Lie of the Needle (A Deadly Notions Mystery) (15 page)

I laughed. “So this is simply a ruse to get Eleanor to see the light?”

Ronnie grinned and tapped the side of her nose. “Only the spirit knows.”

When I got home, I took Jasper for a walk, and suddenly spotted a black shadow darting through the yards, always keeping us in sight.

“Hello, His Nibs.”

The cat was an odd little character, just like his owner. I wondered what to do with the latest clue Cyril had left, like a trail of mysterious bread crumbs. He was counting on me to help, but did I have the right stuff to figure out this deadly puzzle?

I
t was Laura’s day to man the store, and when she arrived, we chatted about the next open house that would be coming up after Thanksgiving. Sometimes a Great Notion was a bit off the beaten track, but luckily much of my business came from interior designers looking for unusual or antique accessories, bedspreads, and linens. Not to mention the collectors and dealers who came from miles away.

We decided to serve mulled wine and prepare some spicy pecans in vintage Ball jars as takeaway gifts. I asked Laura if she could work tomorrow as well so I could help out with the estate sale at Ruth’s. She eagerly agreed, saying she could use the extra money.

I headed for Sheepville and the town hall. In addition to my other duties, I was conducting some research for the Millbury Historical Society on the Underground Railroad.

Pennsylvania had been an important thoroughfare to carry slaves north to safety in Canada, and there were already several houses or “stations” in the township on the National Register of Historic Places. Of course I knew something about the railroad from my years as a history teacher, but now I was delving deeper into the stories of Millbury and its environs.

I parked in the lot and walked up Porter Street to Jumpin’ Java Mama. I ordered a small coffee and did my usual routine of checking each newspaper on every table for the crossword puzzle. The laid-back baristas didn’t even glance my way or comment on my behavior, content to live and let live.

Sally McIntire strode into the shop, wearing formfitting Capri pants, a tight aqua tank top, and a Lycra jacket. It wasn’t really warm enough for that kind of outfit, although I vaguely remembered that she was some kind of personal trainer. It certainly showed off her toned body to perfection.

She ordered a smoothie in her singsong voice, requesting one with spinach, banana, pineapple, Greek yogurt, and coconut oil. I went over to her as she dropped into a graceful lunge, using the counter as a ballet barre.

“Hi, Sally. Wow, that sounds like a healthy breakfast.”

“I’m on my way to work out with a client.” She looked up at me and a dazzling smile transformed her face. “I have to set a good example, and this gives me all kinds of powerful antioxidants and fiber.”

“I should try it sometime. You certainly seem full of energy.”

She paid for her drink with a credit card and grasped the cup with manicured aqua-colored nails that clicked against the plastic.

“Are you doing okay?” I asked. “I know you seemed—um—rather upset at church.”

“Oh, yeah. Poor Alex.” The sun went behind the clouds for a moment, and then she brightened again. She sipped the concoction through a straw, her eyes as wide and disingenuous as a child’s under her cap of blond hair.

Guess Roos is yesterday’s news.

“Can I ask you something, Sally? A friend of mine is considering buying a Cassell-built home.” I mentally crossed my fingers at the white lie. Patsy
had
been considering one before we found a dead body inside it. “But I’ve heard of people having lots of problems with the quality of the build.”

Sally bounced in place, as if she might burst from too much energy. She sucked down more of the smoothie in one long voracious suck.

“Yeah, we’ve had stuff go wrong with our house, too. Luckily, my hubby, Jim, is very handy. He used to work in construction before he sold insurance, so he was able to fix a lot of things. He even spray-foamed our attic himself.”

It wasn’t just her smile that was dazzling. Her wedding ring was a huge emerald-cut diamond. Jim McIntire must be doing very well in his insurance business.

“Okay. Gotta go. ’Bye, Daisy.” She wiggled her fingers at me and pranced out of the café just as Liz Gallagher walked in. They sidestepped each other, and it would be hard to miss the look of disgust on Liz’s face.

Liz shook her head as she came over to the counter and ordered a cappuccino.

“I take it you two know each other?” I asked.

