“They won’t care if you quit. They know who brings in the money.”
Somebody sobbed.
“Right, turn on the waterworks.”
Joan stood transfixed. Before she could move, a door on the left slammed open, and Birdie Eads flew down the corridor toward her, gulping and blinded by tears.
“Birdie!” She spread her arms, and Birdie ran into them.
“He—he—” She couldn’t stop sobbing.
“It’s all right.” Joan patted her back, wondering what could possibly be all right about working with a man like Jim Chandler after he’d obviously thrown her over for Alex Campbell, of all people. No wonder Birdie hadn’t wanted to share the first stand with Nicholas in the orchestra. It wasn’t about Nicholas at all. She didn’t want to sit up there so close to Jim, but she still had to work with him. Poor child. Not that Birdie Eads was a child. Like her friend Sylvia, she was a grown woman.
Now she straightened up to her full five feet something and blew her nose. “Thank you. I suppose you heard all that.”
“Not much. I’m glad I came along when I did.”
“Why are you here?”
It didn’t seem like the time to mention Alex. Was Birdie the real reason Alex hadn’t wanted to come in? “I have to deliver something to Jim. The tuba player—the one who played the ‘Stars and Stripes’ solo—tried his hand at improving the narration for the Britten, and it’s not too bad.”
“But Alex didn’t want Jim to stutter the first time he read it.” So Birdie saw through Alex.
“Stutter? Does he, really?”
“No, but he has to practice to sound that good. It doesn’t come naturally.” Bitterness permeated her words.
“I’m sorry, Birdie.”
“Thanks.” Birdie wiped her eyes. “I’d better go fix my face.”
“I’d offer you a ride home, but—”
“That’s all right. I drove.”
And I didn’t.
“And you have to take that script to Jim,” Birdie said. “Feed his vanity.” She managed a smile. “Go ahead. I’ll be okay.”
Joan watched her head for the door. Then she squared her shoulders and turned to face Jim Chandler. She dreaded entering the room Birdie had escaped from.
She needn’t have worried. He came out into the hall, and his handsome face broke into a charming smile.
“Joan!” he said. “What brings you here?”
Besides an urge to smack you? she thought, but she controlled it and held out the new script. “Alex asked me to bring this to you.” Even if Joan hadn’t promised, there was no way she’d tell this man Alex had dropped her off.
“You didn’t have to go to so much trouble, but thank you.” He flipped through the pages. “Does look a mite more interesting for the kiddies.” A man who would bring Birdie to tears with his sarcasm talking about kiddies? Or was this more of the same?
“See you Wednesday night, then,” she said.
“Don’t hurry off. Is this your first time here at Fulford? Let me give you the grand tour.”
“Sorry. I have to go.” She forced a quick smile and left the way she’d come. Once out of the building, she felt her tight shoulder muscles relax.
The receptionist’s light was off and her computer monitor shrouded in a dustcover, but the front door opened easily. Not seeing Birdie’s car in the parking lot, Joan struck out on foot. Walking home from this side of town would take her maybe half again as long as from work, and without the park’s green space to enjoy along the way, it would feel still longer.
She didn’t care. The spring breeze washed her face, and even the exhaust of an Oliver College truck ahead of her was an improvement over the odor of Fulford. By the time she turned onto her own street, she was humming Sousa.
Her message machine was blinking when she walked into the house. She hit the button and heard Fred’s voice. “I have to go back tonight. Call me if you’d rather I didn’t bother to come home.”
Silly man. She made a quick supper automatically and slung two of everything on the table. When Andrew finally came home, she’d have to remember to set the table for three again. When she and Fred were first married, she’d forgotten to set his place more than once. Habit dies slowly, she thought.
He walked in the kitchen door just when she finished grinding the coffee beans.
“Wonderful smell,” he said. “Better than the coffee itself.”
“I know. We could sit around and sniff it and skip the rest.”
“Not tonight. Tonight might be another late one.”
