We went through the old front gate and onto the front porch. Thank goodness the porch was low to the ground so if we fell through the rotted wood, we wouldn’t go very far. The windows were well covered with no gaps to see through, and the front door was locked, as we expected. Paula checked the top of the door frame and the window frames for an extra key while I checked under the rug and the various old pots on the porch. Neither of us had any luck finding a key, so we moved along the side of the house trying to look in the windows as we went.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the back of the house knowing that no one could see us there. Paula immediately went to the door of the enclosed back porch and tried opening it, with no luck. I looked in the garage window, which wasn’t covered, and saw an old car and a bunch of other old things. It actually looked like it hadn’t been opened in years.
“Bingo,” I heard Paula say quietly. I swung around just as she turned a key in the lock and opened the door. I couldn’t believe she had found a key; actually, I couldn’t believe old man Sampson would leave a key laying around.
We tiptoed across the back porch to the door that led into the house. We were both surprised that the door wasn’t locked. We opened it and stood listening for any sign that the house was occupied. When we were both convinced it was empty, we turned on the flashlight and stepped into the kitchen, looking around to get an idea of the floor plan. To the left was a bedroom, then through the kitchen toward the front of the house was the living room with another bedroom off of that. There was a bathroom between the bedrooms.
We tiptoed through the back bedroom which had an unmade bed, a dresser, and a chair. The bathroom had an old-fashioned claw foot tub with an added shower, pedestal sink, and a toilet, but it seemed to be lacking any kind of towels or personal care items. The front bedroom had a twin bed, a dresser, and a small desk; obviously, it would have been Toby’s room when he was a boy. The living room was also simply furnished with a recliner, a wing back chair, sofa, bookshelf, and a television on a stand. There were stacks of papers and books everywhere, and the kitchen looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years.
By the sofa, I noticed a stack of books and whispered to Paula to bring the flashlight closer. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and Paula gasped when she saw some of the book titles. There were books about poison, plants, and murder.
That was when we heard a vehicle slow down in front of the house and saw the headlights turn into the driveway.
We froze.
Crap, we were caught.
We listened and heard the engine of the car turn off. The car pulled all the way up the driveway to the back by the garage, right where we came in.
Paula motioned to the front door. As quickly and quietly as we could, we opened the front door and left the house. We hustled across the rickety front porch and out the gate, then breaking into a near run, made our way as fast as we could toward Paula’s car.
The snow was falling hard, making the street slippery. It caused Paula to twist her ankle and fall just as we reached her car. She let out a single shriek before she clamped a hand over her mouth to hold in anymore sound that might escape. Using the car to help me keep my footing, I went around to the driver’s side to help Paula.
“It’s not broken, I just twisted it,” she said breathlessly.
“We need to get you in the car and get back to your house,” I told her, as I took the keys and opened a back door to help her in. I jumped into the driver’s seat and headed toward Paula’s house while I kept an eye on the rearview mirror, hoping no one would come after us.
“Stop at the bakery and run upstairs. I’ll hurry to get home,” Paula said from the backseat.
“Can you drive?”
“Yes, it’s the left ankle,” she said.
“How will you get into your house? I can’t leave you alone like that,” I said, still breathless.
“I can walk, it’s okay. We need to hurry and get to where people think we should be this time of the evening,” she convinced me.
I pulled up in front of the bakery, helped Paula from the back seat to the driver’s seat and told her to be careful about getting home. When done, I hurried into the bakery.
I stayed in the dark by the window watching to see if anyone was out looking for me. Who showed up at the old man’s house? Was it whoever had killed him? What if they saw us and were coming after me now?
As I crouched by the front window, holding my breath, I heard one of the stairs behind me squeak. My heart started beating faster; I hoped and prayed whoever it was wouldn’t see me crouched down in the corner in the dark. Until Frosty meowed his displeasure at my absence for the entire evening, I thought for sure whoever killed the old man was here to get me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Chapter 15
“Do you know what happened?”
“Okay.”
“Absolutely, that is no problem at all.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” I said into the phone before I hung up.
“Well, it seems as if Paula took a bit of a fall last night and twisted her ankle; she’ll be off it for a few days,” I sighed, as I related the information from the phone call I received from Paula’s daughter.
“What was she doing?” Julia asked.
I knew what she was doing and now I was going to either lie to Julia, or fill her in. The fewer people that knew what Paula and I were doing, the better. I would hate for Julia to ever feel uncomfortable because she knew that I did break the law when I went into the old man’s house. I could kick myself now for going along with Paula’s scheme, even though it did give me some ammunition against Toby. But I couldn’t tell anyone without ratting myself out so, ultimately, what good did it do? Nothing; now Paula is hurt and my suspicions about Toby have increased. I’m not finding myself in a good situation, just now.
