Angels Undercover

by Diane Noble

  She and Paul strolled from group to group, smiling and encouraging each one they spoke to. Several of the most vocal about Flame and their music had not bothered to stay after the meeting.

  She finally spotted Caleb, Denver, and Ashley standing off to one side. She hurried over to them.

  “How did it go?” She addressed the question to all three.

  Caleb shrugged. “I think we’d better just give it up. It’s causing too much trouble.”

  “Yeah, as if you should give an opinion,” Denver teased. “You just got here.”

  “So I was a little late. I still can have an opinion, can’t I? It’s obvious we’re not wanted here.” He glanced around the room. “No one’s even bothering to come over and talk with us.”

  Kate sighed, suddenly feeling invisible. But she knew what he meant.

  “That’s not true,” Ashley said. “I sat by some of the nicest people tonight. They even asked all three of us over for Thanksgiving dinner.” She shot a smile at Kate. “I told them we already had plans.”

  Caleb shrugged again. “It’s just, well, disappointing. I can’t help but think we’ve given it a shot, and maybe we should just let it go.”

  “I disagree,” Ashley said. “My grandma says changing minds is like sapping molasses trees. Takes forever, but the sweet result is worth it. I think we need to hang in there.”

  Denver, wearing his usual wide smile, pushed up his glasses. “The thing is. I don’t want to quit, because I kinda like being here. I mean, it’s nothing I ever thought I’d do—coming to church. And playing up there in front...” He paused. “Well, it’s like something’s about to happen. Something good for us all. Not just the three of us”—he gestured to the knots of parishioners around the fellowship hall—“but everybody. I can’t explain it, it’s just there.”

  Ashley nodded. “That’s how I feel too. I don’t want to walk away from this just because some folks don’t like us. It’s too important.”

  Denver leaned forward intently. “And what Pastor Hanlon said tonight about how music changed his life when he was a kid?” He glanced over at Paul, then back again. “That’s how it seems to me. The Sundays we’ve played here have, well, I don’t know”—he shrugged—“they’ve just been different somehow.”

  “Well, I just don’t want to be anywhere I’m not wanted,” Caleb said.

  “Don’t give up, man,” Denver said. “Hang in there just a little longer.”

  Caleb frowned. “Not sure I want to.”

  THAT NIGHT KATE AND PAUL sat in front of the fireplace exchanging thoughts on what had happened during the evening. Paul filled her in on the church meeting, and Kate told him about tailing Earl Pennyweather and the ladies.

  “I’m close to telling everyone we’ll return to the traditional service,” Paul said.

  Kate reached for his hand. “We can’t do that, not now, not after these kids have offered so much.”

  His forehead creased. “It’s been suggested that we have a separate music program during the Sunday-school hour for the kids. Or that Flame could play for the youth group only. No performances in the sanctuary. I think it might be a good compromise.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same—a group with their talent just playing for a dozen or so kids. Paul, you should have heard what they said tonight. This already means the world to them,especially after you shared about the difference music made in your life when you were their age.” She told him what Denver had said.

  Paul nodded slowly, staring into the fire.

  Kate squeezed his hand. It had been a long time since she had seen him so discouraged. She breathed a prayer for grace and comfort to cover him.

  Paul stood to stoke the fire just as the phone rang. He walked to the kitchen and grabbed it on the fourth ring. “Sam Gorman,” he mouthed to Kate, who had followed him into the kitchen.

  She slipped into a chair at the end of the dining-room table while they talked. When Paul hit disconnect, she said, “Let me guess; there’s been another break-in.”

  Paul nodded. “Sam’s house. It happened sometime tonight during the meeting.”

  “Someone would have known that Sam would be at church tonight of all nights. The lights were on?”

  Paul nodded. “Same as all the others. So far Sam hasn’t found anything the person left behind. But he could tell someone had been in the house. A strange menthol smell in the living room, an empty glass on the kitchen counter, and someone had been playing the piano. He said he knows he covered the keyboard right after the last time he practiced, but it was open when he got home, and the bench had been scooted back, as if to accommodate someone with longer legs.”

