Etched in Tears

by Cheryl Hollon

  “Now? Why didn’t you warn me? I haven’t prepared the house for a kitten.”

  “Relax. Your place is a palace compared to my condo. You, Rooney, and Snowy can make friends while I cook dinner.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll go and get her stuff from the car.”

  “Car? You don’t have a car,” said Savannah. “Please tell me you haven’t sold the antique Indian. I adore that motorcycle.”

  “Absolutely not. I borrowed Nicole’s car so that I could bring all the bits and pieces. She’s working tonight, so I left her the Indian and the spare helmet. We’ll switch back again tomorrow.”

  “You know that Rooney has never seen a kitten. We don’t go anywhere that has even the sniff of a cat. There are a few on our block, but they all stay indoors one hundred percent of the time, so he might not even know what they smell like.”

  “Snowy is a completely indoors cat. It’s the only responsible way to make sure they stay healthy.”

  Savannah raised her eyebrows. “You really should have let me know first.” She put her free hand on her hip. “This could be a complete disaster. I’m not really a cat person.” She shook her head.

  Why am I so afraid of every step that strengthens our relationship? Maybe it’s because Dad died so quickly. Maybe I don’t want to lose Edward. Actually, I don’t want to lose Edward.

  Savannah shook off her fear. “Okay, now that she’s here, let’s at least put Rooney in his crate. He’s comfortable in there and that way Snowy can explore without being stalked by a curious giant.” She took the dog food back and kissed Snowy on the top of the head before she handed her over to Edward.

  Edward nodded and went to the car and came back with Snowy in her transport carrier stacked with a litter box, a bag of litter, and a small bag of food and toys. “This should do it,” he said as he placed his burdens down on the living room floor. “At least you don’t have carpet. That’s good.”

  “No, I don’t have carpet, just century-old heart-of-pine wooden original flooring. To be fair, Rooney is more dangerous to the floor than a kitten.” She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room with her hands on her hips. “Go ahead, let her go. Rooney is in his crate here in the kitchen.”

  “First things first.” Edward picked up the litter box and the bag of litter. “Do you think the guest bedroom will do?”

  Savannah sighed. “No, that bedroom is too small and it somehow feels a little icky. How about putting it in the bathroom at the end of the hall? There’s plenty of room in there. Let me get an old rug to put underneath to catch debris.” She ducked down the hall, opened a linen closet, and came back with a faded rag rug that looked worn to shreds. She put down the rug in the bathroom and they set up the litter box. “This is perfect.”

  Edward opened the remaining carrier bag and pulled out two aluminum bowls. “Should I put these by Rooney’s feeding dishes?”

  Savannah frowned. “Although I’ve never had a kitten before, I do know that dogs can get territorial about their food. Let’s do the safe thing and feed them at opposite ends of the kitchen.” She watched as he put down a small floral bone china saucer, then filled the matching tea cup with water from a bottle of spring water.

  “Really? She gets bottled water?”

  He looked up with confusion in his eyes. “Of course. She’s only a kitten. I don’t want to risk her getting kidney problems. That’s the biggest concern with cats.”

  Savannah spread her hands wide and backed away from the kitten’s feeding station. “Where on earth do you keep her when you’re at work?”

  “I have a neighbor who takes her in while I’m gone.”

  “Fine.” Savannah nodded her head.

  “It’s hello time for Snowy,” he cooed to the travel box that was beginning to mew in that pitiable scratchy kitten voice. Edward unlatched the crate and scooped the tiny, pure-white puffball that howled mournfully, crawled up his arm, and tried to curl up into his ear.

  “See, isn’t that adorable?” He extracted her tiny sharp claws from the top of his shirt and took her over to the center of the kitchen. “I think we should let her discover Rooney on her own.”

  “I’m not sure about this,” Savannah cautioned.

