A Grid For Murder (2 page)

“Did you say something?” he asked with a grin. It was tough being angry with my husband when he smiled at me like that.

“Do you need anything from Asheville?”

“How about grabbing me a new chain saw while you’re there, Savannah?” Zach asked as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, though there was still the hint of a chill in the air. “I think it would be easier if I just go ahead and cut all of our trees down and be done with it once and for all.”

I knew he was kidding. My husband loved the hickory, oak, maple, and pine forest that populated our property as much as I did. We’d wanted to escape the hectic pace and energy of Charlotte, and I’d dreamed of living in the mountains since I’d been a little girl, so when a bullet in the chest had forced my husband to retire, a place near Asheville was the obvious choice for both of us.

Not that it didn’t bring its own share of challenges along with it.

I smiled at him and said, “While we’re at it, why don’t we go ahead and tear up all of the grass and put down artificial turf like they use on football fields? That way there wouldn’t be any yard work to do at all.”

He took a long drink from the glass of cool water I’d brought him earlier before he spoke again. “You’ve got the right idea. We could even plant plastic fruit and vegetables. Think about it, Savannah; no weeding, no pests, no work.”

I laughed out loud. “Admit it; you’d go crazy in a week if you didn’t have anything to do outside, and we both know it.”

He grinned. “You’re right, but sometimes it’s fun to dream about that simpler life we promised ourselves once upon a time.”

“I like things just the way they are. Don’t work too hard,” I added, my smile suddenly fading for an instant. I knew the doctors had cleared Zach for a moderate amount of strenuous activity, but I still worried about him every time he tried to do too much physical labor.

He must have seen the concern in my eyes. “Stop worrying about me, Savannah. I’m as healthy as a horse,” he said, and then added, “At least one that’s been shot in the chest.”

“How healthy would that be, exactly?” I asked.

“I’m strong enough to do what needs to be done,” he said as he threw a branch onto the pile. Zach reached for another fallen branch and added, “What are you doing racing off into town? Don’t you have a puzzle that’s due today?”

I loved my job creating the math puzzles that were found in some of the best secondary newspaper markets in the country, but it wasn’t my entire life. There were times when I resented how the puzzle creations could intrude on other things I would rather be doing with my time, but mostly I’d found the ideal occupation for myself. My puzzles offered the perfect opportunity to set order to chaos, and in a way, what Zach and I did wasn’t really all that different. “I already finished it. That’s why I’m going into Asheville. My fax is on the fritz again.”

“I keep telling you that it’s time to buy a new one.”

“I’m one step ahead of you. After I send this,” I said,
waving the folder containing my latest puzzle and its solution in the air, “I’m going shopping for a new one. If you want to get cleaned up and go with me, I’d be more than happy to wait around for you.” My husband’s consulting business was surprisingly quiet at the moment, and I knew that he was getting restless with the inactivity of his brain, if not his body.

Zach peered around the yard, and then he shook his head. “It’s tempting, but I really do need to finish this. You know how I get when I start a project.”

“I know, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway.” I kissed him quickly, and then got into my car and headed for the city. We lived two miles from the center of Parson’s Valley, and less than thirty minutes from downtown Asheville, nestled in the western part of North Carolina. We’d both immediately fallen in love with our cottage the moment we’d seen it, and we’d bought it with plans to retire there someday. That day came much sooner than either one of us had expected, but it was our home now, and I loved it.

O
NCE I GOT INTO ASHEVILLE, I WENT BY MY FAVORITE OFFICE
supply store, faxed my puzzle to my syndicator from there, and then indulged myself and bought a brand-new fax machine. Most of my fellow puzzlemakers had switched to computer-generated puzzles long ago, but I had to have the feel of the pencil in my hand and the notepad on my lap to be able to create. My boss had to convert the puzzles into an electronic format before they could go out to our newspaper clients, and I had been hearing rumblings for months about updating our system, but so far, I’d resisted it at every turn. It wasn’t that I was some kind
of Luddite—I enjoyed technology as much as the next woman—but it didn’t mesh well with my creativity, at least not my brand of it. In all honesty, my puzzles were only part of the equation of what I gave my readers. Many folks I spoke with told me that it was my accompanying snippet that they enjoyed the most, even surpassing the joy of working a puzzle. A combination of my ruminations, advice, and the occasional diatribe made up the second half of what I loved doing most in the world, and oftentimes I worked as hard on my brief commentaries as I did creating the puzzles they accompanied.

