Lost and Fondue (16 page)

Without rising, he pulled an empty chair away from the table and gestured for me to sit. His gaze seared me like a hot poker. “Ask away.”

I perched on the front edge of the chair. “I know you said that the Holmes County staff can’t get results fast, but did Harker struggle? Was there skin under his fingernails?”

Urso nodded.

“It would have been hard to hold on to Quinn’s ring and fight, don’t you think?”

Urso tilted his head, as if he were truly interested.

“What if Harker tucked the ring into his pocket, and the murderer found it and put it in Harker’s hand? What if the killer is trying to pin the murder on Quinn?”

“Who would do that?”

“I don’t know.” I couldn’t imagine Quinn had enemies, except the one she was making in Winona because of her disapproval of Winona’s relationship with Freddy.

A waitress dressed in the pub’s uniform of jeans, work shirt, and a kerchief set a bill on the table.

“Don’t go away.” Urso reviewed the charges then handed the waitress a credit card.

As she sashayed off, I noted the color of her kerchief—green, in honor of St. Patrick—and an idea surfaced. I said, “Quinn’s scarf.”

“What about it?” Urso snapped.

His mother cleared her throat. She patted his hand, like Grandmère would do to me.

Urso snatched his hand away and folded his arms across his massive chest. “Please continue, Charlotte.”

“The ring is like Quinn’s scarf.” I explained Rebecca and Delilah’s deduction.

“Not enough to go on.”

“Freddy,” I said.

“What about him?”

I bit my tongue. Could I accuse Freddy of something I couldn’t confirm? That wasn’t fair. But Urso was being so prickly and making me antsy to come up with something that would force him to release Quinn.

Even still, I chose the high road. “Freddy’s so upset.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Urso rose from the table and pulled back his mother’s chair. “Let’s go, Mama. Pop.”

Desperate to do something, I said, “You said the jewels were paste.”

“So?” He helped his mother into her coat.

“Why were they there? More specifically, why would Quinn put them there?”

He didn’t answer.

“U-ey, why would she do that?”

Urso escorted his parents away. Over his shoulder, he said, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”

By the time I returned to the booth, Rebecca and Delilah had nearly finished a plate of goat-cheese-smothered potato skins. As I took my seat, they peppered me with questions. I started to tell them about almost implicating Freddy, but stopped when I spotted Winona and Freddy walking in the front door of the pub. A rash of guilt spread up my chest at the sight of him. His gaze met mine, and as if he knew that I’d contemplated throwing him to the police in lieu of his daughter, he made a beeline for me. Winona followed.

“Charlotte, thank you. The lawyer was great,” Freddy said. “He’s going to get Quinn out on bail.”

“He’ll
try-y-y-y
,” Winona said, dragging out the word in that irritating way she had. She was a real Miss Know-It-All. I’d bet she was the girl in grade school who always stuck her hand up before anyone else. She glanced at her watch. I expected a testy tap of her foot any second. What did Freddy appreciate about her, other than her luscious Rubenesque body? Or was he simply courting her to dig up more money for Meredith’s project? A project that soon could be defunct.

“Hey, Mr. Vance,” someone called.

Edsel and Dane shambled toward the group.

“Sheesh, is everybody in town here tonight?” Rebecca whispered.

Delilah said, “I don’t see Ipo Ho.”

Rebecca blushed. She had a little crush on our Hawaiiangrown honeybee farmer. I think he reciprocated the feelings, though they hadn’t had a date yet. At least, not to my knowledge.

“Maybe I should consider having a St. Patrick’s Day tradition at the diner,” Delilah added.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Edsel. He looked taller, less sullen, as if he’d mystically cast off his Quasimodo demeanor. Had he learned the beauty of meditation? Or had he come to grips with Harker’s death? In contrast, Dane looked miffed. He glanced at Winona, who didn’t seem to want to make eye contact. I wondered again about their spat on the street. What was going on between them?

“How’s Quinn holding up?” Edsel said, his words clipped, tense.

“Not well,” Freddy said. “Meredith is taking Quinn some books to read.”

