I thought once again that Leila sounded like someone I could have been friends with.
I heard Dad shuffle some papers on the other end of the phone.
“A colleague of mine covered the investigation into Leila’s accident,” he continued. “I talked to him last night. It was eventually ruled an accident but the police did look pretty closely into Mac and his movements. In the end they concluded the timing wasn’t right for Mac to have tried to kill Leila. And they couldn’t show for sure the heating system had been tampered with.”
I rubbed the back of my neck with my free hand. I thought about what Mac had told me about Jackson. “Do you have any idea why so many people were unconvinced?”
Dad sighed softly. “It’s pretty clear that Leila’s family didn’t like Mac. Apparently he and Leila met at a fund-raiser for a charity that provides scholarships for low-income inner-city kids.” I remembered Stevie saying Mac and Leila had literally seen each other across a crowded room. The story had seemed very romantic.
“Both Mac and Leila’s great-aunt were on the charity’s board,” Dad said. “It seems her family had a bias against Mac from the beginning.”
“Why?” I said.
“I don’t know.” I pictured my dad shaking his head. “I don’t think it helped when Leila’s great-aunt replaced her father with Mac as her financial adviser. She disapproved of his affair, although she was welcoming to Natalie.”
I had a feeling I would have liked Leila’s great-aunt as well.
“Sarah, what do you know about Mac’s family?”
The sun was warm on my arms and the back of my neck. I moved back to the garage doorway, where there was some shade. “I know he has a younger brother, Jameis, and their parents are dead. His brother’s a nurse. He’s working in Central America with some organization that provides medical care in remote places that don’t regularly see doctors or nurses—Honduras, I think.”
“Did you know that Mac was in college when his parents died?”
I glanced over at the shop. “I didn’t.” There were still so many things about Mac that were a mystery.
“Mac became his brother’s guardian. Raised him through the rest of high school. I can’t find anything that says he was involved in what happened to his wife. Mac’s a good guy.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “I appreciate this.”
“Anytime, sweetie,” he replied, and somehow I could feel the warmth of his smile through the phone.
“Love you,” I said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
I worked on the metal table for the next hour or so, smiling when I realized that Dad was in fact right: Green was the best color choice.
Jess and I spent the afternoon driving around to flea markets. She found some bolts of vintage cotton prints and a couple of jean jackets to refurbish. Jess had a great sense of style. All she needed was her sewing machine, some thread and a pair of scissors and she could make magic out of just about any old item of clothing she found. What she didn’t keep to wear herself ended up in the funky little used and vintage clothing shop along the waterfront that she was part owner of.
Jess wasn’t the only one who found some treasures. I bought a box of glass fishbowls, some copper baking dishes and an old metal nursery cart. We had supper at a little mom-and-pop restaurant just this side of Rockport and I felt that my batteries had been recharged when I got home.
Monday morning Mr. P. and Rose drove to the shop with Elvis and me.
In the backseat Mr. P. was humming to himself. I glanced in the rearview mirror at him. “You’re in a good mood,” I said.
“Does that mean that sometimes I’m not?” he countered with a twinkle in his eye.
I smiled. “No. But you do seem a little like the cat that swallowed the canary this morning.”
Beside me Elvis meowed and looked around, seemingly puzzled.
Everyone laughed.
I glanced down at him beside me on the seat. “I wasn’t talking about you,” I said.
He stared at me unblinkingly for a moment and then went back to watching the road. Elvis took his backseat driver status very seriously. Rose reached over and stroked his fur.
“It’s possible that I may be onto something.” Mr. P. put his hand on the back of my seat and leaned forward. “But I don’t want to jinx myself.”
Rose turned partway around to look at him. “Is it what we were talking about?”
“It is,” he said.
She clasped her hands together like a little girl. “Splendid!” she said.
“Bring me in the loop when there’s something to share,” I said. As usual I didn’t have a clue what was going on, which experience told me might turn out to be a blessing—or might turn out to be a curse.
The shop was very busy for a Monday morning, probably because the sky was dull and cloudy and rain was threatening. I sold a mandolin and a small shopping cart I’d repurposed into a plant stand and house numbers display. The woman who bought the refurbished cart offered twenty dollars for the three pots of geraniums I’d used for display in the cart. I immediately said yes, tucking the two tens she gave me into my pocket to give to Charlotte, who had grown the plants and who I knew would argue that they hadn’t cost anywhere near that much to grow. Since my thumb was more black than green it was an argument she was going to lose.
Avery sold a small rectangular table to a tourist Sam had sent over. I had stripped and whitewashed the top, but painted the legs a creamy off-white. The woman decided she wanted to buy the dishes that Avery had used to set the table as well. I eavesdropped as Avery made several suggestions for tablecloth and napkin combinations. After the woman left, the table padded with old blankets and secured in the bed of the enormous half-ton crew cab she was driving, I put my arms around Avery’s shoulders and hugged her. “Good job,” I said.
She grinned with pleasure. “You don’t think I was being pushy when I told her having everything matchy-matchy is kind of 1980s, do you?”
I shook my head. “No. She asked what you thought. By the way, I like your idea of using one main color to pull it all together.”
“Yeah, that stuff always seems kind of obvious to me but I get that it’s not like that for everyone.” She slid the stack of bracelets she was wearing up her arm. “You know, I might be a designer after college.”
Avery was wearing a funky jungle print sundress from Jess’s shop with a lime green dyed denim vest over the top and the ubiquitous stack of bracelets on one arm. “I could see you doing that,” I said.
She nodded. “Yeah, that or nuclear physicist. I haven’t decided yet.”
It was the first time she’d mentioned either occupation. “I, um . . . I’m sure you’d be good at both.”
She smiled and gestured at the empty place on the floor. “Which table should come in to fill the space?”
Tables were very popular with our customers so as quickly as we sold one I tried to get another in its place.
“You and Mac can decide,” I said. “Go see what he says.”
Avery headed for the old garage, where Mac was working, passing Rose and Mr. P. coming in from the back. “I sold that table,” she said to Rose.
“Wonderful!” Rose said. They exchanged high fives as the teen went by.
Mr. P. smiled as they joined me. He still had a bit of a self-satisfied gleam in his eye.
“You’re ready to share?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
He nodded. “Yes, I am, my dear.”
“You’ve found something.”
“Security footage,” he said.
“Of?”
“Of Mac at four different restaurants, looking for Erin Fellowes, just as he told the police he was, just when he said he was. Depending on the timeline the police have established, it might help show that Mac couldn’t have had anything to do with her death.”
I felt like doing a little victory dance but I settled for grinning at both of them.
“I’ve already left a message at Josh’s office,” Rose said.