by Laura Childs
“That is a problem because I’m not positive. Sure, Reverend Jakes is on my suspect list, but now I’ve got an even worse feeling about Teddy Hardwick.” Suzanne shuddered. “Toni, if you could have seen him all alone in that dark theater. It was Halloween-style creepy.”
“And now he’s got the ghost costume,” Toni said. She leaned back and stared at Suzanne. “So what do you want to do?”
“My head tells me we should make a left-hand turn and try to investigate Teddy Hardwick.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Toni asked. “And, yes, I noticed you’re using the ‘we’ word.” When Suzanne didn’t answer, Toni said, “Uh-oh. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Suzanne said. “What are you thinking?”
“That you want to spy on him up close and personal?”
“Not at the theater; that’s for sure. I don’t want to go back there. But . . .”
“Oh jeez,” Toni said, her eyes going wide. “You want to creepy-crawl Hardwick’s house, don’t you?”
“Don’t you?”
“No!”
“Come on,” Suzanne urged, “you’re my partner in crime.”
“‘Crime’ being the operative word. What if we get caught? There are laws on the books against breaking and entering.”
“Why are you worried? You don’t have a police record.”
“And I don’t intend to start now,” Toni said. “Who needs a crazy Lindsay Lohan–type mug shot? That stuff is guaranteed to find its way onto the Internet and stay there forever. Nope, this chickie-poo ain’t interested.”
“But if I asked you real nice, then would you say yes?”
Toni sighed deeply. “Ah, I don’t know. Well . . . maybe. I suppose if I imbibed a cocktail or two, that might take the edge off. A little liquor always helps me think straight.”
* * *
• • •
AND that’s how Suzanne and Toni found themselves at Schmitt’s Bar. Sitting in a battered wooden booth, “Devil with a Blue Dress On” blaring over the speakers, the clink of beer mugs and pool balls ringing in their ears.
“Whatcha gonna order?” Toni asked. She had a draft beer sitting in front of her as she studied the one-page menu. Suzanne had a margarita.
“Burger basket,” Suzanne said. “What else?” Freddy, the hippy-dippy bartender and owner of Schmitt’s Bar, had a secret method for cooking burgers. He sizzled them on a grill that was black as the coals of hell. And once those burgers were done, all charred and plump and juicy, he slipped them inside a nice, smooshy bun and served them with Parmesan fries.
The waitress, a gum-chewing woman in a pink tank top and low-slung blue jeans, took their orders and brought them each a second drink.
“I’m sorry,” Suzanne said, “but we didn’t order these.”
“It’s happy hour,” the waitress said, snapping her gum. “Double bubble. Two drinks for the price of one.”
“Hot-cha,” Toni said, lifting her glass. “That’s the kind of math I can understand.”
“Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones suddenly spilled out over the speakers and Toni began wiggling, doing a gleeful little seat dance.
“Careful there, girlfriend,” Suzanne said. “You could attract some undue attention.”
“Au contraire,” Toni said. “I’d consider it my due.” She snapped her fingers in time to the music and squirmed around, looking at all the men who were lined up two-deep at the bar.
“If Sam saw me here, right now, I do believe he’d call off the wedding,” Suzanne said.
“No way. That man worships the eggshells you walk on.”
“You think I’ve been tiptoeing around? That I haven’t exactly been candid with him?”
“Sure. But that’s because you don’t want to cause him any worry,” Toni said.
“You have a wonderful way of rationalizing everything, don’t you?”
“Hey, don’t knock a good stiff rationalization,” Toni said. “They’ve gotten me through lots of tight spots.”
Their burgers arrived and they tore into them.
“Mmn, guh,” Toni said, talking with her mouth full.
“Uh, guh,” Suzanne agreed. She swallowed hard and said, “But how on earth can you polish off a double burger with cheese and onions? I mean, you’re like a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet.”
“It’s my killer metabolism. I’m like a diesel-powered Ford F-150. I can burn fuel faster than I can shove it in.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Just lucky, I guess. By the way, exactly what did you tell Sam about tonight?”
“That I was grabbing a bite with you,” Suzanne said.
“In other words, you have Sam on a need-to-know basis. And tonight he doesn’t need to know.”
“Only if we discover something exceedingly strange,” Suzanne said.
* * *
• • •
TWENTY minutes later, their burger baskets polished off, they were finishing up their drinks.
“You sure you want to do this?” Toni asked. “We could just sit here and order another drink. String out the evening and let your plan go a little hazy. Eventually we’d forget all about it.”
“No, I really want to investigate,” Suzanne said.
“What if Hardwick’s at home?”
“Then we won’t go near his house or even peek in a window. But he told me he planned to be working late at the theater.”
“So what exactly would we be looking for?” Toni asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“What!”
“Maybe we’ll know it when we see it?” Suzanne offered.
“That doesn’t exactly sound like a well-laid plan. More like one of those let’s-invade-Russia-in-the-winter plans. Never works out.”
“I hear you,” Suzanne said.
