Panic Button (29 page)

“Angela suspected, didn’t she?” I asked him. “She had an inkling of what you were
up to. That explains why she had those books about Ardent town history in her house.
And maps of the area, too. She realized you were looking for the treasure, and that
for reasons she probably didn’t understand, you needed the button to find it. Her
button. Did you try to talk her into giving you the Ardent button, Larry? I mean,
before you strangled her and stole it?”

“That’s…” Larry’s smile froze in place. “That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. But not as crazy as a curse, right? The fire at
Angela’s, the break-in, all engineered by you so that she’d take the curse seriously
and get rid of the charm string. Only you never counted on her wanting to dump it
in Lake Michigan. That’s when you convinced her to donate it.”

“And she said she was going to donate it to me.” Leave it to Marci not to miss out
on speaking her piece.

Actually, I was grateful. “Exactly,” I said, turning her way. “Angela offered you
the charm string first. But that wasn’t going to work, was it, Larry?” I swung my
gaze his way. “Because the Little Museum has a state-of-the-art alarm system, and
you knew if the charm string went there, you’d never get your hands on it. You’d read
enough about Ben’s life to hear rumors about a secret key that would help you find
the treasure. You knew Angela had a button with a picture of old Ardent on it. You
had to get that button. And she wouldn’t give it to you, would she?”

Larry’s chin came up a fraction of an inch. “If I’d asked, she would have given me
the button. Angela would have done anything for me. But I didn’t ask.” His eyes snapped
to mine. “I couldn’t ask for a button when I didn’t know anything about the button
or the treasure, for that matter.”

I figured he’d object, and I was ready for it. “That’s what you and Angela fought
about the morning she was killed, right? She figured out that you didn’t love her,
you were just pretending so you could get your hands on the charm string. And you
didn’t kiss and make up before she came to Chicago. She was still upset when she arrived
at the Button Box. And you followed her. You confronted her. You fought and you grabbed
for the nearest weapon. Did you rip the Ardent button off the charm string before
you strangled her with it? Well, you must have. That would explain how it didn’t get
lost in the dark. Poor
Angela must have been heartbroken when she realized what you were up to.”

Larry crossed his arms over his chest. “And poor Susan? I suppose you have some lame
theory about her death, too.”

“Well, my guess is your feelings for her were just as phony as your feelings for Angela.
You dated Susan originally because you wanted to get your hands on Ben’s diary. Then
when you realized you’d never get the button unless you were close to Angela, you
switched your affections. Once Angela was out of the way, you were free to start wooing
Susan again. And it almost worked, didn’t it? You would have gotten away with it if
she didn’t walk in here that Sunday morning looking for her purse. Once she found
you with your hand in the Thunderin’ Ben exhibit switching one of the old books you
found at Angela’s for the real diary…” I looked at the display case, picturing the
horrible scene. “You had no choice but to kill her, too.”

“Absolutely not!” Larry stomped one foot. “None of it is true, and I won’t let you
repeat a word of it. Not to anyone. There are laws about slander, you know, and if
word of this gets around in Ardent Lake, my business will be ruined. You can’t prove
it.” He stalked toward the door. “You can’t prove any of it.”

Nev stopped him with one simple phrase. “We will,” he said, “once the police are done
searching your house and we find the treasure. And the diary. And the button.”

“And even if we didn’t have that…” I walked over to
where I’d set my purse. “There is the whole thing about Aunt Evelyn.”

Larry went as still as if he’d been flash frozen. “How dare you bring up the memory
of that nice, old lady? Evelyn was a dear.”

“And you were a dear to humor Angela and take Evelyn along on so many of your outings.”
I opened my purse and pulled out the photograph of Larry and Evelyn in the park that
I’d originally seen in Angela’s bedroom. “You were kind to Evelyn.”

“Of course I was.”

“And you did it just to humor Angela. Not because you wanted to get the button from
the string when Evelyn owned it?”

“I told you that’s not true!” At the same time Larry took a step toward me, Nev moved
in my direction, too. Even that wasn’t enough to get Larry to back off. His hands
curled into fists and his arms tight at his sides, Larry bent to look me in the eye.
“You’re lying.”

