A Grid For Murder (6 page)

Maybe she hadn’t heard me. I rapped on the door again, this time rattling it in its frame.

“What are you trying to do, wake the dead?” Barbara asked as she opened the door.

“I knocked a few times when I first got here, but I didn’t think you could hear me.”

“I heard you just fine,” she said, “but Ramona Ridge is working here today, and that woman couldn’t keep a secret if it would save her life. Go back in my office, and I’ll be right there. I need to send her on some kind of fool’s errand so we can have some privacy.”

I did as I was asked and made my way deeper into the back of the shop. Calling the space I found an office was a gross misrepresentation of the truth. I wasn’t even sure it had enough square footage to qualify it as a nook, but somehow Barbara had managed to wedge a small desk and two chairs into the space, though there wasn’t a great deal of room left for pesky things like actually being able to use any of the area.

“I know it’s tight,” she said before I could comment on it, “but I had to make do with what I had. Every square inch I use back here is lost for customers, and that’s where I make my money.” She managed to wedge herself behind her desk and asked, “What exactly do you think I can do to help you?”

“I figure you know more about what’s happening in Parson’s Valley than anyone else, and right now, I’m in desperate need of information.”

“I’m not sure I agree with that, but I’ll help if I can.” She looked happy that I’d come to her, and I was going to do my best to foster that joy.

“First off, who would want to see Joanne Clayton dead?”

Barbara laughed, and then caught herself. “I shouldn’t
chuckle about it, but it’s hard not to, isn’t it? The woman had her claws into a dozen people, any of whom might want to wish her ill.” She tapped a pencil on her desktop, and then added, “I need to do a little digging. Can you wait here for a few minutes?”

“Hey, you’re doing me a favor, remember? I can stay here as long as you’d like,” I said.

As I waited in Barbara’s cramped office, I wondered if what she’d said was true. I’d been under the impression that the folks in Parson’s Valley had accepted Zach and me as one of their own since we’d moved there a few years before, but maybe I’d been mistaken. Was there still a basic mistrust of newcomers in this day and age? I couldn’t believe it. I’d made some wonderful friends since we’d arrived, and I couldn’t imagine any of them turning their backs on me. Then again, I’d never before been tied to a murder so close to the town where we lived. There was a mob mentality that mistrusted the outsider. The question was how many folks still considered me to be a stranger, and not a friend?

That line of thought would just drive me crazy. To distract myself from my problems, I looked around Barbara’s tiny office. It was amazing that the woman could get any work done there at all. Papers were stacked four inches high on her desktop, and the few free spaces there were on the floor were covered with books. Barbara was well-known around town as a big reader, and she had a constant battle going on with Nancy Jenkins, the town’s librarian. It seemed that Barbara believed due dates were merely suggestions, and Nancy kept threatening to cut off her supply until she started returning books on a more regular basis. The two had endured a silent feud for a few weeks until they reached a compromise. Barbara could continue
to disregard her due dates, but Nancy would keep track of the amounts, billing Barbara every month for her accumulated fines. I was shocked that Barbara had been willing to pay that way, since she was notoriously tight with her money, but she claimed that it didn’t bother her at all. She considered the bills as leasing fees, though she could have had the books for free if she’d just been a little more diligent about returning them. I started going through the titles, curious about what would attract her fancy, and maybe I’d even find something to read while I waited. If I was going to be there awhile, I didn’t plan to be idle, and creating a new puzzle with all that was on my mind was out of the question.

I scanned through the titles, hoping to find anything that was interesting to me. I hadn’t realized just how eclectic Barbara’s reading tastes were until I started reading through her stacks. Titles like
The Great Gatsby
,
War and Peace
,
Modern Jazz Composition
,
Advanced Loom Weaving
,
Native North Carolina Plants
,
Mythical Creatures of Ireland
, and
The Dead Sea Scrolls
were mixed in with
Where the Wild Things Are
,
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
, and
’Salem’s Lot
.

