Determined to get an answer, I unzipped the bag to reveal a metal detector. “You are a treasure hunter,” I said accusatorily.
“No. Not really. I . . . I . . .” Her shoulders sagged. “I like trinkets. I go to lots of different beaches to search for them. Watches, earrings, bracelets. Like these.” She shook her wrist, and the bangles jangled again. “And these earrings.” She jiggled her head. “I’ve found sets of keys. I turn them in when I can.”
“But you keep the rest.”
Tears moistened her eyes but didn’t fall. “I’m not a complete opportunist. I’ve helped all sorts of strangers find treasures, too. Those who know I’m fixated with the hobby.”
“Did you use this tool in Open Your Imagination?” I asked.
“No!” she wailed. “No. I’ve never taken it out of the bag in a shop. Ever. Only on the beach. Promise.”
Fiona said, “Nurturer fairies help humans find things, Courtney. They’re good souls. I think she is, too.”
I nodded in agreement.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sometimes we dance upon the shore,
To whistling winds and seas that roar;
Then we make the wind to blow
And set the seas a-dancing, too.
~ Anonymous, “The Fairies’ Song”
I PAID FOR MY TREAT,but I didn’t take it to go. Asking pressing questions often made me lose my appetite. I swung by Open Your Imagination to drop off the cookies and found Joss finalizing a sale for a customer.
When the customer left, I said, “Don’t eat these all at once.”
“As if. I’ll offer them to our regulars.” Joss peeked inside the box. “How pretty. I love the whisks of snow on the snowmen’s bellies. So”—she took one and bit into it—“did you learn anything?”
“Shara owns a metal detector,” Fiona said.
“But Fiona and I don’t think she’s the killer,” I added, and explained our reasoning. “I should visit the Monterey County Assessor-Recorder’s Office.”
Joss polished off the cookie and brushed crumbs from her hands into the trash basket. “To learn what?”
“If Tianna could have had legitimate ancestral rights to the courtyard property.”
“She didn’t,” a man said emerging from the hall, his overcoat hanging open, his red suspenders, white shirt, and baggy chinos in full view.
Ferguson Moss. I winced.
“Did he just use the facilities?” I whispered to Joss.
“Yes,” she said, sotto voce.
“Why is he here?”
“To buy a gift for his girlfriend.”
“Even after claiming what we do at the shop is a hoax?”
“He thinks saying we see fairies is deceitful, but he liked the Christmas bells.” She pointed to a tote bag tied with raffia.
“As to your question about Miss Thistle’s entitlement to the property,” Ferguson rasped, “she does not own it now, and none of her ancestors did in the past.”
