Dying For Dinner Rolls Part 9

Scarlett's phone rang. With a wave of her hand, she excused herself and took the call.

Annie Mae and I stepped out of the office to give her some privacy.

In the hallway, packages wrapped in brown paper leaned against the wall. They all looked the size and thickness of framed paintings. One package was ripped in the corner, showing an ornate gold frame.

A row of various-sized boxes lined part of a wall. One box sat half opened, as if in the middle of being packed up, revealing the top of a blue and white porcelain item.

"She sure has a lot of stuff here, doesn't she?" Annie Mae pointed to another box that was open. "Hey, look here. One of those mystery boxes."

"How do you know?"

She pointed to a sticker on the side that read "Mystery box."

"Good going, Watson." I patted her back.

"Why am I Watson? Why can't I be Sherlock?" Annie Mae asked.

"Because you're a doctor, remember? Dr. Watson." I bent down and began to look through the opened mystery box.

Annie Mae followed suit. She pulled out a small, silver windup alarm clock. "I could really use this. I like old-fashioned clocks with their soothing tick tock. Like white noise to help me sleep. It's awfully quiet without Ernie around the house."

The curtain pulled open, and a freckle-faced young man walked over to us. "Hi, I'm Zachary. Can I help you ladies?"

"We're just waiting for Scarlett to finish a call." I offered my hand. "My name is Cat, and this is my friend Annie Mae."

Zachary shook our hands.

"How much is this mystery box?" Annie Mae lifted the box.

"I'm not allowed to sell any of those. I sort of messed up the last box." Zachary ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. "I don't want to get fired."

"I wouldn't want that to happen to you, either. I just a.s.sumed it was for sale." Annie Mae set the box on the floor.

"Why don't you leave me your contact information so that I could call you when it's ready to be sold?" Zachary reached over and tore a corner of brown wrapping paper off a package nearby and then pulled a black pen from his pocket. He handed both to Annie Mae.

Annie Mae wrote down her information and gave it to Zachary.

Beyond the boxes, I saw a stack of newspapers. "By the way, I see you have a big stack of newspapers back there."

"Those?" Zachary shot a thumb over his shoulder. "We use them for wrapping breakable items, which is pretty much everything in here."

"Where do you get them?" Annie Mae asked.

"Out of a recycling dumpster on Jones Street," Zachary said. "About once a week, I head over there and grab a huge stack."

We needed to check out the recycling bins on Jones. Maybe we could find another newspaper similar to the one in Lucy's mystery box. Perhaps this could lead us to the killer.

"Does anyone here do the newspaper crossword puzzle?" I asked.

"I'm not much of a puzzle person. And I know Aunt Scarlett is hooked on that numbers puzzle." Zachary's forehead furrowed.

"Sudoku?" Annie Mae offered.

"That's it." Zachary bobbed his head up and down.

The office door opened, and Scarlett stuck her head out. "Zachary, you made it. Can you please go up front and open the register?"

"Yes, ma'am." Zachary waved us good-bye and made his way to the front of the store.

"Pardon me, but I must get back to work." Scarlett guided us down the hallway. She pulled the curtain aside, and we walked through.

A jingle on the front door announced someone entering.

I shook Scarlett's hand. "Thank you so much for the tea and for your time. Would you mind if I called you if something came up?"

"Just in case we have some questions," Annie Mae added. "And I want to buy one of your mystery boxes. Zachary has my information."

Scarlett placed her business card in my hand. A large diamond sparkled on her right ring finger. "I'm so sorry about Lucy. I really am."

"Me, too," I said. "Oh, and just one last question. Does anyone around here do crossword puzzles or write with a purple pen?"

Scarlett led us into the showroom. "I'm more of a Sudoku fan, and purple ink? I prefer black."

We said good-bye. Scarlett approached a group of four ladies who had just entered.

Annie Mae and I exited Blue Belle.

"Let's eat," Annie Mae said. "It's way past lunch."

As we drove to the Green Truck, my mind kept obsessing about the newspaper recycling bin on Jones Street and the crossword puzzle.

Did it mean that the murderer lived close by? Did he or she intend the crossword puzzle filled in with *your next' for someone else? Or did it reach the intended victim then get disposed of afterwards in the bin?

One thing I knew for sure.

