by Molly Macrae
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “And if you stop by tomorrow, Debbie can get you started. Then after you’ve had time to practice, we’ll see about adding you to our file of demonstrators. For another event.”
“That’s so nice.” Reva Louise put the spindle on the table without giving it a second look. “How are you set in the shop? I know TGIF helps out and I want to do my share, so why don’t I help with sales inside?”
Be calm but firm, Ardis had said. The firmest answer would have been “No,” but before being that blunt, I countered with a couple of my own questions. “Don’t you have to be at the café, Reva Louise?” I turned to Mel. “Aren’t you guys swamped during the festival?”
“I just love the way you call us all ‘guys,’ Kath,” Reva Louise said. “It’s so Yankee of you.”
Calmly, firmly, I bit my tongue.
“But to answer your question,” Reva Louise said, “I keep baker’s hours at the café. I’m in before the birds are up and home again by noon, which is how I’m able to accomplish all I do in any given day. I give one hundred percent to my job and have another hundred percent left over for my projects and my community.”
“That’s very industrious of you,” Ernestine said.
“Industry pure and simple.” Reva Louise nodded. “That’s my secret, and that’s why—”
“And that’s why,” Mel said, looking directly at Reva Louise, her needles still, “you should spend that afternoon enjoying the festival.”
“That is a wonderful idea,” I said. “There will be so much going on. Music on the courthouse steps, other demonstrations and exhibits to visit. It’s almost too much to see in one afternoon, but it’ll be a great way to relax and learn more about your new hometown at the same time. Really, it’ll be a treat. Isn’t that what we tell the tourists? ‘Treat yourself to the sights and sounds of Blue Plum’s yesteryear.’”
“Smells, too,” John said, “if you visit the draft horses. I believe they’ll be over by the post office.”
“Aren’t you just the sweetest things to suggest that,” Reva Louise said. “But my husband and I already feel more like natives than tourists. In fact, Dan is playing one of the key roles in the festival’s theater production.” She touched her hair, laid her fingers against her cheek, and gave us a conspiratorial smile. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, too. The director wanted me for one of the leads, but I felt obliged to turn him down because of my commitments.”
“You know J. Scott Prescott, then?” I wondered what her take on him was.
“Wait a second,” Mel said. “Theater production—you mean the pig skit? For heaven’s sake, there aren’t any lead roles in the pig skit except for the pig.”
We didn’t get to hear Reva Louise’s reaction to Mel, because Frank Sinatra started singing “My Way” again.
“Mute it,” Mel said. “Let it go to voice mail.”
Reva Louise yanked her phone out of her project bag and checked the display. “For the . . . I have to take it.” She stood up fast, scraping her chair back several inches across the hardwood floor Granddaddy had sanded to a mellow finish. We all winced. She crossed to the back window overlooking the alleyway behind the shop and stood, her shoulders hunched, phone tight to her ear. She could have, should have, taken the phone out into the hall, but none of us were about to tap her on the shoulder and tell her so.
The rest of us exchanged glances and did our best to ignore the single, angry syllables Reva Louise spit into her end of the connection, but I was glad to see that Mel continued to watch and looked ready to go to her sister if she was needed. It was time to finish up for the afternoon, anyway, and we started packing up. The soft sounds of yarn and needles slipping back into bags weren’t enough to cover the last part of the conversation, though.
“No,” Reva Louise said. “And, by the time I get home, it had better be.” She obviously did need a phone-slamming app, and when she turned around after the call, she didn’t seem the least embarrassed. “Honest to goodness,” she said with a laugh, “they’d be helpless without us. Oh, is everyone leaving?”
The only further sour note came when Mel asked, as she had earlier, if there was trouble. At Reva Louise’s snapped response, Mel shrugged, picked up the coffee carafe, and left. John and Debbie waved good-bye and followed Mel out.
“You go on, too, Reva Louise,” I said. “Ardis will let you out the front door.”
“Why don’t I take the dishes down to the kitchen on my way?”
“Take the plates. I’ll get the mugs. It’s a lot to juggle otherwise.”
