Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery (20 page)

“No, ma’am. If God or Ivy intended coffee to be sweet or milky they’d have made it that way. Today we’re drinking it for her, so suck it up.”

“If I drink another cup of this, will you tell me what you’ve heard?”

“Deal,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

“What have you heard about the house, through the Spivey vine or otherwise? What have you heard or what do you know about Max? And what have you heard or what do you know about his father?”

“You mean his father’s murder?”

“Or about Emmett himself.”

“Kind of surreal, you know?” she said. “Hearing the word ‘murder’ in Blue Plum? Like a pinch of hocus-pocus comes with it and if you say it too often old Em’s ghost will pop up and yell boo. Hey, are you all right?”

“Coffee, wrong way,” I croaked from behind my napkin. “His ghost?” That still didn’t come out well, so I hid behind my napkin for another cough and to let my vocal cords recompose themselves. “Sorry. Are people saying that? About ghosts?”

“Only a few of the Gothier teenage boys into the whole woo-woo thing. They were in here one afternoon scaring cheerleaders they’d like to date. Why? What hooey have you been hearing?”

“About ghosts? Nothing. ‘Hooey’ is a good word for it, all right.” I meant to laugh, although the actual sound was more like a strangled bleat.

Mel’s eyebrows rose, but not in reaction to my sound effects. She was looking past me, out the window. “Okay, promise me you won’t panic.”

“About what?”

“Spivey One and Spivey Two just parked across the street.”

I shrank in my chair, regretting our front-window table.

“It’s okay. They aren’t getting out. But I’ll nutshell what I’ve heard just in case. About the house? Not a whisper. The little you told me is more than the Spiveys know.”

“Even with Max married to Angie?”

“Could be Max and Angie don’t know much about it, either, so there’s nothing to tell.”

“Or Max knows something but hasn’t told Angie.”

“You’re a suspicious so-and-so.” Mel cocked her head. “But that could be. Max is less under the Spivey thumb than you’d expect considering the pervasiveness of that thumb and the weedy proportions of Max. From what I hear, he’s more like a splinter in the thumb.”

“Interesting. I didn’t want to like him, but that makes me wonder.”

“I’d reserve judgment,” Mel said. “He reminds me of my ex. That’s not a recommendation of his intelligence or allegiance.”

“Lucky Angie.”

“So. The murder.”

“Please. What are people saying? What do you think?”

“I think it’s bizarre. Emmett Cobb? Someone felt strongly enough to kill that dried-up speck of a man? Why?”

“He didn’t have any enemies?”

“Only the way a mangy possum does. But you throw a shoe at it. You don’t poison it. There was a lot of shock and shriek when it happened. You know the kind of thing: ‘We’ll all be killed in our beds!’” She waved her hands and goggled her eyes in mock terror. “And there’s still some of that because no one’s been arrested. But to
be honest, maybe brutally honest—” She shrugged. “Okay, to be cynical—most people don’t care.”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t care that Em is dead. They were het up because someone was murdered, but not because it was Emmett Cobb.”

That was an interesting and sad commentary. I thought back to Deputy Clod’s sorrow over losing a poker partner. Maybe he was one of the few who mourned Emmett Cobb. He and my poor lovelorn ghost. Maybe I could fix the two of them up. Mel interrupted before the image jelled.

“Something’s happening in the Spiveymobile.”

The twins had backed their car into the parking space across the street, so they were facing the café with a clear, if not ringside, view of our table. Mel was right. There was a hitch in their shoulder-to-shoulder solidarity in the front seat of the Buick.

“What are they fighting over?”

“Binoculars.”

Chapter 19

“D
o you think they read lips?” I asked that from behind my coffee mug.

“Let’s find out.” Mel mouthed something toward the Spiveys.

“Wait, don’t leave the sound out altogether. Even if they read lips, I don’t. What are you saying?”

Mel held her napkin to her mouth. “Something guaranteed to get a rise out of them. Watch.”

“No, Mel, nothing rude.”

She ignored me and waved her napkin at the twins. She mouthed something, wiggled her eyebrows, and pointed at me. “No,” she said then, clearly disappointed. “They do not read lips.”

“Well, thank God. I don’t need those two on the warpath against me.”