After I was finished with my errands, I knew that if I rushed back home, Zach would just put me to work with him in the yard. There had to be some way to stall my return until those branches had been transported deep into the woods. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy helping my husband; it was just that we both liked to be in charge of most of the things we did together. I knew from experience that my presence would take away some of his laser focus on getting the job done, and besides, we spent plenty of time together every day without going out of our way to add to it. I decided to treat myself to lunch at Café Noir, a place with outdoor tables near the downtown area of Asheville known as Pack Square. I loved sitting at one of the tables outside and staring up at the gray stone obelisk, a Washington Monument–like structure dedicated to our Civil War–era governor Zebulon Vance. As I sat at a table watching the world go by, no matter what time of year, the range of people there always amazed me. The entire city of Asheville was a study in contrasts, from the nearby Asheville Art Museum to the bohemian coffee shops and galleries strewn throughout the streets. Sitting outside in the sunshine, it was not uncommon to see a bank executive on
vacation walking in one direction wearing J.Crew and L.L.Bean passing a genuine tie-dyed hippie in flip-flops and blue jeans coming the other way.

In other words, if I was going to be close to a city anywhere in America, this was the one I wanted to be able to visit whenever the mood struck me.

I’d been lucky enough to find a parking spot on Patton Avenue near the café, something not to be taken lightly, and I’d captured a table near the square where I could see just about everything going on around me.

Unfortunately, two tables away, someone I had no interest in spending a second with saw me as I started to sit down.

“Savannah. Savannah Stone,” Joanne Clayton called out. Joanne’s olive-skinned face was narrow and elongated, her nose constantly threatening to tip over her entire head; every time I saw her, a fresh-faced ferret popped into my mind: an image that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I tried to banish it.

I was trapped. I couldn’t ignore her, and it was too late to pretend that I was heading somewhere else. Maybe there was still a way that I could avoid the inevitable.

“Hi, Joanne,” I said as I pulled out my chair without making a single move in her direction. “Nice to see you.”

I pretended to study the menu on the table as I chanted softly to myself,
Don’t come over, don’t come over, don’t come over
.

Of course, she came over.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked, carrying an oversized coffee cup with her.

“Of course,” I said.

There was a sharp look on her face as she asked me
pointedly, “Are you truly saying that you do mind? Surely I’m mistaken.”

That was exactly what I was saying, but I knew if I turned her away, I’d be fodder for the gossip mill in Parson’s Valley until she found a new victim to focus on, and that could take days, or even weeks. Joanne was an uncomfortable acquaintance, but she was an even worse enemy, and I had no desire to go from the nice list to the naughty one.

“No, I meant that of course you can join me.” As Joanne pulled out a chair and put her bags on the table, I pointed to her cup and asked, “What’s that you’re drinking?”

“They have the most delicious tea here. This is Daybreak Delight. It’s almost savory in taste. You must try some.”

I didn’t feel like some strange type of tea brew at the moment, but before I could protest, she waved to a waitress and placed my order for me. Wonderful. I’d hoped to have a nice lunch and enjoy the brisk autumn weather, but Joanne had managed to suddenly kill my appetite. If I could share a cup of tea with her and be done with it, that was going to be my new goal. I’d grab something else on the way home. It served me right, trying to skip out on my husband when there was work to be done back at the cottage. I was a firm believer in Karma, but this payback was so fast it was enough to snap my neck with its suddenness.

I knew in my heart that I was going to have to endure at least some of her company, so I decided to be as gracious about it as I could be. “What brings you to Asheville this fine autumn day?” I asked as nicely as I could muster.

“A moment like this is meant to be enjoyed out in civilization,” she said. “And clearly, I’m not the only resident
of Parson’s Valley who wanted to get away from our sleepy little town for a few hours.”

