Beware False Profits Part 31

"Oh, Aggie, you're shaking. And now you're bleeding. I may not have to do a thing. You might just fall to the floor. That would be convenient."

I brandished the gla.s.s at her, as I backed toward the doorway. "I think you killed Joe, too. All this talk about wanting him to stay at the food bank? I think he's dead, and you killed him."

"No, I didn't. I've been honest about Joseph." Again, she could have been reciting her grocery list. "I don't know where he is. It's very inconvenient. He left me to deal with this alone. I really thought I had it all worked out. Then I dropped my keys the night I set the fire. I realized after I hiked back to my car through the woods. And I knew right where I must have dropped them. But by the time I circled back, the fire was huge. I saw you with Detective Roussos and Ed. Then I saw my keys on the ground..."

"And you saw me pick them up." It explained so much.

"Then what do you know? There was that unfortunate photograph." She shrugged-right before she lunged.

I didn't know what Maura had planned, but I wasn't going to stay and fight with one shard of gla.s.s. I fled through the doorway and toward the stairs. Adrenaline buoyed me, but I wasn't as quick or steady as I would have been. I reached the steps just ahead of her, but Maura lunged once more and I went down.

I knew how to fall. Instinctively I bent my knees and elbows and rolled, tucking my head as close to my collarbone as it would go. I dropped the gla.s.s and used my hands to cushion the impact, but despite this, my head banged against one step then another as I tried to stop myself from rolling all the way down. I screamed as I went and hoped that someone would hear me.

I lay sprawled across the steps, head down, the world spinning around me. Maura tackled me, and despite my flailing, she shoved me against the railing. Then she pulled a hypodermic out of her pocket and uncapped it.

I struggled, or at least I thought I was struggling. But things were growing hazier. I could hardly breathe, and my entire body throbbed in agony. She jabbed me hard through my nightgown and into the back of my knee, and I screamed one more time. Before she could do another thing, I made one last effort to topple her.

"Maura!" a deep voice shouted.

She jumped away, and suddenly I was free. I could still feel the needle, but Maura was no longer attached to it.

I heard clattering on the steps. Just before the world went completely black I lifted my head.

"Rube?"

But this time it wasn't Rube, although it took me a moment to be sure. This man was younger. His hair was darker, his shoulders perhaps not quite as broad. And as I watched he grabbed his protesting wife by the shoulder and dragged her down the remainder of the steps to the floor below.

Joe Wagner had come home at last.

21.

When the sun shines in Ohio, nothing in the universe is brighter. No sun is more talked about, fawned over, or allowed freer access to dusty corners. On the summer solstice, the Celtic Oak King, G.o.d of the waxing year, spreads his golden warmth over every inch of Emerald Springs one last time and chases away our darkest memories.

The Wilc.o.x family had special reasons to enjoy this day. The Victorian was finally ready. Junie was moving in, and once she was comfortably settled, she was going to begin the arduous task of turning her lovely new s.p.a.ce into Emerald Springs's only quilt shop.

For now, between loads, we were catching our breath on the front porch. Ed, my girls, Junie, and me. Frankly, these days, I can hardly get enough of them.

"Where shall we put your lovely penny rugs?" Junie asked my daughters, whom she had unofficially hired as decorating consultants.

The penny rugs had consumed the weeks since Maura Wagner was taken off to jail and I was taken to the hospital for observation and orange juice. The juice counteracted the insulin that had leaked into my system from Maura's syringe. I just missed receiving a ma.s.sive fatal dose. Joe arrived before Maura could push the plunger. My worried girls had stayed close by my side in the intervening weeks, and designing and sewing the rugs had occupied us all.

"Your table." Teddy's design was composed of apple trees and bluebirds of brilliant reds, greens, and blues. Junie agreed that the penny rug, as long as two placemats and about as wide, would be perfect as her table centerpiece.

Deena's penny rug, about the size of a bathmat, was an exotic garden, with sun beaming brightly down on a field of wildly colored flowers. She opted to hang it on Junie's kitchen wall, and Junie told her the choice was perfect.

