Ill-Gotten Panes (A Stained-Glass Mystery) (12 page)

Grandy didn’t have to raise his voice to communicate his displeasure. What he did was switch his voice from speech to growl. When he ground out “Georgia” as the tires hit the street, I knew I’d made a grave error.

“Promise you won’t hold it against me?” Carrie asked.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” I said. “I’m driving.”

“Put me on speaker,” she said.

“Georgia,” Grandy grumbled.

I clenched the steering wheel tight with one hand, the phone with the other. “I have Grand—Pete with me.”

“Oh, God,” Carrie said. “I take it back. Don’t put me on speaker. Call me back as soon as you can.”

She clicked off before I could stop her.
Oh God
could in no way be construed as a positive response to Grandy’s presence.

I slid my gaze to him as I lowered the silent phone to my lap. The combination of Carrie’s call and Grandy’s insistence on getting to the bank early made me doubly uneasy. “Everything okay, Grandy?”

“Of course everything’s okay,” he growled. “What could possibly be bad about my granddaughter talking on a cell phone while she’s driving? Unless of course you consider my granddaughter borrowing my car, talking on the phone while she’s driving it, and doing heaven knows what else.”

I bit my tongue—figuratively, of course. Truly biting my tongue would have been painful, and really the guilt I felt over Grandy’s perfectly well-founded complaint was pain enough. “Sorry, Grandy. I wanted to get to Town Hall early and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You could have left a note, you know. I can read.”

“I did leave a note. I put it . . . oh, I bet the kitten . . .” Focusing on driving as by the book as possible, I let the soft whir of the air conditioner motor and the
shoosh
of the tires on the road fill in the blanks my cowardice left.

We were almost to the bank before I felt comfortable enough to attempt conversation. “Aside from me taking your car without permission,” I began, adding a bit of teasing to my voice, hoping to avoid retreading the earlier disagreement, “did anything else happen this morning? Hear from anyone?”

He leaned into his seatback, tugged absently at the knot of his tie. “Your little flea magnet thought it important to attack my toes while I slept.”

I pressed my lips tight to keep the laughter in.

“And clearly she thought hanging from the belt of my bathrobe was the best method of traveling from my room to the bathroom, where she captured and ingested a spider.”

“Ew, Grandy, don’t let her eat . . . wild things.”

“Why not? It’s protein. It’s good for her.”

His improved mood made me feel marginally better. And yet . . .

“That’s all?” I asked. “Nothing else unusual happen?”

“Why don’t you just ask the question you want to ask, Georgia? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

Stopped at a red light, left-turn indicator clicking away, I wished I could close my eyes, avoid seeing his reaction in the event the topic reawakened his ire. “Did you get this week’s
Town Crier
yet?” I asked.

He folded his hands in his lap. “Let me see now. It’s Monday. And the mail comes early. And the
Crier
comes by mail. So I would say yes, I’ve got the
Crier
.”

I allowed myself a moment’s gratitude that sarcasm didn’t aromatically bleed through pores like sweat did. The confines of the Jeep were too small to contain the abundance of aroma Grandy’s attitude would create.

Turning into the bank parking lot, I asked, “Did you read it?”

“I put it in the bathroom.”

I let out a breath. “Grandy . . .”

“No, I did not read it. What’s this all about anyway?”

With the Jeep tucked into a parking space near enough to the door that even Grandy couldn’t complain, I threw the gear into neutral and shifted in my seat to face him. “Something Carrie said. You know, during the call you wouldn’t let me take.”

“It’s the law, Georgia, and it’s for your own safety. And mine.” He released his seat belt, turned to glare at me. “What was it Carrie said?”

I shook my head. “She didn’t get a chance to explain. I got the sense, though, that something in this week’s
Crier
may be, um, displeasing. I’ll give her a call back now and find out.”

A bit of Grandy’s bluster faded in on itself, as though whatever might be in the
Crier
was capable of hollowing him out. “Let me know . . .” He exhaled slowly. “Let me know what you find out. And turn off the car. Do you have any idea how expensive gasoline is?”

“Do you have any idea how hot it is? I’ll melt without the air-conditioning.”

He glared. I caved. But no way was baking in a Jeep part of my plan.

I locked up the SUV and trailed Grandy into the bank. He marched directly across the green-carpeted lobby to the commercial accounts queue, head up, eyes forward. Several paces back, I saw what he didn’t: the abandoned tasks, the following eyes, the speculative stares. A shiver raised the gooseflesh on my arms once again. Surely not everyone in the bank was watching my grandfather. Surely the beer-bellied gent chatting with the blonde half his age wasn’t whispering about my grandfather.

