by Hannah Reed
If Ford was going to kill Tom, then the we meant he had a partner.
The only thing that might help my mom’s new boyfriend was to expose that partner. Once he surfaced (or she), that person would have to tell the cops the truth—that Ford’s intention had been to eliminate his brother and make off with his money. Then Tom could plead self-defense for sure.
I called Patti’s cell phone. She didn’t answer. Instead she walked in without even knocking. Patti wore her pocket vest crammed full of various tools associated with her new trade. Her homemade press pass dangled from her neck, and she wore a pair of black shades.
I wondered if last night’s wine had affected her as much as it had me.
“Where’s my sister?” I asked her.
“Sick,” Patti said.
“The rest of us had to get up and go.”
Patti shrugged and plopped down in the chair next to my desk.
I told her what I knew about Tom’s arrest and why I thought Ford had a partner floating around somewhere.
Patti hung on every word, then said, “I have my own problems, too, you know.”
“Like what? I thought you’d wanted to work with me to solve this. Look what it could do for your career.”
“First I have to track down my attacker. Until then, I feel like a prisoner. I’m used to total freedom of movement and now? I’m a shell of the woman I used to be.”
“You’ll be safe as long as you don’t order another telescope.” I couldn’t believe what came out of my mouth next. “Besides, you can stay with me as long as you want.”
Before I could stuff those words back in and gulp them down, Patti perked up and said, “Okay. It’s a deal. I’ll help you and you help me.”
“Any more hickory nuts?” I asked.
“None so far. But I have a lead on the murder weapon.”
“You do? Who told you?” With Patti, asking for credentials was important.
“I can’t divulge my source. That would be unethical. All I know at this point is that brown fibers were found on Ford’s neck.”
“Like threads from a scarf?”
“Maybe.”
Patti could be making up stuff for all I knew. “So how are we going to find Ford’s partner in crime?” I said.
“That’s a tough one,” she said. “How are we going to track the kook who tied me up and left me for dead?”
“You weren’t even close to dead.”
“I might have been if you hadn’t come along to rescue me.” Patti finally took off the dark sunglasses. Her eyes were bloodshot. “Do you think it was an outside job or an inside job?” she asked.
“Which one are we talking about? Ford Stocke?”
“No. My attacker.”
“Inside,” I said, convinced that Patti’s assailant had been someone she’d ticked off. And that meant a local resident. “Someone is watching you, making sure you don’t get another telescope.”
Patti nodded. “That sounds reasonable. But I can’t figure out why. It’s not like I can see the whole town from that window. My view is seriously restricted.” She sounded disappointed with her limited ability to snoop.
“No more telescopes,” I repeated in case she wasn’t listening. It seemed like a no-brainer to me.
“What about Ford’s partner?” she asked. “Inside job or outside job?”
“Since no one else was staying at the house with Ford, I’m going to guess inside. Whoever it was didn’t need a place to stay, so the partner lives in the area. I’m not sure how to start looking, though.”
“I’m going to find out the name of the person who delivered my telescope,” Patti said. “Maybe they saw something.”
Right then, Alicia returned my call, I explained about my scarf, and we arranged to have me swing by.
“I’m going over to Alicia Petrie’s. You check out the delivery company.”
And with that, I hung up and set out to investigate.
Twenty-seven
Alicia Petrie lived right next door to her in-laws, Aggie and Eugene, so I planned on killing two birds with one stone. First, I’d talk beads with crafty Alicia, then I’d go over and make things right with crabby old Aggie.
I drove my truck slowly up Rustic Road, taking time to watch the ducks and Canadian geese floating in the marshy areas along the road, smelling freshly mowed grass through the open window. The aroma of cow pies drifted into the truck, reminding me of the country, but in a good way. Pig farms are something else entirely. They stink to high heaven. But cows make me think of lazy days, lying faceup in the grass, creating images out of the clouds overhead.
The outskirts of Colgate came into view over a hill. I turned off the main road toward Lake Five and parked between the two houses owned by the Petrie family.
Alicia opened the door when I rang the bell and said, “If you want permission to dig in the garden, you’ll have to talk to my father.” Then she laughed so I’d know she was joking.
I put on a happy face.
“Come in,” she said, opening the door wide. “Do you want coffee?”
“Sure.”
Alicia, unlike her mother-in-law, was all kindness and consideration. How she could stand living next door to Aggie and dealing with her every day was beyond me.
With a cup of coffee in my hand, I learned more than I needed to know about scarves. Sewing is not my forte. Or knitting, or crocheting, or anything else where I have to have handy hands. In fact, I failed a beginners sewing class Holly talked me into taking with her. She still brings it up occasionally.
But I pretended interest because it was obviously a passion for Alicia.
When she wound down, I said, “All I need is a handful of topaz beads to fix it. By the way, I absolutely love that scarf.”
Alicia picked up a large sewing kit and rummaged through until she found the beads she needed, then she handed them to me. “Take extra, just in case,” she said. “And thanks, I’m glad you like it. I almost always use crystal beads, and I weave them in carefully so if they get snagged, the whole works doesn’t unravel. I’m surprised you lost so many at once.”
