Lye In Wait: A Home Crafting Mystery Part 23

"Everything you can remember, everything you told me last night. When you're done we'll go down to Avenue A, and you can show me what happened."

I started printing my name and address. "Are you going to talk to the kid, Don whatshisname?"

"I already did, first thing this morning. He didn't see much. Debby and Jacob Silverman are next on my list."

I looked up. "Jacob's last name is Silverman, too?"

"He's Debby's brother."

My jaw dropped.

After a few moments, I managed to close my mouth. Grimaced. "Well, c.r.a.p."

He grinned. "Kind of screws up your idea of Jacob as Walter's romantic rival, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Sure does."

"Almost done there?"

I looked down at the form. "I've barely started."

"I have some things to do out front. Leave it on the desk when you're finished and come find me" He went around the corner.

It didn't take long once I stopped yapping. Placing it neatly in the center of his spotless desk area, I opened the top drawer.

And, of course, Ambrose returned as I was replacing his pen. I froze like a bunny caught in the headlights.

"Finished?" he asked, his face expressionless.

"I wasn't, I mean, I just wanted to put your pen away. I swear..."

"Well, let's go then."

I sneaked a look in his eyes as I pa.s.sed, but he didn't look upset. He didn't look anything at all. I hate it when other people have great poker faces, especially because I have more of a heylook-what-I'm-feeling-now face. And I was pretty sure it had guilt blazoned all over it right then.

And I'm not even Catholic.

TWENTY-NINE.

OUT IN THE PARKING lot, Ambrose led me toward a silver-colored sedan that turned out to be a Chevy Impala. He opened the pa.s.senger door for me before going to the driver's side.

Inside, the car had a police radio, a holster on the dash holding a radar gun, and a switch for the lights I a.s.sumed were set into the grill. I was riding in an unmarked police cruiser, the bane of motorists everywhere.

I wondered what kind of car Barr Ambrose drove when he wasn't being a detective. A big SUV? I had trouble picturing it. A compact? Nah. A pickup, maybe, or a Jeep. Something functional and without a lot of frippery.

He paused while buckling his seat belt, sniffed a couple times, and said, "What's that scent?"

Oh, no. My nose had become inured to the lavender already, and I couldn't tell how much I reeked. "Sorry," I said, embarra.s.sed. "It's the stuff I used on my bruises this morning."

"Wow," he said. "I thought it was perfume."

"You can open a window if you want."

He shrugged. "It's nice." And he cracked the window an inch.

As we pulled out of the parking lot I said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Like what," he said.

"Where are you from?"

"Came up here from Seattle last year."

"Before that."

"Grew up in Wyoming. My family owns a dude ranch there."

I nodded. I'd been close.

"I suppose the ties give me away," he said. "I hate to wear regular ties and the chief lets me get away with the bolos. My uncle used to collect them, left me a whole pile of them when he died. Figure I might as well get the use out of them." He stopped talking abruptly, as if he'd said too much.

We approached an intersection and a little red pickup, lowered to within an inch of the pavement, flew by on the cross street in front of us. I didn't need the radar gun to tell me it was going way too fast.

Ambrose frowned and said, "Idiot."

At the stop sign we turned toward downtown.

"And your accent struck my ear as familiar," I said.

"I don't have an accent!"

"Not really an accent. More like your diction."

"You from around there, too?"

"Around there. Northern Colorado."

The ensuing silence could have felt awkward, but didn't. Then Ambrose spoke again. "The state lab determined the lye we found on your floor was a commercial brand that contains ingredients besides sodium hydroxide."

"Drain cleaner," I said.

He nodded.

"How long have you known?"

"Couple days."

"Would have been nice if you'd told me. You know, put my mind at rest."

He glanced over at me. "Sorry. You were so sure it wasn't yours I didn't think it'd be big news to you."

"Yeah. Well."

"Anyway, the drain cleaner wasn't mixed with water. Or at least, not only with water."

"One of those that comes as a liquid? Or gel?"

"It's sold in powder form. It was mixed with ethyl alcohol, sugar-looks like some kind of liquor."

"Peppermint," I breathed.

"What?"

"Peppermint schnapps. That's what we smelled in my workroom. And at Walter's that night..." I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering. "That wasn't a gla.s.s that broke in Walter's kitchen. It was a bottle." How did I know that? "The label! There was paper mixed in with the gla.s.s."

"You get a good look at it?"

I shook my head. "No. Officer Owens hustled me out before I could. And then the next day, it was gone."

"What do you mean, 'it was gone'?"

"Someone had cleaned it up by the time Meghan and I went in to pack up Walter's things."

"You never told me that"

I held up my palms. "It just didn't seem important."

"So you didn't see what kind of bottle it was?"

I closed my eyes again. "Clear gla.s.s. The paper was black, maybe with a little red? But listen, um, Barr. Can I call you Barr?"

He smiled. "Sure"

"Walter was an alcoholic."

The smile slid off his face, to be replaced by puzzlement. "Well, the booze isn't a surprise, then. I don't know what his blood alcohol was-I'll have to check with the medical examiner's office. Maybe the guy did commit suicide."

"No, you don't understand. Walter was a recovering alcoholic, had been for years. He didn't drink alcohol-including peppermint schnapps-at all."

Ambrose pulled into an angled parking s.p.a.ce on Avenue A and turned off the engine. I could hear his breathing.

"So. Where were you when that truck came at you?"

"Over there." I pointed.

We got out, and I led him to where I'd started to cross the street the day before. I described it all over again, demonstrating my position and how I fell.

"You said you heard a screech. From that direction?" He pointed up the hill. I nodded.

"Let's walk up that way," he said.

We stopped at the entrance to the alley that ran through the middle of the block. It wasn't paved. Ambrose stooped and looked at twin indentations in the gravel, ruts that by the s.p.a.cing and width of them had been caused by tires, if I didn't miss my guess. His gaze moved to the pavement on the street as he stood up.

"They pulled out here, too fast and probably spraying gravel. Once they'd turned onto the street they punched it-see where they left those two short strips of rubber there in the middle of the street?"

"Are you sure? Wouldn't they be darker? And longer?"

"The rain reduced the friction. Made the pavement slicker. Probably slowed the vehicle down. If the street had been dry you might not have had a chance to get out of the way in time."

Though I'd already thought of that, I couldn't help arguing. "You really are a pessimist. If it hadn't been raining I wouldn't have had my hood up and my head down. I'd have seen the truck coming from the corner of my eye."

Ambrose narrowed his eyes. "Someone is having a whole lot of luck."

I bristled. "You mean me?"

He flicked a look at me and started back toward the car. "I mean whoever's behind all this. You, Sophie Mae, seem to have just enough luck to keep you alive."

THIRTY.

MEGHAN SAT ON THE front step scooping the guts out of a pumpkin with a big metal spoon. Orange slime and shiny seeds made a pile on the newspaper she'd spread on the sidewalk in front of her. I stopped on the other side of the newspaper, already apologizing.

"I know I said I'd be here when you got back, but Ambrose called and wanted me to formalize my statement about yesterday, and then he wanted me to show him where it happened, and-"