Spinning in Her Grave

by Molly Macrae

  “Of course, I might be fingering the woman who was in front of me in the grocery store last week with twenty-seven items over the limit in the express lane,” Ardis said.

  “Or someone else entirely,” said Ernestine.

  “How long is this going to take?” Mel asked.

  “No time at all,” Thea said. “I can send the link or Kath can when she sends her updated info sheet.”

  “Good,” said Mel. “I’m fading. Do that. Do the dishes. Then go.”

  “No.” I said that loudly enough that, although no one jumped, everyone but John looked surprised. He was still engrossed in Thea’s mug shots. “Sorry,” I said, “but we need to get more done tonight. We have to.”

  “You’re a little touchy since the shirt incident back there, Red. What was that about?”

  But Ardis was more than a little hot under the collar and she didn’t leave me room to answer. “I’ll tell you what I’m a little touchy about, since I finally heard tell.” She stood, arms crossed, staring hard at Mel. “I’m touchy about the fact that you knew up front Reva Louise was an embezzler and a liar and a cheat and yet you saw fit to let her loose in this town without a single neighborly ‘Oh, by the way’ to warn your friends and business associates. At least Sally Ann had the grace to apologize for bringing that—that infestation here.”

  While they had a static-filled stare-down, I wondered when Sally Ann had apologized. Maybe I hadn’t heard.

  “Ardis,” Mel finally said. “I want you to be the first to know. I am not the best judge of character. True fact.”

  Ardis stood scowling one moment longer, then relaxed enough to drop her arms and sit down on the other high stool. “When it comes down to it,” she said, “who among us really is? And giving Reva Louise a job when she needed one speaks more to your true nature than poisoning the well against her by telling her story. It’s over. She’s gone. And I believe I’ve talked myself out of voluntarily exiling myself from the café, which would have proved precisely nothing. We are all tired after a frightful two days. Kath, what more can we do tonight? Ms. Crotchety Pants needs to go home.”

  “I won’t ask which of you is Ms. Crotchety Pants. Before we tackle the dishes—and take our seconds of the bodacious bread pudding with us—let’s have progress reports from Mel and Thea. You all know Carl? Old guy, one of Mel’s regular coffee hounds? She had him look for Prescott’s business cards on the bulletin board by the back door. Any luck?”

  “He looked for Snappy Small Engine Repair, too,” Mel said. “That’s what Reva Louise said Dan was going to call his business. Carl found Prescott’s real estate card. Nothing else.”

  “So Reva Louise might have gotten her card straight from Prescott.”

  “Or not,” Ardis said. “From what you said, he handed out various and sundry by the deck-full. She could’ve taken it from the bulletin board and he put up five more. We still don’t know what her having the card means. If anything.”

  I made a note. “Next report, also from you, Mel. Did you say you heard from your real estate source in Knoxville?”

  “Nothing firm in terms of real estate,” Mel said. “Except that Prescott—”

  “Was there a hole in it?” Ernestine asked. “Oh, I’m sorry. You go ahead, Mel. It just occurred to me that a hole might tell us something.”

  “A hole in what?” Mel asked.

  “In her pocket,” Ernestine said. “No, I mean in the card Kath found in her pocket. Not in her own pocket; in Reva Louise’s pocket. If there wasn’t a hole in the card, then Reva Louise didn’t take it from the bulletin board.”

  “Very good, Ernestine,” said Ardis. “The curious incident of the hole in the business card.”

  “Exactly what I thought,” Ernestine said, so delighted with herself that she’d turned as pink as the flowers in her dress.

  “I don’t think it had a hole in it,” I said, “but I can’t swear to it.”

  “And that only tells us where she didn’t get the card,” said Mel.

  “Eliminating possibilities is a big help, though. Good work, Ernestine. Any more thoughts on the business card? Back to you, then, Mel. You said there wasn’t anything firm about Prescott’s real estate business, but?”

  “He’s been hyper and secretive, which she says fits with working on a big deal, and rumor has it that he lost the piano sales job. That was easy enough to check. I did. He did.”