Rather than linger near the doorway waiting, I edged around the perimeter of the bank and slid into a scratchy fabric club chair, cell phone in hand. Keeping watch on the people watching Grandy, I redialed Carrie.

“Tell me now, tell me fast,” I said when she picked up.

“Georgia?”

Even though, really, I had no reason to expect she would recognize my voice, I rolled my eyes. “Yes, it’s Georgia. And before you ask, I promise not to blame you for what’s in the paper.”

“Okay. Let me get it. I’ll read it to you.”

“No, don’t do that. I don’t know how much time I have. Just give me the highlights.” On the commercial accounts line, Grandy was next up for assistance.

“Oh. Oh.” A clunk and a thud came over the line, and I pictured Carrie banging into the edge of a display table and toppling antique picture frames in her haste to get back to where she’d left the paper. “I could do that, I guess. That might even be a little bit, you know, nicer.”

“Nicer?”

“Not as offensive,” she half whispered. “Then again, telling you in my own words . . . kinda makes me feel really guilty.”

I put a hand to my head. “Carrie, please, just tell me, before I start imagining some really awful things about Grandy. This is about Grandy, right? About Pete?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “About Pete, and Tony Himmel, and even about you.”

“Me?”

“About how people involved in a murder investigation have no business attending the wake of the victim. How that’s in really bad taste and an insult to the deceased and his family and friends and neighbors, and how—”

“Wait a second. Grandy wasn’t at the wake.”

“I know that, but—”

“Well, then why is he being singled out? And why me? I didn’t have anything to do with . . . anything.”

“No, but you’re Pete’s granddaughter. I guess they figure that if he’s being questioned about a murder, then you must be guilty, too.”

The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. My breath caught and the muscles of my stomach clenched. “Please tell me you’re just speculating and you don’t actually believe that.”

“Oh, Georgia, of course not.”

Curling over in the chair, I put my elbow on my knee and my head in my hand. I knew this would do nothing to prevent the people in the bank from seeing me—I no longer had the convictions of a three-year-old, after all—but it would prevent me from accidentally making eye contact with Grandy.

I supposed it had been only a matter of time before the whole of Wenwood and parts beyond knew about the police questioning Grandy. And yet . . .

“Is this normal?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “Do the police always disclose who they’ve been talking to in relation to cases?”

The jingle of the bell over the door at Carrie’s shop carried clearly enough across the phone that the bell could have been at my elbow. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a big secret, though.”

“But it couldn’t have been common knowledge, could it?”

“That’s why I called,” Carrie said. “If it wasn’t before, it is now.”

Incomplete questions and ideas swirled through my mind, none forming into coherence in time to voice them.

“I have to go,” she said, “I have a customer. Call me later?”

I mumbled something sounding vaguely affirmative and disconnected the call.

The
Town Crier
couldn’t possibly reach every household in Wenwood, could it? Even if it did, not everyone read it.

Did they?

How many people knew Grandy had been questioned? And Tony Himmel? How many people agreed with what was in the paper, agreed we shouldn’t have been at the wake? Attending had seemed like the right thing to do, but perhaps I’d been wrong. Seriously, it wasn’t like Emily Post had an official position on the matter.

Pushing to my feet, lifting my head at last, I was vaguely relieved to realize the other people in the bank had returned to their tasks. Or, at least, they had given up watching Grandy as though he was going to do something more interesting than collect a bank bag full of rolled coins and singles.

I crossed the lobby and met him beside the teller’s window. On the other side of the thick Plexiglas, the bank clerk was running singles through the bill-counting machine.

“What did Carrie say?” Grandy asked.

I kept my yap shut while I searched for the right way to break the news.

“I’ll put it this way,” he said, voice pitched low, face turned away from the window, “what’s in the paper will explain why everyone’s staring, won’t it?”

I answered his concern with false brightness. “What makes you think people are staring?” Tapping the window lightly with his knuckles, he nodded at the glass. “This,” he said.

To understand what he was saying, I had to take a step back. It was then I spied the reflection of the bank floor and the eyes of all the employees turned our way. “Nice espionage work, Grandy.” I grinned. “How long has that James Bond flick been running at the dine-in? You’re picking up some good tips.”

He smiled at the clerk, who slid bundled singles under the glass, but he scowled at me. “Just tell me why everyone’s staring.”

Sighing, I held open the burlap bag Grandy produced from the depths of his satchel so he could slide in the bills. Already, the clerk was pushing rolled coins under the glass. “There was an editorial or letter to the editor or something in the
Town Crier
outing you and Tony Himmel as suspects in Andy Edgers’s murder. And lambasting me for going to the wake.”

