Bury the Hatchet in Dead Mule Swamp (26 page)

I sniffed, but I was
curious. “Did you learn anything?”

“I learned that Mavis
Fanning is devious and ruthless when she wants something,” he said
seriously. She's a client of a very high-pressure lawyer in Emily
City.

“What does she want that I
have?” I asked, totally mystified.

“I wondered that too. I
thought maybe we made the wrong woman jealous, so I did some
digging.”

“She’s mooning over you so
much she’s threatening me?” I was incredulous. “You have a bigger
ego than I thought.”

“Well, it was only a
possibility. But everyone I asked seems quite certain that she and
Harold are happy together. He’s always meek around her, although a
good leader when he works alone.”

“He does seem to get
around,” I said. I recalled hearing that he’d been a teacher,
principal, and was of course, now the city manager.

“The note from your car
seemed to focus on the school building, so I checked into more of
the recent history on it. There are five people who have been
connected with it in the past couple of months. First, there’s
Virginia Holiday.”

“Yes,” I said, “but she was
just handling the property.”

“True enough,” Jerry said,
“but let me finish the list. There’s Jared Canfield, who was killed
there and who had a Holiday Realty card in his wallet.”

“With the numbers 1-8-4-5
written on it. Whatever that means.”

“How do you know
that?”

“Tracy told me,” I said,
gratified that I knew something he didn’t.

“OK, so he had an
appointment with her, on some day, at six-forty-five in the
evening.”

“You don’t think it’s a
year?”

“Twenty-four hour time.
Lots of men use it, a habit they picked up in the
military.”

“Huh,” I said. “Who
else?”

“There’s Harold Fanning,
who did all the paperwork for the city when it was listed with
Virginia and then when the city took it back. There’s me, I really
did buy it. And there’s Mavis Fanning.”

I looked up at Jerry’s
face. He didn't seem to be guessing. “How does she fit in? Adele
said she wants it, but why?” I blurted out.

“Yes, she wants the
building very badly, to start a gym and fitness club. She feels
that I robbed her of the opportunity because she couldn’t get the
down payment together quickly enough. And I guess she thinks you
talked me into buying it.”

“How on earth did you find
all this out?” I asked. “You’re getting as good as Adele at digging
up dirt.”

Jerry smiled down at me
with pleasure. “Why thank you. Now we’ll have another jealous woman
in town.”

I felt like stamping my
foot. “Seriously. How do you know this?” I asked.

“Not so difficult. I took
Harold out for an evening at a nice club in Emily City. Told him as
community leaders we should become better acquainted. He loves
Mavis, but finds her a bit frightening at times. It’s amazing what
men will share when slightly drunk.”

“So now we know that she
really does want the school, and why, but we don’t know that she’s
the one who called me. Harold didn’t know about that, did
he?”

“No, but I did find out one
more thing. I called their daughter Claire myself.”

I glared at
Jerry.

“Just stop. I had Tracy’s
blessing.”

I wiggled my head from side
to side, giving in to his ability to do as he pleased without
consequence.

“It was an interesting
conversation. When she understood that I was a friend of yours and
was concerned for your safety, she admitted that she thought she
knew who had the phone.”

“Now that is interesting,”
I said.

“She said she’d been
thinking about it a lot since Tracy and you called her. She knows
she had it a few days before parents’ weekend, and that it wasn’t
there the next time she went looking. She wanted to loan it to
another friend.”

“What are you saying?” I
wanted him to spell it out.

“She thinks her mother took
it out of her drawer, but she can’t prove it.”

We walked past the police
station and through the park in the center of town, circling the
block, and finally returning to our cars which were still at the
school. People who saw us greeted us politely, but I had the
feeling they were trying to assess our relationship as well as
being friendly.

As Jerry opened my car door
for me, I turned to him and spoke the question that was in both our
minds, “Could Mavis want the old school so badly she’d kill for
it?”

Chapter 40

The final week before the
Harvest Ball passed in a blur of checklists and activities. Mother
Nature did not favor us with helpful weather. After the glorious
sunshine of Sunday, Monday dawned wet and rainy. Forecasts
predicted rain, drizzle and fog for the rest of the week, with
plummeting temperatures on the weekend.
Great, now we need another room cleaned to use as a
coatroom
, I thought.

Tom took several friends
out to his mother’s place and they loaded all the Oldfield
furniture into his truck and covered it carefully with a plastic
tarp. Cora insisted that some of the interpretive materials be
displayed as well, and she actually came into town with them,
clutching a scrapbook on her lap. She’d spent the previous week
collating and copying materials to fill the book, which would
provide extra detail about both the judge’s family and his
killer’s. She was sure people would want to read more. I urged her
not to be disappointed if most visitors were content to just see
the skit. When Tom and company arrived at the school, it took two
hours to set up the judge’s staged bedroom. Cora and I decided it
worked best on the actual stage, but it had to be to one side
because the band would need the other side.

Since we didn’t know
exactly how the college kids would make their entrances and exits,
we had to do some guessing. But Cora insisted they would get it
right since we’d sent them pictures of how everything had to be
arranged. The stained and tattered stage curtain wasn’t going to be
replaced, so set changes would be made in full view of the
audience.

We pulled the scrapbook
apart and mounted all the pages, the nightshirt and the gun into a
locked display case on the outside wall of the former school
office.

Todd Ringman had tripled up
his jobs and taken on custodial duties as well as fixing the boiler
and plumbing. He said he needed to stick around anyway to be sure
the heating system was working right. The floors had been cleaned
and buffed, and I suspected he’d used some sort of anti-fungal
cleaner on the woodwork because the general odor of mold had been
replaced with a medicinal smell. That sent me scurrying to the
drugstore for cinnamon-and-spice heated fragrance
diffusers.

