yet when Paulina was having a tough time, when she thought someone was going to kill her, she came to you, someone she hadn’t seen in twenty-four years. Doesn’t that seem odd? That she wouldn’t go to one of those new friends you all replaced each other with?”
Martine’s face flushed, giving her the first real color he’d seen since she’d found them at her door. Anger? Embarrassment that she didn’t have an answer for a perfectly reasonable question? Guilt that if she wasn’t outright lying, she was at least not being entirely truthful?
He had to give her credit: she didn’t shove back from the table, pace around the room or throw him out of her house. He’d watched plenty of people do all three. He’d even been on the receiving end of a few punches in the process of being thrown out. No, Martine might have surpassed the limits of her tolerance for him, but she retained control.
“I don’t know where Pauline’s new life and new friends are,” she said, a clenched sound to her words. “I don’t know where she went after school, what she did, how she lived, whether she married or had children, if she kept in touch with her family or anyone else. No one could have been more surprised than I was when I heard her voice on the phone, or when I saw her, or when she ran off into the fog. We were friends a lifetime ago, but after twenty-four years, she’s as much a stranger to me as she is to you. I’d have better luck coming up with suspects who want you dead than Paulina.”
If the conversation hadn’t been so serious, he might have laughed at that. He’d been a cop for eighteen years. Everyone could come up with a list of people who wanted him dead.
She slid her chair back and stood, replaced the picture in the bin and closed the lid. “I have to get ready to open the shop, and I need time to...”
Jimmy silently completed the sentence for her: grieve over a stranger who’d once meant the world to her. He needed time to figure out whether he believed everything—or even anything—she’d told them. His first two questions for himself after an interview were Did she lie? and Why? He wasn’t looking forward to telling Murphy he believed his wife’s best friend had lied.
Murphy made the small talk to get them out the door—thanks, sorry, take care—then they took the stairs in silence. The street was just as empty of life as it had been when they came.
Murphy started the engine and turned the heat to high before thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Notice how she just happened to have that box on the table? The yearbooks were inside there, too. A lot of pictures, souvenirs, old cards. Seeing Paulina yesterday upset her more than she wanted to show.”
“Maybe she was wondering how Paulina went from that kid at the prom to that woman on your phone. Or maybe seeing her made her nostalgic for the good old days.”
Murphy snorted. “I know you didn’t miss the fact that she wasn’t telling us everything, so don’t make excuses. I love Martine, but I’m not here because she’s my kids’ godmother. My job is to find who killed Paulina and why.”
“But you can’t forget that she’s your kids’ godmother, can you, and that makes the job harder. Evie and the kids would never forgive you if you treated her like a suspect or an uncooperative witness.”
“Hey, I can be tough,” Murphy said in self-defense. “I once handcuffed Evie and took her to jail.”
“Yeah, and you’ll never do that again, will you?” That arrest had been the end of their relationship the first time around. Once Murphy realized he’d been duped, he’d had to solve a few murders, arrest a few corrupt feds and grovel like hell to get back into Evie’s life. In Jimmy’s opinion, that was a hell of a lot of work for one woman.
Which probably explained why he hadn’t stuck with just one woman in a long, long time.
Oh, God, she’d lied to the police—and not just to the police, but to Jack.
Groaning, Martine dragged her hair into a ponytail. Instead of being bouncy and perky like it should be, it just dangled limp and heavy—the way she felt, coincidentally. She’d put on makeup as soon as the detectives had left, but she’d had a hard time finding the balance between enough and too much. Even now, she couldn’t tell whether she looked like someone who’d had a shock or someone trying to pass for a clown.
She hadn’t actually lied to the police. She just hadn’t volunteered a few things, like the fact that Paulina believed their voodoo curse was the reason for the threat against her. Or that one of their other best friends had been killed just a few months ago, allegedly because of the curse. Or that Tallie, Robin and Martine herself were on the supposed hit list, too.
Martine couldn’t get past the cold hard fact that the others ignored: their voodoo curse wasn’t real. It had been far more Dr. Seuss than Marie Laveau. They hadn’t raised any spirits; they hadn’t disturbed the peace between this world and the other; they hadn’t done anything a million stupid kids before and after them hadn’t done.
What had happened to William Fletcher had been a coincidence—not even a surprising one, according to gossip. He’d been warped in his tastes and careless in his pursuit of them, and Callie and Tallie’s mom had often said that one day the consequences of his actions would catch up with him.
That Saturday night they had.
But it wasn’t her fault, or Paulina’s or the others’.
Heaving a sigh that echoed with restlessness and sadness, she pulled on a bright yellow-and-pink madras plaid rain slicker and a pair of boots and headed out. Back in the day when the shop was new and finding its way, she’d made time to bake goodies for her employees’ breakfast and breaks, but business had luckily picked up about the time her baking interest waned. Now she visited Wild Berries, a small shop on Jackson Square, and bought treats far better than she could make.
The strange dampness made her pull the slicker hood over her head as she walked. It wasn’t raining exactly. It was more as if the drops of water were suspended in air and broke only when a person bumped into them. The few that trickled down her face were ridiculously cold and sent shivers all the way to her feet.
And all the weather people could say was Unusual weather patterns or Maybe a break this weekend. Anise, one of her employees, kept insisting the sun was never going to shine again, but then, Anise was a gloom-and-doom sort of person. With her distinctive Goth appearance, Martine hadn’t decided whether she added to the ambiance of the shop or scared the customers instead.
When Martine stepped inside Wild Berries, a bell dinged overhead, and a small high voice sang out, “The sun will come out tomorrow...”
She slid her hood back to revel in the brilliant smile the shop owner, Shelley, gave her. Even on her worst day she summoned more optimism than Martine could even imagine at the moment. Shelley was happy, she’d once told Martine—truly, seriously, contented all the way down to her soul. Martine knew days of deep satisfaction, but she envied Shelley her pure unwavering light.
“How’s business?” Martine asked as she strolled the length of display cases, her mouth watering with each new discovery. Lemon and brown sugar and chocolate perfumed the air, along with buttery pastry and cinnamon and coffee. If it was possible to absorb calories by osmosis, Wild Berries was the place to do it.
“My
