Noble Pursuits (21 page)

“Or me. I have to admit that I’ve held more teleconferences since hearing that the lunatic was on the loose.” Grace smiled at Nolan’s admission. She knew that Nolan had been around more lately but had attributed it to the upcoming holiday season. She had assumed that January would bring a flurry of activity from her neighbor’s house.

They all sat, talked, and prayed as they waited for word of Paige’s release. It appeared to all that Grace was determined to discover where this guy picked his victims. Eventually, Nolan went home to do some work, and Craig and Melanie left soon afterward. As he pulled the front door shut, Craig looked into Grace’s determined eyes. “Grace. Don’t do anything stupid. You aren’t a young Miss Marple. Call us when you hear anything, and we love you.”

Almost as if she hadn’t heard him, Grace went back to her columns. Church was a definite possibility, and Paige did say that there was something familiar about him. “I wonder if he’s some kind of repair man. That would make sense. Don’t forget to ask Paige if she’s had anything fixed lately.”

She was still muttering ideas to herself and making notes when Paige arrived on her doorstep, duffel bag in hand and ready to spend the night. “I’m just not ready to sleep in that apartment. There is that dust stuff they used everywhere, and it’s still a wreck. My apartment manager’s wife does housecleaning for a living. She’s going to call me when it’s clean again. I’m glad I got all of those packages sent off and delivered yesterday. Nathan had the morning off, so he helped. I should have called him but—”

Allowing her to ramble from topic to topic, Grace hustled Paige into a guest room and helped her hang her clothes. She hung a warm pair of wool slacks with a marvelous cashmere sweater. “This is beautiful. Going somewhere special?”

“No, I just wanted something that made me feel nice, so Mom stopped and bought it for me.” Paige fingered the soft and warm outfit.

“I don’t want you to think you’re not welcome, but is there any reason that you didn’t go home with your mom?”

“You know Mom. She’s been a psychologist for so long that she’d have my head examined, labeled, and stuck on her trophy shelf inside forty-five minutes. I want to talk about it when I want to talk about it and only when I want to talk about it.”

Grace howled. “And you came
here
? You know I’m dying to ask five thousand questions.”

“But you won’t make me answer if I don’t want to, and you’re interested in facts, not how I feel about the facts. That’s the difference.”

Grace noticed something in Paige that she’d never seen before. There was a confidence that her friend rarely showed. As Grace listened to Paige recount the ordeal at the police station, she shuddered. “Did you ever figure out what was different about his mustache?”

Paige shook her head. “Nope. But they think they did. The police sketch artist said that he thinks it was fake. They drew a few faces without it, and they still look familiar, but I still couldn’t tell them where I’d seen him.”

In a scholarly, somber tone, Grace suggested. “Perhaps it is a physical manifestation of your reluctance to deal directly with the situation. When you properly investigate your true feelings about the situation, your resistance to remembrance will be swiftly overcome, resulting in the ability to identify your perpetrator.”

The women giggled. Grace had an uncanny knack for imitating Paige’s overly serious mother. It always brought a smile to Paige’s face when she was upset. “Hey, let’s get you some dinner! I bet you’re famished.”

~*~*~*~

With a wave goodbye and a thick notebook, Grace rushed from the house the next morning just as Paige emerged from her room. “I’ll catch you in a bit; I’m going to go check some things out.”

At the library, Grace scrolled through page after page of newspaper articles on the recent attacks in the area. She filled in every detail that she could find on her chart and compared notes. The information wasn’t very helpful. What she wanted to learn was if five out of eight victims had recently had the gas turned on to their furnaces or four out of eight received support from their churches after the attack. How many victims were not members of a church at all? However, the papers didn’t give out that kind of helpful information.

Grace added new columns. Where did the women shop for groceries, which department stores did they frequent, did they attend lectures or plays? Frustration mounted. “Stop being frustrated and go look around Paige’s complex. There’s probably nothing there, but it can’t hurt to look.”

With the tenacity that only comes from the vigilant pursuit of mice, Grace combed the parking lot, shrubs, and walkways of the entire complex where Paige lived. “I don’t know
what
you expect to find, Gracie girl!” she sneered at herself.

