Meow Matrimony

by Lickel, Lisa;

  “Don’t bother.” Virgil removed his readers and stuck them in the pocket of his plaid shirt beneath the wool-lined leather vest he wore. He nodded in Ruby’s direction. “She’s just in a huff since she was passed over again at WWAG.”

  “Oh? She wanted to work at the radio station? Doing what?”

  “Hosting a show, I believe.”

  “I thought she liked working at the flower shop with her Aunt Roberta. And she was working with Yolanda at the Gazette.” I took an experimental sip from the mug. At least it wasn’t bitter. I’d settle for no flavor over bitter. I examined Ruby covertly. Her chin-length black hair was almost zebra-striped with streaks of red. “Is this her fourth job? She’s not working all of them, is she?”

  “I don’t know about that. She’s been doing radio commercials for the past two years.”

  When someone connected the dots for me—again—I tuned in to a slightly familiar twang in Ruby’s voice at the other end of the counter. Between clanking dishes and silverware, and mumbled chatter, I, who prided myself in my communications skills, listened to Ruby banter with a customer over how he’d like his eggs. When I realized “over easy” was being used as a euphemism for a less savory subject, I grimaced and turned back to Virgil. “Sorry.” I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for, but he took it, and smiled kindly.

  “The ear is easily fooled.”

  “I, of all people, should know that.” I recalled briefly the message Donald had tried to send before his death. True, it had been garbled, but I had reported it to the police. Then I slapped my forehead. “Ruby did the voiceover on Mea Cuppa’s last ad.”

  Virgil toasted me with his mug. Adam might have realized that, but I didn’t mess with that side of the business.

  “She wanted Ivanna’s job?” I narrowed my eyes. “Seems to me she got it.”

  No one came near me to take my order. I contemplated. Until another word penetrated my subconscious. “Coroner.” I shifted ever so slightly in the direction of the new couple seated at a table behind me on my right.

  Officer Larkin, a part-timer with the police department, but not currently in uniform, sat with another business-suited young man whom I hadn’t seen before. Which wasn’t that unusual, since there were a lot more townspeople I didn’t know than those I did.

  Virgil elbowed me. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop.”

  I offered him a repentant half-smile with my ear still turned in the direction of the conversation.

  “We haven’t had a poisoning like that in…”

  Well, I couldn’t help it if their voices carried.

  Larkin addressed the suited guy. “You’re saying you can’t charge—”

  “What’ll you have?”

  Ruby’s voice lost any sales quality when she directed her waitress voice and pad toward me.

  “I have to get going. Thanks, anyway.” I pushed two dollars toward my half-empty coffee mug, nodded at Ruby, and saluted Virg before moseying past Larkin’s table. I probably should have been more worried at Larkin’s smirk.

  I crossed Main Street to Mea Cuppa, which stood kitty-corner across the T intersection where the coffee shop took up the building on the corner of First and Main. After Adam bought out the abandoned junk—I mean, antique—shop that used to occupy half the space, the entire original storefront cleaned up nicely. Bob Green’s barber shop was on the other side, while Adam’s apartment was the whole upper level of the building. Bob was married to…well, that wasn’t important at the moment.

  Too lazy to go around back where there were a few parking spots off the street and a separate entry to the stairs leading up to the apartment, I unlocked the front door to the store and made sure to lock it behind me. A quarter past six was too early to get started, though I knew Adam would be down any minute to set up the coffee urns. He would be surprised to see me this early, but I could claim catching up with paperwork, and flipped on the office lights.

  I also absent-mindedly turned on the radio, the sound of which filtered into the store.

  Adam ran down the back staircase and came through the back hall, spanning the office door in a wide-armed stance that hugged the frame. “I thought it must be you,” he said.

  “I need to impress my workaholic boss.” I shined a flip grin at him.

  His soft, ocean blue chambray shirt made his eyes glow like pewter and I stood my ground as he advanced to my side of the desk. After a very pleasant mutual hello, good morning, I-missed-you-over-the-past-twelve-hours smooch, we stepped back.

