by Molly Macrae
“A word, Coleridge.” Ardis stepped away from Joe’s shop, inviting Clod over with a crook of her finger.
Dozens of happy people chattered around us, and the trio launched into an energetic “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” A sigh played around the starch in Clod’s face, but I didn’t hear it over the crowd and the music. We both answered Ardis’s beckon.
“Do you have anything to report, Coleridge?” Ardis asked. “Either regarding Garland or the trouble here yesterday—or about the extra security laid on last night? Did Mr. Rogalla report any incidents?” She liked to pretend he regularly consulted and confided in her. She called it harmless fun, like play-wrestling for a bone with a bloodhound. I worried it was more like tickling a copperhead’s chin. But sometimes Clod surprised us by throwing us a scrap.
“He had nothing unexpected to report,” he said. “He and Bruce spent an uncomfortable night. Rogalla, anyway. I have no information about how the dog slept.”
“Very good. What about Gar, Cole?” She was serious now. “Is there anything new?”
“I wish I could tell you there is, Ms. Buchanan. If you’ll excuse me, I need to see a man about his dog.” He took off at a trot toward Floyd Decker’s. Rogalla and Bruce were just disappearing into the antique shop.
“Lack of progress isn’t new. I’ll grant him that,” Ardis said. “But winding up back at square one because you’ve crossed the prime suspects off your list is. We know he smells a rat. Surely he has that rat or others in his sights. Do you think he’s playing his own game?”
“He could be.”
“Then we’ll have to step up ours. Suggestions?”
“We need to know who was in the building yesterday, who knew about the tablecloth, who has that kind of grudge against Belinda, where the tablecloth was destroyed, how, and where the shreds are now. And with the car gang off the table, we need to know if there’s any possible connection between Gar’s death and the Vault.”
“That’s what you should have put in your note last night, not that poppycock about Nervie and Gar. Get those questions down and send them to the posse.”
“Mel’s catering the refreshments, and Ernestine, Thea, and John said they’ll be here.”
“Add this to your text—our goal is the apprehension of, or any piece of information leading to the apprehension of, Gar’s killer or the person who destroyed your tablecloth. Eyes and ears open, Kath. I think it’s time to split up.”
“I just saw Thea go into the vault.”
Ardis looked blank.
“The bank’s vault. It’s a bookshop. You know Simon Grace?”
“It’s his? Good. I’ll rendezvous there with Thea and bring her up to speed. And make sure she doesn’t spend all her yarn money on books.”
“Shall we touch base back at Joe’s in thirty minutes to compare notes?”
“Brown’s. Get the name right, hon, and make it an hour. You know me once I get to talking. And make it wherever Mel is catering. We’ll be thirsty by then. Put that in the text, too. Sound good? Good. Eyes and ears, Kath. Keep them open. And if we’re lucky—”
“Lucky ducks?”
“If we get it right, maybe we can apprehend both sets of villains in one fowl swoop.”
Geneva complained, from time to time, about Ardis being too ardent. The obvious retort was that it takes one to know one, but I tried to be the grown-up in my friendship with the ghost who was a hundred and sixty plus change.
I watched ardent Ardis go into Simon’s bookshop. Then I tiptoed after Clod.
TEN
Clod, Rogalla, and Bruce appeared to be shopping for a rolltop desk. They watched as Floyd unlocked a clever door set into the side of the desk. I kept one eye on them and the other on where I went so I didn’t bump into or knock over something I couldn’t afford. The small, gray-glazed crock sitting too near my elbow, for instance. Its round-shouldered shape appealed to me and its single, loosely brushed cobalt blue flower reminded me of Granny’s eyes. According to its label, the crock was made near Blue Plum and almost as old as Geneva. Floyd’s price asked for three times her age. I backed away and hoped the little boys who’d just come in with their dads were well-behaved.
Bruce lost interest in the desk and turned around to sniff at the legs of a small table. It looked like a bedside table, except for the square slab of marble set into the top. It had a hinged lid, too. The lid stood open. When shut, it would cover the marble. Huh.
