Lye In Wait: A Home Crafting Mystery Part 17

"Nice picture," she said.

"We've got a copy, thanks," I said.

She shrugged and returned behind the counter, a little smile on her face. I was really starting to dislike that woman.

"What were you doing there?" Debby sounded suspicious.

"It was a huge fire, and we live right across the alley. Most of the neighborhood was there." But only I had been lucky enough to be around when that photographer from h.e.l.l showed up. "I was trying to find out how it started when that picture was taken."

"And?" Jacob asked. Debby examined the photo and wrinkled her brow.

"They're still investigating." I figured it was safe to tell them that, even if one or both of them had set the fire.

"And there's nothing left," Debby said. Now her voice shook, too. Jacob watched her with concern.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know you wanted the chance to go through his things."

Debby took a shaky swallow of coffee, holding the cup with both hands. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, and dried blood crusted the cuticle of her thumb where she'd worried a hangnail too far.

"Well, thanks for telling us. 'Preciate it." Jacob was dismissing me.

"Can I get your phone number? Your last name?" I asked Debby. "So if I need to get in touch with you I can?"

"Why wouldja need to do that?" he asked.

The little guy was starting to get on my nerves. "Is there a problem, Jacob?"

Debby put her hand on his arm. "It's Silverman."

"Debby Silverman."

She nodded. "Deborah Silverman."

I looked at Jacob. He scowled.

"You'll find me with her," he said, thrusting his chin toward Debby.

"And I don't suppose either of you have a phone, do you?" I couldn't keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

She opened her mouth, but Jacob spoke first. "Nope. No phone. Sorry."

He had seemed downright nice when I first sat down. What had changed? News of the fire? Of the investigation?

"Jacob, stop being an a.s.s," Debby said, and recited a phone number. I scrabbled in my coat pocket for a pen-realizing I'd kept the barista's after I'd written the note for these two-and scribbled the number on a corner torn from the newspaper. I folded the sc.r.a.p and put it in the pocket of my slacks. The pen I put in my coat pocket.

"Okay. Well, thanks," I said.

I'd wanted to ask what they'd thought of Walter's memorial service, but Jacob was pouting like a child and refused to look at me, while Debby's attention seemed to drift far away from both of us as she stared out the window.

So I left.

Out on the sidewalk I pulled up my hood against the rain. Through the front window of Beans R Us, I saw Jacob reaching for Debby's hands.

TWENTY-TWO.

I STOPPED IN AT Picadilly Circus, the British tearoom across the street from the Gold Leaf, to pick up some PG Tips, a strong black tea Meghan and I both favored in cold weather. Overhead the clouds had collected into thick clots, and it began to rain big fat drops as I started home. I pulled my hood further around my face and hunched my shoulders. The air had grown several degrees cooler, and a s.h.i.+ver worked its way up my spine. Walking quickly, with my head down, I thought about what my next move should be.

Detective Ambrose would say I shouldn't have a next move. Why couldn't I let this rest, leave it for the police to figure out? Why did I feel so compelled to find out what had happened to Walter? If it had been straightforward murder from the get-go, not an a.s.sumed suicide that pushed all my b.u.t.tons about my brother's death, would I have felt so driven to discover the perpetrator?

Yes. I would. Since it had happened in my workroom, to someone I knew, I would feel the same need to discover the truth. Of course if it was deemed murder from the start, Sergeant Zahn wouldn't be trying to keep Ambrose from doing his job by making him work on the toilet paper terrorist case; he'd be facilitating the investigation and providing more resources.

How sure was I that Walter had been murdered? Pretty darn sure. Whatever Meghan might say about Walter's "underlying sorrow," it never sat right with me that he'd killed himself. Maybe it would have made some sense earlier in his life, but not once he had sobriety, money, and the girl. So to speak.

