by Marja McGraw
“And J.T. was here a second time. I think he might have been snacking, too,” Lucy said.
“I remember David leaving for a while. He said he was going to get something from his room. I think it was Sharon’s ring,” I said. “He’d have to go through the kitchen to get to his room.”
“Well, that really narrows it down, doesn’t it,” Mike said, disgustedly. “What do we have to do, put a guard in the hall? This is ridiculous.”
“Don’t forget,” Josh said, thoughtfully, “we don’t know who’s been using the passages.”
“Yes, but no one can get into my room that way,” I reminded him. “I moved the dresser in front of the opening.”
“Right,” he said.
After a brief discussion, Mike and I returned to my room. I threw myself on the bed and pouted.
“This is no time to be a big baby,” Mike admonished.
“Shut up and leave me alone. I’ve got plenty of reason to be upset.”
“Next thing I know, you’ll be crying,” he said.
“So what? What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He sat down on the rocker and folded his arms across his chest.
We were both angry, but not really at each other. After a few more nasty cracks we quit speaking to each other. I left the room and walked to the bathroom where I got ready for bed. Returning to my room, I climbed into bed and turned my back on him. With some effort, I finally fell asleep. When I awoke in the morning, he was gone and Lucy was sitting in his place.
“What happened between you and Mike last night?” Lucy asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because when I came in this morning, he stomped out of here without a word.”
“Forget it. Nothing happened. He’s just a thoughtless jerk.”
“Whoa,” she said. “Back up and talk to me.”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it. Where is he, anyway?”
“He said he had to go to town and he’d be back later.” Lucy left me to my morning ritual, and I met her in the kitchen when I was ready to face the day. She’d already fed the boarders, so I ate and helped her clean up the morning mess. I was still coughing quite a bit, but at least I felt better. I could tell it was going to be one of those coughs that hangs on for a while.
After loading the dishes into the dishwasher, I slowly climbed up to the third floor. My lungs weren’t quite ready for the climb, but taking my time helped. I wanted to dust and get the beds made while Lucy did the same on the second floor. We met back on the main floor. I took a fifteen minute break before we started cleaning again. By the time we were through, it was time for lunch.
We stood, side by side, and made sandwiches. “Lucy, where’s Josh?”
“He’s at work. Yesterday was his regular day to work, but since it was a holiday he had to go in today. He really likes having this part-time job.”
“I’ll go call David for lunch while you finish the sandwiches,” I said.
“Don’t take too long,” she said.
I found David in the garage cleaning up J.T.’s mess. “He meant well,” I said.
He hadn’t heard me come in and jumped at the sound of my voice. “You startled me.”“I’m sorry. David, I’m so happy for you and Sharon. You’ve made her very happy.”
“I sure hope so,” he said, smiling. “She’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman, and even a few things I didn’t want – until now.”
I was surprised David was opening up to me. He was usually so quiet, and never very demonstrative about anything.
“She is a one-of-a-kind,” I said, chuckling. “I think you two complement each other. You’ll be good for her.”
“I guess it’s like you and Mike, huh? You seem good together.”
Tears welled up in my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking uncomfortable. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Oh…”
“Come on, what’s up? You caught me on a good day, so maybe I can help.”
I really liked David. I gazed at him, thoughtful for a moment, and made my decision. “Come into the house for lunch. I want to talk to you, and Lucy can help me explain why things have been handled the way they have, I hope.”
He looked bewildered, but put his tools down and followed me to the house. “It’s getting colder. It looks like it might snow again.” He was looking upward, at the clouds.
“Yeah, it does. I sometimes wonder if it will ever stop snowing. I think I’ll let Jem in. No one’s home, so they’ll never know I had him in the kitchen.”
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them?”
“Something like that.”
Lucy had lunch ready, and we sat down at the table with her.
“Lucy,” I said, “I’ve made up my mind, and I’m going to tell David everything. If you’re not going to go along with me on this, then go eat in the dining room so Josh won’t be angry at you.”
“Well, it’s about time. I’ve thought we should tell him all along,” she said.
“What’s going on ladies? This sounds serious.” He looked back and forth at us, waiting for an answer.
“It is serious,” I replied.
While we ate, Lucy and I told him everything, from beginning to end. We tried to be tactful about why he hadn’t been told, but there was no need.
“I would have handled it the same way,” he said. “Mike and Josh did the right thing.”
“I’m so glad you feel that way. Both of them think you’re terrific, but they didn’t want to take any chances.”
“I understand. None of you really know me all that well.” I thought I detected a hint of hurt in his expression, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Now,” I said. “There’s something else I haven’t told anyone about. I was going to tell Mike last night, but… Well, Mike and I weren’t exactly speaking.”
“Oh. So what haven’t you told anyone else?” David leaned back in his chair.
“Yeah, what gives?” Lucy tipped her head to the side.
