“Warn me?”
“Yes. You see, there’s a man in town. And he’s here to write a book about Skary.”
“Oh?”
“Well, we are quite famous.”
“True.” Martin looked apprehensively at Missy. “What exactly are you warning me about?”
“Well, no doubt he’s digging for dirt. Sells better, you know. I just wanted you to know your secret is safe with me.”
Just the word secret caused his eyes to blink even faster.
“What secret?”
“Oh, you know, that little thing that happened between you and the mayor.”
The blood drained from his face. “What … um, what thing?”
Missy was amused. She never knew this little tidbit of information would come in quite so handy. “Oh, you know,” she said in a loud voice, “when you covered up his embezzling—”
“Ssshhhhhh!” Martin practically screamed.
“What, dear? I’m half deaf.”
“Well, I’m not! Lower your voice!”
“Oh. Sorry. Yes. I do sometimes speak a little too loudly.”
Martin blotted sweat off his brow. “How’d you know about that?”
“Oh, honey, it’s not important. I mean, who cares what a little old lady like me knows, right?”
Martin grumbled. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m just saying that this fellow might be poking his nose where it doesn’t belong, you see. Wanting information. And I just want you to know that your secret is safe with me.” She winked. “Along with where you bought your car. Though you’d better come up with some explanation for that. You know Oliver. He’ll ask questions.”
Martin breathed heavily and stared at the table. “The mayor is a friend. He had a moment of weakness. He’s nearly paid it all back.” He glanced up at Missy.
She grinned empathetically. “You don’t have to tell me, Marty. I’m the mayor’s biggest fan.”
Though shaken, Martin seemed to be easing off the ulcer a bit and took a bite of his food.
“Listen,” Missy said, “I’ll let you get back to your lunch.”
“Fine.”
Missy smiled down at him as she stood. Yes, Marty Blarty would come in very handy, very soon. But first, while she was here, she had to take care of one little detail.
Marlee’s jaw dropped, and she covered her mouth and squealed as if they were sixteen again. “Get outta town!”
Ainsley rolled her eyes a little, glancing up to make sure the customers were all engaged in their food and not in her conversation with Marlee. “I can’t believe I’m saying it, to tell you the truth.”
“Well, he’s drop-dead gorgeous.”
Ainsley smiled. “You think so?”
“Well, yeah! I mean truthfully, I’d never really noticed before, and that’s saying a lot because as you know I’m quite fond of men.”
“I was kind of mean to him, though. I was so shocked that he asked me out, I just sort of cut him to the quick.”
“But you said you had a nice time over at his house.”
“Well, yeah, I mean, I made him burn his dinner. It was the least I could do.”
“He obviously still likes you.”
Ainsley smiled a little. “Yeah. I’m just not sure how to go about asking him.”
“Asking him out?”
“No. Asking him to ask me out again.”
“Why don’t you just ask him out?”
“Marlee, women aren’t supposed to ask men out.”
“Why?”
“Because … well, they’re just not.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not proper.”
“Well, it works great for me.”
“Anyway, I don’t know what to do.”
“Just go over there. Talk to him.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is easy.” Marlee looked Ainsley in the eye. “Swallow your pride.”
“I’ll go visit him tonight. Just to say hello. It can’t hurt.”
Marlee leaned on the counter. “Maybe you could be a little more forthright about your intentions in being there. After all, it took a lot of guts for this guy to ask you out. The least you could do is help him out.”
Ainsley hugged her friend. “You’re right. Thank you.”
She sensed someone behind her and turned. “Oh, hello, Miss Peeple. I didn’t see you standing there.”
The old woman grinned at her. Her beady, cataract-ridden eyes, a misty and melting blue, seemed bright with mischief. “That’s okay, dear. I just need change for a dollar.”
“Sure.” Ainsley fumbled in her pockets for four quarters. “What brings you by The Haunted Mansion? Don’t see you here often.”
