We turned to talk of The Wedding, which I thought deserved an initial-caps designation as much as The Case did. Skip was resigned to wearing a tux and had even been talked into a lavender pocket square to match June’s dress.
“What are you wearing?” Skip asked.
“It’s a secret.”
“You don’t have it yet.”
“That’s the secret.”
“I can’t wait for the day.”
“Really?” It was too late at night, actually too early in the morning, for me to discern truth from tongue-in-cheek.
“No kidding. I mean, not that I like all the fanfare, but I’m blown away by the fact that those two found each other. My mom so deserves a guy like Nick.”
“Have you told her that?”
“She knows how I feel.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to remind her.”
“You think?”
“It would be the best present you could give her.”
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
Someone knocking on my door at twelve-thirty in the morning? Not that it was unheard of. Skip gave me a questioning look. Was I expecting another guest? I shook my head, no. He got up and checked the peephole, which seemed a strange thing for an armed man to do. He opened the door to Megan Sutley, in a navy linen pants outfit, who looked as surprised as I did.
“I saw your lights on,” she said. “I didn’t realize anyone else was here. Good evening, Detective Gowen.”
“G’morning,” he said, stifling a yawn. For real or to make a point, I couldn’t tell.
“Come in,” I said. And while she was getting her bearings, presumably adjusting to Skip’s presence, I offered her a glass of iced tea.
“Oh, no, I just…well, Jeanine said you might have something that belongs to me.”
“The crystal?”
“I didn’t mean to disturb you. I can come back another time.”
“No problem,” I said, walking to the table that was against the wall. “It’s right here.” I looked into the small bowl where I dropped my keys and small odds and ends that I don’t want to lose, or that I’m too lazy to return to their proper place. I wiggled my fingers through the contents—keys, mints, paper clips, a mini-coffeepot that was part of a tiny metal camping set. I jiggled things around again. More clips, and a hat pin. In what decade had I worn a hat pin last?
Megan had crept up and peered over my shoulder. “Did you find it?”
“It’s not here. I can’t imagine what happened to it. I saw it earlier today when I put my keys down.” I lifted the edges of the cloth under the bowl and shook it. Nothing fell out. I looked on the floor under the table. Nothing. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t seem to be here. Maybe in the light of day, it will show up.”
Megan folded her arms across her chest and chewed her lip. She gave me a strange look, as if she didn’t believe me, as if I had the crystal and planned to keep it for myself. She glanced at Skip. I had the feeling she’d have railed at me if he wasn’t standing there, observing. “Well, I’ll get out of your way for now. If you do find it, you can just bring it to the store tomorrow.” She walked toward the door and Skip let her out.
“Weird,” he said. I agreed. “What was that about?”
I gave him a brief account of finding the crystal, hearing about it from Jeanine, and now losing it.
Skip got down on his hands and knees and gave the floor a more thorough going-over. Nothing.
I convinced him to let it go and get some sleep. The plastic bag of cookies-to-go was an incentive and he left.
I went to bed, wondering where the bead was and why I cared, and hoping the supine position would help my brain sort things out before it was too late to get Catherine out of jail.
* * *
I spent about fifteen minutes on my hands and knees on Wednesday morning, and another few looking at eye level for the accursed bead. No luck. I decided I’d buy Megan another cell phone case if that’s what it took to get the bead problem out of my life.
Henry and Taylor arrived on the dot of nine-thirty. The new plan was that Henry would return home and I’d take the girls to SuperKrafts with me. After that we’d make a girls-only trip to San Jose. The second shopping day in a row for me. My head was spinning. And we’d agreed that the trip wouldn’t end until all three of us had wedding outfits. I had permission from the mothers of both girls to use my judgment in making the final decision on their outfits. The responsibility weighed heavily.
“Good thing my old suit is still in style,” Henry said.
“Hmm,” I uttered.
“Oh, no,” Henry said. Pretending to block his ears, he rushed out the door, leaving three females laughing.
