Cancelled by Murder (7 page)

Something clicked in my head and I flashed back to our quilting session on Tuesday evening. I could have sworn that at that time Molly had blamed her new Adirondack chair for the storm-related accident. Strange that she would tell the barista a different story two days later. The cat made me do it?

It was Liv who was unhappy with Daisy's decision to stock greeting cards, the mainstay of her own shop next door. I knew that Molly and Liv were friends, outside of the quilting circle. Was Molly also unhappy with Daisy? I asked myself now, faced with her suspicious alibi for a wounded ankle.

Any desire on my part to pursue the matter was cut off by my customer, who handed me her completed form.

“Daydreaming?” she asked me.

“Always,” I said with a customer-friendly smile.

*   *   *

With no one in the lobby just before closing, I sat at my desk for end-of-day paperwork. As he sometimes did, Ben stopped by at this hour to take down the flag and ask, “Anything exciting today?” or a variation of that.

Today, I'd had more excitement than I needed, though not necessarily the kind I wanted to share with Ben. There was the
Do your job or go home
note, for one thing. I debated
showing it to him. He might overreact and coax me to take it to the level of reporting it to the postal inspector, or underreact and leave me feeling foolish for giving it a second thought.

One thing I knew for sure—I wouldn't share Cliff's plans for me with Ben. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt our relationship.

“I see Cliff's been coming around a lot,” Ben said.

I nearly laughed in his face. Ben gave me a questioning look and I recovered in time to say, “Uh-huh. It's a tough time for him.”

Ben lifted his long, thin frame onto the counter (where children were forbidden to sit during his reign as postmaster). “I'd say so. The husband is always the number-one suspect, you know.”

Another near laugh. “Not in this case. He was more than seventy miles away in Springfield.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no.”

“What does that mean?”

“He could have slipped away, driven like crazy, done the deed, and then gone back without anyone knowing.”

“In a raging storm?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

Ben shrugged. “Or he could have hired someone here to do it.”

I screwed up my nose against the unpleasant idea Ben was airing. “I see. He paid someone to wander around North Ashcot for a day or so, in case there was a storm that might tear a limb from a tree in his backyard, at exactly the time that Daisy would be outside?”

It was clear that Ben needed a life, and I feared my tone suggested as much.

“Anyway, you wouldn't be letting Cliff drag you into some edgy detective work, or anything like that, would you?”

From his perch (deliberate?) on the counter, Ben looked down at me. I could have sworn he could see through my desk to the folder marked
CASSIE
, with Cliff's notes for just that task.

“Why ever would you think that?” I asked.

Ben's turn to stifle a laugh. “I might be old,” he said, and left me to finish the thought myself.

“I know you're not dumb, Ben.”

“So that's a yes?” he asked.

“Yes what?”

“That's what I thought.” He slid off the counter, his mouth twisted to the side, half grin, half frown. He draped his lanky body over the chair next to my desk, his face turning serious. “You know, they closed the post office over in Brookside.”

“The small town down near Hinsdale. Yes, I heard.”

“It's a pet-grooming place now.”

I grimaced. “It's sad to lose facilities like ours,” I said.

“The flagpole is still outside,” he said. “Wonder if they're just going to keep it.”

“There's no law against it, I guess.”

His eyes took on a faraway look. “Brookside wasn't that much smaller than North Ashcot, you know. We could be next.” Ben's tone was somber, as if he'd already received a memo with the bad news.

Post office closings were a fact of life these days. I often thought of the possibility of losing ours. What would I do? Go back to Boston? Just as I was getting settled and satisfied
being back where I was born? And what about Quinn? I couldn't allow my mind to go there, though I knew I should be more practical and concerned about other uses for my skills in the future.

Meanwhile, I could convince myself that the North Ashcot Post Office was indispensable, a bustling place. I looked around at the piles of boxes and bags of mail ready to go out on Monday, and thought how we were thriving. People came from surrounding towns because we had a good track record and lots of parking, which mattered to a lot of busy people.

I thought it admirable of Ben that he still cared about the future of the office. He'd earned his pension, after all, and didn't have to bother anymore. I drew in my breath as a frightening thought entered my mind. Ben was still connected to administrators across the state. He chatted with higher-ups all the time. An unfailing old-boys network. What if . . . ?

