A Skeleton in the Closet (Kate Lawrence Mysteries)

by Judith K Ivie

  When we arrived home, Armando installed me in my bedroom with absolute correctness, comforter up to my chin, herbal tea and Advil on the nightstand. Throughout the short ride home, which we had made in his sporty little Honda, leaving my car to be collected in the morning, our conversation was perfunctory. Could I manage the low seat? I could. Did it need to be adjusted to accommodate the cast on my leg? No, it was fine.

  Having done his duty as a gentleman to his satisfaction, he bid me a cool goodnight, no kiss, and withdrew haughtily to his bachelor quarters on the second floor. Well, at least the events of the evening had served to shelve any further discussion of marriage. I knew Armando well enough to know that the root cause of his anger was his fear that something terrible might have happened to me. I could only imagine his feelings as he tore through the night after Lavinia’s call announcing that I was unconscious following a serious fall down a flight of stairs, and the paramedics were in attendance. Once his fear had been assuaged, he allowed himself the luxury of being furious at my putting myself in such a precarious position. Apparently, going down into a dark basement to retrieve a ditsy dog was man’s work. Had I called him, or presumably some other man, to take care of the matter, this whole situation could have been avoided, his thinking would go.

  I also knew that he was capable of maintaining his chilly reserve for days. He was a sulker. I tended to flare and cool in rapid succession, but Armando could nurse the coals of his anger for quite a while. Frankly, it was one of his less attractive traits. When we had lived apart, it was easy enough to tolerate his pouting. I just went about my business and waited for the thaw. Living under the same roof made things more difficult. Too difficult? I wondered.

  A glance at the clock on my night table confirmed that it was only quarter past ten o’clock, the shank of the evening for those under thirty, so I did what I often did when I felt abused and abandoned. I picked up the telephone and punched the speed dial code for Emma. Within moments, I had the comfort I needed, with Emma laughing so hard that she had to go find a tissue for her streaming eyes. She knew Armando well, too.

  “I can just picture you going ass over teakettle down those stairs and Armando’s face when he heard you’d gotten yourself locked in that creepy cellar,” she gasped. Then, more soberly, “I’m sorry you’re banged up and hurting, but Momma …”

  I waited for her to express concern that I might well have broken a hip, but no.

  “… you might have killed poor old Lavinia!” And she was off in more gales of laughter.

  “Thanks for your concern,” I said when she came up for air, “but poor old Lavinia is a lot tougher than she looks. It’s that dog who was in danger of my murdering him.”

  “How on earth did he manage to shut the door anyway? You said he’s not very big.”

  I gave it a moment’s thought. “I’m not sure. He was so excited about his basement adventure, he was running around like crazy. I actually thought he had gone into the kitchen for a drink of water, because he seemed to quiet down, but then the door slammed shut. I mean, it had to be Henry. There was no one else in the house. Or maybe a breeze from the open window in the parlor blew down the hall and caught the door just right.”

  I stopped as two unwelcome memories surfaced. The first was my wrestling the parlor window shut just before Lavinia and I had headed for the basement. The second was the image of the kitchen door standing open to the evening breeze when I had arrived at the Henstock house. I decided to keep silent until I could consider the implications with a clearer head.

  “Anyway, bad luck, Momma. So what else is new?”

  Our conversation wandered into the more familiar territory of speculation about Joey’s budding relationship with Justine and Emma’s chafing under the never-ending surveillance of Officer Ron. Like mother like daughter, I supposed, amazed yet again at the characteristics that seemed transmittable via the gene pool. On that disquieting thought, our conversation ended, and I slipped into as deep a sleep as my aches and pains would allow.

  Eleven

  As always happens with fall injuries, I awoke before dawn the next morning hurting in places I hadn’t even known I had before my fall. Not only were my head, elbow and ankle throbbing as excruciatingly as expected, but new twinges in my hip and back had joined the chorus of pain. I groped for the bottle of ibuprofen next to the bed and washed down three tablets with a mouthful of cold tea, then lay still to await whatever relief they might provide.

