Death Under Glass (9 page)

A
half a second's hesitation was enough time for Carrie to come back out of the shop before I had a chance to go in. I grabbed her arm just above the elbow. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Carrie backed away from the door, pulling me along with her. “Someone was in the shop.”

I sucked in a breath. “What? How—”

“Or maybe someone's still in there.”

The sun blazed down on us, baked the tarmac beneath our feet. I managed to break into a sweat at the same time my blood ran cold. “Okay,” I said, quietly. “Okay.”

Carrie struggled to get her free hand into the purse hung from her shoulder but the strap was a few inches too short to make the movement possible. She knocked
the bag behind her repeatedly in her attempts. “Nine-one-one,” she muttered. “Need to call nine-one-one.”

I nodded frantically and turned her away from the door to her shop. “Pharmacy,” I said. “We'll call from there.”

“Right,” she said. “Safe there.”

“Right.” I agreed.

The idea that someone had gotten into her store was disturbing enough. The possibility that someone hadn't left the store made us move with an unstoppable urgency.

Little more than twenty feet separated the back door of Aggie's Antiques from the back door of Bing's Pharmacy, but the distance felt three-times farther. Maybe it was to do with the heat or the humid weight of the air. More likely it had to do with a sudden surge of adrenaline that made time seem to slow and brought the world into crisp focus.

At the pharmacy door—the same steel style as the antiques shop, with a buzzer placed to the left below a sign directing visitors to ring for deliveries—I finally let go of Carrie. With a murmured prayer of “please be open please be open” she tugged on the door, and we tumbled over the threshold and into a narrow passageway. We passed a series of colorful posters advertising diapers, vitamins, and support hose before the passage opened up onto the sales floor.

“Not open yet,” a man called. A glass display case sat center store, while the walls were lined with over-the-counter remedies.

“Fred, it's me,” Carrie called in return, her voice none too steady. “Carrie? From—from next door?”

“Carrie, is everything all right?” Fred's voice drew closer with each word. “You sound shook.”

He appeared from a recessed doorway behind the register and hurried along the length of the sales counter, a small man with gray hair as thin as his frame. His bushy brows crinkled with concern.

“Someone broke into my shop,” Carrie said.

“We're afraid they may still be in there,” I added.

“I have to call the police.”

Fred's chin fell. He looked from Carrie to me and back again. “Of course. Of course. Use my phone.”

“I have my cell,” I offered. I shoved a hand into my purse and surprised myself by locating the phone immediately. I passed it to Carrie, my own distress manifesting in the belief that only Carrie was capable of dialing the emergency operator.

“Good. Good.” Fred dashed past us, down the passage to the back door. As Carrie dialed, a thunk reverberated through the quiet store. Fred was locking his barn after the neighbor's horses had got out.

Standing close beside Carrie as she made the call, it was easy to hear the emergency operator come on the line. Together we listened to the operator announce that nine-one-one was for emergencies only and a break-in is not an emergency. Carrie would have to call the precinct.

She told the operator, “I don't know the number for the precinct.”

The operator rattled off the number. Before Carrie could go into a panic looking for pen and paper, I said, “It's in my contacts. Don't worry.”

Carrie thanked the operator and disconnected the call. She handed me back the phone. “You call,” she said. “They know you there.”

I really wish that wasn't true.

Fred joined us as I scrolled through the contacts. “How did someone get into your shop? Didn't you lock up?”

“Well, yes, of course I locked up.” Her voice broke on “yes” and deteriorated as she went along.

I placed my phone on the counter and put an arm around her shoulder. A continuing tremor ran through her. She wrapped her arms around her belly and curled into herself.

“What about your alarm?” Fred asked. “Did you remember to set it?”

Carrie let out the smallest possible peep of affront, and I glowered at Fred. “Maybe leave the questions for the police and instead tell me where she can sit down until they get here.”

“Oh, well, I . . .” He rubbed his hands together like he was applying lotion and glanced back toward the doorway from which he had appeared. “I can't let just anyone in the dispensary. There are controlled substances back there. Why don't you go have a seat at Grace's?”

