by Molly Macrae
“Spending too much time at Angie’s place,” Mel said. “Hence, Angie’s spending a lot of time at the café. I put a futon in the office in case she needs a lie down.”
“That’s good of you, Mel,” Thea said. “Now let’s forget the twins again. If Belinda realized there’d been a switch, she might have wanted the shreds back to prove it.”
I wrote Theory on the board, and under that, Belinda went to the storage closet to get the shreds back.
“She went to get them and someone snuck up on her?” Ardis asked.
“Or she went with the person, or to meet the person, who told her where they’d find them,” I said.
“Who?” Ernestine asked.
“This is where we’re back to square one,” Mel said. “It could be anyone. I don’t know what’s next on your agenda, Ardis, but this means another square of brownie is on mine. Anyone else?”
While she handed seconds around, my phone rang. “The best laid agendas,” I said, looking at the display. “Spiveys.”
“Don’t answer it,” Ardis said.
But I already had.
“A body! Floating in the pool!” the fevered twins shouted into the phone. “It’s him! Come quick!”
TWENTY-THREE
Chaos. The call was pure, blithering Spivey chaos, with the twins snatching the phone from each other and a dog barking in the background. And barking and barking.
“Slow down. Slow down, please,” I said. “Whose body? What pool?”
“The swimming pool!”
“Al Rogalla’s!”
“Rogalla’s pool?” I said.
“And his body!”
“Did you call 911?” I asked.
“We can’t!”
“We’re on the phone!”
“With you!”
“Then for God’s sake hang up and call 911!” I said, catching their fever at last.
“I’m going in!” one of them said.
I heard barking, a scream, a splash, more barking, another splash, another scream, silence. I looked at the posse. They stared at me, all mouths open. “One of you call 911,” I said. “Tell them people are drowning in Al Rogalla’s pool. And can one of you give me a ride over there?”
Thea, John, and Ernestine immediately pulled out their phones. I ran down the stairs, with Ardis and Mel on my heels. We squealed out of the parking lot in Ardis’s daddy’s Honda. I texted Joe along the way and then set my phone on the dashboard.
Rogalla lived in a late-Victorian, two-story brick house with wraparound porches and beautifully kept gardens and lawn. Ardis left the driveway, careened over the lawn, around the house, and pulled up beside the pool, two wheels resting on the concrete apron and passenger-side doors closest to the water.
Mel and I flung the doors wide, took the few steps to the pool, and dived in. Mel went for the nearest twin. I reached Rogalla and—tore off his arm? A scarecrow, not a floating body. Spiveys. I flung the arm aside and went for the second twin. She whimpered when I put my arm around her. As I towed her to the side of the pool, Clod arrived, siren blaring. I heard Ardis and Mel telling him the body was a scarecrow, but he leaped in anyway. He’d seen what we hadn’t—Bruce losing the struggle to stay afloat, carried down by his sodden fur.
Rogalla and another EMT arrived in a screaming ambulance as Joe’s truck bumped across the lawn. They converged on the scene as Clod brought Bruce out of the pool and crouched over him. In a voice so devoid of deputy starch as to be a coo, Clod implored Bruce to open his eyes. At a whistle from Rogalla, Bruce jumped up and trotted over to him as though nothing had happened.
“Who let you out, huh, Brucie?” Rogalla asked. “How’d you get out?”
Clod harrumphed and marched over to the twins. Ardis, on her phone, narrated the pandemonium for the posse back at the Cat.
“Mercy’s arm is broken,” Mel told the EMT. “The dog tripped her. She fell on the edge of the pool, onto her upper arm, and then into the water.”
Clod didn’t coo over Mercy, but his harrumph softened as he watched the EMT check her over.
“Would you like transport to the hospital, Ms. Spivey?” the EMT asked.
“Would you like to press a charge of negligence against the homeowner?” Clod asked.
Meanwhile, Rogalla took blankets from the ambulance. He put one around each of the twins and handed one to Mel and one to me. The last one he used to dry Bruce, leaving Clod to drip.
