“Not a problem.”
“How’s Grace holding up?” Ardis asked. “And what’s your impression of her?”
“I think she’s very brave. She’s frightened, but she’s a strong young woman. She’s holding up better than I would in those circumstances, I’m sure of that. I took her a care package with packets of nuts for stamina, some of Mel’s chocolate cookies for something to look forward to, and a book of crossword puzzles to keep her mind occupied.”
“You’re a peach, Ernestine. You didn’t happen to . . .” I looked around hopefully.
“We all need something to look forward to,” Ernestine said. “There’s a plate of cookies behind the counter with Ardis.”
“Which I have virtuously left untouched,” Ardis said.
“Anything else to report, Ernestine?”
“Only that I agree with you. Grace is likable, and I believe she did still love Phillip.”
“But that’s not enough to get her off,” Ardis said.
We heard a sob. Scratch that.
I
heard a sob. Geneva was crying and using her sleeve to blot the ghostly tears that must be running down her cheeks.
“Love stories are the saddest stories in the world,” she said through her snuffles. “I can hardly bear to hear
any more about the poor hopeless thing’s plight. Except—” She sat up and leaned toward me. “It would be far more exciting if Aunt Bee could spring the lovelorn lass from the calaboose. Won’t you please send her back to try? Or put your burglar beau to good use? Send him in to sneak her out under dark of night.”
“No,” I said. I waited a couple of beats, then added, “No, you’re right, Ardis. That isn’t enough to get her off.”
“She
shouldn’t
have,” Ernestine said with sudden vehemence.
“What do you mean?” I asked. The only other time I’d seen her that worked up was the first time I met her and the Spivey twins had tried to bully their way past her. “She shouldn’t have what?”
“Loved him,” Ernestine said. “She should have stopped that when she left him the first time. She didn’t come right out and say it. She wouldn’t. But I know what she was saying. I heard it in her voice and the way she chose her words.” Ernestine slashed a hand through the air. “I’ve heard that kind of wretched, sad nonsense from one of my granddaughters. Grace said she left Phillip and divorced him because he wasn’t always ‘nice.’”
“He hit her?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Then why did she follow him here?” I asked. “And you said it, too—she still loved him. How could she?”
“The police are bound to know all this,” Ardis said. “If they didn’t when they arrested her, they do now.”
“But the weapon,” I said. “Unless the deputies have it, then they still might not know what they’re looking for.”
“And in that pond, good luck finding anything,” Joe said. He came back to the counter with a skein of electric
pink marabou. “Put this on my tab, will you, Ardis? And may I have one of Mel’s cookies to go?”
“You have someplace better to be?” Ardis asked.
“Thought I’d go scare some fish. Maybe head up Sinking Creek a ways.”
“At a time like this?” Ardis demanded.
“Can’t think of much else I’d rather do.” He tucked the marabou in a pocket and smiled at her. She didn’t return the smile. “Ernestine,” he said, “your Aunt Bee is good. Better even than your Miss Marple.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“I’ll call you later,” he said to me on his way to the door. “Let you know what I catch.”
Ardis waited until the door shut behind him, then boiled. “For years I’ve heard people call Tennyson Yeats Dunbar a lazy, ne’er-do-well so-and-so. Some of those people being related directly to him. But I have always stuck up for him, and I will continue to do so, if for no other reason than that I enjoy being contrary. But there are times . . .” She stopped, breathing hard.
Hearing Ardis’ anger, Geneva came out of her funk. She floated over beside Ardis and shook her finger at the departed Joe. Invective stirred her.
“There are times,” Ardis repeated after taking a few angry breaths, “when that man tries even my forgiving soul.”
“Sinking Creek loops around past the Homeplace,” I said. “It kind of trickles in one side of the retting pond and out the other.” With my recent interest in small-creek fishermen, I’d also taken an interest in the geography of small creeks.
Ardis blew out one last breath, deflating a notch or two, and brought the plate of cookies out from under the
counter. “Be sure you take two or three of these to Ten, because I seem to have forgotten to give him one. And henceforth I will remember to trust my friends. I have no doubt that Ten is the best kind of fisherman, who knows enough not to alert the fish, or anyone else in the vicinity, by crashing through the underbrush.”
“I’ve heard that the brook trout call him Stealthy Joe.” I reached for one of the cookies. Mel called them Double Dark Chocolate Devastators. Stealthy Joe would be lucky if he got the two or three Ardis told me to take him.
“I’m afraid I didn’t get us very far forward,” Ernestine said. “I may have set us back.”
“You brought us information,” I said. “Even if it’s bleak, information is gold.”
“We might not know what the weapon is, and we might not know if it’s in the pond,” Ardis said, “but the pond is as good a place as any and better than most. And thanks to semantics, I think we have proof, slender proof but proof all the same, that Grace is innocent.”
“Unfortunately, what I found this morning also falls in the bleak column. It doesn’t help her at all. Actually, it’s what I
didn’t
find that doesn’t help.” I’d been about to take a bite of my cookie, but had to put it down. Decadent chocolate didn’t go with what I needed to tell them. “A couple of weeks ago I saw two flax hackles in storage at the Homeplace. This morning there’s only one.”