I clenched my jaw for a slow count of three. The luncheonette Grace owned and managed was a fine place to grab a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. It was also the ideal location for catching up on every morsel of gossip Wenwood had to offer, or, you know, becoming gossip. “Maybe you could bring a chair out here?” I suggested.

Fred raised two fingers to his chin and gazed at the ceiling in classic thinker's pose.

“Maybe now?” I snapped.

“Georgia, it's okay,” Carrie said on a sigh.

“No, it's not okay.” There was no reason for Pharmacy Fred to think twice about helping Carrie. I was pretty sure his hesitation violated some chiseled-in-stone law of small-town compassion.

Still, it was a small town. I had to remind myself that things were done differently in Wenwood than they were in New York City.

I took a breath, smiled softly, and said in a much calmer voice, “Fred, it would really be a kindness if Carrie could sit while we wait for the police. She's had quite an upset.”

Whether it was my approach or whether Fred had reached his own generous conclusion, he scampered off to fetch a stool, then held Carrie's elbow as she lowered herself onto the seat.

Grabbing my phone from the countertop, I scrolled through the contacts until I reached the entry for Pace County Police Department. Hoping Diana was on the desk, I put the phone to my ear and listened to the ringing.

The grumbling voice on the other end of the line sounded unfamiliar to me and most definitely wasn't Diana's. I gave my name and provided the details of the break-in as I knew them—open door, disrupted interior, nonfunctioning alarm—while beside me Carrie muttered about the disruption in her back room. Smashed picture frames, toppled vases, shattered cheval mirror. I informed
the desk sergeant we had no knowledge of whether the thief remained in the store, that we had not entered and were holed up in Bing's Pharmacy.

“They said you did the right thing by not going into the store,” I said, dropping the phone into my bag. “And we should wait here until an officer arrives.”

“Oh, dear. Oh.” Fred set to wringing his hands again. “I have orders to fill before I open and . . .” He glanced behind him to the dispensary.

“And we can't be here?” I guessed.

He lifted his shoulders, offered an apologetic smile. “I don't mind Carrie waiting. I've known her since she needed all her medicine in bubble gum flavor.”

It took me fully half a second to understand. Carrie was a local. I was still an outsider. At the beginning of the summer that treatment made sense. Now, after all that had gone on, my response to being viewed as an outsider was shifting from annoyance to hurt. A tiny little poison bubble floating dangerously close to my heart.

And yet, I rumpled my forehead and nodded as though his differing treatment made perfect sense and I should have thought of it myself. “That's . . . that's fine. No problem. I'll just . . .” What? Wait in the car? Wander around the grocery store?

Carrie rescued me, looking at me with clear eyes from her tragic pose on the stool. “Do you think you could get me a cup of tea?” she asked, stressing the second
you
.

I wasn't sure what she was getting at, if she was trying to convey some hidden instruction to me. But I was happy
enough to have an excuse to escape Fred's lack of trust for a bit.

For his part, Fred was happy to escort me out the front door, locking it behind me. I knew the locking was nothing personal. Didn't stop me feeling that it was.

I stood on the sidewalk for a moment and weighed my options. Across the street to the left was Rozelle's Bakery. Because of her—ahem—affection for Grandy, I reasoned she wouldn't ask many questions about what I was doing in the village so early in the morning. And in her hope of moving on quickly to news of Grandy she would only half listen to the answers I gave about myself, so a simple fib about helping Carrie with inventory would suffice. The drawback was having to wait for water to boil and potentially miss the arrival of the police.

Across the street to the right was the luncheonette, where there was always hot water. There was also Grace and Tom and Dave and a potential host of regulars who had plenty of time to chat and weren't likely to let my story of something as dead boring as inventory stop them from asking a good dozen follow-up questions.

I could eeny-meeny but the wind gusted—a hot breeze with a metallic finish. Rain would come sooner than later. And my umbrella was in Carrie's car.

With a resigned breath, I checked for traffic then dashed across the road. Over and over in my mind I told myself the inventory lie, so that when I pulled open the door to the luncheonette and spotted Tom in his usual place at the counter I nearly blurted out the story instead of hello.

