A Murderous Glaze (8 page)

I didn’t know which I was happier to see: that bag of food or my best friend Hannah’s smiling face.

“We really are okay, aren’t we?” I asked Hannah as I finished off my club sandwich. She knew how to make things right between us. I was a sucker for a club, as long as there wasn’t any tomato on it. Okay, I know, I’m not a purist, but that’s how I’ve always liked mine.

“It’s the best way I know to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations with David out on you.”

I took a sip from one of the Cokes I’d provided from my small fridge in back. “Maybe it would be better if we didn’t talk about him.”

Hannah frowned. “No, I don’t see how we’d be able to do that. He’s too big a part of both our lives to just ignore. Think what an awkward gap his absence would leave in our conversations.”

“More like a canyon,” I agreed. “So, what would you like to talk about? I’m open to just about any topic except Betty Wickline.”

Hannah bit her lip, then said, “That leaves another pretty large hole for us, doesn’t it?”

She had a point. “I was hoping to avoid it, but you’re right. Do you think the shattered window was tied into my snooping, too?”

Hannah nearly choked on her soft drink. “What happened? Did someone vandalize your home?”

“It happened here at the shop this morning,” I explained. “Do you mean to tell me that David didn’t call and tell you?”

“Fire at Will is kind of a sore subject between us at the moment,” she admitted. “He should have called me anyway, though. Which window did they break?”

“The most expensive one, of course. Luckily, one of my Firing Squad members has a friend in the glass business, so he was able to get right to it.”

Hannah shook her head. “I don’t even have to guess which one, do I? It’s the crook.”

“Reformed crook,” I said. After all Butch had done for me, including the window and the breakfast that morning, I wasn’t going to let someone trash him, not even Hannah.

“Sorry, I know he’s your friend. If it matters, David likes him, too.”

I took Hannah’s hand in mine. “With character references like that, you should at least keep an open mind about him. His best friend is Judge Blake. If she’s not good enough for you, I don’t know what I can say to change your mind.”

“Let’s just say I’ll try not to judge him based on what I’ve heard, or what he used to do for a living. How’s that?”

“I can live with that, and I’m sure Butch would accept those terms, too.” The conversation had gotten much more serious than I liked, especially after we’d so recently patched up our friendship.

Hannah finished her sandwich, then said, “Carolyn, if you’d like to talk about your suspect list, I’d be glad to listen. It might help you figure out who you’ve irritated enough to move to violence.”

“I couldn’t even start to list the people I’ve annoyed. I’m not sure I have enough paper.”

She smiled. “I mean lately.”

“So do I.”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

She wasn’t going to give up, I could see that. Well, it just might help to tell her what I’d been up to. After all, Hannah had a more orderly mind than I did, and maybe she’d be able to offer me an objective opinion. “Okay, let’s see. So far, my suspect list includes Robert Owens, Tamra Gentry, Larry Wickline, and Sheriff Hodges.”

She looked at me intently to see if I was kidding, and when she saw that I was deadly serious, she asked, “Is there any reason you think the sheriff really might have killed her?”

“The two of them may have been having an affair.”

Hannah whistled softly. “If that’s true, then you’ve got to include Evelyn in your list, too.”

“I hadn’t even thought about that, but you’re right.” I was trying to narrow my list of suspects, not broaden it.

Hannah frowned. “I can see why Larry Wickline made your list, but why Tamra Gentry and Robert Owens?”

“Betty might have been blackmailing Tamra, and as for Robert, he had a key to the shop. That alone makes him a suspect. When I pressed him on knowing Betty, he got a little flustered. I keep thinking there had to be some reason why she was here in the first place. She could have been meeting Robert for a tryst, and something went wrong.”

“It’s possible,” Hannah said. “But I thought his tastes ran to coeds, not their mothers.”

“Maybe he’s an equal-opportunity letch. It’s worth looking into.”

Hannah walked to the window that had just been replaced and looked out. “Is there anybody else?”

