Last Wool and Testament: A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery (14 page)

“Nicki? Hello?” My hello was muffled by a forkful of cake. Nice manners, Kath. I swallowed and listened. Something, a box, scraped across the floorboards. Someone from TGIF or one of the teachers must be checking supplies.

“Hello?” I cocked my head as though my ears worked better in that position. From the sounds, someone was busy. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I didn’t want to startle her if she didn’t know I was there. Or it might be someone I hadn’t met who would wonder at strangers helping themselves to cake. I should introduce myself.

I took my cake with me, though I should have put it down so I wouldn’t forget myself again and take a bite at the wrong moment. Too late. It was irresistible.
I chewed and swallowed and heard a box drop in the stockroom.

“Shit.”

I recognized that voice. Darn if I didn’t recognize that voice—and its expletive, too. Joe Pantry Guy, murder suspect.

Chapter 14

I
’d learned from our last encounter. No wild panic this time. And no need for heroic furniture moving. The doors at the Weaver’s Cat all fit squarely in their frames and this particular door, being the stockroom door, had an old-fashioned key for its lock. Of course, leaving that key in the lock only invites trouble. But I was ready to sneak up on Trouble and give him the surprise of his life.

Slowly, silently, I pushed the door closed the few inches it was open. Gently, carefully, I turned the key, removed it, and returned it to the drawer where it belonged. It was a totally calm, controlled reaction to a possibly wrought situation. On my part, anyway.

Steps approached the door from the inside. They weren’t exactly stealthy, but it was easy to believe they had sinister overtones. The knob turned. It turned again, forcefully. It rattled.

“What the—?” He rattled it harder, then thumped the door with his hand, maybe even his shoulder, and rattled the knob again. “Well, hell.”

I almost shouted something rude at him, but remembered at the last moment where I was. Just in case, though, I took a bite of cake to keep my mouth occupied, then put the plate down and pulled out my phone. I was tempted to ask the 911 operator to send someone other than Dunbar. Then again, this would prove to Doubting Dolt
Dunbar that Joe Pantry Guy was real and appeared to be a career burglar.

The cake and the fantasy of Dunbar’s comeuppance distracted me from actually pressing the buttons to make the call and then I heard several clinks on the floor in the stockroom. Tools. Of course. That’s how this guy got into places where he didn’t belong that didn’t leave keys in doors or windows open. And then Ardis came down the hall singing “Dancing Queen.”

I tried to wave my hands coherently so she’d interpret the motions as “There’s a burglar in the stockroom.” But my charades skills were rusty and she missed a nuance or two. Instead of being alarmed, she swept me into a twirl, belting out the finale. As her last notes died, my slightly dizzy fingers found and pressed the nine and a single one, and then we heard a voice calling her name.

“Ardis? That you out there?”

She let me go and looked around. “Ten?”

My mind hiccupped. Ten? What kind of name was that? His last name? Joe Ten? Or did he give me a false name last night? That lying son of a…Wait a second. Ardis knew this guy?

“I’m in the stockroom. Door must’ve swung shut. It’s gone and jammed. Feels like it’s locked, though.” He rattled it to show her.

“You should’ve called for help.”

“Only just realized. Thought I might take it off its hinges.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“They’re out there with you.”

“So they are. Well, don’t fret, we’ll get you out.”

“Who’s Ten?” I whispered to Ardis.

“Ivy never introduced you? Hold up a sec while I…” She went to the drawer where I’d put the key. “We’ve been on a campaign to convince some of the TGIFs not to leave the key in that lock,” she said. “One of them
must have chosen the wrong moment to remember.” She jiggled the key into the lock, turned it, and swung the door open. “Morning, Ten. May I introduce you to Ivy’s granddaughter, Kath?”

“Joe Dunbar.” He held out his hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Kath. Ivy loved talking about you. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

I was afraid to open my mouth. For a few reasons. But I had to because, in my bewilderment, I’d pressed the last button and I could hear the 911 operator squawking in my hand. I pointed to the phone, then held a finger up to Ardis and Joe Whoever-or-Whatever-the-Hell-He-Was, indicating I’d be right back. Then I fled to the other end of the room, with my hands cupped around the phone, frantically whispering, “Never mind, never mind, never mind, sorry, false alarm. So sorry.” I listened for a moment, then cut in with another “sorry” and disconnected.

