Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery (11 page)

“Hmm.”

“I don’t mean to insult Ivy, you, or the property by that statement.”

He did insult us, but maybe he couldn’t help himself. I pictured the lovely house he and Ruth must live in. He probably couldn’t imagine relaxing in a cozy place like Granny’s, or stretching his long legs out in such close quarters. I let the slight pass.

“Second, if Ivy sold the house it will be a matter of public record and should be easy enough to track down. Maybe trickier if Max inherited the property. I’ll see what I can do this afternoon.” He made another note.

“And Max?”

“I only know one Max. It’s very likely there are others in town and around the county.”

“Oh, dozens, I’m sure. Who’s the one you know?”

“Max Cobb. Emmett Cobb’s son.” He gave no special
emphasis to the words in either of those two short statements. His voice and face were clear of emotion. He held my eyes with a bland look for a moment, then nodded as though agreeing with me. “Exactly,” he said. He flipped his pen in the air, caught it, and pointed it at me. “Exactly.”

“Um, exactly what? I didn’t say anything.” Couldn’t say anything was more like it.

“You haven’t got a lawyer’s face, Kath.”

My face had probably screeched “bloody hell” while my mind sat there gulping and inarticulate. “Maybe I’ll work on that. Wow. Emmett Cobb who was murdered? Max is that Emmett Cobb’s son?”

“We don’t know for a fact that he’s Emmett Cobb’s son.”

“Sure we do.” I didn’t have a lawyer’s prissy approach to facts, either. “Even if we don’t, we can find out fast enough. Ask Ernestine. I bet she’ll know.”

“I will.”

I started to get up. Homer waved me back into my chair.

“Kath, we need to consider this situation matter-of-factly.”

“Okay.”

“Without emotion.”

“I can do that. But I think I see where Cole Dunbar might have gotten the idea that Granny should be a suspect in Emmett Cobb’s murder—if he somehow got hold of her house. But I don’t believe, not for one single minute do I believe, that she had anything to do with his death at all.”

“Without emotion.”

“Oh. Right. Really, I can do that.” I peeled my hands from their death grip on the arms of the chair, took several calm, deep breaths, tried to relax my teeth.

“May I tell you what I think we should do?” he asked,
obviously modeling the state of calm to which he wished I’d aspire.

“Sure.”

“First, if you don’t mind, I’ll keep the rent notice for the files.”

“Sure.”

“Then I will call Sheriff Haynes and find out if there is an official line of inquiry connecting Ivy with Emmett Cobb’s murder. I agree with you. I find it hard to believe she had anything to do with his death.”

“Not just hard to believe. Impossible.”

“Beyond the realm of imagination.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Next, let me ask what your plans are for the rest of the day.”

“Meet with Rachel Meeks over at the bank. Meet with Ardis and maybe some of the staff at the Weaver’s Cat. I’d kind of planned to start going through things at the house, too.” The thought of going through Granny’s clothes made me sniff, but I pulled myself together for Homer’s sake. Maybe, if I asked, Ardis would come over and lend a shoulder and helping hands. Instantly, as the words “helping hands” came to me, an image flashed through my mind. A pair of hands pawing through Granny’s chest of drawers, her closet, her desk. Hands helping themselves…An involuntary shake of my head cleared the image, as though it had been a gnat buzzing between my eyes and ears. “Do you know Nicki Keplinger?”

“Who?” Homer asked.

I don’t know which of us was more surprised by my blurted question. I felt a trickle of sweat on the back of my neck and rushed to explain and cover the confusion the image left behind. “I was just thinking out loud, thinking of asking Ardis Buchanan, over at the shop, if she’d help
me go through Granny’s things. And Nicki.” Nicki who was wearing a jacket she said Granny gave her.

“Of course, and Nicki works at the shop, too, doesn’t she? Her name rings a bell. No doubt Ruth has mentioned it. Although, if she used the name Nicki in any sentence also containing the word ‘yarn’ or ‘wool,’ I can’t vouch for paying close attention. And, please,” he said, pointing his pen at me again, “do not ever repeat that to Ruth.” He nodded when I dutifully returned his quiet laugh. “It’s never an easy task, sorting through a loved one’s life. A lot of emotion. A lot of memories.”

“A lot of good memories,” I said.

