Chapter 26
On the short drive home, Josie rolled the whole thing over in her mind. The more she thought about it, the more she knew Eb was involved. She couldn’t help being a little bit impressed. This was a prank that, as Mitch said, really raised the bar. But she was also a little bit angry. Eb had gone beyond just annoying Roy. Messing with his truck or signing him up for an online dating service was one thing. Messing with a man’s head was another.
Eb’s truck was gone when she pulled in. That suited her just fine.
She was about to do some snooping.
Coco must have heard the Saab pull up because she greeted Josie at the door, twining around her feet until Josie set down her keys and bag and reached out to give her kitty some love. Coco was not the kind of animal that liked to be picked up and carried or held. But she did love to have her throat and the top of her head scratched. “Come on, girl. Let’s go get you some dinner.”
The cat followed Josie to the kitchen. Josie opened a fresh can of food and scooped a spoonful into a clean bowl, then retrieved the bowls of dry food and water from atop the refrigerator, which was the only place she’d found that Jethro couldn’t get to, and set them on the floor. When Coco had finished, Josie replaced the bowls and rinsed out the wet food bowl. Coco purred contentedly and sauntered off to her small, soft bed in the corner by the window, where she did her customary few spins, then settled down for a nap.
“No time like the present,” Josie said aloud. She dried her hands, then headed for Eb’s workshop.
Her great-uncle had cleaned up the mess Josie had made on his worktable by piling everything up in one corner. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for. Some kind of radio, a transmitter, a device that could be sending signals to Roy Woodruff. Lately Eb had been adding wire curlicues to his thingamajigs, and she saw a spool of wire on the workbench. Could he be hooking that up somehow? She wished she knew more about how radio worked.
She sat back in the chair and looked up. A loose piece of wire hung more or less perpendicular to the ceiling. She followed it with her eyes. It was tacked up on the ceiling and ran all the way to the outside door, which Josie opened. The wire continued along the side of the house, then took a jog out across the yard.
And ran the full length of her clothesline, suspended about a foot above it. It ended at the pole that held up the far end of the clothesline. Josie didn’t need a ladder to know that the wire was attached to the wire coat hanger sticking up and out from the top of the pole. The wire she’d thought was one of Eb’s less artistic sculptures.
Gotcha, she thought. Now what was she going to do about it? She and Mitch had an unspoken agreement to stay out of the feud between Eb and Roy. Well, no need to make a decision yet. Mitch was keeping an eye on his grandfather, would watch to make sure he was only shaken up, not being seriously harmed. But she wasn’t going to let this go on too much longer.
Josie went back inside through the workshop door, closing it behind her. She took another look at the worktable. He could have hidden the transmitter, even taken it with him. The point seemed moot now. The wire was enough to convict him. She looked down. There was that coast guard manual that was shoring up one leg of the table. Semaphore and Morse Code.
Clicks and taps.
Xs and Os.
Dots and dashes? She found a piece of wood about the same thickness as the book, placed it under the table leg, and took the book with her.
It took only a minute to traverse the house, then settle herself in the morning-borning room at the desk. She found paper and a pen, then pulled out the notes Roy had made.
Morse code was a simple combination of long dashes and short dots. There was nothing cryptic about it, nothing that left room for interpretation. The only thing she didn’t know was whether Roy had recorded the longs as Xs and the shorts as Os, or vice versa. But it was simple enough to figure out. If one didn’t produce a comprehensible document, the other would, as long as this really was Morse code.
Dot. Dot. Dash-dash-dot-dash. Her first attempt at translation made no sense at all, the letters combining into unreadable words. But the second attempt produced better results.
W-O-O-D-R-U-F-F. Y-O-U. D-O-P-E.
It turned out that Eb simply repeated that phrase, six times. Or at least, six was as many times as Roy wrote it down.
Josie had to hand it to Eb. He’d outdone himself this time. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Mitch, then told him she’d confirmed what they suspected.
