A Flicker of a Doubt

Book 4: Fairy Garden Mystery

by Daryl Wood Gerber

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Making fairy gardens, and teaching crafters how to do the same, keeps Carmelby-the-Sea shop owner Courtney Kelly busy—but sometimes she has to make time for a wee bit of detective work …
With a theater foundation tea and an art show planned at Violet Vickers’ estate, Courtney is hired to create charming fairy gardens for the event. It’s not so charming, however, when her best friend Meaghan’s ex-boyfriend turns out to be
Violet’s latest artistic protégé. Even worse, not long after Meaghan locks horns with him, his body is found in her yard, bludgeoned with an objet d’murder.
There’s a gallery of suspects, from an unstable former flame to an arts and crafts teacher with a sketchy past. But when the cops focus on Meaghan’s business partner, who’s like a protective older brother to her, and discover he also has a
secret financial motive, Courtney decides to draw her own conclusions. Fearing they’re missing the forest for the trees, and with some help from Fiona the sleuthing fairy, she hopes to make them see the light …

Release date: March 28, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Slam! Slam-slam-slam! Slam!

My insides did a jig. I dashed down the hall to the back of Open Your Imagination, dusting my hands off on my denim overalls while wondering what in the world was going on. Fiona, the teensy righteous fairy that appeared to me the day I opened my fairy garden shop, fluttered to my shoulder. Her limbs and gossamer wings were trembling.

“What’s happening, Courtney?” she managed to squeak out. She hated loud noises. Hated surprises. I didn’t like them, either.

Pixie, my Ragdoll cat, trailed us. She mewed.

“Don’t worry, you two,” I said. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I drew to a halt outside the storage room. The door opened and slammed.

When it opened again, I pressed a hand against it. “Hey! Stop! Meaghan, c’mon.”

The door opened wide, and Meaghan Brownie gawked at me. Her face was red, her eyes were ablaze with fury, and her curly hair was writhing like wild snakes.

“What the heck has you so angry?” I asked. I’d sent her to fetch a box of gemstones. I had plenty, so coming up empty wasn’t what was upsetting her.

“Nicolas!” She huffed. “He texted me. And . . . And . . .” She waggled her cell phone. “Oo-oh!”

Nicolas was her ex-boyfriend, a temperamental artist. A few months back, she’d asked him to move out while her mother had needed comforting. He’d never returned.

“Oo-oh,” she repeated, before grabbing one of the Tupperware boxes filled with gemstones and skirting past me. She stalked toward the main showroom.

Pixie and I followed. Fiona flew above my pal, sprinkling her with a calming silver dust. Fairies couldn’t change human behavior, but they could offer potions that might help the human solve problems. In this case, to find peace.

“He’s so . . . so . . .”

Meaghan was not using her inside voice, but I wasn’t worried about her upsetting our customers. It was early. Nobody was in the shop yet. Not even Joss Timberlake, my right-hand helper. She’d asked for the morning off, so I’d invited Meaghan to help me prepare some items. Why did I need help? Because yesterday Violet Vickers, a wealthy widow who donated to numerous worthy causes, had ordered an additional dozen fairy gardens to be used as centerpieces for the theater foundation tea she was serving on Mother’s Day. Why additional? Because she’d already commissioned me to make a dozen very large, elaborate fairy gardens to be installed when Kelly Landscaping, my father’s company, completed the total redo of her backyard.

It was May first. I wasn’t hyperventilating. Yet. But I also wasn’t sleeping much.

“Let’s go to the patio,” I said. “I’ll bring some tea.”

“I don’t want tea,” Meaghan groused as she breezed out the French doors to the patio, the folds of her white lace skirt wafting behind her.

The shop’s telephone jangled. I decided not to answer. Whoever was calling would call back. Meaghan, my best friend whom I’d met a little over ten years ago when we were sophomores in college, needed me more. I followed her, glancing at Fiona, wondering why the calming potion wasn’t working. Fiona, intuiting my question, shook her head.

“Isn’t it a beautiful morning, Meaghan?” I took the box from her and set it on the workstation table in the learning-the-craft area at the far end of the patio. “Gorgeous, in fact.”

The fountain was burbling. Sunshine was streaming through the tempered-glass, pyramid-shaped roof. The leaves of the ficus trees were clean and shiny. I’d already wiped down the wrought-iron tables and chairs and organized all the verdigris baker’s racks of fairy figurines. Plus, I’d removed dead leaves from the various decorative fairy gardens. Presentation mattered to me and to my customers.

