“I’m not willing to concede that, but it does shed a whole new theory on what might have happened.”
“What’s that?” Maddy asked.
“If it was a case of mistaken identity, Greg’s in more trouble than we realized. No matter who killed Wade, they could have been intent on killing Greg, instead.”
“We’ve been looking at this all wrong, haven’t we?”
I shook my head. “No, we just haven’t seen the entire picture. Maybe whoever killed Wade knew who they were hitting, but maybe they didn’t. Just because we’ve added Greg to the list of targets doesn’t mean we can ignore Wade as the intended victim.”
“So now we have to track down motives for murdering two people instead of one,” Maddy said.
“One murder, two possible victims,” I clarified.
“This whole thing just got a lot more confusing, didn’t it?” She looked at her watch, and then said, “I know we said we were going to go looking for Katy Johnson, but could it wait until tomorrow? We can track her down before we open the pizzeria tomorrow.”
“What else did you have in mind?” I asked.
She frowned for a second, and then Maddy said, “Would you drive me back to my apartment? Honestly, I want to take a long, hot soak in the tub and forget about this, at least for one night.”
“That sounds like a good plan. Are you looking forward to your date with Bob?”
As I started driving back to her place, Maddy paused, then said, “You know what? I am. It might be nice getting out again.”
“Even after Bob back-talked you?”
Maddy laughed. “Especially since then. I’ve been waiting for him to show some spine, and I’d just about given up all hope. I don’t like being ordered around, but I don’t like being around a sycophant, either.”
I smiled. “Men have to walk a fine line when they deal with you, don’t they?”
“I’m not denying it, but I’m worth it.”
We got to her place, and I didn’t even shut off the engine. “Have a good time. I’d say call me when you get home, but I’ll probably be asleep already.”
As she opened her car door, she said, “How are you going to be able to get to sleep wondering about what happened on my evening out?”
“Believe it or not, somehow I’ll manage.”
After she was out of the car, I called out, “Be good, Maddy.”
“Now what fun would that be?” she asked with a laugh.
I drove away, ready to spend a night at home alone. It was a rare treat for me, and I planned to take full advantage of it, regardless of the pall in the air from Wade’s murder. I couldn’t let a homicide investigation interfere with my temporary moment of solitude. For one night, I was going to emulate my little sister and think about me, instead of the rest of the world.
I got home and was unlocking my front door when I heard someone call out to me. I turned around and found Patty Louise walking down the sidewalk toward me, carrying a basket in one arm and a newborn strapped onto her chest.
“Hey, stranger,” I said as she approached. “I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s life been treating you?”
“I’m just about finished with my maternity leave,” she said, “and I wanted to come by before I went back to work part-time.”
I could smell the heavenly aroma coming from her basket, and it was all I could do not to openly salivate. I managed to restrain myself though, and asked her, “How’s Madison doing?”
She pivoted around so I could see that her baby was sound asleep. “She loves to sleep when I walk, which is wonderful during the daytime, but it drives me crazy at night. I must walk twenty miles a day.” Patty smiled at that. “It has helped with the baby weight, though.”
Patty was a runner, and I doubt she’d weighed more at nine months than I did all of the time.
Finally I couldn’t ignore the basket anymore. “I can’t believe you don’t weigh more, being around your wonderful bread all the time.” I normally bought all my bakery goods from the grocery store or from Paul’s Pastries, but my bread for home consumption was the single exception, when I could get it. Patty was a neighbor of mine who had two very special talents in life. She could work with numbers like nobody I’d ever seen, and she could make sourdough bread that would melt in your mouth.
“Oops, I almost forgot. This is for you,” she said as she extended the basket to me.
It took every ounce of resolve I had, but I didn’t lift the dishcloth to stare at my bounty. “I wish you’d let me pay for this.”
“I’d rather barter,” she said. “As long as you trade pizzas with me, we’re in good shape.”
“Consider this an open store credit, then,” I said as I hefted the basket.
“Well, I’d better be going,” she said as Madison started to wake up. “If I don’t keep moving, she lets me know her disapproval with a wail that makes dogs run and cats hide.”
“Bye, and thanks again,” I said as she quickly retreated.
I went inside, peeled away the cloth covering my gift, looked at the two lovely brown, crusty loaves of sourdough bread, and then I covered them back up. It wouldn’t do to start eating it the second I got it. A long bath didn’t sound all that appealing to me at the moment, so I took a quick shower, instead. After that, I was hungry, but going out somewhere was the last thing I wanted to do, and I’d promised myself that I wasn’t going to sit down with my fresh bread and a stick of real butter, one of my favorite indulgences in life. My jeans were getting a little too snug for that, and I didn’t like where that was going. Since I couldn’t order pizza, and nothing else I could have delivered appealed to me, I decided to get into my sweatpants and one of Joe’s old shirts and make myself an omelet. Honestly, the meal wasn’t nearly as classy as that. Instead of prepping a lot of ingredients—something Maddy and I did every day at work—I scrambled a couple of eggs, threw a bit of grated cheese into the mix, then searched until I found a couple of mushrooms in my fridge. There was a bit of ham there, too, so I diced that and added it to the mix.