“That will help. And I should think any of the women at the shop will be happy to give you a hand. Ruth, too, I’m quite sure.”

“Everyone has been very kind. Um, but, what about the break-in, or the supposed break-in? If there really was one, will the police object? Will there be any problems getting into the house?”

“Was there crime scene tape across the door?”

“No. Gosh, that would’ve been horrifying to come across. Do they really use that stuff? On the other hand, if there was tape, you don’t suppose the Spiveys took it down, do you?”

Homer wasn’t amused.

“Slander again? Sorry.”

“Always remember how small this town is, Kath. Like a family of twelve sharing a two-room apartment. There’s no privacy, and a virus spreads like wildfire. Or think of it like a group of seven-year-olds playing that old telephone game. Massive amounts of misunderstanding.”

I sighed.

“But a lot of laughs and good times, too. That also is worth remembering. This is a good place. Good people.” He made another check mark on his list. “I’ll make some
calls and we’ll get you in the house. Maybe not today, if Max is still in Kentucky, but I don’t want you to worry about the house. It’s locked. It’s safe. How long do you plan to be in town?”

“Two weeks.”

“That’s fine, then. You have time. The house isn’t going anywhere and we will get you in. Now, what is your meeting with Rachel Meeks about?”

I blanked. Had I really had the presence of mind, sometime in the past few days, to make an appointment with Granny’s banker? How practical of me. How Granny-like. “I guess I thought it would be a good idea to know exactly where the business stands, where Granny’s estate stands, before I try to make any decisions.”

Homer nodded his handsome head. “That makes good sense. You have some not inconsequential decisions to make regarding the business, and those decisions will, of course, affect not only the shop’s employees but the town as well. You’re smart to approach that decision with your eyes open, armed with all the facts.”

I found myself nodding along with Homer and feeling businesslike and incredibly wise.

“I’d like to suggest a change in your plans, though,” Homer said. “Let me talk to Rachel on your behalf. Have you met her?”

“No. I set this up with her assistant on the phone.”

“Ah.” He looked down, but not before a smile pulled at his lips. He made half a dozen quick hash marks on his pad. “Allow me to do this small favor for you,” he said, looking back up, having recovered his lawyer face. “I’ll meet with Rachel. You and I will need to meet again, anyway, and at that point I can give you a summary of what Rachel has to say.” He tried not to smile again. “Trust me on this, Kath. It will save you time, if nothing else.”

“And that ‘if nothing else’ will remain unspecified due to problems with slander?”

“Something like that. One more thing before you go. Two, actually. We’ll get Ernestine to set up another appointment. But I also want to address what happened at the cottage last night.”

“Have there been other reports of strange things happening there?” I had to stop myself from slapping my forehead or rolling my eyes. Of course he wasn’t talking about the weepy ghost. Which, this morning, I absolutely was refusing to believe I’d seen.

Homer cocked an eyebrow.

I feigned a tickle in my throat. “Strange men leaving through windows?”

“I’m not aware of earlier break-ins, but I will contact the sheriff’s department and obtain copies of any reports, if there are any. But now, your question concerning Cole Dunbar’s honesty…” He sat back and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, steepling his fingers and looking at me with that nose and those eyes. It was all I could do to keep from squeaking. I was glad he was on my side and that I wasn’t really much of a mouse. “I won’t go so far as to say you questioned Deputy Dunbar’s honesty,” he said, “because I believe you have an honest need to know if he can be trusted.”

“Okay, that sounds fair.”

“I agree. You understand, of course,” he continued, “I can only speak from my own experience and knowledge base. In my profession one quickly learns that honesty is not a permanent quality in anyone. That said, I have no personal knowledge of and have never heard anything to suggest that Deputy Cole Dunbar is anything but honest.”

That struck me as a bravura performance of a nonringing endorsement. I wasn’t sure where it left me. Maybe it meant I could trust Cole Dunbar to be as honest as the next man, whoever that man might be. Maybe it meant Cole Dunbar was a man who meant well but
sometimes fell short. Whatever it meant, I decided I’d reserve the right to still think of him as a clod and a louse. Homer looked satisfied with his statement, though, and my nod, which he chose to interpret as my acceptance of it. Of course, all his answer really told me was that he was a master at hedging his bets.