Meaghan muttered, “Ugh.”

“Start at the beginning,” I said. “Nicolas texted you.”

“Yes.” She plopped onto a bench and rested her elbows on the table.

“What did he write?” I asked.

“He wants me back.”

I opened the box of colorful gemstones and ran my hands through them: hematite, labradorite, amethyst, obsidian, and more.

“But I don’t want him back,” Meaghan said.

Fiona landed on the rim of the box. Her eyes widened. “Are they for the fairy doors, Courtney?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“They’re pretty.”

Not only was I making the gardens for Violet, but I had three upcoming fairy garden door classes scheduled. Fairy doors were miniature doors, usually set at the base of a tree, behind which might be a small space where people left notes or wishes for fairies. They could also be installed into a fairy garden pot.

“I mean, I used to,” Meaghan went on. “But I don’t anymore. We have nothing in common.” Idly, she drew circles on the tabletop with her fingertip. “I did the right thing, don’t you think? I did, didn’t I?”

Over the course of our friendship, I’d kept my mouth shut. Nicolas and Meaghan had never made sense. She was outgoing and personable; he was quiet, to the point of being morose. Granted, he was a talented artist, and she, as a premier art gallery owner, appreciated his gift, but that was not enough to sustain a healthy relationship. Not in my book, anyway.

“Did he text anything else?” I asked, not answering her question.

“No . . . yes. That he loved me.” She flopped forward on her arms dramatically.

Pixie pounced onto the bench and nudged Meaghan’s hip with her nose.

Meaghan sat up, drew the cat into her lap, and petted her. “You should have seen Ziggy the last time Nicolas contacted me.” Ziggy Foxx, an eccentric gay man in his forties, was Meaghan’s business partner at Flair Gallery.

Cypress and Ivy Courtyard, where Open Your Imagination was located, boasted a high-end jewelry store, collectibles shop, pet-grooming enterprise, my favorite bakery Sweet Treats, and Flair, Meaghan’s gallery.

“Ziggy was finalizing a sale of one of Hunter Hock’s items, and when he heard me say Nicolas’s name, he nearly threw Hunter’s art across the room. Hunter was there at the time.”

Hunter Hock, an in-demand artist in his thirties, was known for small pieces of art. Not as tiny as paintings on almonds or bottle caps or even the insides of lockets. More like three-inch-square petite canvases. Many featured landscapes of Carmel-by-the-Sea, my hometown and one of the most incredible places on earth.

“Oh, man, if Hunter could have leaped through the phone receiver”—Meaghan snorted out a laugh—“he would have strangled Nicolas. You know how he likes to protect me.”

Every man who’d ever met Meaghan had wanted to protect her. Not that she needed it. She was a force to be reckoned with. But there was something about her femininity that brought out the he-man in men. Me? Most men wanted to be my friend. Period. I was the girl-next-door type. Short blond hair, athletic figure. Meaghan towered above me and had curves.

I said, “I’d bet Hunter also didn’t like seeing Ziggy lose his temper.”

“Destroy a piece of his art? Oh, the insanity!” Her laugh turned into giggles. Fits of giggles. And then tears.

I hurried to her and threw my arm around her. “Hey, c’mon. Deep breaths. You’re beyond Nicolas. You have Ziggy.”

She arched her eyebrow.

“Okay, you have Hunter,” I joked.

She sobered. “I don’t have Hunter. He’s a friend.”

I twirled a finger. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“Like this?” She made a googly-eyed face.

“That’s the spirit!” Fiona spiraled to the roof, did a loop the loop, and returned to Meaghan’s shoulder. “No more crying. What’s done is done.” She caressed my friend’s hair.

“Thank you, Fiona.” Not everyone could see fairies, and Meaghan had struggled at first, but now, she was in tune with them.

“We move onward and upward,” Fiona added. My intrepid fairy knew what she was talking about. She’d messed up in fairy school, so the queen fairy had booted her from the fairy realm and subjected her to probation. But she was making the most of it. By helping humans solve problems, she would earn her way back into the queen fairy’s good graces—the queen fairy who, until a few months ago, I hadn’t realized was Aurora, the first fairy I’d ever seen; the fairy who had disappeared from my memory when my mother died.