She knew better than to ask why and finished making the coffee. Fred hung his jacket on a hook and watched her.
“You bring me the paint can?”
“It got away from me, sorry. I’ll bring you the one he uses tomorrow.”
“Just can’t get good help these days,” he said, shaking his head.
“Not at this pay rate.”
“But consider the fringe benefits.” He nuzzled the back of her neck and nibbled her ear but then tore himself away. “I really do have to go right back. Maybe I won’t be too late.”
“Wake me when you come in.”
* * *
Tuesday dawned cold and bright. Joan’s first thought when the cold air hit her on the way to work was of Andrew. This isn’t as cold as last week, she told herself. His sleeping bag is rated for much colder than this, and he has his parka and ski pants.
But when she picked up the green paint, the clerk reminded her to wait. “Don’t use it below fifty degrees.”
She thanked him and hefted the gallon can. At least the bail didn’t dig into her gloved hand as it would have if she’d been bare-handed. By afternoon, she hoped, the sun would have warmed the air enough for Bert to finish.
But the sun went behind a cloud before it could do the job, and when Bert arrived, she had to send him home.
He wasn’t happy about it. “I’ve painted lots colder days’n this.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t want to have to have it done over again. I’m sorry, but it’s worth waiting one more day.” She held her breath, but he didn’t put up a fight. Merely hitched up his jeans and left.
Fred wouldn’t be happy, but even Bert had worn gloves today. Letting him go ahead wouldn’t have helped Fred any more than it would have helped the railing.
During the afternoon she found time to work at transposing the tenor part of the hymns for Sylvia’s funeral to the viola’s alto clef. With no staff paper, she drew her own with a ruler and pen, added the alto clef sign, and copied the page on the photocopier before adding the notes. She wrote the notes themselves in pencil, so that she’d be able to fix any goofs easily. Let Nicholas look down his nose. She’d managed to find more notes than she’d expected during their rehearsal, but the way she saw it, there was no reason to struggle. Playing for Sylvia’s service was a favor for her sister, after all, not a test. And it should sound as good as Joan could make it.
She tucked the results into the hymnbook and stashed the book in her shoulder bag. She’d run through the hymns on the viola tonight, just to be sure.
But when she got home, Fred had other plans.
“I couldn’t get Bert to handle the paint can today,” she told him. “It was too cold to paint, and anyhow, he had gloves on.”
“I figured as much. He’ll keep. But would you drop in at your buddy Skirv’s for me?”
“Matt Skirvin’s store? Why?”
“He won’t touch anything when I’m in the place, and I don’t know which cops he recognizes. I want you to buy something he’s handled.”
“That’s all?” She was relieved not to have to tell him what she’d been suspecting, after all.
“Well, it should be something smooth enough to hold fingerprints. He has plenty of glass and china things. Something round would be good, something he can’t pick up by the edges.”
“I’ll get him to reach me something down from a high shelf.”
“Good.” He sighed.
“This business of ruling out possibles is a nuisance, when there are so many of them. We can’t ask half the men in town to come down and let us fingerprint them.”
“At least you know it’s a man. Older than Andrew, too, if you’re zeroing in on guys the age of Bert and Skirv.”
“Andrew was a little boy when this man was arrested in Michigan. But you didn’t really wonder about Andrew.”
“Oh, Fred, of course not.”
“I’ll meet you for supper at Wilma’s when you’re done. Don’t worry, though. I’ll have someone watching.”
“Skirv wouldn’t hurt me!” But Sylvia? Herschel Vint? Andrew? How could she be so sure he’d stop there?
“No, he won’t.” He smiled down at her. “Want a ride? I don’t want him to see us together, but I can take you most of the way.”
“Thanks.” She dumped the hymnbook out of her shoulder bag and slung the leather bag over her shoulder. The poor thing looked the worse for all the abuse she heaped on it, but so far, it was holding up. “I’m ready.”
A block from the store, he let her out to walk the rest of the way.