“You’re right and look how much I already have to carry. I’d better leave the plates. You don’t mind, do you?”
It didn’t matter whether I did or not. She wiggled her fingertips and took her cake carrier and cute project bag out the door and down the stairs. The only gingerbread she left behind was crumbs on the Welsh dresser. I was wiping them away when I noticed the salt-glaze crock of spindles. More specifically, the salt-glaze crock of spindles minus the spindle with the blue-and-white ceramic whorl. It definitely wasn’t there, but that didn’t keep me from looking again.
“It’s gone. Reva Louise took it with her.”
I jumped embarrassingly high for someone who should be getting used to unexpected voices and sudden appearances. It wasn’t Geneva beside me, though. It was Ernestine.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew I was still here. I made a quick stop in the restroom and came back to see if Reva Louise left any gingerbread. It’s my shoes.” She pointed at her feet as if that would help me follow the zig in her conversation. She was wearing thick-soled athletic shoes, black with turquoise and hot pink racing stripes. “My granddaughter went shopping with me. You should see the underwear she talked me into. But perhaps that’s too much information. The shoes are very quiet, though, which I like.” She peered at the Welsh dresser. “I was hoping to take a piece of the gingerbread home for a bedtime snack, but that’s gone, too.”
“She did say she brought extra, didn’t she. Sorry, Ernestine. She must’ve forgotten.”
“It was the phone call,” Ernestine said. “That kind of rumpus could make extra gingerbread slip anyone’s mind. It must have made her forget which spindle to borrow, too.”
“It’s nice of you to put that spin on it, Ernestine. Did you see her take it?”
“I saw both spindles when I peeked in her bag.”
“Oh.”
“Sneaky, I know. Me, I mean.”
“And Reva Louise.”
“I did have a reason,” Ernestine said. She fished in her pocket and brought out a tiny scrap of paper. “I don’t know that it matters, and I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others or embarrass her.”
“I saw you pick something out of one of her pixie hats. What is it?”
Ernestine put the scrap in my hand. It was a manufacturer’s inspection sticker.
Chapter 5
The problem with meeting Joe Dunbar for supper at Mel’s on Main was caused by the same reason we decided to eat there. It was the best place to grab a cup of coffee, linger over lasagna with wild mushrooms and fontina, descend into decadence over dark chocolate torte, or simply step inside and savor . . .
“You look nice,” Joe said, holding the door for me.
“Really? Thanks.” At the last minute I’d exchanged the flowered skirt and flats I’d worn at the shop for my favorite jeans and sandals. I’d kept on a green knit shell, throwing on a shirt with a watery pattern of blues and greens against the evening chill. And who knows, maybe to look a little like a trout for Joe the fisherman, too. “Wow, what are they cooking tonight?”
“Something with mustard?” Joe’s nose was well educated. “Definitely barbecue.”
But because Mel’s was the best place to eat, it meant we’d probably run into people we knew. Not such a terrible problem, except we’d be taking a chance on people speculating about us as a couple while we were still speculating ourse
lves. Mel’s food easily trumped worries about speculations, though, and we nodded and said hey on our way to the counter, placed our orders, then found a table halfway down the long room.
When our order came, Mel’s food had to work a little harder to make up for another problem. It was Saturday night and the café was crowded, so we were also taking a chance on people, who didn’t have enough imagination to speculate about us as a couple, pulling over a chair to join us. Joe’s brother, Deputy Cole Dunbar, for example. Cole, whom I always thought of, but never called, Clod.
“Why can’t Mel call a hamburger a hamburger?” Clod groused. He dumped himself in the chair next to Joe, so then I faced two Dunbars. “Who needs cute names for food? And what’s that?” He pointed at Joe’s plate.
“Wing Dings.”
“Pfft. Speaking of which, how are you this evening, Ms. Rutledge?”
“Ecstatically enjoying my Bubble and Squeak.” I wasn’t eating Bubble and Squeak, but if he could assume it was okay to sit down without being asked, I could assume it was okay to be snarky without any other provocation. Joe really was eating the Wing Dings—boneless, skinless barbecued wings—and I was having Mel’s Mustard-Roasted Vegetable Medley. And we’d been having a nice time, sharing cat stories starring Maggie, who lived with Joe and hated me, and Argyle, who loved everyone indiscriminately. Clod wasn’t a cat person.
