Special of the Day

by Elaine Fox

  Shut and locked tight, the windows intact. She glanced around the room. Nothing seemed amiss.

  She kept working. But every now and then another draft would eddy around her ankles and creep up her pants legs. Was it just because she wore clogs that she felt it more on her heels? Or was the breeze coming from someplace low, some vent gone awry?

  She squatted and put her hands near the mats covering the floor. There was definitely a draft. She tried to follow it toward the back door, but it was coming from across the room.

  From, she discovered as she hobbled low across the floor, the basement door.

  She put her hand by the crack at the base of the door and felt the frigid air wafting through it.

  She stood up. This wasn’t normal, was it? Surely it wasn’t that cold out, that the basement would let fly a frosty breeze.

  The office was the next door over and she entered it to get her keys. Normally the keys to the basement, the freezer (which they never locked, but could, if they wanted to), and the middle drawer of the desk hung on a nail protruding from the door trim.

  That nail was empty.

  She narrowed her eyes and stepped back out of the office. Turning to the basement door, she put a hand on the knob and paused. Should she call someone before going downstairs?

  No. She didn’t want to call Steve. She’d done that last time and regretted it. And she certainly didn’t want to call P.B. She could call Skip, but he was at school and wouldn’t be able to come over until later. She could call the police and ask for someone other than P.B., but it wasn’t as if she knew something was wrong. Right now it was just a case of missing keys, and you didn’t call the cops for that.

  She turned the knob. The door opened.

  Maybe she’d gone down here earlier and just forgotten to lock up again. Or maybe M. Girmond had put something down here and accidentally pocketed the keys. They had talked about using the basement for additional dry goods storage.

  She flipped the light switch and was glad to see the bare bulb come on. It wasn’t particularly bright, but it was better than nothing.

  She trod carefully down the stairs, taking each step as if it might collapse under her weight, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. The breeze grew and the temperature dropped the farther she descended.

  When she neared the bottom she saw a huge hole dug in the hard dirt floor of the cellar, just at the base of the stairs. She stepped around it and looked inside. It was empty. Nothing but chopped up dirt and clay.

  She turned in a circle. It took her eyes a moment to fully adjust to the contrast of outside light and cellar darkness, mixed with the dim glow of the bare lightbulb, but when they did, what she saw was destruction.

  At the opposite end of the cellar, daylight shone through the split boards of the trapdoor to the alley, illuminating a space strewn with broken wood, scattered bricks and cracked mortar.

  This was not the work of any squirrel. She doubted even a bear could do this.

  One side of the brick foundation had been picked at here and there, as if someone had taken several large pieces out of the jigsaw puzzle that made up the wall. The bricks that had occupied those spaces lay scattered on the dirt floor.

  At the far end, broken boards lay in haphazard piles and the cotton-candy trailings of fiberglass insulation blew in the breeze.

  Roxanne put a hand to her throat, felt her heart pounding in the arteries there. For a moment she thought she might throw up.

  The abandoned cellar entrance from the alley had been boarded up and nailed shut, she happened to know. Not only that, but the space beneath the trapdoor had been stuffed with that pink fiberglass insulation.

  She would bet anything most of that insulation was now swirling around the back alley in the wind.

  And at the bottom of the trapdoor stairs, too, was a hole. Not quite as large or as deep as the other, but still a hole.

  But…if someone had broken in through the outside entrance, why were the keys missing?

  The answer came to her immediately.

  To break in again.

  She heard a slight sound behind her and jumped, whirling toward the dark end of the room. She saw nothing, then spotted a piece of the paper that had covered the insulation listing in the breeze.

  She had to call the police.

  She jumped over the hole at the bottom of the kitchen steps and took the stairs two at a time, started to slam the door at the top but realized she shouldn’t touch anything. She wondered what they would get fingerprints off of in the basement, what with all the broken wood and brick. Would brick hold a fingerprint? The back cellar entrance looked like someone had taken an axe to it. Who would do such a thing?

  And why hadn’t she heard it?

  Because she’d been exhausted. She’d slept like the dead last night.

  She sat down at her desk chair in the office and dialed 911. No messing around this time. Maybe they’d send someone other than P.B., but even if they didn’t, she needed the cops. Someone was obviously looking for something and unless they’d gotten it out of one of those holes they would probably be back.

  Naturally they sent P.B.

  Roxanne could only shake her head as she saw his squad car pull up in front of the restaurant and his square blond head appear over the door.

  He parked right in front, of course, with the lights on so as to draw as much attention to the scene as possible, it seemed.

  She walked slowly to the front door and pulled it open.

  She didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t the same old overly friendly P.B. he’d always been.

  “Hey, Roxanne,” he said with that trademark rise of one big square hand. “Hear you had another encounter with a squirrel.”

  He laughed at his own joke as his little partner—Officer Stuart?—got out of the passenger-side door.

  She shook her head. “Unless this squirrel was the size of a gorilla, I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with.”

  “Well, we’ll check it out for you.”

  He arrived at her side and gave her shoulder a squeeze with one hand. It was a companionable gesture, making her feel slightly guilty for all the awful thoughts she’d had about him since learning of the bet.