I wasn’t sure whether she was joking, but I started thinking about other possibilities. “I guess you could include just about anybody here on the brook walk.”

“That certainly pads your list, doesn’t it?”

Something suddenly struck me. “Oh, blast it all.”

“What’s wrong? What did I say?”

“I just remembered. There are more keys floating around out there than I told the sheriff. Kendra Williams and I swapped keys last year when Bill and I went to North Carolina on a pottery tour of Seagrove. She came over and checked on the place when you and David were in England.”

“Surely you don’t think Kendra would kill Betty.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “That’s the problem. I don’t know who’s capable of murder.”

“Given the right circumstances, I honestly believe that just about anybody is.”

Her answer shocked me. “Even you?”

“To protect my son, I might. How about you?”

I thought about either one of my sons in jeopardy, and realized that she was probably right. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it? If Hodges can’t figure it out, what chance do I have?”

“Don’t forget, the sheriff doesn’t have your resources. And if it’s true that he was having an affair with Betty, he might not be the most objective investigator. I don’t see how you have much choice, Carolyn. I was against it at first, but I see now that you need to keep digging.”

She was right, but I was sick of trying to figure out who wanted Betty Wickline dead. It was time for a little diversion. “Enough of this murder talk. If you’ve got some time, David just finished firing some new bowls for our paint-your-own section. Would you like do one yourself?”

She laughed at that. “You know the artistic gene skipped me. My mother’s a fabulous watercolorist, and David’s got a real knack for ceramics, but I can’t draw a stick figure.”

“So create some modern art. You don’t have to have a theme to paint a bowl. It’s fun.”

She glanced at her watch, then said, “I’m tempted, but I’ve got to get back to Travers. I’m glad we did this.”

“Me, too,” I said. I hugged her. “Thanks for coming by with lunch.”

“Thanks for not throwing me out.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “I’d never do that to my best friend in the world. Besides, you had food.”

“Ah, the magic ticket,” she said with a smile.

“It can be.”

Ten minutes after Hannah left, David stormed into the shop. I frowned at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I saw her in here. Don’t try to deny it. She’s been spying on me again, hasn’t she?”

“Are you talking about your mother?”

“Of course I am! What did she want? Did she grill you on where I was?”

I put my hands on his shoulders. “David, your mother was here to see me, as hard as that might be for you to believe. She came by with lunch to say she was sorry.”

“Why doesn’t she apologize to me, too? I deserve one as much as you do.” He looked at me a few seconds, then said, “Aren’t you going to respond?”

“To that? I don’t think so. I’ve decided the only way I’m going to stay in both your good graces is to keep out of your lives. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

His frown started to crack into a smile as I added, “Well, I am. It’s true. At least I’m going to try.”

He was in a much better mood all afternoon. Maybe the little tantrum had done him some good.

That’s what I was hoping, at any rate.

I wasn’t happy with the front window arrangement, and since we weren’t exactly overwhelmed with customers, I decided to make it my afternoon project. I added some pieces and removed others, but it still wasn’t quite right. The only thing I was really pleased with was the sign I’d placed there on impulse. More times than not, when I went with my gut, I was happiest. However, I tended to over-analyze things sometimes, and those instances almost always led to disaster.

I was standing outside for the zillionth time trying to come up with something that would make the display grab potential customers when I nearly knocked down a woman who was passing behind me.

“Evelyn, I didn’t see you there,” I told the sheriff’s wife as I took a step back. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m fine,” she said. Evelyn Hodges was a solid woman, both in stature and disposition. There was nothing flashy about her, but she was a good person at heart. At least the woman I knew was. What would possess the sheriff to have an affair with Betty Wickline, unless he was looking for a little flash in his life?

“Nonsense. I nearly ran you down. Won’t you come into the shop? I have coffee brewing.”

She looked at Fire at Will as though it were a leper hospital. “No, I couldn’t.”

Evelyn tried to sidestep me, but I moved with her. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Were you and Betty close?”

