Scene of the Brine (16 page)

“Lamb!” she barked. “When is that article showing up in the newsletter?”

Piper gulped. She hadn't put a word on paper since she'd been out to Marguerite's gardening center. “I'm not sure. Emma Leahy handles the newsletter. I'll have to check with her.”

“So it's not out yet? Good. I want you to put in that we'll have a sale on silky dogwoods, starting this weekend.”

“I can do that,” Piper said, her head bobbing.

“Great.” Marguerite's manner warmed a degree or two. “I would have called but I was coming into town anyway and thought I'd come see your shop. It's not bad.”

Not bad?
Piper questioned, but said, “Thank you.”

“Oh, it's a wonderful shop,” Mrs. Tilley put in. “I'm here for one thing or another almost every day. Isn't that right, Piper?”

Piper nodded and smiled fondly at Mrs. Tilley, though she couldn't help picturing the woman's kitchen packed to the ceiling with unopened spices or preserves, unless she happened to gift her friends often.

“You seem to do a good business,” Marguerite acknowledged, but with a definite tone of surprise. “Well, I'm off. Let me know about that newsletter,” she ordered before pushing her way out the door.

Mrs. Tilley stood blinking after her. “She didn't buy anything!”

“She's a busy woman,” Piper said, totaling up Mrs. Tilley's purchases.

“And a very brusque one,” Amy said, coming out from the back room. She took over at the counter as soon as Mrs. Tilley left, giving Piper her welcome turn for a break. Piper trotted up to her apartment to slip off the shoes that had started to pinch. She then looked for the notes she'd scribbled during her “interview” with Marguerite, wondering when she would find the time to write up something printworthy.

As she was polishing off a hastily thrown together sandwich, Piper heard a familiar voice rise up from the shop. Recognizing it as Emma Leahy's, Piper's eyes lit up. She slipped back into her shoes and hurried down the stairs, a glass of iced tea and her notebook in hand.

“Emma, I'm so glad to see you. I need your help.” Piper explained about Marguerite pressing her on the newsletter article. “Could you possibly write it up for me? I have plenty of notes.”

“No problem at all. I'm sure I can add a few odds and ends to what you have, knowing the place as well as I do.”

“Marguerite gave me the timeline of her business, which I wrote down. It might be interesting background to your club members. But she's more concerned about getting in mention of her silky dogwood sale.”

“They're on sale?” Emma brows shot up excitedly. “Oooh. I . . . no, I really don't have the room. But . . . no.” She shook her head, having apparently talked herself out of the purchase. “I just stopped by for a jar of curry. I'm making a chicken stir-fry tonight. But I'll write up this thing about Marguerite first and put your name on it.”

Piper winced at the idea of taking the unearned credit but knew it had to be done. “That should settle any suspicions Marguerite might have had.” She plucked the curry jar from its shelf and handed it to Emma. “No charge. Consider it a very small down payment on what I'll owe you.”

. . .

W
hen it was time for Amy to leave for A La Carte, she wished Piper good luck managing on her own on that busy day. Piper wished
herself
good luck as two more customers walked in moments after Amy left. However, fortified with freshly brewed, strong coffee as well as the image of her sales total at the end of the day, Piper soldiered on, though she occasionally felt split in three as she answered questions from one person, found items for another, and listened to her phone ring insistently before the answering system clicked on.

By closing time, she finally had a few quiet moments, and she sank onto the tall stool behind her counter with relief. Piper was downing a long sip from the water bottle that had replaced her coffee mug when she spotted Scott out of the corner of one eye heading briskly toward her shop door. She set down her bottle, sensing urgency in her ex-fiancé's posture, and waited with some trepidation.

Scott threw open her door, setting the connecting bell jangling wildly.

“Have you seen Zach today?” he asked from the open doorway. His suit jacket was rumpled and the tie underneath hung askew. When Piper, bewildered, shook her head, he took a step forward, his shoulders sagging. “He's gone missing,” he said.

20

M
issing!” Piper cried. “What do you mean? What's happened?”

Scott let the door swing closed behind him and took a few steps forward, bringing an air of gloom with him. “We talked to the sheriff this morning. Zach explained his side of the incident at college. The sheriff asked Zach to return this afternoon for more discussion. Zach agreed. But he never showed up.”

“Sugar doesn't know where he is?”

“She hasn't seen or spoken to him since this morning at my office. The problem is . . .” Scott paused, causing Piper to hold her breath. “Zach's disappearance gives Sheriff Carlyle probable cause for a search warrant. He could get it and be over there within minutes. I've been trying to find Zach in hopes of heading it off.”

