"Hush, Twila," Charlotte said, half rising from her chair. "You don't know what you're saying. Thea didn't—"
"How do you know she didn't?" Twila demanded indignantly. "She was caught in a very compromising position. I was there. I saw the blood on her hand." Sugar jerked and pulled at her wrappings. A wing came loose. She flapped it for leverage, clacking her pointy beak at me, and broke free. She flapped across the table, snatched a sodden French fry from a plate, and skidded across the table's slick surface, sending silverware and coffee cups flying. I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and raised my arm to protect my face. A strobe flashed, then another. That damned reporter, I thought. Clyde tried to catch Sugar, but missed. Yvonne swore and ran through the swinging doors into the bar.
A man burst from the kitchen, waving his arms, and shouting to be heard over the cheers and laughter. "Get that bird out of here, Pettigrew. This is an eating establishment!" More flashes from the strobe popped in front of my face, one after another, until I was seeing stars. I shoved the reporter hard enough to knock him over in the melee. Dodging the chicken-chasers, I ran for the door. Charlotte was right behind me.
"Wait, Thea," she called. She was nearly doubled over with laughter. All I could manage was a weak smile. Sometime, maybe a hundred years from now, I knew I'd find it funny as well. "Are you all right?" she asked with genuine concern. "I'm so sorry all that happened."
"It's okay, Charlotte," I said impatient to get away. But she had been so kind to me I didn't want to brush her off lightly. I gave her a quick hug. "Thanks so much for everything, but I don't want that reporter to catch up with me. I'll talk to you later." I waved and took off at a fast jog.
"I'll waylay him if he comes out the door," she called after me.
I had planned to stop at the Squash Blossom on my way home to pick up the book about feng shui, but that could wait, as could the questions I wanted to ask Jennifer. I needed to get home now and pull myself together. The fact that Opal's murder was going to be splashed all over the papers with me as chief suspect had to be faced. There was no way to counteract it, was there? Except to become an un-suspect, I thought, or find the murderer myself. Yeah, right. Better to make up to the sheriff. On the other hand, I thought with some excitement, I might do better consulting with his wife, Charlotte. If she was so sure I was not a murderer because of my "golden glow," she ought to be able to spot someone who was guilty.
I looked over my shoulder, checking to be sure the reporter wasn't on my tail. No one was following me; I took the stairs to my house two at a time, fiddled with the key which never seemed to unlock on the first go-round and went in.
The air was stifling. I re-opened the front door and tried unsuccessfully to raise one of the long and narrow living room windows that had probably been painted shut for the last hundred years. One of these days I'd have to pry it open. In the meantime there was a fan in the bedroom.
Halfway across the living room I recoiled, caught in a freezing moment of ultra awareness that raised the hairs on neck and arms. I held my breath, swiveling my head to peer in every direction. Had I heard a sound? My ears took on the keenness of a wild animal, but found only the soft hum of the refrigerator. Nothing seemed amiss. The rush of alertness dissipated as quickly as it had struck. Bewildered, I glanced around again, wondering what had caused the reaction, and I remembered Charlotte's similar behavior this morning. Did the house really have ghosts? That's all I need, I thought with a snort of disgust, and strode down the hall and into the bedroom.
Stunned, I hung onto the doorknob, unable to believe the chaos that met my eyes.
Chapter 13
My belongings were strewn all over the room. The unpacked suitcase had been emptied on the bed, the things that had been put away in drawers were thrown on the floor. The dresser itself had been pulled away from the wall. Earrings, chains, rings, necklaces, all the contents of my jewelry box were scattered on top of the dresser, or dumped on the floor. With a little cry, I bent to pick up a favorite gold earring that looked as if it had been stomped on.
As I rose, something soft and voluminous flew over my head and shoulders. Heavy folds of cloth muffled my screams. I writhed and kicked furiously, terrified as much by the claustrophobic feeling of the heavy material covering my face as by being held tightly, arms pinned to my sides. A punch to the ear rattled me, and then another. We careened around the cramped space, slipping on the clothes that skidded over the bare wood floor. One of my kicks landed, throwing him momentarily off-balance, and I felt a slight loosening of his grip. With a burst of energy I threw my arms up, flinging the cloth behind me. Thinking of nothing but escape, I stumbled out of the bedroom, raced across the front room, flung open the screen door, and ran into the street, my legs pumping with a speed they had never known before.
