“No, no, no, sorry. I meant Grace and Phillip.”
“Yes, of course you did.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Still, I would say no to that, too, although I suppose stranger things have happened.”
“Wasn’t it awkward having them both working here?”
“They stayed out of each other’s way when they could, and when they couldn’t they were civil. At least within my hearing. And then, she’s only here ten to fifteen hours a week. It helps, too, that their interests are quite different.”
“What were Phillip’s interests? Did he have any specific projects he was working on?”
“Kath.” Nadine looked at me when she said my name—making it a demand, not remonstrating—and she didn’t say anything else until she must have known I was uncomfortable. “I’m surprised,” she said then. “Are you asking these questions for the deputy? Is that why he kept you so long? Or are you indulging your hobby that I’ve heard about, mounting an investigation of your own?”
“Nadine,” I said, then waited, playing her game, which I won as easily as she had. But she didn’t look any happier about losing than I’d felt, and that made me feel bad all over again. “You’re partly right,” I said. She pressed her lips together and I rushed to explain. “Not in the way
you think, though. It’s the skeleton, Nadine. I want to know who it is and I think I have a clue. Phillip was excited about the skeleton, too, and something I said made him think we might be on the same track. He said he was working on something I might be interested in, but then with everything going on yesterday, he didn’t have time to tell me what it was. That’s why I came out early this morning. He was going to fill me in and we were going to compare notes. Except that I don’t know what those notes were.”
“I apologize, Kath.” She looked down at the binder on the desk and then tapped her fingernail on the keyboard of Phillip’s computer. “I don’t know what those notes were, either. After we hired him he threw himself into learning our basic history and preparing for this program. We talked about site interpretation in general, and he had some ideas about incorporating storytelling into one of the tours. He was full of ideas. That’s one of the reasons we hired him. But I don’t know what
that
idea was. And I cannot imagine what we’re doing with an elbow or an arm or a whole person out there.” She put her elbows on the desk, closed her eyes, and rested her forehead on her fingertips.
“There’s no need to apologize, Nadine. I obviously did spend too much time in there with Deputy Dunbar if I sounded like I was interrogating you. His bad habits must have rubbed off on me.” That minuscule joke at Clod’s expense didn’t raise a smile, but it did make me wonder about that session with Clod.
Had
he interrogated me? Not really. It was more like he’d interviewed me with intent. But with intent to do what besides irritate? He’d passed the time with a few questions and a smattering of accusations. He hadn’t learned anything
more earth-shattering than the fundamentals of retting linen, or that Phillip took an interest in local names, or that I didn’t know someone named Fredda. He hadn’t learned that there’d been a woman with Phillip last night, because I hadn’t thought to mention it. Grace? Or could that have been Fredda? Was that why Shorty had asked me about her? Had they already talked to her? But she was a good liar . . .
A door closed down the hall or across the hall. Nadine stood up.
“Maybe that’s Deputy Dunbar,” she said, “and we’ll hear something.”
But it wasn’t Clod; it was my idea of a better Dunbar.
“Hey, Kath, have you seen—oh.” Joe stopped short of bending to kiss me. “Hey, Nadine.” His hand settled in the small of my back. “Sorry to hear about Phillip, Nadine. He seemed like an interesting guy. I know he was going to make things easier for you around here. If I can help in the short term, just give the word.”
“That’s good of you, Joe. Thank you.”
“In the meantime, has either of you seen Fredda?”
“F
redda had an appointment in Knoxville today,” Nadine said. “She’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Her truck’s behind the equipment shed.” Joe’s hand left my back. He’d caught sight of the banjo and went to pick it up. “Maybe under the circumstances she didn’t go.”
“Then if she’s heard about Phillip, that’s one less person I have to tell,” Nadine said. “But I left her off the list I gave Cole of everyone who was here this morning.”
“I think Cole already knows she was here,” I said. “But, um, who is she?”
“You haven’t met her?” Nadine asked. “I’m sure you’ve seen her around, though. She’s our new caretaker. She took the job after Joe filled in that short while for us. It was Joe who recommended her.”
