“Yeah!” Sawyer answered excitedly.
“Awesome. I’m going to introduce you to geocaching. Here’s a map of local beginner grade caches and their coordinates. Now, with Mom or Dad with you, use a phone GPS program to guide you to the coordinates, open the cache, log that you were there and then put the cache back in its original location so that others may find it.”
“You mean I don’t get to keep the stuff inside?”
“You can, but only if you replace it with something just as valuable. I think you’ll find, however, that the fun is in the hunting and the hiking. But if you locate all the caches on this map, we’ll send you a Junior Navigators badge.”
So captivated and entranced by her husband’s kind way with children, Stella hadn’t even noticed Dan entering the tent behind her.
“Sorry I was gone,” he stated loudly, causing Stella to nearly jump out of her skin. “I – well, I couldn’t find a damn bathroom in this place that wasn’t locked. I wound up having one of the officers escort me to the edge of the woods and… you know. But seriously? What are the police thinking? I know it’s important to keep the crime scene secure, but can’t we have at least one functioning bathroom? There are families here with young children. They can’t be expected to go all morning without access to a toilet.”
“Mark Rousseau made the very same argument to the sheriff not so long ago.”
“And?”
“She was not what one would call sympathetic,” Stella smirked.
Dan shook his head. “Well, anyway, thanks for watching after things for me. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome, but I didn’t do very much. The only people who stopped by are the two boys with Nick.”
“Oh? Did they want to hear some music?”
“They did. I told them you’d most likely play a concert when you got back. Nick took it over from there.”
“He seems to be doing a great job, too.”
“He is. He always does,” Stella acknowledged with a smile. “Unfortunately, the little guy took some karate kicks to your kit before Nick got to him.”
The Salvage Guy chuckled. “Yeah, that’s what they all do. Beat it with their hands, their feet, my sticks… so long as he didn’t hurt himself, I’m cool with it.”
“No, he’s perfectly fine. He was actually quite measured with his kicking; very respectful. As he was kicking though, I did notice that a section of the rack looked a bit wobbly.”
“Due to last night’s storm, no doubt. That wind was so fierce, the whole rig was probably vibrating. Do you remember which section seemed loose?”
“Yes, this spot right here, where these pipes come together.” She indicated the junction that she had unfastened just moments earlier.
“Well, that’s easy enough to fix.” The Salvage Guy reached beneath his Sherpa-lined denim jacket and into the front pocket of his forest green workshirt, but his fingers emerged empty. “I could have sworn I –” he mumbled to himself.
“What’s wrong?” Stella asked, the picture of innocence.
“The rack is held together with hex bolts, but I can’t find the key to tighten them.”
“When did you use it last?”
“Yesterday, when I set up,” he sighed.
“Hmmm. Then it should be around here somewhere, right?”
“Not necessarily. After I set up, I walked over to the robotic suit presentation, then I closed up my tent and went to dinner.”
“Oh, and if I’m not mistaken, it looks like you’re wearing the same shirt as yesterday. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it could even be back at the house – in the parlor, the dining room, the stairs, your room…” Stella watched as the color drained from the Salvage Guy’s face.
“I – I, um, I’m pretty sure I have another one in my case,” he stammered before lifting, with shaking hands, the cover from a rectangular black trap case and extracting a small, white tool kit. “Ah, here’s one,” he announced as he peered inside.
“Oh, good,” Stella declared. “Well, I’ll just leave you to it and go back to my tent. At what time should I tell the boys you’ll be performing?”
“Huh?” the Salvage Guy asked distractedly. “Oh, um – um – maybe five minutes?”
“Okay,” Stella smiled and dashed back to the U.S. Forest Service tent. She arrived at Nick’s side, just as he was wrapping up with Sawyer and Lucah and their parents.
“Hey, the Salvage Guy will be doing a concert in about five minutes,” Stella informed them. “If you head over there now, you can get a spot up front.”
