Katie dialed the lawyer’s number, grateful she’d taken her cell phone from the charger before starting out this morning, and got through to his secretary, who quickly transferred her to the lawyer.
“Seth, I’ve got some bad news. Ezra Hilton is dead.”
“Dead? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said calmly. “In his sleep?”
“No! A robbery at Artisans Alley. It looks like someone snuck up on him from behind, hit him over the head, and killed him.”
“Good grief.” She heard him take a breath. “When did this happen?”
“Probably last night. One of the other merchants in the Square found him.”
“Katie, did you know Ezra named you executor of his estate?”
“Me? But I hardly knew him,” she cried.
“You were his partner,” Seth said.
“On paper only.” Executor of Ezra’s estate? She exhaled, raking her fingers through the hair curling around her collar, the enormity of that responsibility only just beginning to dawn on her. She reached into her purse for another peppermint, unwrapped it, and crunched. “Is there anyone I should notify? Any relatives?” she asked around the shards of candy.
“Just a nephew in Rochester. If you want, I can take care of that for you.”
“Yes, thank you.” The last thing Katie wanted to do was dump that kind of news on some poor, unsuspecting survivor. “Did Ezra leave any”—she closed her eyes and swallowed—“funeral instructions with you?”
“I’ll have to pull his will from the files, but I think so. I’ll call Mr. Collier at the funeral home to make sure.”
“Thank you,” she breathed. She looked through the car’s windshield, taking in the rambling old wooden structure that was Artisans Alley. “What should I do about the Alley?”
“You’re already a limited partner, so there’s nothing to keep you from conducting business as usual. The estate still has to go through probate, but it’s in your best interest to keep Artisans Alley open—if that’s what you want.”
Seth’s tone on that last part of the sentence gave her pause, but she plowed on. “How long will probate take?”
“Anywhere from six months to a couple of years, depending on the complexity of the estate.”
“Swell. Do I have to remind you I’ve already got a real job?”
“Now you have two,” Seth said.
“What should I do next?”
“Can you sign the Alley’s checks?”
“Yes. Ezra added my name to the bank accounts and I signed a signature card right after Chad died.”
“Then you’re in business. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to Ezra’s accountant, too.”
“Thank you, Seth. I already feel better just talking to you.”
“I’m glad to help in any way. Where can I reach you?”
“My cell phone, and maybe Ezra’s number at Artisans Alley, if they let me back in. I won’t know until later today.” She gave him the numbers.
“I’ll get back to you on what Ezra wanted in the way of a funeral. Knowing the old man, I’ll bet he set that up in advance. He was very much a no-nonsense kind of guy.”
“If you say so,” Katie said. She’d barely known the man.
Seth said good-bye, and Katie folded the phone closed. Before she could put it away, she noticed a solidly built woman with short-cropped gray hair and oversized glasses charge across the parking lot, heading straight for her car. Katie cranked open her window, trying not to prejudge a woman who would willingly go out in public dressed in a garish purple polyester pantsuit left over from the nineteen seventies.
“I just heard Ezra Hilton died,” the woman barked. “Are you the new owner?”
“Uh—I guess so,” Katie answered, startled by the newcomer’s directness.
“Edie Silver,” she said, extending a beefy hand. “I’m a crafter. I crochet and paint, and I make the most gorgeous silk flower arrangements you’ll ever see, if I do say so myself. Will you be renting booth space to crafters? Mr. Hilton never would.” Her voice vibrated with disapproval.
“I don’t know.”
“If crafters are coming in,
I
want to be at the top of the list. Take down my name, will you?”
Dazed, Katie pawed through her purse to find a small spiral notebook and a pen, and then dutifully copied down the information.
“When will you be making a decision?” the woman badgered.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll call Artisans Alley in a day or so for your decision.” With a curt nod, Edie stalked back toward the fringe of the crowd that had gathered in front of the Square’s tony wine and cheese shop, The Perfect Grape.
Katie stared after her, appalled. Ezra’s body had only been discovered within the hour and already the vultures were circling. She replaced her phone in her purse and nearly jumped as a slight, well-dressed woman—on the high side of fifty—suddenly appeared in front of her still-opened window.