“She used to have a lawn care business,” Joe said. “Good with small engines. And animals.” He plucked a banjo string. It jangled discordantly, and he put the banjo back next to the filing cabinet. “You’ve had your share of excitement out here in the past couple of days.”
“It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours,” Nadine said, hugging herself. “Poor Phillip. He enjoyed stirring things up.”
Clod darkened the doorway at that point. “Ms. Solberg? May I—”
“Finally
.
”
Nadine’s terse greeting pinched off whatever else Clod had planned to say.
Joe and I took that as our cue to slip away.
* * *
“What would Fredda have to lie about?” I asked as we made our way to the excavation site. Joe wanted to see it—and the elbow if he could. Because Jerry and Zach had vacated the auditorium, we hoped they’d been given the go-ahead to start the careful work of uncovering the bones.
“What makes you think she has anything to lie about?”
“Something your brother bark—er, something he said.”
“You shouldn’t listen to everything he barks.”
“You’re right. You’re a wise man, Joe Dunbar. With long legs.”
Loping Joe adjusted his stride with a smile. Neither of us was a hand-holder, but we walked companionably across the site grounds. Joe hummed and I indulged myself by comparing and contrasting the Dunbar brothers. It was an interesting pastime, but not really fair, due to my personal bias. I also knew it might be dangerous to the relationship Joe and I were still working on.
Joe liked to say we were knitting our relationship—going forward, dropping a stitch now and then, unraveling a bit, then moving forward again. I thought of it more as weaving—one of us on either side of a huge loom, sailing shuttles of bright colors back and forth to each other—creating a tapestry we could both live with. But considering the pieces of each other’s lives we were still discovering and exploring, with only our current Blue Plum pieces intersecting, maybe our relationship was more like a patchwork quilt coming together.
One of the differences between the Dunbar brothers
was in the way they responded to or asked questions. Joe withheld judgment until a situation or a misstatement was clarified. Clod and his world were always right. I thought that must make it harder for him to be happy.
When we rounded the end of the barn, we saw that Jerry and Zach had company in the form of another sheriff’s deputy.
“Hey, Darla,” I called.
“Hey, yourself. Come see what we’re doing.” Darla Dye, the sheriff’s newest deputy on the beat, dressed in her regulation tan-and-brown uniform, sunglasses, and Smokey the Bear hat, was acting as an enthusiastic shovel and spade caddy for the archaeologist. “I might have to drop my needlework and grab a pickax. This is fascinating. But I’m on duty, so ya’ll mind what you say and do.”
“Darla?” Jerry Hicks looked up from showing Zach the correct way to peel sod from the underlying dirt.
“Yeah?”
“Do me a favor and don’t ever come near one of my sites with a pickax. Deal?”
“Deal. Isn’t he the cutest?” Darla’s hands were full, so she pointed an elbow at Jerry. She might reach his underarm if he stood next to her, and he looked more piratical and sweaty than cute.
“Not much to see, folks,” Jerry said. “What we’re doing is peeling it all back, easy does it, sod, then the dirt, and we’re documenting the process, the layers, every anomaly we bump up against—photographs, sketches, notes—until we see what we’ve got. Routine recovery work. Boring for now.”
“No it’s not!” Darla said.
“For now, for them,” Jerry said. “So they might as well leave us alone.”
* * *
“For now, for the two of you, yes, the site is closed,” Clod said. He’d crunched across the gravel parking lot toward us, interrupting Joe’s rather delightful good-bye. Joe planned to go fishing, and I’d decided to stay at the farm for another hour and look through the archives. Clod scuttled my plans. “I am authorized to tell you to leave.”
“But I’m already here,” I pointed out logically, “and I’ve been here all morning. How am I going to hurt anything more than I already have?” I wanted to add that I’d been there first and that ought to count for something. Instead I tried appealing to his sense of justice or closure or mystery. Surely he had at least one of those senses. I couched my request in as much of his own kind of official-eze blather as I could stomach. “Deputy, I think you should take into consideration that I’m continuing a thread of research that will help your department solve a problem. But I’ll need to be able to access the site’s records to corroborate my findings up to this point.”
