by Dana Moss
He raised his mug to her.
“It wasn’t me. It was Nana—my grandmother—who bought the place. All as some joke on me.”
“Expensive joke.”
“She’s got money to burn.” And she was refusing to give Taffy any more of it. She was actually going to make Taffy work for it. At a candy factory of all places. Taffy tossed back a mouthful of coffee as if it were tequila.
“I have an idea. I can sell the house to you.” Taffy grinned.
Ethan shook his head. “I couldn’t afford what your grandmother paid.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. For whatever you could afford. I don’t need the money. I mean, I do, but not that much. The house should belong to someone who loves it. Someone who loves living in Abandon.” And that someone was not Taffy.
Ethan poured her a little more coffee. “Maybe you’ll come to love it. Maybe you should give the whole joke a chance.”
Taffy sipped her coffee and watched the dappled light on the terrace. It was nice sitting here with Ethan, but it was a far cry from life in the Big Apple.
“I have to hold onto the house for three months. But when that deadline expires, you’re welcome to it.”
Ethan lifted his mug to her. “Here’s to the next three months and the possibility of falling in love with Abandon.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ethan had managed to reach Bill, the utilities guy, who said he’d stop by the Harken house sometime in the late afternoon or early evening.
Ethan then said he had to get back to work and check on some park trails. He gave Taffy his number and told her to call if Bill didn’t show up, and then he dropped her back at Janet’s house.
Reluctantly, Taffy sidled up the front steps. She picked at the peeling paint of the porch railing as Ethan’s truck grumbled down the driveway. She sighed loudly, just to make a noise in the country silence, until a nearby rustling in the bushes made her tense up. Was that the cat? Or the coyote Ethan thought might have eaten the cat? Taffy slipped into the safety of the house and shut the door.
Standing in the foyer, she couldn’t get over the fact that someone had died here. It sent shivers down her spine every time she thought about it.
Taffy wandered from room to room examining the knickknack shelves, photos and prints on the walls, the china cabinet, and a few pieces of old furniture. There were a few valuable items. If Janet had been planning to move to Arizona, she certainly hadn’t gotten around to packing much.
She continued to explore the main floor rooms. With some careful strategy, she managed to avoid crossing the foyer where Janet’s body had been discovered. She stood in the arched threshold connecting the foyer and the living room and looked toward the closet. Ethan had done a great job cleaning up the body outline, but Taffy could still see it in her mind’s eye, and she couldn’t help but imagine the older woman lying in a lifeless heap in front of her hall closet. What a tragic demise. You open your hall closet to get your coat, and thunk, your own bowling ball falls on your head and kills you? Taffy shivered.
She wandered back into the living room, which adjoined the dining room. A swinging door led to the large kitchen that took up the back of the house. By going through the kitchen, she could move through the house in a u-shape and avoid the foyer almost completely. Taffy noticed a door in one corner of the kitchen that must lead to a basement. Somewhere in the house there must be access to the attic. She could see that the angled rooftops didn’t match up with the rooms on the second floor.
Off the foyer and adjacent to the living room was a kind of parlor that housed a baby grand piano, a wall of bookshelves, a settee, and some chairs.
Taffy perused the parlor shelves. In addition to old books, mostly Readers Digest editions, Taffy found a collection of gardening magazines going back twenty years and a large jar full of marbles. She picked out a marble, tossed it in the air, and caught it in her palm. She did it a few more times until she missed the catch and the marble fell to the floor. It rolled across the room…and kept rolling. When Taffy eventually retrieved it from under a chair, she set it on another part of the floor, and it rolled away again. It was such an old house, the floor wasn’t level anymore, and it was dented or scratched in many places. She dropped the marble back in the jar and opened a horizontal cupboard set at hip height.
The door flipped down to make a small desk. Inside were cubbyholes for papers and bills and an old mug full of pens, pencils, and a gold-filigreed letter opener that looked identical to Mr. Davenport’s. She picked it up, felt its sharp edge, and then stuck it back in the mug.