“When you’re done with your pity party, Meaghan,” I said, “help me sort these stones before we open up.”

“And then I need to go to Flair.”

I turned on soothing instrumental music that piped through speakers on the patio, and we worked in companionable silence for an hour, organizing and preparing.

When Meaghan was ready to leave, she gave me a hug. “Thank you for talking me down from the ledge.”

“No thanks required. Nicolas wants you, but you don’t want him. All you have to say is no.”

“No.” Meaghan shook her head from side to side. “No, no, no.”

“See?” I grinned. “That isn’t too hard.”

“Until he comes near me and my knees turn to jelly.”

“You won’t turn to jelly. You’ll be strong. Stalwart. You’ve been seeing the therapist. She’s given you mantras. Repeat those. Over and over.”

Fiona said, “And if those don’t work, squeeze your eyes shut”—she demonstrated—”and picture what you want out of life.” She popped her eyes open. “What do you want?”

“A man who thinks I’m wonderful,” Meaghan replied. “A man who doesn’t tear me down. A man who truly loves me for me.”

I hugged her. “That’s my girl.”

She bounded to her feet. “Want me to unlatch the Dutch door on my way out?”

“I’ll do it.” It was time to open.

I followed her through the showroom. In addition to fairy garden items, we sold a variety of specialty pieces, including tea sets, gardening tools, books about fairies, and wind chimes; fairies enjoyed tinkling sounds. I weaved between display tables to the entrance and swung open the door. I stepped outside and drew in a deep, cleansing breath. “Remember, Meaghan, I’m here if you need me.”

She jogged up the stairs of the split-level courtyard. “Don’t forget I brought you double-chocolate caramel brownies,” she yelled as she disappeared from view.

Given her last name, she’d been a brownie maker since she’d learned how to bake. I was lucky enough to reap the rewards.

I turned to go back inside.

“Courtney!” a woman called. Violet Vickers exited the silver Rolls-Royce coupe she’d parked on the street.

Inwardly, I moaned. I adored Violet, but what did she need now? I didn’t have more hours in the day.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” She triggered the car alarm and strode across the sidewalk toward me while smoothing the shawl collar of her lavender jacquard suit. “I tried phoning, but you didn’t answer.”

“Hi, Violet.” I beckoned her into the shop. “What’s up?” I asked, closing the Dutch door behind us, but opening the top half to let in the fresh air. “I’m getting ready to put the fairy garden centerpieces together this morning. Your big pots are done and all set for delivery.” I’d made the larger-sized pots in my backyard using items in my greenhouse.

“Lovely,” she said, as she was wont to do. “Has your father seen the big ones?”

My father, a pragmatist in every sense of the word, didn’t believe in fairies. Opening my fairy garden shop had been a bone of contention between us. But at least he was coming around to acknowledging that I and others did see them. And he’d accepted that Violet expected twelve custom-made pots in her garden. No ifs, ands, or buts. Somehow he, as her landscaper, would make them work with his design.

“Not yet,” I said, “but he has approved of the plant selections and color of the pottery.”

“Excellent. What are the themes of the gardens, if I dare ask?”

“Love, love, love,” I chimed. “As ordered.”

Though she was pushing seventy, Violet applauded like a jubilant schoolgirl. She’d asked that the fairy gardens reflect love in all its glory. How could I refuse? Fiona, who was turning out to be quite the reader, had advised me from the get-go to focus on the greatest love stories of all time: Romeo and Juliet; Wuthering Heights; Doctor Zhivago; Casablanca. Creating Rick’s Café, with its Moroccan décor for the Casablanca-themed garden, had been a challenge.

Violet tapped her chin. “Now then, the reason I needed to see you—”

Tires screeched outside. A door slammed.

Fiona flew to my shoulder. “What now?” she asked, quivering with newfound fear.

The Dutch door burst open, and Nicolas Buley charged in, his dark hair askew, apparent shaving mishaps checked by tissue, and his paint-splattered shirt untucked from his jeans. “Where is she?”

I backed up two feet, hands raised in front of me. “Hold on, Nicolas. Meaghan isn’t—”

“There you are!” He made a beeline for Violet. “You told me to meet you at your place. But when I got there, they said you were here.”

“You look a mess, young man,” Violet said, patting her tight white curls into place.

