Fries and Alibis Read online

  I straighten up and smile. Yeah. That should suffice. I could get used to having a lawyer.

  “We’re waiting on the medical examiner to confirm time of death, but if Miss Moon can verify her arrival as of this morning, I feel confident once we check her alibi we can clear her of the charges. I’m no expert, but that body—”

  I hastily put up a hand. “Please don’t finish that sentence, Erick.”

  He tilts his head and nods. “It’s Sheriff Harper, Miss Moon.”

  “Come along, Mitzy.” Silas wiggles my chair impatiently.

  I stand and nod my farewell.

  “Don’t leave town, Miss Moon.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Erick.” I get a little flush of tingles every time I say his name.

  “Deputy Paulsen will have some papers for you to sign, Silas.” He reaches out and shakes my lawyer’s hand. “Thanks for comin’ in.”

  Deputy Paulsen glares at me and picks her teeth with her pinky fingernail. “Sheriff tell you to stick close?”

  I frown. “I own the bookshop. I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

  “That’s right,” she adds with a nod.

  Silas ignores her completely, reads through the document on the proffered clipboard, and signs with an impressive flourish.

  I lean in and admire his work. “Nice signature. You study calligraphy?”

  “A person’s name is a thing of beauty. A unique talisman. It deserves to be honored, Mitzy.”

  The tone with which he utters my nickname is not lost on me. I shrug sheepishly and walk out of the station.

  On the short ride back to the bookshop Silas doesn’t volunteer any information about Cal Duncan, so I inquire, “Was Cal really my grandfather?”

  Silas nods.

  “Well, if Odell Johnson was her first husband then Cal Duncan—” I quickly review the order of her many surnames “—must’ve been her third. Right?”

  He nods again.

  “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and swallows. “It’s not my place to say.”

  Can you believe this guy? It’s been a heckuva day and I’m in no mood for games. “Everyone else is dead, Silas. It has to be your place. I’ve already been accused of murdering my own grandfather today. How much worse can things get?”

  His shoulders stoop under some invisible weight and his jaw muscles tense. “Everyone else is not dead.”

  My mind goes into a tailspin. Thoughts are whirring around fast and furious. Holy crap! I have a sister or maybe a brother. I’ve always thought I would be a cool big sis—

  “Your father is alive.”

  Chapter 8

  Did I faint? I pinch myself. Ow! Apparently I did not faint. Another movie classic fails to deliver. My father is alive. Why has no one mentioned this since I arrived in Pin Cherry Harbor? Clearly everyone knows who my father is—everyone except me. Don’t worry, I ask the obvious question. “Who’s my father?”

  “I can inform you his name is Jacob Duncan, but I’m afraid I can’t say another word without acquiring his express permission.” Silas squares his shoulders and turns off the sputtering engine.

  “What? Has he refused to have anything to do with me? Is he ashamed of me? Is that why he ditched my mom after he knocked her up?” At least seventeen more questions zip around inside my head, but Silas refuses to answer me or even make eye contact, so whatever the reason that my dad won’t acknowledge me—it must be pretty rotten.

  I step out of the car and slam the tiny Model T door within an inch of its life. “Never mind. I didn’t need him when my mom died. I didn’t need him when they carted me off to foster care. I didn’t need him when I ran away at seventeen and made it on my own.” I choke back tears and shout at Silas and the rest of Pin Cherry, “I sure as heck don’t need him now that I’m rich.”

  Silas makes no move to comfort me. Not that I expect him to, but I do see him flinch. Somehow that small victory satisfies me. I run inside the bookshop, up the stairs, and into my secret apartment.

  As the bookcase slides shut behind me the tears flood down my cheeks.

  I flop face down on the bed and punch my fist into a pillow until my arm shakes with fatigue. The tears are thick and the snot is thicker. This is a solid, ugly cry.

  REOW! HISS!

  I may have peed myself a little. My tears instantly cease as I whip around to locate the source of the commotion. “How did you get in here, Pyewacket?”

  “Ree-ooow!” His back arches in an unfriendly pose.

  “If that’s meant to be an answer, I’ve got nothin’, buddy.”