It was wonderful, especially coupled with Patty Louise’s homemade sourdough bread. After all, I had to have some kind of bread with my meal, and I made a little butter last me the entire meal.
Even after I did the dishes, it was just past six, and I was beginning to feel like I had a long night ahead of me. It surprised me to discover that I was bored, something I rarely had the luxury of experiencing in the course of a normal day.
Maybe that was the reason I liked running the pizzeria. It kept me busy during the loneliest time of the day, and by the time I got home at night, I was so worn-out that I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that I was alone. I missed Joe at night more than any other time of day. It had taken three weeks after he’d died for the scent of him on his robe to wear off, but I still found myself putting it on whenever I was especially sad.
Tonight was going to be a robe night for sure.
As I got it out of the upstairs closet, I wrapped myself up in it, able to put the sash around me twice. It was an old black fleece robe with images of cabins, moose, snowflakes, and snow-covered trees, and I’d begged him to let me replace it a dozen times. He’d refused, and now I was glad that he had. A new flannel robe would lack all of the character of this old thing, and if I closed my eyes, I could still see my husband walking through the snow in it toward our Charlotte newspaper in the mornings, the steam coming from his breath and his hair disheveled, though he never seemed to care.
That brought a few tears, but just a few. I missed my husband, but at least I was confident that we had enjoyed a good life together, a nearly perfect fit, though our time was cut a great deal shorter than it should have been. My sister had told me in confidence one night soon after the funeral that she’d been searching her whole life for what Joe and I had found, but she doubted she would ever manage it.
I hoped she did, and there was even a possibility that maybe she was on her way tonight.
There was
one thing I knew for sure. I couldn’t spend my life looking back. Joe wouldn’t have wanted me to live that way, and I knew in my heart that it wasn’t fair to me, or my memories of him. I would have to move on.
Just not today.
My science teacher was asking me why I couldn’t understand my test, and I had trouble explaining to him that I didn’t read German. He told me his exams were always in German, news to me, because I’d taken French. Everyone in class was laughing at me, and I kept wondering why no one was answering the phone when I woke up.
That’s when I realized that I had dreamed all of it, except the ringing of the telephone.
“Hello,” I said, barely awake. I’d fallen asleep on the couch watching a movie, which I could see was over when I glanced at the screen.
“Stop digging around, or you’re next,” a voice whispered on the other end before the phone hung up.
I hit *69, wondering who had called, but it was blocked, and I didn’t have the resources to trace it, anyway. Kevin Hurley might be able to track it down, but I wasn’t exactly in a position to ask him for any favors at the moment.
Someone Maddy and I had spoken with over the past few days was clearly upset by our meddling, but I didn’t have the slightest idea who it might have been. The quality of the call had been so poor that I couldn’t even tell if it had been a man or a woman on the other end.
But their intent was clear. We’d gotten close to someone who was clearly upset by our investigation. But just as obvious, the caller didn’t know me very well, or my sister. A warning wasn’t a red flag to us; it was a green light. If pushing a little got this kind of response, I was all for shoving harder still.
I thought about calling Maddy and telling her about it, but then I remembered that she was probably still out on her date, and knowing my sister, I doubted she’d welcome the interruption.
I got up, turned off the television, and double-checked all of the doors and windows to make sure that they were locked. I felt safe after I did, but just in case, I wedged a chair under my bedroom door and somehow managed to fall asleep.
Chapter 7
“I can’t believe you didn’t call me the second it happened,” Maddy said the next morning as we sat in my kitchen, eating the donuts she’d bought and brought over to the house. “This is really serious.”
“Come on, there’s a good chance that it was just a prank,” I said. Given the light of day, I had begun to doubt whether the threat had even been real.
“You and I both know better than that.” She grabbed the phone and pushed it at me. “Call him.”
“Bob? Why? Did something happen on your date last night? I’m still waiting for a report from you, and I’m not sure it’s all that appropriate to call him for an update, if you’re not willing to tell me about it yourself.”
“You can keep on waiting,” she said, “because I’m not giving you one. You need to get the police chief to track that call.”
“I don’t want to any more than you want to tell me what happened on your date last night.”
Maddy frowned, and then she finally nodded. “I’ll make you a deal. You call Kevin Hurley, and I’ll tell you all about my date.”
“Do you mean that?”
Maddy said, “Every last detail. Go on.”
I dialed Kevin’s number at the office—doubting he’d be in yet—but to my surprise, he answered almost immediately.
“You’re working some long hours these days,” I said.
“Better here than at home,” he said.
“Is there trouble in paradise?” I knew that Kevin and his wife had more than their share of problems, but it was odd that he’d tell me about them.
“It’s never been paradise, and we both know it,” Kevin said with an inordinate amount of frankness. “What can I do for you today, Eleanor?”
“I don’t think it’s anything, but someone called my house last night and threatened me. Maddy thought I should give you a call.”
