Dyeing Wishes

by Molly Macrae

  The emphasis he put on “fishing” was more than I could bear. “I’d like to go home now,” I said loudly, possibly close to hysterically, and I started to stand up in the canoe.

  “Whoa, there,” Joe said calmly, and he held a hand out to me.

  “Yeah, watch yourself,” Clod said. “I don’t need you falling in and muddying up the waters.”

  They hadn’t taken Lyle out of the river yet, and the thought of tipping and falling in anywhere near him had me sitting back down. With my hand clamped over my mouth again. I shook my head at Joe, and he dropped his hand.

  “I didn’t see anything,” he said to Clod. “It’d be hard to know what to look for, though.”

  “Of course, there’s the bridge on Arnold Road,” Clod said.

  “And a few others farther up. Any idea how long or how far he…”

  Clod shook his head. “Not even a day, but that’s only a guess. How far, hard to say. So how’s this Furches woman tied up with Lyle? What do you know about her?”

  “I told you about her, night before last,” I said taking my hand from my mouth again. I wished he wouldn’t look at me that way. It always made me say things I should regret. Should. Didn’t. Who gives a flip? My own contribution to Zen philosophy. “She’s one of the journalism students who’s been nosing around. Maybe you don’t remember because it was so very long ago, but the other one broke into Debbie’s workshop night before last. Holy cow, what if in all their nosing they found something incriminating against Eric Lyle and he found out? What if they confronted him? What if Sylvia or Pen is in the water, too…”

  At that not-necessarily-logical thought I was on my feet and pretty much leapt right over Joe to the bank. It might have been more of a scramble from the looks of Joe when I turned around and stared, horrified, back at the water. But Granny was right when she told me not turn my back on that river for a minute. I might never go near it again. Clod, as ever, was unimpressed by my deductive reasoning.

  “Okay, here’s what you two are going to do. You, Cupcake”—he jabbed a finger at me—“are pulling your nose out of this case. You’re leaving it alone. You’re letting the professionals handle it. You’re sitting on your butt with your knitting needles clacking and you are minding your own business. Am I clear? And you, Tonto”—he jabbed two fingers at Joe, and the fingers looked like a Moe Howard poke in the eye—“are taking her outta here and taking her home. Shorty will give you a lift back to your car. You can leave the canoe. I’ll make sure you get it back. And thanks for all your help.”

  Ooh, I could hear the drip, drip, dripping of sarcasm. I wanted to kick him.

  Joe started to take my arm. I yanked it away. Forget the sitting and the knitting. What I was going to do was go to the Cat, locate Debbie’s notes and Thea’s dossiers, and climb the stairs to the study, and somewhere in all that information, I was going to find the threads and shreds of evidence and clues we needed to solve three murders. And then that was exactly what TGIF and I were going to go out and do. And I just hoped we didn’t find any more bodies along the way.

  Joe and I didn’t talk much on the way back to town, either, until I asked him how he knew Sylvia. He thought about it far longer than seemed necessary, maybe wondering whether to answer. He did, though, and at first I didn’t see why he’d been reluctant.

  “We met in class.”

  “What class—wait, the journalism class?”

  He nodded, shrugged. “I thought it might be interesting.”

  “You aren’t the one who told those two to stop by the Cat, are you? Or how to get to Cloud Hollow?”

  “I never gave them the opportunity.”

  I could believe that. Quiet Joe, Journalist Burglar. “Huh. So, we know what their big project was. What’s yours?”

  “Already finished and turned in.”

  “Okay. Good. And what was it?”

  Only a slight hesitation. And a slight blush? “You read it,” he said.

  “I did?” I thought for a second. What…“Oh my gosh. You’re Otterbank.”

  Joe wouldn’t say any more about the interview or Aaron Carlin, except to say he was protecting his source. I didn’t point out that he’d named his source, because naming Aaron Carlin and telling how to find him were two different things.

