Panic Button (15 page)

“You saw her? From where you were at the back of the store?”

“Didn’t need to see her. Didn’t have to.” Mary Lou shook her head. “I heard her.”

“And she said?”

Mary Lou laughed. “What didn’t she say! The first words I heard after the front door
banged shut behind her were something like, ‘Larry, we need to talk.’ And you have
to admit, that doesn’t sound like much, except for the way she said it.”

As if reliving the moment, Mary Lou got quiet. A second later, a shiver snaked over
her shoulders. “There was venom in her voice, that’s for sure. That’s what got me
to sit up and take notice, so to speak.”

“So you…”

Mary Lou’s cheeks got dusky. “I moved up closer to the front of the store, of course.
So I didn’t miss a word.”

“And Angela still didn’t see you?”

“She didn’t. And honestly, I think Larry forgot all about me being there. But then,
I got the impression Angela blindsided him. He greeted her like everything was normal.
Asked how she was. Told her she looked pretty that day.”

I remembered Angela’s outfit—the sweatpants, the T-shirt, the Crocs—and decided right
then and there that Larry must have been one special boyfriend. “What did Angela say
to that?” I asked.

“She said that Larry should quit it with the bullshit.” Mary Lou nodded. “I know,
that doesn’t sound like much. But if you knew Angela, you’d know she never talked
like that. But it’s exactly what she said. Bullshit. And when Larry tried to ask what
she was talking about…well, that’s when all proverbial hell broke loose.”

“She got mad?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“But did she…” I wanted to make sure I got as much information as I could out of Mary
Lou, so I phrased my
question carefully. “Did she say why she was angry at Larry?”

She shook her head. “He asked. A couple times. And she kept saying the same thing.
That he should know what she was talking about. That she couldn’t believe it herself,
but that she’d been through it over and over and that now she was sure.”

“Of what?”

Mary Lou shrugged. “Unfortunately, another customer came in, and Larry ushered Angela
into the back office. While they were in there, I rushed out of the store as fast
as I could. I couldn’t bear the thought of either of them realizing I’d heard what
I heard. I mean, it would have been so embarrassing. For both of them!”

Suddenly, those pictures that had been taken down off the wall at Angela’s house made
a whole lot more sense. “She was angry,” I told myself. “Angry enough to rip his pictures
off the wall.”

Mary Lou confirmed this. “I kind of waited around in the parking lot for a little
while after I left the store,” she said. “I hoped Angela would come out. I wouldn’t
have told her I knew what happened in the store, but I thought I could…oh, I don’t
know. I guess I thought if I just tried to pretend we’d just run into each other and
be friendly and engage her in conversation, it might help.”

“But she didn’t come out.”

“Not while I was there. That other customer came and went and I figured…well, I guess
I figured that would give Angela and Larry a chance to talk a little more. I didn’t
want to go in and interrupt. I figured they’d work things out.”

I wondered if they did.

“You never said anything to Larry?” I asked Mary Lou. “Not even at the funeral?”

“Oh, good heavens, how could I?” She fanned her flaming cheeks with one hand. “He
was so darned broken up at the wake. And at the funeral, the poor man could barely
hold himself together. I knew what that meant. He and Angela had settled their differences.
Whatever they were. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have looked so terribly unhappy.”

She was right, and I told Mary Lou as much. Still…

“That explains why Angela looked so terrible when she came here to the Button Box,”
I said. “And why she never called to say she was on her way, either. The poor woman
was too upset. But if she and Larry had already made up…”

Mary Lou looked at me hard. “What are you saying? That you don’t think they made peace?”

“If they did, Angela would have been happy, and she wouldn’t have looked as miserable
as she did when she walked in here that evening. And she wouldn’t have talked about
how she hoped once she gave away the charm string, the bad things in her life might
be reversed. She wasn’t talking about the attempted break-in at her house. Or that
fire in her kitchen. She was talking about breaking up with Larry. She thought it
was the fault of the charm string, and once it was out of her life, she thought maybe
they could get back together again. She wouldn’t have said any of that. Not if she
and Larry had already kissed and made up.”

“You’re right.” Mary Lou looked at her watch and slipped off the stool. “And I have
to get going. Thanks
for taking those buttons off my hands. Maybe I’ll see you around Ardent Lake sometime.”

Maybe?

I didn’t waste a nanosecond considering my answer to that question. As soon as Mary
Lou walked out the door, I checked with Stan to see if he could watch the Button Box
for me the next day.

I was heading back to Ardent Lake.

It was time I had a serious talk with Larry.

I
T WAS SLOW GOING TO
A
RDENT
L
AKE THE NEXT DAY
. The main drag into town was filled with giant equipment—cranes and bulldozers and
big yellow trucks with wheels taller than my car—coming and going at the reservoir.
I was sorry I hadn’t invited Stan to join me for the return trip. Aside from the fact
that it would have given me someone to talk to while I waited for a really big earthmover
to crawl across the road, Stan was interested in the reservoir draining project; I’m
sure he would have enjoyed watching all the activity.

I may have been slowed down, but I kept my eyes on the prize. The first thing I did
when I (finally!) got into town was go straight to the hardware store.

A bit of a confession here: I love old-fashioned hardware stores.

I know, I know, it sounds a little crazy, especially coming from a woman whose head
is usually filled with nothing but buttons. But really, there are so many things in
a hardware store that a button nerd can appreciate:

Toolboxes with little compartments that are perfect for sorting buttons.

Awls for punching holes in the heavy mat board collectors use to display their buttons.

Coated wire to attach the buttons to that mat board.

