Beware False Profits Part 12

Fern saw me and started in my direction. I swallowed. She looked angry, but she often does. I told myself not to run.

"Isn't it a little late to be bringing donations?" she demanded.

Fern has salt-and-pepper hair cut with geometric precision around a face as square as the trapdoor of a gallows. I think she's training her eyebrows to meet in the middle to perfect a permanent scowl. But she really doesn't need that extra touch.

I forced a smile. "I'm sorry, but these just came in last night and actually, there's something of a problem with them. I came for your advice."

If possible, she looked even more suspicious. This time I couldn't blame her. I'd never asked for advice before and probably wouldn't again.

I explained the situation, setting the box on the nearest table as I did and opening the flap so she could see what we had.

"Do you think we should sell them or give them back?" I practiced my most ingratiating voice. "I'll let you decide."

She took moments either to consider or crank up her attack. But when she spoke, she almost sounded pleasant. "I think you'd better ask the mayor. Then, if he says he still doesn't want them, we'll put them in the Society closet and keep them for the sale next year. Do a little advertising in the newsletter so we get the best price."

Her solution was not only kind, it was sensible. I didn't know what to say. This was a new side of Fern.

"You don't agree?" She more or less bellowed the words.

I jumped. "No, I agree. That's exactly what we should do."

"Anything else?"

Here she was, all b.u.t.tered up, or as close as I was ever going to get. I just couldn't ask her about the punch bowl. I could not spoil the first pleasant moment we'd experienced together.

So I hedged, or beat around the bush, which sounds like a double affront to gardeners everywhere. "Just wondering how you're doing up here. Did you get anything great to sell this year?"

"Just the usual." Her tone changed to something less cordial. "Why? Are you looking for something for the parsonage? Did we forget something?"

At the accusation, I felt grounded again, back in familiar territory. I was almost grateful. "Nope, we're doing fine. I love collectibles, that's all."

"Well, we've done well enough here. The money will help us buy that new gla.s.sware."

"January told me about that. Sounds like such a good idea." I counted my heartbeats and made myself wait until ten had thundered by. "What did you do with all the old gla.s.ses?"

"We boxed them up. Every single box was sold."

"Wow, just like that, huh? How did you find room in here once you set all those gla.s.ses out on the table?"

"We couldn't do that. Do you see enough room? We just taped up the boxes and sold them that way. We stacked them over by the door and left one open so people could see what was inside. But we didn't want anybody picking through each box and switching gla.s.ses around, not for the price we were giving them. Why?"

"Oh, I just wondered who needed entire boxes of gla.s.ses."

"Mabyn bought a couple of boxes. And Dolly Purcell bought one for her grandson's new apartment." She narrowed her eyes. "Aren't there enough gla.s.ses in the parsonage? Or maybe you think you have too many?"

"We have exactly the right amount. To the gla.s.s. To the ounce."

"Well, you should have gotten here sooner if you needed more or better."

I should have gotten here sooner, all right, because I was pretty sure the mystery of the missing punch bowl was at least partly solved. I wondered who had bought the box with the punch bowl inside, thinking they had just gotten a bargain on mismatched tumblers and juice gla.s.ses? If that person was a member of the church, I was pretty sure she would realize the mistake, bring it back, and explain what had happened.

But if she wasn't? All bets were off.

"I'll let you know what the mayor says about this china," I told Fern. "Thanks for your advice."

She went back to frowning at customers, and I went home to see how much a one way ticket to Papua New Guinea would cost. I hoped there was enough money in our checking account for Ed and the girls to come with me.

I had one other choice. In addition to finding Joe Wagner and discovering who had poisoned Hazel Kefauver, I could find the missing punch bowl. If I decided against New Guinea, I needed to hang out a shingle.

9.

The Consolidated Community Church is a multiple-choice congregation. When the time comes to seek a new minister, the search committee investigates candidates from several denominations for a wider pool of possibilities. Luckily for them Ed wanted a quiet church in a quiet place and the rest is history. He's the third Unitarian-Universalist they've called in their long history, but they're still getting used to the idea of ministers who prefer asking questions to answering them.

Unusual or not, Ed's sermons have become increasingly popular. Sundays are anything but quiet at Tri-C these days. Last month the board voted to begin holding two morning services in order to fit everyone inside our historic but limited building. Now the day starts with choir practice, then first service and religious education for the children, a break for social hour, and a sermon discussion upstairs in our parish house for members who prefer arguing to chatting about the weather or the state of the union in our social hall.

Another social hour follows the second service, with another discussion and usually an informal meeting in the children's chapel for anyone interested in finding out more about the church.

This Sunday, in addition to everything else, we had a bag sale of rummage leftovers that began at noon. When Ed finally got home, he would be weary enough that I could tie him in a knot and hang him in the coat closet.