  His next words, however, erased any pity she might have felt.

  “I know you girls get all in a tizzy about your things getting messed up or not looking the way they should, so we’ll just see if there was an actual intruder this time.” He gestured toward his partner. “Stu, you wanna take the squad car around back? I’ll meet you there. C’mon, Rox, let’s take a look at what this giant squirrel did.”

  She rolled her eyes as she turned toward the door, resenting the feel of his meaty paw on the small of her back. How could she ever have accepted a date with this guy? Had he just hidden all this condescending crap?

  Maybe so. And maybe he didn’t feel like he had to hide it anymore…

  That made her feel better, and she was happy to lead him down the basement steps to the destruction no wildlife creature could have wreaked.

  “Holy shit,” P.B. said, his tone reverential, as he stepped over the hole in the dirt. He strode into the room, bending to look at a cracked brick, then moved close to the wall to examine one of the patchwork holes.

  He pulled a flashlight from his belt and shone it on the mud exposed behind the wall, looking all around the edges, and even prodding some of the bricks with a pen.

  “This is bad. Any worse and I’d say you should get someone in here to look at this foundation.”

  She closed her eyes. Damn. “It’s that bad? You think it’s, it’s been compromised?”

  P.B. shrugged. “Nah. It’s probably okay. But it sure as hell is a mess.”

  “What do you think they were looking for?” She caught herself wringing her hands in a very “tizzy-like” way and dropped them to her sides.

  “Hey!” Officer Stuart yelled from the broken cellar door at the far end of the room. “I found an old p
adlock out here, maybe something from the door? And a sliver of metal, like maybe a broken tool or something.”

  “Bag it up, Stu,” P.B. called, walking over to look into the hole by the trap door.

  Roxanne started toward P.B. to see what he was looking at so intently, but at the sound of her movement he turned and held a hand out. “Hold it right there.”

  She jumped, her heart rate accelerating with another surge of adrenaline. It had been surging since she’d found the break-in.

  “What? What is it?” She looked upward as if the foundation had already started giving way and she was about to be crushed by three stories of eighteenth-century townhouse.

  P.B. looked annoyed. “I don’t want you kicking this stuff around. We gotta look at everything. Where it sits, how it fell, everything.” He strode toward her, seemingly heedless of where he put his big bootheels.

  Roxanne flushed and nearly made some churlish retort, when he said in a more hushed tone, “Let’s go upstairs. I want to ask you something.” He glanced over his shoulder, intimating he didn’t want Officer Stuart to hear what he was going to say.

  Roxanne turned and went up the stairs, P.B. right behind her. In fact, he was so close behind, she felt a little self-conscious about where her rear end was in relation to his eyes.

  When they reached the kitchen, P.B. took her arm and pulled her away from the back door. Her back against the wall near the office, he stood very close. Too close for comfort.

  “Do you know where Steve was last night?” His eyes were flat and intent, a cop’s eyes.

  Heat poured into her cheeks. “He was here. Until we closed, obviously.” Then she remembered. “And just afterward. He came back when I was locking up because he forgot his backpack.”

  P.B.’s brows rose. “He came back,” he repeated significantly.

  She nodded. “Because he forgot his backpack.”

  P.B.’s head moved in the barest nod. “Uh-huh.”

  She frowned. “Why? What are you saying?”

  “Did he know you were going to be here when he came back?”

  “I don’t know.” Did P.B. think Steve had something to do with this? That was ridiculous. Surely he wasn’t saying that. “It was late,” she added, “but it wasn’t that much later than I usually leave.”

  Though Steve had nearly jumped out of his skin when he’d seen her.

  “You say he came back for the backpack?”

  “Yes. I saw him get it.” Her heart was beating fast, as if she herself were being accused of something.

  “The one he keeps under the bar?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one that’s always under the bar?” he said again.

  She narrowed her eyes. If she could have backed away from him, she would have, but he had her against the wall and was standing so close she would have had to push him away.

  “What are you saying, P.B.?”

  At this he crossed his arms over his chest and turned away, one hand stroking his chin as he thought, as if he fancied himself some kind of Sherlock Holmes.

  She took the opportunity to draw a relieved breath.

  “Tell me.” He turned back to her. “Has Steve talked any more about his research? You know, all that stuff about Thomas Jefferson and the draft of the Declaration of Independence?”

  She shook her head. “No. He hasn’t said a word about that since that one night.”

  “He hasn’t said a word,” P.B. repeated slowly, as if that, too, were significant. “Not a word?”

  “Well, no. But we don’t talk history a lot.”

  P.B. raised one brow and she knew immediately what he was thinking. “No, I don’t imagine you do much talking.” He let that sit a beat, then added, “About history.”

  “Look, P.B., I’m not sure what you’re insinuating, but you can’t possibly think Steve had anything to do with this.”

  “Can’t I?”

  Roxanne’s mouth dropped open.

  “Look, Roxanne, he talks to me about it all the time. I’m telling you, Steve’s obsessed. It’s got to be him.”

