Knot the Usual Suspects (15 page)

“Will it help if I ask her to apologize?”

“It will help if I am allowed to enjoy my death in peace and quiet.”

*   *   *

Running investigations on the QT out of a profitable yarn shop wasn't easy. The profits
would
keep walking through the door—as they should. As gratifying as the brisk business was that morning, it kept me from cornering Ardis and making her tell me what she'd learned during her interview with Darla. She took every opportunity to personally guide customers to their destinations, thus keeping out of my clutches. Shortly after noon, she said she'd run to Mel's and pick up a couple of salads.

“I'm having a hard time keeping a lid on my B-day excitement,” she said, speaking behind her hand so the customers browsing the display table didn't hear. “The fresh air will do me good. Might knock the edge off.”

“Do you mind if I go instead?”

She stooped, peering into my face. “Are you all right? Here I am, all hyped up, and I just realized that you've been awfully quiet. Problems with Her Highness upstairs?”

“No.” That came out more sharply than I'd meant and I tried to soften it. Hard to do after the fact, though. “I might be more keyed up than you think. Sorry, Ardis. I
didn't mean to sound snappish. You can go if you need to get out.”

“You go on, hon. I'll expend my extra energy flinging a dust rag around.”

“Thanks.”

I went out the back door, the baa sounding troubled and melancholy to my ears. That sound and kicking a stone down the service alley toward Mel's back door suited my mood. I didn't know what I was going to do about my two mismatched, peas-in-a-pod friends. What if they couldn't learn to get along? Geneva's interpersonal skills had improved over the months we'd known each other, but they were still rusty from more than a century spent in the limbo of haunting a house where no one knew she existed. And that put the burden of compromise on Ardis. Strong, stable, sure-of-herself Ardis—who didn't seem to be getting it right.

I waited in line at Mel's counter wondering if there was such a thing as a family therapist who specialized in normal and paranormal families, and if so, where I'd find one.

“Order, please,” Mel said when it was my turn at the counter. “I'd engage you in pleasant banter, Red, but Ardis called ahead to warn me that you're feeling contemplative.” She pointed at the man behind me in line. “You don't mind stepping back, do you?” she asked him. “We're having a private moment here.” She made shooing motions at him, then crooked a finger at me. “Ardis hopes you're working out an intricate part of the case,” she said almost under her breath. “But she's worried that what's really going on is that you and Joe are having problems.”

“What? Why?”

“She hasn't seen you two together much lately. She thought it might be preying on your mind.”

“He's busy with Handmade Blue Plum. You had time for this conversation with her during the lunch rush?”

“She talked fast.”

“She could've talked to me.”

“She wanted an impartial opinion. I told her not to worry, that you two are fine, and that if there were problems, I'd probably know about them before you did. But going with her first thought, that you're in a detecting haze, she ordered lunch so you wouldn't have to waste brainpower wondering what to get. Roasted beet and radish salads à l'orange and a couple of lemonades are waiting at the pickup window.”

I handed her my credit card.

“Sorry I can't join the fun tonight,” she said.

“We are, too, but we'll tell you all about it in the morning.”

“You'll find something extra in your bag you're going like. Now move along and quit holding up the line.”

“Thanks, Mel.”

I picked up the bag with the salads and something extra, visions of another new menu experiment dancing in my head. I didn't look to see what it was, deciding to let Ardis have the pleasure of discovery. Mel would have made a good bartender, I thought. What kind of commonsense advice would she apply to my paranormal friend and family situation? Could I discuss it with her, using the clichéd “friend with a problem” ploy? Would the identity of the friend surprise her?

I pushed through Mel's back door, juggling the bag
and the caddy holding the lemonade, feeling more hopeful. Not looking for Spiveys lying in wait.

“There you are,” said the unscented Spivey to my left when the door snapped shut behind me.

“Oops,” the scented one said. “And there goes your lemonade down the steps.”

