Fudging the Books (14 page)

I
HURRIED BACK
to the shop and was surprised to see a group of parents and a band of children in costumes already assembled at the rear of the store. The happy chatter was intense. What a hit!

Under Bailey’s supervision, each child was cutting, pasting, sprinkling glitter, or doodling. Aunt Vera, wearing an eye patch slung over one eye, had taken up a position in the corner. She was reading aloud from
Peter Pan
. I felt a tug on my heartstrings watching the children, wondering if someday I would have children while at the same time aching for Alison and the possible loss of her child. Had she been pregnant? Did Cinnamon have a clue?

Confident the Children’s Pirate Day event was running smoothly, I slipped into the stockroom and put in a call to the precinct. I had so much to tell Cinnamon, but she still wasn’t available. The clerk asked if I wished to be transferred to Deputy Appleby. I passed. I didn’t know if my aunt had contacted him; I certainly wasn’t in the mood to answer questions about her if she hadn’t.

Seeing as there was nothing in regard to the murder
investigation that I could do until Cinnamon called me back, I returned to the party. Tigger, the imp, was having a field day lurking beneath the table, trying to nab falling snippets of yarn and paper. Hershey wanted none of the infantile action. He had tucked himself into a comfy reading chair and was refusing to give it up to an elderly woman. I intended to fix that. I marched toward the grumpy cat.

Before I reached him, Bailey charged up to me and hooked a thumb. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

She prodded me to the sales counter. “Outside. On the stairs. You and Neil.”

I told her in less than thirty words.

“Did you believe him about where he was?”

“You’re the one who told me he’s always cracking jokes.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean he was really at the comedy club.” Bailey folded her arms. “He admitted he has debts. Did you ask why?”

I hadn’t.

“Maybe he’s a gambler,” she said.

“Or he’s simply spending beyond his means.”

“He lives at home!”

Like that made a difference. The thirty-something son of my boss at Taylor & Squibb still lived at home and spent wild amounts of money.

Over Bailey’s shoulder, I spied Dash Hamada entering the store. He wore a plumed tricorn hat and a pirate-style coat, which hit his jeans mid-thigh. He’d slung a couple of local shopping bags over his shoulder. His pockets overflowed with a map of the town, flyers, and photo contact sheets, making him look like a walking advertisement for Crystal Cove. How many pictures had he taken of the place?

“Ahoy!” Dash raised a hand in greeting. In his other hand, he held a Beaders of Paradise gift bag. I recognized the ornate figure of a parrot on the outside. Dash seemed a whole lot cheerier than he had when I’d seen him on The Pier last night. It never ceased to amaze me how people coped with sadness. Grief came in waves. It had for me when
my husband went missing, and again when my mother passed away. On some days at work, I had barely muddled through. On other days, I had been downright hilarious.

I whispered to Bailey, “I’ll be right back,” and I approached Dash. “Hey, there. You sure look festive.”

“Got to get in the spirit.”

“Why are you still in town?”

Warily, he tilted his head. “Do you mean, why am I not holing up in my apartment, pining away now that my employer is dead?”

“I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.” Dash swiped the air with his hand. “It’s Pirate Week. Alison wouldn’t have begrudged me having fun. She knows . . .
knew
how much I liked this stuff. Such a loss,” he added, then wheezed out a sigh.

I eyed the bag in his hand. “What did you buy at Beaders of Paradise?”

Dash brushed his scraggly hair over his shoulder. “I’m going for the total pirate look at Pirate Cosplay. Beaded braids. Johnny Depp chic.”

Typically, cosplay was the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, and acting out the character. Pirate Cosplay, which was going to be held on The Pier on Tuesday night, would cap off the events for Pirate Week. The experience was for adults only; children, per the mayor’s instructions, were forbidden. Pirates could get rowdy. Rhett and I were planning to attend. We also had tickets to go to The Theater on The Pier for some karaoke. I’d been piecing together a pirate costume based on a cult-favorite farce I’d read,
The Legendary Adventures of the Pirate Queens
by James Grant Goldin, which featured a woman, circa 1718, who had to pretend to be a man to find her long-lost love aboard a pirate ship. Rhett said he wouldn’t care if I dressed like a guy. He thought I would look downright sexy in tight pants tucked into boots.