Todd had also located two
tall ladders, and in between receiving even more deliveries of both
decorative and useful items, and directing volunteers as to how to
arrange the tables in the hallway, I climbed and descended and
hammered and taped and adjusted décor until I was
exhausted.

The front page of the paper
on Wednesday carried a full spread of photos designed to entice
people to the Harvest Ball: the front of the school, wheat shocks
being delivered, Sherri Sorenson’s handsome team of Percherons
hitched to the wagon that would bring people to the school, Janice
Preston and Jimmie in white aprons smiling broadly and holding
trays filled with food, kids cutting and pasting paper lanterns,
and more.

The article provided
assurance that the Ball was a family event; people of all ages were
welcome. Although nursery care would not be provided, games for
kids old enough to follow directions would be organized by Cheyanne
Bascomb of Happy Kids Daycare in Waabishki. People were encouraged
to “come as you are;” no one should stay away for lack of fancy
clothing.

On an inside page was a
sizeable column proclaiming the many prizes that could be won with
the purchase of raffle tickets at the door, proceeds to benefit the
county animal shelter. There was also a listing of every person and
every business that was known to have offered items or volunteered
time. I couldn’t imagine how Jerry had kept track of all those
donations. It was more evidence of how good he was at reporting
small town news. He was like Adele, except that his family, for
four generations, had made a legitimate career out of knowing what
everyone was doing. It was suddenly easy to understand why someone
might hold a long-standing grudge against the Caulfields, perhaps
for revealing some family secret they preferred to keep hidden.
After all, at the core of the recent mysterious events was an
apparent threat directed at Jerry, not at me.

I pondered all this as I
decorated, and resolved to keep track of the Fannings at the Ball.
The evening was bound to be filled with distractions, giving
someone a perfect opportunity to carry out a “nefarious deed.” That
seemed so unlikely, and I laughed at myself for thinking in
Shakespearean terms. And yet, there had already been one very real
murder. In this very building.

On Thursday, Jerry’s weekly
rush to get the paper out was past, and he caught me climbing down
off a ladder for the hundredth time. Or the thousandth. My calves
couldn’t tell any more, they were so sore.

“This place looks
positively gorgeous,” Jerry raved. “You’ve accomplished a miracle.
It smells wonderful too.”

I had to admit that the
odors of damp leaves carried in on all the feet that had passed
through the doors, bales of hay, the ripe grain, and the spicy oil
had combined to create a delicious autumnal aroma.

“Wait until the pumpkin and
apple tarts arrive. By then the woodwork will smell good enough to
eat.” I teased.

“I love how the hallway
looks like a sidewalk café. The pots of chrysanthemums sure
brighten it up. Let’s bring in more leaves. It’s impossible to keep
them out anyway.”

“Works for me,” I said,
mentally adding a rake to the list of things I’d need to bring next
time.

Jerry switched topics. “I
came by to ask what you’re wearing Saturday night.”

“Wearing? I don’t know.
Jeans and a sweater, I suppose.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” he
said, shaking his head. “You are the unofficial hostess of the
Harvest Ball. Everyone knows how much work you’ve put into it, and
that you will be my date.”

“You’re kidding, right?
It’s ‘come as you are.’ Your own paper said so,” I protested,
stooping over to pick up the end of an electrical cord. “Look at
this.”

I pushed the plug into an
outlet and garlands of tiny lights clustered within orange and red
lanterns glowed and winked through the construction paper bars.
“It’s even better with the big lights out.”

“I’m serious. You need a
nice gown, and I need to know what color it is.”

“Gown?” Now he had my
attention. I frowned. “I don’t know if I still have anything one
would consider a gown. What are you wearing, tails?” I
joked.

“As a matter of fact, I am.
The suit was my grandfather’s. It fits me quite well. Dark gray.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Oh bother! Jerry, I don’t
have time to shop for a dress,” I whined.

“Sure you do. This
afternoon. I insist. Go to Emily City. I’ve arranged for Adele to
go with you,” he announced.

I placed my hands on my
temples and squeezed, rubbing my fingertips over my tired, closed
eyes. When I opened them, Jerry was holding out a folded wad of
money.

“Take it,” he
ordered.

“No thank you,” I said. I
was tempted to say a lot more.

“You have to,” Jerry
insisted.

“Indeed, I don’t have to do
everything you tell me to.” Suddenly, I’d had about enough of
having Jerry’s plans direct every moment of my life for the past
several weeks. I reached down and yanked the light plug out of the
socket.

“I’m not explaining this
well,” he countered, letting his hand drop to his side.

“You’re not explaining it
at all,” I said.

“Look. This is part of the
ploy. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But you’ve got to be
dressed up, stunning, the Belle of the Ball. Cora will be so angry
that I’ve had my head turned by a pretty young woman she’ll be
ready to pop a corset stay.”

“I don’t think even Cora
wears a corset,” I said dryly.

“Ok, probably not. Anyway,
when I make the big announcement that I’ve purchased the building
for her museum and I would like her to be my bride again, she’ll be
overwhelmed with joy that I want her instead of a glittering
bauble...”

“Glittering bauble! Give me
a break. You should be a playwright. No, make that a scripter of
soap operas.”

Chapter 41

Nevertheless, I gave in to
Jerry’s request. It turned out that Adele had very good taste in
clothing when she was shopping for someone else, and she knew of
several small specialty shops in Emily City. We finally chose a
black floor-length dress in a soft fabric that draped nicely. It
was neither a sheath nor full. The top had a bateau neckline, and
it came with a black lace jacket. I owned a jade necklace and
earrings that I thought would work with it. As a final splurge,
with my own money I bought a mossy green clutch purse to complement
the jade.