“Do you know something I don't?” I asked him.

“Not yet. But I know we have to be on our best behavior.”

I folded my hands around the placket at the top button of my shirt. “Clean uniform every day,” I said.

“It's a lot more than that.”

“Meaning?”

He shrugged. “You figure it out.”

I didn't like the sound of Ben's comment. Was he warning me off, afraid I'd get hurt, or worried that nosing around a police investigation would earn bad marks for the North Ashcot Post Office? Or both? Was he uneasy about me or his legacy in the town? I studied his face and saw concern about both.

“There's nothing to worry about, Ben,” I said, with nothing to back up my confidence.

He drew a loud, deep breath. “I'll walk you out,” he said.

I retrieved my things, including my dinner from the fridge, hoping Ben wouldn't ask details about anything I was carrying.

I
drove home with a fully occupied passenger seat—the take-out container with my aromatic shrimp dinner in a cooler, resting on the thick file of notes and to-do lists. Both legacies of my foodless lunch with Cliff Harmon.

The evening was clear, the roads nearly free of debris, but as I approached Daisy's Fabrics, I wondered if I'd ever again drive by without slowing down and remembering what had happened during a summer storm. I noticed that the yellow-and-black caution tape had been removed.

I had a strong urge to pull over. A short walk down the narrow alley between Daisy's shop and Liv's card shop would take me to the backyard. The scene of the crime. And there was plenty of parking at the curb.

Ben's thinly veiled warning to behave myself and do nothing that would bring negative attention to the post office rattled around my head. But Ben was an old man, I told
myself. Old people were overly cautious. I knew he also cared about me, though he couldn't completely abandon his reputation of surliness to show it. But he loved his town, too, I reasoned, and would want me to take an interest in all that was going on, to be active in a way that he might not be able to.

By the time I made my decision, I'd arrived in front of the police department. Bad place to park, considering what I was about to do. I made a right turn down the next street and came around again on Main Street, parking before Mahican's, on the same side of the street as Daisy's. And the police station. But far enough away, I thought. I tapped my steering wheel. I still had a choice. Turn the key in the ignition and continue on home. Yes or no?

A minute later, I exited my car and walked toward Daisy's Fabrics. I wouldn't have been surprised to see Sunni. How likely was it that she'd choose this moment to take a stroll outside her building? Not very, I hoped. I made it to the alley between the shops and traipsed along the gravel path to the back lot where Daisy had died. I imagined her fighting until the end and choked back tears.

The area was half landscaped, with a lawn and a row of flowers toward the front, tapering off to more gravel and rocks for the few feet before the back fence. The enormous branch that had fallen from the maple hadn't been moved; its brown leaves extended into the untended section.

Although the sky was overcast, it was well before sunset and I saw shadows everywhere. There was nothing sluggish about my imagination. I stepped toward the branch, not sure what I expected to see. Blood? Signs of a struggle? An
indentation where Daisy's body had lain? My eyes burned from my efforts to hold back tears. I imagined the police combing through the gravel for evidence, checking every rock of significant size.

I saw nothing unusual and questioned why I was here at all. To investigate as if I were a cop? To lose points from Sunni? To indulge a morbid curiosity? To win points from Cliff for brilliant scouting work and perhaps get a coupon for a free evening with a bodyguard? Or simply to mourn my friend. Whatever the reason, the fact was that I was standing where a killer had stood only a few days ago, and if I were smart, I'd beat it out of here.

As I started back down the narrow alley toward the street, I heard a loud, prolonged clatter, as if a cabinet had fallen over and emptied its contents. The noise was coming from inside the shop. I stopped short and leaned against the white clapboard building where Daisy's Fabrics was housed. More noise, this time of the thumping variety. I held my breath. What if Daisy's killer had returned to the scene of the crime? Didn't they always do that? Was that my real goal today—to meet the killer?

What was wrong with me?

Above my head was a window that I hoped was closed. The last thing I wanted was curious eyes peeking down and outing me. I hadn't thought to try the back door that led down a few steps to the spot where I'd been standing; I hadn't thought of entering the shop at all. Unlike the intruder. Was the intruder now planning to exit that way, or through the front door? Could it be Cliff roaming around inside? Maybe it was a crime scene tech back for further
scrutiny? Or Jules, or a cleaning crew, or any number of people with a perfect right to be in the closed shop? Including the chief of police.

