“So we decided to do some investigating of our own,” Matilda said, ignoring my warning look.

  Detective McCloud drew himself up to his full height. “Investigating! Please ladies, don’t do anything of the sort.”

  “That’s what they always say to Miss Marple,” Matilda said.

  I bit back a smile. I could see Detective McCloud had no idea how to respond to Matilda.

  “That might be so, but this is real life not fiction,” he said sternly, “and I don’t want you ladies in danger. I’m asking you not to do any investigating and to keep right out of it.”

  Matilda shot him a wide smile. “Whatever you say, Officer.” She continued to smile widely. Matilda wouldn’t win an Oscar, and no doubt it was as clear to Detective McCloud as it was to me that she had every intention of investigating the case.

  “And when did you first meet these ladies?” he asked Sarah.

  “Today, as they said,” she said.

  “Thank you.” He gave her a small bow.

  Sarah shot me a questioning look. “He’s Scottish,” I said. “They don’t have Amish people in Scotland so I think he doesn’t know how to act around you.”

  Before Sarah could respond, Detective McCloud said, “May I speak with you in private, Mrs. Beiler?”

  “We were just leaving anyway,” I said. “Thanks so much for your help, Sarah.”

  “And thank you for checking my roof,” she said. “I’m sorry you fell off. You could have been badly hurt.”

  The detective turned to me. “Yes, you could have been hurt,” he said. “Please don’t do anything so reckless again. If I hadn’t been here to catch you, goodness knows what would have happened to you.”

  I did not know how to react. I mean, it was nice of him to be concerned, but then again, I was a grown woman and I wasn’t breaking the law.

  I drove back to Rebecca’s store with conflicting emotions and the memory of the detective’s strong arms wrapped around me.

  Chapter 11

  When I got back to the cupcake store, there were several customers milling around. I hurried behind the counter to help. “Why didn’t you call me?” I whispered to Rebecca.

  “They all came in at once,” she said. “I was just about to call you. How did it go?”

  “Sarah said the poison wouldn’t have been in the cupcake,” I told her. “She said it would have been administered at least fifteen minutes before he collapsed.”

  Rebecca simply nodded and served a customer. We were rushed for the next five minutes and then the shop cleared. “What are we going to do now?” I asked Rebecca.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I must say, I’m so relieved the poison wasn’t in the cupcake. Surely the police must know that, though?”

  Before I could respond, Matilda walked through the front door. “I’m here as a customer,” she said. “I’d like to buy some apple pie cupcakes.”

  Rebecca waved one hand at her. “Nonsense, Matilda. You know you can always have the schnitz pie cupcakes for free, or any cupcakes for that matter.”

  “I insist,” Matilda said. “Anyway, I think I want to go and ask those health supplement store owners questions.”

  Rebecca frowned. “William and Mia Willow?”

  “Yes, that’s them. I don’t really know them, but I’ve bought a few things from that store. When will Jane have time to come with me?”

  “After we close,” I said, but then I tapped myself on the side of my head. “How silly of me. They no doubt close when we do.”

  Rebecca wiped the countertop. “Why not wait for another five minutes and if no more customers come, you go and speak with them then. They’re only around the corner.”

  “Maybe I could ask Eleanor to help you in here,” Matilda said to Rebecca.

  Rebecca’s face went white. “No. Not after the last incident.”

  Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. “What happened?”

  “Never you mind,” Matilda said as she disappeared out the door.

  “She forgot the cupcakes,” Rebecca said.

  “I’m sure she’ll be back for them,” I said with a chuckle. “Rebecca, what can you tell me about William and Mia Willow? I mean, I’ve bought stuff in their store, but I don’t really know them as such.”

  “They seem nice,” Rebecca said. “I don’t know why they refused to sell to Mr. Greaves. What will you say to them?”

  “I’m just going to be forthright. I’m going to come straight out and ask them why they didn’t sell to him, and ask them if they are suspects in the murder too.”

  Rebecca gasped. “You can’t!”

  “Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?”

  Rebecca’s jaw continued to hang open. Finally, she said, “Why don’t you go now? No one’s been here and you won’t be away long.”

  I hurried up the stairs to the apartment. Matilda was watching an episode of Miss Marple. “I’m watching 4:50 from Paddington,” she said gleefully. “It was also released as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw. A vic was poisoned with monkshood in that too. Oh, in case you’ve forgotten, monkshood is wolfsbane.”

  “Who was the murderer in that one?” I asked her.

  Matilda winked at me. “Now that would be telling.”

  “Who was murdered?”

  “Lots of people,” Matilda said happily.

  I decided to change the subject. “Are you both coming with me too, Eleanor, or is it just you, Matilda?”

  “I have to wash my hair,” Eleanor said, adjusting one of the rollers in her hair.

  I nodded. I wondered if the rollers would still be in her hair when I returned. “Now, where are my keys I left them there on the coffee table.”

  “You will need to put them up high on a hook,” Eleanor said. “Mr. Crumbles likes to take them, if you recall.”

