Chapter Eight
After lunch, Willow waved goodbye to her friends and waited until they were out of view. She’d told them she wanted to spend some time alone— an entirely honest statement—but she also wanted to do something to make herself feel better.
The pawn shop wasn’t on the main drag. Like a secret, it hid down an alleyway off a side street. All the better if you wanted to disguise your activities for a seller, but not such a great position for buyers.
“Hey,” Willow said, knocking on the counter for attention when the bell over the door didn’t bring anyone out.
“I’ll be a few minutes,” a voice called out from the back of the store. At least Willow presumed it was the back of the store. It was undoubtedly farther away than the counter or grated metal glass with a reinforced door.
She wandered along the shelves, piled high with goods. Most of them were stacked up without much thought as to how they related to one another. Except for the jewelry—that was all gathered together and sealed away in a locked case.
There were beautiful items on display. Although Willow wanted to take a feather duster to the lot of them, the dirt couldn’t hide the magnificent lines of some china or the delicate details on a stained-glass lampshade.
A man walked up behind the counter, his belly spilling over the top of his jeans and beneath his straining check shirt to rest against the bench. From the color in his cheeks, whatever he’d been up to had been a strain.
“How can I help you?”
“I want to pay off a ticket,” Willow said, pulling her purse out of her handbag.
The man stared at her intently with one raised eyebrow. “‘Scuse me for staring, Miss,” he said after a minute, shaking his head, “but I’ve never seen you in here before. There’s no ticket in debt to you.”
“Not mine,” Willow agreed. “It’s for a pair of binoculars that’re running close to the edge.”
The man leaned back, his belly button bobbing into view, then disappearing again as he poked his finger into the counter. “It doesn’t work that way. You can’t buy an item until the ticket is in default. I know the pair you mean, but you have to wait until they go on sale, like everyone else.”
“But I don’t want them to go on sale.” Willow scratched her forehead, where a small rash of bumps was itching just beneath her hairline. Thanks, Mavis. “I want to pay the ticket off so the family that brought them in can take them back again. No strings attached.”
“You a relative or something?”
Willow squinted at the man, wondering why it would matter to him. “Or something.”
He continued to eye her up as though she’d committed some offense. After a minute, he sighed. “Fine. I’ll have to fetch it from out the back, though.” He tapped his fingernail on the counter. “You wait right here.”
Unsure now of what she was even doing in the shop to begin with, Willow nodded and waited. This time she didn’t browse the items on offer, just stood, staring down at her feet.
“Here we are.”
The man handed across the outstanding bill, and Willow handed back the cash to cover it. That left her with only a few dollars until the end of the week, but she didn’t want to put it on her credit card. After another quick glance at the shop owner, Willow wasn’t sure he’d let her even if she wanted to.
“Anything else around here catch your fancy?”
Willow was about to say no when she saw a familiar looking bag on a shelf behind the counter. Bright red with a beautiful swirling design stamped into the leather.
“What about that bag?”
The man turned around, then grunted. “Not that, I’m afraid. The lady only brought it in this afternoon.” He leaned down and examined the ticket on the side. “She’s got another week before she needs to pay the first set of fees, and then six weeks past due it’ll go up for sale. You want me to keep you in mind if it does?”
Willow shook her head, thinking of the bag she’d seen strung over Trisha Layton’s shoulder earlier in the day. It looked exactly the same. If she and her son were living so hand to mouth that she needed to sell her prized possessions just a day or two after losing her job, that might speak to motive.
As Willow let herself out of the store, she thought it might speak to motive very highly indeed.
Mavis was playing hide and seek when Willow returned home, mainly hide. Not wanting to push open the inside door until she could see the kitten was clear of it, Willow walked out the kitchen door to the back yard.
Her garden was roped off with strings of yellow police tape, and she shielded her eyes from the path with a hand while peering in through the back door of the conservatory. Mavis appeared to be asleep up against the interior door. Lucky she hadn’t opened it, Willow thought. She’s probably have scared the poor creature half to death.
Although Willow tried to slip quietly in through the back door, it stuck on the floorboards where the long summer had caused the wood to expand. It wouldn’t be a problem soon; already the air was cold enough that Willow wished she’d pulled on a cardigan before venturing outdoors, but that didn’t help her now.
With a furious squeak of wood against wood, Willow got the door fully open. Just as she felt the triumph from that accomplishment, a ball of fur ran straight past her, flying out the door.
“Mavis!” Willow turned in time to see the kitten hopping straight toward the path. “Mavis! Come back here right now.”
The kitten didn’t even turn its head at her cries, happily bouncing along through the grass on the far edge of the path now. With a few more springing steps, Mavis disappeared into the wild grass beyond.
It only took Willow a couple of seconds before she followed the cat. The police tape looked very commanding, but in reality, it only took a second to lift up, and then she was inside the forbidden zone.
“Mavis,” Willow called, deliberately lightening her tone so the kitten wouldn’t be scared away. “I’ve brought you a lovely lunch. Wouldn’t you rather be sitting inside eating than playing out here?”
