The Cracked Pot (23 page)

He peered down and studied the hole. "I may be wrong, but it looks like a hole to me."

"We've already established that," I said. "But why?"

"Hey, I answered a question. Now it's your turn."

"I don't have a clue," I said.

"Maybe you should get that shooting gang of yours to take a swing at it."

"They're called the Firing Squad, and you know it. I might just do that; it's not a bad idea."

"I was kidding, Carolyn."

"Well, I'm not." I glanced at my watch. "I have to run. Try to stay out of trouble today, okay?"

"It's always my goal," he said, "but I'm not always that successful at it."

As I drove to Fire at Will, I continued to ask myself what the digging meant. Was there something back there worth excavating? I couldn't imagine what it might be. No pirates had ever made it to Maple Ridge, and as far as I knew, the closest gold strike had been hundreds of miles away. Some thing was out there, though. Or at least someone suspected there was.

I was surprised to find David in the shop when I arrived, a full half hour before he was due to punch in.

"You're here early," I said as I traded my jacket for an apron.

"I wanted to make up some of the time I've been missing lately," he admitted, a full-blown apology for David. "Our first batch of cottages is finished. Would you like to see them?"

"You bet," I said. He'd pulled them out of the kilns and lined them up on the table in back. They were unique, each beautiful in its own way. "It's like a tiny village."

"You read my mind. We should do snow-covered ones at Christmas. I bet we could make a fortune."

"That's a great idea," I said as I picked one up. "This is nice. You did a good job."

"Feel free to put it in the display window. You're wel come to get what you can for it."

I frowned at him. "I thought this was for Annie."

"It was, but I'm afraid she'd just throw it at me if I tried to give it to her."

"I thought you two had patched up your differences," I said.

"So had I. Evidently, I was wrong. I don't want to talk about it, if it's okay with you."

"That's fine," I said. David had a right to his privacy; I quickly turned the discussion back to the cottages. "We could do a winter display now. I've got some spun fiber from last year."

"Not with summer almost here, but we should do some thing with them. Let's see what we can come up with."

We tried a dozen different layouts in the front window before we came up with something we both agreed on. I walked out onto the street to get a better look at it from the customer's perspective. As I stood there assessing our ef forts, I heard someone calling me from the street.

I turned around to see Mayor Jenkins sitting in a brand new car. "Carolyn, do you have a minute?"

"I suppose," I said. "What can I do for you?"

He eased the passenger-side door open. "Why don't you get in so we can talk?"

I saw something in his eyes that I didn't like.

I said firmly, "No thanks. I'm fine out here."

"Carolyn, I don't want to have to crane my neck to look at you. Come on. Get in." That was more of an order than a request, and I didn't obey commands very well.

"I don't think so. You can get out, if you want to."

He did just that, slamming the door. "You're a stubborn woman, you know that?"

"I like to think of myself as independent," I said. "What did you want to talk about?"

"This snooping you're doing. It needs to stop, and I mean now."

"Harvey, were you under the impression you were my boss? I don't take orders from anybody; not my husband, and certainly not you."

"Maybe you should reconsider that policy," he said.

"And perhaps you should tell the truth when someone asks you a question."

He scowled. "What are you talking about?"

"ClayDate. I found out it's not old news after all. You've been renewing it every year, and I know you, Harvey. You wouldn't spend a penny on it if that business weren't still active."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said. "There's a lot more to me than you realize."

Why was he being so defensive? "Prove me wrong. I'm willing to listen to what you have to say."

"Carolyn, what I do or don't do is none of your busi ness."

"Is it really worth having me on your case about this for the next month or two? You know I won't back off until I know the truth. Come clean with me, Harvey."

He shook his head, then spat out his next words. "Fine. If it will shut you up, I'll tell you. I made a promise a long time ago to a man who did me a favor when he didn't have to, and I'm enough of a blamed fool to keep it. As long as I'm drawing breath, ClayDate will stay in business. It's as sim ple as that. Now, are you satisfied?"

"Not really. There's got to be more to it than that."

He snorted. "That's your problem, not mine. You're never content, even when you get the truth." He stopped and stared at me a second before adding, "Remember what I said about nosing around things that aren't any of your busi ness."

"It's etched in my mind forever," I replied with a smile. "Don't think for a minute that it will alter my behavior in any way, though."

He shook his head, got in the car, and drove off.

David had been watching openly from the window. "What was that all about?"

"I don't think the mayor wants my vote during the next election."

"It didn't look like it, did it? What did he say, Carolyn?"

I thought about shrugging him off, but David had a right to know. We worked together, and he was more than just an assistant to me, he was like another son. "He told me to quit snooping." I wasn't about to get into the mayor's rationale for keeping an old corporation in business long past its earning potential for him. Was it really as simple as that? Was ClayDate still viable because of a promise he made long ago? I couldn't be sure. Men baffled me sometimes. I've seen sterner and harder men than the mayor do things for sentimental reasons that would make a schoolgirl blush. Maybe he was telling the truth.

David wasn't about to let up. "He was more specific than that. You've been stirring up a dozen different pots, haven't you?"

"At least. I don't want to talk about that right now. We need to work on our display some more. Are you sure you don't want to keep the cottage you made for Annie? It might make a nice apology."

"Thanks, but I'll pass. I'm tired of saying I'm sorry. I don't even know what I'm apologizing for at this point."

