stood and began to wash her hands at a soapstone sink that sat in a corner. “How is Ms. Wiercinski holding up? I heard she was staying at your place.” She kept her back to me and I could appreciate again what a fine figure of a woman she was, attractive in her dirty chambray shirt and argil-smeared black jeans, with the smell of wet clay and light sweat about her. It wasn’t hard to see why Greg might’ve liked her. “Yes, she’s there. She’s holding up well.” “I hope she’s more likable than Callahan,” Dee said, still soaping her hands clean. “Didn’t you like Greg?” One bubbled hand found the faucet and turned the water on higher. She didn’t look up at me. “I didn’t know him very well. He tried to get me to sell him land, but I wasn’t interested.” “How often did he meet with you about your land?” I asked, sitting on an empty stool. “Now, why would that be any of your business?” Dee asked, reaching for a clean towel. Her hands, free of dirt and soap, looked as though they had been freshly sculpted from some rare pink stone. I didn’t feel like pushing Dee Loudermilk. She’d tell me in no short order to get the hell out if I stepped over the line. I tried not to fidget on the stool, stared into her dark blue eyes, and decided on the direct approach. “Gossip around town suggests that Greg Callahan was chasing after you. Did you know that?” I decided to leave Jenny’s name out of it for the moment. “Funny, I used to enjoy gossip. I don’t find it nearly as interesting these days.” Dee leaned against the gray soapstone sink, surveying me with eyes that betrayed nothing. “I don’t usually listen to rumor, either. But someone has killed two people here, Dee, and they were both on one side of the riverfront development deal. My friend Lorna might be the next target. If you know anything about Greg Callahan or anyone who might have wanted him dead, and you’re not telling, I’ll have Junebug over here so quick your head’ll spin faster than your potter’s wheel.” She surprised me by laughing. “My goodness. Threatening the boss’s wife? You’ve got more guts than I gave you credit for.” “I’m not trying to be impertinent, Dee. I figured you’d appreciate me not beating around the bush.” She smiled. “Does Candace know you feel so strongly about protecting Lorna Wiercinski? She might keep a closer eye on you if she did. Look, I barely knew Callahan.” “He’d already offered you money for your land, right? In the area of fifty thousand?” I guessed that her land, close in size to Bob Don’s lot, would fetch the same price.
“Yes, that’s right. It wasn’t going to be enough to make me sell.”
“And how did Mr. Callahan take that?” “I didn’t tell him my decision.
He was dead before I got a chance to.” Dee stared away from me, at the smears of white clay on her workbench. She moved away from the sink and got out some liquids and brushes. Pulling a stool over to the workbench, she began to apply a glaze to a bowl. She glanced back up at me. “I don’t know why you’re wasting time here. None of us had a reason to kill Greg Callahan. You should be off talking to that nutty Miss Twyla or that oaf Tiny Parmalee. They’re the ones who were against him.” “You don’t know anything about Freddy’s death, either?”
“No, I do not,” Dee answered in a measured, nearly soft tone I had to strain to hear. The sweep of her brush made a delicate mark on the bowl’s surface, like an angel’s fingerprint. “You seemed terribly upset at the fire.” “That’s a stupid comment, Jordy; we all were upset at another bombing taking place.” She glanced at my arm in its sling.
“I mean, when we think we nearly lost you to that lunatic.” Her tone didn’t sound like my loss would be a grief for her. “Parker seemed to enjoy watching Chet’s house burn.” Her brush hesitated over a dark crescent of watery glaze she’d just applied to the pot. “Parker has a strange sense of humor. You really shouldn’t pay him mind.” She completed her glazing and went over to another workbench with a cabinet next to it. “Jenny seemed terribly upset as well.” “She’s a teenager,” Dee answered, pulling on a heavy pair of rugged work gloves, “and she gets upset easily.” Hexing her fingers inside the gloves, she opened the cabinet and rummaged inside. I was about to tell her how upset-and drunk-her daughter was, when Dee turned back to me, her hands spread apart like she was measuring a caught fish, and metal sparkled like stars between her palms, the length of silvery barbed wire glinting in the bright sunlight from the studio’s window.
“Isn’t it lovely, Jordy?” she asked, a half smile on her face. I stood quickly, nearly falling over and toppling the stool, staring at the strand of death in her hands. It was just like the wire in Greg’s throat. “Don’t be afraid, silly. God, but you’re jumpy, just like Parker.” She moved over to the pot she’d thrown, sitting down again. I stayed on my feet. “Where did you get that?” I managed to ask. “At the store, just like everyone else,” Dee answered. She began to wrap the wire around the pot itself, pressing the barbs into the material so the wire held. “That’s-that’s an odd decoration for a pot,” I croaked.
