The Whole Cat Аnd Caboodle

Chapter 11

I didn’t argue with Charlotte. I’d seen how well that had worked for Nick. I bit my tongue—literally—and left her unpacking the rest of the wineglasses. I cut through the storeroom and walked out to the back to see how Mac was doing with the table. Maybe once Charlotte and the others talked a little more to Maddie, they’d realize that they needed to leave it to the police and Josh to figure out who’d killed Arthur Fenety.

I was wrong about that, too.

Josh dropped off Maddie at about eleven thirty. I’d ordered sandwiches for lunch from Lily’s Bakery. There wasn’t enough space for a table and chairs in the tiny cubbyhole we used as a staff room, so Mac and I set up a folding teak table that we’d gotten from our last Saturday morning yard sale run in the storage room. It had been painted an ill-advised shade of highlighter yellow. I carried over the chairs I’d mentioned to Mac earlier.

“You know, I think you’re right,” he said, standing back and studying them, his arms folded over his chest. “I think they would work with my table.”

“Are you going to join us for lunch?” I asked.

“Thank you, but I think I’ll man the cash register,” Mac said.

I grinned. “Are you sure?”

He smoothed a hand back over his close-cropped dark hair and smiled. “Very.”

“Oh, Sarah, you didn’t have to go to so much trouble,” Maddie said when she walked in with Charlotte.

“All I did was put out mismatched plates and paper napkins,” I said, inclining my head in the direction of the table, which, because of the color, looked like it was glowing a little. “And don’t worry; I didn’t cook.”

“We should teach you how to cook,” Charlotte said, taking off the apron she wore in the store and draping it over the back of one of the chairs.

I reached for the teapot to pour her a cup of tea. “It’s a lost cause. Just ask Gram. I set off her smoke detector so many times I ruined it.”

“You’re not serious,” Maddie said.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “Would you like a cup of tea?” I gestured at the teapot. It was sitting on top of an old sewing-machine table that I’d repurposed as a small buffet table.

She nodded.

“Rose, we need to teach Sarah how to cook,” Charlotte said, as her friend bustled into the room. Rose was wearing her own store apron and carrying a large plate of sandwiches. Liz was behind her with a second one.

“That’s a lovely idea,” Rose said. She smiled as she moved past me and set the large blue bubble-glass plate on the table. “When do you want to start, dear?”

“Rose, I’m a terrible cook,” I said, as I handed Maddie her cup of tea. “I made a cake once and it was so awful I buried it in Gram’s backyard.”

Rose laughed. “No, you didn’t,” she said, coming around the table and picking up a cup for herself.

“Sadly, I did.” I reached for the teapot. “Mom tried to teach me and Gram tried to teach me and I just can’t cook. I’m hopeless.”

“Nonsense,” she said, turning around to hand the cup of tea I’d just poured to Liz. “You just haven’t had the right teacher.”

I reached for another cup, poured and handed it to her. “Julia Child couldn’t make me into a cook,” I said. “The only thing I know how to make is scrambled eggs.”

She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Julia Child couldn’t make anyone into a cook. She’s dead. You’ll do just fine.” She moved around the table and took the chair at the far end. Liz was on her right and Charlotte on her left, next to Maddie.

Rose reached up and touched my arm as I went by her. “You’ll be hosting dinner parties before you know it.”

“As long as they’re not for the fire department,” I said, grinning at her and taking the chair next to Liz.

“As soon as we figure out who killed Arthur we’ll start your lessons,” Rose said, adding milk to her cup.

I opened my mouth to explain to her that tracking down a murderer wasn’t quite the same as teaching me how to make meat loaf, but Maddie spoke before I could.

“Rose, the police think I killed Arthur.”

“We know something the police don’t,” she said, spreading her napkin on her lap.

Maddie looked confused. “What?” she asked.

“We know you didn’t do it,” Charlotte said.

Maddie smiled, and her eyes welled with unshed tears. She blinked them away and laid a hand on top of Charlotte’s hand. “You have no idea what it means to me to have your support,” she said. “All of you. Josh’s law office has an investigator—he’s a former police officer from Portland. Josh says he’s very good. I guess I’m just going to have to have faith that he can find out who really killed Arthur.”

Rose looked up the table at Charlotte, who shook her head so slightly. I would have missed it if I hadn’t been looking in her direction.

