When the Grits Hit the Fan

by Maddie Day

  “Any idea how the murder investigation is going?” he asked.

  “No. Only that they kept Lou at the station questioning her until after midnight last night. What seemed like the whole town came in to eat and gossip today. Buck took Lou and Charles’s department chair in for an interview after lunch, too. She was eating with a few friends when he came in. He told me she’d been evading their search for her, like not answering her phone.”

  “That must be routine, checking out everybody Chuck worked with or knew.”

  “Right, although it seems like Lou is under extra scrutiny. Charles said something insulting to Zen, the chair, Friday night and she got justifiably angry with him. The whole group witnessed it and somebody must have told Buck, so maybe she’s under suspicion, too.” I hammered a section to break up the plaster. “I don’t know Zen at all, but she seems smart. And nice.”

  “There have been killers in the past who people described like that. You never know.” Abe worked on the other side of the window. He’d pulled the six-foot ladder over and was attacking from the ceiling down.

  “I guess. We can swap places once you get that top section done.” I could reach the ten-foot high ceiling with the ladder, but it was easier for Abe, who at five foot nine was half a foot taller than me.

  “You got it, Shorty.”

  “Hey!” I lobbed a piece of plaster at his head, missing, of course. “Let’s show some respect for the proprietor here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Abe said, drawing out the ma’am in exaggerated respect. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” he started to sing, then launched into the rest of the song.

  The guy could carry a tune, I had to admit. I chimed in with the “Sock it to me,” refrain until we were both laughing too hard to keep singing. A wide swath of plaster and lath came off all at once and I jumped back to avoid getting hit by it. As it fell, I saw an object drop down into the wall between the studs. Something black and odd-shaped, neither plaster nor lath. I peered into the cavity but couldn’t see it.

  “What are you looking for?” Abe asked.

  “I don’t know. Something got dislodged and fell down. I’ll find it when this section is cleared.” I kept prying and pulling, working down, even though it made more sense to work horizontally. When a coughing fit interrupted me, I went back to my tool tarp and grabbed a couple of white cupped face masks. I handed one to Abe.

  “We should’ve been wearing these from the start. Plaster dust isn’t good for anybody’s lungs.” I slid the elastic over my head and pinched the little metal strip on the bridge of my nose, then resumed work. When I got down to about a foot off the floor, I peered in again. Part of the plaster had fallen into the cavity, so I dug that out and dumped it on the growing pile of refuse. Finally I reached in and felt around.

  “Aha.” I straightened, holding a ladies shoe in my hand. It was a small size, maybe a five, but definitely a shoe for an adult woman. A high heeled black shoe with a chunky sole, cutout toe, and squared off three-inch heel that made me think of an elegant woman in a tailored suit swanning down a street. In 1947.

  Abe pushed his mask down to his neck. “That looks sort of high fashion, doesn’t it?”

  I pulled my own mask off my nose and mouth, too. “Yes, but fashion from a long time ago. I wonder if there’s another one.” I reached back into the cavity. What I came up with was an entirely different kind of shoe. Two, in fact. I dusted them off and showed Abe my find—two miniature pink moccasins, complete with a tiny star of beads sewn onto their tops. Baby’s first shoes. The leather, once smooth, had stiffened and the side of one was brown from water damage or another trauma. “I found a few other objects when I took down the interior walls.” I pointed to a small table in the middle of the room where I’d set a page from an 1870 newspaper, a few tarnished coins, and a rusty screwdriver.

  “How’d they get into the walls?” Abe climbed down from the ladder and took one of the moccasins.

  “Good question.” I frowned, surveying the wall. “The shoes are way too modern to have been left when the outer walls were put up in 1870. And these are definitely original walls”—I examined the window itself more closely—“but this window isn’t original. In fact, it looks like an old double pane. Somebody, most likely Jo, must have paid to have new windows put in. These have aluminum triple track storms on the outside, too, and the combination would have been a lot warmer and tighter than the original sash windows with removable storms.”

  “If the old window was taken out, the wall would have been open.” Abe folded his arms. “Can you identify how old the new window is?”

