Crewel and Unusual

by Molly Macrae

  “This crime,” Clod said again with a tone of aggrieved forbearance, “matches the other crimes in all but one detail.”

  “The death, which you just told us about,” Ardis said.

  “Two, then. Two details. There is a difference between the other crime scenes and the murder scene. That could mean the confrontation and the killing rattled the gang so they went off script. But we think, now, that the killer targeted Gar and used the gang’s MO as cover.”

  “Do you know yet why Gar went to the trailhead?” I asked.

  Clod looked at us for several seconds before answering with a frustrated “No.”

  “Could there be anything in the liaison idea?” I asked. “Who came up with it?”

  “Shorty.”

  “Based on what?”

  “Scene-of-crime details.”

  “Do we want to hear those details?” Ardis asked. “Ten doesn’t believe that scenario.”

  “You don’t either, do you, Cole? So why did Shorty?” I turned to Ardis. “You can cover your ears if you want.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Ms. Buchanan,” Clod said. “We found nothing of a private nature, if you catch my drift.”

  “I would rather not.”

  Clod held up his hands. “It’s nothing. It’s safe. Shorty’s full of—excuse me. He found a couple of paperback romance novels on the front seat. They seemed out of character, and Shorty spun this explanation of them belonging to whoever Gar was there getting his jollies with.”

  “Coleridge.”

  “I don’t think that’s why he went up there. I’m telling you what the situation is. You might take this as a lesson in how not to read too much into random items found at a crime scene. Do I make myself clear?”

  The rain looked more monsoon-ish than ever. Clod looked happier to risk drowning in it than stay with us.

  After he sloshed out the door, Ardis said, “I think he handles himself well under duress, don’t you? He should give serious consideration to running for sheriff in the next election.”

  “He’d probably hate the paperwork. Darla should run.”

  “True on both counts. Did he make himself clear with that information? What did we learn?”

  “That Gar’s killer probably used another crime to cover his tracks. And isn’t it interesting that Belinda’s killer used our scissors to cover his tracks?”

  “But in all the excitement, Cole forgot to tell us what the missing detail is. Maybe I should call and ask him.” She did, but her call went to voicemail.

  Late that soggy afternoon, Ardis told me there was something in the kitchen I needed to see.

  “Tiptoe, hon, and peek in.”

  I did as instructed, hearing the murmur of Joe’s voice as I approached. He sat at the kitchen table, quietly reading a picture book aloud. Argyle sat on the table watching him, obviously enjoying either the sound of Joe’s voice or the story. Geneva sat on top of the refrigerator, obviously enjoying it, too. I watched for a while and then went back out front without disturbing them.

  “Isn’t that a sweet domestic scene?” Ardis said. “He’s practicing to be a guest reader for the kindergarten. Ten says they wanted Cole, but he couldn’t do it.”

  “Joe to the rescue. Ardis, what if Joe could listen to Geneva’s description and sketch her villain for her?”

  Ardis touched the circlet of green braiding on her wrist. “I’ve never asked you how this works. I won’t ask now, either, but can you do it again?”

  “I’m not sure it’ll work again, but what do you think?”

  “That you need to be honest with yourself. Is it that you aren’t sure it’ll work, or is it that you aren’t sure you want it to work?”

  “Is there a right and a wrong answer to those questions?”

  “I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong answer to that question.”

  “I should ask him first. I should probably think about it first, too. Mind if I go up to the study?”

  “Take your time, hon.”

  Geneva found me a while later with my feet propped on Granny’s desk. Granny used to say she did her best thinking like that. I closed the dye journal I’d been reading and set it on the desk next to a hank of green cotton rug warp.

  “Your beau was reading, too,” Geneva said. “Reading is a singular pleasure.”

  “It is. I especially like reading my grandmother’s journals. Do you remember when I dyed this cotton?”

  “You did that for Ardis.”

  “And you.”

  “Your granny had peculiar talents.”

  “That she did.” I met her gaze. “Geneva, you know that Joe is a talented artist. What if you could describe the villain to him so he can sketch the face?”