By the time I wound my way through the first social hour, the second service, and a stint cashiering for bag day, I was nearly as tired. But I wasn't so tired that I couldn't stalk my prey. I was busy all morning developing a list of punch bowl suspects. First I captured Dolly Purcell, an eighty-something member of the Women's Society, and pinned her to the wall.

Okay, perhaps not. But I did engage her in scintillating conversation of the James Bond sort.

Okay, perhaps not.

What I did instead was ask Dolly if she bought anything exciting at the sale. She was one of two names Fern had given me, and like all optimists I hoped Dolly was going to deliver. Unfortunately this was not to be. She told me all about the box of gla.s.ses she gave her grandson Paul, and how she and Paul stacked them in his cabinets together. Strike one.

I did get the names of another member who also purchased gla.s.ses. Dolly remembered because she almost lost her own box to none other than Ida Bere, who wanted two for herself. She claimed Ida tried to persuade her to give up her box because Ida planned to use the gla.s.ses for meetings of a new organization she had formed to protest the release of b.u.t.terflies at weddings and other special occasions.

I really didn't want to know more, but I thanked Dolly and went in search of Ida. In Ida's defense, she is worried about all sorts of things that really matter. War, poverty, hatred, discrimination. I bet when she was born sixty or so years ago, she emerged carrying a sign demanding better pay for hospital employees. I'm sure the delivery room nurses were grateful for her intervention.

Anyway, Ida, who has lent her compact body and steely gaze to many a cause, is also p.r.o.ne to go out on the limb on a moment's notice. I didn't know if this was one of those causes, but I vowed to stay as far away from it as I could.

I saw Ida just as she was leaving. Since it's a little hard to detain somebody in our doorway at lunchtime, I caught up with her outside.

"Ida..." I sprinted beside her to match her determined stride. "The rummage sale's looking like a real success. I know you worked hard on it."

She glanced at me, but her mind was elsewhere, most likely in Mexico with the monarchs. She sped up, so I sped up, too.

"The sale's always hard work," she said. "None of this comes easily."

"True, but it's a great way to build a community." Although frankly, I wasn't quite sure the rummage sale was meeting that goal.

"There won't be a community of any sort unless this world of ours gets down to business and fixes the things that are wrong."

I wanted to tell Ida to take a deep breath, but I was pretty sure if I did she would complain about air pollution, which would lead to a discussion of ozone depletion and global warming. All to be feared and addressed, of course, but on a lovely Sunday morning I was hoping for a brief reprieve.

"Do you have any tips for new rummage salers?" I asked.

"Like what?"

I celebrated my first piece of luck. She'd practically invited me to ask questions. "Tips on how to organize donations. For instance, did you find anything unusual that was hard to place?"

"What do you mean unusual?"

"I heard you and Fern cleaned out the cupboards in the kitchen. Was it hard to figure out what to do with everything?"

"No, I just wish I'd grabbed a couple of boxes of those gla.s.ses right off the bat. Of course that wouldn't have been fair."

I broke in before she told me why she needed them. "Oh, you didn't get any?"

"Just one box. I needed more. I got half juice gla.s.ses. And I needed bigger gla.s.ses." Then, just as I was striking her off my list of suspects, she got her revenge.

For the next ten minutes I was forced to stand in the parking lot while Ida regaled me with stories of b.u.t.terfly woes all the way from the tropical rain forest to Canada. By the time I got home, I was so depressed I wasn't sure the punch bowl or anything else really mattered.

Half an hour later Junie came home from the sale with six brown bags stuffed with other people's junk and my two daughters. She peeled me off the sofa, and when I told her what was wrong, she made tea plus an order for three b.u.t.terfly bushes for her new backyard and two for ours. Junie always knows how to make the world a better place.

Ed arrived with the padded envelope I'd left in his drawer and dropped it on the counter for me. I ladled vegetable soup from my slow cooker, made sure Ed chewed and swallowed, and put him to bed for a nap. While I tidied up I checked Ida and Dolly off my mental list, put a star next to Mabyn's name, and added another parishioner from whom Ida had not been able to wheedle a box of gla.s.ses.

I had promised Lucy I'd meet her at the Victorian at two to see what Hank and his crew were doing. When we hired Closeur Contracting, Hank consulted his calendar and promised to spend this entire weekend working at the house. Three or four men scrambling to finish a job can do an amazing amount. By now I was hoping they had finished the island, roughed in the new kitchen, tiled the bathroom, and started patching the walls and ceilings upstairs where demolition had taken place.

In work clothes I took off for the Victorian. I was alone since the girls and Junie were going to spend the afternoon cutting up fabric she'd bought at the sale. She had promised to teach the girls how to make something called penny rugs. Afraid of another long explanation, albeit a cheerier one, I'd asked them to surprise me and escaped.

On the way I drove by the Kefauver residence. I was running late, but if I could find Brownie, I had time for a terse lecture on the fine art of staying out of jail. I halfway expected to find a priest in the midst of an exorcism ritual. But there were no vehicles in the driveway, including the Kefauver Lincoln, and no lights visible from the street. I put Brownie on my to-do list for tomorrow.