The muscles of his jaw rolled as he clenched his teeth. He glowered down at me, exhaled volubly through his nose. “I told you not to go to that thing,” he ground out.

“No, you didn’t.”

He straightened, standing tall enough to make me feel like a child again. “Was I at all unclear in my displeasure?”

I admitted his belief I was making a mistake had been apparent, but that was hardly the same as telling me not to go. But the teller’s window at the bank was not the ideal place to conduct our disagreement. “Let’s stick to the point on this one, okay? Anyone who read or is reading or is going to read the
Crier
will know the police had you in for questioning, that you’re a suspect.”

Nodding his thanks to the teller, Grandy reached for my elbow and turned me toward the door. “I have a feeling that’s not news to a lot of people.”

As we pushed through the exit doors, I glanced back at him. “What makes you say that? All those people in there staring? You don’t think it’s because of the article?”

“I think they were staring at you because of the article. Me, they’re already suspicious of.” As we crossed the parking lot, he held out his hand. “Give me the keys.”

“You’ve lived here your whole life, Grandy. These people know you. They know you wouldn’t do such a thing.” I passed him the keys then waited while he unlocked the car and powered down the windows. “If they’re staring, it’s because they’re wondering how you’re handling all the attention, that’s all,” I said, climbing into the car.

“If that were all, they’d be coming to the dine-in to get a look at me, instead of staying away in droves.”

He busied himself checking the mirrors, adjusting his seat, retuning the radio to the all-news station. To each move, he gave his full attention, ignoring me.

“You’re just being paranoid, Grandy. I’ve been at the dine-in with you. You and double-oh-seven are pulling in a good crowd.”

Backing the car out of the space, he scowled. “Not so. When we get up there, you’ll see the receipts. You’ll see.”

I opted not to continue protesting. Grandy was right. When I saw the receipts, I would know whether his concerns were grounded in fact or paranoia. I trusted numbers. Unlike people, numbers never lied.

G
randy cleared his desk of the random odds and ends that had collected there, giving me space to spread out the tax withholding binders and line up the time clock punch cards. Why Grandy persisted in manually preparing payroll remained a mystery to me. Control issues? Secrecy? Frugality? Whatever the reason, on that afternoon I was pleased to be lending a hand to the task of putting pay vouchers in his employees’ hands. The counting, the columns, the ten-key machine were as comforting to me as ice cream to others.

All right. That might be an extreme reaction, ice cream being the frozen miracle of deliciousness that it is, but it had been a tough seven days.

While I wrote up the vouchers, Grandy wandered off to take inventory for the kitchen and concession. This allowed me to happily change the station and turn up the volume on the little office radio. Better, it kept Grandy from pacing behind me, peeking over my shoulder to check my progress and warn me to double-check my addition.

Best yet, Grandy’s absence gave me the opportunity to review his box office records without interruption. He may have been dependent on paper while the rest of the world moved on to computer records, but his organization rivaled any file management system to come out of Silicon Valley.

With payroll tidied away, I returned the withholding binders to the cabinet and took down the binders for the prior two years’ receipts. Comparing week-on-week gave a narrow view of change, month-on-month a bit broader. For a true picture of trends I would need more than numbers. Honest as they were, numbers were only part of the story. Other factors played into totals: weather, feature film, current events, overall economy, and more.

Even without knowledge of all the variables, a simple eyeballing of the totals—attendance, kitchen receipts, concession receipts—revealed an insignificant deviation year on year. So Grandy was wrong. Folks weren’t avoiding his theater because of his potential involvement in Andy Edgers’s murder—at least not yet. Attendance wasn’t a worry. But in flipping through the books, seeking the information I needed, I spotted a troubling pattern.

I dialed down the volume on the radio until the music was more of a background hum, reducing my chances of distraction. Payroll work had a strange sort of routine to it, a straightforward exercise in core mathematics. The puzzle that had caught my curiosity required a close focus.

One hand scratching notes on a scrap paper, the other flipping pages, I assembled a financial picture that left my belly leaden and my palms slick with sweat.

The dine-in had been losing money. Not a great deal, not all at once, but little by little, month by month, a steady trickle downward from slim profit to no profit to straight loss.

I sat back in my chair, let out a long breath. Why hadn’t Grandy said anything?

Of course he wouldn’t, would he? He wouldn’t want to worry me, wouldn’t want me to mention anything to my mother, wouldn’t want either of us for a moment to question his ability to maintain his own business.

Thing was, I had no such doubt. In the preceding couple of weeks of being with Grandy, he’d given me no cause for worry. Though there was no argument of his age, neither did I have any doubt about his mental acuity. True, he had been shaken by the police questioning, but that sort of reaction was to be expected of anyone.

