Ill-Gotten Panes (A Stained-Glass Mystery) (11 page)

Though I really did need to get that bathtub caulked, I let go of the pretense of why I was there. “How does that put my mind at ease?”

Lips pressed tight, he tipped his head side to side, considering. “Okay, so it puts my mind at ease. I don’t need a civilian poking her nose in police business.”

“So I’m just supposed to sit back while you continue to wrongly keep my grandfather’s name in the suspect column?”

“Georgia,” he said on a sigh.

“Now it’s Georgia? This is my grandfather. He might hurt his share of flies and do serious damage to a box of cupcakes, but he’s more the type to shout and glower than pummel and bludgeon.”

Too late I realized someone had come up behind me. Detective Nolan gave a young mother, baby in her arms, a tight smile and a nod. She scurried back the way she’d come, leaving us alone again surrounded by plumbing supplies.

“Is this why you were at the station looking for me? To tell me about Pete Keene’s . . . cupcake habit?”

The slightest hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth did little to slow me. “I wanted to know who it was that told you they’d seen him leave the hardware store that afternoon.”

“Is that all?” His eyebrows rose. “Now why would I tell you that?”

I couldn’t even claim he should tell me because I asked nicely. I ducked, grabbed a caulking gun from the bin, and pointed it at the detective.

His eyebrows rose higher. Gaze on the caulking gun, he had no need for words.

I lowered my arm, letting the device fall to my side. “Please. Will you tell me who said they saw Grandy?”

“I’m sorry, Georgia. I can’t.” He paused while a voice on the overhead speaker requested someone go to custom paint. “That’s confidential information. Part of the investigation.”

I breathed out a mild curse.

“Sorry you made the trip for nothing.”

“Yeah,” I conceded, lowering my head. Someone had told the police they’d seen Grandy leave, had told them they saw Tony Himmel. Who would see? Or was the person who claimed to see really the person who killed Andy Edgers, giving the police false suspects to divert attention from himself?

Detective Nolan ran his hand around the back of his neck. “If there’s anything else I can help you with . . .”

I nodded slowly, resigning myself to the fact that I would have to learn another way who gave the police Grandy’s name. I wasn’t sure how. I had to figure out a way. In the meantime, I met the detective’s surprisingly friendly gaze. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “what do you know about caulking bathtubs?”

*   *   *

W
enwood Town Hall occupied a slight rise several blocks south of the town center. Like so many of the structures in town, it had been built of homegrown Wenwood brick over a century earlier. Unlike other historic buildings in town, though, there were no gaps or concrete patches, no sign of crumbling brick or pockmarked mortar.

Walking from the parking lot at the back around to the front of the building, I tried to see the façade the way a native of Wenwood might. But I hadn’t lived my life surrounded by Wenwood brick, hadn’t gazed on it or walked on it every waking day. If I had, would I look on this building with pride? With a sense of tradition and maybe a feeling of home?

I stopped and stared. With the sun warming my shoulders, I focused my gaze on brick after brick, waiting for some sense of connection to the town to bloom within me. Instead, all I felt was hot, and all I really saw was new brick and mortar within its time- and weather-worn surroundings.

Neatly trimmed hedges appeared to wrap the building, but appearances can mislead. An almost two-foot gap separated the hedges from the wall, easily wide enough for one curious redhead to squeeze in between.

I backtracked to the back corner of the building, where some variety of machinery—likely an air-conditioning unit—prevented any plantings. From there it was a simple matter to sidestep the length of the wall with the bushes to my back. My exposed legs took no small amount of abuse from prickly branches, and each step I took included hisses, ouches, and a selection of muttered curses.

Before long I reached a patched section of wall, the brick below a window that perhaps had been itself replaced. I ran my hand across both old and new brick, seeking some difference in their texture. But fingertips accustomed to the smooth shift of surfaces in glass proved incapable of sensing a difference in brick. Or maybe all brick always felt the same? I didn’t know enough. Grandy would know, but the information wouldn’t help after I left my spot outside Town Hall.

