The Real MacAw (19 page)

But however maddening I might find the existence of the contract, I wasn’t quite sure why it should produce such buckets of tears. I glanced up at Rose Noire. She shrugged and shook her head slightly. Caroline threw up her hands and grimaced.

“There, there.” Rose Noire handed Louise another handful of tissues and patted her shoulder comfortingly.

Caroline began edging sideways, as if planning to make a break for the door.

I wondered if I should suggest bringing Louise a kitten to feed. It seemed to have worked well before. Of course, they’d probably already thought of that, and perhaps all the kittens had been adopted by this time.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself to use my gentlest tone—the one I’d use if Timmy were agitated.

“Why does this upset you so much?” I asked.

“Because this proves it,” she moaned.

“There, there,” Rose Noire said, patting diligently.

“Proves what?”

“He didn’t really care about me at all,” she sobbed. “He was just using me to get that.”

She pointed at the wad of paper in my hands and collapsed onto Rose Noire’s waiting shoulder. Rose Noire patted and there-there’d with renewed vigor.

“So you’re the one who gave him this?” I said.

“No! I never would!” She whirled and glowered at me as if I’d accused her of animal abuse.

“Sorry, I must have misunderstood you. So how did he get it? And if you didn’t give it to him, why would it have anything to do with you?”

“Because I work in the mayor’s office,” she said, in a tone of utter exasperation at having to explain the obvious. “If Parker was looking for stuff like that—government secrets—then he would know I knew where to find them. And that means he never really loved me—he was just using me.”

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” Rose Noire said.

“Yes,” I said. “After all, you didn’t give him this, right?”

She shook her head.

“And I assume you never gave him anything else confidential?”

Another head shake.

“Then why would anyone assume this has something to do with his relationship with you?”

“The mayor will,” she said. “He’ll assume I gave it to Parker and he’ll probably fire me. And I really need the job—do you think I’d be working for Mayor Pruitt if I could get any other job?”

She collapsed in sobs.

So were these paroxysms of tears for Parker, or for the impending loss of her job? Maybe both.

“But you didn’t give him this or anything else confidential,” I went on.

“No,” she said. “And he never asked me to. Even if he had, I wouldn’t have given it to him. I may not like working for the mayor, but that doesn’t mean I’d stab him in the back.”

“Did Parker ever even ask you to help him get confidential information?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Then your conscience is clear, right?”

“Yes,” she said, sniffling. “But a clear conscience isn’t going to do me much good if I’m fired.”

“Then again, is it really that bad being fired by the most hated man in the county?” I asked. “And not all that popular in town, either. If they get that recall campaign going, being fired by him could be a badge of honor. And they’ll need honest people who know how the office works.”

“Really?”

Clearly she wasn’t very politically savvy if that angle hadn’t occurred to her.

“Louise, even though you didn’t give him the contract, is there any chance he could have used you to get it?” I asked. “Did he ask a lot of questions about your work?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, sniffling slightly. “He always seemed interested in what I was doing. I thought it was because I was doing it, not that he wanted inside information. But I didn’t know that contract existed, so even if I were in the habit of blabbing, I couldn’t have told him about it.”

“Did he ever come to your office?”

“Yes, he must have been there a dozen or more times. But I don’t see how that would help him get the contract. I never saw it before, so it’s not as if he could have found it by searching my desk. And all of the staff are always careful not to leave the mayor’s door unlocked when he’s not there.”

“Still—he was there, frequently,” I said. “Who knows what happened? Maybe the other staff members aren’t all as careful as you are.”

“Yes,” she said. “It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

And she did appear to be thinking intensely. To my relief—and even more to Caroline’s and Rose Noire’s—she had stopped crying. She still sniffed occasionally, but she was staring at her hands, lost in thought. Trying to figure out if Parker had taken advantage of his access to her office? Considering whether one or more of her coworkers might be rivals for his affection? Or maybe just contemplating how satisfying it would be to throttle him. I wondered if someone should warn Maudie that some of the mourners at the funeral might still have a posthumous bone to pick with the deceased. Maudie probably knew how to deal with that far better than I did, as long as she was forewarned.

