As I clattered down the stairs, Kip muttered under his breath, but he followed me and disappeared into the bathroom next to the den turned guest room. I faced the kitchen, grumbling under my own breath. Usually I let the kids get their own breakfasts, but the past few days I’d noticed a run on the Pop-Tarts, as well as the plundering of the pastry basket. Time for some decent food. A loud meow startled me. Samantha leapt up on the counter and purred her way over to me. She was immediately followed by her kittens, Nebula, Noël, and Nigel.
“Hey sweetie.” I crooned to the calico as I scratched her under the chin. The kittens rubbed up against their mama, and I buried my face in their fur, burrowing my nose against one particularly fat little tummy. I loved the cats, probably as much as the kids did, and they had become an integral part of our household.
It was obvious they weren’t going to let me get anything done until they’d been fed, so I dug out the cat food and filled their bowls. As soon as the feline brigade was taken care of, I hunted through the cupboards until I found the instant oatmeal, then filled the teakettle and put the water on to boil. Rather than fry bacon, I lined the strips in the microwave tray, making sure that the drip pan was securely fastened below. As I waited for the microwave to nuke the bacon, I poured juice and milk and made myself a quad-shot espresso, liberally dosing it with cocoa and Coffee-mate. Just a little jolt to wake me up. By the time the kids trudged in, my caffeine headache was fading, and breakfast was on the table.
Kip started for the pantry, but I shook my head. “Fed them already. You and Miranda can clean the litter boxes after school. No complaining.” Forestalling a barrage of “ah Mom’s!” I went back to my own bowl of cereal, liberally sprinkling on cinnamon and brown sugar, then swamping the whole thing with evaporated milk. At least it was hot, I thought. And oats were good for cholesterol levels.
As they ate, the kids filled me in on their plans for the day. Miranda had made a new friend at school. Hallelujah! I thought, but kept my mouth shut except for an appreciative murmur. My daughter wasn’t going to turn out to be a sociopath after all.
“Lori isn’t as serious about astronomy as me, but she’s pretty smart. She wants to be a teacher. We’ll drop by the shop after school, then can we go to the library to study?”
“That’s fine. Make sure to take your jacket; it’s supposed to rain all day.” Kip, sans best friend, moped about having nothing to do after school. Maybe I could prevent any stupid stunts designed to win Sly back into the fold. “If you weed the flower beds and dig up dandelions before they start going to seed, I’ll pay you two bucks an hour, providing I see signs you’ve actually been working.” Ever on the lookout for spare change, he jumped at the chance. They took off for school, and I glanced at the clock. I stacked the dishes and took a swipe at wiping down the counters. The crumbs stubbornly clung to the tile, and I shrugged. Another chore to finish after work.
Promptly at nine, I tossed my purse in the Cherokee and headed out for the store. I had inventory sheets to go over, we needed to plan our summer window displays, and I probably should send Cinnamon out for soup cups and plastic spoons. My shop was doing so well I could barely keep up with it. Three years ago I’d never have dreamed that my life would turn around the way it had. But now the kids and I were actually happy. We had a home, friends, and if I could clear up the problems with Andrew, I’d have a pretty decent relationship. How could I ask for anything more?
Mentally organizing my day, I pulled into the parking space in front of the Chintz ’n China and cut the engine. Holy crap! What the hell? I slowly climbed out of the Cherokee. My display window had been smashed, a thousand shards of glass scattered across the sidewalk. Had some kids gone on a vandalism rampage? I glanced at the neighboring businesses to see if they had been hit, too, but didn’t see any other damage. Damn it, that window was going to be costly to repair. I carefully approached the shop, picking my way through the slivers of glass, and reached out with my key, then stopped cold. The door was ajar. Cautious now, I carefully pushed the door open and flipped on the lights. My heart went crashing to the floor as I froze, deer in the headlights.
