Ill-Gotten Panes Page 4

  I felt the threat of guilt hovering over my shoulder—out of reach of contented kitten—as we cruised along the river road. The beauty of the area—pale summer sky stretched overhead, thick green leaves on the trees lining the road, the lush blue river rolling along speckled with small sailboats and large cabin cruisers—pushed the thought of Grandy in the police station into another realm. There along the road, a lazy summer day promised nothing but sunshine and good times.

  We rounded a curve and a time-worn structure came into view. Wrapped by chain-link fencing with construction equipment huddling motionless inside the perimeter, a large wooden structure resembling an oversized barn sat partially demolished, its riverside wall open to the air. Bright, new wood virtually gleamed from the dark interior.

  “What’s going on over there?” I asked Carrie, tipping my head in the direction of the river.

  A hint of sadness weighed down Carrie’s response. “That’s the old brickworks.”

  She didn’t need to say more for me to understand her sadness. Once upon a time Wenwood was a thriving town. The Hudson River provided water, the riverbed below provided clay, and at the mill on the river’s edge, brick after brick was molded, baked, and shipped across a young nation. Wenwood was a place for hardworking folk to build a good life.

  The nation aged and the world expanded. Cheaper stone came in from Europe, and people started building with glass and aluminum, and brick making declined. Wenwood went from a bustling little village to a ghost of its former glory. And now it looked like even the old building was surrendering.

  “What are they doing to it? Tearing it down?” I kept my voice soft, in the manner of someone speaking of a tragedy.

  “To start with.” Carrie shut her lips tight for a moment before continuing. “They’re going to put a marina there, with a boatyard and a restaurant and everything. Figure it will attract some tourism to the area.”

  At a loss for words, I nodded. Tourism made sense. Wenwood was an old town, not without its charms, and the view along the river was certainly alluring. By the same token, you never knew what shape a town would take once it began relying on something like tourism for funds.

  The kitten awoke and stretched and dug its claws into my forearm. I cursed soundly, and Carrie gave a triumphant sort of cackle and slowed for a left-hand turn. She guided the car away from the river, back inland. Seconds before I could ask how much farther, the police station came into view.

  A boxy brick building, perhaps two stories, with windows at ground level indicating the presence of a basement, sat far back from the curb of an industrial-looking street. The front lawn featured a flagpole from which both the U.S. and the state flags flew, and a weathered bronze statue of a policeman stood watch over a half-grass, half-clover lawn.

  Carrie steered the car into the lot running parallel to the station and pulled into a spot marked VISITOR, helpful since all the unmarked slots were taken by green and white squad cars. I swallowed against a rising sense of anxiety and climbed out of the car. My legs felt rubbery beneath me, not because we’d been sitting long or the heat of the day was getting to me, but because worry has a strange effect on musculature. I tucked the kitten back into her box and tucked the box under my arm.

  “You’re not bringing that thing into the station, are you?” Carrie stood at the back fender of the car. She dropped her keys into her purse and squinted at me like she could see the jelly my legs were made of.

  “It’s a kitten, not a nuclear device.”

  “Until it meets a K-9 unit.”

  “It’ll be fine.” I hitched my purse higher on my shoulder and marched toward the police station as proudly as I could manage while holding a somewhat fragrant carton emblazoned with a beer logo. Cheap beer at that.

  The building that had appeared almost stately from the road looked a whole lot different close up. Weeds poked up below scraggly hedges, the sidewalk was cracked and uneven, and the brick building looked as if nothing more than a huff and a puff would blow the station house down.

  “Is there some budget deficit in this county?” I asked, grimacing a little while gazing up at the building façade.

  Carrie waved my question away. “Who can keep up with weeds this time of year? And after such a wet spring.”

  We shuffled up the steps—crumbled brick patched with mismatched mortar. “Not the weeds. The building. Why not replace the brick instead of filling it in with this ugly crap?” I toed a bit of concrete, and reached the top of the steps before realizing Carrie was no longer beside me.

