my father and get away with it.”
“Ha! Don’t we all wish we could? Fathers. What a pain.”
I introduced Joss to the attorney and said, “We’ll be in the office.”
A half hour later, I had agreed to allow Miss Judge to oversee my case. I didn’t alienate her. I didn’t demean my father. If I really needed her to defend me, I wanted her to think I was the best and most compliant client ever. To clear my name, I gave her the printout that Joss’s tech had provided, and to seal the deal, I sent her off with a fairy figurine, one with a deep purple petal skirt. Miss Judge was honored. Purple, she told me, represented justice. I actually knew that. My superstitious ex-fiancé had worn purple ties when he’d taken the bar.
After she left, I returned to the main showroom craving something sweet.
As if fate were smiling on me, Lauren skipped into the shop and offered me a bag with the Sweet Treats logo. “Courtney,” she chimed. “We’re back. Are you hungry? Mommy and me—”
Her mother, who was right behind her, cleared her throat.
Lauren blushed and began again. “Mommy and I”—she stressed the I; someone was getting grammar lessons—“ just went to the bakery, and we brought you cookies as a thank-you.”
I accepted the gift and peeked inside. “Sugar cookies. Yum. My favorite.”
Lauren picked up a white shopping basket. “We’re also here to pick out a couple more things for my garden.”
Her mother said, “Lauren has the itch.”
“I warned you,” I said. “Many of our clientele get it.” I remembered making my first fairy garden. It had taken me hours to pick out all the pieces.
“If it makes her feel creative,” her mother said, “I’m all for it.”
“Mommy says you can’t use up creativity,” Lauren chirped. “The more you use, the more you have.”
Her mother smiled. “Actually Maya Angelou said that.”
Lauren scrunched her nose. “I thought you said it.”
“Darling”—her mother waved a hand, as if she were a fairy godmother—“tell Miss Courtney what you want.”
How I loved doting parents. They were the bread-and-butter of a craft industry.
“Is Fiona here?” Lauren dashed to the patio to seek for her. “Follow me, Courtney.”
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure where my fairy had gone. Pixie was sound asleep on the white oak bureau behind the sales counter.
“Mommy, remember this?” Lauren sprinted to a demo fairy garden, the one I’d made a month ago featuring a girl standing on a park bench holding a kite. “See the cat figurine?” Beneath the bench, a teensy white porcelain cat lay sleeping. Twinkle Toes, the cat I’d had as a girl, had looked just the same. “This is the one I was telling you about, Mommy. She’ll have fun in my fairy garden, don’t you think?”
“There’s a cat just like that one on the shelf,” I said.
“And we need books. Any fun day in a fairy garden should include books.” Lauren whizzed to one of the display racks and selected the squirrel toting the stack of books. “Isn’t he adorable?” She twisted him in front of her mother’s face.
“Adorable.”
Lauren added it to her basket and gathered the mushroom and the butterfly she’d had her heart set on the other day, too. With her selections complete, she drew near and whispered, “I don’t see Fiona anywhere. Is she all right?”
I crouched to her level. “She must be investigating something.”
“Investigating?” Lauren didn’t understand the word.
“Looking for answers,” her mother explained.
“Answers about what?” Lauren asked.
“Life,” her mother replied.
Or death, I thought glumly as I followed them into the shop to complete their purchase.
As Joss attended to them, more customers entered. A steady flow of them. A few regulars came to check on me. A couple wanted gory details of the murder, which I refused to provide, claiming the police would frown on my discussing the case. One woman, an elderly shop owner who, thanks to making a fairy garden, had found the childlike spirit she thought she’d lost, brought me a tuna fish sandwich. She was concerned that I might starve myself with worry. Each and every do-gooder’s support gave me hope that although a murder had occurred on the premises, once it was solved and I was cleared of the crime, business would thrive.
After lunch—the tuna fish hit the spot and the sugar cookie was the perfect dessert—I decided to do what Joss and I had drummed up. I made a sign, set it outside, and a half hour later, held an impromptu free demonstration in the