  “Maybe. I’ll ask Don what he knows.”

  Don O’Neill owned the local hardware store a few blocks away.

  “Good idea. My big brother has all kinds of useless information knocking around in that head of his.”

  “Be nice, now. He’s a good guy.”

  “I love the dude, you know that. He’s just kind of, well, goofy.”

  I laughed. “True enough. Has he ever gotten over feeling guilty about hanging out with Georgia?”

  The local library aide’s husband suffered from advanced dementia. She and Don cared for each other deeply, but Don’s faith caused him angst about the relationship.

  “Not really, but the guilt isn’t enough to stop him. He and Georgia give each other a lot of tenderness, and they both need it. I sure don’t judge him.”

  “Me, neither.” I carried the shoes to the middle of the room and set them on what I thought of as my artifact table. “Ready to get back to work?”

  Abe whistled as he climbed up the ladder again. “You’re a brutal taskmaster, but yes, ma’am. Back to work it is.” He pulled his mask back up.

  “I’m not that brutal,” I protested. “You’re going to get dinner out of the deal. And maybe something more.” I pulled up my own mask and glanced at him.

  He winked one of those big brown eyes at me before turning to the wall.

  Chapter 15

  I stretched in bed the next morning. Abe had left for work before dawn, but we’d spent a nice evening and had had a thoroughly enjoyable sleepover. We’d demolished much of the wall before knocking off for dinner, although we hadn’t discovered any new artifacts. Even though I had plenty of work to do—shoveling the rubble out the window—I let myself luxuriate in the relaxed pace of a day off.

  Birdy leapt onto the bed. I wiggled my foot under the covers and watched as he pounced on this sudden prey. I played footsie with him until he tired of it and jumped down to prowl elsewhere in the apartment. Now that I had time for my mind to wander, my thoughts remained on hunters and prey. How had Charles’s murderer attacked him? Had Charles been pounced on? The two sets of footprints haunted me. Charles must have walked out on the lake willingly. Or maybe not. His killer could have pressed a gun to his ribs under cover of winter coats. It was a puzzle I’d like to solve, but Octavia had the unenviable task of working out the clues and connections, not me.

  I didn’t bother to shower, as Abe and I had shared one last night, washing off the plaster dust in the most delightful of ways. I hummed an aria as I dressed and put the coffee on. My mom had taught me to love opera, but I hadn’t figured out why until I discovered my Italian father.

  Once Birdy was fed and I’d set a chocolate biscotti and a nice hot mug of dark java in front of me, I sat at the kitchen table to check what was going on in the world. I thumbed through my e-mail. Nothing particularly urgent there. A text from Abe containing only an icon of a big-eyed smiling head with red lipstick kisses all over his yellow face. I was smiling, too. Maybe it was okay not to worry about getting hurt again.

  I turned to the weather report next. “Uck.” We were supposed to get a snowstorm tonight. I’d better get that rubble out the window before the snow fell. I checked the local news site, but the only story about Charles’s murder said the authorities were continuing to follow up on leads, and if members of the public had seen any suspicious activity on Crooked Lake to report it to the Sou
th Lick Police. In other words, they didn’t have a clue who’d killed him.

  Since I was so cozy in the apartment with my furry slippers and my coffee, I decided to try to find information about the upstairs windows online instead of venturing out to ask Don at Shamrock Hardware. I had no idea when aluminum triple-track storms were first used, or double-pane windows, for that matter. Maybe during the Carter administration with its emphasis on energy conservation, which would put the date during the late nineteen seventies. If I couldn’t find anything, I’d text a picture of the window to Don.

  It didn’t take me long to read that double-pane windows were invented in the early 1950s, with aluminum triple-track storms around the same time. Wow. So that shoe—no, those shoes—could have been dropped into the wall as early as sixty, sixty-five years ago. Huh. I sat back in the chair and laid my phone on the table, picturing Jo Schultz. I did the math in my head. No way she was old enough to have owned the store in the 1950s. I didn’t think she was older than seventy, although come to think of it, I wasn’t sure why I thought that. If she was seventy, she was at most ten or so when those windows were invented. Of course, the technology wasn’t necessarily widely available at the time of its invention. I also didn’t know the history of the store before she’d owned it, other than that it’d been built by one of the founders of South Lick back in the second half of the nineteenth century.

