Knot the Usual Suspects (4 page)

“Quadruplets,” Ardis said. “And I thank my stars they aren't real babies. But who would have thought the columns were so big around?” She entered the number in a notebook, under a long list of other measurements. “It's kind of fun sneaking around like that, isn't it? I had no idea I'd get such a kick out of it. When did you go?”

“Um . . .”

She looked up from the notebook. “You didn't have any trouble, did you?”

“Not exactly.”

She put the pencil down. “Exactly
how
not exactly?”

“It's possible I might have been seen.”

“Possible? Might?”

“Was. Sorry, Ardis. I was seen.”

She studied that problem, and the countertop, drumming her fingers on compressed lips. “Okay,” she said, dropping her hands to her hips. “Being seen is the risk we'll be taking Thursday night anyway, so it's good to see how we'll handle that kind of pressure. Besides, in the dark, in the shadows, and as small as you are, you probably weren't recognized, so it might not be so bad.”

“Um . . .”

Ardis stepped closer, looming much the way her great-great-aunt occasionally did. Really, their similarities were much more uncanny—although completely natural—than the superficial similarities between Ardis and Clod. I moved down the counter and smiled, going for the same confidence and nonchalance I'd used while accomplishing my column-measuring mission.

“You,” Ardis said, moving down the counter after me, “look guilty. Because you didn't go after dark, did you. That's not a question, so don't bother to answer.”

I didn't bother and I moved farther down the counter.

Ardis was ardently relentless. “
Mel
, who is busier than any two of us combined, finished
her
assignment last week.”

“This was a last-minute assignment. A rush job.”

“Which you've known about for three days. You should have been able to find time
not
in the middle of the day to complete this paltry part of the preplanning for this project.”

“All those
p
words are making you spit, Ardis.”

“You slacked, Kath Rutledge.
And
you went out in daylight? Who saw you?”

Thank goodness she couldn't billow and swirl the way Geneva did. Humor and a confident smile weren't soothing her, so I tried for calm and matter-of-fact. “It's okay, Ardis. Everything's fine. I got the measurement with no harm done. Two people saw me and neither one will be a problem. One was basically a tourist who thought I was working on a school project for my kids. And the other was Cole Dunbar.”

“You don't have kids.”

“See? So no problem.”

“And I didn't catch the second person's name,” Ardis said.

She wouldn't have. I'd mumbled it, having failed at feeling matter-of-fact at the last minute.

I moved around to other side of the counter, so that it was between us, and tried another smile. Ardis closed the space—a mere counter being no barrier for a woman of towering height and piercing eye. My smile faltered.

The camel bells jingled as the front door opened. I hoped Ardis' customer service ethic would kick in and give me a reprieve. It didn't.

She leaned closer and said, with what would have been a threatening hiss if there'd been sibilants involved, “Cole Dunbar.”

At that point I stood up as tall as my five foot three let me, and I owned my mistakes. For the most part. “Ardis, I'm sorry I didn't get it done sooner, and I'm sorry I didn't do it after dark. But it doesn't matter if Cole saw me. He was busy being a deputy and getting a kick in the shin from the mayor's mother. He had no idea I was up to anything, much less anything secret, sneaky, or clandestine.”

“Until now,” the deputy himself said behind me.

I
didn't turn around and look at Clod Dunbar. Acknowledging him wasn't going to add anything positive to the situation. Ardis didn't add anything positive, either, when she crossed her arms at me and said, “Mm-hmm.” But choosing Clod's side over mine was against her better nature.

“Good morning, Coleridge,” she said. “Hat off. Someone will be with you shortly.” He made a huffing noise behind me—a noise that ceased when Ardis gave him a sharp look, lowering her glasses to half-mast so he experienced the full power of that look. “Kath, hon,” she said, still holding Clod with her eyes, “come on back here and take a look at these figures for me. See if things are adding up to anything of
significance
.” She held up the notebook with her list of measurements, emphasizing the word “significance” in Clod's direction.

