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This proclamation came from so far out in left field, I could only blink at him for a moment. Then I managed, “My what?”
Henry waved an angry hand at the store. “That candle order you put in with her. What, did you ask for that many candles out of pity or something?”
Oh, boy. Of all the conflicts I’d imagined arising between Chief Lewis and me, this honestly hadn’t been one of them.
“Of course not,” I said, doing my best to sound calm when all I really wanted to do was tell him he needed to butt out of his wife’s business. “Joyce’s candles are wonderful. I ordered that many because I thought they’d be a nice addition to the store’s stock, and I have a feeling they’re going to fly out of here.”
My reply obviously flummoxed him, because for a second or two, he didn’t reply, only stared at me with narrowed steely eyes, as if doing his best to use his cop instincts to figure out whether I was lying or not. At last he said, “They are?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Haven’t you smelled them?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a hitch of his shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing.”
I reflected that Joyce Lewis must have the patience of a saint. Not that I would ever expect my significant other to take an interest in every single hobby of mine, but you’d think Chief Lewis might have paid a little more attention to the cottage business his wife had started.
But I wasn’t their marriage counselor. I just wanted to make sure he knew my decision to carry Joyce’s candles in the shop was business and nothing else.
“Well, they’re very good,” I said. “Better than good, really. Much better than most of what’s commercially available unless you want to be spending fifty dollars a candle and up.”
“‘Fifty dollars’?” he repeated, eyes still narrowed as though he couldn’t quite decide whether I was pulling his leg or not. “That’s a joke, right?”
“Not at all,” I said. “You should see the sticker prices on some of this stuff in boutiques in Los Angeles. I mean, we can’t ask those sorts of prices here in Globe, but that doesn’t mean the quality isn’t there.”
“Hmm.”
The non-answer was classic Henry Lewis. No way in the world would he admit I might know what I was talking about, so instead he just offered a noncommittal grunt.
“Anyway,” I went on, figuring he was already annoyed with me, so I might as well poke the bear a bit, “how’s the investigation into Danny Ortega’s murder going?”
“It’s going,” he said shortly. “And that’s all you need to know.”
I sent him a sweet smile, and he scowled again. Clearly, he didn’t know anything about my poking and prying, or I would have heard about it long before this…and thank the Goddess for that.
“I have to get back to the station,” he said next. “Try to stay out of trouble.”
And off he went.
The jangle of the bells on the door as it slammed behind him sounded particularly discordant, but that could have been a reflection of my mood. Even though I was glad to know Chief Lewis had no idea I’d been carrying on a parallel investigation into Danny’s murder, I was still annoyed with him on his wife’s behalf. Just who the heck did he think he was?
A husband who was stuck in the same 1950s mindset as the people in Archie’s yearbook, apparently.
Speaking of which….
Although I knew I should return Joyce’s call today, I figured that could wait for a bit. I was itching to call the school about Kimberly Parker, but it was Saturday afternoon. Surely no one would be there.
What to do?
Well, even though school wasn’t in session, maybe someone would be in the office. It was football season, after all, and it seemed as though kids were out on the field practicing most of the weekend. If no one answered in the office, well, I’d start poking around on Google and see what I could find.
I went back behind the counter and got out my cell phone, then looked up the number for Globe High School’s front desk. It rang twice, and, to my relief, a cheery woman’s voice answered.
“Globe High, how can I help you?”
“Hi,” I said, thinking quickly. Would the school nurse be on hand in case any kids got injured during practice? I had to admit I had absolutely no idea how these things worked. “Do you know if Kimberly Parker is attending today’s football practice?”
A pause, and then the woman who’d answered the phone replied, tone a little stiff, “I’m sorry. She doesn’t work here anymore.”
Damn it. I suppose I should have realized her quitting her job was a possibility, since the only reference I’d had to go on was last year’s yearbook. Still, one of the things I’d learned early on about Globe was that the people here didn’t tend to switch jobs very often, and so I’d just assumed that Ms. Parker would have remained in the same position.
