Unlucky Charms (14 page)

Twenty-One

I couldn't help it.
The next morning at breakfast I slipped away from Gemma and Stuart, leaving Pluckie with them, and went into the kitchen where Serina was cooking more food for her guests.

Justin had been here last night, presumably waiting for me. But he'd been waiting with Serina. She'd experienced a bit of Flora's vandalism at the B&B, of course, and therefore, like so many others, she remained on my suspect list.

Had Justin asked her anything about what had happened here?

Should Serina be on the
official
suspect list?

I hoped not. I liked her, liked her attitude about people and dogs and Destiny and superstitions. I hoped to eliminate her from my list eventually.

“Anything I can help with?” I asked, after entering the large, modern kitchen that contrasted with the rest of B&B's decor.

Serina stood behind the stove, her mitted hand holding the handle of a large pan that contained a few omelets. Her upswept brown hair was precisely in place. She looked near perfect, in fact. As if she knew exactly what she was doing.

She'd done this often enough that she probably did.

“No, thanks. I'm nearly done with this batch.” She turned to look at me. “But why are you in here? You almost never come in to volunteer to cook.” She was smiling, but her look appeared somewhat skeptical, as if she wouldn't believe anything I said. Her light brown eyes glommed onto mine, as if her gaze would somehow evoke real answers from me.

In a way, it did.

“I was just curious,” I said. “About Justin being here last night. Was he just waiting for me? Or was he asking questions? Trying to figure out a certain murder—whatever?”

While I hadn't suggested to Celia that she interview Serina, that didn't mean I didn't want to try to push Serina to talk to me about how she was innocent. I truly believed, and hoped, that she hadn't killed Flora, but with the bad luck of an upside-down horseshoe over her entry door, she'd perhaps had a tiny motive to kill, at least for a while.

Maybe I should have told Celia, nosy reporter that she was, to play the bad guy here as well as with the others.

But it was too late now. I'd blown it by asking Serina about Justin's questions. If only I'd just asked why he was here, and acted all gooey about the possibility that he only wanted to see me … but I hadn't.

“He did ask a few questions about my upside-down horseshoe,” Serina said. “But yes, I think your potential main squeeze was just waiting for you.”

I felt my eyes grow huge as we continued to stare at one another. I looked away first.

“He's not my potential main squeeze,” I said, both softly and hoarsely. “He certainly can't be now, with me being a major murder suspect and him being police chief.”

“Don't be too sure about that.” Serina gently put the handle down so the pan again rested on the stove. She then approached me, and I felt the layers of fabric on her Gold Rush era skirt—partly covered now with a full-length bibbed apron—brush against me. “He doesn't think you killed Flora, and he wants to protect you.”

I pulled back, realizing my incredulity probably showed on my face. “Did he say that?”

“Not outright. But he did ask about you right when he arrived—if I knew where you were, that kind of thing. It didn't sound like he was chasing you down to arrest you, but like he gave a damn. And I asked him about the murder case.” At my blink, she laughed a little. “Yes, I'm fully aware of the belief around here that asking anything about the vandalism or anything related to it could bring bad luck.”

Not that anyone appeared to be paying much attention to that now. I smiled back. “So did Justin tell you anything interesting?”

Serina shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Not really. But I told him a couple of things I overheard here, some of my guests' speculations about who could have killed Flora. Nothing of great note or that he probably hasn't already thought of. But the really important thing?”

“What's that?” I followed the cue she'd given me.

“I told him that in a way, I thanked Flora for turning my horseshoe upside down temporarily. It's a good topic of conversation, and since the superstition it covers can go two ways, I don't think it brought bad luck here. Nor did anyone tell me their luck had changed for the better after they'd walked under it. No harm, no foul, in either case. Even so … ”

“Even so?” I again heeded her prompt.

“He shouldn't look here for the killer. At least not at me. I didn't do it.”

I smiled as she again turned to the stove to work on her omelets.

