“Your aunt Melody tells me the same thing. To leave you be. I know how long it took her to find Troy. I don’t want you to be lonely.” Mom squeezed my hand. “Do you want to grab lunch after this? I’ll buy.”
“We’re not going to Aunt Melody’s?” So much for her plan to talk to Uncle Troy.
“She and Troy are attending a show in Seattle. She insists he takes at least one afternoon off during these investigations for them,” Mom said as she closed her Bible. “How did you like your class? Oh, it looks like Pastor Sage is starting.”
The announcement of the opening hymn kept Meg from explaining that the class would be better described as for single young females. But she’d leave that alone. If her mom thought she was surrounding herself with eligible bachelors, that wasn’t her fault.
At least she was getting lunch out of the deal.
* * *
Glory reported that she’d been busy that morning with walk-ins from the ferries, but during Meg’s shift, Sunday at the bookstore was dead. She had done all the busy work, even neatly stacking all the mailings in boxes to make it easier to transport them to the post office tomorrow. She texted to see if Mom wanted her to stop by the bookstore and take them to the post office Monday morning, but she must have been napping, as she didn’t answer. Meg would call her tomorrow if she didn’t hear back.
It was almost five, and Meg had nothing to do. She pulled out the folder with her assignment from her backpack and, using her laptop, made plans on how to kill the imaginary George, who she’d found out was cheating before their wedding.
The writing went fast, even with her needing to check the internet for times, places, and effects of different poisons. By the time Dalton and Natasha showed up with Chinese food, she had the assignment done and printed out. She’d paper-clipped it to the assignment page and saved the file to her laptop. Leaving Natasha to watch the bookstore, she hurried out to walk Watson for a few minutes.
“I’ll walk with you,” Dalton said as he took Watson’s leash.
They didn’t talk for a bit, not until they got off the crowded street and started up the hill toward the residential section of town. She glanced at him. “You know I can walk the dog by myself.”
He laughed as he looked at her. “I like walking Watson. It indulges all my ‘I want a dog’ feelings without having to get a dog of my own.”
“That weirdly makes sense,” she admitted. As long as it wasn’t a couple thing.
“You’ve been strange since Romain showed up Friday night. Are you regretting leaving him?” They turned left so they could walk in a loop and end up back at the bookstore.
“One, I didn’t leave him. He dumped me. And two, if I’ve been odd, it’s because I can’t figure out if someone I know killed Meade.” She rubbed her neck, feeling the tension. “I was going to talk to Uncle Troy today, but he’s on a date in Seattle. Maybe that’s a good sign that it was an accident. Natasha dropped Meade off at Summer Break, and he slipped on the dock and hit his head on a rock in the water.”
“Sounds like a great theory, except, according to the coroner’s report, he was forcibly held under until he drowned. And the blow to the head was from a pipelike object. So no accidental drowning.” He looked over at Meg, who had stopped walking. “What? The coroner left his briefcase on the ferry when he came back from teaching a class in Seattle. I had to dig to find out who it belonged to so lost and found could contact him. According to them, he’s always leaving something on the ferry. Kind of a forgetful professor type.”
“Darn, I was hoping this would all go away.” Meg turned the corner and headed back downhill. “Uncle Troy needs to clear both Lilly and Natasha.”
“The sooner the better.” He glanced in the direction of the bookstore. “I heard people talking about Natasha’s bakery as the killer’s place on the ferry. Rumors are flying about our girl.”
“How did they even figure out that she was interviewed by the police?” Meg didn’t like where this was heading. Either she would lose her job and Lilly Aster would go to jail or she’d lose her best friend.
“One of the local reporters saw your uncle pick her up at the bookstore the other night. They’ve been trying to verify her status ever since, but neither she nor your uncle has answered their calls.” He lowered his voice as a couple walked by them. “Vi Chin cornered Natasha at the launch party before your uncle kicked the press out, and I think she badgered her into admitting that she was questioned.”
“So they published it.”
He shook his head. “There wasn’t enough for that, but Chin has a social media account, and she posted that she was on the heels of a juicy story and showed a picture of Natasha’s bakery. Everyone put two and two together in the comments. She had a crowd at the bakery snapping pictures, and when she locked up and came out to meet me, they started throwing out questions. It was ugly.”
“Does she want to talk about it? Make some plans on how to deal with it?” Meg started walking faster to get back.
Dalton grabbed her arm to slow her down. “That’s why I came with you on the walk. Natasha doesn’t want to talk about it at all. She wants to have a nice evening with her friends. She asked me to tell you what was going on. And ask that tonight not be an investigation powwow. All she wants to do is have fun with us.”
Meg hoped she could keep her mouth shut for Natasha’s sake.
* * *
Monday morning, Meg was sitting at her kitchen table, watching the main house. When she saw Uncle Troy come out, she hurried down the stairs. She met him at his truck.
“Good morning. Can I ask you something?”
“You just did,” he teased as he put his stuff in the cab. “What’s going on? Is the plumbing acting up? You’ll have to talk to your aunt about that. She handles the rentals.”
“Rentals?” They had more than one? Meg shook her head. She was getting off track. “No, I mean, everything in the apartment is fine. Thanks. I wanted to know if you’ve cleared Natasha yet. And if you have, could you put out an announcement?”