Missy held out her hand for the quarters. “Well, honey, sometimes even when you’re my age you have to venture out and do some things you’re not comfortable doing.” She gave Ainsley a little wink and hobbled out of the restaurant.
Marlee turned to her and grinned. “Good advice.”
She had sat in the car for forty minutes trying to get enough nerve to go up to his house. He was home. She could see him through the windows. Eating dinner. Playing with his dogs. Starting a fire. He seemed comfortable being by himself. Being alone gave her a complex. But he was graceful at it, absurd as that sounded.
By the time she finally decided to get out of her car, night had fallen.
She walked up the hill and knocked. She could hear the dogs scurry to the door, but they didn’t bark. The door opened, and he smiled as soon as he saw her.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she replied.
“Come in.”
“I can’t.”
He seemed a little amused and crossed his arms. “Oh? Well, if I’m lucky maybe my food will catch on fire, and you’ll have to come in and cook me dinner again.”
“You’ve already eaten.” He raised his eyebrows and she cleared her throat. “I mean, haven’t you?”
“Ainsley, it’s freezing. Either come in, or tell me to get my coat and let’s go somewhere.”
Ainsley smiled. “First of all, I wanted to apologize for what happened to your dinner the other night. If I hadn’t shown up on your doorstep unannounced, you wouldn’t have burned those pork chops.”
“True. It’s all your fault. But once again you’ve shown up unannounced, and I still don’t know why.” He smiled warmly at her.
“Okay, I wanted to … I just needed to tell you that … or ask you … I mean say that …” She shook her head. “I seem to lose my vocabulary when I’m around you. Maybe because you’re a writer.”
“It’s okay. I seem to speak the same language of incoherence when I’m around you.”
She laughed at that. “Wolfe …”
“Yes?”
“The other day, when you came to my doorstep and you asked, well, you asked me … you asked me that question. You know the one.” He shook his head. “Okay, I guess I deserve to have to say it out loud.” She sighed heavily. “What I’m trying to say, and doing a poor job at it, is that maybe I was too hasty in declining your offer. Your offer to … to … do the date thing.”
“Do the date thing?” He chuckled.
“Yes, and maybe I was a little harsh in my decline as well. It’s hard enough to get rejected, but to get rejected with a good, old-fashioned scorning is twice as bad. I apologize.”
He smiled. “Apology accepted.”
“Thank you. And I would also like to say that, well, I’d like to … to … go … on a date with you.” A few yards away, the bushes rattled. Ainsley startled. “Raccoons?”
“Probably.”
“Yes, well, anyway, I don’t think it’s right for me to have you ask again. But I’m a lady, and I refuse to ask a man out. So you see, I have a dilemma.”
She imagined in the dark that his face was bright with amusement. “I see that you do.”
“And I don’t exactly know how to rectify it.”
Wolfe scratched his for
ehead. “Well, maybe we should just meet for lunch. Just as friends. Then your problem would be solved, wouldn’t it?”
Indeed, it would. “That would be wonderful.”
“How is Saturday? I’ll pick you up … just to save gas, of course.”
“Of course. Sounds nice.”
“All right.”
“All right.” Ainsley held out her hand, and he shook it gently.
“You’re freezing. Young woman, you need to warm up.” She caught a gleeful twinkle in his eye. “I must insist you come in and sit by the fire, just for a little bit. Let me fix you some hot cocoa.”
She gazed into his eyes. They were approachable and sensitive. She looked away but agreed, and he guided her into his house.
In spite of the three scarves, two coats, and two pairs of mittens she wore, Missy Peeple shivered, causing the bushes she sat by to rustle. Thankfully, only a couple of squirrels had noticed. She put the binoculars up to her face again. From her vantage point she could see Miss Parker in the kitchen watching him do something at the stove. They were chatting like old friends.
She’d learned to read lips years ago when she thought she was going deaf (only to find out it was a buildup of wax in her ears), but the distance was too great for her to pick up on any of this conversation. She guessed from the body language, though, that there was more chemistry in that kitchen than in a tenth-grade science lab. The thought irritated her so much she ground her teeth together. At least that stopped the chattering. Her instincts were right. Miss Parker was officially the very first kink in her plan.
