Ill-Gotten Panes

by Jennifer McAndrews

  He lifted a glass of wine, nearly empty. I wondered how long he’d been waiting while I played the fashionably late game. “How is he, your grandfather?” he asked.

  I nodded, playing for time. As near as I could tell, Grandy’s incarceration was not yet widespread knowledge. Somehow the Pace County PD had kept a lid on news of the arrest. Telling Carrie the news hadn’t been easy, and I had come to consider her a friend. Was that something I wanted to share with Tony Himmel?

  Then again, perhaps his reaction to the news might inform me about whether I was about to dine with a killer.

  I took hold of my water glass, wished for the waiter. “The police took him in the day before yesterday,” I said.

  Tony’s brow furrowed. “More questioning?”

  “They believe they’ve found—” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t put a murder weapon in the same context as Grandy. “Further evidence.”

  He knocked back the rest of his wine, which did nothing to clear the furrow. “In the Andy Edgers case?”

  Was there more than one case he thought Grandy should be implicated in? “That would be the one.”

  Resting both elbows on the table, he leaned a little weight upon his forearms. I had to wonder if the pose, with its resultant emphasis on his shoulders, chest, and biceps, was an intentional move to distract me. He had to know he was handsome, right? He had to know he had a decent physique and these two things combined had a tendency to turn a girl’s head.

  “That just doesn’t make sense. What kind of evidence would they need to find to link Pete with that crime?”

  I locked my eyes with his. “They think they have something.” I didn’t want to give anything away, and didn’t want to miss any hint of reaction he might show.

  He turned away from my gaze. “Must be pretty convincing.” After a moment’s scanning the restaurant, he lifted an arm ever so slightly. “I’m sorry he’s caught up in all this,” he said an instant before a waiter appeared at our table.

  “Something from the bar?” the waiter asked.

  Something strong would have been wonderful. But I was driving. Moreover, I needed to stay alert, needed to be able to observe Mr. Himmel with my mind clear. I ordered a dry white wine on the grounds I didn’t really care for it and so would sip it slowly while still appearing social.

  When the waiter departed, Tony resumed the conversation as though there had been no interruption. “What sort of evidence did the police find? Fingerprints? DNA?”

  “No, it was nothing quite so definitive.” I drew out the statement, all the time watching for a reaction.

  He shook his head slightly, shook his concerned expression into a neutral one. “It’s a shame they’re holding him, then. He has a lawyer?”

  I nodded while mentally counting the hours since I had last left a message for Drew asking if Grandy was willing for me to visit. “I’m waiting to hear back.”

  “Is he local, the lawyer?”

  Again, I nodded, and Tony nodded in return. He was mirroring my movements, a classic method for putting the person you are talking with at ease. “Why do you ask?” I shifted in my chair, leaning one elbow and my upper body weight on the left armrest.

  He echoed my action by leaning to the right. I wondered why he felt he needed to win me to his side . . . in the split second before the waiter placed our wine upon the table. “If he didn’t have anyone, I could give you a couple of names,” he said, lifting one shoulder dismissively.

  “No, I mean, why does it matter that he’s local?”

  “The lawyers I could recommend wouldn’t be, that’s all.” He glanced at his phone, glanced back at me. “I’m starved. You ready to order?”

  We reviewed the menu, selected entrées, both of us agreeing to take a pass on the appetizer and go straight to the main course. With the order placed, it was an easy enough matter to get Tony talking about his marina project.

  As he spoke to me of slips and repair docks, tackle shop and restaurant, he sat straight, his eyes brightened, he smiled around every word, every gesture. Even when our food arrived, his posture didn’t change. He talked intensely of the years of planning, of seeing the old brickworks falling into ruin while taking vacation trips as a child with his family and dreaming of one day making something of the wreckage. When at last his management group had earned sufficient respect, he’d been able to attract investors, which put him on the path to achieving his dream.

  “I can’t tell you what it felt like,” he said, taking a break to gather some spaghetti on his fork. “The day they told me I had the financing was probably the best day of my life thus far.”

  The glow on his face told me he was reliving the moment a bit, once again feeling that combination of relief and euphoria present when a goal is achieved. I almost hated to bring him back to the present reality. Almost.

  “And then you had to face the Wenwood Town Council,” I said.

  He rested the fork on his plate. Sitting back in his seat, he shook his head while chewing. He turned his gaze to the window. “What a mess,” he said, reaching blindly for his wine.

  I knew the mess. I had a lawyer explain it to me. What I wanted was Tony’s opinion of it. “How so?” I asked.

  He nearly snorted on his way to a wry laugh. “You’d think the town would be happy to have a new business come in. Without something new, Wenwood is destined to become a ghost town.” He peered into his wineglass then set it away from him and reached for the water instead. “The marina will bring a whole new revenue stream to the town. New visitors. New residents. New life. And me . . . I should have known better.”

  The manicotti was the best I’d had in months, but I swallowed down the mouthful after barely a taste. I needed to keep him talking. “What do you mean?”

  He took a long drink of water. “Look, I knew the agreement was restrictive and basically over the top.”

  “The agreement?”

