4 Plagued by Quilt Page 18

  “Mamas usually are,” Geneva said. “The end.”

  “The end,” I echoed. “Again, Deputy, thank you for stopping to see that everything is safe. Now it’s time to get in the car and go home. There isn’t anything else to say, except for this—although nothing can change the fundamental truth of our individual situations, home and the love of a warm cat can do wonders.”

  I’d been speaking for Geneva’s benefit, of course, but glanced at Clod. Expressions flitted across his face almost too fast to read. Suspicion went past again. And confusion sped by, followed by alarm, so I took pity on him and didn’t rub it in by walking around the car to open the passenger door for my “invisible friend.” Tempting though that was.

  Geneva shimmered through the windshield and huddled in the front passenger seat. She looked like a heap of damp gray laundry. After I got in and started the car, Clod rapped his knuckles on the window. I lowered it.

  “You are the most—” He stopped when I started raising the window again. “Hold on. Hold on. I’m sorry.”

  I stopped the window and waited, leaving my finger on the switch, ready for action.

  “Believe it or not,” Clod said, “when I saw your car here, I didn’t stop to harass you or to get into an argument. Doggone it, I wish you’d—”

  I powered the window up another inch but stopped when he put his fingers on the top edge.

  “If you close the window on my fingers, you’ll be assaulting a peace officer.”

  “Been there, done that” danced on my tongue, but I held it in.

  “Just listen, will you? I stopped to let you know I saw Jerry Hicks at Mel’s over dinner. He uncovered more at the dig today.”

  I cut in. “More what?” More bones? Geneva’s bones? I looked over at her. She sat silent, listening.

  “Associated artifacts. They might be helpful in dating.”

  “Or identification?” I shivered and out of the corner of my right eye saw Geneva wavering next to me. She’d draped herself over the steering wheel and looked up at Clod. She put her hand to her throat.

  “What shape is her cameo locket?” she asked him. “What shape is it, and what initials are engraved on the back?”

  “Hicks’ll know better what he’s got and what it means when he’s had a chance to clean everything,” Clod said.

  “Did you find the curl of hair inside?” Geneva asked. “A sweet, dark brown curl.” When Clod didn’t answer, she said in my ear, “The law is deaf to those long dead. It is a sore affliction.”

  I gave her a small nod, then said to Clod, “Could one of the artifacts be a cameo locket?” I put my hand to my face and pretended to rub my nose. From behind my hand I whispered a question to Geneva. “What shape is it?”

  “Oval,” she said. “A rosy cameo that brought out her rosy complexion, mounted on an oval locket made of gold.”

  “A cameo locket?” Clod tipped his head. “You want to tell me why you think we’ll be finding a cameo locket?”

  “Given the time period, a piece of jewelry like that wouldn’t be so unusual,” I said.

  “And what time period would that be?”

  “Go ahead and pinch his fingers with your electric window,” Geneva said. “I do not like his attitude this evening.”

  I almost never liked his attitude, but I didn’t run the window up. “It’s probably wishful thinking on my part, Deputy. A locket, on its own, could be from almost any period. They don’t go out of fashion. But if a locket had initials, that might be another story, and that might tell us something. I’ve been trying to think what personal effects might have survived that burial climate—with that layer of clay—and a locket occurred to me.”

  “Uh-huh. Burial climate. That’s good. I like that.” He took his hand from the window and tapped the roof of the car—not the clichéd, cop-show thump, though. It was more of a pat, and a condescending “good dog” pat at that. “Uh-huh. Okay, you’re free to go.”

  He might have said something else, but his radio spit static and I didn’t hear. I wouldn’t have heard, anyway, over my grinding teeth. Free to go? I’d show him free to go. Grinding my gears as well as my teeth, I threw the car into reverse, not really caring if he knew when to jump clear of a moving vehicle.

  * * *

  The speed at which I drove the dark, winding roads back into town terrified me, but careening around curves perked Geneva right up. First she peppered me with questions. Then, when I didn’t answer with anything but yips on the hairier bends, she sat forward and imitated a siren. We pulled up in front of Mel’s in record time. Sadly, the café was already closed.

  “I wish I had lived long enough to drive a car like a bat out of you-know-where,” Geneva said. “Hanging on to a runaway mule for dear life is exciting, but it jars one’s teeth. Why were we in such a blazing hurry to get here if you are only going to sit in the car muttering and pounding the steering wheel?”

  “It was stupid to drive like that, but I wanted to see if Jerry Hicks was still here. Maybe he knows more about the artifacts he’s found than he told Deputy Dunbar. But a cameo locket, Geneva?”

  “Maybe.” She rippled and wouldn’t look at me.

  “Whose locket? What made you think of it?”

  “You sound as unbelieving as the deputy.”

  “No! No. I believe you. The problem is, we don’t know if they’ve found one.”

  “Yet.”

  “Yet. Right. Tell you what—let’s not sit here on Main Street discussing it.”

  “Where all the world’s a stage?”

  “All Blue Plum, anyway.”

