If Fried Chicken Could Fly (14 page)

“Women in tights? I thought the women were really uncovered.”

“Sure, but it happened in steps. I actually think it was burlesque that progressed women’s fashion to the point of bearable. Burlesque lasted through the sixties, the nineteen sixties. Even though it objectified women in its own way, I think it helped free them from some horrible clothing.”

“I never thought about it like that,” I said.

“I know, but you seem such a willing student right now. I’m taking advantage of the moment.” Jake smiled and put his hands on his hips. “We’re not getting in this way. Let’s check around back.”

“They locked the doors.” Stuart Benson had emerged from his shoe repair shop. He stood in the doorway and rearranged his jeweler’s visor as he spoke. “Because of the murder, I assume.”

“Thanks, Stuart.” I waved.

“No problem. Be careful. Remember there’s a killer on the loose,” Stuart said before sinking back into his shop and closing the door.

“That was eerie,” Jake said.

“To the back?” I said as I shrugged.

“To the back.”

There was an alley behind all the buildings along Main Street, but the only way to access it was at the end of the blocks. We’d have to walk down the street and around the buildings. As we passed the pool hall, Miles tapped
on the front window and signaled us inside. He held a bottle of window cleaner and an old rag. Maybe Jenna had been helping him clean?

“Should we? We don’t really have time,” I said without moving my lips.

“Sure,” Jake said. “Miles is a good guy. Let’s see what he wants.”

The long walnut bar inside the pool hall was pocked with time; scratches, stains, and gouges hinted that it had seen its fair share of rowdy moments, spilled drinks, and an occasional fight or two. A long brass footrest also extended the length of the bar; it shone brightly. Miles was particular about the pool hall’s cleanliness, and a number of times I’d seen him on his hands and knees polishing the footrest. He swept the eight pool/billiard tables continuously and mopped the entire checkered linoleum tile floor every night. A mirror covered the wall behind the bar—a bar that no longer held alcohol but did have floor refrigerator cases full of sodas, sandwich ingredients, and candy bars of all flavors. The customers loved the cold candy bars.

Smoking had been illegal in public places in Broken Rope for years, but sometimes when I was in the pool hall I could smell the remnants of the days when men and boys and a few women leaned over the tables and aimed their cues with one eye open because the other one was closed against the smoke drifting upward from the cigarette between their lips.

“Betts, how’s your gram?” Miles said as he made his way around to the backside of the bar and set down the cleaning supplies.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine, Miles,” I said. I wasn’t sure if he was asking about her welfare after finding Everett’s body or if he’d heard she’d been arrested.

“Good. I’m just so sorry about Everett. He was one of the nicest men. I don’t understand…”

“You got to know him pretty well, then?” Jake asked.

“Sure, he was right next door. He’d frequently come over for lunch. And sometimes Miz joined him for dinner.”

Gram and Everett were having sandwiches at the pool hall? Those were their hot dates? Didn’t sound very romantic.

“They have dinner together often?” I asked, but I only sort of wanted to hear the answer. It didn’t take the short time I spent in law school to know that when questioning someone regarding something potentially criminal, it wasn’t wise to ask a question you didn’t already know the answer to. But what difference would it make if I knew how often they’d seen each other? I was unsure enough to be wary but curious enough to ask.

“I don’t know. A couple nights a week and at least once on the weekends for the past few weeks. They seemed to get along pretty well. I thought they made a cute couple.”

Miles was probably close to forty, but his short and shaggy brown hair made him seem younger. Everything about him was thin: his face, his close-set brown eyes, his nose, and his body. He always wore loose-fitting pants, either black or khaki; T-shirts in the summer; sweaters in the winter. He reminded me of movie portrayals of a stereotypical absentminded professor, but he wasn’t absentminded at all. He’d moved to Broken Rope and purchased the pool hall about five years earlier. I knew he’d never married, but I
didn’t know anything else about his private life. His care for the pool hall had turned it into a popular place. His sandwiches made him a strong competitor for Bunny’s diner, but I didn’t think she minded.