A couple small pine trees stood twenty or so yards nearer to the house, and she wondered if she could make it to them without being seen. It was a risky move, but there was, after all, a lot at stake.
She seethed at the thought of how Mr. Tennison had failed to do anything more than make Boo more resolute. She could tell by the way the gentleman left with his coat buttoned tighter than a straitjacket, his head hung lower than his stooping shoulders, that the meeting had been a disaster. What would anybody do without her? At least she’d put Tennison on the right track, but now Wolfe was falling in love with the town saint. This was not good.
Missy knew there was dirty work to be done, and she was going to have to be the one to do it … with the help of a few unsuspecting friends. She rubbed her mitten-clad hands together in the chilly air.
Hunkering down in the bushes, she held her breath and tried to anticipate how much time it would take her to cane her way up the small hill to those two pine trees. Enough loose gravel covered the hill to lead to her everlasting demise. Still, if she could only read those lips … maybe she could rest assured. Maybe Boo was having doubts about the faith. Maybe that’s why he’d asked her inside.
She stood up as straight as an old woman with a hunched back could stand, steadied herself with her cane, and let the binoculars rest around her neck. Drawing in a deep breath, she took one step forward.
She froze at the cracking of a limb, and then heard a voice say, “What are you doing?”
Garth Twyne swatted at the sharp twig that was poking the side of his head and kept his eye on Miss Missy Peeple, whose own eyes were wide as a raccoon’s. A warm sensation of satisfaction flowed through his body at the thought of what he’d just witnessed.
Her face was powder white, and her mouth was hanging open. Garth finally broke the twig off the tree, threw it to the ground, and crossed his arms authoritatively.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
Suddenly he heard Miss Peeple gasp for breath. Her mouth widened, and she clutched her heart. Her eyes were wide with terror and she looked straight at Garth. “No. Don’t. Please. Please don’t do this to me!”
Garth tried to back up, but there was no place to go. The brush was too thick. “Do what to you?”
“No. No! Stop! Please. Please, have mercy! Don’t hurt me!”
Garth shook his head, hushing her with his fingers. “I’m not hurting you. What are you talking about! Hush! Be quiet!”
“Oh! The agony! Oh, please. Please don’t kill me! Please!” She lunged forward and grabbed the side of his head. He shoved her backwards.
Garth felt himself grow angry and despondent all at once. Was he dreaming this? What was going on? “I’m not hurting you! What’s happening here? Are you having a heart attack or something?”
Suddenly, with one big gasp of air, Missy Peeple tumbled to the ground and rolled on her side. She coughed twice and twitched a little before becoming perfectly still. Garth was paralyzed with fear. What had just happened? Was she dead? Had she just died in front of him?
He glanced around and then leaned over her, trying to feel for a pulse. The old woman was so bundled up he couldn’t even find her neck. And what in the world was he supposed to do if he didn’t find a pulse? Revive her? He knew CPR but had never actually used it, on a human anyway. He’d given mouth-to-mouth to a horse and a dog once, but he gagged at the thought of putting his lips on her old and crusty ones.
Carefully rolling her over onto her back, he tried to see if her chest was moving up and down. He could tell nothing. He knew as time passed, his chances of reviving her dimmed. With an unsteady stomach, he swallowed back the threatening bile and decided he’d better at least give it a try.
He started to bring his mouth to hers when suddenly her eyes flew open and she said, “What? You’re going to kiss me now?”
Garth stumbled backward and yelped in fright, shivering next to the small tree. Missy Peeple managed, with great effort, to sit up and dust herself off. Garth felt as if he’d just seen someone rise from the dead.
“Are you crazy?”
She smiled deviously. “A little, dear. Does that scare you?”
“What was that stunt? Faking a heart attack?”