When I arrived Lucy was standing in the middle of the downstairs. Sadly, she was the sole occupant. Hank and his guys were nowhere in sight.

Before I could work up to a tantrum, Lucy put a finger to her lips. "Not a word. You're going to love what they've done."

Try cranking down from an undelivered tirade. Moments pa.s.sed before I could breathe. "They were here?"

"Not when I got here a little while ago, but obviously they've been here this weekend. Look at the island." She stepped to one side, and I saw it was finished. And what a beauty it was. In fact Closeur Contracting had gone the extra mile on trim. This was high-quality custom cabinetry.

"Oh, it's wonderful," I moved closer so I could stroke the varnished oak and open the drawers, which glided effortlessly. "Somebody really knows what he's doing."

"And they measured and marked for shelves on the walls. Look."

Again, I was impressed. The shelves were actually going to go on the walls where they belonged. Not in the bathroom. Not inside the fireplace. And somebody had thought to use a level so that bolts of fabric would remain upright.

"I can almost see fabric here." For the first time in my imagination the place began to look like a quilt shop.

"Let's check out the second floor. We don't have a lot of time alone."

"You're meeting some man here? It's the guy you were dressing up for on Friday, isn't it? You're going to spread a blanket in front of the fireplace and open a bottle of some vintage I've never even heard of. You have truffles in your purse. And Camembert."

"At what point in your marriage did you start indulging in these fantasies about the lives of other women?"

"Hey, I love my life. It's just that I love yours, too."

"You love what you think my life is. It's not as much fun as your imagination. There's a reason most of the guys I meet aren't married."

"I could look around for you. I've done pretty well by my sisters." Both Vel and Sid were in touch with men they had met in Emerald Springs after their visit over the Christmas holidays. I didn't know what the outcome would be, but I still patted myself on the back.

"With my luck, you'd find me some handy psychopath," Lucy said. "You're a wacko killer magnet."

"No fair. You've been with me every step of the way. If you hadn't helped me catch them, those guys would still be roaming the streets."

"Well, there are plenty more where they came from, so stay out of my love life." She started toward the stairs as I began a mental list of men to introduce her to.

"There's no guy coming," Lucy said halfway up, "but I ran into Joe Wagner's secretary Cilla Hunter. Have you met her?"

I told her I hadn't had time to do any investigating at Helping Hands.

"Well, she told me something interesting that I thought you ought to hear."

"Luce, do you know everybody in Emerald Springs?"

"Close enough."

I wondered what Cilla Hunter had to say. Now I wished I had told Lucy the truth about Joe.

"Will you look at this?" Lucy stopped, and both of us admired what had been done.

The upstairs was finally beginning to look like an apartment. We walked through the new doorway that had been framed in at the top of the stairs. Traces of the old walls had almost vanished, and new walls were taking shape. The two bedrooms that had been combined to make a living area looked as if they had always been configured that way. What would soon be a kitchen at the far end, open to the rest of the room, was neatly framed in, and the counter that separated it from the living area was exactly the right height. There was room for a small table by the closest window, which looked over neighboring yards. Hank or one of his men had even thought to write measurements for the appliances and cabinets on the walls so Lucy and I could make our order immediately. Best of all, the measurements looked like standard sizes. That would speed things up enormously.

"Winners. We actually chose winners." I punched Lucy on the arm. "We're good, girl. Really, really good."

"Do you think they're working at night? They've done so much, and they aren't here."

"Who cares? They're doing the job. I want to check the bathroom."

The bathroom floor was still gouged wood, but the tile I'd picked had been delivered and was sitting in the middle of the room. We set a few squares on the floor to see how it would look and agreed it was exactly what Junie had asked for.

The doorbell rang, and reluctantly we both went downstairs. I hoped the visitor was Hank Closeur so I could tell him how pleased I was. But a tall, striking woman about our age stood on the porch. Her dark hair was cut boyishly short, sc.r.a.ped back from a freckled face, but in tight jeans and a red babydoll camisole she had a figure no one would mistake for anything but a woman's. The subtle scent of jasmine wafting in my direction confirmed it.

Lucy introduced us. Cilla Hunter had a handshake that felt like the beginning of an arm wrestling match. We invited her in and did the thirty-second tour, but clearly, she hadn't come to discuss architecture.

I saw no reason to stand around and make awkward conversation when I could be pumping Cilla for information about Hazel and the food bank. I suggested we sit on the back porch stoop and enjoy the day. We walked through what had been the kitchen and grabbed soft drinks from the old refrigerator as we pa.s.sed.

Outside we settled ourselves against the railing or leaned back against the steps. I looked over what would be Junie's garden and yearned for the b.u.t.terfly bushes to arrive. I wondered what Hank would charge to build a covered porch here so she could enjoy her garden on rainy days, too.