“Me, too, but it was my own fault, not yours,” I said, moving along quickly, thinking what a living witch Lori was. “What other colors do you use? Silver?”
“Sure, I use silver. And rose and blue opal, a lot of different colors. I can customize to your taste.”
“Any silver beaded fringed scarves for sale at the festival?”
Alicia sipped her coffee. “Probably. I sent Bob over with several boxes of scarves. Why?”
“No reason.” Then I tried to think of a way to ask if he’d walked through the cemetery with silver beads and what he was doing there, but nothing I came up with sounded right.
We exchanged some more small talk, then I thanked her for the coffee and her time and walked over to Aggie’s front door.
While I waited for Aggie to answer her door, I couldn’t help noticing lots of hickory nut trees in their yard. Shagbark trees, dropping hulled nuts all over the ground.
I knocked again.
Aggie answered the door. When she saw me, she scowled. I looked down at the small, snarky woman. She grabbed her cane, which had been leaning against the wall right by the door.
“What do you want?” she said.
“To apologize.”
“For what?” Her nasty eyes stared into mine.
“For what happened to you, you know, getting arrested and all.”
“Why apologize? Unless you were the cause of it. Were you?”
The last thing I was going to admit to was calling the cops to squeal on Aggie for not having a rummage sale permit. I’d only wanted her gone from in front of my store so she couldn’t damage my business. And if things had gone as planned, if she hadn’t started swinging that cane like a club, that would have been all that happened.
“Well?” she said waiting for my answer. “Don’t tell me you’re the one behind all our legal problems?”
“Of cour
se not,” I said, deciding quickly that I’d played only a minor role.
Her eyes narrowed into small slits.
“Listen,” I said. “We got off to a bad start.”
I could have mentioned that it was all her fault for making nasty comments, and then threatening me. Instead I said, “I hope we can be friendly in the future.”
“Are you going to testify at our trial? Tell the judge about witnessing police brutality and how I didn’t do a thing to deserve what I got?”
“You hit a police officer with your cane!”
“Forget being friends then,” Aggie said.
“Friendly. I said I hoped to be friendly. Not friends. There’s a big difference between the two.”
“And there’s a difference between a toad and a frog, but they both eat bugs and poop out what’s left.”
I wasn’t sure how toads and frogs and their bowel habits fit in, but with Aggie I couldn’t be sure of anything.
“Make an effort, Aggie,” I said. “I’m reaching out here.”
“You can reach out with a shovel in your hand,” Aggie said. “There’s a pile of bark chips in the backyard. You can spread those around my bushes. Then I’ll forgive you.”
“You’re a tough nut, Aggie,” I said, watching her face for possible clues to the hickory nut stalker. No such luck.
The chip pile in the backyard was the biggest I’d ever seen in my life. There must have been twenty yards of mulch. Next to it was a large wheelbarrow. Aggie still clutched the cane even though her step was brisk and steady. While I surveyed the enormous pile, she disappeared into the toolshed. Pretty soon she popped back out. “Where did that shovel go?” she muttered. “Did you take it when you trespassed in our yard?”
“No, I left it stuck in the ground.” I pointed to an empty spot in the garden. “Right there.”
“Well, it’s gone now.”
I almost opened my big mouth and suggested we should check with Alicia, maybe she or Bob had borrowed it. But that would be like digging my own grave. If we found the shovel, I’d have to use it. Good thing that idea didn’t cross Aggie’s mind.
“You’ll have to go get a shovel and come back,” she said.
Yeah, right, like that was going to happen. “I’ll see you later then,” I said, meaning in some other lifetime. Aggie Petrie was impossible.
As I pulled out onto the main road, relieved to have escaped Aggie’s clutches, a delivery truck came over the hill with its directional signal flashing. When it turned in front of my truck onto the lake road leading to the Petries,’ I glanced at the side—Speedy Delivery. My eyes swept past the driver. Then I jerked my head back in astonishment.
Because Bob Petrie was driving the truck.
Twenty-eight
I called Patti’s cell phone on the way back to my store. Unlike on my leisurely drive over, gawking at waterfowl and inhaling the scent of mowed grass were the furthest things from my mind. I had bigger fish to catch and one of them had just swum past me, heading for the lake.
Part of me was looking out for myself, I’ll admit. Because once we nailed Patti’s attacker, she would go home. If Bob had made the delivery, he might have seen something of significance. Or he even could have been the one who tied up Patti.
“What was the name of the delivery service that dropped off your new telescope?” I asked her when she answered her cell phone.
“Speedy Delivery,” Patti said. My heart soared. Finally, a lead! Bob Petrie, here we come. Then she let me down hard. “They do almost all the deliveries in our area.”
Subconsciously (and consciously) I guess I knew that.
“I found the driver,” she said. “He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing suspicious before, during, or after the delivery. No one at all around my house or even walking on the street. No cars. Nothing.”
I decided that was one of the most observant delivery guys I’d ever heard of. He was missing his calling. He should have been a detective. “How did he remember so much?”
“Simple. I know how to get information out of people. Interrogation is part of my job.”