“That wasn’t a heart attack. That was you attempting to murder me.” With a fat mittened hand, she brushed her strawlike hair out of the way. “I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“Isn’t it clear, young lad? You’re out here. I’m out here. We’re both hiding in the bushes, and it’s not because we’re nature lovers.” She glanced toward Wolfe Boone’s house. “Is it?”
Garth swallowed. “Look, I was just on the way up to see if Ainsley was okay. She’s somehow got herself tangled up with that creep, and someone’s gotta watch out after her.”
Missy Peeple’s eyes narrowed. “You expect anyone to believe that?”
Garth frowned and pulled the collar of his coat up, instinctively looking around. “Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but—”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m up to. What matters is that we have one thing clear here.”
“What’s that?”
“You never saw me. I never saw you.”
Garth scratched his chin. “Okay. Fine.”
“And if you decide it might be fun to tell someone you saw me out here, what you saw back there will pale in comparison to what I can come up with. Don’t you see? Everyone always believes the little old woman. If I say you tried to harm me, they’ll believe me. If I say you tried to rob me, they’ll believe me. And honey, if I can fake death good enough to trick a man who clones pigs, then by golly, you better believe everyone else is going to fall for it.”
“Wait a minute,” Garth said, his fists in tight balls. “If I supposedly murdered you, then you’d be dead. How is a dead woman supposed to tell everyone who her murderer is?”
Miss Peeple smiled and cackled, then slowly opened her mitten. “Like this.”
Garth looked at her hand. “Like what?”
“Look harder, dear. Don’t you see it?”
“See what?” Garth asked with irritation. He leaned forward to take a closer look. Then he saw it. A few strands of his blond hair.
Her mitten clamped shut and she stuck her hand into the pocket of her coat. “DNA evidence. You should know about DNA, with your pig fiasco a
nd all.”
Garth shook his head. “This is absurd. And I didn’t clone any pigs.” He took a look around again. All was calm and silent. “Besides, I have a logical reason for being here. What I can’t imagine is why you’re here.”
“You’re so naive,” Miss Peeple sneered. “You’re here for selfish reasons. I’m here for the good of the—”
The front door opened, and the sound of voices poured over the hill. Before Garth knew what was happening, the feeble old woman in front of him had yanked him to the ground with the strength of a gorilla. After lifting his face out of the dirt, he managed to crawl between two bushes to get a better view. He gasped.
A stinky mitten slapped him in the mouth. “Shush!”
Garth batted her away and hunkered down. There she was, standing next to Boo, both of them laughing like the best of friends. Garth watched carefully as Ainsley hugged Wolfe, then walked down the sidewalk to her car. Garth remained motionless in the shadows, as did Miss Peeple. Ainsley drove away, and then the porch was silent again.
He glanced at Miss Peeple, who was looking at him.
“What?” Garth asked in a harsh whisper.
Her eyes narrowed in quiet satisfaction. In a very light tone she said, “You might come in quite handy after all.”
CHAPTER 11
IN A DARK, dusty old room of the community center, long forgotten by everyone but Missy, she sat quietly in a chair, tapping her cane against the creaky wood floors. Alfred Tennison had just left, and she knew she had him on the right track. Driven by greed to write a best-selling book about her little town, he was nearly the perfect tool for all she had in mind to save it. She’d fed him more information, just enough to whet his appetite. Just enough to drive the plan further along. But not enough to give him more power than he should have.
Something continued to bother her though, and as she thumped her cane she tried her best to reason her way through various scenarios. But no amount of brain power could give her the answer she needed to one very simple question:
Who had witnessed to Boo?
Perhaps in the scheme of things it was not all that important, yet it nagged at her in a way that even disturbed her sleep at night. And she was not accustomed to missing her beauty sleep. She raised her fingers to her face and gingerly applied pressure to the bags under her eyes, all the while thinking about who could’ve done this thing. Who in their right mind would tell the good news to the one person single-handedly responsible for putting Skary, Indiana on the map?