“Hi, I’m Dawn,” she said, turning to Jo.
“I’m Jo. Looks like he keeps you pretty busy,” Jo said, glancing at Cory whose round blue eyes gazed at her over his bottle.
Dawn nodded, grinning. “And to think I could hardly wait til he started walking. I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”
Jo hesitated, glancing over at the second mother who was placing her baby in the swing Cory had vacated. Should she identify herself as not only new in town but proprietor of Jo’s Craft Corner? Would it worry Dawn to have her child so near a, a what? A murder suspect? No, word surely wouldn’t have gotten around yet. At worst, Jo was still only the unlucky woman who had found the body. If that frightened Dawn away, so be it. She enlightened her new acquaintance, whose eyes widened only briefly with recognition.
“I heard they still don’t know who did that to him,” Dawn said, quickly getting down to what interested her most.
“No, they don’t.”
“It’s so weird, a thing like that happening to someone you know.”
Jo’s gaze, which had wandered to Cory, darted back to Dawn. “Oh?”
“Well, not knew him, but, you know how it is. In a town this size, you always know someone who knows someone, so you feel connected.”
“Who do you know who knew him?”
“My cousin, Genna.”
“Really.” Jo tried to muffle signs of her interest. “Is she the girl I saw at the playhouse?”
“Yes! See what I mean? Everyone knows everyone here, one way or another. What did you see her in? Biloxi Blues?”
“No, I was at the rehearsal for the show they’re working on now, something to do with Rumpelstiltskin.”
“Oh, is that their next one? I didn’t know. What’s Genna’s part in it?”
“She has one of the leads, playing the spinner who pledges her first-born to Rumpelstiltskin.”
Dawn grinned, and rolled her eyes at Cory. “Tempting idea, sometimes! Good for Genna, though, getting a part like that. Last time she played a prostitute.” Dawn giggled. “My aunt wasn’t delighted with that. Does she get to sing in this one?”
“There’s some music in it,” Jo thought back to the peculiar song she heard being rehearsed, and hoped whatever else there might be would fit the word “music” better. “I didn’t hear Genna sing, but I guess she might.”
“I hope so. She has a really nice voice.” Dawn reached over to button her son’s jacket, which the breeze had started to flap.
Jo asked, “Was Genna terribly upset over Kyle? I imagine they must have been close, I mean as fellow members of the playhouse troupe.”
“Well,” a cautious look crept over Dawn now, and she seemed to choose her words carefully, “she was upset, of course. I mean, it’s a horrible thing to happen to anyone. But she has plenty of support. There’s her family and friends. And Pete, her boyfriend.”
Jo noticed that Dawn looked away when she mentioned Pete, as though regretting having brought him up. “Does Genna live at home, then,” she pressed, “or do she and her boyfriend —”
”No, they don’t live together, not that Pete hasn’t tried to talk her into it. Genna has a roommate. They share a two-bedroom in those new Wildwood apartments, a really cool place.” Dawn began talking faster. “I wish they had been built when Jack and I were first looking for one. We’d move, but they cost more than where we are now, and we’re saving for a house. You know those houses over on....” Dawn chattered on, clearly much more comfortable with the new subject.
Jo waited for a pause, and, when Dawn drew a breath, jumped in with, “Yes, they do sound very nice. I was wondering, though, about Genna’s boyfriend. Did he —”
Dawn suddenly leaned down and grabbed her son’s bottle, pulling it from his mouth with a pop. Cory reacted with an indignant wail, and Dawn picked him up, explaining to Jo, “I can’t let him drink too much right now. I don’t have any extra diapers with me.” She consoled the toddler with a quick pat on his back, then turned him away from Jo. “Oh, look, Cory, there’s a squirrel!”
Cory’s wails stopped, and he wiggled to get down, taking off after the grey squirrel as soon as his feet hit the ground. Dawn picked up her tote and turned to Jo.
“It’s been real nice talking to you,” she said, then hurried after Cory.
Well, that was interesting, Jo thought, her eyes still blinking with surprise as she watched her potential source distance herself.