“Pictures don’t lie.” I showed the photo to Larry and, since they were leaning forward
to try and get a glimpse, I held it out so Marci and Charles could see it, too. “This
picture shows you with Evelyn,” I said, though Larry certainly didn’t need a reminder.
“I found it in Angela’s room along with the other pictures of you she’d taken down
from her wall.”

Larry sniffed. “She was repainting.”

“She was as mad as hell. Because I’ll bet anything that Angela found this picture
when she cleaned out Evelyn’s house, and when she cleaned out Evelyn’s house…” I gave
Larry another chance to fess up, and
when he didn’t, I had no choice but to go on. “Angela realized you were romancing
Aunt Evelyn two years ago.”

“I…” Larry’s jaw went slack and he blinked rapidly. “I wasn’t…I didn’t…I…”

“You can explain it all down at the station. If there’s any way to explain.” Jimmy
Carns stepped in from the hallway and slapped handcuffs on Larry.

T
HE NEXT
M
ONDAY,
I was back at the Button Box and grateful for it. I was back where I belonged, lost
in a world of buttons, and as happy as any button-a-holic can be.

I was just finishing switching out a display of calico buttons for one of clear glass
(mostly because I hadn’t played with my clear glass buttons for a while and I was
itching to get a look at them) when the bell over the front door chinked and Nev stuck
his head into the shop.

“Just got a call from Jimmy Carns,” Nev said. “Larry confessed.”

“Poor Susan, and poor, poor Angela. She had the charm string with one thousand buttons
on it, and her Prince Charming finally came along. Too bad he wasn’t the man of anyone’s
dreams.” I’d been on my knees, checking the lower shelves of the display case to make
sure everything was perfect, and I got up and walked to the front of the shop. “But
at least a confession saves a long, drawn-out trial.”

“Well, it’s not like Larry could do much else. He didn’t hide the diary very well,
or that missing button. As for the treasure…”

Nev’s voice drifted off, and I knew exactly how he felt. It still took my breath away
to think that the Ardent Lake police had found a jewel case filled with old gold coins
hidden in Larry’s attic.

“Maybe they’ll put the treasure on display at the Big Museum,” I suggested.

Nev grinned. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

He was still positioned half in, and half out of the shop, and I was just going to
ask what was going on when he jerked to the side, as if his arm had been pulled.

“What…” I got as far as the door, and when LaSalle saw me, he let out a bark. He was
still wearing that bright blue collar and he was tethered to a blue leash. Need I
say that the other end of that leash was in Nev’s hand?

“What?” He acted like this wasn’t any big deal.

“Bring him in.” I waved cop and dog into the shop and LaSalle ran over to greet me,
paws on my knees and ears flapping. “So, you’ve got a new best friend, huh?” I asked
the dog. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

“He’d only get in trouble out on the street,” Nev said, rubbing the dog’s head. “And
when I suggested he might want a permanent home—”

I laughed. “You don’t need to explain. LaSalle’s had plenty of opportunities to go
home with the merchants and the workers from the neighborhood. He was never interested.
I guess he was just waiting for the right person to come along.”

Nev dropped the leash and LaSalle wandered over to stick his nose in the trash can
near my desk. With the dog busy, Nev propped his hands on my hips. “I think that’s
what we’re all looking for, don’t you?”

I couldn’t have agreed more. I slipped my hands around Nev’s waist.

“Except, I hope you understand…” he said. “You know…” I looked up just in time to
see the tips of his ears turn pink. “I mean, about the B and B.”

I wiped the smile from my face. I wasn’t actually mad about what had happened in Ardent
Lake on Saturday night. In fact, I was actually pretty relieved. But it didn’t hurt
to tease a guy, just a little. “You mean about how Mary Lou offered us that room for
Saturday night and we turned her down?”

“Yeah.” A look of regret crossed his face. “I just…well, we’d just caught a murderer,
and let’s face it, murder isn’t exactly romantic.”

“No, it is definitely not.”

“And I…” Nev tightened his hold. “When it happens, Josie, I want it to be perfect.”

This time, I didn’t even try to control my smile.

