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“Oh, I’m still interested in it,” he said.

“You are?” I couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of my voice.

“I could be there in about half an hour to take another look at it,” he said. I heard what sounded like the slam of a vehicle door.

“That would work,” I said. “Do you remember how to find us?”

“I do,” he said. “I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

I hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair, stroking Elvis’s fur with one hand. “Jon West is going to be here in about half an hour,” I said.

He turned his head and looked at me with one green eye.

“Yes, I know Rose will be all over him like you on a can of Tasty Tenders.”

He lifted his head and licked his lips.

“I don’t actually have any right now,” I said.

That got me a glare before he dropped his head again. Elvis may have been a cat, but he seemed to have a better command of the English language than some people did.

I looked at the papers I’d just laid on my desk. “I’ll work on these later,” I said to Elvis. “Let’s go see what’s happening downstairs.”

He jumped to the floor before I could set him down. I got up, brushed the cat hair off my lap and put on a little rosy lip gloss. Elvis, meanwhile, was washing his face.

“Ready?” I asked.

He made one last pass behind his left ear.

“You look good,” I said.

He tipped his head to one side and eyed me. Then he meowed again and started for the door.

Apparently we both looked presentable.

“You know, I read somewhere that the longer people live together, the more they start doing the same things,” I said as we started down the stairs. “Do you think that happens with cats and people?”

Elvis stopped on the second step and gave me a look that could only be interpreted as “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Chapter 12

Charlotte and Avery had their heads together at the cash desk, but Avery bounced over to me before I could cross the floor to them.

“Sarah, can we do KISS in the front window?” she asked. She was like a puppy in her enthusiasm, and Elvis made a wide berth around her and headed for the back room.

“Do you mean candy kisses or people kissing?” I asked.

“Number one, no. And number two, ewww!” she said, making a face. “I mean the retro band. You know, the guys in makeup.”

I looked over at Charlotte. “You said you wanted something that wasn’t the typical hearts and flowers,” she said with a completely straight face.

“What exactly do you want to do?” I asked warily.

“We want to do the band in the window,” Avery said, making a gesture in that direction with one hand. “We could use those mannequins we got from Doran’s.”

I’d known that trip would come back to haunt me. When we bought the huge chandelier from the lobby of the Portland department store, we’d also purchased several old-style glass-front wooden display cases and six mannequins.

“You can’t let these go to the dump,” Avery had insisted when she’d come across a row of the plastic people. “These are art.”

The vintage figures looked like giant Barbie dolls. Mac had come to stand beside me. “It’s not the worst idea,” he’d said quietly.

“Okay,” I said. “Have you lost your mind?”

Mac had given me an enigmatic smile and held up his phone. “People collect just about everything, including store mannequins from the 1960s, which I’m almost certain these are.”

We’d ended up buying six of the dozen figures, disassembled in three large cardboard cartons, for five dollars apiece, and then we’d turned around and sold two of them for two hundred and fifty dollars to a collector in Florida who had stowed them in the back of his Winnebago RV. As he’d driven off, it had looked like one of them was waving out the back window.

“What are you going to do for costumes and wigs?” I asked.

“That’s why this idea is so totally brilliant,” Avery said, throwing her hands into the air. “It’s not going to cost anything, if that’s what you’re worried about, and I know it is.”

“Nothing?” I said.

“I swear,” she said, pressing one hand to her chest with a melodramatic flourish. “Mr. P. said that Sam and the guys in his band dressed up as KISS for some kind of charity thing and we could probably use their stuff if we asked. So could we ask?”

Before I could say yes or no, she waved her other hand. “And I can borrow whatever makeup stuff I need from Phantasy. I already called Elspeth and asked her. Could you just please say yes so we can get on with it?”

A life-size KISS re-creation in my front window for Valentine’s Day? It was just plain weird.

I looked over at Charlotte, who smiled back at me. I looked at Avery, who looked like she was going to bounce out of her skin.

“Yes,” I said.

Avery turned to Charlotte and did a fist pump in the air. Then she turned back to me.

“Thanks, Sarah,” she said. “I promise you’re going to love it.”

“You’re responsible for asking Sam about borrowing those costumes.”

“Deal,” she said at once.

“And you have to do all the heavy lifting, not Charlotte.”

“I promise,” she said, crossing her heart with one finger like a five-year-old making a playground swear.

She pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call Sam right now.”

I walked over to Charlotte. “KISS?”

“Would you like to see the list of ideas I vetoed?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“You have to admit, our more . . . exotic windows are the ones that seem to bring in customers,” Charlotte pointed out. “Remember the Christmas goat?”

I laughed. The Christmas goat came from the Scandinavian holiday tradition. Our Christmas goat in robes like an old-fashioned Santa Claus had brought a lot of people into the store, if only to ask why a goat was playing Saint Nick. It had been worth the thirty dollars I’d paid for the toy goat at a Bangor toy store.

“Just don’t let it get too exotic,” I said.

In the back room Mac had the chandelier laid out on a clean tarp. He was at the workbench. I walked over to him. “Jon West is on his way over,” I said.

“Now?” he said.

His gaze went to the end wall where Mr. P. and Rose were doing something on Mr. P.’s laptop.

I sighed. “This is the universe testing my resolve because I said I wasn’t going to try to stop them from being detectives if that’s what they wanted.”

Mac nodded and smiled, his gaze coming back to me. “The universe has a perverse sense of humor sometimes,” he said.

I smiled back at him and then looked over at the old light. “You still feel comfortable about the price we agreed on for the chandelier?”

He turned the screwdriver he was holding over in his fingers. “I do. I added a cushion for any expenses we didn’t think of. We can make a nice profit off this piece and Jon West will do all right as well. The light’s almost an antique, and it is a piece of Maine history. Not to mention he’ll be spending a lot less than a new chandelier would cost him.”

“I think I’ll just stand back and let you handle things, then,” I said.

“Based on the last time he was here, I think he prefers your charm just a little more than mine.”

I laughed. “Jon is a bit of a flirt, isn’t he?”

Mac’s expression got serious. “He also goes hard after what he wants. Don’t forget that.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t.”

Jon West arrived exactly twenty-nine minutes after I’d spoken to him.

“Hi, Sarah,” he said, holding out his hand as he stepped into the store. “I’m glad you called. I’m looking forward to seeing the light fixture all cleaned up.”