by Sofie Kelly
She took the book from me and turned it over to look at the back cover blurb. “I suggested this one,” she said. “Leo came back in the morning he was . . . The morning he died. I got him set up with a temporary card and he asked me if I knew anything about theatrical makeup.” She raised an eyebrow. “I told him I knew a few things about being onstage.”
I was guessing that Mary had learned a lot of things from dancing at The Brick. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they all were.
She handed the book back to me. “I suggested this book and requested it for him.”
I put the book on the counter to be returned to the library it had been requested from. “Why was Leo interested in stage makeup?” I asked.
Mary shrugged. “He didn’t say, but I know that Mia is thinking of getting involved in the spring production at the high school. It was probably just his way of staying involved in her life. According to Mia he was interested in whatever she was doing.”
“From what I heard about the man, he was a good grandfather.”
Mary nodded. “What happened to him wasn’t fair.”
I glanced at the makeup book that Leo would never get to read with Mia. “Life really isn’t fair sometimes,” I said.
“I’ve always hated that,” Mary said with a wry smile. She looked over her shoulder toward the computer room. “Change of subject. So, did Maggie figure out where she’s going to display those old photos?”
“I think so,” I said. I pointed at the side wall. “I think she’s going to use that wall.”
Mary was wearing her favorite fall-themed sweater—orange and brown with big embroidered yellow and red leaves. She brushed some bits of paper off the front. “I’m looking forward to seeing those old photos framed.”
“Me too,” I said. “And Maggie’s convinced both Thorsten and Harrison to let her display the mail they received.”
Mary laughed. “Well, in Thorsten’s case I don’t think it was the first card like that he received. He cut a pretty wide swath when he was younger.”
Since rumor had it that Mary herself had been part of that swath I decided not to comment.
She was still staring across the room with a thoughtful look on her face. “You know, if this were a movie something dramatic would have happened because someone didn’t get their mail when they were supposed to,” she said.
“Mary Lowe, do you have a secret romantic side?” I teased.
“I like a good happily ever after once in a while,” she said, her eyes gleaming.
“So have you heard of anything romantic happening because of a piece of that found mail?”
She shook her head. “Burtis got a note from the school about Brady. But I don’t think there were any love letters found. I don’t think there were that many pieces of mail behind the wall. You know about Thorsten and Harrison.” She started ticking off names on her fingers. “One of Lita’s cousins got something—another Christmas card, I think—and then there was Leo and maybe two or three other people and that’s it.” She’d started stacking books on the cart again.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Leo got one of those pieces of mail?”
Mary nodded but she didn’t turn around, so she didn’t see what had to be a shocked expression on my face. “He said it was nothing important.”
Meredith Janes had written a letter to her best friend that had ended up behind that wall at the post office. Now I wondered, could she have written one to her husband as well?
• • •
Marcus had hockey practice so I headed home to Owen and Hercules when the library closed. Harry had left a note telling me that he’d fixed the side of the raised bed in the backyard and he’d be back on Monday with some topsoil and mulch to replace what had been lost.
I told the boys about my conversation with Oren. “And Leo Janes got one of those pieces of mail that were found at the post office,” I said as I changed into yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. “Do you think it’s possible it was from Meredith?”
Hercules made a face. It seemed he wasn’t sure, either.
“You know, all we seem to have is a bunch of random facts and no way to connect them all together.” I rubbed the space between my eyebrows. “This just gives me a headache.”
“Mrr,” Hercules said, heading for the door. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder before heading for the stairs, his way of saying a treat would probably make me feel better.
Who was I to argue?
By the time I’d finished half a mug of hot chocolate and two pumpkin-spice chocolate-chip cookies I did feel better. I had about an hour before Marcus was going to be finished at hockey practice. I set my laptop on the table. “Right now we don’t have any way of finding out what the piece of mail was that Leo got. But we could see what else we can find out about Celia Hunter.”
Herc jumped up onto my lap and put one paw on the cover of the computer. We were in agreement.
Between my skill with a search engine and the serendipity of Hercules randomly touching the keyboard and somehow finding something useful, we learned quite a bit about Celia Hunter.
For one thing, she was in a relationship with a man named Edmund Holloway. Holloway was a successful businessman in his early seventies who owned, among other things, the largest organic baby food company in North America. He had seven children and twelve grandchildren. He and Celia had met at the 55+ Games, where both had been part of the dragon boat team. Celia, it seemed, had been a competitive rower in college. Edmund Holloway had taken up cross-country in college. I found a photo of the dragon boat in one of their races, crew straining as they sliced through the water toward the finish line, half a boat length ahead of their closest competitor.
Hercules seemed to study the image. He put his paw on the screen.
“Yes, I see that,” I said. Celia Hunter had strong arms. Were they strong enough to have picked up that sculpture and killed Leo Janes?
chapter 14
Susan came hurrying down the sidewalk as I got out of my truck the next morning. As she got closer I saw that she had a pair of plastic scissors and an emerald-green pencil crayon stuck in her topknot, which just gave a bit more credence to my theory that her twins did her hair in the morning.