See, that was the moment I knew for sure. Perfect? Oh yeah, it would be.

I find the whole notion of charm strings (also called friendship strings or memory
strings) terribly romantic. Imagine all those girls way back in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, trading and saving buttons, giving and getting them
as gifts, then stringing them in the hopes that once button number one thousand arrived,
so would Prince Charming.

In fact, there were a number of superstitions associated with charm strings, and a
number of them were variations on the Prince Charming story. One said that the prince
was the one who had to string that one thousandth button. Another turned the romantic
notion on its head and said that if a girl got button number 1000, she would die an
old maid.

Whatever the legend, old charm strings are extremely rare these days. That doesn’t
mean the hobby couldn’t be renewed. Save up old buttons, and string them with the
princes and princesses in your life! Who knows, someday, those charm strings, too,
might be precious, old and valuable.

For more information about vintage and antique buttons and button collecting, go to:
www.nationalbuttonsociety.org.

I
F IT WASN’T FOR
J
ERRY
G
ARCIA PEEING ON MY PANSIES
, I never would have joined the League of Literary Ladies.

No, not that Jerry Garcia! Jerry Garcia, Chandra Morrisey’s cat. In fact, it was that
peeing incident, and the one before it, and the one before that…

Well, suffice it to say that if it wasn’t for Jerry’s less-than-stellar bathroom habits,
there never would have been a League at all.

Jerry, see, was the reason I was in mayor’s court that Thursday morning.

Again.

“That damned cat…” I bit my lower lip to hold in my temper and the long list of Jerry’s
sins I was tempted to recite. After all, Alvin Littlejohn, the court magistrate, had
heard it all before.

Then again, so had Chandra Morrisey, and her cat was still peeing on my pansies.

Chandra was standing to my right, and I swung her way. “He needs to be kept in the
house. That’s all I’m asking.”

It was all I’d asked the week previously, too, and just like that time (and the time
before and the time before that), Chandra rolled her eyes, which were the color of
the gray clouds that blanketed the sky outside the town hall building. “Cats are free
spirits,” she said, her voice as soft as the rolls of flesh that rippled beneath a
tie-dyed T-shirt that fit her like a second, Easter-egg-swirl-of-color skin. “They
are the embodiment of nature spirits. If we don’t allow them to roam free, we impede
their mission in this world. They can commune with the Other Side, you know.” Like
it would help the information sink into this nonbeliever’s skull, Chandra looked at
me hard.

If I was still back in New York City, I would have given her a one-finger salute and
been done with it. But we were, in fact, on an island twelve miles from the southern
shore of Lake Erie, and as I’d come to learn in the six weeks I’d lived on South Bass,
residents here were a different breed. They moved slower than folks back in the Big
Apple. They were friendlier. Considerate. More civilized.

Well, except for Jerry.

And, obviously, his owner.

“This is ridiculous!” I threw my hands in the air. Not as dramatic a gesture as I
would have liked, but hey, like I said, people here were considerate, and my goal
in coming to the island in the first place was to blend in. “You’re
wasting my time, Chandra. And the court’s time, too. All you need to do is—”

“All Chandra needs to do?”

Honestly, I was so fixated on Jerry’s loony owner, I’d forgotten Kate Wilder was even
in the room. She stood on my left, tapping one sensible pump against the black-and-white
linoleum. “It’s not like I have time for this, Alvin, and you know it,” she grumbled,
her arms crossed over the jacket of a neat navy suit that looked particularly puritanical
against flaming orange hair that was as long as my coal black tresses, but not nearly
as curly. “We could settle this whole thing quickly, if you’d tell her…” Kate was
a petite, pretty woman who looked to be about thirty-five, the same age as me. Her
emerald green eyes snapped to mine. “Tell Ms. Cartwright here to cut down on the traffic
at that B and B of hers and there won’t be anything left for us to discuss.”

“Oh, we’ll still have plenty to talk about,” I shot back. “Especially if your constant
nagging about traffic means my renovations don’t get done by the time I’m scheduled
to open. Come on, it’s not like it’s any big deal. It’s just a few trucks coming down
the street now and then.”