by Sofie Kelly
“Thanks for bailing me out, again, figuratively speaking,” I said.
“Anytime,” he said.
I went back inside and found Ethan waiting for me in the porch; Hercules was sitting beside him on the bench. They both looked up at me.
Ethan got right to the point. “Derek couldn’t kill anybody.”
Hercules meowed his agreement.
I rubbed my neck again. The knot in my shoulders was working its way up the back of my head. “No one said he did. Marcus is just doing his job. He’s asking questions and gathering information. I told you. He’s one of the good guys.”
“Yeah, well, Derek is one of the good guys, too.”
“I never said he wasn’t.”
Ethan exhaled loudly. “That’s good, because Derek didn’t do anything and you need to find out who did.”
chapter 5
“No, I don’t,” I said. “I’m not the police, and besides, you heard what Brady said—the police don’t even know how Lewis Wallace died yet.”
“Well, it’s not like he had a car accident or fell down the stairs,” Ethan said.
“The man could have had a heart attack or a stroke. He could have fallen and hit his head earlier in the day.” I thought back to the death of Gregor Easton, which had happened when I had been in Mayville Heights for only a few months. He had died from a head injury. That case was how Marcus and I had met.
“And someone could have killed the guy,” Ethan said flatly.
Hercules made a sound that might have meant he concurred or might have meant he was getting bored with the whole conversation.
“The police will figure that out.” I didn’t like the conversation at all.
“So can you. You’ve done it before.”
I shook my head. “I’m not doing it this time. No.”
He started to say something and I held up my hand. “No.”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “So what? You want to see Derek get railroaded?”
“Do you really think Marcus would do something like that, Ethan?” I asked, my voice icy with anger. “Do you think he’s that kind of person?”
Ethan ducked his head. “I wasn’t saying that,” he muttered.
“Good.” I took a breath and let it out. “I’m not talking about this anymore,” I said.
I went back into the house, trailed by Hercules. I heard the door to the backyard open and close. I figured Ethan had gone outside to either cool off or rethink his plan of attack. I hoped it wasn’t the latter.
I needed to figure out what we were going to have for supper. I peered into the fridge and opened and closed cupboard doors. I had plenty of sourdough bread and enough leftover chicken to make pulled-chicken sandwiches, I decided. And a beet salad because it was fast and easy.
Hercules sat next to the refrigerator and watched me set the table, green eyes following my every move. “It’s not hard to tell whose side you’re on,” I said the third time I passed him.
He glanced in the direction of the porch then looked at me, tipping his head to one side, which he did when he was questioning something or trying to look cute.
“We’re not getting involved in this case,” I said, putting a knife and fork at each place. I kept my voice low because Milo and Derek were in the living room
The cat’s nose twitched.
“I mean I’m not getting involved in this case.”
Hercules continued to stare at me.
It was really disconcerting how long he could go without blinking. “We don’t even know if Lewis Wallace’s death was an actual crime,” I said. I set the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table. “And even if it was, that doesn’t mean the police are seriously going to look at Derek.”
The cat’s green-eyed gaze never left my face.
“Why am I explaining myself to a cat?” I asked.
He almost seemed to shrug as if to say, “Darned if I know,” then he yawned, stretched and headed for the living room, where I could hear the guys talking. I had a feeling the cat hadn’t given up on me, either.
* * *
Susan was waiting at the bottom of the steps when I drove into the library parking lot in the morning. I parked and walked over to her. She was wearing her black cat’s-eyes glasses and there were two metal straws in her updo. Susan generally wore her thick, curly hair in a topknot at work and I never quite knew what she’d use to keep it secure on any given day. Swizzle sticks, a pencil, a chopstick: It was always a surprise.
Today Susan was carrying a round metal cookie tin in addition to the tote bag holding her lunch. I looked from Susan to the can. Eric would sometimes use us as guinea pigs for whatever new recipe he had concocted. Was there one of his new recipes in that can?
“Maple sugar cookies,” Susan said in answer to my unspoken question.
“You’re my favorite staff member,” I said as I started up the steps to unlock the front door.
She smiled. “You would probably have more credibility if I hadn’t heard you say the same thing to Mary last week when she made doughnuts. But I’ll take it.”
She followed me inside. “I heard what your brother’s friend did at The Brick Friday night.” She gave me a thumbs-up. “Anyone who would kick a service dog deserves to get his as—” She looked at me. “—his assets kicked.”
Her expression changed. “I also heard about the body at the St. James. It was the same guy, right? Lewis Wallace? The guy who wants—wanted—to set up his business in one of the empty warehouses?”
I nodded. “Yes, it was.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t impressed with his proposal—for one thing I think he was overestimating his profit margins—but no one should have to die alone like that.” Susan headed for the stairs then. “I’ll start the coffee, and then do you want me to make sure the time has changed on all the computers?”
“Please,” I said. I flipped the lights on. “How do the boys handle the time change?”
“Their fiendishly computer-like brains know when it’s five forty-five no matter how many times the clocks get changed,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “They were making pancakes with Eric when I got up.”
