St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series Box Set - Volume 1 : Books 1-3

Chapter 5-3

The next morning, Mart came with me to the shop to help open. Rocky had classes on Wednesday mornings, so Mart had arranged her work schedule so that she could cover the café until Rocky got back around one. Talk about a good friend.

Marcus showed up just after we opened for the day, and I was impressed. I’d randomly shouted an offer for work at him on the street, and he’d still followed through. I liked a person of their word. I set him to work cleaning up the weeds behind the shop. I felt bad because I didn’t have a w**d eater or anything, but when I mentioned that I could try to borrow one, he’d said, “Nah. Sometimes, it’s better to work with my hands anyway.”

I liked this kid . . . but I kept thinking about how Lucas had said he was kind of angry. I hadn’t seen any signs of that, but I was keeping my eye out.

Given the sparse number of shoppers first thing in the day, I took the opportunity to slip over to the art co-op while Mart staffed the book register and café. I promised I wouldn’t be gone longer than a half-hour. Mayhem and I buzzed up the street, giving polite nods instead of the usual stops to chat, and when we turned into the co-op, we were greeted by a cheerful yip from Sasquatch. I looked up to see Cate behind the desk, a phone to her ear. She smiled and held up one finger. I nodded and tied Mayhem up beside Sasquatch near the front door.

While Cate finished her call, I browsed the art in the various studio windows inside. It wasn’t a big building – a former warehouse of some sort, I thought – but I counted at least ten studios. One older, white gentleman was throwing something that looked to be a very thin, very beautiful vase on a potter’s wheel, and a young Latinx person stood at a giant canvas adding bright dashes of blue and turquoise. A tiny white woman bent over a table covered in black velvet, a jeweler’s loupe to her eye, and a tall, lean black woman was weaving at the biggest loom I’d ever seen. She saw me watching and waved me over. I smiled and headed her way just as Cate caught up to me.

“Henrietta Johnson is one of the finest weavers on the East Coast.”

“You flatter, Cate, you flatter. Keep it up.” She put down the slim piece of wood she’d been holding and reached over to shake my hand. “I am Henrietta, but everyone calls me Henri.”

“Henri, I’m Harvey.” I put out my hand with a grin.

“Another woman with a man’s name. Your given one?”

“Nope. Anastasia Lovejoy.”

“My word. Now that’s a name. I’d go with Harvey, too.” I liked Henri already.

I leaned a bit closer to Henri’s weaving. “May I?” I asked as I put my hand over the cloth.

“Please do. And thanks for asking. So many people just assume they can touch things. It’s cashmere from goats just up the street. The farmer cleans it for me, and then she spins it up so I can dye it and then weave it.”

“It’s so soft. I want to put my face on it.”

Henri laughed. “Me, too. That’s why I make a lot of pillows. But trust me, you don’t want to sleep on this stuff. It’ll clog up your sinuses like nobody’s business.”

“Got it.” I gave the weaving one last caress and then smiled. “ Nice to meet you, Henri.”

“You, too. I’ll be down by your shop later. Been meaning to stop in. Now I’ve got a reason. It’s my turn to lay hands on your work.”

“Perfect,” I said.

Cate tucked her arm in mine as we headed back to the front desk. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Well, I was hoping you might have some of those paper flowers that Eleanor has up in her shop.”

“Oh yeah, this way. You want some for your shop?”

“Well, um, no.” I told her about Sheriff Mason and the slip of paper.

She stopped in the hallway outside of a small studio tucked at the back of the co-op building. “So you think the person who made the flowers murdered Stevensmith? Wow, that would be something considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering that Divina Stevensmith is the one who makes them.” She pointed to the name tag on the door of the studio. “D. Stevensmith.”

“No way. That’s too easy, isn’t it? I mean, really.”

Cate shrugged. “How should I know? I’ve never tried to solve a murder before.” I let out a long sigh.

“I don’t know anything. Don’t even know that the paper is from her flowers. It just struck me as a possibility.”

“Well, let’s see what we can find out, shall we?” She knocked once and then opened the door of Divina Stevensmith’s studio.

I gasped as we walked in. The room was a bright burst of color, like confetti was suspended in time and space around us. It was beautiful.

“Divina, I think you met Harvey, the owner of our very own bookstore. She came to ask about your flowers.”

Mrs. Stevensmith dropped off a high stool behind the high table where she’d been working and came across the floor to meet me. She grinned and grabbed my left hand, squeezing it firmly. “It’s good to see you again, dear.”

“This,” I spun around slowly, “this is amazing. You did this?” I kept staring at the mobiles of paper that hung from every level of the ceiling and made a forest of color around me.

“I did. This is my mind writ large. All color moving freely in space. I call it my Miasma of Beauty.”

“Oh, I like that,” I said and meant it.

I studied a few more of the flowers hanging in the air around us and then moved past them to pick up some of the folded blooms attached to green paper stems like the ones I’d seen at Eleanor’s farm stand. “I love these, Mrs. Stevensmith. Do you ever do them in orange?”

“Orange. No, never. I hate that color. Vulgar.” The tiny woman’s voice rang off the walls.

The ferocious shift in the woman’s tone caught me off-guard, and I shot Cate a quick glance. She gave her shoulders a little shrug.

“Oh, okay. I was going to ask for a few of them . . . and also see if you might have a source for orange paper for something I’m planning at the shop this summer.”

The thin woman turned her back to me. “I do not. I hate that color and would never have a thing to do with it. Never.” The venom in her words made them sharp, and I kept hoping she’d turn around so I could see if she was joking. But she didn’t. Instead, she began massacring pieces of thick paper with shiny, silver scissors. She really hated the color orange.

Then, her furious paper-cutting stopped, and she turned halfway back towards us. “But you know, Max Davies might have an idea. He used to have those horrendous orange menus. You remember them, don’t you dear?” She turned to face Cate then, and I caught what I thought was a glimmer of a smile. “They were the color and texture of orange peel. Disgusting.”

I turned to Cate. “Oh yeah, he did have orange menus, I guess, a while back.” She gave me another shrug.

“Alright. Well, I’ll ask him then. Thanks.”

Mrs. Stevensmith turned back to the rear of her studio silently, and we took that as our not-so-subtle cue to step out.

As we headed back to the desk, Cate gave me a wink and said, “Divina, always a character.”

I laughed . . . but I wasn’t sure I found it charming.