by J. R. Ripley
That meant I was free to check out Bessie Hammond’s house. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I knew Bessie lived somewhere on this side of town from what the bus driver, whatshisname, told me. I just didn’t know exactly where.
The bus driver. I needed to call him, too. He remembered giving Bessie a ride to the marina the day she was murdered. Maybe he had noticed whether or not Bessie had her camera with her that day.
I sat in the van outside Ed’s house, pondering my current dilemma: how to find out the address of Bessie Hammond’s house. Then I remembered that I’d had all my participants fill out a form listing their name, address, and telephone contact info. I dug my phone out of my purse and called Mom.
“Birds and Bees, where everything is on sale all the time!” snapped a familiar voice. But it wasn’t my mother’s voice.
“Esther?” I said. “Is that you?”
“Of course it is. Is that you, Simms? What are calling your own store for?”
I took a calming breath. I decided not to ask what all that sales talk was about. Some things were better left unknown. Esther’s antics definitely fell into that category. “Would you put my mother on, please?”
“I can’t. She’s busy with Ben.”
“That’s good.” I tapped my finger against the dash. “Listen, I don’t want to disturb her. Do me a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“I need you to go in the file cabinet in back and get me Ms. Hammond’s address.”
“What do you need that for? The woman’s dead.”
“That’s just it,” I said. “I-I was thinking of sending flowers.”
“To a dead woman’s house?” Esther was practically shouting. “The woman lived alone. What do you want to send flowers to a dead woman’s deserted house for?”
I gnawed the inside of my cheek. “Please, Esther, would you just get me the address? I’ll hold.”
Without another word, Esther banged the phone against the counter. I then heard low voices in the background. That must have been Mom and Ben Harlan. I was glad they were spending a little time together, even if it was in a retail store.
After an eternity, Esther came back on the line. She spat out the address like she was spitting out a mouthful of bees.
“Wait, slow down!” I pleaded. “And let me get something to write with!” I fished around in my purse for a pen and paper, settling on a mascara pen and a one-dollar-off coupon for codfish. “Go ahead.”
Esther repeated the address and I read it back to her. “Okay, bye.”
“Wait!”
“What is it now?”
“How’s everything at the store?” I felt a little guilty about the way I’d been neglecting the business.
“Busy. Lots of customers. Plenty to do. And your cousin Riley says the fire damage is nothing to worry about. Nothing a good coat of paint won’t fix. Bye.”
“Wait . . . what? Esther? Esther?”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten.
I shouldn’t have bothered. The world still looked the same when I opened them again. Except this time both Ed and Abby were glaring at me from their living room window.
I waved weakly and sped off.
18
My cell phone was ringing as I pulled up to the Hammond house, a two-story redbrick colonial with black shutters. An elderly couple sat on the front porch of the house next-door, while a sheepdog pranced about their front lawn. A curled-up copy of the Ruby Lake Weekender lay on the path leading to Bessie’s house. They ought to have known better than to deliver a newspaper to a dead woman. The Weekender had reported her death, after all. It had been front-page news.
I slowed but kept moving. How was I going to get into Bessie’s house? How was I going to get into Bessie’s house without being seen?
I’d never broken into a house before and felt a little uncomfortable with the idea now. What if I was spotted by one of the neighbors and they called the cops? I’d be humiliated and thrown in the slammer. That wouldn’t be good for me or my business.
Worse still, what if relatives of Bessie’s had come to town for her funeral and were staying at the house? I knew she’d had no relatives in town and that their one grown son lived in Michigan—Mom had told me that—but was he in Michigan now?
I turned the corner to the next block. Gray clouds had moved in from the south, casting an early twilight. This residential street was far quieter. In fact, I’d parked at the curb in front of a house that appeared empty. The front lawn was overgrown with weeds and the shrubbery needed trimming. All the curtains on the windows facing the street were shut. A weather-worn FOR SALE sign on a wood post had been hammered into the grass at the edge of the porch. I recognized the Realtor as the one Kim worked with part-time.
