by Edie Claire
Cara nodded, annoyed. Todd Ford had been a high school classmate, and one of her many ex-boyfriends. He now owned a security outfit in the neighboring borough of Bellevue. Her "high end" security system had been foiled, and she was not pleased. "So they cut the phone lines, you said. Is that all they had to do?"
Todd was a strong-looking man, not tall, but definitely solid. In front of an angry Cara, he withered like lettuce in the sun. "It wasn't just a matter of cutting your phone line," he answered hesitantly. "You have a sophisticated system here. This guy was a real pro." He paused, looking even more uncomfortable, then took a deep breath. "This person knew where your outdoor siren was mounted, and he knew just where to go to destroy the main control unit."
Silence descended. "You mean," Leigh asked after a moment, "he would have had to watch the house for a while—cased it, so to speak?"
"More than that," Todd answered ruefully. "I'd say he's been inside your house."
Silence descended again, then Cara shrugged. "That doesn't mean a thing. Half of Avalon has been in this house."
"When?" Leigh asked, surprised.
"We had the place fixed up over a period of years, and the security system was in place most of that time. Construction workers, decorators, carpet installers, cleaners...not to mention that gargantuan open house we had last year."
"She's right," Maura said. "Being in the house before doesn't necessarily narrow our suspect list. But expertise with alarm systems—that might."
The women fell silent in thought, but Todd interrupted. "You'll be safe now, Cara. the guards are already outside."
Leigh did a double take. Guards?
"I've arranged for two on at all times, with three shifts. It wasn't easy to contract them on such short notice," he added, rather as a plea. "That okay?"
"It'll do," she answered, then softened. "Thanks, Todd. I appreciate your help."
Todd flushed like a grade schooler and retreated happily. Leigh shook her head.
"I don't like this," Maura said for the sixth time that evening. "I really don't. Someone tried to burn this place down tonight. Guards or no guards, we can't know what else they might do."
"You're looking at the negatives," Cara said bluntly.
The other women stared at her.
"Would you mind pointing out the positives?" Leigh said sarcastically.
"Of course. First, they didn't burn this place down. They failed. Ha! Second, the fact that they wanted to gives us insight into their motives. We've been operating under the assumption that something valuable was hidden in this house. Not necessarily an item of monetary value, but something that was wanted desperately." Cara looked at her audience to see if they were following her. They were. "Well—now I've changed my mind. Whatever is hidden in this house, I don't think this person wants it, per se. He just doesn't want us to find it."
Leigh eyed Maura over her coffee cup. Cara's theory made sense, given what she knew. She had been spared the possible implications of the knife, since Leigh had managed to convince Mellman and Schofield not to tell her about it. After the conniption they had witnessed earlier, it wasn't particularly difficult. Maura had even agreed, at least for now.
Cara continued. "I think that Paul Fischer had a secret—and I think that secret was the identity of his father's killer. Someone wants that secret to die with him." She looked at her audience again. They were quiet. "Any thoughts?"
Leigh wasn't sure what to say. A few hours ago she would have agreed, but now she wasn't so sure. There would be no point in further threatening the house's occupants if the relevant stash was set to be burned any minute. She wondered if the intruder ever intended to strike a match, or if he was merely delivering the last part of a three-pronged threat. If that was the case, he definitely wanted something in the house, rather than just wanting to destroy it.
"Well?" Cara insisted. "Say something."
"You may be right," Leigh said noncommittally. "I'm too tired to think."
"Go to bed, then. I am. And I'll sleep well, too. The new security system is rolling, and there are two capable guards prowling about outside. Tomorrow we'll find that piece of evidence and send this scum to jail where he belongs." She rose and smiled pleasantly again. "Good night."
Leigh looked into Cara's determined blue-green eyes. Her cousin might be a mental case, but she had a way of getting what she wanted. Maybe she'd get lucky this time too—maybe they did just need one more day to find what they weren't supposed to.
Cara left to go upstairs, and Maura looked at her watch. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay, Koslow?"
