A Suspicion of Strawberries (Scents of Murder Book 1) (3 page)

“I’ll call you tonight, Ands.”

“I’ll be waiting.” But I wasn’t done talking just yet. “You know what really bugs me?”

“What?” I heard the weariness in his voice. He was probably thinking,
Here goes Ands into one of her ramblings
. Okay, so I liked to think out loud.

“I
know
that scrub had nothing in it that Charla would have been allergic to. I mixed it myself, using the exact recipe Charla and I played with a month ago. She mentioned that she’d had reactions to strawberries, peanuts, and mangos. But this was
cherry
scrub.” I smacked my countertop for emphasis.

“Baby, there’s just some things we can’t explain.”

“Well, I know the scrub was fine. I refuse to believe otherwise.” I moved back to the table in the center of the shop. The bowls still lay where the young women had set them down. One had ended up on the floor somehow. Cherry scrub was already starting to dry onto the laminate surface of the table.

“Sometimes things happen. You didn’t do anything wrong. Did Jerry happen to take any of that goop for the lab?”

“Yeah, he did. It’ll take forever to hear back, though.”

“I’m sure he’ll give you a copy of the report.”

“I just don’t like waiting,” I tried not to sigh.

“Neither do I.” His affection oozed through the line. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“I miss you, too.” My throat tightened. “Well, I’d better get off the phone so you can get back on the road.”

“I love you, Ands.”

“I love you, too.” The phone clicked, and I slid the cover shut.

Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben
. What was I going to do? I missed his voice when he was away, the strength of his arms, the dimple in his right cheek when he’s embarrassed. His little-boy joy at discovering something new. The man was a fact magnet. Yet when he was in town for too long,
I
sometimes felt like I wanted to run and hit the road. But it wasn’t him. It was me.

If I dropped a few hints, I’d probably have a diamond bright enough to blind someone. Not as over-the-top as Charla’s ring, but it would be mine. Ben worked hard and was frugal with his money but lavish with his love.

So I came back around to the inevitable question, what was wrong with me?

I already knew I couldn’t imagine being without him. Trouble was, I didn’t know how I could be with him. Every day. All the time. Day in and day out.

The bell over the front door clanged. I tried not to cringe before I looked up. I’d forgotten to lock the door. Then I smiled at Diana, my sister with the more normal name. Momma had put her foot down when Diana was born.

“I came as soon as I could get away from the drive-through window.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and plopped onto the chair next to me, her brown eyes round, her eyebrows raised. “What in the world happened?”

“I don’t know what you heard, but the rumor around town is probably that my facial scrub killed Charla Thacker.”

Diana touched my arm. At the bank, her hands touched more money than we’d ever have in our lifetime. “All I heard was an accident happened at your shop and something about Charla. But I’ve been frantic wantin’ to find out. Did you talk to Ben?”

“I just did. He’ll be home tonight.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Diana, an old soul, had a soothing way about her much like Momma’s. “What about you? Are you all right?”

I nodded. “But I need to pick your brain.” I reached for one of the bowls that still hadn’t made it to the storage room. “Something in this scrub killed her, but I haven’t a clue what it was or how it got into the containers.”

Diana opened the bowl and sniffed. “Did she try to eat it?”

“Of course not.” I shook my head. “She put it on her face and—
bam
!”

“It’s not your fault.” Her calming tone didn’t have the same effect on me that it usually did.

“I know it’s not, but you know how people talk. Small towns have the longest memories.” I spread my arms out as if to embrace the room. “I’m heartsick over what happened to Charla, but I put so much into this business.”

“More than even the rug-weaving business you started, or the pottery shop, or the gourmet-cookie business?”

My face flamed. “Those flopped. This place has a chance. Or had.” God made me creative. I’d had a hard time focusing that gift until I opened Tennessee River Soaps.

Diana pointed at me. “Those businesses didn’t flop. They struggled. I might not have finished my business degree, but I know that businesses have growing pains, face struggles, and have setbacks. You have so much talent and creativity. You can’t quit because of what happened to Charla. No matter what people say.”

It was my turn to point at her, but I instead pointed at the floor where Charla had lain until EMS had strapped her onto a gurney and rolled her from the store. “She died right there. I don’t know if I’d want to shop here either. The poor girl.” I hadn’t even thought about when to reopen for business. What sounded like a respectable amount of time, and what sounded uncaring? Still too early to tell.

“You know what you need to do?”

I shrugged at her question.

“You need to close up shop, put this scrub on your worktable, and go home and turn off the phone. You’ve had a horrible shock. I know your first thoughts were for Charla’s sister and friends, but you’ve been through an ordeal, too. I’ll tell Momma and Daddy.” Diana sounded so convincing. “She’ll send some soup over for you or something.”

“But my back door—the lock’s been jimmied. Someone broke into the store last night.”

“Huh? You didn’t tell me that. When?” Her outrage would have normally amused me, but now I felt droopy with the adrenaline rush wearing off.

“Last night. What happened to Charla sort of overshadowed the break-in for a while.” I explained what I’d found that morning.

Diana snapped her fingers. “I’ll ask Steve to rig something up for the door. In fact, I’ll call him right now.” Not only did she marry before I did, but she married a handyman. She found her cell phone and hit a button.

Great.
The matter of the break-in fought for attention again. I’d have to call the real-estate company and tell them what happened. It wouldn’t surprise me if my rent increased once the lease came up for renewal in a few more months. All over a broken door lock.

