Glazed

by Deany Ray

  Eddy stretched his arm lazily across the back seat until his hand ever so lightly rested on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you. You’ll be fine.”

  I wiggled even closer to the window. “Marge is pretty fierce,” I said. “If we have a situation, I’m sticking close to Marge. Marge is my protector.”

  “Thank you, hon,” she squeaked. “I always do my best.”

  That was the truth, not just something that I said to put Eddy in his place. If we ran into danger, Marge could go from mouse to ninja in ten seconds flat.

  A block from Clayton’s house, Marge pulled up to a curb and we walked to his place, trying to appear as a group of neighbors out for a nice stroll. When we got to his address, no one was around, so we stopped to stare and take in the scene. Nothing seemed amiss. No broken windows, no signs of disarray.

  “I don’t think anybody’s home,” I said.

  The windows were all dark and no cars were in the carport. I wondered if this guy had a wife or kids who might show up at any second. We needed to act fast if we wanted to get inside and have a look around.

  “I think you’re right,” Celeste said. “It looks dark inside, but let’s ring the bell, just in case.”

  We climbed up the steps, and Marge pushed the doorbell button. We could hear the bell ring inside, but there was no movement, no shuffling sounds of footsteps. We waited for a few beats, in case someone was indeed home, but nobody came to the door.

  “What’s next?” I asked the group.

  They all met me with a stare. When no one had an answer, I looked beneath a concrete urn that held a half-dead plant, but there was no key. Clayton, I guess, was too smart to hide the goods in the first place that everybody looked.

  As a former secretary for the police in Boston, I’d been shocked at how many burglars simply took a key from somewhere near the door, as if the homeowners had left an invitation: Greetings! Come on in. We have a lovely flat-screen, and the jewelry is upstairs.

  Marge put her hands on her hips and studied the front door; I thought about our next move.

  Eddy watched us, grinning. “Ladies, never fear. The expert is beside you. May I escort you three inside?”

  At least he had a plan. Heck, for all I knew, breaking into people’s homes might be his line of work.

  He pulled something shiny from his pocket and jiggled it along the door. Then he stood aside and motioned for us to enter.

  “Piece of cake,” he said, which made me wish I’d packed a muffin. Sweet treats could always soothe me when I had to deal with jerks.

  Celeste gave him a high five. “Good work, cuz,” she said.

  At least the guy was good for something.

  Celeste looked us in the eye. “Okay, let’s go. Let’s go quietly and quickly,” she said in a soft voice.

  We stepped into a foyer, which led to a sparsely furnished den. Nothing looked out of place. There were a pair of shoes left out by a recliner, a coffee cup sitting on a table, like this guy had had a normal day just before he died.

  I looked in the corners for cameras, hoping the guy didn’t have security installed. Surveillance equipment would make sense if he was up to the kinds of things that get you stuffed into the trash. Still, there were at least no obvious signs that the house was being monitored. Maybe we were safe.

  “Spread out,” Marge whispered to us. “And don’t forget the gloves.” She opened her purse and handed them out to each of us.

  I took Clayton’s bedroom upstairs, and Eddy chose to follow – because of course he did.

  “I see you like the bedroom,” he said in a smooth voice. “Something about pretty girls and bedrooms…”

  “Don’t you have work to do?” I asked.

  He winked. “It’s so cute when girls play hard to get. Yes, there is much to do, so I’ll see you real soon,” he said, leaving the room and going downstairs again.

  Unfortunately, he was right.

  Not sure what I was looking for, I put on a pair of gloves and glanced among the items scattered on the dresser. There was a movie ticket, fast food receipts and wrappers, scratch-off lottery tickets, but nothing to answer the questions: Who exactly was this guy? What got this guy killed?

  “Hey!” Marge peeped in the doorway. “Having any luck?”

  “Nothing jumps out as important.”

  “I had an idea. Let’s go through all the trash in case we run out of time. So many times on CSI, the clues are in the trash.”