  Tony’s gaze bore into me as if he knew, as if someone had told him I’d visited Town Hall and gotten a copy of the agreement. “The list of requirements set down by the Town Council to ensure my project failed. Your friend Carrie brought it up the other night at the funeral parlor, in fact.”

  “Wait,” I said, “you think the town . . . what? Rigged the deal so you—”

  “So the marina would fail, yes.”

  “Well, that’s just crazy. Why would they do that?”

  He stabbed a fork into the spaghetti. “You tell me. You’re a resident. Or at least, related to one. You can probably explain the mentality better than I could. That crazy attachment to the brickworks, to the past. The resistance to moving forward. They’d rather let the town fade away than see it thrive again.”

  “I don’t think that’s so,” I said. “I think folks genuinely love the town and want to see it survive. The fact they granted you the right to rebuild the brickworks is a perfect example of that. They could have just refused your request or application or whatever it is you had to submit. But the Council came up with an agreement to help everyone benefit now instead of waiting any longer than it had to for your project to help local businesses get back on their feet, or stay on their feet.”

  Setting his fork down carefully, he leaned back and stroked a hand across his chin. “Maybe you’re right. I can’t think clearly about any of this anymore. Too involved. Too emotionally attached.”

  I sensed that was not the moment to push. I took a tiny bite of pasta, drawing out the quiet moment by chewing slowly. The busboy refilled the water glasses. The table of four beside us pushed back their chairs and departed.

  At length, Tony met my gaze again. “I’m an outsider here in Wenwood. My family comes from Connecticut, not Pace County. I went to college in Boston. That makes me the next best thing to a terrorist. I can’t even get served a decent cup of coffee in Wenwood.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’
s you.” I smiled. “I think that’s the water.”

  He smiled back, reluctantly it seemed. “That may be so, but it doesn’t negate the rest of it. The stares. The odd looks.”

  “Geez. You’re as paranoid as a teenage girl. You’re nothing special, Himmel. They look at everyone like that. Small town. Low on trust.”

  “I could handle all of that, okay? I’ve had tougher gauntlets to run. But Andy Edgers constantly hiking the lumber costs, that was the pinnacle. That’s where I drew the line.”

  Belatedly I recalled this was the information I wanted to ask him about. This was why I agreed to meet him. But . . . “What do you mean, constantly hiking?”

  “On an escalating basis.” He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair. Handing me a collection of folded papers, he said, “I brought these, just like you asked. You’ll see, the first order was slightly above market. The next slightly more so, and the one after that more so again.”

  “How much are we talking? What’s above market?” I riffled through the papers, Tony’s copy of the orders Andy sent to the national lumber giant. The numbers on Tony’s orders clearly did not match those on Andy’s.

  “Lumber is sold by piece or by square foot, that’s how the price is derived, right?”

  I nodded as if this was knowledge I had possessed my whole life.

  “I’m ordering by square foot. The first order goes in, Edgers is charging twenty cents above average. Okay, that’s maybe a variance in who he’s using to fill the order. But the next order is thirty-five cents above, and then sixty cents above. I don’t need to tell you that sixty cents is one thing if you’re looking at replacing a few beams and another if you’re rebuilding something the size of a factory.”

  “No, you don’t,” I put in.

  “That’s what led to the argument you witnessed at the hardware store.”

  “And did not tell the police about.”

  He flashed a quick grin. “And did not tell the police about. I couldn’t have Andy Edgers overcharging me anymore. If it was a matter of finding another supplier, he’d have to find one. He said that the price he was giving me was the best price he could get. That’s a crock. I could pick up the phone now and call six guys that will give me a better price.”

  “How did that argument end anyway? The one you were having that day?”

  “You mean after I told him he ought to treat his customers better?” He winked.

  Holy crap, he actually winked! How was I supposed to focus on price gouging when Mr. Blue Eyes and Broad Shoulders winked at me? I distracted myself by folding up the order sheets and passing them back. He set them underneath the phone, still on the table.

  “I left the store,” Tony said. “I got back in my car and put in a call to the Town Council’s emergency number.”

  “What did they say?”

  He lifted his water glass, swirled the contents until the ice cubes clinked against the glass. “Please leave a message.” After a healthy swallow he set the glass down. “I never got a call back. But I figured with Andy’s passing, the timing wasn’t right to pursue a complaint or suggest renegotiating the agreement.”

  “And now it doesn’t matter, right? You can order your supplies from anywhere.”

  A tip of his head showed his agreement. “The hardware and lumber, yes. Please don’t mistake me. I’m sorry about what happened to Andy. And I’m trying to balance that regret with the relief that I can resume construction. It’s tough.”

  He didn’t deny what he couldn’t. He was free to purchase hardware from any source he chose. Tragic as Andy Edgers’s death was, it was also a boon for Tony Himmel.

  Watching him as our dinner plates were cleared away, his easy posture, his half smile, I tried on the idea that in his determination to get his project back on track, he had killed Andy Edgers. It didn’t fit comfortably.

  But what did I know, really, about reading men? The man I had once planned to share the rest of my life with had turned out to be a man I would not want to share my Tic Tacs with. Who was to say I couldn’t sit across a table from a murderer and think him a gentleman?