  I drained my coffee. The whole day stretched out in front of me for shoveling out debris but that could wait a little. While I was still clean, I was going to go see Jo.

  Chapter 16

  I approached Jo’s house, a classic cottage of the region with a wide overhang on the front porch and a gabled roof. She lived only five blocks from the store, so I’d walked over. As a grievance offering, I took a loaf of banana nut bread I’d retrieved from my freezer.

  As I neared the front walk, Ron Stilton emerged from the house and shut the door behind him. I paused, watching him, since he hadn’t seen me yet. He sank onto the porch swing and buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking in a red IU hoodie. I didn’t know what to do. Interrupt what looked a lot like grief or abandon my visit? He’d come into the restaurant a few times, either with his mother or a group of his friends, but we’d never really had a conversation. Maybe I shouldn’t have come at all. Jo must be grieving for her son-in-law, too. I could just give her the bread, express my condolences, and leave. Or I could go home.

  I hesitated a moment too long and must have made a small movement. He lifted his head and saw me.

  I headed up the walk. “Good morning, Ron.”

  His hair, growing out after a bleach job, straggled over his sweatshirt, and his eyes were rimmed in red. “Is it good?”

  “I suppose not. I’m so sorry for your loss.” That phrase always seemed so trite, like a person had lost their pen or their glasses. Didn’t death deserved a richer expression?

  He stood, his clothes not hiding how skinny he was. I’d forgotten he wasn’t much taller than me, but of course, neither was his father.

  “Thanks, I guess. Dad and me, you know, we had our problems. But he was still my old man.” He sniffed and swiped at his eyes with his fists, then jammed his hands into his pockets. “You here to see Grandma?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s in there. She’ll be happy you came. Catch you later.” He trudged down the steps.

  That was the push I needed. I climbed the stairs and rang the bell.

  Jo’s face lit up when she opened her front door and saw me. “Why, Robbie, come on the heck in. It’s awful nice of you to visit. But shouldn’t you be over at the store flipping flapjacks?” Dressed in black stretchy pants and a fluffy fleece the color of her cornflower blue eyes, she stood back and gestured me in. She didn’t act like she was grieving.

  “I’m always closed on Mondays.” I followed her into the living room of the small house she’d bought after she sold me the store. “I brought you some banana bread. I wanted to say how sorry I am about Charles.” I handed her the loaf, wishing it wasn’t still frozen.

  “How sweet. Now you sit right there, hon. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Milk and sugar?” she asked.

  “Thanks. And yes to both.”

  She bustled off toward the back of the house with a lopsided gait. The room was sparsely furnished and brightly decorated. The modern but comfortable couch was covered with a rainbow-color woven blanket, and the matching armchair wore a tie-dyed slipcover. A colorful woven wall hanging decorated the space between the two front windows and a wooden loom stood in the sunlight. The old wooden floor was clean, although it could have used a sanding and new coat of poly. A braided rag rug in the middle looked new, with its shades of purple and turquoise not faded or worn in the least.

  I knew Maude was an architect. She must have gotten style genes from Jo.

  I’d never seen the upstairs in my store while it was occupied. Jo had moved out before she’d put the building on the market. The downstairs hadn’t shown much style except for that of an old dusty country store, but I knew she’d run out of funds after her late husband’s long illness. Starting fresh in a manageably small house must have been a big relief to her.

  Jo returned holding two mugs of coffee. She set hers near an armchair, then selected a coaster depicting a Parisian scene and set it under my mug on the flat wooden arm of the couch. She sat in the armchair at right angles to the couch. I’d never noticed before that one of her legs looked shorter than the other, and her thigh looked thinner, too. That would explain the lopsided gait. Maybe she’d been a polio victim as a child.

  I thanked her for the coffee. “Looks like you’re a weaver. Do you sell your work?”

