by Molly Macrae
“That was very kind of you, Bonny.”
“As soon as she told me she had it, I went down and checked it out. It’s a beautiful book.”
“Thea told me about it. She put it on hold for me.”
“Well. That’s all right, then.” She’d run out of steam and sat back, the fingertips of her right hand still making tiny circles on her left sleeve, her eyes focused on the tabletop or nothing at all.
I’d touched that sweater when I held her in the field and been shocked by the violent hate that had overpowered her raw, deep sorrow. What would happen if I touched the sweater now? I was still feeling strong, feeling brave…I reached my hand toward her arm and…couldn’t bring myself to do it. I put my hands in my lap and started to tell her what I’d come to say.
“Bonny, you know how you asked me to look into what happened?”
“Mm.”
“I drove out to your cabin yesterday.”
“I’m selling it,” she said abruptly, still staring at the table.
“You are?”
“I can’t stand the thought of it anymore.” She looked up. “I can’t stand that it’s on that damned river. Can’t bear the idea of driving anywhere near where my baby died. Where her baby died. Where her fiancé died. I cannot bear it. Can you understand that?”
I nodded.
“Do you know what the sheriff’s people came and asked me yesterday evening? If Eric could’ve been hiding in the cabin. If maybe Shannon told him about it, gave him a key, and that’s where he was hiding. But I’ll tell you what I told them. If he was, then it was because he was scared out of his wits that he’d be blamed for killing her, and now he’s going to be blamed anyway because it’s convenient and he’s dead and he can’t answer anyone back. But I’m not making it easy for them. I told them they’d better get a search warrant.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Wow” fit, but it wasn’t appropriate. Telling her what we’d seen in the burn barrel didn’t seem appropriate, either, so I just nodded again.
“I’m selling it,” she repeated. “I never did like it. I’m sick to death of all of it.”
I thought back on waiting there for Geneva the day before, sitting on the steps, enjoying the woods. I’d told Clod it was pleasant and it was. What a shame. What a sad, bitter woman and what a shame she’d never liked it.
“When was the last time you were out there, Bonny? I bet it’s pretty along the edge of that clearing when the redbuds bloom.”
“I haven’t been.” She jerked her chair back and stood up, taking my water glass to the sink. “Not since before I left for Florida in January. And I don’t plan on going out there ever again. You couldn’t drag me out there. I’ll get someone to handle the sale for me and be shut of it all.”
Ardis was waiting behind the sales counter when we got back to the Cat. She looked solid, sane, and sensible. Out of place, too. It was Tuesday, one of Debbie’s mornings, and Ardis wasn’t due until noon. Did that mean the police had arrested…
“Ardis? What’s happened?”
“Debbie’s appointment with the good lawyer is this morning. I told her to take the day or several days if she needs them to get things sorted out. Oh, now, I didn’t mean to frighten you like that. Come on over here. A rough night, hon?”
“The night? No, the night was fine. It’s this morning.” I didn’t add what I wanted to—It’s this ghost. The ghost in question floated to the end of the counter, her nose in the air. We’d had words before leaving Bonny’s. Now Geneva was feeling miffed and I was feeling far from sane or sensible for having taken her with me on a delicate visit like that. I turned my back to her. “So Debbie’s going to be in good hands. We hope. That’s good and one less worry. Any news from Ernestine and John? Did they find Pen?”
Ardis held up a hand. “I promised you a full report and you will have it. But first, I want to hear about the lead you were following yesterday. I was so tied up with Daddy last night, I didn’t think to ask.”
I told her about the trip to the cabin, the ashes in the burn barrel, Cole Dunbar and Deputy Darla arriving.
“What on earth were you thinking going out there by yourself?”
“Don’t be angry. Except for losing my sunglasses, nothing really happened.”
“Angry? Jealous, more like. And angry, too. Don’t you go off being foolish like that and almost getting arrested again. Alone, anyway. And none of that gave you a rough night? So what’s happened this morning to leave you this way?”