That earlier time was what Tootie had based her expectations on-what had she asked when they'd told her that her son was dead? A bullet or a bridge? But she must have known he'd quit drinking. If he'd gone through AA and seen fit to make amendsor whatever they called that step-with Richard and Meghan, and the other people he worked for in the neighborhood, surely he would have done the same with his own mother. Perhaps he hadn't convinced her. Or maybe her view of him had been too slow to change.

Even Jacob and Debby's a.s.sertion that Walter had joked about killing himself by drinking Drano fell short of the suicide theory. And there was that sense of aha! when I'd heard the word "homicide" in the police station. Ambrose was no idiot, and his gut was telling him the same thing.

So, back to the original question: what next?

First, we needed more information about the two I'd just left. Meghan would know how to access public records now that we had Debby's name. I briefly considered using the services of an online information broker. I'd looked my own name up once, and while it only showed the town I lived in, the advertis.e.m.e.nt that popped up on my computer screen said for a fee they'd tell me not only Sophie Mae Reynolds' address and phone number, but who her neighbors were, any criminal history, marriages, births, and a slew of other information I found profoundly disturbing to think about.

Maybe I could trade Debby's last name to Ambrose in exchange for whatever information they dug up on her. Yeah, right. Ambrose wouldn't welcome my help, probably considered me a suspect. I grimaced as I checked traffic and stepped off the curb.

I was reflecting on the unpleasant twist my last conversation with Ambrose had taken when I heard the squeal of tires on wet asphalt. My head jerked up just in time to see an old pickup bearing down on me. I twisted and jumped aside to avoid the rusty chrome grill, losing my balance and falling between two parked cars. My elbow hit one of the b.u.mpers on the way down, shooting sparks up my arm. I lay there, gasping and listening to the faint sound of the receding truck engine. Every breath seared along my side. After a small eternity, I managed to push myself into a sitting position on the sidewalk. I ran my fingertips over my ribs. Nothing broken, it seemed, but I'd pulled a muscle in my side, and my hip throbbed where I'd landed on the curb. Severe bruising was in my short-range forecast.

"Jeez, you okay, lady?" A young man, somewhere in his late teens or early twenties, squatted on the sidewalk next to me. "Are you hurt? I can call 911."

I shook my head.

"You must be hurt. You're crying."

"Hit my elbow," I gasped. "Funny bone."

"Oh. Okay. You need to be more careful about crossing the street. I don't even know if that driver saw you."

"Oh, he saw me, all right. He was aiming right for me."

The kid gave me a funny look.

"Didn't you see what happened? There was no traffic when I started across."

The truck had pulled out and had gathered speed rapidly in order to reach me. But putting the pedal to the metal had made the tires squeal, alerting me... and saving me. I looked at the slight sheen of rain on the pavement. If it had been dry the tires might not have lost traction, might not have made a sound. And I'd be more than a little banged up.

I'd be dead.

"I walked out the door just as you went down," he said. Slight build, pointed features, gla.s.ses. He smelled like smoke.

"Cigarette break?"

He nodded.

"You work there?" I pointed to the insurance office behind us.

"Uh huh."

Looking around, I saw the rest of the street was empty. Where was the concerned crowd that should form after a near hit and run? Where were the helpful citizens that define small towns?

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Don."

"Don what?" I felt for the barista's pen, but it must have fallen out. I didn't see it anywhere.

"I don't want to get involved in any court case," he said. "It's not like I saw the license number or anything."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n what you want," I snapped. "I can find out your last name or you can give it to me. Your pick."

"Plunckett" He spelled it for me. I recited it in my head so I'd remember. Sullen, he asked again if I was okay. When I said I was, he turned and went inside without another word.

I thought about calling Ambrose. Then I thought about the look he'd give me, that skeptical not-quite-believing look he'd directed my way before. Or maybe I'd get the policewoman who had responded to our break-in. She'd just love dealing with me again. Or better yet, they could send sandy-haired Officer Owens, who'd almost shot me that night at Walter's. I sighed. I didn't have a cell phone, and there wasn't a pay phone nearby. I'd have to go in one of the businesses and ask to use their phone. My slacks were torn, my coat a muddy mess, and my once-pristine white s.h.i.+rtwas that blood? A little, there on the cuff above a shallow cut on my wrist. No one had seen what happened, and Don boy wasn't going to be any help either, since all he saw was some middle-aged woman who didn't know how to cross a street.