“That reminds me.” Edsel snapped his fingers. “Something came to me around two A.M. There was this poem we read in English last semester. We were discussing imagery, and you know how Harker was hidden behind that brick wall? Well, in the poem, there was this brick wall built around the hero, and it stood for his emotional barriers. Think someone built it specifically for Harker?”

“The wall did look new,” Rebecca said.

Edsel agreed. “You know, you’re right.”

I understood Rebecca knowing something like that; she’d toiled on an Amish farm her whole life. But how would Edsel know? “Was it there when you went to paint the winery?” I asked.

“Who knows?” Edsel said. “None of us went down there.”

“But Harker’s painting,” I said. “The one hanging in the observatory at the winery. It’s a floating replica of the cellar with the metal bars and the same stones.”

Edsel shrugged. “Maybe he sneaked down or saw a photograph or something.”

“There’s no brick wall in his painting,” I said.

“Maybe he exercised artistic license and left it out,” Edsel offered.

“My parents never mentioned a brick wall in the cellar,” Dane said.

Edsel quirked an eyebrow. “Why would they?”

“They’re Ohio history and architecture buffs. They know everything about the building. I told you, you dolt.”

“You never told me, bro.”

“Yes, I did, you dork.”

“I’m telling you, you didn’t.”

I recalled Dane mentioning that tidbit to the group at the fund-raiser, but now wasn’t the time to correct Edsel.

“Fellas, that’s enough.” Freddy stretched his neck, as if uncomfortable with the size of his shirt collar.

“Maybe the wall is symbolic,” Rebecca said. “The wall and the jewels.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Zook,” Winona said in a tone louder than necessary, as if she were trying to project to the rear row of a theater.

“I’m not being ridiculous,” Rebecca countered, sitting taller and throwing her shoulders back to stress the point. “Every murderer leaves lots of clues.”

“Is that so?” Winona’s tone dripped with sarcasm.

I blocked their exchange from my mind and pictured the crime scene. If the jewels were symbolic, it made sense that the wall was symbolic, as well. Could the mention of imagery hurt Quinn’s case? A psychiatrist might suggest that she built the wall to make a statement about how shut down Harker was. But how could she have built it? She had arrived in town only two days ago.

“Say, did the police ever find Harker’s artwork?” Dane asked.

“I think whoever took it killed him,” Rebecca said.

Edsel sneered. “I’ll bet Harker tossed it.”

“Why would he do that?” Rebecca asked.

Edsel worked the toe of his shoe on the floor.

“Come on.” Rebecca ordered. “Out with it.”

I smiled. At times, she reminded me so much of my grandmother.

“He was going to stop painting,” Edsel said.

“What?” Winona nearly shouted.

I stared at her. Why would she care what Harker did with his art?

“Yeah, he wanted to ditch it all and become a comic book artist.” Edsel’s nose narrowed, like the idea reeked.

“But he was so talented,” Rebecca said.

Quinn called Harker masterful. Dane said he had
the chops
.

“For heaven’s sakes,” Freddy cut in. “He was not going to throw aside his career.”

“Yes, he was.” Edsel clicked his tongue against his teeth. “He was chucking it all. The training. Everything. He said his quest for perfection in art was destroying his soul. He could do comic book work in his sleep and live a real life.”

Before anyone could question Edsel more, the front door of the pub whipped open.

“Charlotte!” my grandmother shouted. Waving her fingers over her head, she plowed through the layers of people. “
Dèpèche-toi!
Come quickly! It’s Etienne ... your grandfather. He’s had an accident at the theater!”

Grandmère, Rebecca, Delilah, and I rushed out of the pub and across the Village Green toward the theater. As we ran, Grandmère relayed what had happened—half in English, half in French. She’d seen a vision of a gel light falling from the black-box theater’s ceiling onto one of the crew. To make sure all the gels were secure, she prepared to go to the theater, but Pépère said he’d handle it and went to the theater alone. When he didn’t come home in a timely manner, Grandmère searched for him and found him lying on the stage at the foot of a ladder.

“Mon dieu!”
Tears streamed down my grandmother’s aged face. “He is unconscious, but he has a pulse.”

“Did you call the doctor?” My heart jackhammered my rib cage, but I kept my voice calm.

“The telephone at the theater is out of order.”