  Because the fact remained, someone in Wenwood had murdered Andy Edgers. The polite little town was home to a killer. He—or she—could be anyone.

  Anyone.

  * * *

  I pulled the Jeep into the closest parking spot I could find. The lot in front of the dine-in was reassuringly full. At least for one night it looked like people weren’t opposed to patronizing Grandy’s place of business.

  Flip-flops scuffing against blacktop as I walked, I tucked the keys in my purse and crossed the lot. With each step I tried to force down the recent memory of dinner with Tony and the uncomfortable questions it raised. I couldn’t believe he had killed Andy Edgers. Or did I not want to believe it because a little tingle of attraction raced through my veins at the remembrance of his smile? But certainly I wasn’t the best judge of a man’s character . . . except for Grandy. I had no doubt about the quality of Grandy’s character. Some other folks appeared to need convincing.

  On the sidewalk in front of the entrance, I paused. The lobby doors would rattle in their frame when I tugged one open. Staff members would know I’d arrived. Not that my presence was a secret. More that, having arrived at my destination, I worried about the wisdom of my plan. Sure it all sounded good in my head after I’d said good night to Tony—and tried to identify whether I was relieved or disappointed there was no parting kiss—but now that the moment was upon me . . .

  Drat it. Grandy, who had never denied me love and support and desserts, was sitting in jail, and I doubted the decision to try and find out why his head cook just happened to visit Edgers Hardware.

  With a disgusted huff at my own spineless streak, I yanked open the lobby door and tried not to wince at the rattle of the glass in its frame.

  I bypassed the empty ticket booth and was halfway to the refreshment counter before the clerk behind it turned and saw me.

  “The movie’s already started,” she said, sliding open the front of a napkin dispenser. She had a paper-wrapped package of napkins within reach, ready to refill the dispenser so the next night’s clerk was ready for an opening rush. Grandy had trained her well. Or someone had.

  I continued toward her. “I’m here to see Matthew,” I said. “Is he still in the back?”

  Her eye roll would have put a varsity cheerleader to shame. “You can check.”

  She could also have poked her head through the door at the back of the counter and looked for herself, but I let that one slide, fairly certain I was better with an element of surprise. But as I continued through the lobby then through the doors to the theater proper, I revised my opinion of her being well trained and determined someone other than Grandy had taught her.

  Through the doors and along the short hallway to the kitchen, the swelling sound of James Bond’s theme music expanding behind me from the theater alerted the previously quiet butterflies residing in my stomach that something dangerous was afoot.

  I stopped at the swinging door to the kitchen and peered through the circular inset window. As I’d hoped, Matthew had yet to go home. Once again, though, I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  Shoulder to the door, I pushed into the kitchen. A unique aroma wafted on the air, putting me slightly off balance mentally. Where the scent of fried onions and grilled burgers should fill the room, instead the fragrance was a mix of something sweet and savory, something familiar. Despite my recent meal, my mouth watered. And my eyes locked on to the plate Matthew held.

  He stood at the aluminum prep table in the center of the kitchen. His brother—Grandy’s assistant manager, Craig—stood beside him, chewing . . . until he spotted me. A mix of annoyance, and curiosity, created wrinkles in his forehead.

  “I’m Georgia Kelly,” I said. “We’ve
spoken on the phone.”

  Understanding lit his eyes. He nodded and resumed rapid chewing, while checking the integrity of the knot of his tie. Moving toward me, hand outstretched so I could shake it, he swallowed loudly. “Craig Meadows. How’s Pete?”

  I shook his hand, cut my gaze to his brother. “Stubborn as ever,” I said.

  Matthew lifted the plate from the prep table and turned his back on me, but not before I caught the scowl that creased his face.

  “What have you got there?” I asked. “Smells good.” I hoped the complimentary-acting-friendly approach would keep things low-key. If Matthew really had been the one to kill Andy Edgers, probably best not to get him riled up.

  “Mud pies,” he growled over his shoulder, “from my own garden.”

  Craig grinned, clueless. “He’s kidding. That was a little pulled pork. We served mac and cheese wedges earlier.”

  “Craig,” Matthew snapped.

  I didn’t know which required explanation first, what a mac and cheese wedge was or . . . “What do you mean, served? Does that mean you were off menu?”

  Matthew huffed and turned to face us. “No, served as in handed legal papers. What do you think it means?”

  The first question that sprang to mind was the next thing to fall out of my mouth. “Does Pete know about this?”

  “See? I told you,” Matthew snapped, eyes on Craig. “No way can I change so much as a pinch of salt without Pete Keene’s approval. And no way is that approval ever going to come. As long as he runs this place—”

  “Now, now, now . . .” Craig held up a hand.

  Matthew turned his anger on me. “What, did someone call you? Do you have spies? Or are you psychic or something?” He moved to step toward me, but banged a hip against the prep table, setting the aluminum clattering. I flinched at the noise, jumped back, hopefully out of his reach.

  “Look, I only came by to ask, um, by any chance . . .”

  Matthew opened his eyes wide, inclined his head toward me as though impatient to hear what I had to say.