Murders on Elderberry Road: A Queen Bees Quilt Mystery (19 page)

Po frowned. How odd. She thought of the extraordinary Perthshire glass balls that graced the display cabinet. But the ball came from the other side. Curious.

Gus drained his coffee cup and put it back on the table. He shoved back his chair. “I’m off, Po. I have a new salesperson starting today and need to get myself organized.”

“Business must be good?”

“Pretty good. This nasty mess surrounding Owen still hovers over all of us. But otherwise it’s good. I don’t happen to agree with the police that the college kids are out pulling pranks, like smashing Mary’s window. Those kids are good to me. Studious, for the most part, and they sure buy a lot of books.”

Po agreed. “There’s always a bad apple or two, but that’s true in any group. Even in this neighborhood.”

“Yeah, for sure. Bad apples everywhere.” Gus waved and left the way he came, through the kitchen and out the back door. Po sat at the table for a while, barely noticing when the waitress refilled her mug and Marla plunked a thick slice of French toast in front of her. Her head was filled to overflowing with broken windows, lifeless bodies, and hit and runs. She thought about this latest twist of events, and about all the loose strings that were fluttering around as irritating as gnats. She wondered if they would ever come together.

This latest threat — if that’s what it was — was one more wayward puzzle piece. Surely no one was out to get both the Hills. It didn’t make sense. But neither did Mary’s odd reaction to the window damage. She seemed eerily calm, not the Mary that Marla described, berating the security guard for his lapse of attention. Did Mary think her life was in danger? You wouldn’t have guessed that easily.

Po sipped her coffee slowly and picked at the French toast. Somehow she didn’t have much of an appetite anymore. She was convinced there was a connection between Owen and Max’s misfortunes. And an uncomfortable, niggling feeling told her that the shattering of Mary’s window should not be discounted quite so quickly.

Po glanced out the window and for a short moment, her breath caught tight in her chest.

Wesley Peet sat on the wooden bench just outside Marla’s café. His huge, muscular body filled the seat and a look of fierce concentration filled his face. Enormous boots were planted firmly on the sidewalk, his elbows leaning so hard on his knees that Po thought they would surely cause dents. A small, crooked smile lifted the edges of his fat lips. His head was turned slightly, and from where Po sat, it looked like his beady, black eyes were staring down Windsor House Antiques.

Po shivered. Then, as she watched, Wesley rose from the bench and lumbered across the street toward his shiny new truck.

The truck Phoebe and Kate had foolishly entered the night before. Po sat still, staring after him, long after the truck had disappeared around the corner and out of sight.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

Po looked up into Kate Simpson’s smile.

Po smiled back. “Kate, you’re a welcome sight. Can you sit?”

Kate pulled out a chair and sat down. She turned over her cup. “I’m playing hooky today. I told them I couldn’t sub, and instead I plan to curl up in one of Gus’s chairs with my trusty laptop and finish my midterm paper.”

“Gus was just here, as a matter of fact.” Po pushed her uneaten toast in Kate’s direction. “He and I have had an interesting morning.”

The waitress walked over, filled both mugs with coffee and disappeared.

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Kate said.

Kate listened intently, devouring the French Toast, but leaving her large brown eyes fastened on Po’s face, as Po related her version of the morning’s events, from the smashing of the window to watching Wesley on the park bench. When she was finished, Kate sat back in the chair and wiped drops of syrup from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were wide.

“Well? What do you make of it all?” Po asked.

Kate’s voice was edged with excitement. “Po, this is downright creepy. Remember Phoebe and my little sleuthing episode last night?”

“Your illegal breaking and entering, you mean?”

“Whatever. Well, we told you we didn’t find anything. And we didn’t think we did — but we did see something we both thought a bit odd.”

“Well?”

“Well …” Kate dragged out the single word, then continued. “On the back seat of his truck was a small box. Phoebe didn’t see it when she crawled through the window and she knocked it onto the floor. The lid fell off, and this thing rolled out.”

Po didn’t like pursuing this because she thought Kate had done a terribly foolish thing breaking into that truck. Listening to her talk about it somehow spoke of approval. But curiosity — and the light in Kate’s eyes — got the best of her. “And what was the thing, Kate?”

“It was a beautiful glass ball, about the size of a baseball.”

Wesley Peet shuffled down the dark alley, a flashlight in one hand and an amber pint bottle in the other. The beam of his flashlight traveled unevenly in and out of the narrow dark spaces between buildings. He paused near a dumpster and leaned against the metal side, his head pleasantly woozy.

Couldn’t take these late nights much longer, he thought, wiping the dripping liquor from his wet mouth with the back of his hand. Hell, he wouldn’t have to take these late nights much longer. Life was lookin’ good for old Wesley for the first time in forty years. He lifted the pint of Chivas Regal to his lips and took a long swig, then stared at the bottle in the dim light. The Scotch itself was an omen that everything was finally turning around for old Wesley Peet. There it stood by its lonesome, just outside the pitch-black wine store, sitting on the step saying, “Wesley, take me. I’m yours.” His laughter gurgled up from deep in the back of his throat, and when it stopped, he took another long, slow draw from the bottle, savoring the taste.