The Dunbar brothers were a study in similarities and contrasts. They were the same height. The same height as Ardis, in fact—call it six feet. Clod was muscled and mulish. Joe was lanky and more like an El Greco monk. Clod was older by a few years. Both had dark hair. Clod’s was mostly gone. Joe’s was wavy and stood up in tufts and didn’t look as though it was disappearing anytime soon. Unlike Joe, who disappeared frequently. Mostly up mountain creeks with a fishing pole, either as a paid guide or on his own. He told me he’d never met a stream he didn’t like and wouldn’t try to fish even if it meant crawling through a rhododendron hell to do it.
Joe was as dedicated to his fishing as Clod was to upholding the local law. And any mention of the law raised one of the more interesting, and delicate, contrasts between the two brothers. Clod was a black-and-white, straight-and-narrow, law-and-order guy. Joe was . . .
Joe was a man of several income streams, much like J. Scott Prescott. Joe’s streams weren’t as high-end as J. Scott’s, and that might be why he had more of them. He did odd jobs for us at the Weaver’s Cat and taught fly-tying classes in the shop. He was a decent watercolorist and sold his paintings at another shop in town. He did his fishing guide bit. And then there were other “jobs” about which there were unanswered questions. To my mind the questions were unanswered, anyway, because although Joe gave a good impression of telling, the few times I’d asked, his answers really weren’t much more than hedges. The whole thing was complicated. It was even more complicated for law-and-order Clod, and I got the feeling he’d erected a firm barrier against any questions at all. As far as I could tell, they didn’t spend a lot of time together, but when they did they got along in their own quiet way.
“You on duty for the festival next weekend?” Joe asked.
“You know it. And we’re calling in the auxiliaries. This thing gets bigger every year. You fishing as far away as you can get?”
“Maybe.” Joe took a sip of iced tea. “But I might stick around.”
Clod made a noise that was either a laugh or skepticism.
“Here’s your Humdinger Dangburger, Deputy.” Sally Ann Jilton, the half sister Mel and Reva Louise shared from different directions, was the waitress that night. It wasn’t any easier to see Reva Louise in Sally Ann than it was in Mel. Sally Ann had striking cheekbones and a long nose that Reva Louise missed out on. Sally Ann’s hair was a darker brown, but just as thin as she was, and she kept it twisted in a tiny dancer’s bun at the nape of her neck. She held on to Clod’s plate and nodded toward the back of the café. “A booth’s coming up empty. I can put this down there if you want.”
“No,” Clod said, “I’m good.”
Sally Ann looked at me and shrugged. “I tried.” She turned back to Clod. “Do you want your pie now or later?”
“When you get the time,” said Clod.
Sally Ann shrugged again and left. Clod emptied half a bottle of ketchup onto his plate next to a mound of fries. He picked up a couple of the fries and swiped them through the red puddle.
“Tell me, Ms. Rutledge,” he said, “did you ever come up with any more details about that mysterious antique double murder you were wondering about a while back?” He popped the fries in his mouth and started the swishing operation with two more. When I didn’t answer he glanced up. The look on my face must have confused him. “What?”
I pointed at the fries halfway to his mouth.
“You’re squeamish?” Ketchup dripped from one of the fries onto his khaki uniform shirt. “Well, if that isn’t a Humdinger Dangburger.”
Joe wet a napkin in Clod’s water glass and handed it to him.
“Nancy Drew is squeamish,” Clod said, mopping at the stain on his shirt. “So you’re mothballing the trench coat? Hanging up the gumshoes?” He wadded the napkin and dropped it on the table. “I won’t have to worry about you and your interfering nose again? Hallelujah. It’s about dang time.”
I smiled and excused myself to the ladies’ room. Insufferable dolt.
• • •
On my way back to the table, I popped my head in the kitchen to wave at Mel. Mel, standing at the stove, lifted a ladle in return. Sally Ann was nearer the door.
