Panic Button Part 10

Two?

This was news, and I wondered why no one had ever bothered to mention it before.

"I've seen the museum near the park," I said, though truth be told, I'd only seen a picture of the museum over near the park. A picture that featured Larry and Aunt Evelyn. "There's another one?"

"Over that way." He pointed to his left toward some distant, indistinct place on the other side of town. "The first one-the one you were at-is what we like to call the Big Museum, though obviously, big is a relative word. That museum was established first. It's the one the city likes to brag about, the one that gets all the publicity and holds all the fancy fund-raisers and such."

"And the other one?"

Larry pursed his lips, apparently trying to decide if he should toe the line or dish the dirt. "Run by sort of a scatterbrained woman. You know the type, all enthusiastic and wide-eyed, but not exactly sure how to make their big plans work. When the curator of the Big Museum left a few years ago, she applied for that job. She didn't get it, and I suppose that's what made her decide she could do a better job on her own. She bought a house and opened a museum in it. Around here, we call that one the Little Museum. Who does that?" he asked himself more than me. "Who just starts a museum? Not that I'm saying it's a bad little place." I couldn't fault Larry for covering his bases. He didn't know me, and as a business owner, he couldn't afford to alienate anyone.

"It's in a house she bought for a song when the original owner got foreclosed. There isn't much in that Little Museum," he added, "but I hear the collection's growing. If you decide to check it out, tell Marci over there that I sent you."

"Marci Steiner?"

Like anybody could blame me for being surprised? For all her talk about Susan, Marci had never bothered to mention that she was something of a rival, museum-wise. Or that she had once applied for the job Susan ended up getting.

I guess my astonishment showed, because Larry's mouth pursed, and his eyebrows did a slow slide upward. "I see you know Marci."

"We've met." I didn't bother to add the bit about how Marci dissed Susan and gave me the dirt on Susan and Larry. "I'll be sure to stop into the Little Museum," I said instead, and added the visit to my to-do list.

Oh yeah, Marci and I had a few things to talk about.

For now...

There was a display of palm-sized flashlights on the counter and I picked through the various colors. After our mishap with the fuse box at the store, I knew Stan would be happy to have a few more flashlights around. I chose a blue one to go in the top drawer of my desk in the shop and a yellow one for the back workroom. I set them on the counter.

"It's too bad when history gets lost," I said, sticking to the subject at the same time I did my best to nudge it in a slightly different direction. "As time pa.s.ses, so many stories get lost. Or somehow turned around. You know, so that people think one thing is true when it's really not."

Larry was still hanging on to the broom, and he leaned it against the wall behind the counter. "We're not talking about Ardent anymore, are we?"

I smiled in a way that told him he just might be right. "I'm Josie," I explained. "I'm the b.u.t.ton dealer from Chicago who-"

"Was helping Angela out with the charm string."

I can honestly say I'd never seen anyone's expression fall quite so quickly or so far. Larry twined his fingers together, his left thumb playing over his right hand. "Have the police found anything?" he asked. "Do they know who..." There was a bottle of water sitting nearby and he uncapped it and took a swig. "I'm sorry. It's hard for me to talk about her. Maybe...maybe you understand."

"I do. The day Angela dropped off the charm string, she talked about you. I know you two were close."

Larry was wearing a white golf shirt with the words Larry's Hardware embroidered over the heart in red, and against the pale color, his skin looked ashy. "I lost my wife four years ago," he said. "And I had pretty much come to grips with the fact that I was going to grow old all by myself. Old and lonely. Then Angela came along."

"But not until after Susan did."

The softness vanished from his expression and he grabbed the broom so fast, I thought he might use it to shoo me out the front door. Instead, he got to work, sweeping behind the counter. "Who told you that? And what do you care about Susan, anyway?" he asked.

"I'm just trying to understand, that's all."

"Why?" Both his hands clutching the broom handle, he sent a laser look across the counter. "You're just the b.u.t.ton lady who helped Angela with her charm string. Why? Why do you care what goes on here in Ardent Lake?"

"I suppose I shouldn't. I don't. Not really." There was something about Larry's very blue and very direct gaze that made my knees quiver, and rather than take the chance of letting him know, I strolled over to the nearest display rack. It featured maps of the area, gum and mints, and a free Ardent Lake Chamber of Commerce publication.

I grabbed one of those along with a pack of Juicy Fruit and set them down near the flashlights. "I just wondered...you know, if once you left Susan for Angela, if Susan might have been angry enough to-"

"You're kidding me, right?" The tone of Larry's voice had nothing to do with kidding. In fact, it was positively icy. "You think Susan might have killed Angela? You obviously don't know Susan."

"We've met. And she never bothered to mention her relationship with you."

"Maybe that's because it's none of your business."

Technically, he was right.

And I was out of my league.

I thought about the times I'd seen Nev interview people-suspects and victims alike-and I hoped that, like I'd seen him do so many times, I could defuse the anger that would stop Larry from talking.

"Angela was such a nice woman," I said.

"You think by trying to shmooze me, it will make me think you're not being nosy?"

