by Sara Rosett
The light was dimming and I shivered in the cool air. I was glad the kids had been wearing their jackets when the fire was discovered. At least I knew they were warm and I didn’t have to try and get inside the house to get more clothes for them. Caroline let out a tiny sigh. “That’s true of everything in life, don’t you think? It’s always easier to tear down than to build up.” The jacket had slipped again and now hung on only one of her shoulders. She didn’t seem to notice the dropping temperature. I’d never seen her like this, reflective and still. She was always in action. And she focused her energy with laserlike precision. This catatonic state wasn’t like her at all. Maybe it was just the blow of the fire after the funeral, but it did worry me a bit.
“I’m sure Uncle Bud will help. He can probably have a crew out here in a day or two, right?”
Caroline murmured an absentminded agreement. I wasn’t sure if she’d even taken in what I said. “Listen,” I said, switching gears. “Mitch and I wanted to talk to you about the house, Grandpa Franklin’s house.” Maybe the topic of real estate might distract her from the fire damage.
“Okay.”
“Well, Mitch and I were talking about it in the car today after we left Gus’s office. You know that we would only be able to use it a few times a year and we wouldn’t want it to sit empty. We wanted to ask you about the real estate market.”
“The real estate market here in Smarr?” she asked as she looked over at me. I felt like I finally had her full attention. “You’re thinking of selling it?”
“Not necessarily. We wanted to talk to you about selling versus renting.”
“Things are better, but it’s still a buyer’s market,” she said as she reached back and repositioned the Windbreaker over her shoulder. She gathered the fabric into her hand again and shifted toward me. “The rental market is pretty tight right now. People are skittish about buying with the economy the way it is, so I think that’s what’s driving the demand for rentals. And Grandpa Franklin’s house is in the Harvey Elementary School district, which is one of the more sought-after schools. You wouldn’t have any trouble renting it.”
“Well, that’s good. You’ll list it for us, if we decide to rent it out?”
“Of course. Whenever you’re ready.”
“That may be awhile. Whatever we do, we’ll have to do something with all Grandpa Franklin’s things first.”
“Oh, that probably won’t take as long as you think. Will you keep the living room furniture?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t even thought about individual pieces yet.”
“Well, if you decide you don’t want it, Aunt Nanette says she’ll take it. She’s always liked that couch. And remember, I’ve got contacts—consignment shops, antique stores, used bookstores, junk haulers. You name it, I know someone who’ll take it away.”
“What about all those copies of a single book?” I asked. “I don’t think any consignment store or used bookstore will want those. At least, not all of them.” Those books were weighing on me. They were heavy, bulky, and took up so much space. “This afternoon, I kept thinking about how many trips it would take to get them to a dump. And they’re so heavy, it would cost a fortune just to throw them away. And then there’s the fact that they’re books—it feels almost immoral to throw them away.”
Caroline patted my hand. “I know, dear, but we all have a copy and you can keep a few boxes with extra copies. There are companies that recycle books.”
“Book recycling?”
“Yes. They haul books away and shred them. Sad, but sometimes there’s nothing else to do. I had a client a few years ago who was downsizing—moving from a four-bedroom to a one-bedroom patio home. She was an avid reader and had one bedroom chock-full of paperbacks. She donated what she could to the library and then sent the rest off to be recycled.”
“Hmm . . . interesting,” I said, filing that bit of information away with a mental note to do some research on book recycling later. As a professional organizer, I might need to use a company like that in the future. Of course, it looked like I would probably have the opportunity to check into book recycling sooner rather than later.
Bill, who’d been pacing around the backyard as he talked on his cell phone, ended his call and joined us by the pool. “Okay. I’ve got us booked into a hotel for tonight. The insurance adjustor will be out tomorrow morning and I’ve got a call into a cleaning crew for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Do you really think we need to spend the night at a hotel?” Caroline asked. “I hate to go off and leave the house like this.”
