by Marja McGraw
“Well, they should have! That’s what I wanted.”
Oh, yes, she was sounding crankier and crankier. It was time for us to make a quick getaway. I waved the pages at Chris. “Time to go, Bogey Man.”
Thanking Chance for her time, we left as quickly as possible.
On the way to Constance’s house to pick up Mikey we talked about Chance.
“We didn’t really learn too much from her,” Chris said.
“We know that Charles fought with another man because of a woman,” I said. “We know a really scary guy lived there at the same time Charles was there. We know that Chance wasn’t a quiet little lady of the house who sat around demurely knitting and sewing. She lied about having a husband overseas. I understand her reasoning, but – ”
“Yeah, actually, that kind of ticked me off. While our boys were overseas being killed because they were protecting our country, she was pretending she had a military husband who was serving. I have a feeling that she was really a piece of work in those days.”
“Oh, Chris, you – ”
“No, I mean it. She was taking advantage of the situation. She could have come up with a lot of other stories.”
“Okay. I see your point, but it’s all in the past. She was young and probably not very mature from the sound of it. Let it go.”
He didn’t respond, but I saw him curl his upper lip under. “I didn’t actually like her very much.”
“To be honest, I didn’t either. Maybe if she’d been your typical little old lady we’d feel differently. He nephew seems quite fond of her, so maybe there’s a side of her we haven’t seen.”
“And speaking of sides,” Chris said, “we do want to keep on her good side as long as we need information from her.”
I had to laugh. “And you’re worried about her using people? We’re using her, for crying out loud.”
“Yeah,” Chris said, “but we’re trying to solve a murder. We have a good reason for using her.”
“I wonder what Big D found that might interest us. It must have something to do with Blakely, or I doubt if he would have called.”
“We’ll find out in the morning. Maybe I’ll try calling him at home tonight.” Chris was as impatient as I was.
We’d gotten off topic since we’d started out talking about what we’d learned from Chance, but it would have to wait. We were turning onto Constance’s street and I could see Mikey waving to us from the front yard. Constance sat on the front porch watching our son and smiling.
She walked over to the car and hugged me after I climbed out, which was her usual greeting. “Mikey’s already had dinner. It’s not that you’re late, but I was hungry and I didn’t want to eat in front of him.”
“Thanks, Constance. I owe you one. Actually, I owe you a lot. Have I told you lately what a good friend you are?”
“All the time. And I feel the same way about you. Would you and Chris like some dinner? There’s plenty left over.”
“Absolutely,” Chris said before I could open my mouth. “You’re the best cook in this town, Constance.”
“Uh,” I said.
“With the exception of my wife, of course,” he added quickly.
“Of course.” Constance was the diplomat in our little group.
She’d prepared spaghetti, and with only her and Mikey eating it there really were a lot of leftovers. She quickly tossed a salad and warmed some garlic bread while talking to us over her shoulder. She set everything on the table and sat down with a glass of iced tea, joining us.
“Did you find out anything from the old lady, or was she having a forgetful day?” she asked.
“Yeah, we hit a good day and we learned a few things,” I said. “I learned that even at ninety some women can still flirt. I do believe she’ll be able to fill us in on her tenants though. She kept great records and, contrary to what her nephew said, I think she has a pretty good memory.”
Constance laughed. “She was flirting with Chris? At least you know the woman has good taste.”
We both turned and looked at him. He had spaghetti sauce on his upper lip, which made us laugh. He grabbed a napkin to wipe his face. Mikey pointed to his own upper lip, indicating to Chris where he should wipe.
“She really fell for the Bogey Man. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him.”
“Do you have to see her again?”
“It looks like it. We have the names now, but we need information to go with them. I know we started out slowly on this case, but I have a feeling that things are about to move into high gear.”
Constance grinned. “So now you’re actually calling it a case.”
“Heck, yeah. It’s a case of murder,” Mikey said. “My mom and dad are going to make headlines on this one.”
I patted Chris on the back when he choked.
Chapter Eighteen
We arose earlier than usual on Saturday morning, knowing we had a lot to do that day. Mikey had a soccer game, we wanted to go over the ledger pages and we were supposed to meet with Big D on our way to the game.
I whipped up some scrambled eggs, hash browns and bacon while Mikey fed the dogs. Chris dropped some bread into the toaster for me.
While we ate, I perused the ledger pages. “Wow, Chris. Wait until you go through these. She really did keep impeccable records. Not only does she have their names, but she included their middle names, their dates of birth and their social security numbers. That’s going to make it a lot easier for us.”
Chris swallowed some scrambled eggs before answering me. “She couldn’t have helped us more if she’d known someone would need the information someday.”
“It does make me feel like she had, or has, a controlling personality though. It seems like those things would be awfully personal to be giving someone just to rent a room. After all, they didn’t do background checks in those days so it seems like this is information she didn’t really need.”
“Back then people didn’t have to worry so much. Most people probably didn’t realize just how personal that information was. They didn’t have to worry about someone stealing their identification and they probably never thought about anyone trying to impersonate them.”
