Dyeing Wishes (34 page)

Sylvia wasn’t exactly fine, but she didn’t appear much worse for her confinement in what turned out to be a windowless storage room. Deputy Darla brought her up from the basement. For some reason she wasn’t happy to see us, which I thought was a little harsh considering we were instrumental in her release.

“How on earth did you end up down there?” Mercy asked.

“Tricked.” Sylvia said. Her voice was slightly husky and her beautiful silver hair hadn’t been washed or brushed for several days, but her eyes still had snap to them. “And my own stupidity. I dug up a lead for the story Pen and I were working on. I followed it up myself, though, because Pen left me high and dry without a word. I heard about a cabin and drove out there. She was there.” She nodded at Bonny sitting quietly next to Clod. “And the missing security guard, Eric Lyle. They were talking, arguing. I was stupid. He grabbed me, grabbed my scarf, started choking me.” She put her fingers to her throat and I saw the bruises. “Then I was retching and coughing and he was gone. When I could breathe, I told her why I was there. She told me to follow her back to her place, that she had a B and B, that she’d feel better if she could give me a free night there and keep an eye on me. I thought she meant so she could make sure I’d recovered. She was showing me over the house and saying she’d give me something more for the story. I was so stupid. I followed her to that room in the basement and she locked me in. When I first came to Blue Plum, met you at the Weaver’s Cat”—she nodded to me—“I thought I could see myself living here. Now I think I hate the place.”

Leave it to a Spivey to ask what all of us were wondering. “For God’s sake, Bonny,” Shirley called over to
her, “what were you thinking, locking this poor woman in the basement?”

“I didn’t know what else to do with her.”

Deputy Darla offered to accompany Sylvia to the emergency room. Sylvia held her hands up, warding off any further contact with us. “Home. My own bed. My own doctor tomorrow. My car keys?”

“Seat of the car,” Bonny said.

Deputy Darla shrugged and took our names and contact information. Ardis and Ernestine each gave Bonny a hug. Bonny didn’t seem to care, but the ugly, obstinate look was gone from her face.

“Can’t we stay with her?” Ardis asked Clod.

No, he said. We couldn’t. When we left, Bonny was nodding to whatever Clod was quietly telling her.

We said our good nights on the porch, Mel yawning, John taking Ernestine’s arm in the dark. Ardis whispered, “Debriefing, tomorrow,” in my ear, then made a face and rolled her eyes toward the Spiveys. The Spiveys waited while I dithered after the others were gone. I wanted to sprint down the sidewalk, leaving them in the dust, but I was looking for Geneva. I didn’t see her.

“We’ll walk you home,” Mercy said. “See that you get there safely, what with all the crime these days.”

“Or we could just follow you at distance,” said Shirley. “It’s what we did when you came up here tonight. We’re getting good at tailing.”

“Thanks,” I told them. “But I’m going to the Cat, not home. Things to do.” Ghosts to deliver, if she was there somewhere and would come with me. “Oh, but hey. Can I ask, is Angie your confidential source?”

“If we told you who the source is, the source would no longer be confidential,” Mercy said.

“True.” I nodded, pretended to start down the stairs,
then turned and asked, “But did you remember to ask Angie if she knew Eric or any of his buddies?”

“She said she didn’t.” Shirley’s answer ended on a yip when Mercy’s elbow found her ribs.

“How did you know?” Mercy asked.

“You referred to your source as ‘her,’ and Bonny told me that Shannon thought the world of Angie. It was kind of a guess, but Shannon confided in someone, who then confided in you.” What I didn’t add was,
And how many people in this world would do that?

I said good night then, and trotted down Bonny’s front steps and on down the sidewalk. I didn’t know what else to do. Maybe Geneva knew her way. Maybe she was already back at the Cat. But maybe she was making good on her words
then I won’t bother you anymore
. With that thought, I ran the rest of the way.