With a loud round of cheers, the boys scurried to the tent next door, their parents close at their heels. Stella, meanwhile, grinned broadly.
“How does that canary taste?” Nick asked.
“Delicious,” she replied.
“Care to share precisely what you were looking for over there?”
“Of course. You know I share everything with you,” she stated before telling him, quietly, about the rack and the missing Allen key.
“I hate to burst your bubble, honey, but Dan not having an Allen key this morning doesn’t prove anything. He could have lost it anywhere, and the key in Morehouse’s room could have been there for days.”
Stella’s body reacted as if a spark had been ignited within her soul. “You have a very good point, Nick.”
“I do? You mean you’re going to give up the investigation and stay close?”
Stella placed the hood of her bright red raincoat over her head. “No. I’m going up to the house to talk to Tuttle.”
“Tuttle? About what?” Nick pressed.
“Vacuuming. What else?” Stella shrugged as she trod off into the rain toward the path that led to Vue Colline.
Having adopted the policy that it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, she straightened her spine, avoided eye contact, and held her head slightly aloft as she sauntered past the uniformed policemen guarding the entrance of the path with the air of a woman who not only knew precisely where she was going, but had every right to be going there.
The performance worked. The officers paid Stella little more than a vaguely questioning glance.
Relieved that she had run the gauntlet, yet nervous that one of the men still might call her back, Stella stepped up her pace and hastened to Vue Colline. As the mansion’s stone façade came into view, she noticed a worrying sight: a police officer, dressed in full rain gear, guarding the front door.
Before the officer could spot her, Stella ducked behind a thicket of vegetation and contemplated her next move.
She need not have pondered long, for within moments of hiding, the rain, which had, since the early hours of the fair, tapered off into a gentle shower, suddenly let loose in a torrent, driving the guard at the door to seek temporary shelter indoors.
Stella cast a thankful eye heavenward and moved toward the far west, potentially unguarded, section of the house. Carefully picking her way through the brush so as not to be observed by the mansion’s occupants, she silently vowed that if she were to stay in the sleuthing business, her first order of business would be to trade in her red rain slicker for a less noticeable piece of outerwear.
Upon reaching the west end of the property, Stella peered over the dense shrubbery and watched the windows of what she had calculated to be Vue Colline’s kitchen. Detecting no movement from within, she dashed from her hiding spot to the arched exterior kitchen door. Finding it unlocked, she cast another eye heavenward, opened the door and stepped inside.
Vue Colline’s vast kitchen was a seamless amalgam of old and new. A battery of oak cabinets lined both the near wall, where Stella had entered, and the wall to her left, only to be punctuated by a deep farmhouse sink. Along the wall closest to the main house, the old stoves and iceboxes had been replaced with state-of-the-art Viking appliances. And in the center of the kitchen, which would have been overrun by household help back in the day, had been placed a granite-topped fortress
of an island.
Stella entered through the door, pushed it closed without a sound, and set about removing her rain gear so as to not leave a trail of water through the house. After placing her wellingtons in the boot tray beside the door and hanging her coat on a nearby hook, she tiptoed, in stocking feet, across the kitchen floor and toward a set of swinging doors.
Pushing one of the doors forward approximately an inch, Stella peeked into the next room. Once they adjusted to the dim light, Stella’s eyes were able to discern row upon of row of glass front cupboards filled with a variety of glassware, china and serving pieces. True to houses built at the turn of the twentieth century, it was a butler’s pantry and, more importantly, an uninhabited one.
Taking care to keep the door from swinging shut behind her, Stella stepped into the butler’s pantry and looked for the next exit. She quickly spotted two possible escape routes – a single swinging door to her right and a six-paneled door with a standard handle on the opposite end of the pantry.
Stella’s suspicion that the exit to her right led to the dining room was borne out by the sound of voices emanating from behind the whitewashed door. She took a step closer and listened.
