Panic Button Part 19

Larry's chin came up a fraction of an inch. "If I'd asked, she would have given me the b.u.t.ton. Angela would have done anything for me. But I didn't ask." His eyes snapped to mine. "I couldn't ask for a b.u.t.ton when I didn't know anything about the b.u.t.ton or the treasure, for that matter."

I figured he'd object, and I was ready for it. "That's what you and Angela fought about the morning she was killed, right? She figured out that you didn't love her, you were just pretending so you could get your hands on the charm string. And you didn't kiss and make up before she came to Chicago. She was still upset when she arrived at the b.u.t.ton Box. And you followed her. You confronted her. You fought and you grabbed for the nearest weapon. Did you rip the Ardent b.u.t.ton off the charm string before you strangled her with it? Well, you must have. That would explain how it didn't get lost in the dark. Poor Angela must have been heartbroken when she realized what you were up to."

Larry crossed his arms over his chest. "And poor Susan? I suppose you have some lame theory about her death, too."

"Well, my guess is your feelings for her were just as phony as your feelings for Angela. You dated Susan originally because you wanted to get your hands on Ben's diary. Then when you realized you'd never get the b.u.t.ton unless you were close to Angela, you switched your affections. Once Angela was out of the way, you were free to start wooing Susan again. And it almost worked, didn't it? You would have gotten away with it if she didn't walk in here that Sunday morning looking for her purse. Once she found you with your hand in the Thunderin' Ben exhibit switching one of the old books you found at Angela's for the real diary..." I looked at the display case, picturing the horrible scene. "You had no choice but to kill her, too."

"Absolutely not!" Larry stomped one foot. "None of it is true, and I won't let you repeat a word of it. Not to anyone. There are laws about slander, you know, and if word of this gets around in Ardent Lake, my business will be ruined. You can't prove it." He stalked toward the door. "You can't prove any of it."

Nev stopped him with one simple phrase. "We will," he said, "once the police are done searching your house and we find the treasure. And the diary. And the b.u.t.ton."

"And even if we didn't have that..." I walked over to where I'd set my purse. "There is the whole thing about Aunt Evelyn."

Larry went as still as if he'd been flash frozen. "How dare you bring up the memory of that nice, old lady? Evelyn was a dear."

"And you were a dear to humor Angela and take Evelyn along on so many of your outings." I opened my purse and pulled out the photograph of Larry and Evelyn in the park that I'd originally seen in Angela's bedroom. "You were kind to Evelyn."

"Of course I was."

"And you did it just to humor Angela. Not because you wanted to get the b.u.t.ton from the string when Evelyn owned it?"

"I told you that's not true!" At the same time Larry took a step toward me, Nev moved in my direction, too. Even that wasn't enough to get Larry to back off. His hands curled into fists and his arms tight at his sides, Larry bent to look me in the eye. "You're lying."

"Pictures don't lie." I showed the photo to Larry and, since they were leaning forward to try and get a glimpse, I held it out so Marci and Charles could see it, too. "This picture shows you with Evelyn," I said, though Larry certainly didn't need a reminder. "I found it in Angela's room along with the other pictures of you she'd taken down from her wall."

Larry sniffed. "She was repainting."

"She was as mad as h.e.l.l. Because I'll bet anything that Angela found this picture when she cleaned out Evelyn's house, and when she cleaned out Evelyn's house..." I gave Larry another chance to fess up, and when he didn't, I had no choice but to go on. "Angela realized you were romancing Aunt Evelyn two years ago."

"I..." Larry's jaw went slack and he blinked rapidly. "I wasn't...I didn't...I..."

"You can explain it all down at the station. If there's any way to explain." Jimmy Carns stepped in from the hallway and slapped handcuffs on Larry.

THE NEXT MONDAY, I was back at the b.u.t.ton Box and grateful for it. I was back where I belonged, lost in a world of b.u.t.tons, and as happy as any b.u.t.ton-a-holic can be.

I was just finis.h.i.+ng switching out a display of calico b.u.t.tons for one of clear gla.s.s (mostly because I hadn't played with my clear gla.s.s b.u.t.tons for a while and I was itching to get a look at them) when the bell over the front door c.h.i.n.ked and Nev stuck his head into the shop.

"Just got a call from Jimmy Carns," Nev said. "Larry confessed."