The phone chirruped in my purse, reminding me of the recent call. I looked at the screen: one missed call and one voicemail. I hit the voicemail button as the phone started ringing once more. It was Derek.
“Derek, hi!”
“Hi, Amy. I’m glad I caught you. I was afraid I was going to have to leave another voicemail.”
“I’m sorry I missed your call. I was driving.” I killed the engine, leaving the keys dangling in the ignition.
“Am I interrupting something? I can call back.”
“No! Not at all.” I took a deep breath. The last thing I wanted to do was let him go, now that we were talking. “How are you? I miss you.”
There was a beat of silence. “I miss you, too. It’s been a hectic couple of days.”
He did sound tired. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?” I thought fast. It wasn’t too late, and breaking into Bessie Hammond’s house shouldn’t take all that long. “How about if I cook us some dinner?”
“Sounds good. I’d like that. Then we can talk.”
Talk? It felt like someone had hit my heart with a sledgehammer. When a man says he needs to talk, it usually meant one thing: The Breakup.
I had a growing sense of impending doom as we made plans to meet at my apartment in two hours. We said some other stuff, too, but, to tell the truth, I was barely paying attention. Dread had taken over my soul.
We rang off. A few large drops of rain fell, splatting like little wet bombs against the glass—not enough to cause trouble, just enough to smear the bug goo baked on my windshield.
I checked for prying eyes once more. Reasonably sure that the coast was clear, I grabbed my purse and exited the van. My plan was to act like I was interested in purchasing the house that was for sale. That way, if any neighbors did happen to see me walking around the abandoned house, they’d take me for a potential buyer and not call the cops on me as a potential burglar.
I strolled up to the house, swinging my purse from my shoulder, pausing occasionally to shake my head or place a finger along the side of my chin as if admiring the house’s charms and inspecting it for potential flaws—of which there were many. The sweet smell of gardenia filled the air. The tall, leggy bushes bursting with white flowers flanked the steps leading to the house.
After what seemed like a suitable amount of time, I angled around to the back and smiled. The setup was perfect. The sodded backyard was bound on three sides by tall holly hedges in dire need of Ed’s shears. The view of the houses on either side was blocked. That meant the people living in those homes couldn’t see me either.
Wishing I’d worn a long-sleeve shirt and denim jeans instead of shorts, I pushed through the thinnest spot in the holly that I could find, into Bessie’s yard. A pair of cardinals chirped their indignation at my invasion of their space and flew up to the top of Bessie’s chimney. The birds bobbed their heads and stared down at me as I wiped myself off. A neglected, algae-lined birdbath sat askew on the back lawn, surrounded by a ring of gravel. A lone birdfeeder hung off the rear wall of a screened-in patio.
I looked left and right. On this side, too, the neighbors’ houses were barely visible due to the tall hedges. I approached the patio and tried the do
or. Bingo. It was unlocked. The screened patio enclosure contained little more than a cheap white PVC patio set and a few houseplants in need of watering. A pair of sliding doors led into the house. The curtains were pulled wide. I could see into the living room with its flowery upholstered furniture in shades of dark reds and purples. Several dreary paintings in gaudy frames, the mass-produced sort you’d find in any big, cheap department store hung from the walls. I tried the nearest slider. It jiggled but held. So did slider number two.
Now what?
I could break the glass, but that didn’t feel right. Jerry Kennedy would probably even claim it was illegal. I returned outside and looked around the house more carefully. A window on the second floor was slightly ajar. It was practically an invitation. Maybe Bessie’s ghost had left it open for me because she wanted me to find her killer.
At least that was what I was going to tell the cops if I got caught. I found an aluminum extension ladder behind the shed and leaned it up against the screened porch. The porch’s roof appeared solid enough. I could only hope that it held me.
