Lye in Wait (19 page)

Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea after all.

"Here you go," the barista said and handed me my latte.

"Do you remember me?"

"Yeah" She didn't seem happy about it. Too bad.

"You know Jacob and Debby?"

"Yeah"

"Can you tell me their last names?"

No.

I sighed. "Please? I need to talk to them."

"Well, I don't know their last names."

"Oh" I thought a moment. "If I left a note, would you give it to
whichever one comes in first?"

"I guess."

"Can I borrow paper and pen?"

"Sure, why not." Loaded with sarcasm, which I ignored. My
confidence that either of them would receive the note I scribbled
out didn't exactly soar.

Out on the sidewalk, latte in hand, I debated. How much did
I want to talk to the cute bar owner? Well, he was good-looking
and good at his job, which was admirable. No ring; not that I could
count on that since some men don't wear them. But as I wandered
down and sat on a park bench looking out over the river, I became
aware that a kind of obligation compelled me to pursue this mild
attraction. A sense of duty to ... myself? Convention? The theft of my
dead husband's ring had stirred up emotions I'd thought successfully tamped down for good. I'd played the grieving, relationshipphobic widow too long. Time to get on with my life. I didn't want to
end up like Walter, wasting time on the past until it was too late.

Okay. Might as well go in and see what happens.

Inside the tavern two men sat along the back wall beyond the
quiet pool tables, mesmerized by the sports news on the big TV
in the corner and drinking beer out of pint glasses. And, I noted,
the blonde-haired owner was standing at one end of the bar, sifting through receipts and making notations. He looked up when he
heard the door open, smiled an automatic smile, and returned to
his task.

"What can I get you? Oh, hi!" None other than Donnette, Dick's
Donnette, stood behind me asking for my drink order. "What's your
name again? I'm terrible with names. But I never forget a face."

People say that all the time, and I'm tempted to ask what good
remembering a face is if you don't have any idea who it belongs to.

"Sophie Mae. And you're Donnette, right?"

"Right! You want a beer?"

"What do you have that's diet?"

"Coke"

"That's it?"

"Uh huh."
"

I guess that's what I'll have, then." Not that I needed more
caffeine after that double latte. What I would need soon was a
restroom.

Behind the bar, she reached for a glass, scooped ice into it, and
squirted Diet Coke out of a hose.

"Did you know Walter Hanover?" I asked.

"Who?"

"Walt. Older guy, gray hair in a ponytail, wore yellow suspenders all the time."

"Huh uh."

I handed her some ones. "I guess until about six years ago he
was in here a lot."

"I've only been here a couple a months" Donnette stuck a straw
in my glass and went into the back. I stared at Mr. Ponytail, willing
him to look at me. Finally, he did. I smiled. He nodded. Raised his
eyebrows a fraction. And waited. He had no idea who I was. Feeling like an idiot, I motioned him over. Putting down his pen, he
walked to where I sat.

"I wanted to ask you a few questions," I said.

He frowned. "What kind of questions?"

"About Walter Hanover. Actually, I want to know more about
his fiancee and a friend of his."

"Hey, you were in here the other night, right? Sorry-didn't
make the connection."

"No problem," I said, trying for breezy. "What's your name?"

"Chuck. So do I know this fiancee?"

I described her, and Jacob while I was at it.

But Chuck shook his head. "Doesn't ring a bell. You sure they
come in here?"

No, I wasn't. "Maybe not." And as I said it, I glanced outside
and saw the pair in question walking by the window.

"Well, speak of the devil," I said. Putting my drink on the bar,
I slid off the stool. "They just walked by. Probably going to the
coffeehouse."

"Hey," he said, and I turned with my hand on the door handle.
He held up a copy of the Cadyville Eye. "This you on the front
page?"

I strode to the bar. "Can I have that? Thanks." His look of surprise followed me out the door. That he'd so readily recognized
my currently coifed self as the wreck in the photo did little for my
self-esteem.

As I entered Beans R Us, Jacob helped Debby out of her ratty
jean jacket like it was a mink stole. They took a table by the window. The snotty barista saw me come in and made a show of taking my note over to them, saying something and nodding in my
direction. Thanks for nothing, honey.

Jacob glanced my way without changing expression. Debby, on
the other hand, didn't look very happy. Stepping over to them, I
fumbled for what to say.

I started with, "May I sit down?"

Jacob surprised me by standing up and pulling out a chair.
"You betcha. Take a load off, So-fee Mae." He said it like it was a
nickname. "Your friend's Meg, right?"

"Meghan. Yes."

Debby finally spoke. "So what do you want?" Her skin hung
on her face, slack and pasty. No makeup and red-rimmed eyes.
Her hands trembled on the table. She saw me looking and clasped
them together to make them stop.

I answered her question with another. "Did you hear about the
fire?"

She blinked. "What fire?"

"The one at Walter's. Saturday night. We didn't get a chance to
tell you yesterday at the service."

She shook her head, and her clenched hands turned white
around the knuckles. "What happened?"

At the same time, Jacob asked, "Anyone hurt?"

The barista brought them coffees. The scent of hazelnut drifted
from Debby's cup. Jacob took his black, and I bet he would have
preferred to get it in a chipped brown cup from the diner down
the street than in this joint.

I said, "The place burned to the ground. But no one was hurt."

"Wait a minute. Hey, Luce!" Jacob called.

"Yeah?" she responded from behind the counter.

"You gotta paper round here? The one came out today?" He
turned to Debby. "I saw somethin' about a fire on the front page,
walkin' by the newsstand."

"Here you go," I said, and handed him the one I'd confiscated
from Chuck.

Lucky me, Luce brought a copy over, too. She looked at me.
Looked at the front page. I closed my eyes.

"Nice picture," she said.

"We've got a copy, thanks," I said.