“Close?” she hissed at me. “We were never friends.” Her eyes narrowed as she added, “She brought it on herself. I won’t shed any crocodile tears for her.”

I stood there in shock as Evelyn hurried away. Had she really just said that? I wished I’d had a witness, a tape recorder, a stenographer, anything to record her words. I’d discounted the idea that the sheriff had been having an affair, but Evelyn’s words had brought it right back to the front again. She clearly hated Betty Wickline—although that didn’t mean she’d killed her.

On the other hand, it didn’t mean she hadn’t.

It was time to do a little more digging into the situation.

I was still standing on the curb, trying to collect my thoughts, when David came out.

“You’ve got a call.” He must have spotted my expression of disbelief over what I’d just heard, because he added, “Are you all right?”

“What? I’m fine. Who’s on the telephone?”

“It’s Martha Knotts. She says she needs to talk to you. It’s important.”

I took the phone from him and followed him into the shop. “Hi, Martha, what’s going on?”

“I just have a second, but I heard something a minute ago I thought you should know. Have you ever met Connie Minsker?”

“Sure, she’s a stylist at Hair Apparent. What about her? She’s not dead, too, is she?” I felt my stomach do a barrel roll as I thought about another body being discovered in Maple Ridge.

“Not that I know of. Why, what have you heard?”

“I haven’t heard anything. You called me, remember?” I said, a little shorter than I should have. “Sorry, I’m a little on edge right now.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me. I was just at a Mommy Time session and I was beside Gracie Hawthorne on the mat. While our girls were playing, Gracie told me Connie was absolutely jubilant about Betty’s murder.”

Connie and I didn’t have the same circle of friends, and I usually got my hair done in Emerson, but I knew her well enough to say hello to on the street. She was a brassy platinum blonde with a size-fourteen figure she liked squeezing into size-ten dresses.

“That’s odd. Did Gracie have any idea why she would be happy about it?”

“It was supposed to be some kind of confidence, but she told Gracie that with Betty out of the way, she and Larry could finally be together. She told her that with the alimony Larry was paying, he couldn’t afford to get too serious with anybody else. According to Gracie, Connie thinks that means she and Larry will be together now that Betty’s dead.”

I hadn’t eliminated any of my initial suspects, and my friends were adding more! “I’ll talk to her. Thanks for the tip.”

“You don’t seem as enthusiastic as you were the other night.”

“No, I am. I really do appreciate it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll call back if I hear anything else.”

“You do that,” I said.

David had been pretending to clean, but it was fairly obvious he’d been listening to every bit of my end of the conversation. “Am I going to get to follow up on any of these leads you’ve been getting?”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I said. There was no way I was going to put Hannah’s son at risk. It was one thing sticking my own neck out, but I couldn’t let him take any chances. Hannah would never forgive me if anything happened to David, and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself, either.

“I’m perfectly capable of snooping around, too, you know,” David said.

“So, are you volunteering to go the beauty shop? I hear a man went in there once in the seventies by accident, and he never came out again. But if you want to get a haircut, be my guest.”

His hand went to his ponytail. “I don’t think so. I guess I’ll pass on this one.”

“Good enough. If you don’t mind, I’m going to see if Connie can take me as a walk-in. Call if you need me here.”

He looked around the empty shop. “There’s not much chance of that, is there?”

I prepped my questions for Connie as I walked to Hair Apparent. The sun was trying to come out from behind a sheaf of clouds, and I could feel bursts of warmth when it managed to escape, but all in all, it was a gloomy, overcast day. It matched my mood perfectly: cloudy with brief bursts of hope.

The styling salon was on the back side of the brook walk, out of the high-dollar rent of the main stroll, and I was shivering a little by the time I got there.

After steeling myself for the interrogation to come, I put my hand on the doorknob. Then I heard a scream from inside.

My instincts told me to run in the other direction, but like the fool I can sometimes be, I threw the door open instead. I was fully expecting to find bodies, blood, and a madman inside.