“Why don’t we eat?” I said, reaching for my own napkin. I was happy the idea of Rose and the others playing detective had been put to rest for the moment, but I’d seen the look exchanged between Rose and Charlotte, and I knew they hadn’t given up on the idea.

I picked up one of the platters of sandwiches and offered it to Maddie. She took half a ham and Swiss and smiled at me. “Sarah, I love your shop,” she said. “Where do you get everything?”

“Yard sales and flea markets,” I said, taking half a roast beef, tomato and dill pickle sandwich for myself. “We buy things from people who are moving to a smaller house or into assisted living, or just clearing out the old to bring in the new.” I gestured with one hand. “Pretty much everywhere.”

Avery blew through the door then. She was wearing skinny black jeans and a gray-and-black-checked jacket, and she had her backpack slung over one shoulder. “Most boring morning ever, and I’m starving,” she said. “I forgot my lunch but Mac said there’s food back here.” She caught sight of Maddie and skidded to a stop on the concrete floor. She looked at me. “Sorry, Sarah. I didn’t know you were busy.”

“It’s all right,” I said.

“Hello, Mrs. H.,” she said. “I heard what happened. I’m sorry. It bites.”

“Yes, it does,” Maddie said. She gestured at Avery’s left wrist. “I like your bracelets. Where did you get them?”

Avery held up her arm. She had four brightly colored fabric bracelets around her wrist. “I made them.”

“How did you get the material to hold its shape after you twisted it?” Maddie asked, leaning forward for a closer look.

Avery stretched her arm across the table. “It took a few tries,” she said. She pushed the top bracelet of the stack up her arm a little. “See, this one isn’t as tight. But I figured out that if I wet the fabric and let it dry all twisted, the bracelet held together better.”

She was leaning over my plate as Maddie studied the red-and-black fabric. I grabbed my cup and plate and nudged my chair back.

“Take my seat, Avery,” I said.

She turned her head for a second to look at me. “Oh, hey, thanks,” she said, pushing her hair out of her eyes with one hand. I moved over and slid an empty plate across the tabletop to Avery.

“Nonna says you have a big flower garden,” Avery said to Maddie.

She nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Have you ever used marigold petals to dye fabric?” Avery asked. She slipped her backpack off her shoulder onto the floor.

“No,” Maddie said, reaching for her cup. “But I have used turmeric to dye cotton fabric. It gave me a lovely yellow color.”

“Seriously?” Avery said, reaching for a sandwich. “How long did it take?”

Avery and Maddie spent the next five minutes talking about dyeing fabric. Avery ate a sandwich and a half while peppering Maddie with questions. Finally I leaned over and touched her arm. “Go give Mac a hand,” I said. “I can hear customers.”

“Okay,” she said, jumping to her feet and swinging the backpack up on her shoulder again. “I’m so glad I got to see you,” she said to Maddie. “Maybe I could come over and see your garden sometime.”

Maddie smiled. “I’d like that,” she said. “I’m glad I got to see you, too.”

Avery headed for the front of the store as Elvis wandered in, stopping to rub against my leg before walking around the table and jumping up onto Maddie’s lap. He tucked his front paws underneath himself and started to purr.

“I was thinking about getting a cat,” she said as she stroked Elvis’s fur, “but Arthur was a dog person.”

“How did you and Arthur meet?” I asked.

Rose had slipped out and made a fresh pot of tea. She was moving around the table, filling everyone’s cups, and I smiled a thank-you at her as she got to me.

“We met at a fund-raiser for the Botanic Garden. We were at the same table.” Her free hand traced the edge of her plate. “He told me later he switched his place card with someone else’s because he wanted to meet me.” She had been staring down at the table, but now she looked up at me. “Of course, now I know he wasn’t really interested in me at all.” The color was high in her cheeks. “There’s no fool like an old fool,” she said softly. She looked away again.

“You’re not an old fool,” Charlotte said at once.

“Aren’t I?” Maddie said. “I wasn’t some love-struck teenager. I’m a grown woman who should have known better.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Liz said. “It looks like Arthur Fenety had been charming women out of their money for a long time. He’d had a lot of practice.”

“Maddie, did you give him any money?” I asked. I felt a little awkward asking the question, but I wanted to make sure she wasn’t in any kind of financial trouble. And I still had the feeling she wasn’t being totally frank. She seemed to have trouble looking me in the eye for very long.

