A Grid For Murder (27 page)

“You could just let it go to voice mail,” he said.

“We both know better than that,” I said as I grabbed my telephone.

“Hello?”

“Savannah, we need to talk.”

I hadn’t been expecting to hear from Barbara on the phone, certainly not at this time of night.

“I’m sorry, but I’m in for the night,” I said.

“This is important, and it won’t keep until morning.”

I’d had about enough of her hot and cold attitude toward me lately. We hadn’t exactly left things on the best of terms earlier, and I was in no mood to trudge through the rain to meet her anywhere. If she was angling for an invitation to my house, she was even more delusional than I could have imagined.

“Sorry, I can’t do anything about that.”

Zach tapped my knee, and I heard him ask softly, “Who is it?”

I shook my head and held my hand up toward him as I waited for Barbara’s response.

“Fine. Can you at least come by the coffee shop first thing tomorrow?”

It was a reasonable request for her to make, but I wasn’t feeling very reasonable at the moment. “I don’t know about getting there that early, but I can probably make it by eight,” I said.

Barbara paused, and then finally said, “If that’s the best you can do, I guess I’ll have to live with it.”

“See you tomorrow.”

I hung up, and Zach could barely contain himself. “Who was that, Savannah? If you need to go somewhere tonight, I can drive you. It doesn’t have to be a big problem.”

“It’s not. I just hate being treated badly.”

“Who’s messing with you?”

“Barbara Brewster has something to tell me, but it’s going to have to wait until morning. I gave her plenty of chances to talk to me today, but she stonewalled me every time I turned around. It’s not going to hurt her to stew over it a little, at least until it’s more convenient for me.”

He shrugged. “It’s your call.”

“You aren’t seriously going to try to convince me to go see her right now, are you? I have a tough time believing you’d ever do that.”

“It’s your investigation,” he said as he collected our ice cream bowls and rinsed them in the sink. “I know how much I hate being second-guessed, and I’m trying my best not to look over your shoulder all of the time.”

“I appreciate that,” I said as I kissed his cheek.

“I’m glad, because it’s tough holding my tongue sometimes.”

I laughed at him as I offered my hand. “I know it’s not all that late, but I’m exhausted. Let’s worry about the case tomorrow, okay?”

“That sounds like a plan to me,” he said.

I
FOUND ZACH DOWNSTAIRS MAKING BREAKFAST WHEN I
got up the next morning. “Wow, this is a real treat,” I said as I kissed him good morning. “You’re usually gone by the time I get up.”

“I figure that since you’re doing all of the heavy lifting on this case right now, it wouldn’t kill me to lend a hand around here now and then. After all, you cooked last night.”

“You won’t get any arguments from me,” I said as I took a sip of orange juice and sat at the table. I wasn’t there thirty seconds before he put a piece of French toast on my plate.

“Eat fast,” he said with a grin. “You’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes.”

I took a bite, and found it delightful. “I can be a little late. It can’t really matter that much.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “You made an appointment with one of your suspects. You can’t afford to just blow it off, no matter how you might feel about her.”

I took another big bite, and then smiled at him. “You can be a real slave driver; you know that, don’t you?”

“If I ever forget, I’m sure you’ll be there to remind me.”

I took another big bite, and then asked, “Do you want to tag along with me and see what Barbara has to say?”

“I’d love to,” he said as he served himself, “but I’ve got a pretty full agenda myself. I’m going to Asheville with North. She wants to do a little more digging there, so I’ll be out of touch for a while.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Right now,” he said after he finished another bite.

“Did you get enough to eat?”

He smiled at me. “That was my third piece. I think I’m set.” He turned off the griddle, and then added, “Just leave this mess. I’ll take care of it tonight.”

After he was gone, I decided to ignore my husband’s instructions. I didn’t have time to wash them in the sink, but at least I could rinse the dirty dishes enough so the syrup wouldn’t harden by the time Zach got to them.

I got dressed in a hurry and still made it to Barbara’s just a few minutes after eight.

What I didn’t expect when I arrived was that she wouldn’t be there.

“W
HAT DO YOU MEAN SHE’S NOT HERE?” I ASKED ONE
of the baristas.

“What can I tell you? She called this morning and said that she was going to be running late. I expect her to show up any minute.”

“Then I’ll take a cup of coffee while I wait,” I said.

I found a spot near the window, and I had barely taken my first sip when someone tapped my shoulder. It was the barista who’d served me a few minutes before.

“Savannah, Barbara wants to see you.”

“I want to see her, too. Did something happen to her?”

“No. She asked me to bring you back to her office so you can wait for her there.”

I looked around at the other customers. “Thanks, but I think I’ll wait right here.”

It was clear that the poor woman didn’t quite know
what to think of my refusal. The barista started stammering about Barbara’s request, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I picked up my coffee cup and said, “You win. I’ll wait for her in the back.”

She started to lead me to Barbara’s office when I shook my head. “Don’t bother. I know the way. Thanks anyway.”

I took the same seat I’d been in a few days earlier and once again looked around for something to read while I waited. The stack of library books hadn’t been touched, and I studied the titles again.

That’s when it jumped out at me.

I suddenly realized what had been nagging at me since the last time I’d been there. With my hands shaking, I reached into the pile and pulled out the book on plants indigenous to North Carolina.

There was a torn piece of newspaper she was using as a bookmark in the pages, and I opened the book right to it.

The chapter was headed, “Deadly poisonous plants in the region, and the toxins they create.”

It appeared that Barbara had been doing some homework on deadly poisons.