  By some miracle, I fell back to sleep, or perhaps I passed out. Whatever the cause, the respite was welcome, as was the mug of hot, strong coffee Armando brought me at seven-thirty.

  “Thank you, thank you,” I gushed gratefully, struggling to sit up. He set down the mug, grabbed me under both arms, and hauled me to a sitting position, none too gently. “Thanks again,” I said dryly as he pushed pillows into place behind me and handed me my coffee.

  I had expected him to stalk coldly from the room after performing these duties, but he surprised me by sitting down next to me on the bed. “Now,” he said, “perhaps you will be good enough to let me know what the hell has been going on.”

  Before last night, I might have been tempted to go on with my little white lies of omission, as I thought of them, but one look at Armando’s face made me give it all up. No, he would not understand why I hadn’t told him about the man in the van and the fright he had given me the weekend before Armando moved in. Yes, he would obsess over my once again being embroiled in some sort of intrigue involving a religious lunatic who had apparently taken issue with something that Margo, Strutter or I had done that offended him. And possibly, he would not forgive me for not telling him about everything that had occurred over the last week. Armando was Armando. We didn’t think the same way about everything, and I didn’t always love what he did, but I loved him, and he loved me. If we were to make a life together, such secrets would not do. It was time to tell it all and let the chips fall where they may. So, I did.

  Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. The words poured out of me as I unloaded all of my frustration about being the possible target of yet another unbalanced stranger with a thing for a flower that smelled like roadkill, my fears about Van Man, who might or might not be stalking me, and my angst over the Henstock ladies and what would become of them if we couldn’t solve this mystery and sell their house for them.

  After a while, Armando held up a hand and took my coffee mug back to the kitchen. He returned with a refill and a mug for himself and resumed his seat at the side of the bed, but by the time I finally ran down, he had moved to the other side of the bed and lay next to me, his head cushioned with the sham-covered pillows that matched my floral bedspread. He lay quietly with his half-empty mug of cold coffee on his chest, and the expression on his face was inscrutable. Probably wondering how quickly he can get the movers back here, I guessed miserably, but he actually looked more thoughtful than angry.

  “So?” I couldn’t help but prompt him. Best to get the fireworks about my various deceptions over with.

  He cut his eyes sideways at me and handed me his mug, which I deposited alongside mine on the bedside table. He rolled onto his side to face me and propped his head on his fist. I turned gingerly to face him, wincing as both ankle and elbow protested this movement. To my astonishment, Armando’s eyes glittered not with anger but with amusement. “So it appears that I am living with Miss Nancy Drew, or how do you call her, the busybody who lives in Cabot Cove, Maine, and finds bodies wherever she goes?”

  The comparisons rankled a bit, but I opted not to push my luck. “Jessica Fletcher, who writes mystery novels and must be well into her sixties. And I am not a busybody.”

  “I see. In your case, the mysteries come to you, not the other way around.”

  “Well, yes.” Mostly.

  “Then it must be part of your cosmic destiny to solve these puzzles, is it not? And I must do what I can to help you,” he added, knocking me completely for a loop. Just when you think you kno
w someone.

  I stared at him. “Who are you, and what have you done with Armando?”

  He lay next to me in his Mickey Mouse tee-shirt and plaid boxer shorts, his customary sleeping attire. His hair was a mess, and he hadn’t yet shaved. In my eyes, he had never looked sexier, and I heartily regretted the injuries that prevented my acting on that thought. Eyes still twinkling, he replied, “I know you very well. You are stubborn and independent, and you will do what you will do. Whatever that is, I will be on your side.” He pulled me close to him and whispered into my ear. “But Cara, if you ever conceal from me such a thing as an intruder who may wish to do you harm, I will lock you in a closet and push your meals under the door for a month.” So saying, he reached around me and administered a sharp whack to my backside.