Instead, I saw Susan March clutching her hands to her head. Her hair was a shade of orange I’d never seen before, a startling contrast to the chestnut-tinted hue she usually favored.

“You’ve ruined my life,” Susan screamed.

“It’s not that bad,” Connie said, her voice trying to soothe her distraught customer.

“Not that bad? I look like a carrot. A carrot that’s on fire. What did you do to me?”

“You’re the one who wanted a custom mix. How was I supposed to know your hair would react that way? Just sit back down in my chair. I can fix it.”

I didn’t see how, not without a set of shears and the keys to a wig factory.

Evidently Susan didn’t either. “You’re not touching my hair ever again,” she screamed as she grabbed her coat and nearly knocked me off my feet as she raced by.

Connie didn’t even seem disturbed by the scene. She brushed off her chair and said, “Next,” but nobody would make eye contact with her, let alone risk her chair.

“I guess that’s me,” I said, gulping back my fear.

“Have a seat, Carolyn. Have you finally decided to let me get rid of that gray?”

I put a hand on my head to protect it, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. If my hair follicles could talk, they’d all be screaming bloody murder about now. “Just a light trim,” I said. “Bill likes the gray.”

As she put the smock around me, she said, “Now your husband’s hair is a perfect example of how good gray can look. It’s practically luminescent, isn’t it? He always was a handsome man.”

This conversation wasn’t exactly going in the direction I wanted it to. “Thanks, I think so, too. I hear you have a new man in your life.”

Her scissors paused in the air, and she pointed them at me like an accusing finger. “And where did you hear that?”

“You know how this town is. Word gets around.”

She paused a moment, shrugged, then lowered her weapon. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I watched the bobbing scissors. It probably hadn’t been the best idea in the world, bracing a possible murderer when she had the means to commit another right there in her hands.

“I mean it’s over. The rat dumped me this morning. Can you believe it? After all those promises. Lies, that’s what they were. His alimony payments are gone now, so he decides to dump me for a younger model. I’m swearing off men, now and forever.”

There are many women in the world who are perfectly fine without men in their lives, good and caring women who lead bountiful lives of blissful independence, but I knew Connie wasn’t one of them. She needed a man like a fish needed water. She couldn’t exist without them.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “You must be devastated.”

Connie’s scissors paused again, and she lowered her head to mine as she said, “And after what I did for him, too. I still can’t believe it.”

“What did you do?” I asked. Was she about to confess her guilt to me?

“Things a proper lady doesn’t talk about,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “You know what I mean.”

Honestly, I didn’t have a clue. “Go on. It’s all right. You can tell me.”

For a moment, she moved around front and stared hard into my eyes. In a voice that was almost a whisper, she said, “No, actually, I can’t.”

A few seconds later, she pulled the smock off me and shook the few strands of hair she’d cut to the floor. “There you go. You look much better. That will be forty dollars.”

I glanced in the mirror. Forty dollars, for that? She had to be kidding. When I looked back at her to challenge her pricing, I saw that she still held those scissors, poised like the weapon they could become. I didn’t even grumble as I handed two folded twenties to her. Her free hand lingered in the air a moment, but the only tip she would get out of me was to leave town before a mob of angry women ran her out themselves. How on earth was I going to tell my husband I’d just frittered away forty dollars on a nearly nonexistent haircut? There was no way around it: I was going to have to make good the expenditure with my mad money, and boy, oh boy, had it earned its name this time.

At least my hair looked better than Susan March’s had. She’d be wearing hats and scarves until she could find someone to fix her hair coloring. Taking that into consideration, I’d come out of it with the better deal.

Having seen the way Connie had handled Susan so calmly, almost dangerously still, I realized she might just be capable of committing a murder. I was in serious need of eliminating some of my suspects before all of Maple Ridge made my list.

