Grace Against the Clock (A Manor House Mystery) (21 page)

“That’s fine. All I want to know is who else bought from them recently. They told you that, didn’t they?”

He stuck a pinky finger in his ear and wiggled it around.

Frances was giving me the evil eye. “He’s useless,” she said under her breath.

Tooney brought his arm up and pointed a shaky finger at her. “You—need—to—shut—up.”

Frances’s mouth dropped open and she sat straight. “How dare—”

“Frances, let it go,” I said. “Talk to me, Tooney. Who else did they sell moonshine to?”

“A guy. Male.”

“Who?” I asked.

“I couldn’t ask too many questions, y’unnerstand,” he said. “I had to be sneaky about it. I told them that a coupla friends might be innerested in buying from them, too. Asked them if maybe my friends were already customers.”

“And?” I asked, wishing he would get to it.

“No names. Never names.” He held up an index finger and wagged it back and forth. “Wouldn’t even let me say my name. So—” He held both hands out to the side. “No help there.”

“How old was the guy?”

“No idea.” Tooney gave an exaggerated shrug. “Y’see, these guys who make the stuff are old. They been doin’ this since before even I was born. Everybody looks young to them.”

“What did you do?”

“I said that one of my friends had dark hair and kinda looked like a skeleton.”

“You described David Cherk?”

He nodded, his top lip heavy over his bottom one. “They said nope, no skeletons came in.”

My shoulders slumped. “So you got nothing.”

“Didn’t say that.” He worked up a smile. “I like it when you’re proud of me, Gracie. Makes me feel good.”

Frances loosened her pout long enough to interject, “Her name isn’t Gracie.”

“I asked if anybody seemed, like, suspicious, when they bought the moonshine,” Tooney said.

“More suspicious than you, you mean?” Frances asked.

He was so intent on imparting information that he seemed to not hear her. He leaned very far forward and I could smell the booze on his hot breath. His eyes were yellow and rimmed in red, and he looked as though he might crash any moment.

“They told me about a guy who comes in and buys four bottles at once. I got the impression he was a regular customer.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Tooney?”

“The guy said that his wife left him. Said he wanted the stuff to drown his sorrows.” Tooney lowered his chin and stared at me from beneath wiry brows. “Who does that sound like?”

Chapter 27

When I got home late that afternoon, I didn’t walk straight in. Even though my brain was chock-full of clues about the murder and my heart was heavy because of Adam’s departure, I stopped for a moment on my driveway. I wanted to take some time to appreciate the positive changes Hillary had brought to my home.

All her hard work, coupled with her surprisingly adept management, had paid off. The exterior was in the process of being painted—Hillary’s choice, pastel blue—and all the new windows were in. The porch, which had once been as shabby as Tooney’s, was now on the way to becoming breathtakingly beautiful. All that was left—outside at least—was to finish up with bright green, purple, and pink trim. As Hillary had promised, the house was beginning to look like something out of a high-class fairy tale.

I took a deep breath. Tooney’s investigation hadn’t provided as much help as I’d hoped for, but Flynn had been happy to see us. More accurately, he’d been happy to see the jar of moonshine when we’d dropped it off with him. He planned to give it to the coroner for comparison with the alcohol that killed Keay. If they proved to be a match, I knew Flynn would go after the distillers in a flying tackle. Heck, he might go after them anyway, for fun.

I stood outside staring, letting myself slowly relax. Until a voice behind me said, “Looks wonderful.”

I turned and my heart gave a little skip. Like Adam said his did when he looked at me. But the voice behind me belonged to Jack.

A thousand thoughts raced through my head at once:
Did my stomach flip-flop because of attraction? Was it merely surprise? What the heck is going on? Why is Jack here right now?

And then I remembered.

“So you heard,” I said.

He massaged the stubble on his chin. “Yeah.”

I fought a rising tide of anger. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was driving it, but I couldn’t tamp it down either.

“Is this how it works?” I asked. “The minute I break up with Adam, the entire town conspires to get the two of us together?”

He had the decency to look embarrassed.

“How’s Becke?”

He kicked a stone and watched it skitter away. “Why is that important?”

“Because it is.” I knew that wasn’t much of an argument, but a light was beginning to flicker alive in my brain.

“She’s fine.”

He wasn’t wearing the khaki shorts and sweaty T-shirt I’d been used to seeing him in, back when he was in charge of landscaping at Marshfield. Today he sported dark jeans, a collared shirt, and shiny loafers.