“She used to teach aerobics at my gym, but now she’s doing one-on-one training.” Liz lowered her voice. “And I hear that there’s more than dumbbell flys happening on that weight bench.”

“Really?”

Liz chuckled. “You should have seen the scene in the gym one day. Her husband was convinced she was screwing one of his clients and screaming that he wouldn’t be made a laughingstock in this town. Ha! We didn’t want to tell him it was too late.”

“Apparently he was going crazy looking for her on the night of Roos’s murder,” I said. I could see why stodgy Jim McIntire could feel insecure, wondering if he was man enough to satisfy his hyper bombshell of a wife.

I finished my coffee, said good-bye to Liz, and walked back to the town hall.

I found Constance Banks in the Parks and Recreation department on the fourth floor. Constance had been a big help to me with my research. I’d gone through the census records, church and cemetery records, and local archives, but she had an ancestor, Rufus Banks, who’d actually traveled the thoroughfare.

It was so hard to uncover information, as not much was written down for safety reasons. Constance had promised to show me some family records today—photo albums, diaries, and the like. She didn’t want to lend them out, but said she was willing to let me take a look in person.

I sat in the file room and pored through the gold mine of information, especially Rufus Banks’s diary. There were some references to places in the area that were known “safe houses,” and I drew a little map for myself.

It must have taken incredible courage to be an abolitionist in those days, let alone a railroad conductor. Some slaves came directly from the slave states of Delaware and Maryland, across the Mason-Dixon line, and into Chester and Lancaster counties.

It was something of a myth that the railroad was a highly organized operation, at least not when the runaways first made their bid for freedom. They would receive help when they crossed the border into Pennsylvania, and be given food and clothing and sheltered in barns, spring houses and attics. Even sometimes in warehouse bins along the Delaware Canal. It was also a myth that many escaped. It was really only a handful compared to the millions in captivity.

I could almost hear the voice of Rufus Banks as he talked about how slaves had to go everywhere with a pass, that slave marriages had no legal standing and could be broken up at the owner’s will, and how, after working on the plantation all day, he’d worked on his own meager garden patch by the light of the moon. I felt the familiar anger burn through me at how inhumanely these people had been treated. Stories of overseers who would whip a slave’s back in one direction and then turn the lash so the skin fell apart like a ripped checkerboard. And, as if that weren’t enough, they finished by putting salt in the wounds.

The spirits of those who had gone before me seemed to be with me in that room.

Parents separated from children, husbands from wives, complete families destroyed. The few who did manage to escape were hounded by slave catchers, who stopped at nothing to take them back, dead or alive. The terror of being recaptured and ‘sold to go far south’ was palpable in the memoir. How much interminable heartache and suffering had these people endured?

I sighed and tucked the map into my pocket. I went back to the front desk and handed the papers back to Constance, too overwhelmed to say much.

“Thank you very much, Constance. See you soon?”

She looked up at me with her world-weary but kind brown eyes. “If God is willing and the creek don’t rise.”

*   *   *

T
he elevator in the Sheepville Town Hall was small and badly in need of renovation. It shook alarmingly as it started, and I gripped the rail on the wall, staring at my blurred reflection in the dented metal sides.

I was toying with the idea of getting out on the next floor when it stopped and Beau Cassell’s new foreman got in, wearing a crumpled raincoat. He bashed the buttons for the lobby and the door closure repeatedly, and the doors finally creaked shut.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. I knew I should have taken the stairs.

Serves you right, lazy Daisy.

I stole a quick glance at the foreman, who was staring straight ahead. His coarse black hair stuck up in several different directions, as if it was too much for a regular comb to keep straight, and his heavy eyebrows gave him a permanently dour expression. Cassell was such a preening peacock. Somehow I didn’t see the connection between these two.

Suddenly there was a distant thud, and the car stopped with a jerk.

I looked at the floor buttons in panic. The number
3
was still lit up. We must be stuck somewhere between the third and second floors.

I heard a deep moan, sounding very loud in the enclosed space, and I realized it had come from my own throat.

