Cut, Crop & Die (19 page)

Dodie nodded.

Horace excused himself to find plywood for covering what was left of our window. Bama moved slowly to help me, trailing one hand along the table and fixtures. Detweiler jingled change in his pocket and watched us. “Okay, Mrs. Harmon has reason to want to hurt Mrs. Goldfader. That I understand. But how does Mrs. Harmon benefit from Mrs. Gaynor’s death? She has one less customer.”

“People are blaming us for Yvonne’s death. We’re losing business,” I said. “Not to mention our windows are being broken and we’re getting threats. These could be hate crimes, but I bet they’re because of the murder.”

Bama added, “Plus, Ellen’s getting tons of publicity and attention. She’s appeared on television or radio or in the paper every day since Yvonne died. She’s done a great job of positioning herself—and smearing our store in a sneaky way.” She paused and said to me, “You know, Ellen is displaying Yvonne’s pages and hosting a memorial crop.” Then for Detweiler’s benefit, Bama continued, “Ellen may have lost one customer, but she’s got lots of curious people stopping by to see what Yvonne was doing that was so special. Which, if you ask me, wasn’t much.”

“Morbid curiosity,” Detweiler tucked his notebook away. “Their interest won’t last long. Meanwhile, I’ll check out other hate crimes in the neighborhood. Even though I hate coincidence, I’m not convinced these things are related. Patrol cars will keep an eye on the store, but you need to be vigilant. All of you.” He stopped and pointed a finger at me. “And you better not snoop around. Hear me?”

OUR FRIDAY NIGHT CROPPERS examined their paper bag bundles curiously. The women were far too polite to ask if I’d lost my mind. At first glance, I’d passed out brown lunch bags stacked with ends alternating open and shut. I let them puzzle over the mess for a moment before holding up my sample paper bag album.

“Holy Moly,” said Vanessa Johnson. “I can’t believe
that
was once
this
.” To underscore her remark, she pointed to my work and waggled her bags in the air.

Mardi Hamilton shook her head. “This is just amazing. I can’t wait to show my grandchildren.”

“I’m trying this with my scout troop,” said Angie Guinness. “They’ll love it!”

Nettie Klasser noted, “Wait ’til old Ellen Harmon hears about this. She’ll be copying your project faster than you can use a paper trimmer. Probably get a class going before that phoney memorial service. She doesn’t care about Yvonne Gaynor—it’s all about making the cash register ring. Too bad Ellen wasn’t the one who died.”

The other women averted their eyes. Nettie was laying it on a bit thick, but she didn’t seem to care. She added, “Rena wasn’t sure whether to show up tonight or not. She was afraid people’d think her disloyal to Yvonne. Huh! Like Yvonne ever cared about her! Or me!” Nettie punctuated her comment with a loud slurp from a big bottle of Mountain Dew.

Merry Morrison led the others in focusing on the project at hand. She reached for my finished sample. “I’ll be jiggered. That’s absolutely amazing. I can use up all those bits and pieces of paper I’ve been saving.”

Stacy Czech and her friend Marla Lenzen were excited as well, and Stacy passed the album to Bonnie Gossage.

Bonnie turned the project round and round in her hands. “I love it! I’m teaching a Sunday school class, and this would be perfect. Finally, a project kids can’t goof up.”

I laughed. This was the part of my job I loved best. “Okay, this is what you can do with ordinary brown bags. Now look at what I made with colored bags, and here we have a project using fancy gift bags.”

The corresponding “ooohs” and “aaahs” thrilled me. As I’d hoped, the women were first stunned, then raring to go.

“Can we make one of those fancy ones next time? Oh, please!” Rita Romano nearly jumped out of her chair. The guest she’d brought, a woman named Emma Delacroix Martin, was equally enthusiastic. I’d met Emma before. She had kids who attended CALA, my daughter’s school. But this was the first time Emma had come to one of our crops. Together she and Rita plotted all the fun they could have with the elegant gift bag album. The stunned silence that had greeted my initial handing out of materials was now a loud buzz. In fact, the noise level had risen so high, I nearly didn’t hear the door minder.

A smiling Clancy Whitehead approached me. “I know I didn’t sign up in advance, but can I at least watch? There’s nothing on TV—”

“No problem! Girls, say hi to Clancy. Have a seat, kiddo. I always make extras. Here’s our project.”

The card Vanessa and friends signed supporting Time in a Bottle found a place of honor on our cash register. Dodie gave Vanessa a big hug and handed discount coupons all around. The raised bruise on her head went a long way toward generating sympathy, as did news of the hate crimes. By the time our crop ended, Dodie, Bama, and I were in a much better mood. The cheerful, supportive, and appreciative voices of our regular customers, plus the new faces, gave us encouragement we badly needed. I noticed Nettie and Clancy chatting quietly. I made a mental note to call Clancy as soon as possible, ostensibly to thank her for coming, but really to find out what new poop she had learned. Clancy would be happy to pass along any gossip.

I picked up paper scraps. “You sure you two can handle the shop while I’m at Spa La Femme tomorrow?” I glanced from Bama to Dodie.