“W
e thought we'd give you an update,” Mercy said.

“It's a good thing the lemonade missed your shoes and tights,” Shirley said. “You might want to let Mel know it's there, though, or people will be tracking it into the café all afternoon.”

I might want to vault over the lemonade—or their heads—and run down the alley to get away from them. “What update?”

“On the McPhee-Rogalla rendezvous.”

“On Tuesday afternoon.”

“We know where they went.”

“Who they saw.”

“You look like a metronome,” Shirley said. “Does this help?” They'd been standing on opposite sides of Mel's back landing. She moved over next to Mercy, giving me a single focal point. It did help.

“Where and who?” I asked.

“The courthouse,” Shirley said. “The Register of Deeds.”

“And then the bank,” said Mercy. “Rachel Meeks.”

That was so interesting that I looked the twins in their eyes and thanked them—sincerely. Their surprise at my sincerity said something about the usual tone of our interactions. Their surprise wasn't quite enough to make me feel bad about that usual tone, because I was still suspicious of their motives. But when they shooed me along, saying they would tell Mel about the lemonade, I thanked them again, avoided the worst of the spill, and headed back to the Cat.

*   *   *

“Don't worry about the lemonade,” Ardis said. “I'll make tea. There's nothing wrong with tap water, either, although with the twins on the loose, something stronger wouldn't go amiss.”

“Amen.”

“Ivy used to keep a bottle in the office.”

“Granny?”

“For after hours only.”

I glanced toward the office. “Bottle of what? I haven't found anything like that in there.”

“The last was a bottle of dry sherry. We finished it one memorable night last spring. She didn't get around to replacing it before she passed, and I didn't have the heart to.”

“Maybe we should replace it now.”

“Not a bad idea.”

“Ardis, what do you know about Al Rogalla?” I hadn't told her about Shirley and Mercy's visit the night before, or about the update they'd sprung on me at Mel's back door. Ardis' feelings for the twins were visceral, and I wanted to hear her views on Al unfiltered through her Spivey senses.

“I'm not sure I've ever trusted him,” she said.

“Why not?”

She screwed her mouth sideways to give the question serious thought. “I don't suppose I have a good reason. He's a volunteer fireman, and that speaks well for him. He's an accountant. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that.”

“Joe says he's a nice guy.”

“Well, Joe is Joe, and that doesn't make him the best judge of character, does it.” She said that with the kind of offhand chuckle that suggested this shouldn't be news to me.

“But you like Joe.” Her statement
was
news to me. Except for the first time we'd met—when I'd caught him in a house he had no business being in—I hadn't seen or heard anything that would lead me to think he or his judgment couldn't be trusted. Nothing concrete. Nothing specific. But this “old news” played into some of my questions about him that I'd found it easier to bury since we got together. “You like Joe and you trust
him
, right?”

“In every way that matters.” She said that without hesitation, with sure conviction.

“But not Rogalla.”

“I feel like we're overthinking this,” Ardis said. “Allegiances aren't always rational. Humans are funny that way, as I know you've noticed. It might be something nebulous that comes down to familiarity and comfort level. But why do we care about Al Rogalla? He knows how to put out a fire and he doesn't do our taxes. Two pluses in my admittedly irrational human worldview. And that leaves you still holding the bag.” She pointed at the lunch bag.

“Do you want me to tell you why we care about him before or after lunch?”

She sighed and dropped onto the stool behind the counter.

“I'll be quick. First, Cole mentioned Al Rogalla Tuesday morning. Like he has a competition going with him. That makes Al interesting right off the bat. Second, the twins told me they saw Hugh and Al together Tuesday afternoon.”

“Busybody snoops.”

“Hold on. Believe it or not, you and they are on the same wavelength where Al Rogalla is concerned. If you'd told me that you like and trust him as unequivocally as you told me you like and trust Joe, I'd take their information with more than a grain of salt.”

“I think we'll still take it with a grain of salt.”