Although I climbed slowly, the ladder rattled so loudly that I feared I’d attract the ears and eyes of Bessie’s neighbors. I heaved myself up onto the gravel- and tarpaper-covered patio roof and surveyed the area. Several lights were on in the surrounding houses but I saw no one in the windows.
I wiped my hands together to rid them of the tiny pebbles that had become embedded in my flesh and stood, taking stock of my surroundings. I looked down. Mistake number one. I’m not a big fan of heights, especially heights with no railing. I turned quickly and faced Bessie’s house. The sooner I got inside the less likely I’d be spotted or fall to my death. The window stuck to the sides of the rails for a moment but gave in when I put my shoulder into it.
I stuck my head inside. It was a bathroom. Pink tile, pink sink, pink tub, pink toilet, and fluffy pink bath rugs. On the plus side, I heard no threatening voices—or barking dogs, pink or otherwise, with teeth the size of daggers looking for their next meal. I slid over the sill and onto the toilet seat.
The house was silent. I gaped at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was a wet wreck. I’d deal with that later. I stepped out into the hall. I expected that Bessie either kept her camera in her bedroom or in an office of some sort, if she had one. There were doors at each end of the hall, separated by the stairs.
I started on the left and found myself in a sewing and craft room. Bessie had a very nice, if older looking, Kenmore sewing machine on a long table under the back window. Another long table held several bolts of cloth and various odds and ends, including a tape measure and a pincushion. I opened the accordion doors to the closet. Bessie was, had been, a well-organized person. The closet held systematically organized and labelled translucent bins of fabric, yarns, and ribbon. I dug through them randomly.
No camera.
At the other end of the hall, I found the master bedroom. The whole room smelled like rosewater. The heavy brocade curtains were pulled and refused to let in even a modicum of light.
My hand fumbled against the wall and flicked the light switch, and the bedside lamps on either side of the bed sprang to life; not much life, because the bulbs couldn’t have been more than fifty watts, but there was enough of a yellowish glow to see by. An ornate, dark wood four-poster bed sat atop a sea of beige wall-to-wall carpet.
I was a little worried about the neighbors noticing the lights, but closer inspection of the hanging drapes told me they were blackout curtains. I was safe from discovery.
Pulling open the nearest nightstand drawer, I found books—fiction, nonfiction, and crossword puzzles—and a tube of hand cream. Bessie had said she was a whiz at crosswords. But there was no camera here either.
I opened the second drawer and discovered a pair of knitting needles holding a work in progress whose ultimate shape and use I couldn’t discern, and half a skein of the thick lavender yarn she was knitting it from. A handful of plain white envelopes lay beneath the twist of yarn. There were five envelopes, all the same, no postmarks and no addresses.
I opened the first and withdrew a sloppily folded sheet of yellow legal-pad paper. It was a note to Bessie:
Bessie,
For the last time, please stop calling me. I don’t care if you do tell Clara. I can’t live this way any longer. I want it to stop.
Walt
Walt? That had to be Walter Kimmel! He had been behaving oddly at the Birds and Brews get-together. And this had to be why. He’d been having an affair with Bessie Hammond.
Had Bessie told Clara about the affair? Had Walter killed Bessie to prevent her from doing so?
I quickly scanned the other letters. More of the same. The first had been more pleasant, then Walter had clearly grown increasingly upset that Bessie refused to let him go and forget their affair.
There had been more to Bessie Hammond than I ever could have imagined. The police must not have noticed the letters. I might have missed them, too. They could easily have been mistaken for empty envelopes waiting to be used. Plus, Bessie had been murdered out in the middle of the woods. The police might not have performed more than a perfunctory search of her house.
I’d have to let Jerry know about their existence, if I could think of a way to do it without getting myself arrested.
My heart pounded. I’d found a bombshell, but no camera, so I kept looking. There was no camera in the dresser nor in the—no surprise, well-organized—hall closet. I planted my hands on my hips while I did a slow turn around the room, trying to imagine where Bessie might have kept her camera. Assuming it was here in the house at all.