“Listen to you, Bogey Man – the great impersonator.”
“Yeah, but I don’t do it for money or anything illegal. People just find me entertaining, like Chance did yesterday.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said, rolling my eyes. I sure hope my mother was wrong about my eyes sticking that way if I rolled them too often.
Chris laughed. “You worried about the competition?”
“No, just annoyed. She told me that she never had many female friends. She said she was a ‘knock out’ and that women were jealous of her. Talk about being full of yourself.”
Chris went back to his eggs and didn’t respond.
I turned back to the ledger pages. “Here’s a guy named Dudley Long – no middle name – and there’s a note that he went by the nickname of Dutch. He lived there during 1942, which was when Charles started the letter that was found in his wallet. According to his birth date, he was only nineteen at the time. I doubt if Charles would have gotten into it with someone that young. Of course, we don’t know how old Charles was.”
“You never know,” Mikey said.
Chris cleared his throat. “Pamela, we might want to discuss this later.”
“No, this isn’t something that Mikey can’t hear.”
“Okay, if you say so. Aren’t you the one who reminded me about little pitchers and the size of their ears?”
I raised my eyebrows at Chris, knowing he was right. I folded the pages and slipped them into my purse. “Well! Let’s get these dishes done so we can get going. We’ll take the dogs with us this time. Okay?”
“Sure,” Chris said.
“I’ll go find their leashes.” Mikey jumped up from the table and ran to the service porch where we keep the doggie equipment. “We can put them in the fenced yard at the restaurant and see how they like
it,” he yelled.
I had a feeling my son actually wanted to see how he’d like the yard since he’d heard that we could put in a picnic bench and a basketball hoop.
He returned and shoved the leashes at me. “I’ll go put on my soccer uniform and be right back. Don’t leave without me.”
I wasn’t even tempted.
Mikey sat between the two dogs on the drive over to the restaurant. He was quiet, probably thinking about the upcoming game and the new fenced yard.
“Quit slobbering on me,” I heard him say. “You’ll ruin my uniform.” Sherlock and Watson adored my son and licked him frequently. I was pretty sure it was because he generally had the remains of food on his face and hands. After all, he was a growing seven-year-old boy. It didn’t matter how many times he washed up, there was usually something there.
We pulled up behind Big D’s truck and piled out of the car. Mikey took hold of both leashes and immediately headed for the backyard. We’d leash-trained the dogs so they wouldn’t pull on their leashes, and it was a good thing because they outweighed my son.
“Hey, Big D,” Chris yelled. “Where are you?”
“In the house,” came the distant reply. “Come on in.”
We entered the house and I noticed changes that had taken place just since the day before. It was beginning to look like a restaurant.
Davey came out from the bar area. “Your antique oak bar should be here in the next couple of days, and I made a great deal on it for you.”
“Thanks,” Chris said. “You sure have a lot of connections. It seems like you can find anything.”
“I can. In my business I meet all kinds of people who have all sorts of goodies.” He grinned. “I can probably find almost anything you need.”
“So what did you want to show us?” I asked, glancing at my watch. We’d have to leave soon in order to get Mikey to his game on time. “And what are you doing working on a Saturday?”
“I don’t have a Monday through Friday job, Pammy. I work when I need to, and I take off when I need to. I have a couple of things I wanted to finish this morning.”
“I see you pulled out the bookcases,” I commented.
“Which leads to what I want to show you. Come over here.” He led us to the bookcases. They were about four feet high and had actually been built into the walls. Consequently, they didn’t have tops. The walls of the alcoves they were in had served as the top.
“I pulled these out and found some things behind them that I thought you might find interesting.” He picked up a small stack of what appeared to be letters and handed them to Chris.
As Chris studied each one, suspicion crossed his face. He handed them to me.
“What are they?” I asked, taking them from his hand.
“Look at them and tell me what you think.”
There were four letters that were addressed and had a stamp on them that showed the return address as the house we were standing in. They’d never been mailed. Five others were incoming mail addressed to people in the house, but had never been opened. I glanced at Chris and back at the letters.
“It looks like unmailed and undelivered letters.” I turned and studied the oak bookcases. The letters couldn’t have been set on a shelf and accidentally fallen behind the bookcase.
“And what does that lead you to believe?” Chris asked.
“I think it means someone was hiding them,” I replied, understanding why Chris had looked suspicious.
Big D took them out of my hand. “I looked the bookcases over carefully, and the only way these could have gotten behind the cases would be if someone deliberately shoved them behind the backing. There was a small space between the top of the backing and where the wall hung over them. It would have been difficult to do.”
“I can see that,” Chris said. “Thanks for calling us. These could prove to be important. I noticed that two of the incoming letters were addressed to Charles Blakely.”
I took the letters back from Davey. “Another one is addressed to a Sam Shipley, and the other two are to Dudley Long. He was the kid who went by the nickname Dutch. I’ll have to look at the list to see if Sam Shipley lived here at the same time.”