It appeared not. Every couple of seconds, Willow would catch sight of Mavis’s head bouncing up above the level of the grass, then she’d disappear from view. Clicking tongues and promises of divine dining treats didn’t sway her. After a few minutes, Willow admitted defeat and turned around to head back indoors.
That was when she stepped straight onto a piece of green silk sitting in amongst the wildflowers and tall grass. A piece of silk, looking very much like the handkerchief Jimmy often sported in his jacket pocket, except this time it was covered in blood.
Reg arrived just as Willow got off the phone with the police. In his arms, he was holding Mavis, who struggled to get down.
“Oh, you found her!” Willow smiled and took the kitten out of Reg’s grip before she could fight her way into a steep drop to the floor. “Where have you been, you naughty kitty?”
Mavis didn’t appear at all chastened to be called naughty, instead making it very plain indeed that she wanted to be set down on the floor. Glad to have her safely back inside, Willow decided the kitten could have the run of the house for a few minutes—a decision she immediately regretted as Mavis took off to explore her bedroom.
“I don’t understand why you decided to get a cat,” Reg said, holding out a tissue while Willow was taken over by a sneezing fit. “It doesn’t seem to agree with you at all.”
“I didn’t so much choose it as have it thrust upon me,” Willow said. “Thank you for bringing her in, though. I lost her out the back door.”
“Mm,” Reg agreed, stepping farther inside and shutting the front door behind him.
Willow blushed at her forgotten manners and invited him into the kitchen, putting the kettle on to brew up a cup of his favorite tea.
“I remember when my old girl had a kitten. I didn’t appreciate the thing much, but it seemed to keep her happy.”
“You and your wife had a cat?” Willow didn’t know why she was so surprised, but it seemed so op
posite to everything she knew about Reg that it caught her off guard.
“Wilma loved it.” Reg’s voice was thick, and he looked out the window, staring into the front garden as though it was a memory. “I’ve still got a whole lot of stuff I made for the little thing. It used to run outside at the wrong times, too. So, I built it a big house to keep it inside, with tunnels and adventure rooms and lots of poles for scratching.”
“That sounds ideal,” Willow said, bringing the steaming mugs over to the table. “What was it you came over for?”
Reg looked surprised for a second, then reached into his big coat pockets, pulling out her binoculars. “I need to return these,” he said.
Willow stared at the glasses, a frown creasing her forehead so severely that her internal mother launched into a lecture about wrinkles.
“Why are you bringing those back? Did you get the new ones sooner than you thought?”
If that pawn shop man had cheated her, she’d be so angry!
“The deal fell through,” Reg said with regret. “The family came up with the money, so I guess I’ll have to wait until another pair come on offer.”
“So, keep those.” Willow nodded at the binoculars in his hand. “I certainly don’t need them.”
“I know how you like to keep Molly’s stuff neat and tidy,” Reg said, putting them down on the table and reaching for his licorice tea. “There’s no way I could keep hold of them, knowing you’d be missing them from their spot.”
“Reg,” Willow said, about to chastise him. It wouldn’t do any good—the man was more stuck in his ways than she was, and that was saying a lot—but she didn’t want him to go without. Then an idea struck her. “How about we swap?”
“Eh?”
Willow nodded at the binoculars. “You keep hold of those, and in return you bring around what’s left of your old kitten house.”
Reg was shaking his head. “That’s not a fair swap. These glasses are worth money. I just threw the kitten house together with odd bits and pieces. Nope. It’s better this way.”
Willow caught his hand and squeezed it. “I don’t care what you’ve made the kitten house out of or what state it’s in. There’s a lot more value in it for me than there is in this pair of old binoculars. Unless you want to keep the pet house for some reason?”
Reg shook his head.
“Good. Then it’s a deal. I’ll certainly rest easier knowing Mavis can’t go flying out the door each time it opens.”
“Yeah.” Reg nodded. “They’re little scamps at this age, I can tell you. I’ll bring the house over tonight.”
“Leave it until tomorrow,” Willow said, remembering the sheriff’s office was sending someone around to collect the handkerchief she shouldn’t have been in a position to discover. “I’ve got Jacob coming over this afternoon, no doubt to give me a lecture.”
When Reg showed an interest, Willow filled him in on the whole story.
“I know the handkerchief you mean,” he said. “I see Jimmy with that all the time. It’s not him, though.”
“Oh.” Willow felt a pang of disappointment. “Why not?”
“Well, I saw him last night. You said Roger was killed around eight or so, didn’t you?”
Willow agreed. “Sometime around then, according to the sheriff.”
“Well, Jimmy and his sandwich board were still in front of Roger’s office. He’s there from seven in the morning until nine at night, all week long, and yesterday was no exception.”
“You’re sure?”
Reg looked a bit affronted. “Of course, I’m sure. He was even on the photographs I turned over to the sheriff. In the background, sure, but clear as day.”
Willow finished up the last of her mint tea in one long swallow, then gave a big sigh. “That’s a pity. I thought for sure I’d solved the whole mess and things could go back to normal.” She paused for a second, thinking of the gaping hole Roger’s death would leave in her life. She missed him far more than she liked to admit, and it was just the first day without him. “Or semi-normal anyway.”