“Jeannine,” Tom called. “Good morning, good morning, good morning.” He raised his plain stoneware coffee mug in salute and gave me a giggly grin.

I approached cautiously, switching my gaze from Tom to Grace. She stood in her usual position behind the counter, one hand on her hip, the other tapping the eraser end of a pencil against the morning paper. “That's Georgia,” she said.

Tom shrugged, boney shoulders shaping an inverted V beneath his New England Patriots golf shirt. “I got the name wrong, but the face is right,” he said.

Well, that was good to know. I'd hate to have been running around with someone else's face. “Hi, Tom,” I said, sliding onto the vacant stool beside him. “How are you?”

He flashed a grin. “Feel great.”

“He saw some new doctor out in East Waring,” Grace said. “Got poor Tom here taking hundred-dollar supplements to help improve his memory.”

“It's working,” Tom said. “Didn't I tell ya it's working?”

“You know, sometimes the right balance of nutrients really can work wonders,” I said, not that I really thought any supplement, no matter how costly, could fully bring Tom back from his perennial forgetfulness, but I was happy to have his perhaps previously unreliable memory forestall the usual question of what brings me to town.

“See?” Tom jerked a thumb in my direction. “Jeannine knows.”

“Georgia,” I said.

But Tom laughed, slapping his palm lightly against his thigh. “I'm kidding. I know you're Georgia. My mind is clear as a bell. I remember everything.”

Grace scowled. “Sure you do. Ask him about Terry,” she suggested.

“Why?” I had never even met Terry, but knew from time spent at the luncheonette that he and Tom had been constant companions until Terry moved south to be with his daughter. At Grace's encouraging nod I swiveled the stool so I was facing Tom. “What about Terry?” I asked.

“Heard from him last night.” Tom thunked his coffee mug onto the counter, smacked his lips. “How about a refill, Gracie?”

“You spoke to Terry?” I asked.

Tom nodded. “He's coming back up for a few weeks. Staying through September, he says. Too hot down Carolina in the summertime.”

I checked with Grace, who raised her brows as the corners of her mouth turned down.

“He says Terry's going to take the train,” she said, in a tone of shrewd disbelief.

I glanced at Tom then back to Grace. “And why is this doubtful?”

The bell over the door jingled in the same moment Grace said, “Tom says he's going to pick him up at the station. As if he's still got a driver's license. If Terry is really planning—”

“Ned!” Tom called.

Grace dismissed talk of Terry with a wave of her hand and a heavy sigh.

“It's Herb, Tom,” the gentleman said, joining us at the counter. “You know that. Morning, Grace.” He slid a careworn fishing hat from his head, revealing a wealth of
freckles and age spots hunkered beneath a very few strands of hair. “And who is this young lady?” he asked.

“That's Georgia Kelly,” Grace replied for me. “Her granddad runs the Downtown Dine-In.”

“Oh, come now, Grace. I'm sure Miss Kelly has something to recommend herself apart from her relationship to someone else.” He gave me a crooked smile bright with kindness and genuine interest. “How about it?”

“Okay, um . . .” If I wasn't Pete Keene's granddaughter, and I could no longer legitimately consider myself an accountant, then what was I? “I, um, first of all it's just Georgia,” I said. “And I guess I might be a stained glass artist?”

Herb's smile widened. “That's wonderful. My wife, God rest her, was a big collector of blown glass. Picked some up everywhere we went. They're still attracting all the dust in my house, those pieces. I just haven't had the heart to pack them away.”

“Well there's . . . no reason you have to,” I said, hoping it was the right thing to say. “You're allowed to enjoy them, too.”

“Now that is true. That is true,” he said. “But where are my manners? Name's Herb Gallo.”

I grasped the hand he held out to me but rethought a firm shake. His grip was cautious, and made me think at once of Grandy—still a strong bear of a man despite his age, whose handshake could still be intimidating. Herb Gallo, who looked to be of a similar age, shook hands with the force of a lazy breeze.