“Wait for Joe,” Mel said.
“If we always waited for Joe, we might as well be waiting for…”
“Godot?” It was Joe’s voice behind me. “He probably isn’t such a bad guy, Ardis.”
“Good. Now, sit down,” Ardis said. “I’m laying out a plan.”
“Hmm. Well, first I have a message for Kath from some woman who saw us talking in the chow line. She seemed kind of grumpy. She wanted to know where you’re sitting.”
I resisted the urge to straighten up and look around for a grumpy woman. Instead, I groaned.
“I didn’t tell her anything,” he said. “But she said that if I saw you again I should tell you she’s looking for you.”
I resisted the urge to groan again. Instead, staying in my semicrouch, I squeezed back to my seat. He squeezed in along the other side of the table.
“Who was she?” Mel asked over her shoulder as he passed behind her.
He shrugged. “No idea. She didn’t say please, though, so I didn’t feel obliged to ask her name.” An interesting set of scruples Joe Dunbar the sometime burglar had.
“What did she look like?” I asked.
“Here’s your tea.” He handed me a sweaty glass. “Late twenties, brown hair.” He put his own glass of tea down and indicated the length of hair with a hand at his chin. “Didn’t strike me as the outdoorsy type. Especially the hair.”
It sounded like Carolyn Proffitt. That didn’t bode well.
Joe sat down and fussily arranged his tea glass, utensils, dinner plate, and a dessert plate he’d also come back
with. When he finished, our place settings, except for the raw veggies on my plate and the deviled egg on his, were mirror images, right down to the slice of dark, dark, delicious-looking chocolate torte.
“I thought you weren’t a dessert guy.”
“This is primary research,” he said.
“Pfft.”
“If I’d asked, would you have given me a bite of yours?”
“No.”
He shrugged.
“Psst,”
came from Ardis at the head of the table. “Let me finish so we can put this in motion. Joe, Kath had a brilliant idea. We’re calling it the Triple Blind.”
“I thought it was the Double Blind,” I whispered back.
“I’ve added something else. It’ll produce better results and faster.”
Why was this beginning to sound ill-advised?
“It’ll be more exciting, too,” she said.
That could be why. Still, none of the others looked apprehensive at the idea of adding excitement to the evening, so maybe I was listening too closely to the paranoid-in-pink side of myself.
“We’ll think of it in terms of dyeing,” Ardis said.
I had a nanosecond of homophone trouble again but shook if off.
“Say we have two skeins of wool, both a subtle, hush-hush gray. One skein represents tonight, when we gather information. The other represents tomorrow, when we analyze it. But—this is the clever part—we overdye the hush-hush gray skeins with more intense colors. We disguise our purpose. Tonight we’re convivial community members, chatting and laughing; tomorrow we’re artisans being inspired and creative. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes, and your food is getting cold,” said Mel. “Mine is almost gone because I’ve been eating. Nutshell the rest or you won’t get seconds and I know you want some of the pie Thea and Ernestine carried in for me.”
I was glad I hadn’t kicked Thea’s chair.
“Right, then. Here’s the new twist,” Ardis said. “Just like you can’t count on always getting the exact color you want when you use natural dyes, we can’t count on hearing the information we want this evening if we just depend on the natural flow of conversations. I, for one, don’t want to hear about Evangeline Lavender’s hammertoe. So we don’t depend on the natural flow. We do something better. We start the conversations we want to hear. We talk and laugh and reminisce—about the river and Will and Shannon. We are old friends remembering better times. Other people will overhear
us
and they’ll start remembering and talking and the talk will flow to the next table and the next and, with any luck, information will be ripe for the overhearing. We will be the mordant in the dye bath, ensuring better results.” She had trouble keeping her voice down with that last rallying statement.
“Ardis?”
“Yes, Kath?”
“If we’re all sitting here, talking amongst ourselves, what conversations will we be overhearing?”
“And that, friends, is why Kath is our able leader,” Ardis said. “Here’s the important part I left out. When people start going for seconds, we spread out. We sit at other tables, with other people, looking entirely innocent and keeping our eyes and ears open.”
“This is all your idea?” Joe whispered across to me.
“Apparently.”
“And then…” Ardis went on.
“I thought you were finished,” Joe whispered again.
“Apparently not.”