  Kate sat back and let out an exaggerated sigh. “I thought I was getting somewhere tonight...Now it’s back to square one.”

  He grinned as he reached for her hand to help her up. “Does that mean we’re in for more cookie baking tomorrow?”

  She laughed. “Not on the day before Thanksgiving. Especially with the passel of folks we’ve invited. But rolling out pie dough and chopping celery and onions for the turkey stuffing run a close second for puzzling out a mystery.”

  Paul turned out the lights, and they headed to the bedroom. “I don’t know when I’ve been so bamboozled,” she admitted as she pulled back the quilt on their bed. “I’ve got a lot of dots, but for the life of me, I can’t quite connect them together.”

  KATE WOKE UP AT 2:07 AM and stared at the ceiling, still puzzling over the break-ins. Nagging thoughts that she was missing something consumed her sleep-fuzzied brain. By 3:00 AM she was still wide awake, the puzzling only having intensified.

  Then a new idea hit. She sat up in bed, her eyes wide, then swung her legs over the side and looked at the clock. It was 3:34. She grabbed her robe and headed into Paul’s office to turn on his computer. Their slow dial-up Internet connection would be a nuisance, but she was determined not to let it distract her.

  After several long minutes, she found the site she was looking for. Scrolling down, she gazed at a myriad of Civil War maps, focusing for a moment on one showing a twisting maze of tunnels. Then she zeroed in on Copper Mill.

  Yes! She gave the air a punch with her fist. Yes!

  She quickly shot off an e-mail to the Web site administrator and prayed that he checked his e-mail often—even during holidays.

  Time was running out.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next morning Kate put in a call to the Chattanooga Civil War Museum. The phone rang nine times before an automated voice came on explaining that the museum was closed and to please call back the following Monday. She sat back, dismayed, tapping the eraser of her pencil on the table.

  Paul joined her a few minutes later. He shot her a grin. “Don’t take it out on the poor pencil.”

  She laughed. “You know me. When I get a bee in my bonnet about something...”

  His eyes crinkled at the edges. “New bees since last night?”

  “Same old bees, but I think they’re starting to fly in a new formation.” She couldn’t help laughing at the bad metaphor. “But it’s Thanksgiving week, so the museum’s closed.” She leaned forward, serious again. “I want to set up an appointment with the curator to see if I can put in a good word for Livvy for one thing and to also find out if there’s anything I’ve overlooked.”

  “About Beauregard’s things?”

  “I’ve gone over all the paperwork that accompanied the exhibit, but nothing jumped out at me. Maybe if I talk to the curator face-to-face, I might come across something important that no one else has noticed.”

  Paul watched her affectionately as she started pulling out the ingredients to make her pie dough. “That’s what makes you so good at this,” he said.

  Her heart warmed at the compliment, and she flashed him a smile. Then after she popped open the flour container, she stopped for a moment, her measuring cup hovering and ready to scoop. “Honestly, I don’t know how it happens.”

  “How what happens?”


  “How I get involved in these mysteries. They seem to crop up right in front of me. It’s almost as if I’m powerless to stay away from them. I get pulled in—”

  “And solve them successfully,” Paul finished. “And you’re forgetting a huge part of the equation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You care about the people they happen to. That’s the magnet that pulls you in.”

  She considered his words and nodded. “You’re right.”

  Paul reached into the pantry cupboard and brought down two cans of pumpkin from the top shelf. “On the other hand, dear Katie,” he said as he put them on the counter, “you have this innate curiosity that I think is almost as powerful as your caring heart.” He gave her an appreciative look. “Put the two together and—”

  “Violá!” she said. “You’ve got Jessica Fletcher, Miss Marple, and Sherlock Holmes all rolled into one.”