Leigh shook her head. "Thanks, but as much as I hate to admit it, I think Cara's right that we're safe for the night. The guards do help. I wish she'd thought of that earlier."
Maura raised an eyebrow. "Most folks would sleep better with an armed guard. Not just anyone can afford it."
With the word “afford,” the specter of unemployment once again reared its ugly head in Leigh’s mind, but she suppressed it. She could only handle one disaster at a time. The résumés would have to wait a few days.
Maura took another sip of decaff and fixed her gaze on the cup rim. She didn't seem anxious to leave, and Leigh wondered what was bugging her. A thought occurred. "Mellman did okay today," Leigh began, fishing. "I mean, he seemed to know what he was doing and everything."
Maura's brow knitted. "I never said he was incompetent, Koslow."
"Well, not in so many words. But when you found out he'd been promoted to chief—"
"Look," Maura cut in dismissively, "I said a lot of things I shouldn't have after my father died. Mellman's no idiot—he's smarter than he lets on."
Leigh was skeptical. "The Columbo thing?"
"Maybe; I don't know. He's always been like that. But Mellman's a follower, not a leader. Chiefs have got to be leaders."
"Like your Dad."
Maura paused. "Yeah." Her eyes turned moist. "God, I miss him."
Chief Edward K. Polanski had died in the prime of late middle age. He was chasing a teenaged thief out of a laundromat and into in alley when he collapsed. It was a heart attack, and CPR didn't help. He never came to.
"How would your father have handled this situation?" Leigh asked gently.
Maura sighed and rubbed her face in her hands. "I don't know. That's just it. I'm sure that there are things he would know—about the Fischers—that would help. But he never talked about it. That bugs me more than anything." She stood up suddenly, slammed her cup on the table, and walked to the coffee pot.
Words ran straight from Leigh's brain to her mouth. "You think your father knew something about those deaths in 1949, don't you?"
The anger that flickered in Maura's eyes made Leigh flinch a little, but the fire soon fizzled into something more like guilt. Maura turned away, then refilled both coffee cups and sat back down. "I can't help it," she said solemnly. "It just wasn't like him. You met him—you know what he was like. He was discreet enough when he needed to be, but he loved to talk about old cases, local lore."
Leigh took a sip of coffee and stayed quiet. The early morning hours had always been good for getting Maura's tongue rolling.
"He really shouldn't have—" the policewoman continued, "but sometimes he'd talk about unsolved cases over the dinner table. Mom was brilliant with that sort of thing—and he kidded me about becoming a detective someday. But even when I was a kid, I thought he acted weird about the Fischer case. The most famous crime ever to hit Avalon, and he wouldn't talk about it. He just wouldn't."
"And your mom?"
Maura shook her head. "I've asked her about 1949 over and over, and she insists she knows nothing more than I do—and that Dad never did talk about it."
"But she was there!"
"She was thirteen. How much do you remember from when you were thirteen?"
Leigh could think of a few things, none particularly pleasant, and certainly none with crime-solving potential. "But Mellman was there, too. And Vestal—did he
know Robbie Fischer?"
Maura shook her head again. "He grew up in Bellevue—different school system back then. He and Dad didn't get to be friends until later. As for Mellman, he's no help. He's pulled all the relevant police files, and he'll talk about the facts of the case, but I can't get anything else out of him. Whenever I ask him anything personal, like what kind of relationship he and my dad had with Robbie Fischer, he looks at me like I'm prying. The whole business seems to make him—well, sad." She let out a long sigh and downed the fresh cup in one motion. "Enough already. Good night, Koslow."
Leigh's eyelids were unbearably heavy, but she hated to lose the moment. "So, Officer Polanski. Who did something naughty in 1949? Who wants to cover it up now?"
Maura stood up and pushed her chair back under the table. "I don't know—and I'm not going to figure it out tonight. I'm off tomorrow, so I'll come by and see if I can lend you guys a hand with the search." She started towards the door, but turned around. "If you want to keep brainstorming, think about this. This house sat vacant for years. If Paul Fischer hid anything in it, it's been here all along. But no one wanted it until now. Why?"
