Софи Райан - A Whisker Оf Trouble

I smiled at him. “You’re not too old. You know your way around a computer better than Avery does and you can find things that no one else can find.” I held up one finger. “And I don’t really want to know how you do that.”

He smiled back at me and a touch of color flushed his cheeks.

“I also think you’re forgetting that in this case, being older, looking older suggests maturity, wisdom, experience.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, but I could see that he was turning over my words in his mind.

I wrapped both hands around my cup. There was one more thing I wanted to say. “Rose and Liz and Charlotte all knew how old you were when they asked you to be the face of their agency. I’ve known them a long time and they have pretty good judgment.”

Mr. P. raised a hand to his toupee and then dropped it. “I wouldn’t want Rosie to think I was questioning her judgment,” he said. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then he lifted his hand again and grabbed the hairpiece to pull it off.

Except it didn’t come off. He pulled harder, but the only thing that achieved was to show that the toupee had the stretching ability of a piece of Silly Putty.

“Sarah, I think I need a little help,” he said.

In the end it took the two of us and some nail polish remover to unstick Alfred’s new hair from his head. The “handy gripper pads” left red marks on his scalp, but I put a little antibiotic cream on them and arranged his own hair so it more or less covered everything.

“You look nice, very professional,” I said. “Make sure you take a look at yourself in that cheval mirror Mac just brought in from the workroom.”

“I will, my dear,” he said. “Thank you.” He patted my hand and then he picked up Rose’s tea and went downstairs.

I went into my office. Elvis was sitting in my desk chair as though it belonged to him. “Up,” I said, making a move along gesture with one finger.

The cat didn’t so much as twitch a whisker.

“This is my office,” I said.

Elvis looked all around the room and then his green eyes came back to me. It seemed, at least in his kitty mind, that there was some dispute as to whose office it was.

I picked him up, claimed the chair and set him on my lap. He made an elaborate show of getting comfortable.

“Rose and Mr. P. are going to talk to Edison Hall’s neighbors,” I told the cat, leaning back in my seat.

He didn’t really seem interested. Instead he butted my hand with his head, cat for “scratch behind my ears.” I began to stroke his fur and after a moment Elvis began to purr.

“I don’t really have time to drive them,” I said.

“Mrrr,” Elvis said. That might have meant “sure you do,” or it might have meant “don’t stop.”

“You know Rose has some arthritis in her hip and Mr. P.’s knees aren’t good.”

He didn’t say anything other than to keep on purring.

I’d meant it when I said I didn’t want to be involved in another one of the Angels’ cases. Two was more than enough, thank you very much.

But.

“If I don’t drive them I’ll be worrying about them the entire time they’re gone.”

Elvis leaned into my hand and looked up at me, green eyes blissfully narrowed almost to two slits. I folded my free arm behind my head and stared up at the sloped ceiling over my head.

“On the other hand, if I take them it’s a slippery slope down to getting pulled into their investigation. It’s like sitting at the top of the Poseidon’s Plunge slide at Splashtown water park. I’m going to end up barefoot and rump over teakettle, trying not to upchuck, asking myself what the heck I was thinking in the first place.”

“Mrrr,” Elvis said.

I picked him up, got to my feet and set him back in the chair. He shook his black furry head and made a face at me. I kissed the top of his head, just above the bridge of his nose. “I have things to do,” I said. “Guard the office.”

Rose and Mr. P. were in the sunporch office, their heads bent over the laptop. I knocked on the doorframe. They both looked up at me.

“Hi,” I said. I hesitated. “I need a favor.”

“Of course, my dear,” Mr. P. said.

“What do you need?” Rose asked.

My head examined, was what I wanted to say. “I’d like to come with you,” I said.

Rose looked at Alfred and then she got to her feet. “Why?” she asked, a challenge evident in her eyes. “Do you think Alfred and I aren’t capable of talking to witnesses?”

“I think you’re capable of talking to anyone about anything. I’d like to come because I think I owe it to Stella. We said we’d help her and I want to do that.”

As I said the words I realized they were true. I liked the way Stella stepped up, first by hiring us to clear out her brother’s house and make things easier on Ethan and his wife. And how she was still trying to help them, trying to somehow salvage some money from Edison’s estate so Ellie could have the surgery she needed. It was the kind of thing my grandmother would do—had done more than once.

“She reminds me of Gram,” I said.

Rose smiled then. “Yes, she does.” She looked at Alfred.

He nodded.

“Of course you can come with us,” she said.

I glanced at my watch. “Does half an hour work for you?”

“That would be lovely,” Rose said.

Mac was at the workbench, searching through a container of metal wall hooks.

“I called Jess,” I said, leaning against the bench. “She has some ideas for cushions for the bishop’s pew. She’ll probably be here sometime this afternoon.”

Mac shook the Mason jar, made a face and then upended it onto the painted wooden surface.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Those two brass hooks with the lion’s face.”

I looked up at the row of glass canning jars on the long shelf behind the workbench. “Try that one,” I said. “Four from the end.”

Mac reached for the container I’d indicated and unscrewed the lid. The two hooks he’d been looking for were on top. “Thanks,” he said. “How do you do that?”

I put my fingers up to my temples. “It’s my superpower.”

“I thought your superpower was the ability to spot a decent piece of furniture under nine coats of old paint.”

“That, too,” I said with a grin. “Superpowers don’t just come one to a customer.”

Mac laughed. He put the lids back on both jars. “Are you leaving soon?” he asked as he leaned over and set them back on the shelf.

“What do you mean?” I said, feeling my face begin to get warm.

“Are you and Rose and Alfred leaving soon?”

I scuffed one foot against a small divot in the floor. “How did you know?” I shot him a sideways glance.

“You care about them,” he said, dipping his head in the direction of the sunporch. “And you like Stella Hall. You gave her a good deal on clearing out the house.”

“Gram asked me to help, if I could. She and Stella go way back.”

“I saw your face the first time she came in here to talk about the job. You would have given her a deal whether Isabel was friends with her or not.”

I sighed. “It’s not much of a way to run a business, is it?” I said.

Mac picked up the two hooks and gave me a thoughtful smile. “I think it’s a good way to run a life,” he said. He turned and headed for the back door.

Mac and Charlotte were arranging different versions of our current chair collection around a long trestle table for a customer when I came downstairs with my coat and purse about twenty-five minutes later. I raised a hand in good-bye. Charlotte smiled and mouthed, Good luck .

Rose and Mr. P. were waiting by the back door. In his long jacket over his gray suit, he looked almost distinguished. Rose looked equally polished in a blue coat over a black skirt and jacket.