by Molly Macrae
“Hmm?” I held up the string of deputies I’d cut, refolded them, snipped off their heads, and smiled at him. “Was there something else?”
“The library has old newspapers on microfilm and the historical society has a photograph archive. The archive is open by appointment. You’ll find the number in the phone book.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
He touched the fingertips of his right hand to the brim of his Smokey Bear hat, which he cloddishly hadn’t removed when he came in, and left. Debbie gazed after him, her head atilt, her eyes soft and moony.
“I don’t think he was trying to insult you when he called you Nancy Drew,” she said. “He probably isn’t allowed to share information about ongoing investigations with civilians. I’ve always thought he was kind of cute. And don’t you think what he said about the shop keeping you off the streets was funny and sweet?”
Debbie and Clod? I pegged him for early forties and she was early thirties. But why not? I decided I liked her better when she was egging me on to beat the cops at their own game, though. And did I think he was cute, funny, and sweet? No, I thought he was insufferable and his sweet aspersion sounded like a challenge.
Granddaddy had made the TGIF workroom by removing the wall between the two back bedrooms on the second floor of the Weaver’s Cat. He’d sanded the wide-plank floors and filled one wall with built-in bookshelves. Over the years, under TGIF’s care, a hodgepodge of Welsh cupboards grew along the other walls as storage space for materials was needed. Sturdy oak tables for projects took up most of the floor, but room was always kept at one end for a circle of comfy chairs. They were mismatched and well used.
TGIF, as a whole, met on the second Tuesday evening of each month. Those meetings consisted of a hospitality half hour and a short business meeting followed by a program of general interest. Throughout the programs, members worked on whatever portable projects they brought with them. They knit, crocheted, spun, tatted—anything they could do quietly with fibers while they listened to presentations on everything from the ancient art of nålebinding to the techniques judges use to grade raw wool to the care and feeding of silkworms. Once, when I was down visiting Granny, I’d done a program for them on how to safely clean and properly store antique unmentionables. I demonstrated on a pair of crotchless pantaloons, always a crowd-pleaser.
The membership of TGIF also divided itself into half a dozen or so special interest groups that met on various weekly schedules. There were the Wild Wednesday Weavers, the Saturday Spinners, Friday Fast and Furious, and other less alliterative offshoots. Friday Fast and Furious was a group devoted to challenges and community service. Their goal that year was to knit or crochet one thousand sweet little hats and donate them to the county hospital for newborns and hospitalized infants. That meant, because we averaged seven active members per meeting, that we should each produce a hat every 2.92 days. I was the slacker of the group.
Friday Fast and Furious didn’t limit their community service to fiber and textile arts, though. They were the group Ardis had encouraged me to ask for help untangling the mysteries I encountered when Granny died. The members of Friday Fast and Furious were the posse, although I still shied away from thinking of them as my posse, with me as the intrepid leader of the pack.
“Good, here’s the horse’s mouth now,” Mel said as I joined them that afternoon. Her mustard spikes looked electrified.
“Nice to see you, too, Mel. Hi, Ernestine, Thea.”
Thea, straight from the library, and Ernestine, her thick lenses polished to a gleam, were already sitting, needles flashing. They nodded and smiled. I took the flowered wingback across the circle from Mel and irritated her by fussing with my needles and rosy pink wool, then putting them down and getting up to help myself to a cup of coconut tea and a scone from the plate and carafe she’d brought with her from the café. One of them had put a CD in the communal boom box—instrumental bossa nova, which was surprisingly good knitting music, accommodating both the fast and the snail-paced. It was less stressful for me, anyway, than the crescendo of the William Tell Overture, which invariably left me panting and looking for stitches that had galloped off into the sunset.
“Is Joe here?” Ernestine asked, peering around in case she’d missed him or mistaken him for something else.
Debbie came in and sat next to Ernestine. While Ardis and I took turns minding the shop or attending Fast and Furious, Debbie never missed a meeting if she could help it, even though she had Friday afternoons off and could have headed home. She said that as much as she loved the farm and wouldn’t think of giving it up to live in town, and as much as she loved her animals and thought they were more intelligent than some people she knew, the sheep never had gotten the hang of pulling up chairs and settling in for a good, long chat. She made herself comfortable and picked up the thread of conversation.