T
he posse-plus-one met for an early breakfast the next morning at Mel’s before she was open to the public. Ardis complained about the hour, but she was the one who’d set it up and called all of us. Mel, today in a ketchup red apron, ducked in and out of the kitchen, keeping an ear on us and an eye on the biscuits and her new apprentice baker. If things worked out, she said, she looked forward to sleeping in every once in a while—maybe even until the decadent hour of seven.

We sat in the back half of the café, behind the folding screen Mel used to break up the space in the long, narrow room. She wanted us out of the public eye so other early birds or Spiveys didn’t get ideas. We ate family-style, from bowls and platters she brought from the kitchen. The eggs, grits, sausage, potatoes, toast, and coffee were excellent. The family, with Ardis playing mother and John Berry playing father at the ends of the table, was beginning to feel just like that to me—a family.

“I didn’t have to come, you know,” Clod said, helping himself to seconds of Mel’s roasted rosemary garlic potatoes.

“We know that,” Ardis said. “Pass the sausage, will you? But please, help yourself first.”

Thea, Debbie, and Clod sat on one side of the table. Ernestine and I sat on the other. The empty seat next to
me was for Joe. Ardis said he’d thought he might have other plans.

“At six?” Thea asked.

“A man has to fish when a man has to fish,” John said.

Clod snorted and helped himself to more eggs. “I’m not obliged to tell you anything, either.”

“Of course not, hon,” Ardis said. “But we would have heard the rest of it last night if you hadn’t made us leave. Plus I’m buying your breakfast and the
Bugle
comes out day after tomorrow, so you might as well.”

“We know most of it, anyway, and we beat you to quite a bit of it,” Thea said.

“And we’ll be happy to fill in anything you haven’t figured out.” Ernestine beamed an angelic smile at him.

“And let you know where you’re wrong.” Mel’s smile was different.

“John, Ms. Rutledge, Ms. Keith,” Clod asked, “any digs? Any quips?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t said much and didn’t plan to. Part of my “family” was missing. I’d stopped by the shop before going to Mel’s. The cat met me at the door. Geneva was nowhere to be seen or heard. I couldn’t help remembering her asking me not to remind her of the other dead souls in that other field, wherever or whenever it was. She’d remembered them anyway, remembered their names, the horror. What if it had been too much for her?

Debbie was talking, staring at the food on her plate. “They were always opposites, always. It didn’t matter what it was about. He listened to rock and she loved country. She liked anchovies on a pizza; he wanted veggies. But no olives. She liked olives. So they’d go half and half. Always meeting halfway. It worked for them, even when she got the job at Victory. Somehow they always made it work.”

“Cloud Hollow,” Clod said.

She nodded. “Halfway between Blue Plum and Victory Paper. I talked to him a few days before…” She took a deep breath, stared at her plate. “He knew she was pregnant. He said things had changed. I thought he meant he’d gotten tired of running. It made sense to me.”

“I honestly had no idea Will thought I could do anything for him,” John said. He looked sadder and a little less shipshape that morning. “I hate to think I precipitated this tragedy.”

“You didn’t.” Clod banged his mug on the table, sloshing coffee.

“Do you think life is easier if you see it so clearly in black and white?” Debbie asked, sounding as though she really wanted to know.

“Piece of cake,” Clod said.

Ardis blotted the spilled coffee with a handful of paper napkins. She smiled and handed the damp wad to Clod. “Mopping up, Coleridge. It’s why we’re here. What did Bonny tell you last night?”

He looked around the table and then toward the back door, as though gauging whether he could make an escape before we could tackle him. The odds must have appeared too great. He sighed and dropped the napkins on his plate.

“Bonny said Eric showed up at her house that Monday night—the day of the deaths. She said he told her it was his gun, that he gave it to Shannon for protection. He told her they were engaged and having a baby. He said he’d be blamed for Shannon’s death because of the gun. Ms. Goforth believed him, put his car in her garage, drove him out to the cabin. She told him not to worry, that she had someone who would uncover the truth.” He looked at me. I stared back.

“He played on her good nature,” John said.

“And her grief,” said Ernestine.

