Wicked Weaves (31 page)

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Authors: Joyce Lavene,Jim

BOOK: Wicked Weaves
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“I had a word with Detective Almond this morning.” Grigg returned from grabbing his plate of funnel cakes from the counter.
“Why not talk to the Sheriff of Nottingham? He’d probably do you as much good.” I played with the rest of my cereal, not as hungry for the hard-to-find food as I’d thought.
“Is there a
real
Sheriff of Nottingham?” Grigg’s eyes got big. “Can we go visit him?”
“He wanders around the Village when he isn’t doing the falconry act over at the Hawk Stage,” Chase told him. “He’s the one with the really big, leather gloves.”
Grigg seemed to consider the idea as he started eating his funnel cakes. It only took a moment before he was covered in powdered sugar. “Well, Detective Almond said they’re almost positive the pieces of cardboard they found in the dead man’s teeth match the cardboard funnel you gave him. There were traces of whiskey in the cardboard fibers, too.”
“I guess that was the real funnel then.” I looked at Chase. “Maybe that was the real robe, too.”
“Nothing on that yet,” Grigg said. “It takes a while to get most forensic tests back. We’re lucky the ME for Horry County is experienced enough to do some of the tests himself, or we wouldn’t know about the cardboard yet, either.”
I sat back in my chair and tried to zone out of all the yawning and stretching going on as the residents of Renaissance Faire Village woke up. Everyone was talking about the power outage and damage done to their shops.
“So someone, probably dressed like a monk, used a funnel to get Joshua drunk. Joshua didn’t just sit still while that was going on,” I tried to get us back on track. “He must’ve been unconscious already. I mean, why go to all that trouble? Whoever the person in the monk’s robe was could’ve just strangled him while he was unconscious.”
“That’s true,” Chase agreed. “Maybe we should consider finding the hole in the wall Jah found and retrace what may have been the killer’s path.”
Grigg nodded in agreement, his mouth too full of funnel cake to speak.
I was about to agree with the idea when Mary came into the eatery, glancing around like she knew I’d be there. Those laser-like dark eyes found me, and she made a beeline for our table.
“Jessie, there you are! Child, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You have this bad habit of disappearing when I need you most.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t need me so you and Jah could spend some quality time together.”
“That detective is questioning my son about his father’s death. Seems someone said he found an old funnel they say was used on Joshua. If it’s not me they’re after, it’s a member of my family.”
Chase and Grigg looked at me. “I didn’t tell anybody.”
“Never mind how he found out,” Mary said. “I’m expecting a group that wants to learn basket weaving again this morning. I’ll need help with the shop. Are you almost finished here?”
“I guess so.” I didn’t enlighten her about the new plan to find the killer. I turned to Chase and Grigg as she bustled out of Fabulous Funnels. “I guess you’ll have to go without me. Let me know if you find anything.”
Chase walked me out of the shop. “You seem kind of out of it after last night. Are you okay?”
“You mean, did I take Grigg’s story about the dancing girls to heart?”
“I guess.” He smiled and slid his arms around me. “You know I wouldn’t bother with that stuff, right?”
“At least not right now.” I nodded and kissed him. “Every Merry Man would beat a path to my door to tell me about it. You know there’s nothing secret here. Remember when Mother Goose’s assistant Carol got pregnant last summer? I knew before Carol’s boyfriend.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “News travels fast across the cobblestones. I watched Grigg with the caravan girls. All I did was eat supper with Robin.”
“Did he give you another toaster oven since the one he coughed up for the contest didn’t work?”
“You know Robin.” He grinned. “You’ll have to beat him at something else if you want a working model.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” I hugged him. “I guess I’d better go over to Wicked Weaves. I wonder who told Detective Almond that Jah found the funnel?”
“It could be anyone present that night. I’m surprised. What happens in the Village usually stays in the Village. I get to hear it, but it’s unusual for someone to call the police.”
“Don’t you mean the sheriff?” I mocked Grigg.
“I’ll see you later.” He kissed me quickly. “Unless something big turns up. I’ll come and tell you if that happens.”
I hummed a little song as I walked across the street to Wicked Weaves. It was possible we were all missing the idea that whoever really killed Joshua could have called the police to throw off the investigation. It seemed unlikely to me that Abraham would sacrifice his adopted son unless he was sure he’d be exonerated.
Mary was on the back steps finishing a basket. It was tall and thin, almost like something you’d put a wine bottle in. I asked her what it was for, and she looked at it from all sides. “I was thinking about a bottle of milk maybe or a flower holder. What do you think?”
“I like it.” I sat beside her and showed her the progress I was making on my basket. “I’m not sure what mine is for, either.”
She looked at it critically and nodded. “You’re doing a good job, Jessie. I think it would be good for a loaf of bread. You could bake one and give it to someone in this basket. Or it could just cool in here.”
Her words gave a whole new world to my creation. I’d never baked a loaf of bread, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. “Mary, I hope you know I didn’t say anything to the police about Jah finding that funnel.”
“But you and your bailiff friend gave them the funnel and the robe Jah found.”
“That’s true. But we didn’t mention Jah.” I worked on the next coil in my basket, securing the sweetgrass with my stitches. “We keep going around in circles looking for Joshua’s killer, just like making a basket.”
“Maybe you aren’t meant to find him. The Lord works in ways we don’t understand.”
“Maybe you could help. Joshua’s death seems to be centered around you.”
Her eyebrows went up, disappearing into the yellow scarf around her head. “Are you accusing me again?”
“No. I’m saying that Joshua was your husband. He and Abraham showed up here at about the same time. Now Joshua is dead, and Jah’s here, too. All these years you haven’t seen them. Don’t you think it’s a little strange it should all happen now?”
