Chapter 31

The fifth day

“What’s up?” Jilly Gable asked Madge. “You sick or somethin’? You look miserable.”

Madge’s feelings had always shown on her face. “Guess we all have glum days. This town doesn’t feel like itself to me.” She’d lost interest in her biscuits and gravy.

Jilly poured a cup of coffee for herself and joined Madge at her table. “Short rush this morning,” she said. They were alone in the shop. Her blond-streaked brown hair had been cut to her shoulders and looked pretty and as superthick as it really was. “I know what you mean about things feelin’ different. Everyone seems down. It’s got to be the deaths at Rosebank upsettin’ all of us.”

As long as Madge could recall, Jilly had worn her hair almost to her waist. Even the idea of her getting it cut off could be another depressing thought. Beautiful as always, her gray-green eyes were a bit sad, Madge thought, and her pale coffee skin didn’t glow the same as usual.

“Do you think that’s what it is?” Jilly said.

“Yes. A couple more miles and Rosebank would be in St. Martin Parish. Green Veil, or Serenity House, or whatever they call it—same thing. And the folks there are pretty much a part of this town now. They change it because they’re different. Not Charlotte and Vivian, really, but—”

“The other ones,” Jilly finished for her. “You don’t like them?”

Madge looked over her shoulder, half expecting to find Cyrus waiting for her answer, a frown on his face. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know them but they have an attitude. They came to the rectory, y’know. Lil was the only one there and they started right in on how they thought the Patins needed help and they wanted to be the ones to help them. Then, the next thing we find out, Susan’s talking about buying Rosebank. And I don’t think that’s because they want to help at all. I think they want the property, period.”

Jilly nodded. “Whenever someone mentions Lil, I think about Oribel Scully and the awful Fuglies sculpture on the rectory lawn. No wonder that woman ended up in a sanitarium. She never could have been right but she sure ran that rectory tight.”

“Hoo mama,” Madge said, looking into the distance and seeing how things used to be when Oribel was around. “I heard Marc Girard’s sister, Amy, intervened for leniency on Oribel’s daughter’s kidnapping sentence. That takes a big heart—tryin’ to help a woman who did you wrong. We’ve had a couple of bad years around here.”

“Now we got more trouble,” Jilly said, deep shadows in her eyes.

Madge didn’t like making her friend feel even worse by dragging up the past.

“I know Marc and Reb would like Amy to let them know where she is and come home, but she says she isn’t ready,” Jilly said. “Maybe she will be one day.”

She drank coffee and smiled at Madge. “Wouldn’t you like to know what Susan Hurst and Dr. Morgan are up to? I hear about how there’s been a lot of renovation done to the house, but if I ask a question about specifics, I get turned off. It’s almost like the people who worked out there were told not to talk about it.”

“Yes, but who keeps a tight lip around here, even if they’re told to?” Madge laughed. “Every secret that’s told at eight in the morning is being talked about all over town by nine.”

“Maybe they were paid to zip their lips,” Jilly suggested.

Madge shivered. “That Olympia gives me the creeps. It’s as if she doesn’t hear anything that’s said to her unless it’s about Miss Southern Belle or how good she looks. Kinda like a talkin’ doll.” She looked at her watch. “I’m worried about Cyrus. He takes everybody’s troubles on his shoulders. Young Wally Hibbs and that critter of his were over at the rectory first thing, just sittin’ in Cyrus’s office and not sayin’ a thing. Cyrus is preoccupied all the time and he isn’t eatin’ enough. Between supportin’ Spike and Vivian and tryin’ to help out there, and dealin’ with the altar society tryin’ to get rid of poor Oribel’s Fuglies, he hardly has any time. If he doesn’t hurry up gettin’ here, he won’t even have time for coffee before heading over to Joe’s.”

“What’s going on over there, anyway?” Jilly asked. “Joe mentioned having a big meeting this morning, but then he clammed up. Now you say Cyrus is going.”

“Joe’s reading a will.” She’d better not reveal anything more. “Cyrus isn’t going to hear the reading, just be around if he’s needed.”

Jilly frowned. “Why? You can’t say stuff like that, then leave me hangin’.”

“I shouldn’t say. Cyrus would be mad.”

“You really care what will or won’t make Cyrus mad, don’t you?” Jilly screwed up her face. “Forget that crack. He’s your boss and you need to follow his wishes. After I close up this evenin’ I’m takin’ a box of his favorites over to the rectory. Marzipan tarts, best of the best at All Tarted Up, Flakiest Pastry in Town as far as he’s concerned. I’ll do up a few of those meat pies he loves, too. I need another batch so I can give a couple to Gaston. I swear those pies are the reason that dog’s so smart. Even Reb says so now. Maybe I’ll run some over to Rosebank for that little Boa girl. Yep, I’ll just do that.”