“Shirley can drive me to the hospital,” Mercy said, her voice as pasty as her face.
“But our keys.” Shirley pointed at the pool.
“Mel and I will take you,” Ardis said.
They helped Mercy into the back seat of the Honda, and then got Shirley in the other side. Mel handed my phone to me and said, “Call us.”
In deference to her injured passenger, Ardis drove sedately back across the lawn.
“Did the Spiveys say what they were doing here?” Clod asked.
“I didn’t stop to ask. I’m sorry,” I said. “They were in such a panic over finding Rogalla dead in the pool.”
“That’s all right. I know where to find them.” He gazed across Rogalla’s newly rutted lawn after Ardis. “Good job getting here and getting them out the way you did.” He turned to Rogalla, with a nod at Bruce. “What’s his problem? I’ve never heard of a dog that can’t swim. He sank like the Titanic. The last thing I saw was his nose going under.”
“Scotties aren’t meant to swim,” Rogalla said. “Maybe some do, but Bruce is one of the modern breed of non-buoyant Scottie.”
“I gotta hand it to him, though,” Clod said. “He had faith he could save someone. Even underwater, he was paddling away. Where was he, and how did he get out?”
“In the kennel around the side. Not locked, but he’s never gotten out on his own.”
“Need me for anything else?” the EMT asked.
Clod and Rogalla waved him off. Then Clod followed Rogalla and Bruce around the side of the house. I turned to see Joe stripping down to his boxers.
“Well this is interesting. Wait, are those little sloths?”
“They are. I thought I’d look for Shirley’s keys.”
“That’s sweet of you.”
“Or anything else of interest.”
“The water’s cold.”
“I won’t take long.”
I stood by the side, helping by watching, and only metaphorically wringing my hands. He brought the parts of the scarecrow over to the side. I fished them out and laid them on the concrete apron. He dived and swam along the bottom, came up, and went down again. He brought Shirley’s keys up after the third dive but went back in several more times, until he’d covered the whole bottom. Clod and Rogalla came back as he climbed out.
“Did you get the keys?” Rogalla asked.
I held them up as I handed Joe my blanket.
“Anything else?” Clod asked.
Joe shook his head.
“What else were you looking for?” Rogalla asked.
“I wasn’t sure,” Joe said. “Maybe an embroidery stiletto.”
My shoes squelched as I crossed the lawn to Joe’s truck. I called Mel as we put another rut in Rogalla’s lawn. She relayed a request from Mercy.
“She’d like you to run out to Angie’s and tell her what’s happened. Let her know in person, so she sees you mean it, and there’s no undue worry.”
We went by my place, then Joe’s, so we could get into dry clothes. Then we took a road that started winding as soon as it left town. We followed it into the hills and turned onto their road, which wound even more. Angie and Aaron lived a few miles along, a mile beyond a bridge over a branch of the Little Buck River. Joe’s truck crunched gravel as we turned up the drive to an old Tennessee farmhouse with a tin roof and deep porch.
“Well, hey,” Aaron said when he opened the door. He called over his shoulder, “It’s Kath and Joe.”
“Ask them in.” Angie’s voice came from a muffled distance.
“
We could use your help,” Aaron said. “Come on in.” He took us through the living room and down a short hall. “They’re in here,” he said, stopping at a bedroom door. “Go on in, Kath. I’ll bring you a chair.”
The bedroom was only just big enough for the bed, a chest of drawers, and a wicker rocker. Angie sat in the rocker crocheting something pink. A younger woman with bare arms and the name Riley tattooed on her right shoulder sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, reading a paperback. A gray-and-white tabby snoozed beside her.
“Hey, Angie. Sorry to barge in when you have company,” I said. “We have a message from your mom.”
The younger woman sneaked a look and went back to reading. Aaron brought in a dining room chair, and I slipped it into a clear space at the end of the bed.
“Joe and I’ll go on out to the kitchen,” Aaron said.
