by J. R. Ripley
I blushed and turned aside. Was he talking about me?
“Kennedy tells me they’ve transferred Lou to the county jail,” Karl said.
“Good. He and T-Bone Crawford can share a cell.”
Derek ruffled my hair. “That was crazy, what you did. Confronting T-Bone like that.”
I laughed. “I didn’t know I would be confronting him. Believe me! If I had known I was going to stumble across him breaking into Lou’s desk, I would have run the other way!”
“Good to know,” replied Derek. “He could have killed you.”
“Him and Lou both.” Floyd broke a bit of crust loose from the pie tin. “It was a good thing Mr. Calderon showed up.”
I nodded. I owed the man my life.
“What was T-Bone doing in Lou’s office in the first place?” asked Karl.
“It seems he overheard Lou saying to someone how he kept the receipts for sales, both cash and checks, in a drawer in his desk. I guess T-Bone thought a little extra cash was too good a thing to pass up.”
“What about the show, Amy?” wondered Floyd. “Are we going to get to see you in Annie Get Your Gun?”
“Yeah,” teased Derek. “Are we?”
“I’m afraid so,” I groaned. I explained how August was staying on to direct the show. Aaron Maddley had agreed to run the theater operations until the town could find someone to take on the job on a regular basis.
The good news for The Theater On The Square’s fans was that Ruby Lake officials had decided not only to keep the theater open, but to give it a complete renovation. It seemed they had finally become convinced of the benefits of keeping the historic old theater around.
“I can’t wait to see you act,” Floyd said.
“I can’t wait to hear you sing!” snorted Karl.
I glared at Derek. “And you?”
“I can’t wait to watch you . . . dance?”
I swiveled my finger at the three of them. “All I can say is, I better hear all three of you clapping,” I said sternly. “Loudly.”
32
After we’d cleaned up the remains of our picnic and dropped our gear in the trunk of Derek’s car, he gave me a ride back to Birds & Bees.
“Come inside for a cup of coffee?” I offered, picnic basket dangling from my elbow as I stood on the curb.
Derek’s eyes bounced off the biergarten, where workers were busy setting up tables. The place must be getting close to opening. Thank goodness. “No, I’d better get back to the office.”
My spirits fell. “Are you sure?”
He looked toward Birds & Bees. “I’m sure.”
I turned to go. Derek’s hand on my arm stopped me, pulled me back. “What—” He didn’t give me a chance to finish my sentence, but I didn’t mind. His lips met mine. My eyes closed and my body heated up. After a moment, he released me.
“Call you later?” he asked.
I nodded numbly and watched as Derek drove off. A little voice inside my head told me that he hadn’t wanted to come in because he didn’t want to run into Craig. Another little voice told me that if he kissed me like that again and didn’t do anything about it, I was going to need a cold shower.
Another little voice told me that Craig had to go. And soon.
I set the picnic basket, blanket, and cooler behind the front counter. Mom was ringing up a sack of bird food. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, dear. How was the picnic?”
“Heavenly,” I replied.
“What?”
I laughed to cover my embarrassment. “I mean, good.” I could still feel the warmth of Derek’s lips on mine and the aftereffects of what the kiss had done to me. It had been a long time since I’d had a man in my life. “How are you doing, Mom?” I gave her a gentle pat on the back. “Holding up?”
Mom ran a finger through her limp hair. “A little tired, actually. It’s been crazy around here.”
“Sorry about that.” I looked around the store. “Where’s Kim? Where’s Aunt Betty?” Both were supposed to be helping out. Neither was in sight.
Mom said good-bye to her customer. “Kim had to run out. Randy called. Some sort of emergency over at that house they’re rehabbing.”
“Emergency?”
“Burst plumbing or something.”
“And he expects Kim to help?” We both laughed. “What about Aunt Betty?”
“Betty had to leave. She and Sterling had plans.”
