Button Holed (24 page)

“Where are you, Kaz?” I mumbled, as surprised as I could be that I suddenly couldn’t wait to see the very man I’d sworn a year earlier that I never wanted to lay eyes on again. Disgusted, both at Kaz for his disappearing act and at myself for caring so much, I followed the crowd around the Ferris wheel, past the Tilt-A-Whirl, toward where the street narrowed and dead-ended into the athletic fields.

With every step, I was getting farther from the parking lot and my car, and I wondered how smart that was.

I hesitated for a second.

It was one second too long.

Someone bumped into me from behind, and I turned and would have apologized for slowing down traffic if I didn’t find my nose against a black T-shirt and a chest that didn’t look as much like a piece of anatomy as it did a cement wall.

“Going somewhere?”

Oh yeah, the shoulders were familiar, but the accent was unmistakable. When the big guy shot out a hand to grab my arm, I ducked, dodged, and took off like a shot.

Note to self: a short woman in sneakers should be able to sidestep in and out of crowds faster than a big guy with a phony Schwarzenegger accent. That should have been the good news. The reality? It seemed no matter how fast I walked, the big guy was just a few steps behind me.

Near the pony rides, he made another move to grab me, and this time, I didn’t hesitate, and I didn’t bother with walking, either. I took off as fast as I could, darting in and out of the crowd and not bothering to excuse myself. I was back to the area where the craft tents were set up, and I headed for Hetty’s. A seventy-year-old woman might not be much help in a fight, but I figured there was safety in numbers. Her display was a few hundred feet up ahead, and I kept my eyes on it. Better to focus on getting there than to think about how my lungs burned and my leg muscles screamed for me to stop.

There was a clown making balloon animals almost directly in front of Hetty’s display. I raced around him, turned—

And smacked right into Kaz.

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you. I thought for sure you’d still be here with Hetty.” He wound an arm through mine. “Come on, we’ve got a date over at the Dew Drop Inn.”

Chapter Fifteen

DID I MENTION THE BIG GUY TO KAZ?

I did not. There was the whole thing about worrying what he might do, of course, but honestly, the real reason I didn’t say anything was that after he told me we were going to the Dew Drop Inn, he told me why.

And my button fever went from red-hot to raging.

It seems while I’d been chatting with Hetty and then getting chased around the fair by the burglar from Chicago, Kaz had been making phone calls (which explains why he never got my voice-mail messages). He couldn’t get in touch with all the people from the class of 1987 who Hetty mentioned, but he got through to most.

Go figure.

Remembering what Hetty had also said about how strangers weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms in these parts, Kaz had played his cards right. (And just as an aside here, playing his cards right isn’t something Kaz always does. Hence the fact that he owes so much money to so many people.) His story was that we were leaving town bright and early the next morning, so we had to talk to them soon. He mentioned that I was buying—the drinks, that is, as well as their buttons if they were willing to sell them.

Let’s face it, with the thought of those buttons tempting me like a snake in an apple tree, I wasn’t going to risk Kaz running off and tracking down the big guy in black. No way, no how. When it comes to buttons, I am willing to take chances, and make sacrifices, and keep my mouth shut. At least until we were finished with our meeting at the Dew Drop Inn. Then, I promised myself, I’d spill the beans.

I am not, however, completely nuts. Or careless. I let Kaz drive, but I made sure I looked behind us a couple dozen times when we left town. I told him I was admiring the scenery when what I was really doing was making sure we weren’t being followed.

Within fifteen minutes, we parked outside a little place just beyond the town’s water-filtration plant, a miniature golf course, and a junkyard. The Dew Drop Inn looked as if it had been there for more years than I’d been alive, a ramshackle place with a roofline as steep as the hills that surrounded it. Its paint was weathered to a shade of gray that matched the quickly gathering evening light, and the building would have blended right into the night if not for the glowing neon beer signs in each of its windows.