“Okay, look, you can’t say anything to anyone, or even let on that you know,” I warned her. “Paula and I went on a secret mission last night; she slipped while we were out but made it home. She told her daughter that she slipped when she got out of the car after we had dinner, which is just a slight stretching of the truth.”
“What do you mean a secret mission?”
I looked around to make sure that anyone in the bakery was far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to hear what I was about to tell Julia. We moved closer to the back counter and worked on shaping rolls while I told her the story from the previous night.
“You did what?” she gasped.
“I know, I know - but it was worth it. There were books in there about plants, poison, and murder. There was also a pile of print outs from the Internet about murderers, serial killers, and other things about how people are killed,” I whispered to her.
“Oh, my gosh, so you think the son is the killer?”
“I would just about put money on it.”
“What now?”
Hearing a deep male voice behind us made us both jump. “Hello, ladies.”
We both sucked in our breath and turned around. I’m sure we looked like we’d been caught doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing.
“Oh, hello Toby; I didn’t hear the bell when you came in,” I said, trying to sound normal.
“I could tell,” he laughed. “What are you two conspiring about?”
“What? Conspiring?” I stuttered nervously.
Julia turned back around and continued shaping the rolls leaving me to deal with a killer.
“Back there in the corner, whispering and so into your conversation that you didn’t hear me come in, sure looks suspicious,” he winked.
“Are you accusing me of something again?”
“Should I be?”
“No, I haven’t done anything. I thought we were past all that,” I sighed.
“We are; I was seeing if I could rattle your cage,” he laughed again.
“Okay, you got me. Happy now?” I said, mildly irritated. “When did you get back to town?”<
br />
“Last night, just in time to scare away someone that broke into the house,” he stared at me.
“Oh no, someone broke in? Seriously? Did they take anything?”
“Yes, seriously. Whoever it was was in the house when I got there. They left the back door open and went out the front when they heard me pull into the driveway.” He recounted the events of the night before.
“It’s a good thing they left; that might not have turned out too good, had you walked in on them.” I avoided eye contact with him, hoping to be able to just play off the entire episode without making him more suspicious of me.
“No kidding; it could have turned out really bad.” I shrugged.
“Weird, we don’t have things like that happen around here, even on event weekends. It’s really a safe little town.”
“I figure it has something to do with whoever killed my old man. I just hope they don’t come back,” he said.
“But what would someone be after? If they didn’t take anything and it didn’t appear that anything had been bothered in the house.” Somehow I’d forgotten that I was the one in his house.
“I don’t know, it’s strange for sure.”
A strange feeling came over me that we were dancing around the fact that I was the one in the house; we both knew it, but neither of us would say anything. Of course, I didn’t want to admit it, and he didn’t know for sure, so he wasn’t going to make an unfounded accusation.
“So, what was the secret planning going on when I walked in?” He went back to wanting to know what Julia and I were talking about.
“I guess Paula slipped and twisted her ankle last night after we had dinner, so she is off her feet for a few days. We were trying to figure out how to keep Paula’s shop going so she wouldn’t lose any income.” I did want to talk to Julia about how we might be able to run both businesses for a few days.
“That’s too bad; is there anything I can do to help?” he offered, which shocked the heck out of me.
I stuttered. “Um, gosh, I’m not sure. We haven’t really figured anything out yet.”
Julia and I looked at each other and both shrugged. I didn’t want him hanging around here, but maybe if he did, I’d somehow be able to get more information from him; maybe he’d slip up and say something.
“If you can help make sandwiches and clean tables, I can open Paula’s store,” Julia suggested. She couldn’t help but smile when she received the look I shot her way.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Toby said. “Just tell me what to do.”
Oh boy, could this day get any worse? I thought, as I looked outside and saw it starting to snow. Never ask if things can get worse, because they always can.
“Okay then, I guess we’ll see how this goes. By the look of things outside it’s doubtful we’ll be very busy today, so I might not even need help,” I told them as I watched Julia head out the door leaving me alone with a father killer.
“Why the long face? I’m not so bad, and I can make a sandwich,” he joked, in an attempt to get me to relax. There was no way I could let my guard down around him. If he figured out that Paula and I were in his dad’s house, he wouldn’t hesitate to call his buddy the sheriff.
“I was hoping for another nice day with a lot of customers,” I sighed.
“Right - you said business hasn’t been very good this winter. A lot of bad weather?” he asked.
Today was one of those unpredictable weather days. The storm that was supposed to come in overnight never appeared. At daybreak it seemed like it might be a nice day, but soon the clouds rolled in, it started snowing again. The forecast changed to show blizzard-like conditions developing by early afternoon. The four roads into Virginia City were steep, windy mountain roads. The main road that led into Reno was the best maintained, but it was difficult for the county to keep up when conditions were bad. Of the other three roads, two of them weren’t maintained very well and the third one was questionable as to whether it would have anything done to it.
