An Uncollected Death

by Meg Wolfe

the apartment—that she had to hug somebody, and Simon was it. She didn’t even care if he hugged her back, her happiness was complete.

  He did, however, laugh a little and hug her back, if a little more reservedly. “You should be okay now. It’s a pretty straightforward fix once it’s diagnosed.”

  She realized they were talking nose to nose—his arms were still around her, and hers around him. She suddenly felt shy. “How, uh, how much do I owe you, and of course Donovan?”

  “Not a dime. Part was cheap. The knowhow was priceless.” He looked at her with deadpan seriousness, then winked and let her go.

  “Simon, I don’t know how to thank you. You know, last night, and now this. I hope you were able to learn something about Donovan.”

  “Not a thing, other than that a cop, any cop, makes him nervous as hell. He’s a tough read. But you,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “need to get home and try to relax the rest of the day. Don’t try to move in today. Promise me that.”

  She felt as if his eyes were looking right into her brain, and nodded. “Helene made me promise already.”

  “Good. Got my number in case you get stranded again?” He got his phone out again.

  “No, actually. Good idea. Does it have to keep running like this for a while, or can I stop at The Coffee Grove for a few minutes? I don’t have any Internet service at home anymore, and I want to see if Ellis emailed me.”

  She handed him her old “dumb phone,” and he looked at it for a moment before adding his number to her contacts. “I’d like your number, too, okay? Didn’t you have a different phone last week?”

  “Oh yeah, I did, but I downsized that, too.” She entered her number in his contacts. “I admit I really miss it sometimes.”

  “You can stop and start the Jeep as much as you want now, but if there’s a problem, get hold of me right away.” He looked at the time on his phone and reacted with surprise. “Running late, and I’ve got to shower and get to class, but see you soon?”

  She nodded and watched as he walked down the sidewalk towards Pierce Street.

  Charlotte moved the Jeep into a different parking space, even though it wasn’t much closer to The Coffee Grove, but she didn’t care. It was running. Things would be back on track tomorrow.

  It was still early enough in the day to catch Ellis, who was luckily online, and mother and daughter had a good chat, catching up on news. Martin Stanton hadn’t left any messages, so Charlotte assumed things were progressing smoothly. She wanted to go back to Olivia’s house and take another look around, to see if there was any clue as to what Donovan and his associates were looking for. She knew, however, that she needed to get home and check on things in person, to start making decisions about what pieces of furniture were going to go in the apartment, and not left for sale. Her phone rang. Helene.

  “Hi, Helene. They got it fixed!”

  “I heard. I’m so glad, Charlotte. You are going to go home and rest now, right?”

  “Yes I am. Again, thanks so much for breakfast. I feel guilty that I won’t be able to work at Olivia’s tomorrow, but I’ve got to get out of my house as soon as possible.”

  “Well, don’t feel guilty! It’s my fault for jamming you up, I’m the one that should feel guilty. I wanted you to know that I did reach Donovan, and I read him the riot act. He has promised me that he will keep his associates out of there, and avoid the place until after the auction.” She paused. “I don’t know that I believe him, though.”

  “I hope you aren’t too upset, Helene.”

  “I’ll be just fine, and it won’t be long before it’s out of our hands altogether. Now go home, dear girl.”

  “I will probably see you tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure you’re going to move tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely. Going to get an early start loading things up, and hope to be back in town by noon or just after. Thanks for the wonderful breakfast, Helene. It’s kept me going today.”

  “Any time, Charlotte.”

   

  Back home in Lake Parkerton, Martin Stanton’s crew had everything under control, at least as far as they were concerned. Charlotte, however, found it bewildering, partially because she was tired, but mostly because they’d made so much progress in the day and a half since she was last at home. There were tables set up in nearly every room. Even in the upstairs hall there were shoe and garment racks, where a Stanton employee had been organizing her wardrobe by tops, bottoms, coats, and accessories. The rod in her closet had been fixed. The suitcases she’d filled with the clothes she knew she was going to keep were luckily still in there. She had since added some boxes with a few other things she’d pulled out at the last minute—extra clothes, mementos, spare sets of linens and towels, things both sentimental and stylish, as if she had been impulse-shopping in her own house.