"Poor Susan, and poor, poor Angela. She had the charm string with one thousand b.u.t.tons on it, and her Prince Charming finally came along. Too bad he wasn't the man of anyone's dreams." I'd been on my knees, checking the lower shelves of the display case to make sure everything was perfect, and I got up and walked to the front of the shop. "But at least a confession saves a long, drawn-out trial."

"Well, it's not like Larry could do much else. He didn't hide the diary very well, or that missing b.u.t.ton. As for the treasure..."

Nev's voice drifted off, and I knew exactly how he felt. It still took my breath away to think that the Ardent Lake police had found a jewel case filled with old gold coins hidden in Larry's attic.

"Maybe they'll put the treasure on display at the Big Museum," I suggested.

Nev grinned. "I wouldn't be surprised."

He was still positioned half in, and half out of the shop, and I was just going to ask what was going on when he jerked to the side, as if his arm had been pulled.

"What..." I got as far as the door, and when LaSalle saw me, he let out a bark. He was still wearing that bright blue collar and he was tethered to a blue leash. Need I say that the other end of that leash was in Nev's hand?

"What?" He acted like this wasn't any big deal.

"Bring him in." I waved cop and dog into the shop and LaSalle ran over to greet me, paws on my knees and ears flapping. "So, you've got a new best friend, huh?" I asked the dog. He didn't answer. He didn't need to.

"He'd only get in trouble out on the street," Nev said, rubbing the dog's head. "And when I suggested he might want a permanent home-"

I laughed. "You don't need to explain. LaSalle's had plenty of opportunities to go home with the merchants and the workers from the neighborhood. He was never interested. I guess he was just waiting for the right person to come along."

Nev dropped the leash and LaSalle wandered over to stick his nose in the trash can near my desk. With the dog busy, Nev propped his hands on my hips. "I think that's what we're all looking for, don't you?"

I couldn't have agreed more. I slipped my hands around Nev's waist.

"Except, I hope you understand..." he said. "You know..." I looked up just in time to see the tips of his ears turn pink. "I mean, about the B and B."

I wiped the smile from my face. I wasn't actually mad about what had happened in Ardent Lake on Sat.u.r.day night. In fact, I was actually pretty relieved. But it didn't hurt to tease a guy, just a little. "You mean about how Mary Lou offered us that room for Sat.u.r.day night and we turned her down?"

"Yeah." A look of regret crossed his face. "I just...well, we'd just caught a murderer, and let's face it, murder isn't exactly romantic."

"No, it is definitely not."

"And I..." Nev tightened his hold. "When it happens, Josie, I want it to be perfect."

This time, I didn't even try to control my smile.

See, that was the moment I knew for sure. Perfect? Oh yeah, it would be.

CHARM STRINGS.

I find the whole notion of charm strings (also called friends.h.i.+p strings or memory strings) terribly romantic. Imagine all those girls way back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, trading and saving b.u.t.tons, giving and getting them as gifts, then stringing them in the hopes that once b.u.t.ton number one thousand arrived, so would Prince Charming.

In fact, there were a number of superst.i.tions a.s.sociated with charm strings, and a number of them were variations on the Prince Charming story. One said that the prince was the one who had to string that one thousandth b.u.t.ton. Another turned the romantic notion on its head and said that if a girl got b.u.t.ton number 1000, she would die an old maid.

Whatever the legend, old charm strings are extremely rare these days. That doesn't mean the hobby couldn't be renewed. Save up old b.u.t.tons, and string them with the princes and princesses in your life! Who knows, someday, those charm strings, too, might be precious, old and valuable.

For more information about vintage and antique b.u.t.tons and b.u.t.ton collecting, go to: www.nationalb.u.t.tonsociety.org.

Turn the page for a preview of Kylie Logan's new League of Literary Ladies Mysteries...

Mayhem at

the Orient Express.

Coming soon from Berkley Prime Crime!

IF IT WASN'T FOR JERRY GARCIA PEEING ON MY PANSIES, I never would have joined the League of Literary Ladies.

No, not that Jerry Garcia! Jerry Garcia, Chandra Morrisey's cat. In fact, it was that peeing incident, and the one before it, and the one before that...

Well, suffice it to say that if it wasn't for Jerry's less-than-stellar bathroom habits, there never would have been a League at all.