The killer was close.

Chapter Ten.

We finished our late lunch and got back in my SUV.

"Poor kid." Annie Mae buckled in.

"Who?" I put my key in the ignition, started the car, and blasted the air conditioner.

"That young man who works at Scarlett's shop. He seemed sweet but a little shaken up. Didn't he seem nervous about selling that mystery box?" Annie Mae asked.

Parked in the lot, I became distracted looking at a toddler who waited outside the restaurant with a group of people. The toddler held a plush animal with one hand and a toy truck in the other. A woman held the little boy. I thought of my boys.

"Cat? Are you listening?" Annie Mae turned on the radio.

"Kids grow up too fast," I mumbled. When I thought of holding my kids' hands, my heart ached. Only the girls still let me hug and hold them. The boys, on occasion, would grant me a quick half hug. Hand holding with them had ended years ago.

"Right." Annie Mae tapped my arm. "So what do you think about that kid in the antique store?"

I refocused my attention back to Annie Mae. "Zachary."

"Yes, him."

"Sweet kid. Nervous but nice." I made my way out of the parking lot and onto Habersham Street. "Something isn't sitting right with me."

"The raw onions from your burger?"

"No, they were fine." I stopped at a red light at Victory Drive.

"Then what?"

"I think we need to go to the dumpster on Jones." I looked at my dash. My gas gauge was a hair from empty.

"I've always wanted to dumpster dive." Annie Mae put her hands together in a triangle. "I've heard people find expensive paintings and other treasures that people discard. One thing, though, I won't eat food from a trash bin."

I grinned. "We need to be discriminating dumpster divers."

I turned into Parker's gas station and market. "I need to fill up."

"Since we're here, I'll get a diet soda with chewy ice. You want one?"

"No, thanks." I parked in front of a pump. "I'm going to call Jose."

"Then let me fill up while you do that."

"Thanks." I handed Annie Mae my credit card. She got out and started the pump. Then she left for the market.

I dialed Jose.

He answered on the first ring. "Are you in trouble?"

"Trouble? No."

"Good. I've been worried since you and Annie Mae have been playing amateur sleuths that you might've gotten yourselves in a bind."

"Not us." Not yet. "Anyway, let me get you up to speed. We've unearthed a few things that you should be aware of. I'm not sure what it all means. I don't know. Maybe it's enough to reopen Lucy's case."

"I'm not sure anything will. Tell me what you've got."

"First, Bert has a mistress. Her name is Susie Wells, and she's the manager at the Red and White."

"So? A lot of men cheat on their wives."

"Not mine." I couldn't imagine Andrew with another woman. I hoped he couldn't, either. Just to verify his loyalty to me, I needed to call him. "Oh, and Susie wears pink lipstick, like the color used on the note Lucy supposedly wrote."

Jose lowered his voice. "A lot of women wear pink lipstick."

"Yes, but Lucy wore red."

"Circ.u.mstantial."

"Maybe. But here's another biggie. Bert was not fishing in North Carolina with his buddies the day Lucy died."

"You have proof?"

"His friend James, who owns the lake house Bert was supposedly at, blinked two times."

Jose's voice rose. "So?"

"That meant that Bert was not with him."

I heard Jose snicker into the phone then clear his throat. "Exactly what detective manual are you following?"

"I know it sounds bizarre, but James didn't want to rat out Bert. So we came up with signals he could use to tell us without really telling us."

"Blinking?"

"And foot tapping and sneezing. It got confusing. But in the end, he shook his head no when we asked him if Bert was with him fishing."

"You do know none of this will hold up in court."

"Fine. But Bert did admit to us that he was with his mistress at a hotel the night Lucy died."

"And where does this get you? People cheat and lie all the time. Welcome to my world of investigation."

"But at least we're making progress. You have to admit that."

"You gals should stop whatever it is you're doing. I think it could become a huge disaster. Or worse."

"But we're onto things." The words spilled out. "I found out that that newspaper with the crossword puzzle filled in with purple ink was taken out of a dumpster on Jones Street. Can you see if anyone around there was killed recently? I mean, I'm so close to finding the killer. Really, I know it. Right now, Annie Mae and I are going over to Jones to poke around. This could be it."

"You're not giving up?"

"Nope."