“But . . . it should be okay, right? I mean, it's terrible to have strangers paw through your home, but there won't be anything to find, right?”

Scott looked at Piper for several moments. “I hope not,” he finally said.

After Scott left, Piper got on the phone, acting on her first thought. Amy picked up right away and Piper heard busy kitchen sounds in the background.

“Sorry to call you at work,” she said, then quickly explained the situation. “Would you or any of your friends know Zach's friends well enough to pump them for information?”

“I can try,” Amy said. “But if Sugar doesn't know . . .”

“It's a shot in the dark. But it's the best I can come up with.”

Piper closed up shop, then paced around her apartment, hoping to hear something positive. When the silence of her phone got to her, she called Scott's cell but only got voice mail. After downing a few bites of food, she could stand it no longer. She threw on a jacket and hurried down to her car and drove straight to Sugar's house.

Flashing lights bounced off Sugar's white siding as Piper drew near, signaling that Sheriff Carlyle and his team had started their search. Piper spotted Sugar standing outside on the sidewalk, Ralph Strawbridge beside her, and Scott next to Ralph, all staring grimly toward the house. Piper parked and approached the trio. Sugar, seeing her, reached out for a hug, and Piper could feel her friend trembling with anxiety.

“Any word from Zach?” she asked. Sugar shook her head.

“I'm worried to death. I can't believe he would just take off without saying a word! The sheriff should be out looking for him instead of poking through our things.”

“You can be sure he has plenty others looking for Zach,” Scott said. He looked at Piper. “I got your call. Just didn't have anything good to report.”

Piper nodded and glanced around. The flashing lights had drawn the curious, which couldn't help Sugar's state of mind. There was nobody she recognized, and Piper wished she could shoo them all away. She could only hope the tedium of nothing much to see or learn would eventually scatter the crowd.

“I can't bear the thought of my kitchen being gone through,” Sugar said, voicing the lesser of her worries.

“They'll start with Zach's room,” Scott said. “They might not—” He stopped, and Piper finished the thought for herself. They might not search any farther if they found something incriminating in Zach's room. But what could they possibly find beyond normal college student things? Would innocent items suddenly take on sinister meanings? Piper squeezed Sugar's hand encouragingly but felt far from easy herself.

They saw sudden activity around Sugar's open front door, and Scott immediately headed over. Piper and the others watched him converse with the officers, straining to see any indication of what was happening. After what seemed like hours, he returned.

“They've found something in one of Zach's books.” Scott's face was grim.

“What?” Sugar asked. “What did they find? Something he wrote?”

Scott shook his head. “It's a plant cutting pressed between the pages. They'll be checking with an expert to identify it.” He paused. “But it was tucked among the pages that discuss bloodroot.”

Back home, Piper returned calls that had collected on her voice mail. The first was to Amy. “Any results on Zach's whereabouts?” Piper asked.

“Afraid not. No one I've reached has seen Zach or knows where he could be. There's still hope, 'cause I haven't heard back from everyone. But I left the message on your cell because of the chatter some of our waitstaff have picked up. What's going on at Sugar's house?”

Piper told Amy what she knew but asked her not to spread around the discovery in Zach's book. “Nobody knows for sure yet what the plant is.” Piper expected it was simply a matter of time before that news became public. Amy's father, Sheriff Carlyle, must have familiarized himself with bloodroot after Dirk Unger's poisoning. He was simply going through the proper procedures. Amy's glum response told Piper she understood that as well.

Piper's next call was to Aunt Judy, who'd been hearing from friends about the activities at Sugar's place as well and hoped Piper had a reassuring explanation. Piper was sorry not to have one and told her aunt about Zach's disappearance. She held off about the sheriff's discovery, figuring one upsetting piece of news was enough for the time being.

“Could he be hurt or in danger?” Aunt Judy asked worriedly.

“Scott seemed to think Zach was avoiding further interrogation.”

“But that only makes him look guilty!”

“I'm afraid so,” Piper said.

“He is, of course, very young,” Aunt Judy said, struggling to hang on to anything positive. “He might have thought that removing himself from the scene was best for his mother, though it's truly the worst.”

“Agreed.” Piper remembered the anguished expression on Sugar's face as she waited outside her house and the pressure of her grip on Piper's hand. “I have Amy calling around to anyone she can think of who might know where Zach could have gone.”

