A Mold For Murder (11 page)

“I owe you an apology,” she said.

“Did something happen that I missed?”

“You know what I’m talking about. I ran you off this evening, and all you wanted to do was help. What did you end up eating for dinner?”

I didn’t want to admit that I’d dined with Molly, but I knew Diana would find out tomorrow, given that the folks in Harper’s Landing didn’t have a whole lot to talk about other than each other. “Molly and I grabbed something at The Hound Dog.”

“How nice for you both,” she said with a tone that shouted
you’d better start explaining yourself, and fast.

“It was business, actually,” I added. “I wanted to share my suspicions with her, and see if she’d let any information slip out about the case.”

“How did she take your meddling?”

“Better than I had any right to expect, actually. She seemed interested when I told her about my conversation with Sharon, the contessa’s assistant.”

“When did you have time to talk to her? Or did you take her out, too?”

“We did take a walk around town,” I said, realizing that Diana would probably hear about that, too. My life was getting more complicated than I liked.

Diana sighed, then said, “Well, at least you weren’t with Kelly.”

“She called me this evening, and I went by her office before I came to see you.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and I held my breath as I waited for her reaction. The laugh I got wasn’t expected at all.

“What’s so funny?”

She caught her breath and said, “You’re a pretty popular fellow with the ladies lately, aren’t you?”

“You’d think so, but I didn’t have much luck with any of them, including the only one who is supposed to still be my girlfriend. Well, that’s not entirely true, either.”

“Which part?”

I rubbed my face with my free hand. “Can we start this conversation over?”

“Not on your life,” she said, and I swear I could hear in her voice that she was smiling. “This is just starting to get good.”

“I give up, then,” I said. “Would you like to hear my conclusions so far?”

“Why not? Just one thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t want to hear my name on your list of suspects.”

“Believe me,” I said, “that might be one of Molly’s theories, but it’s not one of mine.”

“And don’t list my aunt and uncle, either. They are no more capable of murder than I am.”

I took a deep breath, then said, “You know, I didn’t even think about them. They certainly had a reason to want Connie Brown dead, didn’t they?”

“Ben, that’s not even funny. There’s no way that Aunt Amy or Uncle Paul would ever harm anyone.”

“Diana, I’m not saying they could. I just don’t want to see you go to jail because the police were too stubborn to look at anybody else.”

She paused, then asked softly, “You know something? You never even asked me if I did it.”

“I’ve been working on the assumption that you were innocent,” I agreed. “Shouldn’t I have?”

The next thing I knew, she hung up on me. Okay, maybe it had been a little out of line. I sat there staring at the phone for a minute, wondering what I should do, when it rang.

“I’m so glad you called back,” I said before even waiting for a comment. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I swear I didn’t.”

Instead of Diana’s voice, Molly chuckled and asked, “What did you do this time? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Listen, have you seen Jeff?”

“Is this a cop asking, or my brother’s girlfriend?”

“Guess,” she said. “So have you seen him?”

“No, but you might try the shop. Use the private line.” We had a line for family and friends that wasn’t published anywhere. Though it was an added expense to our bottom line, none of us cared.

“I did, but no one picked up.”

“You might want to try Jim, then,” I said. “Sometimes they hang out together after work.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

Before I could ask a question myself, Molly hung up.

The phone rang again before I could put it back down. “That took longer to get through than I thought it would,” Diana said.

“Molly just called,” I explained.

“My, you are popular, aren’t you?”

“She was looking for my brother. Listen, I didn’t mean that last bit like it sounded.”

“Do you mean that Molly didn’t call for Jeff?”

“Diana, don’t make this harder on me than it has to be. You know exactly what I mean.”

She sighed, then said, “Of course I do. I just thought that you’d believe in me without any explanation necessary.”

“I never doubted you,” I said firmly.

“That wasn’t how it sounded to me.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“Good, I’m glad we got that cleared up. Good night.”

And then she hung up on me again, this time before I could wish her a good night myself. I knew she had reason enough to be sensitive, but I wasn’t about to apologize for something I didn’t do. I turned off the ringer and set the answering machine volume to zero. I needed some rest, and the way my night was going, I wasn’t going to get any if I didn’t take steps to protect my space. Anybody who really needed me knew where I lived. Let them bang on my front door if it’s an emergency, but otherwise, I wanted the world to leave me alone, at least for tonight.

 

 

THε
next morning, I checked my answering machine after I dragged myself out of bed. There were no messages, and I wasn’t sure if I should feel good about that or not. Maybe I wasn’t all that important after all. Before I forgot, I turned the ringer back on just as it jumped to life.

It was my sister Louisa.

“Can you talk?” she asked.

“Of course I can. What makes you ask that?”

“I tried calling you earlier, and you didn’t pick up. When I heard your answering machine kick in, I thought you might have an overnight guest.”

“No, I’ve been here by myself all night. What’s up?”

“You need to come in to the shop early this morning,” she said. “The rest of us are already here.”

“What on earth is going on now?”

“Nobody died or anything,” Louisa said with her normal bluntness. “Kate’s going to demonstrate how to make lip balm and hand lotion to all of us.”

“I could probably live with missing that,” I said.

“Could you survive being AWOL at a family meeting?” she asked. “Mom called this gathering, not Kate. For some reason, she’s really pushing this expansion. If I didn’t know better, I’d say our dear sweet mother was behind it herself.”

“Why would she do that?” I asked. Family was family, but business was business. Mom tried her best never to let her personal feelings affect the decisions she made, but I knew how impossible that was for her sometimes.

“I can’t say,” Louisa said, an odd choice of words for my sister. Her voice had suddenly become guarded.

“Because you don’t know, or you’re not allowed to tell?”

She hesitated far longer than she should have. “It’s the second one.”