What I did know was the richer, darker color of the brick meant they were recently placed. But why would Town Hall use non-Wenwood brick when even the Pace County Police Station refused?

As I shifted to return to the back of the building and escape the shrubbery prison, from the corner of my eye I caught sight of one of the bricks at the lowest line of repair. In its corner, the distinct
WND
stamp. A Wenwood brick. An old brick newly reset?

Bending to bring my line of sight even with the brick, I used both my eyes and my fingertips to explore the edges of the brick. If someone had simply relaid an old brick, would its edges be smooth and sharp? Or rough and crumbly?

Yet the brick must have been reused. There were no more new bricks.

Running a hand around the back of my neck, clearing away the perspiration gathered there, I shook my head. Too long in the sun could inspire freckling in people like me.

I extracted myself from the shrubbery and returned to the pathway leading to the front of Town Hall. Head down to keep myself from getting distracted, I marched up the few marble steps and through the mullion-windowed doors.

For a moment I remained still, letting the air-conditioning cool my skin. A quick review of my arms and legs showed an assortment of crisscrossed scratches, but thankfully no blood. Given the damage Friday had already done to my legs, a few more scratches would complete the look.

A set of double doors was ahead, with a plaque beside them that read
COURTROOM
. On the opposite side, a pegboard directory listed various offices and their locations. For such a small town, there were an impressive number of entries on the list. I moved closer to locate the number for my destination. No matter how many times I read through the list, no “Department of Gentlemanly Agreements” turned up.

Settling for the Department of Community Services as a good enough place to start, I followed the appropriate arrows to the staircase and down the hall to Room 203. As I pushed through the door, the big-haired brunette behind a utilitarian steel desk stood and settled her purse on her shoulder. She looked up at my entrance, jaw slackening enough to display her disbelief at her own bad luck.

“Sorry,” I said. “Were you going to lunch?”

“Twelve to one, every day.”

I’d left Grandy’s Jeep in the lot at eleven twenty. Even with the brick-studying delay, no way had it taken me forty minutes to reach this woman’s desk. I tugged my cross-body bag around to my front from where it had migrated to my back and unzipped it with the intent of pulling out my cell phone and checking the time. “I really just have a quest—”

The brunette huffed and dropped her purse on the desk. “Fine,” she said. “You have fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t even know if I’m in the right place,” I said, cell phone in hand. “And you’re all leaving in fifteen minutes? Everyone takes the same lunch?”

“What can I help you with?”

“I was wondering if I could look at an . . . an agreement or contract or . . .”

She sighed and sat, as though my request was already exhausting her.

I began again, explaining in as many words as I could muster that I wanted to see the agreement between the Wenwood Town Council and the new construction at the old brickworks.

“The marina project?” she asked, rising.

“Umm, yeah, I guess, yeah.”

Really, I was an accountant, a glass worker, and a tresses-challenged redhead. I was not an investigator.

She came around the desk, pointed to a visitor’s chair. “Have a seat,” she said on her way to the door. “You know what you’re looking for or you need a copy?”

“I can have a copy?”

With an eye roll she said, “Two dollars,” and disappeared.

I could have a copy? For the bargain price of two dollars?

Okay, so it was only a bargain if there was useful information in it. Trouble was, I didn’t know what would be considered useful.

From somewhere beyond the doorway came the sound of drawers slamming followed by the creaking complaints of what I guessed to be a prehistoric copy machine.

While I waited, I pulled up my e-mail, scrolled through the usual morning barrage of sale notices, social media updates, and international news overnight headlines. Nothing caught my attention sufficiently to make me click open the message, which was perhaps a good thing as it left me free to answer the incoming call.

“Don’t worry,” I said in lieu of hello, “I’ll be back in time.”

Grandy’s morning grumble had the sound of a car engine rumbling reluctantly to life. “Where’s my car?”

“With me.”

“And you are where?”

“Town Hall.” It didn’t occur to me to lie or to dodge. Certainly there were a lot seedier places I could have got off to.

“For Pete’s sake, Georgia, what the devil are you doing there?”

“Just checking on a couple of things.” I stood, somehow feeling like I needed to be on my feet to defend myself to my grandfather. “Why? Did you need something? You want me to bring something back for you?”

