The Gift of Grift Page 3

  “Yep.” Katie peered at him a long moment, a look Ray had long ago identified: she had something to say to him. And he probably wasn’t going to like it.

  “Yes?” he asked, already bracing himself.

  “I’m concerned about Brian.”

  “I’m sure you knew who he was right away.”

  Katie’s gaze dropped for a second — partially modesty, Ray recognized, and partially to acknowledge the air vent that perfectly conducted sound from the checkout counter straight into her room. “Recognized his voice.”

  Of course she did. Katie was the sharpest person he’d ever known. If Lori hadn’t come to town, and if Katie were able, and if the same crime wave had hit Dusky Cove, Ray had no doubt Katie would have been the one to solve all the murders.

  “Why are you concerned about him?”

  “He gave you a fifty right before that Judy woman said her change was wrong?”

  Ray nodded.

  Katie half smiled. “It was probably the same bill she claimed she’d paid with.”

  Ray’s heart dropped. Yes, he’d suspected something might have been up, but he’d tried to err on the side of honesty.

  “Could be worse, though,” Katie admitted. “If you had agreed to buy that diabetes monitor off him, I have no doubt Judy would never have come back to claim it and pay your reward.”

  Ray replayed the exchanges with Judy and Brian in his mind, the full implications dawning on him. “He thought I’d pay him for it, and then they’d skip town?”

  Katie nodded.

  “So they’re working together.”

  “Seems that way.”

  “And played me for a fool.” Ray shook his head.

  “They tried to,” Katie reassured him. “But you really can’t con an honest man.”

  Except for the first thirty dollars they’d taken from him. “Do you need more water?” Ray asked.

  “That would be wonderful. Thank you. And could you bring up that notepad that girl wrote her number on?”

  “Brian took the page with her phone number.”

  Katie offered a serene smile. “That’s okay; bring it anyway.”

  Ray pressed a kiss to her forehead and headed downstairs to fill up her cup and fetch the notepad.

  He should have detected the fraud sooner. If he hadn’t been so busy trying to recall Brian’s name, maybe he wouldn’t have been taken in.

  He hoped, anyway.

  And he hoped Brian would move along quickly, before Ray really did have to involve Aunt Rita. Or the police.

  The rest of the afternoon was quiet, but even steady sales and a quiet dinner of wedding leftovers did little to ease the emotional ulcer eating away at Ray.

  He should have been smarter. He shouldn’t have been taken in just because Brian was familiar and Judy, cute. He’d been in business long enough not to be taken in by such schemes, hadn’t he?

  The one salve he did have was Katie’s reassurance that you couldn’t con an honest man: that he hadn’t been taken in by the bigger con they’d tried to pull on him, and that was because he’d done the right thing.

  Still, it was disappointing to know someone who’d grown up in front of his eyes could have chosen such a path. Then again, even his own daughter had made some questionable choices, so perhaps he couldn’t think too badly of Brian’s turn as a con man.

  No, he probably still could look down on someone who had attempted to trick him out of two hundred dollars, taking advantage of the relationship they’d had decades before.

  The uncertainty was still swirling in his mind when he opened up the shop the next morning.

  A few tourists kept him busy for the first hour or two, then the foot traffic dried up, though it seemed he could see plenty of people walking past the windows and the door. In fact, they all seemed to be headed in one direction: toward the spit of beach their tiny town claimed. Technically, it was on the river, but they were close enough to the ocean that it almost counted.

  During the summer, passersby made perfect sense. Nobody came to Dusky Cove to shop in one little gift shop. Their little beach probably wasn’t a big draw, either, but plenty of people headed that way when the weather was warm.

  Today, however, the weather wasn’t. In the winter, the water turned dark and brooding. The beach was okay for a brisk walk, but anything beyond that was out of the question.

  Hopefully the tourists headed that way wouldn’t be long and would come by his shop on the way back. The buoys out on the porch had seemed to draw in several shoppers the day before. Perhaps Pam would get her brochures out quickly and he’d have traffic from her winter rentals soon.