“Did you think to use your cellular phone?”

“I did not have it with me.”

I shook my head. Neither Grandmère nor Pépère could get with the twenty-first century. Either they forgot how to use their cell phones or they left them in the chargers at home.

“I came to find you, instead. Oh-h-h-h.” Grandmère shook her head. “I am horrible. I left him alone. I am a monster.” Her sobs made me ache deep beneath my solar plexus.

“No, you’re not,” I assured her. My grandmother was usually the steady one in a frantic situation. When I was eight, she hadn’t flinched when I’d hobbled into the house, my shin looking like bloody pulp after a fall on my bicycle. Faced with Pépère’s mortality, she wasn’t as tough as she made out. Neither was I. I didn’t know what I would do without him. He was my rock, my anchor. If possible, I wanted him and my grandmother to live to the ripe old age of one hundred and twenty.

I was the first to reach Providence Playhouse. I whipped open the front door and darted to the right, down the carpeted hall that led to the black-box theater. Doorstops held the entry doors ajar. Dim working lights lit the space.

I charged inside. “Pépère!”

Grandmère yelled, “Etienne!”

He lay in a heap by a rickety old wooden ladder that stood in the center of the three sofas that were set up for
No Exit with Poe
.

“Pépère!” I hurried down the aisle, leaped onto the stage, and knelt beside him. Rebecca, Delilah, and Grandmère gathered around.

Pépère stirred, then moaned.

“Are you okay?” I said.

He offered a lopsided grin. “I’m an idiot.”

“That’s not what I asked. Are you okay? Is anything hurt?”

“Only my ego.” He snickered. “You’ve been telling us for a year that we needed to get one of those aluminum ladders, but did I listen?” He glanced up. The second-to-the-top rung of the old ladder had split in half. “My foot fell right through.”

Grandmère settled onto her knees and stroked Pépère’s messy white hair. “You were unconscious. I thought—”

He petted her cheek. “Do not write me off so soon,
mon amie
. And I wasn’t unconscious.”

“Then why didn’t you speak to me? Why were your eyes closed?”

“The wind was knocked out of me. Before I knew it, you had run from the theater.” He chuckled again. “It’ll take more than a fall from a ladder to end my life. Now help me up.”

Everyone assisted. Grandmère and I each took an arm. Delilah and Rebecca propped him up from behind. His knees gave way twice as we shuttled him to a seat in the front row.

“What’s going on?” Bozz entered the black box through the same door we had.

“The ladder broke,” Grandmère said. “Would you clear it from the stage?”

“Sure thing.” Bozz raced to the stage.

Two teens trailed him into the theater—a gawky boy and a leggy girl with luxurious strawberry blonde hair.

“Philby?” I asked Rebecca.

She nodded. “Isn’t she a knockout?”

“Her mother’s head of the PTA,” Delilah said, huddling closer.

“But she’s not the one who got caught pole dancing at the men’s club,” Rebecca added.

“No, she’s the one who started that book club I’ve been trying to talk you both into,” Delilah said. “You know Prudence Hart and she are related somehow.”

“That’s right,” I said, now recalling how the whole family went together. Philby had two younger sisters about Amy and Clair’s age, and an older brother who was on some mission in Timbuktu. Literally, in Timbuktu. The mother and Prudence didn’t even share a hello if they passed in the street. I assessed Philby from afar. Bozz would be a lunkhead not to like her.

Bozz and his gawky pal returned to the stage. “What next?”

Grandmère said, “We need to repair that tormentor curtain on the right. The clips are coming loose.”

“Gotcha, Gen.” He saluted and grinned.

She narrowed her eyes, but I saw the twinkle.
The little general
, the crew called her. Secretly, she loved the nickname.

As the teens disappeared in the backstage shadows, Pépère said, “The show must go on.”

Grandmère hunkered into the seat beside him and muttered, “Old fool.”

He clipped her chin with his knuckles. “Who are you calling an old fool?”

“You think you are indestructible.”

“Don’t you worry. These old bones are as strong as bricks.”

“Oooh, speaking of bricks.” Rebecca beckoned us to gather in a semicircle in front of Grandmère and Pépère. “When we were at the pub, we were talking about the crime scene.”