Blessed Is the Busybody (22 page)

I decided to slide tactfully into my questions about the key. “I love the birdhouse,” I said, nodding in that direction. “I thought I’d see if you could tell me where you bought it?”

Brownie turned bright red. Now, I’ve heard this phrase before and thought I knew what it meant. But I have never, never seen anything quite like this. The poor guy’s complexion went from milk toast to chili pepper in the space of seconds.

“Yes, well . . .” He swallowed.

Fascinated, I simply waited and smiled expectantly.

“Yes, well,” he said again.

“Is that the name of a shop?”

“No, I . . .” He swallowed once more. “No, I . . .”

I knew better than to pretend “No-I” was his second choice. “It’s just so cute,” I said, hoping he’d recover as I babbled. “We live in a parsonage, but it would be nice to have one made, wouldn’t it? So we could take a little piece of our history with us when we leave?”

Not that I thought there’d really be enough time to buy a birdhouse and pack it before we did.

“I . . . I got it from a young lady in town who makes them herself.”

“How on earth did you find her? Such a clever idea.”

He unzipped his jacket as if he needed air. Underneath I glimpsed an undershirt fresh from a Fruit of the Loom package.

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “She more or less found me. She showed me a sample, and I, well, I thought about it and decided it would be a perfect birthday present for my wife. The details were so lovely and delicate, I knew they would appeal to Hazel.”

Hazel is as delicate as Godzilla. Brownie was trying to pull a wooly mammoth over my eyes. From the color of his cheeks and the panic in his eyes, I suspected that Brownie hadn’t been thinking about
Hazel
at all. And his interest in Keely, who just happened to have worked side by side with Jennifer, intrigued me.

“I don’t suppose she has an address, or phone number?”

“She . . . she lives in Weezeltown. Her name’s Kelly or Keely. I’m afraid that’s all I can remember.”

I didn’t ask more since I knew exactly where I could find Keely tonight. I nodded my thanks. “By the way,” I said, “I heard the strangest thing. You know the house on Church Street where they think Jennifer Marina was killed?”

He was milk toast again in a second. It was like watching some exotic variety of chameleon. And he wasn’t finished. He was growing paler. “I’ve heard that story,” he said. “There’s no proof, is there?”

“Not really. But I’m trying to help a realtor friend of mine track down all the keys. And for some reason she thinks
you
had one. Is that just a silly rumor?”

“Why doesn’t she simply change the locks?”

I’d been ready for this. “That’s the plan. But it’s a bit complicated. Old door, state-of-the-art hardware. The locksmith has ordered new parts.” The parts about the door’s condition and hardware were true enough, so the lie didn’t nag too loudly.

“I had a key,” he admitted. “I lost it somewhere. I’m sure it had nothing to do with that poor girl’s murder.”

I hadn’t suggested it might, but of course I wasn’t surprised he had made the connection. “Do you remember when you lost it?”

“I can’t see how that would help you.”

“Well, you’re probably right. I’m sure you’ve told the police about this, right? They know the details.”

“It’s time for my run now, Mrs. Wilcox.”

“Oh, just call me Aggie. Even Detective Roussos calls me Aggie. Every single time we discuss the case.”

He was now vanilla ice cream. “I lost the key sometime in July, after my brother moved out. I am sure it fell out of my pocket, or it’s in my house somewhere in an old pair of pants. Now I really must get going.”

Judging from today’s ensemble and his usual sartorial splendor, I doubted Hazel allowed such a thing as an old pair of pants in this house. But I smiled.

“Thanks for chatting with me.” I started down the path, expecting Brownie to jog past me. But I was halfway down the block before I saw him leave his property.

In the other direction.

Lucy was out of town for the weekend, and May had the girls at her house. So after pizza, I left for Don’t Go There by myself. I had agonized over what to wear. Not my Green Meanie mom duds, not my minister’s partner duds—which weren’t all that different—nothing even faintly provocative. I settled on dark pants, which wouldn’t show blood, vomit, or spilled alcohol, and a gray turtleneck sweater I could toss in the washer if necessary. I was ready to roll.