Looking around at what appeared to be a sea of concrete and asphalt, Grace began walking up and down the sidewalks in the immediate vicinity. “Grace, you’re even thinking like an officer now! Vicinity! That’s—”

Grace got down on all fours to look closely at the object on the sidewalk. The absurdity of the situation struck her as hilarious. “How am I supposed to pick this thing up without damaging some kind of weird evidence that the police could get these days?”

Grace struggled back to her feet and brushed off her knees, noting the runs in her tights. “Expensive hobby. Not smart.”

Finally, in sheer frustration, Grace dug a felt tipped pen out of her purse and created an outline of the fake mustache on the sidewalk, picked it up with a tissue, and carefully tucked it into her purse. She practically ran all the way to the police department. She was not prepared for the reaction that followed.

“Lady, do you know that your actions could be considered interfering with a police investigation? You have likely destroyed any evidence on this.”

Grace looked at the unfriendly officer and sighed. She turned to leave but an officer at another desk stopped her. “Grace! Hey! Remember me?”

Grace’s smile was warm and genuine. “Todd Mercer. It’s good to see you again. It’s been a while.”

Grace explained to Todd why she was there and what the other officer had told her. “Well, that’s not really true. You weren’t on a crime scene, you haven’t interviewed any witnesses, and there is nothing wrong with bringing evidence down here. I’ll talk to him. Joe’s just mad that we haven’t caught this guy. He’s taking it out on all of us.”

“I didn’t want to move it. I tried to figure out how to call you guys, but I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t touch it. I used a tissue…”

Todd walked her to her car, talking casually about the case and how Grace was connected. He remembered their school days and how kind Grace had always been to him. While the other nice girls skirted around Todd’s mini gang of troublemakers, Grace had treated everyone the same. She smiled if they made eye contact and invited them to the church parties she attended faithfully.

“I never thanked you. I should have.” Todd’s voice betrayed emotions he worked hard to hide these days. The rowdy boy who acted out to gain attention was gone. He was a respected member of the community now. He lived on ‘the right side of the tracks,’ so to speak.

“Thank me for what?” Grace’s genuine bewilderment showed him that some things don’t change. Grace was still the modest person she’d always been.

“Just how you always treated me like everyone else. You were the only one outside the guys who did that.”

Grace thought for a moment. “I don’t want to cheapen your gratitude, but honestly, Todd, I didn’t try…”

“That’s my point. Everyone else either pretended to be nice if they thought they needed to do their good deed for the day, or they completely ignored my existence, or worse.” His voice still held traces of the boyish pain he’d felt as the more popular girls from the hill would tease him only to toss him aside before he got close enough to soil their air.

“Some of those girls from fourth period were rough on you, weren’t they?”

He nodded and shuffled his feet before gathering himself together. “Let’s talk about today. What’s up with you? Can I buy you a coffee? They’ve got a mean espresso down the street if you like that kind of thing?”

Grace debated. She didn’t know why Todd was asking. What would Craig say about coffee with Todd Mercer? His status on the police force nullified that argument, but Grace wasn’t sure. Finally, her blunter side won. “Why?”

“Huh?” Todd hadn’t expected that. Yes would have been a surprise as well as a delight. No would have been understandable, but “why” wasn’t something he’d expected.

“Why do you want to buy me a coffee?” Grace felt foolish but she had to know.

“Well, because—” He shook his head. “Sorry, I just wanted to repay some of that friendliness.”

“Well, a friend I can always use,” she laughed, and together they strolled toward the coffee shop. Grace talked animatedly about her life and what she was doing, and then listened intently as Todd told of how he’d been encouraged by the track coach to enter the police academy. To the casual observer, Grace and the officer seemed unaware of their surroundings, and they definitely seemed somewhat absorbed in each other when Nolan drove by on his way to a lunch meeting.

After talking for over an hour, Todd went back to work with new insight on the “Housewife Rapist” and a new friend. He had told Grace about his online girlfriend, and they arranged to have lunch later that week to discuss his friend Wendy.