I believed her, and so I decided not to get Celia here to stress her out.

I thought again about Justin's admonition to stay safe and let him know what I was up to. But it certainly wouldn't be dangerous for me to visit a fellow Destiny retailer after I opened up the Lucky Dog this morning—especially since I would be accompanied to the Heads-Up Penny Gift Shop by one of the owners, who also worked for me.

I didn't speak to Justin that morning, and I had no intention of letting him know what I was up to. I was going to do what I needed to. And yes, I'd try my best to stay safe.

Around ten-thirty, I headed to the Heads-Up with Jeri to visit Kiara and any other member of their family who happened to be working in the gift shop, leaving Martha and Millie in charge of the Lucky Dog. The timing seemed good, since we weren't extremely busy that Wednesday morning.

The reason I gave Jeri for wanting to visit her shop was that I wanted to ask her mother about the suppliers of their products, especially products they'd had specially made. I intended to claim that I'd had some issues with the business that was manufacturing my dog toys, even though the newest items they'd sent seemed to be as good quality as the first batch, and they'd gotten them to me even more quick
ly than I'd anticipated.

So I was grumbling to Jeri about all this—both the quality and the timing—and she seemed to somewhat defend our supplier.

“I'm not sure any company my mother works with would do any better,” she told me as we made our way through the crowd along the sidewalk on Destiny Boulevard, heading toward our destination. As usual, she wore a shirt that said
Heads-Up Penny Gift Shop
, this time a coral knit one over slender jeans. Pluckie walked with us. Jeri and my dog were buddies, and my assistant had said that her family always enjoyed having dogs visit their shop, too—especially lucky ones.

Jeri and I then talked about generalities, not superstitions—or vandalism—as we walked along, and she continued to stick up for the company I'd commissioned to make my good luck dog toys. Having already given her my ostensible reason for going to her family's shop, I didn't want to bring up anything else, so I listened as she gave her approval of our latest toys' quality and how soon the replacement batch had arrived once ordered.

“You may be right,” I acknowledged, “and maybe it's still my angst over the vandalism and everything else that's making me wonder, but it won't hurt to jot down some other possible suppliers to try out in the future.”

“You're right,” my young assistant said as we walked up to the door of the Heads-Up Penny shop.

As was traditional here in Destiny, the shop was located in a retro, Gold Rush–type building with an ornate facade and wide windows displaying an attractive and inviting array of the shop's merchandise. Jeri preceded me in, then held the door open for me.

I'd been here before, of course, as I had with probably all of the shops in Destiny. Even so, I looked around with curiosity. Since this was one of the other places Flora had rampaged, I tried to see any residual damage.

But the shop looked much as I'd seen it before, with its carved display shelves of antique-looking dark wood, possibly mahogany. As with the Lucky Dog, it was divided into areas for specific kinds of goods. One section held garment racks displaying dressier shirts on hangers, and nearby were shelves of T-shirts and other clothes. I couldn't see them well from the door, but I knew they all had good luck symbols of some sort on them—four leaf clovers and crossed fingers and more.

Another area held a couple of display cases for jewelry, including hematite pieces, like the dog amulet I wore every day. Other areas contained hanging racks of belts and shelves of candles and candle holders—along with brochures about how to burn candles without incurring bad luck and which color candles stood for what, including my favorite, brown, which stood for protecting pets. A metal display held good luck magnets.

I took most of this in quickly, since I saw Kiara come out from behind the counter and approach us. There were five customers at various spots in the store, but they all appeared to merely be looking, at least for now. Kiara smiled at a couple of them as she walked past but didn't stop. Today, her slightly plump body was dressed in a beige button-down shirt covered with green, ends-up horseshoes, over light brown slacks.

“Hi, Rory,” she said as she hugged her daughter. “What brings you two here?”

Jeri quickly explained my supposed reason for coming: finding another company to manufacture my dog toys. “Do you know of any to suggest, Mom?”