  They both stood back and watched. Rooney had curled himself up in his crate, but his head lifted when Snowy was placed on the floor. He barked a high-pitched greeting and stood up in his crate with his head lowered as close to the floor as possible.

  Snowy launched into full Halloween cat pose, hissed like a vampire, then shot straight up off the floor and ran up Edward’s pant leg, tiny claws embedding themselves in his flesh as she ran up to his shoulder.

  “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” He tried to remove her from his neck, but she squalled and held on even tighter.

  Rooney barked happily again as if he was opening birthday presents. He bounced up and down and nearly tipped over his sleeping crate.

  “Rooney! Stay! Stay, Rooney.” Savannah put her hand out in front of him so he could see her command. She looked from Rooney to Snowy and back again. “Yep, it’s bonding night all right.”

  Savannah took the trembling kitten from Edward’s shoulder and held her at arm’s length. The tiny kitten tried to turn inside out to escape, but Savannah kept a firm hold. “Get the carryall. I’ll put her back in it.”

  “But we need to start getting them acquainted.” Edward’s voice rose in timbre.

  “Is that what you think?” Savannah took Snowy over to the carryall and placed the kitten inside without a protest from Snowy. “She seems to be quite happy in her crate, as well. This needs to be taken in careful steps.”

  “Right, but you don’t appear to want to take any steps at all! I don’t think you’re ready for the next steps.”

  “I’m ready, but I need to have this planned out a lot better.”

  Edward grabbed the reusable grocery bag and picked up the food and water, spilling a little of both as he dumped their contents in the sink. He pressed his lips together in furious silence as he packed up the litter box, food, and dishes. “I am appalled at the amount of planning you require and I am also disappointed in the amount of planning you refuse to do in order for us to live together as . . . as a committed couple.”

  Then he snatched up Snowy’s carryall and started toward the door.

  “I’m trying to make changes. Just not at the pace that you want.”

  “Your pace right now makes it look like you don’t care.”

  “That’s not true!” Savannah could feel her throat tighten. “I am trying.”

  Edward wedged the door open with his foot. “Try harder.” Then he walked down the porch steps, put Snowy and the carryall in the backseat, and drove away.

  Savannah stood in the doorway. “Yes,” she whispered. “I will. I’ll try harder.”

  Chapter 15

  Wednesday morning

  Savannah started the third day of class right by arriving ahead of time at 6:30 a.m. She was not feeling overly chipper, but the espresso coffee machine in the studio kitchen had provided her morning addiction with a large strong cappuccino. By the time her four students were in the building, she had sorted out the handout materials and brewed each student the caffeine drink of their choice.

  Worst case, if the glass business goes bust, I’ll make my living as a barista.

  Their project for the day was to use a chemical method for etching a wineglass with holiday images or monograms. She supplied everything needed, including the wineglasses, all laid out on the large conference table. That way everyone had materials that were properly suited for etching.

  As usual, the most difficult part was preparing the artwork image for etching. In this case, the designs were simple, but still it involved cutting the artwork with an X-ACTO knife. Knowing her students, she had placed the first aid kit at the head of the conference room table in anticipation of cuts. She also checked the rinse time for washing out the chemical if someone flicked a drop in an eye,
or in his or her mouth, or . . . anyway, she was prepared as much as possible.

  * * *

  At the end of the class, each student stood before their finished wineglasses. She had lined them up for a photo. Amanda would post it on social media for her.

  Savannah was amazed that it only took three bandages and one dash to the rinsing sink to accomplish the lesson. Each student had four personalized wineglasses. Well, except for Arthur. He had broken one of his glasses against the faucet in the rinsing sink and he dropped another one after applying the etching solution. He’d said it was not a problem, of course, since he and his wife never had company.

  “Can we try this again?” Rachel asked. She was admiring her set of four wineglasses all etched with a monogram of the letter R.

  “We want to do this to our martini glasses,” said Faith, who had etched her wineglasses with the letter F.

