Falling to Pieces (28 page)

“Too bad that was actually a week ago.” Trent stood, signaling to Callie that it was time for them to go.

“Dates and times—sometimes these things blur for me. I have a deli to run and can’t always be looking at a calendar or a clock.” He chuckled and walked them to the door. “Be careful, young lady.”

“Don’t forget—I insisted on going back to the shop first.”

“I’ve got it. You don’t need to write it down.”

For a moment the jesting demeanor was gone, replaced by a wiser man who had perhaps seen his share of evil. “Whoever this person is, he isn’t playing a game, and he won’t hesitate to hurt anyone who steps in his way.”

Callie stepped closer, kissed his weathered cheek. “I will be careful.”

Callie stepped out into the night, but as she did, she heard Simms pull Trent back and mutter, “Take care of her, or you’ll need more than a newspaper to hide behind.”

S
ATURDAY EVENING,
Deborah parked her buggy at Mr. Simms’s deli, promised him one last time they would be fine, and hurried in the waning light down Main Street.

When Daisy’s Quilt Shop came into sight, she skirted near the overhang of the buildings, hoping no one saw her. If they did, she had her excuse ready—a cup of plant fertilizer in her basket for Callie’s window plants.

Come murder or burglary she was not about to see the shop fall into disrepair like it had before. Now that she thought about it, maybe they’d have time to fertilize the ferns and spider ivy before they hid upstairs in the apartment.

Letting herself in with the key Callie had given her, she locked the door behind her, then turned around and let out a shriek when she bumped into Callie.

“Having second thoughts?” Callie asked, a grin splayed across her face.

“Of course not, though my stomach has been
naerfich
all day.” Deborah smiled back at her, and thrust the basket into Callie’s hands. “It’s as if we’ve stepped into one of those Agatha Christie novels you are so fond of reading.”

“Yes, turns out my Aunt Daisy had good taste in authors.

Remember though, this isn’t a book. We follow the plan—lock Stakehorn in the storage room, leave the shop, call the police.”

“That’s exactly what I told Jonas—lock, leave, and call. The way the man drinks, he’ll probably fall asleep in the storage room before the police arrive.”

Callie pulled up the cloth napkin and peered into the basket. Squirreling up her nose she took a step backward, holding the basket at arm’s length. “This is not food.”

“No, it isn’t for human consumption. How would it look for me to be bringing food here when the entire town is talking about your probable arrest?” Deborah smirked, then walked into the shop, which was growing dark. Enough light was still coming in the front windows for her to see that the plants looked healthy.

“So they’re buying the story?” Callie followed, trying to push the basket back into Deborah’s hands.

“Ya.
It’s the gossip of the town. Most folks are so mad at Black they won’t speak to him. Gavin is walking around looking as if he’s been sideswiped by a two-by-four. And Trent had to pretend he’d gone over to Middlebury for supplies so people would stop pestering him for more details.”

“
Most
folks are mad?” Callie plucked on Deborah’s arm as she walked into the kitchen to fill a pitcher with water. “Most? You mean some people actually think I deserved to be arrested? They think I’m guilty?”

“Some people are always willing to believe the worst. You know that. It’s true whether you’re in Shipshe or in Texas.”

“I suppose.” Callie sighed, set the basket on the counter, then looked at the pitcher of water. “What are you planning on doing with that, throwing it at the killer?”

“Of course not.” She reached into the basket and pulled out a pot, then untied the string that was holding a cloth over the top. “I’m going to feed the plants while I’m here. It’s why I brought the
fertilizer—a special mixture of manure and herbs Jonas makes up for me to use on my own garden plants.”

Callie followed her out toward the front window.

“Throw that at whoever comes through the door. He’ll run for his life. Smells like something Max did after I fed him one of my failed attempts at cooking.”

Deborah heard the downturn in her voice at Max’s name. “No doubt it was hard for you to leave Max at Doc England’s, but you know it was for the better. If he’d been here, he would have tried to take another bite out of the intruder.”

At the word intruder, they both heard noise at the back door.

Her heart thumping in her chest, Deborah snatched Callie by the arm, pulling her behind the aisle of cotton fabric. Looking into her eyes, she saw surprise, a healthy dose of fear, and steely resolve—the very emotions she was feeling.

“It’s not even completely dark yet,” Callie muttered.

