I picked up a jar of her lavender-scented bath oil.
“How much for these?”
She frowned.
“Here,” she said. “Try this instead.”
She tried to hand me something called “Scheherazade.” I could tell from the name, without even reading the label, that it would be dripping with musk.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’d rather have the lavender. Lavender’s good for dealing with stress, remember? And that’s certainly something I have plenty of today. Stress, I mean, not lavender. I’m all out of lavender.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I can’t sell you that. I just don’t see you as a person who should be using lavender.”
“Why not?”
“Scents have personalities, too, you know,” she said. “And if you’re wearing the wrong scent for your personality, it’s as bad as wearing the wrong color for your skin. It creates all kinds of psychic conflict.”
“So what scent should I wear?”
“Here, let me try something,” she said, rummaging among some small brown bottles on her table with one hand while she tried to grab my wrist with the other.
“No, tell me what scents you recommend first,” I said, pulling my hands back out of reach.
“Strong, forceful scents,” she said. “Cinnamon. Clove. And musk.”
“Cinnamon and clove are all right,” I said. “But not musk. I hate musk.”
“See!” she said, as if this proved something. “I knew it! You’re fighting your true sensual nature.”
“Musk makes me sneeze, and I’d sooner just roll in a compost heap,” I said. “I don’t see why you won’t sell me some of that lavender bath oil you sold me the last half dozen times I’ve seen you. I promise not to wear it out in public and embarrass you. I just want to take a nice, hot, relaxing bath in it tonight. It’s good for relaxing, isn’t it? And—”
I stopped myself when I realized, from the look on poor Rosemary’s face, that I was raising my voice. I took a deep breath.
“Never mind,” I said. “If you won’t sell me any lavender, how about rose?”
She shook her head.
I gave up.
Time I got back to more important things. Like trying to get the yard sale back on track. And trying to keep Chief Burke from arresting poor Giles.
I realized that I hadn’t seen Giles recently. Not since before my travels in the dumbwaiter. Dad was just stepping away from the funnel cake booth with his prize in hand, so I fell into step beside him.
“Seen Giles lately?” I asked.
“Not since the lawyer got here,” he said. “They went upstairs somewhere to talk.”
“Well, that’s a relief. That he’s talking to his lawyer, for a change, instead of the cops. No thanks,” I said, as Dad held out his funnel cake. “I don’t want to deprive you.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve had a couple already.”
“Ah, so that’s why there’s already powdered sugar all over your costume,” I said, nodding. “If you keep this up, you’ll look more like a snowy owl than a great horned owl.”
Dad’s hearty laugh raised a cloud of powdered sugar, and he went off to share my joke with the rest of the family.
I was momentarily distracted by a table at which one of our neighbors was selling what looked like a lifetime supply of organizational tools—every kind of box, bag, tote, basket, shelf, and bin I’d ever seen and some I hadn’t. Had she won a free, all-you-can-carry shopping binge at The Container Store and decided to sell off the surplus? I could still feel the seductive promise—that everything would be okay if I just organized my stuff, and here were the tools that could do it. But I broke the spell and walked away. Probably because Edwina Sprocket had built up her own impressive collection of organizational gizmos, and they hadn’t kept clutter from taking over the house while she’d lived there. We’d put most of the bins and totes out with the other yard sale loot, and they’d been one of the first things people snapped up and fought over.
Back to business, I told myself. I decided to go inside and see if I could talk to Giles.
I found him and the lawyer in the dining room—apparently the chief was finished with his interrogation. The lawyer was talking to someone on his cell phone, or at least trying to—he stood over by the window, shouting into it. Giles sat slumped on one of the folding chairs.
He didn’t look up when I came in, so I went over and tapped him gently on the shoulder.
“Good God, what now?” he snapped, but the anger faded as soon as he saw it was me.