House at Road's End

by Peggy Staggs

Pete chuckled. “I do know that.” His manner sobered. “I want you to know this is going to be difficult and probably expensive. She’s going to have a tough time. The cast is fiberglass, but she is small and she’s going to have to stay inside.”

  “It’s not a problem, they’re going to be house cats from now on.”

  Pete opened the door. “Patsy, come in here please.” He gave her instructions and she took the cat and left. To us, he said, “I’d like to keep her here for at least one night. Probably two.”

  “Would you check this one, too?” I lifted the big black cat from the floor. “I don’t know if anyone’s been doing anything more than feeding them. And the little one will feel better if he’s with her.”

  The vet rubbed the cat’s forehead, which caused the big guy to reach out and pat his hand. “Hm.” He took the paw, then said, “This one’s been declawed and I’d bet the other one has, too. I’ll give them a once over and their shots.” He picked the big guy up then said over his shoulder. “I’ll let you know when you can pick them up.”

  “Would you give them a bath too, please?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack smile.

  “They’re cats.” Pete stopped in the doorway. “They’re self-cleaning.”

  “No, they’re covered with cat spit.”

  Pete pressed his lips together, glanced at Jack, and left.

  »§«

  Outside Jack said, “Don’t worry about the cats, Pete’s the best. He saved Lois’ leg last year when she was shot. She doesn’t limp and the scar is so small you have to search for it.”

  “Someone shot your sweet girl? I hope you threw them in jail.”

  “I did. He’s in prison in Boise.”

  “Oh.” That was a little more than I’d expected.

  “He held up the Hot Springs, too.” He said in oh-by-the-way tone.

  When he dropped me off back at the B&B I thanked him again for letting me stay the night and for helping me with the cats.

  I found Jane standing on the back porch. “Missy, the cats are missing,” she said, by way of a greeting.” I can’t find them anywhere.”

  The Missy thing didn’t work for me. I could always tell when I was in trouble with my grandmother, because she greeted me with, ‘Well, Missy.’ No, Missy wouldn’t work. I shook my head. “I had to take them to the vet.”

  “The vet?” Her words were slow and deliberate. “Did the killer hurt those cats?”

  “The little one got caught in a horrible trap.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “What kind of trap?”

  “I threw it by the side of the building.” I pointed to the corner.

  We walked over. There in the grass, lay the device still covered with dried blood. “This is disturbing. Why would someone set traps so closed to the B&B?”

  “The only thing I’m going to disturb is Edgar Holmes. That trap-setting moron. I’m going to twist his tail, good.”

  I like Jane.

  As we came back around the corner of the B&B a truck pulled up and two men in blue vests got out. “Hello there. Sorry to bother you, our boss wanted some more samples.”

  Jane peered at the young man walking toward us. “You’re Esther’s boy, Hank, aren’t you?”

  “Hank’s my older brother.”

  “Luke.” She nodded. “How’s your mama’s bursitis?”

  “Much better. Miss Jane, we won’t be long. You and your friend haven’t been on the west side have you?”

  “No, and this is Dr. Markus. She’s going to be the new boss around here.” Jane held up the cruel snare. “I’ve got to see a man about a butt kicking. I’ll be back.” Jane marched up the driveway to a truck that looked as if it was one wrong turn from a junkyard. She got in and slammed the door...twice. “Luke, you tell your mama ‘hi’ for me.” The engine coughed and wheezed as she started it.

  Luke waved at her. “I wouldn’t want to be on her wrong side.”

  “Me either.” With one of the CSU guy’s right here I was going to get some questions answered. “What did you find out last night?”

  “You should ask the Sheriff. I’m not supposed to give out information.”

  “Jack is checking out some leads.” It sounded like I was in control...sort of.

  He shrugged. “Someone jimmied the door on the west side of this building. You’re going to need a new lock and door jamb. They didn’t get in the other house.”

  That wasn’t anything I couldn’t have found out for myself. “I should have them all changed,” I said more to myself.