Bruce thought huh about something, too, and stared back toward the desk. He did his jazz hands again. Then he plopped down and tugged on the leash, wanting to head out the door. But then he stopped tugging, appeared to do a double take, and stared at something above the little table, his ears perked. But only for a second; then he turned and sniffed at a plate of cookies one of the boys had brought in. The boy, who couldn’t be older than four, dropped the plate and started to cry.
“Here, Bruce,” Rogalla said. “Come away.”
“Your dance partner’s a distraction, Rogalla,” Clod said. “Take him home and teach him the Possum Trot.”
The children’s fathers made no move to help. One of them watched as Rogalla pulled Bruce away from the broken cookies and Clod tried to calm the boy. The other dad, oblivious, stood in the doorway with his back to anything going on in the antique shop. Rogalla said something to him on his way out and got no response. I looked around for the second child. He’d sat down in a small rocker and gained enough momentum to start rocking across the floor toward a table. A table with a display of treenware, tartanware, and fragile red-glazed pottery. Putting myself in the mad rocker’s path, I waved to catch the dad’s attention.
“Ain’t mine,” he said. He nudged his buddy, and without a word between them, they were gone.
Floyd, looking alarmed, extricated himself from discussing a corner cupboard with another customer. But, except for Clod trying to play peek-a-boo to get the other child to stop crying, no other adults paid any kind of parental attention to the children. Taking the chance my actions might start the second little guy crying, I put my foot on one of the chair’s rockers, bringing it to a halt. The boy looked up at me, his eyes as alarmed as Floyd’s.
“Hey, great rocking,” I said. “Yippee!” And I gave him a round of applause.
The child thought about that for a second. Then he yelled, “Yay!” and clapped, too.
Now what?
“I think I hear the mom calling,” a woman near the door said.
“Not panicking nearly enough, though,” another woman said. She turned and roared over her shoulder, “Here! They’re in here.” She looked back at us and said, “Provided their names are Ace and Axel.”
The mother arrived towing a younger, third boy. Her smiling reunion with the first two sounded like a normal occurrence. Clod tried to have a word about keeping the children with her. She seemed to think he’d complimented their speed and agility. I hoped she never took up needlework and brought the boys to run loose in the Cat.
I waved to Floyd. He mouthed a thank-you, and I went to find a quieter place to compose the text to the members of TGIF. Of course, no one wanted a quiet grand opening, but maybe I could find a more peaceful corner.
Clod caught up to me before I figured out where to go. “Which way did they go?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The guys you’re looking for.”
“I’m not—wait. Have you ever actually said that before?”
“I took an oath. Use all law enforcement clichés once a month. You can’t tell me you weren’t onto that dude with the beard and his buddy in Floyd’s. No way they’re antique buffs.”
One of the guys had a beard? Way to keep your eyes and ears open, Kath. “Maybe their wives or girlfriends are here shopping.”
“Girlfriends, maybe. No rings.” Clod wiggled the fingers of his left hand but scanned the crowd as he talked and didn’t look at me. “You got a good look at them, though?”
Because he wasn’t looking at me, he didn’t see my
vacillating head bob.
“Do me a favor,” he said, “and let me know if you see them again.”
“May I ask why?”
“Do you want the polite answer or the expeditious one?”
“Expeditious is fine.”
“You’re nosy.”
“And?” I already knew that, so the and probably sounded only slightly belligerent.
“I want to know who that dude and his buddy are.”
“Out of all the other people here? Why?”
“I’m nosy, too.” Then he did look at me. “It’s not just them, but I don’t know them. It’s how I do my work. Unusual catches my eye. Besides, the dude reminds me of one of Joe’s rat-faced McDougals.”
“What do you want to know about them?”
“I’m not asking you to find out anything about them. Just if you see them, let me know. You know what? Forget it.” He started to walk away.
“Wait.” I pointed at myself. “Nosy, remember? You can’t ask that and then not answer questions.”
