Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery (26 page)

“And now he’s working for you,” Ardis said.

“It’s a fair trade. People should be convicted for the crimes they commit, not because they can’t pay a good lawyer.”

“And you are an excellent lawyer, Homer. I’m sure you’re a great comfort to the family.” I hadn’t seen them side by side before. Solid Ardis was a hair taller than the raptor. She looked very much as though she’d like to pat
him on the head, but she didn’t. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find the lint brush for you,” she told him. “You should stop by the Western Auto and pick up a roll of masking tape. Makes a good substitute in a pinch.”

Homer looked down the length of his trousers and took a few more swipes at the sides of his knees. “I think I conquered the worst of it. A little cat fur goes a long way, but it isn’t the end of the world and I have other clients waiting. Kath, a word before I go? You’ll excuse us, Ms. Buchanan?”

Homer and I walked to the end of the front walk, where he repeated his instructions not to communicate with Deputy Dunbar and not to let the word “blackmail” pass my lips, not even to Ardis. Especially not to Ardis. The house keys, he once again promised to track down. In the meantime he had a suggestion.

“I sense yours is a sunny personality and that these last few days have done their damnedest to drench you and bring you down.”

I wanted to ask him how that sense fit in with his other sense about my anger-management issues, but he wasn’t finished being solicitous.

“Don’t spend the rest of the day alone with your anxieties and frustrations. In fact, I’ll call Ruth and see if she has luncheon plans.” He was quick on the draw and already had his phone in one hand, the other hand up to stop my protest. Ruth didn’t answer, though. He left a message asking her to call me later if she was free, and told her he’d be home at the usual time. “I’m sorry that won’t work out,” he said.

“Thanks, anyway, Homer. I’ll be fine. I’ll go to the Cat.”

“The Cat? Oh, the shop. That’s the perfect solution. Ardis can drive you there and you can indulge in some ‘me’ time, as they say. Make a pot of herbal tea. Spend time being creative with all those wonderful, er, strings.”

“Fibers.”

“Fibers, yes—a much better word. Create, relax, chat with those wonderful ladies, and you should be able to face the next few days refreshed and revived.”

I smiled and nodded. His idea that creativity erased frustration and anxiety and produced tranquillity showed an interesting lack of insight into the creative process. But I thanked him and didn’t quite promise anything. I held out my hand on its bed of thawing peas and that gallant man took them together in both of his, shook them gently, and wished me an uneventful remainder of the day. When he turned to walk away I saw he still had enough cat fur on the back of his coat and trousers to make a whole new cat.

“Not his usual look,” Ardis said, coming up beside me, “but it makes him more human, don’t you think?”

We watched him get in his car. She waved good-bye, then hit me with the opening salvo of her third degree.

“Blackmail? Please do tell Dr. Buchanan everything.”

“I’ve been advised not even to breathe that word.”

“Why not? It’s a perfectly good word. Full of that other thing. You know, intrigue. Let’s find a substitute for ‘blackmail,’ then. I do that a lot these days, anyway, when I can’t think of a word. So, tell me all about the shakedown.”

“Walk toward my car and open the passenger door for me. Homer thinks you’re taking me to the Cat and I get the feeling he won’t pull away until he sees we’re leaving.”

Homer’s sleek sedan was parked on the street. My nondescript rental was in the drive. When we reached it, Ardis made a show of rooting in my purse for the keys, pulling them out, dropping them, then unlocking the passenger door and opening it.

“Founding member of the Blue Plum Repertory
Theater,” she said as she handed me in and pretended to fuss with the seat belt. “You should have seen me as Aunt Eller in
Oklahoma!
Would you like me to sing? Never mind, there he goes. Don’t get out yet. I’ll close the door, in case he looks in his mirror.”

In her exuberance, she slammed the door, then started around the front of the car. I looked out the back and watched Homer head down the street. Ardis waved again as he turned the corner. Then she came back, laughing, and I climbed out.

“Most fun I’ve had in years. What’s next?”

“Can you read and take a few more notes while I drive, or will you get carsick?”

She thumped her midsection. “Iron Stomach Buchanan.”

“Good. I’ll drop you back at the Cat and fill you in on the way.”

