Ill-Gotten Panes (A Stained-Glass Mystery) Read online

“What’s up?” A string bean of a teen sporting red hair and freckles clearly inherited from his mother’s side lounged inside the door.

  “Scott Corrigan, we need to ask you a couple of questions.” Diana flashed her badge.

  Scott’s eyes popped wide. The relaxed lounging posture vanished. He stood straight, tense. “What? I . . .”

  “Where were you last Tuesday night?”

  Scott looked from Diana to me and back again. “I, um . . .”

  “Tuesday night. Wasn’t that long ago.”

  “Yeah. I—”

  And then he turned his back on us and bolted.

  “Where’s he going?” I asked Diana.

  “Back door.” She dashed down the steps and disappeared around the side of the house before I recovered sufficiently to consider following her. But what if it was a trick? What if the kid planned to backtrack and escape out the front?

  One thing was clear: This was our culprit in the discarded cat case.

  When a door in the near distance screeched open, followed by a loud oof, I figured Diana had been right. I double-timed it down the steps and jogged around the side of the house.

  Diana had Scott pressed up against the aluminum siding, one hand pulled up behind his back in a classic half nelson. “Now we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way,” she snarled.

  Uh-oh. Aggression issues. “Wait, wait, wait!” I called.

  Scott’s mom burst through the side door, all her cheer gone. “What’s going on out here?”

  Keeping a grip on the kid, Diana looked to his mother. “We need some information from your son.”

  “Let go of him.” Mrs. Corrigan said. “Who are you?”

  “Pace County Police.” Diana released her grip on Scott but remained close enough to grab him again if he tried to run.

  Mrs. Corrigan’s look of surprise shifted to one of anger. She narrowed her eyes at her son. “Scott, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Scott said. “Nothing, I swear. I didn’t see anything.”

  If we weren’t standing on soft ground, we could have heard a pin drop. If someone were in possession of pins.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Scott said.

  His mom folded her arms and glared. “Scott.”

  Scott clenched his jaw, lifted his chin in a show of defiance. But his eyes shifted from face to face to house to ground, and he held himself too still to be anything but afraid.

  “Maybe we can start at the beginning,” I suggested. With no one objecting, I continued. “Did you leave a white kitten in the parking lot behind Edgers Hardware last Tuesday night?”

  “Yes. No.” He glanced between me and Diana again, avoiding his mother’s glare entirely. That part I could relate to.

  “Which is it?” I asked.

  Diana pulled a face. “You’re supposed to let me ask the questions.” She looked to Scott. “Well?”

  “I, uh, I lost the kitten. She got out.” Sweat gathered on his brow, glistened across his freckled nose. “And I tried to catch her but she went behind the stores and I lost her.”

  “Last Monday night,” Diana said.

  “Yes. It was Tuesday night. Definitely Tuesday.”

  Mrs. Corrigan planted her fists on her wide hips. “Scott Michael Corrigan Junior, don’t you dare lie to these police officers.”

  “Oh, no. Not me,” I said. “I’m not an officer. I’m just the one who found the kitten.” I glared at Scott. “On Wednesday morning. In a box.”

  “Scott,” his mother said in that warning voice moms do so well. “You were home all day Tuesday playing that cod game.”

  “All right fine.” Scott put his hands on either side of his head. “It was Monday. And it’s C-O-D, Mom, not cod.”

  Moving her hands to her back pockets, Diana skewered Scott with the kind of suspicious glare all police officers learn to master. “Why lie about the day?” she asked.

  “I didn’t lie.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “I just lost track of the days.”

  “Scott,” his mother warned.

  “What is it you saw when you discarded the kitten in the parking lot Monday night?” Diana asked.

  “I told you. The kitten got away. I was just chasing her, trying to get her back.”

  I folded my arms. “And yet, in all the time I spent putting up found kitten flyers, I never came across a single notice for a lost kitten.”

  Diana held up a hand to hush me, then shook her head and changed the full-stop motion to a single-fingered give me a minute. “Scott, are you aware that intentionally setting loose a domestic pet is considered animal cruelty?”

  “N-No?”

  “Are you aware that animal cruelty is a crime punishable by up to a year in jail?”

  Scott looked at his mother. “Mom?”

  Mrs. Corrigan sprang into action. “Inside, everyone. Inside.” She waved to the side door. “No need to put on a show for the neighbors.”

  We filed into the house, the side door entrance leading directly into the kitchen. I caught the edge of Diana’s sleeve, slowing her sufficiently so I could say, “I just want to know if I can keep the kitten, really. Is all of this necessary?”

  “There’s something more going on here,” she murmured.

  Scott’s mother settled us around a kitchen table with an artificial African violet plant at its center. Scott slumped into a chair, hands folded loosely in front of him.

  “I want to know what you saw,” Diana said to Scott.

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  Resting her forearms on the table, she leaned forward. The aggression she was reputedly dealing with held her spine rigid. “I can arrest you right now, Scott, and have you brought into the station on charges of animal cruelty.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Or you can tell me what you saw that night and we can let my friend here keep the kitten and you can get back to Call of Duty instead of having your fingerprints and mug shot taken.” She glanced up as Mrs. Corrigan set a glass of iced tea in front of her. “Thank you.”

