“I’mkidding!”
“I know.” He closed the gap between them again, chuckling. “I don’t think you have it in you, anyway.”
“But who does?” Amie asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
They entered the grocery store, cold air greeting them as they passed the shopping carts and headed for the flower counter. Amie sucked in a breath as she caught sight of the employee at the counter.
“That’s the same guy from Monday!” she whispered, patting David’s arm with excitement.
“I’m very happy for you,” he said. “I’m also going to make myself scarce to avoid implicating myself any further. Find me when you’re done; I’m going to see if there’s still a sale on condiments.”
“Mkay,” Amie murmured, not fully listening as she began crafting her game plan for approaching the employee. Then, processing what David had said, she called over her shoulder, “Sale ended Tuesday!”
“Damn it!” echoed his reply from the aisle he’d withdrawn to.
The man working at the flower counter was grimacing at several orange-and-red bouquets sitting in front of him, anxiously tugging at his hair as Amie approached.
“Hi …” Amie’s eyes darted to the name tag on the man’s shirt. “… Winston. How are you?”
Winston glanced up at her. “Fine, thanks,” he said, his tone distant as he focused on his work. “How can I help you?”
“You were working here on Monday, right?” Amie asked. She knew he had been, but didn’t want to startle him by opening with “DID YOU TALK TO THE POLICE?”
“Yeah. Do you mind walking with me?”
Amie blinked as the man stepped away from his post and headed into the labyrinth of flowers to the right of the counter. “Oh, sure.”
She hurried after him, picking her way through buckets of lilies and irises.
“Customer’s picking up this order in ten minutes,” Winston explained, stopping by a bushel of aster. “What did you ask, again?”
“You were working here on Monday,” Amie repeated. “You interacted with Savannah Harlow, right?”
Winston froze, giving her a defensive look. “Maybe. Why?”
“Sorry, I just …” Howwasshe going to explain this? “I was just wondering if you spoke to the police about the argument she had with the man who came over. His name was David.”
“Yeah. I caught his name somewhere in between her calling him a nosy idiot and a self-righteous asshole.” Winston returned to the aster, still casting hesitant looks in Amie’s direction. “The police didn’t ask many questions when they came by. They just wanted to know what she was yelling about that made him come over, and what they said to each other.”
“Sorry, the police came to talk to you? You didn’t contact them?”
“Course not. Why would I contact them?”
Amie frowned. That meant the cops had already been pursuing the tip before they spoke to Winston.
“WhatwasSavannah yelling about?” she asked.
Winston hesitated, and Amie got a sense he was trying to figure out how to ask “Why do you care?” in a customer-friendly way.
“David’s my friend,” she explained. “I think someone might have been trying to frame him by telling the police about their argument. I’m just trying to find out more about what happened.”
She gave him a thin-lipped smile, hoping she looked sympathetic enough to help out.
The man sighed. “Savannah was upset because her flowers hadn’t been delivered. She kept screaming at me as I tried pulling up her order, but I just started working here last week and our computer system is a million years old, so it was taking forever.” He’d begun picking aster from the bucket, then paused. “Pussy willows,” he murmured, returning the flowers. “Maybe that’d be better.”
“Then what happened?” Amie asked as the man strode past her, not wanting him to lose his train of thought.