***
Exhaustion, unfortunately, did not ensure sleep. Leigh drifted in and out of consciousnessand nightmares. Her finches were dead, and they were in the house. Their lifeless bodies appeared in the drawer she opened, in the towel she pulled out of the closet, in her cereal box. She would rouse herself to end the dream, only to fall helplessly back into it. Six times she leaned over the edge of her bed to make sure Mao Tse was safe underneath. Only at 5:00 AM, when the cat finally decided to brave life on top of the mattress, did Leigh sleep soundly—her arm loosely cuddling the warm lump of black fur.
At 9:30 AM, she roused herself with a yawn and shuffled over to look out the window. The Sunday-morning sky was blue, its beauty unmarred by the white smoke piles of Neville Island, which tilted downstream in the breeze. A tall, lanky man in a blue-gray uniform leaned against a tree near the patio, also admiring the view. Leigh smiled. She could live with a few extra males around the place.
Cara was in the breakfast nook, the table spread with house sketches. She nodded at Leigh and pierced a pickled onion floating in a jar of giardiniera. Leigh winced. "That isn't breakfast, is it?"
"Of course not," Cara replied. "This is a midmorning snack. Some of us got up at a decent hour."
Leigh's eyes narrowed. "Well, none of us got to bed at a decent hour."
"Touché," Cara returned. "I made pancakes earlier. You can heat some up if you want. I'm not going to church this morning. I have a plan."
Leigh didn't doubt it.
"We've done a thorough job with the first floor, and my mom and I took care of the second. It has to be in the basement or the attic..."
Leigh dumped the dirty decaff filter, filled a fresh one with regular, and poured already-hot tap water in the back of the coffee maker. Her cousin's elaborate plan of attack drifted in one ear and out the other as she held her cup impatiently in the spot where the pot should be. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Her brain began to function as she fed it one swallow's worth of caffeine at a time. "Why now, Cara?" she interrupted, remembering Maura's question. "Why does someone want us out now? Couldn't they have searched this house themselves at any time since Paul Fischer died?" Having had a cup's worth of swallows, Leigh replaced the pot and sat down to wait for more.
Cara fished out a pickled hunk of cauliflower with her fork, and Leigh quickly replaced the jar lid. An empty stomach could only take so much.
"I've thought about that," Cara answered, smacking her lips. "The house was vacant for years, then Gil and I were in and out. We had a lot of redecorating done. We stayed here over weekends and holidays. But no one cared about that. The first inkling of a problem was the body. Which arrived, as you'll recall, the same time you did."
Leigh didn't care for the implication. "So what is that supposed to mean? You think somebody doesn't want me in this house?"
Cara looked apologetic. "No, no, that doesn't make any sense. Not really. Why would you be more of a threat than me, or Gil? Or better yet, all those workman who were puttering around in here?"
It seemed to Leigh as though, if she thought about it hard enough, an insult was implicit in that statement. She chose not to think about it. The fact was, the body had shown up the day after she moved in. The date of her arrival had hardly been publicized. Wouldn't it take time to plan such a stunt?
Leigh banged her forehead with her palm. "Of course!"
Cara looked up expectantly.
"The cash box!" Didn't you find the box right before I moved in?"
Cara's eyes widened. "Last Sunday. Two days before."
"And a lot of people knew about that, right?"
"I suppose so. I reported it to the police. The family knew. And Mrs. Rhodis—"
"I.e., the whole city of Avalon, probably."
"Probably. So...you think our culprit heard about the money stash, and then began fearing that other hiding places might exist?"
"It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Yes," Cara answered. "It does. There was plenty of time to search this house after Fischer died. Someone could have determined then that there was nothing here to worry about."
"Or," Leigh mused, "they could have thought they got it all out."
Cara's face lit up. "I bet it wasn't the money, after all. I bet it was the book!"
