Ill-Gotten Panes (A Stained-Glass Mystery) (4 page)

*   *   *

“Y
eah, you,” the blue-eyed man shouted, striding down the hallway.

In the movie of my life, this will be the moment where I look up and our eyes will meet while violins begin to play softly. His anger will fade away, replaced by a mischievous smile. “You,” he’ll repeat, “are the person I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”

But this was reality. And in reality, his anger didn’t fade as much as it intensified.

“You did this. Because of you, I’ve spent my whole morning in an interrogation room.”

“What did I do?” I attempted to take a step backward, out of his direct line of fire. The motion disturbed the tension holding the box in place and the box crashed to the floor. An indignant
mrow
escaped from the box.

He closed the gap as I bent to retrieve the fallen carton. “You told the police I was in the hardware store the day Andy Edgers was killed. I don’t know what you think you walked in on—”

“I never said anything to the police,” I said. “Well, not about you anyway.” My fingers caught the top of the carton. Rather than lifting cleanly, though, the carton tipped and I lost my grip. The box crashed back to the ground. A white ball of fluff streaked out and launched itself, claws extended, onto the gentleman’s leg. “Oh, crap.”

The man shouted a curse and jumped back. The kitten dug in and inched up.

“What did I tell you about bringing that thing in here?” Carrie asked. “Now look. It’s attacking Tony.”

I dived toward Tony, falling to my knees to better grab the kitten. My hands wrapped its little body in the split second before Tony’s hands landed on mine. Together we prized the complaining cuteness off his knee while the uniformed officer looked on, hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking.

Clutching the kitten close to my heart, I stood. “Sorry about that.”

Tony’s eyes were wide, deep blue rimmed in bright white. His mouth opened but no words were forthcoming.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

He blinked.

Carrie appeared beside me, holding the empty carton out to me, shaking it a bit. “Put it back.”

“Someone threw it away,” I said, quite forgetting Tony was mad at me even
before
the kitten attack.

The uniformed cop stepped forward. “Maybe best to put the cat back in the box for now, ma’am.”

I did as I was told, but kept my gaze on Tony. I told myself this was because I needed to make him understand I hadn’t been responsible for him being questioned. That was a much nobler reason than staring because he was irrationally easy on the eyes. “Really,” I said. “It wasn’t me.”

He blinked again. “You’re telling me you didn’t drop a cat on me.”

“Well, I didn’t do that either. Not really.”

“It was an accident,” Carrie added.

A new voice broke into the fray. “Miss Kelly.”

I had to lean left and peer around Tony’s shoulder to see the source. Detective Nolan stood midway along the hallway, leaning half outside a door. “Me?” I asked for absolutely no logical reason.

The detective sighed. “Would you come with me, please?”

For the first time since Grandy left the house that morning, my muscles completely seized. Hands sweating, knees knocking, I froze.

“Miss Kelly?” Detective Nolan prompted. “Now, please. I need to ask you a few questions.”

W
hen I left the city and moved back to sleepy old Wenwood, I naturally had a lot of ideas how my days might go. Many of my visions involved sleeping late, creating stained glass masterpieces, even searching for my next job. None of my visions involved sitting in the police station with a boxed kitten under my chair, fighting to stay calm in the face of questioning.

It wasn’t like I was in the middle of a
Law & Order
rerun—the station room lacked the noise and bustle of its television equivalent—yet nerves kept me from drawing a full breath and prevented me from holding my bouncing foot still. The detective whose desk I’d been deposited beside was the same detective who had driven off behind Grandy-in-a-squad-car earlier, though his suit jacket now hung from the back of his chair and his tie had gone askew.

“Where’s my grandfather?” I peered around the small room, knowing I hadn’t missed spotting him, but needing to double-check all the same. The walls were a vague blue, the desks consumed by stacks of paper and bulky computer monitors, and the only person other than the detective and me was a policewoman in shorts and a T-shirt apparently trying to bring some order to her desk.

“Mr. Keene didn’t mention your visit to Edgers Hardware,” the detective said.

“I don’t see why he would. Where is he?”

Detective Nolan let out an annoyed little huff. “He’s in an interview room. Having tea.”

I bit the inside of my lip to keep from grinning. Grandy was more than a little particular about how to prepare his tea. If he had actually coerced the officers into bringing him a cup he was willing to drink, there was no need for me to worry about his well-being. Tough old guy. A bit of soft love warmed my heart and took away the chill of worry.

“Tell me about the hardware store.”

“What about it?”

He glared at me from beneath lowered brows.

I shifted in my chair, wished I’d kept the kitten in my lap. “I don’t mean to be difficult,” I said. “I just need a more specific question. If you could.”

Rubbing a hand across his forehead, eyes closed, he said, “Your visit to the hardware store. What happened?”

Still wasn’t very specific. But maybe that’s the way cops get the best information? Didn’t seem right, being so vague and all, but what did I know? I was just a bean counter.

I took a breath. “I stopped into the hardware store to pick up a caulking gun and some caulk. The guy—the gentleman—who was just leaving, Himmel, was already in the store with Mr. Edgers.”

“They were arguing?”