  “No,” Paul said. “There’s only one sleuth with those gifts put together in just the right way, and it’s you.”

  Paul gave Kate a peck on the cheek, then left for the church to pick up extra folding tables and chairs for their Thanksgiving guests. But long after his pickup truck had disappeared down the street, the smile his words had brought stayed in her heart.

  Kate measured the flour and shortening into the mixing bowl, and was adding a pinch of salt when Livvy called.

  “How many are coming so far?”

  Kate laughed as she cut the shortening into the flour. “The guest list keeps growing. Right now it’s at around twenty—the Easterwoods, Caleb and his mother Carmella, Renee and Caroline, Clementine—though she’s not sure if she can leave the house for quite that long—the kids from Flame, and you two.” She paused. “Plus I’m thinking about Enid Philpott and her sons. I heard recently they don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “I’m sorry the boys can’t be with us,” Livvy said. “They left last night for Nashville. Can you imagine giving up a holiday weekend to work with Habitat—?” She stopped suddenly. “Kate, can I call you back? I just got a call waiting signal. It may be the boys...”

  “Of course.”

  Kate had just finished pouring the pumpkin-pie filling into her piecrusts when the phone rang again.

  “Ka—?” She recognized Renee’s voice, even though it was muffled. The call abruptly disconnected. Renee was obviously on her cell phone in a place where the signal wasn’t strong enough.

  The phone rang again. “Ka—” sounded again, followed by a beep, then silence.

  Kate sighed. The joys of cell-phone ownership in Copper Mill.

  She dialed Renee to see if she could get through. This time there was static on the line, but she thought she could make out the words “Will,” and “coming down.”

  “Are you at Willy’s?”

  A garbled reply.

  “Renee, are you still there? Can you hear me?”

  More garbled words.

  Only one word came through clearly. “Hurry!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kate hung up her phone and leaned against the counter. Hurry? Hurry where? “Will” could translate into several options. The most likely was Willy’s, but Renee had moved her sleuthing to the Civil War encampments, not Willy’s Bait and Tackle. The only way to find out was to go there first.

  Kate gave her kitchen a worried glance, slid the pies into the fridge and turned off the oven, then scurried around, gathering keys, notebook, and cell phone. She flew out the door five minutes later.

  The last thing she needed on the day before Thanksgiving was to go off on another wild-goose chase. Or a wild-turkey chase, for that matter.

  But Renee needed her, and that was what mattered most.

  She spotted the pink Oldsmobile parked down the street, and Renee was waiting behind some tall evergreen shrubs across the street from Willy’s. The car was supposed to be hidden, but it stuck out like a sore thumb. Renee was crouching behind some bushes nearby, dressed in her Florence Nightingale costume. Somehow, it was fitting. Though she was the last person Kate would choose for help with sleuthing, it seemed Renee had chosen her.

  Kate gave her an affectionate smile.

  “What was your call all about? I was worried.”

  Kisses was curled up in the shade beneath the brush with a pink plastic bowl of water beside him. Kate knelt down beside Renee, who was peering through two leafy branches.

  “There’s a meeting of some sort going on.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Kate said. “The main battle is set to begin next week. Willy’s giving classes on all sorts of things. Maybe these visitors are his students.”

  “That’s true. I recognized some of them. But really, it doesn’t matter who they are or why they’re here. I’m sure I saw my great-granddaddy’s dress uniform go by right in front of my eyes.”

  “You mean go by with someone in it?”

  Renee gave her a strange look. “Of course someone was in it. And in case you’re wondering, I would know it anywhere. It was in pristine condition. One of a kind. Our family was so careful to keep it that way before we donated it to the museum.” She turned to give Kate a hard stare. “Besides, how many major-general dress uniforms might be around here these days? I would venture to guess none.”

  With a sinking heart, Kate remembered the transaction she’d observed between Willy and Caleb King.

