Testing His Patience

by Lyn Cote

  “Darby will be pleased if his teacher visits.”

  She had to grin at this. “Very well. How about seven?”

  “Fine. I’ll drive over and pick you up—”

  “I can walk.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  She shook her head. “Everything always has to be your way, doesn’t it?” She walked away from him. But she couldn’t walk away from the effect he’d had on her.

  “When’er we getting our tree?” Darby asked Gil as he pulled in front of Mrs. Honeycutt’s house later that day just before 7:00 p.m.

  “I’ll discuss that with you later.” Gil’s body hummed with anticipation. He would have Patience beside him within moments. But for how long after he told her what the sheriff had discovered? “Now I have to go get Miss Andrews.”

  “Why’s my teacher coming to our house?” Darby grumbled again.

  “I told you why.” Gil didn’t like repeating his reason—to discuss the new case—because he felt guilty that he might be lying to the boy and himself. Certainly the unexpected evidence would garner a distinct reaction from Miss Patience Andrews. Gil shut the car door against the chill night and his mind against all the what-ifs his brain had churned out. He hurried up the walk and steps to the front door.

  Patience met him there. She looked strained. She looked lovely.

  This thought rattled him. I’m courting disaster here. Do I really want to consult with this woman? Or is this just an excuse to be near her? What will she say when I tell her?

  Without a word, she walked down the steps beside him. Brain dead, he couldn’t think of a thing to say to her. He opened the car door and she slid past him onto the front seat, her subtle scent tempting him.

  “Hi, Miss Andrews,” Darby called out from his place in the back seat.

  “Good evening, Darby.”

  Gil got in beside her and started the car. He made himself concentrate on the dark street ahead, though his awareness of the young woman beside him threatened his focus on driving.

  I can’t let myself be interested in this woman. I have a son to raise. And an ex-wife in town with a boyfriend who has a criminal record. That’s enough to deal with.

  “Teacher,” Darby piped up from the back seat, “are you going to get a Christmas tree?”

  “Mrs. Honeycutt, my landlady, is going to get one. I’ll enjoy hers.”

  “I want a real one,” Darby replied. “I want to cut it down with my dad and grandpa.”

  “That sounds like fun.” Patience glanced over her shoulder at Darby.

  Not looking toward me. So this attraction is just happening to me? He tightened his grip on the wheel. So I can kiss her and it’s no big deal to her. The fact grated inside him like twisting a stubborn rusty bolt.

  “But we gotta wait. It’s too soon.” Darby sounded bereft.

  “Maybe it’s too soon for the tree, but how about lights?” Patience turned from his son and cast Gil an appraising look.

  “Lights?” Gil met her eyes.

  “Yes.” Patience looked as though she was trying to tell him something beyond her words. “Don’t you put up any lights in your windows?”

  “Lights?” Gil repeated.

  “Yes, if your father doesn’t object, let’s stop here and pick up a string of lights.” Patience pointed to the drugstore just ahead on the square. “My treat.”

  “Whoopee!” Darby hooted. “Christmas lights.”

  “But—” Gil began.

  “Sorry, I should have asked you first.” Patience touched his arm. Her contact drove all thought—and resistance—from his mind. He pulled into the parking place in front of the drugstore. Darby clambered out of the back seat.

  With Gil at their heels, Patience and his son walked into the drugstore and picked out a string of multi-colored lights and four suction-cup hooks.

  Gil insisted on paying for them and then followed Patience and Darby outside, aware that everyone in the drugstore had been gawking at them. Why did we do that? Why are we buying Christmas lights the second week in December? We never have Christmas lights.

  “We never had Christmas lights before.” Darby echoed his dad’s unspoken words.

  “Well, it’s nice to have a bit of holiday cheer early in December,” Patience said. “I love everything about Christmas.”

  “Me, too!” Darby gave one of his little jumps.

  “What about you, Gil?” Patience gazed at him.

  He swallowed a lump that had gathered near his Adam’s apple. “Who doesn’t like Christmas?” But he did dread Christmas—and all the deal-making with Coreena and maneuvering of Darby between two houses. But this woman didn’t need to know anything of that.

  Gil drove home, and walking into the kitchen he was met by his dad. The three of them shed their winter jackets. “Oh, hi. I didn’t know we’d be seeing you tonight.”

  “I told Darby I’d help him with his subtraction tonight.” His dad stared hard at Patience.

  “Good evening, Captain Montgomery.” Patience offered him her hand. “Darby and I are going to put some Christmas lights up in his room.”

  The Captain shook her hand, but looked glum.

  “His room?” Gil couldn’t keep surprise out of his voice.

  “Of course.” Patience wondered why Gil had to question or counter everything she suggested. We’re not in court, Gil. “Then when Darby goes to bed, he can enjoy them while he falls to sleep. Where’s your room, Darby?”

  Darby grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall to his bedroom. Two walls of his room were painted white and two navy blue. Sports posters dotted the walls. And toys, mostly Lego, littered the navy blue carpet.

  Gil stood in the doorway, an observer, not a participant.

  Gil, come on. Patience wanted to shake him.