His sigh carried with gale force. “I need to go to the bank. I’ve got to pick up change for the week. This would be infinitely easier if my car was where I left it.”

No, I had no idea why Grandy persisted in calling his Jeep a car. Maybe it was a generation thing. It would always be an SUV to me. “I’ll be home in—” I had to pull the phone away from my ear to check the time. “Fifteen minutes, twenty tops. Plenty of time to make the bank.”

“You know, it may be time for you to think about getting your own car and stop giving me stress attacks by helping yourself to mine.”

But I wouldn’t need a car if I returned to the city—to most any city. I caught myself before I shared that thought with Grandy. I suspected me having his car was not really what the call was about. I suspected his world was a little upside down, and he was looking for areas in which to regain control. If I were him, I’d start with reclaiming my possessions, too.

The noise of the copy machine stopped. Leaning out the doorway, I peered down the hall. “I gotta go. I’ll see you in a little while.”

I ended the call before he could respond, before I could even catch the sound of his sputtering.

“Here you go.” The brunette clerk handed me a stapled bundle of papers, legal-sized. No chance I could fold them down sufficiently to tuck them in my little cross-body bag. “Two bucks.”

Setting the papers down on her desk so I could wrestle my wallet free, I flinched when my phone pinged another incoming call. One eye on my wallet, one eye on the phone display, I read Carrie’s number while Bon Jovi played softly. “Sorry.” I shot an apologetic look at the clerk, but she wasn’t looking. She had gone back to pulling her purse over her shoulder and taking up her keys from her desk.

I didn’t think she’d mind if I picked up the call, but she’d done me a favor getting the copies instead of insisting I come back later. Rude wasn’t a fair payback.

Passing her the two bucks, I thanked her earnestly for her help and skittered out of the office before she could boot me out physically. Getting out of the office for lunch on time—or even early—was something I could wholeheartedly relate to.

Down the stairs and back out the door, I once again immersed myself in the midday heat. There was not a breeze to be had, not a wisp of a cloud in the rich blue sky. I shielded my eyes with a hand and made my way back to the Jeep, clutching keys and copies to my chest.

Inside the SUV, I started the engine and gathered the patience required to wait for the air-conditioning to kick in. While I waited, I skimmed the agreement between the Wenwood Town Council and Stone Mountain Construction. At second glance, the pages appeared covered with legal mumbo jumbo interspersed with English articles such as
the
, and
a
, with an occasional
whereupon
to make me feel like I hadn’t wasted all that money on a college education.

I folded the papers in two and tucked them between my seat and the console. I needed to look at them another time, when I could focus.

It wasn’t until I pulled into Grandy’s driveway and tapped the horn that I placed a return call to Carrie. Chatting with her while waiting for Grandy to emerge from the house seemed like a good idea. As a bonus, I figured he most likely wouldn’t give me too much grief about making off with his car if I was on the phone; he wouldn’t want to be overheard.

“You rang?” I said when Carrie picked up the phone.

“Oh, hon,” she said, “we have to talk.”

Hon? Why the endearment? Tendrils of worry raised gooseflesh on my arms. I forced my voice bright. “What’s up?”

“All right, listen. I’m telling you this because I think you should know, but don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”

The slam of the door alerted me to Grandy’s imminent arrival. I glanced up, wished away my sudden increase in anxiety as he walked, head high, down the steps. He carried a worn leather satchel in lieu of a briefcase, and his somber blue tie paired with a starched white shirt made him look like a throwback to the early sixties—proud, dignified, certain.

I prompted Carrie. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a letter to the editor in the
Town Crier
that came out today.”

I knew the
Crier
. Grandy subscribed, kept each week’s issue in the reading basket in the bathroom.

The man himself yanked open the door and climbed into the passenger seat with the verve of a man half his age. “Let’s go.”

I nodded, threw the Jeep into reverse. Checking over my shoulder, I eased up on the brake and let the SUV roll down the drive. “I’m guessing you’re calling because you have an issue with the letter?” I said into the phone.