Ambrose Sweet must have left the bottle there by accident, probably meant to take it home to that fancy house of his, but hell, he sure wouldn’t miss it, not with a store crammed with the stuff. Wesley had helped himself to a small bottle or two in the past, slipping it into his pants pocket when he checked out the storage room. But he’d never have touched this pricey stuff, yet there it was, just waiting for him. It sure beat the rotten swill he usually drank. And from the bottle alone, he knew this hooch had to cost a buck or two. Wesley smiled crookedly. Yeah, it was a good sign for Wesley Peet. Bright, sunshiny days ahead. And bucks to burn.

He’d been smart for once in his useless life — done what was good for Wesley and the hell with the rest. What had the world ever done for him anyhow? He’d taken care of everything this time, showed ‘em who was boss. Couldn’t pull the wool over old Wesley, not on your life. He sure proved that.

Wesley stumbled down the empty alley, his head so full of thoughts that he didn’t see the old truck parked at the end of the alley, just across the street from the antique place. But if he had seen it, he wouldn’t have given it much thought. Just another truck parked at the curb, somebody visiting somebody, somebody spending the night.

He checked the round watch on his wrist and focused hard until the numbers stopped jumping around. Midnight. He’d just leave a little early tonight, take the rest of that bottle back to his place and have his own little celebration. Who cares? Who’d rob this place? This was a place to get murdered, not robbed. He giggled foolishly at his own attempt at humor and snapped on his flashlight, pointing it at the back door of the quilt shop.

Right there, he thought. His flashlight formed a perfect circle of light on the step, like a spotlight on a stage, waiting for someone to step into it. Or to fall dead in it.

Maybe Owen Hill didn’t know it, Wesley thought, but there were worse things in life than getting wasted in a quilt shop. He could tell him a tale or two about growing up with a boozin’ father and no mother to speak of. Brawls, beatings. Owen Hill sure didn’t know about that. Bump on the head, go to sleep. Besides, he’d sure had his little pleasures, hadn’t he? A life full of ‘em, Wesley suspected. And now it was Wesley’s turn. The new truck was already his, but that was just the beginning. Now that he’d proved he meant business — that no one could fool old Wesley Peet … hah! — now the real payoff would come. Tomorrow. All arranged. All set. And Wesley’d be off into the sunset, a happy man at last. Mexico maybe? No Kansas winters there.

He’d promised to do this one last shift. Then off he’d be. Forever.

The moon was as big as a pumpkin and a crisp breeze tugged off the few remaining leaves on the elm trees. The round beam from Wesley’s flashlight wobbled up the back of the brick building that housed the wine shop, up to the slanted roof, then back down again. Wesley took another long drink of Scotch, then lumbered on, nearly stumbling smack into the dumpster behind Daisy Sample’s flower shop. The heavy metal lid was open, held up by the metal brace. Wesley stared up at it, curious why the flower lady’d done that, left it open like that. He hadn’t noticed it on his way down the alley earlier. Fighting hard against the fuzz in his head, he shined his flashlight up to the lid, then down, and looked into the deep belly of the trash bin. Almost empty, he thought. His flashlight traveled over a couple of cardboard boxes and packing foam. Then stopped short. There at the bottom, scattered around on top of one of the boxes, were several bills.

He peered closer. “Hundred smackers!” he said aloud. Damn! It
is
his lucky night. He looked around, spotted one of Daisy’s flower crates, and pulled it to the edge of the bin, then hoisted his huge body up onto it and leaned over the edge of the dumpster. His head was filled with cotton but not enough to blot out the thrill of found money. He chuckled softly as his fat fingers fumbled for the bills. He didn’t need the money now, but old habits die hard, as his old man used to say. There, two fingers touched the first one hundred dollar bill and curled around it.

At first, the crunching gravel went unnoticed, blotted out by the excitement of the treasure he’d found. Wesley leaned a little further into the bin and reached for another bill.

He wrapped his fingers around it and only then did he hear the sound, distinct now, closer. This time it was right next to him. He pulled his head up and looked to the side.

Their eyes met, and Wesley knew right then and there that there would be no Mexico. Nada. He’d been duped. His old man had been right all along. Stupid kid. Worthless, shiftless excuse for a human being. Would never amount to anything. In the distance Wesley heard another noise, one he recognized — the incessant barking of that foolish mutt across the fence.

And then everything turned black as the heavy metal lid of the dumpster came crashing down on Wesley Peet’s head.

Wesley Peet’s murder was too late to make the Tuesday morning paper, but the local television station reported it hourly as “breaking news.” By noon, the town was alive with speculation. Po heard it through her Walkman earphones as she ran along the river. As the first burst of news traveled through the thin wires, she stopped dead in her tracks and moaned. She leaned forward from the waist, her hands on her hips. Perspiration dripped from her forehead.

“Oh, my,” Po murmured as her heart sank down into her running shoes. The investigative reporter on the radio continued her detailed account, telling Po that at first, police thought Wesley’s death was a tragic accident — a uniformed security guard examining suspect refuse in a dumpster, was hit on the head by the heavy lid when a broken support latch collapsed. It crushed the man’s skull, causing immediate death.

But after careful examination, the reporter announced, clearly pleased her story didn’t end on such a note, the police determined that it was not an accident: The man’s blood’s alcohol level was a whopping .13, he was scavenging for money in the metal garbage bin, and his death appeared to be a planned execution.

Po pulled the earphones out and looped them around her neck. Execution. Good grief. What was this, The Untouchables? She held one tiny earphone back to her ear and learned that a bottle of pricey Scotch whiskey was found nearby. A bit out of his league, Po thought.