“I’m so glad you’ve thought it all out.”
This time I couldn’t miss the sarcasm. “What’s wrong?”
“Not a thing. Just because I’ve spent every minute either working at the flea market or visiting your family, there’s no reason to think that I might want to relax for one evening. I love spending my vacation rounding up suspects.”
“You said you wanted to help Aunt Maggie.”
“Why not? We may as well do something while we’re stuck in Byerly.”
“That’s not fair!” I said, stung. “You said you wanted to stay until Augustus’s party.”
“What was I supposed to say, Laura? With you looking at me like that, and Aunt Nora crying. Schopenhauer was right. To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties.’ ”
“Richard!”
“Don’t I get a little time off? Maybe I’d like to decide for myself what I want to do.”
“Fine!” I snapped. “Go ahead and do whatever you want.”
“Thank you so much. If you don’t need the car to chase suspects, I’d like to use it.”
“What about supper?”
“I think I can manage alone.”
“Fine!” I said, too mad to care that I was repeating myself. He stormed out and I stomped up the stairs.
I stayed furious for about ten minutes. After all, I decided, he had no business complaining when he’d agreed to what we were doing every step of the way.
Then I spent ten minutes feeling like there might be some justification for him being angry, but that he shouldn’t have been so nasty about it. Okay, our vacation hadn’t been what we planned, but I was missing out as much as he was. If it seemed like I was ordering him around, it was only because I wanted to find Carney’s killer quickly.
Somewhere during the next ten minutes, I realized that the real reason I was so mad was that I felt guilty. Maybe Richard had agreed to spend the week in Byerly and help Aunt Maggie, but like he’d said, it would have been hard for him to refuse.
By the time Richard had been gone an hour, I was wishing I knew where he’d gone so I could find him and apologize for everything, especially being so pushy. Maybe I’d been spending too much time with Aunt Maggie. She can be awfully determined when her mind is set on something, and her mind was definitely set on finding Carney Alexander’s killer. Why on earth did she care so much?
That’s when I decided that I was going to get a straight answer out of her. Richard deserved to know why it was he was spending his vacation following her around, and so did I.
Chapter 34
Of course, I couldn’t just ask her. I had to work my way up to it, and what better time to get Aunt Maggie talking than over something to eat. So I went downstairs and said, “Are you about ready to get some supper?”
“I suppose so,” she said, standing and stretching. “What do you and Richard have in mind?”
“Richard went out,” I said. “He had some errands to run.”
“Oh,” was all she said, but I wondered how much of our fight she’d heard. “Since I didn’t make it to the store, there’s not much here to eat. Do you want to order a pizza?”
“That sounds good.”
We went back upstairs to find the menu for Domino’s, and called for a pepperoni pizza. I stalled while we were waiting by telling Aunt Maggie the family news I’d gathered while hiding from Vasti. Aunt Maggie hadn’t always been interested in all our carryings on. She’d never been married, and didn’t seem to mind that most of her family was distant relatives. Then Paw died, and she’d taken his place as head of the family as best she could. I think it was for her sake as much as for ours.
Then the pizza arrived. I didn’t want to bring up an unpleasant subject while we were eating, so I told her stories about Boston. But the pizza didn’t last forever, and by the time we’d had three pieces each, Aunt Maggie was starting to look like she wanted to get back to her treasures downstairs.
I took a deep breath and said, “Aunt Maggie, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. You know Richard and I are committed to finding out who killed Carney. You asked us to, and there’s no way we’d quit after what happened to Mary Maude, but it seems to me that you haven’t been completely honest with us.”
“I’ve told you everything I know about the other dealers.”
“Everything except why it is you wanted us to start snooping around in the first place.” I rushed on before she could argue. “I know you said you’re nervous about having a killer on the loose, but there’s more to it than that. I don’t think it’s asking too much for me to want to know what it is.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, and I was sure that she was mad at me. The only question in my mind was how mad—mad enough to fuss or mad enough to kick me and Richard out of the house? But when she spoke, she didn’t sound mad at all.
“You’re right, Laurie Anne. I do have another reason for wanting you to catch Carney’s killer. The fact is, I owe it to Carney. I helped that killer stab him in the back just the same as if I’d handed him the knife.”
I didn’t know what she meant, so I just waited for her to go on.
She said, “A couple of months ago, Carney was running late and I was running early, so I got to the flea market first and parked in that spot he always took. I didn’t mean anything by it—it was just the closest spot, and I had some boxes to bring in. About fifteen minutes after I got there, Carney came inside, white as a sheet and sweating like a pig. I thought he was going to pass out right there on the floor, so I went to see what the matter was.
“He looked at me, and in this tiny voice said, ‘Miz Burnette, would you mind changing parking places with me?’ Of course I asked him why, and he told me he had agoraphobia.”
“Fear of heights?”
“That’s acrophobia. Agoraphobia is the fear of open spaces. For Carney to get inside after having to park those extra few feet away from the door nigh about killed him.”