  “I do, from time to time. I still have a number of small pieces I made for a holiday craft fair. They serve as wall hangings or table centerpieces or whatever.”

  “That one on the wall is beautiful.” I pointed.

  “Thank you. It’s one of my favorites.”

  I took a sip of coffee. “How are you doing with Charles’s death, Jo? I’m so sorry for your loss.” There it was again, the impossibly clichéd expression.

  She stared at the wall hanging for a moment, and then back at me. “I don’t mind telling you that my unfortunate son-in-law was a very difficult man, Robbie, may Chuck rest in peace. He gave my daughter a great deal of hardship. And he treated my grandson Ronnie the same way. You must have seen Ronnie leaving, come to think about it.”

  “I did. He seemed pretty shaken up by his father’s death.”

  “You’re right. Go figure, as mean as Charles was to him. Anyway, I am not actually grieving Charles’s passing. I know it sounds cold, but I’ve never been one to sugar coat life.”

  That explained why she’d said “unfortunate son-in-law” rather than “unfortunate death.”

  I sipped my coffee, which was a dark roast with an unusual but fabulous flavor that made me think of Turkish coffee. I sniffed the coffee again and decided cardamom was the delightful culprit.

  “I made no secret of my opinion of him around town,” Jo went on. “I think the detective is considering me a ‘person of interest.’” She surrounded the last words with finger quotes.

  “Really?” Well, of course Octavia would. She’d have to look at a mother-in-law who had a dislike for the victim. Opportunity would be a different equation, though. No way tiny Jo—who walked with a limp, no less—could have hauled Charles into the ice hole.

  “Really. We’d had a disagreeable encounter downtown recently, with a number of witnesses.” She searched my face. “But you’re the one who found Chuck’s body. That must have been awful for you.” She rubbed a turquoise ring with her thumb.

  “Not my favorite thing to happen when I’m out snowshoeing, no.”

  “Tell me. Did he have an expression on his face? Scared or surprised? I keep thinking about who could have killed him, and whether he knew them.”

  I tried not to shudder visibly as I thought back. He’d been face up in
the ice fishing hole, but had I noted an expression? “There was ice over the hole, so I can’t really say, and . . .” I let my voice trail off. I wasn’t supposed to be talking about the details. I was pretty sure Jo hadn’t murdered Charles, but she’d told me he hadn’t treated his own wife and son well. “It seems like there were a lot of people Charles didn’t get along with.”

  “I was one of them. He never liked me trying to protect my Maude. She’s adopted, you know. My husband was shooting blanks, as it turned out, so we found a baby to adopt. But she’s still my girl. She had a bit of a rough patch in high school but then straightened herself out. At least until she married Chuck.”

  I didn’t know what rough patch meant but didn’t figure it was a good time to ask.

  Jo went on. “I shouldn’t say this, but good riddance to him. The man was psychologically abusive. In a serious way.” She brushed a snowy wisp of hair off her forehead and tucked it back into the bun on top of her head.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry to hear the truth.” She looked into her mug for a long moment. “So,” her voice brightened again, “tell me what’s new with you. How is the renovation coming along?” She smiled at me. “You mentioned you were going to bring some things for me to look at.”

  I picked up the cloth bag I’d brought along. “I found a couple interesting things in the wall last night. I wanted to bring them by and ask if you wanted to keep them.” I glanced at her before digging into the bag, and thought I saw a look of panic pass over her face, a quick widening of her eyes and a flash of flared nostrils that lasted only the briefest of seconds.

  She blinked and smiled. “How fascinating. What did you find?”

  I pulled out the black shoe. “I found this, but only the one.” I handed it to her. Of the artifacts, I’d only brought the shoes. The rest of the items I’d found didn’t seem personal.

  She turned it all around and stroked the now-rough leather. “This was Mother’s. She used to wear these when she and Daddy went out on the town. She’d put on her black dress and pearls, dab Woodhue behind her ears, slip on these heels.” She glanced up at me. “My mother was a very stylish woman. No taller than me, but every inch a lady.”