A Sprinkling of Murder - Daryl Wood Gerber Page 0,3

hooked a thumb toward the front door.

Mick Watkins, who owned Wizard of Paws, the pet-grooming salon across the courtyard, was standing inside the Dutch door. There were additional businesses in the Cypress and Ivy Courtyard, including an art gallery, a bakery, a jeweler, a high-end clothing shop, and a collectibles store. If Carmel was known for one thing, it was its attractive courtyards and secret passageways. Our courtyard, which was multilevel and located between Lincoln Street and Dolores Street, with Open Your Imagination facing Lincoln, had been designed with a Cape Cod feel, its white clapboard buildings trimmed in baby blue and adorned with lots of plantings. The design was one of the main reasons I’d wanted to lease the property.

“What do you think he wants?” I asked Joss.

“Trouble.”

I didn’t know what I’d do without Joss. I was so thankful that on her fiftieth birthday she’d decided to seek a simpler life and had left her Silicon Valley accounting job. She was a whiz when it came to organizing the stockroom or balancing accounts and a decent person who cared about others, although occasionally, she could make snap decisions about a personality.

I said, “I’ve got this. Would you ring up this purchase for this sweet girl and her mom while I tend to Mick?”

“After I finish this sale.” Joss was packing up an eight-inch pot, a small bag of soil, six two-inch containers of miniature plants, and a flute-playing, rose-colored fairy. Small-scale projects were often the first gardens that customers who were new to fairy gardening attempted.

I tapped Lauren on her freckled nose. “Good luck, young lady. Have fun making your garden, and, when you’re done, encourage your friends to believe.”

“I will.”

Slapping on a winning smile, I crossed the parquet floor to greet Mick, a chunky man with a barrel chest, bulldog jowls, and thick brown hair.

“Hey, Mick.” I jutted a hand. “Nice to see you.”

Mick grunted, which made me bite back a smile. Over the past year, he had been vocally unhappy that I’d landed this particular lease. He’d hoped to expand across the courtyard, but our landlord had nixed the idea. One grooming establishment was enough, no matter how dog-friendly Carmel was.

Mick rubbed his jeans as though he were itching to respond to my offer of a handshake. I saw a flicker of light beyond him. Was Fiona toying with him? Had she given up being annoyed with me? Pixie, her whiskers twitching with curiosity, lingered behind Mick, too. She adored Fiona and often played chase with her.

“Can I help you find something, Mick?” I asked.

“Nope.” He had a booming voice. I suspected his barrel chest had something to do with its tenor. “I came in to tell you that Logan Langford’s on the warpath. He wants to renege on my lease.”

“Did he say why?”

“Ha! A mute has a larger vocabulary. But watch out. Next thing you know, he’ll be coming after you.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” I wasn’t worried. Our landlord had completely embraced the concept of the shop. He intended to create a fairy garden for each of his eleven grandchildren because he had loved the novel Peter Pan as a child. Seeing as he hadn’t started the first garden, I was pretty certain I could count on a longer lease. “Anything else?”

“That’s all.” Mick stole to the right wing of the shop and peeked in. Was he looking for someone? Was that really why he’d come in? He checked his watch and, peeved, charged toward the exit.

The upper half of the Dutch door was ajar, allowing a cool breeze to enter the shop. Carmel was blessed with Mediterranean-style temperatures, although intermittently fog drifted in. Not today. Mick opened the door and closed it with a thwump.

I returned to the sales counter.

“Whewie,” Joss said as she wiped the weathered white oak surface with a cloth. “He’s sure not the guy you’d crown Mr. Personality, and here I believed he had a chance. Yesterday when he came in, he was all smiles.”

“He came in yesterday?”

“With Petra Pauli.”

“Councilwoman Pauli?”

During college, although I’d focused primarily on my landscape architecture degree, taking urban design, site construction, computer applications, and so many chemistry classes I could have become a chemist, I’d also enrolled in a load of history classes. California history, in particular. Over the years, I’d enjoyed reading up on Carmel and knew the sagas of many of the original families. Petra Pauli’s father had been an Olympic pole-vaulter and went on to become a US congressman. Like her father,