  I asked him to say hi to Aaron for me next time he saw him, though, and then we were back in town and I said he could just drop me at the courthouse. I waited until he drove away before walking to the Cat. I wasn’t sure why I waited. He could have figured out where I went easily enough. But I was feeling secretive and decided not to worry about why.

  I spent the evening in the study, cell phone off, avoiding Spiveys and the rest of the world, and reading through Debbie’s notes and Thea’s dossiers. It was better than thinking about Eric Lyle and wondering about Sylvia and Pen. It took less and more time than I thought. More because there were inconsequential details that had to be read and considered before setting them aside and moving on. Less because Geneva insisted on doing her share. If I flipped the pages for her. And if she could read the dossiers, because she found Debbie’s handwriting too flowery for her taste.

  When she finally settled down to read, we made progress. Although she did insist on saying “ping” every time she wanted me to turn a page, and the cat insisted on sprawling in the middle of the desk so I had to reach around him to turn her pages.

  Debbie’s notes were more personal than I’d expected. That made me glad Geneva insisted on reading the dossiers. It wouldn’t have felt right turning the notes over to someone else, even if that someone else couldn’t spread gossip. The notes went on for pages, stream-of-consciousness memories flowing in a cathartic cascade. I hoped it was cathartic, anyway. Parts of them were confessional, too. Will and Debbie’s late husband had been good friends. She believed he was innocent of the death in the river. He had occasionally slunk by the farm for a meal or a night out of the coldest winter weather, which he would spend in the roughly finished attic space above her dye kitchen. The notes showed her conflicted honesty, too. She was telling me, she wrote, but she’d lied to Cole Dunbar about Will’s visits. That made me stop reading and try to stop thinking.

  “Ping.”

  It was getting late. I was hungry and wanted to go home—not just home, but home-home to Illinois and my organized life that didn’t exist anymore.

  “Ping-ping-ping.”

  I turned Geneva’s page and mine and continued reading.

  The rest of the notes only confirmed that Debbie was as confused as I thought. She really didn’t get it, didn’t see that it mattered whether she’d loved Will Embree, because she’d made sure he never knew. And with this glimpse into her honest, steady mind I could maybe understand why she didn’t think it mattered. She used the analogy of dyeing—something that made sense to her. She knew that Will loved Shannon—they were a true, clear color. She knew that if she allowed her own feelings for Will to show, they would introduce another element into the dye bath that would taint and muddy everything that followed. I raked my fingers through my hair. I needed to do something. But what? What was I supposed to do with all this?

  Geneva provided the answer.

  “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” she said. “Is that something people say in real life?”

  “Not much. Why are you saying it?”

  “Or only on I Love Lucy?”

  “Geneva, did you find something?”

  “Not much. There’s just something here that I forgot the adorable twins mentioned when they said they were about to crack the case.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t snap at me. I’m being extremely helpful.”

  “I wasn’t snapping. I was being focused. So will you please focus and tell me what the Spiveys mentioned?”

  “The little hideaway cabin.”

  “Oh,” I said, working hard not to focus to the point of snapping. “What cabin is that and what did they say about it?”

  “It sounds darli
ng, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure. Darling.”

  “I thought so, too. The twins said it belonged to Shannon’s granny’s family, and according to this note it’s on several acres the family kept after selling the rest for oodles of money to a paper company. And the Spiveys said it belongs to Shannon’s mama now, but Shannon and her friends go there more often than her mama because her mama is such a hoity-toity, tooty-fruity, high-falutin city girl. That sounds like a song, doesn’t it?”

  I rubbed the cat between his ears, using his head as a furry worry stone. It helped. He purred and that helped, too. “You heard the Spiveys say all that?”

  “Are you doubting my excellent memory?”

  I rubbed the cat harder. He purred harder. Such a good animal. “I’m not doubting you. This sounds like important information, though.”

  “I think so, too,” she said. “That’s why I told you as soon as I remembered.”

  “And I’m glad you did. Did the Spiveys mention how they know about the cabin?”