  “That must’ve been a blow.” I knew something about that kind of blow, and it was almost enough to make me feel sympathetic toward Prescott. But not quite. “Do you know how recently? He was still handing out piano cards less than two weeks ago.”

  “I didn’t ask, but Paula—she’s my source—she thought he might be feeling a pinch.”

  “That could explain the amount of spare time he has on his hands for dabbling in plays,” Ardis said. “But if he lost a real estate deal because of Reva Louise’s death, unless he’s dumber than a box of rocks, doesn’t it seem unlikely that he went to the trouble of killing her on purpose?”

  “What if he lost the deal because of her, but not because of her death?” Thea asked.

  “Murder by absolute fury as a result of sliding another step toward financial ruin?” Mel asked. “That’s not a bad theory. I’d love to know what that deal was. You’d think someone here in town would’ve heard something. I’ll check back with Paula and see if she can pick up anything else.” Mel was involved enough in the discussion by then that she took a seat, ran her fingers through her spikes to make sure they were upright, and knitted her brow in concentration. “He’s working at three chancy professions in a tough economy,” she said. “I don’t imagine boatloads of expensive pianos are selling when people are struggling just to stay in their houses. And the ones trying to sell their houses aren’t having a lot of luck, either. Moving commercial properties can’t be much easier. And the mercantile? That thing’s been empty for donkey’s years. Plus, look how far he’s ranging from home looking to make a buck.”

  “Like a predator expanding its territory when prey is scarce,” Joe said.

  It wasn’t until I heard his voice across the room that I realized he’d gotten up and was doing the dishes. Such quiet ways he had about him, and such keen observation skills had I. I would’ve gone to give him a hand, but I didn’t want to interrupt the energetic flow of our discussion. I told myself.

  “What if her death is something else?” Thea said. “What if her death is misdirection, diverting everyone’s attention from some other plan or scheme?”

  “Killed for a sneaky reason, instead of for obvious gain? That would fit with . . .”

  “Fit with what, Red?”

  I’d almost said, With what I felt from touching her skirt and Sally Ann’s shirt. “It fits with hiding more guns in the Cat, trying to make it look as though some nut set up housekeeping and is planning who knows what. But how would we figure out what that plot or scheme is? The hard part of figuring this out is that we’re starting from the end. We’ve got a solution—Reva Louise is dead. And now we’re looking for the problem her death solved, whether it’s sneaky or straightforward.”

  “And whose problem it was,” said John, surfacing from the mug shot slide show.

  “Well, yes. That’s kind of the point of the investigation,” Mel said. “I recognize an evil smile when I see one, John Berry. What are you up to?”

  “Reliving my evil past.” He told them about his encounter with the man and his bass boat earlier in the afternoon. “I had way too much fun watching him make his problem worse with each maneuver, and I just found him here in one of Thea’s pictures. I was going to show you so we could all have a laugh. But he doesn’t deserve my piece of meanness. He’s only a flatland landlubber with a new toy.”

  Joe was finished with the dishes and drying his hands. He looked over John’s shoulder at the flatland landlubber pictured on the laptop.

  “Heh,” came Joe’s abrupt and stifled laugh, “he’s also Dan Snapp.”

/>   Chapter 26

  Finding out that Dan Snapp suddenly had enough money, or the promise of enough money, to afford an expensive bass boat and trailer to haul it, combined with the sensitivity of an earthworm for running out and buying them within twenty-four hours of his wife’s murder, gave new energy to the posse that Sunday evening. Mel was absolutely nuclear. Ardis and Joe cooled her down before she reached critical mass.

  “Walk it off, hon,” Ardis said. “We’ll walk it off together.” She marched Mel back and forth across the kitchen until Mel quit spitting and could stand still and listen to Thea’s good sense.

  “No one’s so stupid in this day and age,” Thea said, “that he would kill his wife for the money and immediately start spending it. That kind of behavior just raises so many red flags.”