She reached for her tea, still stroking Elvis’s fur with her other hand. His eyes were closed in kitty bliss. “No, Sarah, I didn’t,” she said. “The only thing Arthur ever said about money to me was on the day he . . . died.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“Just that he was going out of town for a couple of days because he had some investments he had to see to.”

“Did he say what kind of investments?” Liz asked.

Maddie shook her head. “No. He was singing when he got to my house. I asked him what had him in such a good mood and he said he’d finally figured out what was important in life.” She looked down at the table once more. “He said he had to go out of town to take care of some investments, but after that he was moving to North Harbor for good.”

“Did he get any phone calls while he was with you?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “Not as far as I know, but I was inside cooking, so I guess he could have. I told you that it took longer than I’d expected to make the omelets. First, the burner on my stove wasn’t working properly, and then the phone rang.”

She was still petting Elvis, but he’d stopped purring, I realized. He’d stayed stretched out on Maddie’s lap, but something had clearly annoyed him. His face was scrunched up in a sour expression like he’d just caught of whiff of something he didn’t like. And maybe he had, for all I knew. He could smell a rodent a good forty feet away.

I got to my feet, gathered my dishes and set them on the old sewing table. Then I walked around the table and lifted Elvis off of Maddie’s lap. “Go help Avery in the store,” I said, setting him on the floor. I made a shooing motion with one hand. He made a face back at me, shook his head and headed across the concrete floor toward the door.

Maddie looked tired. There were pinched lines around her mouth and dark circles like smudges of ash under her eyes. “I didn’t poison Arthur, Sarah,” she said.

“He was poisoned?”

She nodded. “The police said it was in his coffee, some kind of pesticide that was banned a couple of years ago.”

I heard Charlotte catch her breath, and at the end of the table Rose was shaking her head. Charlotte cleared her throat. “What kind of pesticide?” she asked.

Maddie played with the strap of her watch. “I don’t know,” she said, looking at her friend. “Something they used to sell to keep slugs off roses, I think.” She shook her head. “They think because of the garden that I had whatever chemical it was, even though you can’t buy it anymore. But I didn’t. I’ve never used any chemicals on my plants and I didn’t put anything in Arthur’s coffee.”

I bent down, put my arms around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “Everyone here knows that,” I said. “And when Josh shows that you don’t have any connection to that pesticide, whatever it is, that will go a long way to proving your innocence.”

I finished clearing the table and carried everything up to the staff room. When I came down, Maddie had her jacket on and she and Liz were standing by the front door with Charlotte.

“We’re going now,” Liz said. “I’m going to walk Maddie to Charlotte’s house.”

“I’ll drive you,” I said. “Just let me run upstairs and get my purse and my keys.”

Maddie caught my arm. “Thank you,” she said, “but I really want to walk after being . . . inside all night.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Thank you for everything, Sarah,” she said, folding me into a hug.

“You’d do the same for me,” I whispered against her cheek.

Maddie and Liz headed off down the sidewalk, and I was about to go back up to my office to deal with a morning’s worth of messages, when I caught sight of another tour bus pulling into the parking lot.

Charlotte was already showing a man and woman a washstand I’d painted black and stenciled with silver stars. Avery and Rose were with a young woman with spiky lime green hair, looking at a pretty decent beginner-level guitar. Elvis was sitting in the tub chair, washing his face. The messages would have to wait.

The second bunch of leaf peepers spent even more than the first had and I wished I’d planted more teacup gardens. They’d all sold and I probably could have sold half a dozen more if I’d had them. Once the store cleared Mac went out to work on the table a little more. I sent Avery to plant some more cups, and left Rose dusting.

“Yell if you need me,” I told her. She waved her dust cloth at me and I headed up the stairs.

When I came back down about an hour and a half later Liz was back. She’d changed into black trousers and a loose white shirt with a denim jacket. She and Rose were sitting in the tub chair with Elvis between them. Avery was cross-legged on the floor at their feet, and Charlotte was leaning against the cash desk.

“What’s going on?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew what the topic of conversation was.

“We were just talking about Maddie,” Rose said. She folded her hands primly in her lap.

“Okay,” I said.

Her eyes darted to Charlotte and then Liz before she looked at me again. “Whoever killed Arthur Fenety has to be connected to those women he scammed.”

“That makes sense,” I said. The coatrack in the window display was crooked. I turned it so the vintage baby bonnets on its hooks could be seen from outside. When I turned back around I noticed that Charlotte had Tuesday’s paper on the counter next to her.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You heard what Maddie said. Josh has an investigator. He’ll look at everything.”