“Yeah, I can.”
“Well, you can’t ask without expecting me to ask back.”
His shrug must have meant okay.
“Okay, first. If ‘nosy’ is the expeditious answer, what’s the polite one?” I waited. He avoided my eye. “Ha! You didn’t have a polite one.”
“Put it this way; you’re a magnet for talk.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You collect information,” he said. “You futz around, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and you end up knowing all this . . . stuff. It’s like it sticks to you. Like iron filings.”
“What a lovely image. And so much more polite than a piddly little ‘nosy.’ You could have tempered that—accurately—by adding that I’m good at solving problems. Sometimes before you do.”
“Sometimes creating others along the way.”
“Since when?”
He rubbed his nose. Taught you a lesson, too, didn’t I? I thought, but didn’t say aloud. I felt that I’d gotten over the experience. And I kept assuming Clod would, too. You couldn’t even tell his nose had been broken, for goodness sake. I pressed my luck. “One more nosy question, then. Do you think Gar’s death is somehow tied to the Vault?”
He didn’t answer and didn’t look back.
I’d wasted enough time. I leaned against the wall outside Floyd’s, composed the text to the posse, and sent it. Thea was the only one, besides Mel, who’d sent a response to my original Nervie-Gar text. Thea, true to her roots as a librarian and fashionista, quoted Marilyn Monroe: “It’s better to be ridiculous than boring.” My life since moving to Blue Plum had hardly been boring. So, where to start being ridiculous?
I glanced across at the bookshop. Joe and Belinda weren’t the only ones who’d saved surprises to unveil for the grand opening. Simon had waited to hang his sign—Simon Says Books. He’d chosen one in the style of a British pub sign, with a painting of a rosy-cheeked publican offering a stack of books on his open palm. That sign would be more inviting than a tankard of ale for a bookaholic, and that’s why I found Thea still there.
“Hey.”
“Shhh,” Thea said. “We’re in a cathedral. Do you see what he has?” Standing in front of one of Simon’s glass-fronted bookcases, she pointed to one of the books. “Murder Yet to Come by Isabel Briggs Myers, the woman famous for the personality test. This is her first piece of fiction, and it won the Detective Murder Mystery contest in 1929. Published in 1930. First edition. I can hardly breathe.”
“You keep circling back to that one book.” Simon came over with a key in his hand. “I think it wants to come out and let you pet it.”
Thea backed away. “Absolutely not.”
“Really, it’s all right. Do you want to see it?”
“Just admiring. Thanks.”
“But now you’ve hurt its feelings.” Simon looked as though she’d hurt his feelings, too.
“Blame it on my budget. It hurts my feelings all the time. Here, this won’t make up for it, but it’ll show we can at least be friends.” Thea went over to a display of used paperbacks and picked out two. “Do I pay here or on the way out?”
“On the way out, and I hope you’ll come back. Especially if you manage to give your budget the slip.”
“Will do. How’d you rate the vault?”
“I’ve been telling people they let me have it because it’s where they kept the bank’s books. Get it?”
“Did they?” I asked. “Keep the books here, I mean.”
“I doubt it, but it sounds good.”
“The shop looks good, too,” Thea said.
Simon laughed. “Thanks. Ardis recognized it right off. I did the set for 84 Charing Cross Road when the repertory theater did it a couple of summers ago. I loved that set. This is more substantial, of course.”
“The locked cases are smart,” I said.
Simon made a quick, unhappy face. “It isn’t the best business plan to have stuff locked away, but I can’t have my most valuable stock walking off, especially after—” He glanced around before continuing. The space was cozy, but other customers weren’t jostling us for room. “You were here yesterday. You know what happened to Belinda.”
“Yup. I’d love to know how it happened, though.”
“No kidding. But it’s not like there weren’t a million people in and out of here yesterday. So if a few paperbacks walked out the door? It happens.”
“Did you lose some yesterday?” Thea asked.
“None of my treasures. Ten bucks, tops.”
