“The big tattooed guy from the motel is in Disco’s store.” I tried to catch my breath. “I’m sure it’s him. Come.”
She followed me as we hurried down the block toward Flashback. Darn. The guy had just walked out and was leaving. He walked toward a gray van and got in the passenger side. I couldn’t see who was driving as they backed out and then sped away.
Pulling open the psychedelic-colored door, Dixie and I entered Flashback. The Rolling Stones played in the background. Disco was on the phone at the register and so we waited.
I looked around the store. Had the guy been looking for something in particular?
I didn’t think he seemed like the type for a life-sized E.T. or an unused Pink Floyd concert ticket, but the Shut Your Pie Hole button might be a possibility. Or the one next to it with a saying that was even more rude.
By the time Disco got off the phone, I was deciding between the “Chocolate doesn’t ask silly questions. Chocolate understands.” t-shirt and the “A balanced diet is chocolate in both hands” one. I hadn’t realized he stocked new novelty items in addition to his memorabilia and I was impressed with the variety.
He moved aside a box that had been on the counter and as he set it on the floor I thought I spotted a frog statue inside that looked a lot like the one I’d taken to Greer the other day. He quickly fluffed the newspaper packing around so I couldn’t see for sure.
“This is so cool,” he said. “I can’t believe you guys came to my place. Looking for something for your brother? This is rad.” Grinning from ear to ear, he pulled out a vintage Chicago Cubs hat for Dixie to see. “Nineteen sixty-eight. Rare.”
“Hirsh is a fan, but I’m not shopping for him right now.”
“Too bad.” His smile drooped a little.
“I’ll come back closer to his birthday,” she assured him. “Actually, we were wondering about that guy who was just in here.”
“Guy?” He blinked and stared at us with a vacant look.
“Come on, Disco.” Dixie had no patience. “The big burly tattooed guy who left shortly before we came in.”
“Oh, that guy.” He put the Cubs hat back in the display case.
“Yes, that guy.”
“Dude wanted to know about some things I’m selling for Kenny Farmer.”
“What kind of things?”
Disco stood for a while thinking, and I wasn’t sure whether he couldn’t remember what he had from Kenny or if he’d just spaced off for a bit.
“Mr. Farmer brought in some of his wife’s things a week or so ago.” He pulled at the sleeve of his hot pink shirt. “Collectibles, you know.”
I didn’t know, and I was sure Dixie didn’t either.
“What kind of collectibles?” I asked. Elsie didn’t seem the type for vintage records or unused rock concert tickets.
“She had these little figurines. Real little.” He held his thumb and index finger about an inch apart. “Little bitty ceramic mouses, meeses, uh…”
“Mice,” I supplied.
“Yeah, mice. A whole bunch of them.” Disco cupped his hands. “I don’t know much about those kinds of collectibles but I called my friend, Rik, up in the Twin Cities and he had a friend of a friend who does that kind of stuff. Turns out those crazy little guys are worth a bucket load of moolah.”
“The guy who was just here doesn’t seem like the type to be in the market for little mouse figures,” Dixie noted.
Dixie’s sarcasm was lost on Disco. “Nah, he was mostly fishing for intel about what Kenny Farmer brought in.”
“What else did he say?”
Disco thought for a while. “He was kind of freaky-deaky, if you know what I mean. He wouldn’t tell me if there was something in particular that he was after, something that he knew Kenny might be bringing in. I mean I could maybe find the item or items elsewhere you know.”
“Did he give his name?” It would be a great breakthrough if he had.
“Nope.” Disco shook his head. “No name. No phone number. I told him if I knew what he wanted, I could call him if it showed up, but he just said he’d check back. Do you know him?”
“No, but we’ve run into him before,” I said. “Listen, if he comes in again, would you let us know.”
“Sure thing.” He went back to packing whatever it was he’d had on the counter when we came in.
I started to ask about the frog statue, but even if it was Greer’s Mr. Froggie, it was none of my business.
Back at the office, I thought about what we’d seen at Disco’s shop. If this guy was a drug dealer and he was stalking Kenny, we really should report it to the sheriff. And Disco had thought he acted suspicious. At least that was my interpretation of freaky-deaky. Disco had acted a little freaky himself, but with him it was hard to tell.
Still what could we say? “Say, Sheriff, there’s this guy—we don’t know his name, or where you can find him, or what he was doing at the motel, or why he was asking Disco about Kenny.” Yeah, we knew little to nothing that would be helpful.
Dixie sat down to finish up making a list for me of which recipes would be highlighted. I could tell she was still preoccupied with the secrets her aunt was still keeping even though she was still a suspect. I guess we think we know someone and they still have secrets.
“Hon, I know you feel bad that Bertie didn’t share whatever was going on with you, but we all keep secrets. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t trust you.” I wanted to point out that she so far refused to tell me what the source of the friction between her and the sheriff was, but I wasn’t going to harass her while she was down.
“I’m useless.” She stood and started cleaning up. “I’m going home.”