  On her way to her chair, Mrs. Corrigan smacked the back of her son’s head. “Tell the officer what she needs to know.”

  I lifted the glass of tea Mrs. Corrigan had given me and took a long drink. The motion gave me something to do with my hands, some way to distract myself from an uncomfortable situation.

  “But if I tell you what I saw,” Scott said, “you’re going to arrest me anyway.”

  Mrs. Corrigan gasped. “What are you saying? What did you do?”

  Both Diana and Scott ignored her. Scott stared unwaveringly at his hands; Diana stared at Scott. “Why do you think I would do that?” she asked.

  “I dunno, like, obstruction of justice or something,” Scott mumbled.

  “You tell me what you saw, and I promise I won’t arrest you.”

  He looked at his mother, whose slight nod conveyed support and encouragement. “When I was . . .” He paused, sighed, and began again. “I liked the kitten, okay? But every time I looked at it, it reminded me of Phoebe.”

  “Who’s Phoebe?” I asked Mrs. Corrigan in a whisper.

  The distasteful turn of her lips spoke volumes. “The ex-girlfriend.”

  “So you let the cat loose?” Diana suggested.

  “I brought her out to Griffin Park. I wanted to drop her in the lot behind the stores, but I didn’t want anyone to see me, so I went through Griffin, over to the back fence.” He shrugged halfheartedly. “I just kinda dropped her over the fence.”

  I clenched my teeth, held my jaw tight to keep from calling him a careless jerk. The look on his mother’s face told me he’d be getting in enough trouble for that later.

  “Right away I felt bad. It was a stupid thing to do. I wa
s just so mad at Phoebe.” He removed his hands from the table. “I figured the best thing to do was climb over the fence and get her back. And that’s when I . . . saw . . .”

  Though the room was nicely air-conditioned, Scott’s tone seemed to pull the air from the room. I don’t believe any of us breathed while we waited for him to finish his thought.

  “I saw Bill Harper coming out the back door of the hardware store.”

  My voice rang with disbelief. “Bill Harper? The grocer?”

  Scott nodded. His mother gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

  “And?” Diana prompted Scott gently.

  “And he was carrying a brick. And his pants were . . . they were messed up, like he’d spilled something on them, you know?”

  “Spilled coffee maybe?” his mother asked.

  He turned to face her, his tough teen exterior slipping away and leaving a little boy behind. “No, Ma. I think it was blood.”

  * * *

  Afraid of calling attention to himself, Scott had left the kitten where she was and scampered. His guilt over abandoning the kitten paled in comparison over his fear for his life.

  Back in the Jeep, Diana called Detective Nolan at home while I reset the GPS to direct us to downtown Wenwood. It wouldn’t have done to allow me to remain at the Corrigan house, where I was furious at Scott both for dropping a kitten over a fence and for withholding information from the police that might have kept my grandfather out of police custody. I might have channeled some of Diana’s aggression issues.

  Behind the grocery store, I headed for my usual parking spot beneath the walnut tree.

  “What are you doing?” Diana asked.

  “Parking the car. And beginning to see why you’re not a detective yet.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. You’re dropping me here and heading home. This is police business.”

  I shifted the Jeep into park and pulled the key from the ignition. “This is about my grandfather. I’m not leaving.”

  “You are. This could get dangerous.”

  “You’re not going to say something clichéd like, ‘We already have one murder on our hands,’ are you?”

  Diana sighed. “Not saying it doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “Well, I’m not leaving. If what Scott said is true and Bill Harper came back here after . . . visiting Andy”—I let out a breath—“then there’s evidence in there that could lead to my grandfather’s release. I’m going to be here when it’s found.”

  “Suit yourself. But once Chip and his guys get here, you’re staying in the car. You can’t tag along on police business.”

  I said nothing, allowing her to decide for herself what she thought my silence meant. Of course, I had no intention of staying in the car.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “You think Bill Harper is inside the store?”

  As if I could see through walls, I turned to face the back of Village Grocery. Lights remained on inside, though the store had been closed for going on an hour. No shadows passed within to give a clue to the building’s occupancy.

  “I don’t know,” I muttered. “But I know someone who might.”

  I grabbed my phone from its temporary storage space in the center console of the car and punched in Carrie’s number.

  “Who are you calling?” Diana asked. “You’re not going to say anything about what we’re doing, are you?”

  I shook my head as Carrie picked up the call. “Hey, it’s Georgia. Quick question for you. Does Bill Harper work late on Fridays?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably,” Carrie responded. “Why?”

  “No reason. Thanks.” I ended the call and passed on the information to Diana.

  “Maybe we should send a car to his house,” Diana said, her tone more thinking out loud than inviting input.

  “What are we waiting for anyway?” I asked.

  She leaned forward, peering around me to the back of the store. “Chip has to get a warrant. That means tracking down a judge. At home. On a Friday night.” She shook her head and leaned back. “Better him than me.”

  “A judge,” I repeated. Something was tugging at my memory. Something I’d seen.