I took a step closer to him. He smelled good, really good, and my heart raced a little bit when that whiff of aftershave caught me unawares.

And yet, his being here was wrong.

“What do you want, Jack?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“You and I don’t even know we’d be good together,” I said, realizing as I spoke the words that they were true. “Yet we’ve been trying to forge a path together. What you and I should probably really be trying to do is make ourselves work, first.”

He scratched the side of his eye, still looking away. “What more do I need to do?” he asked. “I quit Marshfield to go back to school. I’m following up on what I’ve wanted to do from the start. I’m serious about putting my past behind me and making a new life for myself.”

“You’ve done a marvelous job of that,” I said. “I admire all you’ve done.”

When he met my gaze, I could see anger burning there. And something more. Exasperation. He hadn’t expected a discussion; he’d expected me to welcome him back with open arms.

“But?” he asked.

I could do no more than tell him the truth. “I don’t know you. Not really. I have this ideal in my mind, this image that formed when we first met. But that’s not who you are.”

“Are you telling me that you don’t like who I’ve become?”

I shook my head. “Months ago, you told me you had no interest in Becke. That you were simply helping out an old friend. I told you that if you were serious about a relationship with me then you had to settle things with her first.”

He hunched his shoulders and spread his hands, his face tightening. “You were dating Adam,” he said. “What was I supposed to do?”

“You don’t get it, do you, Jack?”

“What I get is that you’re single again. Why shouldn’t we give a relationship a try?”

“What about Becke?”

“What about her? She’ll understand. She knows that we’re not serious.”

“No, Jack, she doesn’t know that.”

He gave me one of those “You don’t know what you’re talking about” looks. “I’ve told her I’m not looking for an instant family. We’re just friends.”

“Friend with benefits?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

All of a sudden the flickering light morphed into a high beam, illuminating in ways I’d never imagined.

“Sure, you may have told her you weren’t serious, but what do your actions say?”

“My actions brought me here.”

Frustrated, I thrust my hands out. “Jack, listen to me. You’re not being fair to her.”

“Are you kidding? Do you know how much I’ve done for her?”

“Yes, and that’s exactly my point. You took her in, gave her a place to live.”

“And that’s so bad?”

“Of course not. But look at it from her perspective. You’re her knight in shining armor. You’re taking care of her, taking care of her kids. You hang out together. You brought her as your date to the benefit. You gave her your grandmother’s dress to wear.”

His voice was low but strained. “Is it so wrong to be a nice guy?”

“Whether you’re intending to or not, you’re leading her down a path. Is it being a nice guy to pull her hopes out from under her the minute someone else is back on the market?”

He ran a hand through his hair, his upper teeth tight on his bottom lip.

“She wants the happily-ever-after with you, Jack,” I said. “You’ve let her believe that it’s possible.”

“I’ll break it off with her today,” he said. “I promise. Then can we talk?”

I dropped my hands at my sides and struggled to not raise my voice. “You don’t understand.” A little whisper in my head reminded me that I hadn’t understood, either. Not until this minute.

“What I understand,” he said, “is that you and I have been attracted to each other from the very start. We’ve hit a lot of roadblocks and yet here we are, still attracted to one another. And now both of us are single.”

“You’re not.”

“I will be. I told you that.”

“No,” I said.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“Months ago, when I told you that we could talk after you settled things with Becke, I meant it. Now I’m going to tell you something else that I mean: It doesn’t matter if you break up with Becke. It doesn’t matter if she moves across the country and you never see her again.” I thought about Adam. Thought about what he’d said. “I deserve better.”

“Better than what?”

It hurt to say the words, but I’d finally found the truth. And the sooner it was out there, the sooner we could heal. “I deserve better than this.”

He stared at me like I was a creature that had just crawled up from the lawn and was clapping tambourines while dancing a jig. Inside, maybe I was.

Right before my eyes, Jack lost that edge of excitement, that rugged handsomeness that had always drawn me in. In a swift, astonishing
Poof
, he morphed from the man of my dreams to a scoundrel. A guy who didn’t consider another’s feelings before taking a step that would undoubtedly hurt her. If he was the kind of person who could so causally wound Becke, then what would stop him from doing the same to others? To me?

All of a sudden, I saw him for who he really was, and not who I hoped he might be. His family troubles and his struggle to get back on his feet had been enough to keep me close, encourage me to help, and garner my sympathy. Jack had been distant from the start and all this time I’d rationalized his selfishness away.