Big points for Larry, he knew how to lay things on the line.

And I knew better than to try and get away with anything.

"You're absolutely right." I unzipped my purse and pulled out my wallet, shoving the few items I'd taken from Larry's shelves closer to him and getting out a ten-dollar bill. "It's none of my business, and I'm being nosy, and you know what? I just can't seem to help myself. I talked to Angela two days in a row, you see, and I knew she was so worried about that curse she believed in. But I didn't take her seriously. And when she left my shop the night of the murder and we heard that dog howling..."

"Angela and her superst.i.tions." Larry barked out a laugh. "I hope you're not on some holy mission to find out who murdered her because you feel like you should have done something to help her."

"Of course not." I was getting pretty good at lying, so I barely batted an eye. I wasn't about to bare my soul-and my guilt-to Larry. "I know the curse wasn't real. But I was so close, Larry." Even the best liar can't be completely unemotional. I sucked in a breath. "I feel as if I've got a stake in finding out what happened to Angela. That's why when I heard that you and Susan once dated, I wondered if maybe the fact that you broke up with her had anything to do with Angela's murder. Then I heard..." I took the plunge. "Then I heard that maybe it didn't matter that you broke up with Susan to date Angela. Because I heard that you and Angela were finished."

He flinched as if I'd slapped him. "That's crazy."

"But you did have a fight the afternoon Angela was killed."

Larry had been about to take the money out of my hand and he froze. "Who told you that?" he asked.

"Then it's true. What did you fight about?"

He pounded the keys of the cash register, and when it popped open, he snapped the money out of my hand. "Angela should have known better. She'd listened to some gossip she never should have listened to."

"Gossip about..."

"The fact that I said it was gossip should make it clear that it's not worth repeating." He counted out my change. "You heard all this from that busybody, Mary Lou, didn't you? She was in here that afternoon. She must have been the one who told you. See what I mean about gossip? Serves no purpose. None at all. And more often than not, it leads people to the wrong conclusions. Just like what's happened to you."

Larry slapped my change into my hand and reached below the counter for a bag. "What Mary Lou didn't hear was the whole part about how Angela and I talked things out, and we realized that the whole thing was nothing more than a misunderstanding. When Angela left here, she was happy, she was smiling, and we were back to where we were to begin with. Angela and I, we were solid."

I thought about the way Angela looked when she arrived at the b.u.t.ton Box the night of the murder. "But she wasn't happy when she came to Chicago that evening."

Larry slammed the cash register drawer shut and scooped my purchases into the bag. "I don't know about that. I can't say. Maybe there was a lot of traffic between here and Chicago. Maybe she got a speeding ticket. Maybe she ate something for lunch that didn't agree with her.

"All I know is that day was the last time I saw Angela. The last..." His voice broke. "The last time I talked to her. Ever."

"I'm sorry." I was. Honest. I was sorry I'd upset Larry. I was sorry I wasn't better at this whole investigating thing, because if I was, I wouldn't have simply grabbed the bag Larry handed me and hightailed it out of his store as fast as I did.

I was sorry I'd blown the whole thing and I hadn't been smarter and found out what Larry and Angela were fighting about.

I was sorry Angela was dead.

When I got into the car, locked the doors, and was finally able to take a deep breath, I realized that, really, that was the only thing that mattered.

Angela was dead, and someone had to work to find out who murdered her and bring her justice. Nev was doing that through legitimate means, and he'd asked me to help more casually.

If I upset Larry in the process, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

I started up the car and wheeled out of the parking lot, heading in that vague direction where Larry indicated the Little Museum was located and telling myself that the morning hadn't been a total loss.

After all, I knew Larry was lying. I mean, about Angela being happy and them being a couple again after their little tiff.

I knew this because of the way Angela acted when she came to the b.u.t.ton Box to see me that evening. And because of the way she looked. As a woman who'd once been done wrong by the man she loved, I also knew that she wouldn't have taken down his pictures from her wall-and kept them down-if they had made their peace.

I also knew that Marci hadn't told me the whole story about how Susan had gotten the job Marci wanted and how that might affect how she felt-and what she said-about Susan.

I wheeled down a street of attractive homes and realized I knew one more thing, too.

The pristine facade of Ardent Lake was nothing more than fiction, one that hid a whole lot of secrets.

Chapter Eleven.

OK,SO MARCI HADN'T EXACTLY LIED TO ME. BUT SHE had left out a big chunk of the truth.

Don't think I wasn't going to check into it.

I followed my nose, and that gesture Larry used to indicate the other side of town. Luckily, Ardent Lake isn't all that big and I didn't have far to drive. Not three blocks away from Larry's Hardware, I found a pale gray Victorian with purple trim and a sign out front that announced that within its walls was a history of Ardent Lake along with curiosities and items of local historical importance.

The Little Museum.

There were no cars in the tiny parking lot, and from what I could see when I pressed my nose to the gla.s.s on the front door and knocked, no one was around. I was about to declare my mission a complete and total failure when a black BMW wheeled into the lot and Marci got out.