  “What a nice room.” Patience saw that Gil’s dad had followed them and was standing in the doorway glaring at her. “Darby, which window do you want them in?”

  “These toys should have been picked up before your teacher came,” the Captain barked.

  Patience sent a glance toward Gil again and he walked over to her.

  Paying no attention to anyone but Patience, Darby pointed to the window over his headboard.

  “But then you won’t be able to see them when you are in bed,” Patience said.

  “Okay. That window.” Darby pointed to the window on the other wall across from his bed.

  “Good choice.” Feeling Gil’s intense concentration on her, Patience began to blush and was glad she had her profile to him.

  Within minutes, she and Gil’s son had worked the string of lights out of the box, licked and stuck the suction-cup hooks onto the four corners of the window, and strung the lights and plugged them in.

  “Wow,” Darby crowed. “Wait till I tell Mommy that I’ve got Christmas lights in my bedroom.”

  Gil patted his son on the head. “They do add something to the room.”

  Finally. Patience moved toward the door.

  “Okay, let’s get to that subtraction,” Gil’s dad growled at Darby.

  Darby nodded. He and his grandfather sat down at the desk on one side of the room.

  Patience noted though that Darby’s eyes kept flicking back to the colored lights glinting against the window. How did Darby get along with his grandfather, a gruff man to be sure.

  “Okay, let’s get down to business, Patience,” Gil said and let her precede him down the hallway.

  She tried to let the feeling of the house speak to her about the man and his son who lived here. She got the impression of busyness and lack of time. In the kitchen, Patience reached out and touched Gil’s arm. “Before we start, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gil stared at Patience, trying to read her expression for any hint of what she was talking about. Tonight—already filled with all kinds of possible repercussions—now cranked up another notch of tension. “What is it?”

  “Dan Putnam’s lawyer cal
led me recently.” She slid her small hand from his arm and lowered her eyes.

  Missing her touch, Gil motioned for her to sit at the table. After she sank onto the maple chair, he eased down around the corner of the table near her. Her subtle scent beckoned him. “What did Sprague want?”

  “He wants me to pass on to him anything I hear or dig up that might help his client.” Patience wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her thick golden-brown lashes fanned over her cheeks.

  He gazed at the lovely picture she made, sitting so close. “Well…” Why did that surprise you? “Weren’t you already planning on doing that?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.” Her sober eyes lifted to his. “But of course, I would…probably.”

  “So…” Gil spread his hands on the table, palms up.

  “It doesn’t seem right somehow.” Patience’s face twisted with concentration. “I want Dan Putnam to have a second chance. I think he will be vindicated.”

  “You’ve mentioned that before.” Gil made his voice dry and casual. He noted one of her hands rested on the table just inches from his.

  “Maybe it feels like tale-bearing,” Patience said at last. “Like I talk with you and you take me into your confidence and then I go and repeat what you’ve told me to a third party. It feels…wrong.”

  “But how were you going to help Dan?” Gil posed the obvious question. He moved his restless hand a centimeter nearer hers.

  “I guess I thought I wouldn’t be getting any help from you.” She gazed at him across the mere inches that separated them.

  “Ah.” Gil let himself grin. “If it helps any, I really don’t plan on giving you information about Dan Putnam.” The something he needed to know popped back into his mind. Go ahead and ask her while she’s still speaking to you. “Why were you at Vincent Caruthers’s shop today?”

  “I told you why. Don’t you believe me?” She withdrew from him, pressing her spine against the chair back, laying her hands in her lap—out of his reach. She repeated, “I was thinking of having him do an appraisal for me.”

  “Is that all?” Folding his arms, he didn’t try to keep the skepticism from his tone.

  She lifted her chin. “Is that why I’m here? So you can scold me about meddling again?”

  “No.” No need to get her back up already. “I wanted to go over with you the evidence the sheriff managed to glean from the second robbery.”

  “Why?” Patience asked, looking suspicious.

  “Because I expect to persuade you that there really isn’t a connection between the two crimes.” And I want you to hear the worst from me. No one else. Should he tell her right away or keep the really disturbing facts till last?

  He answered his own question and drew back one last time from the unpleasant task, reluctant to cause her pain and embarrassment.

  Patience looked to him still.

  “Okay, then.” He tried to keep his focus on the task he’d set for himself and not the enticing woman at the table. He lifted a folder off the nearby counter and laid it open on the table. “Let’s go over the crime scene report.”

  “What did the sheriff find out?” Patience glanced at the typed pages in front of them.

  “First, the perpetrator must have a personal knowledge of Mrs. Carmichael’s routine. The neighbor who called in to alert the police about her lights being on only demonstrated that Mrs. Carmichael had a very predictable schedule,” he said as he admired Patience’s simple hairstyle, so natural and not in the least flamboyant like his ex-wife’s. “The robber must have known that Mrs. Carmichael would enter the kitchen after her favorite Saturday-night show and he was waiting in just the right spot in the kitchen to knock her out without being seen.”

  “I see,” Patience said with a fixed stare, as though her mind grappled with the information. “That makes sense. Did Mrs. Carmichael have any idea who might have known her routine?”

