Page 30 of Murder on the Page

I recalled an event a couple of weeks ago when Marigold was searching for her key ring. She always hung them on a hook on the pegboard behind the desktop computer. Mumbling that she never misplaced anything—never, never, never—she scrounged through drawers, in the wastebasket, under the counters. Frustrated to the point of breaking, she wondered aloud if she was losing her mind. When she cried, “Here they are! ”—they were stuffed into a remote corner of the shallow pencil-and-pen drawer and hard to see upon first glance—Ilaughed along with her and told her how many times I’d lost a measuring cup or cookie cutter to a remote corner of a kitchen drawer.

“What about the empty envelope?” I asked. “Do you have any idea what was inside it? Like money or jewelry or a document? Could whatever it was be crucial to the investigation?”

“The techs are studying it.”

“I noticed they bagged the empty water bottle and the teacup filled with tea.”

“They procured a lot of things.”

He took a big bite of his sandwich, I nibbled the corner of mine, and the two of us fell quiet again. For a long while, we listened to the sound of birds chirping in the trees.

When a squirrel skittered up the trunk of a nearby redbud, I dared to pose another question. “Lillian said your people were searching the alley behind the shop. Did they find any clues, like footprints or, I don’t know, dirt deposits, or . . .” I twirled the hand holding the wrap.

He frowned.

“C’mon. Give me something.” I dropped the wrap on my plate. “How about the bruise on Marigold’s neck? Did the coroner determine if it was caused by a book nicking her?”

Zach took another bite of his sandwich and pointed to his mouth, meaningtoo full to speak.

I narrowed my gaze, sensing I’d landed on something. “Okay, a book didn’t do it. What else might have caused it? Did the killer inject her with something, like a heart-stopping poison or a sedative, so he or she could overpower her? Done hastily, that might leave a dime-sized bruise. The last time I had blood drawn at the blood bank, the volunteer was in such a hurry that she poked me too hard, and the crook of my elbow turned black and blue.”

“It’s a bruise,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to give me?”

He swallowed hard and set his wrap aside. “Look, you’ve known Tegan since you were a girl. Does she have a knack for science?”

I squinted. What an odd question. “Um, yes, she won the science fair in her freshman year of high school, and she—” I halted as dread crawled up my esophagus. “Marigold was poisoned, wasn’t she? It was murder.” I held up a hand. “Tegan didn’t do it. She gave up science and computers and everything geeky when she fell in love with the written word.” Booklovers could be geeks, too, but that was beside the point. “Plus she has an alibi.”

“Which she won’t divulge.”

My appetite vanished. I packed up my pita wrap and stowed it in the backpack. “She was with a girlfriend.”

“Name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sounds lame.”

It did, but I didn’t want to give voice to my own doubts. The cool air cut through my clothes. I began to shiver.

“Let’s go,” Zach said. “I’m chilly, too.” He held out a hand to help me off the blanket.

The scent of him, all rugged and leathery, made me want to grasp the collar of his plaid shirt and pull him close, but I held myself in check. Right now, he was the enemy of my friend.

“Want to grab a beer at the Brewery?” he asked.

“You’re not mad at me for prying?”

“Like you said, I expected you to ask questions. I simply can’t provide more answers.”

“At least tell me whether or not Marigold was poisoned,” I said, batting my eyelashes as Piper had at Graham yesterday morning—and hating myself for it. I was not an eyelash-batting kind of girl.

“Yes.”

“With what? Arsenic? Strychnine? Cyanide?” No, none of those. They would have made her vomit.

“With tetrahydrozoline.”

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