Acts of Violets (27 page)

“I think you’ve maxed out that expression, don’t you?”

 

As Marco had promised, my Corvette was parked in its reserved space in the apartment’s lot. I phoned to thank him and got his cell, so I left a message that I was alive and would talk to him when I felt human again. I phoned Dave Hammond next, but he wasn’t in his office, so I left a message asking whether he had any more information, anything at all. I had to get moving on the investigation. It was Thursday already, and I hadn’t made any real progress. Luckily, I had a license plate number and the photos of Violet and Lily, so at least I had something to work on.

I made it to the shop a little after ten o’clock to find a plumber’s van parked out front and Grace in the parlor making coffee. I held up a hand in greeting and kept going, not wanting her to see my bloodshot eyes and start asking questions. I made my way down the old wooden steps, trying not to put my hand on the crumbling cement wall or breathe stale, damp air for fear of upsetting my stomach even more. At the bottom I found Lottie mop-ping the floor while the plumber repaired the pipe from his ladder.

“He’s almost done,” she told me, then came toward me for a closer look and shook her head. “You took on a snoot full last night, didn’t you?”

I felt my stomach prepare to launch a new attack, so I said quickly, “Marco’s mother made dinner for us and she was a little too free with the wine. I can’t think about it or I’ll puke. Where are the boxes?”

Lottie led me toward the opposite end of the basement. I opened the nearest box and removed one of the frames, holding it up to the bare yellow lightbulb dangling overhead. The feathers were shriveled and damp, their dye leached into the cloth that covered the wood beneath. The fans had simply disintegrated.

Lottie held up another frame. “It’s not too bad, is it?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

She put it back in the box and pushed up her sleeves with a sigh. “Well, there’s always the Dumpster in the alley.”

“I have a better idea. The fans are a total loss, but let’s take the frames up to the roof and put them in the sun. With any luck, they’ll dry back to their original fluffiness and be fine.”

“It can’t hurt to try.”

We lugged the box upstairs, through the shop, and to a door that led up a stairwell to the second-floor apartments. At the end of that hallway another set of stairs led to the unused third floor, where a door at the back opened onto a flat, rubber roofed area.

“This used to be the patio of the penthouse apartment,” Lottie told me.

A penthouse apartment overlooking an alley in downtown New Chapel. Not exactly a Central Park view. We spread the frames over the warm rubber coating, then shut the door on the whole ugly mess and hoped for the best.

Back in the shop, I made myself a cold compress and held it to my forehead, which felt as though someone had pumped about two hundred pounds of pillow stuffing into it. Then I sat down at my desk, dug out the piece of paper with the license plate number on it, and was just about to pick up the phone to call Eileen at the DMV when Grace sailed in with a phone order for the spindle.

“Headache, dear?”

I nodded.

She tilted my face toward hers. “Good heavens. Lottie, you shouldn’t have made Abby carry that big box all the way to the roof. Now she’s burst blood vessels in her eyes.” She bent closer. “That
is
what caused the redness, isn’t it?”

Why had I thought I could slip my hangover past her? “I had too much wine last night.”

“Wait. I want to hear this again,” Lottie said, hurrying in from the kitchen.

With a resigned sigh, I told them all about Marco’s mother and her little test and his sister and her cross-examination. I braced myself for Grace’s lecture, but instead she merely said, “Lottie, do we have eggs in the refrigerator?”

“Last time I checked,” Lottie replied.

I felt my stomach shift. “Eggs?”

“Yes, dear. It’s the perfect antidote. Three raw eggs stirred into—”

“Stop! Don’t say another word. I just need to let my stomach settle; then I’ll be fine. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a phone call to make.”

“Perhaps some ginger tea, then,” Grace said, and sailed out of the room. Lottie rolled her eyes and went back to the kitchen.

I dialed the DMV and patiently punched my way through the menu. This time it took only two minutes to reach a live person, who connected me to Eileen without a problem.

“Hi, Eileen, this is Abby Knight again. Remember that white Mustang I asked you about? I was able to get a license plate number on it. Can I trouble you to run it for me?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

I read the numbers and waited while she checked. In a sympathetic tone she asked, “How is Marco doing?”

Oh, right. She was the president of his fan club. “Well, Eileen, to be truthful, he’s hoping you’ll be able to get this information for me quickly.” That was called a subtle hint.

“The computers here are really slow. Okay, here it comes. Hmm. This is odd. The car is registered to a person named Violet. No last name. Who does she think she is, Cher?”

Eileen chortled at her joke, so I had to laugh with her just to be polite. “Can you give me the address, too?”

“I’m not allowed to do that.”

“But,” I prompted, “since it’s for Marco?”

There was a long pause, then a sigh. “Okay, since it’s for Marco.”

I wrote as she whispered it to me. “Bless you, Eileen. He’ll be so grateful.”

“Give him a big hug from me, okay?”

I’d gladly hug Marco—but I might not tell him where it came from.

The business line rang and I heard Lottie answer it from the front. In a moment, she stuck her head through the curtain to tell me Eve Taylor was on the line. I punched the flashing button and answered as cheerfully as my throbbing head would allow. “Hello, Mrs. Taylor.”

“I hope I’m not bothering you, Abby, but I wath wondering if you’d learned anything.”

“No, but I have a new lead I’m going to follow up on today, so maybe I’ll have some news for you later.” Not to mention a few questions for her, such as whether she had a key to Ryson’s house. I leaned down to pull the photos from my purse, lining them up in front of me. “By the way, did Dennis ever mention a woman named Violet?”

“That doethn’t thound familiar at all.”

“How about Lily?”

“Thorry. Not that one either.”