  “I hear you’re going to take Doc Grant’s place?”

  “First, I’m not that kind of doctor. And second, I’m not licensed in Idaho.”

  Luke chuckled. “Too bad. Doc Grant is grumpy.”

  “May I come inside, if I stay out of the way?”

  “Sure. That was mostly for Miss Jane. She likes to know what’s going on. We’re only going to be by the west door.”

  “I’ve got people coming today and tomorrow I need to clean up the finger print powder...again,” I said to the two men as we walked inside.

  “I left a card the other night.” Luke said. “I have a little side business that cleans up after we get done.”

  “Jane told me. Can you send someone over today?”

  My cell phone rang before he could answer.

  “I’ll come back,” Luke said.

  Caller ID read, Don March. What did he want now? I pondered not answering as it rang a second time. “Hello, Don.”

  “Ensley, how’re you doing?”

  Better before you called. “I’m fine.”

  “Good. How do you like the quiet life in the wilds of Idaho?”

  He never made small talk. Ever. It set my nerves on edge. “It’s not very quiet. We had another murder here last night.” Why was he calling? Oh, I know what he said, but he never does anything without a solid reason. And I didn’t want to talk to him.

  “I heard. Do you want me to come out?”

  “No. Jack is taking care of it.”

  “Trace.” His voice was flat. “Watch out for him. He’s—”

  “Don, what do you want? This isn’t a good time. I’ve got to get ready for the funeral tomorrow.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay, Honey. And see if I can help you. Have you found out anything about your father’s murder?”

  “We’re working on it. One of Dad’s Sergeants was murdered here last night.”

  “Do you need me to come out there? I know Trace seems competent, but—”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You owe me some answers.” So there.

  “Yes, well...I’ll call you back.” Don never said good-bye or hello for that matter.

  “Don’t you—” Too late he’d hung up. And again he got information out of me and gave me nothing in return. Fleetingly, I wondered how lonely I’d had to have been to let him in my life. A couple of months ago I’d realized what Don was. He was good looking, he’d taken me to parties, and said he loved me. He didn’t. I was someone who looked decent in a dress and didn’t make a fool of herself in front of his contemporaries.

  I stood there gazing out the window.

  “Doctor Markus?” Luke’s voice startled me. “We’re all done,” he said.

  “That was fast.”

  “We wanted to double-check a few things in the daylight.” He peered into the dining room. “When do you want me to send someone to help clean up?”

  “As soon as you can would be great. We have so much to do before tomorrow. And the mayor wants us to be open for Halloween.”

  He smiled. “I’d be glad to help out anyway I can.” He handed me another card. In bold red letters it read, The Grime After the Crime.

  “When can they be here?”

  He nodded. “The girl I have in mind could use the work. She can be here this afternoon.”

  “Not until then?”

  “She’s in school. But she’s fast and good.”

  I needed a
baseline to get things started. You’ve got to have normal before you can begin. “Are there many murders around here?” I put his card on the counter by the phone.

  “These are my first ones.” He motioned to his co-worker to go ahead. “Mostly break-ins, vandals, and the odd holdup.”

  Good news and bad news. It was great there wasn’t a lot of major crime, but it also meant he didn’t have experience with major crime. So he wouldn’t know if there was anything unusual about the crime scenes. I thanked him and watched as the CSU truck pulled down the road to the main street.

  Jane was gone, the cats were gone and the B&B was empty. The building felt vast and cold.

  I put my .38 in my pocket. Things had to be cleaned up. Uncle Bill and Cindy needed rooms.

  Were the sheets clean? Where were the sheets?

  I still had on my running shoes, I’d ruin them cleaning. I decided that I had more important things to do. First I needed to read the file. Little did I know that alone would be an adventure.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I had a lot to learn about living in the country. I mean the real country. Not the nice, manicured five and ten acre estates around the cities in Virginia.

