Killer Market

back by two and I’m supposed to be at the String and Splinter at two-thirty.”

I glanced at my watch and made shooing motions with my hands. “It’s five after. Go. I saw Dixie at the police station and—”

“Police station? Cheryl said she had to go sign some papers or something. I thought it was the hospital. What would she be doing at the police station?”

If Chan’s death were indeed a homicide, it wasn’t my place to tell her.

(The preacher gave a nod of approval.)

I made a dismissing motion with my hand. “It’s probably because he died without his own doctor around.”

“But his doctor’s right over in Lexington,” said Drew, looking confused.

“There’s always bureaucracy and red tape,” I said. “Anyhow, I told Dixie I’d stay with Lynnette. Speaking of whom, where is she?”

She pointed and I walked over to Pell’s back porch and looked up. There sat Lynnette about twenty feet off the ground, half hidden in the branches of a tall oak tree that had almost finished leafing out.

“Hi there,” I said.

She gave me a solemn nod, then looked away.

I was learning that her plaited pigtail was a barometer of her mood. At the moment, it hung limply over her left shoulder and she twisted the end aimlessly through her small fingers.

Drew touched my arm and we walked out of earshot. “She’s been up in that tree ever since I got here and I can’t get her to come down. She’s always been so sweet and precious to me and now I can’t even get her to talk. Poor little thing must be grieving her heart out.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s like cats. She’ll come down when she’s hungry or thirsty or needs the bathroom. You go ahead. I’ll watch her till Dixie comes.”

“There’s just one hitch,” said Drew, adjusting the cuffs of her black linen jacket. “I have my car out front, but there’s no time now to hunt for a parking space over there. I was going to get Dixie to drop me off.”

“I can do that,” I said. “I’ll put my stuff in my room and you write Dixie a note so she’ll know I’ve got Lynnette.”

When I got back, the child was still up in the oak.

While Drew stuck the note on Dixie’s screen door, I called up,

“Hey, Lynnette,

Want to get

In my Corvette?”

“That’s not a Corvette,” she said scornfully.

“Well, Lynnette doesn’t rhyme with Firebird”

She didn’t move. “I’m waiting for Aunt Millie and Shirley Jane.”

“I don’t think they’ll get here much before dark and Drew really needs us to drive her somewhere right now,” I told her. “Besides, I was hoping you’d show me through the Discovery Center this afternoon.”

“With the dolls?”

“Dolls?” It was my understanding that the Center was devoted to a history of furniture making. Where did dolls come in?

“They’ve got a bajillion. Wait’ll you see. Don’t budge, Miss Deborah Judge. I’m coming.”

“You must have children,” Drew said as she tucked herself into my passenger seat.

“Nope. Just lots of nieces and nephews.”

Lynnette dropped like a feather from the lowest limb and scrambled into the backseat. If her braid didn’t exactly float, neither did it droop.

“Click it or ticket,” she chanted as we buckled up and hit the road.

The resiliency of childhood.

Having grown up in the area, Drew Patterson knew every inch of High Point and she knew how to thread the one-way streets to get us over to the west side of town and eventually cross the railroad tracks without having to double back.

The String and Splinter, I was told, was in Market Square, a complex of interconnected buildings that looked like an old antiques mall grafted on a modern high rise.

“So what is it?” I asked as we waited through a second cycle of lights while trying to cross Main Street. “A restaurant?”

“Dining club. Most members are either in furniture or hosiery. They should have called it Fabric and Wood, but I guess that wouldn’t have been cute enough.”

“Are you a member?”

“Dad is. My grandfather was one of the original members.” She gave a small laugh. “Now that could be the furniture industry’s motto: I’m Following in My Grandfather’s Footsteps. It’s almost like medieval Europe. Your grandfather worked on the line, you work on the line. Your grandfather was sales rep for this territory, you work the same territory fifty years later. Your grandfather owned a furniture company and joined the String and Splinter, you do, too.”

“You serious?” I asked as the light finally stayed green long enough for me to get through the intersection. “You