A Crafty Killing (18 page)

Rose’s breathing quickened, her frightened gaze darting back to Katie.

“Can it wait until we close?” Katie asked, her gaze darting back to Rose. She couldn’t stand to see the panicked look in the old woman’s eyes. “Then I can come with her.”

Davenport hesitated, then, “I guess that’ll be acceptable.”

“Will you meet us there?” Katie asked.

“Just check in with the desk. I’ll tell them to expect you.”

Of course. Wednesday was probably his bowling night. No need to cancel his personal plans to wait for news on the possible murder weapon on his hottest case.

“That’ll be fine,” Katie said, though she hoped from her tone that Davenport knew she meant just the opposite.

Davenport nodded to the women, replaced the pink quartz in the bag, then headed for the exit.

Rose pulled a lace-edged handkerchief from her skirt pocket, dabbing at her suddenly damp eyes. “Katie, I swear, I didn’t kill Ezra.”

Katie drew the elderly woman into a tentative embrace. “I know. We’ll work this out,” she promised, patting Rose’s bony back. She couldn’t imagine Rose being able to lift the rock over her head, let alone smashing it—with enough force to kill—against Ezra’s skull.

“As the detective said, it’s more to tell who’s handled the quartz. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll call Seth Landers for legal advice.”

Rose’s sniffles lessened and she pulled away. “Thank you, Katie.”

A woman customer stood some ten feet away, hesitant to intrude.

“Can I help you?” Katie asked, trying to sound cheerful.

She rang up the sale herself, a delicate porcelain doll with a wardrobe of exquisitely handmade clothing. Rose fumbled as she wrapped the purchase, her hands trembling so badly she nearly dropped the doll.

“It’s okay, I’ll take care of it,” Katie said. “Why don’t you go sit in the tag room and visit with Ida for a few minutes. I can handle things out here, and I’ll pull Liz off the floor to help.”

“But then no one will be walking security,” Rose said. “No, I’d feel better if I was doing something useful. If Liz will handle the register, I’ll walk around. It’s only for an hour until we close. That’ll give you a chance to call Mr. Landers.”

Five minutes later, Katie was back in her office dialing the phone.

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Landers is in court today. Can I take a message?” his secretary offered.

Katie relayed her find and their subsequent plans to go to the station, asking that the lawyer call her that evening.

She hung up the phone and took in the messy office. She hadn’t had a chance to do more than a cursory pickup since the break-in. She’d have to come back later that evening to finish the job. And she needed to talk to Vance about collecting work schedules from the artists for the upcoming weeks.

Katie frowned, glancing down at Ezra’s master schedule tucked into the side of the desk blotter. Vance’s name had been jotted down for today. He’d never shown up or even called. Irked, Katie consulted the dog-eared Rolodex cards listing the artists’ home telephone numbers. She found Vance’s card and dialed. It rang six times before being answered.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice.

“Mrs. Ingram?”

“Yes.”

“This is Katie Bonner over at Artisans Alley. May I speak to Vance?”

“He’s not home yet. Did he just leave? I thought he was supposed to be there until closing.”

“Um ... yes,” Katie said, thinking fast. “I couldn’t find him here and assumed he’d gone home early. Perhaps you could tell him I called.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thank you. Good-bye.”

Katie hung up the phone. So Vance’s wife thought he’d spent the entire day at Artisans Alley. He’d been unavailable on the evening Ezra died, too. Why was he being so secretive? What did he have to hide? Infidelity—or did he know more about Ezra’s death than he’d been willing to admit?

She really needed to talk to Vance, and maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get Detective Davenport in on the conversation, too.

Katie grabbed a pile of papers from the floor, flipping through them before straightening them to put away. A wave of shame coursed through her. Where did she get off judging Vance Ingram and contemplating telling Detective Davenport to lean on him for information? Vance’s private life—however he lived it, with whatever moral code he lived by—was really none of her business.

She’d ask him why he hadn’t shown up and if he didn’t want to tell her—well, that was his business. But she did want to pin him down to a time when he could teach her what she needed to know about the mechanics within Artisans Alley. And unfortunately that was all she could expect from him.

Still, a man who’d lie to his wife about his whereabouts could lie about other things ... including murder.

Katie’s already weakened sense of security ebbed that much more.

“It was a good thing you offered to drive,” Rose said as Katie steered her car onto the expressway entrance ramp. “I’ve lost my nerve for city driving—especially at night.”

Katie had to smile since they’d never actually ventured into Rochester proper. The sheriff’s substation was located in one of the western suburbs. The fingerprinting had gone smoothly, and Katie had let them take hers as well. It was likely the technical team that had dusted her office earlier had found just as many of her own prints as Ezra’s.

“Are you okay, Rose?” Katie asked.

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” the older woman said with most of the usual good cheer evident in her voice. “Just like something off a TV show.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Katie said. “Now that they’ve got what appears to be the murder weapon, I’m hoping they’ll figure out who killed Ezra so we can all feel safe again.”

“Amen,” Rose said.

“I’ll drop you off at Artisans Alley to pick up your car,” Katie said, “but do you mind if I stop at Ezra’s house to feed his cat first?”

“Ezra had a cat?” Rose asked.

Katie nodded, keeping her eyes on the road. “I didn’t know about it until yesterday. The poor thing was half starved.”

“I guess there was a lot about Ezra that none of us knew,” Rose said.

“I knew very little about him. Like, was he ever married?”

“Oh, yes. Almost forty years to Dorothy Johnson.” Rose laughed. “Funny how you always remember your friends by their maiden names, no matter how long—or how often—they’ve married. Dorothy had heart problems, poor thing. She died about ten years ago.”

“How sad they had no children,” Katie said.