“So, Mr. Carlson,” Sheriff Wilkins posed, “you’re saying that you have absolutely no idea how this knife came to be in Arthur Bauersfeld’s tent.”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying.”
“But you don’t deny that it’s your design.”
“I’d need to take a closer look before I can confirm that.”
The room fell silent as Stella imagined a uniformed officer or the Sheriff herself passed the knife, most likely sealed in a plastic bag, and presented it to Carlson.
A minute passed before Carlson spoke again. “Yes, it looks like something I might have designed.”
“Might?” Wilkins challenged.
“Yes, ‘might.’ I have designed many knives in my career. Although this one is in my style, I don’t have any particular memory of it.”
“But it bears your initials, in tiny letters, at the top of the hilt. From what I’ve learned about you, it’s your signature. You put those initials on every piece.”
“If you’ve done your homework as well as you claim, you’d also know that mine is a very popular name in the Steampunk community. Knock-offs of my designs are extremely common.”
“Is that what you’re maintaining this is? A knock-off?”
There was another lapse wherein Stella concluded that Carlson must have been re-examining the knife. “No, it looks like mine,” he finally conceded.
“Then the question remains: what was it doing in Bauersfeld’s tent?”
“I don’t know,” Carlson stated loudly. “Nor do I know why anyone – least of all me – would want to stab Bauersfeld to death. The man had created a geodesic yurt in order to provide shelter for the homeless, for crying out loud. That doesn’t exactly put him on the short list for assassination.”
“And yet, that’s precisely what happened,” Wilkins affirmed. “That will be all for now, Mr. Carlson. Feel free to go back to your tent, but please understand that under no circumstances are you to leave the estate.”
“Meaning?” Carlson asked.
“Meaning that you are considered a person of interest in this case,” Wilkins replied matter-of-factly.
Stella followed the rhythmic sound of Carlson’s footsteps as they clicked across the marble tile of the dining room floor and then clunked against the hardwood boards of Vue Colline’s main hallway. As the sound grew more distant, she tiptoed to the door at the opposite end of the butler’s pantry and, turning the knob, gave it a slight push outward.
It was met with resistance and a slight grunt.
Stella’s eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open as she was met by the figure of Mr. Tuttle.
The elderly man looked just as surprised, but he quickly placed a finger to his lips and beckoned her to follow him down the hall.
With a silent nod, Stella complied and tiptoed behind him. When they had reached the drawing room, Tuttle turned to her and whispered, “You’re not gonna tell anyone I was listening at the dining room door are ya?”
“No. You’re not going to tell anyone I was listening in the butler’s pantry, are you?”
“Nope. From what Ms. McArdle tells me, she asked you to investigate, so I figure you had a right to be there.”
“She did, but evidently the police are running short on junior detective badges.”
“Ah well, I think you’ll be fine without ‘em.”
“I uh, I hope you’re right,” Stella said modestly. “You know, Mr. Tuttle, it’s funny I should run into you just now. My original intent for coming into the house was to ask you a few questions.”
“Me?” he responded with surprise. “Sure. If you think it would help.”
“It would,” she reassured.
“Then go ahead.”
“How often are the bedrooms in this house vacuumed?”
Mr. Tuttle appeared startled.
“Believe me, sir. I’m not trying to put you on the spot. It’s actually quite important,” she assured.
“There are some ladies from town who come in and do the guest rooms. When there aren’t no guests here, they come in once a week to dust and vacuum. When there are guests, it’s every day to make beds, dust, and tidy up. In fact, they’d be doin’ the beds and vacuuming the rooms right now if it weren’t for the lockdown. Police wouldn’t let ‘em in.”
“And Mr. Morehouse’s room?”
“I clean Mr. Morehouse’s quarters myself. Only two people know the code for the lock on his bedroom door: me and…” he blushed slightly. “And Ms. McArdle. Though I don’t like tellin’ tales outta school. Especially with ol’ Morehouse bein’ gone and all.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Tuttle. Whatever you tell me will stay in the strictest confidence. Now getting back to the cleaning – how often do you vacuum Mr. Morehouse’s quarters?”