“I can’t believe you said that.” He opened his hands, closed them, and then opened them again.

For the first time since I’d fallen for Jack, I felt free. Surprisingly strong. Happy.

I could have softened the moment with a wish for us to stay friends, but it probably wouldn’t have helped.

“Good-bye, Jack,” I said.

He didn’t move. When I got to my front door, I turned and he was still there, still staring.

“Good luck,” I whispered. “You’re going to need it.”

*   *   *

“You’re home,” Hillary squealed when I walked into the kitchen. “I was about to call.” She lifted her skinny wrist and spun her dangling bracelet watch around so she could check the time. “You’re usually home a little sooner than this. Why are you late? We’ve been waiting for you. You missed seeing your neighbor Todd Pedota by moments. He stopped by to ask about the passage and if we’d learned anything more.”

I barely paid attention to what she was saying because she wasn’t alone. David Cherk was leaning his backside against the countertop near the sink, sipping from one of my mugs. Wes sat at the table, a pile of drawings spread in front of him. Even from upside-down, I could tell that he’d sketched the passage between my house and Pedota’s. A gentleman I’d never seen before had pulled one of the four chairs around and sat next to Wes, a magnifying glass in hand.

They all looked up at once.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

David Cherk regarded me with a bored air as he lowered the mug from his lips to hold it in both hands. “Lucky me, I get to photograph your historical find.”

“I thought the newspaper people already took care of that,” I said.

Hillary scurried around on her tiny high heels to pat me on the arm. “That was for local flavor, this is for posterity. David has agreed to use his considerable skills to document the passageway.” She held her hands up in the air, making a frame with her fingers, like a director convincing a starlet that he sees her name in lights. “Your house will be immortalized at the historical society office. Isn’t that exciting?”

“I don’t know, Hillary.”

David dropped the cup next to the sink with a clunk. “This guy,” he said, pointing to the man I didn’t recognize sitting at my kitchen table, “wouldn’t let us take even a single shot without your approval.”

I turned to the man. “I’m afraid we haven’t met,” I said, extending my hand.

He stood to shake it and was about to speak when Hillary interrupted. “Oh, silly me. That’s right, you haven’t met Frederick. You remember me telling you about him, right? My business partner?”

Frederick was a lump of a guy. Balding and short, he wore a gray suit and a silky red bow tie. He squinted hello at me from behind rimless, round glasses. He had pasty white skin and blond brows. I guessed him to be around fifty-five.

“Nice to meet you, Frederick,” I said. “Hillary speaks very highly of you.”

“And of you,” he said. He had a nice face and a friendly smile. Of course, he might be lying through his teeth.

David waved a hand between us. “Hello-o—? The pictures? I’ve been waiting for you. Patiently, I might add. Can we get started here?”

Frederick let the rude intrusion roll right off his back. He sat down and returned to working side by side with Wes. They had two of the poison bottles on the table in front of them, and Wes was indicating where in the passage we’d found them.

I wasn’t keen on the idea of photographing the passage. Not yet. Maybe I was still feeling the effects of my interaction with Jack, but I wasn’t in the mood to be particularly agreeable.

“I don’t think this is such a good plan,” I said.

Cherk threw his hands in the air. “Oh, brilliant. I come out all this way and she changes her mind.”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said with more than a little oomph. “I never agreed to it in the first place.”

“Oh, um,” Hillary interjected, tapping my arm. “I thought it would be helpful.”

“You agreed to it?”

She nodded. “When he got here, though, Frederick told me that we really needed to wait for you to approve, first. I thought it would be a mere formality. Why
wouldn’t
you want to do this?”

“Thank you for letting me have a voice in the matter, Frederick,” I said.

He smiled up at me then returned his attention to the drawings.

“Are we too much in the way?” Hillary showed teeth when she smiled. “We should have done all this before you got home. We could have had the shoot finished and have been out of your hair before you even got here.”

“Her house, her decision,” Frederick said without looking up.

Hillary bounced her head from side to side. She turned to me. “What can I say to convince you this is a good idea?”

“I don’t know that you can, Hillary,” I said, but I could feel my resolve waning. There really wasn’t any reason the passage shouldn’t be photographed for the historical society’s archives. Maybe someday a future owner of the house would look for the records. These pictures could help them like the Marshfield blueprints had helped me.

“Please, Grace? I know that David is eager to get started.”

“Her house, her decision,” Frederick said again, this time a little more forcefully.

“You’re right, Frederick,” Hillary said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t push.”