Teapots, plates, cups, and saucers all rested in a dusty pile of smashed porcelain. Scarves that had covered tables had been yanked off, taking with them baskets of jams, crackers, and cookies. Crumbs scattered willy-nilly across the floor; some of the bottles had broken, and the sweet smell of black currant mingled with that of pungent Earl Grey.
The tables in the alcove housing the tearoom had been toppled, the seat cushions on the chairs ripped open to allow the stuffing to mingle with the chaos that had descended upon my shop. Hesitant, terrified to look and yet needing to know, I turned to look at the NFS cabinet where I stored all of my favorites that weren’t for sale. The lock had been broken, as had the glass doors. Almost every shelf stood bare.
Working on autopilot, I picked my way carefully through the ruins, my heels crunching on bits of broken china. One figurine in the cabinet had escaped my intruder’s notice. A tiny porcelain cat wearing a tea hat with a rose and a polka dot scarf. Miss Kitty. I couldn’t remember where I’d found her, but she’d won a place in my heart. I picked up the delicate trinket and gave it a gentle kiss. As the cool glassine body touched my lips, I tasted salt. Tears, one by one, working their way down to my tongue.
“Oh my gawd! What happened? Ms. O’Brien, are you all right?” Cinnamon stood at the door, gawking at the mess.
Startled out of my painful reverie, I shrugged helplessly. “I’m… fine. Somebody decided to trash the shop.”
“Have you called the police yet?”
I shook my head, still in shock. Carrying Miss Kitty, I gingerly picked my way through the broken glass and shards until I was back outside, taking care that I didn’t touch anything else. I tucked the porcelain cat in the glove compartment of my Cherokee. I’d be damned if the cops took her for evidence. She was going home with me. I warned Cinnamon to stay out of the shop and to keep everybody else out, then flipped open my cell phone and punched in Murray’s work number. I wanted somebody over here who was going to care, not some aloof pencil-pushing cop. She picked up on the first ring.
“Murray, it’s me.” Then, no longer able to hold back the pain, I spilled my story into her waiting ears. “My shop… somebody broke in and tore it apart.” She reassured me that they’d be right over and told me not to touch anything. I put the phone away and turned back to Cinnamon. “I guess all we can do now is wait.”
As we stood there, saying little more than a few scattered words, thunder rolled, and the clouds broke as rain poured down in sheets.
BY THE TIME Murray arrived, we were soaked and trying to huddle under the awning. She showed up with two policemen, Greg Douglas, whom I knew, and another man that I hadn’t met before. Greg carried a fingerprint kit.
“Boy, someone pulled a number on your shop, didn’t they?” She peeked in the door, looked around, then returned to the awning where we stood. Shock registered on her face. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”
I nodded, sniffling and blowing my nose again. Cinnamon had found a box of tissues in the back of her car. “I’m cold. I can’t stand looking at this anymore. Can we go to Starbucks and I’ll answer your questions there?”
Murray patted my arm. “Sure. Just let me tell Sandy and Greg where we’ll be.” She poked her head back inside the shop where they were working and then escorted Cinnamon and me to her car, where we drove two blocks to the nearest Starbucks. Still in shock, I ordered a quad-shot venti iced mocha with extra chocolate.
Cinnamon stared at me. “That’s going to send your blood pressure sky high.”
Like I cared. “How much difference can it make, considering how I already feel? I wonder how long will it take them to finish so I can see just how much I lost? I’ll need to call the insurance agent, figure out what was stolen and what was destroyed, though that won’t make any difference to them. The shop is totaled.” As I ticked off a
list of things to do and Cinnamon jotted them down, Murray settled in on the other side of the table. She pulled out her own notebook, a sleek, leather-covered affair.
“We’re looking at an hour or so, at least. There’s a lot to sort through. Considering how many customers you have, I don’t know what we’re going to find as far as prints. Needle in the haystack.”
