Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery Page 9

  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

  Midmorning 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.

  “Up we go,” Granny said, and we climbed. We followed Granny’s wobbling beam of light, our steps hollow and stirring a layer of dust, and eventually came to another door. I tried turning the knob and couldn’t. Granny reached around me, turned it with ease, and we slipped out onto one of the tiny balconies of the courthouse cupola. A pigeon cooed in
greeting and moved farther along the railing to make room.

  “Just a quick look,” Granny said. “Then we’ll duck back inside before anyone but the pigeons knows we’re here.”

  I’d never been so high up in Blue Plum. The rooftops and chimneys were a new world to explore. I could have hung over the railing listening to the pigeon and Granny all afternoon.

  “See how the streets run?” Granny traced the grid of streets with her finger. “They’re the warp and the weft of Blue Plum’s tapestry and the buildings and houses are part of the story being told.”

  “Is the pigeon part of the story?” I was sure the pigeon was watching us, waiting for the right answer.

  “All the birds in Blue Plum. All the people and their cats and dogs and their cars and bicycles and gardens and everything else are part of the tapestry’s story. One of these years, when I’ve learned enough and have the right vision, I’ll start my own tapestry. It might be up to you to finish it, though, because I probably won’t be ready to start it until I’m about a hundred and three. Here, now. Hold my hand going down.”

  “I’m not little anymore.”

  “But I’m already old.”

  She wasn’t such an old lady then, but she always got her way, even if getting it involved the misdirection sometimes necessary with children. I took her hand and felt completely responsible for our safe passage back to earth.

  Granny always got her way. She was always right. Two statements of fact, basically true. Although, of course, they were exaggerations. She wasn’t always right. She didn’t always get her way. But.

  “Ma’am?”

  I was still standing on the courthouse lawn looking up at Homer’s building. Probably slack-jawed and blank as my mind raced ahead without the rest of me. How did always being right and always getting her way fit with Granny no longer owning the house on Lavender Street? Had she wanted to sell it? Otherwise how had Emmett Cobb gotten it from her? If he had gotten it from her and if Max inherited it from him. And what was right about someone killing Emmett Cobb? But that couldn’t have had anything to do with Granny, even if she’d wanted her house back. And now she’d finally started weaving her Blue Plum tapestry and I wanted to see it.

  “Ma’am? Are you all right? Whoa, there. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  If he hadn’t meant to scare me, he shouldn’t have snuck up on me from behind, or wherever he’d come from, and tapped me on the shoulder. Banging a couple of garbage can lids together as he’d approached would have been a better plan.

  “Can I help you? I couldn’t help noticing you’ve been staring at that building and I wondered if you’re nervous. About seeing the lawyer?” He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “Old Homer, he ain’t half bad, if you need one of them ass…one of them rascals.”

  “Thank you. That’s good to know.”

  “You looked worried or lost or something and I thought I’d do my good deed for the day by asking could I do anything for you.”

  “Well, I hope all your good deeds are so simple. I’m fine, just lost in memories. Thank you. It was very nice of you to stop.”

  “All right, then, you have a good day, now.” He nodded, crossed the street, and climbed into the rust-spotted pickup, which was still running.

  Son of a gun. The morning-polluting moron was also a knight in rust-spotted armor. I watched as he stuffed the earbuds back in his ears, his head picking up the rhythm. He gave the engine an extra rev to get the motley vehicle moving, lifted an index finger to me in the standard Blue Plum salute, and chugged off. I wondered if either the truck or driving it with earbuds was legal, but supposed it didn’t matter. He knew a good ass…rascal who could probably get him off.

  A glance at the courthouse clock showed ten forty-five. Ardis wasn’t expecting me at the Weaver’s Cat much before noon. Thanks to Homer’s taking the meeting at the bank with Rachel Meeks, I had time to spare. I left the car parked in the lot behind the courthouse and took myself on a time warp walk of my own.

  Homer had asked if I’d tried my key in the back door of Granny’s house. I hadn’t. I’d let emotion, the Spiveys, and the tuna casserole distract me. He also asked if it looked as though there had actually been a break-in. I hadn’t noticed anything when I drove up or when I looked for Maggie through the front window. But unless there was an obvious burglarlike mess left behind or a broken window, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell. I was willing to try, though.

  And that’s what Deputy Clod Dunbar found me doing some fifteen minutes later.

  Chapter 12

  “Police. Hands where I can see them. Step away from the window, slowly. Well, wouldn’t you know it. It’s you.”

  “Are you the only policeman in Blue Plum?”

  “Feels like it lately.”

