One Hot Murder (31 page)

“Ida,” Katie began, “we can’t go on like this. You need to find something else to fill your hours,” she added with authority.

“I don’t
have
anything else to do,” Ida said, her voice breaking. “My sister is gone, my home is gone. I’ve got nothing left except my job here at Artisans Alley.”

“That’s not true,” Katie said, throwing a glance at the other women. “You’ve obviously made new friends at your new home at the assisted living center. They came here to support you with your protest, didn’t they?”

Ida shrugged, and stared at the ground.

“I admit, the job of tag supervisor is necessary here at the Alley, but you have far more talent than you’re giving yourself credit for.” Okay, that was probably a lie, but Katie was on a roll and she needed a resolution to this impossible situation. “Have you ever thought about volunteering your time with a worthy organization?”

“No,” Ida said emphatically.

“Why not?”

“Because only losers do volunteer work.”

“Why on earth would you say that?”

Ida shrugged again. “Somebody told me that once.”

“Well, they were wrong. Volunteering is one of the best, most generous things a person can do with her life.”

Ida looked up at Katie. “Do you volunteer?”

“Not right now, but I have in the past—and when my circumstances change and I don’t have to be at Artisans Alley seven days a week, I’ll do it again for some worthy cause.”

“They don’t pay you to volunteer, do they?” Ida inquired.

“No. That’s why they call it volunteering.”

Ida frowned, her gaze fixed on the asphalt.

“Would you at least
think
about volunteering to help people not as fortunate as you?”

“I’m pretty unfortunate myself,” Ida said with a bit of a pout.

“I don’t see how. You’ve got your health. You’ve got a car. You drive. You can go anywhere you want. But there
are a lot of senior citizens who can’t get out. They aren’t well, or they don’t have the means to buy food to feed themselves.”

“Old people are hungry?” Ida asked, sounding surprised.

Katie nodded. “They need friends, and they need food. Wouldn’t you like to meet new people and become their friends?”

Ida shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You could deliver meals to people several days a week. You could chat with them for a few minutes and make their days brighter. You could make sure they were okay, and if they need help, you could make sure they got it.”

“It’s important work?” Ida asked.

Katie nodded. “Very important work. Much more important and interesting than working in the tag room here at Artisans Alley.”

“I suppose,” Ida said.

“I can give you the telephone number of the Meals on Wheels coordinator. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Ida declared.

“I won’t ask you to. All I ask is that you consider making a difference in your own and other people’s lives. If it isn’t Meals on Wheels, there are plenty of other organizations that could use the talents of a woman like you.”

Ida frowned, but her eyes gave away her interest. “Do you really think so?”

“I know so.”

Ida looked over at her friends, who stood in a cluster, their arms crossed over their pastel shell tops, their expressions sour and unforgiving.

“Now, why don’t you and your friends go back to the center and talk this over. Maybe they’d like to volunteer as well.”

“Does Meals on Wheels need more than just one person to help?” Ida asked.

“They sure do.”

“I guess maybe we could all help. I’ll have to think about it and talk with them.”

“You do that. And if you decide you do want to volunteer, we’ll talk about you coming back to the Alley and putting your lace back on the shelf in one of the big display cases.”

“Could I come in every day and work on my tags, too?”

Katie shook her head. “That wouldn’t be fair to you. You really only have to work one day a month.”

“Only one day?” Ida cried.

“It isn’t fair to make you work more than what you’re required.”

“But Rose and Vance and Edie do.”

“You’re right. I guess I could make an exception for you, too.”

“I could come in on Sundays,” Ida offered.

“We’ll talk about that
after
you decide what you want to do about volunteering. Does that sound acceptable?”

Ida didn’t look very happy about the situation, but she finally nodded.

“Very well. I’ll wait for your call,” Katie said. Sheesh—she sounded like an old schoolmarm.

“I could
come in
and tell you, and then maybe I could work on the tags.”

“No, I’ll wait for you to call,” Katie reiterated. No way did she want Ida to slip back into her old routine.

“Oh, all right,” Ida acquiesced.

“Fine. I’ve got the number written down in my office. I’ll go get it and be right back.”

Ida nodded and wandered over to talk to her friends while Katie unlocked the door to the building and made her way to her office. She grabbed the paper with the telephone number she’d written down the day before and turned to leave. As she reentered the vendors’ lounge, she found
Godfrey Foster standing in front of the opened fridge. “You’re here early.”

Godfrey started. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

“I hope you’re not going to swipe anything else from the fridge,” Katie admonished.

“Don’t worry. The Peterson family not only put me up for the night, but they gave me dinner and breakfast. I was just going to pour myself a glass of water. A person gets thirsty when they sweat as much as I do.” He was already damp around the edges, she noted. He took out the water bottle, poured himself a mug full of water, and replaced the jug, closing the door.

“When did you say the renovations at your house would be finished?” Katie asked.

“Hopefully by Saturday. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed again.” He chugged the water.

“Have you apologized to the other vendors yet?”

Godfrey shook his head, and stuck the mug on the back of the counter, no doubt hoping someone else would wash it and put it away. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to anybody. But I did buy a six-pack of pop for Gwen Hardy.”

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that. She’ll be at the potluck tomorrow night. You are planning on attending, right?”

“If my wife lets me,” he said, hanging his head like a beaten dog.

“Rose is counting on you to bring the napkins,” Katie reminded him.

“I’ve got them in my car. Maybe I’d better give them to her this morning in case I can’t make it to the party.”

