“Yeah, well, I’d promised to have it done by the weekend, and I’m a man likes to keep his promises.”
“Indeed you are, Mr. Farber. When you were here on Thursday, you seemed to have been convinced you’d be finished that day.”
More clinks along with a grunt. “I woulda,” Farber said, “but for that new girl I got in the office, now.” Clank! “She ordered the wrong faucet. I didn’t catch on to that until I had this sink in place and was ready to install the damn faucet. I had to go running back and see if by some miracle the right one came in along with the one I had. No such luck. She messed us both up.”
“Oh, I see,” Gil Williams said. “I’d wondered why you’d disappeared.”
“Yeah. Well, I woulda called, but a lotta stuff came up. Lucky the right faucet came in today.”
“Yes, it was.” Gil Williams leaned back and caught Piper’s eye.
“I tell you,” Farber said, “ya can’t get good help nowadays. I don’t know what they’re teaching kids in schools anymore. Junk like—”
Farber went off on a rant against the current educational system (using the less-than-perfect grammar he himself had managed to graduate with during the older system), and Piper set down the book on investment management she’d been holding in case the plumber happened to rush out. She lifted a hand in silent good-bye to Gil, who nodded, and she left the store.
Well, Piper thought, all things considered, she just might have her number one suspect.
• • •
Back at her apartment, Piper realized she had a message from Will on her cell.
“I know this is last-minute, and I’m really sorry. I’ve been out in the field all day, but I still should have called earlier. Any chance you’re free tonight? Maybe to grab a pizza? I’ll check back in a few minutes.”
A last-minute date on a Saturday night? Ten years ago, Piper might have hesitated, but she’d moved on from the game playing since then. She called Will back.
“Sounds great. I can be ready in twenty minutes.” With that, Piper hopped into the shower, happy to wash away the stresses of the day and hoping for a relaxing evening.
She met Will at her front door in capris and a cotton top. Piper thought the navy tee Will wore over shorts made his blue eyes look even bluer, something she wouldn’t have thought possible.
“It doesn’t have to be pizza,” Will said, “if you’d rather have something else. It was just the first thing popped into my head.”
“Too late! I’ve been thinking of pizza since you called and now I’m dying for it,” Piper said.
“Then Carlo’s it is.”
Carlo’s was a short ride from Piper’s place, but by the time they settled at a table at the modest but heavenly smelling pizzeria, Piper felt she could devour an entire pie herself. They decided to share a large, fully loaded one, with the option of ordering a second if needed. The place was crowded and noisy enough to offer privacy, and Piper told Will what she’d learned about Ralph Farber, as well as Nate’s unemployment predicament.
“That’s a crying shame,” Will said. “The management at A La Carte will be sorry. Their business will drop off.”
“Maybe so. I wonder, though, if they might have had pressure to fire Nate.”
“Pressure from who?”
Piper shrugged. “I couldn’t say for sure. But not everyone looks at Nate the same way we do.” She was thinking of Charlotte Hosch, but there might have been others. Their server brought the frosty beers they’d ordered, and Piper waited until he’d left before continuing. “Aunt Judy said she’d ask around for a job Nate could take until this all blows over.”
Will took a swallow of his beer and wiped the foam from his lips. “If it blows over,” he said, grimly.
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t been able to determine if the sheriff has been hauling anyone else in for questioning. That doesn’t guarantee he hasn’t, since he doesn’t exactly call me to report his every move. But I’m not picking up talk of there being any other ‘persons of interest.’”
Piper frowned at that, but the arrival of their pizza eased it, at least for the moment. Finding it impossible to remain somber while sinking their teeth into thick mozzarella cheese, spicy tomato sauce, and layers of pepperoni, mushrooms, sausage, peppers, and more, their conversation, when they could manage it, switched to lighter topics—such as Christmas trees.
Will was in the middle of describing the new signs he’d ordered for his tree farm when Piper spotted a tall man heading determinedly toward their table. She hastily wiped a paper napkin over her grease- and sauce-stained mouth and gulped down her latest bite of pizza.