  I turned around, hands still where he could see them, in case Deputy Clod felt jumpy as well as put upon. “I was just looking through the windows.”

  “I could see what you were doing, Ms. Rutledge. Would you please put your hands down? I received a call asking about a break-in. Are you the only person mixed up in burglaries in Blue Plum?”

  “Nice. Wait—you mean you’re just now getting around to investigating? I don’t believe this. Last night you took your sweet time looking around the whole Homeplace before dropping by the scene of the crime, and now you’re showing up, what, two, three days later to check out this one? For heaven’s sake, I’ve probably destroyed valuable evidence trying to get in the back door and tramping around looking in the windows.”

  “As you say.”

  Darn. I looked at my hands, at the soles of my shoes.

  “Nah, you don’t need to worry.” He lifted his hat and massaged his scalp, then rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder and scrubbed his neck. “You probably didn’t destroy anything useful. We investigated when the initial call came in. That’d be three days ago.”

  “The day after Granny died. It seems more like a week ago. Or just a couple of minutes.”

  “That’s the way it felt when…” he started to say, but the rest of his words turned into a yawn. “Pardon me,” he said, pulling his voice back out of the gaping depths. “I assure you, it isn’t the company.” From the smile disappearing into a second yawn, he judged himself either suave or witty. Considering he was armed and appeared dangerously sleep deprived, I didn’t roll my eyes. “I read through the report after it was filed,” he said. “There wasn’t much evidence to go on at the time. And then we had that gully washer yesterday. No, you didn’t likely trample anything worthwhile.”

  “But someone really did break in?”

  “That’s what Cobb reported, anyway.”

  “I was kind of hoping it wasn’t true.” I turned back to the window and cupped my hands to the glass. There wasn’t anything obviously amiss. “How did they get in and what did they take? How did Cobb know?”

  “He found a few drawers pulled out, a cupboard hanging open. Said it looked like someone was in a hurry or interrupted. No sign of forced entry.” Dunbar joined me at the window. His shoes were the size of monster trucks compared to mine. If there had been any evidence left after I waltzed through, his feet took care of obliterating it. “Wouldn’t win any prizes for housekeeping, would she?”

  “Hey!”

  “I’m just saying. Observation only. Not an indictment. But a room like that makes it hard to tell if anything’s been disturbed.”

  “She would know if anything was disturbed.”

  “No doubt,” he said mildly. “Shame she’s not here.”

  That was the closest he’d come to offering sympathy about Granny’s death.

  We were at the side of the house looking into the third bedroom, which she’d turned into another workroom. Her big floor loom lived in the front room, where there was enough space for it. In here, she kept her treasure, a piece of art. It was a tapestry loom my grandfather made from cherry and walnut with brass for the hardware. Somehow he kept his project a secret from Granny while he c
ut, smoothed, polished, and assembled the pieces. He gave it to her for their twenty-fifth anniversary, fixing a small brass plaque to the frame that read MY DEAREST IVY.

  I could see five or six inches woven on the loom and a canvas pinned behind the warp—the cartoon—her painting of the design. From the angle the window gave me I couldn’t see clearly, but it had to be her Blue Plum tapestry. What did she say in her phone message? It’s…well, it is what it is. A bit of a puzzle. What did she mean? Something about it bothered her. Maybe Ardis knew. I was dying to get in there and take a good look at it.

  The walls of the room were lined with shelves full of books and bins and baskets of wool. Beater combs, heddles, shed sticks, a couple of old raddles, and a spare batten hung from hooks she’d screwed in the ceiling. The dismantled parts to another loom crowded one corner. Someone found it in an attic earlier in the spring and left it on Granny’s front porch like a stray cat for her to take in. She called me, excited and sneezing. Early nineteenth century, Kath. Looks like chestnut! It hasn’t been touched in a hundred years and has all the dust to prove it.

  If I could paint a picture of Granny, rather than the light in her blue eyes, the twist of silver hair on her neck, or the tilt of her head as she wondered what I was up to, I’d paint this room. Every inch of it looked like her. Like home. And I was stuck outside, looking in through a window. And if the window were open, I would smell home, too. Lanolin and wool.

  “I need to get in there.”

  “Clutter,” Dunbar sniffed, turning from the window. “Well, it might be useful if you looked around and could tell us if anything is missing. If you can tell. Then maybe we’d have a chance of returning it to you. Whatever ‘it’ is. If we ever find it. Doubtful in cases like this.”

  “Aren’t you Mr. Jolly Optimist. But wait, you said you read the report. You mean you didn’t write it? You aren’t the one who investigated?”