Lye In Wait: A Home Crafting Mystery Part 30

No melatonin. Tea it was, then. As I waited for the kettle to boil, I wandered the perimeter of the house in the dark, checking the window locks like I had the night before. Pus.h.i.+ng aside the living room curtain, I stopped cold. The white car from the night before sat across the street again. It hadn't been there all day, but there it was, back again tonight.

It's someone new in the neighborhood, I told myself. They work all day, so their car is only here at night. But as I watched, I could clearly see the silhouette of a head and shoulders on the driver's side.

In the kitchen I turned off the burner under the kettle, then went back upstairs and put on my jeans and sweats.h.i.+rt. I felt my way down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs and let myself out the back door. I went down the alley until I came to the sidewalk, and then around the corner and quickly across the street, hoping whoever lurked in the white car didn't look in the rearview mirror right then. I sidled up the street behind the car, hugging hedges and dodging behind bushes like some crazed character from Get Smart.

As I neared the car it occurred to me I might need a weapon. Swearing under my breath, I scanned the shadows. A glint caught my attention. Edging toward it, I saw someone had left a trowel out next to a half-full basket of spring bulbs. Better than nothing. Snagging it, I crept on.

Upon reaching the car, I approached from the blind spot and then crab-walked along the curb until I crouched directly beside the pa.s.senger door. Whatever happened, I wanted to make sure I got a good enough look at whoever was inside to recognize them. Slowly, I rose and looked in the window.

And locked eyes with Barr Ambrose. I let out a yelp, and Ambrose let out a yell. I stood up and turned, leaning against the car and holding my palm to my chest. If it had been Richard I probably would have folded into an unconscious heap. What a trooper.

The window slid down. "What do you think you're doing?" Ambrose asked. Feeling sheepish, I opened the door and slid into the pa.s.senger seat.

"Well?" he said.

"I was trying to find out who was watching the house."

"You came out here not knowing?"

"Well ... yeah."

"Would've been better to call the PD, have someone check it out, don't you think?"

I was glad he couldn't see my face turn red. "Just what are you doing here?"

"Like you said: I'm watching the house"

"You were here last night, too?"

He nodded.

I thought about it. The short-handed police department. Ambrose had mentioned they couldn't spare anyone to keep an eye on us. So he'd taken it on himself. No wonder he looked so tired.

"Is this your car?"

"Yeah"

"I thought you'd drive a jeep or something."

"Sorry." He sounded irritated.

"It's nice. You doing this," I said.

"It's my job."

"Not exactly," I said.

This time he shrugged. "Maybe not."

"You should go home. We'll be okay."

"I will. In a bit. What's that?"

"Garden trowel."

"What were you going to do, plant me?"

I smiled. "You should see me with a pair of pruners. I'd scare you silly."

"Sophie Mae, you already scare me silly. Among other things."

Like what, I wanted to ask but didn't. We watched a car turn into a driveway. A woman got out and went inside her house.

"Do you want to come inside, at least? Where it's warm?"

Oh, G.o.d, did that sound like an invitation? And then I realized I rather hoped it did.

"That's okay," he said.

I shrugged off a twinge of disappointment. "Go home, Barr. Really. We'll be fine."

"Well, now that I know you have your garden trowel, I'm sure you will. I'll take off. Go to bed."

"You promise?"

"Uh huh."

I got out, shut the door, leaned in the window. "Thanks for taking such good care of us."

He grinned at me. "Not a problem, ma'am."

Inside, I made my nasty-tasting tea, climbed back into my pajamas, and then into bed. An hour later, still unable to sleep, I slipped back downstairs. Pulling back the curtain, I saw Barr Ambrose still sitting in his car, watching.

THIRTY-SEVEN.

I SWEAR: EVERY TIME I think I've finally caught up, it turns out I'm low on something. These days, lotion bars are all the rage. A solid emollient molded into a pretty shape, a lotion bar looks a lot like a bar of soap, but when you rub it between your hands the cream melts into lotion. I make mine out of spicy beeswax, olive oil, and non-deodorized cocoa b.u.t.ter, with some grapefruit seed extract thrown in as an antibacterial agent. I like the non-deodorized cocoa b.u.t.ter because it smells so delicious.

The lotion bars started as one of those items I made for personal use because in spring and summer Meghan and I do a lot of gardening, and our hands suffer for it. In the fall, we preserve fruits and pickles and jams, which means constant hand was.h.i.+ng. The cocoa b.u.t.ter works better than anything else to heal the damage from all that scrubbing.

I was weighing chunks of dark, spicy beeswax on a kitchen scale when I heard the rapping of knuckles against the windowpane. Wiping my hands on an old flour-sack dishtowel, I went to open the door.

"Come on in," I said.

Debby entered, and Jacob followed, shuffling his feet and looking around.

"Looks like a big kitchen in here," he said.