  “Oh, you’ll understand his every sound before you know it.”

  I’m sorry to say I definitely pee myself this time. I spin around to confront this new intruder and my eyes nearly pop out of my head. The blood drains from my face and I’m sure I must be white as a—

  “Were you going to say ghost, honey?”

  The apparition floating in the middle of my apartment chuckles and clutches her many strands of pearls in amusement.

  Now I faint.

  A warm, rough tongue licks my cheek, but before I can get too excited sharp pointy teeth bite my earlobe. “Ow!” I swat at the carnivorous Pyewacket, but his cat-like—oh, that seems redundant—his reflexes easily put him out of reach before I can connect.

  “Don’t take it out on Pye. He just wants you to wake up so we can get acquainted. All caracal are intuitive, but his gift has always seemed abnormally strong. He’s been quite protective of me ever since I won him in an off-the-books Scrabble game. His previous owner was a nasty piece of work. Poor little Pye was half-starved when I tucked him in my Marc Jacobs bag. I raised him from a cub, you know.”

  I sit up nice and slow. I scoot away from the swirling-misty ghost woman and press my back up against the solid wood frame of the four-poster bed.

  “Mitzy, darling, I’m so sorry I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting you in the flesh. Obviously you’re in the flesh, but I’m a little, shall we say, insubstantial?”

  Her laughter fills the room with love, and my terrified heart swells in spite of the primal fear. “Grams?”

  “Who else?” She spins around and curtsies.

  “You look so young. Silas said you were sixty-five when you passed.”

  “A lady never tells her age.” Another chorus of chuckles. “One of the perks of being newly dead. I get to pick my ‘look’, and I went with circa thirty-five-year-old Isadora. Those early years with Cal and the baby were some of my best. And being buried in a vintage Marchesa didn’t hurt!” She swishes back and forth to show off her burgundy silk-and-tulle ball gown.

  “Is this real?” I press my hand against the floor and search the room for a clock. I’m fresh out of “Inception” tops so I’m not sure how to prove I’m not inside my own dream.

  “If this is a dream, Mitzy, I don’t ever want to wake up. You’re exactly as beautiful and amazing as I knew you would be.”

  “You said ‘the baby.’ Do you mean my dad? Jacob?”

  “Ah yes, that’s why I’m here.” Her mood darkens for a moment and she mumbles, “Silas and his rules.”

  “Silas said he wouldn’t tell me anything without Jacob’s permission.”

  “Well, Jacob is going to have a hard time enforcing his rules beyond the veil!” She crosses her arms and shakes her head.

  “Silas said—”

  “Silas can kiss my ample behind! That man never took proper advantage of me when he had the chance, and I’m not going to let him interfere with my afterlife.”

  And there it is. I just figured out where I get my trollop gene. Gram Gram is a little skanky!

  “Easy honey, there’s a thick line between ‘empowered woman of means’ and ‘skank.’” She raises an eyebrow and nods.

  “Can you read minds? Is that a ghost thing?”

  She chews her perfectly drawn coral lip for a second. “I don’t think it’s mind re
ading. It just is. It seems like everything is energy, and now I’m connected to that energy in a different way. I’d say it feels more like there’s no boundary between your thoughts and my thoughts. Does that make sense, dear?”

  “Kinda.” I shrug. Who am I to say what makes sense? I’m talking to a ghost.

  She smiles and swirls closer. “Let me tell you about Jacob.”

  I grin and hug my knees to my chest.

  She covers everything from his first tooth to his first day at college, before a dark cloud seeps into her energy. “When he dropped out of college and spent all his time with that Navy reject Darrin MacIntyre . . . ” She presses her hand to her heart. “That’s when Cal cut Jacob out of the will. How was he to know what would happen?”

  “What? What happened?”

  “Well, I hate to admit it, but Cal and I spoiled your father something fierce. So when the easy money stopped and Cal offered him an honest job, you’re father continued to take advantage of Cal’s generosity. Eventually, he was fired and that’s when things took a turn— He and that good-for-nothing Darrin cooked up a dangerous scheme.”

  “Like a pyramid scheme? Like multi-level marketing?” I lean forward.