“Louisa, are you holding out on me? What’s going on?”

“Just come and see for yourself,” she said.

“Is Mom standing right there?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

That explained the sudden change in her demeanor. “Okay, that’s fair enough. I’ll be there soon, and we’ll talk about it then.”

She paused, then said, “No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t look like rain at all. Bye.”

Louisa certainly knew how to get my curiosity stoked. What was the secret she knew, and more importantly, why hadn’t anyone else told me? I hadn’t had any luck getting her to tell me over the telephone, but if I could pressure her in person, she might just crack, especially since it was pretty obvious to me that she was dying to tell me anyway. I took a shower and dressed in record time, and less than half an hour later I was walking into Where There’s Soap.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said as I saw my family gathered around Kate in the classroom. “I didn’t get the memo in time.”

“If you’d answer your telephone, Benjamin, you might know what’s going on with your family. What’s wrong with that answering machine of yours? I tried to leave a message, but it never came on.”

“I must have hit the off button instead of the volume control,” I admitted. “Sorry about that.”

“Just take a seat,” she said. “We don’t have a great deal of time.”

Kate said, “Mom, this can wait. There’s nothing urgent about getting started now that I’ve got the approval.”

“Kate, that’s exactly the wrong approach here,” Mom said. “I want to get going with this new line now that we’ve all agreed, and we can’t sell something we don’t know how to make. We are your students, and class is in session. Benjamin, take a seat.”

I took a stool beside Louisa. “What’s going on? Why the big push here?”

She wanted to answer, I could see it in her eyes, but then Mom said, “We don’t have much time, so let’s dispense with the chatting, shall we?” She stared right at me as she said it, and I finally nodded, as much to get her focus off me as anything else.

Kate had supplies laid out up front at the teaching table. “To start with, we’re going to use kits to make the process easier to grasp. Jeff, would you hand these out?”

My youngest brother retrieved four kits and passed them out. As he did, Kate said, “We’ll be working in teams, since these things aren’t cheap.”

Louisa and I were partnered, and I started tearing the cellophane off our kit.

“Don’t wait for me. Go ahead and open them,” Kate said, grinning at me.

“Sorry I jumped the gun,” I said as I started spreading the contents out on the worktable. I was more used to being in the front of the classroom instead of at one of the students’ tables, but it was good to take a class every now and then, not just to learn something new, but to see the room from a different perspective.

The kit had labeled containers of dyes, fragrances, lotion bases, and beeswax beads. There were also several different kinds of receptacles to hold the products we were making, along with fancy blank labels, and a few odd-looking eyedroppers thrown in as well.

“As you can see,” Kate said, “many of the things we already use for soapmaking are in the kit. That’s why I think this is a perfect match.” She studied her notes a second, then said, “We’re going to start with lotion, since it’s the easiest to do. I don’t want to rush you boys too fast.”

Bob said, “Stick to teaching and leave the editorials to someone else.”

“Mom,” Kate said, “you told them to cooperate.”

She shot Bob a quick look, then said to Kate, “He’s right. Go on, and try to do it without the sidebars.”

Kate didn’t look the least bit chastised by the comment. She addressed us, saying, “After you put the dispensing cap on the big bottle of shea butter, squeeze enough into one of the lotion bottles until it’s halfway full.”

Jeff asked, “Which bottle is for the lotion?”

Cindy, his partner and our youngest sibling, shook an odd-sized container in front of him. “This is what you want.” She held up a small tube and said, “This is for lip balm, and so is this,” she added as she held up a small transparent plastic canister.

“Come on, get with the program,” I said to Jeff, though in all honesty, I hadn’t been 100 percent positive myself.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not in touch with my feminine side like you are.”

I started to retort, but a swift slap on the top of the head brought Jeff back in line more than anything I could say. Hitting wasn’t allowed in our family, unless the blow came from Mom.

Kate went on. “Go ahead, everybody fill up a lotion container, but remember, just do it half full.”

We did as we were told. At least most of us did. As simple as it was, Bob was having trouble. “Hey, the lid won’t fit.”

Mom, who was Bob’s partner by default, took the small lid from him and gave him the capped one. Then she said, “This one was from the bottle, remember?”

I started to laugh, tried to kill it, and ended up choking. “Ben, are you all right?” Louisa asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, getting it back under control again. I was beginning to realize our family’s division of labor was sound and well thought out. When it came to big equipment, my brothers were masters, but if something needed to be done on an individual basis, many times they were lost. I felt fortunate to be able to float between production and our customers, never mastering either one entirely, but being able to function nonetheless.

Kate held up a small bottle and said, “Now add dye to your container. We’ve got seafoam green and luscious lavender, so take your pick. Remember, it’s potent, so a few drops are probably all you need.”

I chose the green, added a few drops, then snuck a few more in.

Kate continued. “Put the lid back on, then shake it up. After you have it mixed, put in more lotion until there’s just a little room at the top. Shake it up again, and it’s ready to use.”

“That’s it?” Louisa asked, clearly disappointed.

“That’s the basic process, but here’s something cool you can do.” She approached our table with a clean bottle of her own. While I’d chosen green, Louisa had gone with the lavender. Kate squeezed half of my bottle into hers, then topped it off with Louisa’s. It was a neat trick, since the colors stayed separate. “There’s lots you can do, but that will have to wait. Now let’s move on to lip balms.”

“Hey, I want to do a layered one, too,” Jeff said.

“Now who’s got the feminine side,” I said.

“It’s for Molly,” he added, then ducked Mom’s strike from behind. “That’s not fair. I’m trying to learn how to do this.”

Mom relented. “Surely we have a moment to spare,” she said to Kate.

“Absolutely. Go ahead, we’ve got plenty of empty bottles. Just remember, after you use half, add more dye, then top it off again with shea butter.”