| |
I CHEWED ON MY lip. Hailey, the woman, and I just stood there, aghast, staring at the sign. Finally, I looked at both Hailey and woman.
“Hailey, why don’t you take this nice lady inside and help her out? I assume you were needing something from the store, ma’am?”
“Um, yes. My daughter needs one of those string things to clean out her clarinet.” The woman was still staring at the noose.
“You have come to the right place! We have several options of clarinet swabs. Hailey, please go show this nice lady the clarinet swabs.” Hailey nodded and led the lady into the store. I tried to regain the appearance of calm, and walked into the store a few feet behind them. Then I raced back to my office to get my phone.
Luckily, the poor freaked customer was gone with her clarinet swab and an “I (heart) my clarinet” keychain, compliments of Fairview Music, for her daughter, when Detective Winn arrived. I saw him pull up and go over to look at the sign. I went back outside to join him.
“Please give me the details.” Detective Winn took his notebook out of his pocket once again.
“Hailey had just finished up doing inventory. She had just determined that the only things missing from the inventory were five packages of professional quality violin strings.” I began.
“Aren’t strings just strings?” Detective Winn was learning a lot about music this morning!
“No, there are differences in quality, for beginners up to the professional.” I explained as best I could to someone with absolutely no knowledge of musical instruments.
“How many strings are in a package?”
“Four.” I answered.
“Is there a way to tell if these strings are the kind that are missing from your store?” He asked.
“Yes, that’s easy. Pizzicato Professional strings have this little gold ball on the end, that is stamped with their signature letter P. See there?” I pointed to the ends of the strings that were knotted together. I didn’t touch them, but the letter P was visible.
“I see. Ok, I’ll tell the crew to come back down here for fingerprints and pictures.” Detective Winn made a final few notes in his book. “Maybe you should close the store for the rest of the day? Would that be possible?” He asked.
“Yes. I think that would be a good idea.” To be honest, I was totally freaked out and really was hoping he would ask me to close! Going home sounded wonderful to me.
“Thanks. I need to go back to the car to make phone calls.” Detective Winn turned and went in the direction of his car. I went back into the store, turning off the neon “Open” sign as soon as I got in the door.
“Hailey, we are closing for the day.”
“Ok, no problem!” Hailey made no effort to hide her sense of relief that she would be able to go home.
“Please call Garrett, Esther, and Nels and ask them to reschedule any lessons that they might have today? And give them my sincerest apologies. I will shut down in back.” Hailey nodded and went to the store landline phone, that was sitting on the counter, to call our other instructors. I went back into my office to gather a few things, and then I turned off the lights in the building.
I waited for Hailey to finish her last phone call, then we left the building together, double-checking as we left that the door was definitely locked.
“Are you ok?” I asked Hailey, as we were about to separate and go to our individual cars.
“As ok as can be. Not the day I was expecting.” Hailey told me.
“Yeah. Go home and take it easy. Hopefully, tomorrow will be much better!” I was trying to be reassuring. Trying to reassure both Hailey and me.
“I will, Lisa. Thanks for closing early! See you tomorrow!”
“See you tomorrow!” I watched Hailey get into her car and close the door. Then I got into my car and headed home. I got halfway home when my phone rang.
“Hello.” I really didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Hello, dear.” Mother purred. “I just wanted to let you know that I have some food in Delilah in the fridge. I put it in Tupperware, and it is marked. Please be sure to take it with you. I don’t want it to go to waste.” Darn it! I had totally forgotten I had agreed to take Delilah this weekend. I pulled into a side road and turned around to go back to Mother’s house and pick her up.
“On my way.” I told Mother.
“Now? Aren’t you still at the store?” Mother knew me too well. She knew that I adore the store and I never, ever left early. She could sense that something was amiss.
“Just wanted to go home early and check on Henry. I, um, I am planning to go back. Since I’m out, though, I might as will pick up Delilah.” Man, am I a lousy liar!
“Ok,” Mom responded. I could tell she didn’t believe me, but didn’t want to ask any more questions. The answers might mess up her weekend plans.
“Be there in a few minutes.” I hung up the phone. What a horrible weekend for Julie to be out of town! Ugh! I had a long, lonely night ahead of me, with two feisty little dogs.
Mom was waiting in her driveway for me, with Delilah and two large, reusable shopping bags of Delilah’s things. Mom handed Delilah to me through the driver’s window.
“I’ll see you in two days!” Mom snuggled and kissed Delilah, talking to her in a baby-ish voice. “Mummy will miss her snug-gums!”
“Mom, it’s two days.” I took Delilah from her and buckled her harness onto Henry’s seatbelt adapter. “You don’t need to send all this stuff. Henry can share.” Mom opened the back door and piled the bags in.