Polish for metal buttons, lemon oil to clean wooden buttons, soft rags to buff the
mother of pearl buttons.

With the right attitude and time to kill, a button collector can make a visit to a
hardware store a field trip worth remembering.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time that day. Or for that matter, the inclination.
I was there strictly for information, though when I pushed open the front door and
got a look at the rough-hewn timbers of the old oak floors, the wooden shelves with
their patina of age, and the tin ceiling where fans gently whirred overhead, I nearly
forgot the purpose of my mission.

Maybe that was a good thing, because when I drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly,
and gushed, “There’s nothing like an old hardware store,” Larry smiled at me from
his place behind the cash register.

I headed to the front counter and set down my purse, gazing up at the ceiling as I
did. I love my tin ceiling at the Button Box. It’s very pretty, and original to the
brownstone, which was built back in the late nineteenth century. But in the world
of embossed tin, my shop
ceiling is…well, it’s a ceiling. Larry’s was the Sistine Chapel. Each brass square
featured a central motif of an ivy wreath, and each wreath was surrounded by exquisitely
wrought fleur-de-lis.

“You’re new in town,” Larry said.

I laughed. “And you know this because people who are new in town always stare at your
ceiling in wide-eyed wonder?”

He was a tall, broad guy with even features and a long thin nose, and according to
what Nev had told me, Larry was sixty-five years old. Larry’s hair was silvery, and
though I’d seen him at the funeral, there his eyes had been cast down and swollen
from crying. Now, I realized that the pictures I’d seen of him at Angela’s didn’t
do those eyes justice. They weren’t just blue, they were a blue so vivid and so lively
and intelligent, I suddenly understood why Angela and Susan felt he was worth fighting
over.

“What can we do for you?” Larry asked, his question shaking me out of my thoughts.

“Aside from telling me the history of this place?”

“You are new around here.” A woman walked up to the counter with a pint of wood stain,
and Larry rang up the order. While he was at it, he asked the woman about her husband
and how his surgery went, and how her son was doing in the Army. It was the kind of
personal and very special customer service big box stores can’t possibly offer, and
I put another mental tick mark in the column I called “Why I Love Ardent Lake.”

Larry finished and the customer left. Let’s face it, when it comes to investigations,
I’m not a professional.
I mean, not like Nev. But I know a thing or two about easing into my questioning.

“So…” My hands flat against the counter, I looked toward Larry. “What can you tell
me? When was it built?”

“This building?” A tiny smile played around the corners of his mouth. “That would
be 1982.”

“You mean 1882.”

“I mean 1982. Like the rest of the town.”

I do not look especially attractive with my mouth hanging open, but I am hardly vain.
I snapped it shut mostly because I didn’t want to look stupid.

Larry didn’t hold it against me; his laugh was filled with humor. “I’m sorry. I just
can’t help myself. I love the look on people’s faces when they first hear the news.”

“But…you’re telling me…that…”

“It was built in 1982.” He pronounced the date carefully and slowly just to be sure
I understood. “There was no Ardent Lake before that.”

“But then…” I looked over my shoulder toward the front windows of the store and the
houses I could see beyond. “The beautiful Victorian homes, they’re all…”

“Phony baloney. Every single one of them.”

I groaned at my own slowness. Of course, it had all been staring me in the face from
the moment I first drove in to Ardent Lake. “That explains why all the house colors
match. And all the flowers, and why everything looks perfectly—”

“Restored. You got that right. When the hydroelectric company built the reservoir,
they flooded Ardent, and we all lost our homes and our property. They gave us this
land, but on one condition. City Council and the hydroelectric company’s board, they
decided on a planned community, and we had to agree to abide by their rules, and the
look of the place. What you see is what we got. Ardent Lake.”

“It looks perfect because it is perfect. It was planned to be perfect.”

“It’s home sweet home.”

That explained why Angela’s house had such a wonderfully Victorian exterior and an
inside that was more early Madonna.

“But that doesn’t explain…” I glanced around Larry’s store. “The old wood floor?”
I croaked.

He tapped one foot. “Laminate made to look old.”

“And the beautiful ceiling?” I was almost afraid to ask.

There was a broom nearby, and Larry lifted it by the bristles and tapped the handle
to what I’d thought was antique tin. The broom handle made a dull, thumping sound
instead of the metallic ping I expected. “It’s called anaglypta,” Larry explained.
“It’s heavy embossed wallpaper, painted to look like tin.”

“Well, somebody did an amazing job!” Just to be sure, I looked up at the ceiling again.
“The whole town—”

“Is a sham.”

Larry said this with good humor, but I have to admit, I was pretty bummed. What I
thought was a Garden of Eden was really a stage set.

“Well…” I drew in a breath. “I guess we don’t have to discuss history then.”

“Oh, there was history, but that’s all gone now.” He
shook his head sadly. “That was lost when the water swallowed Ardent. We’re lucky
some people around here are trying their best to make sure people don’t forget. They
teach a whole unit about the old town over at the elementary school, and we’ve got
not one, but two historical museums.”

Two?

This was news, and I wondered why no one had ever bothered to mention it before.

“I’ve seen the museum near the park,” I said, though truth be told, I’d only seen
a picture of the museum over near the park. A picture that featured Larry and Aunt
Evelyn. “There’s another one?”

“Over that way.” He pointed to his left toward some distant, indistinct place on the
other side of town. “The first one—the one you were at—is what we like to call the
Big Museum, though obviously,
big
is a relative word. That museum was established first. It’s the one the city likes
to brag about, the one that gets all the publicity and holds all the fancy fund-raisers
and such.”