  I turned onto the main road I’d taken to the meeting last night and found it blocked. Water gushed from a fire hydrant. The cascade was in the process of washing away a section of the street and sidewalk. “That can only be an improvement.” Several men worked madly trying to stem the tide of destruction. Beyond the broken fire hydrant was a big pickup and a mad rancher who was yelling at Deputy Oliver.

  I turned around and my GPS instantly told me to take the next right. I was wise to this tactic. It was going to take me around the block and back to the water problem. Since that wasn’t an option I kept driving toward the restaurant area. The GPS recalibrated and the voice told me to make a right turn. I did what I was told. When I obey an electronic device’s instructions I wonder if someday they’d revolt and send us off cliffs or into the oceans. As my imagination sent unsuspecting vehicles in to oblivion I found myself behind a tractor going less than twenty miles an hour.

  I passed him only to find he was following a huge green something taking up the whole road and going just as slow. When big green finally turned off I made good time for about three hundred yards. I slowed for a few sheep crossing the road. Or so I thought, within seconds my car was surrounded by next year’s wool supply. What should have been a five minute trip took twenty. I pulled into the parking lot of the feed and seed store as my phone rang.

  “Hello. Dr. Markus? This is Irwin Lansky. I have Ralph’s will and some of his papers here. Are you free to come over today?”

  “Yes.” I hadn’t had time to think about wills or deeds. They took precedence over boots I wasn’t sure I wanted.

  He gave me his address.

  My GPS took me right to his office, a block past the downtown square. The building could have come straight off the set of a 40’s noir movie. A large plate glass window faced the street. Next to it was an alcove and a wood and glass door. Inside, I found a small vacant reception area. The door sat open to the back office. A man lounged behind a large oak desk that appeared as old as the building. When the tiny bell above the door rang, he glanced up.

  Wiping powdered sugar from his mouth with a paper napkin he asked, “Ensley Markus?”

  “Yes. Mr. Lansky?” I extended my hand.

  His chair groaned with relief as he hauled his round body from it. “Please call me Irwin. I heard you had a little trouble out your way last night.” He took my hand. “All this excitement will make the Boise papers for sure, maybe even Salt Lake’s.” He waved his hand at a hard oak chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I wasn’t aware my dad had a local lawyer.” I knew his lawyer. He was one of Dad’s Captains who left the Air Force and went to law school. He’d been my dad’s lawyer for twenty years.

  Irwin brushed crumbs off the papers on his desk. “It’s too early for lunch, but would you like some coffee?”

  The coffee sounded good. Until I spotted the coffee maker and the rickety metal TV tray it sat on. Neither looked as if they’d been cleaned—ever. Nasty.

  “No, thank you, I’ve already eaten.” I hoped my stomach wouldn’t betray me. Jack and I had eaten breakfast early. Maybe it was the shabby office, or the powdered sugar marching down Irwin’s tie. Whatever the reason, I wanted to get out of here. I reminded myself, this was one more step in putting this all behind me. Something I could check off my list. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Your Dad’s death.” Irwin’s face turned stern. “He gave me some papers to keep for him a month ago.”

  “What kinds of papers?”

  “There were some deeds, tax information, insurance, things like that. There were some items he wanted kept private.” He handed me several sheets of paper.

  “These are all copies.” Okay, so what was the point here? I already had these. Still, I didn’t want to alienate this guy if he had information. “I’m sure you’ve heard something.” What lawyer—the only one in town—wouldn’t have at least gossip about the only murder ‘in past remembering,’ according to Jane. I wasn’t counting the Sergeant’s murder. He wasn’t from here. I should have.

  Irwin tilted back putting more distance between us. “I don’t know anything for sure, but I do know wrong when it runs across my desk.” He took a deep breath. “I do know, Ralph was hiding something.” He paused, as he considered his hands. “This is in confidence. Ralph gave me an envelope to hold a month or so back. He called it his ‘last ditch.’ He said if anything happen to him, I was to get it to Jack. I sent it along to the Sheriff’s office when Ralph went missing.” Irwin moved his black-rimmed glasses to the top of his head. “Last I heard of it.”