“Do you know which town house belongs to Hardwick?”
“Yes, but only because I looked it up on the Internet,” Suzanne said.
“The stalker’s guidebook to the universe,” Toni chuckled.
“If you’re having second thoughts, I completely understand,” Suzanne said.
“You think I’d let you sneak into Hardwick’s place all by yourself? No way. What if something really horrible happened?” Toni leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Like what if he caught you and threw you into a victim pit in his basement.”
“Toni!”
“Well, you’re the one who thinks sweet little Teddy could have murdered Allan Sharp. So what’s to stop him from doing the same thing to you?”
Suzanne took a final sip of her drink and let it slide down her throat. “You make a good point, Toni. A darned good point.”
* * *
• • •
FIFTEEN minutes later, Suzanne and Toni were cruising past Hardwick’s town house in Whitetail Woods. A light snow was coming down, creating a kind of shimmering haze. Streetlamps cast dim yellow circles in the snow.
“There it is,” Suzanne said as she slowed her car. “Second unit from the end.” A burp of adrenaline pushed through her veins, making her heart bump an extra beat.
Toni caught her excitement. “You scared?” she asked.
“More like anxious.”
“Me, too.” Toni reached into her pocket, pulled out a stick of Juicy Fruit gum, and unwrapped it. “You want a stick?”
“No.”
Toni crumpled the gum into her mouth. “Calms the nerves, kinda like chewing tobacco. Only there’s no nasty spitting involved.”
“The lights are off at Hardwick’s place, so it doesn’t look like anybody’s home,” Suzanne said.
“On the other hand, Hardwick could be sitting in the dark watching TV. Or nursing a stiff drink,” Toni said. “Grumbling about his cancel
led play.”
“I’m thinking we should park around back so as not to attract any undue attention.”
“Go for it,” Toni said.
Suzanne continued down the block, turned right, then made another right into a well-plowed alley. Back here it was darker, with barely any lights to mark the detached garages. Suzanne eased her way into a single parking spot directly adjacent to Hardwick’s garage. No lights were tripped by motion sensors, and Hardwick’s place looked completely dark from back here, too.
“So now what?” Toni asked.
“I see a small deck and, I’m pretty sure, a set of sliding doors.”
“You think that’s a way to get in? That they might be unlocked?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go find out.”
They climbed out of the car and stood in the dark for a few moments, looking down the row of town houses, gauging things from the back side. Each town house looked pretty much identical to the next, and all had blue plastic trash bins with the words Randy’s Sanitation stenciled on them. A hint of burning wood hung in the air. Somebody had their fireplace going tonight.
Hardwick’s sidewalk, leading from his garage to his back door, had that scraped-by-a-snowblower look. His deck did not. That didn’t stop Suzanne and Toni. Slowly, carefully, they climbed the two steps onto his deck, floundered across it through a foot of snow, and pressed their noses against the sliding glass door.
“Not much to see,” Toni said.
They were looking in at what appeared to be a small room with a beige sofa, matching beige chair, and two innocuous-looking lamps.
“I thought theater people were supposed to be flamboyant,” Toni said.
“What did you expect?” Suzanne whispered. “Theater posters and playbills?”
“More like plush red furniture, gilded frames, and tons of tchotchkes.”
“Sounds awful.” Suzanne drew a deep breath and said, “I’m going to try this slider.”
She tried it, really leaned into it, but the sliding door didn’t budge.
“Rats,” Suzanne said.
“Back door,” Toni whispered.
They clumped back down the steps and tried the back door. Locked tight. Suzanne took out her cell phone and shone a pinpoint of light at the lock on the doorknob. It looked fairly uncomplicated and a little cheap.
“Just the doorknob lock, no dead bolt,” Toni said.
“Guess not.” Suzanne knew that if Allan Sharp had cut corners on the construction of the townhomes, he’d probably done so on the finishes as well. And this door lock looked prime for kicking in. Or picking. She hesitated for all of one second, then dug in her bag and pulled out a metal nail file.
“You think you can pick that lock?” Toni asked.
“I’m going to try.”
“Wait a minute.” Toni pounded on the back door. “Anybody home?” she yelled out. “Teddy, you crazy fool, are you in there?”
“Good thinking,” Suzanne breathed. After all, Hardwick could be in there. And the last thing she wanted to do was stumble in and find him flaked out on his sofa watching old black-and-white movies. Or sharpening his knife.
Toni knocked again and then said, “He’s not home. I knocked hard enough to wake the dead.” She nodded at Suzanne. “Time’s a tickin’, so you better go for it.”
Suzanne stuck the tip of her nail file into the lock. She moved it back and forth slowly, not feeling anything click, not really finding any wiggle room. After a few more jabs, she said, “I don’t know if this is going to work. Maybe his lock is better quality than I thought.”
“Wait a minute,” Toni said. Now it was her turn to dig in her purse. “I got something that might . . . if I still have it.” She unzipped a plastic cosmetic bag, poked through a jumble of lipsticks, tins of blusher, and eyebrow pencils, and said, “Okay. I do still have it.”