  Renee set her lips in a straight line and looked back across the street, glaring at Willy’s Bait and Tackle shop. “I’m so certain it was my great-granddaddy’s that I’m not leaving this spot until I find out the truth and get his things back. Poor Mama! She’s getting punier every day, and as for me, I’ve just about come to the end of my rope. All her sniveling and moping and carrying on.” She sniffled and reached for a tissue.

  “How many men went in?”

  “I counted at least two dozen. Maybe three.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Might even have been more.”

  Kate studied Willy’s shop, remembering the rods and reels jammed up against the walls, the stacked jars of salmon eggs of every hue, boxes of lures of every description, handmade flies, fishing nets, waders of all sizes, hats, and more. She couldn’t imagine even a dozen men fitting into the small space. “Are you sure?”

  Renee frowned. “Would I make up something like that?”

  Maybe not make up, but exaggerate, yes...

  “All right,” she said. “It’s time we get to the bottom of this. I’ve been keeping this place under surveillance, and you’ve been nosing around the encampments. We still haven’t come up with anything new. Now we’ve got some sort of meeting taking place, with someone wearing what you think is your great-granddaddy’s uniform—”

  “There’s something else,” Renee said.

  “What?”

  “That kid who plays the guitar at church?”

  Kate nodded. “Caleb King.”

  “Well, he’s in there too. He was the one wearing the uniform.”

  “Oh no,” Kate whispered. “Caleb King?”

  Renee nodded.

  “There has to be another explanation,” Kate said. “Something logical.”

  “I don’t know what else it could be. I saw what I saw.”

  Kate glanced at her watch. She’d been gone twenty-seven minutes. “Okay then,” she said, standing. “I’m going in.”

  Renee grinned and stood beside her. “We are going in.” Kate shot her a conspiratorial smile and resisted the urge to salute her dear comrade in arms.

  “I’ll call for backup.”

  “No backup. We’ll walk in like any other customer would. No backup.” Kate swallowed a smile at the cop-show language. “I’m sure we’ll waltz in and find that everything is aboveboard. There’s probably a class being held on how to die properly and dramatically on the battlefield—just like the one you took.” She dusted off her hands.

  She only wished she felt as sure as she sounded. She was a great believer in innocent until proven guilty, which also meant th
at she needed to keep her nagging doubts to herself, especially when it had to do with smearing someone’s name. If Caleb was caught up in all of this, she would eventually find out the truth. For now she hoped and prayed he was innocent.

  She started across the street, imagining what they would find when they opened the door to Willy’s Bait and Tackle.

  Renee elbowed her way in front of Kate to take the lead, Kisses trotting to one side, ears at full mast, tail wagging jauntily.

  They reached the front door and peered through the dusty glass, side by side.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Renee breathed. “Where’d everybody go?”

  Kate pushed the door open. The room was empty. Not a reenactor. Not a uniform.

  Willy and the men had vanished without a trace.

  Something clicked in the back of her mind and her eyes widened. Her Internet search . . . the Civil War maps . . . the secret tunnels!

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kate woke on Thanksgiving morning with a start. She sat up and looked at the clock—4:49. She had an acute feeling that she’d forgotten something important.

  At first she thought her doubts just had to do with the guests who would be arriving within hours. But lying back on her pillow, she went down the list—the turkey was washed and soaking in a brine in the fridge, the dressing was ready for stuffing, the pies were baked...

  No, the feeling had nothing to do with dinner. She knew instead that it had everything to do with the mysterious events of the previous few days: the missing reenactors at Willy’s; the possibility of secret underground tunnels at the bait and tackle shop, which might tie Willy and his reenactment buddies—and even Caleb King—to the heist; the missing museum artifacts, including the desk, with its possible secret compartments, maps, or papers. Though when Kate had asked, Renee and her mother denied any such thing could exist in J. P. Beauregard’s traveling desk.

  And, of course, there was the strange knitting needle discovery and the secret angel of Copper Mill.