“Did I hear you asking about Joe?” she asked Ernestine. “I talked to him in the kitchen a few minutes ago. I thought he said he’d be here. But then I saw him getting in his truck, so I guess not.”
“Did you tell him Cole was looking for him?” I asked.
She pulled three sky blue hats from her workbag and added them to the week’s collection. “Yeah, I did. Maybe that’s where he’s gone.”
Or maybe that was why he was gone. I hid a smile in a bite of scone. “Mmm, what is this, Mel?”
“Pear ginger.” Mel was putting the finishing touches on a tangerine-colored hat. She’d previously contributed cherry-, lemon-, blueberry-, and plum-colored hats and a dozen green ones in shades ranging from iceberg lettuce to curly endive. “What’s the plan?” she asked.
I put my tea and scone down and didn’t pick up my knitting. “Following threads. I’ve been collecting a few, pulling them from here and there. Some of them aren’t so easy to tug. Some of them are twisted.”
“Murder is twisted,” Ernestine said.
“And we’re going to untwist it.”
Thea sat back, looking pleased. “Watch out, Blue Plum plods, the game’s already afoot and my money’s on Kath.”
“Except?” Mel asked. She was the only one watching my face. “Spill it, sister. We’re all friends here.”
“I want to be sure about something, about what Thea just said. Are we treating this like a game? Because if we are, then that isn’t right. Thea, I don’t mean that as a criticism. But we can’t be gleeful. I keep thinking of Bonny out there in Debbie’s field telling us that her daughter deserves respect. You agreed with her then and you were right. She does. They both do, so this can’t be a game, but are we making it into one?”
“Long-winded,” Mel said, “but a fair question.”
“And here’s the answer,” Thea said. “I never said I think it’s a game. That was only me Thea-fying a classic quote. It was only that and my natural buoyancy, and I haven’t tried to rein that in for years and I’m not about to start pulling the reins now. But I’m not laughing at what happened and I don’t take it lightly.”
“Okay,” I said. “Good. That’s what I thought. I just wanted to be sure.”
The background chatter of needles was comforting. How they all kept knitting through gossip or drama was literally beyond me. My knitting skill wasn’t nearly the caliber of the rest of the Fast and Furious. I left my needles on the arm of the chair, not wanting an unplanned hole showing up in my rosy hat, and not sure what reactions my next questions would bring. Or, come to think of it, how Geneva would critique my technique in asking them. I glanced around for her. She usually enjoyed Friday Fast and Furious. But she wasn’t anywhere that I could see.
“Focus,” Mel said.
“Sorry. Okay.” But I’d been worried about her since she’d disappeared after describing the horrible murder scene that was still so vivid to her. Mel was right, though. Focus. “Okay. Do any of you think we ought to talk about what happened last time?”
Needles clicked industriously. The others looked at me, at one another. Debbie didn’t. She studied her stitc
hes. Then she asked quietly, “Or what almost happened to us? I told Cole Dunbar you should be arrested for endangerment.”
She had. Thank goodness Clod knew how to identify the real bad guy in a tense situation. But if Debbie still thought the accusation stood, I had to wonder why she was so keen now for me to lead them off into who knew where or what.
Rather than answer her, I took a sip of tea and waited.
“Ernestine says that what you really did was save us,” Debbie said.
“But?” I definitely sensed a “but” in there.
“But there is no end to the season of mourning,” Ernestine said.
“No,” Thea agreed, “but it doesn’t have to stop us from moving forward.”
“And we can’t let anyone get away with murder,” Debbie said.
Ernestine reached over and patted Debbie’s hand, then went back to knitting.
There were more nods, mine included.
“Right.” I nodded again, hoping that would somehow make what I said next easier for Debbie to hear. “One of the threads I’ve been following, the first one, in fact, is this: Is anyone getting away with murder in this case?”
The soft clicking of needles continued. Except for Debbie’s.