She shrugged and returned behind the counter, a little smile on
her face. I was really starting to dislike that woman.

"What were you doing there?" Debby sounded suspicious.

"It was a huge fire, and we live right across the alley. Most of
the neighborhood was there." But only I had been lucky enough
to be around when that photographer from hell showed up. "I was
trying to find out how it started when that picture was taken."

"And?" Jacob asked. Debby examined the photo and wrinkled
her brow.

"They're still investigating." I figured it was safe to tell them
that, even if one or both of them had set the fire.

"And there's nothing left," Debby said. Now her voice shook,
too. Jacob watched her with concern.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know you wanted the chance to go through
his things."

Debby took a shaky swallow of coffee, holding the cup with
both hands. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, and dried
blood crusted the cuticle of her thumb where she'd worried a
hangnail too far.

"Well, thanks for telling us. 'Preciate it." Jacob was dismissing
me.

"Can I get your phone number? Your last name?" I asked Debby.
"So if I need to get in touch with you I can?"

"Why wouldja need to do that?" he asked.

The little guy was starting to get on my nerves. "Is there a problem, Jacob?"

Debby put her hand on his arm. "It's Silverman."

"Debby Silverman."

She nodded. "Deborah Silverman."

I looked at Jacob. He scowled.

"You'll find me with her," he said, thrusting his chin toward
Debby.

"And I don't suppose either of you have a phone, do you?" I
couldn't keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

She opened her mouth, but Jacob spoke first. "Nope. No phone.
Sorry."

He had seemed downright nice when I first sat down. What
had changed? News of the fire? Of the investigation?

"Jacob, stop being an ass," Debby said, and recited a phone number. I scrabbled in my coat pocket for a pen-realizing I'd kept the
barista's after I'd written the note for these two-and scribbled the
number on a corner torn from the newspaper. I folded the scrap and
put it in the pocket of my slacks. The pen I put in my coat pocket.

"Okay. Well, thanks," I said.

I'd wanted to ask what they'd thought of Walter's memorial
service, but Jacob was pouting like a child and refused to look at
me, while Debby's attention seemed to drift far away from both of
us as she stared out the window.

So I left.

Out on the sidewalk I pulled up my hood against the rain.
Through the front window of Beans R Us, I saw Jacob reaching for
Debby's hands.

I STOPPED IN AT Picadilly Circus, the British tearoom across the
street from the Gold Leaf, to pick up some PG Tips, a strong black
tea Meghan and I both favored in cold weather. Overhead the clouds
had collected into thick clots, and it began to rain big fat drops
as I started home. I pulled my hood further around my face and
hunched my shoulders. The air had grown several degrees cooler,
and a shiver worked its way up my spine. Walking quickly, with my
head down, I thought about what my next move should be.

Detective Ambrose would say I shouldn't have a next move.
Why couldn't I let this rest, leave it for the police to figure out?
Why did I feel so compelled to find out what had happened to
Walter? If it had been straightforward murder from the get-go, not
an assumed suicide that pushed all my buttons about my brother's
death, would I have felt so driven to discover the perpetrator?

Yes. I would. Since it had happened in my workroom, to someone I knew, I would feel the same need to discover the truth. Of
course if it was deemed murder from the start, Sergeant Zahn wouldn't be trying to keep Ambrose from doing his job by making
him work on the toilet paper terrorist case; he'd be facilitating the
investigation and providing more resources.

How sure was I that Walter had been murdered? Pretty darn
sure. Whatever Meghan might say about Walter's "underlying sorrow," it never sat right with me that he'd killed himself. Maybe it
would have made some sense earlier in his life, but not once he
had sobriety, money, and the girl. So to speak.

That earlier time was what Tootie had based her expectations
on-what had she asked when they'd told her that her son was
dead? A bullet or a bridge? But she must have known he'd quit
drinking. If he'd gone through AA and seen fit to make amendsor whatever they called that step-with Richard and Meghan, and
the other people he worked for in the neighborhood, surely he
would have done the same with his own mother. Perhaps he hadn't
convinced her. Or maybe her view of him had been too slow to
change.

Even Jacob and Debby's assertion that Walter had joked about
killing himself by drinking Drano fell short of the suicide theory.
And there was that sense of aha! when I'd heard the word "homicide" in the police station. Ambrose was no idiot, and his gut was
telling him the same thing.

So, back to the original question: what next?

First, we needed more information about the two I'd just left.
Meghan would know how to access public records now that we
had Debby's name. I briefly considered using the services of an
online information broker. I'd looked my own name up once, and
while it only showed the town I lived in, the advertisement that
popped up on my computer screen said for a fee they'd tell me not only Sophie Mae Reynolds' address and phone number, but who
her neighbors were, any criminal history, marriages, births, and a
slew of other information I found profoundly disturbing to think
about.

Maybe I could trade Debby's last name to Ambrose in exchange
for whatever information they dug up on her. Yeah, right. Ambrose
wouldn't welcome my help, probably considered me a suspect. I
grimaced as I checked traffic and stepped off the curb.

I was reflecting on the unpleasant twist my last conversation
with Ambrose had taken when I heard the squeal of tires on wet
asphalt. My head jerked up just in time to see an old pickup bearing down on me. I twisted and jumped aside to avoid the rusty
chrome grill, losing my balance and falling between two parked
cars. My elbow hit one of the bumpers on the way down, shooting
sparks up my arm. I lay there, gasping and listening to the faint
sound of the receding truck engine. Every breath seared along my
side. After a small eternity, I managed to push myself into a sitting
position on the sidewalk. I ran my fingertips over my ribs. Nothing broken, it seemed, but I'd pulled a muscle in my side, and my
hip throbbed where I'd landed on the curb. Severe bruising was in
my short-range forecast.