The Cracked Pot (6 page)

"I believe so."

I handed him a thick round dowel and a lump of clay. "You have to work the air out of that and get it ready."

He studied the clay in obvious distaste without touching it. "Would you mind?"

"Not at all." I kneaded the clay until it was a smooth con sistency and handed it to him. The only problem was, he re fused to take it. "What's next?"

"You have to roll it out," I said.

"Show me, please."

If he hadn't added the "please," I would have refused, but what else did I have to do at the moment? I rolled the clay out into a wide sheet until it was about a quarter of an inch thick, my favorite thickness for hand-building. "Now cut your walls and I'll show you how to put it together."

"I'm afraid I wouldn't be very good at that," he said.

Why wasn't I surprised? I cut the walls, floor, and roof out of three-quarters of the clay and quickly assembled the house. "I don't have any idea how you want to embellish this, but there are plenty of tools to cut out the shapes you'd like."

Instead of taking my not so subtle hint, he said, "Let me sketch out what I'd like."

He quickly embellished the house he'd drawn earlier, adding window boxes, a grand front door, and a chimney along one side. "You can do this, can't you? Or is it too dif ficult?"

"I can do it all right. But I thought you came in here to do it yourself."

He said nothing, just kept staring at his drawing. I de cided it would be easier to do it for him than argue with him about it, and after a few seconds, I nearly forgot he was there. I added the chimney and door, then started to cut out the windows.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm trying to match your windows."

"I want it to be solid," he said. "Can't you apply win dows to the walls?"

"Sure," I said. He was awfully picky. "How's that?"

"Perfect," he said as he looked at the house. "Shouldn't there be shingles or something on the roof?"

"How about a thatched roof instead?" I was really get ting into the model building.

"No, I'd prefer shingles."

I took my knife and scored in lines of shingles on the rooftop. "Is there anything else you'd like?"

He studied it a moment, then said, "No, it's perfect. Do we paint it now?"

"It has to be fired first. If you come back in a few days, we can add the coloring then."

He frowned. "Does it really take that long?"

"I have to wait until I have a full kiln," I explained. "It's too expensive to fire a single item."

"I see," he said as he dipped his hand into his jacket. And why shouldn't he? The man hadn't bothered to dirty his hands the entire time he'd been in my shop. He retrieved an eel-skinned wallet and plucked a brand new hundred from it. "Will this cover your firing fee?"

"I think so," I said as I accepted the bill.

"Good. Then I'll see you this time tomorrow."

He was gone before I could even get his name, but if he wanted to be anonymous, he was paying for the privilege. I had a few other pieces to fire, so I decided to do a bisquefiring immediately. It was against my normal policy, but then again, I wasn't in the habit of hand-building projects for my customers, either. If it paid that well all the time, I'd have to start, though. I was just about to close the kiln and turn it on when I realized that I really wanted to see what the cottage would look like with a thatched roof. No one was in my shop, so I had time to make a cottage of my own. I set to work, creating a cottage completely different from that my customer had designed, and the results pleased me. Maybe I'd have to add a building segment to one of my classes.

My stomach growled as I turned the kiln on, and I real ized that I'd nearly missed lunch. With no prospect of David's return, I had two choices: I could either raid the pal try contents of my shop pantry, or I could shut the place down and go get a decent lunch. If I hadn't just earned that hundred-dollar firing fee, I might have made do with the remnants in my shop, but that bill was pure profit as far as I was concerned, and I was determined to spend it. Normally every dime I made went into my shop books, but this once, I was going to make an exception. There was a hat I'd been admiring on my strolls past Hattie's Attic, and though I wasn't all that eager to do business with that busybody Kendra Williams, I did think it would look smart on me. I got out the sign that said, "Gone to Lunch," put it in the store window, and locked up.

As I glanced back inside to see if I'd left any lights on, I noticed just how stark the front window really was. My gen tleman customer had been right. It wasn't very inviting; it made the shop look more like a place for lease than a going concern. My stomach growled again, but I ignored it and headed back inside.