“How did he live that way?” I asked.
“I guess you can work around most anything if you have to. Carney said he was okay in his van, because it felt like he was inside. When he got home, he parked in a garage that had stairs to his apartment. He got a lot of his stock through the mail and had his point men to scrounge for him, so he could run his business, and he lived with his sister, who ran errands for him. If he absolutely had to go somewhere other than home or the flea market, she’d drive him there and let him off right at the door, and he could generally manage to get inside. But for him to stay outside more than just a second or two would bring on panic attacks. That’s what happened that morning. He said it wasn’t even a bad one.”
“That’s awful.” Though I hadn’t heard much good about Carney, he hadn’t deserved that. “Couldn’t he get therapy or something?”
“I didn’t ask him, Laurie Anne. It was plain that it wasn’t something he liked to talk about. I’d known him for years and never knew before that. I just got his keys and moved my car so I could park his van in his regular spot. He thanked me, but I knew he was ashamed that I’d seen him like that. He never mentioned it again.”
“Did anybody else at the flea market know?”
“Not until I opened my big mouth,” she said. “About a month after that, Carney pulled another one of his stunts. This lady who sold costume jewelry brought a bunch of kittens to the flea market to give away. She said she already had the legal limit for having cats in Rocky Shoals, so she had to find homes for this litter before anybody noticed.
“It was a big litter, and you know it’s hard to find people to take kittens. She brought them out there two or three weekends, but she still had three kittens left the day Carney tried to get her to trade a ring with a skull on it for one of his knives. She didn’t want the knife, so she offered him a discount, but Carney got mad and wouldn’t take it.
“By the end of the day, she was in tears because the dogcatcher had come by. He’d heard about her having
more cats than she was supposed to, and said she better find homes for them that day because he was going to inspect her house that night. If there were any extra cats, he was going to take them to the pound, and she was afraid they’d be put to sleep.”
“Don’t tell me. Carney called the dog catcher.”
“Of course he did. You should have seen him grinning when he saw how upset she was. Fortunately, it worked out all right. One of the dealers took one for her daughter, and I got Dr. Josie to take the other two. Her being a veterinarian means that she can have more animals than other people, and the laws in Byerly are different anyway.”
“Do you think the cat lady had something to do with Carney’s death?” I asked.
“No, she’s not selling at Tight as a Tick anymore. She went on the cat show circuit. I only told you about her to explain what comes next. After closing time that day, some of us were talking about how mean Carney was, and how we ought to teach him a lesson. One fellow wanted to let the air out of his tires, and one woman wanted to see if we could put together a petition to get him thrown out of the flea market. I said that all we had to do was take him out to the middle of the parking lot and leave him there. Of course, then I had to explain why.
“Everybody jumped on the idea, not meaning to really do it, of course. We just liked knowing his weak spot.” She paused. “The same way Carney liked knowing ours. Maybe he wasn’t that much worse than the rest of us after all.”
“None of y’all used the information to hurt him,” I pointed out.
“Maybe somebody did,” she said softly. “You asked why Carney didn’t run away when he was attacked, why he tried to get into his van instead. It’s because the killer was between him and the door to the building. He couldn’t get inside, and the door to his van was locked, but Carney was so afraid of being in the open that he couldn’t run away. Here he was being stabbed, and all he could do was try and try to get into that van.”
“Oh, Lord,” I said. I’d known that Carney had had a hard death, but it was even worse than I’d realized.
Aunt Maggie said, “Anybody else would have run, so for the plan to work, the killer had to have known about Carney’s agoraphobia. That means that I’m the one who told him how to kill Carney.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Maybe the killer found out some other way.”
“How? I knew Carney as well as anybody out there, but I didn’t know it until recently. There wasn’t anybody else out there he’d have told.”
I hated to admit it, but it sounded like she was right. “Who did you tell? That should limit the possibilities.”
“I don’t remember who was there, but it doesn’t matter anyway. That was on a Saturday, and by noon on Sunday, there wasn’t a dealer out there who hadn’t heard. A couple of people made cracks where Carney could hear, and he knew I’d told them about his agoraphobia. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“He didn’t ask you to keep it a secret, did he?”
“That’s not the point, Laurie Anne. I knew he didn’t want it spread around. I felt so guilty about it that I didn’t blame him for being mad, but that’s nothing to what I feel now. It’s my fault that he’s dead.”
“Aunt Maggie, if somebody wanted Carney dead, he’d have found a way.”
“He didn’t need to find a way—I gave him the way. It wouldn’t have been easy to kill Carney anywhere else. With the agoraphobia, he almost never went anyplace but the flea market and home. He might have been safe if I hadn’t opened my big mouth. That’s why I want you to find out who killed him, Laurie Anne. It won’t make things right, because it’s too late for that, but it’s the best I can do for Carney now.”
“Don’t you worry,” I said. “We’ll find out who killed him.” I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t going to let Aunt Maggie down if I could help it.