“Do tell.”
I took that as an invitation to continue. Not one of my brighter moments. He cut me off with a guffaw. Amazingly, he had the good grace to stop and apologize. My flaming cheeks might have prompted that.
“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you’d realize the ‘do tell’ wasn’t serious. And, seriously, the research, whatever it is, can wait.”
“You don’t even want to know what it is?”
Clod looked at Joe, then at me, making a decision. “All right, speaking now as someone who is not authorized to do so, I’ll tell you what the sheriff will be releasing in his statement this afternoon. Unless or until we learn otherwise, Phillip Bell’s death is being investigated as a murder.”
“Wait, you mean it wasn’t an attack by a—”
“No. Those wounds were not caused by the jaws of an animal. Person or persons unknown.”
“With
what
?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Also unknown.”
“That’s horrible.”
The brothers pursed their lips and nodded, Joe looking at the sky, Clod studying the gravel at his feet.
“You know Jerry and the kid, Zach, are over there digging, though, right? You’re going to let them stay? Are they safe?”
“No need to worry yourself about any of that.” Clod’s gravel meditation over, he rolled his neck and hitched his belt. “The dig is official business, until we find out what he’s got there, and a deputy will remain on duty at the site. And although you didn’t hear it from me, we are not without a suspect or suspects.”
“Who?”
“That is for
us
to know and
not
for you to run around trying to find out.”
I stared at him. “Did you really say that? Did you say ‘that’s for me to know and you to find out’? Like this is a game?
“
Not
for you to find out. It’s a small word that makes a big difference.
Not
. Remember that. Ten,” he said, calling Joe a name almost no one else did, “you got a hot date with a cold fish?”
Joe put a warm hand on my shoulder. “Might go on up to Lower Higgins. I tied a Tardis Dalek this morning. Thought I’d give it a whirl.” The hand on my shoulder gave a slight squeeze.
“Sounds good. Just don’t let
this
one talk you into doing anything crazy.” Clod smiled, jabbing a thumb at me,
but he wasn’t really joking and no one laughed. Then he raised his hand as though he meant to clap Joe on the shoulder, but before actual brotherly contact occurred, his hand changed direction and thumped Joe’s truck instead.
“A Tardis Dalek?” I said, watching Clod’s irritating back disappear into the visitors’ center. “You might be a wise man, but you’re also wicked.”
“It’s a safe joke. He won’t turn into a
Doctor Who
fan anytime soon.”
“Or a fisherman. What kind of fly are you really using?”
“Woolly bugger.”
I started to laugh, then stopped and looked at him.
He shrugged. “A classic fly, appropriate for small creeks and veiled comments.”
I finished my laugh. “Why does he still call you Ten?”
“Why do you call him Deputy instead of Cole?”
“I could say habit. Or I could be honest and admit to a trace of passive aggression.”
“A bit of both probably covers it,” Joe said. “Are we still on for Saturday night?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Joe (born Tennyson Yeats Dunbar) was taking me up a creek to show me where he’d seen a family of otters. His brother (born Deputy Coleridge Blake Dunbar—he didn’t really arrive in this world wearing tan, brown, and a badge; he just looked that way) could go jump in the retting pond.
A
rdis sat on the tall stool behind the sales counter at the Weaver’s Cat in what she called “cogitation mode.” Eyes unfocused, tapping whatever came to hand against her lips—a double-ended crochet hook in this case—she listened to the details of my morning and the few facts I knew of Phillip’s nasty death. She stayed in cogitation mode each time we were interrupted by customers and I stopped my narration to discuss patterns, materials, and notions, or to ring up a sale. When I came to the part about the bogus Tardis Dalek fly, Ardis tucked the crochet hook behind her ear.