"There must be a lesson here," I told Ed, as the girls left to adorn their chosen territory with their grandmother. "Hazel Kefauver's somber old clothes reborn into a form that's bound to give everybody who sees them pleasure."

Ed pulled me to his side and squeezed my hip. "Don't tempt me to go all theological on you."

I rested my head against his shoulder. I was still waiting for words of recrimination, for the booming ministerial "I told you so," but Ed has been remarkably restrained since my near-death experience. Although sleuthing had moved me solidly into Maura's view, finding her keys had pushed her over the edge. I think Ed realizes that even if I hadn't followed a single lead, once I put those keys in my purse, Maura would have come after me anyway.

Maybe he also remembers that in the beginning, he was the one who nudged me into becoming Maura's friend.

Roussos had been less restrained. He arrived at the parsonage just ahead of my family where he found Joe trying to subdue a spitting, kicking Maura. In between bouts of abuse, Maura tried to convince Joe that if he would just let her kill me, all their troubles would be over. Roussos disabused her of that notion right before he called the EMTs to take me to the emergency room for observation. I think I was on the way to the hospital before he actually told me that if I ever interfered in another case, he would personally spring Maura from the state pen to do her worst.

Yeah, yeah. I saw the relief on the guy's face when he realized I was all right. Turns out he had gotten my message and decided the situation warranted more than returning my phone call.

From the beginning the arson investigators had realized that two different fires had been set the night the warehouse burned, due to finding two different accelerants. From this they had surmised that Chad wasn't the only naughty resident of our fair city. And because she was so uncooperative about Joe's whereabouts, Maura was on their short list of suspects. With the help of the New Jersey cops Roussos determined that the phone number she gave him was a sham, and from that moment on, Maura stirred serious interest. My announcement about Tyler's parentage had stirred it more.

Of course Joe's disappearance and Maura's cover-up were only peripherally related to the food bank crimes and fire. But Maura's desire to protect Joe, or rather protect his job so she could continue to dress her front porch dolls and blithely poison aphids, threw her under suspicion and brought Roussos to my door when I needed him most. This was an irony I relished.

So okay, I'm not as old a soul as I would like to be.

"Are you going to miss having Junie in our house?" I asked Ed.

"That's a loaded question."

"I'm glad she's not moving far."

"I know. Just far enough."

I knew Ed loved my mother, and Junie was as ready to have her own s.p.a.ce again as we were to have the parsonage to ourselves. She had so many plans for her new shop. I wondered if Emerald Springs was ready for her-would our little burg ever be? The years ahead would be interesting.

"More boxes waiting." Ed glanced at his watch. "Tell Junie I'm making another run. Then we'll head to dinner."

Lucy was treating the whole family to falafel sandwiches. Since the evening promised to be beautiful, we planned to picnic at the oval and listen to our community band serenade us with a spirited, off-key summer concert, most likely heavy on the Beach Boys. I was into simple pleasures these days. Surprising how beloved they become when it looks like all those pesky little afterlife questions are about to be answered.

I kissed my husband, something I'm doing even more often these days, and watched as he backed the van onto Bunting Street. Before I could turn away, a dark sedan pulled into a parking s.p.a.ce in front of the house, and in a moment both the driver's and pa.s.senger's doors opened. Joe Wagner and Tyler got out.

I hadn't seen Joe since the night his wife tried to kill me. Before the word could go out about Maura's arrest, he whisked Tyler away from Emerald Springs. Rube disappeared with him, although four days later, a crew of young, good-looking men with Boston accents and names like Nino and Tony arrived to complete work on the Victorian. Gratis.

There was still so much I didn't know, but curiosity is different from resolve. I'd had reasons to find out what was behind Hazel's murder and Joe's disappearance. But once I knew Joe was safe, I had no good reason to pry. My work was finished. Brownie was off the hook and grateful enough for my help that he had given our family a summer membership to the county pool. Maura was behind bars and hopefully no danger to anyone except a cell mate who disagreed with her choice of bedspreads or wall decor. Considering how close I'd come to either being reborn as a chipmunk or chatting with St. Peter, I had filed Joe and the p.u.s.s.ycat Club under "Life's Little Mysteries" and moved on.