  I drove—sanely—to the end of the block, around the corner into the alley, and parked under a security light behind the Weaver’s Cat. Between the stark shadows created by the light and the hollow sound of my feet on the wooden steps up to the Cat’s back door, that town alley struck me as more ominous than the Quickie Mart’s parking lot bordered by woods.

  “Did you know that I once read Shakespeare?” Geneva asked.

  “No.”

  “Frankly, I am surprised that I know it; I seem to know so little about myself. I can picture a volume of tales, green with gilt decorations.” She followed me into the shop, and when the door chime said “Baa,” she baaed back. “That is a nice coincidence. The authors of my Tales from Shakespeare were Charles and Mary Lamb.”

  Argyle roused himself from somewhere and came to meet us, his tail upright and shaking. He said something suspiciously like “baa,” too. They both followed me up to the attic. The light from the landing spilled into the study, making it cozy and almost secret. Geneva and Argyle settled in the window seat, the two of them looking at me expectantly. I switched on the banker’s light that sat on a corner of the desk and pulled out the oak teacher’s chair.

  “The love of a warm cat is a fine thing to come home to,” Geneva said. “Are you any good at drawing?”

  “Why?”

  “I can describe it for you. You can pretend that you are a police sketch artist.”

  “The cameo locket?”

  “Yes. I will describe it while you attempt to draw it, and then I can critique your work and tell you where you get it right and where you make a hash of it.”

  “May we talk about something else first, Geneva? If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about you. I mean, look at how you are right now.”

  “Do you realize that you and I are the only two people in the whole world who can do that?” she asked. “Who can look at me, I mean. The only two people and a cat.”

  Argyle blinked and settled into a contented meat loaf shape.

  “I meant do you see how you’re behaving? Back there, in the parking lot, you were . . . upset. You were emotional. Now you’re rational.”

  “Which proves my theory beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt; searching for clues and answers gives me stre
ngth. I think it clears my mind, too, because if I am not mistaken, that shadow, whether it is reasonable or not, is the gold standard for evidence if you want something with a leg to stand on in a court of law. So pick up your pencil and we will get started. The cameo locket is a very important clue. I hope you have a large eraser, in case you are not a good artist.”

  I pulled a few pieces of scrap paper toward me and found the pencil Argyle had knocked onto the floor earlier. “Can I ask you a few questions before we draw the cameo?”

  “Are they tedious?”

  “No, but you might have to think hard before you answer them.”

  “Then you probably should not waste our time by asking them.”

  “Your answers might give me clues.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “I think they’ll be very important clues, Geneva. Clues that might help us find out what happened to Mattie and Sam. About what happened to you. But I don’t want to risk upsetting you the way you were upset back there in the parking lot. You and I were there together, and you were fine, and then you started remembering your mama’s advice about walking alone and you were slipping away—”

  “But I came back.”

  “You did. You did, and I was relieved, Geneva. And then you brought up the locket, and talking about that didn’t upset you. Why not? Whose locket do you think they’ll find and why do you think they’ll find it?”

  She wavered in the window seat, but she didn’t answer.

  “It’s okay. We can come back to that.” I watched her, trying to gauge her state of mind—wondering if I should be gauging my own state of mind—wondering how far I could press her for “clues.” “Do you remember when you and I first met?”

  “You did not believe your eyes.”

  “I don’t think you believed yours, either.”

  “It had been so long, I was not used to being seen. But I think it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, don’t you? Although you will have to be the fishy Frenchman, because I believe you are shorter and rounder than I am, and I am more mysterious, like Humphrey Bogart, and I would look the best in a trench coat. And then you can call me Geneva Boggart, with an extra g. Casablanca will be on later tonight, in case you are interested. I know I am. I saw an announcement for it on Phillip’s flat-screen television. Did I tell you his television is high def? That means it is very good.” She heaved a sigh that turned into a moan and then trailed off with a few notes of “La Marseillaise.” “Oh dear,” she said after another sigh. “Do you remember what we were talking about?”

  I rested my chin on my clasped hands and held my breath to keep from sighing, too.

  “Well, memory is a funny thing,” she said. “Before you go, will you please turn on one of my recorded books? Argyle and I would like to hear more about Jessica Fletcher. She is almost as wise as Shakespeare. She is a good role model for me, and Argyle is waiting to see if George will kiss her.”

  “Would you like me to find Shakespeare on audio sometime?” I’d flatly refused to put a TV in the study for her. She might deserve special consideration because she was dead, but I wasn’t willing to share her idea of heaven—television twenty-four/seven. Audiobooks were our compromise

  “I would not mind,” she said, “but Argyle prefers cozy mysteries.”

  I’d have to take her word for that. Argyle was sound asleep and didn’t wake when I put on the first CD. Geneva was rapt and didn’t wave when I turned out the light and went home.

  By the time I pulled into my driveway, I was starving. I also had company. The kind some people referred to as delicious.

  Chapter 21

  “Hey,” Joe said. He was sitting in the dark on the front steps. I joined him. “I saw the light on at the Cat.”

  “And you didn’t see a light on here, but here’s where you decided to wait?”

  “I thought you might be busy. If it’s a problem—”

  “It’s not.”

