Murder Sends a Postcard (A Haunted Souvenir) (11 page)

I EMPTIED ALL THE POCKETS, SORTING CARDS AND
stacking them across the counter. Pictures of boats and beaches, silly sayings, tropical flowers, and vintage photos of Keyhole Bay.

I didn’t find the missing envelopes, but by the time Julie arrived, the store was tidy, the postcard rack was fully stocked, and I was ready for a break. Not that I was going to get one. Not on the Friday of a holiday weekend, which was why Julie was working an extra day this week. I needed to take care of some errands, and I didn’t dare close, even long enough to go to the bank.

I opened the safe to stock the till and was reminded that I had no reason to complain. It had been a good week so far, and the weekend looked promising. I made up a bank deposit, wrote a list of necessary errands, and stuck my wallet in my pocket with my driver’s license.

I called Jake before I ducked out the back door. “You have a bank deposit?” I asked. “Or a change order? I’m heading over, be glad to take care of yours, too.”

“Would you?” Jake sounded relieved. “I was already short of change, and the first customer through the door this morning spent ten bucks and gave me a hundred.”

“Call in the order and I’ll pick it up.”

I hung up, told Julie what I was doing, and trotted across the street to pick up Jake’s bank bag, and drop off Pansy’s scone.
Not because he was my fella
, I told myself.
Just doing a favor for a friend.

But as I came back across, I caught Chloe grinning at me through the big front window at Lighthouse and felt like I’d been caught. Doing what? I wasn’t sure. I just knew I felt guilty.

I steered the Southern Treasures truck down back streets, avoiding the main drag as long as possible. I finally turned into traffic and crept the last few blocks to Back Bay Bank. As I parked the truck, I realized with a start that soon the signs would change and Back Bay would cease to exist.

I waited behind two other local merchants as Barbara counted their deposits and stamped their receipts. Everyone wanted to talk about the dead auditor and what it would mean for the transition.

“I really don’t know yet,” Barbara said to Cheryl Beauford. “There’s supposed to be somebody from the bank coming down today, but who knows when he’ll actually get here. You know what it’s like trying to get a flight this time of year.”

Cheryl nodded. “We don’t travel during the summer, but we’ve had friends
try
to get here. It’s ridiculous.”

Cheryl stuffed her receipts in her bag and turned to leave.

“Hi, Glory,” she said as she headed for the door. “How you doing?”

“Can’t complain.” I wiggled my zippered deposit bag. “Been a decent summer so far. How about you?”

“The Fourth’s always good,” she laughed. “Lots of cookouts and beer.”

“Tell Frank I said hey,” I told her, moving up as the person in front of me finished at the teller window. “I’ll be by a little later, my cupboards are pretty bare.”

“We’ll be there,” Cheryl said with an eye roll.

I laughed. Running the main grocery store in town meant they were there all day every day.

I stepped to the counter and handed over my deposits to Barbara. “Any word about Bridget?” I asked as she emptied the bag and started checking off the totals.

“Bridget?” Her head shot up and she gave me a puzzled look. “Did you know her?”

“A little,” I said. “She came in the shop a couple times and we had dinner together the Friday before she died. Seemed like a nice gal.”

Barbara shook her head. “I thought so, too.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Until I heard she was doing drugs out there. Is that true?”

She looked stricken as she realized what she’d just said. “Not that I thought you—I mean, you talked to her, maybe you got an impression or something.”

“I did,” I said, trying to contain the shock I felt. I knew the rumors were flying, but I hadn’t heard them firsthand until now, and I certainly hadn’t heard them associated with me. “To tell the truth, I don’t believe it. She just didn’t seem like that kind of person, and I didn’t notice anything in the way she acted that made me think any different.”

Barbara straightened up and went back to counting. I suspected my tone had been harsher than I’d intended, and she hadn’t meant to accuse me of hanging out with a drug user. Still, her words stung.

I took my receipts and Jake’s change order, and hurried back out to the truck. Traffic was already heavy, I absolutely had to go by Frank’s Foods, and I needed to get the oil changed in the truck—though that would have to wait until next week.

On impulse, I pulled into Fowler’s Auto Sales on my way to the grocery store. Not that I’d let any of those clowns touch my baby. Instead, I pulled around to the back of the lot and through the chain-link fence that marked the end of Fowler’s property and the beginning of Sly’s. I knew Fowler had his eye on the junkyard with the small cinderblock house in the middle, but Sly had said many times that he’d never get his hands on it. Sly didn’t have much use for Matt Fowler, and neither did I.

Bobo, his teeth bared in a slobbery doggy grin, loped out from between the rows of trucks parked against the fence. I reached into the glove box of the pickup and retrieved a treat for him before I climbed out of the cab.