I was beginning to feel at home in the bar’s parking lot, the scariest thought of any day. I parked between a pickup and a Ford Expedition so I wasn’t particularly visible. Mine may be the only minivan ever to grace the lot.

No one had fixed the sign and the usual “Dons” were hanging out where the Harleys held sway. Since I was now something of a regular, they hooted at me as I walked past. I nodded regally and swept inside.

The entertainment hadn’t started, for which I was profoundly grateful. A female vocalist was belting out “Take Me as I Am” on the jukebox. I thought a plea for better understanding of the fair sex might be lost on this crowd.

The exhaust fans were working overtime, but the room was already smoky. Through the haze I noted no familiar faces. Sax wasn’t at the bar, and if Keely was in attendance, she’d gone outside to breathe between rounds.

The new guy tending bar was short, completely bald with an unfortunate pointed head. He had gold hoops in both ear-lobes and a stud in each nostril. As I watched, one of his customers, a big guy in a blue work shirt, apparently said something he didn’t like. Before I could blink, the bartender leaned over, grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt, and yanked him halfway across the bar. The room went silent. Even the song ended. I backed toward the door.

“Sorry, man,” Work Shirt said.

The bartender deposited him back on his chair and went to fill another order.

The buzz began again, and Willie Nelson, singing about mamas and cowboys, filled in all the cracks.

I had to stop coming here.

I waited until the bartender had filled his order, then went to the bar. “Hi,” I said brightly. “I’m looking for Keely. Is she here tonight?”

“Quit. What do you want?”

To humor him I ordered a beer I wouldn’t drink and waited until he brought it to me. “I really need to find her. I’m interested in one of her birdhouses. I know she lives around here . . .”

He sized me up, and I guess he decided I looked more Junior League than serial killer. “End of Mill Street. Blue house on the right. Her apartment’s on the top floor. But she’s leaving town.”

He was so much nicer than Sax, almost cuddly. I paid him, tipped him generously so he wouldn’t grab me by my sweater, and left the beer on the counter. Work Shirt was drinking it when I left.

I pulled out of the lot without incident and started down Mill. Weezeltown is nobody’s inner city, but I wondered if Keely was leaving our fair village because living on this end had creeped her out. Streetlights in Weezeltown are few and far between. The button factory, a substantial brick building, is boarded shut, and a layer of razor wire has been added to the tall chain-link fence that surrounds it. Tonight mongrel dogs wandered the sidewalks, and only a few citizens had braved their front porches to enjoy the evening air.

I cruised Mill for four blocks before the street whimpered and died. Trash strewn, treeless acres rose up before me. There hadn’t been any warning, as if everyone but moi knew Mill ended here. I spotted a blue house on the right, not the last but the next to the last, and figured it had to be the one.

There were two scrawny border collies sleeping under the old Chevy hoisted on concrete blocks in the front yard. Luckily they were conserving their strength, and neither seemed to notice as I parked and went around the side where a wooden fire escape led to the apartment upstairs. The mailbox just to the right of it read “K. Henley.” Of course Keely has a last name. She isn’t Cher or Madonna. I’ve just never thought about it.

I took the fire escape rather than see if there was a more traditional entrance. I wasn’t sure how long the dogs would play dead, and I wasn’t anxious for them to start earning their keep.

I rapped on the glass window at the top of the door. My view was obscured by ruffled curtains, but there was a light inside. I was hopeful.

“Keely? It’s Aggie Sloan-Wilcox. We talked at Jennifer’s funeral?”

The door opened so quickly I stumbled against it. Before I could right myself someone jerked me inside.

Keely, in a tight scoop neck T-shirt and sprayed-on jeans, slammed the door behind us and bolted it shut.

“I thought it was him!” She squeezed her eyes closed. “Nobody ever comes up here.”