  Then it hit me. “The courtroom,” I said. If I closed my eyes, I could see in my memory with absolute clarity the patchwork below the window of Town Hall. Brand-new Wenwood bricks used to patch the building where Wenwood held court, where Wenwood’s judges worked. “The judge . . . I don’t think he’ll sign the warrant.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course he will. Mind you, he’ll probably make Chip sweat for a while.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think so. The judge won’t sign it because Bill Harper has his fingers in . . .” In what? What did a few bricks prove? But the police station was crumbling, while Town Hall stood as pristine as ever. Those bricks could only have come from one place: the last man in town with a stash of Wenwood bricks.

  What sort of deal had Harper made with the town elders? With the politicians and the judges—the elected officials—and the rest of the Town Council? If he provided those bricks, what kind of favors was he owed in return?

  In half sentences and incomplete thoughts, I explained my concern to Diana. “What if the judge won’t sign the warrant? What if he insists on, I dunno, more information or some kind of sworn statement from Scott Corrigan?” I asked when I’d finished. “Then Grandy will spend even more time in prison and . . . And what if the judge calls Bill Harper and warns him the police are closing in?” I was nearly shrieking by the time I accused the unknown judge of being a little bit crooked.

  Diana laid a hand on my arm. “Hey, relax. Take a breath, okay?”

  “Easy for you to say. Your grandfather is—” I cut myself off. In fact, I had no real way of knowing if her grandfather was or wasn’t incarcerated, or was or wasn’t alive even, and I didn’t want to risk accidentally offending her again. “What if the only thing that will get Grandy out of jail is in that store and Bill Harper gets rid of it before Detective Nolan can secure a warrant?”

  She took her hand back, sat still in her seat while chewing on the inside of her lip.

  I gripped the steering wheel hard enough I was surprised it didn’t crack. Minutes ticked away on the dashboard clock. A breeze ruffled the tree above, and a single green leaf fluttered down onto the windshield. At last I couldn’t take it anymore. “Well?” I demanded.

  Pursing her lips, Diana nodded once, firmly. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s check it out.”

  Before the import of her statement registered, she was out of the Jeep.

  I scrambled to follow, cursing the tangle my seat belt caught me in when I tried to exit the vehicle without first unlatching.

  She circled around to my side of the Jeep, tipped her head in the direction of the shop. “We’re just going to go see if there’s anyone in there, okay? If no one’s in there, there’s no worry of anyone moving or removing anything without us seeing them arrive. Right?”

  I nodded. “Right. Wait.” I looked her over head to foot. “Where is your gun anyway?”

  Cutting me a hard glance, she said, “Aggression issues.” She rolled a shoulder. “I’m required to leave my weapon in the station house when I’m not on duty. It’s temporary.”

  “Oh. Okay. Night stick?”

  “Same.”

  “Oh. Okay.” So basically we were headed for a building in which a killer may be lurking and all we had to defend ourselves was our charm. And frankly, I feared Diana didn’t have a whole lot of that.

  There had to be something we could use as a substitute. I glanced back at the Jeep, considered its contents: jumper cables, ice scraper, windshield wiper fluid. Would it be possible to use jumper cables as bolas?

  “What’s the holdup?” Diana asked.

  “Trying to think of something . . .” And then I saw t
he bigger picture. The walnut tree.

  I retreated to the Jeep, pulled open the door, and grabbed one of my reusable shopping bags—the small one, the one suited for fresh produce or cosmetics. With silent apologies to Grandy, I climbed up onto the hood of the Jeep, draped the tote bag from its handles along my forearm. Reaching carefully, I tugged a branch low. It took more force than it would have later in the season when the fruit was ready to drop on its own, but I ripped several clusters of walnut fruit from the branch and dropped them into the tote. At the center of each piece of fruit resided the walnut that made for tasty salads and healthy snacks. Its outermost shell, though, the protective outer fruit, was hard as a baseball. As weapons went, walnut fruit was on the puny side. Still, I wouldn’t want to be hit by one.

  “What do you plan on doing with those?” Diana asked as I rejoined her.

  I pulled a fruit from its cluster and handed it over. “Aim for the head.”

  “Niiice,” she said.

  Once again we headed for the market. I kept my attention on the back door, where the lights inside continued to illuminate the back end of the produce aisle, the very spot where I had encountered Bill Harper just two weeks earlier and had forgotten his name. I knew without a doubt I would never forget it again.

  “You stay here,” Diana said, indicating the back with the slightest gesture. “I’m going around the front.”

  “Why? Why do you get to go around the front?” The front offered the potential of other people passing by, the potential of witnesses, the potential of help coming quickly should it become necessary to start pitching walnuts.

  “Just wait here. If you see him, shout.”

  She hurried up the narrow access driveway and disappeared around the front of the store.

  Left on my own, I turned a small circle, taking in my surroundings. The Jeep we’d arrived in was one of only two vehicles present in the lot behind the market. The other was a smallish sedan the make and model of which I was unfamiliar with. There was no other sign of life. Friday night in a small town; everyone had gone home.

  In a matter of seconds, the restlessness took me. Diana meant for me to stay put and give a holler if Bill Harper appeared. Standing still didn’t suit me.