The s.h.i.+vers, from the wet, the cold, the adrenalin shock, or more likely all three, started across my shoulders and arms and graduated to full-blown shudders racking my whole body. I needed to get home, take a shower to chase the soreness already settling into my battered muscles. Then I could decide whether to call the police. I pulled myself to my feet using one of the car b.u.mpers, feeling about a hundred-and-fifty years old. I began plodding home through the rain, teeth clenched against chattering, eyes moving along the streets, watching for any lurking dark blue pickups. At least it had stopped raining.

"Hey lady, wha'd ya do, fall in a puddle?" This shouted from a carload of teenagers driving by.

Hot rage bubbled up, then dissolved into a pressing behind my forehead. With horror I realized I was about to start crying, right there on the street. Breathing through my teeth, I upped my limping pace, gritting my teeth harder as I finally started down my block. Using the railing, I pulled myself up the front steps and went inside.

I took off my muddy shoes, hung my jacket on the coat rack, and walked into the kitchen. Empty. I heard voices downstairs and wondered who was with Kyla. Sniffing, I went upstairs.

Erin sat on her bed, surrounded by stuffed animals, doing her homework. One of the animals raised its head as I walked by, and I saw it was Brodie, but Erin didn't notice me. I found Meghan in the bathroom, clad in rubber gloves and scrubbing the toilet. I made a sound in my throat, and she looked up. Dropping the scrub brush, she stripped off the gloves and came toward me.

"Good G.o.d, Sophie Mae-what happened? Are you okay?"

I opened my mouth to tell her, but all that came out was a sob. She put the scrub brush in its holder and closed the lid of the toilet so I could sit down. Perching on the edge of the bathtub, she put her arm around my shoulders and let me cry it out. At one point I saw her motion Erin out of the doorway.

On the miserable way home I'd very carefully avoided thinking about the fact that someone had tried to run me down. I could have died. Now, sitting in the safety of my own bathroom with my best friend, the fear I should have felt earlier came cras.h.i.+ng through. Someone wanted me dead. Someone had wanted Walter dead, and he'd died, and now someone wanted me dead, too.

Meghan moistened a washcloth with icy cold water, wrung it out, and handed it to me. I scrubbed it over my face, gasping. The shock of it against my skin settled the last of the hitching sobs out of my chest. I unrolled a length of toilet paper and blew my nose.

"I'm so embarra.s.sed," I said.

"That's dumb. Crying is good for you. You know it rids the body of stress hormones? That's why you feel better afterwards. They're released in the tears. So, having a good cry is a very practical thing to do when things get crazy. Remember Holly Hunter in Broadcast News?"

I stared at her. Trust Meghan to turn my humiliating breakdown into something downright necessary.

"Now," she said. "Tell me what happened?"

"Someone tried to kill me," I said.

"What!"

I told her about the truck, about falling, about the lack of witnesses. While I was at it, I told her about Debby and Jacob and Chuck, the very uninterested barkeep, and the snotty barista with the eyebrow ring. I told her about my unsatisfactory canva.s.sing in the neighborhood that morning. And I told her Mrs. Gray's story about Walter and Cherry.

She let me run down. After I finally stopped talking, she said, "We need to tell Detective Ambrose about the driver of that truck trying to hit you."

"He won't believe me. I don't have any witnesses." I even sounded pathetic to my own ears.

"You look like h.e.l.l-how could he not believe you?"

"Thanks a lot!"

"He needs to know."

"He already thinks I'm a royal pain in the a.s.s."

"Well, he's right about that. It's one of your best qualities."

I laughed. A little.

"You can't take the risk of keeping a murder attempt to yourself. And I can't let you. This doesn't sound like someone just fooling around."

"Okay, I'll call him."