“That’s good.”
She shook her head. “No. No, really it isn’t. We’re going to have to paint the kitchen ceiling. Again.”
It was a busy Monday at the library. Patricia Queen came in for a meeting about the upcoming quilt show. Patricia was the president of the seniors’ quilting group that met every week at the library. For the last couple of years all their quilt tops had been pieced in the building before going to Patricia’s home to be finished with her long-arm quilting machine. Their current project was being lap-quilted, which meant all the blocks were quilted by hand and assembled afterward. I knew the finished project would be beautiful under Patricia’s exacting eye.
We sat in my office with a cup of coffee for me, and a cup of tea for Patricia, and went over the proposed schedule. I knew that some people found Patricia a bit . . . challenging to work with. She liked to plan everything down to the last detail. Mary had warned me that Patricia could be a bit obsessive but I liked the fact that she thought of everything. I liked schedules and plans and having things well organized. As Patricia went over her proposed timeline I thought of my own mother telling my third grade teacher, “Katy likes to have all her ducks in a row. That’s not a problem, is it?” in a tone that suggested that there was only one right answer to her question, which hadn’t really been a question at all.
I drank the last of my coffee. “Patricia, do you think it would be possible to add a workshop of basic quilting techniques?” I asked. “I’ve had quite a few questions about something like that since word got out about the upcoming show.”
Patricia set down her pen, nudged her wire-frame glasses up her nose and narrowed her gaze at me. “What were you thinking of?”
&
nbsp; “Something like how to pick a design, a little color theory, how to make a basic quilt block. Just enough for people who don’t know anything about quilting to get a taste of what’s involved.”
That was all it took for Patricia’s interest to be piqued. She started listing off ideas: how the workshop could be organized, who would teach, where they could have it, etc. “I’m not sure one class would be enough,” she said. “We could do one on color theory, types of blocks, fabric choice, oh, and of course how to use the rotary cutter.”
“Of course,” I said.
“And then another session on how to lay out the design and sew the pieces together and a third class on constructing the quilt sandwich and doing the actual quilting.”
I felt a little like I might have started a snowball of ideas rolling downhill.
Patricia had been making notes in her neat, squared-off handwriting that covered almost two pages. Finally, she looked up at me and smiled. “I’ll get back to you with a plan by the end of the week.”
Knowing Patricia, she’d get back to me long before Friday.
I walked her downstairs and as we got to the bottom of the steps she looked up at the beautiful carved sun Oren Kenyon had created hanging over the main entrance. It was reminiscent of the carved sun over the entrance to the first Carnegie library in Dunfermline, Scotland, with the same motto, “Let there be light,” below.
“I never tire of seeing that,” Patricia said. “Oren did beautiful work.”
I nodded. “You’re right. He’s very talented.”
She looked in the direction of our computer room. “How on earth did you manage to reset that clock?”
The vintage timepiece she was talking about was close to two feet wide with a heavy black circular frame and black Roman numerals on its face. I knew the clock had been in the library for at least fifty years, maybe more, although by the time the renovations began the hands had been stuck at quarter to four for several years. Although the inner workings had had to be replaced it had been important to me to keep that connection to the library’s history.
“I confess that I didn’t,” I said, feeling my cheeks get pink. “Harry Taylor came in about an hour ago and did it for me.”
“I always prepare for the time change by adjusting my sleeping patterns in the days before the change and by resetting my clocks early,” Patricia said, with just a touch of reproach in her voice.
“I’m sure we all would benefit from doing that,” I replied.
Patricia reminded me again that she would be in touch and left. I joined Mary at the checkout desk.
“Do you really think we’d all benefit from adjusting our sleeping patterns before a time change?” she asked. Her tone suggested she didn’t think so.
“My alarm clock was a cat with sardine breath,” I said. “I’m not exactly the best judge of that.”
“You know, Patricia might benefit from learning to dance,” Mary said, a sly gleam in her eyes. “Black satin and feathers flatter everyone.”
* * *
Melanie Davis called midmorning. I was looking at the latest issue with our book drop. It looked like someone had hit it with a hammer or something similar. There were a couple of small dents on the top. “Remind me to show Harry,” I said to Susan. “He’ll be back this afternoon.”
I headed up to my office to take Melanie’s call, dropping onto the edge of the desk as I reached for the phone. “How are you and how are things at the hotel?” I asked.
“Truthfully, I’m still a little shaken,” she said.
“That’s understandable,” I said. “Finding a dead body is unsettling.”
“I don’t understand what Lew was doing in that meeting room. He hadn’t signed up for the workshop. And the door was locked. How did he get inside?” I could hear an edge of worry in her voice.
“Maybe he was looking for you. To catch up.” I picked a bit of cat hair off my sleeve. “You said you used to work together.”
“We weren’t exactly friends,” Melanie said. “We worked together for a very short time. And anyone on staff here could have told him where to find my office.” She hesitated.
I waited, not rushing to fill the silence.