“Why have you come into the shop?” I asked Dash.

“I’m looking for a book with tattoos. The title will come to me. My friend, the guy I’m staying with, said you had it.”

“Sterling?” The fellow with the multipierced ears who owned the jewelry store.

“Do you know him?”

“A bit.” I hadn’t spent any time in his shop. I didn’t have enough information to know whether he was gay. “How’s that going?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Coco said you and he have a
thing
.”

“Huh? No way. I’m straight.” Dash’s jaw ticked with tension for a split second, but then the tension melted away. “
Very
straight.”

“I thought so,” I let slip and felt my cheeks warm at my faux pas. “In fact, I told Coco you liked Alison.”

“I—” Dash studied the knuckles on his hands. “No. We were colleagues. Nothing more.” His eyes flickered; he was lying. I was sure of it. Had Alison known how much he cared? Had she rebuffed him? Dash flipped his hands over and assessed his palms, then he smacked them together. “Back to the book I’m looking for. It starts with the word
pirate
.
Pirate
-something. It’s got temporary tattoos in it.”

“You don’t have enough tattoos of your own?”

“It’s for personal reference.”

“Maybe you’re talking about
The Pirate Tattoo Book
?” I walked him to the display and lifted a copy. “It has twenty-four temporary tattoos and a ton of interactive stuff to do.”

“That looks a bit young for me.”

It was definitely skewed toward children. “How about
Pirateology
?” I picked up that book, perfect for young explorers and possibly older ones, as well. An inset compass adorned the front cover. The back cover had an inset ruby. “It’s filled with extraordinary pictures.”

“
Arrr
. That’s it.”

“I don’t think it has tattoos, however. It has maps.” We had sold over a dozen copies of the book so far.

Dash flipped through it—no tattoos—but that didn’t seem to bother him. He carried it to the checkout counter and laid down cash.

I skirted around the sales counter, completed the
transaction, and stuffed the book into a striped bag with our logo. I added a number of the shop’s bookmarks and handed the bag to Dash along with the receipt. “Dash, about Alison. Do you know if . . .” I let the sentence hang. I couldn’t ask him outright whether he knew Alison was pregnant. I didn’t know for sure myself.

“Do I know what?”

“Nothing.”

“Alison—” He halted. His eyes flickered. “She will be sorely missed. She believed in my work. She intended to publish my tattoo book as part of her nonfiction line. But now . . .”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll find another publisher, but Alison will never—” He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple slid up and down in his throat.

I was sure I was right. He had loved her. Did she cut him out of her life? Did he then
cut
her out of his?

“Man, Alison was talented at what she did,” Dash said. “She had an eye for a good book, and she had a knack for making a successful business.”

“Successful? Her brother said the business was in the red.”

“Not a chance. It was running a profit.”

I flashed on a previous thought. About Neil. Was he Alison’s heir? Would he have killed her for her money?

“Are you acquainted with Neil Foodie?” I asked.

“Sort of. He rarely came to the city, and he seldom visited the publishing house, but if you want my two cents, what I saw of him, I didn’t like. He’s shallow. No, that’s not right. He’s”—Dash snapped his fingers—“callow. Foolish. Always making jokes.”

“Would Neil have any reason other than money to kill his sister?”

Dash looked right and left. “Between you and me, he said stuff that made me wonder if he was jealous of her. He intimated that Alison had it all: the brains, the talent. And he said, with a bit of bite, that she was lucky to get out from under their mother, unlike him who was stuck taking care
of her. I remember him saying he wished he could cut bait and run.” Dash ground his teeth. “Can you imagine? Abandoning your mother? My mom is the best. You’d never hear me say anything like that in regard to her.”