“I was in the library yesterday and found a book of quotations on the shelf. It was inscribed from George to Amelia Holt. There were several quotations underlined, including the ones in the notes I’ve received.
“Here’s the thing,” I continued, “I didn’t buy that book. I don’t know who put it in the library or where it came from. I’ve never seen it before. Maybe my imagination is running away with me, but I almost felt like it had been put there as sort of a challenge. You know, so I would find it and whoever put it there could see what I would do about it.”
“Would you please go get the book?” David asked.
“Sure. Be right back.”
When I walked over to the shelf to get the book, it was gone. I checked the other shelves, but it was definitely gone. I returned to the kitchen.
“Someone has taken it.”
“Figures,” David said.
“Wait a minute,” I said, slowly. “Maybe he’s using it to write another note and hasn’t had a chance to return it.”
“Or he knows you saw it and hid it away. You’d better tell Mike and Josh about this right away. My gut is telling me this could all be coming to a head, at least from everything you’ve told me,” David said. “I’m going to do a little detective work of my own in the meantime.”
“What are you going to do?” Lucy asked.
“Search a few rooms, with or without your permission.” He glanced at me.
“Oh, David, I don’t know if you should or not.”
“Can you think of anything better to do?”
“Not really,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. I suddenly felt cold, and it wasn’t the weather or the bronchitis making me feel that way.
“They’ll never know I was in their rooms.” David stood and left without waiting for Lucy or me to comment.
“Wait,” Lucy called after him. “You’ll need the room keys.” She pulled the keys off a hook in the cupb
oard where we kept them and tossed them to David when he turned back.
“Maybe we should start locking those keys up.” Lucy closed the cupboard door.
“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied.
Mike walked through the back door shortly after David left. I retreated to my room. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
Chapter Thirty-five
Mike threw open my bedroom door and stormed in without knocking.
“Okay, Kelly, this has gone far enough. You know we’re not really angry with each other. Let’s knock this crap off!”
“If that was an apology, you’d better try again,” I said testily. “Maybe you’ll get it right the second time.”
“It wasn’t an apology, and you weren’t exactly Miss Sweet Pea yourself last night. This has to end right here and now.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.” One of us had to say it, and apparently it wasn’t going to be him.
“Now. What about this book you found? And where’s David? Lucy told me everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes. Now tell it to me yourself.”
I told him the same story I’d told Lucy and David. I found myself running out of steam and seemed to be talking in a monotone.
Mike listened and nodded. “Again, where’s David?”
“As far as I know David is somewhere up on the third floor searching rooms.”
“I met with Josh in town. He talked to one of his cop friends in Los Angeles. David is clean. Everything about him is legitimate. Maybe we can use him to help us out now.”
“Well, I’m sure glad David got your Seal of Approval,” I said sarcastically.
“Don’t start up, Kelly.” Mike sounded agitated and on the edge. “Josh is filling in the local police, too. Damn it! I wish we had more information.”
“I’ve never seen you like this, Mike. I didn’t know you could be so – ”
“Listen to me,” he interrupted. “I’m worried about you, and you’re not being very helpful right now, at least not with that smart aleck attitude you seem to have developed.”
“Smart aleck attitude? Listen, buster, you’d better take a second look at your own attitude.”
“Yeah.” He sat down on the rocker and sighed before stretching his shoulders backward and rotating his head.
“Is your neck stiff?”
He nodded. “We can’t keep this up. I love you, and I’m afraid that something’s going to happen to you, and if nothing else we’ve got to at least try to get along with each other. We’ve got to work together to find out what’s going on and who’s behind it.”
“You love me?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes. You said you love me.”
“Did you happen to hear anything else I said?” He sounded frustrated, not that I could really blame him. My head had been in the sand for so long that I was beginning to feel smothered.
“Yes, I did,” I said.
“Can we get down to business? Please?”
“Sure,” I said, grudgingly. I wanted to discuss the love stuff some more. “When will Josh have more information?”
“He’s working on it. Like I said, he’s talking to the local police, hoping they’ll cooperate under the circumstances. We’re so far out of town that we need them to cooperate with us. We’ve got more on J.T., but nothing on Ted Fernley yet. We’re also trying to find out who was in the hospital. If you remember, George and Amelia Holt were making payments to a hospital. Unfortunately, putting all the information together is a slow process. At least it’s slower than we’d like it to be.”
“What did you find out about J.T.?” I asked.
“He’s been in prison for armed robbery, but it was a long time ago. He’s been clean since, as far as we can tell. Josh is digging as deep as he can.”
“Sweet, funny J.T. was in prison? For armed robbery? I can hardly believe it. I’m glad I didn’t know about this when I saw him in the store buying what I thought was a gun.”
“He was young, and apparently he learned his lesson. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find David and help him search the rooms.”
“You know, we should have done a search a long time ago,” I said. “I don’t care if going through other people’s things is wrong or not.”
“At this point, it certainly isn’t the wrong thing to do. And you’re right. We should have done this a long time ago.”
