by Molly Macrae
“Did you miss Angie singing?” one of them asked.
“I did,” I said. “Oh, I’m sorry. Will she be back?”
“She didn’t sing,” the first one said. “We just wondered if you missed her.”
“She had an appointment,” the other one said.
“We offered to sing in her place,” the first one said. “Aaron said maybe another time.”
“They only signed a contract for instrumentals,” said the other.
I wondered if Aaron would come to regret that postponement. I’d never heard Shirley or Mercy sing, and I knew I shouldn’t prejudge, but somehow I didn’t think either of them had Angie’s voice.
“I’ve been enjoying myself immensely,” Ardis said over a cup of coffee when we met at the refreshment table. We’d both arrived a few minutes earlier than the appointed time. Thea had sent a text saying she’d find Ernestine and get her up the stairs. John could be expected on the dot. Joe, probably not.
“Did you find anything you couldn’t live without?” I asked.
“No, I treated it as a study of neophyte merchants versus seasoned pros. Those with a certain amount of retail experience—Floyd and Joe, for instance—kept with the program. They stayed in their shops, greeted their customers, carried on appropriate conversations. Some of the others are as excited by the opening as the customers, and just as flighty. They showed their amateur status by wandering. I found Nervie leafing through pastel prints across the hall and shooed her back where she belonged.”
“Belinda wasn’t in her shop when I stopped by.”
“And the inappropriate comments some of the merchants made,” Ardis said. “Carping here, snarking there, and a bit of TMI in several places.”
“I didn’t hear any of that.”
“That’s because of your rosy disposition; it filters out the negative vibes.”
“Not really.”
“Don’t burst my bubble, hon.” Ardis loved her illusions. “Some of the merchants weren’t happy about customers bringing refreshments into their shops, either.”
“People do tend to be slobs. You know how we hate it when kids come in with lollipops.”
“Lollipops and yarn.” Ardis shuddered. “I need more coffee.”
In addition to coffee, Mel offered a selection of cookies, mini muffins, and fresh fruit kebobs with a honey yogurt dip. She was in her element serving her good food to people happy to get free snacks. Her hair spikes looked ecstatic, too, and ready to do a jig. I didn’t tell her the lack of pear-and-ginger scones disappointed me. How could I complain with a mocha chip muffin in my mouth? I turned my back on the table so I wouldn’t embarrass myself by taking yet another. Ardis didn’t worry about such things.
“Don’t look now,” I said as she thanked Mel for a lemon poppy seed muffin, “but Shirley and Mercy are almost within range. Stationary for the moment, but that could change with the jab of an elbow.”
The twins stood shoulder to shoulder gazing at the trio. I gave in, snatched another muffin (in case of emergency), and moved to a clear space a few feet off the end of the table. It was close enough to our designated meeting place, and near the stairs. I half expected Ardis to disappear down the stairs, but she came and stood beside me.
“Look your fate squarely in the eyes,” she said, facing the twins. “It’s the only way to go through life with dignity.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” And maybe I’d remind her of it the next time the twins showed up at the Cat and she tried to disappear.
“I wonder how Aaron likes playing while they stare like that,” she said. “He’s holding his own. Doesn’t appear to be rattled. It must be the music that calms him. Not too long ago you could get a rise out of him by sneaking up behind him and whispering Spivey in his ear.”
“I hope you never did that.”
“Me? Oh no, hon, no. I would never. Good heavens, though. Don’t they look like a couple of Greek Fates standing there?”
“As though they hold something in the balance.”
“Weighing their next move—and Aaron’s life.”
“But they’re missing the third Fate,” I said. “I know who it should be, too. She could hover between them. In fact, sometimes she does.”
“She’d be perfect,” Ardis said.