Chapter 35
Aunt Maggie decided to watch TV after that, but fell asleep during the movie. When it was over, I woke her up, told her how it had ended, and sent her to bed. Then I read while waiting for Richard. It was nearly midnight before he finally came in.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” He sat down on the couch next to me. “What are you reading?”
“One of Aunt Maggie’s historical romances,” I said, showing him the cover with its flame-haired heroine and her heaving bosom.
“Any good?”
“Not really. The heroine expects her beloved to drop everything to defend her family’s honor, and can’t understand it when he wants a little time alone with her. Totally unrealistic! Who’d be dumb enough to treat a handsome, brilliant, sexy man that way?”
“Sounds like quite a hero,” he said with a smile.
“He’s amazing,” I said. “I don’t know why he puts up with her.”
“She must be beautiful, brilliant, and sexy herself.”
I borrowed a page from the book and threw my arms around him to give him the steamiest kiss I could manage. From the length of time it took, I’d say it was a success.
After that kiss, and several more, I said, “I’m sorry, Richard. I’ve been a royal pain.”
“I’m the one who should apologize. If I don’t like the way we’re spending our vacation, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.”
“No, it’s my fault. You only agreed to help because it’s my family.”
“Our family,” he corrected me. “Shakespeare said it better, but the fact is, they treat me like one of their own. I owe them nothing less in return.”
“You’re the best, Richard.”
“You deserve the best.”
“I still think I owe you an apology.”
“I’ll accept it, but only if you accept mine.”
“Fair enough.”
We kissed some more and, after we went upstairs, did quite a few other things. After all, we couldn’t let ourselves be outdone by the hero and heroine of Aunt Maggie’s book.
As we snuggled afterward, I told Richard what I’d found out from Aunt Maggie. Like me, now that he knew why we were after Carney’s killer, he was more determined than ever to finish the job.
Then he said, “Aren’t you going to ask where I went? I thought curiosity would be driving you crazy by now.”
“You’re the only thing driving me crazy.”
“You must be a little curious.”
“Maybe a little,” I admitted.
“I went to the V.F.W.”
“I thought you didn’t want to.”
“After I’d eaten and gone to all three bookstores in Hickory, I was at loose ends anyway. Besides, don’t you remember what Trollope said?”
“No, but I have a hunch that you’re going to tell me.”
“ ‘Oh husbands, oh, my married friends, what comfort there is to be derived from a wife well obeyed!’ ”
“What about Emerson? ‘I hate quotations, tell me what you know.’ ”
“Touché. I left that dictionary of quotations here, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I said smugly. “Was Vivian there?”
“She was,” he said. “The bartender told me that Tuesday night is the night she runs a veterans’ support group. They were still meeting when I arrived, so I pulled out a copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.”
“An apt title,” I said.
“I thought so. After the meeting broke up, Vivian and several men came into the bar. It didn’t take long for Vivian to hear the siren call of Miss Austen and come my way.”
“You’re so seductive when you’re reading,” I said.
“We talked about literature, Jane Austen movies, unusual editions of Austen books, and then flea markets where I’ve picked up interesting books.”
“I was hoping you got to the flea market eventually.”
“These things must be done delicately.”
“Is that a quote?”
“The Wicked Witch of the West.”
“I hope there was nothing Freudian about that choice,” I said, thinking about t
he way I’d badgered him into going to the V.F.W.
“When I referred to seeing her at Tight as a Tick and asked about China’s sachets, Vivian started to get a bit itchy.”
“Do I dare make jokes about ticks and fleas?”
“Maybe later. By now I was getting suspicious that she knew something that connected China to Carney’s death, particularly when she made excuses about having to leave. I persevered, which considering her combat training, could have been dangerous. But I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”
“Poor Richard,” I said. “Reduced to quoting Super Chicken.”
He looked forlorn, then manfully strong. “I laid my cards on the table and told her we’re trying to find out who killed Carney and that China is a suspect. Of course, I was talking about the way he harassed her and mentioned the possibility that he’d done more than talk, but I could tell from the way Vivian looked at me that I was on the wrong track. When I asked her why she was so worried, she hemmed and hawed, but then swore me to secrecy and told me.”
“Well?”
“China Upton, respectable widow, grieving mother, and friend to gingham everywhere, distributes marijuana.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “Nope. She sells sachets filled with pot. Home-grown, too.”
I started to laugh. “I can’t believe China is a pusher.”
“She’s not exactly a pusher,” Richard said, his voice serious. “Do you remember how her son died?”
“J.B. said it was AIDS.”
“That’s why she started growing pot. It’s one of the few things that can help AIDS patients.”
I stopped laughing.
Richard said, “Vivian told me that AIDS is one of the reasons California made it legal for medical practitioners to dispense pot.”
“There’s no law like that in North Carolina.”
“That’s right. Stan Junior used to grow his own, but after he got too sick, China took over. As time went on and they met other AIDS patients, she started supplying pot to them, too. When word got around certain circles, others came to her.”
Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 05 - Tight as a Tick Page 21