“Right, then,” I told myself. Hands on the arms of the chair, I pushed myself out of my seat, resolved to find Grandy and confront him about what I’d learned.

Grabbing up the payroll vouchers, I switched off the radio. Outside the office, I crossed the back of the theater, popping open the door to the lobby and peeking out as I passed. No sign of Grandy. I kept on, through the access doors and on into the kitchen.

He was perched on the edge of a step stool, bent double and leaning his head into the interior of a cabinet. A spike of fear shot through me. Considering his age as I had been, my first terror was of his having a heart attack while counting the jars of cooking oil.

“Grandy?” I hurried to where he sat crumpled. “Grandy!”

“For Pete’s sake, Georgia, you’ve made me lose count.” He straightened, his expression showing more exasperation than anger. “Now I’ll have to start again.”

I let out a sigh of relief—cranky was still alive—then I looked pointedly at the massive cans. “There can’t be more than seven cans in there, Grandy. How could you lose count?”

He grimaced, pushed himself up off the stool. “Finished with the payroll, are you?”

“Never mind about payroll.” Still clutching the vouchers, I crossed my arms and attempted to give Grandy back the same glare he’d been giving me for the entirety of my life whenever I displeased him. “I looked at your receipts. You’re not having a significant downturn in attendance over last year.”

His lips quirked to the side as though he were biting the inside of his cheek, deep in thought. The troubled furrow in his brow smoothed quickly. “That’s good news, then. I was sure things were falling off.”

“A little,” I conceded. “But it’s not a result of the Edgers thing. Grandy, when were you going to tell me the theater is in trouble?”

He straightened as though I’d slapped him, but his eyes revealed no surprise. “What are you talking about? How much
looking
did you do?”

“Enough. This place is losing money week after week, Grandy. Why didn’t you—”

“You have no right to go poking into my business, Georgia.” The grumble returned to his voice.

“You asked for my help. You told me you were worried about attendance. Well, now I understand why.”

“Georgia.”

“Why didn’t you say anything, Grandy? Why do you insist on keeping things to yourself?”

“It’s
my
business, not yours.”

“Yes, technically, on paper, this is your business. Sole proprietor, I get it. But that doesn’t make you alone in this. You have a neighborhood, you have a staff, you have family. There are other people that care about you and this theater and its success.”

He shook his head, turning away from me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe not. Maybe it’s all guessing. But I wouldn’t have to guess at these things, Grandy, if you’d just be honest with me and tell me what’s going on.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” he snapped.

Leaned up against a center-aisle counter, I folded my arms and glared at him. My dear grandfather had plenty to tell. I intended to stand there waiting until he caved and spilled.

The air-conditioning kicked on with a metallic rumble. Air shooshed through vents and fluttered the edges of dish rags dangling from cabinet pulls. A black fly circled busily around the clock mounted above the grill.

At long last, Grandy huffed. “Business could be better. It will be better. I’ve got a terrific schedule set up for this summer, guaranteed to put this place back in the black. There’s nothing at all to worry about.”

“But you’re worried,” I said. “You’re already watching your year-on-year and you’re worried the fallout from this Andy Edgers thing is going to make things worse here, not better. So what happens then? How much longer can you keep this place running at a loss?”

This was my grandfather I was talking to, the man who bought side-by-side burial plots as soon as he and Gran returned home from their honeymoon, the man who had a college fund set aside for my mother before she was born. The man who always had a long-range plan.

The man shook his head. His whole body sagged, from shoulders to elbows to knees. “I doubt I’d make it to the end of the year.”

To keep from gasping my shock, I pressed my lips tightly together. He may as well have told me he was getting remarried. It took several deep breaths before I could look at him again. Funny, I expected his appearance to have altered along with my understanding of him. “Grandy,” I said softly, “how did this happen?” I shook my head, disbelieving. “I don’t understand how . . .”

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “I’m not infallible, Georgia. I’m sorry if you thought I was.”

“Infallible? No. Careful, smart, prepared, yes. What happened?”

“I made a mistake, all right? It happens to the best of us.”

“What kind of mistake? Grandy, you’re not—”

“I trusted Andy Edgers,” he said. “I shouldn’t have.”

“What are . . . I . . .” I couldn’t form a coherent thought much less give it voice.

Grandy paced the length of the double grill, fingertips trailing the edge of the counter as he walked and spoke. “A little more than two years ago, Andy and I decided to partner in a little investment opportunity.”

I braced myself.
Investment opportunity
was often a polite phrase applied to pyramid schemes and condo scams. Though I didn’t voice my conclusions, Grandy guessed at them.