“That’s a great idea.” I picked up the list she’d left on the counter. “If you’re okay with Max Windsor’s pricing, I’m going to call him and let him know how many photos there will be. We should get him scheduled.” I still thought he was underpriced, but who was I to say if he wanted to give us a deal. It could be that was his way of contributing to a civic project.
I hunted down his card which I’d put in the desk drawer. It felt good to move forward on some aspect of the cookbook. I didn’t want to make Dixie feel any worse than she already did but we needed to keep moving forward if we were to meet the project deadlines.
“See you tomorrow,” Dixie called out as she left. “I’ll call you if I find out anything more.”
I dialed the number on Max’s card and he answered right away.
After explaining the reason for my call, I gave him the run down on the number of dishes we hoped to have photos of. He said he would stop by the next day and pick up the list, and I confirmed that would work for us. One of us would be in the shop. I kind of hoped it would be me.
As we hung up, the bell dinged and Minnie Silberhorn walked in.
“Is this a bad time?”
“Not at all. Can I get you something to drink? I’m afraid we only have coffee or water.” I offered, thinking to myself that it might be just water if Dixie had cleaned the coffee pot before she left.
“No, that’s okay.” Minnie seemed distracted, her eyes staring at the wall behind me.
I turned and looked at the wall. No, nothing there but the various kitchen tools and gadgets we’d hung on the big hooks that had already been in place when we moved in.
“I haven’t been in here since it was the pie place,” she explained. “It seems about the same.”
She was right. We’d done very little to the storefront. Cleaned, slapped on a coat of fresh paint, updated the kitchen, but that was about it. For us it was a workspace. I’d hoped to eventually create an area to meet with clients, but we’d never intended for it to be as public as it had been the past couple of weeks.
“Did you bring me the list?” I had hoped she’d send it via email but this would work too. If we were to stay on sc
hedule, I needed to get busy making sure we had all the logos so I could get them to our layout person.
“Yes, I did.” Her gaze shifted from the wall to my face.
She reached in her large tan bag and pulled out a spreadsheet and handed it to me. I looked it over.
“Hon, I’m sorry. This is the list of advertisers. What I need is the list of sponsors. I need to get them listed in the book and make sure we have logos and all that. Harriet thought you’d have the list.”
“I do.” Minnie brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “But the note said advertisers. I don’t have the other list with me.”
“That’s okay. Maybe I can get it from you tomorrow.” I had really wanted to get this done. “Now that I know where you work, I could stop by and pick it up.”
She stepped around me and straightened the cheese grater so it hung straight.
“Do you like working for the Farmer family?” I asked. “It seems like a good job.”
“It’s okay.” She gave me a funny look and then again shifted her gaze to the wall. “I don’t really work for the family though, just Kenny.”
“It must be hard for everyone right now with Elsie’s death.”
“I heard Karla Farmer telling you that things were fine between Kenny and Elsie and that the family thought highly of her.” She eyed the tongs next to the grater as if they were next.
“That’s not true?” I asked.
“It’s not true at all. I mean Kenny couldn’t talk about it yet, but they were getting a divorce.”
“What?” I was floored. Now she really had my attention. “How do you know?”
“Well, when you work for someone you hear things.”
“They talked about it in front of you.”
“Not exactly, but I heard Kenny talking about it on the phone.” She fidgeted with the handle of her purse. “That Elsie, she was a mean woman. And she was especially mean to Kenny. Always putting him down, always complaining, nothing was good enough for her.”
“Do you think he might be involved with someone else?”
“What?” She stopped. “No.” She shook her head again. “Kenny would never do anything like that. He wouldn’t be with someone else while he was married. But I think he might have cared for someone. Maybe had someone else in mind, you know, after the divorce was final.”
That made sense to me. If that someone was the one he’d been playing around with at his wife’s funeral they may have been celebrating.
A shiver ran down my whole being at the thought.
“What is it?” Minnie looked at me.
“You don’t think Kenny may have…” I couldn’t bring myself to make the accusation without any proof. Especially since Dixie’s Aunt Bertie had been falsely accused without any real proof.
“You think Kenny killed Elsie?” she gasped. “No way. He is the nicest, kindest, man. He could never do anything like that. But lots of people didn’t like her. She was awful to people, got people fired, took credit for things other people did…” Her voice trailed off.
Yep, I’d bet Minnie had experienced that last one a time or two.
“But it’s a big leap to go from not liking someone or hating the awful things they do, to killing them. There would have to be a bigger motive, I’d think.”
“You think so?” She paused, her pastel blue eyes wide.
“I do.”
Yes, Minnie, I do. And I think you might be working for a murderer.
She didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes and I wondered if that thought had occurred to her as well.
I hadn’t meant to scare her and I truly didn’t believe she was in any danger. If Kenny had killed Elsie he’d probably gotten what he wanted. And what he wanted might have been a clear path to marry the woman he’d been fooling around with.
“Well, I’d better go.” Minnie blinked and pushed up her glasses. “I can get the list of sponsors for you when I get to work tomorrow. Do you want me to bring it to you here or what?”
“Maybe I could pick it up from you?” She could email it to me but I thought going back to the Farmers’ offices might give me the opportunity to find out more about Karla Farmer’s take on Kenny and Elsie.