“We need to follow all the threads, tug on all of them,” I said to her. “See where they go. Keep an open mind. Not just look for evidence that supports the way we want the story to play out. And we need to be prepared for some of the threads to lead to unpleasant surprises.”
“Or danger,” Ernestine said, eyes bright and wide behind her thick lenses.
“Danger?” Ardis appeared, puffing, in the doorway. She propped herself with a hand against the jamb, catching her breath from climbing the stairs too fast. “You know what I say to the measly concern of danger?”
“Been there, done that?” Thea asked.
“Too trite,” Ardis said. “This is better. We are women who have stared down the barrel of a gun.”
“Exactly,” Ernestine said with great satisfaction. “Exactly.”
“And sometimes the danger is in the complications,” Ardis said. “Cole Dunbar is downstairs looking stern and starched. He says he needs to speak with Debbie and I don’t think he’s planning to discuss dyed-in-the-wool color palettes.”
Chapter 13
Ardis had sent Clod on a wild-goose chase to the basement, taking pleasure in telling him Debbie might be down there weighing walnut hulls or onion skins. She said the effort it cost him to keep his forehead from wrinkling and his jaw from slackening and a “say what?” from slipping out of his prissy mouth was well worth her puff up the stairs.
“But what do you think he wants?” Debbie’s voice immediately sounded ten years younger. Her eyes were huge, their sleepless shadows standing out on her pale face. How had I failed to notice how fragile she’d grown since Monday?
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll go with you and we’ll find out.”
Before we reached the workroom door I heard Ardis say, “She’s Ivy all over again, isn’t she?”
Thea answered with an unrestrained “Yee-haw,” and I couldn’t help wondering how soon I’d regret the impulse that made me hop up out of my comfortable chair to act as shield or sword. It turned out to be as soon as I saw Clod Dunbar standing at the top of the stairs, arms crossed and unamused. Apparently he hadn’t enjoyed his detour to the basement.
He wasn’t happy, but he did have a smidgen of humor. He nodded toward the TGIF workroom. “Sounds more like a rodeo in there than your frantic and flabbergasted knitting circle or whatever you call it. Ms. Keith, I need to speak with you. Is there a private space, an office or some such, that we can use?”
Debbie looked at me, at Clod, and back at me but said nothing.
“May I ask why you need to speak with Ms. Keith now? You were here earlier. You couldn’t speak to her then?” I kept my voice light, low, even, and as far from strident or demanding as possible.
“I know what you’re up to, Ms. Rutledge,” Clod said. He also went for low and even, but his delivery was marred by the look of long-suffering on his face.
“Then you’re one up on me, Deputy,” I said, upping my ante by adding friendly and familiar to my tone.
“I sincerely hope I am, although I will not count on staying that way. Ms. Keith,” he said, turning to Debbie, “I have one or two questions I need to ask you. I assure you I will be civil and there is no need for Ms. Rutledge to accompany you in whatever capacity she thinks she’s acting.”
Ardis popped back out of the workroom, having most likely been just inside listening. “The study will work, don’t you think, Kath?” she asked. “You girls go on and take Coleridge up there. There really isn’t any other space where you can be sure you won’t be interrupted. Now, if you will kindly move aside, Coleridge, I have a business to run downstairs and I can’t stop here and chat with you any longer.”
She made a shooing gesture that Clod obeyed with a polite nod but wary eyes. Ardis, in addition to matching his height and breadth, had been both his third-and fourth-grade teacher. According to her, that experience permanently imprinted itself on his psyche to her benefit. At least while she was present and looming.
“Thanks, Ardis. Come on,” I said to Clod and Debbie, “The study’s a good solution. I’ll take you up.”
“That’s kind of you, Ms. Rutledge,” Clod said, “but I’m sure we can find the way ourselves. Your expert guide skills won’t be necessary.”
“Maybe not my skills, but my key if the door is locked.” I brushed past him and trotted up the stairs. The cat met me at the top in the open, as always, doorway.
“Meow.”
“Hello, you.” I rubbed the cat between his soft ears, delighting in his answering purr. What a sweetheart. He twined around my ankles, wrapping me further around his little paw, and chirruped at Debbie coming up the stairs behind me.