  “That could revolutionize the investigation.”

  “Or at least solve it. But I should ask Joe first.”

  “You should ask me first. We’re talking about my privacy, after all. Perhaps I don’t like the idea of a gentleman burglar ogling my ankles.”

  “He isn’t really the ogling type. And I am asking you.”

  “What if he doesn’t believe I’m here? What if he thinks you’re crazy? Are you willing to take that chance?”

  I’d thought about those questions and a few more with my feet propped on Granny’s desk. I didn’t have them all sorted out, but I knew the answer to her last question. “Yes.”

  “Then let’s go ask him.”

  As simple as that.

  I braided nine strands of the sage green cotton together, and we took it downstairs. Ardis and Argyle were in the front room closing shop for the day. Ardis dropped her keys when she saw us.

  “Ten’s in the basement checking for water. Did you make him a bracelet like mine? Will he want to wear a bracelet? Are you nervous, Geneva? Were you nervous before I met you?” She dropped her keys again.

  “No, because I didn’t think it would work. Now there is more at stake. If I had keys, I would put them in my pocket.”

  Ardis slipped her keys into her pocket, and then we heard Joe coming up from the basement. We stood in a row facing the hall doorway.

  “Damp in one corner,” Joe said. He came in looking at his hands as he wiped them with a cloth. “The rain’s let up, so nothing to worry about.” He tucked the cloth in a back pocket, glanced at us, and then looked again. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing yet,” Geneva said.

  Ardis giggled and then stopped. Joe gave her a puzzled look and turned to me.

  “You’re always up for new experiences, right?” I asked.

  “Tell him you’d like him to meet a relative of mine,” Ardis said.

  “He can hear you, Ardis. You’re not the one—”

  “With the dis-em-bodied voice,” Geneva said.

  Ardis tittered.

  “Straighten up,” Geneva said. “The ghoul of this meeting is to introduce me to the boo-tiful burglar beau.”

  Ardis sputtered.

  This wasn’t how I’d pictured asking Joe if he believed in ghosts. “Stop it, you two,” I said. “You’re going to spook him.”

  Ardis howled.

  “Come here, Joe.” I took his hand. “We have someone we’d like you to meet.” I put the green braid in his hand and watched his face as Geneva floated over. He looked at the braid, at me, at Ardis, and shook his head.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t get the joke.”

  NINETEEN

  Geneva waved her hand past Joe’s face, then both arms. “He can’t see me at all.”

  Was that a note of relief in her voice?

  Notes of desperation caught in Ardis’s voice as she said, “Hold on, Ten. Wait there.” She scrabbled at her green bracelet, got it off, and handed it to him. “Yes?”

  “Sorry, Ardis.”

  “Give me yours.” Joe handed his braid to her. She blinked at Geneva. “As plain as the nose on your face. Well, now, that isn’t true, but plain as a raindrop on that window.”

  Joe looked at the window
, he looked at me, and he waited, patient and unflapped. A good man.

  “A ghost,” I said. “Joe, we have a ghost named Geneva living in the shop. She and I met in the cottage at the Homeplace when I stayed there.”

  “She’s my great-great-aunt,” Ardis said.

  “I’m sure you’d be pleased to meet me,” said Geneva.

  “Why don’t you guys give us a few minutes,” I said to Ardis and Geneva. “Joe, come on to the kitchen. I’ll fill you in.”

  Joe and I sat across from each other. He listened, his elbows on the kitchen table, his hands clasped and resting against his lips. With his thin, serious face, he looked monkish and meditative. I didn’t tell him about Geneva in exhaustive detail. That could happen over the next days and weeks, if he was interested. I did tell him why we’d hoped the green braided cotton would work.

  “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “I can’t be hypnotized either. Cole could never make me squawk like a chicken.”

  “Cole knows how to hypnotize people?”

  “He thinks he does.”

  “But you don’t believe him. Do you believe me about Geneva?”