  “But he might be that smart,” Mel said, “that he’d know no one would be that stupid, so he’d make himself look that stupid to throw off the stupid sheriff’s deputies. No offense intended, Joe.”

  “None taken.”

  The energy so quickly gathered, as quickly dispersed. Before we dispersed, too, I told them I would e-mail the updated summary to them and a link to the mug shot slide show. I asked them to look again at the questions below the summary.

  “I especially want to know more about that mercantile deal and where Angie is. If we don’t find her, Shirley and Mercy will hound me for the rest of my life.”

  “Goodness,” Ernestine murmured.

  “And really quick, if you don’t mind, I have one more question that probably hasn’t got anything to do with what happened, but . . .”

  “Spit it out, Red. Then let’s drag ourselves home,” said Mel.

  “Did any of you hear a loud stereo or hear a woman singing downtown late last night? Oh, and wait, one more. Have you ever heard an old story, a hundred, hundred fifty years old, about a young couple shot and killed walking home through a grassy field somewhere around here? Their names might have been Mattie and Sam.”

  “Red, go home and get some sleep.”

  Judging by the looks from the others, Mel was right; time to go home. Joe handed us each a bakery bag at the back door. Mine had a double portion of the rhubarb bread pudding.

  • • •

  Home and sleep would have been nice. I wanted to stop by the Weaver’s Cat again, though, to see if Geneva would come out and sit with me on the porch. And to see if everything was quiet and not more paranormal than normal. And to make sure she wasn’t afraid to spend the night alone in the dark shop with only Argyle the sleepy watch cat for company.

  Joe caught up with me before I reached the Cat. “Hey.”

  “Oh, hey.”

  “You’re feeling all right now? Are you sure you were just light-headed?”

  “Yeah, it happens sometimes. Low blood pressure, standing up too fast. I’m fine. Thanks for checking.” It was hard to say whether his deep blue eyes were concerned or unconvinced. Time to move on. “I’ve got a couple of questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

  “One of the things I like about you, Kath, is that you don’t mind if people do mind your questions, so go ahead. If I mind, I’ll go fishing.”

  “But with flies, not bait.”

  “Damn right.”

  “The other morning, yesterday morning . . .” When I’d enjoyed the feeling of his hand at the small of my back. And this evening he’d treated Sally Ann the same way. Had his touch only been a gesture of courtesy?

  “Kath?”

  “Sorry, thinking things through. I got the feeling yesterday, and again tonight, that you don’t care for Dan Snapp. Is that only the bait-versus-tied-fly thing, or is there more to it?”

  He didn’t answer right away, which pretty much gave me my answer, but I pressed for more anyway.

  “The reason I’m asking is that, although Mel says she isn’t a good judge of character, I think you are.”

  “So you want to know if I think he could shoot his wife in public.”

  “That’s a . . . brutal way to put it and completely accurate. It’s horrible, isn’t it?”

  I slowed our pace as we came to the Cat. The lights were on, so Clod was still there. There was no glimmer of Geneva on the porch or in a window looking for me. Just as well; she would’ve made comments or questioned my judgment for walking in the dark with Joe. As we crossed Depot, I looked along the side of the building and saw the boarded window, the boards like a bright scab on the mellow, old bricks. Joe saw me looking.

  “Cole covered it?” he asked.

  “You recognize his work from that distance?”

  “He called. He said you asked him to do it if I didn’t have time.”

  “Oh. That’s not exactly how I remember it, but as long as it’s covered.”

  “I’m sure he did a fine job and I’ve got an idea for a new kind of bell for the Cat’s back door. Anyway, about Snapp. I don’t like the guy. He’s lazy and there’s a lot that goes with being lazy, including the possibility of being brutal if that’s the easiest path. But I’m not going to indict a man on my gut instincts.”

  “Yeah, that could be the downfall of the lazy detective. So, on a different subject, any idea what Mel reported stolen the other day?”

  “Recipe file.”

