Chapter Nineteen

In the morning I waited until I heard Meemaw’s key in the lock downstairs at the Nut House. Since the store wouldn’t be open for another two hours, I hurried on down in the clothes I slept in: an old yellow T-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts. No shoes, which was the first thing Meemaw noticed and warned me fiercely about getting slivers from the old wood floor, which meant I had to run back up the steps and get a pair of sandals before she’d even talk to me.

I sat at the table, feeling like a little girl again, with my grandmother fussing over me, bringing out a fresh pecan bread to toast a slice. One slice, I told her since I was meeting Jessie for breakfast.

She poured coffee, which I drank without complaining. No use being ungrateful, especially when the pecan bread slice came hot out of the toaster, and I could use a little taking care of since I was feeling alone and unhappy with Hunter still being such an ass. I’d checked my cell first thing that morning and there was a call from Peter Franklin asking me to call him. Which I did, to get it over with. He wanted to know, he said, if I was going to the memorial. And Elizabeth wanted to make sure Jeannie knew the memorial was set for seven that evening, at the Rushing to Calvary Independent Church. And she wanted to talk to me, if I could find time in this sad day to come on over to the house.

“You understand, don’t you?” he went on. “Elizabeth says Jeannie should make it a point to be at the memorial, otherwise everybody will be scandalized—the wife not there. I’m sure you can see what she’s saying. Last thing Elizabeth wants is more scandal.”

I said far as I knew, Jeannie was going to be there, with a lot of friends around her. He ignored that last comment and went on to say he’d love to pick me up, but Elizabeth requested that he go with her. She had a limo for the occasion. And she’d be in no state for conversation by that time.

I congratulated myself on not being compelled to go with the two of them. Just hearing his voice made shivers run down my back. My plan, from there on, was to freeze him out cold. Something I didn’t like about the man—no matter how he kept trying to impress me. Two scientists, after all, he seemed to suggest, while all I could think was I may be a scientist but I wasn’t a snob, and I didn’t stick my nose into other people’s work, and I sure didn’t suck up to rich people.

No call from Hunter. That was a thing that was starting to hurt like somebody pulling a big scab off a sore.

When Meemaw settled at the table across from me, I got into what I’d hurried down to discuss. “Did you know Eugene was selling that gun collection of his?” I asked, my mouth still full of pecan bread.

She shook her head, eyes blinking a couple of times as she thought about what I said. “Kind of brings in another angle, doesn’t it?”

“I thought so.”

“Hope it’s not Ethelred’s angle. You know, that gun runner business. You think about it, those drug people have a lot of money. What’s a couple million more or less to them?” She yawned behind her hand and said she didn’t sleep too well last night.

“Meemaw, think about it. Bet anything those gun lords want guns that work, not to hang on their wall.”

Meemaw sort of giggled. “Just shows you how tired I am. But I’m just as happy to have Ethelred stuck on her theory. Keeps her out of everybody’s hair.”

“Justin took Jeannie home and stayed out to the Chaunceys’. Just to keep watch.” I gave her a dubious look.

“You don’t think he’s smitten with her, do you? Poor soul just lost her husband. Justin needs a better sense of timing.”

“He hasn’t been interested in a woman since that Grace Prouty broke up with him,” I said.

“Probably about time, but for heaven’s sakes, the girl’s in mourning.”

“I don’t think Justin would be dumb enough to start anything. But I kind of hope she’ll hang around Riverville. At least for a while. Be good to see Justin happy,” I said.

“What about you and Hunter?”

I shook my head. “That man’s a complete ass.”

“Well, bless his heart. I’ve got to speak to that boy. The way he’s actin’! Dumb as a box of rocks. And, you know, we gotta work together. So much is going on, and from what he tells me, the sheriff isn’t any more ahead findin’ the murderer than we are.”

“Guess you can put away that silver set you been saving for me. Don’t look like I’m ever gonna use it.”

“Pshaw! This is just one of those bumps in the road. He’ll come back around.”

“Not with that pretty blonde after him.”