She laughed ruefully. Wouldn’t it be handy to have a Cory to take along with her the next time Russ Morgan wanted to talk. Jo stood, giving up on any further conversation, and headed back toward her car, mulling over what had just happened. Something about Pete certainly made Dawn very uneasy. But what exactly? The only real information Dawn had shared was that Pete had tried to talk Genna into living with him. Which implied Genna had resisted for some reason. Hints and innuendoes. That seemed to be all Jo was able to gather. But then, that was also all Lieutenant Morgan had gathered on her.
Being reminded of her uniformed adversary began to stir the anger Jo thought she had managed to dispel, and she drew a deep breath. This would not do. If she had learned anything over the past year it was that emotions needed to be kept under control if she expected to accomplish anything. She came to the azalea plantings and snapped off a twig, rolling it rapidly between her hands in an effort to cool down, then began to pluck off its small leaves, one by one, until she realized what she was doing: the daisy petal game. He loves me, he loves me not.
Not quite appropriate here, she thought grimly, tossing the twig. There was certainly no question. Morgan loved her not, and she returned the feeling, in spades. Lieutenant Morgan obviously saw her as a cold-blooded murderer, and she in turn viewed him as the man working to send her to prison for life, or worse. With all those leading questions about her marriage, and their terrible implications, Morgan had shown himself to be a cold, callous, hardheaded man, and nothing whatsoever like her warm, openhearted Mike.
Why, then, she wondered, the thought bringing her to a stop, did she find herself so often thinking of one along with the other?
CHAPTER 12
Jo’s gaze swept over her ladies, gathered together for a stamping workshop. She was growing quite fond of them. Beyond their ongoing interest in crafts, she sensed a deeper concern for her and her dicey situation.
Once again Ina Mae sat directly across from Jo at the worktable, with Loralee right beside her. Javonne Barnett had arrived in a rush again, from her husband’s dental office, and Deirdre Patterson waited expectantly next to Loralee. Mindy Blevins was absent, presumably still sorting through her mounds of “twin” photographs back home.
“What are you going to teach us tonight, Jo?” Javonne asked, pulling off her multicolored silk scarf and tucking it safely into the handbag at her feet.
“Tonight, ladies,” Jo said, “you will enter the fascinating, and endlessly creative world of stamping.” She caught Carrie’s eye, who was guiding her beginning knitters through their first sweater on the other side of the store, and grinned. “Our first project will be a beautiful, handmade thank you card.”
Ina Mae hmmphed. “Maybe I’ll send it – self-addressed – to a certain relative who has yet to mention that gift I sent six months ago.”
“Oh, I know,” Loralee commiserated. “Thank yous are just too much trouble for some people. Some young people.”
“I’ve always been extremely meticulous about thank you notes,” Deirdre insisted. Jo wasn’t sure which age group Deirdre, a forty-something, was putting herself in with that statement. “And I never, never send one by e-mail.”
“Oh, e-mail!” Ina Mae rolled her eyes. “I’d be drop-dead grateful for that at least. But we’re digressing, Jo. Please go on.”
Jo displayed and explained the basic tools of decorative stamping – rubber stamps, stamp pads, plain and novelty scissors, paper cutters, and more.
“I’m going to show you how to make this lovely card,” she said, ho
lding it up and pausing as Loralee oohed, “and in the process teach you some of the skills to create your own designs. Now first, we will cut our dark blue paper, which has the delicious name of “Night of Navy,” to fit in this standard envelope when folded.”
The women watched as Jo measured and cut hers using the paper cutter, then followed suit. Jo next demonstrated how they could create a window effect by cutting a smaller white rectangle of paper to center over the dark blue, then four yet-smaller squares of blue to top that, two over two with the white framing them all, like window panes. All layers would be attached using double-sided tape.
“But first, before we cut the smaller blue squares, we will stamp them with these individual tree stamps, using white Craft ink, which is a little thicker and whiter than regular ink. And when it’s all put together it will look like a view through a window on a snowy night.”
“Oh, I love it,” cried Javonne.
“Wait, what do I do with the white paper?” Deirdre asked, looking thoroughly befuddled.