I propped the door open. "Well, in a way I guess you could say I'm a cook. Or at least part cook. It's just that my recipes aren't for things people eat."

"Maybe not," Debby said, "but it smells yummy in here."

I inhaled the chocolate scent, smiling. "That's the cocoa b.u.t.ter melting right now." I picked up the beeswax and carried it to the stove. "Give me a sec, and I'll get that stuff for you to look through."

Once I'd stirred the beeswax into the olive oil and cocoa b.u.t.ter already in the large saucepan and lowered the heat, I retrieved the box of Walter's mementos from the storeroom where I'd stashed it earlier in antic.i.p.ation of their visit. I put it on the center island and stood back.

"I'm sorry there isn't any more than that. But with the fire and the police taking a couple of the pictures, that's all that's left. Oh, and his mother took one picture, too. The one of Walter as a little boy, with the beagle?"

Debby nodded, either remembering the picture or acknowledging Tootie's right to take it. "I've never met her."

The first time I'd met Debby she didn't have anything good to say about Walter's mother, but now her words held no heat, only a soft sadness. And until I told her, Tootie hadn't even known her son was engaged.

"Why don't you go visit her?" I asked.

Debby shrugged.

"How long had you and Walter been, uh, an item?" An item? Good Lord, Sophie Mae.

But Debby just said, "A little over a year," and went back to pulling items from the box and spreading them across the butcherblock counter.

Over a year, and he'd never taken her to meet his mother, even after he'd asked Debby to marry him. His mother, who lived only a mile away.

Debby sniffled and wiped the back of her hand across her face. I glanced at Jacob in time to see something indefinable cross his features as he watched his sister sort through her dead lover's things.

"Her name's Tootie," I said. Debby raised her head. "Walter's mother. Tootie. Short for Petunia. I think she'd like to meet you."

She looked down. "Oh, I don't know." Then back up at me. "You think so?"

I nodded. Maybe Walter had been right not to subject his fiancee to his mother's judgment earlier, but somehow I didn't think Tootie felt the same way now. Regret had altered her outlook more effectively than anything else might have.

So was it better for bitterness to be replaced by sadness? I'd get an argument from some, but I think so. Sadness is real, grief is real, and ideally a stage you move through to get to the other side where life goes on, while bitterness is a protective facade, static and hard. My father turned brittle with bitterness after Bobby Lee killed himself, and I struggled against doing the same thing when my husband died. Debby seemed to be doing okay, inviting the sorrow from losing Walter to sit with her a while. Maybe a lifetime of battling depressive episodes gave her a special understanding of the process. Or maybe she was on really good drugs. But Tootie had forgiven Walter only to turn around and judge herself. If only she could release some of her self-recrimination.

As for what was going on with Jacob, I had no idea.

Debby pulled out the ceramic chicken bank, turning it in her hands.

"That looks old. You might be able to get somethin' for it," Jacob said.

Debby glared. He hung his head and stubbed his toe into the concrete floor like a little kid.

Fingering the worn paint on the bank, she looked back at me. "You think you could go with me? To, you know..."

"Like, to introduce you? Yeah, I could do that."

"Okay. I'll um...I'll let you know."

"What's back there?" Jacob asked, gesturing with his chin toward the storeroom.

"I keep my product inventory in there, as well as some of the raw ingredients I use."

"That where you keep your lye?" It was a shock to find him looking directly into my eyes as he said it, and I realized it was the first time he hadn't shunted his gaze off elsewhere when I looked at him.

I didn't look away. "No. That's not where I keep it."

"Stop it, Jacob," Debby said. "It's not her fault, what happened."

Jacob shrugged and shuffled toward the storeroom, pausing in the doorway and then continuing in, head craned up to see the contents of the high shelves.

"Sorry 'bout that," Debby muttered.

"He knows, right?"

"Knows what?"

"That Walter didn't... commit suicide." It was still hard for me to say.

She was silent. Then, "Well, that policeman sure talked like someone killed him. Jacob's not taking it too well. Doesn't want to believe it. 'Course, the guy made it sound like Jacob or me had done it, and that made him mad"

"The policeman-was it Detective Ambrose?"

"That's the one. Promised he'd let me know when they caught the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who did that to Walter, but I haven't heard anything. Probably just gave up." She sounded resigned, like she didn't expect Ambrose to spend more than the minimum required time on Walter's case. It had only been a day since he'd spoken with her, and only a week since I'd found Walter.

"He didn't give up," I said. "In fact he's got a good idea who did it. Now he just has to catch them. Trust me, Ambrose knows what he's doing."

Jacob peered around the storeroom door, saw Debby's face. "What's wrong?" he asked, scurrying like a monkey to her side.

Debby ignored him, her gaze boring into me. "Who killed Walter? Do you know?" When I hesitated, she said, "Tell me."

"I'm sorry, but-"