On the dot, John arrived, looking shipshape as ever. His white beard and mustache were trimmed with precision, his trousers creased, and his Greek fisherman’s hat tucked under his arm. John Yarn Berry—Yarn being his mother’s maiden name—was average in looks and height, but his eyes snapped, and he had a way of walking that made it look as though he might kick up his heels and dance like Gene Kelly any minute. I’d never seen him salute anyone, or anyone salute him, but I could picture Clod doing it by reflex. Clod would certainly never refer to bearded John Berry as a rat-faced McDougal.
Ernestine puffed up the stairs on Thea’s arm. They stopped for a moment at the top to let Ernestine catch her breath, Ernestine turning her thick lenses toward the music and smiling as though it were sunshine. When they joined us, John emitted a single word almost too soft to hear but as crisp as his trouser crease.
“My apologies for the Anglo-Saxon,” he said. “We’re about to be boarded.”
Shirley and Mercy were on the move, headed for the refreshments. But at a jab from Mercy, they changed course and came straight for us. I locked my arm with Ardis’s to remind her to stand on her dignity and look these Fates squarely in the eyes. Thea maneuvered Ernestine to take evasive action, and I thought I might lose Ardis, whose arm strength perhaps surpassed her dignity. Then John stopped them with a whisper of common sense.
“Hold steady. If we scatter, they’ll know we met here with a purpose. Pretend we didn’t.”
“Hello, John. That is you, isn’t it?” Ernestine asked.
“Yes,” John whispered urgently. “I was just telling everyone— Oh, I see what you’re doing.” He switched to normal volume. “Nice to see you out and about, Ernestine. Thea, always a pleasure. Ah, Ms. Spivey and Ms. Spivey, how good to . . . uh . . . that is, the embroidery on your sweatshirts is admirable.”
Shirley and Mercy beamed. Perhaps too brightly to be sincere? But their wattage turned out to be for another reason altogether.
“We just had a call,” bubbled one twin.
“From Angie,” bubbled the other.
“We’ll need blue yarn, too!” they said together. “She’s having twins!” Their cheeks grew pink enough to look unhealthy above the mint green sweatshirts.
“Congratulations,” I said. “That’s wonderful.”
While the others offered their congratulations, Ardis whispered to me, “This puts things in perspective. I only need strength to deal with the twins occasionally. But Angie and Aaron’s twins, bless their hearts, will need strength every day of their lives.”
“You folks look as though you’re having a meeting of some sort,” one of the twins said.
“We do, don’t we?” I said. “We came for the opening, and Mel’s muffins lured us up here. Can I bring you something, Ernestine? John? Thea?”
“Why thank you,” Ernestine said. “I was just bopping through, but why not?” She loved playing a role.
John waved me off. “I was on my way out when I saw you. The music’s good, though, isn’t it? I might stick around for a few more minutes.”
“Great. Anything for you?” I asked the twins.
“We’ll come with you,” they said.
Great.
The others didn’t come with us. Just as well; the talk would have been so small as to be tiny and torturous, or too full of repertory-grade baloney.
“Ladies, help yourselves.” Mel smiled with all her teeth. Teeth and hair spikes together would have frightened lesser beings than the twins.
One twin put several fruit kebobs on a plate. The other added muffins. I did the same for Ernestine, Thea, and John. If John really didn’t want it, Ardis wouldn’t be shy.
“The dip looks interestin
g,” the twin holding the plate said. “I wonder if it’s as good as ours?”
“Would you like the recipe?” Mel asked.
“Are you willing to share?” the other twin asked.
“Sure,” Mel said. “Just . . .” She hesitated.
“Just what?” the twin asked.
“Just not the antidote.”
The Spiveys removed themselves. Not completely; they stayed where they could keep an eye on us.
“The better to give you the evil eye,” Thea told Mel. She’d come over to help me carry plates and cups. “While you folks exchanged recipes over here, we discussed our goal over there. None of us has anything worth reporting. The bottom line is we bottomed out; we shopped more than we sleuthed.”
“The hallmark of amateurs at a gala event,” Mel said.
I glanced at the twins. They looked rooted. One had her eye on us at the table. The other watched Ardis, Ernestine, and John. “The merchants don’t have time for questions, anyway,” I said. “Too bad, because they’re all here today. We’ll have to come up with another way to get our answers.”