“Thank you,” Louise said. She smiled briefly at me—not much of a smile, and it didn’t reach her eyes, but it showed she was trying. She glanced briefly at Caroline and Rose Noire to include them in it. And then she got up and walked toward the door.

“Louise,” I called after her. “Do yourself a favor: talk to the chief. Tell him what you told us. If this contract is connected with the murder, the more he knows how Parker got it, the better. It always goes over better with him if you volunteer information instead of waiting for him to track you down.”

She blinked, then nodded weakly.

“And if you can think of anyone else who works down at the town hall that Parker might have been trying to seduce so he could milk her for information, he’d love to hear that, so you might as well make their lives miserable, too.”

She smiled faintly at that, and went out, shutting the door carefully behind her.

As I watched her leave, I found myself thinking that adultery wasn’t the only reason the woman who had come to Parker’s shop might not have wanted to be seen in his company. If you worked for the mayor and had begun to figure out that Parker might be dangerous to know—

“You’re a lifesaver,” Caroline said.

“Poor thing,” Rose Noire said. “It must be so difficult to realize that he was only using her.”

“You never know,” I said. “When she’s not crying, she’s rather pretty. I didn’t know Parker that well, but I don’t think it’s impossible that he could have been interested in her for her own sake.”

“He wasn’t serious about anyone,” Caroline said.

“I didn’t say serious, I just said interested,” I countered.

“So you think he found out about the contract by accident?” Caroline asked.

“Or from some other source,” I said. “She strikes me as honest. And she’s not the only person in town who would have access to it. What about that other Corsican who was dating Parker. Vivian. Where does she work?”

“Couldn’t be her,” Rose Noire said. “She’s a nurse. Works down at Caerphilly General.”

“Oh, right,” I said.

“Louise is the most likely,” Caroline said. “And I don’t care how careful she thinks she was about the mayor’s office—it wouldn’t be that hard to get around her.”

“She has a very trusting nature,” Rose Noire said.

“Yes, she’s as sweet and innocent as a baby rabbit, and has about as many brains,” Caroline said.

“She’s not stupid—just gullible about men,” Rose Noire said.

“So you don’t think she could have killed Parker?” I asked.

They looked at each other.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Caroline said.

“You never know, when there’s so much negative energy in a situation,” Rose Noire said. She was wringing her hands, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “I don’t like to … you know.”

“You don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but you didn’t like Parker,” I finished for her.

“I don’t like to speak ill of anyone,” she said. “And I didn’t dislike Parker. I just—”

“You just didn’t like him hitting on you,” Caroline said.

“He hit on you?” I asked.

“Well, of course,” Rose Noire said. “He hit on everyone.”

“Hell, he even flirted with me sometimes, just to keep in practice,” Caroline said. “You learned to ignore him.”

“Sounds like a real charmer,” I said.

“We could still find out that a jealous lover did him in,” Caroline said. “Or a jealous husband or boyfriend.”

“But I think Meg has the right idea,” Rose Noire said. “Follow the money.”

“What happened to
cherchez la femme
?” Caroline countered.

“I will let the chief do both,” I said, with a yawn. “I’m off to bed. Rose Noire, can you lock up?”

“Of course,” she said.

I headed for bed.

Though I did stop by on the way to say a word to the chief.

“Did Michael get a chance to tell you what he saw in Parker Blair’s furniture store?”

“The elusive woman who didn’t want to be seen? Yes, thanks. I’m already keenly interested in any of Mr. Blair’s lady friends who might not be unattached.”

“I can think of other reasons why the woman might have fled,” I said. “Have you talked to Louise tonight?”

“No,” he said. “Louise who, and why should I talk to her?”

“Dietz, “ I said. “Works in the mayor’s office. Was seeing Parker. And now thinks he was using her to get information.”

“Was he?”

I shrugged.

“Rob said she was their mole in the mayor’s office,” I said. “I thought she was doing it out of conviction. Who knows? Anyway, I told her to come and talk to you, but perhaps she was too tired to do it tonight.”