  Not again. The trash? I could still smell that dumpster. “Marge, this isn’t CSI,” I said. “Some of the things on those shows they just do for drama.”

  “Oh, but sometimes they find the best stuff. Like bloody rags, or angry letters, or receipts for guns. Like one cop told his chief, the trash has tales to tell.”

  “Well, I might as well,” I said. “I’m not finding much in here.”

  “Excellent,” she said, clapping her hands together. “I saw some big cans in the back yard, but first let’s check the living room. He has some trash in there, too.”

  We went downstairs and walked in to find Celeste going through some drawers.

  “How’s it going?” I asked. “Are you finding anything that we could use?”

  She shook her head. “I still don’t know much about Mr. Peter Clayton – except it looks like he has kids.”

  “How do you know?” Marge asked.

  “Look up on the mantel,” Celeste said as she shut a drawer and pulled another open.

  I glanced up at a line of photos displayed in dusty frames. A young woman in a sundress stood beside the ocean. In another shot, two men at a table smiled up from their meals. A third picture showed all three standing in a garden, dressed up for something formal. The men were wearing tuxes; the girl stood between them, smiling proudly in a yellow gown with sequins. They appeared to all be in their twenties – if these were recent pictures.

  Eddy strolled in from the kitchen with a carton of orange juice and took a gulp. He came to stand close beside me (because of course he did). “I don’t see any picture of the wife,” he said. “This man is divorced.”

  I stared up at him.

  “Are you seriously drinking this guy’s juice?” I asked.

  “What?” Eddy looked innocently at me. “It’s not like he’s coming back to claim it. Would just go to waste here.”

  “This is so disrespectful.” I shook my head. “And how on earth do you know he’s divorced?”

  “Women are my specialty; I know all about them,” he said. “No photograph, no wife.”

  Probably knew a thing or two about divorce as well. I wondered how many unlucky women had found themselves married to this man and made a quick escape.

  Marge and I got to work going through a trash can that sat beside a blue recliner. The can was almost filled to overflowing. I found newspaper wrappings and old chip bags, then came across a receipt from Stonebridge Bank and Trust. He’d withdrawn $7,223 one day the week before. I set the receipt aside. With previous cases, I learned a little something about motive: money almost always came into play when someone offed somebody else. Plus, that was a lot of money to take out at one time.

  Then Marge found another one. “Here’s something from his bank,” she said. She studied a small paper in her hand. “For some reason, he saw fit to take eight thousand dollars out…” She strained to see a date. “Wow. Two days before we found him.”

  Celeste came to take a look. “I think we’re on to something,” she said, “although I’m not sure just what.”

  “And look.” I held out my receipt. “That eight thousand wasn’t all.”

  Celeste bent down to the trash can and took out a pile to search. “Let’s keep on looking,” she said.

  Soon we’d found five receipts, all from the past months and all for withdrawals between five and ten thousand apiece. Very curious. If it all was on the up and up, why not just write a check?

  “What was this guy up to?” Celeste wondered.

  �
�I don’t know,” I said, “but I think it got him killed.” I thought about his kids – if those were really his kids – the smiling faces on the mantel. I thought about how quickly a life could be over.

  “We haven’t checked the kitchen drawers,” Marge said. “Let’s go in there next. That’s where I stick receipts when my purse gets too full.”

  That netted us one more item we thought might be a clue: a handwritten list of shops, cafés and businesses in Springston. I might have overlooked it, but one name caught my eye: The Glazed Doughnut Box.

  Why would this guy have the name of the doughnut shop written on a piece of paper at his home? Together with all the other business names? That’s what we needed to find out.

  We left things as we found them ‒ chain of custody and all. Best to let the cops “discover” them and process the evidence in a way that would hold up in court – if it came to that. Marge carefully recorded the info in her notebook.

  We decided not to tell Bert about the things we found. He would have scolded us, told us we had no business being there without a warrant. Official types like to work that way. Bert wouldn’t like the whole idea of the three of us breaking into the victim’s home with the help of a shady jerk who most likely was a felon.

