Lye In Wait: A Home Crafting Mystery Part 21

"You had a choice," Ambrose said. "You were just too.. .pigheaded to take it. And today you almost died because of it."

"Hey, that's not-"

"Tell him about the papers," Meghan interrupted.

"Papers?" he asked, giving me the evil eye.

"Oh, that's not important. I'm sure-"

"Tell him."

Meghan still had her back up from her encounter with Grace, and she wasn't too happy that someone had tried to kill me earlier. Fighting her now would be a lost cause.

"We took some papers from Walter's when we were cleaning out his house for his mother. We brought them over here. I thought I could get a handle on his financial situation from them. And I wanted to know why he committed suicide. Then later I thought there might be something that would help figure out who killed him."

He sighed. "Knowing full well you were withholding evidence from us."

"No! Well, not at first. Maybe later I sort of knew you'd want to see them. I planned to bring them to the station today."

His look said it all.

"I did! And you know, if I hadn't moved those three boxes of papers over here, they would have burned in the fire anyway."

"Three boxes? So why didn't you bring them to the PD today?"

"Well, for one, someone tried to kill me this afternoon."

He looked a little sheepish until I went on in a much smaller voice. "And besides, they're gone now. When the thief took our jewelry yesterday, he took the boxes, too."

" Thiefl" he said, his voice raising. "What G.o.dd.a.m.n thief?"

TWENTY-SIX.

"OFFICER DANSON HASN'T HAD a chance to fill you in," Meghan said, a little too magnanimously in my opinion, and fleshed out the details of the burglary.

"Let me get this straight. You removed paperwork from a possible murder victim's house, which then burnt to the ground, but you didn't see fit to share it with the police. What were you thinking?"

"That you treated me like c.r.a.p," I snapped. He looked bewildered. "Calling me down to your office, calling me a suspect. And besides," I finished lamely, "I knew you'd yell at me."

"Yell at you! Yell at you?" He took a deep breath. And another. With careful calm he said, "Is there anything else you've been doing on your own that I need to know about?"

"No."

He looked at Meghan. She smiled and shook her head. Darn those two, anyway. I'd had just about enough of their simpatico.

Ambrose drank some coffee, holding the mug in front of his face with both hands. I could almost hear him thinking. After several swallows, he put it down and said, "Did you find anything in the papers?"

"Walter took blood pressure medication. He went to the Evergreen State Fair this year. And he gave a ton of money away to children's charities."

He sighed. "Great"

We sat in silence for a few moments.

"Does anyone want more coffee?" I asked.

Ambrose ignored me. "Do you have someplace where you can go stay for a while?"

"Me? I can't leave. I have a business to run," I said.

He thought a moment. "You've p.i.s.sed somebody off, and I don't know who. Or how. The department doesn't have enough manpower to a.s.sign someone to watch this house. I can ask the patrol cars to come by more often if you insist on staying, but that's all I can do."

"It'll have to be enough," I said.

"Are you staying, too?" Ambrose asked Meghan. She hesitated, then nodded.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to move your daughter someplace else for a few days. If nothing else, it'll mess up any plans your ex-husband might have."

"We have friends she can stay with."

"Good. And I want you to call me immediately if anything happens. Immediately. These are my cell and home numbers if you can't reach me at work."

"Okay." I took the numbers. "Thanks. I'll get Deborah Silverman's phone number."

Meghan said good night to Ambrose and went upstairs, no doubt to talk to Erin about the scene with her father and grandmother. I gimped up behind her, fished the sc.r.a.p of newspaper out of the slacks lying on my bedroom floor, and copied the number onto a fresh sheet of notebook paper. Then I made my geriatric way back down the stairs and handed it to him.

"See me out?" he asked, tucking it inside his notebook.

I followed him to the front door. He opened it and turned back to me. "I'll share whatever I can with you, just please stop asking questions. Will you do that?"

"I'll try."

He sighed. "You've already been hurt. Please, Sophie Mae. Be careful." Then he hesitated, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He turned and walked outside without another word.

I found myself wanting to know what he had been going to say.

"Barr?"

He turned around, looking up at me from the front gate.

I wavered. "Never mind."

"You sure?" he asked.

"Yeah. It's nothing."

"Okay. I'll check in with you tomorrow."