“And not in very good taste right now, Dee.” “It’ll be lovely when it’s done.” “You have a lot of that wire on hand?” I cleared my throat, knowing that it wasn’t about to be ripped (at least for the moment), and righted the chair I’d knocked over. “Sure. I do lots of Southwestern-style pots for that crafts store over in Bavary. Barbed wire’s a big decorating item there. You can get pottery, sculptures, all sorts of stuff like that.” So the killer wouldn’t necessarily have had to cut the wire from the fence that bisected Dee and Bob Don’s land. He or she could have filched a length from Dee’s studio. Dee knew it was here, and presumably so could Parker and Jenny-or anyone who bought Dee’s ceramics. Of course, it wouldn’t be filching if Dee herself took it to wrap into Greg’s neck like soft clay. “I’m sure you mentioned to Junebug that you had that kind of wire on hand, didn’t you?” She shrugged. “He didn’t ask. I didn’t volunteer.” I shook my head. “Are you just trying to make yourself look bad? Is this some game to you?” She finished setting the sharp wire into the pot and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “Of course it’s not a game, Jordy. A man’s dead, isn’t he?” “Two men. Don’t forget Freddy.” “Poor Freddy. He was really an oaf, wasn’t he?” “You’re ice, do you know that?” I suddenly wanted to be away from Dee Loudermilk. “You make that pot right after a man is strangled with wire. I think that’s sick.” “Aren’t you the sensitive boy? Then leave, Jordy. No one asked you here anyway. Why don’t you run back to your little friend Junebug Moncrief and tell him what I’ve been up to?” She smiled hollowly at me. “I’m a Loudermilk. See if he’ll do anything about mean ol’ me. I opened my mouth, then closed it. “Not cooperating with Junebug in his investigation isn’t going to help your husband.” She laughed. “I’m not a good political wife and Parker knows that. I could frankly not give a rat’s ass about him being mayor. If I did, I’d have him fire your ass in a minute. You’re not exactly behaving like a loyal employee.
But maybe it’s good for old Parker to have a thorn in his side.” “Do you give a rat’s ass about your daughter? She’s in there-” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence as Parker Loudermilk barreled into his wife’s studio, looking for all this world like his senses had fled him. He stared hard at me, venom contorting his face. “Jordy. What are you doing here?” The breath that powered his voice was ragged with fury. His eyes slid to Dee, who stood calmly by her wheel, arms crossed over her breasts. “Just talking with Dee about all the goings-on in town,” I offered. It sounded idiotic, but I frankly didn’t have a witty excuse available. “Would you mind leaving?” he asked, the politician in him kicking in belatedly. “I mean, I need to talk with Dee privately. And I’m sure you must have work at the library to do.” His dark eyes darted to her and lingered. I saw the folds of flesh in the corner of his eyes crinkle in annoyance when he saw her standing disinterestedly watching us. He might be the mayor, but I’d had enough. “Yes, I think I will leave. Y’all are just too strange today for me. First Dee makes a big production of letting me know that she’s got a bunch of the same kind of wire that killed Greg”-he swallowed hard at that little announcement-“and your daughter’s got a solid drunk on in the house. I’ve had my fill of Loudermilks today, thank you kindly.” I turned to go. “Goddamn you!”
Parker roared, and I whirled back, thinking he was coming after me.
But he wasn’t. He was after Dee, seizing one of her arms and shaking her hard. Her eyes were frozen on him, unblinking, like marbles left in sand. I had no wish to get involved in their domestic squabble, but I couldn’t very well walk out when it looked like he might hit her. I grabbed his shoulder, said, “Hey, Parker, calm down-” That’s when he spun around and belted me, hard. I landed on the floor. You don’t know how much getting hit in the face hurts. It’s a lot, trust me.
“Parker!” Dee shoved past him to kneel by me. I was busy working my jaw; it seemed okay. My eye, though, sure was sore. “Oh, aren’t you tough?” Dee spat at her husband, who stood staring down at me with a look of utter blankness. “Hitting a man who’s got his arm in a sling!
And he’s a librarian, too.” I decided to ignore that implicit slur against my profession and my manhood as I got to my feet. My left eye tingled, as though announcing that its skin would soon darken like an overripe plum. I was still so surprised that I hadn’t even gotten ticked at Parker. I just thought: The mayor hit me. Dee steadied me.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Parker?” she snapped. “Have you just totally lost your mind?” Parker Loudermilk continued to glare at me, but his fingers unfolded out of fists. Finally his well-worn mask of local government slipped back into place. He smiled, nearly beatifically at me, then walked out of the studio. ‘Tell me he’s not going to get his gun,” I said to Dee, holding my good hand up to my eye. This investigating crap could get you damaged if not outright dead. “No, he’s not going to get a gun,” she answered, but I saw her delicate teeth biting
