Bookplate Special (6 page)

“I think I’ll take out the trash,” Tricia said, and then she thought of Pammy in the garbage cart and winced. Still, the wastebasket under the counter was full.

She picked up the basket and headed for the back of the store, disarming the security alarm before opening the door. The alley that ran behind this side of Main Street was a good five feet lower than the front of the store, and she trotted down the steps to the waiting Dumpsters. Haven’t Got a Clue didn’t really create enough refuse to warrant such large receptacles—one for cardboard boxes only, the other for other trash—and she wondered if she could trade one of hers for Angelica’s two trash carts.

She emptied the basket and turned to head back into the building just as the door to the Cookery slammed shut, giving Tricia a start. With Angelica tied up at her new café, her newly promoted manager, Frannie Mae Armstrong, was in charge of the village’s cookbook store. As far as Tricia knew, Frannie was still working alone at the store. Why would she have slammed the door upon seeing Tricia? And then she saw two matching bowls on the landing near the Cookery’s stairs. Angelica would not be pleased.

For the past couple of weeks Frannie had been feeding a little stray orange cat that had been hanging around the alley. Tricia had seen it only once, but Miss Marple, her own cat, seemed to have stray-kitty radar. Miss Marple did not appreciate other cats invading what she considered to be her territory—even if her territory didn’t go beyond the confines of Haven’t Got a Clue and the storeroom and loft apartment above it. Angelica wasn’t a cat lover, and had warned Frannie not to encourage the cat to come around . . . something Frannie obviously hadn’t taken to heart.

Tricia climbed the steps and reentered her store. Ginny was still at the register, sniffling as she waited on a customer. “I’m going next door for a few minutes. Be right back,” Tricia said, and headed out without grabbing her jacket.

The Cookery was quiet, with only one or two customers browsing the bookshelves. Now that Angelica had dismantled the cooking demonstration area, she’d gained more retail space. The store was doing well—too well for just one employee. That was just Tricia’s opinion, of course. Frannie insisted she could handle the additional work, but she did look a bit frazzled, something Tricia hadn’t ever seen in the year since she’d met her.

Frannie stood by the register, waiting for her next customer to check out. Her expression darkened when she saw it was Tricia who’d just entered the store. She plastered on a fake grin and called out in her infamous Texas twang, “Howdy, Tricia. What can I do for you?”

Tricia gave her friend a genuine smile. “Hey, Frannie, I just dropped in to see how things are going.”

“I’m sure surprised to see you . . . after what happened and all.” Frannie nodded toward Booked for Lunch across the street, which was visible through the large display window. A sheriff’s patrol car—probably Captain Baker’s—was still parked outside. It might be hours before the forensic squad finished gathering evidence.

Tricia had momentarily forgotten about Pammy. Frannie’s words brought the memory of her in the garbage cart back with the force of a hurricane. “Oh. Yes. It was awful. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Of course,” Frannie said, and shook her head sadly.

“I was out behind my store a few minutes ago, and I couldn’t help but notice—”

“Please don’t tell Angelica,” Frannie pleaded, her face drawn with concern. “I know she doesn’t want me to encourage Penny—”

“Penny?” Tricia asked.

“That darling little kitty. She’s the color of a bright copper penny, so I’ve taken to calling her that. But, Tricia, she’s got no collar and she’s as thin as a rail. I’m only setting out a little water and some dry cat food during the day. And I make sure the dishes are put away before Angelica gets back from her café.”

On the one hand, Tricia wanted to commend Frannie for her compassion. But as a business owner, she wasn’t sure she should encourage deceit or out-and-out insurrection—especially as the store’s proprietor was her own sister. And yet . . . she’d seen that hungry little cat and her heart had ached for it, too.

“I won’t tell,” she promised. “But now that you’ve been putting out food, she’ll expect to be fed. If Angelica finds out—”

“I’ve got it all planned,” Frannie said, but a customer approached the register with a stack of cookbooks before she could tell Tricia exactly what that plan was. The shop’s door opened, and another three potential customers trooped in. Rats! Tricia had wanted to ask what Frannie knew about Stuart Paige. There was always tomorrow, she supposed.