  “I’m not the least bit surprised.” Savannah chuckled and started clearing away the scraps of paper, disposable brushes, and newspapers that had protected the conference room table. “You can schedule a time with me after this workshop is over. I’d be happy to help you.”

  After wiping the studio conference table spotless, Savannah walked over to Jacob’s workroom and knocked lightly on the doorjamb. “Jacob, I have a challenge for you that I think you will enjoy.”

  He looked up from a large stained glass panel nailed to his worktable and his eyes focused level with her collarbone.

  Reminding herself that he would only respond to direct questions, Savannah rephrased. “Would you like to work on a difficult cypher?”

  Jacob’s eyes lit up. He looked her in the eye. “Yes.”

  “Good. First the good news. In the conference room, I left a pad of paper with a list of twenty coded labels from the file cabinet in my dad’s office. That should be a large enough sample for you to try a decryption solution.”

  He nodded slowly and stood waiting for more information.

  “Now for the not-so-good news. I also placed a machine in the conference room that was probably used to generate the cipher. It’s called—”

  “It is an Enigma machine. I saw it when I arrived. I know the history about them.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. Mr. Webb told me about them when I first started to work for him. He liked using it for fun. He brought it into Webb’s Glass Shop several times for me to learn how to use it, too. He knew how much I liked ciphers.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. I was wondering how we were going to figure out how to use it. The information I’ve found on the Internet looks helpful, but this is fantastic: that you already know how to use it.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Did Mr. Webb say anything about why he had the machine?”

  Jacob was silent for a long minute before he spoke. “Not exactly. He didn’t say how he got it. He mentioned that he was using it to keep some important records private. He didn’t tell me why.”

  “That’s too bad. So, can you guess what I want you to do then?”

  Jacob grinned with his eyes bright. “Yes. You want me to solve the label identifiers so we can find Dennis Lansing’s file among all the other files in the old cabinet. Correct?”

  Savannah smiled. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “There’s a problem.” Jacob frowned. “Mr. Webb taught me how to create coded messages on the machine. He didn’t teach me how to decode them.”

  “But you can figure that out, can’t you?” Savannah held her breath. Maybe this was a dead end after all. No information. No consulting fee.

  Jacob stared at his worktable for more long moments. “I need to know the year that Dennis Lansing was in the apprentice program.”

  “Of course. Let’s see, it was probably 2004, but could have been as late as 2005. I knew him from dad’s apprentice program while I was still in grade school. Does that help?”

  Jacob grinned like the Cheshire cat. “I’ll let you know if it works.” He headed to the conference room, sat down at the conference room table, then put Suzy down in the chair beside him. He carefully tore off the top sheet of paper with the labels listed and placed the single sheet to his left.

  The Enigma machine consisted of an entry keyboard with the keys arranged like a QWERTY keyboard like a typewriter. Above that was a lampboard of lights with a letter on each lamp in the exact same QWERTY configuration. Where a manual typewriter would have the keys and a ribbon, the Enigma machine had rotary dials. It was designed so that when the operator pressed the letter T on the keyboard it created an electrical signal that began the journey through the Enigma machine wiring that ended with a lamp flashing on the lampboard.

  Jacob bent over the machine and pressed a key and wrote the illuminated key onto the paper next to the notation of the key he pressed. Then he pressed another key and did the same, picking up and putting down the pencil for each key.

  Savannah stood for a second watching him tackle each key one by one. She took a deep breath. This might take years, but he has the patience of a saint. I hope he gets lucky. “I’ll check back as soon as I make a call.”

  He nodded and continued pressing the keys.

  Savannah went to her office and looked up the number for Frank, owner of Lattimer’s Glass Shop downtown. He was her nearest competition and they had had some nasty confrontations over the past several months. Their last few meetings were at least civil. She dialed.

  “Hi Frank, it’s Savannah.”

  “Hey, Vanna!”