  “What?” My “what” covered incredulity at the item stolen, at the fact that Mel reported that peculiar loss, and at Joe’s insider knowledge. I’d asked, but more as a way to put a bug in his ear. I hadn’t expected an answer. He knew but Mel hadn’t told me when I asked?

  “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Then we won’t talk about it.” So there. “Really, though? She reported a missing recipe file to the police?”

  “It was more of a box than a file.”

  “A valuable box? Valuable recipes?”

  He looked uncomfortable.

  “Never mind. If you weren’t supposed to say anything, then we won’t talk about it.” It or anything else. Hmph. I should have respected him for keeping his word, but he’d only kept it up to a point, and that point was at the brink of my inveterate nosiness. My nosiness wasn’t as miffed as the rest of me, though, and Joe was a man with many streams of interesting information. “Any idea why Aaron Carlin didn’t take down his Tent of Wonders yesterday?”

  “You’re wondering about that, too? Huh. If we both are, maybe it’s worth finding out. I’ll see what I can do.”

  By then we were at Granny’s little yellow house—now mine—on Lavender Street. I was bone tired and must have looked it.

  “I won’t keep you,” Joe said when I stepped up onto the porch. “You should try to get a good night’s sleep, Kath.”

  He waited until I unlocked the door and opened it. Then he waved and he was gone. The story of Joe.

  • • •

  A good night’s sleep had a nice ring to it. While I brushed my teeth, planning on no further detours before diving headfirst into my comfortable bed, three more questions bubbled up. I rinsed, spit, and went to find my notebook. Suddenly not liking the idea of giving them bullet points, I wrote them one after the other in paragraph form:

  How smart or dumb is Dan Snapp? If he needs a kick in the pants to do something, and if he killed Reva Louise, who gave him the kick? Angie? Or, if J. Scott Prescott, a near-desperate real estate agent, is a suspect in the death of Reva Louise, shouldn’t he also be a suspect in the disappearance of Angie the fledgling agent and potential rival? And what about Sally Ann? What do we know about her? How bitter or jealous is she of “the center of the universe”? But are bitterness or jealousy motives for murder?

  I closed the notebook and slipped the elastic around it, hoping the questions would stay there inside and not come knocking for answers in the early hours.

  • • •

  “What are you planning to do?” Ardis snarled into the phone the next morning. “Rouse the entire town before the first mockingbird is up or just your soon-to-be-lost friends?” She never woke well when wakened early. />
  “It’s not all that early, but I apologize anyway. Deputy Dunbar gave us the all-clear to open this morning, and there’s a lot I want to get done today, starting with checking—again—to see if we need to clean up after him.”

  I heard movement and flapping noises and pictured her throwing back covers and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.

  “If you have important agenda items,” she said, sounding more upright, “Debbie and I will handle whatever needs attention at the Cat.”

  I’d hoped she would say that. “That’s fantastic, Ardis. I’ll go by and feed Argyle, but I’d like to run a casserole over to Dan Snapp, and do you know what else I thought might be interesting? I thought I’d make an appointment to see the mercantile. Maybe it’ll tell us something. Maybe I can even get J. Scott Prescott to show me around.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go poking that Prescott to see what happens. And the same goes for Dan Snapp. Remember our motto, hon, safety in numbers.”

  “We don’t have a motto, Ardis, but if we adopt one, I’ll vote for that.”

  “I don’t want you going alone to ask Snapp or Prescott questions. Do you understand? And not just because I’ll feel left out.”

  “Message received.”

  “Come to think, the obvious ones to call Prescott about the mercantile are Ernestine and John. He won’t know them. Their snooping—excuse me—their interest in looking around will appear innocent. What do you think of that?”

  “I like it. John can take mean-as-snakes Ambrose along for protection. I’m getting a low battery beep. I’d better go.”

  “Then I’ll call to see if Ernestine and John are game for the mercantile ploy. You charge your phone so you have it when you need it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Before she let me go she also made me promise no solo interviews with Dan Snapp or J. Scott Prescott. There was nothing in her extracted promise, however, about snoop—excuse me—about looking at and showing professional interest in Dan Snapp’s loom house.