“It could’ve been that kid.” Reg was staring down at the binoculars as though they could tell him something. “I saw him have an altercation with Jimmy. They were just yelling a bit when I was looking, but perhaps he pulled on his shirt or something and got hold of the handkerchief, too.”
“Really? You didn’t tell us that.”
Reg shrugged. “It didn’t really seem important. The kid was yelling at a lot of things. It wasn’t nearly as interesting to me as the flying saucer and stuff.”
“Flying egg, you mean.”
Willow stood at the sink, staring out into the back garden. She wondered when she’d be allowed to legitimately go out there again. All she wanted to do at the moment was pull some weeds and talk to a few flowering bushes, perhaps coaxing one last bud out of them for the season.
A knock sounded on the door, breaking her out of her reverie. “If that’s the sheriff’s office, then you should tell them that part of the story,” Willow said, moving toward the door. “It could be important.”
Chapter Nine
Willow closed her eyes and listened to the sound of an empty house. The noise with the sheriff and Reg had wound her up all afternoon. Now, the silence soothed her jangled nerves and quieted down her restless brain.
Then a lamp fell off the bedroom cabinet.
With a groan, Willow got to her feet and went through to pick up Mavis. The kitten was sheltering in a corner, wide-eyed at the destruction she’d wrought by just pulling on one cloth edge. After a quick test, Willow decided the bedside lamp had survived okay. She bent out the metal frames in a rough semi-circle, sweeping the rest of the debris from the tabletop into a pile to deal with later.
“Why don’t we have a nice meal?” Willow suggested, scooping Mavis up and snuggling her close against her chest. The quick pitter-pat of the animal’s heartbeat was reassuring. It was nice to have someone else in the house, even if the someone else was a tiny cat.
She still had plenty of food from her trip to the market earlier. A variety of tinned foods were lined up in the pantry—the ones Mavis responded to best could be replenished.
After having cleaned up one mess already, Willow thought she should go to the library to find something on how to housetrain a cat. Apparently, having a litterbox at the ready wasn’t quite enough. For the rest of the day, though, she was happy enough to keep her eyes and nose peeled for trouble and deal with it as it came. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start learning all the things she’d need to know.
As she lay on her back on the sofa, Willow wondered why Reg had been so confident that she must need the binoculars back. Sure, she’d left Molly’s stuff pretty much where it had been when he died, but she’d never thought of it as holding value. Not any more than the other items around the house anyway.
It wasn’t as though the refusal to move his items into storage or donate them to Goodwill was because she felt the need to set up a shrine to her dead husband. If she were going to judge the people in her life who deserved that treatment, Molly wouldn’t even top the list.
Although she’d never have left him, Willow hadn’t found marriage to be the refuge and support others described it as being. When she heard it referred to as an institution, she would nod along with that description. An institution that had curtailed her freedom—to be herself, to say what she wanted, to act in the way that best suited her needs.
When Molly died, the shock Willow felt wasn’t just at his sudden passing. It was at having the freedom to live again precisely the way she wanted. It took many years to feel comfortable in her own skin. Even though her mother might still hold forth inside her head, at least Willow’s deceased husband had left that particular choir.
She should get up and find that camera. It was certainly time she started to get rid of Molly’s possessions and offering first dibs to her friends was only fair. Thinking about what objects Harmony and Reg might find handy, Willow fell asleep with
Mavis sitting on her chest.
The following morning, Willow was woken by a loud banging on the door. She sat up, feeling disoriented as she realized she’d spent the night sleeping on the couch rather than her comfortable bed. A deep ache had settled into her right hip, and she shivered, feeling the cold of a morning edging ever closer to frost.
“I’m coming,” she shouted out as the banging resumed. Mavis was scratching at the base of the front door with urgent mews, and Willow picked her up out of harm's way as she opened the door.
From the look on the sheriff’s face, Willow judged that her appearance must be even worse than she’d thought. “You woke me,” she said in an accusing tone, waiting for Jacob to reveal why he felt knocking at her door at the crack of dawn was a good idea.
“We need you to come down to the station,” Sheriff Wender said, turning to one side and avoiding her eye.
Willow took a step back and yawned. “I need a shower and cup of coffee before I’ll be fit to interview. Can I grab those at least?”
“Nope. I’m afraid not. We need you down there for an interview immediately. There’re some things it appears you’ve been keeping from us.”
Willow’s mouth dropped open with indignation. Considering how much information she and her friends had given this impertinent man, it was a gross insult. Another thing niggled at her sleepy brain.
“What do you mean, we?”
“The county has decided to send in some support officers from the police department to help me out with the investigation.”
From Jacob’s tone of voice, Willow guessed he was about as impressed with this development as she was to be standing here, barely awake. “And you’re too worried about keeping them waiting to allow me the decency of a shower and fresh change of clothes?”
Willow smiled as Jacob turned an angry face toward her. She’d pressed precisely the right button to get what she wanted.
“I don’t care what those guys want,” the sheriff insisted, doing a complete one-eighty. “I’ll wait in my car. You’ve got half an hour.”
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