Melanie sighed softly. “Back when I worked with him, Lew had a problem with insomnia. He’d be tired when he got to work because he was wandering around in the middle of the night. He told me once that his coach back in college made him go to some kind of sleep disorders clinic, but maybe he still has . . . had the problem.”
I remembered what I’d read online, how Wallace had blamed his chronic insomnia for being late for football practice.
“So Mr. Wallace was a guest at the St. James?”
“Yes, he was,” Melanie said. “The police still have his guest room and the meeting room sealed off.” She sighed. “Several people have checked out and several more reservations have been canceled.” She paused for a moment. “And I know it’s selfish of me to be thinking about business when a man is dead.”
“It’s not,” I reassured her. “You still have a job to do. It’s not wrong for you to do it.”
“Thank you,” she said. She cleared her throat. “The reason I called was not to complain to you. I wanted to thank you for your e-mail. And I have the answer to two of your questions.”
We took a few minutes to settle a few details and agreed to reconnect hopefully later in the week.
I got a text from Ethan at about four thirty telling me that he was cooking supper. That wasn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t a completely good thing, either. Ethan tended to cook more the way Maggie did, and I hoped my kitchen would survive.
When I got home Ethan was listening to one of his favorite drummers, Elvin Jones, and wearing a dishtowel tucked in at his waist as a kind of apron. The kitchen was a lot cleaner than I had expected, probably because Milo was at the sink doing dishes. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but mess bugs me.”
“No, you can’t trade me for him,” Ethan said from the stove. His anger at me from the night before seemed to be gone, at least for now.
I smiled at Milo. “We’ll talk later,” I said in a stage whisper.
Hercules and Owen were at the table, each sitting on a chair, carefully watching Ethan’s every move.
I hung up my coat and bag and pulled off my boots. The kitchen smelled wonderful.
Derek wandered in from the living room. He was wearing headphones, listening to something on his phone. He set a coffee mug on the counter next to Milo, raised one hand in hello to me and left again.
“Are you making lo mein?” I asked Ethan.
“I am,” he said.
I went over to the stove and kissed the back of his head. “My favorite,” I said.
Ethan held up both hands. “I live to serve.”
And to suck up. He’d changed tactics, I realized. Ethan was trying to convince me to look into Lewis Wallace’s death by getting on my good side. It wasn’t going to work but I wasn’t going to say that until I’d had a bowl of that lo mein. Or maybe two.
Ethan’s cooking tasted even better than it smelled.
“I’ve got the dishes,” Milo said. He gave me a sly grin. “And it’s not up for discussion, although I will arm-wrestle you if you don’t agree.”
I flexed my wrist a couple of times. “If my old book-checking-out injury hadn’t flared up today I think I could take you,” I teased.
“How about coffee?” Ethan asked.
“Yes, if you make decaf,” I said, stretching my arms up over my head. I saw Ethan send Derek a look.
“I’ll make it,” Derek said, getting to his feet. He gestured at the cupboard where I kept the sardine crackers and tipped his head in the direction of Owen and Hercules. “Okay if I give them each a couple?”
Two furry heads swiveled to look at me.
“Go ahead,�
�� I said. I pulled one leg up underneath me, shifting sideways in my chair. Ethan was watching me. “What?” I asked.
“Do you ever think about coming home?” he asked.
“You mean Boston.”
He nodded. As usual his fingers were drumming a rhythm on the tabletop.
“Sometimes,” I said. “But this is home, too. I have friends. I have a job I really like. I have those two furballs. I have Marcus. I have a life here now and I don’t want to just walk away from it.”
“But you have a family in Boston.” His expression was serious. He wasn’t teasing the way he usually did about living in the middle of nowhere with Bigfoot for a neighbor. Rebecca had laughed until tears came when I’d told her about that comment.
Ethan’s visit had reminded me just how much I missed him and Sara and Mom and Dad. My stomach tied itself into a knot as I thought about how difficult it was going to be to say good-bye to him. But that didn’t mean I wanted to leave behind the life I’d built in Mayville Heights. I blinked hard a couple of times. “I miss you, too,” I said.
There was a knock at the door then. I got to my feet just as Marcus stepped into the room. “Hi,” he said.
I smiled, closed the distance between us and gave him a quick kiss. The guys all gave some kind of acknowledgment but in Ethan’s case it was a little halfhearted.
“Hi, Marcus,” Derek said. “Would you like a cup of coffee? It’s unleaded.”
Marcus nodded. “I would, thank you.”
Derek reached for a mug. Milo went back to the dishes and Ethan stayed where he was at the table, arms folded over his chest. It was the same defiant pose I remembered from when he was a teenager, which really wasn’t that long ago.
“I’m glad to see you, but I thought you had another hockey practice tonight,” I said.
“I do,” he said. “But I needed to talk to Derek about a couple of things and I thought he might be here.”
“We’ll give you some privacy,” I said.
Derek had poured Marcus’s coffee. Now he handed him the mug. “It’s okay. They can all hear whatever it is you have to say.”