“Don’t start with me,” I warned him, trying to puzzle out Glen’s strange behavior. It was almost as if he were deliberately taunting Hank since neither of us had mentioned a nightcap. Why would he do that?
“Oh, good, you found Grace.” Mrs. Jones’s voice came from her veranda. “Now you can tell us what you found out. I’m dying to know.”
Turning my back on Hank, I trotted over to Mrs. Jones, who looked fully recovered from her ordeal in a plum-colored velour lounging suit, her hair frilled around her face. Hank trailed up the steps after me, saying, “I wouldn’t trust that man, if I were you, Grace. My cop instincts tell me he’s trouble.”
Your cop instincts or your jealous ex-husband instincts? I wanted to ask but didn’t since Mrs. Jones was standing there. “I can take care of myself,” I said instead.
“What man?” Mrs. Jones asked, her eyes wide. “Do you have a new young man, Grace? Was that him that just drove off? I liked that snazzy car. A pretty young thing like you should be playing the field, living it up. It’s about time you got over your divorce and moved on. Life doesn’t stand still.”
I could feel the frustration building in Hank as she spoke and I edged away from him.
“She was married to me,” Hank said, his jaw jutting forward pugnaciously.
“Well, of course she was,” Mrs. Jones said, eyeing Hank like he was a bit dim. “But you blew that all to bits with your philandering, didn’t you? Ka-boom! Just like my pumpkin.”
I bit back a giggle as Hank gobbled incoherently.
Mrs. Jones blinked at him innocently. “What did you find out about the explosion?”
Hank pulled out his notebook, either to hide behind or refresh his memory. “The lab tested some of the residue. It was aluminum and hydrogen chloride.”
“My goodness! Where would one get that, I wonder?” Mrs. Jones asked.
“There’s a toilet bowl cleaner that has it,” Hank said, clearly pleased to be able to demonstrate his knowledge. “Kids mix some of the cleaner in a container—like a plastic pop bottle—add aluminum foil, and run like crazy. If it explodes in your hand, it can blow off a few fingers. Well, you’ve seen what it did to your jack-o’-lantern.” He glanced up at the ceiling where a few pumpkin strings still clung.
“Mercy.” Mrs. Jones put a hand to her chest. “But why my jack-o’-lantern?”
“It was most likely random—kids playing pranks on Halloween,” Hank said with a wrapping-it-up air, returning his notebook to his pocket.
“Did you talk to Alonso Farber?” I asked.
“We know how to do our jobs, Grace,” Hank said huffily.
I took that to mean no and resolved to make sure Agent Dillon had the info on the pumpkin bomb. I couldn’t shake the suspicion that it had been meant as a warning to me, with Mrs. Jones an accidental victim.
I entered my empty apartment with relief, ready for a shower and an hour reading one of my favorite Georgette Heyer novels. I’d read all her Regency romances a half dozen times or more, but they were still the books I went to when I was stressed. My answering machine blinked at me and I listened to a message from Marty, feeling vaguely guilty about having been out with Glen, but it’s not like we were ever exclusive and the dinner with Glen hadn’t really been a date. The message only said, “I’m off to Phoenix and then Houston for my story. It’s heating up. Check my byline this week. I’ll catch up with you later.”
It made me sad. Not a word about missing me or about rescheduling my trip to Washington. I reached for the phone but pulled back my hand. I wasn’t up to cheery enquiries about what he was working on when all the time I was worried that more than geographical distance separated us. Trailing to the bathroom, I remembered what Stella had said about all that goes unsaid in a relationship. Certainly with Hank I’d kept my innermost feelings to myself. Oh, we’d had it out about his affairs, but I’d never once told him how his screwing around made me feel little and worthless. Yes, it had hurt my feelings and finally dried up my love for him, but it was more than that.
I stepped into the shower and let the pounding spray wash away my unusual melancholy. I put it down to the aftereffects of Braden’s death—was it only this morning Dillon stopped by to tell me about it? Towel-drying my hair, I pulled on my UGA tee shirt and traipsed barefoot into my tiny kitchen. Glass of milk in hand, I headed for the orange and cream recliner, which didn’t match anything in the room but had cost me only fifteen dollars at a garage sale. I read Faro’s Daughter for a few minutes, but found that Ravenscar’s attitude toward Deb was depressing me instead of amusing me. My gaze fell on the box of documents from Rothmere.