I walked back inside, shutting the door firmly behind me.

I'd called him Barr without thinking. And he hadn't seemed to mind.

The kitchen was a mess. Lamenting the extra piece of corn bread I'd consumed out of cowardice, I carried dishes to the sink and put leftovers in the fridge. Once the dishwasher had started its wash cycle, I collapsed on the sofa to wait for Meghan.

Upstairs, she would be trying to explain to Erin how grown-ups could be a.s.sholes-though she'd use a term more suited for tender ears-and that Brodie was in no danger of being put to sleep. Then Meghan would have to turn around and tell her daughter to stay with her friend Zoe for a few days. How much would she say about why? How much would Erin figure out on her own? Considering her sometimes-disconcerting intelligence, probably more than Meghan wanted to divulge.

It would be just a few days, wouldn't it? Ambrose seemed smart and dedicated. He'd figure this out soon. I shook my head. Hope wouldn't make it so. Already I seemed to have discovered more than the police had. But with Ambrose playing his cards so tight to his chest, I couldn't be sure. Even though I knew it was childish, it didn't seem fair that I'd shared and he hadn't.

I got up from the sofa and began to check the windows. Most of them opened from the bottom, an old weighted-sash design. But in the kitchen, the bas.e.m.e.nt, and the upstairs bathroom, Meghan had updated to modern double-paned windows with drop-in casings. These slid open to the side. All had st.u.r.dy locks, but adding doweling to prevent them from opening if the locks were broken would be fast and inexpensive. Not a lot we could do about someone breaking the gla.s.s, though.

I could...

... Oh G.o.d. My stomach flipped over as I realized that, just for a moment, I'd thought of asking Walter to secure the windows. I swallowed and continued checking the locks.

Okay, so I seemed to have gotten us into this pickle: possibly in danger (definitely, insisted a small voice), and having to live on the defensive as a result. I was thinking about how to make the house more secure. Erin couldn't live with Zoe's family-at least that's where I a.s.sumed Meghan would send her-forever. I couldn't just sit around while our lives closed in on us, afraid, jumping at every sound, counting on Ambrose. I'd started something, in ignorance of what I was getting into, and now I couldn't just call a time-out. Things had gone too far.

Problem was, even if I wanted to continue poking into Walter's death, I had no idea what-or who-to poke next.

Down in my workroom I checked the locks again, twisted the deadbolt to make sure it latched all the way. Feeling exposed, I turned off the lights and moved from window to window, standing back so I couldn't be seen. Light from the street filtered through toward the alley, pale and mottled by angled geometric shadows of house, fence, bushes, and.. .what was that one? The one moving back and forth? After a while, I traced it to a hanging bird feeder nudged by the wind.

Disgusted, I went back upstairs. For the first time since I'd lived with Meghan, I closed and locked the door that led from the kitchen to the bas.e.m.e.nt steps. Not sure how much good it would do, given the wobbly, painted doork.n.o.b and delicate old-fashioned key. But it made me feel better to close off that part of the house, however ineffectively.

Brodie sat at the bottom of the stairs, looking up with a worried expression on his fox-like face. While I'd been in the bas.e.m.e.nt Meghan had brought him down from Erin's bedroom, probably to take him outside, and neglected to carry him back up with her. His arthritis prevented him from bounding up the stairs the way he used to. I sat down and ran my fingers through his fur, smoothing the light strip that ruffled across his shoulders. Legend held that the fairies' saddles left this mark when they used corgis as steeds on their magical nocturnal wanderings.

"I don't want to disturb your girls," I whispered. "Or I'd carry you up myself."

Brodie sighed and slid his forepaws out a few inches. That was all it took for him to lie down. He laid his chin on his paws and looked up at me. Dogs must have a gene that tells them when to use that look to best advantage.

Standing up, I coaxed the little dog into the living room and lifted him up onto the sofa with me. Pulling the afghan from where it lay folded along the back, I rested my head on a throw pillow. Brodie snuggled up next to me, nestling the top of his head up under my arm. His warmth felt comfortable and solid. I closed my eyes, just for a moment.

