Paper-Thin Alibi

by Hughes, Mary Ellen

  “The last time I saw her was at a large Christmas party. She tried to pretend we were still friends, but the best I could do was be civil.” Jo decided not to mention how outrageously Linda had behaved later that night after a few drinks, catching Mike in an isolated area and flirting boldly enough that Mike told Jo he ended up having to strong-arm her off of him. That had been Linda’s final, desperate effort to hurt Jo, and it might have worked if Mike had been less of the man he was.

  Jo thought of Linda’s flirtatious behavior with Russ earlier that evening with annoyance. It was going to be a long weekend, she realized. And not nearly what she had envisioned.

  “Would you like to see the dessert menu?” a mustached waiter asked, pulling Jo from her musings. He held out a slim leather-covered menu invitingly.

  Jo shook her head. “No, thank you, but I’d love some coffee.”

  Russ asked for the same, and after the waiter took off with their empty plates, reached out to cover Jo’s hand with his own large one. He didn’t say a word, but Jo felt the empathy in that gesture and cherished it. Russ’s entry into her life had made such a huge difference, raising her happiness level enormously. She had never expected to feel this way again.

  But that also worried her. Was she rushing into something too soon, being disloyal somehow to Mike? Linda’s comment about how Jo hadn’t wasted much time had stung for that very reason. Jo didn’t think Mike would want her to spend her life mourning him. But was opening her heart to someone new somehow saying that she loved Mike less? And was she being unfair to Russ, leading him on while being so uncertain?

  “Something wrong?” Russ asked.

  “No,” Jo said, changing her thoughtful frown into a smile.

  No, not wrong. Just terribly perplexing.

  Chapter 3

  Jo arrived at Michicomi for the start of the craft festival the next morning excited, but also nervous. The excitement came, of course, from the fantastic opportunity she had for showing her jewelry to a new customer base. But nervous questions wove their way through her mind. What if she had miscalculated the tastes of the people who would come to this show? What if they thought her designs were unoriginal, or perhaps too original, or worst of all, too expensive?

  Topping those worries, though, was the thought of spending the next three days in such close proximity to Linda. Jo’s only hope of getting through it was that they’d both be so busy that neither would have time to spare a thought on the other.

  If the crowds were thin and they ended up staring across the aisle at each other for three days, who knew what might happen? Jo suddenly pictured Linda pea-shooting seed pearls at her, then ducking as Jo lobbed half-pound pendants back in retaliation, and chuckled. Things surely wouldn’t sink to that level. They were both mature adults, professionals who could put their personal grievances aside while on the job. Weren’t they?

  Jo pulled into a spot near where she had parked the day before, and climbed out. The early morning air was crisp, but the weather forecast had predicted warmer temperatures for later on. She picked up tempting aromas wafting from the food vendors’ area—coffee and cinnamon rolls, which would likely change to smoky barbeque and hamburgers as lunchtime approached. She had brought along her own thermos of coffee to sip from in the early hours, but hoped to pick up a lunch treat when she had a chance.

  “Morning!” A wild-haired, bearded man dressed in beaded smock, faded jeans, and boots called out as he headed away from his rust-spotted VW camper. Yesterday Gabe Stubbins had likened the craft vendors to circus folk, but what popped into Jo’s mind as she returned this man’s friendly greeting was aging hippie. And he was not the first she’d seen who would fit that description, though there was such a variety of people manning booths at the festival that Jo knew she’d rapidly run out of labels if she even tried to categorize them. The only universal label, she decided, would be friendly, and that was further confirmed as she made her way into building 10 and through the deluge of greetings and nods.

  There was definitely an air of excited anticipation as people made last-minute adjustments to their booths and waited for the first festival attendees to arrive. As Jo came to Gabe’s booth, he looked up from the brightly painted wooden merry-go-round he was examining and smiled broadly at her.

  “Good luck to you!” he said.

  “And to you,” Jo answered, glancing over his colorful wares with pleasure. Was there someone she could buy one of these delightful toys for? she wondered. Carrie’s children were way beyond them. And her little namesake, Jo Ramirez, was still struggling just to turn over. Maybe by Christmas, though . . . ?

  Jo’s pleasant thoughts vanished as she caught sight of Linda, who was carefully adjusting the sound on her computer video. Jo slipped quietly into her own booth, hoping to avoid detection for as long as possible. She dropped her coffee thermos in a back corner and got to work removing and folding the protective tarp, setting up her cash and credit drawer, and unlocking her display cases.

  Thankfully, Linda remained preoccupied with her own concerns until the clock read nine and the sound of early-bird shoppers arriving reached Jo’s ears. Before long people began trickling into building 10 from the entrance Jo had come through, the one closest to the main pathway. They moved up the aisle from booth to booth, and Jo waited, shifting from foot to foot, adjusting her showcase items by millimeters. It had been a long time since her jewelry had been put to the test.

  “No need to worry,” Linda called across to her, obviously picking up on Jo’s butterflies. “There will always be people who get so carried away with the excitement of the show that they’ll buy just about anything. Even Roy Per-kins, who makes those God-awful ceramic trolls, unloads a lot of his stuff.”