“…we meet at the Cat tomorrow at ten…”
“Nine would be better,” Debbie said. “It’ll give us more time.”
Sunday was Ardis’ morning for sleeping in. A look of pain came and went from her face. “We meet at the Cat at nine, reports in hand. Any questions?”
“You’re including me in this?” John asked.
“Yes. Ivy trusted you.”
“Thank you. Although I’m not entirely sure what we should be listening for when we spread out among the tables.”
“Kath will bring you up to speed,” Ardis said.
John nodded and looked at me. Joe was looking at me, too.
“Why don’t we get the talk and reminiscence going first,” I said.
“Absolutely right.” Ardis turned to Thea and turned up her volume. “Do you remember the time that Will…”
John took his cue and told Ernestine about running into Shannon at the post office not two weeks earlier and how pleased he was when she remembered him. Debbie and Mel turned so the people at the next table could hear them laughing over some shared memory. Joe continued looking at me. I’d finished my dinner while Ardis talked. Now I took a bite of the chocolate torte. It was superb.
“Why do you call this plan the Triple Blind?” Joe asked.
“You’ll have to ask Ardis. She knows more about the wily machinations of my brain than I do. You could call that stuff you brought in the yellow bowl the Triple Blind, though. It’s just about as mysterious. What’s in it?”
“Did you like it?”
“Maybe not as much as this cake, but yeah. It was great with the humus and the flatbread.”
“It’s in a different category than the cake,” he said, sounding put out by my comparison.
“Right. You’re right, and it was really good. In fact, if you’re willing to share, I’d like the recipe, whatever it’s called.”
“Basically, mashed squash,” he said. “Or maybe squashed squash. Anyway, it’s zucchini and a lot of garlic, some mint, lemon. Simple.” He relaxed and started eating his own piece of the torte, looking it over bite by bite, no doubt storing his assessment in a mental file labeled Potluck-slash-Dessert-slash-Chocolate.
He and I weren’t contributing to Ardis’ mordant, though, so I cast around for something I could say that might spark interest in surrounding ears. The trouble was I hadn’t known Will or Shannon and hadn’t ever spent much time on the river. So no memories to dredge up. What to do, what to…ah. I could ask questions.
“So, Joe, did you ever find out who Otterbank is?”
Joe choked on the last bite of his torte.
J
ohn Berry gave Joe a few pounds on the back. That did the trick for Joe, but it was the beginning of the downward slide of the evening. While we’d been laying our plans and starting them in motion, someone else had arrived at the potluck, causing a stir and the kind of rolling wave Ardis had pictured our happy chat and reminiscences creating. No one had expected Bonny, so recently and tragically bereaved, to appear at this, the social and entertainment highlight of the year. Surprise and excitement didn’t begin to cover it.
She looked amazingly normal—makeup, hair, stylish pantsuit. The makeup didn’t hide her red eyes, though. She reached our table just as John finished pounding Joe, as Joe was avoiding my eye, and just as one of those spontaneous, communal silences occurred—into which Debbie tripped.
“Yeah, I could’ve fallen for Will,” Debbie’s sweet, clear voice said for the whole room to hear, “but he was so in love with Shannon.”
Mel saw Bonny before Debbie did. Mel is a good friend. She tried to get up and out of her chair and around Debbie’s chair fast enough to deflect Bonny. But the woman sitting behind Debbie scooted her chair back at the wrong moment, blocking Mel. The communal silence continued, only now it was also an uncomfortable
silence. And whereas Debbie had tripped into it, Bonny barged headlong.
“Don’t you dare talk about my daughter in the same breath as that murdering son of a—”
“My dear—” John started to get up.
“And don’t you start, John Berry.” Bonny rounded on him. “You and your brother didn’t have any more use for Will Embree than I did, and don’t pretend you ever did. This one, though”—she jabbed a finger at Debbie—“is spreading despicable lies. My girl was a good girl and she was going to marry a good man.”
She faltered then, seeming to realize, suddenly, that she didn’t have just an audience; she had the
whole
audience. She looked unsure, vulnerable, and I hoped she would stop or just slip away. Debbie had made herself small and sat staring at the table, biting her lip. Someone near the doors coughed. One chair scraped back—Ardis. She watched Bonny closely but didn’t move to interfere.
