Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery (33 page)

“Don’t shout at me!” Geneva said, trying in vain to stamp her foot. “You frightened the tar out of me!”

“Hon?” Ardis asked. More questions than “Hon?” lurked behind her worried eyes. Behind all their eyes. It was a
tableau vivant
of concerned friends.

Except for Geneva, who continued to flounce and huff. “How rude! Why, if you were Opie Taylor, I’d take you over my knee.”

I took refuge in squeezing my eyes shut and offering a blanket apology and mostly accurate excuse. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s the lack of sleep. I’m just going a little crazy with all of this.”

“Well,” Geneva said. “Hmph.”

Ardis touched my cheek. “Honey, you go on home. Take a nap. One of us will bring the cartoon by later.”

The others murmured agreement and made kind, shooing motions. Interestingly, Geneva picked up on their concern and she started crooning a lullaby. It was a little eerie. Still, her soft alto was an improvement over her shrill scolding. She followed me back down the stairs, but before we were out of earshot I heard Ardis say, not as quietly as she thought, “More like Ivy every day. Uncanny, isn’t it?”

On the way home Geneva continued to croon her lullaby about murk gathering and shadows creeping. It suited my mood so I didn’t ask her to stop.

Back in the cottage, I went to the parlor and sat on the sofa.

“Come sit down,” I said, patting the place next to me. She floated over and tucked herself in at the opposite end. I scooched around and tucked my feet up, too, so we were facing each other like a couple of gal pals. I wanted this to be as friendly as possible so that I wouldn’t alarm her again.

“What about your nap?” she asked.

“I don’t really need a nap. I’m sorry I shouted. I wasn’t angry. I just had a eureka moment, is all, and got overexcited. Tell me about Emmett’s hiding places.”

“What’s so important about them? The man who packed Em’s belongings and took them away found most of the places.”

“Oh.” I tried not to sound too disappointed. “Did you ever see what Em hid in them?”

“Mostly money. In books. Behind pictures. Under the mattress. Darling Em was a traditionalist that way.”

“Do you know who the man was who found the money?”

“No. He favored Em, with ginger hair, but he did not introduce himself to me.”

Max, probably. I wondered how much he found squirreled away. By then I was almost certain he knew where the money had come from.

“Wait, you said he only found most of the hiding places?”

“He missed my favorite one, but all Em put in it was boring papers. No money.” She unfurled herself and floated over to the newel post at the bottom of the staircase. “It’s hollow. The cap comes off.”

It didn’t come off easily. A push-button, spring-loaded, release latch would have been convenient. Or a crowbar. I couldn’t get a good grip on it and gave up tugging. Thought of options. Ruth would have tools somewhere at the site. Ardis had tools at the Cat. Snake Man Carlin had tools in his truck. Joe was coming by later and he undoubtedly had a full array of sneaky tools. Ah, but so did I.

I smiled at my homeowner’s combination fireplace weapon and tool rack. I patted my friend the poker, and picked up its soul mate, the shovel. The shovel’s edge fit perfectly into the slim space between the post and the cap and with a little levering action did the trick.

Down inside the long, hollow space was a cloth-wrapped bundle.

Then I made a difficult decision. I didn’t pull the bundle out. I called the posse and invited them for supper.

Thea brought Ernestine, I was glad to see. Ardis, Debbie, and Mel arrived separately. Joe hadn’t said when he’d be over. When I called the others, I called him, too, but had to leave a message. It was cryptic, but considering what
might be in the bundle, that seemed safest. He still hadn’t showed by the time we finished eating.

Geneva and I had anticipated their gaggle of questions.

“How could you stand to wait?”

“How did you ever think to look in there?”

“How did you get the top off?”

“How do you know Emmett put it in?”

“How about a tad bit more chili?”

Our prearranged answers satisfied them: I waited because I wanted a photographic record and witnesses for removing and opening the bundle. To make the waiting easier, I made a pot of chili, putting my squeamishness to the test by running to the Quickie Mart for the fixings. I looked in the newel because I’d heard stories about people finding house plans in them and seeing this one prompted my favorite question—what if? I demonstrated my pry-shovel for them, earning delighted “oh mys” from Debbie and Ernestine. I couldn’t be sure the bundle was Emmett’s, but I could bet. Ardis and Mel had seconds on the chili.

