I tapped the list. Four names didn’t seem nearly enough. I drew a squiggly line to illustrate the end of the blog suspects and started writing the names of everyone who hated Agnes. Mere dislike wasn’t enough. If it was, I might as well use the phone book for a list.
Who had hated Agnes? Hated her enough to kill her?
Dan Daniels. CeeCee’s husband. Flossie had mentioned him at lunch. His goatee alone made me nervous. No completely innocent man would grow one of those.
Cindy Irving. Currently she was doing landscaping for the city, but not that long ago she’d been a teacher at Tarver. Agnes had asked her to apply for early retirement. Cindy’s reaction hadn’t been pretty.
Who else?
Joe Sabatini. I didn’t know him, but I’d heard about a scene starring him and Agnes circa last year. After a fifth-grade class had a pizza party in his restaurant, half the kids had become sick. Agnes blamed his food. Though the culprit turned out to be the cream cheese frosting on someone’s mother’s cupcakes, thus ending all homemade treats, no classes were ever again welcome at Sabatini’s. And if Marina’s theory about his being a member of the mob was true . . . well, anything was possible.
Reluctantly I wrote down Erica’s name. Our PTA president had a violent temper. Though she almost always kept it in check, I’d once watched her browbeat a man twice her size into complete submission. He’d been beating a dog, and I was on Erica’s side from beginning to end, but the red-hot intensity of her rage had made me back up a step or three.
Of course, hate wasn’t the only thing that inspired rage. Love could do it, too. I thought for a while, then wrote one last name.
Harry, the Tarver janitor/security guard.
“Lois, could you give me a hand?” I strained to push an unused display unit from my office to the front of the store. Somewhere in the middle of making the suspect list, I’d had the bright idea to rearrange the movable shelving up front. If it was good for grocery store sales to move products around every so often, why wouldn’t it be good for a bookstore?
Between oomphs, I said as much to Lois.
“It’ll never work.” Lois shook her head, putting the amethyst crystals that dangled from her ears to flight. Today’s outfit consisted of a tie-dyed headband, an embroidered smock top, and a denim skirt over scuffed cowboy boots. “People like stores to stay the same. It annoys them when they can’t find things.”
With a solid hip check, I shoved the display unit farther north. “Maybe.” The unit went forward another foot. I heard a thud from low down and leaned around to see what I’d done. The last shove had pushed an oversized book to the floor.
“And look at what you’re doing!” Lois walked around the end of the shelving and picked up the book. “Just look.” She held it out, and I saw that the lower corner wasn’t a nice sharp point any longer. “That has to go in the clearance bin.”
Knowing I’d been careless sent me over the top. “Thanks for your assistance, Lois,” I said tightly. “Next time I want advice on how to run my business, I’ll be sure to ask you.”
“There’s no need to be snippy,” Lois said. “I’m only trying to help.”
The front bells jangled, and we both put on smiles to greet the first customer of the day.
“Good morning, ladies.” Evan smiled. “I was walking past and saw you were doing some furniture rearranging. Need some help?”
Lois turned and walked away. I said loudly, “Why, yes, thank you.”
Evan looked at Lois’s retreating back, then at me. “Was it something I said?”
I wiped my forehead with the back of my wrist. Sweaty before eleven a.m. Yee-hah. “No,” I said. “Just a little miscommunication.” Or something.
“Happens.” Evan looked at the unit. “Where does this want to go?”
He pushed it up front, centering it between the front window and a paper skeleton hanging from the ceiling. I came behind with a smaller set of shelves, and we positioned and repositioned until I was happy. We’d never had middle-grade books up front. Maybe the prominent positioning would help sales. Anyway, it didn’t hurt to try.
“Thanks for helping,” I told Evan. A muted sniff came from the back of the store.
“There’s a small fee,” he said. “How about dinner?”
“Dinner?” The store suddenly seemed tiny, its walls closing in on me, pressing tight. Breathing, normally something I did without thinking, became a conscious effort. “Um . . .” A couple of lunches with this outstandingly gorgeous man I could pass off as business, but dinner? That was a solid move into the personal relationship category.
“How about tonight?”
“Sorry. My kids and I already have plans.”
“Oh.” His mouth turned down. “I understand. Some other time, then?”
“Sure.” Maybe in another year, or when Oliver went off to college, whichever came first.
“There is one other thing,” he said. “I need a favor.”
“But I’ve been in the hardware only twice in ten years.” My legs, half as long as Evan’s, were whiffing along at time and a half to keep up. I was happy the store was only a block away. Any farther and I’d have had to beg for mercy.
“Perfect.”
When we’d huffed past the barbershop, the shoe store, and the art gallery, I glanced up at him. “Are you . . . ? Uh-oh.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Prepare yourself,” I said.
“For what?”
But it was too late to warn him properly. Don Hatcher, dry cleaner and alleged participant in the affairs of Marina’s next-door neighbor, was fast approaching. I sneaked a look at his hair. Maybe WisconSINs was right. His hair did look different.
“Hello, Beth.” Don stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
I slowed and stopped a little too far away for comfortable conversation. “Hello, Don. How are you?”
“Got a new one. Ready?”
No.
“Knock knock,” Don said.
“Um, who’s there?” I asked.
“Sabina.”
Oh, dear. “Sabina who?”
“Sabina long time since I’ve seen you.” He threw his head back and laughed. “Get it? Sabina? It’s been a?”
I smiled. Sort of. “Haven’t heard that before.”
“Got it off the Internet.” He winked. “Don’t tell, okay? You know, I haven’t seen you much lately. You’re not taking your cleaning to Madison, are you?” He stepped close as a cloudy frown took up too much of his face.
With Richard and his suits out of the house, my dry-cleaning bill had dropped to almost nothing. “And miss your jokes?” I edged over to Evan’s side. “How could I? And I sent those drapes from Agnes’s house to you. Don’t those count?” Well, Marina had sent them, actually, but I was part of the cleaning team.
“Working on them,” he said. “There’s a spot that’s resisting me—can you believe it?” He winked. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there,” I said weakly.
“Ally.”
“Ally who?”
“Ally gator. See you!” Laughing, he nodded at the two of us and sauntered off to find another victim.
Evan watched him go. “Is it always knock-knock jokes?”
“This year.” We started walking again. “Last year it was lightbulb jokes.”
“As in how many whatevers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
“Yup.” I wondered what kind of joke Don would be telling next year. Lois guessed limericks, but even cannibal jokes would be better than that.