Bookplate Special by Lorna Barrett Read Free Book Online

down? Did she have an out-of-state license plate?” Baker asked.
    “Maybe. She was originally from Portsmouth, but had lived in Connecticut for the past couple of years. I think,” Tricia added lamely.
    “I thought you said she stayed with you for two weeks?” Baker asked.
    “She did, but we didn’t spend a lot of quality time together.” At his puzzled look, she clarified. “My store doesn’t close until seven most nights. On Tuesdays, I host a book club. That doesn’t usually break up until after nine. A couple of times Pammy didn’t come in until after I’d already gone to bed.”
    “Didn’t you ask where she’d been, what she’d been doing?” Baker asked.
    Answering truthfully was going to sound awfully darned cold. Still . . . “No.”
    Baker turned away. “Placer.” The deputy stepped forward. “Grab Henderson and scout out the municipal lot down the street. See if you can find a car with Connecticut plates. Ask around. See if anyone has noticed a car parked in the lot for the past two weeks.”
    “Sure thing, Cap’n.”
    “Captain?” Rivera waved to Baker from the back entrance.
    “If you’ll excuse me, ladies.” He left them and rejoined the technician.
    Angelica watched him go. “Nice set of buns.”
    “Ange,” Tricia admonished.
    “And wasn’t he just the nicest thing? Quite a change from Wendy Adams.”
    “Yes,” Tricia agreed. She gazed at the captain, who filled the back doorway. He did have a nice set of buns at that.
     
     
    “She’s dead. She’s really dead,” Ginny murmured for at least the hundredth time. “I admit I didn’t like her, but I never wanted her dead.”
    “Ginny, please,” Tricia implored, not bothering to lift her gaze from the order blanks before her. As it was, her last sight of her . . . kind of, sort of . . . friend had not been a pleasant one. Was that how she’d always remember Pammy, as a pair of stiff legs?
    “But I feel guilty,” Ginny said, then grabbed a tissue from the box under the counter and blew her nose. “I didn’t want her around, and I got my wish. But I never thought—”
    Tricia sighed. She removed her reading glasses, setting them on the counter. Captain Baker had dismissed her some twenty minutes before—and it would be another hour before she closed shop for the day. It seemed like weeks since her day had begun, and she was looking forward to a nice, quiet evening, although she wasn’t sure she was up to reading a murder mystery. Not just yet, anyway.
    “I think I’ll take out the trash,” Tricia said, and then she thought of Pammy in the garbage cart and winced. Still, the wastebasket under the counter was full.
    She picked up the basket and headed for the back of the store, disarming the security alarm before opening the door. The alley that ran behind this side of Main Street was a good five feet lower than the front of the store, and she trotted down the steps to the waiting Dumpsters. Haven’t Got a Clue didn’t really create enough refuse to warrant such large receptacles—one for cardboard boxes only, the other for other trash—and she wondered if she could trade one of hers for Angelica’s two trash carts.
    She emptied the basket and turned to head back into the building just as the door to the Cookery slammed shut, giving Tricia a start. With Angelica tied up at her new café, her newly promoted manager, Frannie Mae Armstrong, was in charge of the village’s cookbook store. As far as Tricia knew, Frannie was still working alone at the store. Why would she have slammed the door upon seeing Tricia? And then she saw two matching bowls on the landing near the Cookery’s stairs. Angelica would not be pleased.
    For the past couple of weeks Frannie had been feeding a little stray orange cat that had been hanging around the alley. Tricia had seen it only once, but Miss Marple, her own cat, seemed to have stray-kitty radar. Miss Marple did not appreciate other cats invading what she considered to be her