“And you can’t stand here, taking up space in front of my muffins, kebobs, and fabulous dip while you come up with your alternate plan, Red,” Mel projected fabulous dip toward the twins.
I might not have seen anyone give John a salute, but Mel always deserved one, and I gave her one now. She never misinterpreted my salutes as sarcasm, either.
On our way back to join the others, a plate in each hand, I saw the rat-faced McDougal and his buddy slinking past and down the stairs.
ELEVEN
Slinking? Really? Or had I let Clod’s interest in the guys intrude on my objectivity? Regardless, I was missing a chance to find out who they were.
“Thea. Quick.” Still holding plates, I pointed as best I could without sending fruit kebobs and muffins down the stairs after the men. “Did you see those two guys? Do you know who they are?”
“See them? Are you kidding? Did you see that? I got dip on my shoe. It’s suede. Doggone it, now I’ll have to go back and ask Mel what she puts in it so I can get it out without making things worse.”
“Ardis, John, did you see those two who just walked past?”
“Sorry, hon. Who?”
“If you describe them, I might be able to help you,” Ernestine said, peering in the wrong direction.
“Would you like me to go after them?” John asked quietly.
“I don’t know—”
“If you’re talking about the two who just went down the stairs, we’ve seen one of them before,” a twin said behind me.
Thank goodness for steady nerves. I handed the endangered plates to John and Ernestine and turned to the twins. “I just wondered who they are. I haven’t seen them around before. But you have?” I sounded as wooden as a kebob stick.
The twin looks on the twins’ faces said, Mmhmm.
“We couldn’t help overhearing,” the right-hand twin said.
The twin on the left stroked an imaginary beard on her chin. “We saw that one sitting in a truck on the side of a road.”
“Not just a road.” Mercy’s elbow identified her. “Angie and Aaron’s road. The day of their housewarming.”
“Just sitting there,” Shirley said.
“Not just sitting,” Mercy said. “Sitting and watching.”
“Watching what?” I asked, trying to tell myself the hair on the back of my neck wasn’t rising.
“The house next door to Angie’s.”
The twins were positive they remembered the rat-faced McDougal, and I believed them. There were a lot of things I’d question about the twins, but their eyes were sharp. They didn’t know who he was, though, and it didn’t sound as though they considered watching a house while sitting in a truck on the side of a road odd behavior. But of course they didn’t. In Spivey World, one occasionally—or often—did things other people thought odd.
“Where are Angie and Aaron living now?” I asked.
“They’re renting out in the county between here and Shady Spring,” Mercy said.
“Closer to here, though,” Shirley added.
I didn’t want to alert their sharp eyes any more than I already had with my own odd behavior, so I didn’t ask if they remembered the make of the rat-faced McDougal’s truck, or if they’d happened to write down his tag number. I was grateful when John went downstairs with me, but of course we didn’t see the guys again. I didn’t see Clod, either.
“What is it about those two?” John asked.
I told him what I knew—not much. “I wouldn’t have thought anything about them, except Cole pointed them out and asked me to let him know if I saw them again.”
“So they’re already on Cole’s radar,” John said. “That’s probably as far as we can go with them, for now. Yes?”
“Hm? Oh, yes. It is.”
“You’re all right?”
“Yes, thanks. I thought I saw someone I knew. Thanks for coming with me, John. Even without any idea of what we were going after or getting into.”
“At my age, I never know when it’s my last chance to be a superhero, so I take every one I get,” he said. “Now I’m going back to reclaim my muffin as a just reward. See you later.”
“See you.”
And now to go see if I could find . . . there outside Floyd’s shop. A flicker of fruit flies? I’d seen something like that in the shop, too. So had Bruce. Geneva? But I didn’t see even the smallest hint of her filmy shape. Sometimes, when she hovered around people, I could see that they caught a flicker of movement. Then they’d blink or bat at something in the air. Had Geneva come with us after all?