I kept my mouth shut, something that would surprise Bill, if he knew about it.

We opened Fire at Will, and to my surprise and delight, by the time our lunch hours rolled around, we'd sold three cottages, with four more on order. "Can you believe how these are selling?" I said as I added our last one to the dis play.

"I've got a feeling I'm going to be making more of them."

I patted his shoulder. "Look at it this way. You get to work in clay, and that can't be all bad."

"I don't want to mass-produce anything."

"I don't want that either, David. Make them all unique. Give them your special touch. And add a cat to one every now and then, though, would you?"

"I don't do requests," he said, his smile softening his words.

"Come on, that's usually all we do around here. If you don't want to add any cats to yours, I'll make a few and add them to mine. I think making these cottages is fun."

"I guess," he said. "Do you want to take your lunch break first, or should I?"

"You go ahead," I said. "I want to finish up a few of these."

David had been gone ten minutes when the front door chimed. It was my uncle, and I could tell from the scowl on his face that he was not at all happy with his only niece. Yet again.

Chapter
13

"Why do I get the feeling you're not here on a social call," I said.

"Maybe you're smarter than you look after all, but I sin cerely doubt it."

"You always were a charmer. What's wrong now?"

"You."

"That encompasses a lot of ground. Could you be more specific than that?"

Don Rutledge frowned as he looked around my shop. "Butting into other people's lives is bad for business, and it's going to be bad for you."

"Are you threatening me?" Here was my own flesh and blood, standing in my shop trying to intimidate me. Sadly, it was working.

"I'm trying to help you," he said. "Don't you get it?"

"Apparently not. How is your blustering supposed to do me any good?"

"Carolyn, life is not just one big game. This is serious business."

"I never said it wasn't, but that doesn't mean I've got to stop digging. Speaking of which, do you mind if I look at your hands?"

"My hands? What has that got to do with anything? Have you completely lost your mind?"

"Probably. Let me see them." I'd made it a point to look at the mayor's hands when we'd had our tête-à-tête earlier; they'd been clean and without calluses or blisters. So had the sheriff's the night before. Okay, I hadn't really sus pected him of digging up my backyard, but I'd looked all the same.

My uncle, shaking his head in obvious disbelief, held out both hands. They were tough and calloused, and bits of dirt embedded around his nails made it clear that he was used to working in his own garden soil. "What's this about?"

"Just checking," I said.

"What, are you on cuticle patrol now? Stay out of this, Carolyn."

When was everyone going to stop trying to tell me what to do? "Fine," I said, just to get him off my back.

"I don't believe you," he said.

"I can't do anything about that, now can I?"

My uncle stared at me a few seconds, then left the shop. I was aggravating a great many people lately, and I didn't envy the sheriff his task if someone decided to get rid of me. The suspects would be too numerous to name.

Just then Butch walked into the shop. "Those are new, aren't they?"

"Are you talking about the cottages?"

"Yeah. I'd like to try my hand at one of those sometime. Are they hard?"

"Not for you. Why don't you grab an apron and we can make one together right now?"

He glanced at his watch. "Sorry, but I'm running behind as it is. I just thought you might like to know something I just found out."

"You bet. At the moment, I'm at a complete loss."

Butch looked around the shop. "You don't have to keep after this, you know."

"Why does everyone keep telling me that? I need help, not discouragement." I was becoming increasingly exasper ated with people. They could either lend a hand, or get out of my way. There wasn't room for any other option.

"That's why I'm here. I've been asking around about what really happened twenty years ago, and I may have fi nally gotten the right guy to talk."

"You didn't do anything drastic, did you?" I was in con stant fear that Butch would slide back into a life of crime, and I certainly didn't want to do anything to encourage that kind of behavior. Then again, it was a little hypocritical of me to take so freely the information he offered.

"No, this guy was thrilled to have somebody in the busi ness to talk to. We don't exactly form social clubs when we retire, you know what I mean? Anyway, this fella used to be a fence in Marston, and he handled some of the jewels from the robbery that happened in Maple Ridge about the time Richard disappeared."

"Just some of the merchandise? How can he possibly re member that after all these years?"

"The man could tell you every piece he's ever touched. He's like a baseball nut who can recite the batting averages for every player in the 1958 World Series, you know?"

"I don't suppose he gave you the name of the thief, did he? Or is that a question of honor among thieves?"

Butch laughed. "You've been watching too much televi sion. As far as I've seen, that bunk is just that, pure hog wash. No, my friend didn't cooperate that much, but he did say that some of the best pieces weren't offered to him for sale. He only handled a few items, so he started to wonder how many partners had held the place up. Evidently there were some onyx brooches, a handful of gold rings, and lots of diamonds that never turned up. When my friend asked the guy about the things that were missing, the guy said that the rest of his share was someplace safe, stashed away where nobody would ever find it but him, and then he added something odd. He said that it was in the pits and kind of chuckled something about poetic justice. Kind of a crazy comment to make, wouldn't you say? It's not typical behavior for a crook."

"I didn't think there was such a thing as typical behav ior," I said.

Butch laughed. "You've got a point. Listen, I've got to run. Call me if you need me."

"I will. And Butch? I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier."

"Hey, you're entitled to unload now and then. I'm a big boy; I can take it." He shot me with his finger as he left, and for some reason, the gesture made me smile.

When David came back from lunch, he asked, "What's up, Carolyn? You've got the oddest expression on your face."