Skirv’s Stuff greeted her with fluttering bedspreads hung outside. Joan, partial to Grandma Zimmerman’s quilts, didn’t bother to look them over.
In the dimmer light indoors, she recognized Matt Skirvin standing behind the counter.
“Welcome, Joan.” His brown eyes smiled at her. “I’m kind of surprised to see you here, what with Andrew up in the tree and all. You have some problem with the concert, or what?”
“Hi, Matt. No, except for missing Sylvia in the first violins.”
His face fell. “Wasn’t that awful? I can’t believe anyone would do such a thing. She wasn’t hurting anyone up there. And you must be worried about Andrew, too. I was glad I could help him make it up into the tree. He seems like a good kid.”
“He is.” She wasn’t about to invite Matt Skirvin into her worries.
“If there’s anything I can do, I will.” He sounded sincere, but who could tell? Wouldn’t Sylvia’s killer sound sympathetic when you met him? She tried to put the thought out of her mind.
“Thank you, Matt. As a matter of fact, there is something.”
“Anything.”
“This isn’t for Andrew, and it’s certainly not important. But I need to find a gift for one of the little old ladies who helps me at the center.” Annie Jordan would skin me alive if she heard me talk about her like that. “I know she likes old things, antiques and such, more than new stuff. So I came here. What do you have that’s pretty enough to give as a gift? Nothing too expensive, you understand, but really nice. And I’d want it in a nice box. Gift wrapped, even, if you do that.”
He came out from behind the counter. “I ought to have something. What kinds of things does she like?”
“I don’t really know. I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it. Nothing knitted or crocheted or embroidered—she does all that herself.” And fabrics wouldn’t be a good choice for Fred.
“There are some pretty things on that table.” He gestured to a table full of china and glassware.
She looked as seriously as she could, picked up a few things, and then spotted something that might work and that he’d have to help her with. “Maybe those candlesticks up on the shelf? They look like crystal.”
“I doubt it. If they are, they’re seriously underpriced.” He reached for one and held it out to her. Fingers and thumb right on it, good.
She took it delicately by the top and bottom and set it on the counter. “I like the simple lines and the little leaves carved into the base. How much are they?”
He flipped it over to show her the price tag on the bottom. “Ten dollars.”
“For the pair?”
He flashed her a smile. “For you, sure.”
“Okay.” She pulled out her wallet. “Would you wrap them both, please?”
She watched him lift down the second candlestick. Fred ought to be able to get what he needed. She hoped the police would be willing to pay ten bucks for them. But maybe she’d rather keep them when this whole thing was over. They really did appeal to her. Or actually give them to Annie, who knocked herself out at the center for nothing more than a smile and a thank-you. While he was wrapping them in tissue and tucking them into a neat box only a little too big for them, she had an inspiration.
“Do you have any candles that would fit in them? Then it would be a real present.”
He looked pleased at the prospect of another sale. “We have some scented ones.”
“Lovely.” She took her time selecting candles that would send the fragrance of vanilla floating through the air. Even now, she could smell it. They were attractive enough, white flecked with brown spots that might actually have been vanilla beans. Matt handled them freely, too, and wrapped them in tissue paper. Between the waxy candles and the plain glass, he had to have left plenty of prints.
Feeling more than a little smug, Joan paid him and tucked the two parcels into her capacious shoulder bag. “Thanks, Matt. You solved my problem for me.”
“Any time.” He escorted her to the door and watched her turn toward Wilma’s. She was glad Fred hadn’t asked her to meet him at the police station, though maybe it didn’t matter what Matt thought, now that she’d succeeded in her mission.
A young woman in blue jeans and a denim jacket who had been looking at the dusty antiques in the window of Skirv’s Stuff when she arrived fell into step with her. “Hello, Joan.”
Suddenly she recognized Officer Jill Root. “Well, hi there. I thought you were a student.”
“That was the general idea. Good job.”
“You were watching?”
