A Deal to Die For (14 page)

“That woman is like a tick on a dog’s ear,” Maggie said. “She’s not leaving until
she sucks that estate dry. Bianca will be lucky if she’s left with the clothes on
her back.”

“What can we do then?” Molly asked.

“That depends,” Maggie said. She knew Molly wasn’t going to like her proposition,
but the more she thought about it the more she thought that it was the only solution.

“Depends upon what?” Molly asked cautiously, obviously hearing something alarming
in Maggie’s tone.

“How do you feel about becoming a spy?”

“A what?” Molly choked. “I couldn’t. I’m not anywhere near sneaky enough. Would it
be dangerous? What if I got caught?”

“Breathe, Molly,” Maggie said. “You’re just going to go back to work tomorrow and
keep an eye on Courtney Madison. You don’t have to do anything dangerous or even illegal,
but if you observe her doing anything suspicious, like selling the family china out
from under Bianca, you could let us know, and we’ll let the authorities know.”

Molly fretted her lower lip between her teeth. “Well, I guess that would be all right,
assuming she lets me have my job back.”

A noise from the kitchen brought Molly’s attention back to her son. Maggie glanced
over her shoulder. She could just see him in the sliver of light coming from the overhead
lamp in the kitchen. Jimmy was rocking in his chair while he sorted the newspaper.
He was humming softly under his breath.

“I’ll do it,” Molly said. “For Jimmy.”

Maggie and Ginger left her after giving her a stern pep talk about not letting Courtney
run her off again. Molly had looked relieved and determined.

“Do you think she’ll be able to withstand Courtney in full hissy-fit mode?” Ginger
asked as they drove back into the center of town.

“She has sufficient motivation,” Maggie said. “There’s no way she can afford to take
care of Jimmy without a job.”

“Sort of feels like we’re throwing a lamb into a lion pit,” Ginger said.

“I think the lamb has more lion in her than we’re giving her credit for,” Maggie said.
“She did work for Vera for twenty years.”

“True,” Ginger agreed. “So, what’s the plan now?”

“Claire was going to go to Home Depot this morning, and she said she’d check out the
Oops paint pile for me,” Maggie said. She glanced at her watch. “I’m supposed to meet
her and Joanne at the shop in half an hour. Did you want me to drop you off at home?”

“Are you kidding?” Ginger asked. “
Monday Night Football
is on tonight, and it’s the Steelers vs. the Ravens, an ugly rivalry. My house is
going to be on testosterone overload.”

“In that case, would you like to come to the shop with me?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Ginger said. “I think your new shop may become my sanctuary.”

“Excellent, I’ll put you to work,” Maggie said.

They drove through the center of town. Maggie was just driving past Summer’s Second
Time Around when she saw Courtney Madison coming out of the shop. She slammed on her
brakes, causing Ginger to jerk forward.

“What the—was it a cat? You didn’t hit it, did you?” Ginger asked, looking in the
road to see if Maggie had hit anything.

“More like a panther,” Maggie said. Before traffic could back up behind her, she pulled
over to the side of the road into a vacant parking spot along the town green.

“What are you talking about?” Ginger asked.

“Look!” Maggie pointed.

Courtney and Summer were standing just outside Summer’s shop. Courtney tossed her
hair and waited while Summer locked the front door. Together they strolled down the
sidewalk to the Daily Grind, where they turned in to the shop, presumably to have
a cup of coffee together.

“Is there some sort of she-devil network of which we’re unaware?” Maggie asked Ginger
as they watched the two women over the back of Maggie’s seats.

“Apparently,” Ginger agreed. “It must be like a magnetic force field, and they’re
just drawn to each other, or maybe they shine a light with the shadow of a stiletto
in it into the sky like Batman.”

Maggie looked at her. “You spend too much time with teenage boys.”

Ginger laughed. “No doubt, my entire life is a cartoon.”

“Well, I can’t think of two people who deserve each other more,” Maggie said. “This
is a game changer, however.”

“In what way?” Ginger asked.

“If Courtney’s plan is to sell the family fortune out from under Bianca—and I am pretty
sure that is a safe assumption on our part—then I can’t really turn over Vera’s stuff
to Courtney, not while she’s cozying up to Summer. I’m sure Summer would be oh so
happy to take all of Vera’s vintage couture off Courtney’s hands and sell it for her.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“Storage facility,” Maggie said. “I know Drew Constantine has one on the outskirts
of town. If I rent one of the units and lock the property up, then I can give the
key to Bianca so she can make sure Courtney doesn’t just hand it over to Summer for
a bargain-basement price.”

“Shrewd maneuver.” Ginger nodded.

Maggie pulled back out onto the road and drove past her own shop. The window was bare,
and the door badly needed a coat of paint. She hoped Claire had been successful at
the hardware store.

She parked around the corner from her shop, and she and Ginger walked back. Glancing
over at the pretty lace curtains now adorning Summer’s shop made Maggie feel like
she was running a three-legged race with one leg going in the wrong direction.

“What color would you call that exactly?” Ginger asked, tipping her head to the side
and studying the wall.

Claire had bought several gallons of Oops paint from Home Depot at a sweet five dollars
per gallon, and they had tested one of them on the wall. The only problem was, they
couldn’t really decide what color it was.

“It looks like a type of gray to me,” Maggie said.

“It’s supposed to be a pearlescent pewter,” Claire said. She was frowning at the lower
half of the wall in concentration, as if she expected the pearlescence to appear.
“Maybe it needs two coats.”