“Very well.” He was about to walk away. “Ahem,” Katie said. He looked at her, confused. She pointed to the mug he’d left on the counter. “You used it, you wash it,” she reminded him.

Again, Godfrey hung his head, duly chastised. Really,
hadn’t anyone (his wife, his mother?) ever taught the man common courtesy?

As Godfrey turned to the sink, Katie headed back outside to give Ida the telephone number. When she returned, she turned on all the lights in the Alley and made her way to her office. She sat down at her desk and pondered the day so far, grateful she might have solved the parking problem, and hoping she’d managed to talk Ida into taking the Meals on Wheels volunteer job. But it was something else that niggled at the back of her brain—her breakfast with Sally.

Katie picked up a pen and began to doodle on a piece of scrap paper, tracing circles over and over again. What exactly had Sally meant when she’d said she had no regrets? Had she lived a less-than-exemplary life before she’d taken Nick under her wing? Had she done something others might think was wrong, but in her present state of health, with time running out, figured she had nothing to lose?

Like murder?

Katie shook herself. What was she thinking? Sally Casey was a lovely woman who was counting the days until she died. How could Katie even think such a thing?

And yet…what was it she’d said about her darling Nicholas? That he wasn’t always happy. That he’d contemplated suicide after being disowned by his parents. That he’d come out to a mentor he thought he could trust and it had been disastrous.

What—just what—if Nick had come out to his industrial arts teacher? Say Dennis had no clue the teen was gay until Nick admitted it, and then Dennis had taken to picking on him mercilessly? Seth had taken steps to keep the other boys in the class from doing the same, but he couldn’t protect Nick from a teacher who took delight in verbally bullying his students.

Sally could handle guns. Seth had said that at one time she had run the skeet range at the McKinlay Mill Country Club. A Magnum had quite a kick, but what if she knew
how to handle it? How accurate did one have to be to blow someone’s head off with such a powerful weapon?

Katie shook her head and tossed the pen aside. There’s no way Sally would have killed Dennis. No way.

And yet…She knew that Nick would be living and working next door to Wood U. Nobody on the Square had known that Dennis had sold the business, intending to retire to Florida. Could the thought of Dennis tormenting Nick have driven her to take care of the problem once and for all? To take out the man who had humiliated and teased the boy she had come to think of as her own?

Sally had known her way around the Square. She patronized some of the shops—even buying Nick a gift basket at Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets earlier that week. Or had she gone to Gilda’s with the real intent on finding out more about the murder investigation? Gilda wasn’t a blabbermouth, but the murder was sensational and she wouldn’t mind talking about it if a customer asked questions—especially if she thought she could make a better sale.

The curious had asked Katie about Ezra Hilton’s death the year before. The more grisly-minded had even inspected the place where the poor man had lain at the bottom of the stairs leading to the balcony that looked over Artisans Alley’s main sales floor.

Sally had no regrets.

Could she really have killed Dennis Wheeler?

But what if the body found in Wood U was really Jerry Murphy? Would Sally have known he wasn’t the store’s owner? And yet, what would Jerry be doing at the store anyway?

No, the body found in Wood U had to be Dennis. It was maddening that the crime lab was so backed up it could take months for a DNA identification. What was Abby supposed to do in the meantime? They weren’t about to release a body they couldn’t identify. And how was she going to pay for a funeral anyway?

And yet…if Dennis was dead, who emptied the Wheelers’ bank account?

It suddenly occurred to Katie that Abby might not have told her the truth—about anything. She didn’t owe Katie any explanations. Did everyone on the Square know that she and Davenport had talked during his previous murder investigations? Could Abby have allowed Katie to come into her home in order to use her to feed information to Detective Davenport?

But that didn’t make sense either. Abby had known that Davenport had already been replaced as the case investigator. Did she just assume Katie would run to Hamilton and repeat everything she’d been told?

Katie felt her face grow hot, and it wasn’t because of the temperature.

Had Abby played her for a fool?

Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re making an awful lot of assumptions
, the voice inside Katie warned. She had no way of knowing if Sally had killed Dennis, or that Abby killed him either. And just because Jerry Murphy had disappeared didn’t mean he was even involved with the death at Wood U.

Still, despite all the conflicting ideas floating through her mind, it all made sense in some kind of convoluted way.

Now, who was she going to tell her theory to first? Her new friend Ray or her trusted attorney and surrogate big brother Seth?

There was a cherry pie with Seth’s name on it just sitting there in her apartment refrigerator. The decision was made. Now, to wait out the day until she could talk to Seth, and hope she wouldn’t go completely crazy.

No matter what task she attempted to start that day, Katie could not stop thinking about Dennis Wheeler and Jerry Murphy. How could two men she barely knew occupy so much of her mental resources?

Hot and restless, she tossed her pen down on her desk and stood up to look out the window that overlooked the back parking lot. The late afternoon sun continued to beat down, the heat shimmering off the tarmac. Here it was only mid-July, but the heat wave that wouldn’t quit had made the summer already seem eons long. She knew she’d regret that thought come November, when the skies would be perpetually gray and the temperatures in the thirties.

Maybe Dennis had had the right idea to leave the area for warmer climes. What was keeping her here in McKinlay Mill? Her job? She could sell Artisans Alley. It wasn’t one hundred percent solvent, but plenty of businesses were sold with the hopes they’d turn more profitable under new management.

A year ago she’d felt alone and empty. Now she had
friends—people who cared about her. People who looked to her as a leader, as a mentor, and as an accomplished businesswoman—even if she did mostly dress in jeans and Artisans Alley T-shirts.