“Of course, Ardis. Happy to.” I scooted around to the business side of the counter and took the notebook from her. For Clod's sake, I whistled and said, “Wow.”

“That's what I thought, too,” Ardis said. She glanced
over when I picked up the pencil and made a note. When she broke eye contact with him, Clod harrumphed and reasserted himself.

“Until now,” he said, “no, I did not know you were up to anything. But I'll hazard an informed guess.
You
think you're up to something. Something secret and sneaking. And I imagine you think you're good at that kind of thing. But our fair city isn't engulfed in any major crime waves, so I'd say it's unlikely that you're really up to anything. Anything illegal. Or anything that will hinder the performance of my duties. Sad to say, but there hasn't been much opportunity in the last month or so for you to dabble in detective work.”

Unpleasant noises threatened to erupt from his nose. Something in his long-winded and priggish speech must have struck him as funny. Either that or he had indigestion.

“Ms. Rutledge and Ms. Buchanan,” he said, after recomposing himself, “here's something that might interest you—a bona fide case for you to work on that's worthy of your deductive skills.” He didn't say anything more, being the kind of irritating person who stands and looks pleased, waiting for other people to ask him what he's talking about.

And I'm the kind of person who can't stand that kind of suspense and always has to ask. “Is that why you came in, Deputy Dunbar? To ask for our help with a mystery that's baffling you?” Unfortunately I'm also the kind of person who's been failing with her latest sarcasm abatement program. “You know us. We're always happy to lend a hand. Hang on a tick.” I turned to a blank page in Ardis' notebook and licked the end of the pencil. “Shoot—not literally, of course. But what have you got for us?”

“I meant it as a joke.”

“I know. But my keen powers of observation told me that you really did think of something, just then. So even if it is a joke, why don't you tell us? How can it hurt? And if our baffled bumbling gives you a few more laughs, then it'll even be good for you. It'll help loosen up your auras or chakras or something.”

“Do you know about auras and chakras, Kath?” Ardis asked with some surprise.

“No.”

She turned back to Clod. “She's right, though, Coleridge. Life is better with a few laughs, so lay it on us.”

On a personal level, Clod might be a clod, but as a policeman he was no slouch. He proved that by narrowing his eyes—in suspicion, no doubt—a good trait for someone in law enforcement.

“I do like a good laugh as much as anyone,” he said after a pause. “So I'll give you a clue. Remember what I said about dabbling in detective work? That's it. That's your clue. So go ahead and knock yourselves out. But now that we've all had our fun, may I get down to the business I came in for?”

Ardis slid over next to me so that we stood shoulder to shoulder—solidarity.

“Ms. Rutledge, outside the courthouse earlier this morning,” he said, “was that Hugh McPhee you were talking to?”

“Beats me. We didn't exchange names.”

“Never,”
Ardis said at the same time. “I haven't seen Hugh in years. Are you sure, Cole?”

Clod's left eye narrowed farther as he thought that over, but the narrowed focus didn't appear to deliver the
information he needed. Neither did turning his gaze to the ceiling in the corner of the room, despite a flicker in his eyes that suggested sorting and comparing mental images. Images from where, though? Old memories? Photo albums? Mug shots? Clod's inventory didn't take long.

“I can't make a positive ID,” he said, “but I
will
find out. And I'll find out before Rogalla does.”

“Who?”

He didn't answer. He put his Smokey the Bear hat back on, returning it to its upright and officious position, and marched out the door.

“See?” I said to Ardis after he'd left. “He didn't care what
I
was doing at the courthouse. He didn't even realize I was doing anything. He's more worried about McPhee and someone whose name sounds like a gargle. It was the Case of Clo—” I almost slipped and called him Clod, something I tried not to do out loud,
Clod
being a private pejorative. “The Case of the Clueless Deputy, and we have nothing to worry about.”

She didn't say anything, just stared out the front door.

“Ardis?”

“I'll be back,” she said, but not to anyone in particular, and she, too, left.

