The Glitter End, page 3
“Could you come back some other time? We’re setting something up, and we want it to be a big surprise for everyone. Tomorrow morning we’ll do a big reveal in the store. For the moment, we’re sort of closed.” It sounded a bit unconvincing as she was making this up on the spot for Tilly’s sake. “Sorry that you came out here for nothing.”
“Oh, no, I’m also going to Bessie’s Boutique for a new skirt. So it’s no trouble.” Mrs. Cassidy looked her over. “You look quite excited about this big surprise. In that case, I will come back tomorrow for those notebooks. There’s no rush.” She glanced past Delta, watching as Tilly exited the shop and headed toward her van. “I’m very curious now.”
“Yes, but you do have to wait. We’ll let you know via the group message.”
The Paper Posse had a message group where they chatted about anything from craft ideas and recipes for a quick dinner to clues in the murder cases Delta and Hazel had been involved in. The Posse had shown themselves to be extremely useful in helping out with information as they worked all over town and knew all the local gossip.
Mrs. Cassidy leaned down to pat Nugget. “Poor little one. I think we’ve earned us a warm half hour at Mine Forever before going to get my skirt.” Straightening up, she added to Delta, “They can do with the business too.”
“Yes, Ray mentioned that they are not doing well, and the owner is even contemplating selling. Is he serious?”
“Ray or the owner?” Mrs. Cassidy lowered her voice as she added, “I guess the owner is serious. He is getting older, and he’s just not up to thinking up new strategies to bring in customers during the lesser months. It’s sad, you know. I can imagine what will happen as soon as he puts the property up for sale. A big chain will swoop in and take over, changing all the individual charm. Imagine the mattock and sieve going in exchange for some large plastic chicken advertising a quick burger meal.” She shuddered. “But what can you do about it? I certainly don’t have the expertise to help him boost business. Or money to support him during these hard times.” She sighed. “Oh, well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. See you later.” And she crossed the street with Nugget in tow, the little dog wagging her tail as she saw where they were headed.
Delta turned round and watched as Tilly moved the van. She was grateful that the feisty lady didn’t push her luck with the local law. The deputy might not be in sight, but he could appear any moment from a side street and have another look at the situation.
Tilly parked at the church and got out of her vehicle. Just as she was about to walk back to Wanted, a man approached her, standing in her way. He was a head taller than Tilly, with broad shoulders and an insistent expression on his face.
Delta stood ready to step inside and get out of the cold drizzle, but something about the way the man approached Tilly gave her pause. He blocked her path, refusing to let her pass. Tilly had turned red in the face and pulled her cardigan closer around her as if she felt unprotected. Worried about their guest, Delta decided to intervene. She wanted Tilly to feel welcome in Tundish, and at ease, not harassed by some unsavory type.
As she neared them, Delta heard the man’s ringing voice: “You’re only hurting your own interest by not cooperating. You should reconsider. There’s too much at stake.” He pointed at Tilly with his left arm, the sleeve of his raincoat pulling up to reveal an ostentatiously large watch. It partially hid something on his wrist—a greenish smudge that could be a tattoo.
“I’ve made up my mind,” Tilly retorted.
“Are you being bothered?” Delta asked.
Tilly started at Delta’s voice, glancing around as if seeking the nearest escape route.
The man looked Delta over with his deep-set green eyes. His grizzled hair was damp from the rain splattering on the shoulders of his worn raincoat. “And you are? Family?” He sounded almost hopeful. Why?
“Ms. Tay’s hostess here in Tundish,” Delta said. “And you are?”
“This man is selling products I’m not interested in,” Tilly said, still very red in the face. “He was just about to leave.”
The man seemed to want to protest, but then he shrugged. “Have it your way. But I warned you.” He walked away, the slips of his raincoat fluttering in the breeze.
Delta asked Tilly, “Did he threaten you into buying something off him? Maybe we should see if the deputy is still around and let him have a word with the guy.”