Mitch gave a low whistle. “Good detective work. Now the question is, do you and I get involved?”
You and I. She liked the sound of that. But there were other things to think about now. “You know these two better than I do. What do you think?” Josie reached into the bottom drawer of her desk. The yarn and knitting needles were there. She pulled them out and set them on the desk, running her hand back and forth over the yarn.
“Well . . . I don’t see any way around this but to put them together in a room and see if we can get Eb to confess. I’ve got to tell Roy.”
“I agree,” Josie said. Stroking the yarn was calming her, the same way stroking Coco’s black-and-white fur would have done. “Roy’s got to be told before he’s affected psychologically any more than he already is. And Eb’s got to understand that he went a little too far this time.” She wasn’t actually so sure Eb would understand anything, but the effort had to be made.
“We should be there when it happens,” Mitch said. “Roy is going to be humiliated, then he’s going to go ballistic. Better that happens when we’re there to mitigate any damage.”
“You doing anything tonight? Let’s get this over with. Lorna packed up two roast beef dinners last night, but there’s more than enough for all of us. Bring Roy over around seven.” Josie caught her lower lip between her teeth. She’d just asked Mitch over for dinner. Don’t be a dope, Blair. It’s not a date. It’s a business meeting.
There was a short silence on the other end of the line before Mitch spoke. “The promise of one of Lorna’s dinners might just be the only way to get Gramps over there. See you at seven. I’ll tie Gramps to the bumper if I have to. And Josie? I’m looking forward to it. Well, not the impending nuclear explosion, but seeing you twice in one day will make it worth it.”
He rang off before she had to respond.
She took the book back to Eb’s workshop and replaced it under the table leg. Eb should be home soon—he never stayed out much past six—but there was no need making him suspicious or getting him riled up before the main attraction.
The dining room table, as usual, was covered with Eb’s stuff. There wouldn’t be time to do more than a dash and stash job on it, though it was tempting to just take everything into Eb’s workshop and dump it there. The kitchen table was smaller, but it would seat four comfortably, and it only had Bea’s doilies on it.
She felt one. Dry. She pulled a plastic storage box out of a cabinet and stacked the doilies inside, then set the box on the counter out of the way. She only needed to drag the boxes of old dishes out from underneath the table and put them in the corner, then wipe down the table.
When that was done and the table was set, she pulled the to-go containers from the fridge. There was plenty there. The skins of the baked potatoes would probably crisp back up if she put them in the oven. The green beans and beef would only need a quick reheat so they didn’t get overcooked. Dessert? It wasn’t going to be anything fancy, that was for sure. Where was Evelyn or Helen with some home-baked cookies when you needed her? A fresh package of Nutter Butters she remembered was in the cupboard, plus coffee, would have to do.
Josie was just closing the oven door on the potatoes when Eb came in. She quickly checked to make sure the beef was back in the refrigerator, because she could hear Jethro’s nails clicking on the hardwood floor, getting closer.
Eb took one look at the set table and scowled. “What’s this?”
“We’re having company for dinner. Go wash up.”
Eb raised a hairy eyebrow. He wasn’t used to being told what to do. But he also didn’t ask who was coming over, for which Josie was grateful.
“I’ll be doing my crossword,” he said. “With my dirty hands. Tell me when dinner’s ready.” He went back out to the dining room and sat down in his velour recliner near the front window. Eb was crankier than usual. Perhaps things hadn’t gone well at Tractor Supply. Or maybe he had some kind of sixth sense about what was going to happen tonight. Well, it was his own fault. He wasn’t going to get any sympathy from her.
A couple of minutes after seven, a knock sounded at the front door. There was a pause, and then another knock. Josie came out of the kitchen. “You’re three feet from that door. You think you could open it?”
Eb glared at her. “That’s Woodruff’s vehicle, which I don’t mind. The boy’s all right. But why’s that bastard Roy Woodruff with him?”
Josie didn’t answer, but opened the door. Eb was about to find out.