“Warpath, nothing. If they read lips they’d be out of that car, and in here pulling up chairs, only stopping to hug your neck first. I told them you’d buy them breakfast. But hold on, something else is happening.”

“Something else” was Deputy Dunbar arriving, light bar flashing. He pulled to the curb in front of Mel’s, stopping in a no-parking zone. His siren, which had been silent, came on for one
whoo-whoop
that sounded like a nose-thumb to all parking regulations. He doused the
lights, climbed out, adjusted his gun belt, and came toward the café.

“Why do I think this doesn’t look good?” I asked.

“Why do I think the Spiveys were expecting it?”

My mouth was still hanging open at Mel’s question when Dunbar stalked through the door and over to our table. It snapped shut at his question.

“Ms. Rutledge, will you please come with me?”

“Morning to you, too, Cole,” Mel said.

“Ms. Rutledge?”

“How about a friendly cup of coffee first?” Mel got to her feet and stood in front of Clod. Unfortunately, with her spiked mustard hair, she looked less than friendly and more like an agitated canary.

Clod looked over the top of her bristling spikes to where I hadn’t stirred from the table. “Ms. Rutledge?”

“Coffee’s on me.” Mel took a step closer to Clod, her smile not in sync with the fists on her hips.

Clod closed his eyes and said something under his breath that even non–lip readers could decipher. Chairs scraped as the old men rearranged their seats so they wouldn’t miss anything. The touristy couple reached for their cameras. I looked at the Buick across the street. No flash of binoculars. The car was empty.

Clod sidestepped Mel. “Ms. Rutledge, last time I’ll ask.”

“Why?” Mel, my wild mustard forward guard, kept pace with Clod, moving sideways in a belligerent
pas de deux.
“She has a right to know what this is all about.”

“She, Mel. Not you. Put your protest sign away and stand down.”

“It’s okay, Mel.” I stood and put a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension there and wondering if I’d have to stop her from flying at Clod. Or if I’d try. “I’m sure it’s something routine. Maybe about the break-in at Granny’s house?”

Clod didn’t say or mutter anything to confirm or deny that.

I took a steadying breath and told myself to be polite and cooperative. Also not to slip and call him Clod to his face.

He was reaching for my elbow, no doubt to assist me so I wouldn’t trip and hurt myself, and I was planning how to remove my elbow from his grasp, when, simultaneously, my phone rang and the bell over Mel’s door jingled. The latter was triggered by the Spivey twins. They stepped inside, smiling, not at all self-conscious that every pair of eyes in the café avidly turned to them. They nodded to the table of old men.

My phone continued to trill inside my purse and everyone, including Clod and the Spiveys, suspended their next moves while I dug for it. I’d been expecting Ernestine’s call and stupidly had not had the phone easily to hand. It quit ringing by the time I finally dug it out of the depths. I clamped my lips shut before anything audible or readable escaped them.

“No doubt, if that was Ernie, she’ll call back,” one twin said.

“Or leave a message,” said the other.

“I’d have to say that kind of news warrants a call more than a message, though,” the first said.

“It surely does,” the other said with a nod.

It was impossible to tell which font of wisdom was Mercy and which Shirley. A whiff of Mercy’s horrible perfume muscled its way past the coffee and bacon, but I couldn’t pinpoint which irritating twin provided the source. The red sweeping up the back of Clod’s neck made me think they irritated him, too.

“Or you could save time and call
her
,” the first Spivey said.

They smiled and said nothing more, obviously waiting for someone to ask what they were talking about.
Clod seemed to know, though, and he made another move to take my elbow. I slipped his grasp and punched Homer’s number into my phone. Clod’s attempt was further stymied by three bodies bulling their way between us. Mel, I was happy to have close by. The Spiveys, I wasn’t so sure of.

“We thought you might need backup,” Spivey One said.

“Our civic duty,” said Spivey Two, near enough now that I could identify her as Mercy.

“I don’t need your help, thank you,” Clod snarled.

“We don’t mean you, Cole Dunbar,” Mercy snapped.

“Hush, now,” Shirley said, “while Kath makes the call she’s allowed before you arrest her.”

Ernestine answered on the first ring.

“Help!”

Chapter 20

H
andsome Homer rescued me. He swooped into the café and out again, me safely under his wing. Ernestine choreographed our flight from her desk at the office, dispatching Homer and staying on the phone with me until we were on our way. The only clue to her excitement was the staccato of her knitting needles in the background.