I awoke with a start, and Brodie barked, a high, alarmed bark. Shushing him, I sat up, my heart pounding in my chest. Helping the dog to the floor, I strained to hear what had awoken me. I stood and moved quickly through the house, looking out the windows, checking the locks all over again. Brodie followed behind me, muttering but not barking again, his toenails clicking when we moved off the carpet. The only unusual thing was an unfamiliar white car parked across the street.

Other than that, nothing. Not a sound, not a movement.

In the kitchen the coffeemaker clock told me the time was two thirty-eight. And I became aware of how urgently I needed to go to the bathroom.

Great, Sophie Mae. Fall asleep on the couch, wake up because you've got to pee, and manage to scare both yourself and the dog in the process. No, living like this could not last long.

I used the downstairs bathroom, shut off all the lights, and hoisted Brodie. I walked with him to the front window and looked out at the white car again. Something shifted within the vehicle. Jerking back from the window, I hesitated, and then peeped around the curtain again. Was that a head, or just the headrest on top of the driver's seat? The steady rain softened the edges of everything, and I couldn't be sure. After staring at the motionless car for five minutes with Brodie clasped against my chest, I moved away, chiding myself for being an alarmist. With my bruised elbow throbbing from those twenty-five pounds of corgi comfort, I carried Brodie to the stairs guided by the orange glow of the streetlight outside.

The nightlight in Erin's room showed her burrowed under the covers. Meghan lay on top of the bedspread, curled around her daughter. I got a quilt from the closet, and she half awoke when I laid it over her. Mumbling her thanks, she went right back to sleep, obviously not as nervous as yours truly.

Meghan and Erin had each other. I took Brodie to bed with me.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

AT SEVEN-THIRTY WEDNESDAY morning I woke to find Brodie gone and the faint clatter of dishes drifting up the stairs. Reaching to throw off the covers, I gasped. Last night my hip and arm had hurt, but this morning I felt pummeled all over. As I slid one foot experimentally to the floor, dipping my toe into the day, so to speak, sharp pain ran up my side where I'd twisted away from the truck the day before.

With some effort I managed to sit up and take inventory. Besides the pulled muscle in my side, my elbow screamed when I rotated my arm. Not a something-is-ripped-or-broken sort of pain, but a loud protest of recent abuse. My hip sported a purple-black bruise extending from where low-rider jeans would sit to a third of the way down my thigh. No wonder I'd been limping the night before. These were the major causes of my discomfort, but my entire body seemed to want in on the act: every joint felt stiff; every bundle of muscle objected to flexing of any kind; behind my forehead the beginnings of a headache thudded in time to my pulse; and overnight my eyelids seemed to have turned to sandpaper.

Last night I had intended to apply arnica salve to my various painful parts, but between the stream of visitors and my falling asleep on the sofa, I'd forgotten. Now I regretted the oversight. Past experience with the little yellow flower's miraculous powers had made a believer out of me. Used topically (and only topically), it speeded the healing of bruises and muscle soreness to almost half the usual time. Ingested, it was toxic unless in a prepackaged homeopathic preparation.

I reached for my robe, then realized it still lay in an unwearable heap on the laundry room floor. Pulling on sweats was more work than I wanted, but I was cold so I didn't have much choice. After easing my softest and cushiest pair over my tender limbs, I splashed water on my face and doddered down to the kitchen, one step at a time. At least my fears from the night before seemed paltry in the daylight. I pasted a grin on my face and gimped in to breakfast.

Meghan stood in front of the sink, chewing on a piece of toast and staring out the window. She had rare blue circles under her eyes. Erin sat at the table, swinging her legs against the chair rung and reading. A bowl of cereal sat to one side of the book. Soggy flakes floated on the surface of the milk, and she hadn't touched her orange juice. I leaned over her shoulder to get a look at the book.

"Nancy Drew, huh? I used to read those."

Meghan snorted and rolled her eyes. I ignored her. Erin didn't look up. She said, "Huh," and kept right on reading. I poured some cereal and splashed milk on it. It tasted like sawdust. No wonder Erin hadn't eaten hers.

"What is this stuff?" I asked.

No one answered. I turned the box so I could see the front. Corn flakes. The way they tasted this morning I'd been sure Meghan was trying to slip some healthy super-fiber experiment by us.

The silence finally got to me. "Is anyone going to talk to me, or do I have to sit here and have a conversation with myself?" Not that I blamed them if they were mad at me.