Okay, not willingly. But I was working on it.

Now Tyler preceded his father up the sidewalk. Tyler is still young enough that he hasn't fallen prey to the slack-jawed, vacant-eyed expression of a teenager who doesn't want his feelings known. From his face I could tell this boy wasn't sure if he would ever be welcome anywhere again.

I couldn't ask if he was doing okay. Of course he wasn't. But I knew Joe would make sure that with time and patience, the wounds Maura had inflicted on their family would heal enough that Tyler could move on.

I knew better than to hug him, but I extended my hand and grasped his hard. "I'm so glad you're back, Tyler. Deena will be glad, too."

"Really?" he asked.

I heard a serious question, so I gave a serious answer. "She's been worried about you. We all have. You'll make her day."

He smiled. Tentatively, but that was a start. I pointed him through the door and told him to climb the stairs.

Joe and I were alone.

"Want to sit?" I pointed to the new wicker glider that Junie had placed on the porch as part of a comfortable grouping. I could already imagine her customers sitting here pouring over pattern books and comparing purchases. No one would ever want to leave.

Joe followed me to the porch. I noted new lines around his eyes. I thought he looked more like Rube than he had before his wife decided to start killing people.

"How are you?" I asked, once we'd settled ourselves.

"Taking this one day at a time." He rested his head against the back of the glider. "We've been in Boston. You probably guessed?"

"When Rube disappeared, too, it seemed likely."

"It was tough."

"I can only imagine."

"You know the whole story? How my brothers tricked me into leaving?"

"Rube told me. He was determined to make things right again."

"They're trying. And Pops?" He opened his eyes and smiled a little. "He was so glad to see me, he almost forgave them for what they did all those years ago."

"How did Tyler take to his new family?"

"They provide something to think about besides his mother. He likes the cooking, and right now he can use all the hugs. We're moving there. I've already put a down payment on a little house around the corner from Pops and my little brother Benjamin. Pops isn't going to live forever. I want Tyler to get to know him and the rest of the family. They've made me general manager of Creative Construction. I'm supposed to whip them into shape."

"You'll really be missed here. Are you sure?"

He smiled a little, but he shook his head. "I couldn't go back to Helping Hands. I trusted Chad. He was good at what he did and even better at hiding the criminal stuff. Our jobs were defined in such a way that I didn't have enough oversight, but that's not an excuse. I should have figured out what was going on. I guess it was good training for the family business. n.o.body's going to get away with anything in Boston. I'll be watching, but they claim that's what they need."

"Will you come back and visit?"

"Truthfully? Probably not. Tyler and I need to make a fresh start away from everything that happened." His eyes met mine. "You know about Chad and Maura?"

I nodded.

"I'm not going to tell Tyler. Not yet, maybe not ever. He's got enough to deal with. I don't want him to think he's lost me to DNA after losing his mother to prison."

"You've had a lot of shocks."

"That was no shock, Aggie. I've known since he was born that he wasn't mine. I just didn't realize he was Chad's. When Maura couldn't conceive we both went through testing. I discovered I had a condition that could probably be corrected by surgery, but by the time the doctor told me, Maura was already pregnant. So I was almost sure she'd had an affair. Then once I saw Tyler, it didn't matter. He was mine from the moment he snuggled into my arms. He'll always be mine."

"That's the way it should be."

"You probably wonder where I disappeared to all those weeks."

"Yeah, big-time. But I also know it's no longer my business."

This time his smile was more natural, more like the Joe I'd always been so fond of. "So what do you know?"

I recapped. When I finished he didn't look embarra.s.sed, he looked impressed. "Well, you've got a reputation around here, and I guess you deserve it."

"A 'tar and feathers' reputation? Or an 'ask her for her autograph reputation'?"

"A 'be careful what you tell her' reputation. But for the most part, it's respectful."