"The book?"
"The blank book I told you about. It was one of those write-in books people use as personal journals. It didn't have a word in it, but it had label tape on the front that said Summer 1989. What if that's what made somebody worry? Worry that there were other journals, and that Fischer had hidden them too?"
"It would make more sense if they were worried about a will being hidden," Leigh insisted.
"No, it wouldn't!" Cara argued. "A will is worthless if it's not found soon after the writer dies. If Fischer had hidden the will, even with the cash box, the house would have reverted to the state long before his wishes were known."
Leigh knit her brow. "So you think Fischer left his will in a drawer or a box or somewhere, but kept his journals locked up?"
"Why not?" Cara continued excitedly. "Maybe he had always hidden his journals—since before 1949 even—when other people were living here, too. Maybe whoever took the will and the other writings didn't know about the journals, or maybe they found some and thought that was all. But now that he or she knows Fischer liked to hide things..."
Leigh's racing thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell. She got up to answer it, wondering if there were enough pancakes for both her and a guest. The peephole showed an older, less fit security guard than she had seen out her bedroom window. Next to him, if she looked down at just the right angle, was a balding head. She opened the door.
The caller was about five feet four or five inches tall, and easily surpassed Cara in the belly department. He wore tired-looking dress pants with suspenders, and a white shirt with ink stains on the pocket. Leigh remembered him well.
"You okay with this man?" the security guard said brusquely. Leigh nodded, and the guard retreated from the porch.
"Hello, Ms. Koslow," the bald man began, all business. "Bob South, the Post. How've you been? I hear you had a break-in last night. Any relation to the body you found?" He stood expectantly, notebook and pen in hand.
She smiled. "Hello Bab. We meet again. Call me Leigh. That’s L-E-I-G-H."
The reporter looked at her uncertainly. "Uh huh. I'll make a note of that. About the break-in?"
Instead of inviting him in, Leigh stepped outside. She didn't want Cara to start blabbing, and she didn't want to delay her breakfast any longer than strictly necessary. Avoiding his eyes, she wondered what to say. If she didn't tell all, would he find out anyway? He obviously hadn't checked on the autopsy report. The press would have jumped on that. And the fish...she supposed she had inadvertently covered that up by going to the station in person rather
than calling. No scanner messages to intercept. So what was she supposed to say now?
"Why would you think there was a connection?"
But Robert W. South was no fool. He smiled impatiently. "Ms. Koslow, I've done my homework this morning. I've seen the autopsy report. I know about the threats—the note on the body, the fish. This break-in was another one, and you don't have this guard here for ambience. Somebody wants you two out of that house pretty bad. Any ideas why?"
Leigh ground her teeth. Think, think, think. What was police record was police record, but she didn't want her investigations into the 1949 deaths public. It was irrational, but now that they were so close, she didn't want anyone beating her team to the punch. Let him write another dry story with just the facts from the police. She would get her name in the paper some other way.
"You know as much as we do, then. The police aren't being much help." As soon as the words were out, she winced. If that got quoted, she'd be the main course at the next Polanski dinner table. "I suppose you could talk to Officer Polanski," she recanted. "She's been doing most of the investigative work and really is very helpful. But she's off duty today."
South dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand. "Polanski's at the station, but she wouldn't talk to me. The whole department's in chaos over some old person that wandered off. Could I speak with Mrs. March, please?"
"Mrs. March is having some health problems and can't be disturbed," Leigh answered distractedly, wondering why Maura would be at the station. Did she know the missing person?
"Did anyone else see or hear anything else last night? Neighbors?"
A chill swept up Leigh's spine. Mrs. Rhodis! "No," she said adamantly, "no one was home. None of the neighbors around here pay much attention—you know, they're all pretty old and everything. I'm sure they were already in bed." She uncrossed her fingers behind her back and smiled. "Sorry."
South smiled back, but something in his expression made Leigh doubt her acting skills. "Thanks," he said flatly. "I'll be talking with you again, I'm sure."
