Grabbing what I could from the sales area, I filled up the window without too much concern for themes or even basic principles of display. The window was full again, that was what really mattered, and I could go eat with a somewhat clear conscience.
I'd planned on trying the hat on after I ate, but if I was going to avoid Kendra until then, I was going to have to stear clear of Hattie's Attic. It was amazing how often I ate lunch at Shelly's Café simply because it was located in the opposite direction from Kendra's shop.
"Carolyn Emerson, have you been avoiding me?" Though she was busy grilling for her big lunch crowd, Shelly En sign took the time to wave a spatula at me as I walked into the café. She was a petite woman, but anyone who had ever been on the other side of one of her tongue lashings knew her small size belied her feisty personality. I'd gone to school with Shelly, and not only had we sat beside each other in alphabetically ordered classrooms, but we also had consecutive birthdays: Shelly's birthday was May 11, mine, May 12.
"Shelly, why on earth would you ask me that?"
"You haven't been here in a week. Did I say something to offend you?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary," I replied as I took a seat at the counter that stood between the grill and the other tables. The café had last been decorated sometime in the 1950s, sporting black and white scuffed tiles, red vinyl tabletops, and mismatched chairs, the motif worked for Shelly.
Ken Marcus, the town's only doctor and the man who had delivered both of us, said, "Wait a second, you two are nearly exactly the same age. Yes, I remember that May well. Shelly, you were born at 11:57 p.m., and then I had to rush over to the next room to deliver you, Carolyn. It was 12:06 a.m., if I remember correctly."
"Nothing wrong with his mind," Shelly said.
"He's as sharp as ever," I added.
"Are you two youngsters making fun of me?" Dr. Mar cus asked.
"Us? Why, we'd never do that," Shelly protested.
"No, sir, not for one second."
The good doctor stared hard at each of us in turn, threw a ten-dollar bill down beside his plate, and then headed for the door. "One of you bit me right after you came out, but I won't say which one did it."
Shelly and I pointed at each other automatically and said in near-perfect unison, "It had to be her."
The doctor shook his head and walked out without an other word.
I looked at Shelly, fighting to hold my laughter in, but the second her smile broke free, I couldn't restrain myself. I didn't care that some of the other customers in the café were looking at us a bit oddly. It felt good to laugh.
"What can I get you today?" she asked as she went back to her grill.
"I'll have my usual." I thought about facing a salad on what I'd dealt with so far that day, and changed my mind. "On second thought, give me a hamburger and some French fries."
"Do you want a chocolate shake to go with that?"
"No, I'd better not. Make it a Coke. Diet."
Shelly smiled. "Sure, because you wouldn't want any unnecessary calories, now would you?"
"What can I say? I'm watching my figure."
She let that slide, so I asked her, "Are you feeling okay?"
"Why, what have you heard?"
"You let an opening like that sneak past you, I'm ready to call the paramedics."
"We're right here if you need us," a handsome young man said from a table in the back. I hadn't spotted him com ing in, but sure enough, he and his partner were wearing EMT uniforms.
"False alarm," I said.
He nodded, and they went back to their meals. I turned back to Shelly. "I mean it, what's gotten into you?"
"Wayne thinks I'm too much of a smart aleck."
Wayne Campbell was her latest boyfriend, a man eleven years her junior. I would never dream about teasing her about that, though. Shelly had lost her first husband to can cer and the second to a car accident. I figured my friend was entitled to whatever happiness she could find. "Tell Wayne I like our relationship just fine the way it is," I said with a smile.
She nodded. "I do, too. Let me get that food for you."
I looked around the café as I waited for my order. It was jammed full with folks from town. There were restaurants where the tourists liked to go, but Shelly's was for locals. Not to say we'd throw somebody out if they weren't from Maple Ridge, but it took a brave soul to look past the run down exterior of the café and actually step inside. I saw the mayor having lunch with his secretary from the car dealer ship he owned, and I wondered who they thought they were fooling with their innocent act. They were involved in something—romantics would call it a love affair; more pragmatic types would label it a sleazy relationship on the side. Either way, I doubted they'd be able to get away with it much longer. As some folks around our parts liked to say, "There's a storm a brewing."
Shelly slid my burger and fries in front of me, well be fore I was due to get my food. I lowered my voice. "You didn't have to bump my place in line."
"You've got a business to run, and no one to help you at the moment. I don't hear any complaints, do you?" She gazed around her restaurant, and not another glance met her stare.
"You heard about David already?"
Shelly nodded. "The whole town knows about it by now. Imagine the nerve of Richard Atkins just showing up like that. He ought to be shot, and I've heard a few folks think he will be."
"David and Hannah would never do anything like that, no matter what the provocation."