“Hello, Mr. Yeager,” she greeted the Realtor.
“Saw you sitting here,” Yeager said cheerily. “Stan Yeager,” he said, holding out his hand to Will, who took it with a slightly puzzled air. “Just wanted to tell you Dorothy Taylor’s place will be open to look at anytime you two want to take the tour.”
“Huh?” Will said.
“Just give me a call. I’ll set it all up.”
“Mr. Yeager, I—” Piper began, but the sight of a dark-haired, muscular man in formfitting jeans and a black tee coming up behind Yeager stopped her.
Yeager turned. “Ah, there you are, Robby. This is the couple I told you about who’s interested in your mother’s place. Robby Taylor meet Piper Lamb and Will Burchett.”
“Glad to meet you,” Robby said, nearly crumpling Piper’s hand with his grip before turning it on Will. Will looked stunned, and Piper didn’t think it was from Robby’s bone-crushing handshake.
“Mr. Yeager,” Piper said, “I didn’t mean—” She stopped. How could she explain her true interest in Robby Taylor with the man standing right there? “That is, I’m not sure I’m ready to buy just yet.”
“Don’t worry about it!” Yeager said. “We can work that all out further down the line. Just come by and we’ll talk. I know you’ll love the house once you see it.” He winked at Will. “Lots of room for the little—”
“Yes!” Piper chirped. “Thank you, Mr. Yeager. Nice to meet you, Robby.”
The two men moved off at that, and Piper kept her gaze on them to avoid Will’s. Finally, she turned to him and offered a weak smile. He grinned in return.
“Lots of room for the little what?” he asked.
Piper groaned.
• • •
“So you think Robby Taylor might have murdered Alan Rosemont in a fit of fury over Rosemont’s fleecing of his mother’s antiques,” Will said, rehashing Piper’s earlier explanation as they walked to his van. To Piper’s relief, he’d dropped any further comment on Stan Yeager’s assumption that he and Piper were house hunting as a couple. Yeager and Robby, she’d noticed, had taken a table across the room and were deep in discussion when she and Will slipped out.
“That’s my theory,” Piper said. “It’s based on what I’ve learned about Robby as well as his presence in Cloverdale at the time of both Alan Rosemont’s and Dennis Isley’s murders. And now that I’ve seen him in person, it’s clear he’s definitely strong enough to have tipped Alan’s body into my pickle barrel.”
“Yes, I’d have to agree with that.” Will rubbed at the hand Robby had recently gripped.
“The problem is,” Piper said as they reached the van and climbed in, “I also think Ralph Farber is a very good possibility. From what I saw of his aggressive personality, I can totally picture him coming across Alan Rosemont, marching along and playing his bagpipes that night at the fairgrounds, and going ballistic after all their previous arguments. But I have no proof that actually happened. Nothing whatsoever to take to the sheriff.”
Piper sighed. “Then there’s Gordon Pfiefle, of course, but the same for him. No evidence, just theory.”
“Don’t worry too much about it,” Will said. “Something may come up.”
“Maybe, but in the meantime Nate has lost his job and might be out on the street if he can’t pay his rent. I highly doubt he has a hidden cache of money, as Ben Schaeffer wants to believe, to tide him over. And what will he do about food?”
Will looked over at Piper with a small smile, one eyebrow cocked. “I wouldn’t worry about the food part. Your Aunt Judy and all the kindhearted ladies of the town like her will probably take care of that.”
Piper smiled. “You’re probably right on that count. But he’ll still need a roof over his head and at least a minimal-paying job to keep his spirits and self-respect intact.”
Piper continued to worry about that last part after Will dropped her off, and in fits and starts for most of the night. But the solution showed itself fairly soon and from a very unexpected quarter.
22
“Do you think Nate Purdy would find that agreeable?” Gilbert Williams asked.