* * *
SuperKrafts sales were in full swing. I’d have sworn that every woman I’d ever seen at a crafts fair was in the store, and a few men besides. There were sale signs, red tags, and one-time-only special deals on all the aisles. I wondered what was left for Saturday, other than balloons and cake.
I’d decided to play anonymous shopper today and not go near the back room, lest I be dragged into one last meeting concerning nothing I cared about. We began by roaming the scrapbooking aisles since both Maddie and Taylor wanted to make books for their parents’ anniversaries, Maddie’s in August and Taylor’s in September. We checked out the plain burlap books that were held together by binder rings and ready for markers and stickers, and also the shiny cover stock useful for starting from scratch. Maddie was collecting things for a Los Angeles page, since Richard and Mary Lou were married there; Taylor had found a Scales of Justice page for her two-lawyer family.
Halfway through the sticker aisle, Megan showed up. She looked better than I did for having stayed up late, or maybe it was only an aura given off by her short, crisp dress and sparkly purse in matching dark blue. I was ready for a reprimand since I’d lost her precious bead, but she presented a friendly front, chatting with the girls, telling them she used to do scrapbooking herself. I had my doubts that she even knew what glue dots looked like.
“I looked all around the atrium again and I’m sorry I didn’t find your bead,” I said.
Megan waved away my concern. “Don’t give it another thought. There are a million beads in the universe. One little crystal more or less won’t make a difference.”
I heard a gasp from a few feet down the aisle. “I have it,” Maddie said. She and Taylor approached us.
“You have what?” I asked.
Maddie reached into the back pocket of her white shorts. “I took it to show Taylor and—”
“We wanted to buy more of them, so we brought it to the store to make a match,” Taylor said.
It had never occurred to me to ask Maddie about the bead, though in retrospect, it would have been a smart thing to do. Who else was living with me at the moment? Who was attracted to shiny things and missed nothing, ever? Who talked about beads at the table yesterday? It was what Skip would have called a “duh moment.”
“I’m sorry, Grandma.”
“Me, too, Aunt Gerry. We thought it was yours and you were, like, getting rid of it. That’s where my mom puts things she eventually throws out.”
“I’m just glad we found it. Right, Megan?”
“You bet,” she said, as she took the bead from Maddie. She pulled out her cell phone and showed us the empty spot where the bead belonged.
The girls were wide-eyed at the dazzling case. They trotted over to the bead section, but I had the feeling nothing in the SuperKrafts aisles would measure up to Megan’s crystal.
“I hear you’re leaving today. Going back to New York,” I said, pleased to chat with Megan now that another crisis had been averted.
“Yes, things are going smoothly and there’s no reason for me to stay. In fact I need to run an errand in town before my trip and I wanted to ask you for a favor. Is there any chance you’re going to be around here for about an hour, in case Jeanine needs help? Leo’s back there, but he’s useless.” She pointed to the girls, who’d
moved down the aisle. “There’s punch and cookies up front in case they get hungry.”
“Sure, we’re just getting started. Just call my cell when you get back.”
Megan went off, full of gratitude, trailing her lavender scent, and I continued down the aisle, filling my basket as I went.
The girls came back to the sticker aisle, studying each different theme for possible use in their projects for their parents—puffy stickers for the fifty states, flat stickers for the Fourth of July, 3-D stickers for Halloween, rolls of stickers with images for the seasons, animals, and sports—so I knew we weren’t going anywhere fast.
We filled a cart plus a basket with merchandise from every section of the store. I paused to admire the dollhouse display, of course, and couldn’t help tweaking a few pieces of furniture. We were ready to check out and I still hadn’t heard from Megan. With some reluctance, I wandered to the back of the store where Leo was dealing with one of the maintenance crew.
“Excuse me, have you seen Megan?” I asked Leo, giving the man in coveralls an excuse to tip his gray-and-white striped cap and leave.
“Far as I know, she’s gone.”
“On an errand, you mean.”
“Nope, she’s gone, as in back home. She had her luggage loaded in the rental when she got here this morning.”