“Did you recognize him?” Patti had been in Moraine long enough to remember faces, if not everybody’s full name.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just curious.”
“I didn’t actually meet him in person,” she said. “We talked on the phone. Why?”
“What was his name?”
Silence on the other end while Patti thought. “I guess I didn’t get it. I called the delivery office. Some woman said she’d check the records and someone would get back to me. He’s the one who called. What’s going on?”
“Meet me at the store.”
Mom and Carrie Ann were meeting, greeting, and checking out customers. And even though Mom hadn’t been up to her usually shenanigans when it came to disrespecting the way I ran the store, she’d managed to insert herself in a new way.
My staff all had on adorable pink bib aprons with “The Wild Clover” stenciled across the front.
Mom was busy at the moment, so I went to the back of the store. The twins were stocking shelves and arranging produce bins. They, too, had on pink aprons, though both of them looked extremely uncomfortable.
“We tried to tell your mom that guys don’t wear pink,” Brent said.
Trent nodded in agreement. “But she said a real man can pull off pink.”
“She’s right,” I said. Hunter had a pink shirt and looked hot in it. I told them that and I could tell they felt slightly better, since they had a lot of respect for Hunter. “And you two,” I continued, “are going to break female hearts wearing these.”
Next I looked for my sister. Holly was nowhere in sight, which annoyed me. Don’t we all wish we could stay in bed when the mood suits us?
I went back up front. “Mom, the aprons? You did that?”
Mom beamed. “It’s a surprise I’ve been working on since the beginning of the year. I made them myself. Look,” she pointed out details on the one she wore. “Clover pink to match The Wild Clover, a pen pocket, adjustable neck, and easy-to-reach patch pockets.”
I’m proud to say I’ve rounded an important corner in my quest to live peacefully with my mother. Before, I would have been blowing steam just because she hadn’t asked my input. Today, I thought they were really cool. Pink aprons that reminded me of clover were perfect.
“They’re sweet,” I said out loud, giving her a big hug.
“Wouldn’t it be cute to add a few purple clovers to each one?” she said. Everybody agreed. Well, except the twins.
I put on the apron Mom handed me and thought about how I’d struggled to come up with the perfect name for my store. Deciding to call it The Wild Clover had been a good idea, since my honeybees and I love the stuff. Not only does clover grow wild in our yards, it’s an important Wisconsin pasture crop and it blooms all summer, not just for a few weeks.
The blossoms are edible and taste sweet. Just ask any cow or foraging bee. And they are high in protein, which we all need to operate at our very best. Dried seedpods and flower heads can be ground into flour, although I’d have to be desperate to bother with that. Or it can be steeped for tea, which is more my style.
Next Mom said, “Where’s Holly?”
Finally, Mom was about to realize just how unreliable her youngest daughter could be. I loved Holly to pieces, but family members working together was a big mistake waiting to happen. Plus, Mom thought Holly could do no wrong. Ha! My sister was about to have her flaws exposed right out there in front of everybody just like the rest of us.
“She’s sick, Mrs. Fischer,” Patti said, coming in and ruining the moment by covering for my sister. “We had a girls’ overnight at Story’s house and she doesn’t feel good this morning.”
Mom looked concerned. “I better go check on her.”
“She’s fine,” I said.
“You should be more compassionate,” Mom said to me. “Your poor
sister is ill.”
My head throbbed from alcoholic excess, too. Why should I care about Holly? Did she care about me right this minute? No, she didn’t. Plus, she got to stay in bed.
Mom took off her apron, folded it neatly, and headed out to mother Holly.
“We have a situation,” I said to Patti as I closed the door to the back room.
“We sure do. I’m clean out of leads to my attacker.”
“Wait till you hear this.” I went over my visit with Alicia, sort of skimming the surface. Investigation work, I was discovering, was a good part cerebral, like a giant mental puzzle. If only my head didn’t hurt so much.
I finished with, “Then as I was pulling out, Bob Petrie drove past in a Speedy Delivery truck.”
“So?” Obviously Patti had lost a few brain cells last night, too.
“So, he very well could be the driver who delivered the telescope.”
“It doesn’t matter if it was him. Or the police chief. Or whoever. Because the driver didn’t see anything suspicious.”
“Maybe,” I said, putting my own recent suspicion into words, “just maybe, the driver of the truck was the one who attacked you?”
Patti and I stared at each other, now firing on the same cylinder.
“He’d know what he was delivering,” Patti said. “It said right on the box.”
I nodded.
“Bob Petrie? But he doesn’t even live in Moraine. I thought we decided my attacker had to be someone who didn’t like me for professional reasons.”
“Have you ever given Bob any reason to dislike you?”
“He doesn’t even know me.”
“Huh.”
I’d been worrying over the events of the past few days. About how everything was rotating in a big loop around the dead-end street I lived on. Patti and I were the only ones on our block. Aurora and her garden center were across the street, but her house and outbuildings were set back. So really it was just me and Patti.
“The Petries have been like toilet paper stuck to my flip-flop,” I said. “As hard as I try, I can’t get rid of them.” I thought a minute. “You better call the delivery service office again and get the name of the driver. With my luck it really was Petrie.”