Lye In Wait: A Home Crafting Mystery Part 6

"What time? We'd like to pa.s.s on the information to his friends."

"Oh, don't worry. I'll tell them." She said it with such relish I could imagine her rubbing her hands together in antic.i.p.ation. In the blink of an eye, she'd recovered from the shock and was getting ready for the gossip circuit.

"Come on," Meghan said and opened the door.

"Wait a minute! What happened to him?" the woman called from behind us. "Hey, don't you want your decaf?"

We walked the five blocks home at a fast clip, both happy to reach our front door. But I wasn't sure whether we should be happy or not when we heard the message Detective Ambrose had left on the answering machine, asking me to call him at the station the next day.

NINE.

ON SAt.u.r.dAY MORNING, I got Ambrose's voicemail. I dutifully left my name, number, and the time I called, hung up and dialed Caladia Acres. They transferred me to Tootie Hanover's room, and she answered on the second ring.

I asked how she was doing.

"As well as can be expected, I suppose." Her voice was dull, the delivery flat.

"I have some information from the funeral home," I said.

"You're very efficient."

"Well, Meghan is, really. And we're happy to be able to help. But they can't have a funeral until the morgue releases..." I took a breath "...well, releases Walter."

"It's all right to say it." "

I know. I'm sorry" Another deep breath. "The mortuary antic- ipates it will be at least a week and could be more than two weeks before they can do that, so the funeral may have to wait."

"Oh, no."

I hated this to drag out for her and had said as much to Meghan when she'd told me about the delay. She'd mentioned a possible alternative that might afford Tootie some modic.u.m of closure. After determining that neither she nor Walter had any particular religious affiliation, I suggested a nondenominational memorial service on Monday, two days away. She agreed and said when the time came she wanted her son cremated. That brought up another th.o.r.n.y subject.

"Do you know if Walter had a will?"

"He never said anything about it to me"

"Maybe I should look for one? I can go through all his things if you'd like. My housemate would help. Box up what's useable and donate it, save anything you might want." "

I don't know," she said.

I couldn't really blame her for being reticent. "I understand. You barely know me"

"It's not that. You're a good girl. I can tell."

That made me squirm. I didn't feel like a good girl. I felt like someone who wanted to find out as much as I could about Walter while I still had the chance. But no matter how I felt, if we didn't clean his place out, his landlady, Mrs. Gray, might just bring in someone to haul everything away, including photos and other mementos Tootie might want.

"It's too soon," I said. After all, Walter had only been dead two days.

After a long pause she said, "No, of course not. You go ahead and take care of it, if you don't mind. I'm not as mobile as I once was, and I'd rather someone who knew Walter went through his things."

"If you're sure, I'll talk to his landlady and have her let me in. If she has any questions, she'll probably call you for confirmation."

"That'll be fine. I'm pretty easy to reach." Her thin, dry laugh sounded forced.

"One last thing," I said. "Meghan said the funeral home would place the obituary with the local papers, but neither of us knew what information to include. May we tell them to contact you for that information?"

When she spoke, there was even less energy in her voice than before. "Yes. Of course. I'll expect the call."

As soon as Meghan's client left, I checked her office. It was empty, so I went in and sat down on the loveseat opposite her desk. Minutes later, she came in from the ma.s.sage room, rolling her shoulders.

"That," she said, "was a big guy. A big, tense guy."

"Get your workout for the day?"

"I'll say. Hey, I don't have any more clients until this afternoon-you want a quickie?"

Meghan's ma.s.sages turned me to mush. "Love to, but I've got too much to do"

I updated her on my conversation with Tootie Hanover.

She turned in her chair and took down two thick white towels from the shelf behind her. "I'm still surprised you told her about someone being over at Walter's that night."

She'd told me over dinner the night before that I shouldn't have given his mother something else to worry about. But Tootie was stronger than Meghan realized and certainly more interested in the truth than in being kept in the dark for her own good just because she'd pa.s.sed a certain age.

"You have to meet her."

"I hope to, soon."

"She gave me-us, actually-permission to go through Walter's things."

"Have you called Detective Ambrose back?" she asked.

"He wasn't in. I left a message." "

"The police might not like it if we go through his stuff."

"Why? They sure as heck don't seem to be doing anything to find out what happened to Walter."

I thought you wanted to do this to help his mother." "

I do. But do we have to wait? I mean, is it actually illegal?"

She looked unhappy. "I don't think so. It's not like his house is a crime scene. They may have told Mrs. Gray not to let anyone in, though."

"Well, I'm going over there and find out."

"Now?"

I nodded.

She rose. "Sparrow's coming at one, but I guess I could help until then." Sparrow was a regular client, a champion dressage rider who believed in ma.s.sage for her horses as well as for herself.

I'd planned to go down to the coffee shop later to see if any of Walter's friends showed up. The day was dribbling away already, and I wondered how to make up the time. I still had so much to do to ensure Winding Road did well during the upcoming holiday season.