Jo explained the process once more, and then a third time to Deirdre alone as the others got busy on their own cards. As Deirdre seemed to catch on, Jo strolled around the table, looking over shoulders as stamps thumped, and papers were cut, ready to answer questions.
As she completed the round, Ina Mae looked up to ask, “Find out anything at the Playhouse?”
Once again, four pairs of eyes looked up, curious for the answer. “Well,” Jo said, smiling, “I learned Rafe Rulenski doesn’t write very good music.”
“Jo-oh,” Javonne prompted.
“It’s true! He might be a good director, but I really think he has a tin ear.”
“Will you be doing anything for the production?” Deirdre asked.
“Yes, some of the costume jewelry, and maybe some odds and ends for the stage sets.”
“Great!”
“At cost. Or nearly so. But I’ll get a bit of publicity from it.”
“What did you learn about Kyle Sandborn?” Ina Mae persisted.
Jo shrugged, warning them it was very little, then told them what she and Charlie had picked up concerning the jealousy of Genna’s boyfriend, Pete. “It may turn out to be nothing, but it’s the strongest motive I’ve come across so far, for Kyle’s murder. Genna’s cousin didn’t actually confirm the jealousy when I talked to her in the park, but I suspect she might have. She definitely didn’t have good feelings toward the boyfriend.”
“I think you’re on to something,” Deirdre said. “I remember, now that you mention it, that Rafe Rulenski once complained about someone who might have been Pete. This was a few weeks ago at the fund-raising Thespian Ball. Alden and I were chatting with Rafe about the amount of scenery needed for Biloxi Blues, and he nearly turned purple. He said he had to have an entire section of a flat replaced because of damage caused by an actress’s boyfriend. The boyfriend claimed it was an accident, that he had lost his balance somehow and fallen through, but Rafe said the damage looked more like someone had kicked through it in a rage.”
“Oh my,” Loralee cried. “And that was Pete?”
“Rafe didn’t give a name,” Deirdre said, as she carefully pressed her tree stamp on the blue paper, “but he did say this man didn’t like his girlfriend acting like a,” Deirdre hesitated, glancing over at Loralee and Ina Mae, “like a w-h-o-r-e.”
“Oh!” Loralee’s hand flew to her mouth.
“He must have meant Genna’s part in the play,” Jo said. “Her cousin told me she played a prostitute in the last show.”
“This boyfriend sounds jealous and controlling,” Ina Mae said, “and definitely someone worth looking into.”
“I agree,” Javonne put in.
“I’ll try to talk to Genna at the next rehearsal.”
Carrie left her two knitting students, and came over for one of the sodas she and Jo kept stocked in a cooler. “Tell them about the police lieutenant, Jo,” she urged, popping open a diet Dr Pepper.
“What? Did he pull you in again, Jo?” Javonne asked.
“He firmly invited me in for a talk,” Jo corrected. She described what she had endured at the hands of Abbotsville’s finest, leaving out mention of Earnest C. Ainsworthy because of Carrie, who felt awful enough as it was over the disastrous result of her attempt to help. The group’s faces reflected much of the same indignation Jo had felt with Morgan.
“That’s outrageous,” Ina Mae pronounced, thumping down her stamp hard enough to make the others jump.
“He actually brought up your poor husband’s accident, as if there were some connection?” Loralee asked. Jo nodded.
“I’m going to have Alden talk to that man,” Deirdre declared. “This sounds awfully close to harassment to me. Something should be done about it.”
Jo smiled gratefully at Deirdre for the sentiment, though she wasn’t sure what effect, if any, Deirdre’s state senator husband would have on a police investigation. Perhaps Lt. Morgan deserved a bit of harassment himself, though. The thought cheered her.
“What do we know about Russ Morgan?” Ina Mae asked. “He’s been with the Abbotsville Police Department for only a short time, as far as I’m aware. Where did he come from? Anyone know?”
“He came,” said Javonne, “from some big-city police department, I forget exactly where, but some place in the Midwest. Chicago? Or maybe Cleveland? My Harry heard this from Merle Snipes, who’s in his tennis group. Anyway, Merle thinks he’s being groomed to take over as captain when Joe Meloni finally retires.”