Chapter Nineteen

Nolan lost the account. His distraction over seeing Grace with another man bothered him more than he cared to admit. His client, another woman sent by the disgruntled and rejected Michelle, had marched out of the restaurant with a disgusting stream of expletives. Picking up his proposal, Nolan absently paid the check and drove home in deep contemplation.

Once there, Nolan sat in his most comfortable chair, his hands warming around a cup of his favorite coffee, gazed at his little tree lit up with multi-colored lights, and prayed. He wasn’t sure why he kept dragging his feet regarding Grace. At first, he wondered if she wasn’t interested in him and if that made him overly cautious. Then he surmised that she didn’t know of his interest in her, but rejected that notion when he decided his actions lately should have been quite obvious.

Nolan stood and strode across the street to speak to her. It was time to quit dilly-dallying. It occurred to him as he knocked on the door, that he’d never truly expressed interest verbally in Grace or any woman. He was accustomed to running from women, and this time he didn’t want to run away. It felt as though he was about to embark on a new adventure. He swallowed hard as he realized that his new adventure was a romantic relationship. Was he up to the challenge?

Grace opened the door while on the phone. She motioned him inside and shut the door quickly behind him. He listened to her chatting away with someone, probably Paige, about the internet. Grace was bundled in a warm sweater and thick leggings under her skirt. She eyed her wood stove with the air of someone who can’t decide whether to add more wood or not. Nolan made gestures indicating his willingness to add more logs and received an appreciative nod. Meanwhile, Grace hurried into the kitchen to make him some of her excellent hot chocolate, still chattering about fabrics and trims.

He wasn’t sure why Grace seemed so cold. Her house seemed almost stiflingly warm, but he was willing to do anything to get him in her good graces before he brought up the subject that risked the condition of his heart. Nolan wondered if he could really gather the nerve to lay his heart on the line, and that is when it hit him. His reticence to speak clearly was because he knew it wasn’t just a dinner invitation he wanted to secure. He wanted everything—Grace, her heart, and her quirky little ways that charmed him when he allowed himself the freedom to enjoy them.

Nolan was surprised at how little wood Grace had stacked on her porch. Long before she’d fired up her antique wood stove, Grace had piled a great quantity of wood on the porch where her wicker furniture sat during the warmer months. It was almost half-gone already. Gathering an armful, Nolan edged himself into the house and filled one of her wood “bins.”

An old oak barrel, cut in half, with well-sanded edges, stood on each side of the stove. During the spring and summer months, huge houseplants filled each barrel, while one sat on the stove. Today, one barrel stood empty, the other held only one log, and instead of a fern on the stove, a pot of chili simmered there. The room smelled heavenly.

“Paige, I think I could do this, but I don’t know where I’d ever get the money for a computer, and I hardly know how to use them anymore…” Grace listened to obvious protest on the other end before continuing. “Paige, it’s been seven years since I’ve really used a computer. They’re probably different now, and I’m not familiar with the Internet anymore; I know nothing about html, but I’ll see what I can do. Maybe Craig has an old one he’d let me use, or maybe I can borrow one from the office.”

Grace nodded a few times and then promised to go to the library soon and check out eBay to see whatever it was that Paige meant. “Look, Paige, Nolan is here, and he’s filling my wood box for me. I need to go and help him. I’m freezing. This is going to be a cold winter. Uh huh. Thanks again, bye.”

She turned to him and smiled. “Here, have some cocoa. Cold today, isn’t it?”

Nolan shrugged and made a comment about his activity keeping him warm enough as he searched for the right words. “I— well, I’ve been thinking.”

“I hear that’s a pretty scary thing to do. I suggest that you find a different hobby. Something less stressful, perhaps?” Grace chuckled at her own joke as she curled into her favorite chair and pulled a lap quilt over her.

“Grace, are you really that cold? Do you think you might have a fever or something? It’s pretty warm in here.”

Grace leaned forward and pulled her hair from her forehead. “Do I feel warm to you?”

Nolan reached toward her, only to jerk back suddenly. “I can’t tell. I came here because we need to talk.”

“Well then speak, O wise one.” Grace hid a bemused smile behind her hand. He hadn’t touched her, so how could he expect to tell?