Jerry, see, was the reason I was in mayor's court that Thursday morning.

Again.

"That d.a.m.ned cat..." I bit my lower lip to hold in my temper and the long list of Jerry's sins I was tempted to recite. After all, Alvin Littlejohn, the court magistrate, had heard it all before.

Then again, so had Chandra Morrisey, and her cat was still peeing on my pansies.

Chandra was standing to my right, and I swung her way. "He needs to be kept in the house. That's all I'm asking."

It was all I'd asked the week previously, too, and just like that time (and the time before and the time before that), Chandra rolled her eyes, which were the color of the gray clouds that blanketed the sky outside the town hall building. "Cats are free spirits," she said, her voice as soft as the rolls of flesh that rippled beneath a tie-dyed T-s.h.i.+rt that fit her like a second, Easter-egg-swirl-of-color skin. "They are the embodiment of nature spirits. If we don't allow them to roam free, we impede their mission in this world. They can commune with the Other Side, you know." Like it would help the information sink into this nonbeliever's skull, Chandra looked at me hard.

If I was still back in New York City, I would have given her a one-finger salute and been done with it. But we were, in fact, on an island twelve miles from the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie, and as I'd come to learn in the six weeks I'd lived on South Ba.s.s, residents here were a different breed. They moved slower than folks back in the Big Apple. They were friendlier. Considerate. More civilized.

Well, except for Jerry.

And, obviously, his owner.

"This is ridiculous!" I threw my hands in the air. Not as dramatic a gesture as I would have liked, but hey, like I said, people here were considerate, and my goal in coming to the island in the first place was to blend in. "You're wasting my time, Chandra. And the court's time, too. All you need to do is-"

"All Chandra needs to do?"

Honestly, I was so fixated on Jerry's loony owner, I'd forgotten Kate Wilder was even in the room. She stood on my left, tapping one sensible pump against the black-and-white linoleum. "It's not like I have time for this, Alvin, and you know it," she grumbled, her arms crossed over the jacket of a neat navy suit that looked particularly puritanical against flaming orange hair that was as long as my coal black tresses, but not nearly as curly. "We could settle this whole thing quickly, if you'd tell her..." Kate was a pet.i.te, pretty woman who looked to be about thirty-five, the same age as me. Her emerald green eyes snapped to mine. "Tell Ms. Cartwright here to cut down on the traffic at that B and B of hers and there won't be anything left for us to discuss."

"Oh, we'll still have plenty to talk about," I shot back. "Especially if your constant nagging about traffic means my renovations don't get done by the time I'm scheduled to open. Come on, it's not like it's any big deal. It's just a few trucks coming down the street now and then."

"A few?" Kate ticked the list off on her fingers (which is actually a pretty pithy way of putting it since while she was at it, she was ticking me off, too). "There was the truck that brought the new windows, and one that took care of the heating and air conditioning, and one from the painters and one from-"

"I thought you said you were busy and had better things to do?" Ah yes, me at my sarcastic best! Not one to be intimidated (see the above comment about New York), I, too, crossed my arms over my black turtleneck and adjusted the dark-rimmed gla.s.ses on the bridge of my nose, the better to give Kate the kind of glare anybody with that much time on her hands-not to mention nerve-deserved. "Apparently, you don't have anything better to do than spend your time looking across the street at my place. Once the renovations are complete-"

"At least those trucks won't be spewing fossil-fuel exhaust fumes near my herb garden." Chandra tugged at her left earlobe and the three golden hoops in it. "Once she gets rid of those-"

"And she cuts down on the traffic jams-"

"And she takes care of that d.a.m.ned cat-"

"All right! That's it. Quiet down!" In the weeks I'd been appearing before Alvin in the bas.e.m.e.nt courtroom, I had never seen him so red in the face. He fished a white cotton handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. "This has gotten..." There was a plastic bottle of water on his desk and he opened it and took a gulp. "This situation has gotten out of control. You're out of control."

I would have been willing to second this last comment if he'd kept his gaze on Chandra. When it moved to Kate...well, that was understandable, too. But when it slid my way and stayed there, I couldn't help myself. My chin came up and my shoulders went back.