“Okay, it’s in the files. I’ll have it ready for you.”
Minnie left as quietly as she’d come.
I closed the curtains before leaving and went to lock up, but as I approached the door Tina Martin tapped on the glass. Not wanting to be rude, I opened it to see what she wanted.
“I’m so glad I caught you.” No fuchsia spandex today. She must have come from the real estate office. Her black and white polka-dot sundress looked snappy with bright red patent leather heels, but she still had her energy drink in hand.
“I was just getting ready to lock up.” I hesitated. I didn’t want to be rude and besides with her being in real estate maybe she knew something about Kenny and his plans for divorce. Or maybe something about this other woman Minnie had hinted about.
“This won’t take long.” She handed me an envelope with a red satin ribbon tied around it. “It’s an invitation for you and Dixie to my house for a Looking Pretty party.”
Oh, man. Now, I wished I’d been rude. I untied the ribbon and checked the date, hoping I had legitimate plans. It was a week away. I probably didn’t.
“I don’t know—” I began.
“Don’t start with the excuses already.” She wagged a bright red fingernail at me. “Hear me out.”
I rubbed the glossy ribbon and waited. The woman was very persistent—you had to give her that.
“I know you’re always saying you don’t know enough people to have a party so this is the perfect solution.” She smiled at me as if she’d just handed me the winning lottery ticket.
“This party is for the Founders’ Day Committee.” She raised her brightly manicured hands in a celebratory pose. “Everyone has worked so hard, and whether you liked her or not, what happened with Elsie has been hard on everyone. This is my way of sharing a relaxing evening with my fellow committee members.”
I sighed. How did you say no to that? And when I thought about it, an evening with the group might bring forth some interesting tidbits. Though Kenny must have been careful, someone knew what the truth was. Was he having an affair? Did the man have a drug problem?
I was afraid it meant the purchase of Purple Passion eye shadow was in my future, but attending could be worthwhile. And, even if not for that, I didn’t think as the company working on the cookbook, we got to opt out.
“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll be there.”
Dixie was going to kill me.
“See you then,” Tina took a sip from her drink container, waved good-bye, and headed down the sidewalk. I could only assume to drop off more invitations.
I locked the door and went out the back.
When I pulled into the drive it was a relief that Mrs. Pickett was nowhere in sight. But I’m afraid, in the words of my Aunt Cricket, I’d counted my chickens before they hatched because, as I approached my front door, there was a note tacked to it. And it wasn’t an invitation to a neighborhood block party.
“Dear Ms. Calloway,” it began. “I would very much appreciate it if you would remove the foul language from the side of your garage. It is disgusting and upsetting.”
I left my bags on the front porch and went to look. Sure enough, the clean white clapboard side of Greer’s garage had been used as a canvas. Red paint appeared to have been sprayed on in a hurry. I’d seen street art but this was far from that. It was a bunch of crude words and the vandals’ rather graphic thoughts on school attendance. Given some of the misspellings of the swear words, they needed more schooling rather than less.
Well, I could see why Mrs. Pickett did not want to look at that. But she could have called the police, which was what I did as soon as I got back t
o the porch and located my phone.
The dispatcher at the Jameson County Sheriff’s Office was very nice and said they’d send someone by to take a look. She said they wanted to see the graffiti before I painted over it because there had been some random vandalism in town. They would stop by tomorrow and take pictures and then give me the go ahead to paint.
I appreciated that she’d shared that intel. It looked like school kid stuff based on the content but it was still unsettling.
Sorry, Mrs. Pickett. You’re going to have to look at it one more day. If you’d called me and let me know, we could have probably taken care of it today.
Although she was right and the graffiti was mine to take care of, I still resented the tone of her note. I debated about whether to knock on her door and let her know that I had to leave it until the sheriff’s office had taken pictures, but before I could make up my mind my phone rang. I unlocked the door and stepped inside to answer.
“Sugar, honey, it’s Greer.” I was happy to hear her voice. She was always a welcome bright spot in my day.
“I’m so glad you called,” I slipped off my shoes and sat on the couch. I explained to her about the graffiti and what the sheriff’s office had said. “I’ll paint over it just as soon as they tell me I can.”
“There should be some white paint in the garage left from the last time I had it painted.” Greer took everything in stride. “I hope they catch the little stinkers that are doing this.”
“The sheriff’s office said there’d been other incidents like this,” I explained.
“I’d heard that,” she said. “George in the kitchen said some car windows were broken out in his neighborhood.”
“Seems like mostly kid stuff, but I agree, I hope they catch them.” I propped my feet up on the coffee table. “But, I’m sorry, I just jumped in with the graffiti. You called me about something.”
“Heavens to Betsy. Yes, I did.” She laughed. “I wanted to tell you that I had a call from my son in the Twin Cities earlier today. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. I thought something must be wrong but Spencer had just called to check on me. I told him about Elsie and all that. He said Kenny had called him about a month ago out of the blue and wanted to purchase life insurance on himself and Elsie.”
Game of Scones Page 14
