Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [42]
Mike moved his gaze away from her and scanned the shop until he saw Maleah and Derek. As he headed toward them, Lorie rushed to catch up with him, but was waylaid by another customer.
“Do you have any more of those pastel lights, the kind I can use to decorate my Easter egg tree?” Carol Greene asked. “I can’t find the ones I bought last year and I’ve looked high and low.”
“I’ve sold out of them,” Lorie told her. “But I’m expecting more in a new shipment that should arrive by Wednesday.”
“Oh, good. Would you put back a couple of strands for me?”
“I’ll be more than happy to. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“That was it. The kids would be so disappointed if I didn’t decorate that little weeping willow we’ve got in the front yard.”
As soon as Carol walked off, Lorie made her way straight to where Maleah, Derek, and Mike were involved in a hushed conversation. She glanced around the shop and noticed that there were two customers still rummaging around. One customer, Paul Babcock, was shuffling through the assortment of antique postcards, the display arranged on top of one of the various glass cases in the store. Paul could spend hours searching for just the right card to add to his collection. She didn’t recognize the other customer, a young woman who seemed to be simply browsing.
As she approached them, Maleah, Derek, and Mike stopped talking and turned to face her. She ran her gaze from Maleah to Derek and then to Mike. Their somber expressions concerned her.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Is there any way we can talk in private?” Maleah asked. “Don’t you have somebody who comes in to help on weekends?”
“One of my part-time workers has a stomach virus. The other, who wasn’t supposed to work today, went out of town for the weekend.”
“Could you close the shop for, say, thirty minutes?” Derek asked.
“I could, but I still have two—” The doorbell chime jangled. Lorie looked over her shoulder. The lone remaining female customer—the one she didn’t recognize—walked out onto the sidewalk as the shop door closed behind her.
“Paul Babcock is deaf in one ear, but he refuses to wear a hearing aid,” Mike said. “He was in a hunting accident a few years back. I think we can feel certain he won’t overhear anything from where he’s standing over there.”
Maleah looked right at Lorie. “There’s no easy way to say this, so here goes. A man named Charles Wong was murdered last night in his home in Blythe, Arizona. His wife and young stepdaughters found his body this morning when they returned from an overnight camping trip.”
Lorie remembered Charlie. He’d had a wicked sense of humor and was always playing practical jokes. She had really liked him. How awful that he had become the killer’s most recent victim.
“Do you think that the same person who killed Dean and Hilary killed Charlie?” she asked.
Maleah nodded. “Same MO, I’m afraid. Shot several times, one final fatal shot to the head. He was naked and the killer had placed a fancy mask on his face.”
A flash of memory jolted Lorie. Charlie Hung dancing around the Midnight Masquerade set between takes wearing a pair of gym shorts and that strangely beautiful joker mask. All the masks for the movie had been purchased secondhand, but were good quality party masks. The joker mask was stark white, each side marked with a different color stripe, one red and one black, and a glittery gold star accented the left eye-slit.
“The mask—was it a joker mask?” Lorie asked.
“I don’t know,” Maleah replied. “I didn’t ask about specific details.”
“Why do you ask?” Derek questioned.
“Because…” She swallowed and deliberately avoided looking at Mike. “Charlie wore a joker mask in the movie.”
“We need to find out if each of the victims