Alvin sc.r.a.ped a hand through what was left of his mousy-colored hair and pointed a finger at Kate. "You're mad at..." He arced his finger in my direction. "Her because of the traffic. And you're..." His slightly trembling finger remained aimed at me. "Mad at her..." The accusatory gesture moved to Chandra. "Because her cat-"

"Pees on my flowers. All the time. What's going to happen in the summer when I have guests and they want to sit out on the front porch and-"

"I get the picture." A muscle jumped at the base of Alvin's jaw, but he kept his gaze on Chandra. "And you, Chandra, you're mad at Kate. Do I have that right? Because..." He flipped open a manila file on his desk and consulted the topmost piece of paper in it. "Because Kate plays opera too loud on Sunday mornings."

Chandra nodded, and her bleached blond, blunt-cut hair bobbed to the beat. "I do my meditating in the morning." She said this in a way that made it sound like public knowledge. For all I knew, it was. From what I'd heard, Chandra Morrisey had lived in Put-in-Bay (the little town that was the center of life on South Ba.s.s) nearly all of her nearly fifty years. "She's messing with the vibrations in the neighborhood and that affects my aura."

"Oh, for pity sake!" Kate's screech fell flat against the pocked tiles of the drop ceiling. "She hates opera? Well, I hate that creepy sitar music that's always coming from her place. And I don't have time for this. Any of it. I need to get to the winery."

"Oh, the Wilder Winery!" If we hadn't been enmeshed in our own little version of a smackdown, I might have laughed at Chandra's attempt at a la-di-da accent. "Play your screechy opera at the winery, then, why don't you," she suggested to Kate. "And leave the rest of us in peace."

"Which actually might be possible," Kate snapped back, "if it wasn't for you, Chandra, and those stupid full moon bonfires you're always building." She fanned her face with one perfectly manicured hand. "The smoke alone is bound to kill somebody one of these days. Add your singing to it-"

"It isn't singing." Chandra was so sure of this, she stomped one Ugg-shod foot. "It's chanting."

"It's annoying," Kate countered.

"And it's getting us nowhere." Me, the voice of reason. "It all comes down to the stupid cat. If you'd just make Jerry Garcia-"

"In the animal kingdom, cats are among the highest beings, intelligence-wise." Need I say that this was Chandra talking? The heat kicked on and blew my way and it was the first I realized she was wearing perfume that smelled like the herbal tea they sold in the head shops around Was.h.i.+ngton Square Park back in New York.

I wrinkled my nose.

And ruffled Chandra's feathers.

Her eyes narrowed and her voice hardened. "In fact," she said, "the ancient Egyptians-"

"Are dead, mummified, and poohed to dust. Every single one of them," I reminded her and added, just for the sake of a little drama, "they died from the germs because they let their cats pee anywhere they wanted. Like on their neighbor's flowers."

"Oh, yeah?" It was the ultimate in bad comebacks, and yes, I knew better. I swear, I did. I just couldn't help myself. I answered Chandra with a "yeah," of my own.

It should be noted that at this point, Alvin dropped his head on his desk.

I'm convinced he would have kept it right there in the hopes that when he finally looked up, we'd all be gone, but at that moment, the door to the courtroom opened.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know you were busy." The woman who poked her head in, then stepped back, looked familiar. Short. Round. Dark hair dusted with silver. I'd been introduced to Marianne Littlejohn, the town librarian and Alvin's better half, at a recent potluck.

Only the evening of the gathering, her eyes weren't puffy and her nose wasn't red. Not like they were now.

"Marianne! What's wrong?" Yes, this would have been a perfect thing for Alvin to say, but it wasn't the magistrate who raced to the door and grabbed Marianne's hands. It was Chandra. She drew Marianne into the room. "Your aura is all messed up."

"It's...it's..." Now that it was time to explain, Marianne hiccuped over the words. "I've had such terrible news."

Kate checked the time on her phone. "And that's a shame, really, but we need to finish up here. I've got to get over to the winery-"

"And I've got someone coming to repair the stained gla.s.s window in my front stairway," I piped in, refusing to be outdone by Miss I'm-So-Important. "So if I could just pay a fine or something, I'll be heading home. And by the way..." I hoped Kate could see the wide-eyed, innocent look I shot her from behind my gla.s.ses. "I hear the stained gla.s.s artist is going to be driving a really big truck."

A head toss from Kate.

A click of the tongue from Chandra.