The foreman looked at me, but I was too busy fighting panic to care, despairing as the familiar wave swept over me anyway, leaving a flotsam of cold sweat, racing heartbeat, and shaking legs in its wake.

How far was it to the ground floor? What if the cables snapped on this thing and we went plunging to our deaths? The metal walls closed in on me, and I couldn’t help but let out another moan.

“Jesus, lady, are you all right? Here, why don’t you sit down.” He helped me to the floor and peered at me in concern. With one arm he reached up and pressed the alarm button. “Don’t worry. Take a deep breath.”

I stared at his ravaged face, the lines of a hard life probably aging him beyond his actual years. He also looked like he needed a shower with his rumpled wardrobe and disheveled hair, but he didn’t smell, even in these close quarters.

“Come on. Breathe,” he urged.

I took a few deep gulps of air. “I’m so sorry about this. I’ve always had a thing about small spaces.”

“Understood. I’ve had to get used to it myself over the years.”

An image of Cyril popped into my mind. “Hey, were you a miner?”

His expression changed, and he stood up and pressed the alarm button again in one long ring. “Is anyone out there?” he yelled. “There’s people stuck inside. Come
on
!”

I heard an answering shout, and seemingly a lifetime later—although it was probably only a few minutes—the car began to move.

When the elevator finally stopped and the doors opened to reveal the lobby, I stumbled out on trembling legs, almost bumping into Frank Fowler, who was carrying a stack of posters. He caught my elbow with one hand as I swayed.

“You look like you’ve had quite a shock, Ms. Buchanan,” he said.

The foreman pushed past us both and headed for the lobby doors without a backward glance.

I sucked the deepest breath I could manage. “I certainly have, Mr. Fowler. Can’t our taxpayer dollars pay for a new elevator?”

He smiled faintly. “Not in the budget this year, I’m afraid.”

“Just glad I wasn’t alone in there.” I nodded to where Beau Cassell’s foreman was walking out onto the street. “He helped calm me down.”

Fowler’s expression hardened. “Well, he doesn’t do much for
my
blood pressure. He’s always skulking around here, trying to push Cassell’s interests with the board. Constantly hassling me and my wife.”

As one of the three commissioners for Bucks County, Nancy oversaw the Planning Commission, among other departments.

He held up the posters he carried, with his wife’s picture splashed across them and the slogan
NANCY FOR GOVERNOR
. She had the kind of face that the camera loved. The wide-apart eyes, the large mouth, almost Jackie Kennedy–esque. I remembered hearing the gossip that her ambitions ran way beyond county commissioner, although it was a big leap to governor.

“What a magnificent woman she is.” Frank sighed, a smile curving the edges of his pale lips. “I’d do anything to protect her, you know.”

Methinks thou doth protest too much.
One of Eleanor’s favorite phrases popped into my head. The foreman might be a bit off-putting, but he wasn’t
that
scary. He’d been courteous, even kind to me in my moment of need.

Fowler seemed as though he was going over the top to cover up any kind of association with Randy. Was our township attorney actually in cahoots with Beau Cassell, perhaps taking bribes in the form of campaign contributions? How far would he go to ensure a victory for his beautiful wife?

Maybe the “big thing” Roos was working on had something to do with Nancy Fowler, and not Beau Cassell at all.

*   *   *

O
n the day of the estate sale, I dressed in an old plaid shirt and jeans. My usual wardrobe at Sometimes a Great Notion wasn’t much better, but I’d dressed down even more today, planning on moving boxes and furniture around and generally ready for a good workout.

Joe was pouring a cup of coffee and he looked askance at my wardrobe. “Are you going to the store?”

“No, it’s the estate sale for Ruth. You know, to raise some cash because she’s flat broke. I told you about it.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”

I frowned at him. “You
do
remember that the new mattress is being delivered today, right?” Our daughter, Sarah, was coming home for Thanksgiving, and I’d ordered a new mattress for her room. Joe had to stay home to accept delivery, which was why he wasn’t coming to help out, too. He looked puzzled, and I felt a quiver of unease. “Joe, now you’ve got me worried.”