“I went to see Bonny.”
“And missed a golden opportunity,” Geneva said with a sniff. She was sulking because I hadn’t gone along with the “brilliant plan” she’d suddenly dreamed up as we were about to leave Bonny’s. The “brilliant plan” consisted of me distracting Bonny while Geneva investigated every nook and cranny in the house to see if Pen Ledford was tied to a chair in a secret room or dungeon. I’d had to pull my phone out and say, “Please don’t” and “It makes no sense” and “Do not even think you’re going to do that.” I’d finally held the phone directly in front of my mouth, squeezing three years’ life out of it, looked straight into Geneva’s eyes, and shouted, “No!” Amazingly, she’d listened.
Of course Bonny had heard all that, too, and although I apologized for taking the disagreeable phone call in the first place, for overeager and insistent friends in the second place, and for shouting in the third, there was a new wariness in her eyes when she showed me to the door. Just before I went out, her wariness flashed to comprehension and she pointed at the phone still clutched in my hand.
“Spiveys?” she’d asked.
“Mm.” I felt bad letting the twins take the blame. But not that bad.
“For my money, Angie’s the only Spivey worth spit,” she said, mixing metaphors and surnames willy-nilly, Angie being a Spivey only by virtue of her mother’s maiden name. “Angie used to babysit Shannon. Had a real gentle way about her and Shannon thought the world of her.”
After we’d both shook our heads and clucked our tongues, Bonny shut the door behind me.
“Bless her heart,” Ardis said.
Geneva hmphed.
“But Pen Ledford, Ardis. What about Pen?”
Ardis suddenly looked proud enough to burst. “Found her. You’ll love this. Thea invented, named, and initiated a new search protocol. The Online Photographer’s Organizations, Societies, and Social Media Undercover Search. OPOSSUMS, she calls it, except the U is in the wrong place.”
“Ridiculous,” Geneva sniffed.
I had to agree with Geneva. “Sorry, Ardis, that’s um…”
Geneva was doing her sulking in a heap on the end of the counter. She acknowledged my comment with another sniff, but she sat up straighter.
“That’s all right, hon,” Ardis said. “I told Thea she should probably leave acronyms to you from now on. But the search worked. That’s what’s important. Thea identified half a dozen likely free online photography communities. She and I each joined three, and in between customers here and patrons at the library yesterday afternoon, we chatted online and asked around for Pen. Of course, first we tried her phone.”
“Don’t tell me it was that simple and all you had to do was call her.”
“Wouldn’t that have been a kick in the pants? No. She wasn’t answering. But we tracked her down online, found out where she is, and Ernestine and John hopped in the car and drove on down there to talk to her in person. And before you ask, I believe John drove.”
“Thank you.” I was surprised how relieved I was to hear Pen was alive. And that Ernestine hadn’t been driving.
“She’s lying low in Pulaski,” Ardis said.
“Really? Huh. It’s as good a place as any, I guess. But why? And how long has she been there? Is Sylvia there, too? Does she know Eric Lyle is dead?”
Someone near the door clapped in slow, sarcastic applause. I didn’t bother to look over to see whom or wonder how he came through the door without jingling the bell. Dunbars had a w
ay with doors.
“Good questions, Sherlock,” Clod said, “for which we might have better answers if meddlesome-minded citizens would butt out and leave the investigating to the professionals.”
Ardis made a furtive gesture suggesting she kick his butt out the door. I did want to see that, but I shook my head. She got a couple of verbal jabs in anyway.
“Hat, Coleridge.”
He removed his Smokey Bear hat.