“Misplaced,” Ardis said. “Moved somewhere else for the program.”
”No,” I said. “There’s no note in the accession records indicating a change of location. Making that kind of note is standard museum practice. The hackle isn’t in the education room and I didn’t see it in Phillip’s office.”
“In Nadine’s office?” Ernestine asked.
“Possibly. Again, she would have made a note in the accession file.”
“But a hackle,” Ardis said.
“Grace had access to storage, Ardis. And remember, I saw the wound. A hackle’s got a whole lot of teeth, and if you swing it just right . . . ?”
“Lord have mercy,” she said softly.
“And then toss the nasty thing in the pond.” Ernestine looked at her Aunt Bee pocketbook, put it on the counter, and folded her hands. “I don’t want to believe Grace did that, but perhaps I was too caught up in my playacting and didn’t see through her own act.” She reached up, unclasped her pearls, and put them away in the pocketbook.
“Wait, what’s happening?” Geneva fluttered around Ernestine. “Don’t let her turn back into that dumpy, nearsighted old lady.”
Ernestine looked at the floor. Ardis sat on the stool behind the counter, hands clasped to her lips, head bowed.
“Do something!” Geneva said. Her agitated fluttering turned into swooping. She flew from one end of the sales counter to the other, then swooped up to the ceiling and down past my left shoulder, around to the front door and back, stopping in front of me. And billowing—never a good sign.
“Do you realize how serious this situation is?” She billowed to within inches of my nose. “
Look
at that plate of cookies.
Look
at that cookie you left sitting on the counter.
Abandoned
. Don’t you see what that means?”
“Shh.” I stepped back. She followed.
“
I
can only enjoy those cookies through the vicarious moans that approach indecency when the rest of you eat them.
You
are so in love with them you would have a
hard time putting one down even to save a damsel tied and flailing on the railroad tracks.
Ardis
never met a cookie she did not take one look at and devour whole.”
“Hush.”
“I will not. Those abandoned cookies are the case.”
“What?”
“You have given up.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You have. First you insulted me by saying my body lies a-moldering in a garbage dump. Now you have abandoned the case and abandoned Grace. And that means there is only one course of action left. I shall take over and I shall solve the crime. No, do not try to stop me. The time for arguing is past. I have spent hours, if not months and years, being trained by the best detectives in the world, including Kate Beckett, Matt Dillon, Joe Friday, Lennie Briscoe, Cagney
and
Lacey, Aunt Bee, and a cast of thousands. You had your chance, so go ahead and hide your eyes in shame.”
My hands were over my eyes so I wouldn’t get seasick from her pulsating billows in such close proximity.
“You may congratulate me when I return. For now, farewell. I said farewell. You could at least wave good-bye.”
I waved one hand, keeping the other over my eyes. And then there was silence. I dropped both hands and looked around. She was gone.
Poof!
For the second time in not so many days, Geneva had disappeared. The first time, I’d felt as though I’d failed her in some essential way and then lost her. This time, I felt as though I’d failed again, but instead of losing her, I’d lost control of her. If I’d ever had control, which I really hadn’t—no more
control, anyway, than a parent had over a headstrong, self-righteous teenager.
There was another difference, too. This time she was a hyped-up, headstrong ghost on a self-righteous mission.
T
he bell over the front door jingled again. Three more customers came in, waving away assistance. Then Debbie’s customers made their way back to the counter, cradling armfuls of pastel baby wool. That was enough to rouse Ardis from her meditative slump. She whisked the cookies from the counter and assumed her warmest customer service smile.
“First grandchild,” one of the baby-wool customers said, stroking the cheek of a rosy pink skein. “Getting an early start.”
“No grandchild in sight,” the other said, “but can’t help jumping the gun.”
Ardis rang them up while Ernestine congratulated them on their good fortune and foresight. Debbie got her purse from the office and paused next to me before taking off for the day.
“What’s happened?” she asked quietly. “You look worried.”
“Complications. But that’s the usual pattern of our cases, right? So, nothing more than the usual, I guess. That and wondering about obligations.”
“Well, you’re not obligated to say yes to this, but if it’ll help free you up, I can work two or three afternoons this
week or next. I sure wouldn’t mind it. I’ve had the vet out to see the girls a few times more than my budget likes.”
“Good to know. Thanks.” I’d have to check with Ardis before agreeing, though. We were already paying Debbie for extra hours while I helped with Hands on History. We had wiggle room, but if we wiggled too much, our budget wouldn’t be any happier than Debbie’s.
While Ardis finished with the new and potential grandmothers, I went to see if the other customers were still happy browsing on their own. I found them sitting in the three comfy chairs in one of the front rooms upstairs, three young women about Grace’s age, knitting and talking companionably. All was right in their world. I didn’t bother them. When I got back downstairs, Ernestine and Ardis were waiting for me, again looking doleful. I squared my shoulders and marched over to the sales counter.