“Everything all right?”

Definitely the voice I heard in the pantry last night. Low, calm, and with no hint of the patronizing “little lady” I sometimes detect in tall men’s voices. In Deputy Dunbar’s voice, for instance. But this guy didn’t have the shoulder heft and swagger of the other Dunbar, and maybe that made the difference. If I felt more kindly disposed toward this particular Dunbar, I might describe him as lean or say he had the body of a marathon runner. His forehead would be high and sensitive-looking and his dark beard nicely scruffy. But I didn’t feel kindly toward any Dunbar, so Joe was just tall, thin and needed a shave.

He was still waiting for my answer and beginning to look concerned. I smiled, nodded, and dropped my phone into my purse. My nonverbal communication needed to improve, though. Ardis didn’t accept my smile as genuine. She rushed over with my half-eaten cake, steered me to a chair at the table, and pushed me into it. If she’d been
a man, her voice would have dripped with “little lady,” but somehow that would have been okay. Bias on my part, no doubt.

Eating wasn’t high on my list of priorities anymore, but occupying my mouth was. Joe hadn’t heard my voice clearly this morning and I wanted to keep it that way as long as possible. Or until I found out who he was and what he’d been up to lately. He might know Ardis, and Ardis might think she knew him, but did she know about his hobby of breaking and entering? And how were Dunbar and Dunbar related and why was I unlucky enough to be plagued by two of them?

Ardis offered him the piece of cake I’d cut for her. He earned a small point in his favor by thanking her and declining. He lost the point immediately when she invited him to meet us for lunch over at Mel’s and he asked what time.

“Let’s make it one. We’re spoiling an early lunch, anyway, and if we wait we’ll avoid the crowd. Does that suit you, Kath?”

“Sure.”

No flash of recognition on Joe’s face with that monosyllable from behind my hand. Good. Lunch would be more ticklish. But looking on the bright side, I could inspect him and collect information firsthand. My work with textiles taught me to trust my own tests and analyses over secondary sources or the sentimental lore handed down within families. Not that I wouldn’t casually pump Ardis about him, too, but lunch with the thinner half of the Dunbar duo meant I wouldn’t have to depend entirely on her rosy opinion of him.

“Did you find everything you need in there?” Ardis asked him.

“Yeah. Think so.” He scratched his beard. “Might bring in that bobcat, though.”

“Great. They’ll love it. Soft as a kitten.” Ardis waved good-bye with her fork.

He nodded, sank his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans, and strolled out. Under less shady or peculiar circumstances, I might have found him attractive. Par for the course in my personal book of love.

“I hope you don’t mind him joining us,” Ardis said.

“With or without the bobcat?” That wasn’t really my first question but it was as good a place to start as any.

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll just drop that by here. Poor thing.”

“Is it sick?”

“Sick? Bless you, no. It’s dead. Fur for flies.”

“Now I’m completely lost.”

“Ten teaches fly-tying. It brings in customers who wouldn’t otherwise set foot in here. And not just men. Plenty of women fly-fish who wouldn’t dream of picking up a crochet hook. And you should see how silly those fishy people get over the yarns and threads and colors. Especially some of those great big men, in their boots and Trout Unlimited hats, when they see the marabou.”

“But the bobcat?”

“It’s a pelt. Really just the face. It gives me the willies, and who’d think there’d be enough fur on that little face, anyway? But according to Ten, bobcat is something special for flies. Heaven only knows where he got it from.”

“Why do you call him Ten?”

“It’s his name,” she said. “Short for, anyway.”

“Then why did he introduce himself as Joe?”

“He started calling himself Joe years ago, at the start of high school, maybe. Away back, sometime in grade school, he tried calling himself Ox, but that didn’t take. Earlier on, he was perfectly happy with Ten. But that’s what mean children do to a sensitive child.”

“Ten isn’t short for Tennessee, I hope. That would be pretty awful.”

“Worse. His brother got a better deal, but not by much.”

“His brother?”

“Cole.”

I knew it.

“Cole, short for Coleridge. Coleridge Blake Dunbar.”

“Wow.”

“And Tennyson. Tennyson Yeats Dunbar.”