I started back to Fire at Will, but then I remembered that check from Tamra Gentry in my purse. Knowing Tamra, I suspected she’d be calling Lynn Eckels, the principal of the elementary school, any time to ask about the progress of a fund-raiser that Lynn didn’t even know the school was having. I just hoped the school could accept charitable donations for its book collections. I hated the idea of giving the money back when it could do so much good. I also hated the thought of having to explain my phony book fund to Tamra—not to mention Bill.

At least I had a relationship with Lynn. Her secretary showed me into her office as soon as I announced myself at the front desk.

“Carolyn, what a nice surprise. I just heard how much fun Miss Blackshire and her students had at your shop. I’m guessing you’ll be getting two dozen thank-you notes by tomorrow.”

“I was glad to do it.”

“Come on in,” she said as she waved me to a chair. Lynn had been an excellent teacher, and she’d moved up the ladder until she was running the place. They’d offered her the high school principal’s job when Mr. Landingham finally retired, but she’d turned them down, preferring to stay with the younger children. I didn’t blame her a bit. After she settled behind her desk, she said, “I know this isn’t a social call, not in the middle of a workday. What can I do for you?”

“How’s the library’s supply of books for the students? Could you use any more?”

She nodded. “Always. I’m afraid our funding is rather light this year, but we can’t accept used books. I’m sorry, it’s school policy.”

“I’m talking about new ones.” I slid the check across the desk toward her. “I apologize if I shouldn’t have done this. Feel free to scold me all you want.”

She glanced at the check amount, then did a double take. “Are you sure you can afford it?”

“It’s not my money,” I said.

She looked back at the check and saw it was drawn on Tamra Gentry’s account. “Okay, at least I don’t have to ask if she can swing it.” She looked at me a second, then asked, “Carolyn, what’s this about? We’re happy to take this donation, and I’ll call to thank her as soon as you leave, but perhaps I should know how you happened to ask for the money in the first place.”

I’d planned to come up with something to tell her that was close enough to the truth not to be an outright lie, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “I was snooping into Betty Wickline’s murder, and I made up the library book fund on the spot as a way to get my foot in the door.”

She laughed vigorously for a few seconds, then quashed it. “You delight me, you know that?”

“Hey, it’s the truth.”

“I know, and how refreshing it is to hear it. Believe me, I’ve heard my share of whoppers sitting behind this desk. Thanks for that.”

“Is the PTA going to be upset that I did this without their approval?”

“We don’t have to tell them. I’ll call Barbara Raskin, since she’s running the show this year. By the time I get finished with her, she’ll think it was her idea in the first place. Who knows, maybe you’ve started something here.”

“Thanks, I knew I could count on you.”

Lynn tapped the check with her finger. “Any time you need another ruse, feel free to raise more money for the school. We greatly appreciate it. Who knows? The PTA might even give you a plaque for this.”

“Thanks, but tell them no thanks. Given the circumstances, I’d be too embarrassed to take it.” I added two fifties, the one from Bill and another from me. Lynn looked at me curiously.

“Don’t ask,” was all I could say.

David was waiting on a customer when I got back to Fire at Will, a nice sight indeed. He nodded to me as he showed the young woman how to throw a pot on one of our electric pottery wheels. The scene always made me want to laugh. I’m a die-hard romantic, and I love the movie
Ghost
as much as any romantic—maybe more, since I deal with clay myself—but being behind the student wasn’t all that practical as a teaching method, at least not as far as I was concerned. David, most sensibly, was sitting directly across from her, guiding her hands as she shaped the clay.

The front door chimed, and I wondered whether it was another customer or someone involved in my murder investigation. When I turned to face the door, I saw a young woman sporting stylish clothes and an elegant hairdo.

“May I help you?”

“I’d like some pot, please.” She said the words softly, as if measuring them carefully before releasing them.

“Excuse me?” What exactly did she think “Fire at Will” meant?

“You know, some pot. Or some dish. Something to pretty.” She was frowning at me like I’d lost my mind.

Okay, I caught the accent then. It was subtle, but it was still there. “You’d like to glaze a pot?”

“Yes, very much,” she said as she nodded vigorously.