I guess when you run your own museum, you have the luxury of making your own hours. (And just for the record, this perk does not translate to the b.u.t.ton business.) Marci seemed honestly surprised to see me. Then again, from what Larry said, I guess it was to be expected. It wasn't like the Little Museum was exactly on the hot list of local tourist attractions.

"I'm headed back to Chicago," I told Marci once we'd exchanged all the usual greetings and small talk and I turned away to get a breath of air that wasn't tainted by the pall of cigarette smoke that hung over her. "But I didn't want to leave until I stopped by to see your museum. The other day when we met at the park, you forgot to mention that you had a museum that was in direct compet.i.tion with Susan's."

She'd been punching in the code on the security system just inside the front door, and Marci's hand froze over the panel. She snapped herself out of her daze just in time to keep the alarm from sounding, touched the rest of the numbers, and closed the door behind us.

"As I recall, we weren't talking about museums." She swung her Coach bag onto a chair behind an oak rolltop desk that sat against the wall in what used to be the parlor of the house. "I'm glad you stopped in," she chirped in what I imagined was her best tour guide voice. "There's a lot to see here. And a lot to learn. More than at that snooty museum across town where everything's treated like it's gold. Here..." She gestured to indicate the entire room.

"My museum," she said, emphasizing that first word, "is an exact replica of a home of the late nineteenth century. Authentic down to the last teacup. You can look around. You can sit in the chairs. You can go upstairs to the nursery and play with the kids' dolls and blocks if you like. The whole point of my museum"-there was that emphasis again-"is to give people a genuine appreciation for what life was like in Ardent back then. Not to make them stand behind a velvet rope and look at some exhibit that's behind gla.s.s."

"You mean like the exhibits at Susan's museum? The museum where you applied for the curator's job. The job you didn't get."

Marci's hair was especially spiky that day. She tucked one stiff curl behind her ear. "You've been talking to...who? Susan?" She brushed off her own question as inconsequential. "Not that it matters. Not that the stupid job over at that other museum mattered. I applied for it, yes. They didn't give it to me. Yes, that's true too. It's also true that it's their loss." She shrugged to emphasize the point. "And it's true that I'm far more qualified than Susan. I once did an internship at the Field Museum in Chicago, you know. Susan..." Marci's smile was as stiff as her hair. I waited to hear the crack. "Susan has all the right friends. Like on the museum board. She got the job because she has connections. And you know what? Not getting that job turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. It gave me a chance to open this place. I'm plenty busy."

As if it would somehow prove it, she pointed to the calendar on her desk. "I've got school groups scheduled to come in every day this week. Not to shuffle through some stuffy museum and learn absolutely nothing, but to get a genuine feel for what life was like for their great-grandparents. The kids love coming here."

"I can see why." I wasn't trying to shmooze Marci. Honest. I did a quick turn around the parlor and realized there was a lot to like about the Little Museum. If I didn't know that the town was fake, I would have thought I'd been picked up and dropped right into the nineteenth century. Then again, though I knew the house wasn't genuine Victorian, it didn't mean the furnishings weren't.

There was a red velvet fainting couch in one corner that looked incredibly uncomfortable but was as funky as all get-out. There were curio cabinets nearby filled with teacups and teapots. There was a man's top hat and cane in a stand by the door, and even a stuffed pheasant on top of a china cupboard.

Victorian.

Oh, so Victorian.

No b.u.t.tons, as far as I could see, and that was probably a good thing. I wasn't there to get distracted. I was there to pin Marci down. Was she telling the truth about Susan and Larry? Or had her jealousy led her to concoct a story?

I strolled from the parlor into the dining room and stopped cold.

"That punch bowl." I didn't have to point-after all, the punch bowl in question was in the center of the mahogany table and impossible to miss.

Gorgeous china antique. Exquisitely painted and decorated with red and purple grapes.

My mind flashed to my visit to Angela's, and the punch bowl that had once belonged to Aunt Evelyn.

And then it flashed to the park and the night I'd met Marci.

She was carrying a shopping bag that night, and it kerchunked when she handled it.

Like there was gla.s.s inside.

Not the punch bowl, surely. I hadn't seen it at Angela's until the next day. But something Marci didn't want me to see. Something gla.s.s.

I scanned the dining room and the gorgeous oyster plates on the sideboard, the fabulous serving platters on the buffet, the cut crystal stemware, glistening in the morning sun that streamed through the window on my left.

And I wondered how much of it might have been pilfered from Angela's stash.

"That punch bowl is so distinctive," I continued, hopefully as if I hadn't been gobsmacked.

Marci smiled. "It's hand-painted. One of a kind. I know it's not exactly historically accurate to portray a house in Ardent as having so many fine things, but I'll tell you what, I come across something like that punch bowl at an antique shop or an auction and I can't help myself. I have to buy it. I have to display it. Beautiful things deserve to be seen and appreciated, not locked away."

"And you bought the punch bowl in..."

She brushed aside the question. "Saint Louis, maybe. Or it might have been last summer when I took a trip up to Milwaukee. I did quite a bit of shopping there."