  “So, what are you doing in so early?” Adam leaned across me to jiggle the computer mouse to life while raising an eyebrow and studying my face.

  “Woke up,” I said easily. It was the truth. “And I knew you were leaving early for Springfield.”

  “You were at Tiny’s.”

  I ran my tongue across my teeth. Coffee breath. Busted.

  Adam straightened and ran his big paw across the top of my head. “It’s the grease smell, more than the coffee. You’re allowed to have breakfast out. What did you eat?”

  My stomach grumbled in reply. “I didn’t stay long enough. I saw Virgil and we…talked.”

  “How is he?”

  “Fine, just fine. Did you know Roberta’s niece is working there?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  The e-mail loaded, and I could tell I was losing him. “She recorded the last ad for the store, didn’t she?”

  Adam glanced at me. The radio sound signaling the six thirty news break, a buzzing stinger, distracted me and I shook my head a little. He went back to checking the inbox while I walked out to the floor to start filling the pots for coffee and hot water. Over the gurgling sound I caught a few phrases here and there. Somehow I was not surprised to catch “…early indications point to a possible case of accidental poisoning. Police are…”

  I walked closer to the wall speaker.

  “…speculation from sources close to the couple reveal—”

  Back door slamming drowned out the next phrase. I turned in annoyance as Martha came in.

  “Brr! I thought—”

  “Shh!” I cocked my ear at the wall.

  Recognition replaced consternation on her face and she put her finger on her lips.

  “Chief Hackman has scheduled an update at noon today, at which time early toxicology reports will be announced. Several persons of interest are under investigation, he said earlier. One suspect is being held in conjunction with another case. This is Barry Goodyear, live, local, WWAG news.”

  Woof, woof followed Barry’s sign-off.

  Martha and I looked at each other, then laughed.

  “Will that be the new guy?” I asked her.

  “I think so.”

  “Sorry about that, Martha. Glad you could come early today. Did you hear the whole report? I think they were talking about Ivanna, weren’t they?”

  “Uh, huh.” Martha stored her coat in the closet next to the washroom. She handed me an apron and tied her own with practiced ease.

  I still tended to fumble.

  “Good morning, Martha.” Adam strode from the hall, carrying a jacket over his shoulder. “Thanks for coming in early.”

  “That’s OK,” she said. “I hope your meeting at the capital with the other mayors goes well.”

  I walked Adam out and said good bye while Martha finished with the coffee. When I returned I started dusting and straightening the book racks on the other side of the store. “I heard this morning that Ruby Cook wanted the morning radio show.”

  “She didn’t get the ratings,” Martha said.

  “When was she on? I don’t remember that.”

  “It was around the time of the election. I think.” Martha paused a moment to frown, then brightened. “Yes, I’m pretty sure. Dale—you know how they dissect everything at the fire department meetings—he said she sounded OK, but Ivanna had a better presence.” Martha winked.

  “You’re kidding. Presence? Nobody can see you on radio.”

  “I
f you were advertising your business, who would you want on the brochure? Ivanna or Ruby?”

  Ruby’s stocky square build, square jaw, and dark mustache did not compare to Ivanna’s slinky blonde bombshell silhouette, even though her voice carried a distinctively wider, smoother range than Ivanna’s slightly hoarse tone.

  “I didn’t think radio paid that well. Ruby seemed to think Ivanna was rich.”

  “She was.” Martha kept on straightening shelves as if she’d just said the sky was blue.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, she was going to be, when she turned thirty later in the year. She didn’t like it getting out. About her age, I mean.”

  Martha disappeared as she ducked behind a shelf to rearrange greeting cards on a lower rack of the turning display.

  “Get out!”

  “Seriously.” She popped back up.

  The front door rattled when someone tried the handle. I rushed over to unlock and flip the sign to “Open”. “Sorry about that,” I said to Virgil and two of his volunteer “Seeds.” “Hi, there!”

  “Hi, yourself, missy,” Virgil said. “We’re just looking for a get-well card and maybe a little something for Gladys, to cheer her up.”

  “Lumbago,” one of the friends said.

