“Sure. Fine.” I set down my coffee mug. “I guess I’d better get going, too. I might be in late today.”
“No problem. And, hey, thanks for being a good sport. I apologize for anything else I said or did that I don’t remember.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said and left.
I drove home and felt like I’d spent the night rubbing sand in my eyes. My head ached and, to be honest, my heart ached, too. The sooner I forgot last night, the better.
Pépé was still asleep. I showered and changed, then went downstairs to fix breakfast. Quinn wasn’t the only one out of coffee. Pépé must have gone through both bags of the Ethiopian and Sumatran I liked to blend so that he could make the robust rocket fuel he craved. And we had no bread.
I got my coat and car keys and drove to the General Store. I needed something to eat and Thelma would have home-baked muffins and fresh coffee. She would also have her antennae up and ready to receive any gossip she could extract from me by fair means or foul. But I reckoned that she knew everything that had been whispered about Nicole Martin—and, for a change, maybe I’d be the one to glean new information from her.
I angled the Mini into a place on the chunk of cracked asphalt that Thelma liked to call “the parking lot.” She’d been running the General Store for as long as I could remember; there had been some sort of store on this spot since Atoka was founded in the mid-1800s. Thelma swore Mosby had used the place as a hideout, which probably was true, but she also enjoyed dropping names of other famous people she claimed had frequented her establishment. FDR, when he came through to dedicate the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Kennedys when they’d lived here. Movie stars. Politicians. European royalty.
The silver bells on her door sounded like wind chimes when I entered. During the day Thelma stayed glued to the soaps when she didn’t have any customers, but at this hour of the morning the tabloids, spread out on the counter by the cash register, had her undivided attention. Until she saw me. Her smile made me think of cats and canaries.
The General Store got stuck in a time warp a few decades ago, deciding to let the rest of the world pass it by. No computerized cash register, no bar codes, no mist watering the fruits and vegetables. Thelma fit right in with the bygone era of the decor, dressing for work with a vampy flair that was half Auntie Mame, half Roxie Hart.
She clapped her hands together like a child. “Why, Lucille! What a treat! I haven’t seen you for an age. Come right on in. How about a nice cup of coffee or a muffin? You’re lookin’ a bit peaky.”
She tottered over in stiletto slingbacks, dressed today in fire-engine red a few shades off the current color of her teased helmet of hair. She surveyed me with the practiced eye of a 4-H judge looking over prize livestock.
“Your eyes are all bloodshot,” she said before I could answer. “You get any sleep last night, child? ’Course you didn’t, all those doings out at your farm. I didn’t like that woman much but what someone did to her was turrible. Just turrible.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Sit yourself down in that rocking chair over there and let me pour you a cup of coffee. On the house. You want a muffin?”
“Yes, please.”
“Muffin’ll cost you a dollar-fifty. You can pay me on the way out. I got blueberry or blueberry. The Romeos were in this morning and ate up most everything I had like a plague of locusts come through.”
“Blueberry’s fine.”
She poured my coffee from a pot labeled “Fancy” and handed it to me. “It’s got a little pumpkin and cinnamon spice in it, this one,” she said. “On account of Halloween and all.”
The coffee bordered on cloying but the muffin, filled with tart blueberries, offset the sweetness and the combination hit the spot.
“So tell me all about it.” She sat next to me in another rocking chair like a queen on a throne. The store smelled of fresh-brewed coffee, spices, and homemade pastries mingled with the slightly baked odor of her central heating. Sunlight filtered through an east-facing window making lattice stripes on the floor.
I knew she wanted details—the more lurid, the better.
“I’m sure you’ve heard everything already.” I didn’t want to relive finding Nicole’s body, especially after last night with Quinn, and flattery was Thelma’s weak spot.
“Well, a person does need to keep informed.” Her faced twitched in a smile, accepting the compliment as her due. “Especially if we’ve got a serial killer running loose around here. First that writer, now the ex-wife of your winemaker. He must have taken it hard.”
I ignored the wide-enough-to-drive-a-truck-through opening to talk about Quinn and said, “What makes you think the same person killed them both?”
Thelma leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. Her eyes, behind thick glasses, showed surprise. “Why, I couldn’t say. It’s just one of my feelings. You know, Lucille, some people believe I have psychotic powers. A God-given ability to know things from…”—she paused for drama—“…the Great Beyond.”
Thelma, like Dominique, had issues with the English language. “You’ve often talked about that,” I said.
“Oh my, yes. And, of course, I always watch those police shows and such on television. A person can learn a lot from them. The way things are really done.” She straightened up. “How’d you happen to find her, anyway? I heard someone left her in a field in the middle of nowhere.”
“Not ‘nowhere.’ Near the place my mother died.”
Thelma worked hard at achieving eternal youth, but mentioning my mother—whom she’d adored—softened her features until the web of lines and wrinkles deepened with sympathy and memory. “I did not know that.”
I finished my blueberry muffin and folded the crumbs into my napkin in a tight, neat square.
“You must have gone there with Luc,” she said. “I know how he misses his daughter.”
“Thank you for getting him those flowers,” I said. “My mother would have loved them.”
Thelma touched the back of her lacquered hair with one hand, ever the coquette. “I’d do anything for that man,” she said. “Did you know every time he comes into the store he kisses my hand? I just plumb love it when he does that. Hold out your hand to any other man around here and he thinks you want to show him your age spots.”
“Really?”
“I only tried it two times, but that was enough.”
I laughed.
“Some of those Romeos could take a page from his book, if you ask me. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, Lucille, but I’ve been studying French for a while. Audio tapes. Works real good. How’s this sound? Mon chapeau est sur ma fesse.”
“You have a good accent,” I said. “But you just said something like ‘my hat is on my ass.’”
“Lordy.” Her color deepened to match her dress. “Maybe I need new headphones.” She paused. “I’ll miss Luc when he leaves. I’d sure like to visit Paris some day.”
She took off her glasses and looked away but not before I saw the longing in her eyes.
“You never know,” I said. “And he’ll be back to visit.”
“Sure he will.” She forced a smile. “So he was with you when you found Nicole Martin. What kind of sick person would leave a body out there for all the animals to find?”
“Someone who didn’t think she’d be discovered for a while. Did you ever meet her?”
“Why, sure I did. She was in a few days before she…passed. On the phone the whole time. So annoying. She could have waited two minutes until she was outside before making those meeting plans, couldn’t she? Instead she’s yakking away right under my nose, just as rude as you please.”
“What day was that?”
Thelma had an encyclopedic memory. “Sunday. ’Bout eleven o’clock.”
“Any idea who she was meeting or what it was about?”
“I’m pretty sure it was a woman.” She tapped her forehead. “Feminine inhibition, you know. At first I thought maybe they were meeting for lunch because she was all dressed up real fancy in a nice-looking suit. Then she said something about ‘being over there’ as soon as she left the store so I guess she was driving to the other woman’s house.”