I would have gladly joined them, but I sat down, smiled at Angie, and hoped the cat didn’t wake up. It looked cozy and sweet, but if it was like every other cat besides Argyle, it would see me and hiss.
“This is Aaron’s cousin Taylor,” Angie said. “Taylor’s going to stay with us for a few days. Taylor, this is my cousin, Kath. Mom sent you all the way out here, Kath? Why didn’t she call?”
I told Angie the bare details of the accident—what and where—and that Mercy didn’t want her to worry. Angie leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. She might have been counting to something higher than ten. Taylor, who hadn’t turned any pages, let her book close on her lap.
“Are you all right, Angie?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Any idea what your mom and Shirley planned to do this afternoon? Why they went to Rogalla’s?”
“‘Not a clue’ covers both.”
“They left because of me,” Taylor said.
“No, they didn’t,” Angie said.
“They left as soon as I got here.”
“They were leaving anyway.” Angie sat upright again. “Kath, Taylor needs advice. Taylor, Kath solves problems. All kinds.”
Taylor hugged herself.
“Good book?” I asked. “May I?” I picked it up. Wild Ayes: A Time-Travel Scottish Romance. I opened it, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw Angie roll hers.
“That’s the only thing I have left, after I left the only man I ever had.” Taylor started crying.
Angie handed her a box of Kleenex. “Okay if I tell her about it?”
Taylor nodded and sobbed into a wad of tissues.
“She left him,” Angie said.
“Riley?” I asked.
“How do you know Riley?” Taylor snuffled.
“She read your tattoo,” Angie said. She rolled her eyes again. “This has been coming on for a couple of weeks. Aaron and I thought it was his drinking.”
“I never said it was his drinking,” Taylor said.
“I know, and I’m sorry we didn’t know what you were going through all this time.”
“I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Angie reached over and rubbed the cat’s ears. “When Riley left for work this afternoon, Taylor came over here. The book’s the only thing she brought with her. She feels more comfortable sitting in here. She’s afraid of him.”
“Of what he’s done,” Taylor said. “He told me where he got the book when he gave it to me.”
“You said he threw it at you,” Angie said.
“And I caught it, like a bouquet at a wedding. He knows I like a book with a bare-chested man in a kilt on it. He shouldn’t’ve taken it, but he did it for me. And now I don’t know what to do.”
Angie told me the rest of the story, with hiccupped corrections, between sobs, from Taylor. Riley worked in his uncles’ body shop in Shady Spring. Over the summer, he started taking afternoons off, lying about why. Then, a few weeks back, he got freaked out by someone who did what he’d been doing, but not as carefully.
“He says he never once broke a driver’s window,” Taylor managed to say. “He didn’t want anyone having a bad time driving away. It rains a lot in the mountains.”
“He freaked out over someone breaking the wrong window,” Angie said.
“Over the body, too,” Taylor said. “He totally freaked over the body.”
“But he still took the book?” I asked.
“It was our anniversary,” Taylor said.
“Scoot over,” Angie said. She set her crochet aside and sat next to Taylor, an arm around her shoulders. “You already know you need to turn him in, don’t you? So let’s ask Kath the best way to do that.”
“Anonymous tips work wonders,” I said.
We didn’t stay long after that, and Aaron saw us out. At the door, I asked, “Are Riley’s uncles members of the Tennessee Herpetological Society?”
“Could be,” Aaron said. “I don’t keep up on their doings.”
In the truck, Joe said, “Give her twenty-four hours. If she doesn’t call it in, we will.”
“You don’t think Riley had anything to do with Gar’s death?”
“No, I think Cole got that one right, and the killer’s still out there.”
“How will we know if Taylor calls the tip line?”
“Pretty sure Cole won’t let news like that go unannounced.”
On the way back into town, I sent an update to the posse.
TWENTY-FOUR
I missed all that?” Geneva said when I gave her a recap the next morning at the Cat. “Why did you let me foolishly mope the afternoon away?” She flounced up to the ceiling fan and sat in an aggrieved heap.
