down and relax. We’ll find out more tomorrow.”
She continued to pace. “Tomorrow I have to help get everything ready for the Spook Bash. I won’t have a free minute.” I felt great relief. I didn’t want Kathleen to stir up the quiescent tiger. “I’ll see to everything.”
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She’d paused by the cake stand, lifted it to look in surprise at Bayroo’s cake.
I explained about the birthday gift and her face softened in a smile. Then once again she looked worried. “I’m going to try again to catch Irene.” She walked toward the phone, but stopped to stare at a slate on a stand next to the telephone. A message was written in red chalk:
“Oh.” Kathleen looked faint.
I lost my appetite.
She ran for her car. I was already in the passenger seat, waiting.
Kathleen rang the doorbell. She’d insisted that she be the one to talk to Isaac. I insisted I would accompany her, though unseen.
The door opened. Isaac Franklin was on the shady side of fifty, lined dark face, silvered hair, but he looked muscular and fit. The minute he saw Kathleen, his grim expression altered. “Come in, Mrs.
Kathleen. You come right in.”
Kathleen stepped inside. “Isaac, what’s this about your wheelbarrow?”
He folded his arms, frowned. “I don’t hold with taking a man’s
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work tools. Like I said, if a body can’t report mischief without stirring up a hornet’s nest, I don’t know what the world’s coming to.” A plump pretty woman bustled to his side. She was stylish in a pale violet velvet top and slacks and white boots.
I especially liked the boots. I’d remember them and perhaps another time . . .
She took Isaac’s arm in a firm grip. “Papa, you can’t be on your high horse when there’s been a murder. Come in, Mrs. Kathleen, and Isaac can tell you what happened.”
Kathleen was offered the most comfortable chair in the den.
Evelyn put the TV on mute. Isaac joined his wife on the divan, clamped his hands above his knees. “I’ll tell you, Mrs. Kathleen, I never been so surprised. First thing this morning, I saw somebody had been fooling around in my shed. I don’t leave things any old which way. Everything has a place and everything is in its place. So when I found the wheelbarrow jammed up next to the shovels—” It had never occurred to me to quiz Kathleen about her return of the wheelbarrow to the shed. I understood her panic and haste, but that hurried dumping of the wheelbarrow might be her undoing.
“—I checked to see if anything was missing. I can tell you I know what’s where.” He looked puzzled. “I looked real good and nothing was missing. Everything else was there and where it should be, but, like I told that officer this afternoon, somebody’d had my wheelbarrow out and I know that for sure because there was some mud on the wheel and I’d just greased it good the other day and I don’t put anything away dirty.” He nodded three times for emphasis. “Somebody took my barrow out and did I don’t know what with it. I’d guess kids, but I don’t see how they got into my shed. It was locked up like always when I left yesterday afternoon and locked again this morning, but somehow somebody got that barrow out and put it back.
That seemed mighty odd to me. I went over to tell the rector, but he wasn’t in his office. When I came home for lunch, Evelyn told me
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she’d heard on TV about Mr. Murdoch being found shot in the cemetery. I called the police because it seemed to me they should know there was something odd going on around the church.” He glowered. “I didn’t take kindly to it when that officer asked me about how Mr. Murdoch and I had words outside the parish hall on Monday.
Turned out Mamie Pruitt couldn’t wait to tell the police about me and Mr. Murdoch, but I told that officer to go and talk to Father Bill.
Father Bill took my part just like he should. I got those groceries out of the pantry for the Carter family that live down the block from us.
Mr. Carter, he’s in the hospital, and Mrs. Carter, she lost her job, and there’s five kids and no food for the table. Father Bill said of course I could take food for folks in need, but that mean-hearted Murdoch didn’t want help going to anybody but people approved by some committee or other. And the policeman badgered me about keys. Who had keys except for me? Well, like I told him, there are keys here, there, and everywhere. The rector, he has keys to everything, and so do the senior warden and the junior warden and the Sunday school superintendent and the head of the Altar Guild. So it isn’t like I was the only one that has keys. Then he wanted to know where I was between five and seven last evening and I told him it wasn’t no business of his.” His eyes glowed with outrage.
Evelyn patted his stiff arm. “Now, Papa.” She turned bright eyes toward Kathleen. “Isaac was with me. He got home right on schedule at a quarter after five and we had a quick supper then we went over to our daughter Noreen’s and took care of Ikie and Sue so Noreen and Bobby could go to a show.”
Kathleen’s smile was reassuring. “I’m sure the officer didn’t intend to offend you when he asked where you were yesterday. They ask everybody who might have been in the area.”
“See, Papa?” Evelyn patted his arm.
Isaac still frowned. “I don’t hold with that policeman taking my barrow away. He gave me a receipt. I told him I needed my barrow
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