I nodded. “My thinking, too. But they say they found out that Hugh and Al went to the Register of Deeds together, and then to meet with Rachel Meeks.”

I handed her the lunch bag. “Here, you eat first.”

“And I'll chew over that bit of news while I do.”

*   *   *

The phone rang while I was ringing up a substantial purchase of the kumihimo silk cord. I apologized to the customer and picked up. It was Thea.

“I'm with another customer. Do you mind if I call you back?”

“I'm not a customer. I'm reporting case information.”

“Text it?”

“You know I won't. Story time starts in five minutes. This won't take thirty seconds.”

I apologized to the customer again. She was the best
kind of patron; she took the delay as an opportunity to resume shopping.

“Hugh McPhee played his pipes at a funeral for Walter Jeffries in Knoxville on Monday.”

“Do we know who he was?”

“No. I'll find out what I can after story time. We're doing
Extra Yarn
by Mac Barnett today. The kids get to decorate boxes and take them home with a ball of yarn. See you tonight.”

*   *   *

Ardis' eyes were red when she came back out front after eating.

“It's the downtimes that are hard,” she said. “I find it very easy to make myself cry. Maybe I shouldn't eat lunch for a while.”

“Or not alone. Geneva used to cry a lot when we first met.”

“And that breaks my heart, too. All that time, all those years and years she spent alone. She must have been a very strong person to have held her wits together through all that.”

“She still is a person, Ardis. Just extremely differently abled. Did you know that she used to draw?”

“Speaking of which.” She handed me a piece of lined notebook paper folded in quarters. “This was in the bag with the salads.”

“Just the salads? Mel said she put in something extra.”

“That must be it.” She mimed flipping the paper over, where Mel had written
Dish. I think you'll like it.

“Have you looked at it?” I asked as I unfolded it.

“I thought I'd read over your shoulder.”

I unfolded the paper, revealing a couple of paragraphs
in rounded cursive, followed by a small stick figure. But no sooner had I smoothed the paper on the counter between us than the camel bells at the door jingled. I refolded the paper and handed it back to Ardis. And in walked a man Ardis was beginning to warm up to, but not much.

“I'll go on upstairs and do that straightening I didn't tell you about that I really must do immediately,” she said. “Call me if you need me. Or send smoke signals.”

Her comment wasn't the politically incorrect remark it sounded like. And if Ardis hadn't been warming up to Aaron Carlin, she would have made the crack about smoke signals loud enough for him to hear. She didn't, though, and he stepped inside with a wave and his sweet smile in place. Aaron was the handyman whose pickup truck I'd thought of when Ernestine told us she'd heard a vehicle backfire late Tuesday night. His truck was leprous, and backfiring might be its least toxic trait. Ardis was of the opinion that Carlins in general were toxic. They were known as the Smoky Smokin' Carlins, because they had the bad habit of starting fires in the national forest down around Newport where they lived. More than a few of them had spent time as guests of the federal government. Aaron himself had stood trial on arson charges, but had been acquitted. That was before he and Mercy's daughter, Angie, got together. I didn't know Aaron well. Joe trusted him, though . . . dang.

“How's it going, Aaron? Haven't seen you for a while.”

“Fine,” he said, rocking a time or two on his heels. “Yeah, yeah, fine.”

“And Angie?”

“Oh yeah. She's, you know, fine.” He stuck his hands in his pockets.

Aaron never did have much to say, and that generally seemed to suit him. But that afternoon he didn't sound or look as copacetic as I'd come to expect. In fact, he looked as though he might develop a twitch any minute. By the way he kept turning around and looking over his shoulder, I might have thought his unease came from being surrounded by so much yarn. But a fear of fiber seemed unlikely for a man who wasn't afraid to tickle a rattlesnake under the chin—and I had firsthand knowledge of his delight in doing that.

