Panic Button (25 page)

“So for the first week or so,” Kaz went on, “things were pretty quiet. After treasure
hunting all day, I’d get something to eat, then go back to the campground and just
relax and do some more research about the treasure, you know, check maps and things.
Then last weekend, some other campers arrived, and there was this guy who started
up a card game.”

“And you couldn’t resist.”

“No, I couldn’t.” It was as simple as that. At least to Kaz. “The first night, I actually
won a few hands. I was in good shape.”

“Until you weren’t.”

“You got that right. And the guy who ran the game was
decent, and chatty, and while we were playing, I mentioned I lived in Chicago and
he knew my name, of course.”

“So now that you owe him money, and he knows where you live, he’s looking for you.”

Kaz made a face. “And I didn’t even find the treasure.”

It was the story of Kaz’s life. The story of our marriage. There wasn’t much I could
say. Instead, I cleaned up the worktable and slipped on my jacket.

I made sure the back door was locked, and Kaz followed me to the front of the shop.

“I can’t go home,” he said.

“You’re not coming with me,” I replied.

He tried for slick and, yeah, sexy, too, when he lowered his voice. “I don’t take
up much room, and I can be pretty well behaved—if you want me to be.”

By this time, we were out on the sidewalk and I locked the shop door behind us. “I
want you to go away,” I said. “Like I’ve always wanted you to go away.”

“Except when I was away—”

“Good-night, Kaz.” I turned to walk to the nearest El stop.

And Kaz gave up with his usual equanimity and headed the other way. “See ya, Jo,”
he called. “Hey, I’ll stop in next week. We can get dinner, and I’ll tell you all
about what it’s like to be a treasure hunter.”

I would have stopped cold even if I wasn’t ready to cross a street and the light was
against me. But then, that’s because a couple odd things happened at the same time.

For one, LaSalle raced by, hot on a trail of a ginger-striped cat I saw duck into
the nearest alley. That in itself
wasn’t all that unusual. The fact that LaSalle was wearing a bright blue collar was.

And the second thing?

That made me grin from ear to ear. See, I still didn’t know who’d killed Angela and
Susan. But suddenly, I was pretty sure I knew why.

J
IMMY
C
ARNS WAS JUST GETTING READY TO PULL OUT
of the parking lot of the Ardent Lake police station. He didn’t look surprised to
see me. Then again, I’d called Nev the night before (it was late and he was still
at the station, knee deep in his newest case) and told him what I was up to. No doubt,
the police grapevine had done its job.

“Of course we dusted for prints after Susan’s murder. All over the Big Museum.” It
was a warm morning, and it promised to be an even warmer afternoon, and Jimmy had
rolled down the windows of the patrol car. His cap was off and lying on the seat next
to him. “In a place as big and as busy as that…”

The way he refused to say the words spoke volumes. I was afraid this was what was
going to happen, and my
shoulders drooped. “You didn’t find anything out of the ordinary?” I asked. “You’re
sure?”

“Wish I could say otherwise. Hey…” As far as Jimmy was concerned, the subject wasn’t
so much closed as it was at a dead end. He changed it deftly. “You’re staying around
for the festival this weekend, aren’t you?”

I was. I told him I’d gotten a room at Mary Lou’s B and B for the night (and just
for the record, it was a single room with a single bed in it) and that Nev would be
joining me the next day for the festivities. “Until then…” Even from here, I could
hear all the hustle and bustle going on over at the park. The festival was scheduled
to start that evening with a speech from the mayor and a concert by the Ardent Lake
High School marching band, and the sounds of trucks coming and going, of hammering,
and of sound systems being checked and rechecked added a staccato rhythm and an air
of anticipation to the Friday morning. “You wouldn’t mind if I just had a look around,
would you?”