  Optimism was a nice shift from the self-recrimination he’d been heaping on for nearly a day.

  Ray was finally able to get into his book as the timeline approached the Battle of the Bulge. He’d read that same time period in half a dozen other books, but it never failed to fascinate him.

  At least, that was what he was choosing to believe, rather than it was the lack of interrupting door bells that kept him reading continuously.

  He ate a quick lunch — more cold chicken salad on croissants from Mitch and Lori’s wedding — at the checkout counter. Lunch was often a prime time for shoppers to stop in as they headed down the street to the Mimosa Café or Salt Water Bakes. Or to come in after they finished.

  But no shoppers came today.

  Ray repeated all his usual reassurances to himself. A winter weekday was no way to gauge the future of his business. How many seasons had he weathered in this shop? More than he could count. One slow day was nothing.

  He knew that. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact of people passing by his shop over and over, he’d hardly think anything of it. He might have even turned over the OPEN sign, called it an afternoon, and gone to watch a movie upstairs with Katie.

  Ray double-checked the OPEN sign. Yes, it was facing the right way.

  He shook off that worry and settled in for the next chapter of his book. It was fine. One day. Tomorrow or next week or next summer would be better. They had a cushion from an extra busy tourist season anyway. Nothing to worry about.

  Although Christmas was only a week away. Shouldn’t locals be doing more shopping? They were probably stuffing their stockings from local chain stores. He harrumphed and resettled himself. Reading. If he stayed focused on reading, he wouldn’t worry about his financial welfare.

  In his book, Ray was nearly through Christmas Eve 1944 when the cowbell finally rang. He looked up — Tina Mendez waved to him, heading straight to the spinning racks of greeting cards.

  “Bit late to be buying Christmas cards, isn’t it, Tina?”

  She laughed. Of course she’d already bought and mailed her Christmas cards — Ray had one on his refrigerator.

  “Have to get my birthday cards for January,” she said, turning the rack of birthday cards.

  “Do you have Katie on your list?”

  “Of course I do. The thirtieth, right?”

  Ray grinned. “You got it.” Every person that remembered Katie was extra special to them both these days. So many of her friends had let their friendships lapse because Katie couldn’t reciprocate visits — or because they’d gotten too old to go out themselves.

  Ray was only eighty, and Katie not too far behind that, but it seemed their friends were dropping like flies these days.

  Tina flipped through the card displays. She was the most diligent card-sender Ray had ever known, even back to the days when handwritten letters were the primary form of communication. If it weren’t for Tina — and the “Card” in the shop’s name — Ray probably wouldn’t bother stocking greeting cards anymore.

  Tina made her selections and met him at the counter. “How’s Miss Katie this morning?”

  “Chipper,” Ray said, letting his tone go flat, as if her brightness in the morning bothered him.

  Tina laughed at the joke. Ray hoped Katie was doing the same upstairs, if she was listening. “And how are y’all holding
up?” Tina turned the question to him.

  “Keeping on keeping on.” Ray rang up her cards and Tina paid with a credit card. “How about you?” he finally continued the conversation.

  “The winter is playing havoc with my knees.” She sighed and bounced a little, as if she were bending them right now. Tina couldn’t be much older than forty, forty-five at the most. Had Ray’s knees bothered him that long ago?

  If they had, they paled into comparison to the shape he was in these days. “I wish I still had knees that good.”

  Tina laughed again. Ray handed her the thin bag with her purchases, then leaned across the counter and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Katie would love the one about the dentist.”

  “She does deserve a crown, doesn’t she?” Tina whispered back.

  Ray grinned and nodded.

  “You’ll just have to wait and see which one I give her,” Tina said, heading for the door. She stopped and stared out through the glass. “What’s going on down at the beach?” she asked.