I ran like a crazed woman, holding up a hand to stop cars, heedless to the danger if they didn't. I didn't stop until I reached the sheriff's office three and a half blocks away. Careening down the stairs of the basement entry, I jerked open the door, nearly rattling the glass pane out of its frame, and collapsed across Rhonda's counter.
Rhonda jumped up. "Whoa! What's going on?"
My arms dangled over the countertop onto her desk, knocking over a pencil holder, sending the contents flying across the worn linoleum floor. Everything I had was spent. My lungs screamed for air.
Rhonda came from behind the counter, all business. "Okay, okay." She patted my back awkwardly. "Tell me about it."
She gripped my shoulders and helped me stand upright, then guided me to one of the visitor's chairs lined against the wall across from her counter.
"My house," I gasped raggedly. "Someone's in my house."
"What kind of a someone?" she asked crisply. "Friend, neighbor, kid?"
"Ransack..." I tried to explain between huffs. "Tore my house apart. Stuff all over."
"Billy," she yelled down the hallway, then got a paper cup of water from the cooler and handed it to me. "Did you get a look at him?"
I shook my head. "He attacked me. Threw a blanket or something over my head. Tried to hit me through it."
"Hey, Billy," she called again. When no one appeared, she stomped to a far office and stuck her head in the door. "Come on out here. We've got a complaint."
She stomped back to her desk, rolling her eyes expressively for my benefit. "We're short-handed right now. He's the only one here."
He was pudgy, young, the angry red skin on his cheeks and chin not yet recovered from the ravages of a virulent case of acne that must have made his high school years a living hell. He wore jeans, a brown deputy's shirt, and a deadly earnest expression that spoke equally of raging self-importance and crippling insecurity. Pinned on his shirt pocket was a generic name tag that said "Billy." No other insignia. Semi-official at the most, I thought with a sigh, then wondered if this could be the Billy who had brought the news about Ronnie Mae.
Rhonda pulled some papers from a file drawer. "Somebody broke into this lady's home. You better get over there."
"Please do," I gasped. "He's probably gone, but please check." How could I ever go back in there again?
Rhonda fished some papers from a file, and told Billy where I lived. He stood looking uncertainly from Rhonda to me, until she said, "Git!" shooing him off like a five-year-old. There was no doubt who was in charge of this office.
I sipped on the water. Gradually, my breathing steadied and I became more coherent, telling her everything that happened.
"Assault, too." She pulled more papers from another file drawer. "It was a break-in, wasn't it?" Rhonda asked. "Or did you leave the house open?"
"The front door was locked when I got home," I said. "I don't know about anything else; I don't know how he got in."
She flipped the papers onto the counter. "You'll need to fill these out. And," still thoroughly in charge, "I've got your car for you."
My car! I'd forgotten all about it.
"The boys finished up with it and brought it in fr
om Hog Heaven about an hour ago. I tried to call you, but nobody answered. You can sign this claim for it." She whipped out more papers, and shoved them toward me.
I drove home, feeling some of my shredded confidence return with the simple act of repossessing my car, though it looked like a battlefield. Traces of fingerprint powder still clung to various surfaces. The big glob of lipstick had been removed from the dash, but the gooey smear it made had not been cleaned up. At least the sheriff's men had piled the scattered contents of my briefcase and purse in neat piles on the back seat. First my car and then my home, I thought dismally.
A dusty brown Toyota with one of those portable police flashers stuck on top was parked in front of the house. I entered warily, still prickly with remembered fear, and waited close to the front door until Billy appeared from out of the bedroom.
"Nobody here now," he announced officiously. "Doesn't look too bad to me." He glanced around the untouched living room area. "What about the boyfriend?"
