Lye In Wait: A Home Crafting Mystery Part 8

"You look like you're about to take a spoonful of cod liver oil."

I grimaced. No doubt she was right. The thought of speaking to Ambrose made little fluttery things flap around in my stomach.

This time I didn't get the good detective's voicemail. The man himself was on the other end of the line in less than ten seconds.

"Ms. Reynolds," he said. "I'd like you to come down and see me, if you would."

"Urn... is something wrong?"

"It's about Walter Hanover's death."

No kidding. "Well, I sort of figured that. Did I leave something out of my statement?" I asked.

"Not that I know of. Why, did you remember something you'd like to add?"

"No. I'm just wondering why you want to talk to me. Can we do it over the phone?"

"I'd rather it was face to face."

"Well, Detective, let me see... today isn't good, and I'm pretty busy tomorrow as well. Perhaps on Monday... oh, that won't work either. Walter's memorial service is that day..."

"I'll be in my office this afternoon between two and four. Come by then, Ms. Reynolds." His tone didn't invite argument.

I tried again anyway. "I have a very busy afternoon planned-"

"I can always ask a patrolman to give you a ride, if you'd rather."

So. It was like that.

I sighed. "All right. This afternoon."

"Looking forward to it," he said.

I bet he was. My teeth clenched as I thought about our brief conversation. Power-hungry egomaniac.

So the afternoon I'd thought was salvaged when Debby and Jacob conveniently showed up at Walter's, saving us a trip to Beans R Us, now would be wasted listening to Ambrose's diatribe about G.o.d-knew-what. Lovely. I went downstairs to see how far behind I was.

One problem with working at home is people don't think you really have a job. Meghan understands, of course, because she's in the same situation. But others think because you have a flexible schedule, which is, let's face it, a perk of being your own boss, your work is more like a hobby than a job. But you still have to put in the hours. In fact, you have to put in more hours, because if your week isn't productive, no one will be writing you a paycheck on Friday.

After looking over my notes, I determined that evening I'd make three hundred lemon lip balms for the holiday bazaars. My inventory already included two hundred of the peppermint and the same number of lavender, but lately lemon had been my best seller. Since they make great stocking stuffers, they'd go pretty fast, and I wanted to have enough.

I gathered the ingredients together on the counter by the old range and put the lip balm tubes in closed baskets in the sterilizing dishwasher. I filled the rest of the racks with gla.s.s bottles for the oatmeal-milk bath salts I planned to make the next day and started it up.

Walter's collection of paper had filled three medium-sized boxes, which still sat in the front hallway by the staircase. I lugged them upstairs and stowed them away in a room Meghan had always planned to make into another spare bedroom, but, until we got around to it, was the junk storage room. The cartons looked right at home, stacked between a bentwood rocker with a split seat and Erin's old hobbyhorse. I put the open box of mementos on the floor under the window.

Next, I packed up the two wholesale orders of soap that should have been sent out the day before, created invoices, packing lists, and mailing labels, and ran over to the UPS drop-off counter. Buzzing back home, I drove a reckless thirty even though the Cadyville traffic patrol was known for being sticklers about the twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit.

Back in the bas.e.m.e.nt, I wiped down the workroom with a vinegar solution. Bleach might be okay on occasion, but I preferred the vinegar; it's a great disinfectant and smells much better than chlorine. When everything was tidied and clean and ready to go, I gathered the ingredients for the oatmeal-milk bath salts and the apparatus to combine the mixture: a heavy-duty paint mixer attached to a drill, and four plastic five-gallon buckets, one for each scent. Kyla had called the day before, wondering if she could work on Sunday. I guess her mom was okay with her working more on the weekends, if not afternoons after school. Once I'd mixed the product, she could spend tomorrow afternoon bottling it.

Feeling a little more in control, I left for the police station at two-thirty. Sparrow had booked a full hour-and-a-half ma.s.sage, so I didn't have a chance to talk to Meghan before leaving, but surely I could handle one little conversation with Detective Ambrose without being prepped by my lawyer housemate.