  Roxanne stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Hey, I know it’s a terrible thing to say.” P.B.’s face took on a concerned expression. “But Steve hasn’t been himself lately. He’s been worried about the fact that he’s not going anywhere, that he doesn’t have a career, a future, you know. Same stuff you and I talked about the night I took you out. For a while there he even thought he might have to leave this job. You gotta know I hate to say it. But I think he might be getting desperate.”

  “So desperate he’d start digging in the basement walls for some mythical document?” She nearly laughed. “He’d have to be an idiot!”

  “What do you mean?” P.B. demanded. “You heard him talk about that draft. There’s evidence—history, theories, whatever. There’s good reason to believe something’s hidden in this house. Why wouldn’t he try to find it? It’s worth a shitload of money.”

  “Because it’s ridiculous. If nobody’s found it yet, after all the years this house has been lived in, worked in, remodeled—well, it’s crazy.”

  “I think you’d better take another look at your basement.”

  She took a deep breath. “Besides, what about this: Steve doesn’t have to break in to look around the basement. The last thing he’d have to do is take an axe to the cellar door, for God’s sake. He’s got keys. He can walk down there whenever he wants.”

  P.B. gave her what could only be called a pitying look. “But, honey,” he said slowly, as if to an inquisitive first grader, “then it wouldn’t look like a break-in. The man’s not stupid. If it’s an inside job, you make it look like an outside job.”

  Roxanne’s cheeks burned. He was right, of course. You wouldn’t start tearing up the basement and not make it look like a break-in.

  “Was anything else missing?” he asked. “Even if he did know enough to make it look like an outside job, Steve’s an amateur, he probably wouldn’t think to swipe a thing or two to throw us cops off the scent.”

  “I—I haven’t looked around,” she said desperately, knowing in her heart that nothing else was missing. The kitchen had been immaculate this morning. Just the way it had been left the night before.

  “Uh-huh.” P.B. nodded, looking at her knowingly.

  “P.B., I simply don’t believe—”

  “Hey.” Steve pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen and Roxanne jumped enough to bump her head against the wall behind her.

  “Hey, big guy,” P.B. said, too heartily, in Roxanne’s opinion. “What’s going on?”

  Steve looked from P.B. to Roxanne. “That’s just what I was going to ask.”

  “We were just about to call you. Where you been?” P.B. asked, still grinning like a used-car salesman and sounding like a radio announcer.

  Again he looked from P.B. to Roxanne. “At the library. And you wouldn’t believe what I found. It’s just what I’ve been—”

  “The library,” P.B. repeated, looking at Roxanne.

  Steve stopped. “What’s going on here?”

  Roxanne looked at Steve. “Steve, there’s been another break-in. In the basement—”

  P.B. put a hand out, his arm blocking Roxanne’s chest as if she were about to step into a street teeming with traffic. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Handle this?” Steve repeated.

  “I’m the one who should explain,” P.B. amended, puffing out his chest a little. “I’ve just finished examining the damage. She might even need to call in an engineer to check the foundation.”

  “The foundation!” Steve was obviously disconcerted. “What’d they do, detonate a bomb?”

  To Roxanne, it was obvious Steve had no idea what was going on.

  Or did she just want to think that?

  She shook her head. P.B. was throwing out a theory. He didn’t have any facts. That it was a theory that implicated a friend who had just betrayed him with a woman he’d wanted
to date said it all.

  “Come on,” P.B. said to Steve, “I’ll show you the damage. But you gotta be careful. Don’t forget it’s a crime scene. You can’t be touching or moving anything.”

  “Come off it, P.B.,” Steve said tiredly, stepping past Roxanne, with a quick glance at her. “Just show me what happened.”

  Before they got to the basement door, however, Officer Stuart knocked on the back door.

  “You got a key for that?” P.B. said, directing an officious finger from Roxanne to the back door, even though she’d already started across the kitchen to unlock it.

  She pulled the door open and let him in.

  “I found this.” Officer Stuart looked triumphant as he held one black glove aloft in his hand.

  “No, that’s mine,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I’ve been looking for it. It must have dropped out of my pocket when I got out of the truck the other night.”

  He strode across the room toward the officer, hand out.

  Behind his back, P.B. gave Roxanne a sad but meaningful look.

  “’Fraid not, sir,” Officer Stuart said, lowering the glove to his side. “Everything I find out here today is evidence.”

  13

  Dessert Special of the Day

  Apple Fig Turnover—because turnabout’s fair play

  Apples and figs sauteed in sweet butter with vanilla and cognac in puff pastry

  Steve looked suspiciously from Officer Stuart to Roxanne to P.B.

  “So you’re saying I can’t get my glove back until you figure out who broke in?” he asked.

  P.B. scowled and glanced away. Then he jerked his head in the direction of the basement door and said, “C’mon. Let me show you this.”

  Steve’s eyes met Roxanne’s and she shrugged her brows. “I’ve got work to do,” she said, turning away.

  He watched her back, then followed P.B. down the basement steps.

  The moment he and P.B. reached the cellar and Steve’s eyes adjusted to the light, P.B. turned to him and said, “You know I oughta punch you in the face, you dog. You could have at least told me you were going after Roxanne.”