  “I have just the thing.” Martha glided forward with a hand-painted yellow and green coffee mug. “One of these, with some Featherlight chocolate and those new coffee bags. And we just got in the newest issue of Rural Illinois magazine. She’d love the article about corn mazes.” Martha was really good at those types of sales.

  I watched fondly, only a little impatient to find out more about how Ivanna would have been rich. That was the trouble with being the newcomer in town. I missed so much.

  Virgil and his friends checked out. The lady in the group, Lizzie, taking a to-go cup of Thursday Heavenly Halo coffee, our lighter roast with a caramel aftertaste. It went very well with Featherlight’s pecan goodies, a cube of fudgy stuff with chips of toffee and chopped pecans. My stomach rumbled again. Maybe I could dash over and see if there was a cinnamon roll left. I waved farewell to the Good Seeds. “Thanks, Martha. You have the gift.”

  She flushed. “That’s sweet of you, Ivy. I really love working here.”

  “I didn’t get to eat yet. If no one else comes in, would you mind if I dashed—”

  “Oh what a beautiful morning!” cut me off. “Never mind,” I told her and faced the new customers. “Mrs. Trimble,” I greeted my neighbor. “You’re out and about bright and early this morning.”

  “I heard Gladys was down with another attack,” she said as she shuffled forward on her canes. Her short beige poodle wig was only slightly askew, and her pink flowered spring jacket buttoned off by one button. I came to help her. “Virgil and some Seeds were just in,” I told her. “That’s nice she has so many friends who care about her.”

  “I’ll send that boy, Boyd, over to cut her lawn.”

  Boyd Cook was Ruby’s younger brother and a sophomore in high school. He was also a menace with any power tool and I feared for his driver’s education instructor when he started lessons this coming summer. “If he has time,” I murmured.

  Martha was on her way over to suggest some treats, different from what we’d just sold.

  The door sounded again.

  The news came on again.

  I didn’t hear any of it as the fourth person through the door was Ann Dow, in full uniform, all twitchy and more grim than usual.

  Larkin, still in civvies, followed, smiling. He’d never liked me much, though this expression was a new one.

  It wasn’t as though I’d tried to get him in trouble during Donald’s murder investigation.

  Then Tim Ripple arrived. “I’m sorry about this, Ivy.”

  Time stopped.

  “You’ll have to come with us.” Officer Dow reached for my arm and I automatically pulled away and bumped into Martha.

  “What’s this about?” she squeaked.

  “I’m placing Miss Preston under arrest,” Ripple said. “On suspicion of intent to cause deadly harm.”

  6

  “You can’t do that,” I stated in a voice that grew less authoritative with each syllable. I could have backed away from Ripple, but I was hemmed in as the early rush seemed larger than usual. That scared me the most—losing control.

  The morning crowd in Mea Cuppa grew larger, eager for blood, or at least a good struggle. Without Adam, I wasn’t sure what could happen. I could probably take the petite Officer Dow, but I wouldn’t get very far.

  Yolanda had arrived from the newspaper office and fiddled with a small microphone. Maybe just a good ten-inch piece of gore for the front page of the Gazette. Such friends.

  The front door kept opening with a crazy portion of “Oh, what a beau—” “Oh, what a—” “Oh, wha—” “Oh!” until I wanted to shriek.

  Adam would definitely have to change that tune.

  I squinted.

  Martha had the grace to look shocked.

  “You bet he can arrest her,” the guy with Larkin said, rather too enthusiastically. “Cuff her!”

  Another voice cut through the murmurs. “Actually, he can’t.”

  Elvis waded through the crowd. “You have no probable cause. The preliminary autopsy report showed no physical injury.”

  Larkin’s evil smirk grew wider. He stepped into my personal space.

  Martha clutched my arm.

  “On a suspicion arrest, we can hold her for seventy-two hours while deciding what to charge her with.” He started to mouth “mur—” before the suited owly-looking guy he was with at Tiny’s grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

  What had I ever done to Larkin to deserve such humiliation? “Elvis, help!” I wailed and closed my eyes.

  “Where’s the warrant?” Elvis asked.