Lottie came through the curtain again, signaling that she needed to talk to me, so I promised Eve I’d get back to her and hung up. “Sweetie, there’s a cop here to see you and he sure as heck isn’t what you’d call the warm, fuzzy type.”

“Did you get a name?”

“Martin Kellerman.”

Y
ikes! Had Kellerman gotten wind of my investigation?
Calm down, Abby. Don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe he came to order flowers for his wife.
Right. So why was I stuffing the photos in my desk drawer?

I
knew
this was going to be a bad day.

“Are you all right, sweetie?” Lottie asked. “You’re shaking like a leaf. Is it because of that cop out there? You want me to tell him to take a flying leap off the nearest cliff?”

We didn’t have any cliffs in New Chapel, but even if we did, I couldn’t have Lottie tossing people off them to protect me. I had to think of Kellerman as just another bully to be faced. “Thanks, Lottie, but I’ll be fine.”

“You just say the word, and I’ll knock him from here to tomorrow.”

We did have tomorrows, but my answer was still no. I explained why.

“Abby,” Grace said, coming through the curtain, “that bobby up front is becoming quite tiresome. Shall I send him away, then?”

I glanced at Lottie. “A little help here?”

Lottie motioned for Grace to come closer so she could fill her in, while I straightened my shoulders and strode through the curtain like a woman of purpose. Kellerman was standing stiffly by the bay window in his police uniform, watching me with cold, calculating eyes. He was sturdily built, with thinning brown hair combed straight back, small, bland features, a weak chin, and a face that was as rigid as a block of wood. Until I was face to face with the man—well, actually face to somewhere just above his belt buckle—I hadn’t realized how tall he was.

You can do this, Abby. He’s just a very tall bully. Face him bravely and he’ll back off.
I walked around behind the counter, putting some distance between us. “What can I do for you, Officer?”

He tapped the two bars on his shoulder. “Captain.”

“Captain. Sorry.” I tamped down a tiny spark of irritation and pasted on a polite smile.

He nodded toward the coffee parlor. “Let’s have a seat inside.”

“Good idea.” It always helped to act like I was in control. I started to lead the way to a table by the window, but he passed me and headed for the corner, as Reilly had done. He pulled out a chair for me, then one for himself across from me.

“I’m a busy man, so I’ll get straight to the point. I understand you’ve been snooping around in the Ryson case.”

My face instantly grew warm. I tried to look amused by the whole idea. “I wouldn’t call it snooping. I might have asked around a bit, but—”

He pointed an index finger at my nose. “Don’t fence with me, Miss Knight. You were in law school long enough to know what the terms
obstruction
and
interfering in police business
mean.”

In school
long enough
? Ouch. So he’d checked my background. And now he was making threats, too. Was I supposed to be frightened? Because that’s not the effect he was having on me. In fact, I was so ready to let loose with a sharp retort that I had to take a deep breath and go to a happy place in my mind. The last thing I wanted was to enrage this man and make it even worse for Marco.

“I promise you, Captain, I haven’t obstructed anything. All I’ve done is ask a few questions. A few harmless questions.”

He leaned toward me, his mouth a line of steel, his eyes like flint. “You listen carefully because I don’t want to have to come back. You just hunker down in your shop here and let the police do the investigating. Got it?”

I
so
wanted to tell him what to do with it. “Yes, sir. I have it,” I said crisply. “So I take that to mean you’re still investigating? Because I had the impression that the investigation was closed.”

His eyes bored into mine. “Don’t get cute with me. I’ll be watching you.” He marched out without another word. As soon as I heard the bell jingle, I sagged onto the tabletop, my alcohol-induced headache hammering away at my temples.

“I’ll get tea,” Grace said, and hurried to the back counter, while Lottie parked herself in the chair Kellerman had just vacated.

“What a jackass!” she said, then patted my arm. “You said the right things, Abby. You did yourself proud.”

“You were wise not to attempt to argue with him,” Grace said, placing a cup and saucer and a steaming teapot in front of me. “If I may share a quote from William G. McAdoo . . .”

As if there was any way to stop her.

She cleared her throat, holding her cardigan as if it had lapels. “ ‘It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. ’ ”

Lottie clapped, but I refrained. My head couldn’t handle the motion. “Thanks, Grace.”

The phone rang, and Lottie jumped up to answer it in the shop while Grace filled my cup with fragrant ginger tea. “This should calm you.”

I took a long, slow sip and felt the soothing brew slide down my throat. How dare Kellerman threaten me! If I wanted to pay a visit to certain people and happened to ask a few questions while I was there, what harm was that? I had my rights. Sure I knew the law, but I wasn’t obstructing anyone or interfering with the police. I was just being, well, nosy. There was no law against nosiness.

I took another drink of tea. How about that? It was working. I could feel my energy returning, and that little drummer boy in my head had finally packed up his tom-toms.

Lottie came to the doorway. “Marco’s on the line.”

The tom-toms started up again. I finished the tea and pushed to my feet. “I’ll take it at my desk.”

“Are you going to tell him about Kellerman’s visit?”

“Not on your life. He’s worried enough as it is.” I went to the workroom and picked up the phone, trying to put on a cheerful voice for the second time that morning. “Good morning.”

“Hey, Sunshine, how are you feeling?”

“Don’t ever let me drink more than a glass of wine at one meal, okay? Well, maybe one and a half. Okay, two. But no more than two. And thanks for bringing me and my Vette home. We both appreciate it.”

“It was the least I could do. Not many guys can say their mothers got their girlfriends drunk.”

I couldn’t say I felt really special about that.

“Any word from Dave?” he asked hopefully.