Meemaw made a face. “You just forget about that girl. I’m sure she doesn’t mean a thing to Hunter.”

I smelled a rat. “You know something you’re not saying?”

“When I don’t say something that could save my granddaughter’s feelings, you know I’ve got a pretty good reason. That enough for you?”

“No, ma’am. Come on, Meemaw. What’s going on?”

She shook her head hard two times, made a disapproving noise, and went back to talking about guns. “Somebody who wanted that gun collection and wasn’t willing to pay for it wouldn’t shoot Eugene and leave all the guns behind. They would’ve worked the whole thing different. Wouldn’t pose as a buyer and come at a time when Eugene was in the middle of his own wedding party. Doesn’t make sense if you look at it like a robbery.”

“Worth a lot of money,” I reminded her.

“Still and all, Hunter said they had an expert in to go over the collection. Nothing missing, according to Eugene’s own records.”

“So you’re still talking to Hunter behind my back.”

Meemaw colored up. “Not about you, Lindy. He’s got the basics to the case.”

“And you asked him about that blonde he was with the other night. Won’t tell me what you know about her.”

She shook her head. “Think it’s up to you to ask. I’m your grandmother, young lady, not your fight manager.”

*   *   *

Jessie walked into The Squirrel in a gorgeous turquoise silk blouse that wrapped around and tied at her waist. I had just one tiny minute of jealousy, thinking how I should go shopping and get some clothes that looked better than things a farmhand might wear. And if I was going to start publishing my work, well, who knows what conferences I’d be asked to? But that all flew out of my head as Jessie sat down and pushed a computer runoff at me.

“I looked up that Dr. Franklin of yours,” she said. “Seems he did go to Harvard. Even lived in Boston—some of the time.”

“What about the Global Plant Initiative in Italy? Did it say anything about him being connected there?”

She scanned her runoff then shook her head. “Nothing like that on here. Some articles on plant propagation. Wow—a whole list of them, but nothing current.”

“Could be because he’s been working in Italy.”

She shrugged. “Or he doesn’t have a job.”

I laughed. “You have any background in the CIA?”

She shook her head. “No, just tracking down overdue library books.”

Cecil was on his way over with his usual scruffy menus from which I would be talked into some awful English dish. I looked up and out the big front windows and around the enormous squirrel painted on the glass.

The man walking by on the sidewalk wasn’t hurrying, but he still moved like a person with a purpose: long, thin body bent forward, head with a mop of curly black hair. He wore a muscle shirt, sun-darkened arms sticking out at the elbows, hands shoved into the pockets of dark pants. No waiter’s tuxedo, yet I recognized him. The waiter from the party, who nobody seemed to know.

I didn’t have time to say a word to Jessie. I got up and ran out of the restaurant, the door closing with the tinkle of the bell behind me.

Curly was taking long strides, getting along without seeming to be going fast. I walked behind him for a couple of blocks, almost down to the Nut House, when he turned to look over his shoulder. The look on his face was all shock. He knew who I was, or remembered me from the party. I expected him to stop, seeing I was almost up behind him, but he didn’t.

“Curly?” I called out.

Faster than I could catch on to, he was off, loping around a corner, past the sheriff’s department, and over into the park. I was too surprised to go fast enough to keep up. And what if I caught him? I asked myself. What then? I slowed down and watched as he jogged around the ice cream shop and ran deep into the park where people were sitting on benches, or standing with baby carriages, talking, fanning themselves because the day was getting to be a hot one. There was no use yelling “Stop that man,” since I had no reason to stop him if he wanted to get away from me.

I turned back and ran up the steps to the sheriff’s department. Greg Harner, new to the force, was on duty at the front desk. I asked for Hunter, but he said he was out looking for that dog of his.

“Thing won’t listen to Hunter worth a damn,” Greg said. “If it was me, I’d get him to the pound fast as I could. But Hunter says he likes the dog. Go figure that one.”

I asked for Sheriff Higsby. He was out on a call, too.

No cop to help me. That was a pretty scary feeling.