“Obviously it’s going to be slower during the winter when kids are in school and people aren’t vacationing as much, but when the weather gets bad like this, no one wants to drive up the mountain,” I shrugged. “I can’t blame them, it’s kind of a treacherous road if you aren’t used to driving in the mountains.”
“You must get a lot of local business though, right?” he asked.
“Yes and no. It also depends on the weather. If it’s snowy and icy out, people aren’t as likely to attempt the hills like they will if it’s nice and they can walk. As I’m sure you know, parking can be a bit of an issue around here when it’s busy, and the hills are so steep people won’t go out until the streets have been plowed.”
“Understandable. Okay, what do you need help with? Give me the rundown of how this works and I’ll do my best to assist in any way I can,” he said, as if he was actually eager to get to work on something.
“As soon as the timer goes off you can pull the bread out of the ovens and put the rolls in. I’m going to finish setting up for lunch,” I instructed him, as I began pulling stuff out of the refrigerator. Usually, Julia set up the lunch prep while I worked the shuffle at the ovens. I figured it was probably easier to have him do the ovens while I worked on lunch and unsure why I was even bothering today, as the snow came down harder outside.
“Looks like some of the shops are closing already. I guess they usually do that when the weather gets bad?” he asked. I’d forgotten that he hadn’t been around for over thirty years and it was probably a lot different when he was a kid here.
“The ones that don’t live up here will close early and head down the hill before it gets nasty. It’s too bad this storm had to happen on a Thursday when everyone is open and anticipating the start of the larger weekend crowd.” I shrugged, it’s just kind of the way the winter had been.
“Let’s hope it clears up before the weekend,” he said positively.
“I’m sure I can handle lunch today. Doubtful anyone will be in. You don’t need to stay; I’m sure you have things to do,” I told him, half hoping he would leave and half hoping he would stay, just for the company.
“You’re stuck with me; I don’t have anything planned, so put me to work boss.” He laughed and grabbed an apron from behind the counter.
I figured, if nothing else, it might give me time to get caught up on some things, so I gave Toby a quick rundown of the lunch special and how things work, then excused myself for a few minutes to run upstairs. I called Paula to let her know that we were pulling together to make sure we could keep her shop open even though there were no visitors and unlikely to be any. I added wood to the stove then headed back downstairs. The bread was out of the oven and the rolls were in, everything was set up for lunch, so now it was a waiting game to see if anyone would venture in.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chapter 16
“What has you so happy this morning?” The sarcasm dripped from Toby’s grin.
“The stupid heater quit for good this time; I told that cranky old man it was about to die, but he wouldn’t fix it. Too cheap, I guess. There is also no water this morning - pipes must be frozen because he wouldn’t take care of them, and to top it off there is no hot water because the hot water tank quit too.”
“Whew, not a good way to start the day,” he sighed and blew on his hands to warm them up.
“Oh, my day started yesterday when I got up,” I snarled at him, as I tried the faucet again.
“What do you mean it started yesterday? Have you not slept?” He actually sounded concerned.
“No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. Between the howling wind, trying to keep my place somewhat warm, and trying to get some research done, I didn’t sleep at all last night,” I blurted out before I threw the dish towel down and went to sit at one of the tables.
“I heard the roads are pretty bad today, so I guess to add to your fantastic mood, there won’t be any business again.” I don’t know why he insisted on torment
ing me. He seemed to think he is funny, and I wasn’t amused.
“And Julia won’t be in so now I need to worry about Paula’s shop too, in addition to everything else,” I snarled at him.
“Great,” he snarled back.
“No need to snap at me; you don’t have to be here.”
“You’re right. I don’t, but I am, and I don’t want to go back outside, so let’s see if we can figure out how to get some of these things taken care of. First of all, Paula’s shop can stay closed. Obviously, there won’t be any business today, so scratch that from your worry list,” he said.
“There is no point in me being open today either. I can’t make coffee or do anything without water,” I sighed, thinking of another day without any profit.
“I would offer to go get some bottled water, but I only have a rental car. No chains or 4-wheel drive.”
“I have a few bottles upstairs but not enough to make coffee for customers,” I said, as I went toward the stairs. When I came back down, Toby had the ovens on with the doors open to try and introduce some heat into the bakery. I made a pot of coffee and pulled out a couple of muffins that were left from yesterday.
“I think the entire furnace needs to be replaced. Do you have heat upstairs?” he asked closing the door to the mechanical room.
“No, I don’t think there is anything up there besides the wood stove.”
“Do you mind if I take a look? I guess since I own this old place, I need to get it fixed up,” he said.
“Well that would be a pleasant change; your father wouldn’t do anything here,” I said, still with a bit of frustration in my voice. I tried not to think about it, but it made me angry when I thought about how much of my own money I had spent to fix not only the bakery but the upstairs as well. That was money I would never get back, no matter how hard I worked.
“Can you show me the upstairs?” he asked. I took him up the stairway that led to the living space above the bakery.
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