  How could I have forgotten? I walked out of the room to look for the cat and saw him just outside the laundry room. Sure enough, he was alternating between standing on his hind legs and pouncing on the keys. I hurried over to him, but just as I did, he swiped at the keys with his left paw. They flew through the air into the laundry room. I hurried in there and let out a shriek.

  Matilda abandoned Miss Marple and hurried over. “What’s happened? The way you yelled, I thought there was an intruder.”

  “Mr. Crumbles hit the keys directly into his litter tray,” I said with a sigh.

  “I changed it only this morning,” Eleanor said. “It could be worse. Much worse.”

  I reached in, fetched the keys, and then washed them. Luckily, my keys were not electronic as I could only afford an old car after my husband had run off with Cherri. I pulled a face as the memories hit me all at once.

  Matilda touched my arm. “Come on, we have some sleuthing to do.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today!” I exclaimed. “I don’t need the keys. The health food store is only a short walk away.”

  Both Eleanor and Matilda laughed and I joined in their laughter.

  “Too much on your mind, dear,” Matilda said.

  As Matilda and I walked to the store, she asked me what my plan was.

  “Plan?” I asked, aghast. “Am I supposed to have a plan?” Before she could answer, I added, “I don’t have a plan as such. I’m simply going to tell them the truth.”

  “You’re going to ask them if they murdered the vic?”

  I grimaced. “Not exactly, but I’m going to tell them that he died in Rebecca’s store. I’ll tell them that it was wolfsbane. Actually, no—I’ll tell them it was a poisonous herb.”

  “You won’t tell them it was wolfsbane?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. “No, because I should leave that to the police, but everybody probably knows by now that Colin Greaves was poisoned. It won’t hurt to say that. Anyway, I’m going to play it by ear.”

  The interior of the health food store was freshly painted a most unpleasant shade of green. No doubt the owners liked it or they wouldn’t have painted it that color. Matilda must have been thinking the same thing, as she whispered to me, “Everyone has different tastes. Each to their own.”

  I readily agreed. It was difficult to maneuvre in the store as it was crammed full of organic food, organic shampoo, all sorts of vitamin supplements and protein powders. “Do you buy much stuff in here?” I asked Matilda.

  “Not really,” she said. “We mostly grow our own, but on occasion I do buy something from here. If you’re wondering if I know the owners well enough to question them, then no. I’m going to leave that to you.”

  “Great,” I muttered. I took a deep breath prepared myself to speak to the owners. I was thinking what to say when a short, pretty woman with a bright pink face popped up in front of me. “How may I help you?”

  “Are you Mia Willow?” I asked hopefully.

  She looked surprised. “Yes. I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

  I nodded. “Yes, my friend Matilda and I sometimes buy products here, but my twin sister Rebecca owns the cupcake store not far from here.”

  “Rebecca!” she said with a wide smile. “Did you say you and Rebecca were twins? Surely you’re not identical twins, because you don’t look anything like each other.”

  “We are identical twins,” I said, “but she is Amish and I left the Amish years ago. I’m sure if I dressed Amish, I’d look just like her.”

  Mia simply smiled and nodded. She shot me an expectant look, so I pushed on. “I suppose you’ve heard that Colin Greaves died in my sister’s store?”

  “Hello?”

  I looked up to see William. A burly man, he was as tall and well built as his wife was short and slim. “Are you talking about Colin Greaves?’

  I nodded again. “He died in my sister’s store.”

  William nodded vigorously. “Yes, dreadful business.” He tut-tutted.

  Matilda butted in. “Well, Mr. Greaves died after the paramedics took him from the store, but he collapsed in the store.”

  I was quite nervous and so I lost my train of thought, as I do when I’m nervous. “Oh, um, he was poisoned,” I sputtered.

  “Yes, I heard that,” Mia said.

  “We were told it was a poisonous herb that did him in,” Matilda said. “The police suspect you and Rebecca because you were the only ones holding out, refusing to sell to Colin Greaves. That makes both of you suspects in the eyes of the police.”

  I expected William and Mia to look shocked at Matilda’s blunt words, but they didn’t. Mia sighed. “Yes, William and I had to go downtown and make a statement,” she said. “Then the police came here and looked through all our herbs and confiscated some of them.”

  “Which ones did they confiscate?” I asked her.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t rightly remember. Do you, William?”

  He shook his head. “They gave me a list. They said we would get them all back, so I wasn’t too concerned.”

  “They took all Rebecca’s cupcakes and we certainly won’t get those back,” I said indignantly.

  “That’s not fair,” Mia said. “He was definitely murdered then? It wasn’t on the news.”

  I was surprised at that. “Wasn’t it? I rarely watch the news since it’s usually always bad news.”

  “I watch the news and I didn’t see it either,” Matilda said.

  “Maybe the police withheld it for a reason,” I said, wondering what the reason could be. “Anyway, I’m worried because I’m sure the police see me as the main suspect and I was wondering if you’d have any idea who could have killed him?”

  “It wasn’t us if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mia said with a chuckle. “Sure, we do sell some Traditional Chinese Medicine herbs, but we have to have a letter from a practitioner before we release them. We don’t just sell anything poisonous to the public at large. We are quite careful.”