“Trying to sell something is not forbidden.” Tilly said with force, but her voice was shaky.
“Putting pressure on people to buy is,” Delta retorted, leaning over encouragingly. “You should report this. He sounded decidedly unpleasant, even threatening. We don’t want such individuals hanging around our town.”
“Insurance people usually are insistent.” Tilly pulled back her shoulders.
Delta frowned. It had been more than that. The words “there’s too much at stake,” struck her as strange. At stake for whom?
Tilly continued to explain, “He said that my old van will cause an accident someday, and all my livelihood will go into paying the claims. He is not the first to say so, nor will he be the last.”
“I do hope you’re not completely uninsured.” Delta walked beside her, back to the stationery shop. Her heart beat fast, remembering her earlier fear of the display collapsing. If there was an accident and there was damage—or, even worse, personal injury—who would have to pay for that?
“That’s my decision,” Tilly said in a kind tone that didn’t allow space for discussion.
Delta felt awkward asking any more, even if Wanted was involved in the exhibition. Of course, she should have asked about insurance, liability, and all beforehand. It proved she wasn’t business-minded enough, and that hurt. It seemed her plan to boost Wanted’s profile was only backfiring on her.
Nothing happened so far, she tried to assure herself. And, with a little luck, nothing will. Keep smiling and make the most of it.
She invited Tilly back into the store with a generous sweep of her arm. She stared down the street one more time where she could just see the figure of the pushy insurance man in his oversized raincoat disappearing around a corner. Did he know Tilly from the other time she had been to Tundish? The miniature artist had mentioned it’d been unlikely she’d ever come back. Because something unpleasant had happened then?
Odd.
Very odd.
Chapter Three
Tilly Tay declared herself satisfied with the display around closing time, and Delta and Hazel said their goodbyes. Hazel left for their cottage while Delta settled into her own car to drive to the holiday resort north of town. It had several quite comfortable vacation homes for rent, and Delta had—with some kind mediation from Ray, who knew the resort owners—gotten a vacation home there for six weeks for her grandmother. After Gran had been displaced due to rezoning, Delta had immediately thought up a plan to have Gran move to Tundish and be more involved with her life and the shop. After all, Gran’s generous birthday gift when Delta had turned thirty had enabled her to buy into Wanted in the first place. Gran had offered her the chance to make her dream come true, and now she wanted to give back. By renting the vacation home, Gran could explore the town and see if she liked it before looking into opportunities to buy or rent a house.
Delta grinned thinking of Gran and her temporary home. She had made the rental completely her own with small touches—a pillow here and a little lamp found in a secondhand store there. She also cooked every day or baked cake, and Delta couldn’t wait to find out what inviting scent would curl into her nostrils the moment she set foot in the cottage. She parked her car, waved to a raincoat-clad family of four who were holidaying next door, and stepped up to the cottage’s front door. She knocked briskly and already tried to catch a whiff of something—Gran’s chocolate swirl cake was amazing, and she had mentioned wanting to bake it again just the other day.
But there didn’t seem to be any smells in the air, save the dampness of the nearby soaked trees.
She walked around the house and, at the back, peeked into the kitchen. The sink sat nice and clean, no dirty bowls from mixing batter or anything in sight. Delta frowned. There were flowers on the table, fresh ones, it seemed. Gran had to have been out shopping earlier. Where could she be now? She had known Delta would come. But she hadn’t messaged to say she’d be out.
Let’s have a look around. Gran might be on the phone and didn’t hear me knock.
But, after she had rounded the cottage and looked in all windows, she was nowhere closer to locating her grandmother.
It’s just my fault, Delta tried to tell herself. I’m expecting her to sit around her waiting for me to stop by. She has a life of her own.
Well, she had one at home. But here in Tundish? She knew a few people, of course, mainly from the Paper Posse…
Delta pulled up her phone and asked in the Posse’s message group who had seen her gran that day.