“That's good, dear. I'm afraid my contacts for Zach's generation are very limited. Please keep me posted.”

Piper promised and sent her best to Uncle Frank.

Piper next spoke with Emma Leahy and Gil Williams, two more people she'd relied on and wanted to keep in the loop. She saved her last call for Will.

“How is Sugar doing?” was Will's first question after she filled him in.

“She's struggling. Ralph, I think, is a great help.”

“Good. And you? How are you doing?”

Piper sighed. “I'm trying hard to keep my faith in Zach's innocence.”

“Right. Disappearing wasn't a smart thing for an innocent person to do.”

“As Aunt Judy says, he's immature and probably thinking less with his head than his emotions.”

“It'll be bad if that plant turns out to be bloodroot.”

“There must be an explanation,” Piper said.

“If only Zach were around to give it.”

“I know.” Piper fell silent, then repeated, “I know.”

. . .

I
t's bloodroot.” Scott stood across the counter from Piper. She'd spotted him lingering outside her shop window the next morning, apparently waiting to catch her at a quiet moment. He'd had a long wait, with many wanting to talk about last night's happenings at Sugar's. So far, the information of most was limited to the fact of the sheriff's search, and Piper hadn't added to that.

Piper sagged at Scott's statement, though she'd fairly expected it. “What now?”

“Now we have to find Zach. Before the sheriff does.”

“I suppose he's stopped thinking of other suspects?”

“You can bet on that. Do you happen to know of anyone else having the poison that killed Dirk Unger on their premises?”

The discussion ended as two more of her steady flow of drop-ins pushed through the door. Scott excused himself and left her to her customers, though she'd had enough by then of others subtly picking at her brain, especially after what she'd just had confirmed.

“Did you hear about Ms. Heywood's house being searched last night?” Leah Harrison asked as the door closed behind Scott, and Piper bit her tongue and wished she could simply close up shop and pull down her shades.

Amy's arrival offered respite, though she still had nothing positive to report from her phone canvassing. “It's like Zach dropped off the face of the earth. He doesn't have a car. How far could he have gone?”

“There's always hitchhiking, I suppose.”

Amy shuddered. “Let's hope a friend gave him a lift but isn't talking.”

“I'd rather hope Zach shows up claiming temporary amnesia.”

“Then he'd better have a good bump on his head to back it up.” Amy glanced toward the back room. “Anything to work on back there to keep my mind off things?'

“There's a bunch of strawberries you could help me turn into preserves. But if anyone comes in, I'd be glad if you'd run out to wait on them. I'm in dire need of downtime.”

“You got it,” Amy said, slipping on her apron and heading to the workroom. She had just begun to rinse the berries when the shop bell jangled, and she turned the job over to Piper, who willingly took it. Working on pickling or preserving would be a first-choice activity for Piper anytime, but that day it was her therapy, badly needed to counter the steady progression of terrible news.

By the time Amy needed to leave, the large batch of strawberries had been hulled, sugared, and slid into Piper's refrigerator to sit overnight. Piper felt reenergized by then—which snacking on a strawberry or two during the process hadn't hurt—and saw her assistant off without too much regret. The flurry of drop-ins had slowed, and she hoped it would trickle away to nothing before too long.

She'd had a few minutes of peace when she saw a woman she didn't recognize approaching her door. The woman paused outside for a long time before coming in.

“That is the most amazing door I've ever seen!” she said as she came in, and Piper's mood rose several levels. It had been a long time since anyone had commented on Ralph's creation. Of course most everyone in town had already seen it, not to mention that people's thoughts were currently occupied by other, more pressing things.

The stranger's graying hair and crow's feet pegged her as mid to late fifties. A brown oversized sweater covered her roundish form from shoulders to knees followed by gray sweatpants that drooped over worn sneakers. “Really,” she said. “That door is somethin' else.”

“Thank you,” Piper said. “Though the credit belongs to Ralph Strawbridge, who made it.”

The woman grinned. “Can't take false credit, huh? I like that. Good for you.”

She came closer, and Piper detected a faint odor of alcohol, causing her some uneasiness, though the woman appeared harmless. So far.

“I need a little help,” the woman said, and Piper braced herself. “I'm looking for the Porter house. Jeremy Porter. And Lydia. And Mallory. Any idea how to find it?”

“Um,” Piper hesitated. “Are you a friend of theirs?”

The woman made a loud, chortling laugh. “No, but they'll still have to take me in. That's what families do, right?”