Then Bonny sucked in a breath. She’d made up her mind and she set her jaw and she plowed forward.
“Shannon was engaged to Eric,” she said, her voice choked. “Did you know that? Did any of you know that?”
There was a murmur down the table to my right and movement, and Evangeline appeared. Ernestine uttered a small “Oh my” and I wondered whether she was worried or hoping that Evangeline carried a pitcher of iced tea. Evangeline went to the microphone, though. It was a good move on her part. If she could draw the audience’s attention, maybe someone—Ardis—could ease Bonny away.
There was a screech of feedback; then Evangeline’s voice came through loud and clear. “Bonny, our thoughts and prayers are with you at this sad time, but this is neither the time nor the place for confrontations. Please sit down and wait for the business meeting to begin.”
A smaller “Oh my” came from Ernestine. She put her fingertips to the bridge of her nose and shook her head.
“He’s a good man,” Bonny said loudly, regaining the audience. “She was engaged to a good man and my baby was going to have a baby.”
“That good man shot her with his gun,” Debbie said, finally reacting and looking up into Bonny’s face. Her voice was steady but raw with pain. “Bonny, Eric killed her. Will couldn’t have.”
“Why, because you can give him an alibi? Because he was in bed with you?”
“No, Bonny.”
“Then you’re lying because you
can’t
know he didn’t kill her!” Bonny howled. “Will Embree was a bastard and a coward and he killed my baby!”
“Bonny,” Evangeline said into the microphone, “please sit down.” Several people shushed Evangeline, but Bonny had the final word.
“Shut up, you stupid cow!” she bellowed.
At that, Ardis rose and folded Bonny in her honeysuckle arms, and Bonny let herself be led away. Thea went ahead of them and opened a side door so they didn’t have to go past the entire roomful of people.
“I’ve got a line for a song if anyone wants to write it,” Mel said. “There were potshots at the old potluck tonight.” She sighed and looked at Debbie. “Are you going to be all right?”
Debbie brushed the question aside. A minute later she got up and walked quickly, head down, to the main doors. Mel gave her a short lead, then indicated to us that she’d go after her, and she left, too.
“Poor thing,” Ernestine said when I asked why she thought Bonny had come. “I imagine she’s still on autopilot and not really thinking. She came because that’s what she knows to do. She’s the treasurer of the trust.
She takes her responsibilities seriously and she probably had it in mind that she would come to the meeting and give her report.”
“Wow. Really?”
“That’s how some people get through stressful times,” Ernestine said. “Marching to their internal orders. I’m more of a wailer and neck hugger, but it takes all kinds.”
Evangeline tried one more time to gain the audience’s attention, but no one was listening. When I glanced toward the microphone, the Spivey twins were there patting Evangeline on the back and shaking their heads. People around us were talking and getting up. Some of them went to browse what was left of the potluck; others drifted toward the doors. Ernestine, John, Joe, and I just sat.
“You historical types sure know how to throw a party,” a voice I didn’t appreciate hearing said. Clod Dunbar dumped himself into the vacated chair to my right. “Evening, Ms. O’Dell.” He nodded to Ernestine. “John. Ms. Rutledge.” He was in jeans and a gray flannel shirt instead of his uniform, and I wondered if he’d been at the meeting all along, but then he said something that told me he hadn’t. It was also something I really didn’t appreciate hearing. “I’ve been looking for you.”
I almost snapped something in return that
he
wouldn’t appreciate. Then I realized he wasn’t talking to me.
“You don’t answer your phone, Joe. You don’t call back when I leave a message. I’m beginning to think you don’t love me anymore.”
Joe half smiled, and they both made small noises that came close to being quiet laughs. They didn’t come close enough to convince me that either of them thought it was a joke, but Joe’s lanky frame didn’t tense and Clod stretched his long legs out under the table. They went in for the understated in their brotherly interactions, these two.
“I can use your help,” Clod said.
Joe raised his eyebrows.
Clod covered a yawn, then picked up Joe’s tea glass and rolled it in his hands. “Been a long day. Long and frustrating.” He put the glass down and looked at Joe. “Looking for things I couldn’t find.”
“What kind of help?” Joe asked.
Clod glanced at John, Ernestine, and me, then back at Joe. “Looking for Eric Lyle.”