“Have what?”
Toni held up a funny-looking key.
“What’s that?” Suzanne asked.
“Something Junior gave me. It’s a bump key.”
“I thought bump keys were urban legends.”
“Naw, lots of lowlifes have them.”
“Like Junior?”
“Actually, Junior made this one. He just bought a basic house key at the local hardware store. You know, one that fits a standard cylindrical lock. Then he filed off some of the teeth and deepened a few grooves.”
Crazy, Suzanne thought. She couldn’t believe it was that easy to make a key that would get you inside someone’s house. Or was it? “Will the key work?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
Toni pushed the bump key all the way into the lock, then pulled back slightly. From there she jiggled it, joggled it, and coaxed it back and forth.
“No dice, huh?”
“Ah, these things take a little time.” After another two minutes of trial and error, Toni said, “I think . . .”
There was a loud click and the door to Teddy Hardwick’s town house swung wide open.
Toni grinned. “Shazam.”
CHAPTER 19
“YOU did it,” Suzanne breathed. She stood there, stunned, gazing in at the darkened interior, knowing in her heart that they’d just broken all sorts of laws. What would Sheriff Doogie think? Better yet, what would Sam think? Of course, she could stop right now, with no harm done. They could walk away from this little caper while they still had the chance.
But Toni was the one who pressed to keep going.
“C’mon,” Toni said. “We’re in. We can’t stop now.”
Suzanne stepped across the threshold, her heart bumping inside her chest. Toni followed her in and closed the door behind them.
The place was dark and dreadfully overheated. Suzanne also had the strangest feeling, as if something bizarre had happened or was about to happen.
Determined to shrug that off, Suzanne glanced about the bland room and said, “I think this is supposed to be the family room.”
“What do they call a family room if you don’t have a family?” Toni asked.
“Back in the sixties and seventies I think they called them rec rooms.”
“You mean like a car wreck?”
“‘Rec’ for ‘recreation,’” Suzanne said.
“Ah.”
Toni put a hand on Suzanne’s shoulder and followed her into the kitchen. There were the usual red and green indicator lights—from the toaster, the microwave, the dishwasher—so that made it a little easier to see. The kitchen was small but well-appointed, with oak cabinets and marble counters. Hardwick was a tidy homeowner—a mortar and pestle, spice rack, bottle of olive oil, and silver bowl filled with apples were the only things on his counter.
“This kitchen isn’t half bad,” Toni said. “Lots of built-ins, plus all the appliances are stainless steel. How much does a place like this cost?”
“I think the units sell for around two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Toni gave a low whistle. “That’s a lot of bucks for a town house. Especially since you still gotta pay a monthly association fee and you don’t own any of the land around it.”
“But that works for some people,” Suzanne said as they stepped into the dining room. Only it wasn’t being used as a dining room at all because there wasn’t any table and chairs. Just a computer on a desk, a swivel office chair, and a card table set up next to it.
“Hardwick must use this as his office,” Toni said. Then: “What does he need an office for? He directs plays, for gosh sakes. How complicated is that?”
“I think he has to write a lot of grant requests to the state arts board to get grant money and things. Remember he honchoed that photo show at the county museum last year?”
“Oh yeah,” Toni said. “That was—”
Briiing!
The front doorbell s
ounded, loud and harsh.
“Get down!” came Suzanne’s shocked whisper. “Hit the deck!”
They both dropped to the floor and flattened themselves against Hardwick’s carpet. It was new and scratchy and smelled of chemicals. Adhesive, probably.
“Who’s at the door?” Toni whispered. “You think they’ve got a key?”
“Don’t know. Hope not.”
“You gotta take a look!”
“Me?” Suzanne said. She hesitated for a few moments, then pulled herself to her knees and gingerly crawled across the dining room floor. From behind a panel of curtains, she peeped out a window, only to see a woman in a pink coat with a small white poodle in a matching coat.
“Woman with poodle,” Suzanne whispered.
“What?” Toni started humping toward her like a human inchworm.
“Never mind.”
The doorbell rang again, the woman hopping from one foot to the other, trying to keep warm. After about two minutes, she turned and walked away. But not out to a car—down the row to another town house.
“I think she’s a neighbor,” Suzanne said.
“You think the poodle lady saw us come in here?”
“I don’t think so. She didn’t act particularly worried.”
“Girlfriend, then?” Toni asked.
“Who knows? Let’s take a quick look-see and then skedaddle out of here.” Suzanne was beginning to realize this was a really bad idea.
“Yeah, this place is starting to give me the creeps,” Toni said.
They tiptoed across the tiled floor of the entryway and into the living room. Suzanne turned on her flash again so they could see. This room was furnished with a little more pizazz. A beige leather sofa, glass cocktail table, two large, colorful hassocks, and a piano in the corner.
“Not bad,” Toni said. “Hardwick must do all right.”
“I’m going to run upstairs real quick,” Suzanne said. “You can wait here if you want.”