“A couple. But—Jeri, could you take care of our customers while Rory and I go into the office? Jilli's due here soon, so she'll be able to help out.”

Perfect, I thought. Jeri's older sister was on her way. Meantime, I'd get Kiara alone and, hopefully, in a situation where I could appear to cry on her shoulder to get her to talk.

“Sure.” While Jeri approached a customer who'd turned toward us with a couple of shirts in her hand, Kiara led Pluckie and me through the store and into her office at the left rear.

This room also maintained the appearance of the Gold Rush era, with antique furniture consisting of a small desk that appeared to be made of redwood—perhaps carved back in the days when cutting down redwoods was no big deal. The couple of chairs around it were lighter in color, and although their backs were carved with designs, they didn't appear to be quite as old as the desk. A narrow wooden set of shelves fit into the corner, and fluffy lace curtains hung around the office's single window.

Appearing a little out of place, though, was Kiara's modern desk chair. And her computer. She gestured for me to sit and lowered herself onto her chair. She then turned to the computer monitor on her desk and started typing on the keyboard.

I did as she directed, and Pluckie obediently followed, lying down on the shining wood floor.

“I'll bring up a few of my suppliers and print them out for you,” Kiara said, “including the ones I deal with directly to create some of my stuff that's unique to this shop, like our good luck shirts and all.”

“Thanks,” I told her. My gratitude was genuine. I had no idea when and if having that kind of information would become imperative. Then I brought up what I'd really come about. “And … well, you and I have already talked some about what happened when your store, and mine, were vandalized, so whatever bad luck supposedly can result from discussing the situation has already been triggered—and you haven't seen any, have you?”

She shook her head, her wide mouth pursed. “Fortunately, not. Have you?”

“Well, no—although the police have been talking to me, and …
well, I've been kind of seeing Justin socially. You might know that. He's taking great care to ensure that he's not compromising the investigation because of what may look like a conflict of interest.”

“I've wondered about that.” Kiara shot me a look that appeared somewhat sympathetic.

“It's sometimes a little hard to deal with, but even so I can't really consider any of that to be bad luck. Not yet, at least. But what is bad luck? Maybe being confronted by Celia Vardox of the
Destiny Star
. She was doing an article on the murder, which I can understand, but she seemed so accusatory.”

Kiara's deep brown eyes widened. “You too?”

“You mean she also
interviewed
you?” I drew out the word “interviewed” so she'd recognize that what I really meant was “interrogated” … or worse.

I wasn't completely surprised when Kiara pulled back in her chair a little. I saw her eyes well up with tears.

Which told me something. Either she was as innocent of Flora's murder as I thought she was, or she was one heck of an actress.

“Yes, she did,” Kiara replied hoarsely. “But she was so nasty, so accusatory. She acted as if she knew for sure that I killed Flora. Which I didn't.” She stopped talking and aimed those moist eyes at me as if demanding that I acknowledge her innocence.

“Of course not,” I said, and I meant it—unless things were to change in this conversation or otherwise. “Look, tell me what she asked you and how she asked it. And what you said. I'll tell you the same, and if it ever seems appropriate, we can file a complaint with the police, or even go public and rebuke the
Star
in other media, social or otherwise. That can't be bad luck.”

“Well … sure. Two of us fighting that nasty paper and the Var-doxes—well, that's bound to be better than just one of us trying it.”

Kiara began talking about how Celia had come into the shop yesterday, her tablet in hand for making notes. She'd looked around, demanded that Kiara show her what kinds of things Flora had damaged. When Kiara had balked at the idea of media attention, given the original order that shopkeepers keep quiet about what had happened for fear of getting bad luck rained down on both them and the town, Celia had shrugged it off—even when Kiara reminded her of the fire at the
Destiny Star
offices when the Vardoxes had violated a similar edict.

“Yes, I reminded her of the fire, too,” I inserted, just to show I was still with Kiara, on her side.