“You mean at the Big Museum?” Jimmy laughed in a way that told me he thought I watched
too many episodes of
Murder, She Wrote
. Then again, there was that police grapevine. I think he was thinking about that,
too, and about what he might have heard from Nev about my skills as a modern-day Jessica
Fletcher, because he nodded. “Be my guest,” he said. “The Big Museum’s expecting a
rush of visitors this weekend, so I know it’s open now. You know, so they can get
everything ready. Go on over there and poke around to your heart’s content. I don’t
think you’ll find anything, though.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” I wished he wasn’t. I hoped he wasn’t. “No one will mind?”

Jimmy punched his patrol car into reverse. “There’s an interim head curator in charge.
I’ll give her a call.”

Was I surprised when I told the docent near the front door of the Big Museum that
I was there to see that interim curator and she pointed me toward the woman with spiky
red hair and high, high heels?

Not really. After all, it made sense. Marci had once applied for Susan’s job at the
Big Museum, and she knew a thing or two about curating. In fact, she looked perfectly
at home click-clacking her way across the marble floors, directing staff where to
put up this or that signage, and how to set up the rooms for the cocktail party scheduled
after the fireworks in the park the next evening.

“I can’t say I’m surprised to see you.” Marci zipped past me with barely a glance.
“Jimmy Carns called.”

I was grateful. It saved me from a lot of explaining.

There was a pile of brochures about the museum on a nearby table, and Marci grabbed
them, handed them to the closest docent, and told him to put them into the racks near
the door. When she was done, she brushed her hands together and finally gave me her
full attention. “He said you wanted to take a look around, but he didn’t say what
you wanted to see.”

“He didn’t tell me you were the interim curator.”

Her smile was sleek. “Who else would they have asked? Oh, you should have seen their
faces. It was positively delicious! As soon as the board of trustees realized the
festival was breathing down their necks and there were plenty of people who were going
to show up for that, not to mention the cocktail party Susan had scheduled…well…”
She tugged her black suit jacket into
place and squared her slim shoulders. “I love that sort of irony, don’t you? They
came calling, proverbial hat in hand.”

“And you jumped at the chance to take Susan’s place.”

I guess Marci had never thought of it that way. That would explain why she narrowed
her eyes and gave me a quick, scathing look. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

“Really? What would you say, exactly?”

I didn’t have a chance to find out. The front doors opened and a couple guys came
in carrying huge arrangements of yellow, white, and pink spring flowers in tall white
vases. Marci ducked away long enough to show them where to put the flowers, then waved
me into the picture room, where less than a week earlier, I’d found Susan lying in
a pool of blood.

She propped her fists on what she had of hips. “What are you getting at?” Marci asked.

“Me? Not a thing. I was just thinking. That’s all. It’s mighty convenient, what with
Susan out of the way and you finally getting a chance to step into the job you wanted
all along.”

Some of the starch went out of Marci’s shoulders. “I never thought of it that way.
You don’t think—” She chewed her lower lip. “I didn’t ask for this opportunity. The
board of trustees are the ones—”

“You said it yourself. You were the most logical choice.”

“Well, yeah.” When she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, I swore I heard her
hair gel crack. “But that doesn’t mean I’m guilty of anything. You don’t think…” Whatever
I was thinking, Marci was thinking about Susan. I could tell because her gaze darted
from this
corner of the room to that, scanning the now pristine floor, no doubt thinking of
Susan’s lifeless body lying on the cold marble. “I didn’t kill her.”

“I didn’t say you did. But you did want her job. You still do.”

She cast another quick look in my direction. This one was far more hesitant than it
was challenging. “You’re bound to find out sooner or later,” she said, and I knew
she wasn’t happy to admit it because her bowed lips puckered. “I’ve already told the
board, I’ll close the Little Museum in a heartbeat. I mean, if they give me this job
permanently.”

I had to give Marci big points for honesty. Especially when the truth made her look
as guilty as sin. Then again, job envy might give her a motive for killing Susan,
but it didn’t explain Angela’s murder.

