Lainey Quilholt Mysteries Collection

Chapter 1-3

They laughed at something one of them said. Then, AJ looked back at the window—right at me as though to rub it in he had plenty of choices. Unfazed, I turned away, making it clear this didn"t bother me—which it didn"t, by the way.

The car with Bridget-something at the wheel, and friend riding shotgun, chirped her tires, and I had to glance back out there. I took in the fact Bridget"s car had dealership plates. Hmm.

Hmm.To the sound of AJ"s truck starting up, I ambled over to where my aunt and Weeks were leaning on the counter looking at me. Nervous energy made me pull myself up to sit on the counter. No one was in the store, so my aunt didn"t object.

“Did you straighten the books?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Did AJ ask you out?” Weeks asked.

“Yep.”

“And?”

“I said no.” I jumped off the counter. This third degree was the usual thing I had to endure. If I were home, I"d go up to my room. But, unfortunately, I was at work. And held at their mercy.

Moving around to the back of the counter, I straightened bags, and other things, waiting for the two to get bored with my monosyllabic answers. Weeks took of sip of his coffee, and ran his thumb and forefinger over his mustache.

“So. Trouble in paradise?” Weeks asked, a smile creasing the deep crow"s feet at the corners of his eyes. Oh, ha-ha.

Oh, ha-ha.“Not in my paradise,” I muttered, and stooped down behind the counter to move the bags around in the shelf. I pulled out more colored tissue for wrapping the smaller things we sold, and straightened it all unnecessarily.

Weeks sipped his coffee looking at me. “Then why won"t you go out with him?”

“He… spits.”

There was a pause as I stepped away to re-arrange the magazines further away. I had a long list of why I wouldn"t go out with AJ. I mean I"d actually wrote it all down. Among the reasons to not go out with him were far more grievous than spitting—well, he did spit and I abhorred that in guys—but I didn"t say any of those other things. Like he"s full of himself, he swears too much, he has a bunch of groupies who hang on his every word, he"s self-centered and thinks he"s God"s gift to women. But I didn"t say any of that. Nope. I went with "he spits".

“Wow,” Weeks said. “AJ"s a good looking guy. Rich. I hear he"s got a scholarship. Going to UCLA, from what I"m hearing.” He looked at my aunt and said, “He"s got one hell of an arm. It wouldn"t surprise me if he gets drafted into the NFL after college.”

“Don"t waste your breath,” my aunt said low to Weeks, stemming off his lists of reasons I should be dating AJ Beaumont. “She has her own agenda.”

The little bell over the door jingled, announcing someone had stepped in. Literally, I was saved by the bell.

“Morning Irene,” Aunt Jessica said pleasantly. It was Irene Hampa, the “Herb Lady”, as we called her. Her hair was that dark iron gray and wiry, coming to her shoulders. When it was humid, like today, it stuck out every which-way. Today she wore a floppy yellow hat in an attempt to tame her mane to some degree. Her thin frame was concealed in a denim dress that came to her calves. She wore slip-on canvas shoes for her summer attire. These had a flower pattern on them. She appeared to be in her mid-sixties, but I couldn"t tell ages past forty if my life depended upon it.

As if out of nowhere, Poe jumped on the counter and meowed, looked expectantly to Irene and she dutifully ran her hand over his silky black back which arched to her touch.

“Good morning, Mr. Poe. Sheriff.” She nodded to him and he nodded back with a quick “Mornin".”

“Jessica, I was just walking down to my shop to open it up. Thought I"d stop and check to see if you got my order in, yet.” Irene said.

“No. I don"t think so, but let me check quickly for you.” My aunt bent and looked for the orders we got under the counter. She straightened. “Nope nothing yet. But UPS hasn"t come in today. Try later on.”

“That"s alright. Oh, Lainey, dear. Here,” Irene called, stepping across the floor. I turned away from what I was doing and found her holding out a couple sheets of paper to me. “These are all the poisonous herbs, and other plants that, if taken internally, could make you sick or cause death.”

“Oh, thank you.” I took the list, and excitedly looked through it. She"d scribbled names of plants in both the English and the Latin down the page in her distinctive cursive.