“I didn’t think pirates had mothers,” I teased.

“Most do.” Dash offered a wicked smile. “In fact, I’m pretty sure all did at one time or another.”

A long silence fell between us. Finally, I said, “I can’t help thinking if only Alison—”

“Yeah.” Dash nodded. “If only one of us had been with her, right?”

“No, that wasn’t what I was going to say. If only she had stayed at her mother’s house.”

“That wouldn’t have solved anything. The killer would have found her there, too.” Dash ran his hand down the buttons of his jacket. “
If only
. Sadder words were never said. I would imagine we all have a wealth of
if only
’s in our memory banks. If only I didn’t leave the cookbook club dinner and go to the piano bar. What a fool.”

“You sing?”

With robust abandon, Dash joined in with the song playing in the queue, “Yo Ho a Pirate’s Life for Me,” thrusting a bent arm whenever he sang the words
pillage
and
plunder
. When the song finished, Dash doffed his plumed hat and said, “I’ll take my leave.” Then he spun on his heel and exited the shop. Watching him go, I realized I liked him more each time I saw him. Was he snowing me? Was he a killer?

Needing to lighten my spirit, I moved to the children’s table. I asked Bailey to man the sales register and deal with the regular customers, and then I dove in.

Over the course of the next hour or so, I helped children complete projects. A tricorn hat wasn’t hard to make. We had posted easy-to-follow, origami-like instructions on the wall next to the table. I made a hat for myself and fashioned an origami-style parrot. When I attached that to my shoulder, the children laughed. How I loved the sound. I helped kids create hooks for their hands using paper cups and foil.
After that, we constructed treasure maps using brown packing paper. I circled the group, asking each child what special booty he or she might stow in a treasure chest. With black felt-tip pens, we plotted where they would stash their booty—X marks the spot—and what safeguards they would put in place to keep looters from stealing it.

The afternoon flew by. When the queue of music started to play “A Professional Pirate,” also from
Muppet Treasure Island
, I gonged a bell that I’d bought for the occasion. “All right, Aunt Vera. Story time is over. Kids, moms, dads, grandparents, and special friends. Listen up! It’s time to search for the hidden goldfish. So far no child has found it.” Bailey had done a fantastic job of hiding it. I scanned the shop for Bailey. She wasn’t at the register. Where had she gone? It didn’t matter. No regular customers roamed the shop. “And then, kids,” I continued, “it’s time to parade around the shop so we can choose the best pirate costume. The winner will win dessert for four at the Nook Café.”

A chorus of
whee!
rang out.

Ten minutes of chaos ensued until a freckle-faced redhead girl shouted, “I’ve found it!” She waved the goldfish overhead.

“Phooey!” another girl cried. “Where was it?”

“Tucked inside an oven mitt!”

Aunt Vera directed the winner and her redheaded father to a table of books from which she could choose her free book.

I wielded a gong. “The rest of you, it’s time to follow me!” I banged the gong in time to the music. “March!”

Kiddies lined up behind me, each giggling or chatting with excitement. Aunt Vera clapped along with the gong. When the music ended, I yelled, “Freeze!” The children stopped in place. I patted heads, one by one, and said, “Sit down.” When I came to a girl sporting an eye patch and dressed in a black-and-white striped bandana, black-lace bodice, and a swatch of black-and-white striped material over a red skirt, I said, “The winner!” I awarded her the certificate for the Nook Café desserts.

While Aunt Vera and I doled out the bags of gold foil–wrapped chocolate coins, Bailey broke through the curtains from the stockroom. “Jenna!” She raced to my side. “Neil,” she rasped. “I called.”

“Called who?”

“That stand-up club. He wasn’t there the night Alison died.”

“What?” I said, my voice skating upward.

“The owner didn’t see him. He wasn’t scheduled to do a routine.”