Page 32 of Murder on the Page

Wallis pulled a tap and filled a new glass with the golden liquid. She brought it to Zach, checked over her shoulder, and leaned in, voice hushed. “You’re handling the murder, right?”

Zach’s eyes widened. “I’m off duty.”

“Yes, but you’re it. The lead guy.”

“Why?”

“I really liked Marigold.”

“We all did,” he said.

“Well, Marigold and Katrina argued last week.”

“What about?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but I heard Marigold say, ‘Don’t be catty,’ and Katrina said, ‘If anyone finds out, I’ll know it was you who told them.’ ”

I shuddered, recalling the warning Zach had given me at the end of our hike.

Wallis worked her teeth over her lower lip. “I don’t usually talk out of school, and I really like Katrina, but she seemed steamed. Later on, she was in the staff room slamming doors right and left.”

If anyone finds out what?Did Marigold discover a secret that Katrina would have killed to keep quiet?

CHAPTER8

“All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

—Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Jane Austen’sPride and Prejudice

Working at home with the kitchen door closed, I prepared a variety of doughs and batters and finally slogged to bed at half past eleven. But who could sleep? I tossed all night thinking about Tegan and why she was being circumspect with me. If she was innocent—of course, she was innocent!—she knew she could tell me anything. She couldn’t have been stalking her soon-to-be ex if he was out of town. Was she embarrassed about whatever she’d been up to? Wasn’t she more concerned about being considered the number one suspect in her aunt’s murder? I also couldn’t stop mulling over what Wallis had told me and Zach. Had Marigold stumbled onto Katrina’s secret, or had Katrina confessed to Marigold, hoping she would give her advice and take the secret to her grave? The notion made me shiver.

At five a.m., Darcy picked up on my frazzled mood and crawled up the comforter to my face. He nuzzled my nose with his.

“Yes, sir, it’s time to rise and shine,” I said. “Mondays wait for no one.”

He meowed.

“Of course, I’ll feed you.” I chuckled. The cat was like a teenager with a hollow leg. He never gained weight, even though he ate twice as much as my previous cat.

I scrambled out of bed, my feet instantly chilled by the wood floor. I slipped on my fifteen-year-old moccasins—I’d never replace them if I could help it—fed Darcy, did my ablutions, and took twenty minutes to perform my stretches, a habit bred in me by my high-school basketball coach. I’d jog in the afternoon if I could fit in the time. Then I slipped on black leggings and a white V-neck sweater and packaged up all the baked goods.

At seven a.m., I was out the door. At nine, after all the deliveries were made, I went to the grocery store to pick up supplies so I could test out a few of the recipes for the memorial, and I proceeded to Dream Cuisine. I emptied everything onto the granite counter. Herbs and veggies to the right, meats and liquids to the left. I made a pot of coffee at the Cuisinart beverage center and switched on music.

While sipping coffee and listening to Haydn’s Symphony No. 94, “Surprise,” a lilting air with occasional cymbal clashes, I began preparing the veal stock for the white soup. Making stock wasn’t for the faint of heart. It could take hours. The recipe I’d stumbled upon asked for three pounds of veal chops, one small chicken, a bunch of vegetables and herbs, and twelve whole cloves. To allow the stock’s flavor to mature, after removing and shredding the cooked meat to save for later, the recipe instructed me to let the stock sit refrigerated overnight. I’d be adding cream, almond milk, and breadcrumbs to the recipe tomorrow.

While I chopped and diced vegetables, I ran through the clues Zach had revealed so far.

“Tetrahydrozoline.” I processed thoughts better when I saidthem out loud. “It’s found in nasal sprays and over-the-counter eye drops.”

I recalled Zach asking whether Tegan was good at science. Would an amateur chemist like her know the drug’s effect? How would it have been administered? What if the killer held Marigold steady with one hand, thus causing the bruise, and shoved her backward? She hit her head on the counter, which dazed her. While she was incapacitated, the killer lowered her to the floor and poured the poison into her mouth.

I gasped as another scenario took shape. “The empty water bottle,” I said aloud. “What if the killer laced Marigold’s water with poison? Does it have a taste? I don’t have a clue. What if she drank it, with the killer present, and suddenly realized she’d been poisoned? Panicking, she groped for balance and knocked books to the floor. In her last-ditch effort, she seizedPride and Prejudice.”

I texted the theory to Zach. To my surprise, he responded within seconds with a frowning-face emoji. Did that mean I was on the wrong track, or that he was upset with me for touching base? I pushed the latter notion aside and pondered another angle.

“How did the killer get inside the shop?” I murmured. “Did Marigold let him . . . orher . . .” I paused on that notion. Which was it? “Did she let him or her in, or did the killer have a key?”

Again I recalled the incident when Marigold had searched for her keys, only to find them stuffed at the rear of a cluttered drawer. Was it possible the killer swiped, copied, and replaced the shop’s keys, accidentally putting them in the wrong spot, and then waited until Saturday to use them? Who would have had access to her key ring? I supposed a customer could have easily nabbed it off the hook where it hung on the pegboard behind the desktop computer.

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