“She give him that contract you found?”

“No idea. She says not, but even if she’s telling the truth, he could have used her to get it. And if she knew he was gunning for the mayor, she might not have wanted anyone to see her consorting with her boss’s enemies.”

He nodded, and rubbed his eyes.

“I’ll track her down tomorrow,” he said. “Thanks. For this, and for not trying to make away with the papers you found at Blair’s house. Although maybe I shouldn’t thank you for expanding my suspect list.”

“I thought I’d narrowed it down,” I said. “And don’t try to convince me that you hate having the mayor at the head of your suspect list.”

He smiled slightly.

“The girlfriends are still suspects, too,” he said. “And now I pretty much have to interrogate every susceptible female who works down at the town hall, in case one of them gave him the contract and killed him to cover it up. Well, time enough for that tomorrow. Night.”

I went back to the house. I was exhausted from getting even less sleep than usual, but curiously energized by the evening’s events. I had the sinking feeling that if I went to bed right now, I’d toss and turn for hours.

I decided to fix myself a cup of tea. Herbal tea, of course, but not one of Rose Noire’s odd brews. Maybe some old-fashioned rose hip tea.

I grabbed a mug, filled it with water, and put it in the microwave.

Just as I was taking the cup out, Caroline came in.

“That was amazing!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe how well the county is pulling together!”

Clearly she also needed to unwind.

“Would you like some tea?” I asked.

“Love some. You were pitch perfect.”

I handed her a couple of boxes of tea bags, set the heated cup in front of her, and put another in the microwave for myself. I leaned against the counter and nodded as she enthused over the meeting.

The microwave dinged. The back door opened.

“Caroline?”

It was Ms. Ellie, the librarian.

“I’m right here,” Caroline said. “You look agitated. Meg, fix her some tea.”

I put the second mug down at a place for Ms. Ellie and started a third.

Ms. Ellie did look agitated. And I’d never seen her agitated—not even when one of the juvenile delinquent Pruitts turned his ill-tempered dog loose in the children’s room during story hour.

“I have favors to ask,” she said. “Of both of you. Caroline, may I borrow your truck? The big one?”

“Well, sure, if you need it,” Caroline said. “What’s up?”

“The big move.”

“It’s definite, then?” I asked.

“Committee’s leaning that way,” she said. “And the county board’s standing by in the barn to take a vote as soon as the committee makes its recommendation. And your cousin’s advising the committee, by the way.”

“If Festus thinks the big evacuation is the best plan, I won’t argue,” I said.

“So we have to move all the books out of the library,” Ms. Ellie said. “Not just the books, of course. We have to move everything. But the books are the main problem. So, Caroline, may we use your truck?”

“Of course you may,” she said. “And I’ll send word down to the sanctuary to bring any other vehicles we can scrounge up. Damn, but this is crazy. How can the lender do this without giving people some kind of notice?”

“According to what we just found out, they did give Mayor Pruitt notice, months ago,” Ms. Ellie said. “Not that the mayor told anyone, of course, except for a few of his cronies. He says he’s been working to find a solution, but you know damn well he’s only been sitting on his rear, assuming that they’d never go so far as to seize the county’s property.”

I winced slightly. Maybe the mayor had been counting on his eminent domain scheme to keep the lender at bay. Was this demand from the lender that we turn over the county buildings already in the cards, or had my call to Cousin Festus helped trigger it?

I heard a wail from the baby monitor, followed by a murmured “I’ve got it” from Michael.

The microwave dinged. I shoved my worries aside and made my cup of tea before anyone else arrived to preempt me.

And just in time, too. Randall Shiffley ambled into the kitchen.

“Want some tea?” Caroline asked.

“I’m fine,” he said.

I nodded. I hadn’t pegged Randall for a tea drinker.

“Beer and sodas in the fridge,” I said.

Randall opened the door and helped himself to a Coke.

“Ms. Ellie,” he said. “I just wanted to say that as soon as we finish down at the courthouse, we’ll come over to the library.”

“That will help,” she said.