A Pour Way to Dye (Book 2 in the Soapmaking Mysteries) (21 page)

“
That’s what makes them
special,” I said. As soon as I said it, I realized how it must have
sounded. The groan from Rufus didn’t help matters.

“
I’m going on my dinner
break,” he said as he brushed past me.

“
Don’t stay too long,” Diana
said, but he was already gone. She moved behind the register, then
asked, “Have you eaten yet, Ben? I’d be delighted to return the
favor and take you out. We even have time to go to The Hound
Dog.”

“
I’ll keep you company,” I
said, “but I grabbed an early bite.”

“
We’ll do it another time
then,” she said. “I brought a salad from home, anyway.”

A male customer came up and asked, “Can you
help me? Somebody told me Donald Westlake was writing under another
name, but I can’t remember for the life of me what he said.”

“
Mr. Westlake’s written
under several different names, but I suspect you want Richard
Stark.”

The man said, “Yeah, the guy’s name is
Tucker, or something like that, right?”

“
It’s Parker,” she said with
a smile. “Let me show you.”

I said, “I’ll see you later, Diana.”

“
Bye, Ben. Thanks for
stopping by.”

I left the shop feeling good. Diana had a way
of making me feel important to her day in a way that I really
liked. Though Kelly was still in my thoughts sometimes, I knew that
I was doing the right thing moving on.

I was still thinking about the extraordinary
changes in my life over the past few days when I literally bumped
into Terri Joy out on the street.

“
Hey, slow down,” I said as
she hustled past me.

There was a look of fear in her eyes as she
saw me. “Ben, I think somebody’s following me.”

I looked up and down the block, but I didn’t
see anyone paying particular attention to us.

“
What makes you say
that?”

She pointed to a mass of people standing
around the Blake Theater. “He’s right there.” As she stared at the
crowd, she added, “At least he was.”

“
Take it easy, Terri. Why
would anyone be following you?” It was an ironic question for me to
be asking her, since I’d followed her myself before.

“
How should I know?” she
snapped. After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “I bet Linda Mae’s
doing it. She’s got some deluded idea that she and my father were
really married, but until I see a wedding license, I’m not about to
believe it.”

“
She obviously knew your dad
though, didn’t she?”

Terri shrugged. “So what? He had a fling with
her. He was a grown man, I suppose he was entitled. But I know he
never would have married her. It wasn’t anything he’d ever do.”

“
Sometimes people do things
out of character,” I said.

“
Come on, Ben,” she said as
she looked into my eyes. “You knew my father and you’ve met Linda
Mae. Can you possibly imagine them as a couple?”

“
Who’s to say what the heart
wants,” I said. “If you’d like, I’d be happy to walk you to your
car.”

She glanced back at the group waiting to get
into the theater. “Thanks, but it looks like he’s gone. You must
have scared him off.”

Before I could ask her anything else, she was
gone. What was that about? I’d been counting Terri among my list of
suspects, but it sounded as though she might be in jeopardy
herself. Why would someone follow her, anyway? Was it possible she
knew something important that she wasn’t aware of? She and her
brother Andrew were still my main suspects, but Ralph and Linda Mae
might have also had their reasons to want Earnest dead. Too, there
could be someone else out there that I didn’t know about, but if
that were the case, I might as well give up. Molly had the
resources and the expertise to dig into Earnest Joy’s life. I could
focus on the four people I knew were suspects. Of course Molly had
me on her list too—as well as the rest of my family in all
likelihood—but I knew I was innocent, and my family as well. That
gave me an edge over Molly. She had to be distracted by a surplus
of suspects, while I could focus on just four people.

I decided I needed some time to think, so I
got into the Miata and started driving in the direction of
Sassafras Ridge. As I drove, I began to think about my suspects,
and what their motives might have been. For Andrew and Terri, money
had to be a factor. Earnest Joy’s jewelry shop had to make a great
deal of money, given the store’s inventory and his taste for the
nicer things in life. I couldn’t imagine anyone killing a parent
for an inheritance, but I knew people did it all the time, and
given the right circumstances, I could see Andrew or Terri doing
it. Linda Mae could have been concerned that Earnest would nullify
their marriage— if they had indeed gotten married—so she might have
killed him before he could disown her. Then again, she could have
demanded a payoff to stay out of his life, and knowing Earnest, he
would have probably laughed in her face. That blow to the head
could have easily been done out of anger instead of greed. That
left Ralph Haller. Why would he want Earnest dead? They were best
friends from the sound of things, though he had to have had plenty
of opportunity, but what about a motive? I needed to dig into that
a little more and see what I could find out.

I turned the Miata around and decided to
drive to Ralph’s home. The last time I’d seen him he’d called me a
murderer. Did I really want to go through that again? I didn’t have
much choice, but if I was going to try to solve Earnest’s murder on
my own, I needed to stand my ground.

Ralph’s car was parked in his driveway. I
walked up onto the porch, but before I knocked, I looked in through
the side window next to the door. The curtain was askew, offering
me a slight view inside his home. Ralph was sitting at the kitchen
table with some rags, polishing something gold and shiny. I rapped
on the door, and he quickly shoved whatever it was into a shoe box
and tucked it under the sofa before answering my summons.

“
What do you want?” he
snapped the second he saw me.

“
I need your help,” I said.
It was the first thing that popped into my mind.

“
Why should I help you,
Perkins?”

That was a good question, one I didn’t have a
ready answer for, except for the truth. “Don’t you want to see that
whoever killed Earnest is punished for it?”

“
I know who killed him,” he
said. “I’m looking at him.”

“
I told you before; I didn’t
do it. And I don’t think you did, either.” That was a flat-out lie.
He was still on my list of suspects, but I doubted he’d cooperate
with me if he knew.

