Page 51 of Murder By the Millions

The door to the shop opened, and Lillian swept inside carrying a dress bag. “I have costumes,” she trilled. She was so buoyant, she must not have heard about Jason. I was reluctant to tell her. “Finette, hello, sugar.” She joined us at the sales counter and slung the dress bag over a ladder-back chair. “How is your great-aunt doing?”

“Not well.” Finette’s eyes brimmed with tears again. “She’s so frail, she can barely take care of herself. With Mom and Dad gone and my older sister living in Arizona, it’s all falling on me. I have to consider whether to ask a judge to appoint me my great-aunt’s conservator, so I can force her to move into a retirement facility before she falls and hurts herself. Did you know I had to take her car and keys away last year?”

“No,” Lillian said, a fervent audience.

“She was livid.”

“I’ll bet.”

“She can be so intractable,” Finette went on. “Like all the women in my family.” She made a dismissive sound. “I saw her last night to discuss other possibilities, but of course she won’t even remember I was there, reading to her until midnight. I read her favorite book, too.Great Expectations.Why she loves the story astounds me.”

“But you do it,” Lillian said.

“Yes, I do it because …” Tears leaked from her eyes. She swiped them away. “Because I love her.”

“It’s tragic,” Lillian said. “We shouldn’t have to outlive our due date, should we?”

“Ooh,Lillian!” Finette squealed. “How could you be so callous?” She pressed the wadded tissue to her eyes, collected her bookshop bag, and hurried out.

Lillian watched her go and turned back to us. “What did I say?”

“Jason Gardner is dead,” Tegan said.

“What!” Lillian exclaimed.

“Murdered,” I added.Before his due date,I thought morosely.

Chloe jutted a hand toward Finette’s retreating figure. “She’s taking it very personally.”

“Who killed him?” Lillian asked.

We filled her in with as much as we knew, each of us providing a piece of the story.

“Poor Finette,” Lillian said. “She adored him. I know some folks in town didn’t appreciate him, but I think he would’ve grown on all of us in time. He was so debonair.” She eyed the dress bag. “Why don’t we review costumes another time, when the mood is a tad brighter?”

“What a good idea,” Tegan said.

Lillian hoisted the dress bag and left.

As the door swung shut, I wondered if I should reach out to my parents. They were pushing seventy, not old-old, but they were always traveling. How many more years did they have on this earth? The last time I’d seen them was at Marigold’s memorial. They’d made a special visit because of my relationship with her.

While Chloe and Tegan tended to the customers who were ready to check out, I took my sandwich to the office, sat at the desk and, using my cell phone, dialed my mother. Darcy joined me, nestling into my lap. I could feel his heart beating against my thighs.

My mother answered after one ring.

“Hi, Fern.” Neither of my parents liked to be referred to as Mom or Dad. They’d believed I would grow up faster if I used their formal names. Friends had always questioned me about it. I’d shrugged and said my parents were stubborn in their ways.

“Hello, Cookie.”

Over the years, Fern had used only one nickname for me. She preferred calling me Allie. Although she and my dad had taught me to be in charge of my fate at an early age, they had been adamant I not eat too much sugar. They’d indulged me with a single cookie a week. One.Big whoop.Doesn’t it figure that later on I would adore sugary treats and, of all things, would become a baker?

“Where are you these days?” I asked. They enjoyed traveling to exotic places.

“Machu Picchu.”

I was familiar with the area because I’d done a report in high school about the fifteenth-century Incan citadel, often referred to as the Lost City of the Incas. Point of fact: Most archeologists believed the citadel was the estate of the Incan emperor Pachacuti.

“How’s the weather?” I asked.