“He should design that fly and we can sell the pattern and all retire in splendor. And if the BBC doesn’t like it, he can shorten it to the Ardis fly and give me a larger cut of the profits. But all of that aside, the big question is, can we work on a hot case and a cold one at the same time?”
“There might be a few other middling to big questions besides that one, Ardis.”
She waved other considerations aside.
“One of those being the fact that they do have a suspect.”
She threw her hands up. “Now you tell me.”
“Oops. But I wasn’t supposed to. Deputy Dunbar specifically warned us not to say that.”
“Then it’s his fault,” she said. “He shouldn’t have told you in the first place. And when have we ever let Cole or the existence of an official suspect stop us before? Were you able to get it out of him
who
they suspect?”
“No.”
“Because that might narrow the field; they’re bound to be wrong. Boy howdy, do we ever know they can get it wrong. But do we have enough man—no, after your experience with Cole, I’m feeling offended by the term ‘manpower.’ But you know what I mean. Are there enough of us? The posse can only do so much.”
“Instead of ‘manpower,’ should we call it ‘staffing resources’?”
“Sounds bulky. How about ‘posse power’?”
“Sounds like an exotic dance club.”
“Let’s not call it anything then and move on. How would you like us to proceed with the cold investigation? I think it’s best we start there, don’t you?”
Before I could answer, she brought out a notebook from under the counter.
“Having learned at your feet, I made an outline of what we know thus far.” She opened the notebook and turned it so I could see. The heading on the first page read
What We Know Thus Far.
“We don’t know much, do we?”
“That might be the essence of a cold case. A brief story, only a few facts, and that’s what makes it more of a challenge.”
“I wonder how many cold cases start with something as brief as an elbow?”
“And a name. Geneva.”
When Ardis said “Geneva,” I glanced around. There was nothing. No shimmer or glint. No patch of fog or watery distortion. But I heard tapping . . . It was Ardis. She’d taken the crochet hook from behind her ear and was tapping it on the notebook, watching me.
“It will help if you can remember where you read the name. It has a sweet, old-timey sound to it, don’t you think?”
“I like
Geneva
a lot.”
“So do I, but there’s no need to shout.”
“Sorry.” It hadn’t done any good to raise my voice, anyway. There were still no ripples of mist. “You know what, though, Ardis, Phillip knew the name, too. That’s why I went out there this morning. To find out what he knew and where he’d found it. He must have it in a file.”
“Will Nadine let you look?”
“I don’t see why not. We’ll be adding to the interpretation of the site. What could be better than that?” I flipped to the next page of the notebook. “Wow. You made assignments?”
“Is it too much? It’s only what you mentioned yesterday, hunting for names and whatnot, but did I overstep?”
“No, this is great. All I have to do now is call the others and hand the assignments out. Piece of cake.”
Ardis shook her head.
“What?”
“It’s already done. Ernestine, John, Debbie, and Thea are in. Mel was in the middle of a tricky chocolate galette and couldn’t be disturbed. I left a message for her, but if we don’t hear from her soon, I’ll run over there and let her know in person.”
“And sample the galette?”
“And bring back a slice for you.”
“We’re good, then.” Melody Gresham—Mel—was the owner-operator of Mel’s on Main, the best eatery in Blue Plum. Mel was opinionated, loyal, and a terrific cook. The mention of galette set my stomach growling. “Thanks for doing this, Ardis. How soon do you think we can call a meeting?”
“That’s already done, too. We’re meeting at seven tonight at my house so I don’t have to find a sitter for Daddy. We might have to shout over the TV, but we’ll manage. Debbie doesn’t want to drive all the way back into town, but we’ll catch her up.”
Debbie worked part-time for us at the Weaver’s Cat and more than full-time running her sheep farm, with the help of Bill her border collie, ten miles out in the county. Due to her time constraints, we considered her more of a consulting member of the posse.
“My first thought was to hold off on meeting for a few days,” Ardis said, “to give our operatives more time for their assignments. But I knew you’d want to touch base, as a group, as soon as possible and start tossing ideas around the way you like to do.” She started juggling what looked like a dangerous number of imaginary objects.