After a moment’s thought I said, “Yes, I’d call it arguing.”

“And they were arguing about . . .”

I shook my head, marking time while I worked to recall. “Some kind of order. I don’t know what for. Mr. Edgers was . . .”

A new thought formed in my head.

“Mr. Edgers was?” he prompted.

Through my distraction, I replied, “He was disrespecting the other guy, you know, doing the whole ‘I’m older and you should do what I say’ thing.” But my mind was chewing on one question. I wasn’t the one who’d told the police Himmel had been arguing with Edgers. So who had? I had a sense Detective Nolan wouldn’t tell me if I asked him. Not yet anyway. Maybe if he thought I was being extra helpful? “And something about revitalization and renewal. Or the other way around. It sounded like Mr. Edgers wasn’t happy about it.”

Detective Nolan scratched notes on the corner of an already crowded slip of paper. “Go on.”

“Then Mr. Edgers said something about how Himmel had to place an order or else and Himmel said that sounded like an ultimatum.”

Nolan’s scratching paused. “And then?”

Anxiety morphed into residual anger. My toe stopped tapping and I crossed my arms over my chest, curled my hands into fists. “Then Mr. Edgers got a look at me and realized I was Pete Keene’s granddaughter and—”

“How did he know that?”

I shrugged. “Small town? Big gossip? I’m pretty sure everyone knows that the newcomer with the crazy hair is Pete’s granddaughter.”

He looked for a moment like he wanted to protest, like he thought arguing the point would be the polite thing to do. In the end he let the protest slip away unspoken. He checked his hasty notes. “When the vict—that is, when Mr. Edgers realized who you were, did his demeanor change?”

That was a tough one. While I considered, I delayed my response long enough that Detective Nolan tossed me a more specific question. “Did he appear to regret that you heard the altercation?”

“Regret?” From beneath my chair, the kitten let out a pitiful meow, followed by the noise of claws on cardboard.

“Did he calm down? Did he look embarrassed?”

“No, he was just angry I was in his store.” I bent to slide the box forward, tugging up a corner of the cardboard to peer inside.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said. The stone of aggravation that had formed when Grandy refused to explain the feud between Edgers and him rattled through my gut. I reached blindly for the kitten, whether to soothe it or take comfort in its softness I couldn’t say.

“Do you think it was because of anything you may have overheard?”

My seeking fingers found the surprisingly sharp claws of a kitten. “
Ow!
” I snatched my hand back, checked my finger for blood. “It was because I’m related to Pete.”

“What makes you say that?”

I might have scowled, either at the detective, or at the point of pain on my fingertip. “That’s what Mr. Edgers said. Not in so many words.”

The detective’s raised eyebrows were as good as a verbal prompt.

“I said I’d come back another time, and he told me that wouldn’t be a good idea and my grandfather should have told me not to bother going to Edgers Hardware in the first place.” The carton slid easily from below my chair, and I lifted it into my lap.

The raised eyebrows lowered, drew together over the bridge of Detective Nolan’s nose. “But your grandfather didn’t tell you that?”

Taking the kitten from the box, I shook my head. “When I asked him about it after, he told me it wasn’t my business, that it was between him and Andy Edgers.”

“You say
after
. After what?”

“After I got back from the store,” I said.

“Can you tell me what time that was?”

I tried to snuggle the kitten against my shoulder, but it squirmed like a restless child. “I don’t know. Twelve thirty? One?”

“Before he left for work then,” the detective stated. He scribbled some more on his notepad, completely unconcerned by the presence of a quarter-grown cat in his squad room. “What time did he leave the house for work would you say?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He left earlier than usual but I don’t know exactly what time. I was . . .” I was in the basement, cleaning a stained glass lamp. I had no precise idea of when Grandy left for the dine-in theater.

It hit me then, the direction Detective Nolan’s questioning had taken. We’d gone from focusing on the exchange between Himmel and Edgers, and slid right into what Grandy was doing in the hours before Edgers was found dead.

I’d gone to the police station to help Grandy. Instead, I’d done my fair share to destroy his alibi.

*   *   *

B
ack in Carrie’s car, I leaned my elbow on the window frame and hid my face behind my hand. “I can’t believe I did that,” I said.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest maybe—just maybe—the police have more experience getting information out of people than you have keeping secrets.” She switched on the right blinker and turned the car into Willow Park Mall, another half-hour’s drive beyond the Pace County PD. Detective Nolan, after he’d finished his “informal chat” with me, cautioned me he’d need another hour or more with Grandy. I’d tried to talk Carrie into taking me back to my car. There was no reason she should lose a day’s business at the antiques shop to hang around a police station with me. I could only describe the look she gave me as a sarcastic glare. “You think there’s a big demand for antiques on a Wednesday morning?” she’d asked.

We left the kitten under Sergeant Steve’s dedicated attention and drove off to Willow Park, where a big chain pet store shared the exterior parking lot with the do-it-yourself home repair center.

As she cruised the parking lot for an ideal space, I continued to obsess. “I suppose having no experience being questioned by the police is a good thing. But I should have at least possessed enough presence of mind not to give them any more ammunition against Grandy.”