Mike went in search of David, and I started making the rounds of the bathrooms, collecting dirty towels. It was time to do laundry, not one of my favorite tasks, but I figured it wouldn’t be too taxing. When I arrived at the second floor, I felt like I’d walked in on an old Abbott and Costello movie.
I left the first bathroom, heard a noise and looked down the hallway. David and Mike were slinking down the hall, looking to all the world as if they were guilty of a crime, which I guess they were, technically. I stepped back so they wouldn’t see me and watched.
They stepped up to Josh’s bedroom door and stopped, whispering to one another. David looked stealthily over his shoulder. Mike did the same. David started going through the keys Lucy had given him, looking for the one to Josh’s room. The keys were clearly marked for each room and I was amazed he didn’t notice. But while I watched he tried each key in the lock, while Mike kept looking over his shoulder. It was obvious Mike was sure they were going to be caught in the act.
“Give me those stupid things,” he whispered loudly, grabbing the keys out of David’s hand. The first one he used opened the door. “There, you see?”
“Big deal,” David whispered. It was a stage whisper and I could hear every word.
“Why are we searching Josh’s room?” Mike asked.
“I don’t want to leave any stone unturned,” David replied.
They entered Josh’s room.
I moved on to the second bathroom, intent on getting all the laundry together. I closed the lid to the laundry hamper before I heard a loud crash in Josh’s room.
Uh oh, I thought. Sounds like the detectives blew it.
I took the bags of towels and threw them down the stairs, which was easier than carrying the load down, before moving on to the third and last bathroom to finish the job. I heard Josh’s door open, so I crept to the doorway to watch again.
“You’re a real clown, Mike,” David whispered. “Could you have made any more noise?”
“Well, if you hadn’t closed the drawer on my hand – ”
“If you hadn’t stepped on my foot, I would have noticed your hand was still in the drawer,” David replied.
“Oh, no. If you hadn’t closed the drawer, I wouldn’t have jumped and landed on your foot,” Mike said, correcting David.
“Do you think Josh will notice?” David asked.
“Notice? He’d have to be blind not to notice a broken lamp.” Mike sounded disgusted.
“Maybe Kelly has another one,” David suggested, still whispering.
“We’ll ask her before Josh comes home.”
I bit my tongue to keep from laughing, and tried to stifle a cough, successfully.
Their next stop was Marion’s room, and Mike tried every single key on the ring before he found the right one.
“Ha!” David said triumphantly.
“Crap!” Mike replied. “It’s always the last thing you try.”
“Yeah, yeah.” David was grinning from ear to ear, and I felt as though I was watching two little boys playing a game.
They weren’t in Marion’s room for long. I was about to go downstairs when I heard them coming, so I stopped to watch more of the entertainment.
David was holding his stomach as they crept out of Marion’s room.
“Well, you shouldn’t have snuck up on me like that,” I heard Mike say.
“I wasn’t sneaking, and why would you turn around swinging like that anyway?” David said hotly.
“I wasn’t swinging at you. It was just a reflex,” Mike s
aid, just as hotly.
Their next stop was Mrs. Banks room, and as Mike went through the keys, he dropped them. Mike and David bent over to pick up the keys at the same time and bumped heads.
“I can’t stand anymore,” I said, and began laughing when they stood up holding their foreheads. I applauded their performance.
“You guys ought to take it on the road,” I said, tears running down my face by that time. “By the way, the keys are marked so you’ll know which one goes to which room.”
They each gave me a dark and dirty look.
Just as Mike found the key to Mrs. Banks room, I began coughing again. Too much laughter. My lungs couldn’t take it.
“Serves her right,” I heard one of them say.
I took the rest of the laundry and threw it down the stairs, then followed it down, laughing and coughing all the way. I dragged the bags to the laundry room and got a load started, then returned to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. I noticed Lucy had made some cinnamon rolls, so I took one to go with my coffee, and relaxed until the first load of laundry was done. I threw it in the dryer and started a second load.
Lucy walked into the kitchen. “Sit down. I’ve got a funny story to tell you.”
She looked quizzical, but sat down across the table from me.
By the time I finished my story, she was practically falling out of her chair. Mike and David walked in and all Lucy could do was laugh harder and point at them.
“If you two are through making fun,” Mike said, “we’d like some lunch. Please.”
“I’ve already had lunch,” David said.
I took one look at the red spot still showing on his forehead and started laughing and coughing all over again. I couldn’t help myself.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” David said indignantly. “We could have knocked each other out.” He looked at Mike, saw the red spot, and began to laugh with us. The humor of the situation finally struck him.
“I guess it must have looked pretty funny.” Mike grinned and started laughing.
“Looked funny? You should have heard yourselves,” I said.
“How long were you up there?” David asked.
“Right from the time you two got to Josh’s room,” I said. “Oh, and I do have another lamp, so you don’t have to worry about that little problem.”