“Now, tell me,” she said, “who found Pen Ledford first? You? Or did we do that?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” Clod drawled. “Y’all are supersonic. In fact, Shorty called me just now to say he’d pulled over a couple of your speed demons. You’ll be happy to know that John Berry and Ms. O’Dell will be attending traffic safety school sometime in the near future. Shorty stopped them on their way back from Pulaski. Apparently, they were perfectly happy to share with him what they learned there. Ms. Buchanan, I take it you have been in communication with Ms. O’Dell, although perhaps not in the last half hour? Would you like to fill in the details for Ms. Rutledge?”
“That’s all right, Coleridge. You go right ahead. I will be perfectly happy to correct you if you go wrong.”
“Thank you. Ms. Ledford has been in Pulaski at her brother’s since the early hours of Saturday morning, having driven straight there after her run-in with Hotshot One and Hotshot Two in that outbuilding at Ms. Keith’s.”
“Excuse me, Coleridge,” Ardis said. “Which of those hotshots are you identifying as Kath? One or two? Just so we’re clear.”
I didn’t wait for Clod’s opinion on that before jumping in. “Pen couldn’t have killed Eric, then, could she?”
“No.” Clod shook his head.
“Does she know where Sylvia is?”
“No.” Ardis and Clod looked at each other, having both answered that time. Clod scowled. Ardis smiled and waved for him to continue.
“This will all have to be verified by someone in authority, of course—”
“Oh, of course,” Ardis agreed.
“—but according to your supersleuth speedsters, Pen Ledford has not been in contact with Sylvia Furches. They are acquainted through the class project, not friends. Ms. Ledford did, however, hand Ms. O’Dell a file containing two-year-old newspaper clippings concerning the incident at Victory Paper. Ms. O’Dell turned that file over to Shorty, saying the Ledford woman claims she and Sylvia Furches were caught up in the thrill of investigative journalism, got carried away, and took the file from the library. Shorty will return it. And that,” Clod said, sounding particularly smug, “is all there is to say about that.” Then, in a brave show, he looked Ardis in the eye and clapped his hat back on his head.
“What? No!” I slapped my palms on the counter and leaned toward him. “That isn’t all. It can’t be. What about Sylvia? Where is she? We need to find her.”
“No, ma’am,” Clod snapped. “You don’t. Ms. Rutledge—Kath—I want you to think about something. About a couple of things. Shorty just stopped two senior citizens who had no business careening down the highway, endangering themselves and everyone else, and no business whatsoever involving themselves in a police investigation. And did you even stop to think about what could have happened if you’d blundered around that cabin yesterday and someone had been there? Someone dangerous? Eric Lyle?”
It wasn’t smart, but I had to say it. “In case you don’t remember, Eric Lyle is dead, so I was probably safe on that count. We found him before you did, too. Also Bonny’s cabin. Are you getting a search warrant for it?”
Clod’s starched face handled it well. He looked at me and only blinked once. “Believe it or not, Ms. Rutledge, I care about the people I come in contact with in the course of my duties. I do my job. I’m good at it. I will not be discussing the ongoing details of this case with you any further. You need to go back to what you’re good at. Go back to your”—he waved a hand at the shop—“hobby business.”
I was about to spit when Ardis put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you for your concern, Coleridge.”
He touched the brim of his hat and opened the door to leave. I should have taken that squeezed hint from Ardis and let it go, let him go, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Why?” I called after him.
He turned. “Why what?”
“Why did you interrupt your busy, professional-criminal-investigation-type day to drop by our hobby business?”
He stopped with his hand on the door and a smirk on his face. “Because I love a good cautionary tale. But let me be completely clear about its moral. You”—he aimed a finger at me for emphasis—“are no longer involved in this investigation.” He turned the finger to Ardis. “And neither are you.”
“Oh, goody,” Geneva said. “That leaves me.”
Chapter 30
After Clod’s warning, Ardis was unhappy all over again that I’d gone out to the cabin without her and without telling her. Geneva was unhappy I didn’t have an immediate assignment for her, our only operative not reprimanded or grounded by the authorities. I was unhappy I’d forgotten to get my sunglasses back from Clod. I was willing to bet he couldn’t keep them for evidence, anyway, having found them on private property without a search warrant.