  He took a moment, and I tracked the consideration going into his answer by watching his eyes. Kind eyes. “Put it this way,” he said. “I don’t believe that you and Ardis are both delusional. One or the other? An outside chance. And I won’t use the word ‘crazy.’ I never believed that about Ivy, either.”

  “Geneva loved to draw,” I said. And then I had to take a moment; I hadn’t expected to cry. “John found one of her drawings, in the archives at the Homeplace, on one of his research binges. A miniature portrait sketch of her friend Maddie.”

  “If she’s willing to try, she and I can still sketch her villain,” Joe said. “She can hang over my shoulder and tell you what I’m doing wrong. Then you can tell me.”

  And so we did, although Geneva preferred sitting in a chair so she didn’t chill the artist. Joe’s obvious talent encouraged her. Their shared vocabulary of line, shape, shadow, and proportion helped her focus. I repeated her directions and corrections, and I showed him where she pointed on the sketch or on her own face. Ardis reluctantly went home to make supper for her daddy. Argyle fell asleep in my lap.

  Half an hour after she left, Ardis called for a progress report.

  “We might be almost there,” Joe said when I relayed the question. “What do you think, Geneva? Another half hour or so?”

  Geneva nodded. I nodded for Joe and told Ardis.

  “Good,” Ardis said. “I won’t interrupt again. Call me as soon as you have it.”

  We settled back into the peculiar work of watching a person emerge from paper and graphite.

  “Give him a pat on the back,” Geneva said after a tricky negotiation over the corners of the eyes. “He can put his pencil down.”

  “Do we know who he is?” Joe asked.

  “Why didn’t I know it was a man?” Geneva said.

  He looked like any slim, middle-aged man who might walk into the shop. Not like Joe, but not so different—the tightness of the mouth, the shape of the eyebrows and cheekbones.

  “Do you recognize him, Geneva?” I asked. “We’re both shaking our heads,” I told Joe. “I guess we didn’t expect to, but it would’ve been handy.”

  “What now?” Joe asked.

  “Call Ardis.” I did, and she said she had the obvious answer.

  “Call the posse, hon, and and see if any of us recognize him.”

  “A more obvious answer is turn the sketch over to the authorities,” I said.

  “A tricky business,” she said. “How would we explain it? Where did we suddenly get it? From a witness? And if not suddenly, then why didn’t we report it sooner?”

  “But how do we explain it if we don’t give it to them and it turns out to be vital?” That unleashed a torrent from Ardis. When she stopped for a breath, I got a question in. “Are you sure you aren’t just rationalizing? Whoa.” I took the phone from my ear, then returned it gingerly. “She has a compromise,” I said to Geneva and Joe. “We go over to her place, let her see the sketch, and then turn it over to Darla. I can live with that. How about you guys?”

  “Sure,” Joe said.

  “If only,” Geneva said. “But it won’t haunt me if you do.” She left her chair and floated to the top of the refrigerator.

  “Will you come with us, Geneva?” Joe asked—turning to look at the top of the refrigerator as he did.

  “If he can’t see me,” Geneva whispered, “how does he know I’m over here now?”

  “Good question.” I had the braid in my pocket, so it wasn’t that. “Joe? What’s going on? How do you know Geneva’s over there?”

  “I’m a fisherman. I know how to read water. Ripples. A disturbance that means something’s there or moving.” He nodded at Argyle. “He can see you, right? I was looking at him. He turned his head and watched you move from the chair to the fridge. He’s looking at you now. He’s listening to you. Will you come with us to see Ardis?”

  “I’ll stay here so I don’t make ripples.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” I said. “There aren’t many fishermen as good as Joe. You aren’t a fish, anyway, and if there are ripples, no one will think anything of them or know why they’re there. Not in a million years.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” she said, “and the man in the sketch is out there. We don’t know who he is. He frightens me. He might find out who we are first. You take the sketch to Ardis. I’ll work on my plan. Then Argyle and I will keep watch.”