“You’re sure you can drive with your hand?”

I tossed her the bag of peas. She caught it and held it by one corner while I gingerly ran my fingers through a few agility tests. “As long as I don’t have to punch anyone else, I think I’ll be fine. What do we do with the peas now?”

“I have a recipe for green pea hummus from the
Bugle
. So, how does this sound for supper tonight? The hummus, toasted pitas, goat cheese, fruit salad, and you’re invited. Daddy won’t know who you are, but he’ll enjoy meeting you over and over. In the meantime, I’ll put the peas in the fridge at the Cat.”

“Can I let you know later? I might have a subsequent engagement.”

“Working on the case?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer her. Partly because I wasn’t sure I wasn’t out of my mind. Again. But seeing and hearing ghosts was one kind of crazy, a loony kind. This other thing, playing detective, if that’s what I was
planning to do, was maybe just an ill-advised, imprudent kind of crazy. And because I was handling the loony so well, it seemed logical to think the ill-advised should be a piece of cake. Unless I made myself even crazier thinking about it.

“Hon?” Ardis waved the bag of peas to get my attention. “You’re working on the case tonight?”

“Can I get back to you on that, too?”

“Mysterious doings
and
blackmail
and
more notes? Very exciting. Drive slow so I get everything down.”

We did go slow, taking the scenic route, thanks to distracted driving. Given the size and simplicity of Blue Plum, we should have been able to point the car in the right direction and let it take itself. Or maybe we did and that’s why we went around the corner at Hillside and Maple twice from two directions. I was too busy trying to keep straight what I had and hadn’t told Homer and Clod and what I would and wouldn’t tell Ardis. It was enough to send anyone around the wrong bend. Ardis, taking notes, wouldn’t have known, or cared, if I’d peeled off and headed for Timbuktu.

We still arrived at the Cat too soon to suit her. She urged me to keep going, saying it might be her only chance to live her fantasy of being in a buddy road trip movie. I convinced her we shouldn’t take the chance that Homer would see us and ground us, or the chance that Ernestine was on her way back from Dr. Keane’s and
wouldn’t
see us and would put us out of commission altogether by plowing into us with the patrol car and a really cranky deputy.

I pulled into the alley behind the Cat and parked. To placate Ardis, I told her she could pretend we were on a stakeout. She told me in that case I owed her a doughnut.

“Not one of those namby-pamby things filled with air, either. A good old-fashioned cake doughnut. Chocolate.
With chocolate icing. Nuts on top for protein. Mel has the best. So,” she said, scanning her notes, “I won’t ask why you didn’t tell Cole or Homer everything you think is missing. And I won’t ask if you told
me
everything that’s missing. I will be your loyal recording secretary and leave questions of legality or sanity to bother your conscience, not mine.”

I hadn’t told her everything. It felt right to keep some of it quiet. Safer. Safer for whom, I wasn’t sure. But she’d turned colors suitable for embroidering a tropical sunset when I told her Emmett and Granny’s respective roles in the shakedown. That couldn’t be healthy for someone who liked doughnuts as much as she did. I did tell her I was going to fetch my laptop from the cottage, telling her I was used to thinking with electronic organization. She offered me use of the office computer, but using my own was part of keeping things quiet. Safe.

“Keep your phone with you, then, and keep it on,” she said, handing me her notebook. “Something’s afoot and I’m not sure it’s a game. Don’t be gone long. Oh my, I’ve just thought of something I’ve always wanted to do. Wait there.” She closed the passenger door and came around the front of the car. I lowered the window to ask what she was doing, but she answered before I got the words out.

“Iconic cop show stuff,” she said. Then she squared her shoulders, saluted, and slapped the car top twice. When I looked in the rearview mirror, she was grinning like an electrified cat.

The ghost flitted through my mind as I left town. Flitted, nothing. She swooped in and took over my latest attempt at rational thought. One minute I was making plans to uncover a blackmailer and the next I was wondering how
she’d been spending her time since her audiobook ended. Waxing melancholic in the bedroom? Lying in wait for me behind the kitchen door? I made a quick mental list of things I’d rather avoid. Thinking about her went on it. Also sheriff’s deputies and herbal tea.