“Every day.”
Stella’s eyes grew wide. “Really? Every day?”
“Yep. Mr. Morehouse had some very dark, very expensive carpeting installed in his livin’ space. I swear every speck of lint wound up on that carpet. Drove Mr. Morehouse nuts!”
“And there was never a time when you skipped or missed a day?”
“Sure, if Mr. Morehouse was workin’ and didn’t wish to be disturbed. That didn’t happen often though.”
“And yesterday? It was a busy one, I’m sure, what with the Cavalcade starting today. Did you vacuum as usual or was Mr. Morehouse too busy?”
“Oh, I vacuumed alright! I didn’t vacuum the day before ‘cause Mr. Morehouse was having a meeting with that Zolar fella about the robot suit. Nothing I could understand,” Tuttle added, proving that listening at keyholes was a frequent pastime. “So yesterday, I went over everything twice as good. That carpet was a mess, I tell ya.”
Stella’s blonde eyebrows furrowed.
“Oh,” Tuttle sounded disappointed. “Did I tell ya something ya didn’t want to hear?”
“Want to hear? No. Expect to hear? Yes. But it’s fine – I simply need to figure out what it all means.”
‘Well, if I can help ya at all,” Tuttle offered.
“Thank you, Mr. Tuttle. I may need to take you up on that at some point.”
“Sure. Till then, may I give you some advice?”
“Absolutely. What is it?”
“I’d check out that Carlson fella if I were you.”
“Oh?”
“There’s somethin’ fishy about his story about the knife.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters Carlson acted like he’d never seen the knife before, right? But he gave it to Mr. Morehouse as a gift a couple years back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I remember the day Mr. Morehouse received it. Showed it to everyone in the house who’d listen. He even had a display case built for it.” Tuttle led her to a bookcase set into a d
ark corner of the room. On one of the shelves stood a rectangular glass dome, approximately fifteen inches long and eight inches high and wide. This glass dome rested upon a wooden base slightly larger than itself from which protruded two three inch tall pedestals upon which a long, flat object might rest. Only, the pedestals were empty.
“When did you notice that the knife was missing?”
“Just this mornin’ when I came in to see if the place needed tidyin’.”
“And until this morning, the knife has been in its case, in this precise spot?” Stella asked, staring at the empty pedestals.
“Yep. Right there on that shelf, exactly where you see it.”
“And where everyone else could see it too.”
“Now you see why I said somethin’s fishy. I can see why Carlson might pretend not to recognize the knife he gave Mr. Morehouse as a gift, but why didn’t he mention that the knife was here in the bookcase this whole time? Why didn’t he tell the police that anyone could have come in here and taken it? It doesn’t make no sense.”
“No, Mr. Tuttle,” Stella frowned, “indeed it doesn’t.”
Chapter Nine
Having obtained all the information she could from Mr. Tuttle, Stella padded upstairs to check on Meagan, only to find her bedroom door open and the scene inside quite different from the one she had left mere hours ago.
This time, it was Oona Bauersfeld reclining on top of the bed covers, three pillows propped behind her back and a silky white lap quilt draped over her legs. A box of facial tissue in an ornate ivory-finished holder rested on the bed beside her, along with a pile of the crumpled, used variety.
In a nearby chair rested Meagan McArdle, looking drained and fragile yet, at the same time, composed, strong, and impossibly beautiful. In the chair beside Meagan perched Ms. B. Ology, her strawberry blonde hair clipped up at the nape of the neck and her white face fraught with worry.
“Both Chef Durand and I tried to keep Meagan in bed,” Ms. B. said earnestly to Stella as she entered the room. “But Megan insisted that she was fine.”
Short-Circuited in Charlotte: A Pret' Near Perfect Mystery Page 12