“Our homeowner’s policy covers the hotel stay. The smell of smoke is going to be pretty strong in there and the fire department shut off the gas and electricity. Those won’t be on until tomorrow. Mitch and I will board up the doors and windows, so everything will be secure.”
“All right,” Caroline said.
Bill looked at me and said, “We’ve got rooms for you and Mitch, too.”
I was about to say that Mitch and I could stay at Grandpa Franklin’s house, but then I paused. Call me superstitious, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to sleep in a house where a man had died. Mitch and Detective Rickets were still talking. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them. They probably assumed the detective was here because of the fire. Detective Rickets’s back was to me and Mitch made eye contact with me over the detective’s shoulder.
Uncle Bud came through the gate into the backyard. He was carrying several white paper bags from Chick-fil-A. “Anyone hungry?” he asked as he set down the bags on the patio table. He dropped a hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “Bill called me. You doin’ okay?”
“I’m all right.”
“There’s a lie, if I ever heard one,” Uncle Bud barked, then opened the bags. “I didn’t know what the kids would want, so I got chicken nuggets.”
“That’s great. They love those,” I said as I went over to help him get the food out, touched that he’d thought of the kids. I called them to the table. The aroma of fried chicken enveloped me. I inhaled deeply, realizing just how hungry I was. Caroline stood up and began handing out drinks. Detective Rickets went to the back gate and Mitch walked toward the table. I hurried over to the edge of the patio and met him before he joined the group around the table.
“What happened?” I asked as I picked up a chair.
Mitch grabbed another chair and said, “I told him what happened. He wasn’t happy about it, mostly because I think he knows it’s all going to check out and I’ll be off the suspect list.”
“That’s good,” I said, relief sweeping through me. “Are you going to tell the family about it?” We were walking back across the patio, each carrying a chair as we talked in low tones.
“About what? Detective Rickets made it clear that there’s not a formal investigation. He’s just poking around—his words, not mine. I’m not going to bring it up, unless I have to. They have enough to deal with right now.”
We positioned the extra chairs around the table. I scooped Nathan up and settled him in a chair and removed from his reach the toy that came with his meal, substituting chicken and apple slices for the toy. “You know the rules. Eat first,” I said as I dipped a waffle fry into ketchup.
Uncle Bud handed me a padded envelope he’d set on the table beside the food. “And this was on the porch.”
I popped the crispy, lightly salted French fry into my mouth as I reached for the envelope. My name was printed on a large white label above Caroline and Bill’s address. I wiped my fingers on a napkin, then ripped the tab open.
“Who would send me something here?” I said more to myself than to anyone else. There was a single sheet of paper inside. It was folded in half. I opened it and went still.
There were two lines printed on the page in a tiny font. It must have been ten point or less. I squinted and read,
It wasn’t an accident.
Go home.
“Ellie, did you get something to drink? We’ve got Diet Coke over h
ere and a root beer, which would you like?” Caroline asked.
I heard the question, but couldn’t process an answer. Mitch, who’d been helping Livvy open her milk, looked at me. “Ellie, what’s wrong?”
I handed him the paper. His gaze flicked over the words, then snapped back to me. “Where did this come from.”
I held up the envelope. “Here. Uncle Bud said it was on the front porch.”
Uncle Bud wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and nodded. “Yep, I saw it when I drove up.” He was speaking in his normal hearty tones, but as his gaze bounced from Mitch to me, he spoke more slowly, “So I picked it up along with the mail from the mailbox. Something wrong?”
“It’s a—,” Mitch broke off, glanced at the kids, and lowered his voice, “threat.” The kids were busy arguing over who had the better toy and didn’t notice what he’d said.
“Or a warning,” I added. I’d recovered enough from the shock that I’d flipped the envelope back over to look at the front again. “No postage at all. Someone dropped that off on the doorstep.”
“Dropped what off?” Caroline asked. “What are y’all talking about?”