I determined with less than one hundred percent certainty that the series of noises—a clatter, a thump, followed by a scrape, then shuffling—was moving toward Main Street. I inched my way along, following the footsteps that were only a few inches above my head, on the first floor of the building.

A little farther down the alley, the noise stopped and so did I. I calculated that I was now next to the side wall of the store where the large cutting table sat.

Traffic whizzed by, if that can describe the way cars move in a small town on its main street at what passes for rush hour. Nothing like the many areas of Boston and vicinity where sometimes a dozen lanes were forced to merge into two to enter a tunnel or cross a bridge. It helped to remember that aspect of Boston when I became nostalgic about my life in the big city.

Since I arrived in the alley, there had been no foot traffic along Main Street. A good thing, since I had no idea how a pedestrian might have responded to a uniformed postal worker skulking in the shadows between downtown shops after hours.

The next sounds I heard could have been those of opening and closing the front door of the shop. I took a chance and moved farther along the side of the shop toward Main. I inhaled deeply before I ventured a look around the corner.

A figure was already walking away from the front door, away from the alley where I stood. He must have been inside for a while, I reasoned, since he hadn't passed me on Main.
A male, maybe, average size, though it was hard to tell. He wore a dark jacket, too bulky for a summer eve. His hood was over his head, his hands in his pockets. I'd already decided after hours of watching television crime dramas that, of all the trends in casual wear, the hood was the criminal's best friend. A large envelope or package was tucked under his arm. He moved swiftly to the traffic light just after Mike's Bike Shop. My wish came true and he had to stop again for a
DON'T WALK
sign at the corner. Did I dare come out of hiding and walk toward him?

Why not?

I headed out, put my own hands in the pockets of my sweater, wishing it had a hood, and tried to focus on what he was holding close to his body, something he might have taken from the shop. It looked like a Priority Mail envelope. Or was that my job talking?

The stiff-looking package was close enough to nine and a half by twelve and a half, the size of a Flat Rate envelope, in my view. The red, white, and blue trims on the envelope weren't showing, nor could I see the red stripes across the front and back of the top, long end. It seemed thin enough to be one of the complimentary items from the shipping supplies section of any post office. Mine? I felt an unwelcome shiver.

The traffic light turned green and I had a new decision to make. Push forward or retreat? There was only half a block before the police department building. If my stalkee discovered me, surely I wouldn't be in danger practically in earshot of law enforcement.

That scenario was comforting in theory, but when he turned before crossing the street, and I thought he spotted
me, my cowardice came to the fore. I indulged in a bit of sleight of hand. I pulled a package of tissues from my pocket and dropped it on the ground. I bent over to pick it up, made a show (for anyone who might be watching) of dropping it in the trash can at the curb, then made an unobtrusive U-turn and headed back to my car. This time I was aware of a faint scent in the air, as if the (other) intruder had left a trail. The scent was sweet enough for me to consider that I'd been tailing a female, but I couldn't be sure one way or the other.

Strong feelings of inadequacy bugged me as I approached the front door of Daisy's Fabrics again, this time from the other direction. I needed to be braver, to take more risks. What were the chances that the door might be open? Good, I decided. It was unlikely that the intruder who preceded me had stopped to lock the door. I made another surreptitious, choreographed move, climbing the two steps from the sidewalk, and turned the doorknob. The door gave way and I found myself inside the shop, dark and slightly musty smelling. And empty, I hoped.

I looked around, distracted by the neat bolts of fabric, grouped in some displays by theme (Fourth of July patterns were on sale, I noted; Halloween designs half in, half out of shipping boxes); and in other setups by the kind of material (wools, silks, cottons lined up together), or color (who knew there were that many shades of green?).

Where had the clattering noise come from? Not from bolts of fabric. And not from the items on the wall of notions. I walked closer to the Peg-Board. I wasn't able to identify everything in the fading light, but I made out cutting tools, bags of batting, totes, packaged costumes, old-fashioned fabric-covered sewing baskets. I wondered if Daisy kept a
supply of Flat Rate envelopes on hand. Maybe the man I saw availed himself of one. To put what in it? And escape with what? The police had been through the shop, and had to have confiscated anything that would help in their murder investigation. What did I expect to find? I needed to go home.