  Warrant? I shuddered. “I was only at Ivanna’s house to deliver—”

  Both Yolanda’s and Elvis’s “shushes” rolled into my ears like white-crested waves on Lake Michigan.

  Dow held out the paper and pointed to the signature at the bottom.

  Larkin and his buddy had to have been planning this for a while. Their conversation earlier fell into place.

  “You two were plotting this!” I pulled away from Ripple and pointed, the rudest thing my mother taught me never to do. “I heard you earlier at Tiny’s. You were talking about this in public. Tim, you should arrest them for…for…um, collusion, or something. Conspiracy to falsely…falsely accuse…an innocent person…” My voice died as the sympathy in the room rushed me.

  But the standout freckles on Elvis’s pale countenance sank my heart to my soles. “Although the preliminary report doesn’t show cause of death, it does suggest poison. I’m sorry. But they can’t hold you more than three days, and they can’t complete a tox screen that fast, what with testing, internal review, and confirmation, notification of next of kin. Which is all part of the process.”

  “Four weeks minimum,” Ripple said under his breath.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to Elvis.

  Dow clasped handcuffs on me, not the cool metal kind you see on TV, where they click, but plastic zip ties.

  “She’s not a danger,” Elvis said.

  “You have the right to an attorney,” Dow was saying.

  Yolanda snapped a photograph. Great.

  “Elvis!” I yodeled.

  “I’m right behind you,” his voice rasped.

  ~*~

  Let me tell you, being arrested is not an adventure I’m planning to be proud of any time soon. I resonated with Stanley’s “I didn’t do it” until the vibes made my knees quake. I sat on the cot in a cell and tried not to cry. There’d been a very quick trip to a judge in one of the little courtrooms, though I hadn’t been able to concentrate and only heard something about pending charges before they hiked me back to jail. My mother would be so humiliated. A college professor of criminal studies had a jailbird for a daughter. Not just a jailbird i
n the slammer for too many traffic tickets, but an accused murderer. How could Adam want to marry me now? A jailbird wife could ruin his political career.

  I wasn’t sure how much time passed during my pity party, but since no meals were served, it couldn’t have been that long. Footsteps warned me of company. I leaped up, ecstatic, at the sight of Adam and Virgil Toynsbee, accompanied by Chief Hackman. “A-adam! And Virgil. How nice to see you. How wonderful.”

  “Miss Preston,” Hackman said as he unlocked my—the—door, “bail has been posted. Follow me, please, where you can pick up your personal items and receive further instructions. Then we’ll release you to your fiancé and your attorney.”

  Attorney? I raised my brows at Adam and Virgil, who winked. Gosh, I had never asked what Virgil did before he founded the Seeds. He’d been mayor for a while, and was a super person. I plodded after the chief like the middle of a sandwich cookie, with my sweet rescuers protecting my back.

  I was given my precious engagement ring, earrings, and necklace in an envelope and told to check them. Instructions about not leaving the city limits or visiting the neighborhood of the crime, etc. pretty much went in one ear and bounced around my head as Adam stood near enough to keep shivers at bay. I handed him the jewelry to keep for me, not trusting myself to put it on with a steady hand.

  After I affixed my shaky signature to the forms Hackman indicated, we headed directly to my home. There were no paparazzi hovering around my driveway. I’d been prepared to shield my face with raised forearms and was strangely even more humiliated that no one seemed to care about the release of a potentially dangerous arrested woman…who couldn’t stop tears rolling down her face and stumbled across her own kitchen threshold.

  Adam caught me. “You’ll be all right. Everything will turn out OK.”

  He started to pick me up, but I stopped him. No way was he carrying me over any threshold until after the wedding.

  Oh. My. Gosh…the wedding! All this would put a total damper on our nuptials. Would we even be allowed to get married on time?

  I started to cry in earnest as we made our way like a funeral procession to my little living room and arranged ourselves in a cozy discussion group around the coffee table. I was not surprised to find Elvis already at home in his favorite chair, tape recorder, notebooks and what looked like a couple of textbooks piled next to him. I pulled Grandma’s zigzag crocheted afghan over my head. “We’re not getting married now, are we?” I blubbered.