“Sally Ann? Just to let you know, the ladies’ room needs toilet paper.” As I ducked back out, there was a clatter and an explosive oath from Mel. Afraid she’d burned herself, I darted back in and found her raging at Sally Ann.
“I told you twenty minutes ago to get the toilet paper!”
I’d never seen Mel acting so much like her rabid hair. She’d gone from zero to furious in less than a breath. The clatter I’d heard was the ladle hitting the wall in the corner.
“Mel?” I asked.
She closed her eyes and held her hands out, fingers splayed, fending advances.
“I’ll just go get the toilet paper,” Sally Ann said to no one in particular and seemingly unfazed. “Then I’m going out back for a smoke.” She looked at me and tipped her head toward Mel. “She’ll be all right in a minute or two. Not sure I can say the same for the wall. Or the ladle.”
• • •
The evening was only made better by the arrival of the Spivey twins shortly after I sat back down.
“Cousin Kath,” the first twin to the table said.
“Always a pleasure,” said the second twin. “Your smiling face. It lights up our day.”
My smile, I knew, couldn’t be more than low-watt. I almost never thought it was a pleasure to see Shirley or Mercy. Calling me “cousin” was the only part of their greeting they got right, and that was only by the thinnest possible thread. They were Granny’s cousin Alice’s daughters, making them once removed from Granny and putting them at several more removes from me. They were brushing up against seventy and wore their hair in identical, dated perms with matching and unconvincing highlights. They’d married, and Shirley had even married a second time, but their identity as the Spivey twins transcended all.
“And Coleridge and Tennyson.” The Spiveys nodded to the Dunbars. Just as Shirley and Mercy would always be Spiveys, to a certain generation, the brothers would always be known by their given names. Poor saps. Clod—Coleridge Blake Dunbar—could at least shorten his to something acceptable. Joe—Tennyson Yeats Dunbar—had had to fend for himself.
“We have something to show you,” one or the other of the twins said to me. Without verbal clues, the only sure way to tell the two apart was to stand closer to them. Mercy wore cologne. Shirley didn’t. The kindest thing I’d heard anyone say about Mercy’s chosen scent was that she wore it sparingly. I think it was Shirley who said it. I inched my chair farther from
them.
“It’s a surprise for Angela,” the other twin said, “for when she graduates from Northeast State next month. We had them made up.” She passed me a business card.
Not one of us at the table had said a word to the Spiveys. Joe because he generally didn’t. Clod because he was wolfing his food, the better to leave the table faster. That was the one good thing about the Spivey advent. Gulping a Humdinger Dangburger like that would probably give him indigestion. I beamed a full-watt smile at that thought.
“You haven’t looked at Angie’s card yet,” the second twin said.
I hadn’t planned to look at the card at all, but my wicked delight at Clod’s imminent discomfort suckered me into it. Angie, Mercy’s daughter, was only a couple of years older than I. I didn’t really know her, though, and didn’t remember meeting her during my childhood visits to Granny. From the few interactions we’d had since I moved to Blue Plum, and from seeing her around the edges of social functions, she seemed to be someone who struggled, someone who was never very happy. I looked at the card. Apparently she was studying for a real estate license.
“Good for Angie,” I said. I meant it, too. I tried to hand the card back. I’d suddenly turned into a business card magnet.
“No, no. Keep it,” said Shirley, or maybe it was Mercy.
“But strictly on the QT,” the other said. “Don’t talk to Angie yet.”
That seemed a safe bet.
“We’ll let you know when,” the first twin said.
“You’ll be the first to know. Count on it.” That twin gave me a huge wink. Then they both smiled and left.
“What was that all about?” Joe asked.
I stared after the Spiveys, wondering the same thing. Granny had taught me to look for the good in people. Step back and look at folks fairly, she’d said. Just remember, if you’re able to catch sight of the good in them from that distance, it doesn’t mean you have to step forward again and hug their necks. Thinking of that now, I realized I had caught sight of something good about Shirley and Mercy. They were good at arousing suspicion.
