The Cracked Pot (9 page)

She bit her lip, so I added, "Besides the obvious ones like Hannah and David? I'm not even going to consider either one of them at the moment."

She didn't look all that happy when she said, "It's possi ble, though. You have to admit that."

What was Shelly getting at? "Do you know something I don't?"

"Knowing and proving are two different things, aren't they? Each one of them had motive enough, didn't they?"

I stabbed a bite of pancake and ate it before I trusted my self to speak. "I'm not going to even think about that possi bility. Let the sheriff worry about them. I want to talk to people Hodges won't. Come on, Shelly, if you know some thing, tell me."

She hesitated, then said, "As soon as I heard about the murder, I started thinking about who might have killed Richard Atkins. Besides the four people we've talked about, I know of two other folks who might have hated him enough to kill him."

I waited ten seconds, then asked, "Who are they?"

She lowered her voice. "Remember, you never heard this from me, okay?"

"I promise I won't tell anyone where I got my informa tion." What more did she want, a blood oath?

"Richard was seeing someone on the side while he was married to Hannah," she said softly. "When he took off, he left her high and dry, too."

"Who was it?"

"She has a shop near yours."

"Kendra was sleeping with him, too?" I couldn't imag ine that particular union, and I would have paid good money to get the thought excised from my mind.

"No, I'm talking about Rose Nygren."

I was nearly as surprised by that name as I would have been by Kendra's. "Timid little Rose, of Rose Colored Glasses? Are you sure?"

"She hasn't always been that soft-spoken," Shelly said. "I never caught them doing anything, but a few folks around town saw some things that made me wonder. I remember af ter Richard left, Rose was nearly inconsolable."

That would definitely bear looking into. "Who else? There wasn't another woman, was there? How did the man find the energy, let alone the time?"

"No, it was just Hannah and Rose; at least those were the only two I was aware of."

"So, who else would want him dead?"

Shelly frowned, then said, "If you repeat this, I'll deny it and call you a liar, okay? It's not something I want to talk to you about anyway."

"I already gave you my word," I said. "What more can I give you to convince you?"

She appeared to think about it a few seconds, then nod ded. "You should talk to the man Rose was seeing at the time. He never forgave her for the affair, and I doubt he'd have given up his grudge against Richard, even after all these years. Rose was the love of his life, and he never for got her, even if he couldn't get past what she'd done."

"All you need to do now is give me a name," I said.

"I will, but you're not going to like it. I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but it's your uncle Don."

"What? I'm not one of his biggest fans, but I can't imag ine Don killing anyone, can you?" Don Rutledge was my mother's youngest brother, a slim, hard-eyed man with a fiery temper and such a generally bad demeanor that he was an outcast at every family reunion. He'd gotten drunk at my wedding, dove headfirst into the cake, and somehow man aged to knock off my mother's wig in the process. I'd stopped calling him "uncle" years ago, and I avoided him whenever I could, though we lived less than twenty miles apart. Still, I'd have to talk to Don, even if it meant dragging up a past I'd just as soon forget. I loved David and Hannah more than a disenfranchised uncle. Some folks cared only about blood relations. What mattered to me was what was in someone's heart. Hannah and her son were more a part of my real family than Don would ever be.

"Is there anybody else I should talk to?" I asked.

"How about a psychiatrist? Are you really going to try to solve this murder on your own?"

"I don't have much choice, do I?"

Shelly stared hard at me. "You could always butt out and let the sheriff do his job."

"I suppose I could, but I'm not going to. Whose side are you on, anyway?"

She touched my hand lightly. "Yours, always yours. You shouldn't even have to ask."

I slid a ten under my plate and started to get up.

"Hey, that's too much," Shelly said.

"Think of it as a nice tip."

"I don't think so," she said as she made change. I took the money and jammed it into my purse.

Shelly frowned. "Do you mean I don't get any tip at all now?"

"Make up your mind," I said as I slid a single under my plate. "If you think of anything else, call me, okay?"