“L
osing friends left and right, I see.” Geneva drifted into view and curled around the blades of the overhead fan. I didn't turn the fan on, not wanting to lose another friend, tempting though that might be from time to time. “Whatever possessed
Ardent
to dash out the door like that? She is so rarely ardent about moving anywhere fast.”

“It's
Ardis
,” I said reflexively, then, “Beats me.”

But I wouldn't have been much of a dabbling detective if I didn't realize Ardis had reacted to the name Hugh McPhee. Reacted and left. I went out on the front porch and looked up and down Main Street. Geneva was right, though. Ardis had moved fast. She wasn't in sight walking, and if she'd hopped in her car she was long gone. Curious and interesting.

Before going back inside, I took a minute to look at our front-window displays. I used to do that every morning, before I'd fallen for the electronic charms of the “baa” at the back door. I enjoyed trying to see the
business the way a new customer would, and I realized I should get back into the habit.

Our building, simply because of its age and style, attracted people. We were in one of three attached houses—part of the two-story, mid-eighteenth-century row house that my grandparents had called home from the time they married. People couldn't help responding to the warmth and charm of the building's rosy handmade bricks and the millwork “gingerbread” added in the 1890s. The front steps and graceful handrail invited customers and old-building aficionados up on the shady porch that stretched the length of the building. Our window displays did the rest. Debbie knew how to create displays that lured the eyes and then the feet through our front door. That was how Ardis liked to put it, anyway. Although, if she said it in Geneva's hearing, Geneva sniffed and made remarks about the horrible sight of stray body parts mingling with our more “full-bodied” customers.

At the moment, Geneva mingled in the window with Debbie's display of Japanese kumihimo weaving materials. Geneva made an interesting watery gray backdrop for the jewel-colored threads and cords. She treated the window as her personal large-screen TV. If she wanted to, she could float through the window and perch on one of the porch rockers or the railing for a better view. But after she'd moved into the shop—with its colors and textures and fibers and fabrics—she said she felt settled and content, and she tended to stay inside looking out. Settled and content were relative terms, though. And by the way she motioned me in with her hand now, she wouldn't be content until I was back inside looking out, too.

“She is flighty and a bad example,” Geneva said as soon as I was through the door.

I looked around for customers before answering. All clear, but I took my phone from my pocket, just in case. “If you're talking about Ardis,” I said into the phone, “then you know that isn't true. She's solid and reliable.”

“Is that a dig about those of us who are no longer solid?”

“No! No, and I'm sorry if it sounded like one. But a few minutes ago you said Ardis wasn't ardent about moving fast, and now you're saying she's flighty. You can't have it both ways, Geneva.”

“Hmph.”

“What happened to your alone time?”

She yawned and stretched. “I am feeling quite refreshed. Also, I heard the voice of the long arm of the flatfoot and came to see why he was disturbing our peace. What was his silly clue about?”

“Beats me.” I went back behind the sales counter and sat on the stool.

“That saying reflects a defeatist attitude. You should stop using it and adopt something more positive.”

“Such as?”

“I will think and let you know. In the meantime, repeat the driveling clue for me.”

“Come on over here. I'll write it down.”

She floated as far as the ceiling fan and wound herself around it. I wrote
dabbling in detective work
on the blank page in Ardis' notebook.

“You thought of something when you wrote that down,” Geneva said. “I can tell by the way your mouth is hanging slightly and unbecomingly open and by the way
you're staring at, but obviously not seeing, that corner of the ceiling you haven't thought to dust for cobwebs in at least two months.” She uncurled from the fan and drifted down to sit on the counter where she could see what I'd written. Except she didn't just sit. She bounced. “What is it? What did you think of? Is it something useful? Will it solve the mystery? Have there been diabolical doings? What did you think of? What?”

I looked at her. She stopped bouncing.

“You've forgotten what you thought of,” she said, starting to droop. “I can tell that, too.”

“Your bouncing might have driven it right out of my head.”

