Heaven Preserve Us (28 page)

"Chanting?"

"Praying or something. I leave 'em to it. Hang on, I'll get her."

The background voices paused, and Ruth came on the line, her
voice strong.

"You sound like you feel better," I said.

"Much. I have some friends here to help me out."

"Well, I don't know what they're doing, but as long as it works,
I'm all for it."

I liked hearing Ruth laugh at that, though I wasn't sure why it
was so funny.

"I have a question for you."

"Shoot," she said.

"The other day you mentioned a friend of yours who did a lot
of preserving. In fact, I believe you said she canned beets."

"Yes" Tentative. Curt.

"I seem to remember that she's passed on. Can you tell me who
she was?"

There was a very long pause, and then Ruth said in a wondering voice, "Her name was Hannah. Hannah Oxford."

"Oxford-isn't that the name of the man Jude lives with?"

"Indeed. George Oxford. Hannah was his wife."

"I see."

"Yes. I think I do, too. Sophie Mae, be careful."

"Believe me, I will."

We said goodbye, and I turned to find Tootie had followed and
was leaning on her cane behind me.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"Enough. You didn't tell me Ruth was in the hospital."

I rubbed my eyes, suddenly tired. "I'm sorry. I should have.
She told me some things and asked me to keep them quiet. I guess
I've been a little too quiet."

Bafflement settled across her face. "I don't understand."

I inhaled. "She was attacked last night. She doesn't know who
attacked her, but whoever it was mentioned the beets and wanted
her to stop talking about them. It must have been Philip's killer."

Jude Carmichael? Hitting Ruth? That didn't fit with the sneaky
picture I had of Philip's poisoner.

"What did the police say?" Tootie asked.

"She didn't tell them. That's what she wanted me to keep
quiet."

She thumped her cane on the carpet. "That doesn't make any
sense!"

"He threatened Thaddeus."

The wrinkles around her mouth deepened as she considered
this. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure. What if I'm wrong about Jude? Sometimes I feel
like I'm tilting at windmills."

Tootie's jaw set. "You know you have to follow up on your suspicions. If you hadn't followed your instincts about what happened to Walter, I'd have gone to my grave thinking he'd commit ted suicide. You're smart, and you have moxie. I know you can
solve this. It's important. And it's right."

Her words energized my fading resolve. "I'm helping Jude move
tomorrow. I'll take a look around."

"Now, don't do anything rash. This is someone who beat up a
seventy-year-old woman. He wouldn't hesitate to hurt you."

Jude seemed so dull. I tried again to imagine him hitting someone. "I have no intention of being alone with him. Both Kelly and
Bette will be there. And Kelly is a rough-and-tumble kind of guy.
Did you know he and Meghan are dating?"

For a moment Tootie looked pleased. "She mentioned him. I'm
delighted she found someone she's interested in."

"Me, too," I assured her. "Me, too."

Concern settled over her features again. "You promise to be
careful?"

I held up my hand. "Believe me, I'm not interested in playing
the hero."

The sooner I could hand a workable clue over to the people
who should have been investigating Philip's death, the better.

"YOU CAN COME, CAN'T you?"

"What?" I'd been distracted by my thoughts and hadn't heard
what Erin was saying.

"The bee. It's tomorrow night. You'll be there, right?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Bug. I'm proud of you for going
ahead and competing even though Jonathan bailed." Meghan, Erin
and I had just trooped back in from where I'd shown off my cobbled together chick nursery in the mudroom.

"That's not a name we're uttering out loud in this house right
now," Meghan said.

"Oh. Right. He-who-must-not-be-named, then."

Erin rolled her eyes. "God. You're so weird."

Okay, maybe I was a little weird. I was at least willing to consider
the idea as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and slathered green goo on my face. Mmmm. Felt heavenly. But definitely
looked... weird.

After dinner, Meghan had taken Erin to the library to exchange
the books she'd read in the past week for a pile of new ones. Barr
was watching some basketball game on television. I finally had a
chance for a little private self-indulgence.

So, with a heavy hand, I slathered on the oatmeal mask and
perched on the edge of the tub to deal with my ragged nails and
rough cuticles.

The doorbell rang.

I paused, orange stick in hand.

It rang again.

I opened the bathroom door and shouted down the stairs.
"Barr? Can you get that?"

No response.

The doorbell rang again, bing-bong, bing-bong. And then the
knocking started. Cautiously, I ventured down a few steps. More
knocking. Loud.

"Hello?" The voice on the other side of the door was a woman's.

"Coming," I yelled. "Barr?"

He didn't answer. I'd reached the bottom of the stairway, when
he came barreling out of the kitchen and opened the front door.
Detective Lane walked in.

"Detective Ambrose," she said, then stopped, staring at me. Barr
turned around, and his eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

"I didn't think you were going to get the door," I said, sounding
less than gracious.

"Sorry. I was downstairs on your computer. Didn't hear it at
first."