I still hadn’t picked one to read when Barbara abruptly came back in. “What on earth are you doing, Savannah?”

I got up from my crouching position. “I was looking for something to read,” I admitted.

“Well, you’re not going to find anything there. Those are books that I’ve checked out. The library has plenty more, believe me.”

I glanced at the piles. “I doubt they have many more than you do.”

Barbara grinned. “Hey, I pay for the privilege every month.”

“May I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you actually read all of these?” I asked as I pointed to the books.

She laughed at the question. “Parts of most of them. What can I say, I’m easily distracted. Now, did you come here to discuss my reading habits, or do you want to know about Joanne Clayton?”

“I’d love to hear what you’ve discovered,” I said, forgetting all about the books and focusing on Barbara.

She looked pleased by the comment. “It appears that there are seven people who might have wanted her dead.”

“Seven? That many?”

“There may be more,” Barbara acknowledged, “but I phoned a few friends in town, and those were all we could come up with on such short notice.”

“Let me get something to write these down on,” I said, diving into my bag for a pen and a piece of paper. They were there in case any good puzzle ideas—or, more likely, snippet thoughts—came to me while I was out. I couldn’t build a puzzle in my mind any more than I could play three games of chess at the same time, but it was impossible to predict when creativity would strike.

I looked at the paper in my purse and saw that I’d scribbled,
Compare autumn with computers in next snippet.
What in the world could that possibly mean? I flipped the paper over and looked expectantly at Barbara.

She’d been watching me, and before she spoke, she took another full ten seconds to study me. “Remember, no one can know that I’ve fed you this information. Agreed?”

“Not even Zach?” I asked.

“No, I’m sorry, but this has to be between the two of us alone.”

“My husband was the chief of police for Charlotte, North Carolina,” I said with a little more stiffness than I intended. “Trust me when I tell you that he knows how to keep a secret.”

“I’m sorry, but I insist,” she said. I could tell from the look in her eyes that she wasn’t going to back down, so anything I said would just be a waste of good breath.

I put the paper and pen back in my bag and stood. “Then I’m sorry I bothered you. I do appreciate the thought.”

“Where are you going?” Barbara looked absolutely startled by my reaction to her demand. I doubted that many folks had told her no before.

“If I can’t tell my husband, I don’t want to know anything you’ve got to say. It’s as simple as that.”

Barbara frowned, clearly in uncharted waters. “Even if it means not finding the real killer?”

“Even then,” I said as I headed for the door.

Barbara snapped out, “You can’t bluff me, Savannah; I’m too good at reading character for that to work.”

“I wouldn’t dream of trying to make you back down. I know better. That’s why I’m just going to give up and start digging around town myself.”

“No one’s going to talk to you,” she said in a threatening voice as I headed for the back door.

“Maybe not. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

I was at the door when she said with an air of finality, “You’ll be back.”

I turned to face her, and it took every ounce of energy I had to keep smiling. “Barbara, if there’s one thing in my life that I stand by, it’s my relationship with my husband. I’m sure I could get along fine without him, and he could probably do the same, but there’s something magical about life when we’re together, and I wouldn’t do anything
to risk that, ever, not even if my very life depended on it.”

I left her with that, and as I closed the door, the frown on Barbara’s face was obvious. She’d tried to back me down on one of the few things on earth that I would never budge from, and she’d lost. I’d probably pay for my disobedience, but if that meant that my reputation around town would take a hit, it was worth it.

I’d meant every word I’d said. There was nothing more important to me than my marriage, and I would never do anything that might harm it in the slightest way. The sooner folks around town realized that, the better off we’d all be.