At least not yet, anyway.

“So…” Like most people—guilty or not—Marci wasn’t comfortable discussing murder. She
waved an arm casually, indicating all of the museum in one gesture. “Jimmy didn’t
say what you wanted to see.”

As far as I remembered, I hadn’t told him. Not specifically, anyway. I stepped around
Marci and into the pirate room. “Actually, I’d like to get a good look at Thunderin’
Ben’s exhibit,” I told her.

She lifted one shoulder. “Have at it. It’s just like any other exhibit. Look all you
want.”

“No. I mean, I just don’t want to look at it like any tourist would look at it. I
was hoping to…” Now that it was time to explain how I wanted to plunder the pirate
exhibit, I found the words hard to come by. I made a little
waving gesture, indicating that I’d like the glass case that held Ben’s things to
be opened.

“Really?” Marci wrinkled her nose, and call me crazy, but I had a feeling she was
about to pull out the I-am-interim-curator excuse and cut me off at the knees. It
might have been because she was itching to exert a little authority. Or she may have
had other reasons. Either way, I couldn’t let it happen.

“Jimmy Carns said I’ve got carte blanche.” OK, so it wasn’t technically the truth,
but hey, we were talking two homicides here, and murder trumps the truth card. “If
there’s a reason you don’t want me to look around—”

“I don’t have anything to hide.” I actually might have believed her if Marci’s shoulders
weren’t as stiff as her hair. “Look around. All you want. Be my guest.”

“I
T’S MOONCUSSING, DON’T
you see?”

Kind of a bad way to phrase it, since Nev and I were talking on the phone and seeing
what I’d seen at the Big Museum that day wasn’t something it was possible for him
to do.

He reminded me of this with a, “How can I? I’m not there.”

I clamped my lips shut before I could snap back and say something I might regret.

The warm morning had transformed into a stuffy afternoon and an even more hot and
humid evening. I’d pulled my hair off my neck and back into a ponytail, and I tugged
on it. No doubt, Nev was just as uncomfortable in the big city as I was there in Ardent
Lake, and
dog-tired on top of it, too. He had been busy all afternoon; I’d called him four times
before I actually got to talk to him.

Too-early-in-the-spring-for-these-high-temperatures plus multiple phone calls do not
a patient person make, and I told myself not to forget it at the same time I imagined
he wasn’t exactly in the mood for a woman who wasn’t making herself clear.

I vowed to make myself clear.

“OK, it’s like this,” I said, explaining slowly enough (I hoped) to be understood
but not so slowly as to make Nev think I assumed he was obtuse. “Mooncussing was something
pirates used to do. They’d move buoy markers so that they ended up near rocks and
reefs. A ship’s captain would see the buoy and assume it was in open water when it
was really in a dangerous place instead. The ships would go aground. Or sink. And
then the pirates would move in to steal anything they could get their hands on.”

I couldn’t see Nev, of course, but I could picture him nodding. I knew when he did,
a single strand of shaggy hair would end up hanging over his forehead. “And pirates
and buoy markers are important to our investigation because…”

“Because Thunderin’ Ben, the pirate who used to live in these parts and who’s something
of a folk hero around here…Thunderin’ Ben used to do mooncussing. And our murderer
did, too.”

“Uh-huh.”

So much for me making myself perfectly clear. Nev didn’t sound any more certain now
than he had at the beginning of our conversation.

“That’s what I found at the museum this afternoon,” I said. “The buoy marker in the
Thunderin’ Ben display…it had been moved.”

“Uh-huh.”

I counted to ten, and when that didn’t work, I counted again before I said, “Don’t
you get it, Nev? There’s no reason anyone should have been messing with that display.
I talked to one of the docents who’s been working at the museum for like forever.
She told me that Ben’s exhibit has always been the same. Nothing’s been changed. Nothing’s
been added. That’s how it’s been since the exhibit opened, and that was two years
ago.”