I thought back to when Mrs. Morningside made her entrance at the school. Miles and the other nighters had been in the kitchen area, and though they might have heard the commotion, they must not have caught on to the details. Miles might not even know that Everett was married.

“Did you ever chat with them?” I asked.

“Not really. They’d sit down at the end of the bar. They ordered food and then ate it while they looked at papers. I thought they might be writing a book or something, but I realized they were reading things, not writing them.”

“Did you get a close look at the papers?” Jake asked.

“No, never. They weren’t rude about it, but they certainly didn’t want me to see what they were looking at. They’d always go back to the Jasper after eating. I’m so sorry he’s gone. I was tired last night, and I feel like I was less than patient with the police calling us back to the school. I apologize. That’s really why I wanted to talk to you, Betts. Sorry if I was rude.”

“I appreciate that, but no problem. Really. Thanks, Miles.”

“Sure, sure. Let me know what I can do, okay?” Miles said.

“I hope you’re still planning on judging the cook-off.”

Miles blinked. “That still going on?”

“I’ve decided that it is. It has to. The cook-off is more than Gram, more than the cooking school. It’s the kick-off to the tourist season. The students who’ve been working so
hard would be cheated out of the competition, and the winner always puts it on his or her résumé. The townspeople would be disappointed, and the tourists who’ve already planned to be here for the event might be beyond disappointed all the way to angry. We have to have it.”

Miles nodded slowly. “I get that, I just thought…Well, of course I’m still in.”

“You’ll be at the judge meeting tomorrow morning then?” I said.

“Yes, bright and early.”

“Thanks, Miles. See you later.”

Once clear of Miles’s being able to either hear us or read our lips, Jake said, “Did you know that Miz was spending so much time with Everett?”

“I had no idea. She’s never been one to talk about her boyfriends. I knew they were friends and possibly romantic friends, but Gram’s not one to act moony unless Toby Keith or Tim McGraw is involved. But lunch and dinner at the pool hall? While they looked at papers? How romantic could it have been?”

“You need to talk to her, Betts. Maybe you, she, and Jerome can have a tête-à-tête. À tête.”

“Maybe.”

We passed the empty barber shop and finally the last business on this side of the street, Mabel’s Broken Crumbs. Mabel knew her way around a cookie. Gram was the first to admit that Mabel knew cookies better than anyone, Gram included. I often thought that Gram liked Mabel enough to keep her own cookie recipe selection small and low-key. If push ever came to shove, Missouri Anna could probably round up enough cookie recipes to put anyone to shame.

Just before we turned the corner, something flashed at the side of my vision. I wondered enough about what I saw to take a step backward and look into the cookie shop. It was normal that it wasn’t too busy this time of day, but usually I could see Mabel or Amy behind the display or cleaning the small dining area.

At first I didn’t see anyone, but suddenly it seemed that both Mabel and Amy appeared from behind the display and were moving past the cash register and toward the back of the store. It was difficult to interpret exactly what I was seeing, but Mabel had Amy by her arm and seemed to be moving her forcefully, roughly along. They disappeared behind the door to the kitchen without knowing I’d seen them.

“That was strange,” Jake said.

I didn’t realize he’d been watching, too.

“It made me uncomfortable,” I said. “Should we…”

“I’m not sure what we could do. Maybe Amy was hurt and Mabel was hurrying her to the back to help her. We all know how much work Amy has been for Mabel, but the girl seems to be getting better. She’s more pleasant to talk to, and she seems happier. I think what we just saw might have been something that was none of our business. However, I do think we need to watch for signs of something else.” Jake’s words were reasonable, but his tone was doubtful.

I’d go along with it for now, but the red flag had been raised, and from now on I would watch both Amy and Mabel more closely.

“Come on,” Jake said as he nudged at my elbow.

The alleys of Broken Rope weren’t like alleys of big cities or any-sized cities, really. The spaces were wide and bordered
by Dumpsters that were emptied on a regular basis. The entire space was kept clean and there were no typical alley dwellers in sight. There was also a number of storage sheds next to the Dumpsters. We were a theatrical town, and some of our props weren’t required for the full year. Some businesses were able to store their things in basements or attics, but others needed the sheds that held items such as old-fashioned signs or costumes or whatever.