"What is that on your face?" Detective Lane asked, eyes wide.

I touched my cheek, and my fingers came away with green on
them. At least I'd put it on thick enough that neither of these two
could see how red my face had turned underneath.

"Oh, come on," I said. "With your beautiful skin I bet you apply
a regular mud mask."

She shook her head, making that thick auburn hair sway like a
shampoo commercial model's. "Never thought about it."

I glared at her. "I'll be right back." I turned and stomped up the
stairs to the bathroom.

Barr and Detective Lane were murmuring in the living room
when I returned downstairs, face scrubbed and the hair damp
around my face. I still wore my sweats.

He stood when I walked in and held out a cup of coffee to me.
The dark circles under his eyes offered testimony to how hard he'd
been driving himself to get back up to speed in the last couple of
days, but his eyes were calm and his smile bright as he greeted me.
I took the coffee and sat down, thanking him.

"To what do we owe this pleasure?" I asked Lane. Just because I
looked like a slob didn't mean I couldn't behave with a little class.

Barr answered me. "Robin caught the guy who's been terrorizing women in Cadyville. The one they've been calling the Creep."

Robin? I buried my desire to bristle. He hadn't given me any
indication I needed to worry about this woman-this incredibly
beautiful woman he had so much in common with. Then again,
he'd been sick as a dog most of the time he'd known her. My eyes
flicked between them, but they only looked at me, pleased as
punch.

And who could blame them? "That's great news," I said. "How
did you manage it?"

Lane proceeded to tell us how she'd interviewed over a hundred people in the neighborhoods where the attacks had taken
place, then cross-referenced information she'd gathered about cars
parked on the street. In this way she'd tracked down the Creep's
car and put him under surveillance. In the end she'd caught him
red-handed, just as he was about to attack another woman.

"You did all that? By yourself?" I realized how condescending
the words sounded as they left my mouth. Oops.

"I had a lot of help. This is a great department. And I've really
come to like your little town here."

I showed some teeth. "That's nice. We always like to hear from
the converts."

"Robin likes it so much she's going to stay," Barr said.

"Stay," I said.

"She'll be a great addition to the department."

Lane was watching my reaction with a glint of amusement in
her eyes. Not mean, though. More like we were both in on the
same joke. And the joke was somehow on her. In a lot of ways it
was hard not to like her.

I turned to Barr. "So you won't have to work so hard? Chief
Maher found the funding?"

"Yep. Just needed the right incentive, I guess"

A glance at Lane rewarded me with another amused look, this
time the joke being on Andrew Maher. How did she do that?

"Well, I'm all for it," I said. "Less work for you, so you can have
a real life."

"Bingo. I knew you'd be pleased."

"What an understatement. And what a relief that the Creep is
off the streets."

"Well," Lane said, "it's both good and bad for you"

"What do you mean?"

"He's not your stalker."

I sat back against the arm of the sofa. "You're sure?"

"Yes. I have phone records, and he gave a full confession. I'm
not exactly surprised, since your stalker behaved differently from
the very beginning. But it does mean someone else is still interested in you."

"But not the scary guy. Not the violent one."

"Hard to tell. Just because he's not the violent one we caught
doesn't mean he's not violent at all."

I sighed. "Great"

Barr looked concerned all over again. Almost like nothing had
changed. I was getting sick of feeling like I was spinning my wheels
on all fronts.

So I couldn't help sounding cranky when I said, "Now that
you've caught your major bad guy, are you going to investigate
Philip Heaven's death?"

Lane looked at Barr. He said, "Robin, it really does look suspicious."

Her forehead wrinkled. "Have you talked to the Chief? Or to
Zahn?"

He grimaced. "Of course. Neither want to deal with it. As far as
they're concerned, unless the Health Department tells them there's
something fishy with Heaven's death, everything is copasetic."
"

I can't investigate something like that without their buy-off,"
Lane said.

"What about justice? Does that enter into the equation at all?" I
asked.

She looked upset. "I have to stick with the assignments I'm
given.

I stared at her. All that glamour and so by-the-book. Barr and I
exchanged looks. We weren't getting anywhere with this.

But I couldn't help trying one more time. "What if there's actual evidence? Something you could show your bosses, something
they couldn't ignore?"

Her expression was momentarily hopeful, until she realized
what I might be implying. "What did you have in mind?" she
asked, her tone full of warning. "I know you have a tendency to go
do things on your own. I can't let you do that."

"Oh, I didn't have anything in particular in mind," I said. "I
was just curious about what it might take to open a case that's been
deemed closed. Or, rather, never open in the first place."

"Ms. Reynolds," she began.

But Barr interrupted her with, "Maybe we could go over some
of the other cases that are still pending? I'll be back in a week or so,
but I'd sure like to keep up with what you're doing in the meantime."

One last wary look at me, and she turned back to him. "Sure.
After all, we're partners now."

I pasted a smile on my face and took a sip of my rapidly cooling coffee.

Partners. Great.