"I'm surprised anybody gets near me. No one's safe."

"You don't cause the crimes, you solve them."

I couldn't help myself. If I have a reputation as a nosy broad, I deserve that, too. "So, where did you go that night at the p.u.s.s.ycat Club? Did your disappearing act have to do with Hazel?"

"In a manner of speaking. But I'll back up. I've learned some painful things about myself. In every relationship I've had, I've always been the responsible one. At home growing up, in later years on every job I took on, and finally in my marriage. I chose a woman who expected me to take care of her from the moment she got up in the morning, then we had a son with medical problems who needed to be taken care of." He didn't say this as if he felt sorry for himself, more as if it were a fact he'd recently come to grips with.

"That's your reputation."

"And well deserved. Anyway, it's not a plus. The load was too much to carry, and I didn't have any outlets. Then one evening, after a day of meetings in Manhattan, a bunch of guys decided to go to the p.u.s.s.ycat Club as a joke, and I tagged along. It was amateur night, when they pick a couple of guys from the audience, dress them up, and let them perform. You probably already know I got chosen, but when I went up on that stage, something happened. I could forget everything at home, everything at work, my lost family. I could pretend to be somebody else, some dame who didn't have to be responsible for anybody but herself. Changing s.e.xes was part of it. I guess because my mother ran off when I was so young, I equated male with responsibility. But as a woman I could be carefree and funny and sing my heart out."

"Joe, this sounds like you've been doing a whole lot of thinking."

"I started drinking. A lot. After getting a taste of what life was like without all that pressure, I started looking for other ways to release it. Alcohol's one of those cla.s.sic responses. I drank to put myself to sleep at night, had a beer too many at lunch to get through the day, had a couple with dinner to get through another night with Maura. I was miserable, but at the same time I was afraid to leave because of Tyler. I knew she would tell the courts Tyler wasn't really mine, and so my rights would be worth less to a judge than hers."

I rested my fingertips on his arm. "Anybody would be stressed out with all that on their plate."

"It built to a head. I got so I had to get away each month and perform. It was like a release valve, and without it, I knew I was going to explode."

I visualized this. Joe with the pressure slowly building. Hazel trying to destroy him at work, Maura doing nothing at home to help. I could see it happening, like a movie building to climax.

"Then the night you disappeared, you were onstage and Hazel walked in," I guessed out loud.

"That's exactly what happened. Right at the end of my second number I saw her come in. I don't think she realized who I was, but I knew if I went back out there, she'd figure it out. Everything just came together, except me. I fell apart. I retreated to my dressing room and knew I had to do something. There was a treatment facility in Pittsburgh that I'd heard good things about through some clients at Helping Hands. I called, and they told me they would meet me at the bus station if I could just get myself there. I called Maura and told her I couldn't go on the way we were, and I was checking myself into a clinic."

"But the call went haywire."

"I didn't know that. I never found out, because I chose Chad to be my go-between both at work and at home. I was allowed one phone call twice a week, so I called him. Religiously. And every single time we spoke he said just what you'd expect. He was thrilled to have more time to steal the food bank blind, so he told me things were fine at home and work. Maura was stepping up to the plate, and she hoped I came home soon. Everyone at work and on the board understood why I'd left so suddenly, and of course, my job would be waiting when I returned. And all that time he never told a single soul what was really going on."

"So you put the fox in charge of the henhouse."

"Then the fox vanished. Suddenly Chad's phone was out of service, and I didn't know what to do. Just as I was about to break down and call Maura, I saw a newspaper a visitor had left in the reception area and found out what had happened here. I left immediately."

"Cilla thought she saw you poking around the remains of the warehouse, but I thought she'd probably mistaken Rube for you. The two of you look so much alike from a distance."

"I'd learned enough about myself to know that I couldn't just go charging in and make everything right. Not at work, and not at home. First I had to figure out what was going on, then figure out who needed to respond. So I got a room outside of town and started making calls, pretending to be an insurance adjustor, and as you say, poking around. The story emerged pretty quickly."