“Him?”

She was struggling to pull herself together. I was fascinated—and just a teeny bit concerned. She opened her eyes. “Why’d you come here? How’d you know where to find me?”

“The bald guy at Don’t Go There.”

“Ferret.”

“Tell me his mother was kinder than that.”

“His real name’s Ferris, or something. Farrell. I dunno. We call him Ferret.”

“I think I scared you.” I touched her arm. “Keely, are you okay?”

“I . . . I’m moving, that’s all. Getting out of here. I just . . . didn’t expect nobody at the door, you know?”

“Do you have any tea? Let me make you a hot cup of tea.”

She looked confused.

“It’ll help,” I said. “You go sit down. Where will I find it?”

“There might be some in the cupboard.”

The apartment was small, a living room with cracked linoleum covered by a rust-colored area rug, which in turn was covered with cat hair. There was a bedroom just beyond and a kitchen nook to the left of the door. Keely had no kettle, but I warmed water in a saucepan and found an ancient box of Tetley in the cupboard to the right of the stove. I opened it and took out bags for both of us. She couldn’t evict me if we were having tea together.

Keely was calmer by the time the tea steeped. She took hers sweet. I didn’t trust the milk in her fridge, so I took mine plain.

I let her sip for a while before I started in. “So . . . You’re leaving? Someplace special?”

She shook her head. One firm shake.

“Then why go? Don’t you like it here?”

“Not anymore.”

A huge white cat strolled out of her bedroom. The cat hair was no longer a mystery. The cat jumped up on her lap, and Keely rubbed her face against its fur. As if she needed comfort.

“Something must have happened,” I said matter-of-factly. “Would you like to talk about it?”

One more firm shake of her head. Her face was still buried, and cat hair flew.

“Well, your name came up in a conversation today.”

She looked up. “Why?”

“I saw one of your birdhouses. At the mayor’s house.”

She stared blankly at me.

“Browning Kefauver? Brownie?”

“Brownie? Brownie’s the mayor?”

I wondered if Weezeltown existed in an alternate dimension. Was I slipping through some sort of time-space continuum every time I made the trip?

“I don’t believe it,” she said, as I pondered the universe.

“Well, it’s true. He is definitely our mayor. He never told you?”

“We didn’t talk a lot. At first he wanted a birdhouse. Then he wanted more, or leastwise, I suspicioned he did. He’s a shy little dude. At first I had a lot of trouble telling what he was after, you know?”

I could only guess.

“Anyway, he got his birdhouse. Do you want one? ’Cause I don’t think I’m going to have time now.”

“How long ago was this? I mean, when you and Brownie were . . . negotiating?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a month before Jenny was killed. Something like that. I think like that now. Before Jenny. After Jenny. I wish I could think some other way.”

So Keely and the mayor had engaged in whatever version of a tête-a-tête they’d decided on
before
Jennifer was killed. Birdhouses or kinky sex or love nests on Lake Erie. None of that really mattered—except for the tantalizing vision of Brownie in his Fruit of the Looms with Keely in the blue satin robe I’d first seen her in. That was going to be hard to erase.

“Here’s the thing,” I said, shaking off that picture so I could get to the point. “Brownie had one of the few keys to the house where Jennifer was probably murdered. And afterwards he claimed he lost it. Now I know this is a long shot, and I don’t want to insult you, but I wonder if you know anything about that key, Keely? Because if we know what happened to the key, maybe we can figure out what happened to Jennifer.”

“She got murdered.”

I blinked. “Ummm . . . yes. I mean we can figure out who
did
it.”

She began to cry. The tears were so sudden that for a moment, I just stared. Then I got up and found a box of tissues in her bedroom and brought them to her.

She took awhile blowing her nose, but by the time she’d gone through half a dozen tissues, she seemed to make up her mind.

“If I tell you something, you gotta promise you won’t tell nobody.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.” I bit my lip. “How about if I promise not to tell unless we come to an agreement?”