“Did you tell Deputy Dunbar?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. And Sierra. But it’s not like I’ll get them back.”
“Sometimes there’s hope,” Thea said. “If any of your high-end beauties ever walk out the door, list them on the Stolen Books Database. It would be worth a shot, anyway.”
“No point, for most of what I have. Thanks, though.” Simon nodded toward the other customers. “I should get back to business.”
We left Simon Says, and Thea asked, “A little jaded, do you think?”
“About the theft? Yeah, but realistic.”
Thea went to pay for her books, and I decided to go see Belinda. Maybe she’d cheered up with the happy crowd. That was my altruistic motive. Really I wanted to see what she’d put in the place of honor. Did I dare hope she’d produced something more delightful than the ruined tablecloth?
Mel’s refreshment table stood near Martha’s shop in the gallery. She had plenty of takers for whatever she was serving, and a crowd of hip-swayers and toe-tappers listened to the bluegrass trio. When the women in front of me swayed in opposite directions, I saw that one of the musicians was the soon-to-be father of the next generation of Spiveys, Aaron Carlin. Almost any time I saw Aaron, he was doing something I’d never seen him do before. There was the rattlesnake incident, when he’d handled them as though they were as cuddly as kittens. I’d seen his old-time medicine and curiosity show and heard him accompany Angie’s sweet voice on guitar. Now I could add seeing him sitting on an upturned five-gallon bucket and playing a washboard to the list. His guitar and a banjo lay beside him.
The swaying women re-synced, blocking my view before I had a chance to wave at Aaron, so I slipped around the back of the crowd to Belinda’s shop. She’d hung her sign, too, the curlicues in the name not much easier to read even though I didn’t have to tip my head sideways. Graceful and feminine, the sign suited Belinda. Or suited how I imagined Belinda saw herself.
A man greeted me when I went into Belle’s, Belinda nowhere to be seen. And hanging in the place of honor . . . a perfectly nice tablecloth. Probably 1940s, this one was a square of white linen embroidered with baskets of flowers in each corner. A good, if typical, example from that era of needlework. Just disappointing in a way that my face couldn’t disguise.
“Not your cup of tea?” the man asked.
I tried to smile my way out of it. “Sorry, I had my mind on something els
e. Is Belinda all right?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“No particular reason. I didn’t see her and wondered.” Wondered what bug flew up your nose. Sheesh. “I heard there’s some silk embroidery.”
He showed me to the gorgeous piece with the strawberries and climbing roses, unnecessary because, like a beacon, the silks called to me. I basked in their glow for a few minutes, but my heart didn’t feel it. With a sigh for what had been, I left the silk embroidery, Belinda’s disappointing plan B, and her snappish help behind. I put in a few toe taps in the gallery, then stuck my head in the pastel artist’s shop. She did interesting things with light that involved a lot of magenta and coral, but she had too many people in the shop to stop and answer my nosy questions.
Nervie’s shop overflowed, too. Good for her, I guessed. She looked happier than I’d ever seen her, anyway. Or happier than I’d ever bothered to notice. On that self-recriminating note, I headed for the potter’s shop. Maybe the blue glazed bowl I’d seen the evening before could sweeten a soured mood.
But the disappointments kept coming. Not only had someone else gotten to the bowl before me, but Shirley and Mercy were there. They wore matching mint green sweatshirts with “Proud Grandma” embroidered on them, and I decided I didn’t care which twin was which.
“You stopped in Nervie’s?” one asked.
“And Belinda’s?” the other asked.
“Nervie’s tricky,” the first said. “She prods and picks at others to distract.”
“She’s done that much already,” the other said. “Picking on Belinda. Dropping a word here.”
“Poking a hole there.”
Pots and kettles, I almost said.
“It’s no wonder Belinda’s not front and center.”
I’d turned to make my getaway but turned back at that. Should I ask them if they knew anything about the tablecloth? But I didn’t like the idea of feeding them information. Especially if they hadn’t known it existed in the first place.