She took offense at my remark, I could tell that easily enough. But the jingle of the camel bells at the front door, and the two people walking through it, distracted her from drooping further. I put my phone back in my pocket. Ardis was back, with dimples in her cheeks that only showed up on the most joyous of occasions, and with her was the man I'd last seen with my coil of string at the courthouse.

“Hugh,” Ardis said, “this is Kath Rutledge. Kath, I'd like you to meet one of my all-time-favorite students, Hugh McPhee.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “And nice to see you again.”

“Hugh remembers coming into the Weaver's Cat with his mother,” Ardis said, “away back at the beginning, when Ivy and Lloyd still lived here, and you'd find Lloyd reading his newspaper in the comfy chair next to the knitting needle display. And, Hugh, I remember when your mother knitted an Abraham Lincoln beard for you
and you wore it to recite the Gettysburg Address at the Blue Plum Elementary Spring Fling. Unless I'm not remembering that right; a knitted beard sounds outlandish in retrospect, and your mother was more of a straightforward pullover-and-baby-blanket needlewoman.”

“You're right on both counts, Ms. Buchanan. I did wear hand-knitted whiskers. And no, my mother didn't make them. If she had, the beard wouldn't have been so full of dropped stitches and unintentional yarn overs. And it would have been cabled. But she taught all her children to garden, cook, sew, and knit. I made the beard myself.”

Geneva had returned to the blades of the ceiling fan when Ardis and Hugh McPhee came in. He stood under the fan, and as he told the beard story, she leaned down to stare at him, her hollow eyes wide. The ceiling and the fan were high, and Ardis hadn't noticed her yet.

“Hugh's only in town for a few days,” Ardis said, “but, Kath, I thought we might let him be an honorary member of TGIF.”

“Sure.”

“What's TGIF?” Hugh asked.

“What are your plans for the day?” Ardis asked.

“Nothing pressing.”

“Good. Then we'll have an early lunch, my treat, and I'll tell you about TGIF on the way.” She put her arm through Hugh's. “Shall I bring you something, Kath? I'll take him to Mel's.”

“Sure, how about—”

“You'll love Mel's,” Ardis said, turning back to Hugh. “Everybody loves Mel's. Mel herself is another story. Come on, we'll take the alleyway—the scenic route.”
Patting his arm, she led him out of the room and down the hall toward the kitchen. The back door said, “Baa,” when they left.

“She will probably be kind to your hips and bring you a salad,” Geneva said from the ceiling fan, “if she remembers to bring you anything at all.” She floated down and perched on the shoulder of the mannequin that stood near the counter. She almost blended in with the gray cowl the mannequin wore. That made for a surreal moment when she waved a hand at me, two fingers raised, and it looked for a second as though the cowl had unraveled and flapped in a breeze.

“I have two things,” Geneva said, “two important points to discuss.”

I held up one finger, pulled out my phone again, and put it to my ear.

“First,” she said, “you might not have been able to see from down at this level where you dwell, but that man had a bald spot on top of his head. Second, you were right, and I have reassessed my opinion.”

“Your opinion of what?”

“Not of what, of whom. My opinion of my relative. She is not flighty. She is giddy.”

“Giddy, huh?” Ardis did have her excitable moments, but attaching “giddy” to her six-foot frame and sensible shoes didn't work much better for me than “flighty.” “She's certainly happy to see him.”

“Bald spot and all.”

“Since when have you got a thing about bald spots? Anyway, from the way she acted, it's easy to believe he
is
one her all-time-favorite students.”

“You are not seeing the bald—I mean the
big
picture,” Geneva said. “I mean giddy in
love
. In love with a
younger
man
!” Having an excitable moment herself, she nearly fell off the mannequin. She righted herself, clasped her hands in her lap, and pressed her lips together primly. “I would say,” she continued, sounding now as though she'd sucked a lemon, “that I am scandalized over the behavior of my great-great-niece, but I think you know that I am not one to make a scene.
Arduous
is old enough to be in charge of her own heart and more than old enough to know better. Also, worrying about her as if she were of a natural and decent age for a great-great-niece, instead of one with wrinkles and former students practically at retirement age, makes my head swirl as though you turned the fan on while I was sitting on it.” She shuddered and drew her shoulders up.

