Death Drops Read online

  When she reached us, I could see that perspiration dotted her hairline and her face was flushed. “Hey, Willow, I was just coming up to see you.”

  “Why is it so hot down here?”

  She wiped her face with a napkin from her pocket. “I think the AC is down. It’s been getting hotter and hotter over the past hour. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to run up and tell you.”

  I looked around the café. Was she the only one on duty? “Is anyone else helping you?”

  She shrugged. “It’s Julian’s day off, and Ron and Stephanie both called in sick. The two of them were tight with Janice, so I’m thinking it’s a show of solidarity.”

  Great, now Janice’s malice had extended to my staff? It was getting very difficult not to consider her the enemy. Had she tampered with the AC, too? That aside, Merrily needed help now. And the AC had to be fixed.

  Hector, who had apprenticed as an electrician for his father when he was a teenager, and I headed out back to check the cooling unit behind the building. He studied the unit, flipped a couple of switches, turned it back on, and proclaimed it fixed. “Someone turned it off, that’s all. But it will still take some time to cool everything off.”

  “But who would tamper with the AC on a hot day like this?”

  “Perhaps it is a mischievous spirit,” Hector said, his eyes twinkling.

  “I’ll bet it was Janice. She used to work here and has a grudge because she’s not in the will.”

  “Yes,” he said, considering this. “That’s a possibility, too.”

  We went back inside. While Hector told Allie what had happened, I went to find Merrily in the kitchen. She was there all right, juggling two plates of food and scanning a third order. It seemed we were busy, which was a relief, despite the problems with the air-conditioning.

  “Can I help?” I asked her.

  She looked at me. “Are you sure?”

  “Hey, we’re all in this together. What do you need?”

  “I need someone to man the checkout counter.” She pointed to where a woman stood, a pile of bread, cheese, toothpaste, and assorted supplements, among other items, heaped in front of her. “And tables two and four have been waiting for me to take their order.” She pointed out the tables in the brightly colored dining room.

  “I’ll man the counter and get Allie to help you. She’s done it before.” Allie had worked at a health food store very much like this one during college. I called her over and explained what we needed.

  Merrily handed Allie her order pad. “Could you? I can make up the orders once you have them.”

  I considered this. “Does that system work? Where you have to make up your own orders?”

  “It’s pretty simple, actually, since most of the dishes aren’t complicated. It works well.” Could we serve more people and do it faster if we had a chef? I wondered. Something to think about.

  Allie hustled over to the tables to take the orders. Hector tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you need me to help?”

  “You’ve done enough by fixing the AC.” I smiled. “Why don’t you grab a drink and something to eat?” I pointed to the prepared sandwiches in the glass-fronted counter. “Then if you can, get back to painting. The sooner we get you set up, the sooner we can bring customers in.” We all needed that revenue.

  “No problem,” Hector said, squeezing me on the shoulder and giving me a grin. “I’ll be upstairs making it beautiful for you.”

  “I know you will. Thank you, Hector.”

  “It is my pleasure, truly. I am so happy to be out of the city. It is paradise here.” He grabbed a sandwich and a drink from the refrigerator and headed back upstairs. I felt really lucky to have both of them here. It also tickled me that Hector appreciated the East End the way I did.

  As I headed for the counter, the UPS man showed up with a package and left it in the hallway. I gave him a wave and turned my attention to the customer. “Did you find everything you needed?”

  A slightly overweight woman with a severe haircut and dressed in a running suit, a toddler clutching her hand, gave me a baleful look. “Not really. I could use some energy.” She looked down at her daughter, whose pretty face was framed with a wild tangle of blond curls. “With this one, I’m going twenty-four/seven.”

  “When do you feel tired?” I asked.

  “I wake up tired. I have to push myself through the day.”

  I appraised her. First of all, she was about twenty pounds overweight. Second, her skin looked dry. She also seemed depressed. Classic signs of hypothyroidism or low thyroid function. “Have you been tested for hypothyroidism?”

  She crinkled her nose. “What’s that?”

  “It’s when your thyroid gland, located here”—I pointed to the base of my throat—“doesn’t work the way it should. The thyroid gland is the master of your metabolism. So if you aren’t getting enough thyroid hormone, you gain weight and feel sluggish and moody.”

  Her eyes lit up. “That sounds like me. How do you know about this?”

  “I’m a naturopathic doctor. My name is Willow McQuade.”

  “I’ve heard of those. My name is Sammy Braff. This is Skye.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sammy and Skye.” I walked around behind the counter. “Now, you’ll need blood tests to tell if you are hypothyroid for sure, but you have all the classic signs. Your best bet is to see an integrative physician who can order the blood tests you need and interpret them correctly. Conventional doctors order a TSH or thyroid-stimulating hormone test, and it’s just not reliable in many cases. An integrative doctor will test all aspects of your thyroid function. Once he or she confirms you have hypothyroidism, you’ll be prescribed a natural thyroid replacement called Armour Thyroid. I think you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel, how much more energy you have.”

  “Can I make an appointment with you?”