I felt terrible. Poor Mom, all alone in the shop. And in her condition, with the muscular dystrophy, it was important that she not overdo things.
“You need to take it easy, Mom.” I reached behind and untied her store apron. “Why don’t you go upstairs and rest. I’ve got it from here. You must be exhausted.”
“It hasn’t been all that bad,” countered my mother. She slid her behind onto the stool beside the counter. “Oh, Amy.” She grabbed my hands. “I almost forgot! You’ll never guess what. It’s the most wonderful news!” She laughed with glee. “Don’t you think?”
“I might if I knew what that news was,” I answered with a grin.
“Of course. Well, the mayor was in here and—”
“Mac? He was in here?”
Mom nodded. “Paul Anderson, too.”
“What did they want?”
Mom tapped my arm. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He said the town has decided to drop the whole eminent domain proceeding on your house.”
My eyes grew. “They have?” Mom bobbed her head up and down. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Well, in the first place, they’ve decided to put a lot of the town’s available funds into keeping TOTS open so they don’t appear to have the funds required to proceed. In the second place, it seems that they’ve had a lot of calls, letters, and folks going down to town hall and complaining, urging that the town maintain its historic charm.”
A man’s voice added, “And not allow a national franchise to set up shop.”
I spun around. Paul Anderson stood before us, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Hi, Paul. I was just explaining to Amy what you told me.”
I cocked my head at the man. “This was your doing?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I can’t take credit for it. But I did explain to the town fathers and my fellow planning commission members that it might be in everyone’s best interest to keep things as they are. There’s nothing wrong with the status quo, is there?”
“Everyone’s interest,” I said, wrapping Mom’s apron around my waist, “including yours?”
Paul shrugged. “Maybe.”
“And maybe you know that your biergarten is sitting on my property.”
Paul frowned. “You know about that?”
I nodded silently.
“I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement,” began Paul.
I smiled. “I’m sure we can. Number one will be keeping your partner as far away from me as possible.”
Paul laughed. “Already done. His girlfriend blew into town unexpectedly and he headed back to Raleigh with her. After they spend a few days up in Asheville, that is.”
So the jerk had a girlfriend even as he was making renewed moves on me. “Good riddance.”
“So we’re good here?” Paul asked. He made for the door.
“For the moment,” I said, watching him leave. “For the moment.” I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Esther, in a flowery peach dress and low black heels, was moving up and down the aisles. She had a feather duster in her hand—which just seemed so, so wrong in a shop selling birdseed and gifts for bird lovers—and had a green store apron tied around her front.
“What,” I asked my mother, my face scrunching up in disbelief, “is that all about?”
“Huh?”
I pointed to Esther, who was now dusting down the hummingbird feeders. “That,” I whispered.
Mom beamed. “Somebody’s got to work a few shifts around here.” Mom headed for the stairs to our apartment. “After all,
Amy dear, you’re never around.”
“But—”
“You’re always off solving mysteries and things.”
“But—”
Mom wiggled her fingers in good-bye from the bottom step. “Kim’s busy with her business with Randy. And Aunt Betty, well, I don’t have to tell you how unreliable she is.”
“I know, Mother, but—”
Mom looked at me sideways. “You don’t expect me to be on my feet working here day and night, do you?”
I hung my head. “No, Mom.”
“Besides you always running around town, you’ve been saying the shop could use some extra help.” Mom slowly disappeared up the steps.
“But Esther?”
“Who better?” Mom called down pleasantly. “She lives here.”
I turned to my renter. “But you? I mean, no offense, Esther, but what do you know about birds?”
Esther pulled herself up to her full height. Which wasn’t much. “What’s to know? Customers come in and I sell them stuff. I’m no dummy,” she said confidently.
“They come in looking for one thing, I try to sell them two!” She held up two fingers of her left hand as proof of concept or something. Maybe she didn’t think I could count to two.
Esther walked over to within inches of where I stood and looked up at me. Her breath smelled like cigarettes and chewing gum. “Your mom, Barbara, told me you’d pay me fifteen dollars an hour.”