"The boyfriend? What do you mean? Max?"
"You always want to look to the family first or, uh, close acquaintances. You and the boyfriend have a fight? Maybe he just wanted to toss your things around to get even."
"Look, Billy, it wasn't Max. The man attacked me."
He shrugged. "You never know."
"It wasn't Max," I insisted. "Max is taller than the person who attacked me." And I would have recognized his arms around me, wouldn't I? Besides, knowing his strength, if Max wanted to clobber me, even through a heavy blanket or coat, he would have gotten the job done.
I followed Billy back into the bedroom and immediately saw the Sunbonnet Girl quilt my grandmother made for me lying on the floor. I held the luxuriously padded quilt to my cheek. It must have been all the extra batting she had used "to make it more comfy" that had muted the savage punches meant to down me. Thank you, Grandma.
"He must have been in the closet when I came into the room," I told Billy. "This is what he threw over my head." I held up the quilt, folded it and returned it to its place on the closet shelf.
Billy screwed up his face, concentrating on note-taking. He did a lot of licking his thumb to flip through his tablet, then repeatedly dabbed the tip of his pencil on his tongue before painstakingly writing notations.
"Anything missing that you know of?"
I looked around helplessly. How could I tell at a glance, particularly with everything thrown all around?
"Jewelry?" Billy prodded.
"Most of this is costume stuff." I poked at the jumble of chains and beads on the dresser. "But the nicer pieces are here, too, as far as I can tell." Fortunately the rings I really valued were on my fingers.
"Anything else? What about the other rooms?"
Oh, Lord, I hadn't thought of anything other than the bedroom. I hurried to the office. With a sickening lurch of my stomach I saw that it had been vandalized, as well. The computer hadn't been dumped on the floor, thank goodness, but the desk drawers had been emptied onto the desktop and the contents of the cubbyholes scattered.
"Oh, no," I cried in a near wail.
"So, you didn't leave it like this?" Billy, notepad poised, waved his hand at the litter on the desk. He wet the pencil lead on his tongue.
I glared at him. "No, I did not."
He gave a low whistle under his breath. "You'd think thieves woulda taken the computer, or the TV," he said, nodding at the television set that sat on the floor in a corner. It hadn't been hooked up yet.
The thought of someone fingering through all my belongings made me ill, then shockingly furious. "Why would someone do this?" I ranted. "What is the point? Do they want to get rid of me that badly? Why not just ride me out of town on a rail? Or put a note on the door, 'Go home, bitch.'" I thought of the taunting kids last night, some of them old enough to resort to this kind of vandalism.
"You better check out the kitchen, it's a mess, too." Billy eyed me uneasily, as if afraid I might burst into a fit of hysterics.
"And if you don't stop licking that damned pencil you're going to get lead poisoning." I stomped into the kitchen, and groaned at the sight that met me.
A box of crackers and a loaf of bread had been dumped and scattered across the counter. A table knife coated with the congealed remains of mustard and mayonnaise sat beside open jars of the same. Ice cube trays were dumped in the sink. Even the sugar bowl had been taken from the cupboard, its lid knocked off onto the floor. I couldn't believe it.
"What did he do?" I asked Billy. "Stop for a sandwich?"
"Thea? Hey, what's going on?" I recognized Max's voice and the sound of his heavy footsteps with a rush of relief. I flew to him.
"Is that a cop car out there?" Then his eyes lit on Billy. "What is going on?" He looked suspiciously from Billy to me.
"Somebody broke in and tossed her house," Billy said.
"What?" The question reverberated around the small space, rattling the walls a bit. Billy started with alarm and eyed Max warily.
I pointed to the bedroom. Max looked in and returned with a thunderous look on his face.
"The office and kitchen, too," I said.
"Where were you? Were you here?" His glance jumped from me to Billy. "And what have you done? Tell me what happened."
"Well, it appears that—" Billy began with more thumb licking and page flicking.
"Not you," Max bellowed at the hapless semi-deputy. "You." He pointed to me.