As I alighted, he sat expectantly, trying to control his excited wiggling. I remembered the first time I’d encountered Bobo, when I’d walked into the junkyard not knowing he, and Sly, lived there. All I saw that day was a head the size of a basketball, if basketballs had rows of large pointy teeth.

Since then I’d been accepted as part of his pack, and he treated me with affection and deference.

A few steps behind Bobo was Sly, his dark face split by a wide grin that exposed the gaps where several teeth used to be.

“Miz Glory! Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“Hello, Sly.” Anyone else I’d have greeted with a hug, but I wouldn’t presume to violate his dignity. Sly was nearly seventy, after all, and had the courtly manners of a true Southern gentleman. Although he treated me with the affection of family, I still felt like I needed to maintain some reserve.

“What brings you here this morning?” he asked. “Seems like you ought to be pretty busy with your store.”

“Julie’s there, and Rose Ann is with her grandma. I had to go to the bank and stop at Frank’s—Bluebeard is out of bananas and apples, and that’s a crisis.”

“He always was set in his ways,” Sly said. I knew he wasn’t talking about the parrot. Sly had been as close to a friend as Uncle Louis had in his later years.

“Anyway, I need an oil change, and since I was driving right by, I figured I’d stop and see when would be a good time for you.”

“Any time. I could do it right now, if you like. Take me about twenty minutes.”

I hesitated. I would love to stay and visit with Sly, but I’d promised Julie I’d be back quickly.

“Wish I could, Sly. I’d enjoy spending a little time with you and Bobo.” I patted the patient hound and he rewarded my attention with a wag of his tail. “But I still need to get groceries, and I have to get back to the store.”

“Well then, why don’t you come back next time Julie’s there to mind the store?”

I smiled. “She’ll be in all day Monday. How about I bring lunch? Say, around noon?”

Sly nodded his agreement.

I headed back to the truck, but his voice stopped me. “Miz Glory? I don’t mean to pry, but you look mighty down. Are you needin’ something more than an oil change?”

The concern in his voice was what broke me. I couldn’t bear to have Sly worrying about me.

I gave him a condensed version of the last few days, ending with my encounter at the bank. “I just can’t believe she was doing drugs,” I repeated for about the millionth time, “and I know I certainly wasn’t! But now it looks like I could end up with the same things being said about me.”

SLY SCOWLED. “THEY BETTER NOT SAY ANYTHING
like that where I can hear. Bobo neither.”

Beside me Bobo rose to his feet and growled, as though he knew exactly what Sly had said.

The two of them coming to my defense reassured me. No one who knew me, even slightly, would have any doubt of my innocence. And everyone in town knew me.

“Thanks, Sly,” I said. “And Bobo,” I added with a pat on his broad head. “I know it will all get straightened out when they get the tests back from the lab.”

I wished I felt as confident as I sounded.

“I’ll bring the truck in on Monday,” I said, climbing back in the cab. “Thanks!”

I waved at Sly through the windshield and put the truck into gear, backing out through the gate. I turned around and headed onto the road, in the direction of Frank’s Foods.

The parking lot was busy, but not as jammed as it would be later in the day. I grabbed a couple cloth bags from behind the seat and hurried inside. I’d spent longer than I’d intended talking with Sly, and I needed to get back to the shop.

But in Keyhole Bay—like all small towns—nothing ever gets done fast. I ran into two different people in the bread aisle who wanted to talk about Back Bay and its troubles, and by the time I got to the produce section, I was beginning to regret my decision. Surely Bluebeard could have managed another day without a banana.

I quickly piled fruit and vegetables into my cart, anxious to get through with my shopping.

Frank appeared from the back, pushing a cart piled with melons, and called my name. “Just got a shipment of watermelon in,” he said, “but one of ’em broke, and we can’t eat it all. Would Bluebeard like some melon?”

“You know he would, Frank.”

“Hang on.” He ran into the storeroom and came running back a few seconds later with a plastic zip-seal bag from the fish counter. I could see chunks of bright red watermelon with juice puddling in the bag.

“Here you go.”

“I owe you,” I said as he scrawled his initials and the words
No Charge
across the heavy plastic.

He handed me the bag with a shrug. “No you don’t.”

Cheryl was ringing up another customer when I got in line, and a few minutes later I was handing her a check in exchange for my two bags of groceries.

“I know this is good,” she joked as she slid the check in the bottom of the cash register. “Since I just saw you in the bank.”

“Yeah. It’s going to be strange, isn’t it, when they take down the Back Bay signs.”

“Sure is. Too bad about Francis and Lacey, too. He did what his bosses told him, and they just threw him to the wolves.

“Which reminds me,” she went on, “have you heard anything about what they’re going to do with Bayvue Estates? I know there are a bunch of the construction guys who are anxious to get in line if there’s going to be work.”