“W
HAT ARE YOU READING, SAVANNAH?” BARBARA
glanced at the book in my hands with a frown on her face. “That’s mine.”

“Actually, it belongs to the library,” I said. “Is this what you wanted to tell me, Barbara? Have you been studying up on poisonous plants?”

She shrugged. “Among other things. What can I say? I have eclectic tastes.”

“Are you trying to tell me this has nothing to do with
Joanne’s death? I don’t believe in those kinds of coincidences.”

She shrugged. “Believe what you will. I had the book all along, and when I heard about what happened to Joanne, I started looking for some information on plant poisons so I could figure out why she died.”

“It’s tough to prove which came first, isn’t it?”

She didn’t like that comment one bit. “I don’t have to prove anything to you, Savannah.”

I looked back at the bookmark and saw that the piece she’d torn off had a date on it. It was from yesterday’s paper.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions like that,” I said.

She took the book from me, but I held on to the marker. “No, you shouldn’t have. What changed your mind so suddenly?”

I held up the newspaper fragment. “It’s dated yesterday. That backs up your story.”

“You don’t miss much, do you?”

I shrugged. “Once I get into something, it’s impossible to get me to let up on it until it’s finished.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. It’s the reason you’re here.”

“Why is that, exactly? You were kind of evasive on the telephone last night, Barbara.”

“I’m sorry about that,” she said as she put the book back on the stack. “I want to come clean with you about Joanne.”

“I’d like that,” I said, being sure to keep my position closer to the door if I could manage it. Just because she’d satisfied my curiosity about the plant book didn’t mean that I’d absolved her of the murder.

“The truth is that Joanne was blackmailing me,” she said, her voice breaking a little as she admitted it.

“Were you having an affair?”

“What?” Barbara asked, genuinely shocked by my suggestion. “It was nothing like that.”

“Then what was it?”

She frowned, and then admitted, “A few years ago, Joanne caught me in a rather embarrassing position. She sent me a note telling me what she’d discovered, and then made it known that free coffee and scones every now and then would be enough to buy her silence.”

“So, she was blackmailing you with her knowledge, but asked for just coffee and a snack now and then. How can I know that it didn’t escalate? If her demands started increasing, it could be a reason to get rid of her.”

“No, the stakes were never that high. She had something that would embarrass me, but it wasn’t illegal.”

I shook my head. “It would help a great deal if you told me exactly what she knew about you.”

Barbara found that amusing. “If I tell you, then you’ll have something on me, too, won’t you?”

The idea of it mortified me. “I’m not about to blackmail you, Barbara. You have my word.”

“And that’s supposed to be enough?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “You can tell me, or tell my husband, but one of us is going to know.”

“Then I choose you,” she said a little reluctantly. “If you must know, I used to have a thing with Harry Pike.”

“Harry? What’s so bad about that? He isn’t married, and neither are you. There isn’t anything embarrassing about that.”

“Perhaps not, but we thought the door was locked when she came in after hours. You knew Joanne. She could spin
things so far out of control their resemblance to the truth was sometimes hard to imagine. I didn’t need the aggravation, so I gave her the coffee she asked for just to keep her quiet.”

“Is there any way to confirm this?”

She rubbed her forehead, and then said, “You can ask Harry. I’ll call him and tell him you’re coming.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “Why don’t we go there together?”

Barbara laughed. “So I won’t tip him off, is that it?”

“Something like that. Do you mind?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I? Let’s go, Savannah.”

We went out the back and got into my car.

I placed a call to warn him that we were coming, only to be told by his receptionist that Harry was working in the nursery, trimming some maple trees that were getting a little unruly.

Sure enough, that’s where we found him when we got there. He didn’t look all that surprised to see us, so I had to assume that his receptionist had told him that I had called. “Harry? Can we talk?”

“I heard you two were coming. What exactly are you up to?”

“I need to confirm something,” I said. “Do you have a minute?”

“For you? Sure.” He turned and looked at the coffee shop owner. “Hey, Barbara.”

“Harry,” she said curtly.

I couldn’t imagine the two of them together under any circumstances, but then again, sometimes love made the strangest matches. There was no way to dance around the question, so I dove right in. “Harry, did you and Barbara ever have a fling?”

He looked startled by the question, and then started to look at Barbara. I couldn’t have that. I said, “Keep your eyes on me, if you don’t mind.”

He did as I asked, but that didn’t keep him from talking. “Barbara? Should I answer her?”

“Go ahead,” she said. “I trust her. Tell her what happened.”

“Yes, it’s true,” Harry told me. “I didn’t find out about Joanne blackmailing her for coffee and scones until after we bought that land together, or I never would have made the deal. It was cruel the way she treated Barbara, and I let her know exactly how I felt more than once.”

“It was fine, Harry. I told you that.”

Harry shrugged, and then turned to her. “Barbara, would you like to have lunch sometime?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

Harry just nodded, accepting it as though he was unsurprised by her answer. “If that’s it, I’ve got work to do, ladies.”

“That’s all I needed,” I said.

Once we were back in the car, I asked Barbara, “If you don’t mind me asking, why won’t you date him? Is it because of his reputation as a ladies’ man?”

“Please, I’ve been over worrying about that for too many years, and I know Harry likes women. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. As a matter of fact, it’s a trait I cherish in my husband. So, if that’s not it, what is?”

She let out a short breath of air and said, “Honestly, it wasn’t the fact that we were seen dallying by someone else,” Barbara told me. “It was the way that we were caught like a couple of teenagers. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get that moment out of my mind.”