She laughed and patted my leg. “You know, child, life is that way. Things go along just dandy for a long time, then all of a sudden, things happen. Life is never the same again. It’s like a hurricane that comes through and destroys so much of what we know and love. We get back up and rebuild, but things are never like they were. It turns quickly when it turns, Jessie. Life isn’t different than the weather or the tides.”
The front door opened to the shop, and Mary left to tend to the customers who entered. I thought about what she’d said. Maybe she was right, but she was involved with Joshua’s death, even if she hadn’t asked to be. If Joshua hadn’t come there to tell her about Jah, he might still be alive.
“Morning,” Ham greeted me, coming around the corner of the shop. “It’s a beautiful morning after all that fury last night.”
“I know. It’s like everything was cleared away so it could be nice today.”
“What are you making?” He looked at my basket.
“Mary said she thinks it’s for fresh bread. I’m not sure.”
“Looks like it could hold bread to me. Are you going to put a handle on it?”
“Maybe. Right now I’m happy to be able to sew the coils in place. I might just keep doing that.”
He grinned. “It’s hard starting something new. Mary and I had a hard time getting things set up after we left home. Finally it worked for us, and we were here. Been here ever since. It’s a good life.”
“I like it here, too,” I agreed with a smile.
“Is she inside?”
“Yeah. She’s waiting for the group of basket makers. I guess you’re helping her since Jah is gone for the day.”
“Looks like. I like egg baskets best. I like the shape of them. You keep practicing. Things will get easier for you, too.”
I liked Ham. He was like a male version of Mary, only his face wasn’t as harsh, and his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. I could see the faraway look in his gaze as he talked about their home. It must’ve been hard for them. It was a good thing they had each other to fall back on.
By the time the group of basket weavers arrived, I was on the tenth row of my basket. Not a sign of blood anywhere on the coils. I looped the top quarter of the strand around the tip coil and through the lower one. I finished the sides of the basket with my single stitch accompanied by my bone. Would it have a handle? I’d decided to leave that for tomorrow.
I watched the group of basket weavers with Mary and Ham behind Wicked Weaves. The day that had started out sunny had turned overcast and a little cool for summer weather at the beach. That meant fewer people in the Village and a little rest for the residents. I noticed a few shopkeepers standing on ladders, repairing roof tiles that had blown off in the storm.
I was enjoying the quiet. The Three Chocolatiers were practicing their swordplay in the road by the Lady Fountain. I called it that because there was a lovely Renaissance lady sitting on the top with water cascading from under her dress. Obviously, the artist was a man. No woman would ever create something like that. I liked it anyway.
Bo Peep was exercising her sheep, her beribboned crook guiding them through their paces. They were actually quite talented, taking commands to sit and stay. Their wool was beginning to grow back despite the heat of summer. Bo Peep always had them sheared in the spring.
Arthur was making a big show of pulling the sword from the stone for a group of appreciative young ladies who giggled and applauded as he accomplished the feat. Bawdy Betty laughed from her space, the smell of bagels cooking telling me what she was doing as she watched.
Roger waved to me from the Glass Gryphon. I guessed we’d be friends after all. It hadn’t started out looking that way this year, but maybe there’d still be room in his apprentice program for me. Even though he was probably the most unattractive man I had ever met, I was glad he and Mary had found each other. It reminded me of Hephaestus and Aphrodite. Not that Mary was so beautiful as clever and wise. They made a good pair.
Thinking of making a good pair made me think about Chase. It was something I did routinely anyway. It had always been hard
not
to think about him, even when I was dating other guys in the Village. We’d always been friends, mostly because I didn’t think any other spot was available for me in his life.
But now that I had accomplished the impossible, and I was staying at the dungeon with him, I wasn’t sure where I was going. I knew summer would be all too short. After that, I’d go back to my job in the real world, and this time with Chase would fade like the summer I’d spent with Alex. And David. And Jeff. I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be that way, but what were the odds it would be any different?
Sighing, already thinking about the summer slowly vanishing into history, I started on another basket. I decided ahead of time that this one would be for Chase. He could remember me when he looked at it.
I studied a basket Mary had shown me the first day I’d met her. She’d said it was a keepsake basket that could be for a man’s cufflinks or a woman’s trinkets. I decided it would be for Chase’s trinkets, whatever those were. I knew he collected swords; they were all over the dungeon. He also collected knives. Both of those were too big for my basket. He’d just have to learn to collect something small. Or maybe he could put his pocket change into it.
It made me melancholy as I started the process of creating a basket again. I found Mary’s stash of sweetgrass, growing more expensive every day as it grew in fewer and fewer places along the coast. I cut some strands to the same length and began to weave them together, picturing Chase’s handsome face in my mind as I worked.
I could hear Mary’s singsong voice as she told her stories of growing up in the Gullah community. I was sure basket weavers came from across the state to hear her stories as much as to learn her almost forgotten craft.
I was sitting on the floor in the shop, almost in a trance, when the front door burst open. The little bell that signaled a customer’s arrival went crazy then jumped down on the floor.
“Where’s my mother?” Jah demanded.
“She’s in back.”
He didn’t say another word, just stalked through the shop and out the back door. I heard Mary stop talking, her lesson voice replaced by Ham’s. I watched Jah and Mary hurry down the street together and wondered where they were going.
I retrieved the bell to see if I could fix it when the door sprang open again, and Chase entered the shop. “I think I’ve found something.”
“Something like what?” The image of the sad Chase, sitting alone in his room above the dungeon, looking at the trinket basket I’d made him years before, was lost in the reality of him being there with me.

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