“Belladona—atropine—is especially deadly,” Irene said with a wink, shaking a finger at the list in my hand. “Think I saw a show where it was used in some preserves and got a lot of people sick. The murderer took just enough to draw the suspicion off herself.”

“List of poisons?” My aunt"s eyes went large while watching the exchange. “Who you going to poison, Lainey?” She said it in a joking way with a sputtering chuckle at the end.

“AJ?” Weeks made a jab, a smirk on his lips.

Embarrassed, I darted a look at them. “It"s for my—uh—book,” I mumbled. She still didn"t get that I was a writer, and that I needed to research anything and everything for how to kill people—how the murderer would kill someone, of course—in the book. I still wanted to talk to Weeks about weapons, but hadn"t gotten up the nerve, yet. He was so busy, anyway, I almost never got a chance to pick his brain, unless he came over for dinner. I was hoping he"d be coming for Sunday night dinner, like he always did.

“Oh, don"t worry. It"s just a list for her murder book,” Irene said, batting the air dismissively. She called it my “murder book”. Cute. It was only a thin notebook with scene and character notations, and lists of every way a person could kill someone. The poison list had been on my bucket list. Now I could check that off. I only needed handguns and shotguns. I knew there were a lot of different guns out there, but I wanted the most basic ones to keep it simple. Did people really care if you used a .38, or a .45? Only a cop would. I had a lot to learn, but I figured Weeks would be a wealth of information, once I got up the courage to ask him.

Irene turned, smiling at me. I had a hard time not focusing on her twisted front teeth. They were long, and one tried to cross the other. It was hard not to stare, but I did my best to avert my gaze and try to look into her gray-blue eyes.

“Thank you,” I said.

“No problem. I wrote it all out last night. I don"t mind helping out a budding author.” She chuckled as she turned back to exit the shop. Then she stopped. “Oh, and don"t forget about fungi.”

“I"ve got Athletes Foot,” Weeks put in, chuckling at our exchange. “Does that count?” My aunt punched him in the arm and he winced playfully, putting a protective hand over it.

Irene threw him a humorless look. “That can be cured, you know. I"ve told you about it.”

“Uh-huh.” Weeks said. “I don"t want my feet to smell worse than they already do. Thank you.”

Ignoring Weeks, Irene said to me, “Anyway, you can Google most, if not all of those, including the poisonous mushrooms.”

“Thank you, I will,” I said again as she turned to go. I looked over the names of herbs. Wow. So many. I couldn"t wait to Google them and see how poisonous they really were, and what they looked like.

“I"ll call you, later, Jessica. Thanks.” Hand raised, a smile creating parentheses in her cheeks, Herb Lady floated out the door.

“So, why won"t you go out with him?” Weeks was standing near me, and his question startled me. He was trying to needle me. I could tell by that smile on his face. “He too good looking? Too into sports? Too rich?”

“All of the above,” I said, and caught the look my aunt"s face. “He"s not my type. Jeeze!” Throwing my hands up, I stomped to the back room and pulled out the vacuum cleaner, hoping the noise would keep me from having further conversation on this subject. The lint in a few aisles looked like one of our stuffed toys had busted open. But mostly I needed to get away from the chuckles that spouted from Weeks. He could be a pain in the butt sometimes.

With the vacuum going, my mind had a moment to drift to more pleasant things. Naturally it went to Brett Rutherford. We"d gone to high school together, back when I had lived in De Witt, before my parents had died. We"d had only one class together. A creative writing class. He wrote fantasy, while I dabbled—at the time—with romance, but I switched to writing murder mysteries because I realized I didn"t have to put s*x scenes in them (it was too embarrassing writing, and then reading the chapters in class). Besides, I was a virgin, what did I know about s*x? I didn"t like writing about something I"d had little experience with. Well, that was my excuse, anyway. What did I know about murder? Nothing. But I was trying to learn all I could about writing it.

Back to Brett… I hadn"t seen Brett in five years. I wondered what he looked like now. I wondered if he"d even remember me. I wondered if he was still going out with Rebeca Dawson. So many questions. I hoped I would at least get to see him, if not speak with him, tonight.