We went to the main house to see Walter's landlady, Mrs. Gray. The police had said nothing about staying out of the cottage, and she was only too glad to give us the key. Meghan insisted that Mrs. Gray also get direct permission from Tootie Hanover, and I dialed the nursing home for her. Minutes later, we were entering Walter's cottage-this time through the front door.

Meghan went into the bedroom to start with Walter's clothes, and I headed straight for the kitchen.

The floor was clean. The broken gla.s.s was gone, and if I stood where the light fell at an angle, I could see the edges where a freshly scrubbed spot of linoleum stood out from the rest of the floor. The scent of peppermint I'd remembered had been replaced by the nasty smell of rotting garbage coming from the overflowing pail under the sink. Whoever had taken Walter's key had returned and cleaned up their mess. Too bad they hadn't bothered to tidy up the dirty dishes and food-strewn counters.

Dumping the garbage into the can in the alley, I watched for gla.s.s fragments, wet paper towels, any evidence of the magical floor cleanup. Nothing. Whoever had removed the broken gla.s.s from the floor hadn't left anything behind.

Somehow, I doubted the intruder had been compulsively tidy. Something about broken gla.s.s and peppermint had been important enough to break back into the cottage after almost being caught the first time.

Shaking my head in puzzlement, I opened Walter's cupboard doors until I found a cl.u.s.ter of cups and gla.s.ses. There I found five more tumblers like the one he'd dropped on my rag rug across the alley. Why had he brought his potion over there? Maybe he'd been afraid he wouldn't be found for a while if he died alone in this little cottage.

No, no, that couldn't be the reason. What if Erin had found him at our house? He adored her, and I couldn't imagine he'd risk her discovering his dead body. There had to be another explanation.

I didn't find any lye under the sink or in any of the cupboards. Of course, the police may have taken it when Mrs. Gray let them in after Walter died. He hadn't used any of my lye, so it had to come from somewhere. Could that be what had broken on the floor last night? The peppermint smell was the same.

Sighing, I headed back across the alley to raid my supply of shipping boxes and grab a tape gun. Soon Meghan and I were boxing things up like mad. We started with every shred of paperwork we could find, glancing through a handful at a time in hope of seeing something that looked like a will and then cramming it all in the cardboard cartons. As soon as a box was full, I'd cart it across to our house and come back for another. But our cursory review revealed no will. Meghan went back to work on the bedroom, and I started on the shelves in the living room.

"Hey! What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

I whirled from where I was wiping the dust off several pictures I'd gathered together for Tootie and found a dark-haired woman with corpse-pale skin standing in the front doorway.

"Where's Walter? What are you doing with his stuff?" Her little-girl voice scarcely contained her anger. When I didn't respond right away, she said, "Don't just stand there gawping, answer me!"

Meghan stepped forward. "You wouldn't happen to be Debby, would you?"

For a moment the woman looked afraid. "Why?"

Holding her hand out, she said, "I'm Meghan Bly. This is Sophie Mae Reynolds. We live across the alley there." She indicated the direction of our house with a wave of her other hand.

The woman's icy glare returned. "Good for you. So why are you ripping Walter's house apart?"

"First, tell us who you are," I said.

The woman's head swiveled toward me. She came further into the room, moving like a skittish cat, ready to leap at the slightest provocation. Meghan's hand dropped to her side, unshaken. A man, short and wiry, followed the woman in, his mouth agape as he took in the mess we'd made. Both wore jeans, he with a longsleeved plaid flannel shirt, and she with a black tank top.

She folded her thin arms over her chest. "Okay, I'm Debby. And this is-"

"Jacob," Meghan and I said together.

"What, are you two a coupla psychics or somethin'?" Jacob asked, but the joke fell flat. His questioning eyes knew something was wrong.

"Don't be stupid. Walter told them about us, is all."

Jacob shook his head. "Nuh uh. I don't think so, Debs. Somethin' happened to Walter, or he'd be here. Is he in the hospital or somethin'?" He directed this last to me.

I looked at Meghan and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this. Walter died the day before yesterday."

Debby put her hand to her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears, and she made a gurgling sound. The blood drained from Jacob's face.

"Would you like some water?" Meghan asked.

Jacob, who had seemed paralyzed by the news, now frowned at her words. "Water? What good would that do?"

He helped Debby to the dark-red sofa, where she folded into a shuddering heap, wrapping those skinny arms around herself.

"I told you something was wrong when he didn't show," she said to Jacob.

He perched on the arm next to her. "How'd he die?"

Before I could say anything, Meghan spoke. "There was an accident."

Debby raised her head. "What kind of accident?" she managed to get out.

"Well, uh, it was poison," I said.

"Poison? By accident?" She looked back and forth between us.

I was silent. Meghan pressed her lips together.

"You two know more than you're telling me," Debby braced her hands on the sofa seat as if readying to launch herself at us. "What happened to my Walter?"