He’d knocked on Piper’s back door the next afternoon, having seen her light on. It was Sunday afternoon, when Piper’s Picklings was closed, but Piper had been working on her store’s books. Finding the bookshop owner standing in her alley was a mild surprise, but his proposal bowled her over.
“I think Nate would be very happy to live above your shop as well as work for you, Mr. Wi—ah, Gil.”
“The living quarters haven’t been used in quite a while—since my last tenant moved out at least two years ago, actually, when I decided I preferred the quiet to the income. So I’m afraid it’ll need a bit of dusting up.”
“Nate and his friends can take care of that.”
“There’s a few pieces of basic furniture, though again, not in the best condition.”
“I’m sure he’ll love it,” Piper declared, “just as he’ll love working for you.”
“He’ll be welcome to stay as long as he likes, though I understand working in a bookstore isn’t exactly on his career path. I can really use his help, though. Books are quite heavy to move around, you know, and I’m not as young as I look.” Gil Williams’s eyes twinkled at this, and Piper grinned.
“I’ll get on the phone and have Nate come talk it over with you. This is really great of you, Gil.”
“Not at all. My dusty old shop has been in need of perking up for some time. Nate will be doing me a favor.”
Gil Williams turned back to his shop, and Piper called Amy, pulling the phone away from her ear at the joyful squeal that flew out at her news.
“I’ll call Nate right away,” Amy said.
“I thought he’d prefer hearing it from you. It won’t be luxury accommodations by any means, but Gilbert Williams will be a very considerate landlord and employer.”
“And we’d be working right next door to each other!”
That should cause Sheriff Carlyle a bit of indigestion, Piper thought with a wince. As well as Charlotte Hosch, Ben Schaeffer, and who knows who else. But Piper would let Amy handle her father, and the others could just—
“Thanks, Piper. Talk to you later!” Amy hung up, eager to reach Nate, and Piper smiled, glad that one problem was taken care of for the time being. Then she thought of Aunt Judy, who might be still working busily on behalf of Nate, and dialed her number.
“Aunt Judy,” Piper said when her aunt picked up, “I have good news, for a change.” She explained the situation, hearing a pleased “ah” as she did so.
“Gil Williams surprises me, now and then,” Aunt Judy said. “He’ll keep to himself so long that you think he’s become totally out of touch. Then he does something like this that shows it’s just the opposite. That’s very good of Gil. And fortunate for Nate. I wasn’t having much luck with my efforts to find something for him, though if worse came to worst, your uncle and I would have brought him here. I don’t know how Nate would have taken to farmwork, though.”
“I’m sure he would have been fine and grateful,” Piper said. “But the bookshop will put him much closer to Amy when she’s on the job here.”
Aunt Judy chuckled. “A definite plus. Thanks for calling, dear. I’d better make one or two calls and take people off the search.”
Piper went back to her account books but found it difficult to refocus on numbers, bills, and payments. Her thoughts kept going back to Nate, whose reprieve from unemployment and homelessness, she knew, was only a temporary fix. They moved on to her discussion of the murders with Will the previous evening, then settled on Will himself. She was liking him more and more and found herself getting less unsettled by the assumptions of townspeople like Stan Yeager that she and Will were a couple. A long way from wanting to march down the aisle with him, but not totally appalled at the suggestion, either.
Piper was smiling at the memory of one of Will’s comments when she heard a second knock on her door. Thinking it might be Gil Williams again, she was surprised to instead find Roger Atwater, husband of Mindy Atwater who ran the knitting shop down the street. At least Piper thought it was Roger. With the large box he was holding covering his face, all she could see was the top of the man’s bald head and the round edges of his body on each side of it. His telltale, often worn, plaid golfing pants, however, gave him away.
Roger tilted his head and one eye peered around the box. “This was delivered to Mindy’s shop by mistake, yesterday. She gets so many that she didn’t get around to checking it right away. I took a chance you might be here.”
“That was very kind of you,” Piper said, reaching out.
“I’ll carry it in,” Roger said. “Just tell me where you want it.” Piper stepped back, indicating an empty spot on her floor, and Roger gently set the box down.