“No way are you getting out of that appointment.” Dodie took Horace’s hand in hers. After boarding up half our front window, he’d left us, only to show up at closing to drive his wife home. When he walked in, he presented Dodie with a lovely red rose wrapped in cellophane. “I’ll put this in water on my desk,” she smiled at him and walked away.

Horace turned to me. His eyes were blurry and large bags of purple hung under them. “Could I pick up Gracie tomorrow? I know you have the day off. Your dog is good company for my wife. I know the police will be watching, but I’d feel a little more confident with the Great Dane here. I’m planning to be in and out. I don’t want to worry my darling girl, but I feel like, well, I need to keep an eye on her. In fact, one of my honey-do tasks tomorrow is to buy a big Beware of Dog sign and tack it to the back door. It’s not much, but it might help.”

“Of course, you can borrow Gracie,” I said. “Anytime.”

It was nearly dark by the time I made it to Sheila’s house. A bat swooped toward her lawn in the dusk. My mother-in-law didn’t even notice. Dressed in a pair of tailored rose slacks, an ivory short-sleeved blouse and flats, Sheila was digging holes with a hand trowel and planting something long and round in them. I noticed Anya on the porch with a pack of batteries. Empty boxes were scattered around her. I tied Gracie under a maple tree and moved closer.

“Hi, Mom.” My daughter, my eleven-almost-twelve-year-old child, paused while loading batteries into vibrators.

I gawked. I blinked. I had no idea what to say or how to handle this situation, so I tried valiantly to stay calm. But who can stay cool and collected while watching her child activate sex toys? “What are you doing?”

Anya tossed her platinum blonde ponytail, causing the ends of a perky navy ribbon to flutter. She held up a plastic model of a male body part and said, “I’m helping Nana get rid of moles.”

I mumbled under my breath. I headed toward her grandmother. “Oh, Sheila? Sheila? Can we talk?”

My mother-in-law wiped her forehead with a delicate linen handkerchief and tucked it into her back pocket. “Make it snappy. I’ve got work to do.” She bent her back to the task at hand, ramming the shovel into the ground, catching it as it bounced back at her, and trying once more until she found a patch of ground that would give way.

“Um … please don’t tell me my daughter is packing batteries into vibrators.”

“Yes, indeed she is. One website swears moles hate vibrators. I let my fingers do the walking until I found an adult toy store up on Lindbergh near the airport that was having a sale. I bought everything they had.”

Oh, boy.

“Are you sure this is the kind of vibrator they meant? For the moles, I mean.”

Sheila gave me a look I secretly call “the evil eye.” “How on earth would I know? And if I don’t know, how could a stupid mole tell? The salespeople at the store asked me what I wanted with all these toys, and when I told them, they assured me that a vibrator is a vibrator is a vibrator if you are a mole. They said they had lots of experience with customers and small rodents.”

I clamped my jaw shut. No way was I going to share why they might have had this particular experience … but I had my ideas.

She continued, “My other choices were lye, Drano, bleach, and moth balls. We’ve already planted more moth balls. Four entire boxes. That’s in addition to the ones you helped me plant. Anya and I planted the new moth balls yesterday after shopping at the Galleria.”

Well, that explained the weird smell on Anya’s clothes. At least it wasn’t dope.

Sheila was on a tear. “Last night I gave pickle juice another chance. I poured eight bottles into these holes, and son of a gun, this morning, two new tunnels popped up. Do you know what they call baby moles? Pups! These moles are having hot and sweaty mole sex and producing more litters as we speak!”

Given her level of irritation—and the fact that Sheila could go off like a point-and-shoot weapon when angry—I trod softly. “You know, Sheila, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Anya to have contact with adult toys at this impressionable age. I mean, what if she tells a friend she’s been playing with vibrators?”

“I told her they’re radio transmitters that send out a frequency that scares vermin.” A dirty finger jabbed me in the chest. “She has no idea what she’s loading unless you blab to her.”

I bit my lower lip … hard. We’d been swapping off picking up my daughter after science camp for two weeks. Hello? And what were they studying at science camp? Oh, radios and such. I made another stab at convincing my mother-in-law this might not be a fit task for a pre-teen. Sheila turned her back and returned to her digging, so I had to talk fast. I dodged and danced out of her way as she tossed dirt to one side and then to the other with unpredictability. “Right, but that ‘radio transmitter’ she has in her hand?

The one she waved at me when I pulled up? That’s an exact duplicate of your late son’s finer attributes.”

Sheila tossed down the shovel. It bonked and bounced. The woman was a danger to humanity. I managed to step aside before the handle hit me in the shin. My mother-in-law paid no heed as she stomped over to Anya. Plucking the loaded vibrator from the child’s hand, she moved the switch from its lowest to highest level.

With an evil grin, my mother-in-law turned to me, waved the vibrator and said, “Really? Just like you know who? That good, huh?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Well, poor you. He was not half the man his father was!”

“Okay, sweetie,” I said to Anya as she climbed into the car, dragging her ever-present backpack with her. “Let’s go home and light the Shabbat candles. I know you lit them with your grandmother, but it has to be sundown somewhere, and I’d like to light them together.”