Taffy sat on the piano bench and plunked out a few notes. She’d taken lessons as a kid, at her father’s insistence, but had forgotten most of what she’d learned. She adjusted the bench to get a bit closer. The floor creaked and the bench seat nearly bit her finger. It was one of the lidded kinds that could store music sheets, and it lifted and snapped shut as Taffy repositioned it. She opened the lid of the bench seat. In a messy jumble she found sheet music, a few recipe cards, letters, receipts, a composition notebook—for writing, not music—a couple of cancelled bank checks, and several unopened letters.
The composition book intrigued her. On the title page she saw the words: The Magpie Baking Bowling Club. The word Bowling was written over a crossed out “Baking.” Inside, she found a list of letters, in pairs like initials, and on a second page a list of numbers. None of it made sense to Taffy.
She looked at the unopened letters. Technically, it was illegal to open someone else’s mail. But what if the person was dead? She picked at a corner of one envelope. Then she remembered the letter opener. She sliced neatly into one of the unopened letters. It was addressed to Janet from someone named Tony.
Staring at Janet’s loose swoopy writing reminded Taffy of her grandmother’s notes and manila envelopes, which quickly put Taffy in a bad mood. She closed the lid of the bench and walked away from the piano.
Standing at the threshold between the parlor and the foyer, she assessed her situation: banished New York socialite bored stiff in dead woman’s house while waiting for a moody utilities technician to appear.
What if he didn’t show up? Taffy didn’t want to stay in the house alone after dark. She’d have to call up Ethan, ask him if she could crash on his couch. She wished she wasn’t such a scaredy cat. Cats… Where was Midnight?
Would he come if she called? Probably not. But he might if she opened a can of food and banged it with a fork. She took the long way around to the kitchen and searched the cupboards. On the shelves amid the soup cans she found a tin of kitty chow. She pawed through drawers for a can opener. In one drawer she found strange things like heavy gauge wire, cutters, and some kind of putty mixed in with other utility items such as ceramic glue, matches, X-Acto blades, and screwdrivers. In another drawer she found semi-familiar items such as small strainers, a cheese grater, potato peeler, and finally, a can opener.
She tipped the cat food onto a chipped plate and carried it toward the front door.
The sun had fallen behind the trees. Slanted orange stripes of light reached through the western windows and faded quickly. Soon it would be full dark. She hadn’t noticed any candles or a flashlight in the drawers she’d searched. Maybe she should go back to Ethan’s. But first feed the cat, for Ethan’s sake.
She headed down the hall leading from the kitchen to the foyer. She walked right by the spot where Janet Harken had died. Her breathing got shallow, and her steps picked up speed until she was at the front door. She let out a sigh of relief, and then opening the door to call out for Midnight, she choked on that relief and failed to stifle a scream.
The plate of cat food crashed to the floor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A dour, long-faced man wearing a cap that shadowed narrow, dark eyes stood on the threshold. Embroidered onto his dark-blue work shirt was the name ‘Bill.’ Taffy silenced her scream.
“You scared the Beetlejuice outta me,” snapped Taffy.
; He looked past her into the house. His eyes rested on the floor in front of the closet.
“McCoy called me.” His voice was rough, reluctant. He reached down and picked up a toolbox Taffy hadn’t noticed was there. One corner was splattered with cat food.
“Sorry about the wreckage,” said Taffy. She’d have to pick up the shards and mop up the mess.
“You want power, I’ll have to get to the breaker box inside.”
Taffy stepped aside to let him pass. He was tall, lean, and wiry with a long jaw and shifting eyes.
He gave the floor around the closet a wide berth on his way to the kitchen, just as Taffy had done. She left the cat-food mess where it lay and followed him. In the kitchen, he paused to look at the long farm table and tiled counters. For a moment he seemed frozen.