“Am I disturbing you?” the woman asked and bent low, the remnants of a Brooklyn accent tingeing her voice. Her dyed-black pageboy emphasized her pale face.
“Uh ... no,” Katie said.
“I’m Gilda Ringwald. I own Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets across the Square.” She offered her hand.
Katie took it, surprised at the strength of the slight woman’s handshake. “I’m Katie Bonner. Have we met before?”
“Briefly. At dear Chad’s wake. Such a nice young man,” she said and shook her head, her expression somber.
Those days after Chad’s death were a blur, but Katie did remember writing a thank-you note for a lovely gift basket filled with luscious chocolates and fattening cookies that had arrived at the apartment.
“The whole Square has already heard about poor Ezra’s passing. Naturally, we’re all in shock. He was the Merchants Association’s driving force, you know. I don’t know how we’ll manage without him. I expect you’ll be in charge of Artisans Alley’s affairs, won’t you?”
“For now,” Katie admitted.
“You’re not going to close the Alley, are you?” Gilda asked, an edgy note coloring her tone.
“For today, at least. Long term ... I don’t know.”
Gilda nodded over the roof of Katie’s car. “There’s already a crew from Channel Nine rolling tape. I’ll speak to them on behalf of the merchants.” She sighed, clasping her hands. “Ezra would’ve jumped at the chance for this kind of publicity. For the Alley and the Square, I mean.”
She was right about that. And Ezra’s PR efforts had paid off. He’d turned a decrepit warehouse into an artists’ cooperative. On the strength of his labors, the surrounding houses had been converted to boutiques and specialty shops like Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets.
The result was Victoria Square—a budding tourist destination on the cusp of becoming truly successful. With decent marketing, its gaslights and the charming gingerbread facades on the buildings could bring in visitors on their way to Niagara Falls, some eighty miles west, as well as customers from nearby Rochester, New York.
“Artisans Alley’s our anchor,” Gilda continued, her voice firm. “The rest of us need it to pull in shoppers and keep us afloat.”
That was a rather cold assessment of the situation. Had Gilda forgotten that a man had been killed?
“The Merchants Association will probably call an emergency meeting in the next day or so,” Gilda continued. “I hope you’ll come.”
“I’ll try.” Katie caught sight of the dashboard clock, realizing she still hadn’t called her boss to explain her absence.
As though taking the hint, Gilda straightened. “I’ll let you know about the meeting. In the meantime, I’m so sorry about Ezra. I just hope his death isn’t a fatal blow to Victoria Square, too.”
The woman turned on her heel and walked back to her store. With no one else coming her way, Katie realized she could no longer avoid the inevitable, again flipped open her phone, and punched in her work number. It rang once, twice.
“Kimper Insurance, Josh Kimper speaking.”
“Josh, it’s Katie—”
“Where the hell are you?” he bellowed, so loud she had to hold the phone away from her ear. “Do you realize there’s no coffee and I’ve got a client meeting in five minutes?”
“Sorry, Josh, but my late husband’s business partner was killed overnight. As minority owner, I’ll have to take care of things at Artisans Alley here in McKinlay Mill for at least today.”
“I don’t appreciate a last-minute call like this, Katie,” Josh barked.
Katie bit back her anger. “I’m sure Ezra didn’t plan on being murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“The police think it may have happened during a robbery attempt last night.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, with no hint of sympathy. “But you can’t let this affect
your
life.”
Katie knew Josh meant he didn’t want Ezra’s murder to affect
his
life.
Josh Kimper’s abrasive personality alone qualified him as the boss from hell. He’d given Katie a job as office manager when she’d been desperate for work with flexible hours while finishing her graduate degree. Four years later Josh liked to remind her of it on a daily—if not hourly—basis. Since Chad’s death, he’d gotten used to her putting in fifty- and sometimes sixty-hour weeks. Katie had preferred immersing herself in office routine rather than facing her empty apartment—her empty life. And, she wasn’t ashamed to admit, she needed the overtime money.
Paying a good salary was Josh’s carrot to keep her at the agency. She made much less than Josh, of course, but then, he was the talent, as he so often liked to tell her. That left Katie with the drudgery.