  “I wish, dear. No, I’m afraid they decided to rob one of those big box stores on Black Friday.”

  “Did they get caught?”

  “Oh, that’s not the half of it.” She sighed and flickered. “The robbery went sideways and the store manager got shot. Now, I still don’t believe Jacob did it, but that Darrin testified against him and your father went to prison for murder and armed robbery.”

  “Holy Foley! No wonder Silas didn’t want to tell me.”

  “Don’t blame Silas, dear. When your father found out about you he swore every member of the family to silence. He thought your mom was doing a great job raising you and he didn’t want his mistakes to screw up your life.”

  “But she died when I was eleven and—”

  “He told us nothing would be worse for you than having a convict for a father. Putting you in my will was my final rebellion. I never agreed with him, but I felt some kind of obligation while I was alive. He’d had such a hard life in prison.”

  “Had? Is he out of prison? Where is he? I want to meet him!” I get to my feet and pace. Part of me wants to meet him, at least. The other part kind of wants to yell at him and pound my fists against his chest—in the rain—like a Nicholas Sparks movie.

  “Slow down, dear. Silas will get permission from Jacob, and then you can go and meet him. Last I heard he was down south somewhere. Seems like it might have been Chicago or Minneapolis.”

  My shoulders droop. “I can’t leave town.”

  “Nonsense, dear. Twiggy and Pye can hold down the fort for a couple days.”

  “No, it’s not that I don’t want to leave town. I can’t. I’m a suspect in Cal’s murder.”

  Isadora’s smile fades and her eyes fill with sadness and loss, or perhaps it’s shock. The ghost of grandmothers past disapparates and Pyewacket hisses menacingly.

  And . . . scene.

  Chapter 9

  I’m not certain if Grams left because of my implication in Cal’s murder or if she received a summons from the other side, but either way I’m not waiting for anyone’s permission on anything. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to talk to my father.

  Bounding down the stairs two at a time, I blindly trip over the chain at the bottom.

  As I’m untangling myself and checking to make sure I didn’t split open my skull, the dulcet tones of Twiggy’s cackle reach my ears.

  “You aren’t exactly coordinated, eh? Seems like I’ve seen you on your hind end more than your feet today.” Additional chuckles punctuate her observation.

  “What’s this stupid chain up for anyway? I don’t care if people go up and down the stairs.” I reach for the hook, but Twiggy’s strong hand beats me to the clasp.

  “You’ll care if someone walks off with a book worth two hundred thousand dollars. Then you’ll care.” She does not remove her hand from the chain.

  “You can’t be serious!” I glance up the circular staircase and shake my head in disbelief.

  “I realize you don’t know me that well, doll, but I don’t ‘kid.’” Twiggy tilts her helmet of grey hair and crosses her arms over her square torso.

  “If they’re all so valuable, why aren’t they in a museum or something?”

  She makes a sweeping gesture to indicate the bookshop. “Behold ‘something.’ Once a month your Grams opens up the Rare Books Loft and every one of those little green-glass desk lamps shines on a rare tome that someone made reservations to view—months in advance.”

  “Do they pay for the reservation?” Little cash-register bells ding in my head.

  “Naw. She only allows scholarly research, not looky-loos.”

  So much for my fleeting plans to take over the world with my rare-books money. “Hey, I need to do some research. Do we have old newspapers in here?”

  “It’s a bookshop not a library.” Twiggy rolls her dark-brown eyes.

  “I want to look into my dad’s case. Grams seems pretty certain he’s innocent and—”

  Twiggy takes a big step back and stares at me like my head’s on upside down. “I thought you never met Isadora? And who told you about your dad?”

  Oops. I didn’t think this through. I can’t exactly tell her I’ve been chatting with my dead grandmother’s ghost . . . First I’m a suspect in a murder and now I’m talking to dead people? I mean, this woman already thinks I’m uncoordinated and mildly incompetent. Do I want her assuming I’m a full on wack job?

  “Is it the gift? She never thought it was hereditary. Your dad never . . . She wound up believing it was something she learned from the books.”