“You were the one who found her, weren’t you?” Though her words were gentle, he startled where he stood and turned with surprise, as if he’d forgotten she was there. After seeming to remember, he gazed around the kitchen again.
“I had many much-needed meals and fortifying cups of coffee in this kitchen.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t make you any coffee without power.”
Actually, Taffy had no clue how to make coffee with or without power.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Bill gruffly. “I don’t need anything.” He reached for a long-handled flashlight at his hip and then opened the door in the kitchen that Taffy had guessed led to the basement.
“Would you mind letting me know if you see any trunks or antiques while you’re down there?” said Taffy. He didn’t answer as he followed his beam of light and descended into darkness.
He was odd, and slightly creepy. Taffy wished Ethan was here. She didn’t like being in the house alone with Bill.
She grabbed a bucket, mop, broom, and dustpan and headed back to the front of the house to clean up the cat-food mess. She’d left the door open, and as she approached, she noticed a dark mass crouched on the threshold.
“Midnight?” The cat looked up, licking his chops. He stared at her with reflecting amber eyes. The collar at his neck clinked. She crept forward slowly, not wanting to scare him. He stayed where he was, watching her for a moment, before going back to licking up the splattered food. Taffy was almost close enough to pet him now. Kneeling, she reached out to touch his silky coat. Just before her fingertips made contact, Midnight’s fur went straight up and he turned and bolted. Taffy heard the floor creak and turned to see Bill looming over her.
“You scared me again!” She scrambled to her feet. “The cat, too!”
“Got to adjust the wiring on the outside now.” He stepped around her. “Almost done.”
By the time Taffy had gathered up the broken shards, Bill was back on the front steps.
“Try a switch now,” he said before spitting into the bushes. A dark drop trickled down his chin. He rubbed it away. Was he chewing tobacco? Gross.
Taffy reached for the entry switch. The foyer lit up with warm light and pushed the oncoming night back toward the trees.
She smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”
Bill shrugged off her thanks and glanced through the doorway again. Then with a troubled look on his face, he cast his eyes on his boots. Taffy sensed he wanted to talk.
“What was it like? When you found her?”
He lifted his ball cap, shoved his fingers through his matted hair, and replaced the cap.
“One of the worst days of my life.”
“You knew her well?”
“I think better than anyone else in this town.”
“Do you think she was killed by her bowling ball?”
He stared at Taffy for a long, cold second.
He shrugged. “That’s what the police said.”
“What do you think happened?”
He shrugged. “I gotta go now. I’ll send the invoice by mail.”
He turned and stepped away from the pool of light on the stairs.
Taffy watched Bill’s truck pull away, and then after he was gone, she stood a bit longer, waiting to see if Midnight would reappear.
She called across the dark lawn. “Kitty, kitty, kitty.” But the distant hooting of an owl was the only response.
Midnight was clearly on the prowl for the night. Taffy shut the front door and proceeded to turn on all the light switches in the house (minus the attic and basement).
She plugged her phone into the newly coursing electricity. While her phone charged, she started a bath in the claw-foot tub. Rifling around for bubble bath, she found some rose-scented bath salts. She dumped those in the water and then felt the temperature. Stone cold! She turned off the taps and dialed Ethan’s number.
“The hot water tank has to heat up first,” he explained to her.
“What is that and where, and how darn long is that going to take?”
Ethan chuckled. “It’s probably in the basement, and its job is to heat your hot water. I’m guessing it will take an hour or two.”
Taffy refrained from swearing into the phone.
“Hey, are you doing okay?” said Ethan.
“At the moment, I’m too mad to be scared.”
He chuckled again, and the sound started to make Taffy’s frustration melt a little.
“Did Midnight ever show up?” he asked.
“For a little while. Bill scared him off.”
“He’ll be back.”
“Bill, or the cat?”
“Probably both, but I’m guessing not at the same time.”