  She clenched her teeth and ignored the fact that she had told him a thousand times not to call her that. It was the pet name her mother called her before she’d died when Savannah was ten. No one else was to call her that without her permission.

  “Frank, I need your help.”

  “You do? Do you want to sell Webb’s? I’m always ready to make you a fair offer. I knew you would come around. Running a business is no business for a pretty little girl like you. When do you want to go back to Seattle?”

  “Frank, stop. I don’t need that kind of help. I need to rent some kiln time over the next few days. I have a big order to deliver on Saturday and my kiln broke yesterday.”

  “Oh, I heard about that order. I bid on it—cheaper, in fact—but they wanted you for some reason.”

  “I have already repaired the heating coil, but I lost almost an entire kiln load when it failed. I need to make up the firing time to complete the order. Will you rent me an overnight firing on your large kiln?”

  “Well, that puts me in an awkward position. I have classes that keep my kilns running pretty much nonstop. I’m not a charity, you know.”

  Savannah propped her head on her hand then controlled the impulse to hang up. “Please, Frank. Do it in the spirit of your friendship with my dad. He would have advised you to help out a local business. Wouldn’t he?”

  Frank was silent. Not his natural state.

  “Frank, are you there?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just thinking. I can let you have one overnight run, but only one.”

  “Thanks. This means a lot to me. I appreciate it very much. When can Jacob and I come over to load the kiln? How much will you charge? My profit margin is pretty small, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know. Let me check the class schedule for a minute.” He rustled some papers and called out, “Hey, are we teaching a fusing class right now?” There was an answer in the distance that Savannah couldn’t understand. “You’re in luck. We’re between classes. You and Jacob can come over anytime this afternoon. Does he know how to program the kiln?”

  “No, but he’s the best at loading a kiln I’ve ever seen. I’ll be with him to program the kiln. I’m so glad we have the exact same model.”

  “Well, Vanna. My offer still stands. I want to buy Webb’s.”

  Savannah hung up and put her forehead on the surface of the desk. Business does indeed make for strange bedfellows.

  Chapter 16

  Wednesday noon

  Savannah pulled into an open parking
spot in front of a new restaurant she was excited to try. She was finally meeting Officer Joy Williams for their long-delayed lunch. There had been a recent surge of new eateries in the area. A flurry of activity by a group of local business owners and volunteers had renamed the formerly blighted historical area the Edge District. The organization began following an ambitious revitalization and preservation plan, and achieved Florida Main Street and National Main Street accreditation.

  Hawker’s Asian Street Fare was right next door to the St. Petersburg Police Department headquarters building so it was easy for Joy to pop out to meet her.

  Joy rushed out onto the sidewalk and arrived a little breathless. “Sorry, I almost didn’t make it. I had to go down the back stairs so I wouldn’t get waylaid at the last second.”

  Savannah laughed. “Surely, they know you need to have a lunch break now and then?”

  “It’s not them. It’s me.” Joy lifted an eyebrow. “I’m afraid I’ll miss something so they’re used to seeing me all the time.” They were seated at the nonsmoking patio outdoors with a view of the police station. Before they could start a conversation, their server introduced himself and asked for their order. They each asked for water and then agreed on a shared family style order of satay chicken, basil fried rice, wok fired green beans, coconut curry shrimp, and roast duck steamed buns.

  Savannah sipped her water then spoke first. “I’m glad you could get away for a little bit. You must feel pressured to perform over and above expectations. Let me assure you that by merely showing up each day, you far outstrip your predecessor.”

  “You knew Officer Boulli? I didn’t know that.”

  “I sure did. He was working with Detective Parker when we collaborated on our first case. Although, I think interfered would be Boulli’s description of my involvement. It was during the investigation of the murder of my dad and his assistant. Officer Boulli is essentially the reason I got involved. He was a miserable waste of space. I think Detective Parker has forgiven me by now . . . well, he mostly tolerates me and my friends. I do appreciate the occasional consulting jobs almost as much as my bank account does.”