Ralph studied me a few seconds, then said,
“What do you think you can do about it?”

Given his history, I came up with a way he
might help. “Do you honestly believe the cops are going to figure
it out?”

He looked at me like he wanted to spit. “They
couldn’t find a candy bar in a convenience store.”

“
So help me,” I
said.

He reluctantly nodded and stepped aside. Was
I really doing the smartest thing in the world, grilling one of my
suspects without a backup? No one even knew where I was. I realized
that I should have at least checked in with someone, but it was too
late for that. I stepped across the threshold, then he reached
behind me and dead bolted the door.

“
We don’t want anybody
sneaking up on us,” he said.

“
That’s a good idea,” I said
as I started looking for another way out of there.

The place needed more than just a woman’s
touch. A Dumpster and a fire hose were the only things that might
save it. Newspapers were piled up in the corners, and there were
four old pizza boxes stacked up on the kitchen countertop. A thick
layer of dust coated everything, and a stack of dirty dishes sat in
the sink. I didn’t even want to see the bedrooms or bathrooms if
the public spaces were like that. I was going to try to sit on the
sofa where he’d tucked that box, but he beat me to it. Instead, I
took the armchair and faced him.

Before I could ask him anything, he said,
“You really think you can figure this out on your own?”

“
I’ve had a little luck
doing it before,” I said.

“
What have you got so
far?”

It was time to step a little lightly. “Well,
we’ve got to consider the kids, no matter how unpleasant it
is.”

“
Andrew loved his old man,”
Ralph said, “but Terri would have cut his throat for a dollar. I
never trusted that kid, not from the second they brought her home
from the hospital.”

“
Do you have anything to
back that up?”

He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“We’re not cops. We don’t need proof. If you didn’t do it, then I’m
pretty sure she did.”

“
What makes you so sure
about Andrew?”

Ralph growled as he said, “Leave the boy
alone. I’m telling you. he loved his old man.”

It was pretty obvious which child Ralph
favored. “How about Linda Mae? She could have easily done it.”

“
That nut job?” Ralph asked.
“She’s as dumb as a brick if she thought Earnest loved her, let
alone really married her.”

“
She called him Ernie.” I
said.

“
There you go. He hated that
name. You think he’d let that woman call him that? She’s a nut
job.”

The telephone rang, and Ralph pounced on
it.

“
Yeah. Hang on.” He covered
the mouthpiece, then said, “We’re finished, right?”

“
There’s a lot more I need
to talk to you about. I don’t mind waiting.”

It was pretty obvious he wasn’t interested in
me hanging around. “I don’t have anything left to say.”

He walked to the front door, but I stayed put
“Molly Wilkes is going to ask me about this. We talk about
everything. Wouldn’t it be easier if I told her we’d already
covered everything from your end of things? Otherwise she’s going
to keep nosing around here until she’s satisfied.” I was glad I
wasn’t wired to a polygraph. The needles would be dancing like Fred
Astaire.

Ralph was still thinking about it when
whoever was on the other end of the line started shouting. He said,
“Keep your pants on.” Then he looked at me and said, “I’ll be right
back.”

The second he disappeared into the bedroom, I
dove for the box stashed under the couch. Lying on top of a rag,
half polished and half darkened with time, was a single gold coin.
What was he doing with that? It appeared to be French, and pretty
old. So why was Ralph polishing it? I heard the bedroom door open,
so I tossed the coin back in and slid the lid in place.

As I shoved it under the couch, he said,
“What do you think you’re doing?”

“
My shoe was untied,” I
said. And then I saw that I hadn’t gotten the edge of the box all
the way back under the sofa. As I stood, I started to move toward
him so I could nudge it back in place.

‘
There are a few more things
I’d like to ask you,” I said, trying to find the box with my toe
without him realizing what I was doing.

“
Sorry, but we’re finished
here. I’ve got to go.”

He took my arm and started walking me to the
door. There was no way I could leave the box in a different place
than where it belonged. I knocked a stack of magazines off a table
near the door. “Sorry, I’m pretty clumsy.”

“
I’ll get them later,” he
said, but his grip did lessen.

“
Nonsense. I knocked them
off, I’ll restack them.”

As I bent over to start picking them up, he
got down on one knee to help, anything to get me out of there.

I put one magazine on top of the other and
shot it toward the couch. “These things are slippery,” I said as I
reached for it. Before he could see what I was doing, I took the
magazine’s edge and shoved the box back under the couch. “Got it,”
I said.

“
Come on, I’m late for an
appointment,” he said gruffly.

“
I’ll be by later then, so
we can talk more.”

He shook his head. “I’m done talking.”

“
Is that what I should tell
Molly?”

‘
Tell her whatever you want
to.”

I opened the door and was surprised to find
Andrew there getting ready to knock.

“
What are you doing here?”
he asked me with a snarl in his voice. I looked down and saw that
one hand was clenched around a section of gray pipe.

“
Just visiting,” I said.
“What have you got there?” I asked as I gestured to the
weapon.

“
I’m not taking any chances
since somebody killed my father. Let him try to sneak up on me.” He
patted the pipe in his open palm. “I’m ready.”

“
Good for you,” I said as I
slipped past him.

“
Butt out, Perkins. This
isn’t any of your business, and I’d hate to see you get
hurt.”

The tone in his voice told me that he’d bring
popcorn and soda if he knew I was going to get a beating.

“
Yeah, I’d hate that, too.”
As I started to walk away, I turned back to him and said, “You know
what? I’m not the only one who should be careful.”

Andrew’s face reddened in anger. “Are you
threatening me? Ralph, you heard that. He just threatened me.”

“
Settle down, Andrew,” Ralph
said. “Come on inside.”

“
I’m not afraid of you,”
Andrew shouted at me.