“He prefers it when you call him by his name,” a lugubrious and colorless voice sighed from somewhere in the study. It was an interesting ghost phenomenon that the sounds Geneva made gave me only a general direction for her but usually not an exact location. I was glad to hear her, though, even if she was complaining. Again.
“You were unbelievably rude about calling him Dirty Harry,” she lamented, “so I thought you could try calling him Sergeant Friday instead. It might inspire you.”
“I thought you said the door was locked,” Clod said almost on top of her moan.
I was able to answer them simultaneously. “Oh no, really, I don’t think so.” Then, for Clod’s benefit, “I’m pretty sure I said if, Deputy. If the door was locked. And isn’t it super that we found it open? I’ll just get the light for you and clear these piles off the chairs and you can make yourselves comfortable. Debbie, honey, you come sit in Granny’s rocker.”
Geneva huddled in a corner of the window seat doing her best impression of a damp dishrag. She didn’t say anything more to me, not even a muffled “hmpf,” and I couldn’t tell if she noticed when the three of us crowded into the room or if she registered my proximity when I pretended to look out the dormer behind her.
“Ms. Rutledge?” Clod said.
Geneva’s silence and the fact that she didn’t lift her head to stare with woeful eyes were definite measures of her despondence. She usually showed at least some curiosity in visitors, but even when the cat leapt into the window seat and mewed at her she didn’t answer, and I saw no ripple of recognition or interest.
“Ms. Rutledge,” Clod said as though he thought I hadn’t been paying attention for some time. “I am talking to you.”
“You don’t need to shout, Deputy. I’m right beside you.”
“And you don’t need to do anything else useless for us. Thank you for showing us how to climb the stairs and enter an open doorway. Please close the door behind you; then go back down the stairs and do not linger near the keyhole.”
“I wouldn’t dream of trying to listen in, and I won’t take offense at that remark, eithe
r. I’m sure your manners are overburdened by the stress of your investigation. Eavesdrop on your conversation? Good heavens, no. There’s not a ghost of a chance that I would do any such thing. Perhaps someone might do that,” I said, speaking toward the window seat, over my shoulder, as I headed for the door, “but no, not I.”
Clod, being the essential clod he was, slammed the door behind me.
“Evicted?” Ernestine clucked sympathetically when I returned to the TGIF workroom.
“That’s okay,” Thea said. “We’ll make Debbie tell us what happens. That’s what friends are for.”
“That’s what tunnel of fudge cake is for, too,” Mel said, “bribery. If Debbie doesn’t talk, I’ll whiff one of those babies under her nose until she gives in.”
“Good idea, Mel.” I dropped back into the flowered wingback, confident in my backup plan. If Debbie felt bound by conscience or misplaced loyalty to the authorities, I felt sure my fly on the wall would have listened in and would be eager to tell me all.
“So, Nancy,” Thea said, sitting forward, “what’s our next step?”
I picked up my knitting and gave her a look.
“Okay, okay,” she backtracked. “I missed the memo about no allusions to Nancy Drew. Completely understandable, though. The image is too immature. How do you feel about Miss Marple? Too long in the tooth for you? At least she knits.”
“Jane Marple is my favorite,” Ernestine said. “Next to V. I. Warshawski.”
The rosy pink preemie hat hanging off my needles was beginning to look more like a shower cap, and I saw that I was gripping the needle in my right hand as though it were a pencil waiting for inspiration. Poor little hat. I sighed and laid my knitting mess back down. “I’ll be right back.”
I went across the hall and came back wheeling the reversible whiteboard-corkboard we used for classes and demonstrations and now, for the second time, for organizing questions about a crime. The first time I’d used it for that purpose had been at Debbie’s suggestion.
I closed the door quietly—though tempted to slam it to show Clod two could play that game—and wheeled the board to a position the other three could see without craning their necks. Also into a position where I could flip it to the corkboard side when I heard Clod thumping back down the stairs. Ernestine took her glasses off, polished the lenses on her sleeve, put them back on, and peered at the board. I picked up the marker and put it back down.