“Oh, I want to be certain she has all the comforts of home.” Mom explained. “Bye, my sweet little girl!” Mom then started blowing kisses at Delilah. Delilah had an itchy ear. She was busy dealing with that she totally ignored Mother’s display of affection.
“Bye, Mom! Have a good weekend!” I called, rolling up the window and backing out of the driveway at the same time. Mom stayed in the driveway, waving until I drove around the corner.
When I got home, I took both Henry and Delilah out, fed them, then settled us in for the night. I had brought home quite a bit of paperwork for the festival. Paperwork that didn’t get dealt with this morning because of the break in. I grabbed my lap desk, and got comfy with my laptop snuggling a dog on either side of me on the couch. As soon as I had just gotten into a work rhythm, my phone rang. It was Julie.
“Hi Julie!” Both Henry and Delilah looked annoyed that I was talking.
“I made it to New Mexico. The rehearsal is in an hour, and I want to come home.” Julie whimpered.
“Not the family bonding experience you were hoping for?” I smiled.
“Not in the slightest. Anything new there?”
“Funny you should ask!” I set my pen down and recounted the morning’s events for her.
“Seriously, a noose?” Julie repeated, the shock obvious in her voice.
“Yes, and it was made of a package of the stolen violin strings. I think.”
“That is so creepy!” Julie shuddered.
“I know. Detective Winn does not know who or what is behind it. I hope it was a weird one-time thing, so I can happily go back to running my little music store.” I set the lap desk and laptop on the coffee table and headed out to the kitchen. While the dogs had had dinner, I had not.
“Did he say it was a one-time thing?” Julie asked.
“He doesn’t have any idea. He just said to be very cautious when we are at the store. If any of us get there and the door isn’t locked, don’t go in and call 911.” I pulled some fresh spinach and mushrooms out of the fridge with one hand, holding the phone to my ear with the other hand.
“I bet Hailey is really freaked out!” Julie knew how hard Hailey worked, but also how sheltered she was.
“She was pretty upset and really glad I closed the store early, so she could go home.” I pulled my small cast iron frying pan from the cabinet beside the stove.
“As much as I want to keep talking, and you do not know how much I would like to keep talking, I need to get dressed for the rehearsal.” I heard such remorse in Julie’s voice.
“Ok, have fun....”
“Yeah, right? Text me if anything else happens, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.”
“Bye.” I said, set the phone down on the counter and pushed the button to hang up. I really wished Julie wasn’t in New Mexico. If she was home, we could order a pizza, drink some wine, and I’d be totally distracted from thinking about the morning I’d had.
I dumped some rice mix into the skillet with the spinach and mushrooms that were now sautéed and stirred the whole thing together. Henry and Delilah sat at my feet, eagerly hoping that the entire thing would drop onto the floor.
“Move, Henry.” I nudged him out of the way with my foot as I got a bowl down and scooped my dinner into it. Then I took my bowl, a fork, and a tumbler of water back to the living room. I took my laptop off the lap desk. I turned on a movie on my laptop, put the desk on my lap, like a table, and ate my dinner. As I had just taken the last bite of my rice mixture when the phone rang again.
“Hello Mother.” I set the bowl and fork on the coffee table beside my computer.
“The store had a break in?!?!” Mom practically screamed into the phone.
“Yes, a small one. Nothing was taken except for some violin strings. They were the professional ones, but....” I sputtered.
“You didn’t tell me about this! How could you not tell me about this?” Mother had clearly spent some serious time getting all worked up about this.
“I didn’t want to spoil your weekend.” I said in my sweetest, most devoted daughter tone.
“So, I have to hear it from Phil Hillerman?” Evidently, Margie’s husband was a tattletale.
“How did Phil know about it?”
“Press conference on Facebook! That’s how everyone learns about everything!” My mother, the social media maven.
“I really need to check that more often.” I muttered.
“Are you ok?” Mom’s tone had changed from angry to concerned.
“Yes, I’m fine. Detective Winn is hoping it was a random, one-time thing.” I omitted the part about the violin string noose. If she mentioned it, fine, but I was not going there on my own!
“Do you work alone tomorrow?”
“No, there will be two or three people there. Lots of lessons scheduled on Saturdays, so there will people coming and going all day.”
“Ok, I’m so glad to hear it. Call me tomorrow?”
“Of course. Have fun at Fiddler on the Roof! Bye!”
“Bye!” Mother responded and hung up. As soon as I had set my phone down, it rang again. It was Detective Winn.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Lisa?”
“Yes. Hi, Detective Winn.”
“Lisa, I know it is getting late, but could you come down to your store? We got a call from Jacob Hart...” Detective Winn began.
“Esther’s husband?” I jumped in.
“Yes. He said she went down to the store to pick up something about three hours ago and hasn’t come home. She’s not answering her cell....”
“I’ll be right there!” I dropped my phone into my and headed out the door. An ominous feeling crept over me.