“I will tell you this,” he continued, still hedging. “Cole is a pretty fair poker player and that takes a certain talent for bluffing.” He laughed and shook his head in a we’d-better-keep-an-eye-on-those-rascally-gamblers kind of way, as though that would make me believe he wasn’t keeping the door to Dunbar’s honesty ajar.

We wrapped up the meeting soon after that. Homer accompanied me as far as Ernestine’s desk, stopping to confirm that Max was, indeed, Emmett Cobb’s son, and to consult with her over how best to fit me into his hectic schedule the next day. While Ernestine placed a call canceling and rescheduling another client’s appointment, Homer and I shook hands, his warm and steady, mine cold and a little overwhelmed. Ernestine, the phone cradled between her shoulder and ear, rolled her chair to the end of her desk, the better to peer around Homer’s back. She fluttered a wave to me while informing the client on the other end of the line how sorry she was to be calling.

I scanned my list of questions before shoving it into my shoulder bag. I hadn’t made any of Homer’s elegant check marks or any further notes, but three words scrawled across the page would have sufficed to sum up the meeting.
Wait and see.

With a small pang, not unlike the sting of a single swiped claw, I realized we hadn’t touched on the question of Maggie’s whereabouts. I hadn’t really expected Homer to address the issue of a mislaid cat, though. Her plight, if she were in one, was more of a private bullet point on my list. For all I knew, she was living it up in the lap of milk and catnip with one of Granny’s cat-loving friends.
But I owed it to Granny, and to Maggie, to find her. Even if she bit me when I did.

It was interesting to learn, I thought as I pulled the heavy glass door shut behind me, that Homer had personal knowledge of Cole Dunbar’s poker game. But where did that information get me?

Chapter 11

M
idmorning Blue Plum greeted me on Homer’s front stoop. The sky was blue and high, with a flotilla of cartoony clouds sailing by. Freed from my meeting at the bank, I stopped on the brick sidewalk for a moment, absorbing the laid-back bustle of downtown. The sun felt good on my cold hands. I held them out palms up, then turned them over like toast to warm their backs as well. It was the sort of morning that could be improved only if it smelled of lilacs or cut grass or the savory and sweet scents of Mel’s around the corner on Main Street.

Unfortunately, a rust-spotted green pickup stood idling at the curb in front of me, polluting the air with its exhaust. I went and stood next to the open passenger window and coughed dramatically for the driver’s benefit. But the guy behind the wheel was oblivious to everything except the music pumping directly into his bloodstream through his earbuds.

“Moron.” Oops. More slander. But only very quiet. I looked around, not quite guiltily. There wasn’t anyone near enough to hear or care, though, other than the driver, and he was still plugged in. He was bobbing his head and drumming with his forefingers on the steering wheel, eyes half closed, having his own kind of happy morning.
And except for his engine chugging away and filling my happy morning with carcinogenic particulates, how could I complain? Homer was probably right, though, and I promised myself that I would watch my mouth in the future.

I jaywalked across the street, going around the front of the pickup to avoid the worst of its spewing fumes. If I remembered right, Homer’s office, so convenient to the courthouse in case of plumbing emergencies, was in a building built and occupied by the town’s first professional photographer. Granny “collected” names and the photographer’s had delighted her. From the courthouse lawn I looked back. Yes, there, centered above the second-story windows and below the roofline, was the ornate rectangle of limestone she’d pointed out to me, set into the dark red bricks. Chiseled into the stone were a date, 1872, and the photographer’s name:
GENTLE BEAN
.

“There, now,” I could still hear Granny say, “they don’t give boys names like Gentle or Pleasant anymore and the world would be a better place if they did.”

She loved taking me on what she called “time warp walks” up and down the streets of Blue Plum. “The whole town is a tapestry,” she’d tell me as I trailed along. “And it’s a far more interesting tapestry than anything I’ve ever woven or possibly even conceived.”

On one memorable walk, when I must have been about seven, she took me into the courthouse and down a hallway past the line of people waiting to renew their car tags, past a courtroom door propped open to catch a breeze on that stifling day, and on down to a door that drew no attention to itself. We waited until no one was in sight, and then she opened the door and shooed us both in. It felt tight and smelled musty in the space behind the door. It was dark and Granny kept a hand on my shoulder until she flicked on the flashlight she’d pulled from a
pocket or the air; I didn’t know which. We were in a narrow stairwell.