  “Eddy, make yourself useful and come with me upstairs,” Celeste said. “There must be some other bedrooms there.”

  “Check the medicine cabinets,” Marge said. “You’d be surprised how often cops find clues in there. One time on CSI…”

  I linked my arm through hers. “We might be running out of time. Let’s check the trash outside.”

  We were on our way to the back door, when we heard a car engine just outside the kitchen window, then the sound of a car door slamming shut. I froze.

  Very stealthily, Marge peeked through the edge of the closed curtains. I saw her eyes grow wide. Quietly, I moved to the other side of the curtains and took a peek myself.

  Dang.

  It was – yes, you guessed it – Alex and some other cops.

  I heard the front door rattle. Alex was on his way to finding me, once again, in a place I never should have been.

  Chapter Seven

  I almost collided with Marge as we both dashed for the back door. I said a silent prayer that there was indeed a back door that we could slip through quickly. Then I thought about Celeste and Eddy and broke out in a sweat. Burning banana bread! They would be trapped. They were both upstairs. The only way down seemed to be the main staircase in the hall. It led right up to the front door, which our friends in blue would come bursting through at any moment.

  I hoped Eddy hadn’t left traces on the door that someone had broken in. Something told me we were okay when it came to that. Eddie seemed experienced at pulling one over on the cops.

  I glanced up and caught a brief glimpse of Celeste peering down the stairs. One look in her eyes and I knew right away that she’d also seen the cop car in the drive. She grabbed Eddy by the arm and steered him out of sight.

  Marge and I got out the back just as we heard the front door open. I glanced to my right. Luckily, the neighbor had lots of trees and bushes. I looked to Marge to signal that we should run that way, but she was halfway there already. She hurried through the backyard, her arms stretched out wide like wings. She looked like a large bird in a sweater-vest running very late for some party in the sky.

  I ducked behind a thick grove of bushes. It was just my luck that I was right up against a scratchy bush and I was in short sleeves. I ducked down as far as possible and tried not to breathe too hard despite being winded and terrified that we’d get caught. To make matters worse, the brambles were jamming their pointy ends hard into my face.

  What horrid luck. We’d barely gotten to the house before the cops came bursting in. This would not end well. If it had been just us three, they might have let it go, given us a condescending talking to, then sent us on our way. After all, they knew we were on the case by order of their boss. Plus, Alex knew by then that we were quick with our investigations. No official warrants to wait for. For him, it was all in a day’s work to speed to a crime scene and find us already there. Not that it made him happy, but he’d grown less fervent in his protests that I’d screw up “his” investigation or get myself hurt or killed (I have to admit, I’d had some close calls). Having Eddy by our side…was a whooole other story.

  As I dodged another bramble that seemed determined to poke me in the eye, I heard a ping come from my pocket. I pulled out my phone and saw a message from Celeste. I’m with Eddy in a closet. Distract Alex.

  My first thought was that I’d rather be nestled against a prickly bush than stuck with Eddy in a closet, but there was no time for musing. The house wasn’t all that big. It would take the cops no time at all to look in every single closet.

  “Distract Alex? How?” I whispered to myself.

  An answer came from a squeaky voice in the bush beside me. “Girl! You’ve got to flirt!”

  “That’s the last thing that I want,” I hissed back to the bush. The situation, after all, was already pretty awkward, what with the whole breaking-and-entering-into-a-crime-scene thing. The felon cousin in the closet wouldn’t help at all, and I was almost sure that every cop in Springston knew who Eddy was.

  “The last thing that I want is to go back inside that house,” I said again to Marge. “And even if I popped in there all of a sudden, I don’t think that would save Celeste and Eddy. We have to get the cops out of the house, not me inside it.”

  “Then call Alex.” The bush next to me seemed to be speaking in a scolding voice. Marge had picked a lilac bush, which I bet did not have any prickles.

