“Any luck with Daisy?” Liz asked.
“We know where Arthur and Daisy grew up,” I said. “Maybe Mr. P. can do something with that.”
“We need to know if anyone knew I had that bottle of pesticide,” Charlotte said.
“Or if anyone else kept a bottle after it was banned,” I said.
“You want the town gossip,” Liz said.
I nodded. “I guess we do.”
“Done,” she said. “I’ll call Elspeth.”
Elspeth was Liz’s niece. She ran a very successful spa and salon in town, Phantasy. We had tourists who came to North Harbor several times a year just for a couple of days of pampering at the spa. Elspeth was a lot like Liz, with the same big heart and sardonic sense of humor, just in higher heels.
Liz held out her hand and studied her impeccably manicured nails. “I had my hands in too much water today. Look at my manicure.” She smiled. “I’ll have to go to the salon first thing in the morning for fingers, toes and what everyone knows.”
Chapter 17
I dropped Charlotte off at Rose’s apartment building. “Give Maddie my love,” I said.
“I will,” she promised.
Before I could pull away from the curb Elvis meowed from the backseat.
“What?” I said, turning around to look at him.
He craned his neck as though he were trying to see over the seat back and then he looked at me.
“You can come up if you want to,” I said.
“Merow,” he said somewhat plaintively, it seemed to me. Then he did the neck-craning thing again.
“You’re a cat,” I said. “You can jump from there.”
He stood up and seemed to study the seat back.
“You can make that,” I said.
He sat back down and blinked his green eyes at me.
I shrugged. “Okay. You can stay there. We’re not that far from home.” I looked in the rearview mirror just in time to see him flick his tail at me.
I took Elvis home, gave him his supper and made myself a scrambled egg and tomato sandwich. I had to get to the grocery store. My refrigerator had officially gone from bare to pitiful.
After a shower I sat cross-legged on the bed while Elvis watched Jeopardy!, letting my damp hair air-dry instead of smoothing out the waves with the hair dryer. I opened my e-mail and looked through the file Grace MacIntyre’s detective had sent. I didn’t learn anything new. Everything he’d dug up on Arthur had ended up on the front page of the newspaper. My dad called halfway through the program. Unfortunately he hadn’t been able to get any more information, either.
“Call me if I can do anything else for you,” he said. “Or if you need bail.”
I laughed. “I will, Dad,” I promised. “I love you.”
“Love you too, baby,” he said.
When I got to The Black Bear, Jess had already snagged a table close to the stage. “Hey, how was your day?” I asked as I slid onto the chair beside hers.
She was wearing her long hair smooth and sleek, parted in the middle, and her lip gloss matched her plum-colored sweater. “Great,” she said. “I found some fantastic vintage denim jackets in those boxes. Are you sure you want to sell them to me?”
I nodded. “We don’t have the space for them and that kind of thing really doesn’t go with everything else we sell.”
She smiled. “Okay, then. Thanks.”
I glanced around to see if I could catch sight of Nick anywhere. All I saw was a waiter threading his way over to us through the increasing crowd. He had a basket of nachos and a bowl of salsa, along with a glass of wine for each of us.
“I ordered,” Jess said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Absolutely. You know I’m a sucker for Sam’s homemade salsa.” I grabbed a chip. They were thin, crisp and warm. “What happened to your healthier lifestyle?” I asked.
“Salsa and chips are healthy,” she said. “Anyway, I’ve decided what I really need to work on is a healthier mind-set.” She made a sweeping circle around her head.
“How was your date?” I asked before I popped a chip in my mouth.
“Short.”
“Stature or duration?”
“Both,” Jess said, tucking her hair behind one ear and reaching for her wineglass.
“He’s a surgical resident. He got called back to the hospital before dessert.” She grabbed a chip, scooped up some salsa and ate the whole thing. “Umm, that is so good.” She gave a little groan of pleasure. “And he’s my height, so I guess he’s not that short by real-world standards.” Jess was five-nine in her socked feet and, like Liz, she usually wore heels, which made her closer to six feet.
I shot another look in the vicinity of the door.
“He’s not here,” Jess said.
I frowned at her. “Who’s not here?”
She took another sip of her wine before she answered. “Nick.”
I shifted in my chair so I was facing her. “How did you know I was looking for Nick?”
Jess tapped the side of her head with her right index finger. “Deductive reasoning,” she said. “You told me you saw Nick. You probably told him you were going to be here tonight. So he can pretend he’s coming for Thursday-night jam even though everyone in town knows he’s had a thing for you since he was fifteen.”
I stared at her, my mouth hanging open just a bit. “What do you mean everyone in town knows he’s had a thing for me?” Okay, so Nick and I had kind of made out a little that summer we were fifteen, but I’d never thought that meant he had a thing for me. Two weeks later he’d been in music camp, drooling over one of the percussionists, who had a big pair of . . . cymbals.
Jess shrugged and scooped up more salsa. “Okay, well, everyone but you.”
She was serious, I realized. For all of that teasing smile on her face, she was serious. I could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice.
I took a sip of my wine. “Why didn’t I know that?” I finally said.
“Because you don’t notice those kinds of things.”
“What kind of things exactly?” I said, running a finger up and down the stem of my glass.
“Men-women things.” Jess dragged another chip through the salsa and ate it.
“If you’re trying to say I don’t notice when some man tries to flirt with me, you’re wrong,” I said, reaching for another chip myself. “Every time I go to Noah’s for that organic cat food for Elvis, the guy who works behind the counter flirts with me. I notice that.”
Jess sank back against the chair, laughing. “Tyler is all of nineteen years old and he flirts with every woman who walks into the place. He’d flirt with his own grandmother if he thought it would sell a case of dog food.” She picked up her wineglass. “I mean you don’t notice when a man our age is interested in you.”
“That’s because there aren’t any men interested in me,” I said a little hotly. “Including Nick Elliot.” I knew I wasn’t as dense as Jess was making me out to be.
She tipped her head to one side and studied my face. “How many times have you seen Nick since the first time you saw him Monday afternoon?”
“He stopped by the store. So a couple of times.”
Her eyebrows went up but she didn’t say a word.
“He was worried about Charlotte. I told you that she and Rose and Liz are trying to help Maddie.”
“Uh-huh,” Jess said, fishing a chip out of the basket and breaking off a corner.
I made a face at her. “Nice try, but you’re not sucking me in. Nick and I have been friends forever and that’s all we are now.” That I’d thought about maybe kissing him when he’d walked me home after dinner was just a momentary aberration brought on by the fact that I couldn’t remember when I’d last had a date. And he hadn’t tried to kiss me. Which meant he wasn’t interested. The whole thing was meaningless, so meaningless I didn’t even need to tell Jess about it, I decided.