“That's not true, you know.”

“You do not believe me?” she asked.

“That she's in love with him? No, I don't.”

“Maybe the bald spot puts her off, too.” She sighed. “Just as well. I do not have time to worry about her flibbertigibbet self.”

“Busy schedule?”

“Busy noticing. That is what crackerjack detectives, like you and me, do. Those who only dabble in detective work default on the title ‘crackerjack.'”

“They're dilettantes?”

“Dead on,” she said. “That was more haunted humor.”

“Good one. So, what did you notice?”

“
She
never stopped smiling.
He
never started.”

“That's—” I had a knee-jerk reaction to say that wasn't
true, but she was right. Hugh McPhee hadn't smiled at the courthouse, either. He hadn't even smiled when he told us about knitting the beard. “Huh.”

“Stick with me,” she said, “and call me Eagle Eye.”

She was so pleased with herself I didn't want to dampen her moment by listing the half dozen reasons that immediately sprang to mind for why someone might not smile—unhappy memories, illness, accident, not being a natural smiler. Worry about a bald spot. “Did you notice anything else?”

She clapped her hands. “Of course, but now it is your turn.”

“He had a camera.”

“Pffft. Boring.”

“His voice—” Speaking of voices, I heard Ellen and Janet, the two knitters I'd spoken to earlier. They were on the landing at the top of the stairs. Their coos and aws gave them away. Debbie had hung a row of sweet baby sweaters from the railing up there, and they were probably fondling them.

“She who hesitates loses her turn,” Geneva said. “So it is my turn. Let me see . . .”

That sounded suspiciously like a hesitation to me. I didn't call her on it, though. Ellen and Janet were coming down the stairs, and the camel bells at the front door jingled, bringing the lull in business to an end and me on my lonesome to deal with it.

The mayor's mother came in, stopping inside the door and looking around as though she'd never been in the shop before. In fact, I'd never seen her come in. Not that I saw or knew every customer who did come in, but in
terms of fiber and fabric, the mayor's mother was an unknown quantity to me. She was an unknown quantity to me in terms of
most
things, including her name. I liked her for the decisive connection her foot had made with Clod's shin, though, and I smiled and waved to her.

“I have to have go now,” I said to Geneva through my unconnected phone—my “dead phone” as Geneva liked to call it, always reminding me, when she did, that “dead phone” was more of her haunted humor. She didn't seem to understand that if she explained or identified her jokes, they weren't as funny.

“But it is still my turn,” she said.

“I'll talk to you later, okay?” I said.

The mayor's mother—Mrs. Weems, I assumed—smiled and waved back at me. In addition to her fast-moving tennis shoes, she wore a pair of mocha-colored capris, a French vanilla Henley, and a puffy taffeta vest in a blue close to—or exactly—the color of blue plums. Her pocketbook, the one that might or might not have met Clod's midsection at the courthouse, hung on her arm. She stopped at the display table near the door and stood fingering the skeins of cotton chenille Debbie had put there to waylay the unwary.

She didn't appear to be any the worse for whatever reason Clod had escorted her into the courthouse. She was five foot two at most and might weigh one hundred pounds with the pocketbook, but she was obviously her own woman. Her hand seemed stuck on a skein of mango-colored chenille that would make a beautiful soft baby blanket or yummy scarf.

Equating colors with foods and describing yarns as
“yummy” were early warning signs. Stomach growling would be next, and I hoped Ardis would come back with my lunch before that happened.

Geneva moved in front of me. “Is this later enough?” she asked.

“Sorry. It'll have to be later-later,” I said, slipping the phone into my pocket.

“Well, if that is the way you are going to be about it,” she said, “I will not tell you anything else.”

Ellen and Janet came in then. “We're going to stretch our legs,” Ellen said, “and grab a bite to eat. We don't want you to think we're abandoning our perfect spot, though.”