She opened the folder—a folder?—and perused the application. No red flags popped up. Hesty appeared to be a solid citizen with a penchant for helping others. Tomorrow she’d check his references and then go from there.
Her eyes burning, both from reading and from stress, Lara set up her easel with a fresh sheet of watercolor paper. From the sealed bottle she kept in the room, she poured water into two separate cups. She’d taken pics of the stone mansion earlier in the day and saved them on her cell phone. She pulled up the one she liked best, enlarged it slightly, and went to work.
An hour later, she’d managed to produce a rough watercolor of the mansion. She’d captured the sun gleaming off the stones, and the lush green of the ivy clinging to the stone columns. It needed much more detail, but she’d tackle that tomorrow.
In all the hoopla after the murder, she’d almost forgotten something else: the threatening message left on Deanna’s car window. Did she dare text Chief Whitley about it? She was itching to know if they’d identified the graffiti artist. The chief would probably tell her to mind her own business. Which, of course, he had every right to do.
She texted him anyway.
Any news on Deanna’s car vandal?
Wait a minute. Where was her brain? That day, when she’d first spotted the lipstick message on Deanna’s car window, she’d taken a picture of it! How had she forgotten that?
Lara picked up her cell again and scrolled through the photos. Yes! There it was. TIME TO PAY THE PIPER. The letters are printed carefully, almost childishly, she thought. And next to that was a circle with a roughly drawn flower in the middle.
She enlarged the photo with her thumb and forefinger, shifting it to zoom in on the circle. The flower was a series of loosely connected dots—dots that formed a picture. It reminded Lara somewhat of a snowflake. Although the artwork was amateurish, Lara could see a pattern.
Unless she was imagining it, it was the same flower—Queen Anne’s Lace—she’d seen scattered at the crime scene.
Chapter 7
“Where have you been?” Sherry Bowker bleated. She poured steaming coffee into a mug and pushed a bowl of half-and-half packets at Lara.
Lara shot a glance around Bowker’s Coffee Stop. The pastel-painted walls graced with artifacts from the 1960s never failed to elicit a smile from her. Today she spotted several unfamiliar faces. Reporters? Media types? A few of them pounded laptops as they shoveled muffins into their mouths and guzzled the coffee shop’s delicious java.
She looked back at her longtime bestie, whose raven-tinted hair sat in gelled spikes on her head. The spikes were a tad softer than usual, more curvy and feminine. “I’ve been lying low,” Lara said quietly, using Deanna’s phrase. She plopped a packet of half-and-half into her coffee. “You heard about the, um—”
“Body,” Sherry announced, a bit too loudly. “Of course I did. It’s all over the news. And you—you’ve been rubbing elbows with Hollywood royalty and haven’t even called me!”
Lara gave her a penitent look. “I’m sorry. Things have been crazy. Honestly they have.”
She’d driven her aunt to the police station early that morning so they could both sign written statements. The chief had been noticeably absent. She and her aunt had each spoken separately to a state police detective who’d worked quickly and efficiently. His keyboard skills had amazed Lara.
“And if my ears didn’t deceive me,” Sherry added, “you’ve gotten yourself involved in another flippin’ murder.”
Slowly, Lara shook her head. Is that what people were saying?
“I am not involved in another murder,” Lara said. “Not even remotely.” In a lowered voice, she explained how she’d happened to glance out the window of Deanna’s mansion and spotted the man in the cemetery.
“Unreal,” Sherry said. “You want a fresh fruit cup? Mom made them up this morning.”
“Sure. Extra blueberries, okay?”
“If you insist. How’s Fran doing?”
“Good. Taking things in stride.”
Sherry smiled. “She’s a new person since she got that left knee done.”
“She definitely has more energy, and less pain,” Lara said. “Hey, Sher, not to change the subject, but do you know a guy named Curtis Heston?”
Her friend grinned. “Hesty? Sure I do. He and his wife lived on our street before they downsized to a smaller house. He’s a super nice guy. Why?”
Omitting Blue from the story, Lara told her about his adoption application.
“Approve him,” Sherry said. “You don’t even need to check him out. Believe me, he’ll give that kitty a great home.”
“Wow. That’s quite a recommendation.”
“And you can take it to the bank,” Sherry said. “I’ll go get your fruit cup.”
Lara sipped from her mug. In part, she felt relief. But another part of her couldn’t discount Blue’s odd behavior toward Hesty.
Sherry returned a minute later with Lara’s fruit cup. In a glass dessert dish sat a mountain of blueberries nestled atop sliced peaches, pears, and strawberries. Sherry sidled away to wait on other customers.
Lara spooned fruit into her mouth, savoring the blend of flavors. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to linger. Kayla would be returning at eleven to assist with shelter duties.
“Hey, I gotta run,” Lara told Sherry after swallowing the last blueberry. “We’ve actually hired our first official paid employee. So far she’s terrific.” She slapped her money on the counter. It was always a struggle to pay, since Sherry never wanted to accept money from her.
Sherry shot her a look, examined the money, and shoved a dollar bill back at her. “That’s nice,” she said distractedly. “Hey, are you ever going to introduce me to Deanna?”
“Of course I am, as soon as all this…nonsense is out of the way.”
“They think she did it, you know.”
Lara felt her heart lurch. “What?”
“I heard the cops talking about it this morning. As you know, I have a black belt in eavesdropping.” Sherry leaned closer. “Deanna knew that guy, the one who got offed. They think it was a lovers’ quarrel gone wrong.”
Lovers’ quarrel? Deanna hadn’t seen the man in over fifty years!
Or so she’d claimed.
Had the actress lied about their relationship?
At one of the tables, a man wearing black-rimmed glasses and sporting a wicked tan cocked his ears toward Lara. A reporter, Lara suspected. No doubt he was trying to pick up on what they were talking about.
“If you hear anything else, text me, okay?” Lara begged. “Too many curious ears in here.”
“Got it,” Sherry said.
Lara leaned across the counter, gave her friend a quick hug, and left.
* * * *
When Lara got back to her aunt’s, she noticed an older car—a Mercury, she thought—sitting in the small parking area adjacent to the shelter’s entrance. The passenger-side window bore the decal of a cat curled protectively around a tiny kitten. Lara smiled when she realized their new assistant had already arrived and was waiting to be let in. Kayla sat on the porch steps, peering at her smartphone. She grinned when she saw Lara.
“Sorry if I got here too early,” Kayla said. “I just couldn’t wait to start!”
Wearing