“Thank you.” Dee cleared her throat to contain her emotions and continued. “Michael spent a lot of time around here and I know he’s like a local folk hero, but I’m sure he made enemies too. I mean, you didn’t like him, right?”
“No, I did not.” Elmira gave Dee a hard look. “I also didn’t kill him.”
“Oh, I know,” Dee hastened to reassure her. “But you’ve spent your whole life in Foundgold and Goldsgone. And I’m sure you pick up a lot of gossip at the All-in-One. Between us—well, you, me, and Jeff, because he’s really in deep suspect doo-doo, but no one else, I swear—can you think of anyone else who might have wanted Michael dea . . . not with us anymore?”
Elmira gave a snort. “You know those machines at the grocery store where you have to take a number when the deli counter gets too crowded? One of those’d come in handy for making a line of people who probably did a happy dance when they heard he’s gone to his Maker.” They finished folding the sheet and moved on to another. “Offhand, there’s Shawn Radinsky. He was Michael’s best friend until they had a falling-out over something. I don’t know what, but if you saw the look on Shawn’s face whenever Michael’s name came up, you best believe it was bad. Shawn’s a personal trainer at the gym in Goldsgone.”
“Goldsgone has a personal trainer?” Dee repeated, surprised.
“We got a few around here. We also got indoor plumbin’ and those newfangled horseless carriages.” Elmira delivered this with much side eye.
“Sorry,” Dee said. Embarrassed, she resolved to monitor herself for country-folks-as-hicks stereotypes.
After folding the second sheet, the women moved on to towels as Elmira resumed listing possible murder suspects. “There’s Liza Chen, Michael’s girlfriend until she found out he was cheating on her, and not for the first time. And Brian Oakhurst. His mom, Millie, was an English teacher at the high school and Michael’s mentor. You could see how much Brian resented his own mother going on more about Michael than her own son. Also, my cousin Jonas was friends with Michael, but something happened between them.”
“I met Jonas today.” Dee didn’t elaborate. She wanted to hear Elmira’s unfiltered reaction.
“Him.” Elmira scowled and snapped her towel. “That man’s an operator.”
“I had a feeling,” Dee said, disappointed to have her negative instincts confirmed. “Do you have any idea what went down between him and Michael?”
Elmira shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I’ll nose around my family and see what I can dig up. It won’t be easy. Half my relatives aren’t talking to the other half, most of the time.”
“Whatever you come up with would be great.”
Elmira held up another laundry item. “The dreaded fitted sheet. Dare we?”
Dee grinned. “Oh, we totally dare.”
Elmira tossed her one end of the sheet. It landed on Dee’s head. As she tried to extricate herself, she heard the tinkling of a baby carriage mobile, followed by the sound of Serena Finlay-Katz’s soft voice. “Thank you for stocking the organic baby food, Elmira. And dog food. Heloise rang me up. Emmy and Oscar’s little tum-tums will appreciate it.”
“Long as you keep buying it, no problem.”
“I’m leaving for home, but before I go, I thought I’d make sure everything is okay with the laundry.”
“It’s going fine, especially since I have a helper.”
Dee lowered the sheet’s elastic corner. “Hi, Serena.”
To Dee’s surprise, Serena’s jaw dropped, and her porcelain skin turned slightly green. “Dee. Hey . . . hi, I didn’t expect . . . Thanks for helping Elmira. Bye.” She did a one-eighty and practically ran from the laundry area. An annoyed bark came from Oscar, confirming he was the one being bounced around in Serena’s baby sling.
Dee and Elmira stared after her. “That was strange,” the store owner said.
“Very.” Dee furrowed her brow, trying to imagine what triggered Serena’s discomfited reaction at the sight of her. A possible reason dawned on her. “I think I know why. And I feel terrible.”
She tossed the sheet to Elmira and made a dash through the All-in-One to catch Serena before she left. She found the charcuterie artist taking care of her charges. She’d buckled Emmy into her car seat and was currently clicking a safety harness into place around Oscar. “Serena, I’m so sorry if sending me Michael’s script got you in trouble with Callan.”
“Callan doesn’t know I did that.” Serena snapped the dog harness in place and jumped into the driver’s seat of her high-end SUV. “I need to go. I’m experimenting with a way to make a butter charcuterie board that isn’t a health hazard and it’s already been out a couple of hours.”
Serena threw the car into reverse and would have roared out of the parking lot, had she been driving a gas-powered vehicle instead of her almost-silent hybrid.
Puzzled, Dee returned to the All-in-One. She saw Elmira had given up on folding the fitted sheet, instead opting to wrap it around itself in a sort of bundle. “Do you want to try folding it again?”
Elmira shook her head. “Nah. If Serena’s got a problem with it, she can hand it over to her husband’s witchy assistant. But I doubt she’ll care. Serena’s okay, especially for a pretty, wealthy, entitled white woman.” She tossed a small knitted blue sweater to Dee, who wasn’t sure if it belonged to the Katz baby or dog. “Were you right about what’s bothering her?”
Dee shook her head. “No, and I really want to know. If I did something wrong that I don’t know about, I want to fix it. I can’t afford to make any more enemies around here, especially since I can practically count the entire town of Goldsgone as one.”
Elmira fixed a sympathetic look on the struggling motelier. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. But if you want to get to the bottom of it, you might try working Callan’s assistant, Marisa. She can’t stand being up here and really hates being used as an errand girl for the Katzes. I bet she’d be happy to share any gossip she’s overheard.”
“Good idea. All I have to do is come up with a way to ‘accidentally’ run into her.”
“I got you covered on that.” Elmira gestured to a garment carrier hanging from a hook. “Callan’s tux. I had it cleaned for him. Marisa should be by soon to pick it up.”
Dee gave her friend a grateful smile. “You da best, Elmira.”
* * *
Rather than return to the Golden and risk missing Marisa, Dee stuck around the All-in-One. She bought a coffee and an Elmira homemade blondie she pretended to eat. When she snuck out to drop it in the store dumpster, she noticed it landed next to a handful of other trashed blondies.
Her patience was rewarded when a black early-model Tesla pulled into the parking lot. Callan’s assistant got out of the car, her face displaying its chronic expression of resentment. She slammed the car door shut and marched toward the store entrance, her inappropriate black suede pumps with four-inch heels leaving a trail of tiny indents in the ground.
She flung the doors open and Dee darted in after her. “Marisa, hi. I’m Dee Stern, the new owner of the Golden Motel. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Marisa used a perfectly manicured index finger to press a button on her smartwatch. “You’ve got exactly a minute.”
“That was more of a figure of speech,” Dee said, inwardly spewing vitriol at the assistant’s attitude.
“Fine. You get two minutes. Three if you buy me a latte to go.”