  “I’m not set up to consult with patients just yet.” Although that’s the next thing I should be thinking about, I realized. “But you can locate some great doctors by visiting Mary Shomon’s website on thyroid problems. There’s a section called Top Docs where you can find someone on Long Island or in New York City to help you.”

  I tallied up her purchases as I talked: sprouted wheat bread, organic almond butter, paper towels, organic cheese, natural toothpaste, B-complex and super C vitamins, and tofu. I picked up the package of tofu. “You may want to stay away from this. Soy is what’s known as a goitrogen, and it can suppress thyroid function. So do cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower.”

  “I won’t buy it, then. Thanks for the advice. Would it be okay if I stayed in touch with you? I mean, if I had any questions?”

  “Absolutely.” I picked up a Nature’s Way Market and Café business card and wrote my cell phone number on the back along with the Top Doc website address: www.thryoid-info.com. “Here you go. Good luck.”

  “Thank you so much.” She handed me her credit card, and I ran it through the machine. “Mommy is going to feel better soon,” she said, tousling her little girl’s hair.

  Treating her hypothyroidism would completely change her life for the better. “Yes, she is,” I said, and smiled.

  That taken care of, I checked out the package the UPS man had left. The label said it was from Green Focus, but it wasn’t addressed to us. Instead, it was addressed to the health food store across the street, Nature’s Best. I thought about what Nick had said concerning their efforts to sabotage Nature’s Way and decided I needed to check them out. I told Merrily and Allie I’d be right back and headed across the street.

  The day was hot but gorgeous, with an aqua sky that matched the water. I started down the crosswalk, the lovely breeze from the bay drifting over my skin, and headed over to Nature’s Best. The outside of the building was dark and dingy. Their latest advertising circular was stuck up in the window along with announcements of Earth walks and yoga classes.

  I pulled the door open and went inside. With the lack of quality lighting,
the dark green walls, and the smell of mildew, the store wasn’t very inviting. The cash register was crammed next to the front window, and the aisles were narrow and looked hard to maneuver. There were no signs telling you where to find what you needed, like we had in Nature’s Way.

  Stopping at a cash register, I put the box on the counter. A bored-looking, college-age guy glanced at it, half listened to my explanation, and thanked me for bringing it over. As long as I was in the neighborhood, I decided to check out the competition.

  I browsed the center aisle all the way to the back of the store, scanning the shelves as I went, looking to see what products they offered and what they didn’t. In the back, where the kitchen was located, a good-looking surfer type was putting together orders and handing them to customers to take out. I thought about our situation, in which the waitstaff had to make their own sandwiches and dishes, and considered again that there had to be a better and more profitable way to do business.

  Halfway back to the front door, I stumbled on the cosmetic section, which was chockablock full of Green Focus products, and I saw what Nick meant about underpricing. The prices were ridiculously low, 30 to 40 percent less than what Nature’s Way charged.

  As I examined the selection, a short, forty-something man with bulging biceps approached me wearing a T-shirt that said “Nature’s Best. Forget the Rest.” Right.

  “Help you?” he said in a way that was not friendly but, rather, perfunctory, like he really didn’t want to help me at all. He reached into an open box on the floor that was full of Green Focus merchandise and grabbed a few bottles of hand cream and shoved them onto the shelf. The way he moved, slowly and with effort, led me to believe he had arthritis.

  If this was the owner, former bodybuilder Gavin Milton, arthritis would make sense. Bodybuilding involves lots of bodily wear and tear, which is what osteoarthritis is known as, the wear-and-tear disease. Taking supplements such as glucosamine and chondroitin can help with pain and to rebuild cartilage. But I was not here to see a patient; I was here for information. “I’m just checking out your store,” I said. “Are you Gavin Milton?”

  He nodded, giving me a wary look.

  “I’m Willow McQuade, Claire’s niece?”

  He gave me a questioning look and reached down to grab a handful of beeswax lip balms.

  “From across the street? Nature’s Way Market and Café?” I added. The place you want to drive out of business?

  He grunted and put the lip balms in a lip balm holder. “Oh yeah. Sorry to hear about your aunt,” he said, sounding anything but heartfelt.

  “Thank you. I wanted to introduce myself, since I’m taking over my aunt’s store.” I stuck my hand out, and he shook it.

  “Do you know anything about running a health food store?” he asked.

  Was he hoping the answer was no so he could ease up on his efforts to drive us out of business?

  “Not much, but I am a naturopathic doctor. I have plenty of experience prescribing natural remedies.”

  He harrumphed at this. “Oh, one of those.”

  His reaction surprised me, since he ran a health food store. I would have expected him to be more enlightened, but maybe he got into the business only for the money. Before I could tell him how misguided he was, my iPhone rang. I plucked it out of my pocket and looked at the display. It was a text message from Natasha, who was across the street. I loved my sister, and we had been very close our whole lives, which was why this estrangement was so painful. I did not look forward to yet another argument about my mother and Aunt Claire. I texted her back and returned the phone to my pocket. She’d have to wait.

  Gavin kept talking. “I give you a month. I’m not optimistic about your chances. That store has been going downhill over the past six months. Your aunt’s head was not in the game.”