“Ardis,” I said, “break out the cookies.” I patted the counter. “Put them right here.” She did, giving me a sidelong look that would have done Geneva proud. “Now everybody take one, raise it high, and let’s have a toast to solving this crime.” I started to raise my cookie, then thought better of it and took a bite. I couldn’t help a barely decent moan. Again, Geneva would have been proud.
“Ernestine, what was it you said about facts and possibilities?”
“They aren’t the same, despite what some . . . well, perhaps I shouldn’t repeat the rest.” She ate her cookie to cover her discomfort.
“What are you getting at?” Ardis asked.
“We have to remember the difference between facts
and possibilities. That Grace is guilty is only a possibility. That we are capable of solving crimes is a fact.”
Ardis took another cookie. “Hear, hear.”
“Possibilities mean hope,” Ernestine said. She took her string of pearls out of her pocketbook and put them back on.
“And facts are facts,” Ardis said. She finished the cookie, picked up her pen. “And before we’re interrupted by more of the fiber-inclined public, let’s discuss one of those facts. Other people had access to the storage room. A fact—am I right?”
“Fact.”
“In
fact
, it seems to me that if you’ve been traipsing in and out of their locked storage, then they aren’t exactly operating under high security. So who else, besides Grace, has access? No need to answer until you’ve finished chewing.”
Geneva had been right. We never should have abandoned the cookies. They were putting us in the proper frame of mind and giving us strength to continue the investigation. I glanced around, wondering if she’d really left, and if she had where she’d gone. To the jail to haunt Grace? The Homeplace? Would she know the way? Would she be okay going either place on her own? She hadn’t ever done this before. Would she come back? I took a third cookie without answering Ardis’ question. She moved the plate out of my reach.
“Thanks, Ardis.” I stepped away from the counter as a further precaution against overdosing on proper frame of mind and strength, although I couldn’t help noticing that she continued strengthening herself from the rapidly diminishing contents of the plate. “You’re right.
Security is lax.” I told them about the unlocked key box in Phillip’s unlocked office. “That kind of security isn’t unusual in a small place, though. They aren’t locking the artifacts away from each other; it’s to keep other people—from outside—out. That laxity helps Grace, but it doesn’t help us eliminate anyone from the field of suspects. If you’re still taking notes, put down Nadine, Wes Treadwell, and Fredda Oliver. She’s a piece of work, by the way.”
“Is that a fact or possibility?”
“Pretty sure it’s a fact.” I was also pretty sure I needed to ask Joe if he knew Fredda called him delicious.
“Interesting,” Ardis said, cutting into that uncomfortable thought. “Here’s another question, then, and it’s fraught with possibilities. Are we obligated to tell the police about the missing hackle?”
“Do you think that’s a moral dilemma,” Ernestine asked, “or more of our semantics? Because we don’t know, for a fact, that the hackle is guilty or innocent.”
“And that
is
a fact,” Ardis said. “All right, tell me what you think of this line of reasoning. Let’s see if I can keep it straight. What you’ve told us about keys, and about artifacts that might or might not be missing, amounts to some of the best hearsay I’ve heard said in ages. But hearsay, like possibilities, is next to rumor and gossip in my book. Not that I don’t love my book, but I venture to say that Cole Dunbar does not like my metaphorical book. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that my book irritates the snot out of Cole Dunbar. Because of that, and because I like to be an upright citizen, helpful to the authorities in whatever way I can be, I would say that I also have an obligation to not purposefully set out to irritate them. So my conscience is clear. I will not be telling Cole,
or anyone else in authority, about a hackle, missing or not. Now, I believe I’ve had enough sugar and caffeine for several days, and I would appreciate it if you take the rest of these away from me.”
There were only three cookies left. Ernestine handed me the plastic wrap that had been over the plate and I wrapped the survivors for Joe. Ardis watched sadly, then sat down on the stool behind the counter, looking exhausted.
“Did I make any sense?” she asked.
“You stitched around the question of obligation beautifully,” I said, “piecing together several somewhat eccentric points.”
“Very nicely embroidered,” Ernestine agreed.
“Thank you,” Ardis said. “I do my best. Now, where do we go from here?”
“Let me try my hand,” I said. “Because we don’t really know anything, because we don’t have enough facts, why don’t we give ourselves until we meet Friday for Fast and Furious—”
“A
grace
period?” Ernestine asked. “Oh, please excuse me for interrupting.”
“A grace period. Yes, and during that grace period, we’ll either discover someone who looks guiltier than Grace, or Deputy Dunbar and his buddies will come up with the weapon all on their own. And if they haven’t done that by the end of the grace period, then we’ll tell them the hackle theory. We’ll do it this way because, after all, we’re amateurs. We didn’t set out to investigate Phillip Bell’s murder. We’re looking into the curious incident of two skeletons in a dump. It seems obvious to me that what we’re looking into is the fairly old murder of two people . . .”
Old murder of two people.
Mattie and Sam. The
double murder Geneva had nightmares about. What if the skeletons in the garbage dump were Geneva’s Mattie and Sam?
And my headstrong, hyped-up, self-righteous, emotionally vulnerable ghost might be on her way out there right now.