Lorna Barrett - Sentenced to Death

Those days were long gone. And why did the memory have to surface right now?

Tricia glanced up and saw Ginny pause in front of the Happy Domestic. She pawed through her keys, and opened the door. Ah! Company. If only for a few moments. Although if Ginny was arriving an hour before opening, it stood to reason she had work to do. But still, Tricia grabbed her keys, locked up, and headed for the Coffee Bean. Thankfully, Boris was not around, and Alexa waited on her with her usual good cheer.

“I see Captain Baker has left,” Tricia said.

“Ja, ja,” Alexa said. “I told Boris it was foolish to involve you . . . but . . . men!” she said, and laughed, as though that explained everything. “Are you going next door to visit Ginny?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Everett tells me she’s ordered a proper Dumpster.”

“Yes, I believe she has.”

Alexa nodded. “She will make a good neighbor.”

Tricia held out a ten-dollar bill to pay for the coffee, but Alexa shook her head. “You tell her it’s a very small welcome gift from me.”

“That’s very sweet of you. Thank you.”

She bid Alexa good-bye and took the coffees next door. Once again, she had to knock several times before Ginny appeared from the back room behind the counter. As Tricia hoped, Ginny was smiling. Good. She didn’t want her to think she was spying on her—or blatantly interrupting her.

“Coffee,” Ginny said after opening the door. “You’re a mind reader.”

“It’s from Alexa, actually. To welcome you to the neighborhood. And I just thought I’d come over to see how you’re doing.”

“How nice—on both accounts.” Ginny waved a hand around the shop. “At least I didn’t arrive to find chaos this morning.”

Tricia took an appreciative look around the store. The merchandise sparsely decorated the shelves, but the place was tidy and still inviting. “You’re in early.”

Ginny took a sip of coffee and blushed. “I feel like I’m playing house. Come on in the back and sit down awhile.”

Tricia dutifully followed Ginny into the back of the shop. Elizabeth must have made good her threat of having Davey’s things collected, for the playpen, changing table, toys, and diapers were gone. In their place was a desk, file cabinets, a table with a coffeemaker and microwave, and a small refrigerator. Everything Tricia had collected for the employee break room on the floor above her shop.

Ginny sat at the desk and ushered Tricia to take the hard-backed chair to the side of it. “I’m already getting to know the stock,” she said proudly. “And I like arranging stuff on the shelves. Thanks so much for loaning me Mr. Everett again yesterday. He’s such a doll, and he can fix things, too. The card rack was all bent out of shape, but he managed to put it back into its original shape. And he’s just as good with the customers here as he is at Haven’t Got a Clue. I’m hoping to find someone as good as him to work for me.”

Tricia smiled. “You’re not going to try to woo him away from me, are you?”

“Would I do that?” Ginny asked in mock innocence.

They shared a laugh, and then sipped their coffee in contented silence. Ginny was the first to speak. “I’m going to be ordering the Christmas stock this morning. I spent all last evening going through the catalogs. I think Antonio was bored to death, but he pretended to pay attention. I mean, it is in his best interest to know what’s going on here at the Happy Domestic.”

“What are you ordering?”

“Christmas doilies, angels, a few really cute nativity scenes, Dolly Dolittles in Christmas garb, some specialty chocolates—”

“What does Dolly Dolittle look like?” Tricia asked. She’d done all that eBay research but hadn’t yet seen the small china figurines and felt curious about them.

Ginny pawed through a stack of catalogs on the desk, picking one out and handing it to Tricia, who smiled in delight. Dolly Dolittle was an angel in Victorian garb. The cover shot showed a little girl in pastel blue, with a white fur collar. Her hands were thrust in a furry muff to match the collar, and the entire figurine was covered in iridescent sparkles. “She’s adorable.”

“Apparently they sell like crazy—especially at Christmastime. They’re one of the few angels that outlived the craze a few years back. I think one of the reasons may be that they’re still made here in the U.S. instead of China. They have a huge, loyal following.”

For the past two Christmases, Tricia had confined her holiday decorations to Haven’t Got a Clue, but as she studied the various Dolly Dolittles in the catalog, she thought she might make an exception and grace her shelves with a couple of the figurines. Each of them was named. Would that make it easy for prospective buyers on eBay to Google each one, so that the seller didn’t need to put up a photograph in order to entice a willing customer?

“Were you able to find Deborah’s inventory for the missing Dolly Dolittles?”

Ginny frowned and shook her head. “Except for the empty boxes, there’s no way to prove they were ever part of the stock when the store was sold.

“That’s too bad.”

“I’m not going to worry about it. All I can do is move forward. There’s no point in looking back and wondering what might have been.”

“Sound reasoning,” Tricia agreed. She glanced at her watch. “I’d better let you get back to work.”

Ginny stood. “I know it’s only been three days, and it was kind of nerve-racking dealing with Elizabeth, the missing inventory, and the break-in, but other than that, it’s been a great couple of days. I already love this job.”

“So you won’t miss us over at Haven’t Got a Clue?”

“Of course I will. But . . . this is what I want to do now.”

Tricia smiled. “That’s exactly how I felt when I opened my shop, too. And believe it or not, it gets even better.”

Ginny positively grinned.

Tricia led the way to the shop entrance. “Well, have a good day.”

“You, too,” Ginny said, gave a quick wave, and shut and locked the door.

Tricia made her way back to Haven’t Got a Clue. If she was honest with herself, she felt a bit envious of Ginny. But something about what she’d seen in the catalog filled with Dolly Dolittle figurines stayed with her, and she wasn’t sure why.

The bell over the door rang and Tricia looked up to see Elizabeth Crane push Davey’s stroller through the shop door. After the tongue lashing she’d received two nights before, she wasn’t eager to talk to Deborah’s mother. But it was a contrite Elizabeth who walked up to the sales counter.

“Hello, Tricia.”

“Elizabeth.” That was as gracious a welcome as Tricia could muster under the circumstances.

Davey grabbed at the items in the glass display case, quickly frustrated that he couldn’t get his hands on the worn and fragile first editions Tricia kept under lock and key. Still, he left his sticky fingerprints all over the glass.

“I came here to apologize for my behavior the other night.”

Tricia said nothing. If Elizabeth was intent on apologizing, she was going to let her do it.

“I was pretty stiff and sore when I got out of the ER. All I wanted was a hot bath and a nice strong drink. And when I couldn’t find you to retrieve Davey . . . I may have let my temper get the better of me.”

She sure had. Still, Tricia wasn’t sure she wanted to let Elizabeth off the hook so easily. “I can understand that,” she said.

Davey grunted his displeasure, and Elizabeth pulled a picture book from the catch-all at the back of the stroller. He squealed with delight at what must have been the familiar sight of fire engines.