While Ardis stood ready with my camera, I reached my hand into the hollow post. Felt cloth. Flashed back to cloth bags and snakes and yanked my hand back out so fast…

“Big baby,” Geneva said. “Hush. There aren’t any snakes.”

“Did I scream?”

“We all did,” Mel said. “Need a steadier hand?”

“No, I’m okay.” I reached in and pulled out a pillowcase containing, and folded around, something the size and heft of several copies of the
Blue Plum Bugle
. Nothing inside wriggled. I held the bundle out, sitting on my palms, to give perspective. The camera made its soft click and whir. The women were silent. I
looked at Geneva floating back and forth behind Mel and Thea.

“Storm coming,” she said. “Thunder in the distance.”

They cleared the kitchen table. I put the bundle in the center. We all stared at it.

“So, here we are,” Mel said. “Six weird sisters.”

Seven, if she counted the really weird sister who couldn’t seem to settle and kept floating back and forth between the table and the window.

“And it’s starting to rain,” said Thea. “So open it and let’s get this over with before the night turns nasty.”

I unrolled the pillowcase and drew out a curled stack of a dozen or so manila envelopes on top of a flexible black plastic binder. I flattened the stack on the table and we saw a name printed in neat half-inch letters in the middle of the top envelope.
Joe Dunbar
.

“Oh, now,” Debbie said and stopped, her hand to her mouth.

“Do they all have names?” Ardis asked.

“If they do, I’m not sure all of us need to know them,” Debbie said.

“Second thoughts are okay,” I said. “Debbie, would you rather leave? I meant what I said this afternoon. No hard feelings. I dragged you into this without warning and without knowing where we’d end up.”

“No, I’ll stay. I’m just saying, if these are all blackmail victims, there might be more names we recognize. And we don’t need to know, the next time we see one of them, that she had some private sorrow or shame that Emmett Cobb found out and was mean enough to hold over her head. Or his.”

Ardis took over. “All right, here’s what we’ll do. Everyone sit. Kath, you look at the names on the envelopes. If Ivy’s name is on one, you open it. That’ll settle
the blackmail question right there. We’ll decide the next step after that. Simple.”

“Simple.” I sat down at the head of the table and pulled the stack toward me. “But I’m going to take pictures of each envelope. I want a complete record. I’ll destroy the record when I know this is settled.” I propped the envelopes on my knees, leaning the stack of them against the table like an easel. I took two pictures of the envelope with Joe’s name, briefly wondered where he was, then flipped that one toward me. I was glad not to recognize the next name.

Geneva came and hovered over my shoulder. “Em loved these envelopes,” she said. “Sometimes he’d sit and smile and stroke them the way I would stroke a kitten if I had one and if it didn’t scream like a banshee.”

It was hard to ignore the ick factor of the first part of that remark. I continued flipping through the envelopes and taking two pictures of each. Most of the names meant nothing to me. Flip, click, click. Flip, click, click. The seventh name was a Baptist preacher from out in the county. The name after that was a photographer for the
Bugle
. Then nothing, nothing, nothing, and then
Ivy McClellan
.

“What?” Mel asked.

“I thought I was prepared for it.” I pressed my lips together, didn’t lift my eyes from that envelope.

“Kath, honey, take your time,” Ardis said. “Open it and read it and don’t think you have to tell anyone else what’s in it. But if it is blackmail, we need to call Homer and tell him to come out here. Tonight. So we can prove to him this is real.”

“Ardis is right,” Ernestine said, and the others agreed.

I nodded, made myself take two pictures of Granny’s envelope. Then I tucked it under my arm, not wanting to
let it go, while I quickly photographed and flipped the rest. Until I got to the last envelope.

“Or maybe he already knows it’s real.” I put the last envelope faceup on the table, Homer’s name in the center. “Now what?”

Chapter 36

“F
ollow the plan. Open Ivy’s envelope,” Ardis said. “If it isn’t blackmail, if it isn’t any of our business, we burn the lot and go home.”

“And if it is blackmail, do I call Homer and ask him why he told me it couldn’t be blackmail? Why he told me not to mention blackmail to Cole Dunbar? Why I shouldn’t even breathe the word?”

“He obviously has something to lose, too,” Mel said. “Maybe you should cut him some slack.”

