“Not to this old lady. Nevertheless, I heard Reggie mutter the name a couple times. We weren’t having a conversation; it was just him muttering. I don’t think he knew I heard him, but I don’t know for sure. If I happened to hear him and I haven’t been here but for a couple weeks, imagine how often he must have said it.”
I tried to imagine Reggie Stuckey walking around and muttering “Ridgeway.” I couldn’t picture anything but a befuddled and flighty man, which didn’t fit with the person I’d met briefly in the Bailey’s parking lot.
“Do you know the context? Was he angry, confused, laughing?”
Gellie thought a moment. “Matter-of-fact. He was simply matter-of-fact. It was like I heard blah, blah, blah, and Ridgeway.”
“He must have felt comfortable around you.”
“Everyone’s comfortable around me, especially when I bake them muffins and serve them tea. I tend to blend into the woodwork, too.” She lifted the serving plate toward me.
“Yes, thanks, I’d love another one. You ever do any office stuff for him, maybe fax papers or anything?”
Gellie laughed. “No, dear, I wouldn’t know which way was up on a fax machine. Give me a coffeemaker or a blender and I can rule the world, but I’m not interested in becoming acquainted with a fax, a computer, an e-mail whachamhooie, or any of it.”
I didn’t learn much more from Gellie, except that she was from Smithfield and had a grown daughter who’d given her two of the most beautiful grandchildren in the world. She’d been a housekeeper and a cook all her life and she loved what she did even if geese were sometimes involved. Joel and Patricia Archer were nowhere to be found by the time we’d finished off the muffins and tea.
Hobbit and I were a little late, but we hurried to Bailey’s. As I drove out of the small valley with the spectacular house that had an even more spectacular kitchen, a cook named Gellie, and a goose named Batman, I wondered if I’d imagined it all. I glanced in my rearview mirror and thought if I blinked and looked again, it might all be gone.
“Let’s not find out,” I said to Hobbit.
She agreed.
Nine
On the way to the market, I called Sam to tell him the details from my meeting with Gellie. I left out the goose bite. I’d had my sleeves pushed up when Batman bit me. I now had them rolled down, so I hoped the injury would go unnoticed, and I wasn’t going to replay it over the phone.
Sam was genuinely pleased to have the new information, and said he’d tell me later if he found out more. In turn, I was genuinely pleased that he’d share with me.
This was working just fine.
The market was, not surprisingly, busy, and my late arrival put me in an immediate rush and made me unable to properly set up my stall. I started off behind and remained so until around noon, when things slowed a little and I could finally properly display what was left of my inventory, though it seemed a lame effort. Hobbit was patient in the back of the stall but I knew she’d rather be on her pillow on the porch. I wouldn’t be able to leave for a couple more hours so I hurried to Brenton’s stall, bought a couple of his homemade biscuits, and supplied Hobbit with treats and a big bowl of water. Brenton had been just as busy as the rest of us, so I didn’t have an opportunity to ask him any questions. He seemed closer to the normal Brenton but still subdued.
When I’d left my stall for Brenton’s, I’d asked Linda to keep an eye on Hobbit, which was an easy duty. Hobbit was comfortable and unbothered by my brief absence. But for the millionth time since she’d been the main part of my family, I wished she could talk in words and not just with facial expressions, because she was probably the only one to see whoever left the surprise on the back corner of my side table.
“Linda, did you by chance see who left this for me?” I held the item up as I leaned around the pole.
“No. What it is?”
“I think it’s a Christmas tree ornament.”
Specifically, it was an onion—a big, white, and almost perfectly round onion. But it was decorated with more care than had been taken on the eggshell. Instead of red and green markers, the artist had used ribbon. A green band of ribbon circled the top of the onion and a red one circled the bottom. Wire had been inserted through the bottom and came up through the top to form a hook. The onion was dense and heavy but the thick wire over a good, solid tree limb would hold it in place. That was, if I was so inclined to put an onion on my tree.
“Well, it’s . . . kind of interesting,” Linda said.
“Interesting is a good word.”
“What’s the circle in the middle?”