Madge knew Jilly had been half in love with Spike and that they’d both been down when things didn’t work out. But trust Jilly to put all that aside and be nice to Vivian.

The pastry shop bell rang and Cyrus came in. One look at his face and Madge knew he wouldn’t make her feel any better. “It’s nine,” she told him. “Lil said you didn’t eat breakfast so you’d better have something here quickly before you have to go.”

A smile transformed his handsome face. “What would I do without you taking care of me?” he said. “See how useless I am, Jilly? Madge has to make sure I don’t starve.”

Jilly was on her feet and going behind the counter. Without looking at Cyrus she said, “I never met a man who didn’t like to pretend he was helpless so he could get a woman to look after him. Guess you’re like the rest. Human.” Still, she didn’t look at him, but Madge did and she regretted the vague confusion she saw in his face.

“Jilly’s joshin’ you, Cyrus. She knows you’re capable of doin’ everything for yourself.”

He turned and gave her his full attention. “Am I?” he said, so serious she couldn’t help but notice, yet again, how the corners of his mouth flipped up naturally. “I really don’t think I am, Miz Madge. In fact, I think I’d be lost without you. It’s a foolish man who doesn’t give credit where it’s due.” He turned away again, sharply, and ordered scrambled eggs and toast.

Madge blinked back tears. She was the luckiest woman in the world to know Cyrus Payne, to work for him and to call him her friend.

The shop bell jangled again, this time because Ellie Byron and Bill Green came in. “You’re here, Father Cyrus,” Ellie said, panting as if she’d run all the way from Hungry Eyes. “Bill thought you would be. Can I talk to you, please?”

Madge watched the way Cyrus patted her arm and smiled at her so that her tensed face relaxed. “Shall we sit in the window?” he asked.

“Well—”

“I’ve got to get over to Rosebank,” Bill said. “Homer Devol and I are starting work on decorating guest rooms, so those ladies can get going with their renting. Homer can’t get away for more than a couple of hours here and there so we’ve got to make the best of every minute.” Bill wore an old pair of overalls and a green check shirt, open at the neck. A nice-looking man, Madge thought, even if he wouldn’t stick out in a crowd—surely not if Cyrus were there.

“Thanks for knowing where Cyrus might be,” Ellie said, and gave Bill a wave as he left. “He’s a good man,” she said.

“Coffee for you, Ellie?” Jilly called. “I always think it’s nice to be waited on instead of waiting—now and again, anyway.” She chuckled.

“Yes, please.” Ellie raised her face to look at Cyrus. “I’d be happy talking with both you and Madge. If you didn’t trust her, she wouldn’t be where she is. That’s good enough for me.”

Once they were all seated, Ellie laced her fingers on top of the table and leaned forward. She looked from Madge to Cyrus. “This wasn’t a good idea. Runnin’ to you. In fact it’s a terrible idea. I probably imagined things and I’d best just run along back and get the shop opened.”

Cyrus didn’t have a strong measure of Ellie because she was a loner who kept pretty much to herself. What he did know about her, he liked. He’d learned to trust his instincts and his instincts told him this woman was good, if a little unhappy.

She braced her hands on the edge of the table, about to get up.

“I’m always like that when I’ve made up my mind to do something but then had too long to think about it,” Madge said. “I feel silly. Usually I’m convinced my logic is faulty.”

“Nothing you say will go beyond this table,” Cyrus said. “Unless you want it to, of course.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know what I want because I’m not sure I’ve got anything to say in the first place. I can be vague and misplace things. That’s probably what I’ve done now.”

Jilly brought Ellie’s coffee, Cyrus’s eggs and toast, and a plate of pastries. She left immediately. Jilly was one of those perfect hosts who sensed when she should or shouldn’t hover.

“Hang in here with us,” Cyrus said to Ellie. “If there’s something troubling you and we can help, then let us help. But I don’t want to press you.”

He stuck his fork into a large marzipan tart, conveniently set down to face him by Jilly, and transferred it to his plate—on top of the toast. “Marzipan tarts are my favorite things. I’ll just have to do another lap around St. Cécil’s grounds to work this off.”

“Like you need to,” Madge said. “Some things aren’t fair. All I have to do is look at one of those things and I get another inch on my hips.”

Cyrus smiled at her. He saw absolutely no sign of Madge putting on weight. “Have one of these pastries, Ellie.” He wished he knew more about her. Perhaps he’d get closer to her now that she’d come to him for help.

“No, thank you,” she said. “Do you ever put things where you’re sure you’ll remember, then forget where that was?”

Madge laughed aloud and Cyrus chuckled himself. “I think Madge is laughing at me,” he said. “She has one or two names she uses for that particular foible in her boss.”

“So you do it.” Ellie pointed at him but appeared deeply involved in her own thoughts. “Oh, thank you for making me feel better. I won’t trouble you any longer.”