“I know what you’re thinking, and this was no scheme. It was a solid investment, a nice, diversified portfolio of stocks and properties. I did all the research, even looked things up on the computer.” He flashed a grin, proud of embracing technology however briefly. “But all the research in the world isn’t any help when the market goes bottoms up.”

“So the money’s gone.”

He nodded, defeated. “It’s gone. I still own my shares. Drew said I was better off waiting for a rebound than selling at a deep loss. But rebounds take time, and I’m not getting any younger. And the nest egg intended to keep this place running through the lean times . . .”

Grandy had invested in the stock market, a concept he equated to gambling. Gambling was, of course, an activity restricted for foolish, careless, and gullible people.

“And that’s what you and Andy Edgers had been fighting about? This investment?”

“He blamed me,” he said, “as if it had all been my idea, as if I had some control over the stock market and had personally burst the property bubble.”

In the quiet while I struggled to process all I had learned and formulate the next question, the kitchen door leading to the back of the theater rattled.

The door swung open and the cooks ambled in, laughing, calling greetings, and generally bringing high energy and smiles into the kitchen.

Grandy welcomed the intrusion with the glee of a man pardoned from his execution. I suspected the cooks were confused by Grandy’s sudden and inexplicable joviality, but they rolled right along with it, joking with him as they started the task of prepping their stations. Only the grumpy head chef, brother of the assistant manager, Matthew, didn’t participate in the unexpected fun, instead scowling and disappearing into the walk-in with the look of someone who had better things to do.

With kitchen prep getting under way and Grandy still with inventory to do, I surmised that was the end of the conversation and likely the last time Grandy would give up any information about the loss and his partnership with Andy Edgers. I handed off the payroll vouchers and returned to the office.

I put away the receipt books, turned up the radio, and switched on the computer.

Gone
, Grandy had said. The money was gone. In reality, it was locked into a group of stocks whose value had plummeted. Time may yet restore their value. But for people who didn’t have a lot of years ahead of them, or who needed the money now and not maybe some day in the distant future,
gone
was an accurate assessment.

As I leaned back in the chair, waiting for the computer to boot up, one intriguing thought paraded through my mind.

If Grandy’s money was gone and his business was on shaky ground, where had the investment loss left Andy Edgers? And what might he have done to recover from that loss?

*   *   *

M
orning came entirely too early.

I awoke to Friday sleeping draped across my neck like a living stole. She was very adorable. She was also making it very hard to breathe.

As I lifted her off my throat, she came awake with an instant alertness I envied. Eyes wide and bright, tiny tail straight up in the air, she bounced across the bed in search of trouble, or maybe a bug. We spent the time it took for me to reach a somewhat functional state playing with the tie from my bathrobe. It was a delightful way to wake up, and when I finally tumbled from my bed, I was ready to face the day with a smile.

Dressed, pressed, and ready to roll, I left fresh food and water for Friday before closing her in my room, left a note for Grandy so he didn’t stress the absence of his Jeep, and left the house.

Smack in the middle of a James Bond car chase the night before, I’d snuck out of the theater and tiptoed through Grandy’s Rolodex. (Yes, Rolodex—I have no idea where he got the blanks for it.) It hadn’t taken much to convince Drew Able, Esquire, to meet me for breakfast at the luncheonette, just a promise to pick up the tab and treat to pastries from Rozelle’s afterward.

Planning to pass through the market after breakfast to pick up some fresh fruit, I parked the Jeep behind Village Grocery, in the shade of my favorite walnut tree. I had no idea who had planted the tree on the other side of the fence—black walnuts weren’t indigenous to the area—but I was happy to make use of its reliable shade.

With the sun still low in the sky, the air retained its overnight cool. Town Council agreement in hand, I walked along the access driveway that divided downtown Wenwood into two blocks, and I kept on smiling as I crossed the street and entered Grace’s luncheonette.

The counter stretched to my left. Tom sat on his stool, tucked into the corner by the wall. Grace stood before him, reading aloud to him from the paper. I paused long enough to determine she was reading the horoscopes. Some lucky sun sign might meet their lifelong partner . . . if they’re open to the possibility.

I continued on to one of the half-dozen tables, sliding into the booth opposite Drew Able. “Am I late?”

He grinned as he looked up from the laminated menu. “I’m early. I’m always early. My mother’s influence. I can’t quite shake it.”

“That must be why Grandy hired you. He’s big on punctual.”

“I’d like to think that was the case, but I’m afraid he hired me because I’m the last lawyer left in town.”

“That could be it, too. Shop local and all that.”