“That’s just it,” I said. “How much does he have to lose? Someone killed Emmett and then Max and maybe didn’t mean to kill me, but did end up killing Nicki. Someone with so much to lose that committing murder was a better deal.”

“It could be any one of those others,” Thea said.

“Maybe.”

“Here comes good luck,” Geneva said, from the window. “It’s the twins, blowing in on the gale.”

“Oh good God almighty! Hide the envelopes and don’t tell them what we’re doing,” I said.

The others stared at me. As well they should. They hadn’t heard Geneva.

“Er, um, it’s the Spiveys,” I explained. “You know how sometimes you can recognize the sound of someone’s car?” I held up a finger as though listening, then nodded.
On cue, someone knocked and thunder clapped. “That’ll be them now. I’ll just get the door if one of you wouldn’t mind hiding the envelopes.”

“We saw the cars, so we knew you were home,” Shirley said.

“Filthy night for a party,” said Mercy. “What’s the occasion?”

“We’re planning Nicki’s memorial service,” Ernestine said. “It’s so good of you to come out on a night like this to contribute toward the catering and musicians. How much shall I put you down for, seventy-five or one hundred?”

The twins had been shaking water from their coats, onto the floor, preparatory to settling in among us. When they heard Ernestine’s question they stopped in mid-shake and put their coats back on.

“We just stopped in passing to make sure Kath is all right after her ordeal yesterday,” Shirley said.

Mercy leaned in too close for olfactory comfort. “And to tell you we’ve found irregularities in certain bank statements.”

“Emmett’s?”

“Not now,” she whispered, nodding sideways toward the group at the table at the same time Shirley whispered, “Max’s.”

“But did you at least bring them? May I see them?”

“They’re somewhere safe,” Shirley whispered, rubbing the spot on her ribs that Mercy’s elbow had found.

“You came all this way. In this weather. But you didn’t bring them.”

“Rain’s coming down harder, too,” Mercy said, “so we’d best run along and hope the creeks don’t rise.”

I wanted to shake them by their scruffs until they told me what was in Max’s bank statements and where they
were, but Shirley got the door open, Mercy slipped my grasp, rain and wind blew in, and the twins escaped.

“Spiveys,” Ernestine spat after I’d slammed the door.

“What was that all about?” Mel asked.

“Independent corroboration,” I said. “Irritating and incomplete, but promising. If I ever get to see it. It sounds like it might be proof that Max figured out what Emmett was up to and started making his own demands.”

“They’re up to something,” Ardis said. “I don’t know what and I can’t hold back any longer. I told you so.”

“You did. But they would have snooped through Emmett’s boxes, anyway. This way at least we know where Emmett’s boxes are and that the twins have expanded their snooping to Max’s papers and they’ve found something useful.”

“Unless they’re lying,” Ardis said.

“True.”

“Or unless they plan to use the information for themselves somehow.”

“Also true. And if they’re playing games with whatever they’ve found, there’s no telling how soon it’ll blow up in their faces or turn around and bite them, or us, because they’re not good at secrets and not exactly subtle. But we’re several steps ahead of Shirley and Mercy, and we have seven good heads to their crackpot two.”

“You can’t count,” Thea said. “We have six.”

“I’ll leave the counting to you, then, but ladies, the clock is ticking.”

“And the lightning is getting closer,” Geneva said from the window. There was a flash and she glowed eerily before the thunder crashed.

Ernestine stood up, blinking toward the window. “I would like to make a suggestion, then, as to how we should proceed. There is no more time for squeamishness. We’ll adjourn to the parlor, where the sofa might be kinder to
my old bones. Kath, you look through Ivy’s envelope. Mel, Thea, Debbie, you examine the binder. Ardis and I will open Homer’s envelope. And Kath, you keep the rest of the envelopes safe with you.”

Mel scraped her chair back and stood up. “Let’s do it.”

Ernestine and Ardis took the sofa. Mel, Debbie, and Thea squeezed into the window seat. After a few settling murmurs, they started reading. I sat on the edge of the old recliner, as though it were a high diving board I was afraid to jump off. Déjà vu. I’d felt the same nerves, in this same chair, before reading Granny’s letter. The words on the front of that envelope came back to me…
Make yourself comfortable, read this letter, and remember, always, I am your loving Granny
. I made myself sit back, breathe deeply, and remember her love.