Fifteen dollars an hour? I was pretty sure I didn’t make fifteen bucks an hour!
“And I don’t work Sundays and I don’t clean up after no birds.”
“There are no birds to clean up after, Esther. This isn’t a pet store.”
“I’ll say,” quipped Esther. “You offer benefits?”
“Benefits?”
“I always wanted one of them 401(k)s.”
“I don’t even have one myself, Esther.” And I doubted she even knew what one was.
Esther frowned.
“You know”—Esther raised her voice to match the volume of construction noise that had kicked up next door and was driving a wedge of pain into my skull—“you’re lucky I was available to help you.”
I smiled weakly. Luck didn’t begin to describe it. It wasn’t enough that Esther the Pester lived in my house; now she had to work in my store?
Esther stuck out her jaw. “In fact, you never even thanked me.”
“Thanked you for what exactly?”
“I got that heap of a camper ticketed, didn’t I? What an eyesore!”
I gawped at her. “That was you?”
Cousin Riley suddenly appeared from nowhere.
“Where did you come from?”
Riley jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I finished putting up those shelves that Aunt Barbara asked me to install in the storeroom.”
“Shelves?” I was feeling a bit light-headed.
“Yeah.” Riley filled in the details about how my mother didn’t think all the stock should be spread inconveniently on the floor, where it was always getting tripped over and one had to stoop down all the time to get to it, so she’d asked him to install some shelving. “Then I’m going to start on refinishing the floors.”
I frowned. “Refinishing the floors?”
“Yeah, Aunt Barbara gave me a part-time job. Didn’t she tell you?”
I shook my head no. I was feeling a little sick all of a sudden, and I didn’t think it was the tuna salad.
“You okay?” asked Riley.
“She looks awful,” Esther said. “I had an aunt once who looked like that,” she elaborated, waving a crooked gnarly knuckled finger at me, “right before she dropped dead.”
“Maybe you should go lie down.” Riley felt my forehead.
I walked over to the glass display case and removed a pair of brand-new binoculars. I unknotted the strap and draped the binocs over my neck.
“What are you doing?” asked Riley.
“Where are you going?” demanded Esther, her hands planted on her hips. She’d stuffed the feather duster down the front of her dress.
I swung the door open and groaned with pleasure as the warm sunshine splashed over me. “Bird-watching,” I said with a smile.
I ripped off the apron I suddenly realized I was still wearing and tossed it at Esther with a flourish. “You’re in charge!”
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
J.R. Ripley’s next Bird Lover’s Mystery
THE WOODPECKER ALWAYS PECKS TWICE
coming soon!
1
Rat-a-tat-tat-brrr.
I peeked at the clock on the bedside table: 6:30 a.m. As usual. “Good morning to you, too,” I said with a groan. I sat up. My feet bounced around on the pine floor in search of my pink slippers.
Rat-a-tat-tat-brrr. The sound was loud and dissonant—hardly the stuff of “Peachum’s Morning Hymn” from The Threepenny Opera.
I came to my feet and rubbed my fists into my eyes. “You’re killing me, bird.” It had been a late night. I’d had a real, honest-to-goodness date with Derek Harlan. Dinner and a movie, the whole nine yards. Now if I could have only followed it up with nine hours of sleep. Heck, I’d have settled for six, but it hadn’t been in the cards.
Rat-a-tat-tat-brrr. The bird could’ve used a music lesson from Kurt Weill.
Nonetheless, I crossed to the dresser and picked up my binoculars, determined to get a better look at him. I removed the tethered lens covers, pulled the curtains, and brought the binocs to eye level. There he was, a beautiful red-bellied woodpecker, clinging to the gray bark of the big bitternut hickory outside my bedroom window, tapping away at the twisted hollow branch hanging closest to the house.