Chris took the letters from me – they were really making the rounds. “The outgoing letters were from the same three people. So there must be some kind of connection between Blakely, Shipley and Long.”
My brain finally kicked into gear. “Davey, I have to ask you for a favor.”
“Sure,” he said.
I hated asking him for this particular favor, but I had no alternative. “Please don’t tell Sharon about these letters – at least not yet. Let us do a little poking around before she finds out. I promise I’ll share with her when we know more. It’ll just make it easier for us, for the moment, if she’s not looking over our shoulders.”
“Pammy, I really like Sharon. She’s a good kid. But I can see where she might get in your hair. That woman’s going to take some taming.”
My eyebrows shot up like a rocket before I started laughing. “You think you’re going to tame Sharon? Brother, you’ve got your work cut out for you. And I wish I could be there to see you do the taming.”
Chris wasn’t paying much attention to Big D and me. “Pamela, I think we should probably mention these letters to Janet Riley. They could be important.”
“You’re right. I’ll see if I can reach her while we’re at the soccer game. Oh! Soccer game!”
I grabbed the letters from Chris and shoved them into my purse before heading for the back door. “Davey, thank you for calling us,” I said over my shoulder, “but we’ve got to get moving.”
Running out the back door, I called to my son. “Mikey, we’re going to be late for your game if we don’t go now.”
“Okay, Mom, but I can’t get the dogs to come with me.” He sighed, loudly. “They’re digging again.” The disgust in his voice was almost palpable.
When Sherlock and Watson were young, they were both diggers. We’d heard that Labs were famous for digging but hadn’t believed it. We’d had a difficult time making them stop, but we’d finally won out after they’d torn up half of our yard and a good number of plants and shrubs. There was an evergreen tree in the area that Big D had fenced, and the dogs were digging near it. I was thankful that they weren’t trying to dig up the tree itself.
“Not again!” Opening the gate, I ran in and grabbed their leashes, pulling them away from the spot they’d chosen to dig. “You’re not going to ruin this yard,” I said with authority. “One yard was enough. I thought you’d grown out of this.”
While talking to them, I whistled to get their attention. It was something we’d learned from a trainer, in addition to snapping our fingers, and it usually worked. It was a signal to them that they’d better stop whatever they were doing and pay attention to us. They reluctantly followed me out of the yard, tails hanging between their legs when they glanced back over their shoulders. Mikey brought up the rear.
“We shoulda named them Trouble and Double Trouble,” Mikey said.
I laughed. “Good one, Mikey.”
We found Chris waiting for us in the car. “Hurry up. Let’s get moving.” He took Mikey’s soccer games pretty seriously. The heck with soccer moms, we had a soccer dad who could put them all to shame.
“The dogs were digging again,” I said on the way to the field.
“I thought we’d broken them of that,” Chris said.
“I thought so, too. I guess a new yard was just too tempting for them. I’ll take care of it though.”
Chris nodded distractedly. “While you were outside, Big D told me your office will be done on Monday morning. If you want to get in there and start setting things up, you can. An inspector has already been out, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Good. I’ve got a lot to do to that room.”
“The only things that will be issues at this point are the kitchen, the bar, the arches and the public restrooms. Everything else has bee
n inspected. One of the things they did yesterday afternoon, after we left, was paint your office. It’ll be dry by Monday.”
“I can’t believe how fast this is going,” I said.
“Don’t get too excited. There’s still a lot to do. It’s not like everything will be done in a week. Although, Big D did call some of the other crew members over one day so he could get more done. I think he’ll call them in again, too. He seems to be having a good time with this project.”
“I understand about not getting excited, but at least this way I can get in there and start putting my plans together. Of course, you realize this means we’ll have to go furniture shopping tomorrow, right? My old desk burned up with the other restaurant, along with my filing cabinets and computer, printer, chairs, wall hangings, and – ”
“I get it, Pamela. Just for the heck of it, why don’t we check out a few used furniture stores first? You never know what kind of deal we might find.”
“That’s fine. We need to watch our pennies right now, anyway. We’ll have to buy a new computer and printer though. We can’t skimp on those.”
“I agree completely.”
“Chris, I put the ledger pages in my purse before we left. I thought maybe we could go over them while we watch the game.”
“We’ll see. If the boys play well, there won’t be any time to look at the pages. They can wait until we get home. That way I can start looking for these people on the Internet using each name we find.”
“Yeah,” I said, “they can wait.”
Those words didn’t sound ominous to me when they came out of my mouth. I never even thought about the pages again until we arrived home.
Chapter Nineteen
Mikey’s team won their game by a hair, but a win is a win. We were proud of him and the other boys. The dogs had sat quietly until they couldn’t stand seeing all those boys running around anymore and then we had to restrain them. Considering their size and strength, that was no small feat. We finally put them in the car because they were way too excited. Although smart, they were still dogs – they wanted to run and play with the boys.