“That’s strange.”
“It’s what she planned.”
“But she asked me to stay around for an hour in case Jeanine needed anything, and that was”—I checked my watch—“an hour and ten minutes ago. I assumed she was coming back.”
Leo shrugged, oblivious. “I have no idea why she gave you that impression. I don’t expect to see her again in California.” His turn to check the time. “She was scheduled for the twelve-ten flight. It’s a half hour to the airport, and she had to return the rental, so I assumed that when she left here around ten-fifteen, ten-twenty, she was headed there.”
There was no use stressing about it. “I’ll be leaving now,” I said to Leo.
“No problem,” he said.
I wished I could have said that it was the strangest thing that had happened in the last five days, but it wasn’t even close.
* * *
It hadn’t been hard to talk Henry into meeting us at Willie’s Bagels. “Sustenance for the road,” I’d said, cell phone to cell phone.
“And for buying dresses, I’ll bet.”
“That, too,” I’d admitted.
The four of us were seated in Willie’s, made hungrier from the aroma of bagels, fresh out of the oven. I detected the aromatic presence of cinnamon, blueberry, and chocolate, and had a hard time deciding.
I related the Megan Sutley story to Henry, then posed my questions. “First, why would she be so obsessed last night with a single bead, crystal or otherwise? It’s not as though it was museum quality, though admittedly it was a cut above the crafts beads in those packages on the SuperKrafts racks. And then today, she acted as though it was nothing, until Maddie produced the bead.”
“If you say so.”
“And second, why did she lie to me today? If she had a twelve-ten flight, then her so-called errand when she left me at SuperKrafts was to get to the airport.”
“Maybe she didn’t want you to know how long you’d really be covering for her. Or maybe it was Leo who lied?”
I thought about it. “I should call Loretta,” I said. I pulled my phone out. “Do you mind?”
Henry gave me a head shake that said he wanted the answer, too. The girls were occupied, head to head, with some app on their phones. I punched in the number.
“KenTucky Inn. How can we help you?” I was happy to hear Loretta’s voice. I wasn’t ready to deal with Jeanine’s friend Dana until I knew she’d cleared herself in the eyes of the law.
“It’s Gerry, Loretta. I have a quick question for you.”
“Yes, we’re available for your wedding.”
I acknowledged my friend’s clever opening, hoping Henry didn’t notice the flush it brought to my face. “Did Megan Sutley check out this morning?”
“Yes, she did, as planned. First thing. Paid in full. Is there a problem?”
“No, and thanks for letting me know about the glass, or lack of it, after the earthquake.”
“Okay, and hey, make sure you keep that wedding guest list down to one hundred or less so we can handle it. Ha, ha.”
“Ha, ha to you, too, Loretta.”
“What’s that about?” Henry asked.
Our bagel orders arrived just in time for me to avoid his question.
“Good to have confirmation,” I said when we’d thanked our waitress. “Megan checked out first thing this morning.”
“Well, that’s the end of it, then, right?”
“Right,” I said. But it didn’t feel right.
Chapter 20
Henry took off for his own errands (not involving a cross-country flight, I hoped) while the girls and I discussed ordering brownies to go and taking them on the shopping trip. We got one for Aunt Bev, of course.
Dum dum, da da dum, da da dum.
The LPPD on my cell phone. Not Skip’s number, however. “Mrs. Porter?” A young woman’s voice. “This is Pam Blake from the LPPD.”
“Yes?” My heart pounded as I thought first of Bev. Was it her heart? Had the stress of the wedding gotten to her? Was I to blame for postponing and rescheduling over and over?
“Mrs. Porter, we had a report from a neighbor of someone leaving your home, possibly after breaking in. We’ve sent a car and we’ve just reached Skip, also, but you might want to check it out.”
“Uh, thank you very much. I’ll do that.”