  She stood on the bottom step, her hand resting on the brick wall beside her as though it were resting over her heart. “These,” she said fiercely, “are Wenwood bricks.”

  “Yeah, huh?”

  She sighed. “Do you have any idea how old these bricks are?”

  I peered at the brick dust collecting at the base of the wall. “Pretty old, I’m guessing.”

  “Georgia. These bricks are from the original Wenwood factory.” Her tone was reverent, her eyes bright. “Wenwood bricks have been used in historical buildings all along the East Coast, dating as far back as the early seventeen hundreds. They’ve housed presidents, for goodness’ sake.”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded. “And right now they’re housing my grandfather, so can we do the town pride parade later?”

  Without waiting for her response, I tugged open the door to the station and stepped inside.

  Moving from the bright morning outside to the dim station house interior required a moment’s pause for my eyes to adjust. I shuffled forward enough for Carrie to enter behind me, but otherwise stood still and waited and blinked.

  And yet, all the blinking and all the waiting had no effect. By the time I figured out the dim interior would be dim regardless of time of day or intensity of sunlight, Carrie was already across the pitted linoleum and rapping on the tall wooden desk at the far end of the narrow room. Paneling lined the walls, and here and there a community policy flyer was taped to the wall: Clean up after your dog, don’t let trees interfere with power lines, possession of gunpowder is a prosecutable offense. Who knew?

  The desk sergeant shuffled through a doorway behind the desk, in no particular hurry to assist. “Hey, Carrie,” he said. “What brings you by today?”

  “Steve, you guys have Pete Keene here?” she asked.

  Sergeant Steve’s lip curled suspiciously as he watched me approach. “Who’s asking?”

  “I am,” Carrie and I both said at once.

  “Pete’s my grandfather.” I stopped in front of the desk, peered over the sergeant’s shoulder to the doorway he’d come through. Racks with empty gun belts and radios ran from the ceiling to—presumably—the floor. “Detective Nolan came by the house this morning and brought him here for some questioning?” Before I’d finished speaking, the officer was nodding.

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s here. He’s in the back.”

  I glanced to my left, where another doorway led to a hall that at some point in time—perhaps in an earlier century—had been painted a pale green. “Can I go back there?”

  “Only if you’re in handcuffs,” he said.

  “Oh. Well, we’re here to drive him home,” I said.

  Sergeant Steve lowered his chin, looked at me from below his brows. “He’s not available just yet.” He narrowed his eyes. “Whatcha got in that box?”

  “Nothing,” Carrie said.

  “Kitten,” I said. Carrie shot me a quelling look and I shrugged. “What? Again, not a nuclear device.”

  Pointing a finger at the box, the desk sergeant said, “Open it up.”

  I can’t be sure, but I think he was resting his hand on his gun. And I can’t say as I blame him. I had just walked into a police station carrying a carton. All manner of objects could be concealed within its depths. But still, probably not . . . you know . . .

  Using my
body to brace the box against the counter, I lifted the loosely folded flaps and scooped out a wriggling puff of white fur. With no better option, I set the wee wonder on the top of the desk. The kitten blinked its wide blue eyes, sat, and let out a heartbreaking meeew.

  Sergeant Steve made a noise typically reserved for women. It was something between an oooh and an eeeh, and I swear he melted where he stood. “Now that’s the cutest little thing to come through those doors.” His oversized man hand hovered above the kitten before he lowered a forefinger and stroked its head. “You just pick it up from a breeder or something?”

  “Found it in a parking lot,” I said.

  The cop froze. All-business eyes looked down at me. “You found it?”

  “In the parking lot,” I repeated, somewhat less assured. “Will my grandfather be much longer?” I had a sinking feeling the kitten conversation wasn’t going to end in my favor, and I really, truly wanted it to. Though new to the pet thing, I was on a crash course to understanding that there were few things in the world that couldn’t be improved by the presence of an animal.

  “What was it doing in a parking lot?”