The area near the cash register was neat as always, with a few novelty items—pincushions shaped like fruit, cards with decorative buttons, small sewing kits for travel— and a large book for customers to sign up for an e-newsletter. A small bell was available to call a staff member if help was needed. I had a surreal moment where I hit the top of the call bell and Daisy appeared.

One more aisle, I decided; then I'd leave the shop and put this upsetting day behind me. I turned a corner toward the racks of magazines I often looked through. Daisy carried a line of quilting and crafts magazines and how-to books that included instructions for knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, and other fabric arts as well as sewing.

Paying too much attention to the array of covers promising quick results for holiday projects, I nearly tripped over an object in the aisle. I looked down. And saw a body.

More exactly, half a body. A woman cut off at her waist, with wild, overly blond hair, dressed in a crisp white tunic. I gasped, too loudly for a stealth operation, and felt my heartbeat everywhere but in my chest.

Just in time, before I collapsed in fright, I recognized one of Daisy's mannequins. One of the plastic women that lined a shelf in this aisle, showing off samples made from the patterns on sale. You, too, could whip up a robe or a fancy shirt that would look like this. Clearly, Madam Tunic's
fall from the flat surface of the top of the magazine rack had been the source of the clattering noise I'd heard, and the reason her resin head was at an unnatural angle on her neck.

Plastic or not, the partial body unnerved me, and I turned quickly to make my exit, bumping into a set of filing cabinets on the way.
“Ouch!”
I groaned out loud as my sweater caught on a rough metal edge and at the same time I nicked my arm and dropped my purse. Some sleuth. One incapable of stealth. I held my breath until I was sure no one would come running at my outburst. Through the front window I saw a group of youngsters walking by. I crouched down until they passed.

As I rose from my squatting position, I saw a flash of light between the cabinets. Daisy had piggybacked a couple of white two-drawer cabinets, one on top of the other, to save space. She'd teased me that the main reason she accepted me into the quilting group was that I was the only one who could easily manipulate the files in the top drawer. It was hard to believe that she'd never tease me again about my height, how she could use a few of my extra inches.

The flash I'd seen had come from a newly turned-on streetlamp striking something that was stuck between the surfaces of the two filing cabinets. The cabinets had shifted from their vertically aligned position when I bumped into them. I reached to examine the object, hoping it wouldn't move on its own. In my mind, there was no end to the different kinds of insects that might live in stores at night. I pulled on the item and extracted a small notebook with a shiny magnetic closure.

The notebook was about two inches by four inches, the handy size I had in my car and at various spots around my
office and home. Mine were filled mostly with to-do lists that I never looked at. Apparently, I carried some strange gene that allowed me to remember things I wrote down whether or not I referred to them later.

This notebook was Daisy's, as attested to by the small return address label she'd stuck on the cover, partially obscuring van Gogh's sunflowers. I wondered why the police hadn't taken it. Probably because no cop had been clumsy enough to crash into the filing cabinets and fall.

I flipped through the book and saw that it was partially full, though it was too dark to read the contents. I squinted at a page that had large letters, and thought I read
JULES
. It appeared to be a calendar page where
JULES
had been entered into several dates this month. Or some month, maybe even not this year. Who knew how long the book had been stuck between the cabinets? I flipped a few more pages, trying various angles to catch the dim light. A few more tries and I caught a couple of pages that were filled with short to-do lists, most of the items with check marks next to them. I deciphered phrases like
return library bks
,
pick up
(illegible),
and take
(illegible)
to
S.A.
, which I took to be South Ashcot. I saw parts of words that could be
dentist
and
crafts fair
. My eyes and knees hurt as I squatted in the dark shadows of Daisy's Fabrics.

With no warning a small pointed light came on and startled me so much that I dropped the notebook-cum-calendar and felt my heartbeat leave my chest once more. I looked around, expecting to see a flashlight in the hands of a hooded man. With a gun. Or a large tree branch. Instead, I saw that a night-light in the shape of a thimble had responded to the growing darkness and had come on automatically in a corner
near me. I half laughed, half gasped. Without thinking it through, I tossed the notebook on top of a small table as I ran from the shop.