From the looks of the gravel parking lot, it was obvious not everyone in town was interested in the festival. The place was packed with more pickup trucks than cars, and from inside, I heard the jukebox wailing country music. I’m a city girl and no expert. It might have been Patsy Cline.

“Now, don’t just charge in there and start talking buttons.” When we got out of the car, Kaz looked at me over the roof. “Remember what Hetty said. If people don’t trust us—”

“What’s not to trust about a button collector?” I practiced my friendliest smile, the one I was planning on using on the class of 1987. “Besides . . .” I said as I rounded the car, and side by side, we headed for the door, “if I keep the conversation to buttons, they won’t suspect I’m really talking about murder.”

Inside, the Dew Drop Inn reminded me of the neighborhood saloons that are so plentiful in Chicago. There was a long wooden bar with a mirror behind it against the wall to our right and across from it, booths against the far wall and tables and chairs in between. The place was cozy without being crowded, dimly lit without being too dark, and decorated with a collection of hunting trophies, football memorabilia, and old license plates.

A few of the tables in the center of the room had been pushed together, and there were six people gathered around. Midthirties. Looked like locals. I knew we’d found the people we were looking for even before one of the men waved us over. He was balding and paunchy, and he stood when I got to the table and extended a hand.

“Homer Ketch, ma’am,” he said. “We understand you’re looking for information about our class back from when we was all in elementary school.”

At the same time I nodded hello to the people around the table, I remembered Kaz’s caveat. I sat down across the wooden table from him, with Homer on my right at the head of the table and the woman who introduced herself as Tiffany Chatham Dubois directly to my left. She smelled like gardenias, and my nose twitched. “Let’s order drinks first before we talk business,” I suggested. “And something to eat?”

After the lone waitress took orders for burgers and beers, I got down to brass tacks. I explained that I was a button collector. I told them about my shop. Fortunately, nobody connected me with the button lady whose face (and butt) had been splashed all over the tabloids along with pictures of Kate Franciscus, so I was able, without being too specific, to say I’d come across one of Granny Maude’s buttons and I was eager to learn more about her and her artwork. It was a hawk button, I told them.

Tiffany perked right up. She had a head of bleached hair, a bowed mouth coated with startling red lipstick, and a bright smile that made me bet that back in the day, Tiffany was considered the cutest girl in Bent Grove. She turned that smile on Kaz. “Hawks was our year,” she purred, tracing an invisible pattern against the table with one finger and leaning forward just enough to expose the cleavage that peeked from the V-neck of her too-tight camisole. Still smiling at him like she was a beauty-pageant contestant and he was one of the judges, she took a sandwich bag out of her purse and plunked it on the table. Yes, I had been restrained. And as professional as all get-out. But I couldn’t help myself. The moment that bag touched the table, I slid it closer for a better look.

There were hawk buttons inside.

Six of them.

Since Tiffany wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to me, I was able to slip the buttons out of the bag, the better to admire them, while she said, “Betcha think it’s silly, a whole town gettin’ all het up over some buttons.”

Sure, she was talking to Kaz, but I answered anyway. “You forget, buttons are my business. I think they’re the most interesting things in all the world. So, of course, I don’t think it’s silly at all. You all . . .” The buttons cupped in my palm, I looked around. “Do you all still have your hawk buttons?”

“Not with us!” Sharon Porter laughed. She didn’t have any front teeth. “Me and Ron . . .” He was sitting next to her, and when Sharon nodded, Ron did, too. “We had our buttons framed years ago. You know, on account of because they’re real special. They’re hanging in my living room and in Ron’s, too, even though Cindy, his wife, she ain’t all that fond of them.”

Three sets of buttons accounted for.

“I love it that you all appreciate the artistry of Maude’s work,” I said as the beers arrived, and I waited for the waitress to pass them. I took a sip. Truth be told, I’m not much of a beer drinker. It was a small sip. “How about you?” The man sitting at the other end of the table was tall and thin, and he’d been pretty quiet. “Do you still have yours?”