“I had some business to take care of in town,” I said, finding it odd to be justifying my trip into Asheville to this woman. If I had my way, I’d rather be home sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace writing a new snippet with Zach in the next chair nodding off than where I was at the moment.

“I don’t mean you, necessarily. Well, of course I do. Not just you, though. The odd thing is that I spoke with Harry Pike not two minutes ago right here. As a matter of fact, you just missed him.” Harry ran a nursery in Parson’s Valley, and was known for his dexterity with the ladies. At fifty-seven, his tastes were eclectic, and from what I’d heard, he had only one rule: He would go on no dates with any woman under fifty. Rumors around town said that he stayed busy enough even with that caveat, always indulging whenever time and opportunity allowed it.

“How is Harry?” I asked.

“Disappointing,” Joanne said. “I’m afraid we had a bit of a spat. I do so hate to argue in public. He’ll regret his words to me today, I can promise you that.”

There was no doubt in my mind that was true enough. “Sometimes it can be a small world, can’t it?”

“Come now, don’t exaggerate. Parson’s Valley isn’t that far away; it’s not such a huge coincidence to find folks we both know here.” Joanne looked smug for an instant, and then she added, “Actually, I’m glad I ran into you today. I’d been planning to make a trip to your place as soon as I finished up here.”

Wonderful. Now it appeared that she had a reason to see me, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it. Well, I might as well nip it in the bud. If I let Zach anywhere
near this woman, he’d say something that I was certain she’d find offensive, but the odd thing was, I knew that I’d be the one in hot water. “Why is that? Is it time for the Moonlight fund-raiser again already? You know you can always count on us for a contribution.” The one good thing Joanne did in the world, at least as far as I could tell, was run the Moonlight fund-raiser every year. The manner in which she raised money varied, but the cause was always the same, and the fact that the events always happened after dark never wavered. Joanne felt that there were a disturbing number of children in our part of the state who lived in dire poverty, and while others sent their money abroad to help children in Third World countries, Joanne believed that we should start by helping those closer to home. It was most likely the one thing in the world that justified the otherwise abrasive and mean-spirited woman’s existence, and it was that kernel of goodness within her that I tried to focus on whenever I was around her, no matter how hard it usually was for me to keep smiling in her presence.

She bit her lower lip, and the ferret image instantly reappeared in my mind. “No, I’m not ready to announce this year’s event yet, but believe me, it is going to be absolutely amazing.”

The waitress brought me an identical cup of tea to the one in front of Joanne, and I took a sip of the bitter brew. I couldn’t believe that she actually liked this dreck.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Mmmmm,” I replied. “I’m not exactly sure that it’s my taste,” which was the only safe answer I could muster as the bitter aftertaste assaulted my mouth.

Joanne smiled at me, and it was clear in that instant that she knew exactly what I was experiencing. “Don’t
worry, dear. Not everyone can appreciate it for its layers of subtlety. It takes a true sophisticated palate to enjoy it.”

Or a dead one,
I thought to myself. Hang on, Savannah, you can do this. “I believe it,” I said as I pushed the cup away. Better to be labeled as a commoner than drink another sip of that muck.

It was time to change the subject away from the devil’s brew in front of me. “If you don’t want to talk to me about the fund-raiser, then why did you want to see me?”

Instead of answering the question directly, she asked me, “Have you seen today’s paper?”

“No, I’ve been working on my latest puzzle all morning,” I said. “Why? Is there a story written in there about you?”

“Of course not,” she said. It was obvious that Joanne was going to say something more, when two women from Parson’s Valley approached us from the square. Why did I bother living out in the country if I was going to keep running into people I knew in Asheville? This was getting more than a little crazy.

“Sandra, Laura,” Joanne said loudly as she beckoned to the women. “You must join us. Come, we’ll make it a party.”

“Hello,” the two women said to us in unison. Laura Moon looked at me and added, “I’m surprised to find you here as well, Savannah. Where’s that handsome husband of yours?” Laura was a statuesque brunette who weighed more than I did, though hers was mostly muscle, while my curves tended to be softer.