Deborah shushed her and reached on a nearby table for a weapon. All she came up with was a pair of quilting scissors. Callie stared at her as if she were truly
narrisch,
and perhaps she was. But when Deborah handed them to her she took them and gripped them like a stake she planned to ram into the ground.

Deborah slowly pulled out one of the bolts of fabric from the shelf they crouched near and held it like a softball bat. She hadn’t played since she was a girl, but she still remembered the way it felt to swing the bat and connect with the ball. Would it feel the same to swat a man with a heavy bolt of cotton cloth?

They squatted there, waiting for the intruder to make his way into the back room where the safe was located.

Instead they heard footsteps slowly trudging toward the front room. So much for hiding. If the murderer was coming toward them, maybe they could knock him over, run out the door, and get help.

Motioning for Callie to creep toward the right end of the aisle,
Deborah headed toward the left. Then holding up her fingers she counted one, two, and finally three.

They jumped out at the same time, shouting “Don’t move,” and “We have you surrounded.”

Trent stumbled backward and knocked over the lamp on the check-out counter. “Easy, ladies. I’m not your man.”

Deborah and Callie exchanged glances, as if they weren’t quite sure they could trust him.

“What are you doing here?” Deborah asked, still not relinquishing her bolt of calico print cotton.

“I came to help, maybe snap a few pictures. Now would you mind dropping the flowery material?” Trent righted the lamp and pushed his glasses back into place. “Callie, put down those scissors, before you hurt someone.”

“We hadn’t planned on needing to defend ourselves. Stakehorn won’t be walking up and down the fabric aisles. He’ll be headed straight for the safe. Now would
you
mind getting out of here? We’re trying to be inconspicuous, which we can’t do if you’re on a photo opp.” She pointed her scissors at the camera around his neck. “We also can’t have people just dropping by.”

“I wasn’t exactly here for a social visit, gorgeous.”

Deborah noticed Callie’s eyes widen slightly at the nickname, but decided it was something she’d have to ask about later. “Why are you here, Trent?”

“Like I said, it’ll make good cover copy in the paper. Besides I couldn’t leave you two here to greet a killer by yourself.”

“How did you get in?” Callie stepped forward.

“I thought about jimmying the lock, but there was a key hidden under the frog.”

“You didn’t bring that in?” Deborah asked Callie.

“I thought you did.”

“Ladies? Could we hide before he gets here?”

Callie switched the scissors to her other hand, wiped her
sweaty palm on her skirt. “You know we don’t need a man. We can do this by ourselves.”

“Actually it might be a good idea,” Deborah interrupted. “Jonas wanted to come, but I needed him to stay home with the
boppli
.”

“I’m glad someone here is willing to listen to reason.” Trent smiled, apparently happy that he’d won a round.

“Well, you didn’t say anything last night about wanting to be here.”

“Maybe that’s because I didn’t have time to think it through when you sprung this crazy idea on me.”

“If it’s so crazy, why did you agree to it?”

They were now only inches apart, and Deborah wondered if arguing was some strange English courting ritual. “Umm, guys. I think we probably should move upstairs.”

Trent and Callie turned to glare at her.

Deborah pointed out the front window. “Pretty dark out there. I wouldn’t put it past our guy to show up any minute.”

But in fact he didn’t show up then, and they could have stayed downstairs arguing for quite some time.

Upstairs, they sat in the darkness of Callie’s apartment on the floor in front of the bay windows and watched the streets of Shipshewana grow less crowded and then deserted.

One by one the lights went out in each store.

Twice Andrew Gavin drove by, even stopping once to shine his flashlight in the front door of Daisy’s Quilt Shop.

“I feel a little guilty about not telling him,” Callie confessed.

The light of a quarter moon slipped through the front window of the apartment, dispelling enough of the darkness for them to see each other’s expression.

“Now you grow a conscience.” Trent rolled his eyes, but Deborah also heard the concern in his voice.

“You can come clean tomorrow,” Deborah reminded her. “After we catch the murderer.”

“If we catch him.” Callie traced the pattern in the wood grain on the floor. “What if he doesn’t show? What if I remain Black’s best suspect?”

“Adalyn said he doesn’t have enough evidence to prosecute, Callie. Try not to worry about tomorrow’s problems.” Deborah reached out and squeezed her hand, which was when they heard the tinkle of glass breaking downstairs.

Then the back door of Daisy’s Quilt Shop opened once again.

Callie felt every hair on her neck prickle up.