  “Many people.” He bent and flicked the pointed edge of the pages with his thumb, making a thrumming-ticking sound. “Her reputation for never varying from her habits was, I suppose you could say, a standing joke among her family and neighbors.” No one was laughing now, though.

  “So that means even someone who wasn’t close to the lady could have known about her sticking to her weekly schedule?” Patience glanced to him.

  Her brown eyes appeared richer in the low light of the kitchen. Beautiful eyes. He shook himself mentally. “Right. The sheriff finally compiled the list of stolen items. It consists of antique jewelry—a diamond-and-ruby brooch and a gold-and-diamond pendant that had belonged to Mrs. Carmichael’s great-grandmother, and around eight hundred dollars in cash—”

  “That much,” Patience gasped.

  Gil nodded. “People who lived through the Depression still like to keep cash on hand, I guess.” He glanced at the notes again. “And a complete nineteenth-century sterling-silver tea set.”

  “Whoa,” she breathed. “Those can be expensive.”

  He shut his mouth tight. Patience’s presence was working on him more and more. I don’t want to continue this conversation. Do I have to tell her?

  “So the same type of items that were stolen from Mrs. Perkins were also taken from Mrs. Carmichael?” she asked.

  “We’ve already told you we think someone has copied the original crime,” he reminded her gently. I have to go ahead regardless.

  “Did you find any hard evidence connecting anyone to this crime?” She leaned forward.

  He had expected her to ask this, a dangerous question, though she didn’t realize it. Still, this query was his cue.

  Silently apologizing, he looked into her shining, innocent eyes and forced himself to go on. “The sheriff fingerprinted every possible surface in the house, especially in the areas where evidence of a pilfering were obvious. Mrs. Carmichael and her neighbors and relatives gave us samples of their prints so we could eliminate those.”

  “Why did you automatically cross Mrs. Carmichael’s relatives off the list of suspects?” Her tone became tarter. “You didn’t eliminate Dan Putnam as a suspect just because he was a relative. In fact, you told me you suspected him because of his relationship to his mother and, of course, his fingerprints would be in her house.”

  She doesn’t miss a trick. Again, her no-nonsense, don’t-lie-to-me ways pleased him. “In this case, we couldn’t find any animosity between anyone amongst the local family members.”

  “Just because you didn’t find it right away doesn’t mean it might not exist,” Patience muttered. “People don’t always wash their family’s dirty laundry where everyone can see.”

  Her nearly prophetic comment gave him no relief. His insides had dipped heavier and heavier as though he had lead shot in his midsection. This is going to be really unpleasant, and this evening she took the time to make my son happy again. I wish I could repay her for that. But to hear this from me is better than hearing it from the sheriff. Or some mean-spirited gossip.

  “The sheriff plans to dig into that possibility,” he said gruffly, not willing to argue with her right now. “Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word eliminate. I should have said, identify. We—the sheriff and I—are keeping an open mind on family involvement. We asked Cal Fiskus for a sample of his fingerprints and he refused us again. We checked Hank Drulow’s—whose fingerprints are also on the national database—and they didn’t match, either.”

  “So did you find any fingerprints that didn’t match friends and family?” She sounded unconvinced.

  The moment he’d been dreading. “Yes, we did.” He swallowed and stiffened himself to deliver the blow. “We found two sets of fingerprints for which we had no immediate match.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes,” he hurried on. “One—a set of just a forefinger and a thumb—we still haven’t been able to identify, but…” He fell silent.

  “But?”

  “So, several of your mother’s fingerprints were found at the crime scene—in an upstairs room where they shouldn’t have be
en.” He stared at the report and then forced himself to face her.

  “My mother’s fingerprints?” Patience gaped at him. “How did you find—”

  “We entered them in the national database and she came up as a match.” Pause. “Why didn’t you tell me your mother has a criminal record?”

  Patience felt her throat dry up. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, she could only stare at him.

  “Mrs. Carmichael has told us that your mother has been coming to her house weekly to demonstrate cosmetics to her. So your mother had been in the house with her permission—”

  “And because she has a criminal record, she automatically becomes a suspect.” Patience didn’t even recognize the harsh voice as hers.

  “Your mother is being investigated thoroughly as a person whose fingerprints were in the house and as a person who knew Mrs. Carmichael and her routine.” Gil looked strained and uneasy. “Don’t you see? I wanted you to hear this from me and not the sheriff or read it in the newspaper.”

  “The newspaper?” Her parched throat nearly squeezed shut. “It’ll be reported in the newspaper?”

  “It may be.” He put his hand over hers where it clutched the table’s edge. “We won’t give out our list of suspects, but there may be a leak. It can happen.”

  “I might as well just resign and leave town right now.” Patience ripped her hand from his. She shot up out of her chair.

  “Wait.” Gil stood up, too.

  “People in town had started forgetting.” She wanted to stop her voice from rising but it possessed its own mind and shrilled higher. “They’d started looking at me as if I weren’t public enemy number one. I can’t face it all over again. Having people look at me like I’m dirt.”

  He reached for her.

  She stepped back, bumping against her chair. “You read her whole record, didn’t you?” she accused him. “Not just her most recent sentence for vehicular manslaughter while driving drunk?”