She cracked the single in her hands. "With tips like this, I'll be burning up the phone lines hoping for more."

I left her place and glanced at my watch. I'd tarried much too long over my meal, and if I was going to make my standing date with Hannah, I'd have to rush to get to In the Grounds.

* * *

I needn't have bothered. Hannah never showed up, though I lingered over my coffee much longer than I should have. After all, I had people I needed to see before it was time to open Fire at Will. I hated the thought of closing up shop during the workday again, but with David absent, and with out any idea of when the boy was coming back, I knew I might not have much choice. Out of my list of suspects, Don was the one I least wanted to speak to, so I put him at the head of my roll. I'd discovered long ago that the more I dreaded doing something, the quicker I needed to do it. Oth erwise it would linger over me like a black rain cloud until I took care of it.

I got into my Intrigue and headed toward Autumn Land ing. It was time to see if Don might have had something to do with Richard Atkins's murder.

I was half hoping my uncle wouldn't be home as I drove to his house. I would have rather had a sleepover with Kendra Williams than talk to Don.

He kept a nice yard and house, I had to say that for the man. The grass was manicured, the shrubs were precisely trimmed, and the paint on the house wasn't more than six months old. It was as clean and sterile as a magazine layout, and I knew the inside would be just as stark. I was idling in his driveway, trying to work up the nerve to approach the house, when his front door opened.

It was a pretty unusual welcome, since he had a shotgun in his hands.

"Hi, Don," I said through my open window.

"Carolyn, what are you doing here?"

"Trying not to get shot at the moment. Do you mind low

ering that thing? I'm looking for some information." I wasn't all that comfortable staring down those double bar rels.

"What? Sorry," he said as the gun muzzle dipped. "I thought you were somebody else."

"Care to give me a hint who you're waiting for?" I asked as I got out of my car, wondering who my uncle had ticked off recently.

"The government says I owe more on my taxes than I do. We've been having a little disagreement about it."

"So you greet federal agents with a shotgun?"

He grinned. "It's not like it's loaded." He pulled the trig ger, and I heard a thunderous boom as the turf at his feet ex ploded with the impact of the pellets.

"I thought I took those shells out," he said calmly as he breached the gun and pulled out two shells, one spent and one fresh. "Sorry about that."

"No problem," I said, my knees feeling a little weak. I expected the neighbors to come pouring out of their homes to see what had happened, but not a door opened, though I saw a few curtains fluttering without the aid of a breeze.

"Blast it all," he said, staring at the ground where the buckshot had gone into the dirt. "I hate that that happened."

"No one was hurt, but you should be more careful," I said.

"You're telling me. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get this turf just right? I'm going to have to start all over on this patch. It's ruined."

So much for my uncle's familial concern.

"I'll leave you to it, then," I said as I started to get back into my car.

"You never said why you came by," he said.

"Forget it." The last thing I wanted to do was get on this lunatic's bad side. If anything, he'd gotten worse over the years.

"That's the problem," he said. "I can't just let it go."

I didn't want him stalking me. "I came to talk to you about Richard Atkins."

He frowned, then said, "There's a name I'd just about forgotten." He twisted the ring on his right pinky, a bright green stone of adventurine mounted on gold. The twisting appeared to be a nervous habit, and I wondered what he had to be concerned about. "What happened, did he finally get himself killed?"

"Now why do you ask that?"

"It was bound to happen sooner or later, the way the man acted. Don't tell me it happened in Maple Ridge?"

"In back of my house, actually. I understand you weren't his biggest fan."

My uncle grinned, but there was not an ounce of warmth in it. "He took something of mine, something I didn't want to let go."

"So it's true? You actually went out with Rose Nygren once upon a time?"

Don looked shocked by the suggestion. "Now where on God's green earth did you hear that?"

"A friend told me," I admitted.

"Well, your friend lied to you. My relationship with Rose was a little different than that. She was a good friend of mine, and Richard ruined her."

"It's obvious you didn't care for the man, but did you hate him enough to kill him?" I asked softly.

