Based on her earlier conversation with Hutch, it seemed as if he had figured out a clue about what had happened to Wesley that night. The clue was certainly within one or some of the underlined portions. And it probably registered with Hutch when he had both sets of notes in front of him. But what the hell is it? Phoebe wondered.
She peered more closely at the pages. For the first time she noticed that the detail about the stranger at the jukebox had been underlined, on both sets of notes, more heavily than any other part. Obviously Hutch had found that piece significant. Did he think the man had drugged Wesley?
But then why also underline the part about the cougars? Perhaps Hutch thought that the stranger by the jukebox had worked in tandem with one of the cougars. Maybe the women had slipped the drug in Wesley’s drink, and then a short time later, when Wesley’s thinking had become fuzzy, the stranger had lured him outside.
Phoebe glanced at her watch. She would have liked to call Hutch right then, but it was after ten, and she knew there was a good chance he’d gone to bed. It would have to wait until morning, as he’d suggested. She made a copy of Hutch’s notes on her printer, tucking one set into her purse to study more later and the other into a book for safekeeping, along with the notes she’d taken.
Before going up to bed, she stole into the kitchen and eyed the spoons the Sixes had left her. The card wrapped around them was totally dry now, and Phoebe wondered suddenly if it might contain some sort of message. Using a paper towel as a buffer, she tugged off the rubber band. Then she wiggled the cardboard from around the spoons.
As disgusting as it was to hold the piece of cardboard, she brought it into her office to study under the desk lamp. Slowly she pried it open. There were patches of faded color on the inside, but no message. She left the cardboard there on the table she used as her desk.
She climbed up the stairs to bed. But though she felt frayed from exhaustion, she soon saw that sleep wasn’t going to happen. Handling the spoons had spooked her all over again. She just lay there, listening, trying to guess whether the creaks and groans she heard were cause for alarm or just the old house settling. Finally she dragged her pillow and duvet downstairs and plopped down on the couch with them. At least there, she thought, she’d be more apt to hear anyone prowling outside the house. The last time she squinted at her watch, it was just after three. Finally she drifted off.
She was awake by 5:45, feeling hungover with fatigue. She forced herself to wait until eight to call Hutch. When she reached him, however, his chipper voice suggested that he’d been up for hours.
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a detective,” she told him.
“And why is that, lovely lady?”
“Because I studied your notes last night and again this morning, and I didn’t find a single clue hidden in there.”
Hutch chuckled. “I should have been clearer. What I discovered is not hidden at all. It’s right in front of your eyes.”
Phoebe conjured up the pages in her mind, trying to figure out what he meant.
“You’ve got me,” she said after a moment.
“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to give you a little lesson in detective work. Hold on a second. Ginger, get out of there. That’s not for you.” He returned his attention to Phoebe. “You up for that?”
“Absolutely. How soon can instruction begin?”
“I need to run up and see my nephew Dan in Allentown for a few hours. Ever since Becky died they’ve been good about having me over for Sunday lunch—or ‘brunch,’ as they call it. Why don’t we plan on getting together at my place around three this afternoon? But let me call first to let you know I’m home.”
“That sounds good,” Phoebe said. “Two twenty-one B Baker Street, right?”
Confused, Hutch started to ask what she meant and then got the joke. He chuckled again in his deep, husky voice.
“Exactly.”
She had a little time to kill before meeting Wesley, and she used it to review some of the notes she’d made for her classes on Monday. But she was anxious and ended up leaving earlier than she needed to. The day was raw and overcast, with a sky that looked like it had been smeared with soot. She found the diner that Wesley mentioned easily enough, its parking lot already jammed with cars. After locking up, she crossed the lot behind three beefy men dressed head-to-toe in camo, obviously planning to carbo-load for hunting down deer. In unison they flicked their cigarette butts to the ground before swinging open the door to the diner.
Inside, the place was overripe with the smell of eggs, bacon, French toast, and pancakes. Rather than increase her appetite, the aroma made her queasy. After she’d been shown to a booth, Phoebe ordered coffee and waited.
Wesley arrived fifteen minutes later, exactly on time. Despite the fact that it was Sunday, a day off for him, he looked as buttoned up as he had when she’d ambushed him after work: pressed khaki pants, an open-neck dress shirt in pale yellow, and a short, baseball-style wool jacket. His skin seemed freshly scrubbed, and his hair was spiked at the front of his massive scalp. Movie stars, she’d discovered over the years, often had heads slightly too big for their bodies, which worked brilliantly for them in films. But unfortunately she didn’t see this as a plus for poor Wesley.
“Thanks for meeting with me, Professor Hall,” he said, sliding in across the booth seat from her. He unzipped his jacket and folded it next to him.
“Please, call me Phoebe,” she said, smiling. “You’re not in school anymore, and I’m not even a real professor.”
He cocked his head and smiled back. “Got it,” he said.
“What would you like for breakfast?” Phoebe said. She wanted to quickly take care of ordering so they could get down to business. “I’m probably just going to stick with coffee myself.”
“Actually, coffee’s good for me, too,” he said. “My dad’s getting ready to head to Florida, and I promised I’d go over a few things with him at the mill later this morning.”
“I thought it was a feed business,” Phoebe said.
“Yeah, but we operate out of an old gristmill. It’s a neat place, and my dad bought it cheap about thirty years ago when he outgrew his old building. They actually used to make feed there, too.”
“Is there still water pumping through it?” Phoebe asked.
“Nah. We keep the sluice gate closed. But you can see the old water paddle and the gears and the millstones. Sometimes people come in just to take a look.”
Phoebe signaled for the waitress to bring another coffee.
“You said on the phone that you had something else to share,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s a detail I never thought to mention to anyone,” he said, “but something you said made me realize it might be important.”
“It’s about the night in Cat Tails?”
“Yeah. I think I mentioned to you that there were a few girls from Lyle College that night. At one point I could tell they were staring at me. And then it looked like they were saying something to each other about me—something kind of catty. I know it sounds stupid, but I felt so flustered I didn’t even hit the board one time.”
Jeez, Phoebe thought, why didn’t he say anything about this earlier?
“Was there a reason you didn’t mention this to the campus police?” she asked, her voice neutral.
“Maybe I should have,” Wesley said. “But it didn’t seem to matter at the time. They were the kind of girls who always looked down their noses at me, and they never came that close to me in the bar—at least that I noticed. When I talked to the campus cops back then, I was concentrating on people who were right near me—like that man by the jukebox.