“Time to try the downstairs,” I said under my breath. I didn’t know if it was the spookiness of being in a dead woman’s home or the fear of getting caught in that home, but I found myself tiptoeing around, as noiseless in my search as possible.
I had not seen a computer of any sort in the house yet either. That could be on the first floor as well, assuming she had a computer at all. Even my own mother seemed quite uninterested in the things. It was less than two years ago that she had agreed to a cell phone. Maybe Bessie had felt the same way. Besides, she seemed to have had another hobby: dating the town’s married men. That must have kept her quite busy.
I turned off the bedroom light and was exiting into the upstairs hall when I heard the distinct, and not a little unsettling, sound of a car door slamming.
I hurried to the edge of the stairs, hoping to get a glimpse of the car, but my view of the living room window was blocked from that vantage point. I raced back to the master bedroom on tiptoes and eased back the heavy drape. Officer Sutton was starting up the walkway.
A small cry escaped my lips as I dropped the curtain. I clamped a hand over my mouth. My whole body quaked and I thought I’d faint. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” I heard myself muttering.
My mind raced. Did he know I was here? Had someone called the police to report a break-in? Had he seen the curtain move just now?
Bending low, I ran from the bedroom, determined to escape. I made it to the bathroom right when I heard the sound of the key turn in the front door lock.
Without thinking, I stepped into the tub and shower combo and gently pulled the pink shower curtain closed.
I was dead meat.
I could see the Weekender headlines already: “Amy Simms Found Hiding in Dead Woman’s Bath.”
I should have been nicer to Lance.
I held my breath as I listened to the sound of Officer Sutton moving around downstairs, his leather shoes squeaking as if to announce his coming.
Please, please, please don’t let him come upstairs, I prayed.
But he did. I could hear his heavy steps, clomp, clomp, clomp, up the carpeted steps. He moved from one end of the hall to the other. I imagined what it was going to be like when he pulled the shower curtain open and discovered me. Would he shoot first and ask questions afterward?
Should I say something now before he did pull his gun? Or would it
be better to surprise him?
I didn’t get a chance to make a decision. Whistling, Officer Sutton entered the tiled bath. I squeezed my eyes shut, my body tense as if a million volts of electricity were running through me. I prayed to every god I knew and then some.
Officer Sutton’s feet squeaked across the tile. He paused. I heard the sound of a window slamming shut. I’d forgotten to close the window behind me! Dumbdumbdumb.
I swallowed a groan.
A second later, Sutton’s steps came toward me in the tub enclosure. He paused. I could see his dark outline through the opaque vinyl curtain. The outline moved and I pressed myself against the back tile, hoping to disappear into the wall.
Sutton began whistling once more as he left the bathroom. I strained my ears, listening to each step as he moved back downstairs. A moment later, I heard the door slam behind him.
I sank to the bottom of the tub and opened my eyes.
That had been close. Too close.
19
I ran my hands over my face, surprised to discover that I’d been crying. I pulled back the curtain, climbed out of the tub, and wiped my face on a fluffy bath towel hanging from a hook across from the sink.
One look in the mirror told me I was even more of a wet wreck now than I had been ten minutes before. I ran to Bessie’s bedroom and inched back a corner of the drape. Sutton was gone. I watched his tail lights receding in the distance.
“Time to go,” I whispered. After the close call, I decided it was best not to press my luck and search the downstairs. Figuring it was best to leave the way I’d come, I went back to the bathroom, slid open the window, and bellied over the ledge to the screen porch roof. The top of the ladder poked up.
OMG! What if Officer Sutton had noticed the ladder?!
The sight of a ladder leaning up against the house would surely have set off alarms in his head. I’d dodged a bullet. Just maybe, literally.
I scolded myself for my stupidity and told myself that I needed to be smarter, a whole lot smarter, about how I went about things from now on.