“So he probably wants to look good on his first big murder case in our little town,” Ina Mae said. “He’s single. Ever married?” She looked around, waiting.
“One of the ladies I lunch with,” Deirdre offered, “did say she was sure he was divorced. She hinted it was a bitter one. I don’t know if there were children or not, but if so, he obviously lost custody since we’ve never seen him with any.”
“Maybe he’s full of anger toward women,” Loralee speculated, “and he’s taking it out on our poor Jo.”
“Well,” Ina Mae said, “it might help Jo to know where he’s coming from. As far as what he’s been throwing at her, the man is on a fishing expedition. He might be able to prove Jo knew Kyle before he showed up at her Grand Opening and that could be hurtful, but he’d need more. A lot more.”
“Which is why Jo should present him as soon as possible with all she can find out this jealous boyfriend.” Deirdre looked at Jo as if she were ready to push her out the door and in the direction of the playhouse. No matter that it sat empty tonight. She should take her sticky tape and tweezers and immediately start crawling about the dark stage searching for clues.
“I will do my best, Deirdre,” Jo promised, quickly adding, “tomorrow.”
“Maybe I can track down Pete’s last name, in case you run into a roadblock,” Javonne offered. “He might be one of Harry’s patients, or a friend of one. People tend to get chatty in a dentist’s chair, trying to postpone the inevitable.”
“I’ll talk to my hairdresser,” Loralee said. “She’s about that age; she might know something about him.”
“I’ll check with my power-walkers,” Ina Mae put in, “see what I can come up with on both this Pete and Lt. Morgan.”
Jo looked from one to another, touched by their readiness to help. What it would ultimately produce remained to be seen. But at worst, Jo felt reassured she would not lack visitors should she eventually find herself behind bars.
Nor would mail be sparse, she predicted as she watched them gradually return to their projects. Each day would likely bring one or more beautifully stamped “missing you” cards.
How comforting.
CHAPTER 13
Jo walked into the Abbotsville Playhouse, Carrie at her side. They had agreed that the shop could be closed early on an evening when no workshops were scheduled. The lost business would be minimal, Jo reasoned, and she wouldn’t have insisted for the world that Carrie stay behind. Charlie had started working at
the playhouse, and Carrie wanted to get a feel for what, in fact, he was involved in.
“It can be so frustrating getting any details out of him,” she had groaned to Jo. “The larger his vocabulary grows, the fewer words he actually uses.”
Though Carrie never admitted it, Jo was sure the idea of her son being involved in an acting group was as alien to her as it was to Dan. But seeing the energy and enthusiasm reappear in Charlie that had been missing for so long, won her over. As his mother, though, she wanted reassurance that the playhouse was no den of iniquity, and it helped that the first person they encountered was Mrs. Pettibone, Charlie’s English teacher.
“Hello, Mrs. Brenner,” she called out, as Carrie and Jo made their way down the semidark aisle. Mrs. Pettibone, a plus-sized woman of fifty or so, stood below the stage, holding what Jo assumed was an open playbook. “Here to see Charlie?” she asked.
“Oh, not really. I’m just tagging along with Jo,” Carrie said, with less than convincing nonchalance. She introduced the two.
“Oh yes,” Jane Pettibone said to Jo. “Rafe told me you’ll be sparkling up the costumes and sets for us. Terrific! We can use a lot of help in that department.”
“She’s been putting together some great stuff,” Carrie said.
Jo noticed Carrie’s eyes scouring the area as she spoke. Apparently Jane Pettibone did too, for she pointed to a large piece of still-unpainted scenery. “Charlie’s been working on the back of that castle wall there. They’re reinforcing the braces.”
Carrie smiled. “That’s fine. I won’t interrupt him.”
“Is Rafe around?” Jo asked, holding up the box she carried. “I’d like to show him a couple of samples I’ve put together, see what he thinks of them.”
Jane Pettibone turned about, searching through the shifting groups. “I don’t see him right now. But I’m sure he’ll pop up soon. Why don’t you have a seat and watch the rehearsal. But don’t expect too much,” she smiled, “we’re still in the early stages.”
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