  “Hey!”I protested, but secretly, I was somewhat relieved at this return to normalcy. For a while there, I was afraid he had undergone some sort of personality transplant. “Deal,” I agreed, smiling into his eyes.

  Abruptly, he released me and bounded to his feet. “Now what?” I asked with some alarm.

  “Now I’m going to stick your head in the sink.”

  “Is that some sort of kinky punishment thing like locking me in a closet?”

  He smiled broadly. “An appealing thought, but no. I am going to help you wash your hair. There seem to be cobwebs in it.”

  * * *

  “Few things make a girl feel more attractive than having black toes.” Armando had finally gone to work, but only after double-checking the locks on every door and window in the house. We had decided that more than my hair needed washing, so he had helped me in and out of the shower, then into a soft sweatsuit that pulled easily over my battered elbow and ankle. For the moment, I was without the aircast on my ankle, since I had it packed in icebags for the prescribed twenty minutes. It was too warm for socks, so I was stuck looking at my grossly discolored foot. To pass the time and distract myself from the throbbing pain, I was on the phone with Margo, filling her in on the events of the preceding evening.

  “Sounds lovely, but it probably serves you right.” I was beginning to resent the distinct lack of compassion I was receiving from my friends and loved ones. “With the secrets you’ve been keepin’ from your man, you’re lucky you don’t have two black eyes to match ‘em.” I had also told her about my morning confessional.

  “Is that some sort of ethnic slur? Because I have it on good authority that only eighty percent of Latino men beat their women,” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Lucky you to have one of the others. But gettin’ back to the matter of last night, why didn’t you call me?”

  “Because I was unconscious.” I could picture Margo rolling her eyes, but she refused to rise to my bait.

  “If your phone had been in your pocket, instead of in your purse …”

  I had heard that litany one too many times. “So where’s your cell phone?”

  “What do you mean, where’s my cell phone? I’m talkin’ on it! How big a bump is on that head of yours anyway?”

  Damn. “You know I meant where do you keep your cell phone, generally speaking?”

  There was a pause during which Margo decided whether to lie like a rug or tell the truth. Since she knew I was perfectly aware where she kept her cell phone, she opted for the latter. “In my purse, as you well know … but when I leave my purse behind, it goes right into my pocket. What good is an emergency phone if it isn’t with you in an emergency, I’d like to know?”

  “Okay, okay, you win, but I wasn’t expecting an emergency,” I finished lamely.

  “Nobody ever does, Sugar. That’s exactly my point.” Wisely, she changed the subject. “Are you absolutely certain it was that yappy little dog that pushed the cellar door shut? I can’t imagine my darlin’ Rhett doin’ such a silly thing.”

  I had to admit that I was not at all certain, and since I myself had closed the parlor window before the door incident, the theory about the breeze having caught it didn’t really work either. I mentioned the kitchen door through which Lavinia had admitted me, then left open to the evening air while we drank too much sherry in the parlor. Margo got quiet, and I could hear the unpleasant alternatives bouncing around in her beautiful head.

  “So after goin’ to all the trouble and expense of havin’ the locks changed, Lavinia just left one of the most easily accessible doors on the first floor wide open, is that it?” I admitted that it was, but in her defense, she wasn’t alone in the house. I had been with her the whole time, as had Henry.

  “Judging from the commotion he raised when I came to that door, I can’t imagine that he would have been any less alert to another, uh, visitor. He would have barked his head off, just as he did when I arrived.”

  “Tell me again exactly what happened after you and Lavinia started down those dark stairs. Oooh,” she shuddered delicately. “The thought gives me the creeps.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to get the sequence of events just right. “Well, Lavinia went down first. I was at the top, flipping the switch, but the light wouldn’t go on.”

  “And you’re sure Henry was actually in the basement at that time?”

  “Yes, because we could hear him. And before I even got down the stairs, Lavinia called to him. I remember, because I was shocked when he actually obeyed her and zoomed up the stairs past me.”

  “Then where did he go?”