He raised the shotgun in the air again, and although I knew it was unloaded, I still felt uneasy having it pointed straight at me. "You didn't chuck that pottery store of yours and join the police force, did you?"

"No, I still run my shop." I certainly wasn't going to say "Fire at Will" while he was holding a gun on me.

"Then why are you snooping around?"

I wondered what our front-yard conversation must look like to Don's neighbors, but I doubted any of them would try to rescue me. "Hannah Atkins is my best friend, and her son, David, works for me. I'm not going to let the sheriff's suspicions settle on either one of them."

"So you'd rather pin it on family than have it pinned on your friends, is that it?" I swear, I could see his finger tighten on the trigger. The gun
was
unloaded, wasn't it? I was growing less sure with every passing second.

"I just want to find out the truth," I said, attempting to keep my voice from quivering.

"The truth's a slippery thing, Carolyn," he said.

I was still trying to figure out how to reply to that when he said, "Leave Rose out of this. Do you understand me?"

"Are you actually threatening me, Don?"

"It's Uncle Don, if you don't mind. And no, I'm not threatening my sister's kid." He stared long and hard at me, then added, "But I am warning her. There are a dozen other folks around town who wanted to see that man dead. Go try looking at them."

"Anybody in particular you have in mind?"

"Start at the mayor's office and work your way down."

It was clear I wasn't going to get anything else out of him. I started to get back into my car for the second time, and managed to shut the door before he spoke. "Where are you going?"

"I've got a business to run," I said. "Remember?"

"Just as long as it's not mine." He held the shotgun firm in his grip. "Heed my words, Carolyn."

I managed to muster a weak grin in reply before backing out of the driveway.

As I drove away, I felt an itching in the back of my neck where the pellets would hit if my uncled fired, and it didn't go away entirely until I was out of sight of his house. Would Don Rutledge have actually shot me? On purpose, I mean. I hadn't been worried until Rose Nygren's name had come up. At that moment, I honestly believed that my uncle was capable of just about anything.

But I wasn't going to let that deter me. In fact, I was go ing to visit Rose before it was time to open Fire at Will. Maybe I could get the truth out of her. At the very least, I doubted she'd take a shot at me.

Rose was playing with her front window display when I walked up to Rose Colored Glasses. I'd always enjoyed a clever name, and Rose's was perfect, even without knowing the proprietress's name. I could see through the glass that Rose's red hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I tapped on the display window and she jerked up, so startled that she dropped a lovely red stained glass hot-air balloon. It shat tered on the brick floor, and I felt sick at the sight of the bro ken pieces.

I walked inside and said, "Rose, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine, Carolyn. It happens more than you'd imagine." As always, her lilting voice was almost a whisper.

"Have you ever thought about carpeting the place?" I said. The bricks had to be torture on stained glass.

"Carpet is so sterile," she said. "I love the textures of the bricks, and if it means I lose a piece now and then, so be it."

"I'll be happy to pay for it," I said, reaching for my purse.

"Nonsense. It was an accident. You weren't even the one who dropped it."

"No, but I caused it as surely as if I'd knocked it out of your hands. How much is it? I insist."

"They're thirty-nine dollars," Rose said almost apologet ically. Thirty-nine bucks for that? I was in the wrong busi ness. I counted out four tens from my wallet and handed them to her.

She wouldn't take the money. Instead, she said, "At least let me sell it to you at cost."

"No," I said, despite being tempted. "I robbed you of a sale, so I won't hear of it."

She accepted the money, folding it up and putting it into her apron, rather than the register, and I wondered if my money would ever see her till. I thought about the single I had coming back to me in change, but decided not to make an issue of it.

"Since I'm here, I'd like to talk to you," I said. At least my forty dollars might grant me an interview.

She glanced at her watch. "I've got few minutes. What's it about?"

She started to rearrange the window display now that one of her hot-air balloons was gone, but I couldn't afford to pay any more breakage fees. "May we sit for a mo ment?"