He nodded into my armpit.
“A few of those dogs,” I went on, “are mean ones. Can you think of any?”
“There’s a big dog by the school soccer fields,” Jenna offered. “He growls at us through the fence.”
Wonderful. I made a mental note to talk to Gary Kemmerer, Tarver’s principal. “But other than a few nasty ones, most of them are good dogs, right?”
“Like Spot!” Oliver bounced up and down on my lap. I winced as his weight pounded my thighs. If the kid kept growing at his current rate, my lap was going to be too small by Christmas.
“That’s right,” I said. “Like Spot.”
The three of us looked around for our dog. Spanielsized, and as mellow as a dog could come, the solid brown Spot had already been named when we picked him up at the animal shelter a year ago. His name had either been a joke or he’d been named after the puddles he used to leave on the floor.
Spot was in his bed by the garage door. He looked up at the sound of his name, thumped his shaggy tail, and grinned doggily.
“He’s a good dog,” Oliver said. “Like most dogs. Only a couple are bad.”
“Just like people,” I said.
“Like people,” he repeated and slid to the floor. In seconds he was slurping cereal just quietly enough to keep me from scolding.
“Should I be extra nice to Blake?” Jenna asked.
This, apparently, was the day for hard questions. I’d been handed two of them already and it wasn’t even eight o’clock. “How well do you know him?”
“For a fourth-grader, he’s good at kickball.”
“How do you think you’d want to be treated if you were him?”
Jenna looked thoughtful. “Like normal. I wouldn’t want them to treat me any different.”
My daughter, my child, my heart. She really was growing up. “Then maybe that’s how you should treat Blake.”
Oliver laid down his spoon. “But I want to be extra nice to Mia. Is that okay?”
“Being nice is always good,” I said. “Just don’t . . .” My advice hit a dead end.
“Don’t be a weenie about it.” Jenna reached for the cereal box. “She’ll never like you if you’re a weenie.”
“Who said I wanted her to like me?” Oliver’s cheeks flushed pink.
“Look! He’s blushing!” Jenna giggled. “Oliver and Mia sitting in a tree—”
“Time to scoot.” I got up from the table. “Jenna, it’s your turn to take Spot out. Hurry; we need to leave in ten minutes.”
“But I don’t have time. I need to call Alexis about our social studies project.” Jenna plopped her bowl and spoon next to the kitchen sink.
“You could have done that last night. Spot is your responsibility,” I said. “Yours and Oliver’s, and it’s your turn.”
She grabbed her coat and Spot’s leash from the hooks by the back door. “If I had a cell phone I could take out Spot
This was not a hard question. I smiled at her. “Nope.”
Chapter 4
After I dropped the kids off at school, I debated about heading home for a nap. The store didn’t open until ten, so there was an hour and a half before I needed to put on my happy bookstore owner face. I sat at the school’s curb in the idling car, undecided, until the parent behind me tapped her horn. “Sorry.” I waved an apology and turned right out of the school, headed downtown.
Usually the drive through Rynwood made me smile. My adopted hometown was the kind of place that, when you heard the beep of a car horn, you looked around to see who was waving at you. Today, though, downtown, with its warmly red brick buildings, colorful awnings, Victorian streetlights, and quirky window displays, passed by as a faded background.
Poor Sam. And poor Rachel. How was she going to go on without her beloved husband at her side? How many nights would Blake and Mia cry themselves to sleep? I rubbed at my eyes, thinking about the permanent empty ache Sam’s family was going to have to make room for.
I parked in the alley and came in the back door, turning on only the minimum of lights, and headed to the tiny kitchenette. It held a small microwave, the hot plate for the teakettle, a cube refrigerator, sink, hooks for our coats, and a door into my office.
I took my brewed and milked (two percent) tea to my desk. There were a couple of ways to combat fatigue. One was to get some sleep, but since I’d taken that option off the table, I was left with option two. Get busy. I toasted the towering pile of paperwork with my tea mug, put my head down, and got to work.
When the phone rang, I was engrossed in accounts payable. “Good morning, Children’s Bookshelf. This is —”
“Beth,” said a sobbing woman. “Is it true? About Sam?”
I laid down the invoice from Ingram. The voice was too high-pitched for Marina, and besides, I’d told her about Sam last night. Debra O’Conner, in spite of her recent transformation from perfectly smooth to slightly rumpled, would never call without identifying herself. Claudia wouldn’t be asking questions, she’d be demanding answers. “It was on the news this morning,” the woman wailed. “I just can’t believe it. Who would kill Sam? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t—”
“Who would be so horrible? I thought we were safe here in Rynwood. I thought this was a nice place to live.”
“Well, I—”
“After Agnes was killed I wanted to move away, but Dan said don’t be silly.”
Got it. “CeeCee, the police will—”
CeeCee Daniels gave a high-pitched laugh. “The police? The police didn’t figure it out last time. You did. You and Marina.”
We should have left well enough alone, and I said as much.
“But nobody liked Agnes,” CeeCee said. “Everybody likes Sam. He’s so
I liked CeeCee, I really did. But when she got worked up, she came across like a bad combination of too many soap operas and too many cop shows.
“The police will figure it out,” I said. “Marina and I were only a step or two ahead of them last time, and that was mostly luck.” Bad luck, if you asked me, but no one did.
“Do you realize I was one of the last people to see Sam alive?” CeeCee’s voice shook slightly. “Did you see who left last?”
So CeeCee had no idea that Erica and I had found Sam. A tension I hadn’t known I’d been holding released in my chest. She didn’t know and I wasn’t about to tell her, as I had zero desire to relive the event.
I glanced at my watch. Five to ten. “CeeCee, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I put the phone down on her squawking noises and went to open the store.
At eleven, when the slow trickle of Friday morning customers became a steady stream, I picked my head up and looked around. I was still the sole staff member in the store. Lois wasn’t scheduled until twelve, but where was Marcia? She should have been here long ago. I leapt to the worst conclusions. Stroke or car accident. Accidental fall of grandchild, sudden illness of grandchild, disease symptoms in grandchild so outlandish that an emergency trip to Mayo Clinic was required, fast driving on a dark highway with a sobbing child, or worse, a quiet one. Driving through the night to—
“Good morning!” Marcia breezed past me, smiling and waving to the customers.