“We probably could have waited until the weekend.”
She caught the imaginary objects and put them in the drawer behind the counter. “When I talked to Joe, he said he knew you were free tonight, but couldn’t be certain about Friday or Saturday. Don’t you love the word ‘operatives’?”
“I do. Remind me to increase Joe’s salary now that he’s also acting as my social secretary. Is he coming tonight?”
“He wouldn’t commit.”
“That’s my kind of social secretary.” Despite his commitment constraints, Joe had proved his value as a posse member.
“Tell you what,” Ardis said. Why don’t I leave the notebook with you to make corrections or additions as you see fit, and I’ll run over, right now, to see if Mel will be joining us this evening.”
“With galette?”
“Hmm. Galette for now or for this evening?”
“Either.”
“Or both. Good idea.”
* * *
The fiber- and textile-buying public came and went the rest of the afternoon. Geneva did not. Argyle kept his distance. Ardis heard me calling him, softly and pleadingly, and sighing when he ignored me.
“It’s in his contract to ignore people,” she said. “He wouldn’t
be
a cat otherwise. At least he’s condescended to be in the same room with you, and he’s behaving like a gentleman again. And if you watch his ears, you can see he’s listening to us.”
Or listening to someone. He was looking toward the shelf above the yarn bins along the wall—a space near the ceiling where Geneva liked to lie and watch the fiber- and textile-buying world go by. But I didn’t see her, not even out of the corner of my eye or if I turned around fast.
As disappointing as being snubbed by cat and ghost was the bag Ardis brought back from Mel’s. The virtuous, smug spinach salad staring out at me when I opened the bag looked nothing like the wicked galette of my imagination. But Ardis reported that Mel hadn’t been satisfied with the first galette and wouldn’t let any of it past her
kitchen door. Mel did promise she’d come to the meeting, though, and bring version 2.0. I let Joe’s phone know in a text. The chance to review a new recipe might be enough to entice him to our meeting.
* * *
The Three Stooges were blaring in the den off Ardis’ kitchen when I arrived. I stuck my head in to wave hello to her daddy and found Joe there, too. The two of them sat side by side, in twin recliners, nyucking it up like old friends. Neither of them noticed me through the hilarity; I waved anyway.
“We might lose John in there, too,” I said, “if the Stooges are still on when he gets here.”
“I can’t change the channel. Laughing’s good for Daddy’s chest. Take this in to Joe, will you?” She handed me a glass of iced tea. “But tell him not to let Daddy get hold of it or we’ll both be up all night.”
I’d planned to be at Ardis’ well ahead of the others, the better to be their intrepid leader, even though I had neither called the meeting nor handed them their assignments. But the members of the posse were completely dedicated and serious, and I should have known they would all arrive early, too, ready to contribute.
Thea Green, our town librarian and the brains behind database searches, arrived shortly after I did. “I know I’m early,” she said. “But I hope the sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be out of here. I’ve got books to read and places to go. Like my bed.”
“It’s not even seven,” I said.
“My point exactly. Let’s knock this thing out and go.”
Ardis held a chair for her. “Sit, Thea.”
Thea sat, and when I saw her kick off her three-inch heels, I knew we had her for the evening. She’d told me
once that her shoes screamed high fashion while her feet just plain screamed.
Mel came in, her hair newly dyed midnight blue with turquoise highlights and spiked to attention. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her chef pants—pink-and-black houndstooth. She handed me a box that smelled of fresh pastry, cinnamon, chocolate, and something . . .
“Raspberry,” she said. “Knew you wouldn’t get it. This galette is the important part of the meeting, Red, so if you haven’t got anything momentous to tell us, we can cut straight to what makes the world get rounder.”
The bottom of the box was warm. I passed it to Ardis before I drooled on it.
