the best and I got a discount.
It was hard to find a table. Two men were using tables as offices. They had their laptops, phones and BlackBerries spread out, and looked as though they might be there all day. Another table was taken up by two women from the building next door, who were talking about someone named Lannie who apparently had messed up something. Several student types occupied a big table. Their textbooks were propped open and they were discussing an upcoming exam.
We took the only vacant table, next to some guy with blond hair that looked like yellow cottage cheese, who was writing a screenplay on his computer. I was going to have to tell Mrs. Shedd she ought to put up signs with time limits for the tables.
Dinah took a long drag on her coffee and sighed with pleasure. “At last I can think again.”
“Good. Because I have to figure out how to proceed.”
Dinah drank more of her coffee and pointed at the window. The Cottage Shoppe was down the street, and Kevin had just stepped outside to put up the “Open” sign. “Why not start there? That’s where it all happened.”
It was a good point, and since this was the first time the store had been open since the murder, it seemed like a good time to have a look around.
“Maybe we can also find out who the bald guy is and what he was so mad about,” I said. Dinah nodded in agreement as she drained her coffee.
As we walked down the street toward the store, I noticed that it appeared to be the same quaint place it had always been. The only hint that anything had gone on was the scrap of yellow police tape stuck on the door handle. The banners about the Hearston Estate offerings were still on the windows, and the bell tinkled when we came in the door.
It was pretty dead inside. Then Kevin Brooks came down the stairs. His face brightened when he saw us, and he immediately came over.
“May I help you find something?” His voice sounded a little too anxious. He seemed to study our faces, and then he smiled with recognition. “You were here the other day, weren’t you? The day that Drew—” He swallowed hard. I could understand how that would be a hard sentence to finish.
I told him I was sorry about his brother; Dinah did the same.
“Thank you, ladies. I wasn’t sure about opening again as soon as the police finished, but I think Drew would want me to. It is important to keep going, don’t you think?”
Personally, I thought it was a little fast. I couldn’t imagine having gone back to work a few days after Charlie died, but then who knew how close Kevin and Drew were. Hadn’t Mrs. Shedd mentioned something about overhearing the brothers arguing?
Kevin invited us to look around at our leisure and mentioned there was complimentary coffee, tea and soup in the dining room. I just hoped he’d had the good sense not to be serving the tomato bisque again.
“Dorothy will be glad to help you with anything,” he said, gesturing toward the clerk half hidden in the living room. I knew her slightly. She was one of the regulars from Romance Night at the bookstore, and as I recalled she preferred paranormals, particularly anything with a vampire. She was past typical retirement age and appeared overdressed by current standards—a mark of her generation.
Dinah and I walked into the room. Dorothy didn’t seem quite to know what to do with herself and was sitting in one of the rockers, rocking at a frantic pace. It made me tense to watch her. But at the mention of her name, she stopped short and jumped up. The chair continued on its own with a loud thwack-thwack. I grabbed it, bringing it to an abrupt stop. The tension level was high enough already.
“I’m sorry to have startled you. It’s no wonder you’re feeling jumpy—after what happened.” I touched her shoulder in a sympathetic gesture as Dinah gave me a go-for-it nod and wandered off. “I was here. I saw him.” I pointed at the ceiling to indicate upstairs.
She shook her head with dismay. “Thank heavens I missed that sight. Trina—she’s our other salesperson—is the one who found him. She’s been having nightmares about giant bowls of soup and says she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to come back to work. Frankly, I can’t believe Mr. Kevin reopened already. They’ve barely had the funeral. He said something about life has to go on.”
“I’m sure Mr. Drew will be missed,” I said in a somber tone, curious how she would react. I added the
She looked around, then stepped right next to me. “I know they say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he was not a nice person.” She again checked to make sure no one would overhear her before continuing. “As soon as they took over the place, he crowned himself boss. All he cared about was money, money and more money—for himself. Not like his aunt. Don’t get me wrong, she did okay, but she did it in a fair way.”
I wanted to ask for details and maybe segue into the bald man, but Dorothy didn’t stop long enough to breathe, let alone for me to interject something. All the talking was obviously some kind of vent for her tension.
“Cut everybody’s salary, he did,” she said with a grunt of disgust. “It wasn’t so much a problem for me. My Henry left me very comfortable. I do this more to keep busy, but Trina counts on the money, and she was devastated.” Dorothy shook her head in dismay. “You know what he said to her when she complained? He said if she didn’t like it, there were plenty of fast-food places looking for another burger flipper.”
Dorothy had begun to walk as she talked. She stopped at a basket full of sachets and started nervously running her hands through them. “I was going to quit on principle. I have my pride. But Mr. Kevin apologized and reinstated my salary.”
I wondered if he was doing the same for the other cuts his brother had made. I’d have to be sure to tell Sheila. Dinah had gone off to the Kids’ Korner and as she came toward me, I noticed she was carrying a cloth doll and a wooden truck. No matter what she’d said about Ashley-Angela and E. Conner, apparently they had gotten to her. When she rejoined us, Dinah just hung back and listened, while Dorothy went back to complaining about Mr. Drew. She seemed very upset that he had installed an alarm on the back door to prevent shoplifters from escaping.
“Shoplifters?” she said, putting her hands on the hip portion of her mint green pants outfit. “This is not a shoplifter kind of business.” She pointed to a card that proclaimed no refunds or exchanges and all sales were final. “Shoplifters want to bring the stuff back and get cash. Not going to happen here.” She let out a big sigh. “Well, at least we won’t have to listen to them fighting anymore.”
“Fighting?” I said, finally getting to say something.
She said the two brothers argued loudly and continually.
“For someone so worried about business, Mr. Drew certainly should have known to keep his voice down. More than once I saw a customer walk out. Maybe they thought nobody could hear them, but this is a small place and sound travels.”
Now that she had brought up customers it seemed like my chance to steer the conversation toward the bald man. “I suppose you’re familiar with most of the customers and sellers,” I said when she finally took a breath. She opened her mouth to say something, but the bell on the entrance jangled and some customers came in.
Dorothy seemed to have lost her train of thought and walked toward them. “Look around,” she said to Dinah and me with a dismissive wave.
For a moment we stood there. “Do you think she’ll come back?” I asked Dinah. We watched as more people came in the door, and then we both shook our heads.
“You can pay over here,” Kevin said as he stepped behind the counter in the converted closet under the stairway that served as a cashier station. Even more people had arrived.
Kevin rang Dinah up and put the toys in a bag. We stepped away to make room for the new customers, but I wasn’t ready to leave.
We moved back into the living room and pretended to be looking around. Maybe not totally pretending. There were a lot of interesting things to look at. I stopped by a dark wood library table. It was for sale along with the items on top of it, which included some of Sheila’s scarves. On the floor next to it was a large basket with an appealing arrangement of art supplies somebody was selling. There was a sketch pad and two books on drawing, some colored pencils and pens, along with a wooden hand and a wooden figure of a person to use as models.
Dinah nudged me and asked if I’d gotten any good information. I told her about the salary cuts and how the saleswoman whose screaming had gotten us all upstairs had been devastated by the pay cut and Drew’s treatment