Calamity Jane replied at once that she had been in the bakery and they had chatted for a few minutes. Wild Bunch Bessie, who ran a boutique in town, offered that she had seen her on Mattock Street, with a grocery bag in her hand, and Mrs. Cassidy chimed in to report she had been at the gold-mining museum to drop off freshly baked scones for the volunteers.
“Is something the matter?” Mrs. Cassidy ended her message.
Before the entire Posse went hunting for Gran, Delta sent: “Am at her cottage and she’s not here. I told her I’d drop by for dinner, and she didn’t let me know she’d be out.”
“She should join our message group,” Wild Bunch Bessie declared. “We can think up a fun name for her. She can be the gang’s grandmother figure, the one whom you think is quite innocent but carries a poker in her boot.”
Delta had to laugh out loud at the suggestion of her polite, petite gran carrying a poker around. But, as she stood and listened to the silence of the resort with its tall trees and views of the deserted lake, she did wonder if maybe this hadn’t been a smart location to place an elderly woman on her own. In summer, the resort’s vacation homes were all booked, but now most of them sat empty. Would a house in town, with watchful nearby neighbors, have been better?
“Let us know when she turns up,” Mrs. Cassidy wrote.
“I will, thanks.” Delta lowered her phone and stood, deep in thought.
Then a car horn honked. A dark-green Mercedes rolled toward the cottage. It stopped, and the driver’s door opened. A tall gentleman unfolded, with hat and walking cane. He rounded his vehicle and opened the passenger door. Gran climbed out, her cheeks rosy and her eyes sparkling. “Hello, Delta,” she called, waving her hand. “So sorry I’m late.”
To the man she said, “That’s my granddaughter, Delta, who owns the stationery store in town.”
“How do you do?” The man took off his hat, uncovering a head full of white hair, and bowed in her direction. Then he said to Gran, “I must be off now. Card club tonight. But I’ll call you for that dinner appointment. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.” Gran stood watching as he got into the Mercedes, honked anew, and drove off.
“Who is that?” Delta asked.
“Major George Buckmore. He only lives here in the winter season. In the summer, he’s in Europe. Monte Carlo, Biarritz, those sort of places. A real old-school gentleman. He showed up on my doorstep around three with gorgeous flowers. He had heard in town that a fellow fan of everything history had arrived. He invited me on a tour to see some historic sites around town, and I took the invitation.” Gran released a happy sigh. “I haven’t had such a good time in ages. It was rainy, but that didn’t bother us at all. He can tell such interesting stories about everything. History as if you were there.”
Delta felt a little piqued that, apparently, the trouble she had taken to give her gran a good time in town and relate some important events had paled by comparison, but immediately rebuked herself. It was wonderful that Gran was making friends here. It would encourage her to come live in Tundish, and that was just what Delta wanted, right?
“How wonderful.” She hugged her gran. “Let’s go inside so you can tell me all about it. I can cook dinner, if you want.”
“That’s very sweet of you, darling.” They walked around the cottage together and went in through the back door. Gran immediately headed for the flowers on the kitchen table and studied them from all sides with a sweet smile. “Aren’t they beautiful? And those colors, just what I like. I wonder how he guessed it.”
“Maybe he’s seen you in town and looked at your clothes?” Delta supplied. She had opened the fridge and was studying the contents to think up an easy-to-cook but delicious meal.
“That would be very thoughtful. I do like to wear lilac and pink. But for a man to be so observant…”
“He’s been in the army. At least, I assume he has been. Major means army major, right?”
“I assume so. We didn’t talk about his career at all. We were far too busy going into all the details of the Tundish gold rush.”
“I thought you heard most of that at the museum.” Delta glanced at her grandmother.
“Oh, but he knew some anecdotes that are a little more obscure.” Gran winked at her. “Very exciting about hidden treasure and all. Never mind making dinner, darling, I’ll call for delivery.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I feel like splurging on something special tonight. How about stir-fried rice with beef and vegetables?”
“Sounds delicious.”