  She realized now, however, that there wasn’t going to be room in the apartment for everything. If she could let the painting go, she could let these extra things go, too. Time to be realistic, to be strong. She gave the boxes of extra things back to the crew, and began to make the final list of what she was going to take with, as small and efficient a list as possible.

  Seventeen

  Tuesday, September 24th

   

  It was six in the morning again, barely daylight, and Charlotte walked out on the deck overlooking the lake for the last time, red coffee mug in hand. This was it, she thought. Moving day. Everything changes. She was both excited and sad.

  Stanton’s crew wouldn’t be there until eight, giving her a couple of hours of peace and quiet. She planned to make no more than three trips back and forth between Lake Parkerton and Elm Grove today, and then only one trip more on Friday, the day before the sale, to sign off on everything. Whatever needed moving had to be done today, because she needed to finish trying to find Olivia’s notebooks before Saturday. There was just enough gas in the Jeep for five trips. She had it all planned out, everything under control.

  A flock of Canada geese took off from the water, their stately flight moving up and arcing around to the south. A pair of deer moved carefully down a hill, then jumped over the fence into a neighbor’s back yard for a breakfast of shrubbery. Squirrels ran back and forth to stockpile their winter hoard. A ground hog stopped at the edge of the street and looked both ways before scuttling across and disappearing under a storage shed. She was unlikely to see this from her apartment on busy Harvey Street.

  Time to get going. Clothes and toiletries were already packed, so Charlotte loaded them first. She decided on using an air bed for the time being, as it was portable, and loaded that up with the boxes of things Ellis wanted to save. Next she packed towels and sheets, then kitchen things, which was easy because she had already sorted through them the night she cleaned the kitchen. That night felt like a month ago.

  She poured another cup of coffee and began to pack up whatever was left to do in her office, and felt proud that all the essential paperwork and files had been scanned and saved digitally. The office chair would probably have brought a nice price at the sale, but Charlotte’s aching back and legs reminded her that a good chair was worth its weight in gold. It would come with, too, and she wheeled it down the hall, out the front door, and lugged it down the steps. When she reached the driveway, a battered green pickup truck pulled into the driveway behind the Jeep.

  Her first instinctive thought was of Bosley Warren; the early morning sun glared off the windshield, preventing her from seeing the driver. Both truck doors opened, and she tensed, trying to remember where she set her cell phone.

  “HELLOOOO!” Charlotte almost went limp with relief at hearing Diane’s big cheerful voice. The passenger waving at her was Simon, who was carrying a bag from The Coffee Grove.

  “What on earth are you two doing here?” asked Charlotte.

  “Helping you move,” said Diane, giving her a hug. “We brought carbs, too!” She grabbed the bag from Simon and held it out to Charlotte.

  “Good
morning,” said Simon, friendly, smiling, but not giving her a hug.

  “How did you know? And don’t the two of you have to work?”

  “I’m free this morning, as luck would have it,” said Simon.

  “I just moved appointments around. Helene alerted the troops. Why didn’t you tell us the other day? You know we would have been glad to help and there’s no way you should be doing everything by yourself when you don’t have to—”

  “Oh, but I couldn’t, you all are so busy and I’m only taking what I can handle by myself, and Simon, you just helped me yesterday, and—”

  “Charlotte,” said Simon, “It’s okay. Really. Many hands make light work.”

  Diane nodded fast in agreement.

  Charlotte was almost speechless, but managed a few words. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Diane grinned. “Well, then, put on more coffee! Put us to work!”

   

  There was no better way to turn the bittersweetness of leaving her house into a celebration of the future than to have friends help with the moving and what remained of the packing. In some ways, it took a little longer, partially because of stopping to converse, but also because the nature of the project shifted now that there were two trucks and three sets of hands. Diane and Simon repeatedly cautioned her against taking too little, especially since she wouldn’t have to worry about restricting herself to only what she could carry on her own.

  “Oh, I understand what