A Body on Fitzgerald's Bluff : Seaview Cottages Cozy Mystery #1 by Anna Celeste Burke

Author:Anna Celeste Burke
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2018-12-02T23:00:00+00:00

11 A Bad Boy Shopper?

Our first couple of stops on our mystery shopper adventure turned out to be duds. I’d spotted the Caswell-Massey cologne shop that the website had listed among all the stores at the resort. It carries men and women’s fragrances. Pete had a cologne he used, off and on, for years after we visited their store in Cleveland. I was inspired as I explained this to Neely on our way.

“Maybe I noticed the fragrance out there on the beach because I smelled it before in that Cleveland store.”

“It’s worth a try. Let’s check,” Neely said.

After fifteen minutes, I gave up. Nothing came close. Neely suggested it might not have been a man’s cologne. After a similar effort sampling a few women’s perfumes, I could barely distinguish one fragrance from another.

“That’s because you have ‘nose fatigue.’ That’s why some people wear too much perfume. When your nose gets too full of a fragrance, you need to give it a rest. All the little receptors are tuckered out. Even if you switch from one fragrance to another, the colognes are likely to share some of the same base elements.”

“Time for a break, huh?” I asked. Neely nodded and led us out of the shop.

I tried not to let my discouragement show. A few minutes later, when we passed a Brooks Brother’s clothing store that carried several proprietary fragrances, I tried again. We had no luck there either.

“Oh well, what difference will it make if we discover which fragrance it is? It’s not likely to put us any closer to knowing who wore it.” I sighed heavily. “I hope this mystery shopper idea won’t be a complete waste of your time.”

“Chin up, Tara, my daughter. We’re just getting started! The gift card I have is burning a hole in my pocket. We’ll look much more the part if we’re carrying bags from a posh place like Two.” Neely darted off and then pushed her way into the small store. The pencil-thin waif slouching on a bar stool near the register took one look at us and went back to scrolling through pictures or messages on her cell phone.

“Holler if I can help you,” she said with her eyes downcast. She must have assumed we were merely browsing or killing time. At least she wasn’t giving us the hard sell that I’d experienced in some of the mall stores in Ohio.

“Will do! You must be reading about that dead woman they found on the beach. She worked here, didn’t she?”

“Not in this shop,” she replied without even looking up.

“I heard she was a shopaholic. She must have shopped in a cutting-edge place like this, right? In LA, everyone is talking about Two. That’s how I got this great gift card in my A-List Swag Bag at the premiere of Mindy’s Mark.” Neely glanced at me as she embellished her story about how she got her hands on that gift card. Given my track record when it comes to fibbing, I wasn’t going to correct her.

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