Gran was already on her way to make the call with the vacation home’s landline. Delta picked up her own phone to let the Posse know Gran had turned up. “She was out with a friend sightseeing,” she put it. She didn’t want to mention it had been a male friend, or the ladies would immediately feel romance in the air.
There might be some. A little…
After all, why would Gran be so cheerful? The news that she had to leave her beloved house had hit her hard, and, even as she enjoyed her time here and considering what her new life might be, Delta sensed those moments of quiet and sad introspection. Now, however, Gran was buzzing with energy.
“That’s taken care of. They expect the delivery driver to be here in twenty minutes. Shall we grab some appetizers? I can mix apple juice and fizzy mineral water into our very own alcohol-free prosecco. You do have to drive home later, darling.” Gran hummed as she was at it, looking for what she needed.
Delta looked at the flowers on the table and silently thanked Major George Buckmore for having put a spring in her grandmother’s step again.
***
When Delta came home to Hazel’s cottage with a stomach full of delicious food and her cheeks stretched with laughter from her grandmother recounting all the anecdotes her new friend, the major, had shared with her, she found Hazel on the lookout.
“Oh, it’s you,” Hazel said as Delta stepped from her car. She sounded disappointed.
“Of course it’s me,” Delta replied, puzzled. “Who else would it be?”
“I was expecting uh…” Hazel looked pained to admit it.
Oh, I see. Delta grinned. “Ray? Did he let on earlier today that he might drop by? I can leave again and do a few laps around the lake while you meet up with him.”
“No, it’s not Ray. I wish people would stop pairing us off.” Hazel waved her hands in a gesture of frustration. “Tilly Tay showed up here and asked for the key to Wanted. She was unhappy with a few details in the display, and, seeing as we’re doing the grand reveal tomorrow…”
“You gave her the key to our business?” Delta asked in disbelief. A sense of unease rippled through her. If she had been here when Tilly made that request she would have said no.
“Not just like that,” Hazel defended her decision. “I told her she could come in early tomorrow and make the changes. I also offered to come with her. But she was very adamant that she couldn’t work when someone was watching her and that she didn’t want me there.”
“But earlier we were there and watched her work.”
“Exactly. That’s why it didn’t turn out the way she wanted, she said. I felt bad about the way we studied her every move as she was at it. It must be uncomfortable. Disturbs the creative process, Tilly explained. So I caved. I know it was stupid, but you know I can’t say no to people. Especially if they push hard.” Hazel hung her head.
“Cheer up.” Delta stepped up and put an arm around her. “It’s not that bad. I don’t assume Tilly will fill up her van with washi tape and notebooks and drive off. She has a reputation to protect.”
“That’s what she told me too. That I needn’t suspect her of rushing off with the contents of the till. I told her there isn’t even anything in the till at night. For safety reasons. I felt rather silly being seen as suspecting a respected artist of not taking good care of a key to a building. So I let her have it. I made dinner and sat waiting for her. Then I decided I should maybe go and see how she was doing? And you appeared.”
“It’s okay.” Delta patted Hazel’s arm. “I’ll go and see how she’s doing. You pop back inside.” She made a mental note to explain kindly but firmly to Tilly that she wasn’t supposed to do things at the store on her own. As a matter of principle.
Shivering at the chill, Delta dived back into her car and drove from the cottage into the quiet town. A few residents were walking their dogs, and, every now and then, another car passed. In summertime, tourists hung out in town until late in the evening but, now with an insidious November wind breathing down Mattock Street, no one was out and about.
Delta parked her car in front of Wanted, grinning to herself that the deputy wouldn’t be around now to come and try to fine her for it. Tilly’s van wasn’t there, so maybe the artist had become extra careful and left it at the church parking lot?
She stepped out and looked at the front. No lights on. How odd. Tilly wouldn’t be working in the dark, right? She went to the door and peeked in through the glass pane. Nothing to see. She used the flashlight function on her phone to shine in. The beam crept across the interior, not revealing any person present.