  I thought for a few seconds. “I heard him run into the kitchen. I thought he must be having a drink of water, because he got quiet for a while. I don’t remember what he did after that.”

  “So you and Lavinia climbed back up the stairs, but before you got to the top, the door slammed shut.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you saw nothin’? Heard nothin’?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut harder. Then I remembered something else. “I actually did hear something, some rustling or clinking, coming from the other side of the door. I thought it must be Henry’s tags. And then I heard what I thought were footsteps farther away from the door, and I knew Ada must have gotten home early from playing bingo at the church. I called out to her, and … well, you know the rest of the story.”

  Again, Margo was quiet. “How quickly did Ada open the door?” she asked finally.

  I had to admit I didn’t know, having knocked myself out when I fell backwards over Lavinia.

  “I’m not sure. I mean, Lavinia had to be groping her way back down the stairs to see what had happened to me, and Ada might not have heard me the first time I called out. I guess it could have been a few minutes.

  “So you can’t be sure the footsteps you heard were Ada’s at all?”

  I really didn’t like the sound of that, but I had to concede the point. “Are you saying that someone else came into the house while Lavinia and I were in the cellar and deliberately locked us down there? But why? And how did he get past Henry?”

  “I don’t think he did get past Henry, at least not in the direction you’re thinkin’. I think he came into the house right after you did, while Henry was still preoccupied with you and Lavinia in the parlor. I think he was in the house the whole time you were, and when you and the dog were in the basement, he saw his chance to sneak out. Henry didn’t come when Lavinia called him. He heard someone walkin’ around upstairs and ran upstairs to investigate.”

  “But he didn’t bark,” I protested weakly, appalled at the scenario Margo was creating.

  “Because the intruder was ready with some hamburger or steak or somethin’ else that dog just couldn’t resist, and as soon as Henry’s mouth was full, he shoved that cellar door shut and walked out through the kitchen, same way he came in earlier.”

  As much as I resisted this line of reasoning, the facts seemed to support it more than the assumption that a fifteen-pound dog, new to the household, had figured out how to close a heavy door and done it for no reason at all. I remembered Henry’s wet kisses and the smell of something on his doggie breath. �
��But why?” I squeaked unhappily now. “If he meant us harm, he had us right where he wanted us. Why would he just leave?”

  Margo chewed on that for a while. “Because it wasn’t you or Lavinia he was after. It was something that he believes is in that house, something he didn’t get the first time he visited.”

  “Do you mean the plumber?”

  “Yes, the mysterious plumber, but unless I’m very much mistaken, he’s not really a plumber at all.”

  My head started whirling again, and I leaned back against the sofa carefully. “What are you saying? Do you think the man at the Henstocks’ house was the guy who’s been following me in the van? Or is the guy in the van our poison pen-pal?” Or do three entirely unconnected men have it in for me for some reason? No, that was simply too paranoid to express even to Margo.

  “I don’t know what I mean, Sugar. This is all terribly confusin’, but I need to call John and tell him about this. I’m sure he’ll want to speak to you later.”

  I was sure he would, too. I changed the subject. “Okay, I need to call Lavinia, too. Where’s Strutter? How is she doing today?”

  “She’s fine. She’s handlin’ Vista Views again today, if I can get her away from the university’s Web cam site, that is. Ever since Jenny showed us that big, disgustin’ corpse flower, she’s been checkin’ it every twenty minutes. Talk to you later.” And she was gone.

  I remained where I was, phone in my hand, and struggled to put the pieces of this puzzle together. Somewhere, there had to be a connection between two, if not all three, of our tormentors, but I didn’t have enough information to figure it out. I had promised to telephone Lavinia, however, so perhaps I could accomplish two things with one call. I retrieved the Henstocks’ number from my phone’s memory and punched Redial. Lavinia must have been waiting near her phone, because she answered immediately. After assuring her that I had sustained no permanent damage in the previous evening’s mishap, and still flushed with virtue from my morning confessional, I gave her the advice she had requested.