Ardis accepted my apology for scaring her after the fact and we rebonded over insults to Clod and his disparaging description of the shop as a “hobby business.”
“He’s a flat-footed Philistine,” Ardis said.
“A career klutz,” I agreed.
“And most of us in TGIF are hampered by the fact we have these day jobs,” she said, “which Mr. High-and-Mighty Deputy Dunbar doesn’t. He can spend all his time investigating. I call that unfair advantage.”
Clod would probably argue that point, but I didn’t see any particular need to defend him.
“So what’s our next move?” Ardis asked.
“I’m not hampered by anything but your lack of imagination,” Geneva said. “Why don’t you assign me to tail someone? That would be a good move.”
“Speaking of tailing, I never found out from the Spiveys if they learned anything useful when they tailed Sylvia and Pen that first day,” I said. Apropos of nothing as far as Ardis was concerned.
She looked at me, sucked a tooth, and said, “Uh-huh.”
“Just thinking out loud,” I said. “You know, kind of jumping in midstream.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It keeps my brain nimble. Here’s another example. Speaking of things that come in twos—”
“Which we weren’t,” Ardis said.
“Exactly. See how well it works?”
“Kath be nimble,” said Geneva.
“Yeah, that’s good.” I paused, realizing I was getting confused about who was part of the conversation. “Um. Anyway, things that come in twos. Have you noticed we’re missing two cars? Eric’s and Sylvia’s. We’ve known Eric’s car was missing, but now he’s been found and the place he was probably hiding has been found, but his car is still missing. And where is Sylvia’s car? Maybe she’s with it somewhere far from here, the way Pen is.”
“The shame of it is we haven’t really got the wherewithal to trace cars,” Ardis said. “I wonder if we can work on that.”
“Here’s another set of two to consider. We have two competing stories of Shannon’s love life. Bonny claims Shannon was engaged to Eric and having his baby. Debbie said in her notes that Will told her he was engaged to Shannon and he was the baby’s father. Two versions, both secondhand.”
“Hearsay,” Geneva said. “Inadmissible in a court in Law and Order.”
“And which version do we believe?” Ardis asked. “And why? And how do we prove it’s true?”
“Or how do we prove the other one isn’t?” I said.
Proving anything that day proved difficult, hampered as we were by our hobby business day job. In between customers we toyed with the idea of contacting Debbie’s cousin, the still-green Deputy Darla, and offering her a free knitt
ing class, plus materials, if she would give us access to certain official files. Ardis might have toyed more seriously than I did. Geneva, of course, was all for it.
“I would enjoy corrupting a policeman,” she said. “I would also enjoy being a corrupt policeman.”
Ernestine stopped by and John Berry called. Neither of them had anything to add to the tale of their adventure in Pulaski. I asked John to let me pay his speeding ticket, but he just hooted.
“It was good for me,” he said. “Got my old heart pumping the way it used to when I’d try to outsail a squall. It was good for the car, too. It belongs to my brother and it probably hasn’t gone over twenty in the last twenty years.”
And speaking of things that came in twos, I did finally make myself call Mercy Spivey, after tossing a coin to decide between calling her and calling Shirley. A purely imaginary waft of her scent came through the phone when she said hello, followed by an annoying conversation. The gist of it was that they stood by their confidential source, who had told them that although Shannon was being stalked, she was not being stalked by Will; they would not give up that confidential source; they had followed Sylvia and Pen to the library, to a bed-and-breakfast on Depot Street, and then they’d remembered a sale at the Western Auto and broken off the tail; they’d written down the make, model, color, and tag number of the car Sylvia and Pen were driving, but Shirley had used the other side for a grocery list and then thrown it out; they were ready to give further assistance anytime they were needed.
I took a chance at that point and asked a question. “Will you ask if your confidential source knew Eric Lyle or knew who Eric Lyle hung out with?”