Waking me up, like he did every morning lately—the relentless pounding reverberating across my skull as if he were perched on my head and not in the tree. The woodpecker wasn’t tapping to drive me crazy. He—and I recognized the bird as a male by the intense red coloration on the back of his neck and top of his head; a female only has the red coloration adorning its neck—was tapping to drive out carpenter ants and other insects. In other words, breakfast.
I moved the binoculars out over the street toward Ruby Lake. There was a doozy of a storm brewing. The sky was the color of lead with streaks of black running like watercolor down a page. Jagged bolts of lightning streaked across the distant sky.
The woodpecker went about its business, oblivious to the storm. When a bird’s got to eat, a bird’s got to eat. Don’t ask me why it was named a red-bellied woodpecker when it was the bird’s head that was the most clearly and visibly colored red. A small patch of red is distinguishable on a red-bellied woodpecker’s lower belly but that’s all. Perhaps it was because the scientists had already proclaimed another woodpecker to be the red-headed woodpecker. First come, first served. I was no ornithologist. I had been an English major in college and now run a small-town store selling birdwatching and feeding supplies.
I scanned the distant treetops, wondering if I might spot any other interesting or unusual bird species this morning. There was no avian activity to be seen along the shoreline. Generally, I would spot duck, kingbirds, swamp sparrows, and the occasional swallow flying low across Ruby Lake.
A small motor-powered fishing boat sat alone in the lake, bobbing side to side in the windblown water. I searched the woods for signs of bird life. With the heavy clouds blocking the sun, there was little to see besides shadows. Lately, a pair of red-shouldered hawks had spent early mornings settled on the broad limbs of a tall oak whose branches loomed over the water. But not this morning. They seemed to have taken the day off. I suddenly wished I could do the same.
I was about to retreat in search of my own breakfast—I smelled fresh-ground coffee brewing—when my eyes fell on the old McKutcheon house. The McKutcheons had been one of the Town of Ruby Lake’s first families, having settled in our small North Carolina town back in the early 1800s. The house was nearly that old—even older than the late nineteenth ce
ntury home that now housed both me and my business, Birds & Bees. Though much of the original McKutcheon house had burned to the ground in the 1890s, family members had rebuilt the house and barn and added various other outbuildings around the turn of the century.
Then, fortunes failing, the McKutcheon house had sat empty for decades when the last members of the family moved to Boston, or so I seemed to remember hearing. But there was a light on in one of the upstairs windows now. Wisps of smoke fought to rise from the central chimney against the onslaught of rain abruptly falling in heavy sheets.
I heard a flutter and turned. My woodpecker friend shook himself to rid his feathers of raindrops, then returned to digging into the hickory bark.
I trained my eyes once more on the McKutcheon house. The light coming from the upstairs window danced like flame, but I knew this to be a trick of the rain, which blurred and bent the light until it looked almost alive. I was about to turn away, when a man stepped into view. At least, I thought it was a man. It was really too dark to be certain at first. I was too far away. The rain was falling too hard.
A second, smaller shape stepped into view. He, if it was a he, moved quickly, arms flailing. A slouchy, gray beanie capped the top of his head. The larger man threw up his arms as if to ward off an impending blow.
It wasn’t a blow that came next. It was a full steam attack. The smaller man launched himself at the larger one as if to tackle him. Both fell in a heap. I gasped. What were the two fighting about?
They disappeared from sight, the window ledge blocking my view. A moment later, one of the men’s heads came into view. He crossed the floor on his knees, stood and opened the window.
What on earth was he up to?
My hands were shaking as I tried to see what would happen next. The glasses were bouncing so much, the room jumped in and out of my sight. I squeezed my elbows against my ribs to steady the binoculars and narrowed in on the room once more.
The smaller man threw open the window and hoisted something up over the sill. I fiddled with the binocs’ focus, trying to get a sharper look. I now realized what I was seeing. A pair of legs dangled over the window ledge, nothing more distinguishable than a pair of charcoal trousers with two bare feet protruding.