The rain from the day before had abated, though leaden clouds still hung overhead. Like a down comforter, they provided insulation from the cold. A mild breeze brushed against my cheek, and the thermometer on the front porch read sixty-one. The air smelled sweet and spicy, laced with the faraway smoke from burning leaves. Inhaling deeply, I decided to walk to the station.

Cadyville was abuzz with families and couples from Seattle and elsewhere who turned the downtown into touristville on the weekends. Most of the visitors concentrated on the antique stores and restaurants along First Street or ventured out to the fruit and vegetable stands for fresh produce. With Halloween just over a week away, many were shopping for potential jack-o'-lanterns in the local pumpkin patches. Northwesterners would have to give up on having weekend plans at all if we gave in to the weather, so gray or rainy skies rarely disturbed the flow of people. A steady stream of traffic accompanied my walk.

I strolled along, telling myself I was enjoying the chance to be outside and the bustle of the weekenders, while knowing I was really delaying the encounter with Detective Ambrose. Something about the man, the way he carried himself, expressed himself, felt familiar. Not don't-I-know-you-from-somewhere familiar-I was sure I'd never met him before. But something. Was it his voice? Maybe. Yes, just maybe I heard a faint edge of midwest cowboy there.

But that day I'd been so freaked out about finding Walter I'd probably imagined it, that ease of communication, as if there existed points of commonality we hadn't yet discovered, because now I didn't have a clue why Ambrose had ordered me to come to his office.

The police seemed willing to chalk up Walter's death to suicide. And since it wasn't Ambrose's job to find out why he'd do such a thing, he wouldn't know life had been treating Walter pretty darn well lately.

Well, he should have been looking into what happened, should have cared enough to make it his job.

By the time I reached the police station, my blood had reached a low simmer. Inside, a uniformed cadet escorted me to Ambrose. It was a good thing he didn't try to make me wait, in some pathetic attempt to gain the upper hand. I might have boiled over altogether.

We didn't go to the same room where I'd given my statement two days before, but to an open area delineated from the reception counter by a long shelving unit, where the tidy spines of technical manuals and law books crowded together. Desks with computer workstations lined the room, and the cadet took me to one in the corner, apparently Ambrose's own.

I'd expected clutter, a work s.p.a.ce overflowing with stacks of papers and reports, coffee rings on all available surfaces, files sliding to the floor, the constant ring of the phone. Instead, I found it tidy and organized. Two file cabinets sat against one wall, and his dust-free desktop held only a closed laptop computer, multiline telephone, legal pad and pen, and on one corner a geode the size of a man's fist, cracked open to reveal the crystals within. The walls above the various workstations sported calendars and family photos, but opposite Detective Ambrose's chair hung a rather nice oil painting in the style of Frederic Remington.

Detective Ambrose sat with his back to us. He looked around when we approached, then stood and pulled over a chair for me to sit in. Today he wore khaki slacks and cowboy boots, a deep-blue s.h.i.+rt, and a silver bolo tie with a hunk of turquoise in the middle of it. A sports jacket was draped over the back of another chair. We were the only ones in the room. Everyone else must have been keeping an eye on all those rowdy tourists.

"Do you want anything, Ms. Reynolds? Coffee?"

"No. Thank you."

He sat back down and considered me. I considered him right back. Feathers of gray curved through his chestnut hair and one dark strand swept down over his eyebrow. His irises were a darker brown, with mocha-colored rings around the pupils. Probably one of those men who spend hours in front of the mirror, fussing to look like they didn't. He blinked, slow, like a cat.

He said, "I understand Officer Owens found you in Walter Hanover's place Thursday night."

I raised my eyebrows.

He raised his.

"I'm sorry. Did you ask me a question?" I asked.

Brief anger flashed across his features before being replaced by an expression of bland amus.e.m.e.nt. "What were you doing there?"

"Didn't Owens-sorry, Officer Owens-tell you? And did he bother to mention someone else was in Walter's house that night as well?"

Another slow blink. "I'd like you to tell me what happened. If you would."