  “I went with my obvious answer,” Ardis said when we knocked on her back door. “It seemed most expedient.” She handed us each a glass of iced tea, and we followed her to the kitchen. Mel, Thea, Ernestine, and John, already at the kitchen table, sipped from their own glasses. Hank laughed at something on the television in the family room.

  “At times like this, we need to stick together,” Ardis said.

  “Were you two really going to leave us out of the loop?” Thea asked.

  “We didn’t want to,” I said, “but we really can’t identify the witness.”

  “Call the witness W,” Mel said. “Use ‘they’ for the pronoun.” She picked up her knitting—a bittersweet baby hat with faux spikes.

  “What can you tell us about W?” John asked.

  “W is sincere and honest,” I said.

  “That leaves out Shirley and Mercy,” Ernestine said with a thump of her glass. “Oh dear, I hope I didn’t hurt the table. And we shouldn’t make guesses about W, should we?”

  “W is scared and feels they can’t go to the police,” I said. “After working on the sketch with Joe, and seeing the face again, W doesn’t want to leave home.”

  “That’s actually ridiculous,” Ardis said.

  “I don’t imagine it’s easy being W,” Joe said.

  “You’re right, Ten. I was unkind.”

  “Is it Nervie?” Thea asked.

  “We scanned the drawing before we left the Cat,” Joe said. “I’ll send it to everybody, but here’s the original.”

  The sketch went from hand to hand. Mel and Thea spent the most time with it. John didn’t put down his knitting before shaking his head. Ernestine took out her magnifying glass to pore over it, and then passed it to Ardis. No one recognized Geneva’s villain.

  “He doesn’t look unpleasant,” Ernestine said.

  “W firmly believes he’s the killer,” Ardis said.

  “Full disclosure,” I added, “W means well, one hundred percent, but—”

  “But W isn’t one hundred percent?” Mel pointed to her head.

  Ardis, Joe, and I looked at each other. They deferred to me. “W has issues. The issues sometimes make W unreliable.”

  “It sounds like you know W fairly well,” Mel said. “Will you ever tell us who W is?”

  “Let’s let W be,” Joe said quietly.

  “Good enough,” Mel said. “I’d say between the three of
you, W is in good hands.”

  “What did W see?” Ernestine asked.

  “This guy went into and came out of the storage closet shortly before I found Belinda. No way he missed Belinda. I asked W if he could’ve seen Belinda and left because he didn’t want to get involved. W said the guy didn’t come out immediately, and when he did, he showed no emotion or reaction. W said the guy strolled.”

  “Did W hear anything?” John asked.

  “They were focused on the music and didn’t hear any noise from the closet.”

  “You know how weird this sounds, don’t you?” Thea said. “How does a guy stroll into a storage closet, kill someone, and stroll out again? And what was Belinda doing in there?”

  “We need to find out,” Ardis said. “W is convinced this man is the killer. He might not be, but he was in the closet with the body, so he’s a person of interest.”

  “How does this affect our investigation?” Ernestine asked. “Are Joe and I off gang patrol to hunt for this man?”

  “Yes and no,” I said. “Did Ardis tell you we’re turning the sketch over to Darla? The deputies might find him faster than we can. We’ll do that tonight.”

  “Good,” John said. “Being seen to cooperate with the authorities is always a good move. Then we can keep working in the background.”

  “Looking for the connections,” I said. “With luck, finding them will help identify opportunity and motive.”

  “And we’ll all have the scan of the man with the plan,” Mel said. “Do you hear how with-it we sound? I will not be printing the sketch and posting it on the bulletin board at the café, though. And, Ernestine, I know you’re raring to mix it up with the gang, but I want you to promise you’ll be careful. If you see this guy, or if you run into the Saggy Bottom Boys, you call Red. She’s like a tiger in threatening situations. If you can’t get her, go ahead and try Darla, Cole, or Shorty. In that order.”

  “Are we all sticking around for Darla?” Thea asked.

  “Better you don’t,” Ardis said. “She’ll assume you’re involved, anyway, but if you’re gone, you won’t be in the direct line of deputy ire.”