  “Did the police give you the third degree about all that?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “They sure did!”

  “Did Colin Greaves ever threaten you?” I asked her. “Just before he collapsed, he threatened Rebecca, but it wasn’t an overt threat as such, more of a veiled threat. Still, he made quite sure we knew it was a threat.”

  “Was it just before he collapsed?” Mia’s eyes narrowed.

  “Yes. Did he threaten you at all?”

  “He threatened us on a regular basis,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “But it was like you said—it was always a veiled threat. He never said he would burn down the building or break our legs. “ She broke off with a chuckle. “Still, he always said it would be better for us if we sold, and he always worded it in such a way that if it was repeated, it wouldn’t sound bad at all.”

  I nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. That’s how he was that day.”

  “He came in here just before he went to Rebecca’s store, didn’t he William?” Mia said. “I wasn’t here at the time. I was in the back room doing orders.”

  “That’s right,” William said. “He didn’t stay as long as usual, less than five minutes. He used to go on at length, but this time he was quite brief.”

  “Did he make you a higher offer?”

  Both of them looked surprised. “Did he make you a higher offer?” Mia asked me.

  “Yes, he made Rebecca a significantly higher offer. Didn’t he make you one too?”

  “Yes he did,” William said.

  “And did he threaten you again?”

  William shook his head. “This time I told him I would give the offer serious consideration. It was much more than we would get if we put the place on the market. It was a very good price. Very tempting, in fact.”

  Maybe Colin Greaves had thought he was on a winner. Maybe that’s why he had not taken his usual length of time in their store that day. “Do you mind me asking why you didn’t accept his previous offers?”

  Mia was the one who answered. “Because we didn’t really have anywhere else to go. We like it here. We’ve been here for years and we’re quite comfortable here. If we go somewhere else, we will have to start from scratch and neither of us wanted to go through the hassle.”

  William interrupted her. “Still, his latest offer sweetened it.”

  I noticed a customer was hanging around wanting to speak with William and Mia, so I said, “Thanks for your help. Please come over to Rebecca’s store if you think of anything else. It’s not nice being a suspect.”

  “Sure,” they both said before turning to the customer.

  Matilda and I walked out into the street. When we were out of earshot, Matilda said to me, “What did you make of that?”

  “I don’t know. We only have her husband’s word for it that he was thinking of accepting Greaves’s offer. I thought Mia looked surprised when he said it.”

  Matilda nodded sagely. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking. If they murdered Greaves, they had enough time to slip him the poison and that fits with the timeframe given that the vic went to Rebecca’s store next. Then the husband could simply pretend to the police that he was accepting Greaves’s offer.”

  “Something else occurred to me,” I told her. “I’m wondering if the Willows were holding out for a higher price. What if they did intend to sell all along, but they knew that when there were only two or so stores left that Greaves would increase his offer to a nice sum.”

  “But then they wouldn’t have murdered him,” Matilda said.

  I clutched my head with both hands. This was all terribly confusing.

  Just as I made to walk into Rebecca’s store, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I had that watched feeling again. I spun around, just in time to see a figure duck behind the building. I grabbed Matilda’s arm. “Did you see that?”

  She looked around her. “What?”

  “You know how I said I was being followed? I saw him just over there.” I pointed.

  “So it’s a man?”

  “Actually, I suppose it could have been a woman,” I said. “I didn’t get a good look at him or her.”

  Matilda dragged me away from the shop door and into the apartment entrance. “I don’t like this, Jane. I don’t like it at all. Someone’s been following you, and Colin Greaves collapsed in Rebecca’s store and then died. What if you’re next?”

  Chapter 12

  “And so I’ve become used to being alone,” I lamented, although I suspected my audience was not the least interested in what I had to say. “Even when I was married, I spent most of my time alone. My husband was really never home, but knowing that there is someone actually living in the house, at least officially, is different from being completely alone.”

  I looked around the living room. “I’ve only known Eleanor and Matilda a short time, but already they feel like family. I half wished I’d gone with them to their indoor rock climbing lesson, but it is their thing and I didn’t want to intrude. And there’s the fact that I wouldn’t last a minute trying something like that. Now I’m home alone, and it’s not like it was last week when I would have been happy. I feel restless. Maybe it’s because I’m a suspect in a murder investigation. Maybe it’s because my ex-husband and his much, much, much younger new bride already have a baby and I’ve never had one.”

  I walked into the kitchen, snatched a tissue from the box, and dabbed at my eyes. I turned around. “Am I making any sense?” I threw both hands into the air.

  Mr. Crumbles looked at me, meowed, and stalked toward his food bowl.

  “At least you have your priorities right,” I said, scooping some food into his bowl. “They say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, so I wonder what they say about talking to a cat?”

  The little cat continued to eat.

  I just had to get out of the apartment. The café nearby was open quite late, so I decided to walk there and have some coffee. I’d eaten much earlier with Matilda and Eleanor, but now I needed some air.

  And so, fifty minutes later I was sitting in the café sipping my second cup of coffee. I was sure I wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.