“Only that haystack was worth a lot of money. I had some sentimental pieces there, Murray, and some that were very expensive. I don’t even know if the cash register was jimmied. I didn’t think about looking.” I sighed, suddenly aware of how numb I felt. Shock, I guess. “I didn’t think things like this happened in Chiqetaw.” I sipped my drink and leaned back in my chair.
Cinnamon sniffled. “I’m so sorry, Emerald. This is terrible.”
I leaned over to give her a hug and kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be okay, sugar. We’ll bounce back from this.” The shop had come to mean a great deal to the young woman and somehow, over the past year, I’d managed to take on the role of big sister for her. Her mother did what she could, but just the act of taking care of Cinnamon’s children had to be a strain for the older woman, who had already brought up her own family.
Murray cleared her throat. “Em, it’s no secret that over the past few months you’ve made quite a name for yourself in Chiqetaw. Is there anybody who has been openly critical of you or who’s come into your shop causing trouble?”
I thought about it. My notoriety had been unexpected and, to some degree, unwelcome. I valued my privacy. When the news broke that I’d figured out who killed Susan Mitchell and her daughter, I’d been overwhelmed by requests for psychic help, local interviews, and tarot readings. I turned down the majority of the former two and put the third to good use in my shop. But nobody had said anything bad about me other than a few fundamentalists who decided that my gifts, while useful, were probably spawned by some dude in red tights carrying a pitchfork. After I managed to stop laughing, I thanked them for their concern, then told them to go home and please take their religious pamphlets with them. But altercations? I hadn’t really run afoul of anybody since I fought off Susan’s killer.
I shook my head. “Nope, none that I can think of.” Then, I stopped. There was one person who might begrudge my little bit of good fortune, but I didn’t really believe even he would stoop so low as to trash my shop. “You know, now that I think of it, Roy called me when the story broke on the news. He wanted to get together and chat. Chances are, he wanted to see if I’d stumbled onto any reward money.”
“Did you go see him?” Murray raised one eyebrow. She knew Roy all too well.
I took a long sip of the chilled mocha. “Nope. Told him to go treasure hunting somewhere else, that he wasn’t getting out of his child support payments and that he had a duty to call his children once in a while, if only to lie and say he loves them. So I’m not in his good graces, but even Roy has more class than whoever did this.”
“When did this conversation take place?” She was jotting notes as quickly as I could feed them to her.
I shrugged. “A few days after Christmas, because I lit into him for not getting presents for the kids. It was one hell of a scream fest. Remember, I told you about it? It’s been over three months, though.” It had been a doozy of a fight. I’d finally blown up and told him just what a lousy father he was and how he didn’t deserve to have children. He’d called me a variety of choice names.
“So he’s angry with you?”
“Yeah. I guess.” As I polished off my mocha, Sandy, the other officer, showed up at our table. Towheaded and boy-faced, he barely looked old enough to vote. He leaned over and whispered in Murray’s ear.
Murray winced. “Okay, nobody on Main Street was around last night to see anything. And it looks like your cash register is empty. Do you remember how much money you had in there Saturday night?”
I’d been planning on making the deposit this morning and had prepared the envelope Saturday, before I left. Why the hell hadn’t I taken the time to run over to the bank when I left on Friday? Daniel’s death had shaken me up but now, in retrospect, leaving all that money in the shop seemed pretty damn stupid.
I sighed, feeling sorry for myself. “At least four hundred… maybe five hundred dollars in cash, along with several checks. I think the total on the deposit slip was around nine hundred. I didn’t pay much attention, just filled it out and stuck it under the till. I also had an emergency reserve in the drawer underneath the register, five one hundred-dollar bills. Oh, there was also the shop credit card in there. Do you know if everything is gone?”