“For once, I agree with your sister,” he said. “About what time was it?”
“It was a little after eleven,” I admitted. “Listen, I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
“I’ll call you right back,” he said, and then the police chief hung up before I could say anything else.
“What did he say?” Maddy asked.
“Believe it or not, he agreed with you.”
She looked genuinely shocked by the declaration. “Well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. Is he looking into it?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say he was checking telephone records. That’s probably going to take some time, so tell me about your date.”
Maddy shrugged. “You’re right—a deal’s a deal. Bob picked me up, we ate, and I was back home snug in my living room in time for the eleven o’clock news.”
“The question is, were you alone when you watched?”
“Of course I was,” Maddy said. Her nose crinkled for a second, and then she added, “I invited him in, but he had an early day today.”
She might have been satisfied with that weak rendition of her evening, but I wasn’t about to let her get away with that.
“I want details,” I said. It wasn’t like Maddy to be reticent about anything, and I was guessing that she either had a wonderful time, or it was too dreadful for her to talk about.
Just as she started to speak, the telephone rang.
Maddy grinned. “Saved by the bell.”
“Not saved, delayed,” I explained as I picked up the phone.
It was Kevin Hurley.
“That was fast,” I said.
“It’s not as complicated as the movies would make you think,” he said. “We might not have state-of-the-art everything, but we’ve got a crackerjack phone company that does. The call to your house came from a pay phone.”
“So we’ll never have any idea who made that call.”
“Eleanor, don’t you want to know where the telephone is located?” he asked.
“Does it really matter?”
“I think so,” he said. “Whoever called you used the one on the promenade near your pizzeria. I’m guessing they came by to catch you alone at night so they could give you that warning in person, but when you weren’t working, they decided to call you at home.”
“You’re giving me the creeps,” I said.
“Good. If it makes you more cautious, then I’m all for it.”
I was about to thank him for his quick work, when he added, “Enough of this foolishness. You’ve got to tell me where Greg is hiding.”
“I told you before, and it’s still true. I don’t know where he is.”
“Eleanor, I could arrest you for obstruction—you know that, don’t you?”
“Hey, you know where to find me. I’m not exactly ducking you. I seem to be getting a lot of threats over the telephone lately.”
He clearly didn’t like that at all. In a cold voice, he said, “That wasn’t a threat, it was a promise.”
“I’ll see you when I see you,” I said, then hung up.
Maddy was studying me as I turned to her. “What was that all about?”
“He thinks I know where Greg’s hiding. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has the house staked out watching for him.”
Maddy peeked out the window. “I don’t see anybody, but maybe his deputies are just that good.”
“I don’t know how I keep getting myself into these jams,” I said.
“You’re just talented that way, I guess. Did he tell you to back off?”
“Of course he did.”
“And are we?”
I looked at her. “What do you think?”
Maddy smiled. “I think it’s time we hit the streets again. I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. We need to talk to Katy Johnson.”
“I’m ready if you are.”
“I’ll drive,” Maddy said as we walked out front. “I know where she lives.”
“Then maybe
you should be the navigator,” I said. “You usually seem to be the one who drives us places.”
Maddy shrugged. “Fine, I don’t care. You drive.”
“That’s better,” I said.
We got into my car, and then I asked, “Where exactly am I going?”
“The apartment complex in back of Bleeker Street,” she said. “I just found out that Katy’s in 14A.”
As I drove to the other side of town, I said, “You know, I’d hate to live in an apartment again.”
“Some of them are really nice,” Maddy said. “I always stay in one after I get divorced. It makes the transition a lot easier.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “Joe and I lived in an apartment until the house was in good enough shape for us to move in. I just never felt like I was putting down any real roots until we got the house.”
Maddy looked out the window instead of at me. “Some of us don’t like roots. They keep us too tethered to a particular place for too long.”
“But you always come back to Timber Ridge, don’t you?” I asked. I’d never really thought about it before, but it was true. While Maddy’s marriages had taken her all over the United States, whenever she divorced, she always came home to our little part of North Carolina.
“It’s just a coincidence,” she said.
I didn’t believe it for a second, and I was pretty sure she didn’t, either. But if my sister didn’t want to talk about it, I’d respect that, at least for the moment.
We drove in silence until the brick apartment complex came into view. It was named Oakcrest, though I couldn’t see an oak tree anywhere, and the place had been built on the flattest part of Timber Ridge, so that took care of the crest.
“This isn’t so bad,” Maddy said as we got out. “It’s not as nice as my place, but for the money, it’s a decent deal.”
“Did you think about living here when you came back home the last time?” I asked as we walked in. When she’d first come back to town—soon after her latest divorce, and Joe’s untimely death—I’d offered her a room in my house, as much for her benefit as mine, but she’d turned me down. It was a wise decision. As much as I loved my sister, we couldn’t live together and work side by side at the Slice, certainly not as adults. Whenever one of us was lonely, or just felt like getting away, we’d have a sleepover at one place or the other, but the uniqueness of it was what made it fun.
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