Jill nodded. “Orders. But you obviously didn’t need me. You even got him to wrap them.”
“I didn’t want to worry about rubbing off his prints when I stuck them in my bag.”
“I brought along an evidence bag, but I don’t think we need it.”
“Are you going to escort me all the way to Wilma’s?” Joan was amused by the idea.
“Only to report to the lieutenant.”
Funny, Joan thought. He’ll trust me to bring him the paint can on my own, but for this, he needed a witness. Maybe he’s taking Skirv more seriously than Bert.
“Come have supper with us, why don’t you?”
Jill smiled. “Thanks, but I have a date.” That was good news. The man she’d been in love with had been killed in a hit-and-run the previous year, and Jill had taken it hard.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Joan said. “Have a good time.” She wondered whether Jill would risk dating another cop but refrained from grilling her.
At the restaurant, Fred came forward to meet them.
“I snagged a booth,” he said. “Come on back, both of you. You can tell me all about it.”
“Nothing to tell,” Joan said when they were settled in the privacy of the back booth. “He sold me a pair of glass candlesticks and a couple of candles. Wrapped them and everything. I watched him hold them, so I’m sure you’ll have his prints.” She patted the bag lying next to her. “But Fred, are you sure?”
“Of course not. We’re eliminating a lot of men, you know. It just takes time.” He looked tired. “This guy may not even be anyone local. But Johnny Ketcham said Skirv sells Wrist-Rockets.”
“Oh, no!” How could she have missed seeing them in there?
Fred put his hand over hers. “Don’t jump to conclusions. After all, Andrew has one.”
“Are you sure he sells them? I didn’t see them.” What bothered her more, the fact that Fred had reason to suspect Skirv or her own inattentiveness?
“If Ketcham says so, it’s true. And if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t spot them, either. Or the pot. The difference is, a slingshot doesn’t smell.”
“He sells pot, too?” She felt incredibly unobservant. All she’d smelled was vanilla.
“Not openly. But it explains why he’d be nervous around cops.”
&nb
sp; “You think he had anything to do with that meth lab out there?”
“We’ll keep that in mind.”
Was he humoring her? She couldn’t tell.
“Suppose you hand over your prizes to Officer Root. She’ll see to it that they’re properly taken care of.”
“Suppose I hand them over to you, instead. Jill has better things to do tonight.”
Jill blushed. “I’ll take them, Lieutenant.”
Oops, Joan thought. I forget who’s in charge. She dug out the neatly wrapped packages and handed them over. Jill was going to need that evidence bag, after all.
21
It was still daylight Tuesday when Fred dropped her at home and went back to work. She hadn’t seen Andrew since Sunday, when he’d talked to her normally, even if he hadn’t called since.
Before she could change her mind, she grabbed a sackful of oranges out of the refrigerator. Not that he’d be in danger of scurvy after less than a week, but they couldn’t hurt. He’d welcomed the apples last time.
The road out to the woods seemed shorter every time. Familiarity, she supposed. She was taking the curves like a native when she remembered poor Mr. Vint and slowed down. One of those curves had sent him to his death. No, not a curve. Another Petoskey stone. Did the next one have Andrew’s name on it? Was anybody safe? She hadn’t thought to tell Fred where she was going. At least she had a cell phone.
Fat lot of good that would do me if I were out cold, wrapped around a tree.
But she wasn’t worried about herself as much as she was about Andrew. It was a relief to pull into the clearing. The temperature’s already dropped out here, she thought when she left the car and walked toward the oak tree with her oranges.
Immediately the cell phone rang in her pocket. Fumbling for it, she could see Andrew’s dark head above the platform. Now he was waving at her. She waved back, set down the bag of oranges, and answered the phone.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“Besides you, you mean?”
“Funny.”
“I brought you some oranges.”
The basket began its descent, swinging in the breeze that was chilling the back of her neck, and she waited. When she could reach it, she loaded in the oranges, and he hauled it back up.
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