She stared at Trent and Deborah and knew they were as shocked as she was. They had planned everything so carefully, but now that it was actually happening, they could hardly believe it.

Downstairs, someone was moving toward the safe in her back room—and that someone was most certainly the person who had killed Stakehorn, the person who had hurt Margie, and the person who had shot her dog.

Anger surged through Callie’s veins.

She leapt off the floor and would have hurdled herself down the stairs if Trent hadn’t caught her by the waist. “Slow, Callie Grace. Slow and quiet.”

He’d never used her middle name before. She had no idea how he even knew it, unless he’d been doing some investigating into her background. Would he have done that? Before she could fully consider the question, he’d encircled her waist with both arms and pulled her back across the room, his lips lingering near her ear. His words were like cold water in her face. The effect of those two words was like her mother’s sensible voice in her memory. It slowed her down, calmed the fury just enough to allow caution a bit of room.

She pulled in a deep breath, nodded once, and picked up the scissors off the end table.

They took the stairs in that order.

Callie first, carrying her wickedly sharp fabric scissors. Trent following, fists clenched at his side, his camera apparently left behind. Deborah bringing up the rear, still clutching her bolt of fabric.

As they crept down the stairs, then around the corner into the back hall, they lost the light of the moon.

Callie met a wall of blackness, but was finally able to make out a pin-prick of light, which slowly broadened to a glow the size of her fist.

It had to be coming from a flashlight.

As they tip-toed closer, she made out a figure, hunched over the tiny desk which was stored against the east wall. The person was shuffling through papers and pulling out drawers. Deborah had suggested they write the safe’s combination on an index card and tape it inside the middle desk drawer, under the pencil keeper—something a burglar might expect an old lady to do.

Callie knew the moment he found it. She could have sworn she heard him cackle.

Then he spun away from them and toward the safe in the wall at the back of the room.

She could almost make out who it was. There was something familiar about the shape of his head, the way he hunched his shoulders as he worked in the near darkness. She couldn’t see well enough to be sure, but she had the distinct impression she’d seen him before.

When he turned away, she lost the light from his flashlight. He was turning the combination on the lock, had just opened the safe’s door, and pulled out the envelope stuffed with one dollar bills, when Callie, Trent, and Deborah reached the door to the little back room.

As planned, they didn’t confront him, didn’t holler out, didn’t try to stop him from taking the money or the package they’d planted in the safe.

Instead Callie slammed the door shut, Trent braced it closed with his shoulder, and Deborah grabbed the chair they’d placed in the next room. They moved it under the knob in one smooth motion.

“Find something else,” Trent said. “In case this doesn’t hold.”

Callie and Deborah hurried into the next room.

Callie ran into an old oak trunk Daisy had used to keep extra supplies in, smashing her knee into the brass fixture on the side.

“William Barret Travis,” she groaned. “I think I broke my knee.”

Deborah was too focused on the task at hand to comment on the obscure reference—or even the injury. “Hurry, Callie! Let’s drag this back to Trent.”

Ignoring the throbbing in her knee, she grabbed the trunk by one handle and began to pull it out of the room and down the hall. She couldn’t see Deborah, but she could feel her on the other end, pushing with as much effort as she was pulling.

They fumbled down the dark hall, where Trent was leaning with all of his weight against the door.

“Why didn’t you turn the lights on?” he asked.

“Didn’t think of it.” Callie wondered if she could lift the trunk up enough to drop it on his foot. Leave it to a man to have a better idea in the midst of a crisis. Maybe if he felt the full weight of the trunk he’d cut her some slack.

“I thought of it,” Deborah pushed her end in place. “Electricity isn’t working.”

Why didn’t the electricity work? Had the man cut the power before he’d broken into the shop? Why would he do that?

The person on the other side of the door had realized his predicament by this point. He’d begun banging on the door and hollering—demanding to be let out. Swearing he’d get even once he found a way through the solid wood door.

“Have to admire the construction in these older buildings.” Trent’s voice sounded tight and uncharacteristically nervous.

Callie thought she heard him sit down on top of the chest.

“This should hold him for a while, but I’d feel better if you ladies stayed in the next room.”

“Whatever for?” Deborah asked.

Next to her, Callie felt Deborah pick up the bolt of cloth she had dropped and hug it to herself. She stood so close that their shoulders were touching, and Callie could feel the slight tremor passing through her arms.