“Ellie,” Madge said. “You’re looking for any way to chicken out. You didn’t go to Bill Green asking where he thought Cyrus might be just because you hoped Cyrus would admit he has brain farts.”

Cyrus looked at her sharply. Ellie was already laughing and gripping her sides but Madge’s face wore a wary expression since she was clearly waiting to see which way he’d go with his response.

She delighted him over and over again—and surprised him. “Is that so?” he asked her. “Nice turn of phrase. I’m writing a homily about making decisions based on whims. Brain farts could be useful.”

“No, they couldn’t,” Madge said, trying not to laugh with the rest of them.

“I think someone’s been getting into the shop at night and going through the books,” Ellie said abruptly. She snatched up a Danish, looked at it, wrinkled her nose and put it down again.

Cyrus wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“But it could be that I put things in different order than I think I do, though.” She turned pink. “My stock is real big. It wouldn’t be so hard to put books in the wrong place.”

“Have you always done this?” Cyrus asked, knowing the answer.

”No.” Ellie’s response was fierce. “I’ve always been able to go right to a book without…” She snapped her mouth shut and carefully took a nut from the top of the Danish. After examining all sides, she put it in her mouth and chewed.

“Is this your first bookshop?” Cyrus asked, and felt guilty for prying.

“No.”

“How many times has this happened?” Madge asked.

“Three nights in a row. I was going to tell Spike but I feel so stupid. How do you prove a thing like this?”

With difficulty, Cyrus thought. “Couldn’t it be that customers do it? Folks have a way of doing what’s most convenient. Just the other day I was in the grocery store lookin’ at the fruit—not a pretty sight, by the way. Anyway, this lady pushes her cart up in front of the pomegranates and gets all excited. Seems she really likes pomegranates. So she bags some up, then takes a box of cereal and a piece of fish, all rolled up in paper where it had been specially cut for her, and leaves ’em on the apples. They were next to the pomegranates. She smiled at me like that was the most normal thing in the world and said she couldn’t afford all of it so she’d have the pomegranates instead of those. And off she goes.”

Ellie squinted at him and waited, like there was something else to say.

“And?” Madge said. He could always rely on Madge to help him out if he lost the gist of something he was saying.

“Ah, careless people,” he said with a sense of relief when he saw the route back to the point he’d set out to make. “They don’t like to be bothered with goin’ back and puttin’ things they don’t want where they came from.”

Both women stared at him until he took his fork to the tart and concentrated on eating every tender crumb before moving on to his eggs.

Ellie cleared her throat. She ignored her coffee and drank water instead. “You’re probably right. It’s just that there’s a kind of pattern. Each book I find out of place is on art of some kind, or it was until this morning. Oh, and I forgot to say it’s never new books, only the secondhand and collectible ones. Rare clocks of the world. Valuable pottery and glass, the kind that sells for millions at auction. Paintings. Several of those. Tapestry. Rugs. Chinese antiques. On and on like that until this morning.”

Cyrus thought it best to let her talk on her own timetable.

“This morning it was different,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. “It made me think there could be something sinister about it. They didn’t put the books back.”

“Yes,” Cyrus said.

“That is, if I didn’t just miss them there last night and a customer had been considering buying one of them then changed his mind.”

“Like the fish,” Cyrus said.

“Not like the fish,” Madge told him. “There weren’t any pomegranates, just books and more books.”

“Floor plans of well-known local houses,” Ellie said. “It was published years ago by someone who lived in these parts. Left open on the table. And a county map. I ran to get Bill and see what he thought. I was lucky to catch him when he was leaving. It was his idea for me to ask you what to do, since I didn’t want to make a fool of myself with Spike.”

Cyrus kept the thought that there was probably nothing mysterious about any of this to himself. “Spike always says he wishes people would speak up when something doesn’t sit right. Reckons it would save a lot of trouble down the road.”

Ellie reached into the tote she’d been carrying and pulled out an oversized paperback book. “I guess this was what shook me.” She set it on the table facing Madge and Cyrus. “And I’m only foolin’ myself if I keep pretending I’m not scared. I never like much attention, but this is different again.”

He read the title aloud: “Tender Weapons, Living by the Knife.”

Ellie took a picture of herself from her pocket. “This was between the pages,” she said. “On top of an open page. There’s a picture of an autopsy on a woman there. She was stabbed to death.”

Ellie had been photographed by a lake and wearing a swimsuit. She smiled into the sunlight. And in the shadowy soft cleavage at the inner margin of her left breast, a hole had been made.

If Cyrus had to guess, he’d say that hole was made by the tip of a very sharp, very pointed knife. Someone had pushed it through the paper and turned it—around and around.

“And you thought this was somethin’ you could ignore?” Cyrus said.