My phone started ringing halfway to the cottage. I didn’t answer and added distracted driving to my avoidance list. It stopped ringing. Then started again. And after that, again. By the time I turned in at the Homeplace, an entire swarm of annoying phone tweedles had invaded the car, converting the space from compact to claustrophobic, and finding a new ringtone was more important to me than finding a new job.

I parked, closed my eyes, and breathed slowly, practicing phone anger-management skills, glad I didn’t keep knitting needles in the car. Homer might see them as a symbol of tranquillity. I might stab the phone with them when it rang again. Which it did. I massaged the back of my neck, counted to ten. The phone quit. I looked at the display.

All the missed calls were from a single number. A Blue Plum number. No surprise I didn’t recognize it. The phone rang again. Same number. I breathed out one more time and answered. The caller barged into my ear without waiting for a hello from my end. It was one of the Spiveys.

“Thank God you finally answered. I told Shirley if we didn’t give up trying, you’d eventually give up and answer.”

So it was Mercy. “Wha—,” I started to say.

“Don’t interrupt. No time for chat. This is urgent. Max is dead.”

“I heard. I’m sorry. Please tell Angie—”

“What did you hear?”

“He tripped and fell down the steps.”

“Then it’s not the kind of dead you’re thinking.”

“What other kind is there?” I asked.

“He was pushed. He’s the murdered kind of dead.”

“What?”

“And we need your help. You’re our alibi.”

Chapter 27

T
hank God I’d done my slow breathing before answering the phone. I wasn’t sure I had any breath left after Mercy’s call. They’d been busy.

They’d taken it upon themselves to find out where I was staying, asking around town the day before until someone told them, as I hadn’t the good manners (Mercy’s words) to tell them myself. When I asked who told them, she said she didn’t remember. She didn’t lie any better than I ever did.

Not wanting to miss any exciting developments in my life (my words), they drove out early that morning, parked at the Quickie Mart, and waited until I drove past on my way into town. Not being the suspicious sort, I didn’t notice them following. That’s how they knew I stopped at the house first, and why they were fighting over the binoculars while I ate breakfast at Mel’s.

They also followed me when Homer and I, trailed by Clod, went to Homer’s office. When Clod left Homer’s they argued over whether to follow him or wait and see where I went. They stuck with me. They saw me speak to Aaron Carlin. They recognized him and were shocked (Mercy’s word) that I knew him.

They broke off following me and rushed to Angie’s side when she heard Max was dead. Now they were
panicking because Angie was told there were questions about how Max got that way.

“It hasn’t been verified he was murdered?”

“As good as,” Mercy said. “And we need you to back us up about where we were and what we were doing this morning.”

There was the sound of a scuffle on the other end and errant beeps as of a misplaced hand pressing keys. Then Shirley came on.

“We’ll be right up there on the list of suspects because we didn’t like him. Mercy especially didn’t like him.”

There was a muffled “ouch” and Mercy came back on the line.

“Don’t pay any attention to Shirley. I loved him like the son I never wished I had. So, what’ll it take?”

“Take for what?”

“To give us an alibi. Someone might have seen us at the house this morning and turned us in.”

“But
I
didn’t see you,” I said. “How do I know you were there?”

“How else did we know
you
were there?” Mercy asked.

“Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.”

“Okay, put it this way. If we hadn’t followed you to the house, then followed you to Mel’s and seen you were staying for breakfast, and then if we hadn’t gone back to see if we could get in the back door of the house, you know, trying to help in case you hadn’t thought of that, if we hadn’t done that and found the broken window, then how could we report the break-in? And then if we hadn’t gone back to Mel’s and seen you were still eating your eggs and sausage, how could we know to call Cole Dunbar and tell them where to find you? It’s simple.”

Sounds of renewed scuffling reached me from the Spivey end of the line.

“She put that badly.” Shirley had the phone again. “What she meant to say was, basically, we were with you all morning, so we couldn’t have been with Max, killing him.”

“What she said was,
basically
, you two reported the break-in and made it sound as though I did it and then told Deputy Dunbar where to come pick me up for questioning.”