M
Y PRINCIPLES WERE ALL WELL AND GOOD, BUT THEY
weren’t going to help me find a killer and clear my name. Now that I’d lost my first and best chance of putting together a list of folks who might want to see Joanne come to harm, I’d have to formulate a backup plan. I returned to my car, but I made no attempt to start the engine until I had a specific destination in mind. As I went over all the people I’d met in Parson’s Valley over the past few years, I thought of—and just as quickly discarded—most of the people I’d ever met there. Sure, there were plenty of folks I’d share a seat with at the Saturday night buffet on Town Square, and some I’d even share a secret or two with, but I was just beginning to realize that the ones I could trust, and I mean really trust, were few indeed. I started getting depressed about it until I realized that in all the years we’d lived in Charlotte, I could still just produce a similarly small list, a few friends I could call in the middle of the night who wouldn’t ask why, instead just how
they could help. It was probably like that for most people, if they were ever to honestly assess the relationships with the people they came into contact with from day to day.

In the end, I managed to come up with two names of people I knew that I could trust. It was no surprise that Barbara’s wasn’t one of them. I suddenly realized that I’d been going about it all wrong. Certainly Barbara Brewer knew more about the activities in our little town than nearly anyone else, but that didn’t mean she’d share what information she had with me; at least not without a price I refused to pay.

The two I had left would do that, and more.

And now I knew exactly where I needed to go.

It was time to get some help from a real friend.

I
WAVED TO ROB HASTINGS WHEN I WALKED INTO HIS HARDWARE
store. The owner was selling a middle-aged man some exotic wood from the section of his store devoted to woodworkers. It would have surprised a lot of folks back in Charlotte that one of my best friends in Parson’s Valley was the heavyset widowed owner of the town hardware store, but sometimes there’s no accounting for how people make a connection. When we’d first moved into our old cottage, Zach and I had discovered that there were a thousand things that needed fixing, and we soon learned that Rob had all the answers, and on those rare occasions when he didn’t, he had a good idea of exactly who in our area might. Since Zach’s consulting business was just starting to take off, my husband had to go where the crime was. At times, he was gone more often than he was at home, so I’d turned to Rob for help, and we’d soon developed a friendship. What had sealed it, at least for him, was
the sourdough bread I baked every week, with one loaf earmarked especially for him. His late wife had made the same subtle sourdough that I did, with a hint of the flavor instead of the overpowering blast that many starters yielded. We’d soon worked out an arrangement that both of us were happy with: his advice for my bread.

After Rob rang up the man’s sale and helped him to his car, he smiled at me and said, “There goes a man who appreciates history.”

“What were you two discussing?” I asked.

“Wood,” he answered, looking surprised by my question. “You saw us over there, didn’t you?”

“I’m probably going to regret this, but what’s historic about those particular boards he just bought?”

Rob retrieved another plank from the pile—one about eight inches wide, four feet long, and an inch thick. “Savannah, how heavy would you say this board is?”

I looked at its bulk. “It looks like it weighs a lot.”

Then he handed to me. “Now what would you say?”

“It’s surprisingly light,” I admitted.

“But it’s stronger than you’d ever imagine. How about the color of the wood? Does it look familiar?”

I studied the board in my hand. It was a game we sometimes played, identifying wood species, and I’d gotten to be pretty good at it over the past few years. Even Rob admitted that it was getting harder and harder to stump me. “The grain pattern looks like it could be some type of oak, but I’ve never seen anything in that species that color before. It’s a cross between blond and butter, if I had to categorize it.”

He laughed at my description.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I’ve just never heard it described that way before, but
I think you’ve nailed it perfectly. So, are you ready to guess?”

I looked at it again, and then handed the board back to him. “Not today. I’m afraid you’ve beaten me. I give up.”

He didn’t gloat; I had to give him credit for that. “Don’t take it too hard. There are woodworkers who’ve been at it for decades who’ve never held a piece of this in their hands. It’s authentic American chestnut, harvested a hundred years ago and cut with a water-powered saw blade.”

“Okay, I see the history of it,” I acknowledged. “What does it cost?”

“It’s ten dollars a board foot,” he said. “I’d say that was cheap for a piece of history, wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” I said as I took out my purse and put a ten dollar bill in his hand. “I’ll take it.”