He sidled over to the front window, possibly to admire the kumihimo loom. But he stopped short of the window, and seeing him slowly and carefully peer around the edge to scan what he could see of the porch jogged a memory. I'd seen a few others behave like that. It was taking a chance, but I decided to test a two-word theory.

I took a deep breath and enunciated clearly, “Spivey twins.” And I was immediately sorry.

I took him into the small office behind the desk and made him sit with his head between his knees. He wasn't quite hyperventilating, but it took a good five minutes to calm the poor guy down. He told me that, yes, Angie was fine, Angie was more than fine (which, by the way he said it, sounded like too much information to me), but her mother and aunt—the Spivey twins—were more than he had bargained for.

“Did you know that neither one of them has been a Spivey for decades?” he asked. “One of them, and I don't even know which one it is, has been married two times, and that makes her twice removed from the blighted
name, and they still call themselves the Spivey twins, and so does everyone else.
And
,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, “I can smell them before I see them.” He took a few tentative sniffs and shuddered.

I commiserated and told him I wished I had Granny's bottle of dry sherry to offer him.

He shuddered again. “I gave up drink after I met the twins. Can I tell you why I came? Then I'd like to leave out the back door if you don't mind.”

“I'll check it before you do. Trust me, it's a good idea.”

“I believe you, and boy howdy, I'd appreciate it. I have a, uh, a person I do business with from time to time. Sort of a . . .”

“A client?”

“Yes, ma'am. Client is what we'll call it. This client—I'm not saying he or she because the client doesn't want anyone to know who—durn. I almost said it.”

“Your client wants to remain anonymous?”

“Bingo.”

“We could agree to use ‘he' to make it easier.”

“Okeydoke. That'll work. He says he was in the park the other night when that feller got killed.”

“Whoa.”

“Yep. That's about what I said.”

“Did he see—”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Why are you telling me this?” That and a few dozen other questions flew through my head. Some that it might be better not to ask.

“My client told me to tell you he might or might not have useful information.”

“But—”

“He can't go to the police.”

“Okay.” Why he couldn't was probably one of the questions I shouldn't ask.

“I got him to agree to talk to you,” Aaron said.

“May I ask why you or your client think I can help?”

“No need to, is there?”

“Huh. So, how does your client want to do this? Do we pick an out-of-the-way place or some kind of neutral location—”

“Tomorrow morning's good. And here's good, too. My client's been in here and liked it. I told her I'd bring her and stay to lend moral support.”

I could see a load lift from Aaron when I agreed to meet. So much so that he'd relaxed and slipped—he and his female client would be at the Weaver's Cat around midmorning. He'd told
her
he'd bring
her
and stay to lend moral support. Angie Spivey?

*   *   *

Ardis laughed when I filled her in. She thought the idea of a Carlin lending moral support to anyone was hilarious. Geneva, maybe attracted by the laughter, floated into the room and huddled on a shelf near the ceiling between a box of rarely used display stands and another of never-used tablecloths. If she'd noticed the labels, she might have chosen that space because it made a statement and suited her mopish mood. Or she might have chosen it because I could see her but from where Ardis stood, she couldn't.

“It
could
be Angie,” Ardis said, “but why would he call her a client and say he did business with her? Not much of a romantic, your Mr. Carlin.”

I thought back. “‘Business' could've been a euphemism. ‘Client' was my word. He was trying to be careful and I fed that word to him to speed things along. Geneva's right. I need to improve my interview skills. I bet she knows which TV shows I can watch to pick up tips and techniques.”

“You'd be better off getting hold of a textbook from a police academy. Thea can find one for you.”

I glanced up at Geneva. She'd turned her wispy gray back and looked like something else forgotten on the top shelf.

“For a well-rounded education, I could try both. A book for the nitty-gritty; TV for the dramatics. That reminds me, though. Thea called while you were eating. She found out that Hugh was in Knoxville on Monday, playing his pipes at a funeral for a guy named Walter Jeffries.”