Ernestine O’Dell came in on John Berry’s arm. They were the posse’s senior members—Ernestine in her seventies, John in his eighties—and they watched out for each other. Ernestine was fond of wearing grays and browns and usually reminded me of a round old grandmother mole. Tonight she was decked out in green capris and a blouson top and looked more like a Granny Smith apple. John had left the mountains for the sea as a young man, first in the navy and then on his own sailboat. He’d moved home to stay, a month or so after I had, to care for his older, ornery brother, but when he occasionally talked about his boat, the blue of the ocean still lit his eyes. The boat hadn’t been overly large, he’d told me, and it was trim and quick. That described John, too.
“Have you been shopping with that wild granddaughter of yours again, Ernestine?” Thea asked.
“She has an eye for color, doesn’t she?” Ernestine peered down at herself. “Although I’m not sure the colors do so much for
me
. Kath, did you bring some of your
wonderful notes and diagrams for us to look at this evening?”
“It wouldn’t be an investigation without Kath’s lists and flowcharts,” Mel said.
“I only ask because I left my magnifier at home. I am so sorry.” Ernestine’s thick lenses shone at me as John steered her to a seat at the kitchen table.
I held up the messenger bag with my notes and Ardis’ spiral notebook. “I brought copies, Ernestine. There isn’t much to them, but you can take yours home and look at it when you get a chance.”
“That’s fine, then.”
“If you don’t have much for us, what are we doing here?” Thea asked.
“We are sitting down, hushing up, and letting Kath lay it all out,” Ardis said, thumping a plastic jug of iced tea on the table. “John Berry, if you’re going to stand there whistling Andy Griffith, you might as well go on in and join the other slackers. I’m closing the door, though, so you can’t have it both ways.”
“Ardis?” Joe said from the doorway. “Your ninety-six-year-old slacker daddy is asking for you. He wants to change the lightbulb in the lamp at the end of the sofa. He says it flickers. It looks fine to me. I can change it to humor him, though.”
Ardis stood with her eyes closed for a few seconds.
“I don’t mind sitting with him, if it’ll help,” Joe said.
“That would be a blessing, Ten.” There was nothing but affection in her voice when Ardis called him Ten. She’d known him since he was too young to be picked on because of the literary millstones around his neck. “Here.” She handed him a box of crackers. “Let him
have a few of these. He thinks he’s not allowed, and he loves getting away with it. And shut that door before I come in there and shoot Barney Fife with his only bullet. Kath, are you ready to get this meeting started?”
I moved to the head of the table. Mel gave me a thumbs-up. Joe waved and pulled the door closed.
“Although,” Ardis said before I had a chance to open my mouth, “now that I think about it, I wonder if we’re jumping the gun with this cold case.” She pulled out the chair next to Mel but didn’t sit. “All we have is an elbow, and for all we know that’s all we’ll have in the end.”
“I love a short meeting,” Thea said. “Pass the galette, and let’s go home.”
“But even an elbow deserves a name,” John said. Ernestine and Mel murmured agreement.
“But maybe we should wait a few days” Ardis said. “At least until they finish digging it up and we see what we have to work with. It’s already a cold case. It won’t get any colder.” She sat down and put her own elbows on the table. “But as long as we’re here, tell them about the hot case, Kath.”
“Is this some kind of bait and switch?” Thea asked.
“It’s better,” Ardis said. “It’s bait and bait. We’ve hit the big time. We have two cases. Tell them, Kath.”
“Do you all know Ardis is talking about the death, sometime last night or early this morning, of Phillip Bell, the new assistant director out at the Homeplace?”
“How could I?” Thea asked. “I’ve been in meetings
all day
.”
“Pour soul,” Ernestine said.
“Thank you, Ernestine.”
“She meant Phillip Bell, Thea,” Ardis said.
“Did you know him, Kath?” John asked.
“Only slightly. I met him yesterday when I was out there for the high school enrichment program.”
“Limburger and raw onions on liverwurst,” Mel said. “That’s what he had the only time I remember him eating lunch at the café. We don’t get an order for that too often.”
I suppressed a shudder for Mel’s benefit. “That fits. Nadine Solberg called him a showman, and from what I saw, she was right. He was . . . interesting. Very dramatic and intense.”