"Oh, calm down," I said. When Max became agitated he seemed to think that the more noise he made, the sooner solutions would be found. "Sit," I pointed to the sofa. He glared and paced a minute then did as I said. I sat beside him and told him about the whole thing while Billy checked doors and windows and trudged down into the basement. When I got to the part about being attacked, Max jumped up and began pacing again.
"You could have been killed. I told you, you should have gone with me this morn—" Wisely, he stopped before resurrecting this morning's argument. He turned up his palms in surrender, and grinned at me sheepishly. "Sorry."
"How did he get in?" he asked, when Billy returned from the basement.
I got up, too. I wanted to know the answer as much as Max did.
"Don't know," Billy answered. "She"—he nodded at me—"said the front door was locked when she got home. But I didn't find any signs of a break-in. Anybody else have keys to this place?"
"I do," Max said.
"You the boyfriend?" Billy slid his eyes to me with a meaningful glance, which I ignored.
Max raised his eyebrows and looked disdainfully down his nose at the shrimpy quasi-deputy, but dutifully answered the question and gave his name.
"Anybody else have a key?" I asked Max. "What about Jennifer?"
"No. If she needed a key, I gave her mine."
I explained to Billy that Jennifer Wilcox had done some decorating for me before I came to town.
"What about the back door?" Max asked, but didn't wait for an answer. He went to look for himself. Nothing.
"So you locked all the doors when you left this morning?" Max asked.
"Yes. Well, I locked the front door. I didn't check the back door. It was locked last night and I hadn't used it since."
"There's a window in the basement that's in bad shape," Billy informed us. "You can lift it right out of the frame without much effort. Coulda got in that way, but I didn't find any evidence. You know, no footprints, no fresh dirt, or stuff like that. I got it all in my report." He tapped his notebook with the pencil. "You gonna be okay now, Miss?" He cast another suspicious look at Max.
"I'll be fine," I assured him, showing him out.
"Oh," he added, halfway out the door. "Don't touch anything in the office. Those surfaces look like they'd hold some good prints. I'll send somebody over who knows how to check for them. Okay?"
I closed the door behind him and turned to Max. "You're his chief suspect, you know."
"Me?"
"Yes, but don't worry. Rhonda's not impressed."
"
Who's Rhonda?"
"Oh, never mind," I said, dropping my little joke. It was too depressing that in three days I'd become more acquainted with the local constabulary than he had in six months.
We checked out the basement window and Billy was right, it didn't look as if anyone had been down there in quite awhile, much less blundered through the window. Max boarded it up anyway. I would have been much happier knowing exactly how the person had entered. I didn't like the thought that there might be someone out there who could get into my house anytime he felt like doing so. Particularly now with Ronnie Mae's questionable death adding to the equation. An equation that was bound to double my trouble.
Chapter 14
Ronnie Mae. Max had been gone all day, he probably knew nothing about the latest development. "Max, did you hear what they're saying now about Ronnie Mae's death?"
He was deep in thought, contemplating the old-fashioned lock set on the front door. "We'll change the locks tomorrow," he said. "I don't know if there's anyone in town who does that kind of thing. If not, I could give it a try. Maybe just some new deadbolts would do the trick." He scratched his head and eyed the project before looking up. "What about Ronnie Mae?"
"She might have been murdered."
"Murdered? How?" he demanded in a reaction similar to mine.
I told him all that had happened this morning along with my fears and speculations. "Max, if it's true and Ronnie Mae was murdered, I was right there when she died. That makes two times I've been present when a... a body was found. I feel like I'm getting pulled deeper and deeper into some kind of sticky morass that I'll never be able to pull out of. And what's worse," I added in a near wail, "there's a reporter in town."
"A reporter." Little Sir Echo.
"Yes, a weasely little twerp who looks fourteen years old. He's already taken some ridiculous pictures." I told him about the fracas with the chicken in the cafe. I could see the caption now. Heroic Chicken Takes On Murderer. Max threw his arms around me, probably to hide the smile I saw twitching his mouth.
Dead in Hog Heaven (A Thea Barlow Mystery, Book Three) Page 12