  “Hiding in a beer carton,” Carrie murmured.

  “Someone left this little guy in a box?” Outrage tinged Sergeant Steve’s words. I wasn’t sure if I was glimpsing Steve the cop or Steve the animal lover. Either way the thunder forming across his brow made me uneasy.

  “Honestly, we don’t know whether someone put the kitten in the box or the kitten got out of its house and found the box all on its own,” I fibbed, hoping to defuse his impending wrath.

  The officer pressed his lips into a tight line, making his cheeks bulge like a hamster storing seeds. He exhaled volubly through his nose, while somewhere off to my left a door creaked open. Subdued male chatter drifted in my direction. Neither of the voices had Grandy’s natural growl.

  “About my grandfather?” I prompted.

  Sergeant Steve scooped up the kitten, gave it a rub between the ears, and handed it back to me. “He’ll be at least another hour. At least.” He nodded at the kitten. “Meantime you could get to work making signs, find out who that kitten belongs to.”

  My jaw dropped inelegantly. I was feeling very possessive toward the kitten, and pretty confident some hard-hearted human had discarded the little thing. But I was afraid if I admitted that last bit to the police, they’d make me leave it with them or, worse, bring it to a shelter, where it would be incarcerated with other homeless animals while it awaited trial—or whatever it is they have to wait for. And what if I didn’t get custody?

  “That’s a great idea, Steve,” Carrie said. She turned to me, eyes bright, smile wide. “We could make flyers, don’t you think? And then the”—she waved at the creature—“that could be reunited with its rightful owner.”

  I squelched the urge to glare at her, focusing instead on setting the kitten back in its box. Since I had only one free hand, the flaps were presenting a problem.

  “You,” a male voice declared.

  Keeping pressure on the carton with my hip, I turned to peer along the hallway to my left. Headed in my direction in the company of a uniformed officer was the blue-eyed guy from the hardware store.

  He was stopped in the hallway—eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring, jaw muscles bulging—and he was pointing at me.

  * * *

  “Yeah, you,” the blue-eyed man shouted, striding down the hallway.

  In the movie of my life, this will be the moment where I look up and our eyes will meet while violins begin to play softly. His anger will fade away, replaced by a mischievous smile. “You,” he’ll repeat, “are the person I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”

  But this was reality. And in reality, his anger didn’t fade as much as it intensified.

  “You did this. Because of you, I’ve spent my whole morning in an interrogation room.”

  “What did I do?” I attempted to take a step backward, out of his direct line of fire. The motion disturbed the tension holding the box in place and the box crashed to the floor. An indignant mrow escaped from the box.

  He closed the gap as I bent to retrieve the fallen carton. “You told the police I was in the hardware store the day Andy Edgers was killed. I don’t know what you think you walked in on—”

  “I never said anything to the police,” I said. “Well, not about you anyway.” My fingers caught the top of the carton. Rather than lifting cleanly, though, the carton tipped and I lost my grip. The box crashed back to the ground. A white ball of fluff streaked out and launched itself, claws extended, onto the gentleman’s leg. “Oh, crap.”

  The man shouted a curse and jumped back. The kitten dug in and inched up.

  “What did I tell you about bringing that thing in here?” Carrie asked. “Now look. It’s attacking Tony.”

  I dived toward Tony, falling to my knees to better grab the kitten. My hands wrapped its little body in the split second before Tony’s hands landed on mine. Together we prized the complaining cuteness off his knee while the uniformed officer looked on, hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking.

  Clutching the kitten close to my heart, I stood. “Sorry about that.”

  Tony’s eyes were wide, deep blue rimmed in bright white. His mouth opened but no words were forthcoming.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  He blinked.

  Carrie appeared beside me, holding the empty carton out to me, shaking it a bit. “Put it back.”

  “Someone threw it away,” I said, quite forgetting Tony was mad at me even before the kitten attack.

  The uniformed cop stepped forward. “Maybe best to put the cat back in the box for now, ma’am.”