  Ah, that made a little more sense. A local party? A town event? Ray tried to remember the last message from the Dusky Cove Business Owners Association. He couldn’t recall any events on a weekday afternoon the week before Christmas. “Nothing, as far as I know.”

  “The police don’t seem to agree.”

  Ray rounded the counter and joined Tina at the door, staring out. No wonder everyone had walked past today. The entire police department — all nine of them — had to be out there, their heads just visible from the shop, milling around, keeping spectators out of the area.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Tina murmured.

  “No, ma’am,” Ray replied in the same tone. He found himself wishing Lori weren’t on her honeymoon, much as he wished her and Mitch well.

  It looked as though they needed her here again.

  Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Maybe this was nothing. Maybe the police were preparing for a winter bonfire. Or maybe it was a lesser crime, like theft or public indecency.

  Or . . . running cons? If Ray had been a victim — Ray, who’d known Brian since he was a child — was anyone in town exempt from becoming Brian’s target?

  Ray glanced at Tina, and she met his gaze. “Should we take a look?” Ray asked.

  “Feel free. I have houseguests next week and dirty bathrooms calling my name.”

  “Have fun with that,” Ray bid her.

  “You too.” Tina opened the door and headed out. Ray caught the swinging door and flipped the sign to CLOSED, making sure he had keys in his pocket. He locked up and headed off the porch.

  It wasn’t any of his business, he knew, and yet he was still curious. Ray joined the crowd of onlookers between Val Cromley from Salt Water Bakes and Walt Penrod from the motel. “What’s going on?” Ray asked, craning his neck, but not enough to see past the crowd in front of him.

  Val shrugged. “Just got here.”

  “Murder,” Walt grumbled.

  Of course he’d go there. He’d had a guest murdered two years ago. Well, actually Lori’s guest, but murdered on Walt’s property.

  “Are you sure?” Val asked, breathless. “Haven’t we had enough of that to last a lifetime?”

  “Five lifetimes,” Ray said. They all fell silent, trying to see what the police were doing.

  “Folks!” Chief Branson appeared at the top of the stairs. “There’s really nothing to see here unless y’all have some information relating to the case.”

  “What case?” a woman challenged. “What happened?”

  “We can’t go into details yet; we have a lot to do before we’ll be talking to anybody.”

  “Who is that down there?”

  Ray looked in the direction of the woman who was speaking — Andrea Hopkins from the museum. Today her dark hair was done in short twists with red beads. Her eyes drilled into Chief Branson.

  Of course Andrea wanted to know what was going on. No doubt her husband, editor of the Dusky Chronicle, would be here any minute to cover the story himself.

  “Is it someone we know?” another voice clamored.

  Chief Branson held up two hands as if trying to quiet the crowd. “Again, unless you have information for me, I don’t have information for you.” He scanned the people in front of him. “Nobody?” He nodded. “Thought so.”

  Chief Branson — Chip — seemed . . . tired. Granted, the last couple years had pushed him harder than any others in his career, but this case, whatever it was, didn’t look like it would improve his outlook. “How are you holding up, Chip?” Ray called over the murmuring crowd.

  “Could be better,” Chip admitted before he turned away and headed back down the steps to the sand again.

  The crowd began to disperse, and Ray grabbed the arm of the first person he recognized who’d been on the front lines: Lillian Hunter, who’d been best friends with Katie’s little sister since grade school. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure. I couldn’t see anything. They’ve got a tarp over the body.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Lillian glanced over her shoulder at the beach. “Word has it it’s a murder. Someone washed up on the beach. Heidi and Beth Owens were out for a walk this morning and found a body.”

  Ray cringed and didn’t correct her with Heidi’s married name, though it’d been decades since the head of the DCBOA had been a bride. “Any idea how they died?”

  “He,” Lillian said. “It was a man. Beth told Doris he looked pretty beat up.”

  The police dispatcher was pretty likely to know, though Ray wasn’t sure why that meant Lillian knew. “Did you talk to Doris?”