Grabbing what I could from the sales area, I filled up the window without too much concern for themes or even basic principles of display. The window was full again, that was what really mattered, and I could go eat with a somewhat clear conscience.

I'd planned on trying the hat on after I ate, but if I was going to avoid Kendra until then, I was going to have to stear clear of Hattie's Attic. It was amazing how often I ate lunch at Shelly's Café simply because it was located in the opposite direction from Kendra's shop.

"Carolyn Emerson, have you been avoiding me?" Though she was busy grilling for her big lunch crowd, Shelly En sign took the time to wave a spatula at me as I walked into the café. She was a petite woman, but anyone who had ever been on the other side of one of her tongue lashings knew her small size belied her feisty personality. I'd gone to school with Shelly, and not only had we sat beside each other in alphabetically ordered classrooms, but we also had consecutive birthdays: Shelly's birthday was May 11, mine, May 12.

"Shelly, why on earth would you ask me that?"

"You haven't been here in a week. Did I say something to offend you?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," I replied as I took a seat at the counter that stood between the grill and the other tables. The café had last been decorated sometime in the 1950s, sporting black and white scuffed tiles, red vinyl tabletops, and mismatched chairs, the motif worked for Shelly.

Ken Marcus, the town's only doctor and the man who had delivered both of us, said, "Wait a second, you two are nearly exactly the same age. Yes, I remember that May well. Shelly, you were born at 11:57 p.m., and then I had to rush over to the next room to deliver you, Carolyn. It was 12:06 a.m., if I remember correctly."

"Nothing wrong with his mind," Shelly said.

"He's as sharp as ever," I added.

"Are you two youngsters making fun of me?" Dr. Mar cus asked.

"Us? Why, we'd never do that," Shelly protested.

"No, sir, not for one second."

The good doctor stared hard at each of us in turn, threw a ten-dollar bill down beside his plate, and then headed for the door. "One of you bit me right after you came out, but I won't say which one did it."

Shelly and I pointed at each other automatically and said in near-perfect unison, "It had to be her."

The doctor shook his head and walked out without an other word.

I looked at Shelly, fighting to hold my laughter in, but the second her smile broke free, I couldn't restrain myself. I didn't care that some of the other customers in the café were looking at us a bit oddly. It felt good to laugh.

"What can I get you today?" she asked as she went back to her grill.

"I'll have my usual." I thought about facing a salad on what I'd dealt with so far that day, and changed my mind. "On second thought, give me a hamburger and some French fries."

"Do you want a chocolate shake to go with that?"

"No, I'd better not. Make it a Coke. Diet."

Shelly smiled. "Sure, because you wouldn't want any unnecessary calories, now would you?"

"What can I say? I'm watching my figure."

She let that slide, so I asked her, "Are you feeling okay?"

"Why, what have you heard?"

"You let an opening like that sneak past you, I'm ready to call the paramedics."

"We're right here if you need us," a handsome young man said from a table in the back. I hadn't spotted him com ing in, but sure enough, he and his partner were wearing EMT uniforms.

"False alarm," I said.

He nodded, and they went back to their meals. I turned back to Shelly. "I mean it, what's gotten into you?"

"Wayne thinks I'm too much of a smart aleck."

Wayne Campbell was her latest boyfriend, a man eleven years her junior. I would never dream about teasing her about that, though. Shelly had lost her first husband to can cer and the second to a car accident. I figured my friend was entitled to whatever happiness she could find. "Tell Wayne I like our relationship just fine the way it is," I said with a smile.

She nodded. "I do, too. Let me get that food for you."

I looked around the café as I waited for my order. It was jammed full with folks from town. There were restaurants where the tourists liked to go, but Shelly's was for locals. Not to say we'd throw somebody out if they weren't from Maple Ridge, but it took a brave soul to look past the run down exterior of the café and actually step inside. I saw the mayor having lunch with his secretary from the car dealer ship he owned, and I wondered who they thought they were fooling with their innocent act. They were involved in something—romantics would call it a love affair; more pragmatic types would label it a sleazy relationship on the side. Either way, I doubted they'd be able to get away with it much longer. As some folks around our parts liked to say, "There's a storm a brewing."

