don’t think freegans think of it as garbage. More as salvaged food. It turns out Ginny is a freegan, too, although she doesn’t want it getting around.”

“I can see why.”

Tricia thought about what she’d seen at the Food Shelf’s dedication. “Russ, you took a lot of pictures at the ceremony yesterday. Was Pammy in any of them? Maybe—”

He shook his head. “She never made it inside the building. And honestly, why would she think Stuart Page would want to talk to her?”

“She asked everyone in town for a job. Maybe it was that simple.”

He shrugged. “Let’s not talk about your ex-friend.”

That was unusual. The last time there’d been a murder in Stoneham, it was all Russ wanted to talk about—and he’d especially wanted to grill Tricia on what she knew about the victim, who’d been a stranger. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even called her after the news of Pammy’s death broke.

Russ leaned forward, spread some Brie on a cracker, and offered it to Tricia. She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about the future. How I might like to try something different,” he said.

“Different?” Tricia asked, and took a sip of her sherry.

He leaned back against the cushions. “I’ve been thinking about writing a novel.”

Tricia nearly choked on her drink. “You, write a novel?”

He looked hurt. “Why’s that so hard to believe? I’m a journalist. How hard can it be? Plenty of print reporters have turned to fiction. And when I worked at the paper in Boston, I covered a lot of stories that were ripe for a ‘ripped-from-the-news’ kind of book.”

Tricia could think of more than a few journalists right off the top of her head who’d switched gears to become novelists: Laura Lippman, Carl Hiaasen, Edna Buchanan, Michael Connelly . . . But Russ a novelist? Ha! He was so grounded in facts, she wondered if he would be able to spin a tale and keep up the pace for eighty or one hundred thousand words. Of course, she wasn’t about to voice that opinion.

“I wish you luck,” she said, and raised her glass. “To your new career.”

Russ laughed and raised his glass, touching hers so they clinked. Then he settled back on the couch. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the future and what it means for us, too.”

Tricia’s stomach tightened involuntarily. “Oh?”

“Yeah. We’ve been going out for . . . oh, just about a year now, right?”

Something inside Tricia squirmed. Was she about to be dumped? “Yes.”

“We’ve had some rough times,” he admitted.

“I wouldn’t say rough,” she interrupted, studying his face. “Just not exactly smooth.”

“But overall, would you say you’ve been happy?”

Happy was a relative thing. Still . . . “Yes, I’d say so.” Oh, God. Was he about to propose?

Russ leaned in closer. Could he have a velvet-covered ring box tucked inside his sweater pocket? What was she going to say when he pulled it out? She hadn’t even considered marrying again. It had only been two years since her divorce. And—

“It’s time we had a serious conversation about the future,” Russ went on.

Tricia’s spine stiffened, and she drew back. “Are you sure this is the right time?”

He nodded and gave her an affectionate smile. “I am.”

Tricia leaned forward, grabbed her drink, and took a large mouthful, gulping it down.

Russ laughed. “Am I that intimidating?”