  Lillian shook her head. “Jenna went into the station to report her cat missing.”

  Ah. Lillian’s daughter-in-law had heard it from the horse’s mouth. Sort of. Ray glanced around at the still-dispersing crowd and lowered his voice. “Anybody we know?”

  “Actually.” Lillian looked at the people around them, her white hair brushing her shoulders, but nobody seemed to notice two old-timer Dusky Covites chatting. She moved closer and dropped her volume even further. “I heard it was someone who grew up here. They checked his wallet — money was gone, but ID was still there.”

  “A local?”

  Lillian frowned. “Not exactly — I think it was someone who’d moved away.”

  “Come on, folks!” the chief called from across the beach. “Move it!”

  Lillian made an excuse about finishing her Christmas shopping, and Ray nodded and waved her away. Once he was alone, Ray finally recognized the tickling feeling growing in the back of his mind.

  Brian McMurray had shown up here this weekend, a local returning from a long absence. He’d conned Ray, and Ray hadn’t taken the time to find out if other Front Street businesses or Dusky Cove businesses had been victimized too, but it didn’t seem unlikely.

  And that meant a lot of Ray’s friends and neighbors had a decent motive for killing someone who at least used to be one of their own.

  Ray craned his neck for one final look at the scene, but even with the crowd nearly gone, all there was to see was a tarp and police officers.

  If Brian was under there . . . Ray didn’t want to think through those possibilities, but definitely they’d want to contact his Aunt Rita. And hadn’t he been wearing a wedding ring? Seemed as though he had. He had two small children who’d need to know what happened.

  Ray stepped up to the police barrier and tried to wave down an officer, but even when they saw him beckoning them over, the cops turned away, too deep in their own conversation.

  Well. He folded his arms. He wasn’t about to call Rita without any real proof anything had happened to her nephew, but he couldn’t just sit on his hands, either.

  Ray turned back to his shop. Would the police think he had a motive? Yes, Brian had swindled him yesterday —

  Ray stopped short at the foot of his porch steps. Something was missing. Nothing big or important or permanent, but definitely something. He ran th
rough a checklist: Christmas lights, pine garland, window displays, rocking chairs, table. Everything seemed in order, and yet, something was definitely not right.

  Stumped, he let himself into the shop, pausing to rearrange the buoys by the door.

  Then it hit him: his buoy garland. He’d thought about bringing it in last night but figured it’d be better advertising if he left it out. And now it wasn’t hanging on the porch anymore.

  Ray scowled. Had Brian come back and stolen the garland as revenge for not falling for his con? Ray could hardly put it past him.

  Incredibly disappointing. He really had expected more from Brian.

  Hopefully the police wouldn’t find it in the man’s car or hotel room or something. The last thing Ray needed right now was the police, people he’d known pretty much since they were born — no, since their parents met — thinking he had something to do with this.

  Ray considered calling Doris for the scoop, too. But really, Katie would be the one whom Doris would open to.

  But that would mean telling Katie someone had been murdered a hundred feet from their front door. Yes, she had a decent view of the beach, though they usually kept that shade closed, and yes, she might already have some clue that the police had some business there. But to bring another murder to her, after how personal the last murder in town had been?

  No. Never. There was nothing Ray could do to protect her from the disease draining away her function and her life, but he could protect her from bad news.

  After all, what were husbands for?

  Ray grabbed the cordless phone and stepped into the far corner of the shop, away from the air vent that would give away his secret. He dialed the police station. Doris picked up on the third ring. “Dusky Cove Police,” she said.

  “Hey, Doris,” Ray greeted her before identifying himself. “I need to report a theft.”

  “Okay. What’s been taken?”

  “A handmade garland of buoys.”

  “Hmm.” Apparently Doris hadn’t made it in to see their display if she found that description odd. “Need a report for your insurance company?”

  “I don’t think so, but go ahead and make a record just in case it happens again.”