  “The snooty one, Carolyn Proffitt, told them. She was looking for you and they told her they assist you in all your cases.”

  “Mm-hmm.” And that shed light on Carolyn’s “I had you figured wrong” remark. If she knew anything about the Spiveys and if she now believed the Spiveys and I were sleuthing pals, then she couldn’t help but think I was wrong top to bottom and inside and out to boot.

  Word came the next morning that Eric Lyle had died by drowning in the Little Buck River. Ardis and I heard it from the first customer to jingle the camel bells on the Cat’s door and almost every customer that came after. Lyle had sustained two head injuries, either of which might have occurred from falling or jumping in the river and landing on a rock. There were plenty of rocks in the Little Buck, and as Joe and Clod had discussed, there were numerous places from which to fall or jump. Secondary to news of Lyle’s death came a report that Sylvia Furches was missing.

  “It’s a sorry way to go, however it happened,” Ardis said, shaking her head over Lyle’s death. “And I am so sorry you had to be the one to find him. I’m glad Joe was there.”

  I nodded.

  “And Lyle is somehow connected to this woman’s disappearance?”

  “He has to be. Her scarf…”

  “Do you think he went in the river on purpose, then? Took the coward’s way out?”

  I was about to say that although I didn’t know what to think, I intended to find out, when Debbie called. Ardis answered, and her end of the conversation started out sounding positive enough.

  “Hon,” she said to Debbie, “it looks like things are about to be over, maybe not in a way that’s to everybody’s liking, but you’ve held on and handled yourself real well.”

  I couldn’t hear Debbie’s end, but it played out on Ardis’ face in a way that was obviously not so positive. She filled me in after she disconnected.

  “The police are working their way up the river from where the body was found,” she said, “looking for the point of entry. That’s what they’re calling it, ‘the point of entry.’ But Debbie said she overheard one of them also say they’re looking for a crime scene.”

  “In case he was pushed, so of course they’re looking at Cloud Hollow.”

  “Bite your tongue,” she snapped.

  “I don’t believe Debbie…”

  “Oh, hon, I’m sorry. I know you don’t.” She picked up a copy of the pattern for the argyle vest the mannequin still wore and started fanning herself with it. She fanned with such frenzy that, if she could have, she would have blown Debbie’s troubles out the door and out of sight.

  “But you see how it doesn’t look good, don’t you?” I asked. “When you look at it from their point of view—starting with Will and Shannon? And Debbie was the one who wanted to have the dye workshop yesterday and then she suddenly canceled.”

  “But now they’ve found Eric Lyle,” Ardis said, almost pleading, “and you know he had more to do with all this than Debbie, and she would have no reason to kill him. Oh my Lord, I can’t believe we’re even saying these things.”

  “But you see how the police have to look at it. It doesn’t mean they’re only looking at Debbie, but that’s where Will and Shannon were found and they found Eric in the river below Cloud Hollow. And Debbie did catch Pen Ledford out there. And now they need to find Sylvia.”

  Ardis moaned almost as well as Geneva.

  “What else did Debbie say?” I asked. “Anything hopeful?”

  “She has an appointment with a good lawyer.”

  “That sounds like a punch line.”

  “To an appalling joke. Kath, hon, you need to call the posse together. Things are happening too fast and you can’t wait until Friday for a meeting.”

  “No. You’re right.”

  “So tell me what you’re thinking. I can read the concentration in your eyes only so far and your mind not at all.”

  Thank goodness for small favors. “Okay.” I bounced a pencil on the counter. Ardis reached over and took it away. I put my hands flat on the counter. “Okay. Suspects. I’m thinking about suspects.”

  “The plural is good there, hon. My heart needs the emphasis somewhere other than Debbie.”

  “And that’s what we’ll do. Look somewhere else. The police will be putting enough effort into sifting over Cloud Hollow—and Debbie. We’ll look at Sylvia. The police will be looking at her, too, but—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ardis said.