“The coffee’s in the cabinet. I brought in homemade chocolate chip cookies yesterday. They’re in the jar on the counter. Put them on a plate, lay out napkins, and everything will be fine.”
“You’d better be in tomorrow,” Josh grated. “We can’t let the filing go for more than a day.”
You could always do it yourself
, she thought, but held her tongue. “I’ll tell you my plans as soon as I know them.”
“And I’m not paying you for today either,” he said.
“Then I’ll take a day of vacation. I still have more than a week left.”
“And you always wait until it’s inconvenient to take it. You’d better be here tomorrow,” Josh ordered again and hung up.
Eyes narrowed, Katie stuck out her tongue at the phone.
“Do you always end your conversations that way?” came an amused male voice from outside her still-opened window.
Chagrined, Katie stabbed the phone’s power button and forced a smile for Deputy Schuler. “Only on days like today.”
“This is Detective Ray Davenport, our lead investigator.” Schuler stepped away, revealing the stocky, balding man Katie had seen earlier. She eyed the ratty raincoat. Was he trying to channel an old Columbo rerun?
Davenport nodded at her. “Ma’am.”
Or maybe he was channeling Joe Friday.
Katie studied the detective’s nondescript face, wondering if his no-nonsense demeanor was a defense mechanism he’d erected to shield him from the results of the violence he saw on a regular basis. Or could it be he was just grumpy? But then, grumpy was an apt description of her current emotional state.
“What can I do for you, Detective?” Katie asked, trying to be helpful.
The older man opened a worn notebook and took a pen from the inside pocket of his raincoat. “Did the deceased—uh, Mr. Hilton—have any family?”
“Deceased.” The word made it sound so ... permanent. Then again, it was.
“Apparently Ezra had a nephew. His lawyer is contacting him,” Katie said.
“And that man’s name is?” Davenport prompted.
“Sorry, I don’t know.” She gave him Seth’s name and phone number, which he dutifully jotted down.
“Did Mr. Hilton always close the place by himself?”
Katie lifted her hands from her lap and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Davenport frowned. “Who might’ve seen the deceased last, ma’am?”
“I—”
“Don’t tell me—you don’t know,” Davenport supplied, slapping his notebook closed. “Would you have a list of all the vendors who rent space at Artisans Alley? We’ll want to talk to everyone to see if they saw something or can tell if anything else was taken from the building.”
“I’m sure there’s a list somewhere in the office. I just don’t know where to put my hands on it. Ezra was pretty much a one-man show—from handling the paperwork, to arranging publicity, to manning the register if need be. From the looks of it, he may have spread himself far too thin.”
“And that,” the detective said with a penetrating gaze, “could be what got him killed.”
Two
The doors to the medical examiner’s van slammed shut, intensifying Katie’s hollow sense of loss. Knowing they’d autopsy Ezra, cutting him open, removing his organs—desecrating his body—made her shudder.
The vehicle’s engine roared to life, and the blue Suburban pulled out of the lot, heading back to the city.
“Good-bye, Ezra,” Katie whispered, and stared at the vacant space for a long time before turning back to Victoria Square’s communal parking lot lined with rubberneckers, including customers and proprietors of all the boutiques. With the show now over, some of them were already skulking back into the warmth inside the shops.
Katie shivered in the brisk autumn breeze. Lake Ontario was only a mile or so down the road, funneling a Canadian cold front their way. God, she felt empty.
She retrieved another piece of candy from her skirt pocket, unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth, and then bit into it, grinding it with her molars. Artisans Alley’s great hulk of a building looked even shabbier since Chad’s death. The faded painted sign over the entrance was covered in insect-dotted spiderwebs. Without Chad to spearhead the holiday decorations, not so much as a corn-stalk heralded the harvest season or Halloween only a week away.
Chad had been a vendor at Artisans Alley for three or four years before his death—though he considered the booth filled with his paintings and artwork to be more of a hobby than a true moneymaking venture. He enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow artists, as well as the opportunity to expand his knowledge to market his work. Four months before his death, and without consulting Katie, he’d put up their combined savings for a ten percent interest in Artisans Alley.