I tried to keep my voice level for the sake of the girls. I was never so glad Maddie and Taylor had each other and their electronic baby-sitters. On the other hand, I had to deposit them somewhere safe while I went home. I tried Henry’s cell and got no answer; the same for June’s. My third idea worked, as Rosie, my friend and the owner of Rosie’s Books, just down the street, agreed to have preteen company.
“Of course, Gerry,” Rosie said. “You can drop Maddie off any time, you know that.”
I sent effusive thanks her way. “This is a bit of an emergency. And she has a friend with her.”
“Any friend of Maddie’s…”
I pulled money from my wallet and dropped it on the table. “Something’s come up,” I said to the girls and led them out the door before they could question me.
Following only a moderate grilling on the way to Rosie’s, Maddie was astonishingly cooperative about staying put, and I attributed her compliance to the reunion with Taylor. After nearly a week apart, there were endless things to talk about and an infinite number of games to play. The other reason she wasn’t making a fuss might have been that my face, as I saw it in my rearview mirror, was as white as the cheapest vanilla ice cream.
Rosie was waiting at the door to her shop, as planned. I let the girls out of the car, gave Rosie a quick wave, and drove in the other direction toward my house. I wished I’d thought to ask Pam, whom I knew from the LPPD reception desk, a few questions. Who had called in the report? What did the burglar look like? What kind of car was he driving? And about a dozen other things. Burglaries were not at all common in my Eichler neighborhood where neighbors looked after each other. My own home did not present a great challenge to someone who wanted in. My spare key was tucked into a tiny space under a large planter near my front step. One of the three most common places anyone ever kept an extra key, I imagined. High on the list with “under the welcome mat” or “at the top of the doorframe.”
I tried to stay at the speed limit, but it was difficult not to race through the streets to my usually peaceful neighborhood.
Blare, blare. Blare, blare.
A car, rightfully honking at me as I nearly missed a stop sign at the bottom of my street. What was I doing? When had my life gotten so out of control? There was nothing in my home of great value, except to me—pieces of china that wer
e my mother’s; a brooch given to me by Ken’s mother at our wedding; various drawings and crafts from Maddie from kindergarten on; photos, of course. I certainly valued all my crafts supplies and ongoing projects, but not to the point of being devastated if they were stolen. Then again, who would steal crafts projects?
I slowed down as I approached my house, breathing better when I saw a patrol car, and one other, parked in front of my house. The beige sedan looked like it could have come from the police’s small fleet of unmarked cars. Should I consider it good news or bad that Skip might be here? I parked in my driveway and walked to the door, now held wide open by Skip, with Henry at his side.
* * *
The next half hour went by in a blur as I sat in my atrium with Henry and Skip while uniformed cops wandered about my home, in and out of doorways, looking for trouble. “We’ll go through it when they’re done,” Skip told me.
“Who called the station?” I asked. “Esther Willoughby?”
“Beige with brown trim,” Skip said, up to the minute on Eichler shorthand.
Esther, a lovely woman in her nineties, lived across the street. Everyone within a couple of blocks in either direction counted on her to take a delivery if we were away, to tell us if children from the nearby grammar school were eating lunch on our lawns, to make sure everyone’s garbage was picked up when it was supposed to be. Esther kept track of new owners and reported anyone who didn’t belong. We all loved Esther.
“The trouble is with her eyes,” Skip said.
“I know. Did she describe the person?” I asked.
“According to Pam, Esther first reported that it was a young boy, but she told the uniforms who responded that it might have been a short, thin woman. And the car has gone from blue to black.”
The uniformed officers came back from their tour of my home. “Nothing,” said one of the young cops, by which I hoped he meant, “Nothing has been disturbed” and not, “There’s nothing left.”
Once the officers were gone, Henry and Skip walked me through the rooms. I checked my jewelry boxes, the drawer where I keep a small reserve of cash, Maddie’s laptop and my computer. Nothing was missing that I could see. My furniture hadn’t been moved, and neither had my books. My closets were intact, some less neat than others, through no fault of the maybe-burglar.
7 Madness in Miniature Page 23