I settled back in my chair. "That evening, I was in the bas.e.m.e.nt gathering some things to take upstairs. Work that I needed to finish but didn't feel like doing in my workroom that night-it gave me the creeps down there, if you can imagine that." He c.o.c.ked his head briefly, acknowledging my sarcasm but not interrupting. "While I was downstairs, I noticed a light on across the alley, in Walter's window. Since he wouldn't be coming home to switch it off, I went to turn it off myself." I paused.

"How did you get in?" Ambrose asked.

"The door was open."

"Unlocked?"

"No, open to the elements, though just a crack."

"Did he leave it like that a lot?"

I shrugged. "I really don't know."

Ambrose nodded, reached for the pad and pen.

"So you went in." "

I did."

"And?"

"And ...I...well, I snooped a little. Okay? Happy?"

He leaned back in his chair. "What were you looking for?" His tone was mild, curious.

I opted for the truth, since I didn't have anything better. "I don't know. I guess at first I just wanted a better sense of the man. You'd asked me all those questions that afternoon-about his family, his friends-and I realized I hardly knew him. Yet he died where I work... and live. I wanted to know why. I still want to know. And then I saw family photos and that card table with files and papers, things he'd accrued simply as a consequence of being alive. It made me wonder who would take care of him, you know, funeral-wise. I started going through the papers, trying to find names of family, anyone I could contact about his death. And I wanted to know if they'd tell me more about him."

"The papers or the people?"

"Well, both."

Ambrose tapped his pen on the desk, never breaking eye contact. If I'd lied, he'd have known. He just would have. I didn't understand why I knew this, but I did. The c.o.c.kiness I'd felt when I first entered the police station had deserted me.

I held up my palms. "So? Was that so bad?"

"Nnoo..." He drew the word out. "I suppose I can understand it.

"And I found all sorts of receipts for donations-Walter had tons of money. And that's not all."

"So you were looking through Hanover's files when Officer Owens found you?"

"Not exactly. When Officer Owens came in I was busy trying not to have a heart attack."

He smiled. "Is this where the other intruder you mentioned comes into it?"

"He didn't tell you! That little... I swear..."

"Didn't tell me what, Ms. Reynolds?"

"Will you please stop calling me Ms. Reynolds? My name's Sophie Mae."

"Sophie Mae, then." He made a get-on-with-it gesture.

"Someone else was in Walter's house when I was there. He must have been hiding in the kitchen and accidentally knocked a gla.s.s or something off the counter. When it broke, scaring me spitless-you can't imagine how loud something like that is, when you think you're all alone-he skedaddled out the front door before I could see who it was."

"So you didn't actually see anyone?"

"I saw a shadowy figure-I know, what a cliche-go past, outside the kitchen window. And right before that, I heard the front door open and shut as I was going to look in the kitchen."

"You went to look in the kitchen, thinking someone was in there?" His look said it all.

"Pretty dumb, huh?"

He laughed. "Well, for someone who goes around sticking her bare fingers in lye, I suppose it's par for the course." "

"Hey!"

He made a note on his legal pad. "So you told Officer Owens about the other person-it was a man?"

I a.s.sumed a man, but now that you put it like that, I'm probably being s.e.xist. It could have been a woman. And yes, I did tell Officer Owens, but he was far more concerned with hustling me out of there and giving me friendly advice about how to a.s.suage my guilt about Walter's death."

"a.s.suage your guilt?"

"He seemed to think I felt responsible for Walter dying in my workroom, implying he had used my lye. Which I already know he couldn't have, as I've told you ad nauseum. He told me to go talk to Walter's mother!"

"Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Go talk to Mrs. Hanover."

"Oh. Well, yes, actually, I did. Yesterday."

"Feel better?"

I bit down on the rude retort that came to mind, and he flashed a quick grin. For a brief moment I got a good look at the man behind the profession, and that glimpse gave my hormones an unexpected jolt.

Schooling my face to hide my reaction, and at the same time knowing the effort was futile, I said, "No, actually, I feel worse. She's a nice lady, but she and Walter hadn't been getting along. Now he's dead, and she has to live with that. But she's strong, and she'll be okay. Don't you think?"