Sandy nodded. “Yes ma’am, the drawer’s empty. I’d advise you to call your credit card company right away to report the stolen card. We’ve dusted for fingerprints on the cash register, doors, windows, counters, anyplace we might actually find something. Give us another half hour to clear out, and you can go back to your shop.” He gave me a shy smile. “I’m sorry, Ms. O’Brien. You had some pretty stuff in there. It’s a shame to see this happen.” Pausing on his way out the door, he added, “I’ve been in your shop before; the rubble that the vandals left doesn’t seem like nearly enough to account for all your pieces. I think whoever did this stole a lot of your inventory. You might want to see if you can figure out anything obvious that’s missing.”
As he left, Murray leaned back and straightened her jacket. She still looked odd in civvies during the day, but I was getting used to it. Everybody and everything was changing, which would be fine except that I didn’t like the way my life was shaping up all of a sudden.
“Sandy’s right,” Murray said. “It may seem like there are a lot of broken pieces, but I’ll lay odds that the expensive items are still intact and in the thief’s possession now. You had some Waterford crystal there, and what—Dresden china?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, that’s true. I just got in a shipment that included a hazel-patterned Royal Winton teapot and teacup set. The teapot alone was worth close to seven hundred dollars. Next week, the ladies’ china club from Abbots-ford, British Columbia, is due to come through town. They always buy expensive antiques when they’re here, so I stock up a week or two before they get here.”
Murray jotted something down. “Get me a list of your more expensive items. You never know what we’re going to find when we’re poking around. It’s a long shot but worth a try. Now, has anybody else been giving you any trouble?”
“Well, Daniel Barrington died after coming to see me the other day, but trouble? He wasn’t any trouble to me.” The fact was, nobody had bothered me lately except… I cleared my throat. “There is one thing—”
“Spill it, girl.” Murray drained the last of her latte and wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“I don’t know how relevant this is, but Harlow and I went out to dinner last night, and some redneck tried to put the make on me. I got a little mad and sent him reeling into a stack of trays when he wouldn’t leave me alone and started to get grabby. He kind of threatened me, but I thought he was just drunk. It couldn’t be him, though, could it?”
Murray rolled her eyes, giving me the same look I gave my kids when they were playing space cadet. “I wish you’d tell me these things right off the bat instead of as an afterthought. Okay, let’s hear it. All of it.” She took more notes while I sketched out the events at the Brown Bear Bar & Grill and then she folded her notebook again and tucked it in her pocket. “Okay. Call your insurance company. Call your credit card company. Greg will run the prints we gathered through our computer and see if anything comes up. Sandy will interview the neighboring shops, see if anybody noticed anything out of the ordinary. I’ll find this Jimbo and see if he has a rap sheet and an alibi. Meanwhile, please consider installing an alarm system before you get all that china from Walter. If I were you, I’d also consider putting in a video surveillance camera.”
I hated the thought. I’d moved to Chiqetaw to feel safer, not to get thrust right back into big-city hassles, but it loo
ked like that was quickly becoming a pipe dream. Resigned, I nodded. “You’re probably right. This sucks. I lost some pieces that I’ll never be able to replace; personal favorites.” I took out my cell phone and punched in Lana’s number, tersely running through what had happened. “I need you to come in early if possible, as in right now. Dress for cleaning. Bring sturdy leather gloves, I don’t want anybody getting cut on broken glass.” She said she’d be right over. “Murray, can one of your guys watch the shop until I get back? I’d hate to find that some looter came through while I was home changing.”
She assured me they’d keep an eye open until I returned, and we all headed out. The day was shaping up to be prime headache material.
THE INSURANCE AGENT arrived shortly after I returned from changing clothes. He photographed the damage so we could begin the daunting task of matching inventory lists to missing china. While it was impossible to tell which pieces had been stolen and which had been trashed, from the debris I began to see what Sandy had been talking about. The bags of broken china and pottery weren’t full enough to account for even two-thirds of my stock. I should have been able to recognize the remains of the Waterford crystal, but there weren’t any in sight that even vaguely matched the delicate lead glass. Whoever had vandalized my shop had also stolen a good deal of merchandise. Maybe they’d trashed the rest to make it hard to tell what was gone.