“No.”

“Mm-hmm. Coleridge at least shortens to Cole and Blake is perfectly acceptable on its own. But Tennyson? Yeats? Their parents taught English literature at the community college.”

“And had their heads stuck up their academias. Wow. Names like that might turn anyone to a life of crime.”

“You could be right. I always did wonder why Cole went into law enforcement. Near broke his parents’ poetic hearts.”

Of course, Cole’s wasn’t the life of crime I meant. So, had the brothers taken the paths of Good Dunbar, Bad Dunbar? Or did Cole turn a blind eye to Joe’s activities, making him Bad Dunbar and Joe Worse Dunbar? Somewhere behind my right ear I heard Homer whispering, “Slander.” Behind my left ear something else whispered, “Oh, those poor saps, saddled with names like that.” That might have been my conscience, but I squashed it.

Ardis finished her cake and took our plates to the sink, then came back and sat opposite me. She folded her hands on the table. “Kath, we need to talk about the business.”

“We do.” The reality of losing my job came crashing back down on me. But just because that job was gone, why was I suddenly thinking about giving up my career to run the Weaver’s Cat? Because that was easiest? Since when did I take the path of least resistance? Since when would I be happy shackled to the daily grind of retail responsibility?

“I’d like to buy it from you.”

“What?”

“Don’t sound so shocked.” She didn’t look completely copacetic herself. She gulped before rushing on. “Actually, Nicki and I would go in together.” She stopped and fanned herself with her hand. “Sorry. I’m apt to flash when I think about the loan involved.”

“But…”

“We don’t want the place to close and our customers don’t, either. We have solid regional business. We’re a destination for fiber artists. They plan group shopping trips from as far away as Indiana and Pennsylvania. You probably know all that, but did you know we’re building a good presence on the Web, too? Our cyber storefront, Nicki calls it, and it’s taking off like Ivy and I never imagined it could.”

“But, if I didn’t want to sell…”

“Forgive me, but we don’t think you’ll be able to give the business the attention it needs. You’d be an absentee owner with your mind on your own career. And that’s as it should be. It’s nothing personal. You know I love you almost as much as Ivy did. But we’d like to buy the Cat and we think we can make a go of it on our own.”

They didn’t want me.

“We’ve talked to the bank.”

Through all my thoughts about safety nets and wondering if I’d be happy living in Blue Plum, leaving test tubes and fumigation hoods behind, I hadn’t thought they wouldn’t want me. Or need me.

Ardis pushed a folded paper across the table. “It makes me dizzy, but here’s what we’re offering.”

I opened the paper, looked at it, shoved it in my purse. “I need to think.”

“Of course you do.” She started fanning herself again.

I was feeling a little flashed myself. I needed to get away and think, but first I had to ask the questions I’d
been saving. “Ardis, did Granny say anything about a problem with her Blue Plum tapestry? Was something about it bothering her?”

“She finally started it?” That she stopped fanning was answer enough.

“Was she her old self the last few months?”

“How do you mean? Her heart? I told you she was still running up those back stairs. Oh, hon”—she put her hands over mine—“you’re not beating yourself up thinking you should have known something was wrong, are you? I don’t think even she knew. She was good at keeping secrets, but I don’t think that was one of them. Does that help you feel any better?”

“Thank you.” It did help and I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear it. But the secrets? “What kind of secrets did she keep?”

“Oh, you knew Ivy. If you told her a secret, did she ever give it away?”

“What about her own secrets?”

“Well, they wouldn’t be secrets if I knew them, would they? She didn’t let on about starting the tapestry, for one. What’s got you worried? It’s written all over your face, but I can’t read the writing.”

“Have you heard any talk, you know, among the TGIF members or anybody, hinting at who killed Emmett Cobb?”

“Of course there was talk. There always is when something like that happens. Not that something like that happens all that often. We didn’t solve the crime, though. Not that we couldn’t if we put our minds to it, I don’t wonder.”

“Any favorite suspects?”

“No one I can call to mind,” she said.

Good.

“But that can’t be what’s worrying you. Spit it out.”

“Did Granny tell you she sold the house on Lavender Street?”

Ardis reared back as though I’d asked if Granny danced naked on the courthouse steps. “She’d never sell it. Don’t be silly.”