“I would if my wife would let me near ’em.” He chuckled and introduced himself as Mike Crowell. “Used them on a sweater she knitted. Said they were too pretty to keep packed away. Says once that sweater wears out, she’s gonna put them on the next one she knits.”

“Really? All six of them?” I hoped that sounded as casual as I meant it.

Mike nodded. “Every one of ’em. And Gil, that wife of yours, she used yours, too.”

“On her wedding gown.” Gil still couldn’t believe it. He rolled his eyes. “She cherishes that ol’ thing, even though we’ve been married close to twenty years now.”

Again, I hoped for casual. “All six of the buttons on a wedding gown? That’s amazing!”

Gil nodded. He was seated next to a stick-thin woman with inch-long nails painted Barbie pink who’d been chain-smoking since we walked in. I wasn’t sure if she was Lois Buck or Mary Katherine Rosman. Turned out I was wrong on both accounts. She was Betty Hames, the mother of the classmate who’d died in a truck accident the year before. Even from where I sat, I could catch the cloying scent of her rose perfume. “Got Tommy’s buttons, too,” she said, and she blew a long stream of smoke into the air and eyed Kaz like he was a ham on a buffet table—and she was starving. “Kept all of Tommy’s things, of course.”

“Amazing.” It really was, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to dig just a little deeper. “And Mary Katherine and Lois . . .” I looked around the table. The two women were obviously missing, and I hoped someone knew something about them.

“Mary Katherine, she’s living up in Pittsburgh. I talk to her once in a while,” Tiffany informed me. No easy thing since she was busy batting her eyelashes at Kaz.

And my ex? He was taking all this female attention in stride, sitting back in his chair, his chest puffed. As far as I knew, he’d been telling the truth when he said he’d never been unfaithful when we were married. But I couldn’t help but wonder what Kaz had been up to since our divorce was final.

And oh, how I hated myself for even thinking about it!

I washed away the thought with a gulp of bitter beer. Kaz wasn’t my problem. Buttons were. Buttons and murder.

If I was smart, I wouldn’t forget it.

“I don’t suppose you and Mary Katherine ever talk about the buttons?” Oh yeah, it was a stretch, but hey, I was paying for burgers and beers; I might as well get my money’s worth. “Do you think she still has hers?”

“I know she does.” Tiffany skimmed a finger across her collarbone. “Mary Katherine, she makes her own necklaces and bracelets and such. She told me she used them buttons as part of a necklace.”

I cringed at the thought of such sacrilege. But not for long. That left only one class member, and my hopes lifted along with my anticipation.

“Lois Buck.” I looked around the table. “Nobody’s said a word about her. Or her buttons.”

“Lois.” Tiffany’s bowed lips puckered even more. “Worthless.”

“Was she?” I sat up, interested. “You mean—”

“Tiffany’s still jealous!” Homer laughed, and so did the others around the table. All except Tiffany. “Still hurts, don’t it, Tiffany? After all these years?” He looked my way. “Lois stole Rand right out from under Tiffany’s nose, and we were all surprised at that. Lois, she was about as ugly as a mud fence. Never made much sense, Rand givin’ up Tiffany for a girl like that.”

Tiffany was not amused. “No accountin’ for the taste of a sixteen-year-old boy,” she said. “And it’s no mind to me, anymore. You can be sure of that. I tell you, I’m not the one who lost out in that deal.” She tipped her head toward the bar and the man who was sitting on a stool at the far end of it. “I guarantee . . .” She was smiling again. Smiling and looking at Kaz. “If Rand Jones didn’t dump me for Lois, he wouldn’t be sittin’ there now lookin’ so sad and lonely all by himself. I know how to keep a man out of the bars and happy at home.”

While the others oohed at this good-naturedly, I took a chance to glance over my shoulder at Rand Jones. He was a little older than the rest of us, and his dark hair was shot through with silver and streamed over his collar. He was dressed in worn jeans and a stained T-shirt, and his craggy jaw was coated with a couple days’ growth of beard.