Shelly shrugged. "Who's to say what folks would do, given the right circumstances? Don't forget, though, Rich ard Atkins has more enemies in Maple Ridge than his exwife and his son."
"Like who, for instance?" I asked. I was not normally a gossip. Well, I wasn't. Okay, I admit that I might have shared a tidbit or two in the past, but this was different. Well, it was.
Shelly nearly whispered as she spoke next, and I had to strain to hear her. "There are a few folks sitting right here, our dear mayor being one of them."
I looked at Harvey Jenkins, who kept his rapt gaze on his curvy secretary, Nancy Jane Billings. "What could Harvey have against Richard?"
"You didn't know? They were in some kind of business together, and when Richard disappeared, evidently he took some of Harvey's money with him."
That was interesting, and something I'd never heard about. "Who else?"
Shelly looked toward the front door. I turned to see Kendra Williams making her way to the café. "Speak of the devil and she appears. Kendra has a reason of her own to make him regret showing up here."
"Kendra? Don't tell me she and Richard had anything in common."
Before Kendra could get inside, Shelly said softly, "Some folks say Richard did the antiquing on some of her pieces and started blackmailing her when she balked at pay ing him for his silence."
"That was a long time ago," I said.
"You know what they say. Elephants don't forget."
That was a cheap shot at Kendra's weight, but I wasn't about to defend her, not after Shelly had scalded me so many times with her whiplash tongue.
"Who else?" It was fascinating to me that I'd missed so much dirt.
"Can't talk about it now," Shelly said.
There was an empty stool beside mine, and I knew Kendra would head straight for it. Could I stop her some how? Tell her it was saved for Bill, or someone else? Know ing Kendra, I was sure she'd stand there and wait, and when no one showed up, she'd start in on me. My best option would be to wolf down my food so I'd be exposed to her for a minimal amount of time.
"Is this taken?" she said loudly in my ear.
"Feel free," I said as I jammed a large bite into my mouth. "I'm just about through here."
"Don't hurry on my account," she said.
Shelly asked, "What can I get you?"
"The usual," she said. I wondered what that might be, but not enough to hang around to see for myself.
Kendra somehow managed to settle her bulk onto the counter stool and said, "It's a
terrible shame about poor David, isn't it?"
"What about him?" I said through the fistful of fries I had crammed into my mouth. These weren't the skinny little fast-food fare, either. They were honest potato wedges, and I could barely mumble with them in my mouth.
"Imagine, that father of his just showing up like that after twenty years. He took off about the time the jewelry store was robbed, didn't he?"
I somehow managed to swallow, and said, "I guess so. I understand you knew Richard pretty well back then."
Kendra's eyes narrowed. "Who told you that?"
"I can't remember," I lied, trying not to look at Shelly.
"It's a bold-faced lie," Kendra snapped. "And I don't want to talk about it."
That was a switch. I didn't think there was anything on the planet Kendra wouldn't discuss. I thought about press ing her further, but if I did, it would have to wait. I ate the last bite of my burger, slipped my payment under my plate, then turned to Shelly and said, "Thanks for lunch."
She pointed to my money. "There'd better be enough for a tip in there, too."
"You know me, I always tip a solid 9 percent," I said with a grin.
Shelly collected the money as she cleared the plate. "It's nice to have something in this world I can count on."
I walked outside, grateful for the respite from the noise in the café. It hadn't sounded that loud when I was inside among them adding my own voice to the fray, but it became extremely noticeable once I was away from it. I didn't know how Shelly took it all day.
I thought about the hat I'd wanted to look at in Kendra's shop, but as she was at the café, I knew Hattie's Attic was closed. Now that my belly was full, I was starting to feel guilty about shutting my shop, especially with David miss ing. Had he come back while I'd been gone? I found myself hurrying back to Fire at Will. The sign was still in the door, and the place was dark inside. If he'd come back, he hadn't bothered opening up.
"David?" I called out as I walked inside after unlocking the door. I had the weirdest feeling, as if expecting to find a dead body in my shop. To be frank, it had happened before, though I hadn't had a premonition about it as I was now. A part of me wanted to call Bill, or even the sheriff, but I had no idea what I would say to either one of them. One thing I knew for sure. I wasn't about to admit that I had a gut feeling that something was wrong. I could hear them now, cackling about woman's intuition, something I believed in wholeheartedly, and I wasn't in the mood to be teased or scorned for it.
"David, are you back there?"
Still no reply. I wasn't convinced the place was corpsefree until I'd searched every bit of space big enough to hold a body.
Carolyn, I chided myself after shutting a closet door, you are letting your imagination take control of you.