“I’ll see if I can catch Detective Rickets.” Mitch handed the paper to Bill and jogged to the gate at the side of the yard. Caroline was on one side of Bill and Uncle Bud was on the other. They both leaned to look over his shoulder.
“Does that say it wasn’t an accident?” Caroline put her chicken sandwich on the table as she pulled Bill’s arm to see the paper better. “But that’s crazy. No one would intentionally set our house on fire.”
Bill cleared napkins and drinks and set the paper carefully down on the table. “Anything else on the envelope?” It was the most serious I’d ever heard him sound.
“Just my name.” I put it beside the paper. “And your address.”
Caroline frowned at the table. “This has got to be a joke. There’s absolutely no excuse for practical jokes like this.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a joke,” Bill said, balling up his napkin and tossing it beside his empty sandwich wrapper.
“Of course it was a joke. A sick, sick joke,” Caroline said stoutly. “Why would someone single out Ellie, of all people, to send this to?” Bill and Uncle Bud exchanged looks as Caroline continued, “There’s no one in the world who doesn’t like Ellie . . .” Her voice trailed off uncertainly as she caught the meaning behind the significant looks.
“Except Felicity,” I said, voicing what everyone else was thinking.
“I hear you’ve got some interesting mail here,” said Detective Rickets as he crossed the lawn to the patio table with Mitch beside him.
I gestured to the paper and envelope and explained I’d just opened it. “Interesting,” Detective Rickets repeated. He looked at the items without touching them, then asked who’d seen it first. Uncle Bud recounted bringing it in with the mail, then said, “I’m sure this is some sort of juvenile prank.”
Detective Rickets looked at him hard before saying, “Possible.” His voice was completely neutral.
Nathan began wiggling out of his seat. “Mom, can I have my toy now? I ate everything. Almost.” He turned his wide brown eyes, so much like his dad’s, on me. He knew how to use them, just like his dad, too.
“Fine,” I said. After I’d checked to see that Livvy had eaten most of her food, I removed the toys from their plastic wrappers and sent them off to play in the yard. While I’d been taking care of the kids, Detective Rickets had produced evidence bags and was carefully putting the paper and envelope into them. To Bill and Caroline, he said, “I’ll pass this along to our county forensics team and inform the fire marshal.”
Uncle Bud frowned and said, “Now, Joel, you know there’s no need for that.”
“Afraid there is,” Detective Rickets said, and turned to me. “Mrs. Avery, who knows you’re staying here?”
“Family. I don’t know anyone else in Smarr besides family.”
“And some members of the family were upset with the terms of the will,” Detective Rickets said.
“Yes, Felicity was very upset.”
Uncle Bud said, “Ellie, you can’t—”
“She’s only telling the truth,” Mitch said firmly. “And I think Detective Rickets already knows about the scene at Gus’s office, anyway.”
Uncle Bud looked disapproving, but to my surprise, Detective Rickets ignored his thunderous expression and continued to ask questions until he’d established that the only time the envelope could have been left on the porch was sometime after the fire had been noticed and before Uncle Bud arrived, a window of about an hour.
When he finished asking questions, Detective Rickets put away a small notebook he’d been writing in and picked up the evidence bags. He gave a curt nod to Uncle Bud and left. We sat around the table for a few moments in silence, then Caroline stood up. “Well, I think we should get what we can from the house, board up the windows and door, and then go to the hotel. I’m sure everything will be . . . cleared up tomorrow,” she finished lamely.
None of us believed her, but it was cold, and almost fully dark now. It had been a long day, full of unexpected news, and I felt numb and weary. The kids were starting to bicker over their new toys, so we quickly cleared the trash away, then went into the house through the front door to see what we could salvage.