  We explored that lack of a problem until we were interrupted by a growl from my stomach.

  “Sorry. Except for a few of Mel’s cookies, it’s led a deprived life since breakfast. Are you hungry? I’ve got a couple of curried sweet potato pasties in the freezer. It won’t take long and they’re delicious.” That word again. It made me nervous and I stood up. “While they’re heating, you can tell me how the fishing went this afternoon. And what you know about Fredda Oliver.” I tried to lay the Fredda line as artfully and gently as a trout fisherman working a clear mountain stream. Joe held the screen door for me while I unlocked the front door, so maybe I had.

  It hadn’t been a good day for fishing along Sinking Creek. Rainbow and native brook trout—brookies to those of us in the know (or to those of us who knew people in the know)—didn’t like hot, bright afternoons. Neither did the fisherman. He’d emulated the trout and retreated to deep, cool shade. In Joe’s case, that was a quiet and private place in the woods near the retting pond.

  “Upwind, too,” he was happy to report. “The deputies have got a mess on their hands looking for anything there. I told them how they could temporarily re-channel the creek and see if the pond will drain. That should help. Mind if I take a rain check on the pastie? Mel had a special on her fresh tomato tart.”

  “You talked to them at the pond? I thought you were being clandestine.”

  “We do want them to find the weapon, though.”

  “Oh, right. Huh. I didn’t think I was so competitive. Your brother brings that out in me.” I tossed the frozen pasties back in the freezer and took a bag of salad from the fridge instead.

  “He called this evening.”

  “With news?”

  “With concerns.”

  “Ah.” Deputy Clod must have called Joe after my invisible friend and I left him in our dust. Interesting. I tossed the bag of salad back in the fridge and looked at Joe with a smile that was supposed to show how unconcerned I was about concerns.

  “Are you all right?” His angled brows and soft voice proved his concern, but I had to clear something else up before I could concentrate on that.

  “Waiting on my front steps—was that your idea or Cole’s?” I was proud of myself for holding back the sarcastic questions I’d rather ask. Was this a social welfare visit? A psych evaluation by an untrained professional? Or was this more of a guard-dog-on-duty kind of thing?

  “It’s okay for people to worry about friends.”

  “Ah.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “It covers a lot.”

  He let it cover a few moments of looking at each other, and then he said, “Why don’t you sit down and let me make an omelet for you?”

  I didn’t immediately sit, and I wasn’t sure why. And then I could hear Granny, in one side of my head, telling me that being mule-headed was fine as long as I didn’t make a complete mule of myself. And Geneva was there in the other side of my head telling me about the tooth-jarring excitement of hanging on to a runaway mule for dear life. Contradictions. My life was full of them, and while I tried to sort a few of them out, I sat down at Granny’s square maple kitchen table.

  Joe went to more trouble for an omelet than I would have, browning cumin seeds in the cast-iron skillet before adding diced onion, jalapeño, fresh ginger, and a couple of beaten eggs. Stubborn as I was, I had to admit it was nice having him there. I’d lived on my own, alone, for years in Illinois. But I hadn’t quite gotten used to the stillness of living in Granny’s house without her footsteps, her laugh and snatches of song, or the sounds of her loom and spinning wheel. I loved having her things around me, but I missed hearing the rhythms of her life.

  When the omelet was set and golden, Joe folded it onto one of Granny’s pretty painted china plates, sprinkled fresh cilantro and diced tomato over it, and put it in front of me. My stomach growled a brief grace.

  “There’s
a cheap Cabernet in the cupboard.”

  He poured us each a glass and came to sit across from me. He rolled his glass in his hands, then took a sip. “It might be cheap, but it’s not tawdry. Do you want to talk?”

  “No, I want to eat. You talk. Talk about Fredda. How you know her. How long you’ve known her. How well you know her.”

  He listened to my questions and took a larger sip of wine. “Do you have any particular reason to be suspicious of her?”

  “We don’t have any particular reason to be suspicious of anybody, so I’m being ecumenical and cultivating my suspicions of everybody. But I’m starting with Fredda because I think she was with Phillip the night before he died and because Cole says she’s a good liar. I’m not saying she killed Phillip. I have no idea why she would kill him. But now my lovely omelet is getting cold, so you talk. Tell me about Fredda.”

  “She’s been around for a few years. Three or four. She moved over here from Asheville.”

  “Did you know her there?” He’d lived in Asheville for a while.

  “Not well.”

  “What brought her here?”

  He hesitated. “Getting away from a bad relationship.”

  “Like Grace.”

  “Like you?”

  “What?”

  “When Cole called, he said something—”

  “Oh my gosh. He thought I was talking about myself? No, no. Oh, for—I should’ve known better.” I shook my head, took a deep breath and let it out again. It didn’t help. “I should have known he’d get it wrong. Doggone it—he scared the bejeebers out of me in the parking lot at the Quickie Mart. I got mad. He made fun. And then I thought I was being so smart. I told him part of a story about something that happened to a friend of mine, and he must have thought I was using the old ‘it’s not me, but I have this friend’ routine. What an idiot.”