“Bill was acting kind of strange. Do you think he might have had something to do with —”
“If you’re going to say ‘Janet’s death,’ forget it. Bill and Janet were very close. He’d never have hurt her.”
“Yeah but don’t most murders take place between people who are ‘close’?”
Ethan sighed. “It was an accident, Taffy. Don’t you have to work in the morning?”
“Yeah.” She’d almost forgotten.
“Did you eat any dinner?”
“Some.” She wasn’t about to tell him that she’d only eaten a tin of cold soup because she couldn’t figure out how to turn on the stove.
She didn’t want to hang up yet, but she didn’t have anything else to say. She chewed at her thumbnail and grimaced when she tasted cat food.
Ethan said, “Call me if you need anything else.”
Did he have any idea that she’d be calling him twenty-four, seven if she really took him up on that offer? Taffy didn’t have enough minutes in her plan. That thought made her realize that, by some miracle, Nana hadn’t cut off her phone yet.
After Ethan said good night, she tried calling New York again, but no one answered her call. Not even after twenty rings.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
By morning, hot water cascaded in generous rivulets over Taffy’s tangled, not-washed-for-three-days hair.
Overnight she had convinced herself that her new job might actually be better than she imagined. A managerial position maybe. Or spokesmodel. She was optimistic as she blow-dried, flat-ironed, and made herself gorgeous.
She typed the Sweet Abandon Candy Factory address into her rented GPS and then cruised along the coastline road and up into the hills above town.
The candy factory sat on a prime piece of land on a bluff overlooking the ocean. From here she could look down on the town, the beach, and the pier out in front of the Castle Rock Golf and Country Club. A little ways out in the water was the ragged rock she’d seen the day before.
Turning away from the ocean, the factory came into view. Painted in candy hues of pink, yellow, and green, it somehow managed to blend into the surroundings. Sort of.
The forested property adjacent to the factory looked wild and untamed. Taffy didn’t manage to read the sign before turning up the factory driveway.
She parked in the lot marked ‘Staff’ and then headed up the wide walkway until she arrived at the candy-striped double doors of the factory entrance.
&nb
sp; Inside, the main entrance was dominated by a long counter the color and texture of red licorice. Behind the seemingly sticky counter sat a receptionist whose hair resembled a bleached bouffant helmet.
Taffy laid her papers on the glossy red counter.
“I’m starting work today.”
“Oh? I didn’t realize we were hiring right now.” The blonde helmet-hair tipped to one side. “What’s your name, Sweetie?”
“Taffy Belair.”
The woman grinned. "Taffy?”
"It really is my name."
“Oh, yes. I see it here now. I’m just surprised. I was told we’re downsizing, with this crappy economy and the change in ownership and all. I guess you’re one of the lucky ones.”
“Not exactly how I see it,” Taffy mumbled.
“Well, welcome, Miss Belair. I'm Aubin Terkle, the receptionist."
Taffy had gathered as much, given her position behind the counter and the name tag attached to her protruding bosom.
"Miss Terkle—"
“Mrs.,” she corrected, waggling her ring finger under Taffy's nose. "Only four months so far, but I still feel like a bride." She sighed and stared at her pale-pink diamond. "But you can call me Aubin."
"Aubin. Any idea when the paychecks are cut?"
"Let me see where you're assigned. Hmmm. It says here you're to start in chocolate dip. That's on the third floor." She tapped a few more keys. "It's the base rate, I'm afraid. Though there's a lot of spillage in chocolate dip, so you'll never go hungry." She winked. "Pay is every two weeks, and you just missed a payday, sorry."
"Too bad I can't cover the bills with chocolate."
"Ain't that the truth! We'd all be millionaires here." She giggled, and then lowered her voice. "I'll let you in on a secret. The candy-apple coaters make the most here. The job requires a particular technique, taking months to learn, and working with all that fresh fruit requires a certain delicacy, so put your name forward in that department if you're feeling ambitious." She nodded sagely.
"Thanks for the tip."