Jake led us along the alley, past Mabel’s, past the barbershop, past the pool hall, and to the back of the Jasper, which even if we hadn’t known where we were, an old sign that hung from a second-story window grate told us we’d reached our destination. The sign looked like it had been constructed and painted in the late nineteenth century, but I knew it was just a reproduction, something the owner before Everett had put on the front of the building. It said simply, the jasper theater and had never fit well with the theater’s ornate decor. When Everett bought the business, he removed the sign and replaced it with a small plaque. He’d mentioned that the building had enough things to look at; it didn’t need a tacky sign, too.

There was a similar two-door system at the back of the Jasper as there’d been at the front but with only one set of doors. They were locked, too, but we weren’t surprised.

“I’m going to boost you up and you can try the window.”

“That’s your trick? The window?”

Jake blushed, which was a rare occurrence. “Yes, I used to sneak into the theater when I was a kid, when I first moved here. The window leads, or used to lead, to a film storage room. If you timed it just right, you could exit that room and
make it into the auditorium before the projectionist even knew you were there.”

“You scoundrel, you. You think you know someone…”

Jake rolled his eyes and threaded his hands together. “Climb.”

I grabbed hold of a brick protruding from the building and stepped into Jake’s hands. I barely faltered as I shot up to the window. I pushed up on the bottom sash, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Okay, let me down. It’s either locked or painted shut.”

“Shoot,” he said as I reached the ground again. “Well, short of breaking the window then, I don’t see a way in,” Jake said as he put his hands on his hips.

“Me neither.” The thought occurred to me to do as much, but there didn’t seem to be a good-enough reason to break, enter, or trespass. Searching the Jasper was a hunch. Granted, the hunch was stronger because Jerome mentioned seeing the paper on Everett’s desk and Miles said that Gram and Everett had been looking at papers of some sort, but breaking laws unless absolutely necessary wasn’t something I thought I should do. Gram was in jail, and though her freedom was on the line, I had no sense that she was in imminent danger. In fact, her being in jail might be the safest place for her.

A sound popped through the air and then something pinged. It was a familiar noise, but I didn’t place it right away.

“What was that?” I said.

“That couldn’t have been what I thought it was,” Jake said as he turned and looked down the alley. “It sounded like a gunshot. Like a bullet ricocheting off something metal.”

The sound came again. This time it was more a boom than a pop, but it was still followed by a
p-ting.

“Isabelle, you and your friend need to stop sticking your heads up in the air like fools on a Sunday. You’re being shot at.” Jerome was suddenly standing next to me. The scent of wood smoke filled the air, and though I had plenty of questions for him, I figured now wasn’t the time.

“Get down, Jake,” I said as I pulled on his shoulders.

From the ground and to the side of a storage shed, we both looked up at the spot where the next bullet landed. It broke a pane of glass in the door, right about where his head had just been.

Jake and I looked at each other and then back at the broken glass.

“Where’s the shooting coming from?” I said to Jerome, who’d crouched next to us.

Both Jake and Jerome said, “I don’t know.” Jake’s voice was tinged with more panic than Jerome’s smooth calm drawl. But Jerome was already dead, I supposed.

Even in all the years I’d lived in Broken Rope, even with all the guns (loaded with blanks though they might have been) everywhere, I’d never been shot at either in real life or pretend. It was horrifying. The sense of fear and feeling of being trapped muddled whatever good sense I might have left. The fear was real and deep and yet detached from me in a way that seemed like an out-of-body experience.

“You two need to get out of here—out of behind the buildings. You’re trapped.”

“What do you suggest?” I said.

“We have to get out of here,” Jake said.

“Jake, Jerome’s here. He’s trying to help,” I said.

Another shot boomed and then tinged.

“Where are the police? How do they not hear that?” Jake said, either ignoring what I’d said about Jerome or choosing not to comment.

“Sound is a funny thing,” Jerome said. “Anyone in front of these buildings might not hear one thing that’s going on behind them. But I think I know where the shooting’s coming from.”