And wouldn’t there have been a struggle? Vera’s shop had been in shipshape condition when I walked inside. Nothing seemed to be out of place. But if a robber had been struggling to get money from Vera, wouldn’t some items have been knocked off the shelves?
A robber would want to get in and get out quickly. If Vera had balked or if she hadn’t given him enough money, he would have shot her and taken off. He wouldn’t have looked around for the perfect pair of garden shears with which to stab her.
Damn, I should’ve asked Inspector Lee how much money was in the cash register. If it was empty, it might give more credence to Derek’s simple robbery-gone-bad hypothesis.
But even if it was empty, that didn’t necessarily mean it was robbery. The burly garage-sale guy could’ve stolen the money to make it look like a robbery.
I kept trying to picture that big oaf in Vera’s store. How could he have walked through her small, tidy shop without disrupting everything? He was so loud and boorish, he would have made a mess just crossing the threshold. And he seemed like the kind of rotten jerk who wouldn’t give a hoot if he left everything in disarray.
But nothing had been out of place in Vera’s shop. I couldn’t see him killing her and then taking the time to tidy things up before he left.
“Yeah, that’s ridiculous,” I said aloud.
So if it wasn’t the garage-sale guy and it wasn’t a robber, then who had killed Vera?
I was arguing with myself for argument’s sake, but I still believed in my gut that Vera’s killer was the garage-sale guy.
At this point, I hated calling him the garage-sale guy. He really needs a name, I thought, and wondered why I hadn’t asked him his name while he was attacking me. Because, you know, that would’ve been the polite thing to do.
Idiot.
I shook those thoughts away, and after another moment of contemplation the name Horatio popped into my head. I didn’t know why, but it worked. From now until we found out his real name, I would refer to garage-sale guy as Horatio. The name was close enough to horrible to work for me.
Horrible Horatio might be Vera’s killer, but I still couldn’t figure out why he’d grabbed those garden shears instead of just strangling her. He definitely seemed like the type to prefer physical brutality, the type who would enjoy using his hands to hurt someone. But Vera hadn’t been strangled and I hadn’t noticed any bruises on her. None that I could see, anyway.
A third possibility occurred to me. The killer could have been someone Vera knew. She’d mentioned an ex-boyfriend. Maybe the two of them had had a terrible argument and in a fit of passion the boyfriend grabbed the conveniently located garden shears and shoved them into Vera’s stomach.
I grimaced at the thought and rubbed my own stomach in sympathy.
It made sense that her death might have been personal and had had nothing to do with The Secret Garden. But I still believed that Vera was dead because of the book.
I was so tired that my head was beginning to spin, so I stretched out on the couch. With my eyes closed, I was physically ready and willing to zone out into sleep, but my mind wouldn’t stop circling around Vera.
I was so sure the book was the killer’s motivation. At the same time, I had to ask myself: Was that really enough to kill for? Do people really kill for a book?
I jerked my head up off the couch. “Are you crazy?” I asked out loud. Of course someone would kill for a book!
If I wasn’t so exhausted, I never would’ve had that ridiculous thought. I stood up and stretched my arms and shoulders for a minute. Maybe it would help me think things through more carefully.
What was it about this book in particular that would cause someone to kill another human being? Was it all about the money? Did Horatio just want the cash? Had he killed Vera when she refused to give it to him?
Or was there something else about the book that made Horatio determined to get it back? Had somebody else offered him more money for it? Had it belonged to someone else and that person had threatened to harm him if they didn’t return it? Maybe his mother owned the beloved book and threatened to starve him out if he didn’t give it back immediately.
My mind was coming up with reason after reason for why Horatio wanted the book back. It would probably be a good idea to write them all down, so I zipped open my computer bag and fumbled for a notebook. And a pen. Where were all my pens?
“Ah.” I found one at the very bottom of the case, naturally. I was just starting to write out a list when my cell phone rang, causing me to jump. I yanked it from my jacket pocket, surprised to see Inspector Lee’s name flashing on the small screen. “Inspector.”
“I’ve got good news and bad news.”
I slid down onto the swivel chair. “That’s never a good thing.”
“In this case, you’re right.”
“What happened?”
She took a deep breath. “Stern and Wilkins never got around to interviewing Vera. They caught a gang shooting in Ingleside Tuesday afternoon and didn’t make it over to the flower shop.”
“Damn it.”