I slung the sacks over my shoulder and picked up the plastic bag of watermelon. “Wish I knew, Cheryl. It’s terrible about all the people thrown out of work by this mess.”

“You know, Frank and I actually thought about buying a lot out there. Maybe put up a place where we could retire one of these days,” Cheryl said, shaking her head. “But then we went out and took a good look around. We knew we’d never be happy out there, not with what they had planned.”

I hesitated. I should get home, but there was nobody in line, and I wanted to hear more. “What were they planning?”

“A bunch of patio homes. You know, big houses on lots so tiny that there’s only room for a patio, with your neighbors living practically in your hip pocket. And a bunch of community stuff, like a pool and clubhouse, and eventually a golf course.” She gave a little laugh. “Even if we could have afforded one of those overbuilt places—which we couldn’t—we would have never fit in. It just felt cold and plastic and like it could be anywhere.”

I couldn’t imagine Frank and Cheryl in the kind of neighborhood she described. Nor could I picture the two of them, with their adored nephews and nieces who traipsed in and out of their home constantly, in the house I’d visited just a week ago.

“I can’t even imagine y’all retiring,” I told her. “Much less moving away from your family.”

“Well, Glory, it’s not like Bayvue Estates is that far away. It’s just a few miles from where we are now.”

“And your sister and her kids are right next door to where you are now.”

She chuckled. “Got me.”

I wanted to ask her who had showed her the development and talked to her about the plans, but just then a couple in shorts and loud shirts wheeled a cart up to the check stand. A quick glance at their cart loaded with wine, ice, and snack food pegged them as tourists.

I waved good-bye to Cheryl and went back to the truck. It was way past time I got back to the store.

I checked in with Julie, who assured me she had things under control, before I ran across the street to deliver Jake’s change.

“Sorry it took so long,” I said. “Long story, and neither of us has time for it right now.”

“Tell me over dinner,” he said, “once we’re closed.”

I accepted his invitation along with a promise to call a little later with dinner details.

Bluebeard gobbled down the watermelon when I put it in his dish, much to the delight of a couple little boys who were in the shop. Somehow the idea that the parrot was eating watermelon was one of the most entertaining things they had seen all day, and they begged to be able to feed him.

“I’m really sorry,” I told them. “But he doesn’t have very good table manners sometimes, and he might hurt your fingers.”

Bluebeard cursed softly behind my back, but fortunately he was quiet enough that I was the only one who heard him. Then he squawked loudly. “Good Bluebeard!”

The boys dissolved into fresh giggles and went running for their parents.

As they were leaving, the father asked in a tone that was only half joking if I would ever consider selling the bird.

I shook my head. “There isn’t anyone I dislike that much,” I said with a lighthearted laugh. “Parrots can be a handful, especially one like Bluebeard.”

I didn’t tell him about the ghost that came along with the bird, and made it impossible for me to part with him. I doubt he would have believed me.

A tall woman with cropped red hair came through the door, eliciting a wolf-whistle from Bluebeard.

Julie was around the counter, giving our visitor a warm hug, by the time I had admonished Bluebeard. It was a lost cause, I knew, but I still tried to curb his flirtatious behavior. Not everyone thought it was cute.

Our new arrival, though, didn’t seem to notice. She was engaged in a rapid-fire conversation with Julie, and it was clear the two were old friends.

“Mandy,” she said, pulling her friend over to where I stood behind the counter, “this is my boss, Gloryanna Martine. She owns this awesome place. Miss Glory, this is my friend Mandy Price. She works for Coast Custom Printers. You know, the place that does Mermaid Grotto’s T-shirts.”

“Glad to meet you, Miss Glory.” Mandy handed me a business card. “Julie told me you might be interested in some T-shirts?”

“We did talk a little about that,” I said. I didn’t tell her I’d forgotten we’d scheduled a meeting this afternoon. “Julie thought shirts with Bluebeard on them would sell well in the store.”

“Pretty boy!” Bluebeard yelled.

Mandy noticed him this time. She turned and looked at the parrot across the shop. “May I?” she asked before she approached him.

“He’s bad-mannered,” I said. “But I couldn’t have him in the store if he wasn’t okay around the customers.”

Julie led her friend across the shop and showed her where to find the shredded-wheat biscuits that he loved. One treat from an attractive lady and he practically melted.

Mandy gingerly touched his head and he rubbed against her hand. “Pretty girl.”

“You’re not too bad yourself, Bluebeard,” she said.

“He likes pretty girls,” Julie told her. “Especially the ones that give him treats,” she added dryly.

Mandy laughed and came back to me. “So that’s your star. I can see why Julie thinks he’d sell on a shirt. She’s absolutely right. Mascots sell well, especially when it’s one with a personality, and that he has in spades.

“So what did you have in mind?”