Chapter Seventeen
“What if it wasn’t Felicity, who left it?” I said as I slathered butter on a waffle and waited for Mitch to put down his juice glass. Mitch and I were in the restaurant of the Hampton Inn with morning sunlight streaming over our table and the drone of the local morning news running in the background on the requisite television. Why was it that we had to have televisions in every public space now? The house fire hadn’t made the news, thank goodness—reporters and camera crews were the last thing we needed.
I pulled my attention away from the news and checked on Livvy and Nathan. Our table for four had two plates with half-eaten waffles, eggs, and muffin crumbs. Livvy was curled up on a couch in the corner of the dining room, a book in her hand and her blue purse tucked beside her leg. Last night, we’d found her purse and reading list along with her signed book, all unharmed. I had a feeling she was going to keep those things close to her from now on. We’d also brought all the kids’ clothes with us, but she hadn’t been nearly as interested in saving her clothes.
Most of the damage had been contained to the back of the house. I’d been relieved to see that the guest room was still intact. The furniture and bed were drenched with water, but the closet had been on the far side of the room, so we at least had clothes to wear. They were smoky, but we’d used the hotel laundry to wash some of our clothes last night. My T-shirt and hooded sweatshirt only had the scent of laundry detergent on them now. From the floor beside the couch where Livvy was sitting, I could just see the top of Nathan’s head. I could certainly hear him as he made screeching and braking noises. I knew he’d stuffed five toy cars in his pockets before we left the room for breakfast and I was sure those cars were now making incredible, gravity-defying jumps.
Mitch speared a chunk of watermelon. “Who else is there?”
“Uncle Bud.”
“You really think he’d type up a note and a mailing label to get his point across?”
I chewed thoughtfully on a bite of bacon, then said, “Okay, so you’re right. That doesn’t sound like him at all. He does seem like the type of person who’d threaten you to your face, not in an anonymous letter, but if he really wanted to throw someone off, wouldn’t he do something totally unexpected—like print a letter and a label?”
Mitch shook his head as he picked up a piece of buttered toast. “No. I can promise you Uncle Bud didn’t put that envelope on the porch. It’s just not something he’d do. And why would he care if we left town? He actually wants us here to help sort out Grandpa Franklin’s estate.”
Theoretically, I agreed with Mitch, but I couldn’t quite let go of the idea that Uncle Bud might be involved. “He
’s the one who pressured the sheriff’s office not to look too closely at Grandpa Franklin’s death.”
Mitch cut a bite of sausage. “Ellie, we’ve been over this before. Uncle Bud isn’t doing anything suspicious.”
I sighed, opened my mouth to argue, then thought better of it. I wasn’t going to change his mind about Uncle Bud. I swallowed some orange juice and mentally moved on. I was tired of the roller-coaster ride that our relationship had become during the last few days. Felicity might thrive in a stormy, contentious atmosphere, but I wanted to avoid any more fights if I could help it. Mitch could think what he wanted, but I knew there was a real possibility that Uncle Bud was involved in the weird circumstances of Grandpa Franklin’s and Stan Anderson’s deaths.
I thumped my glass down on the table and said, “Well, then that only leaves Felicity. Do you think she’s got the personality to do something like that?”
“Write a threatening note? Oh, yeah,” Mitch said instantly. “I’ve told you about how she can hold a grudge. I’m sure she’s still upset about the will. She probably won’t talk to us until, oh, probably Thanksgiving would be a good bet.”
“So you think Felicity set the fire?”
Mitch angled his silverware across his empty plate. “I didn’t say that. I said she wouldn’t be above writing a nasty note and slipping it onto the porch anonymously. “That fire was probably an accident and she saw a way to take advantage of the situation to hurt us.”
“Not us. Me. The letter was only addressed to me,” I said as I placed my napkin beside my plate.
“True, but, I don’t think that means any—,” Mitch broke off as his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his belt clip. “It’s the squadron. I have to take this.” He answered, spoke a few words with his hand over his other ear, then said, “Hold on. I can’t hear you. Let me go outside.”