The door to the shop opened, and in walked Joanne bearing a deli platter from More
than Meats, the deli/butcher shop she owned with her husband.

Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten, and the sight of the salami
and marble rye spread before her made her put down her paint roller in the paint tray
and clear off an old table for Joanne to set the food down on.

“What are you staring at?” Joanne asked.

“Claire’s Oops paint,” Ginger said. “Oh, is that olive loaf?”

“Just for you,” Joanne said.

Maggie helped herself to one of the big garlic pickles and crunched while she considered
the walls. Even if the gray was more prison drab than pewter, it was a damn sight
better than the pea green color that lived beneath the coat of primer she had painted
on the wall for their test area.

Claire opened the other gallon and poured a bit into a clean tray. Using a small roller,
she rolled the paint out above the gray in a one-foot-square area. She stepped back
to examine the contrast.

“Oh, I like that,” Joanne said. “It makes the gray below it shine. What’s it called?”

“Aqua Chiffon,” Claire said. “Apparently, the woman who ordered it had more of a teal
in mind, so she demanded her money back.”

“Her loss,” Maggie said. “That is gorgeous. And look, it does make the gray take on
a pearly sheen. Claire, you nailed it. I knew your artist’s eye would pick the perfect
colors.”

“Thank you.” Claire looked pleased.

Joanne nibbled her sandwich as she stepped closer to the wall to examine the paint.
“This would look really lovely in a nursery, wouldn’t it?”

Her voice was so full of longing that Maggie felt her heart clench in her chest. Joanne
was in her mid-thirties and for the past five years she and her husband, Michael,
had been doing everything they could to conceive a baby. So far, no luck.

Claire was not known as a hugger, so it was especially poignant for Maggie to see
her put her roller down and wrap an arm around Joanne’s shoulders.

“It
will
look lovely in your nursery,” she said.

Joanne gave her a tremulous nod and then bit into her sandwich as if determined to
believe.

“Only if it’s a boy, though,” Ginger said. Her tone was lightly teasing. “I, for one,
would really appreciate it if you could get Michael’s sperm to pony up two X chromosomes
and give us a girl.”

“Oh, they had a really pretty shell pink paint in the Oops pile,” Claire said. “Can
you imagine?”

Maggie sighed. “I’ve always liked pink.”

Joanne shook her head. “Michael has pink issues.”

“What?” Maggie, Ginger and Claire all asked at once.

“He says too much pink and she’ll turn into a princess,” Joanne said.

Ginger and Maggie exchanged a look and started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Claire asked.

“Laura,” they said together.

Claire and Joanne joined them at the table. Maggie had pulled up a few of the mismatched
chairs left by the previous owner. Ginger passed out coffee mugs and poured fresh
cups of coffee from the pot that had been brewing since they’d arrived.

“I don’t understand what is so funny about your daughter and the color pink,” Claire
said.

“When we found out we were having a girl, Charlie went a little nuts and painted the
nursery bright pink.”

“Not just a little pink; picture flamingo pink,” Ginger cut in. “Even Roger didn’t
have the heart to tell him it looked like liquid antacid.”

“And when we were buying the bedding,” Maggie continued, “I wanted teddy bears, but
oh no, he had to have all princesses, castles, unicorns and rainbows.”

“That’s sweet,” Claire said.

“Very,” Maggie agreed. “Sadly, Laura came out as the biggest tomboy known to man.
Charlie passed away when she was two, so he never got to see what she did to her room,
but I know he would have laughed. He was good like that.”

“What did she do?” Joanne asked.

“Laura did not like pink. She refused to wear it or anything girlie, including dresses
for that matter, and when she was seven years old, she started collecting the colored
comics from the Sunday paper. One day I walked into her room, and she had stapled
the comics over the princess, rainbows and unicorn wallpaper from floor to ceiling,
wall to wall. I had hundreds of comic strip Garfield cats staring at me. It was mythic.”

“I can see Laura doing that,” Claire said with a laugh.

“Me, too,” Joanne agreed, chuckling.

“So, you and Michael are still trying?” Maggie asked gently.

“Oh yeah,” Joanne said. She stared off across the room with a look of such longing
that it made Maggie sigh. “We’re trying and hoping and hoping some more.”

“It’ll happen for you, honey,” Ginger said. “I know it will.”

Joanne gave her a small smile, and Maggie sensed she was about to cry, so she said,
“And by the time we get done tackling this place, we’ll be ready to take on a nursery.”

“And if we do go for pink, we’ll just tell Michael it’s not pink, it’s light red.
How can he argue with that?” Claire asked.

They all tucked into their sandwiches, and Maggie and Ginger told the others about
their visit with Bianca and her half sister, Courtney, as well as their quick visit
with Molly.

Both Joanne and Claire were outraged that Courtney had fired Molly, and they agreed
that Courtney was probably going to try to swipe the estate from Bianca.

When Ginger said they had seen Courtney going for coffee with Summer, no one was surprised
that the two had found each other so fast in such a small town.

“One thing, though,” Claire said. “Don’t you find it odd that Courtney showed up two
days after Vera was found dead?”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but who stands to gain the most by Vera
dying?” Claire asked.

“Bianca,” Ginger said.

“Unless there’s another heir, such as an unknown half sibling,” Joanne said. “Claire,
are you saying you think Courtney murdered Vera?”