  Odd. Jack hadn’t mentioned it and there was nothing about a letter in the file. “What was in it?” I leaned forward.

  And then it happened. He lied. “I don’t know. My instructions were to get it to the Sheriff and I followed them.”

  Now, I don’t have a built-in lie detector, however, I’ve been to enough DC parties and I’ve worked in and near the nation’s capitol where lies float around like dandelion fluff. So I have a fairly accurate BS meter. His voice had become tight and he’d stared me right in the eye. Oh, I know they say, if you look someone in the eye you aren’t lying. Good liars know that, so it’s not strictly true.

  “You didn’t open the envelope?” I knew if my good friend had gone missing, and he’d given me a “last ditch” letter to hold. I’d have a peek.

  “I take my clients’ trust seriously. If Ralph wanted me to know what was in it, he’d have told me.”

  Since I wasn’t having any luck going through the front door with my questions, I decided on a less direct approach. “What do you know about the resort going bankrupt?” I leaned back and waited.

  He reached out and straightened the folder on his desk. “No more than anyone else around here. One day we were all going to be rich, and the next they were gone, and we were broke. No one knows anything. Though, I have my doubts about Nate Baker.” He moved the stapler from one side of his desk to the other. I couldn’t tell if his desk rearranging was a mannerism, or a nervous habit.

  No, sir. I wasn’t buying it. I was getting tired of his evasions. “Oh, surely an intelligent lawyer like you, must have had the inside track.” I gave him my best flirty smile. The one I’d cultivated at all those DC parties.

  Instead of appearing flattered, which is what I was going for, he rubbed the back of his neck and glared at his desk top. He jerked a glance at the clock.

  With no warning he stood, extended his hand and said, “I have another client coming in. It’s a complicated case. I want to go over it beforehand.”

  The visit left me questioning my instincts. I’d always considered myself a pretty good judge of character—love interests aside. Now I wondered. In DC it was a pretty safe bet there was a power struggle going on, on all levels. I thoug
ht this far from the capitol things would be different.

  I walked toward my car. Jack. I sighed. Why hadn’t he told me about the letter? He’d given me Dad’s file. He come right out and told me, all the information he had was in there. Dad, Uncle Bill, and Jane all trusted him.

  And then there was Don March. I didn’t like the way he kept popping up. Did he have something to do with this all? No. He couldn’t. Could he?

  Lost in thought, I’d walked past my car. I stopped at the corner. As I turned to go back I found I was standing in front of Goldie’s Locks. The lock on the west door needed to be replaced. This was a great time to have them all rekeyed. The newly-remodeled storefront was the only bright spot on the block. The name of the shop hung over the sidewalk in gold plastic.

  Inside was a different story. The owner obviously spent all his money on the outside. Locks under repair lay on a scratched glass countertop. Boxes of new hardware lay below on dusty shelves. The wall behind was a confusion of latches, bolts, keys, and small boxes.

  “Hi, how can I help you?” A wiry man came out of the back room, rubbing the top of his head. I figured his lack of hair was due more to the rubbing than genetics. Embroidered on his pocket was the name Neil Rogers.

  “We had a break-in at the House at Road’s End last night that destroyed a lock. Can you install a new one for me?” I asked. “Today? I don’t want to spend the night there with an unsecured door. Not after everything.” Yup, I’d pulled out the helpless-female card and slapped it face up on the counter.

  “I Can. Do you want all the locks rekeyed?”

  I figured the room keys were good. “Just the outside doors.”

  “The house too?”

  Oh, yeah. The house. Why not? “Good idea. Yes.” He waved his arm past the shelves behind him. “You’ve got all these to pick from.”

  “I only need one new lockset and the door fixed. You can check the others to see if they’re in good repair.”

  “I have something here that will make the outside door safer. Won’t keep out a determined burglar, but it will slow him down.” He pulled a box from the shelf. “You’re my first customer today. Not much chance things will pick up. I’ll put a sign on the door and get to your job this afternoon. I heard about the murder last night.” He shook his head.