“Are you going to mope this morning away, too?”
“Why? What will I miss?”
“Have you noticed we’re short on dull moments lately? In fact, look who’s waiting for me to unlock the front door. That’s Belinda’s ex-husband, Russell.”
“He’s staring. If you knew ventriloquism he wouldn’t see your lips moving as you talk to thin air.”
“Good idea. But if he’s rude enough to comment, I’ll tell him I was talking to Argyle.”
She beat me to the door, floating through the glass and straight up to Russell. As I unlocked, she floated back in and whispered, “He has a calculating look in his eyes.”
“Good morning, Russell. How are you?”
“All right. You?”
“Fine, thank you.” I checked his eyes for the calculating look but wasn’t sure I saw it.
“Conniving,” Geneva said. “He wants something.” She took up her post on the mannequin’s shoulder.
I went back behind the counter and set my phone in easy reach next to the cash register. Ardis wouldn’t be in for another hour.
“If you really want to know,” Russell said, coming over to the counter, “I’m exhausted. I had no idea—being executor—it’s more than I ever knew I’d have to deal with. Nervie’s more than I can deal with. I hide inside. I don’t dare sit on the porch or she’ll stop by. Bring me a casserole. Want to talk. Everyone wants something.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Are you here because you want something?”
“Heh, yeah. Fair enough. I do. Someone told me that you’re someone who meddles enough to get things done.”
“Yeah, fair enough,” Geneva said. “Heh.”
“That isn’t exactly complimentary. Do I want to know who said it?”
“Shirley and Mercy Spivey.”
Figures. “So, what is it you think I can get done?”
“I have a proposition.”
“I’m listening.”
“Sierra wants a commitment for the shop,” Russell said, “or she’d like me to vacate. That seems both reasonable and unreasonable at the same time. I need to know what Belinda’s got there, what it’s worth. I’ve gotten feelers from some of the people she bought from. Simon wants the books he found for her. A woman in Chattanooga and one in Asheville asked if I’ll sell back to them, at cost. But the way Belinda kept records, I have no way of knowing if I’ll be cheated. I told them all they have to wait.”
>
“Good. Why does Sierra want a decision so quickly?”
“She mentioned expanding the gallery space before Christmas. If the shop goes.”
“If Belinda still had it, that wouldn’t be a question, would it?”
“No. My accountant is sorting through the mess of her records. He says as long as I keep the shop open, and sell according to the prices Belinda set, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“And that should give you time to figure out the scope of the merchandise.”
“That’s what I want to ask you about. Can you help with that?”
Thank you, Shirley and Mercy. Could I help? Sure. I might even discover more treasures. But it would be a considerable time commitment. And the thought of sorting through hundreds of pieces of vintage cra— Inspiration struck. “Did you ask Shirley and Mercy if they’d do it?”
“It never occurred to me.”
“They’d be perfect. They know embroidery. They’re interested in old pieces. They have the time.” And it would give Angie and Aaron breathing room.
“Genius move,” Geneva said. “They’ll be so pleased.”
“Do you think they will?” Russell asked.
“I know they will.”
“Now that we have that squared away,” Geneva said, “why don’t you tell him about the tablecloth and see if he turns into a raging killer?”
I squinted at her and went with a safer question. “I’d be interested in seeing the books Simon found for Belinda.”
Russell blew out a breath. “Another headache. He says she told him she didn’t want them after all. Too dry and academic. That sounds like Belinda.”
“Too lecturey,” Geneva said. “That sounds like you.”
“He said he found another buyer and gave back Belinda’s money,” Russell said. “Before she could give him the books . . . this all happened. But considering how much he says they’re worth, he’s not getting anything until Rogalla finds transaction records.”
“Wouldn’t Simon have copies?”
“Doesn’t matter. I told him not until we find Belinda’s or find out they don’t exist. Then we’ll negotiate.”
“Can I see the books?”