I turned on the lights, flipped the sign to "Open," and tried to get rid of that sick, dull feeling that was still linger ing in the pit of my stomach. I called David's cell phone, and then Hannah's, but I got their voice mails. Had my friend managed to find her son, or were they both ignoring any summons from the world outside their own? I hoped Hannah had found him, or would soon. She'd be able to set tle David down. At least I hoped she could.
Blast Richard Atkins anyway. What nerve he had show ing up like that after all those years. I was still cursing him under my breath when the telephone rang.
It turned out to be a call I wasn't particularly pleased to receive.
Chapter 4
"Sheriff, I don't know anything I haven't already told you," I said for the third time in the conversation. "David's still gone, and so is Richard. I haven't heard from Hannah, ei ther. Why the sudden interest in their lives?"
"It's not all that sudden," he said. "I don't want this to de velop into more than it has to. If you hear from any of them, call me."
"You'll be the first one on my list," I said, not even trying to sound sincere.
"That's good," he said, apparently missing my sarcasm. "I'd hate to see somebody get hurt."
"For once we have something we can agree on."
Without another word, he hung up. I had half a mind to call him back, but then the telephone rang.
"Where have you been?" My husband started in on me before I could get out an answer. "You were supposed to call me right back."
"I got distracted," I said. "It's been crazy here."
"Okay, I understand. Let me take you out to lunch, then. I'm starving."
"I really can't leave the shop right now," I said, failing to admit that I'd already eaten.
"Then I'll bring you something. How about a hamburger from Shelly's Café?"
There was no way I was going to put my friend in the po sition of lying to my husband for me. "I had one a few min utes ago," I admitted.
"I thought you were too busy to eat." His voice had that distinct sullen tone I knew all too well.
"I'm sorry, I should have called you back. I was wrong. Forgive me?"
Sometimes, the only thing to do is throw oneself on the mercy of the court.
To my delight, my husband accepted my apology. "If you had a burger, I'm getting one, too. And fries. And a shake."
"Hey, I had a Diet Coke with mine."
"Tough for you," he said with just a little too much glee in his voice.
"Enjoy your meal," I said. After all, being gracious in re turn was the least I could do.
"And pie," he added before he hung up. I thought about calling Shelly and vetoing the dessert, but Bill had probably earned it.
I was trying to figure out a new way to arrange the front window when I looked up to see Hannah tearing down the street. I raced out onto the sidewalk, but she blew past me, nearly knocking me over.
"Hannah? What's wrong?" I yelled at her back.
"I can't talk right now, Carolyn," she said, barely turning around.
"What is it? Did you find David?"
She didn't answer. In all the years I'd known her, I'd never seen my best friend act like that. Did it mean that she'd finally caught up with David, or had she found Richard instead?
This insanity had gone on much too long for my taste. It was time to call out the reinforcements. That meant the Firing Squad, my team of amateur potters, as well as one of the best informal investigation crews in our part of Vermont. If they couldn't find David, I wasn't sure what I would do, but at least we had to try. Butch answered on the first ring.
"Are you waiting for a call?" I asked him after I identi fied myself.
"I had a feeling you'd be giving me a ring," he said. "I haven't seen him."
"How on earth did you know I was looking for David?"
"Give me some credit, Carolyn," he said with a chuckle. "I know more about what goes on here than I let on. I've asked a few friends to keep an eye out for him, too, but so far, no luck."
"I appreciate your help," I said. "I need to call Jenna and Sandy, too."
"It's taken care of," Butch said. "I'm coordinating things from here, and I'll let you know as soon as any of us hear anything."
"I feel useless," I admitted. Butch had taken it upon him self to organize a search party, probably while I'd been stuffing my face at Shelly's.
"Don't say that," he said. "We need you."
"That's sweet of you to say, even if it's not true."
"Don't sell yourself short, Carolyn." He hesitated a sec ond, then said, "We probably shouldn't tie up the line."
"I thought you'd have call-waiting," I said.
"I do, but the last time I checked, you didn't. What hap pens if David tries to call you and gets a busy signal?"
"I hadn't thought about that. I'd better get off." I hung up. I'd have to thank Butch for his efforts by making a batch of my peanut butter and Hershey's Kiss cookies. He'd loved them since the first time I'd brought a batch to one of our meetings, and every now and then I liked to surprise him with the treats. He'd earned a double batch today.
I waited on a few customers, but the day still dragged. I kept expecting David to walk in. I had a fu
nny fluttering in my stomach, and it wasn't because of anything I'd eaten at Shelly's. I feared something had happened to my young as sistant. The phone rang a dozen times during the rest of the afternoon. The Firing Squad kept checking in, all with null reports, unfortunately.
It was seven minutes past my regular closing time, but I couldn't bring myself to lock the door and go home. What if David needed me, and I wasn't there?
The door chimed, and I called out without looking up, "We're closed."
The Cracked Pot Page 5