Clod nodded. “And Shannon’s assistant, the Proffitt woman, gave credence to that whole fairy tale by misinterpreting phone calls she overheard. Another case of muddying facts by meddling.”

He was probably looking at me again with that dig, but I studied my nails until he continued.

“Bonny says his story changed after he broke open the liquor cabinet and got to feeling ‘confessional,’” Clod said. “She said in Lyle’s new story he was obsessed with Shannon but she rejected him. Shannon told him she was meeting Embree but didn’t tell him where. He tried to talk her out of going. She left early so he couldn’t follow. That’s why she was in the field hours before Embree. But Lyle did see her leave because he’d gone by her place at the end of his shift and waited. When he showed up in the field, they argued, and the kind of stupid thing happened that does when stupid people carry guns. Bonny says he claimed it was an accident. He panicked. Dropped the gun. Thought about going back for it because his prints would be all over it. But then he realized Embree would find it and figured Embree, the known killer, would get the blame. It worked out better than he hoped because Embree, in his romantic despair, shot himself. Both Lyle’s and Embree’s prints were on the gun. Shannon’s were not.”

“So Eric hadn’t really given her the gun,” Debbie said.

“Unlikely,” said Clod.

“And when Bonny heard this version of his story, she told him to turn himself in,” Ardis said. “And that’s the day Sylvia Furches showed up out there. Bless her heart and bless Bonny’s, too.”

“Before or after the potluck?” Debbie asked.

“Before,” Clod said. “Bonny came to that potluck
with a lot on her mind and a strong desire to believe Lyle’s original story.”

“Is that why she didn’t turn him in?”

“She said she was working up to it.” He scraped his chair back and stood. “Thank you for the fine breakfast, Ms. Buchanan, Mel. Ms. O’Dell, Mr. Berry, Ms. Keith, I hope you’re able to put all this behind you. Ms. Rutledge, as always, it is a pleasure to leave you.” He put on his hat, touched the brim, stifled a belch, and left. Stupid Clod.

The cat turned and meowed hello when I dragged up to the study after that awful breakfast. He blinked and sneezed and turned back to the wall. He sat with his nose inches from it, his ears cocked forward, listening.

“Mice,” I said. “Great.”

I hadn’t been able to eat the wonderful food Mel fixed for us, thanks in part to that large rodent, Deputy Clod Rat Dunbar. And now I had mice. Perfect. I dropped my purse on the floor, dumped myself in the desk chair, and sank my head in my hands.

“Mrrph,” said the cat.

I peeked through my fingers, afraid I might see him pounce, and instead saw Geneva float through the wall. The cat stretched and followed her to the window seat.

“I don’t allow mice in my room.” She sniffed. “You’re rude to say I do.”

“I worried about you last night,” I said. I didn’t ask her about Sam and Mattie. I might never ask her about them, or I might work up my nerve, or…“How did you get home? Did you come with me when I walked here?”

“You ran. And you might let mice swagger around out here, but my room is too genteel.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you, too…What do you mean when you say ‘your room’?” I looked at the wall she’d floated through. Her room? Her room. How incredibly
dense I was. She could move through walls. She could move through floors. “Where do you go when you float in and out of the wall like that?”

“To my room,” she said. “Haven’t I told you? It’s the most darling space. You wouldn’t like it because it hasn’t got mice and you’d probably think it’s a cupboard and not a room, but it’s just my size, when I curl up, and it’s warm and dry. And it’s mine.”

“When you say cupboard, do you mean it was built to be a cupboard?”

“That’s usually the way with cupboards. And this one is mine.”

“Does it have a door?”

“Yes. And a secret latch and hidden hinges. And it’s quite cunning and beautifully made,” she said, sounding livelier as she got caught up in describing her “room.” “It’s painted deep blue and there are words painted along the edge of the shelf that divides it in two. They’re lovely words.”

“What do they say, Geneva?” I closed my eyes, picturing those words, and I whispered them along with her, knowing what they would be. What Granddaddy always called Granny:
“My dearest, darling Ivy.”