“Oh, but they did. A son, Ronnie.”

So that’s who the person in the framed photo in her office was.

“He owned his own business here in McKinlay Mill,” Rose continued. “Ronnie was a tree surgeon. Seems to me he died about five years ago now.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Yes. They say he never worked alone—it was too dangerous. But that day he was on a job all by himself. It was hours before anyone found him, poor man.”

That was a year before she and Chad had come to McKinlay Mill. Had Ezra looked at Chad as some kind of a replacement for his son? And if Ezra was all alone in the world, it made sense that he’d prepay for his own funeral. How sad.

Then again, now that Chad was gone, Katie was all alone. She’d struggled to pay for Chad’s funeral, and had no funds to pay for her own—at least, not if she still hoped to buy the English Ivy Inn.

“Then was Ezra to be buried in a family plot?”

“I guess so. I was surprised there was no graveside service. I just assumed that was what Ezra wanted.”

Katie took the Lake Ontario State Parkway exit west, putting on her high beams, and hoped the local deer population had bedded down for the night.

“I didn’t know Ezra well, but he didn’t seem to want for female companionship. I mean, he seems to have been friends with Mary Elliott at the tea shop, and before that Nona Fiske.”

“Nona was a possessive shrew,” Rose said with contempt. “She wasn’t at all good for Ezra.”

“How about Mary?”

“She was a lot younger than Ezra. I suppose if someone hadn’t hit him with the pink quartz, she’d have killed him in bed.”

So Rose wasn’t fond of either Mary or Nona. What would Detective Davenport make of that information? Katie decided to push just a bit further. “I take it Ezra didn’t let Nona down gently?”

“No. One day he just took up with Mary.”

“Did he ever have a showdown with Nona?”

“Not that I heard. But you can understand her distress when that hussy Mary moved in on her territory.”

Hussy? Territory? What were Rose’s feelings for Ezra?

Katie’s gaze stayed fixed on the road. “Did Mary pursue Ezra or did he go after her?”

“Oh, it had to be Mary. Ezra wouldn’t have done anything to actually hurt Nona.”

But he had, if he’d just taken up with Mary with no explanation to his former lady friend. And that didn’t make sense either. There had to be more to the story than Rose either knew or was willing to repeat.

Katie took the Walker Road exit and headed for Ezra’s house. “It’ll only take me a minute or two to feed the cat. She’s a pretty little tabby. You wouldn’t happen to want a furry companion, would you?”

“No, thank you,” Rose said. “I was badly scratched as a child. I can’t abide the things.”

Katie’s stomach tightened. She’d always loved cats and had never been without one. Illogical though it might be, Rose had just dropped a peg in her estimation.

She pulled up Ezra’s driveway and parked beside the darkened house. “I’ll only be a minute,” she said, and climbed out of the car.

“I’ll be fine,” Rose assured her, and folded her hands on her lap to wait.

Katie climbed the steps to Ezra’s back door, and fumbled to find the keyhole. Maybe she should have a motion detector sensor installed on the outside lamp so that she could see to get in the house after dark. She opened the door and once again the little tabby was ecstatic to see her. The cat wound around her ankles as Katie flipped on the outside light switch. Nothing happened. Probably a burned-out bulb. She’d have to replace it.

A minute later, the sound of the pull-tab lid coming off the cat food can had the cat dancing in circles around Katie’s ankles.

“Tomorrow I’ll call the village vet and see if we can’t find out your name, little girl. I haven’t found you a home yet, but I haven’t given up either.”

Katie set the food bowl on the floor, changed the water, and then attended to the litter box. She felt bad to leave the cat in the dark, and turned on the stove light.

Locking the door behind her, Katie headed for her car. She opened the driver’s door to get in, but found the car was empty. She straightened and spoke to the darkened sky. “Rose? Rose, where are you?”

Panicked, Katie peered through the darkness, but couldn’t see a thing. She groped under the car seat, came up with the flashlight Chad had insisted she carry, and prayed the batteries hadn’t died. The thin beam of light did little to dispel the gloom.

The grass under her feet was long and wet, the ground beneath it uneven. Katie headed for the only place Rose could have gone—Ezra’s barn.

Peter Ashby’s SUV was parked by the door. Light glowed faintly from inside the structure.

“Rose?” Katie hissed. “Rose!”

“Over here.”

Katie crept around to the back of the barn to where she’d heard the voice and found the old lady standing on tiptoe, looking through one of the dirty windows.

“What are you doing?” Katie whispered.

“There’s a reason Ashby won’t tell anyone where he gets his merchandise. He’s making it himself.”

Katie squinted through the window to see Ashby moving around inside. His nose and mouth were covered by a filter mask. He poured a white viscous liquid into a rubberized mold that stood in some kind of wooden frame. Behind him were examples of cemetery art—but were they copies or the originals?

Katie grabbed Rose’s arm, pulling her away from the window to head for the car.

“Katie!” Rose protested.

“Shhhh!”

After they were in the car, Katie started the engine.

“I wanted to see more,” Rose complained as she buckled her seat belt.

“So, we know where he gets his stock from. Big deal,” Katie said, relief flooding her—thank goodness Ashby hadn’t caught them spying on him.

“It
is
a big deal,” Rose insisted. “If his master copies are stolen!”

“Stolen?” Katie echoed, momentarily tearing her gaze from the road.

Rose nodded. “Selling stolen cemetery statuary is big business.”

“But Ashby isn’t selling the real thing. He’s selling copies,” Katie exclaimed.

“And where did he get his prototypes?” Rose asked.

That was a very good question.

“Have you heard of any local cemeteries being vandalized?” Katie asked. The thought of someone possibly tampering with Chad’s grave filled her with anger and disgust.