Dex frowned. “I see what you are saying, and while I think that naming Ms. Cupid would add some bang to the column, most folks didn’t seem to mind that you decided not to name Secret Santa.” His brows shot up. “You don’t think the same person is behind both identities, do you?”
I thought about the person in the community behind the Secret Santa gifts. “No. I don’t think it’s the same person. And I will continue to look into the woman behind the service. Who knows, maybe she’ll be fine with allowing her identity to be known.”
“Are you sure it’s a woman?”
“Actually, no, but it seems that if a man was behind this, he would simply go by Cupid and not Ms. Cupid.” I glanced at the clock. “I didn’t see Gabby when I came in. Will she be here today?”
“She will. She had an appointment this morning.”
“She hasn’t texted me to let me know that she’s heard from Ms. Cupid, so I assume she hasn’t.”
“Not as of yesterday. She did remind me when I asked that almost everyone is saying that it takes a month or more for Ms. Cupid to get back to you once you apply, even if you are selected, so she wasn’t too worried about it yet.”
I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the desk. “I wonder how she decides who to help and who not to help. At first, I figured that she only got back to people she already had a match for, and I guess that could be the case, but I do wonder if there isn’t more to it.”
“Do you know anyone who applied but wasn’t chosen?” Dex asked.
“No. Not offhand. But maybe I should add a line to the end of my column that asks residents who have applied but haven’t heard back to contact me. It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern amongst those not chosen. I’m also curious if there have been any recent matches. The last couple I’ve identified as having been matched by Ms. Cupid was matched before Christmas.”
“Do you think she’s moved on or stopped the service?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The website is still up, and new applications are still being accepted. Maybe if I put some feelers out, I’ll have others come forward that I haven’t heard about.”
“I haven’t sent the column to formatting yet. If you want to add a line asking folks to contact you, go ahead but have them contact you via your newspaper email. You won’t want to put your personal contact information out there.”
I used my desk at the newspaper to update my column, and then I resubmitted it. I said my goodbyes to Dex and headed to my first appointment of the day. I had two Ms. Cupid matches set up for interviews today, although I found I was getting the same or close to the same responses from each interview. I did think I was going to need to mix things up and change my approach for my next column. Maybe interviewing my Ms. Cupid suspects would be an interesting way to go. Initially, I thought I might write four columns, but unless I stumbled upon an interesting twist, I was actually thinking about limiting the series to three columns and moving onto something different at the end of the month.
Chapter 9
After I left the newspaper, I decided to stop by the post office and speak to Wilma about Ms. Cupid. It was true that I had casually brought the subject up in the past, and she’d laughed off the suggestion, but it wouldn’t hurt to bring it up again, and maybe I could even find a way to engage her in a dialogue about the articles I’d been publishing. If I got her into more of a discussion, maybe she’d slip up and say something revealing.
“Morning, Wilma,” I said as I approached the service counter.
“Callie. How can I help you today?”
“I just need stamps.”
She took some out of the drawer, and I handed her my credit card.
“How’s the newspaper business been treating you?” she asked as she rang me up.
“It’s going well. I just turned in my second Ms. Cupid story. Dex wants me to figure out who might be behind the service, and I think I might know.”
She raised a brow. “Really? Who?”
“Doris Jenner.”
Willa paused as the credit card machine processed my purchase. “Doris? I guess she does know a lot of people, but I wonder if she’s clever enough to do what Ms. Cupid has been doing.”
“What do you mean clever enough?”
Wilma handed my card back to me after the purchase processed. “Doris is a very sweet woman who has been a staple in the community for a lot of years. She knows a lot of people, so from that standpoint, I can see why you might consider that she might be the one behind the matches, but figuring out who would best be suited to be matched with applicants is a skill that, if done right, would require a good amount of intuition and insight.”
I slowly bobbed my head. “I get what you’re saying. While Doris is sweet as pie, she isn’t the sort that strikes you as being overly bright. You think I’m looking for someone with a superior intellect. Someone who is more observant than others. Maybe someone who can read subtle clues and recognize patterns.”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Someone like you.” I pointed out.
“Yes, someone like me, but I can assure you that I’m not the person you are looking for.”
“If you were the person I was looking for, would you tell me?”
“Absolutely not.” She smiled.
So based on this exchange, it was still equally likely that Wilma was both Ms. Cupid and not Ms. Cupid. “Any idea who Ms. Cupid might be if, in fact, it’s not you?”
Wilma paused; I imagined to consider the question. “Actually, I might need to think about this for a while. Offhand, however, the Cunningham sisters come to mind.”
“I thought of them as well. They’ve lived in the community forever, they know a lot of people, and they are both very intelligent. I did consider the fact that neither are married, so I’m not sure they have the background they might need in matters of the heart to make the pairings.”
“That is true,” Wilma admitted. “I honestly can’t remember if either of the sisters has even dated seriously. Like I said, the question of who might be matching up all the single people in our community is a complex one, and I’ll need to think about for a bit. If I come up with anything, I’ll text you if you want to leave me your number.”
I jotted down my cell number and pushed it across the counter.
“Do you know if Cass has figured out what happened to Dale Conover?” Wilma asked, effectively changing the subject. “Most everyone who stops in has something to say about it, but no one seems to know what’s really going on.”
“I know he’s working on it, but I haven’t seen him or talked to him in any depth since Tuesday. I guess if he figures it out, we’ll know.”
“Quite a few of my customers think that the person who burned down the man’s house with him in it was an acquaintance of the romantic sort. Probably an ex.”
“So, Dale dated frequently?” I asked. I’d never met or even heard of the guy before his name popped up as part of my Ms. Cupid research.
Wilma chuckled. “Like a dog in heat. And he wasn’t the sort to keep time with one woman at a time. I was surprised to hear that he was one-half of one of the matches. I really can’t imagine why he would have applied with Ms. Cupid when he clearly wasn’t the settling down type.”
I thought back to the brief discussion I’d had with Lissa. I’d heard about the Dale and Lissa match through another party who’d been told by Lissa that she’d first met Dale after Ms. Cupid had matched them. I called and spoke to Lissa, who confirmed this, which is when I arranged to meet with her on the day of the fire. I normally would have called and spoken to Dale as well, but in this case, I hadn’t. Lissa had insisted that it would be best if she made all the arrangements and that we met at his residence, which was where he worked. That had sounded fine to me, so I left it at that, but now that I thought about it, I really had no evidence that Dale had even been a client of Ms. Cupid. I guess I just assumed as much, but not every match was between two clients. Could it have been that Dale was matched with Lissa, but had never actually applied? I realized this might be worth looking into. I really didn’t have any evidence that Lissa and Dale had been a Ms. Cupid match other than the verbal assurance from Lissa that she had indeed been paired up by the somewhat famous matchmaker.