  Jo nodded stiffly. “Good for him.”

  Two women, clearly mother and daughter with identical curly hairdos and matching rounded shapes, came up to Linda’s booth, and Jo watched Linda turn on the charm. Happily she didn’t have to watch very long, as a few people approached her own cases, and Jo found herself busily pointing out various pieces and explaining the materials she had used. She made one small sale—a pair of simple hoop earrings—and got one or two encouraging promises of coming back, “once we’ve seen everything.”

  Little by little the crowd grew, and Jo eventually found herself too busy to even think of reaching for her coffee thermos. The shoppers who came to her booth—mostly women—were unfailingly pleasant to deal with, many volunteering stories of family members for whom they wanted a gift or chatting about a particular occasion for which they needed a special necklace or bracelet. Even if they didn’t buy, they complimented her work sincerely, and often carried away her business card for future reference. Jo’s earlier fears began to subside.

  Then, as she was writing up the sale of an amber-studded necklace for an elderly woman who had spoken at some length to Jo about the interesting pieces of jewelry her numerous late sisters had owned, Jo heard Linda calling to two women who were waiting patiently for Jo’s attention after having closely examined several silver items.

  “I’m having an opening-day sale on all my silver necklaces. Everything marked down 20 percent.”

  The two women immediately crossed over to Linda’s booth. Jo stared at Linda, speechless, but Linda became instantly busy laying out several necklaces for the women to examine. Jo closed her mouth and completed her transaction with the amber customer, and thankfully became distracted by new browsers. The incident had nearly left her mind when it happened again. When Jo became occupied with one customer, Linda found a way of drawing other prospective customers over to her side of the aisle.

  Jo soon realized that her own booth’s situation had the advantage of being next to Gabe Stubbins’s popular wooden toys. Women shoppers—mothers and grandmothers—tended to cross over to look at his booth, then remained on that side of the aisle as they moved along, stopping at her jewelry booth instead of Linda’s. It was a very slight advantage, which would likely change as the day wore o
n and more shopper’s entered from the other end of the building, which was closer to a food vendor’s tent. Coming in that way, shoppers would likely keep to the right—Linda’s side of the aisle.

  Linda obviously couldn’t think that far ahead, though. All she saw were more people stopping at Jo’s booth and she couldn’t live with that. It was petty, and highly annoying, but outside of getting into an all-out tugging match over hapless customers, Jo didn’t know what she could do about it.

  “Oh, there she is!”

  Jo knew that voice. She brightened and looked over to see Loralee Phillips making her way up the aisle, her large tote bag impeding her progress only slightly as she wound through the crowd. Loralee’s bags were nearly as big as she was, which wasn’t all that big as far as ladies went, but quite large bags. Jo wondered how she managed to carry them, filled as they always seemed to be with unexpectedly handy, but often heavy, items. Feeling peckish? Loralee could reach into her bag and offer you a fresh banana or granola bar. Have a sudden need for scissors, Band-Aids, or reading material? Loralee’s bag could likely help you out.

  “Isn’t this wonderful!” Loralee came up to Jo’s booth, taking in the jewelry display with shining eyes. “Oh, and look at the beautiful tissue paper flowers up there! You’ve made your booth the prettiest one here.” She reached up to give Jo an affectionate hug. “This is so exciting! I could hardly wait to come see your things. I left Dulcie looking at pottery in building 8. She’ll catch up in a minute.”

  Dulcie was Loralee’s daughter who had recently moved—much to Loralee’s joy—from faraway Seattle to Loralee’s house with her husband and small children, while Loralee happily downsized into the newly built mother-in-law addition.

  “And look who I ran into on the way over.” Loralee grabbed the sleeve of a plump woman about Jo’s age and pulled her closer. “Jo, do you know Meg Boyer?”

  Jo admitted that she didn’t, and Loralee introduced them. “Meg,” she said, “has started working at Bert and Ruthie’s Abbot’s Kitchen, haven’t you, Meg?”

  “Then we’ll probably see each other a lot,” Jo said. “I’m always popping in there at lunchtime for one of Bert’s sandwiches. Are you new to Abbotsville?”

  “No.” Meg pushed a limp strand of mousy brown hair from her face. “We’ve lived there at least five years, after we moved from the Midwest when my husband decided he could do better in Maryland. Kevin’s in sales.”

  From the way she’d said it, Jo got the feeling Meg hadn’t taken much part—or joy—in Kevin’s decision, but she nodded agreeably. Linda’s voice interrupted them with a loud announcement that she was starting her demonstration on jewelry techniques. A large group of red-hatted women who had been heading for Jo’s booth veered immediately toward hers.

  “Oh, dear,” Loralee said. Meg simply stared, open-mouthed.

  “She’s been doing things like that all morning,” Jo explained.

  “It doesn’t seem quite nice, does it?” Loralee asked. “I mean, those women were clearly planning to come here. Shouldn’t she have waited?”

  Jo was trying to think of an answer when two women entered on the right through the nearby entrance. Seeing the crowd blocking access to Linda’s booth, they crossed over to Jo’s. Jo greeted them, then shrugged toward Loralee, saying, “It probably balances out.”