This time it was Tricia who forced a smile as she waggled her fingers in a wave and headed out the door for Haven’t Got a Clue. And true to her word, she had no intention of telling Angelica about Frannie’s feline indiscretion.

Before she could make it back to the store, Tricia heard her name being called. She looked around and saw Captain Baker hailing her from across the street. He waited for a car to pass before crossing to meet her on the sidewalk.

“Sir, you are guilty of a crime,” Tricia said, straight-faced. Of course, she’d been crossing Main Street at its center for weeks, ever since Angelica had rented her new property.

“I beg your pardon?” Baker said.

“You jaywalked across Main Street,” she explained, huddling to keep warm in the stiff breeze.

“Ms. Miles,” he said, his voice growing somber, “my men found a car several blocks from here, apparently abandoned. It has Connecticut plates and was registered to Ms. Fredericks. The trunk was open and it contents ransacked. If you could look at what’s left, perhaps you can tell me what, if anything, was taken.”

A wave of fresh grief coursed through Tricia. “I suppose I could look, but I really don’t know what she had, other than the suitcases she kept at my apartment for the past two weeks.”

“Would you be willing to try?”

She stared into his green eyes, and her willpower dissolved. What was the hold men with green eyes had on her?

“Of course. But I need to let my assistant know I’ll be gone for a few minutes.”

Baker accompanied her to Haven’t Got a Clue, where she grabbed her coat and told Ginny she’d be back as soon as she could.

Outside, Baker bowed like a gallant knight, and made a sweeping gesture toward the cruiser parked on the opposite side of the street. Then he walked her across the pavement, opened the passenger-side door, and held it open until she’d seated herself, grasping the seat belt and buckling herself in.

As he walked around the car, Tricia took in the police scanner, the little printer that sat in the middle of the bench seat, and the cup of cold coffee in the beverage restraint device. She’d never sat inside a cop car before. How many police procedurals had she read over the years? How many scenes had taken place in such a car? But the reality was far different from fiction. There was an atmosphere of . . . tension—mixed with stale coffee and sweat and a touch of angst?—that seemed to hang inside the vehicle, and she doubted that even a prolonged airing could remove the lingering scents of stale urine and vomit from within that small space.

Baker climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. He glanced in the rearview mirror before easing the gearshift into Drive and pressing the accelerator.

“You should buckle your seat belt,” Tricia admonished.

“The law here in New Hampshire requires seat belt use only by those eighteen years and younger,” he said with confidence.

“Just because the law doesn’t require you to use your seat belt doesn’t mean it’s not the smart thing to do.”

He tossed a glance in her direction for the merest part of a second, then focused his attention back on the road. “I think I can take care of myself.”

She sighed. “Just like a man.”

Again his gaze darted in her direction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just that men can be just so . . . stupid. What’s wrong with being safe? Haven’t you read the federal highway statistics reporting the percentage of deaths due to
not
wearing seat belts?”

“Officers of the law need to be able to react—to get out of their vehicles at a moment’s notice.”

“Not if they’re smushed into paste in an accident.”

“Smushed?” Baker repeated.

“Yes. It’s a variation of smashed. Smushed is when what used to be a solid becomes almost a liquid. Human flesh can be smushed when it’s contained in crumpled steel and glass.”

“Smushed,” Baker said once again. “I don’t think I’ve ever considered that.”

“Well, you ought to. I’m sure the State of New Hampshire has invested thousands of dollars in your training. If you were killed or maimed in an accident, you’d be costing taxpayers like me a lot of money.”

“Smushed,” he murmured again, turning left onto Hanson Lane.

Tricia kept her gaze riveted out the windshield. “I’m sure your family wouldn’t appreciate the call telling them their husband and dad was now the consistency of tomato puree.”

“As it happens, I am no one’s husband or dad, so you don’t have to worry on that account.”

Tricia glanced at her companion. “Your loss.” Or someone else’s.

The scanner crackled, reporting an accident on Route 101. Tricia frowned. She couldn’t stand the sound of a dispatcher dispassionately reporting trouble. Too often Russ insisted on allowing his scanner to act as the background noise on their so-called dates. It wasn’t the most romantic backdrop.