To my surprise, Clod held the door for us when we left. Mel did her part by thwarting the Spiveys’ attempt to follow. Not surprisingly, Clod did follow.

“Deputy Dunbar, thank you for joining us,” Homer said when we reached the office and Clod was still with us. Homer sounded genuinely gracious about the intrusion. Another reason he made a good lawyer. I couldn’t have used the same words without sounding sarcastic, or maybe jabbing Clod in the solar plexus.

Homer ushered us past Ernestine’s desk into the inner office. Ernestine gave me a thumbs-up before Homer closed the door. The knitting needles had disappeared.

“I believe they meant well,” Homer said, holding a chair for me.

“We’re talking about the civic-minded Spiveys?” There was that lapse into sarcasm I’d worried about.

“They’re the ones called me in the first place,” Clod said at the same time.

Clod and I looked at each other. Did I appear as nonplussed as he at finding ourselves, if not in harmony, at least picking out the same tune? Homer walked around behind his desk. Clod took that as an invitation and dropped into the chair next to mine. Homer remained standing.

“Why did they call you?” Homer asked.

“You don’t know?”

Homer removed a speck of lint from his lapel. “You tell us.”

Clod, appearing his usual exhausted self, got back to his feet. It was a good move, erasing the advantage Homer established by not sitting in the first place. They were both imposing men. But where Homer had the sleek, sharp, raptor thing going for him, Clod was a tired battering ram. I stayed in my chair, out of their way.

“Someone broke into the house on Lavender Street,” Clod said.

“Again?” That had me hopping out of my chair, but when both men looked at me, I melted back into it with a “sorry.”

As soon as the apology was out of my mouth, I wanted to kick myself for being a coward. But the interplay between the raptor and the battering ram was more interesting than my self-improvement problems, so I sat back and watched. At first I saw their moves as a tango, so smooth and subtle I’d miss the slide from wariness to warning to menace if I blinked. Then I remembered Homer saying Clod was good at poker and realized that was what they were playing.

Homer said nothing. He lifted his nose and turned his eyes to a point not directly on Clod. Still he said nothing, but his left eyebrow made it clear he had questions and expected answers. Clod waited, equally silent, chin tucked, expression mulish. The tips of Homer’s fingers rested on his desk. Clod’s hands were on his hips, one hip cocked. It
was as neat a power struggle as I’d ever seen. And a waste of time. I stood up.

“Deputy Dunbar, if you have information about my grandmother’s house, I want to hear it.”

They actually looked put out at my interruption. They turned toward me, mouths opening. But to do what? Answer my question? Advise me not to speak? Whine that I wasn’t playing the game right? I didn’t wait to find out. I held up a shushing finger, daring their mouths to go further.

“I also want to know why the Spiveys think you’re about to arrest me. And I want you to sit down. Both of you.”

I waited until they sat, Homer with a light laugh, Clod harrumphing, before I sat back down. Despite my jeans and grungy sweatshirt, I crossed my legs, put my elbows on the arms of the chair, fingers tented, and glared. I felt like a conflict mediator. Or a middle school guidance counselor.

“Well, Kath, Cole, we’re all friends,” Homer said with another light laugh.

“But”—I cut in before he wrested control from me—“I want answers to my questions. And I might have more after that.”

“Yet I would caution you, Kath,” Homer continued.

“No need for cautions,” Clod said. “Shorty’s over there checking out the house. I’m just asking questions.”

“Who’s Shorty?”

“Proof I’m not the only deputy, Ms. Rutledge.”

“Okay. Good,” I said. “Go ahead, then. Oh, no, wait. Max Cobb owns the place. Why aren’t you asking him questions?”

“Your grandmother lived there. I knew where to find you. We will get to him. May I continue?”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“We received a call at seven forty-two this morning
reporting a broken window and possible burglary at one-oh-three Lavender Street.”

“Broken window? With all that rain we had last night? Which one? I didn’t see it when I was over there this morning.”

“Kath.” Homer shook his head at me.

“But what’s going on in this town?” I looked from one to the other. Neither offered an answer, poker faces back in place. I wasn’t letting them play, though. I stabbed my shushing finger, now a skewer, at Clod.