“Sorry about that.” He plucked the tissue pieces from his face and ran fingers through the sides of his hair to neaten the straggled mess. “Had the top down on my Beemer.” Meaghan hated being a passenger in that car. Nicolas, although classified as a social introvert, was an erratic, speed-loving driver. “So why weren’t you there?”

Violet sputtered. “We’re not supposed to meet for another hour.”

“Yeah, sure, but I figured it was your house. You’d be home.”

“Well, I wasn’t.” Violet raised her chin imperiously.

“I want to talk to you about Hunter Hock,” he went on. “Why are you displaying his work at the foundation thing, too? He’s a nobody.”

“He’s not a nobody,” Violet said. “He’s well-known, and he’s stylistic. His petite art appeals to a wide audience.”

“Petite art. What a stupid name for it.”

“I think it’s catchy,” Violet countered.

“He’s a nobody and an ugly cur.”

“Now, now.” Violet patted his arm. “Don’t be mean, Nicky.”

He bridled, hating whenever someone shortened his name, but he didn’t correct her. He was savvy enough to know she was his boss for the present moment.

“Having your work displayed at my tea will bode well for when you sell your work at the plein-art festival,” she added.

Every year, Carmel-by-the-Sea took over Devendorf Park and held a festival that showcased plein-air painting as well as live sculpting exhibits and lots of live music. Artists created their exhibitions outdoors and brought them to the park on Friday afternoon for judging. On Sunday morning, the winning artists did a quick-draw competition with the results being sold in a silent auction. It had been one of my mother’s favorite things to do. I remember her taking me as a girl every year. We’d dress up and pack a picnic lunch.

“Hock has a thing for Meaghan,” Nicolas grumbled.

“No, he doesn’t,” I said.

Nicolas leveled me with a withering gaze. Meaghan had often raved about his green eyes. She’d said one look from him could swoon her into bed. Right now, he looked ready to bury me six feet under.

Violet must have noticed. “Why don’t you go to Sweet Treats, Nicolas, and get a cup of coffee? I’ll meet you there in a bit, and we’ll sort this out. Courtney and I need to finalize a few things.”

“Nah. Not thirsty.” He punched the air, the muscles in his sinewy fingers snap-popping with anger. “I’ll go to Flair. I’ve got a few things to discuss with Meaghan and Ziggy.”

Fiona fluttered to my shoulder. “Uh-oh.”

I didn’t like the edge in his tone, either. “Meaghan isn’t in yet, Nicolas,” I lied. “Ziggy, either.”

“Someone’s there. The door is propped open.”

“Cleaners,” I suggested. “They dust daily. Why don’t I pour you a cup of coffee, and you can drink it on our patio? Listen to the fountain burbling.” And chill out, I thought as I worried the silver locket I wore around my neck, the one with my mother’s picture inside. “The sound might inspire your next work.”

“Nah. I’m gonna check.” He stomped out of the shop.

“Ah, youth.” Violet clucked her tongue.

“He’s thirty-three,” I said. “He’s not a kid.”

“You have to follow him,” Fiona urged.

She was right. On my “Ways to Improve Myself ” list for the month, I’d added: You want a friend? Be a friend.

I apologized to Violet and hurried after Nicolas, taking the stairs through the courtyard two at a time, grateful that I’d been keeping up with my morning run regimen. I wasn’t completely out of breath when I sprinted past customers waiting to enter the gallery and sailed into Flair. Fiona cruised in after me.

The cleaning crew was, indeed, at work, polishing the white oak floor and dusting the white pedestals that held sleek, fluid metal sculptures. Meaghan was arranging free-standing works on the white geometric bookcase on the far wall. Ziggy, dressed in an abstract disco shirt, was tweaking the track lighting to better capture the wall filled with seascapes. I would normally spend an hour moving from painting to painting, drinking in the texture and style of each artist, but I couldn’t right now because Nicolas was barreling toward Ziggy.

“Why is my art not in the display window, Foxx?” Nicolas demanded. “That was our agreement.”

Ziggy turned, his forehead puckered with concern.

Meaghan fumbled a small, wood-framed painting—one of Hunter Hock’s pieces, I was pretty sure. “What are you doing here, Nicolas?” she rasped as she rushed in front of Ziggy. Did she think she could protect him? She was taller than him, sure, but shorter than Nicolas with nowhere near his musculature. “You’re supposed to be in Sedona.”