Carrie snorted, an abbreviated sound somewhere between humor and disbelief. “The Pace County PD may look like teddy bears, but they do know what they’re doing.”

I peered at her from the corner of my eye. Detective Nolan had zero teddy bear qualities. As far as I knew. The wayward question of whether the good officer was covered in hair tumbled into my brain. I pushed it out with thoughts of Grandy sitting in a holding cell. That was enough to dispel all lesser horrors.

“Besides,” Carrie went on, slowly guiding the car into a vacant spot, “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it sound.”

My jaw fell. “I told Nolan about the fight I had with Andy Edgers. I told him how angry it made Grandy. Then I admitted to having no idea what time Grandy left the house.” I choked back the next entry in my rant—that I had no idea what time it had been because I’d been entranced by a Tiffany-style lamp. Bad enough I felt the way I did about contributing to Grandy’s status as a suspect, no need to invite Carrie into the guilt party.

“And you also told him you walked in on Andy arguing with Tony, right?”

“Tony?” I clambered out of the car, faced Carrie over the top of the sedan. “Oh, that’s Himmel, right?”

She nodded briskly and started away from the car. “Anton Himmel.” She reached over her shoulder, pointing her key fob at the sedan until its security system chirped in confident lockdown.

“All right but let’s be clear on this. I only told Detective Nolan about that argument after they’d already questioned Himmel. I wasn’t the one who brought it to their attention in the first place.”

We paused outside the entrance to the pet supply store. “So then who did tell them?” Carrie asked. “Who told them to bring in Tony for questioning?”

I tilted my head, raised my brows. “That’s what I’d like to know. Someone else who walked in on them maybe?”

But who else? The village of Wenwood wasn’t exactly a high-traffic zone on a Monday morning. I’d only seen a few other people on the street. And even then, I had no idea who they were. Elderly man with alert antennae eyebrows. Teen girl already bored by summer. Two middle-aged mom types hooting over some outrageous joke. I remembered the sense I got from these people, not what they looked like. Even at that, I didn’t think any of them the type to phone in tips to the police.

We wandered down the main aisle of the pet store, searching first left then right for signs of cat supplies. I pushed an empty cart, anticipating I was going to buy a lot of essentials. Carrie didn’t share my enthusiasm.

“I wish I’d have noticed who was around that day,” she said, following me down a likely-looking aisle.

“Nobody stopped into the store?” I asked.

Carrie treated me to another snort. “It’s rare I get any business during the week. Thank God for Internet sales. They keep me in business.”

I slowed beside a broad selection of hard plastic litter pans, hooded boxes, and something that looked like it required electric power. “Did you see anyone pass by, maybe on their way to the market?”

“You mean other than you?”

“Of course.”

Carrie pulled an emery board from her purse and set about filing her nails while I fought to extract a pink pan from the stack of small-sized litter trays. As a red-haired girl, pink was a color I needed to be particularly careful with; I liked to incorporate it in other areas of my life, such as bath towels and . . . poop pans.

“Well. Tony passed by.”

“Yeah, what about Tony? What’s his deal? Where does he fit into the Wenwood landscape?”

“He kind of doesn’t.”

Completing the struggle, I threw the pan into the shopping cart and turned to consider the plethora of litter choices. “I don’t understand. He was talking to Edgers like he knew him a long time.”

“I wouldn’t say a long time. Tony’s in charge of the renovation on the old brickworks. You know, that building site we passed on the way up here?”

I made some sort of noise that indicated agreement.

“But that work’s been going on since, I dunno, just before Christmas. They lost a lot of time what with the winter we had.” Carrie shivered, apparently at the memory of a bad season. I remembered Grandy saying how happy he was he’d bought the Jeep when he did. His old sedan would never have been able to navigate the snowy roads. “I’d hoped they’d be further along by now. Town could sure use the business.”

Considering all the choices in cat litter, I could just play eeny-meeny to choose one. Seemed to me my inability to make a decision centered more on trying to sort through what Carrie was telling me. “Explain to me how a marina will help business in the village.” I hauled a plastic container of cat sand off a lower shelf and hefted it into my cart with a thud.

“The marina will be a destination. So the planners claim.” She smirked to show her doubt. “It’s meant to be a place for boaters to stretch their legs on dry land. Take in some sights, spend their money.”

Wenwood had sights? Either I had been walking past them without realizing or I had been too familiar with the town to bother investigating. Though I had to admit, the stretch of land along the waterfront was probably breathtaking from the river. But at the moment, the village of Wenwood didn’t appear to have much to offer to lure in visitors. Residents, sure. The necessary businesses were in place: grocery, bakery, luncheonette, pharmacy, and so forth. But a visitor to town wasn’t likely to be drawn in by the Pour House bar or Danny’s Taxes and Real Estate.

I rolled the cart forward and around the endcap, steering into the next aisle, where food, bowls, and toys lined the shelves. My mind worked hard to remember what little conversation I’d heard between Tony Himmel and Andy Edgers. The construction at the marina was at a standstill . . . What was holding it up? Did the
order
Edgers was waiting for impact work on the construction site?