“Then let’s have some fun.”

By the time she’d finished decorating one of our largest pots with flourishes of flowers, Ekaterina and I had become fast friends. “When ready?” she asked as she took off the smock I’d given here.

“Give us four days,” I said as I held up four fingers.

“Good.” After she paid me with a hundred from a large stack that I happened to glimpse in her purse, Ekaterina left the shop smiling. I was hoping she’d come again soon, and not just because she could afford anything I had in the shop. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I’d enjoyed showing her how to transform plain bisque-fired clay into what I was certain would be a work of art.

David wasn’t having as much luck with his student as I’d had with mine. I heard her say, “I just can’t do this. It doesn’t look anything like yours.”

In a calming voice, he said, “You need to be patient. It takes time to master throwing pots.”

“But it’s so messy,” the woman protested.

I heard David sigh. “Yes, wet clay and liquid slip can get a little dirty. Maybe you’d like to try your hand at glazing? It might be a good first step.”

“No, I’m going to learn how to do this. But not today. Yuck, I’m a mess.”

As she scrubbed her hands in one of our sinks, David shot me a look that didn’t need much interpretation. His student was barely out the door when he asked, “Can you believe that? She didn’t want to get dirty! Where did she think she was, a nail salon?”

“She paid, didn’t she?”

David nodded angrily. “With fifty-cent pieces! Can you believe it? She had a whole purse full of them.”

“They’re still legal tender. At least she covered her bill.”

“How about your customer? Did she pay you in euros?”

I grinned. “Wasn’t her accent adorable? No, she had a stack of hundreds in her purse.”

I was feeling good about the world again. Ekaterina had had that effect on me. The warm glow died instantly when the sheriff stormed into my shop.

“What did you say to my wife?”

So it was going to be one of those conversations. Well, if the sheriff was looking for a fight, he’d come to the right place.

“I didn’t say anything to her that is any of your business,” I snapped back, matching his tone.

“You shouldn’t have talked to her.”

I saw David edging toward the back, and a part of me didn’t blame him. This wasn’t his fight, at least not this part of it.

“She nearly ran me down on the sidewalk outside my shop. What was I supposed to do, just ignore her?”

He huffed a few times, as if trying to catch his breath. “I’m not talking about that, and you know it. Why did you bring up Betty Wickline’s name?”

“We were standing out in front after a murder happened here. What did you want me to do, ask her about the weather?” I took a deep breath myself and added, “She reacted rather strongly to Betty’s name.”

“They never did get along,” he answered sullenly.

“If you ask me, I think your wife is glad Betty’s dead.”

Okay, maybe I was pushing him a little too hard, but I wanted to see his reaction. I’d been hoping for a screaming denial, or at least some response. Instead, I saw his expression go as cold as ice. Two seconds later, he stormed out without another word.

David poked his nose around the corner. “Is it safe to come out?”

“I don’t know, but the sheriff’s gone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He shook his head. “Wow. You really know how to get along with law enforcement, don’t you, Carolyn? I thought for a second there he was going to shoot you.”

“It wouldn’t have surprised me a bit,” I admitted as I started to shake. Confrontation always did that to me, and though I never backed down, I wasn’t always that comfortable arguing with anybody but my husband. “He reacted pretty forcefully, didn’t he? What do you think that means?”

“I think it means he was defending his wife,” David said.

“Does that mean you think she needs to be defended?”

“Don’t read too much into it,” he said. “To be honest with you, I kind of admire the guy for doing it.”

“Maybe,” I said. Was David right in his assumption that Hodges was just being overprotective of his wife, or was the sheriff hiding something darker and more sinister? I didn’t know yet, but I wasn’t finished pushing him, either. If my prying made some folks around town mad at me, they were just going to have to learn to live with it. I wasn’t about to go to jail for a murder I didn’t commit.

“That was a truly great day,” David said as we stood on the sidewalk and locked the store up at closing time. “It was nice having actual customers in the shop again.”