I saw the flicker again, moving, heading toward the back door. Like Bruce the night before, I followed.
Following fruit flies past gaggles of shoppers, even gaggles of only two or three, was not easy. I took a quick look around, didn’t see anyone I knew, and called, “Geneva?” But if she’d come to the opening, after all, why hadn’t she let me know? She didn’t answer or flicker into view.
Around the corner in the hallway, beyond the shops, I lost sight of the fruit flies.
“Geneva?”
I saw a bit of a flicker outside one of the unmarked doors Bruce had sniffed. Then, from behind the door, I heard a faint, “Oh.”
“Geneva?” I tried the door. Locked. “Geneva?”
And then there were the fruit flies again. They flickered their way toward the back door. They came back toward me. I followed them back to Floyd’s. And I lost them. I stood outside Floyd’s and understood exactly how Bruce felt when he’d stopped to scratch his ear.
I met Ardis coming down the stairs with Ernestine. Ernestine held the railing with one hand and Ardis’s arm with the other.
“Thank you, Ardis. I can take it from here,” Ernestine said. “Thea’s picking me up at the front door. Isn’t the sun nice and bright coming in those big windows?”
We watched her make her way to the door. She was more capable than we sometimes gave her credit for. She didn’t drive anymore, but until the past spring she’d worked as a receptionist and secretary for a local lawyer.
“Where’s the restroom?” Ardis asked.
“I’ll join you.”
I took her to the back hallway, wondering if I should tell her about Geneva. It was quieter around the corner, quiet enough to hear the soft, sad voice singing behind the unmarked door.
“What am I hearing?” Ardis asked.
There were people coming down the hall behind us.
Ardis put her ear to the door. “It’s hypnotizing. Who do you think—”
“Shh, Ardis.” I smiled and waved at the women passing us. Then I yanked on Ardis’s sleeve. It startled her, but when she looked at me, I whispered, “No one else can hear it.” That startled her more, until she realized what I meant.
“Hon.” She looked at the door. “I’ve never—” She nodded at a man looking for the men’s room. “What’s she doing in there? I’ve never heard
anything like it in my life.”
I had. I’d heard Geneva sing the peculiar dirgelike lullaby when she felt most depressed, or to someone else she thought was dying. I whispered that to Ardis, between people passing to and from the restroom.
“She shouldn’t be alone,” Ardis said. “She needs us.”
“The door’s locked.”
Ardis tried anyway.
A young woman towing two small children came down the hall, the children singing about wheels on a bus going round and round. Their piping voices and joyful tune clanged and clattered against the lullaby they couldn’t hear.
“Try calling her,” Ardis said. “I’ll let you know when someone’s coming.”
I called, trying to project my voice—softly, which made no sense. I knocked and tried putting my lips to the crack between the door and the jamb. She didn’t hear me, or heard and didn’t answer.
“Wait,” I whispered to Ardis. “We don’t need to whisper.”
“Why not?” she whispered back.
“Because we’re just talking about a friend.”
She bounced the heel of her hand off her forehead. “It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” she said in her normal voice.
“It does, and I wish Geneva would let us know what’s going on. I get worried when she doesn’t answer. I thought Geneva was here.”
Geneva didn’t answer. Her singing didn’t falter.
“This isn’t good,” I said, whispering again. “We probably shouldn’t have touched the doorknob.”
“Wipe it?”
I shook my head. Maybe Geneva’s song was getting to me. I felt like I might cry.
“It’s all right, hon,” Ardis said. “I know what to do. I’ll be right back.”
I took out my phone and leaned against the door feigning interest in it. I looked up when I heard Joe’s soft hey. If I ever heard Geneva’s lullaby in his sweet, deep voice it would break my heart.
“Ardis said she’d watch the shop,” he said. “Do I want to know why she says you need to get in here?”
I shook my head a very little bit, afraid what sound might come out if I shook it any harder. I was also that little bit afraid to know why Ardis thought Joe could get me in there. But we needed to get in. “You can open it?”