“I wasn’t expecting an order,” Piper said. “I can’t imagine what—” She leaned over the slightly battered box to read the labels and winced.
“Came all the way from Thailand,” Roger said, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe at his bald head.”
“Yes, it certainly did.” Piper could see that Roger was hoping she’d open it in front of him. But Piper wasn’t sure she wanted to open it at all. “It’s probably those specialty canning tools I ordered,” she fibbed and saw his eyes instantly glaze over.
“Okay,” he said, pocketing his handkerchief. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Mindy said to say hello.”
“My best to Mindy, too, and thanks, Roger,” Piper said, ushering him out. She waved good-bye, then shut the door and turned toward her package.
What had Scott sent her this time? She circled the box a few times, nudging it cautiously with her toe as though fearing it might suddenly come alive. Finally she found a box cutter and cut through the taped edges. She knelt down and pulled out mounds of packing material, little by little revealing the item beneath. Piper tugged the Bubble-Wrapped piece out, judging it to be at least twenty by thirty inches, and carefully cut through the layers of plastic, intrigued despite her strong reservations.
When she peeled off the last layer and was able to fully behold it, Piper sighed. It was beautiful. A delicately carved wooden wall plaque, obviously teak. She gazed at it, gradually taking in all the fine details. Slender wooden branches interlaced with one another holding a myriad of vegetables and fruits: pineapples, squashes, beans, peppers, and more. The craftsmanship was exquisite. A card had been tucked in with the packing materials, and Piper reached for it.
Thought of you when I saw this and knew it would be perfect for your pickling store—Love, Scott
Piper let the card flop down. Oh, Scott, she thought, why do you do this? She’d sent him a clearly worded e-mail—finally—about the inappropriateness of the bouquet he’d ordered for her. Apparently it wasn’t clear enough for Scott. Except—
Piper reached over to check the delivery markings on the package. The plaque had been dispatched days before he sent the bouquet. That figured, since there were plenty of travel miles to cover between Thailand and Cloverdale. Even so, Scott shouldn’t be sending h
er gifts. Especially thoughtful, lovely, probably expensive gifts. And there was no way she could send it back to a former fiancé who was constantly on the move.
She’d have to hold on to the beautiful piece. But as soon as Scott came back home she’d hand it to him and wish him good luck with his life. In the meantime, she’d store it away safely in its box.
Piper ran a finger over the plaque. What a shame, though, to hide such a beautiful thing away. Somebody, thousands of miles away, had poured all his artistic talents and skills into creating the piece. It deserved to be out to be admired instead of hidden away. She knew the perfect place for it on her shop wall, where it would be the first thing—Piper stopped herself, seeing what was happening.
“Scott?” she asked with exasperation, gazing at the ceiling as though his image floated there. “Why, why, why do you do this to me?”
• • •
“It’s very nice,” Aunt Judy said cautiously, as Piper propped up the wooden wall plaque to show her aunt.
“It’s more than nice,” Piper said. “It’s absolutely beautiful. Which makes me furious.” She had let Aunt Judy in at the back door where her aunt quickly spotted the box from Thailand and its disgorged contents.
“Furious?” Aunt Judy asked. “Why?”
“Because Scott shouldn’t be sending me things like this. And because I really love this plaque, and I kind of like that he was thoughtful enough to know that I’d love it. When we were together, I highly doubt that that would have been the case. But these travels seem to be changing him, or bringing something out in him that he kept hidden before. But if so, what does that mean for our relationship? I thought we were over. Done with. Kaput! Now I’m starting to have second thoughts, and that makes me furious!”
Piper realized her voice had risen and she’d been rocking Scott’s plaque back and forth for emphasis. She grinned ruefully, saying, “Sorry,” and carefully lowered the carving down.
“Don’t worry about it,” Aunt Judy said, patting Piper’s arm. “You have plenty of time before you’ll see Scott again. Where is he going next? Japan?”
The Pickled Piper Page 16