Baker pulled up behind a parked car with Connecticut plates. Another Hillsborough County deputy stood alongside the vehicle, apparently guarding it. His thumbs were hooked onto his Sam Browne belt.

Baker opened the car door.

“Wait,” Tricia blurted, reaching out to touch his arm. Should she trust him? So far he hadn’t given her a reason not to. “There’s something I didn’t tell you.”

He settled back in his seat, waiting for her to go on.

“There’s another reason I asked Pammy to leave this morning.”

Why didn’t he look surprised, she wondered.

“She . . . stole from me. She took one of my checks, made it out to herself for one hundred dollars, and cashed it.”

“When was this?”

“Several days ago. I was online going over my account this morning and found out. It was the last straw, and I asked her to leave.”

“And her reaction was?”

“She left.”

“You didn’t argue about it?”

“Pammy freely admitted it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

Tricia sighed. “Because it’s been my experience that Sheriff Adams likes to blow insignificant events out of proportion, trying to make them look like motives for murder. With that in mind, I figured you’d probably think I killed Pammy. Believe me, Captain, it wasn’t the money, it was the breach of trust that made me ask her to leave. And as you continue your questioning, you’ll find I didn’t have the opportunity to kill her. As I said, I’ve been with people the entire day.”

His green eyes bored into her. Was that disappointment reflected in them?

Without a word, Baker got out of the car. Tricia unbuckled her seat belt and did likewise.

“The tech team should be here when they’re finished at the café,” Deputy Bracken said.

Baker nodded. “Ms. Miles, would you care to take a look?”

Tricia moved to stand over the opened trunk, taking in its contents. “Those are Pammy’s suitcases all right.” They’d both been forced open, their contents dumped. Pammy’s scrunched-up, dirty clothes mingled with old magazines, copies of their college yearbook, an old, colorful granny-square afghan, cassette tapes, photo albums, and a lot of wrinkled papers. A ripped-open envelope was addressed to Pamela Fredericks, General Delivery, Stoneham, New Hampshire.

Remorse flushed through Tricia once again. Could Pammy have been living in her car before she came to Stoneham?

The guilt intensified. Perhaps if she hadn’t asked her to leave, Pammy might still be alive.

Might: a word that held a lot of power.

Tricia sighed, her eyes filling with tears. Maybe Pammy had left on an extended trip and intended to eventually return to whatever she considered her home base. But she hadn’t mentioned that. In fact, whenever the subject came up, Pammy had been evasive.

“Are you okay, Ms. Miles?” Baker asked.

Tricia nodded, trying to blink away the unshed tears. “Pammy’s dead. I guess it didn’t hit me until right now. The stuff in her trunk may be all she had. She’s really dead, and then someone tried to rob her. Is there anything more despicable than stealing from the dead?”

“Yes,” Baker said. “Killing them in the first place.”

Tricia had to agree with that.

More letters lay scattered among the junk, as well as a sagging, empty shoebox that sat on a pile of old clothes. Their former home? Baker poked at the letters and clippings with a pen. The yellowing envelopes bore twenty-two-cent stamps, indicating their age. “Mrs. Geraldine Fredericks. Who was that?”

“Pammy’s mother.”

“What would Ms. Fredericks be doing with a bunch of old letters?”

Tricia shrugged.

Baker waved a hand to take in the trunk. “Does there appear to be anything missing?”

Tricia’s gaze wandered over the contents. “I don’t know. Pammy didn’t seem to have much with her. From what I could see, she had clothes and maybe a few toiletries.” Very few toiletries. She’d used nearly an entire bottle of Tricia’s favorite salon shampoo. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, Captain Baker.”

He frowned. “So am I.”

FOUR

Tricia’sloft
apartment seemed especially empty that night. Miss Marple’s happy purring, scented candles burning, and even soft music playing in the background couldn’t fill the void that Pammy’s absence had left.

Under other circumstances, Tricia would have felt elated to have her living space all to herself again. But now . . . her once warm living room seemed chilled by a death pall.