  I did as I was told, but kept my gaze on Tony. I told myself this was because I needed to make him understand I hadn’t been responsible for him being questioned. That was a much nobler reason than staring because he was irrationally easy on the eyes. “Really,” I said. “It wasn’t me.”

  He blinked again. “You’re telling me you didn’t drop a cat on me.”

  “Well, I didn’t do that either. Not really.”

  “It was an accident,” Carrie added.

  A new voice broke into the fray. “Miss Kelly.”

  I had to lean left and peer around Tony’s shoulder to see the source. Detective Nolan stood midway along the hallway, leaning half outside a door. “Me?” I asked for absolutely no logical reason.

  The detective sighed. “Would you come with me, please?”

  For the first time since Grandy left the house that morning, my muscles completely seized. Hands sweating, knees knocking, I froze.

  “Miss Kelly?” Detective Nolan prompted. “Now, please. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  4

  When I left the city and moved back to sleepy old Wenwood, I naturally had a lot of ideas how my days might go. Many of my visions involved sleeping late, creating stained glass masterpieces, even searching for my next job. None of my visions involved sitting in the police station with a boxed kitten under my chair, fighting to stay calm in the face of questioning.

  It wasn’t like I was in the middle of a Law & Order rerun—the station room lacked the noise and bustle of its television equivalent—yet nerves kept me from drawing a full breath and prevented me from holding my bouncing foot still. The detective whose desk I’d been deposited beside was the same detective who had driven off behind Grandy-in-a-squad-car earlier, though his suit jacket now hung from the back of his chair and his tie had gone askew.

  “Where’s my grandfather?” I peered around the small room, knowing I hadn’t missed spotting him, but needing to double-check all the same. The walls were a vague blue, the desks consumed by stacks of paper and bulky computer monitors, and the only person other than the detective and me was a policewoman in shorts and a T-shirt apparently trying to bring some order to her desk
.

  “Mr. Keene didn’t mention your visit to Edgers Hardware,” the detective said.

  “I don’t see why he would. Where is he?”

  Detective Nolan let out an annoyed little huff. “He’s in an interview room. Having tea.”

  I bit the inside of my lip to keep from grinning. Grandy was more than a little particular about how to prepare his tea. If he had actually coerced the officers into bringing him a cup he was willing to drink, there was no need for me to worry about his well-being. Tough old guy. A bit of soft love warmed my heart and took away the chill of worry.

  “Tell me about the hardware store.”

  “What about it?”

  He glared at me from beneath lowered brows.

  I shifted in my chair, wished I’d kept the kitten in my lap. “I don’t mean to be difficult,” I said. “I just need a more specific question. If you could.”

  Rubbing a hand across his forehead, eyes closed, he said, “Your visit to the hardware store. What happened?”

  Still wasn’t very specific. But maybe that’s the way cops get the best information? Didn’t seem right, being so vague and all, but what did I know? I was just a bean counter.

  I took a breath. “I stopped into the hardware store to pick up a caulking gun and some caulk. The guy—the gentleman—who was just leaving, Himmel, was already in the store with Mr. Edgers.”

  “They were arguing?”

  After a moment’s thought I said, “Yes, I’d call it arguing.”

  “And they were arguing about . . .”

  I shook my head, marking time while I worked to recall. “Some kind of order. I don’t know what for. Mr. Edgers was . . .”

  A new thought formed in my head.

  “Mr. Edgers was?” he prompted.

  Through my distraction, I replied, “He was disrespecting the other guy, you know, doing the whole ‘I’m older and you should do what I say’ thing.” But my mind was chewing on one question. I wasn’t the one who’d told the police Himmel had been arguing with Edgers. So who had? I had a sense Detective Nolan wouldn’t tell me if I asked him. Not yet anyway. Maybe if he thought I was being extra helpful? “And something about revitalization and renewal. Or the other way around. It sounded like Mr. Edgers wasn’t happy about it.”