Shelly slid my burger and fries in front of me, well be fore I was due to get my food. I lowered my voice. "You didn't have to bump my place in line."

"You've got a business to run, and no one to help you at the moment. I don't hear any complaints, do you?" She gazed around her restaurant, and not another glance met her stare.

"You heard about David already?"

Shelly nodded. "The whole town knows about it by now. Imagine the nerve of Richard Atkins just showing up like that. He ought to be shot, and I've heard a few folks think he will be."

"David and Hannah would never do anything like that, no matter what the provocation."

Shelly shrugged. "Who's to say what folks would do, given the right circumstances? Don't forget, though, Rich ard Atkins has more enemies in Maple Ridge than his exwife and his son."

"Like who, for instance?" I asked. I was not normally a gossip. Well, I wasn't. Okay, I admit that I might have shared a tidbit or two in the past, but this was different. Well, it was.

Shelly nearly whispered as she spoke next, and I had to strain to hear her. "There are a few folks sitting right here, our dear mayor being one of them."

I looked at Harvey Jenkins, who kept his rapt gaze on his curvy secretary, Nancy Jane Billings. "What could Harvey have against Richard?"

"You didn't know? They were in some kind of business together, and when Richard disappeared, evidently he took some of Harvey's money with him."

That was interesting, and something I'd never heard about. "Who else?"

Shelly looked toward the front door. I turned to see Kendra Williams making her way to the café. "Speak of the devil and she appears. Kendra has a reason of her own to make him regret showing up here."

"Kendra? Don't tell me she and Richard had anything in common."

Before Kendra could get inside, Shelly said softly, "Some folks say Richard did the antiquing on some of her pieces and started blackmailing her when she balked at pay ing him for his silence."

"That was a long time ago," I said.

"You know what they say. Elephants don't forget."

That was a cheap shot at Kendra's weight, but I wasn't about to defend her, not after Shelly had scalded me so many times with her whiplash tongue.

"Who else?" It was fascinating to me that I'd missed so much dirt.

"Can't talk about it now," Shelly said.

There was an empty stool beside mine, and I knew Kendra would head straight for it. Could I stop her some how? Tell her it was saved for Bill, or someone else? Know ing Kendra, I was sure she'd stand there and wait, and when no one showed up, she'd start in on me. My best option would be to wolf down my food so I'd be exposed to her for a minimal amount of time.

"Is this taken?" she said loudly in my ear.

"Feel free," I said as I jammed a large bite into my mouth. "I'm just about through here."

"Don't hurry on my account," she said.

Shelly asked, "What can I get you?"

"The usual," she said. I wondered what that might be, but not enough to hang around to see for myself.

Kendra somehow managed to settle her bulk onto the counter stool and said, "It's a terrible shame about poor David, isn't it?"

"What about him?" I said through the fistful of fries I had crammed into my mouth. These weren't the skinny little fast-food fare, either. They were honest potato wedges, and I could barely mumble with them in my mouth.

"Imagine, that father of his just showing up like that after twenty years. He took off about the time the jewelry store was robbed, didn't he?"

I somehow managed to swallow, and said, "I guess so. I understand you knew Richard pretty well back then."

Kendra's eyes narrowed. "Who told you that?"

"I can't remember," I lied, trying not to look at Shelly.

"It's a bold-faced lie," Kendra snapped. "And I don't want to talk about it."

That was a switch. I didn't think there was anything on the planet Kendra wouldn't discuss. I thought about press ing her further, but if I did, it would have to wait. I ate the last bite of my burger, slipped my payment under my plate, then turned to Shelly and said, "Thanks for lunch."

She pointed to my money. "There'd better be enough for a tip in there, too."

"You know me, I always tip a solid 9 percent," I said with a grin.

Shelly collected the money as she cleared the plate. "It's nice to have something in this world I can count on."

I walked outside, grateful for the respite from the noise in the café. It hadn't sounded that loud when I was inside among them adding my own voice to the fray, but it became extremely noticeable once I was away from it. I didn't know how Shelly took it all day.