“Kathleen, do you remember seeing my car keys yesterday?” she asked.
I shook my head as I unlocked the doors and turned off the alarm system. “No,” I said. Then I noticed she had a key ring in her hand. “What are those?” I asked.
“House keys,” she said.
“You don’t have them both on the same ring?”
She nudged her black cat’s-eye glasses up her nose. “Thank goodness, no. Now I wouldn’t have my house keys, either.”
“Right,” I said, thinking that I’d worked with Susan long enough that what she’d said actually made sense to me.
She moved inside and began flipping on the lights. Behind me I heard a soft knock on the outside door. I turned to let Mia in.
“Hi,” she said. She was carrying a round metal cookie tin.
“What did you bring?” I asked.
“Coffee cake,” she said with a smile. “I could go put the coffee on and you could try it before we open.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” I said.
Susan was standing in the middle of the floor looking around the room as though she expected her missing car keys to suddenly fall at her feet.
“Susan lost her car keys,” I said.
“What does the key ring look like?” Mia asked.
“It’s a Troll doll with lime-green hair.” She stopped and looked at us. “I think I know where they are. Kathleen, do you have the key for the cash drawer?”
“Right here,” I said, pulling my own keys out of my pocket. I handed them over to her.
“Mike Justason was paying the boys’ overdue- and damaged-book fines when Eric dro
pped off my car,” she explained. She leaned over the counter, unlocked the cash drawer and after a moment triumphantly held up her keys.
“Yay!” I said.
Mia held up the tin with the coffee cake. “We should celebrate,” she said.
We all headed up to the staff room, where I started the coffee machine and Mia cut us each a slice of her coffee cake.
“This is really good,” Susan told her. “Seriously. If you ever want to work at the café, let me know.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Hey, no stealing my favorite employee who also happens to bring coffee cake to work on Saturday morning.”
“I brought you banana bread two weeks ago,” Susan said.
“Which is why you were my favorite employee two weeks ago,” I said with a grin.
Mia smiled. “I’m glad you both like it,” she said. “It was my grandfather’s favorite and I knew he’d hate it if I stopped making it. So I thought I’d make it for you guys.”
“We’re glad you did,” I said.
Susan keys were lying on the table.
“I like the Troll doll key ring,” I said.
“Eric thought maybe it would help me stop losing my keys so often,” Susan said. “He thought the hair might make them easier to notice.”
“How’s that working?” I asked.
“Not bad,” she said with a completely straight face. Then she laughed.
I glanced over at Mia. She looked a little sad. “Are you all right?” I said. “The coffee cake really is good. I’m sure your grandfather would be happy you made it for us.”
“I’m all right,” Mia said. “I was remembering that Grandpa misplaced his car keys the day before he died. I’d made this cake and then we’d gone shopping and we were going to the cottage where Uncle Victor was staying for lunch. So he had to use my keys.” She ducked her head. “Don’t tell my dad.”
Susan looked confused. “What?” she mouthed.
“Your grandfather let you drive his car,” I said.
Mia looked up and nodded. “Dad would have a cow. You know how he is. He’s always afraid someone is going to run me off the road. Grandpa gave me a set of keys to his car and said I could drive it as long as I was careful.”
Susan patted her arm. “I used to drive my grandmother’s car. It was this great big boat of a Buick. I sometimes wonder if my dad knew but just pretended that he didn’t. Anyway, your secret is safe with us.”
Mia reached over and combed the little Troll doll’s green hair with two fingers. “Grandpa wanted me to go for a walk with Uncle Victor and get to know him a little but I tried to get out of it. I should have said yes because it was important to him.”
“My great-uncle smells like licorice and has hair growing out of his ears,” Susan said flatly. “It’s the only hair on his head unless you count the hair that’s growing out of his nose. And all he wants to talk about is things he and his friends have had cut out of their bodies.”
Mia made a face. “Gross!”
“More than you can imagine,” Susan said. Her topknot bobbed as she nodded her head for emphasis and for a moment I was afraid the green pencil crayon was going to go flying across the room. “A lot of people don’t want to hang out with their great-uncles, kiddo. It’s okay.” She looked at her watch and stood up. “I’ll go open.” She scooped her keys off the table, stopped at her locker and put them inside on the shelf before heading for the stairs.
Mia got to her feet as well. She took her cup and plate to the sink and then went over to her own locker and put her backpack inside. She hung up her jacket and, when she did, her own keys fell to the floor.
I picked them up. There was a red crayon attached to the ring.
Mia saw me looking at it and said, “It’s not a real crayon. It’s actually a memory stick. I have another one that looks like a little Hershey bar.”
“That would make a great Christmas gift for my sister,” I said. “Where did you get it?”
“Grandpa got both of them for me from the bookstore, I think,” Mia said.
“Next time I’m down there I’ll go take a look,” I said. I got to my feet. It was time to get to work.