  Loralee shook her head, still amazed at Linda’s action, but moved to give Jo’s new customers space as well as examine a few things herself. “I want to find something for Dulcie for her birthday before she gets here,” she explained, picking up and setting down various items, oohing and aahing as she did.

  The other two women hadn’t asked for Jo’s help yet, and Meg stepped closer to speak to Jo in a lowered voice.

  “I know that woman,” she said, tilting her head toward Linda.

  “You do?”

  “It took me a minute. Her hair’s lighter than when I knew her. Linda Boeckman. I went to high school with her.”

  “Really? I know her as Linda Weeks, which must be her married name, though she’s been divorced for a while.”

  Meg nodded. “I’m not surprised. She might have changed since I knew her, but it doesn’t look like it. I’d be careful if I were you.”

  “How much is this bracelet?” one of the newly arrived women asked Jo.

  Jo left Meg and stepped over to answer her customer. After she’d finished with her, her companion wanted attention. Then Loralee had made her choice for Dulcie—a delicate opal piece—and needed Jo to package it up quickly before Dulcie showed up. By this time Meg had moved on, saying she wanted to check out a quilt booth in the next building. But her words of warning lingered in Jo’s mind. Be careful.

  Jo looked over at Linda, still dealing with the red-hatted ladies, and nodded. She planned to be.

  “Hi, Aunt Jo.”

  Jo glanced up to see her relief man, Charlie, Carrie’s fifteen-year-old, grinning at her across her counter. She checked her watch. It was, indeed, 5:30, a fact she’d have trouble believing if her aching muscles didn’t confirm it.

  “Charlie. You’re a sight for these tired eyes.”

  “They been keeping you busy?”

  “Oh, yes! Ina Mae Kepner stopped by and gave me a break around lunchtime, which was great. But I don’t think I’ve sat down for more than a few seconds since then. How did you get here, by the way, and how long can you stay?”

  “My friend Tony dropped me off,” Charlie said, adding with a wistful look, “He got his license in January.” Jo smiled, knowing how Charlie was champing at the bit to turn sixteen himself and gain driving privileges. “Anyway, Tony’s gonna hang out with some buddies for a while, but he wants to swing by here again around 6:30 to pick me up.”

  “Okay, I’ll watch my time. Things have calmed down quite a bit right now, probably because it’s dinnertime, so you shouldn’t have too much to do.” Jo showed Charlie how to write up any sale he might make, with added tax, and how best to package the item for the customer.

  “If anyone asks a question you can’t answer, just say I’ll be back in a few minutes. At this point, weary as I am, I’m not awfully concerned about losing any sales. Just mainly try to keep anyone from walking off with the merchandise. Shall I pick up something for you to eat?”

  “No, that’s all right. I grabbed a sandwich at home before I left. I wouldn’t mind a Coke or something for the ride home, though.”

  “You got it.” Jo picked up her purse and stepped out of the booth, thinking that her first stop would be at the nearest restroom. Manning a booth all day by one’s self had its challenges.

  A few minutes later Jo was munching on a delicious barbequed beef sandwich as she sat on a tree-shaded bench, her feet propped up on a convenient nearby rock. Sitting there, she became just one of the festival’s crowd, and she felt the fatigue accumulated from constantly having to be “on” for the steady stream of shoppers slowly leave her. Jo watched the people passing by, and listened idly to the bits of conversations that floated her way, things like, “I wonder if I can bargain down the price on that table a little,” and “Where’s Harvey? He promised he’d meet us back here in half an hour.”

  Jo was licking the final bits of barbeque from her fingers when she caught a conversation of a different type: “Did you see that Weeks woman is back again?” Jo looked over to see a tall woman in an ankle-length skirt and a loosely belted top facing a balding, cowboy-booted man. The woman fiddled idly with her thick braid as she spoke.

  “Yeah, I did,” the man answered. “Amazing. I’m starting to wonder if those rumors are true.” The cowboy’s accent sounded to Jo’s ears more Brooklyn than Austin, but her ears perked up at what he said rather than how he said it.

  “I don’t care who’s sleeping with who,” the woman said, “or what kind of favoritism it gets them. That kind of thing never lasts long. But Bill Ewing’s gonna bust a blood vessel when he sees her, after what happened in Morgantown.”

  Others passed between Jo and the
pair, covering over the rest of the words with their own chatter, and the two moved on, leaving Jo thirsting for more. Realizing, however, that the only thirst she could slake was the one in her throat, Jo stirred herself from her bench and went in search of two large Cokes, one for herself along with the one she’d promised Charlie. It was getting time to send him off.

  Jo backed through the hanging plastic at the entrance closest to her booth, her hands gripping the two large drink cups, and called, “I’m back, Charlie. How did it . . . ?” Jo stopped as she saw the agonized look on Charlie’s face.

  “It just happened,” he said, his hands gesturing helplessly. “I was at the other end over there, giving someone change, when I heard the splash.”

  “What is it?” Jo managed to croak as she stepped closer. A pool of brown liquid covered the top of her counter, oozing among a display of rings and pins and dripping through the seams of the Plexiglas into her collection of fine necklaces below.