“Thanks, Di,” was all I could manage to say while my thoughts overwhelmed me. I vacillated from shock over the break-in, what happened to Charla, and then to a flooding sense of empathy for Melinda as if I’d been the one to lose a sister. A constricting feeling came into my throat. I struggled to catch my breath as a sense of overwhelming loss swept through me.
Lord, if anything like that ever happened to Di—

Peace

I wrestled with my emotions while Diana chatted. She snapped her phone shut and waved me off. “Now go. I’ll wait for Steve here and he’ll put in a new lock.” Diana sounded like she was addressing Taylor, my six-year-old nephew. “Stop worrying and borrowing trouble. ‘Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof ’ and all that.”

I stood and gave her half a smile, then took off my canvas apron. I had to agree. So far today had contained enough trouble for a good long time.

Chapter Three

Since I knew I’d be too busy working at the store to take any kind of vacation that summer, I had agreed to teach the church's high school Sunday school class until September. I had thought about calling the Sunday school coordinator to see if she could find someone to take my class that morning, but I stopped myself. A substitute for the substitute.
Ha
. My Sunday routine would hold back the memories of Charla’s body on the floor. The kids would make me laugh as they usually did.

As I surveyed the room filled with nine girls and five boys, I didn’t regret the decision. This morning, however, stories flew around with a life of their own. I did my best, though, to deflect rumors with the truth. No one gave me accusing looks when I explained that Charla had tried the scrub before the party, and it hadn’t bothered her.

So I let them talk about what happened. . .to a point. The adult classes had coffee and doughnut time, better known as
fellowship
, so I figured the kids needed a chance to talk also. My stomach turned over on itself when I heard snatches of conversation.

“Her face was big as a balloon.” One kid held his hands up around his face and puffed out his cheeks like a blowfish. “My brother’s friend worked the ambulance yesterday.”

“I heard a news story once about something like that happening to a girl after kissing her boyfriend.” A brunette shook her long, curtainlike hair. “She was allergic to peanuts, and he’d had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, hours and hours before.”

“That’s just so gross, you know. Didn’t he brush his teeth?” another girl interjected. Oh, the practicality of teenagers.

“Where’s Seth?” I scanned the faces in the room for the slim, dark-haired boy who had sat in the back last week. He hadn’t participated, but I felt his challenging stare throughout the entire class.

Sadie, the girl who talked about the peanut-butter kiss, spoke up. “He probably won’t be here. He’s Charla’s cousin.”

I nodded. “I see. Well, this seems like a good time to share prayer requests. We should pray for the Thacker family. Does anyone want to write down the requests so we can keep track?”

From the Thacker family to summer-job needs to sick relatives and sunburns and someone wanting to get a car, we gathered the requests and prayed together. Sadie frowned. Her mind looked like it had just hit overdrive.

“Sadie, did you have a question?”

She blushed and looked around the room. “It probably doesn’t have anything to do with the class, but I was wonderin’ something about Charla. . . .”

Here we go. . .

“That’s okay. Ask.”

“I heard someone saying last night that it was about time Charla got a taste of her own medicine.” Sadie’s face went to a deeper shade of crimson. “I mean, who are they to say she got what she deserved?”

And I thought taking the high school group would be easy. I tried to find words that wouldn’t sound trite to these kids. They could see through platitudes a mile away.

I swallowed hard before answering. “I look at it this way. God made Charla and had a great destiny for her life, like He does for everyone. I’m not Charla’s judge, and I really didn’t know her personally, but I don’t think anyone deserves that kind of death. In the end, only God truly knows someone’s heart. . . .”
Lord, help me; I’m sounding pretty lame. And I’m rambling. Ben would be in the back of the room, wondering when I’d stop trying to talk myself out of the hole I’m digging for myself.

The dark-haired boy who talked about Charla’s swollen face—Russ, if I read the roster correctly—sat up straighter in his chair. “So do you think God wanted her to die like that? I mean, we talked last week about Psalm 139 and how God knows all our days from beginning to end.”

“Wow, y’all don’t ask the easy questions, huh?” I clutched the podium a bit more tightly.
Next week, we’re going to move the chairs in a circle, and I’m going to sit down and not be on display.

“I’m not saying that God made that reaction happen to Charla. But the reality is we live in a fallen world. Bad things happen—to good people, to bad people, and those people in between. Sometimes it stinks. That’s the reality of free will. But God still cares and sees. If He can see the sparrow fall and care about it, He cares no less for us. I don’t know why this happened. I wish it hadn’t. It’s in times like this we really need to pour out to Him how we feel.”

Again I felt the defensiveness from yesterday rising within me.
It’s not my fault!
I looked down at my class notes. We were way off track, and we couldn’t answer the tough questions of life in a forty-five minute class.

“Well, maybe someone messed with your soap and it made her sick.” The statement hung in the air like a trumpet’s call, and I glanced to see who’d spoken. Sadie, the Thinker.

“What?” I understood her perfectly, but I didn’t quite believe she’d said it.

“Really, Miss Clark. If you know you did everything right with that face scrub and it didn’t bother her when she tried it before, the simplest explanation is that somebody else messed with your soap.”

The break-in. Was it more than mere coincidence? My mind whirled. But who? How? Most importantly, why? I promptly dismissed her conclusion as the fervent wish of youth to see justice served, to find an explanation for the inexplicable. I could see the logic, though.

I smiled at Sadie. “The police say it was an unfortunate allergic reaction.”

“And that’s bad for your business.” Sadie looked around the room. “You guys, I think we should pray for Miss Clark. She’s got a cute store and she doesn’t deserve to have anyone saying bad things about her. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m gonna stop by Tennessee River Soaps and buy something every time I get paid.” A few in the group nodded.

My heart swelled at Sadie’s words. “Sadie, that’s so sweet of you, but. . .”