It turned out to be a busy morning. At least half of a grade-eleven English class came in looking for books on the reading list assigned by their teacher. Several of the quilters showed up to talk more about a possible quilt show in the new year.
I’d just helped a new mom find a copy of Love You Forever when I noticed Sandra Godfrey in the magazine section, one hand on her hip, studying the shelves. “Hi, Sandra, what can I help you find?” I asked.
“Oh, hi, Kathleen,” she said. “What happened to Scientific American? It was right there.” She gestured to a magazine shelf at waist level.
“One more shelf to the right,” I said. “We added a new magazine in the Ps and it bumped everything sideways.”
Sandra tipped her head in the direction of the quilters, who were just heading out the door. “So are you going to hold the winter show here?”
“I hope so,” I said. “I think we have enough space.” I eyed her. “Do you quilt?”
She nodded and held up the copy of Scientific American she’d just lifted from the shelf. “You might say I’m a Renaissance woman,” she said with a grin.
I smiled back at her. “I’m impressed.”
“Have you made any progress on figuring out what to do with the photos from the post office?” Sandra asked.
“Yes. I should have called you,” I said. I explained about Maggie’s idea for framing everything and putting the photos and some of the mail that was found on display.
“I would like to see that since I was the one who delivered most of that mail.” Her lips twitched. “You probably heard about the card Thorsten got.”
I nodded. “I think the entire town has heard by now.”
Sandra brushed a bit of lint, or maybe it was cat hair, off her red sweater. Did she have cats? I wondered.
“Ella King got a note from her grandmother and it had one of those chocolate coins wrapped in foil inside. The chocolate was still intact.” Sandra rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to think about how many preservatives were in that thing.”
“Maggie’s still rounding up more of the mail for the exhibit,” I said. “But that has to be the weirdest piece so far. I hope Ella still has the chocolate.”
“Well, I don’t think she ate it, if that’s what you mean,” Sandra said. She glanced down at the cover of the magazine in her hand.
I remembered what Mary had told me. “I heard that Leo Janes got something,” I said. “Do you have any idea what?”
“That was odd,” Sandra said, shaking her head.
The blood was rushing in my ears. “What makes you say that?” I asked.
“He got an envelope with a key inside.”
“A key. You mean like a door key?”
Sandra shook her head. “I don’t think it was a door key but I really didn’t get a good look at it. All I know is it was a silver-colored key.”
“Why on earth would someone have sent Leo Janes a key in the mail?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He didn’t seem to know, either. And the funny thing is, it was the last piece of mail to be delivered.”
I frowned at her. “Why?”
“There was an old change-of-address card from twenty years ago and somehow the letter ended up being sent there. Then it was rerouted a couple of times before it ended up back here. I heard Mr. Janes was in town, so when the letter came back I delivered it to him.” She cleared her throat. “The day before he died.”
“You’re sure?” I said. I could hear my pulse thudding in my ears again.
“Positive,” Sandra said. “It was my mother-in-law’s birthday. My husband and I drove into Minneapolis after work to celebrate with the
family.”
Leo had received the mysterious key the day before he was killed. Was that important? Somehow I had the feeling it was.
• • •
Maggie called midmorning to see if we could have lunch so she could show me the proposed layout for the photo exhibit. We agreed to meet at Eric’s at one thirty. She was already inside when I got to the café, seated at our favorite table, going through the little ritual she followed when she made her tea.
As soon as I sat down Nic appeared at my elbow seemingly as if by magic and poured me a cup of coffee without even asking if I wanted one because we both knew I did. “Do you need a menu?” he asked.
Maggie shook her head.
Nic grinned. He put two fingers to his temple like a sideshow psychic. “Let me see,” he said. “I think you would both like a big bowl of . . . chili and . . . a plate of cornbread.”
I smiled at his mind-reading routine. “Please,” I said.
“It’ll just be a few minutes.”
“Are we getting too predictable?” Maggie asked.
“No,” I said, slipping out of my jacket. “We’re consistent.”
“We’ve had chili the last three times we’ve been here for lunch.”
“It’s not our fault the chili is so good. If we didn’t order it we might hurt Eric’s feelings and that would be wrong,” I said solemnly.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to hurt Eric’s feelings,” she said. Then she laughed.
“So show me what you came up with,” I said.
Maggie pulled a brown envelope out of the messenger bag slung over the back of her chair. Inside were three sketches she’d made of three different layouts for the exhibit. We quickly settled on the second one and she spent the rest of the meal telling me what different people were doing with their frames.
“I have another idea, although I don’t know if it’s workable,” she said as she pushed back her empty bowl.
“What is it?” I asked, scooping the last bit of cornbread from the bottom of my dish.
“The post office gave the library those photos, right?” Maggie asked.
I nodded. “We’re becoming the repository for things people think the town needs to keep but that they don’t want to be responsible for. That’s how we got all the old yearbooks and the herbarium.”