“One investigator,” Charlotte said. “How many clients does that office have?”

I closed my eyes for a moment. It didn’t matter how many deep breaths I took; I still felt frustrated.

“I know that you all want to help Maddie,” I said. “But you’re not detectives. You don’t have the skills to do this.”

“But we do,” Rose said. There was a determined gleam in her eyes that I knew was trouble. “Together we have more expertise that any retired police officer.” She stuck out her chin and stared defiantly at me. Charlotte folded her arms. Liz leaned against the back of the oversize tub chair and a small smile played on her lips. Avery nodded, and even Elvis got into the act, resting one black paw on Rose’s leg.

I shook my head and narrowed my eyes at them. “Okay, explain this expertise to me,” I said.

Rose pointed at Charlotte. “Charlotte was a school principal and I was a teacher. Between the two of us we’ve heard every excuse and made-up story there is, and we can see through all of them.” She looked at Liz. “Liz ran the Emmerson Foundation for years. She can follow the money trail.”

Avery raised her hand then. “And I’m a master at underhanded and sneaky.” She said the words with a certain amount of pride. “I can spot a fake a mile away.” She pulled herself up a little straighter. “And, by the way, when that Arthur Fenety guy came in here last week I said he was off, and you all said I was rude.”

Liz gave her head a tiny shake. “Next time we’ll pay more attention to your judgment.”

Avery inclined her head in her grandmother’s direction like she was royalty. “Thank you, Nonna,” she said. She glanced at Rose, who gave her an encouraging smile.

They’d practiced this, I realized. I sighed and pulled a hand over the back of my neck.

“We have life experience, Sarah,” Rose said.

They were going to do this whether I liked it or not. And whether Nick liked it or not. Maybe I could at least keep them out of trouble. I seemed to be the only responsible adult in the room.

“There’s no way I can talk you out of this, is there?” I said.

Liz and Avery shook their heads.

“No,” Charlotte said.

Elvis chimed in with a loud meow while Rose watched my face.

I sighed. “Just don’t do anything illegal,” I warned. “There isn’t enough in petty cash to bail anyone out.”

Rose beamed at me. She got to her feet and wrapped me in a hug. “You are the dearest, dearest girl,” she said.

“I’m the craziest girl,” I said.

She pulled back and smiled. “I think you should tell Nicolas. He’ll just try to give his mother orders and you know how that will turn out.”

“In other words, you’re sticking me with the job no one else wants.”

Rose put a hand to her chest and looked offended. I knew it was an act. “Of course not,” she said. “It’s just that I think Nicolas will respond a lot better to your charm than he would, say, to mine.”

I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you use your powers for the good guys and not for the evil empire,” I said.

We closed the shop, and Liz gave everyone a drive home. Actually, Avery drove, sitting exaggeratedly upright with her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel as she pulled out of the parking lot, her latest act of rebellion over her grandmother’s comments about her driving.

I collected Elvis and we headed home. The first thing I did was change into the gray sweatpants I used for running and a long-sleeved orange T-shirt so I was easy to see.

“Want to come running?” I said to the cat as I tied my shoes. He yawned, flopped to the floor and rolled onto his back. “So not funny,” I said.

I stretched and turned south so I could run around the water tower. I hoped the running would help me figure out how I was going to explain to Nick that I hadn’t exactly talked his mother out of nosing around in Arthur Fenety’s murder.

I took a shower when I got back, pulled on jeans and a sweater and sat down to make the promised phone call to my grandmother. I could hear the relief in her voice when I told her Maddie was out on bail and staying with Charlotte. After I talked to Gram I tried my mom and dad but the call went to voice mail. The same thing happened when I tried my brother, Liam. I knew Jess was on a date, although I couldn’t remember who with. Elvis was watching Jeopardy! I was restless, wired, with no one to talk to, and when I looked in the refrigerator I remembered that I still hadn’t gotten to the grocery store. Maybe I should take Rose up on her offer of cooking lessons, I thought. I was getting tired of scrambled eggs and toast. I grabbed my jacket and purse. “I’m going out,” I called. I felt a little silly letting a cat know I was leaving. Then I heard an answering meow and it didn’t seem quite so ridiculous.

I was hungry, thinking more about Sam’s chili over a bowl of rice than I was paying attention to where I was walking, which was probably why I turned the corner and walked smack into Nick Elliot.