  “Ugh!” I said. “Fine.” I could help Celeste from the safety of the neighbors’ yard, but what exactly would I say to Alex? I’d barely talked to him since the kiss and the awkwardness that followed. Oh, well. I’d just pretend that I was checking in – in that fun and breezy way I admired in other women who weren’t social morons.

  You would think I’d be relieved when he didn’t answer. Instead, I was annoyed. Was he that kind of guy, the guy who’d kiss you one day and then just ignore the call when he saw that it was you? What was he doing anyway that was so important? Oh, yeah. I remembered. He was trying to catch a killer before he killed again. I’d give him a pass.

  Still desperate, I tried again. Still there was no answer. Was he cursing the ringing phone while he yelled at Celeste, demanding to know what she had touched and where Marge and I were hiding?

  In my head, I saw the scene. Alex was not amused. “I know this guy from his mug shot!” He was shouting at Celeste. “What’s this guy doing here?”

  Angry that he was shouting at my friend (although only in my mind), I tried calling for the third time. Sounding rushed and breathless, he picked up on the third ring.

  “Hey, Charlie, what’s up?” he said in a rushed voice.

  Calling on my inner Meryl Streep, I tried to sound almost bored. “Oh, there’s not much going on with me. I’m just checking in to see what’s up with you. It was nice…seeing you yesterday.”

  His voice seemed to soften. “It was nice seeing you too, but you caught me at a bad time. Can we catch up later? Right now, I’m kind of busy.”

  Yes, I bet he was. I tried to think of something – anything – that would make him leave the house and bring the other cops with him. I decided that my best bet might be an emergency, perhaps a big fire downtown, another body in the dumpster…No, none of those would work because the cops would know soon enough that it was all a lie.

  “Well, if you have to work, it’s a great day to be outside,” I cringed, sounding beyond foolish in my attempts to stall for time. I thought some more while I broke into a sweat and pushed a bramble from my forehead.

  I came up with nothing, so, again, I just went with the first thing that popped into my mind.

  “What are you doing now?” I asked. Brilliant, Charlie. Brilliant. Perhaps this was a new one for the old to-do list: think of ha
ndy reasons to pull the cops off of a crime scene. Just another useful life skill they never teach in school.

  “Working,” he replied.

  “Trying to figure out what’s up with that murder?”

  “You got that right. Look Charlie, things are kind of hectic.”

  I tried to think of something. “Don’t you ever take a break?” I teased.

  “Not when there’s a killer loose and the clues are getting colder.”

  My heart was beating fast and I was sweating harder, wondering how much longer it would be before they found Celeste and Eddy. The stupid call with Alex wasn’t helping anything. His cop friends might at that very moment be opening the closet and staring at Celeste.

  “I’ll let you go,” I said. “Stay safe.” I wished that I could add “Don’t look in the closet. Nothing to see there!”

  Then I hung up.

  “Sorry!” I whispered to Marge. “I know that was a bust. We have to think of something else.”

  Silence fell across the bushes while we each tried to think of anything at all that we could try.

  “What do you have in your purse?” I asked. “Do you have The Persuader?”

  “You know I always do.”

  “What else do you have? Something that we could use as a distraction.” By then I was panicked.

  A huge flowered purse emerged from the branches of the lilac bush. Frantically, I rifled through it. There was toothpaste (what the heck ‒ who carried that around?). I found rolls of yarn, a tin of mints and cat food. Why did Marge have algae in a bag? There were lots of gloves (one thing, at least, made sense). I pulled out a bottle of Tabasco sauce (??), duct tape, a picture of Al Roker (why would…oh, just never mind). I left the Persuader in the purse; I didn’t want to touch that thing.

  None of this would help! To the pile of useless items, I added a pipe wrench (no wonder the big purse always seemed to weigh a ton). Growing more frustrated by the minute, I threw down a makeup case and an oversized bottle of hairspray. It was not just any hairspray. The bright purple container was decorated with gray kittens who had their hair sprayed into swirls. I stared at the object in my hands. So very, very strange. The inside of Marge’s purse was like The Twilight Zone.