  Twiggy’s rambling doesn’t seem to be directed at me, but she sounds like she might be able to handle the truth. When in doubt . . .

  I take a deep breath and launch into my tale. “I’m not sure how to explain this, Twiggy. I don’t want you to think I’m insane or seeing things, but my grandmother’s ghost appeared to me up in the apartment and told me all about the robbery and the murder charges.” I swallow and wait.

  Twiggy smacks the heels of her hands together as though I just gave her the answer to a riddle she’d been working on for months. “I knew it! If anyone could find a way back it would be Isadora. I bet you ten to one that Silas had something to do with this. He spends entirely too much time in that Rare Books Loft.” She nods and paces in a circle. “I’d say I can’t believe it, but I can. I absolutely can!”

  This is going far better than I could’ve imagined.

  Twiggy stops suddenly and glances left and right. “Is she here right now?”

  I scrunch up my face and look down at the ground. “She sort of beamed out when I mentioned that I was accused of Cal’s murder.”

  “Oh, hells bells, doll. You broke her heart. Cal was still alive when she crossed over. If she’s trapped on our side she might not know . . . ” Twiggy wanders off, mumbling under her breath and gesticulating randomly.

  I take a step, but before I utter a word Twiggy calls out, “I’ll get your dad’s old case files. I used to have a little thing with the records tech, and I think he’s still got the hots for me.”

  “Thanks,” I shout. As the elaborate front door bangs shut, I chuckle and try to reconcile two things: 1. Someone has the “hots” for Twiggy; and 2. That someone is a “he.” I mean, you get what I’m saying, right? No judgment. I just thought she was playing softball for the other team.

  I wander through the stacks as I review my new life in Pin Cherry Harbor. I own a bookshop that houses some insanely valuable books. I have a bank account with a seemingly substantial amount of money in it. To borrow Twiggy’s phrase, I think I have “the hots” for Sheriff Erick. I can eat burgers and fries for free whenever I want, thanks to my grandmother’s storied past. I’m caretaker to a dangerous and mildly psychotic wildcat. And—will wonders never ceas
e—I’m not an orphan.

  That last one hits me hard. My disappearing dad is alive and he knows I exist. He should’ve gotten in touch with me. He should’ve acted like an adult and faced up to his responsibilities, but I’ll discuss that with him face to face. Grams seems pretty certain he didn’t murder anyone, but what if he did? Do I want a relationship with a homicidal convict? I’ve managed to take care of myself without him for twenty-one years . . .

  A sharp scratch at the back door interrupts my self-evaluation. I grasp the handle and pause. “Pyewacket, if you are currently holding parts of any human in your mouth I demand that you drop them this instant.” That should do it. I ease the door open.

  Pyewacket snakes through the crack and zips past me. He’s four-legged lightning with a little tilt in his sideways gallop. Maybe he was hit by a car before Grams rescued him?

  Through the cracked door, the movement by the dumpster is clearly visible. Yellow crime-scene tape blocks off the back half of the alley, and a lone investigator places found items in evidence bags.

  I close the door before she sees me.

  Now where’s that cat? I walk toward the front of the store, but I don’t see or hear anything. “Pye, oh dear sweet Pye. Where are you?” I hope the fur-demon can’t detect the sarcasm in my tone.

  Something hits my head. I clutch my chest, jump, and squeak in fear.

  “Ree-ow.” Soft but condescending.

  I wait a tick for my heart rate to return to normal and then I stoop to pick up . . . “What is this?” I turn the glossy black button over in my hand. Four holes. A large debossed anchor with a rope wrapped around it marks the surface. Not mine. I walk toward the trash bin.

  Before I can toss the useless button out, Pyewacket leaps to the floor and his claws snag my pant leg. I stumble and drop the fastener.

  “Reeeee-ow.” A warning.

  I might actually detect a slight variation in the meows. Grams said I would learn to understand him. Let’s test my theory. I pick up the black button and move toward the wastebasket.

  THWACK!

  Pye hits me hard with a right paw. He got a chunk of ankle flesh with that one. “Okay, okay. I’ll keep your trash souvenir.” I slip the button in my pocket and roll my eyes. What a freaky cat.