“Yeah, well, I’m back,” he said. “Surprise! I’m staying in a great Airbnb with a view of the ocean. You should see it.”

I had to wonder if he’d returned because the dry desert heat hadn’t stimulated his creative juices. He was known for painting turbulent seascapes. According to Meaghan, they sold extremely well. There was something about an angry ocean roiling with emotion that appealed to many of Flair’s buyers.

“Nicolas, welcome.” Ziggy edged from behind Meaghan. Slight as he might be, he could defend himself. He’d been a wrestler in high school and college, and for fun, he taught private self-defense classes. I’d been studying with him for the past two months, with an emphasis on karate. He strode toward Nicolas, hand extended. “Let’s go in the office and chat this out.”

Nicolas raised both arms. “Don’t touch me, dude. We can talk right here. After I get some answers from Meaghan, like why she’s ghosting me.”

“I’m n-not,” Meaghan stammered.

“Yeah, you are.”

Fiona flew to Meaghan’s shoulder.

“Nicolas,” I said.

“Stay out of it, Courtney!” He stepped toward Meaghan, hand raised.

Meaghan mewled, her resolve floundering.

Fiona darted over Nicolas’s head and sprinkled him with white dust, a new potion she’d learned a couple of months ago, designed to make the recipient open to reason. She muttered an incantation, too. “By dee prood macaw hoerte,” roughly translated to May God make peace upon your heart. But it didn’t work. Nicolas wasn’t backing down.

“Don’t you dare hit her!” Ziggy yelled, striking an attack pose.

“If you do, jerk, you’ll pay,” Hunter Hock threatened as he rounded the half wall that divided the two rooms. Standing all of five feet four inches, he wasn’t a big man. In fact, he often joked that he was vertically challenged. His dyed red hair, bushy black eyebrows, crooked nose, and hollow cheeks gave him an anime-type look.

Nicolas whirled around. “Why are you here, man?”

“For the same reason as you, I suppose,” Hunter replied. “To insure my art is properly presented.”

“Your art,” Nicolas said with a sneer. “Your piddling petite crap isn’t art.”

“Nicolas!” Meaghan cried. “Take it back.”

“I won’t.”

“Artists don’t have to compete,” she went on. “I’ve told you that for years. There’s art enough for everyone, for every taste. Be civil, for heaven’s sake. Take it back.”

Hunter fanned the air. “It’s okay, Meaghan. He’s entitled to his opinion.”

“Yeah, I am.” Nicolas puffed up his chest. “And my opinion is you’re a hack, Hock.”

Hunter sniggered. “Hack, Hock. Gee, I haven’t heard that before. How clever you are. Not,” he added, stressing the last word. “Grow up, Nicky boy.”

“Nicolas,” he said petulantly.

Hock sniffed. “My nine-year-old acts older than you.” Hunter and his wife ended their marriage three years ago—creative differences—but his little girl was the love of his life. Family, he once said to me when he’d brought his daughter to Open Your Imagination, meant everything to him. The last I’d heard, he’d moved in with his sister and her three children. His daughter and ex lived in nearby Monterey.

“C’mon, man,” Hunter went on, “Meaghan’s right. There’re plenty of buyers for our work. We’re not in competition.” He fisted his hands on his hips. The pose didn’t make him look bigger or stronger, but he probably thought it did. “Besides, you have plenty of years left to produce something good.”

“Why you . . .”

Nicolas hurled himself at Hunter and slugged him in the jaw. Meaghan squealed. I gasped. Fiona eeked.

“Stop!” Ziggy ordered.

Hunter careened backward, scrabbling for his footing. He crashed into a pedestal holding a sculpture titled Dancing Dolphins. I’d admired it on many occasions, but I couldn’t afford to purchase it. Meaghan lunged for the statue, grabbing it by the base in the nick of time. Being metal, it wouldn’t have broken, but it could have suffered a dent or two.

Hunter gained purchase with his feet, lurched at Nicolas, seized him by his right arm, and yanked hard. Nicolas whelped.

“That’s it. Enough!” Ziggy bleated an air horn, the kind I’d heard him use to signal a robbery in the courtyard not too long ago. “Both of you, out!”

Nicolas punched Hunter’s arm. “This is your fault.”

“It’s yours.” Hunter retaliated by slugging Nicolas’s chest.

“Enough, I said!” Ziggy blared the horn a second time. “Out! Now! Or I’m calling. . .