  “We had a break-in and a fire this week. That didn’t help,” I said, wondering for the first time if he might know more than he was letting on. Why had he chosen to open his business right across the street from my aunt’s in the first place? He had to have known just how well-established her business was. Maybe he was hoping to draft off her business. I had heard somewhere that when restaurants are close together, business actually increases for both. I didn’t quite know why.

  “Oh yeah, I heard about those accidents. Two in one week, huh?” He averted his eyes, picked up a stack of Kiss My Face soaps from the open box, and began to put them on the shelf.

  I eyed him like Larry David does when he’s determining guilt or innocence on Curb Your Enthusiasm. I couldn’t say which category he fell into.

  He grabbed another box and pulled out several bottles of peppermint and willow bark extract. I thought of the list of ingredients in Aunt Claire’s formula. Was he the thief? He put six bottles of each on the shelf, leaving the rest in the box, and pushed the box aside.

  He toed another box over in front of him, bent down, and ripped it open. From it he pulled several tubes of toothpaste and put them on the shelf. In another box was moisturizing cream.

  I examined more closely the boxes strewn in the aisle. All of them, except for the peppermint and willow bark box, were from Green Focus.

  “You do a lot of business with Green Focus,” I said, hoping for some helpful information.

  “So what?” That box empty of moisturizing cream, he grabbed the box cutter, opened the next box, and turned his back, clearly dismissing me.

  So nothing, but I was going to keep my eye on him from now on. I headed out the door and mentally prepared myself for my sister’s visit. But when I hit the sidewalk, I noticed the cook had followed me out the door.

  Nervously, he ran his hand through his spiky blond hair and said, “Hey, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Gavin. I was wondering if I could talk to you? I’m Stephen.”

  “I’m Willow. What do you want to talk about?” Maybe he was going to rat Gavin out, or maybe he wanted to defect and come work for me. Not a bad idea, depending on his skills.

  He glanced back toward the store. “I’m kind of slammed today, but I could come over tomorrow after three. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  “Great,” Stephen said, and darted back inside.

  I hit the crosswalk and mulled over my conversation with Milton. He was obviously hiding something, and maybe Stephen knew what it was. As I walked up the path to the door, I noticed we had new customers seated outside. Smart, considering the AC situation and the wonderful breeze from the bay. Allie had already served them fresh lemonade and was now in the process of taking their order like a real pro. I opened the door, took a couple of deep breaths, and prepared myself for Natasha.

  I found her in Aunt Claire’s office, rummaging through the stacks of correspondence I’d organized. Natasha was so involved in what she was doing that she didn’t even notice me come in. Qigong did, though. He hopped off the couch and came over. I scratched him behind the ears and noticed that his wound definitely looked much improved. I let Natasha search a bit more, and then I said, “What are you looking for exactly?”

  Natasha jumped as if I’d poked her with a sharp stick. “Nothing,” she said in a curt, clipped tone. “I was waiting for you.” She tapped her expensive-looking watch, which went with her expensive-looking designer suit. “Where have you been?”

  I decided not to push the matter of what she’d been looking for. My guess? The secret anti-aging formula. News traveled fast in a small town like this. Although Natasha didn’t believe in natural medicine, she knew many other people did and that a product that keeps you looking young could be worth a lot. “So how’s Mom?”

  “You’d know if you ever bothered to call or go by,” she snapped.

  Now, I knew my mother was perfectly all right. I’d just spoken to her this morning before we headed out to get painting supplies, but no matter. Natasha was always out to play the “gotcha” game. “What can I do for you, Natasha?”

  Natasha got up and walke
d to the door, pointing out into the store and café. “You really think you can run this business? You have no experience in retail. Aunt Claire must have been out of her mind to put you in charge.”

  Wanting to reclaim my territory, I went to the desk chair and sat down. Qigong hopped on my lap. “Who did you have in mind?”

  Natasha sat primly in the guest chair and crossed her long legs. “Janice. That would placate her, and then she wouldn’t be making this fuss about the will. It’s embarrassing for the entire family. Can’t you see you’ve handled this all wrong?” Natasha had a knack for pointing out my flaws, real or imagined, so she could feel superior.

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “Aunt Claire made it clear that she wanted me to be in charge.” Plus I thought I’d made some good decisions so far, from making Merrily my new right hand to bringing Allie and Hector in to boost our revenue stream.

  “From what I can tell, Claire just wasn’t herself when she redid her will.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A little birdie.”

  “A little birdie named Janice, I presume.”

  “Okay, yes. I talked to Janice after the funeral. You’ve really treated her shabbily considering all she did for Claire. And you even told the police that she was involved in Claire’s death. Just like you told the police about the rift between Claire and me and Mother. The police have actually questioned me. Did you know that? They came to my office yesterday. They’re acting as though I have something to hide.” Her purse buzzed. She opened it up, pulled out her cell, read the text message, and kept talking. “And of course I don’t. I just told them about Aunt Claire’s ways and how she could get on people’s bad sides. I explained about the falling out and how it had been resolved, but I need you to back me up.”

  Well, it hadn’t been resolved completely, considering Aunt Claire had cut both my sister and mother out of the will.