matching pumps, and Darla couldn’t help but feel dowdy by comparison. Once over the threshold, however, the faint sound track of New Age music that Hilda always played—heavy on flute and chimes—made her feel as if she’d stepped into a yoga studio. Some of her earlier tension dissipated. Unlike those expensive perfumes that lined the department store counters and assaulted the senses, the fragrances that filled Hilda’s small shop were subtle and inviting. Each day of the week, Hilda lit a different handmade soy candle, which either soothed or invigorated, depending on its scent. So far, Darla had stopped in on gardenia, sandalwood, rose, and honeysuckle days. This was the first time she’d been there for lavender, and she made a mental note to come back later to purchase one of those candles to burn in her own shop.
“So tell me, what’s wrong, Darla?” the woman urged in her polite but no-nonsense manner. “You have lines under your eyes . . . very bad. Here, you should try these all-natural compresses.”
She lifted a small jar from a nearby shelf, explaining, “They are made with cucumber, twenty to a jar. Gently squeeze out the liquid and put one compress over each eye for fifteen minutes. They work wonders, I promise you.”
“Maybe next time,” Darla said, hedging as she glanced about the small shop. A smartly dressed young Asian woman with a pigtailed toddler in tow was slathering on hand lotion from one of the sample bottles on the next aisle over, but otherwise the store was empty of customers. “Is Tera here today?”
“Not yet. She has classes in the mornings, so she never comes into the shop until after lunch.”
Then Hilda checked at the small gold wristwatch she wore and frowned.
“She should be here by now. That girl, I don’t know what to do with her,” the woman went on, a hint of Cuban lilt softening those words of maternal rebuke. “She stays out all night long with that so-called boyfriend of hers when she should be at home studying. And then, she’s too tired to get up in the morning and skips class. That, or else she goes home again as soon as class is over and sleeps all afternoon instead of helping me here in the store.”
Hilda glanced over at her customer, who had dragged her protesting little girl to the children’s section to look at organic baby shampoo, and then lowered her voice.
“That Curt Benedetto, he’s a bad influence,” she confided with a refined sniff. “Tera was making straight A’s in her all classes until she took up with him. What she sees in a man old enough to be her father, I’ll never understand. And that shifty look in his eyes . . .”
She paused and clicked her tongue. “I just know he’s hiding something. Probably a wife and five children. I hired your friend Jake to check up on him. If Tera won’t listen to her own mother, then maybe she’ll believe the evidence in black and white.”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Darla broke in when the woman finally paused for breath. “I have some bad news about Curt.”
“Humph. The only news I want to hear about him is that he left town.”
“Well, it’s close to that.” Darla hesitated, and then forged on. “I went with Barry this morning to see the brownstone that he and Curt are remodeling. We found Curt dead in the basement.”
“Dead?” He artfully made-up eyes widening, Hilda took a step back and traced a quick sign of the cross. “Dios mío, who killed him?”
The woman’s porcelain skin had turned appreciably paler, while her gasped exclamation was loud enough to draw her customer’s attention. The young mother shot them both a look of alarm and promptly dragged her child toward the door, ignoring the little girl’s outstretched hands and plaintive cry of, “Mama, want!”
Hilda didn’t seem to notice that she’d lost a customer. As for Darla, she hesitated. Why had Hilda immediately assumed that Curt had been murdered? The more obvious possibility was that he’d succumbed to a fatal heart attack or else had an accident. It sent alarm bells jangling in Darla’s head. Could Hilda possess some knowledge of what had actually happened to the man?
Carefully skirting a direct answer, Darla replied, “The police made us leave the building, so I really don’t know any more. But I didn’t want Tera to hear this kind of news on the radio or read it online.”