  “No.” Because we had to do something. “So here are my questions. Is Sylvia dead? Did Eric Lyle kill her? Is that why he had her beautiful scarf in his pocket when he died? Or did she kill him? Do you think that’s a stretch?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “That’s why we’re investigating. And the Ledford woman—she was capable of breaking into Debbie’s dye kitchen.”

  “Murder is kind of a stretch from that, though.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Okay. Then I think we start with the information Thea dug up on Sylvia and Pen. And we find Pen Ledford and talk to her.”

  “We make her talk.”

  A vision of Mel and Thea holding Pen while Ardis made her talk swam through my head. Ernestine and John would stand at the ready, brandishing knitting needles. Another vision jumped in with Pen holding all of them at gunpoint. “Being very careful.”

  “Of course, hon.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Whyever wouldn’t we be?”

  Whyever indeed, considering what I was planning to do. “I’d like to leave that in your hands, then. I’ve got—”

  “Another lead?”

  “Maybe, but—”

  “Ah, it’s sensitive.” She nodded.

  “Can you handle the shop alone later this afternoon?”

  “With my hands tied behind my back.”

  “Thanks. But please don’t say things like that.”

  That left convincing Geneva to go for a drive with me. She was in the study listening to the “episode” of Still Life I’d started for her. I paused the recording, which annoyed her, but she didn’t need much persuasion when she heard the plan.

  “How would you like to come with me to find the darling hideaway cabin?” I asked.

  “Can we leave immediately?”

  “We’ll wait until three or four.”

  “Ohhhhh…”

  “Please don’t whine or moan.”

  “Well, then I call shotgun.”

  Her choice of words almost made me reconsider.

  As we drove out of town and up the winding river road, I ignored the tiny voice of wisdom in my head telling me I should let Ardis know where I was going. I also ignored the “why” behind that decision. I told myself I was simply treating my friend the ghost to an outing. And while we were out, and because I felt the need to be doing something, I would take the opportunity to clear up a possibility—that Will Embree had been staying in that hideaway cabin as Shannon’s guest. What that would prove, I didn’t know, exc
ept maybe that Shannon did return Will’s love. And that Debbie was right, that the color of their love ran clear and unmuddied.

  Geneva floated in the passenger seat and hummed. Her tune was familiar, but I couldn’t name it. I was just happy she was droning something other than her usual dirge-like lullaby about murk gathering in a glen. And although she managed to turn most tunes into mournful ditties, this one was cheerful, almost jaunty. Then she sang a few bars.

  “‘Help me, help me, help,’ he said,

  “‘Or the hunter will shoot me dead.

  “‘Little rabbit come inside, safely to abide.’”

  It was “Little Cabin in the Woods,” an old campfire song. It was the worst kind of old campfire song, too, because it wouldn’t make any difference if I asked her to stop and hum something else. The damage was done. “Help me, help me, help” was stuck in my head.

  Chapter 28

  The little cabin was in the woods, farther up the river than I’d ever been. We’d slowed at each of the few-and-far-between mailboxes, Geneva singing out the names and me trying not to sing about the hunter shooting me dead. We found the right name on a mailbox marking a gravel drive winding into the woods on the river side of the road.

  “What do we do now?” Geneva whispered as I hesitated before making the turn. “Ditch the car and creep in on foot?”

  “No. We drive in. If no one’s here, we get out. If someone is here, we act like we got lost, we turn around, and we drive out.”

  I made the turn and we crept in on wheels.

  “Or,” Geneva said, “if anyone’s here, we can say we’re plainclothes police and we can grill them.”

  “That’s probably not a good idea.”

  “But then I can be the bad cop and I’m so good at that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re no fun…Oh, will you just look at that darling hideaway cabin!”

  It was very cute—a modern log cabin, probably built from a prefab kit, with a deep front porch and a green tin roof. It was a life-size Lincoln Logs house sitting on a rise in a clearing. What I liked best about the place was the absence of cars.