by Amy Vansant
“I can imagine it looks that way.”
“Where did you find a black light?”
“UV light. I made it.”
“How is that possible?”
“With tape and a blue permanent marker.”
“No kidding?” Declan turned the lights off again and took the flashlight from Seamus. He shone it on the cabinets and their surface glowed.
Most of it.
“What’s all this dark stuff?” he said, sweeping the flashlight back and forth. The white cabinets were splattered with dark spots that continued to the ground. It was harder to see them on the darker floor tiles, but it was clear that some of whatever had hit the cabinets had settled to the floor.
“I’m guessing blood,” said Seamus.
Declan’s head snapped up. “Seriously? I thought blood glowed beneath UV light. This is darker.”
“That’s TV stuff. You need luminol to make it glow.”
Declan continued to sweep the light across the kitchen floor, discovering more smears and splatter. “This is all blood?”
“Maybe. Might be grease and spaghetti sauce and who knows what, but I’m guessing blood. The patterns look very killy.”
“Killy?”
“Like the patterns that happen when people are killed.”
“Ah. Killy is an official detective term.”
“Exactly.”
Declan squatted and took a closer look at the floor. “It’s smeared here.”
“Where someone tried to clean it up.”
Declan moved to the light switch and turned it on. The blood spots disappeared, the drops on the lower cabinets too fine to see in the light.
Seamus stood thinking while Declan stared at him.
“Should I ask about the trash bag dress you’re wearing?” Declan asked as Seamus met his gaze.
“It’s all the rage in Paris.”
“Uh huh. What’s wrong? You look stiff, too. You’re kind of waddling.”
Seamus rubbed the back of his neck and tried to stretch his back. “I ran after a squirrel I found downstairs and slipped and fell in the mud outside. The wet sweatpants were awful.”
“You found a squirrel downstairs? You mean in the house?”
Seamus nodded. “We’ve been blaming the cats. Looks like it’s the squirrels. Little bastard had a chunk of something too, but he took it with him.”
“Maybe the cat was in the house trying to catch the squirrel.”
“Maybe.”
“Okay. I guess that explains your trash bag dress—though wouldn’t it have been easier to go upstairs and change?”
“Too lazy to go upstairs and didn’t want to do it naked anyway.”
“Since when?” muttered Declan.
They stood in silence, staring at the floor.
“So chances are good that whoever owned that tooth you found was killed right here,” said Declan.
“Probably.”
“I take it we’re going to keep this little nugget to ourselves for now. Other than Charlotte, of course?”
Seamus nodded. “This drastically changes the five second rule around here.”
“You mean the five seconds a piece of food is still edible once you’ve dropped it on the floor?”
“Yep.”
Declan agreed. “I think this has changed that rule for me permanently.”
Chapter Nineteen
Morning arrived, shedding light on yet another miserable day. Charlotte cupped her hands around her hot mug of coffee. She was starting to understand why so many northerners traveled to Florida in the winter.
She still didn’t forgive them.
“What do we have on the docket today?” she asked from her seat at the kitchen table. She’d been toying with the idea of sleeping in, but Carolina had awoken early and the whole house smelled like bacon. Fear of missing bacon had shot her out of bed like a cannon.
“Probably a nose. We find a darn body part every day,” said Carolina, cracking an egg with gusto.
Charlotte shook her head. “I mean what’s on the fix-it-up list?”
Chuck sat across from her, reading a crime thriller that one of the previous renters had left behind. He glanced up and peered over his reading glasses at her. “Changing out hardware today. Kitchen cabinets, couple doorknobs, fix a stripped door hinge, painting more trim.” He stretched his neck for a view of Darla, who sat at the computer desk, rolling through her Facebook timeline. “How much are we getting paid for this again?”
“For the umpteenth time, it’s a free vacation,” said Darla, staring through the sliding glass porch doors at the steady downpour. “Though I know it doesn’t feel like it.”
She returned her attention to the monitor where Brenda smiled, her ghost-white skin tone growing slightly darker in each photo as her tropical vacation progressed.
Chuck grimaced. “Look at that woman. We might have gotten the raw end of this deal.”
“Ya think?” said Bob. Mariska had him cutting the tomatoes she’d brought from Florida for BLT sandwiches, sans L, thanks to Carolina’s aversion to green foods.
Darla scrolled away from Brenda’s photos. “The worst part is Brenda tried to cancel on me at the last second and I wouldn’t let her. After months of begging me for help, she said she’d decided to sell this place as-is. I told her plans were already made—too late to cancel, that I’d let you all down—blah, blah blah. What an idiot I was.”
“Yep. Next time, please, let us all down,” said Chuck, returning to his book.
Mariska placed a bacon and tomato sandwich on the desk beside Darla and patted her on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You can’t control the weather.”
Darla nodded glumly and bit into her sandwich.
Mariska delivered Charlotte’s meal next.
“Where’s the salt?” asked Charlotte. On the table sat a lone pewter pepper grinder.
Mariska brought her a small, white plastic salt shaker. “The mate to that pepper is missing.”
Charlotte used the salt and then grabbed the pepper. “That’s too bad. This is a nice pepper grinder.”
Mariska nodded. “I looked all over. It isn’t here.”
“Someone probably liked it and stole it,” said Carolina.
Charlotte had eaten her breakfast by the time Declan shuffled into the room, bags beneath his eyes. “Good morning,” he mumbled.
“You look like you didn’t sleep,” said Charlotte.
The side of his mouth flashed the curl of a smile. “Thanks.”
“Want some bacon?” asked Carolina. She had a few slices on a spatula and turned to look at Declan. One slid from the utensil and slapped to the floor at her feet.
“Whoops.” She dropped the other slices onto a paper towel and bent to pick up the escapee. “I’ll eat this one.”
“No!” said Declan, lunging forward. He snatched the bacon from her hand and she stood, stumbling back a step, her mouth agape.
Declan stood holding the bacon, pinched between his fingers.
“What are you doing with that?” asked Carolina once she’d found her feet.
“Uh...”
She scowled. “I told you, I’ll eat that one. I wasn’t going to give it to you.”
“Uh...” Declan raised the bacon to his mouth and, grimacing, stalled. He looked to Charlotte as if searching for help.
“Now you’re going to eat it?” Carolina asked, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head.
“Um...”
Abby padded into the kitchen, her nose twitching at the meaty smells.
Declan glanced at the dog. “Sure. I’m going to eat—whoops.” He bobbled the bacon until it flew out of reach and fell at the soft-coated Wheaton’s feet.
Abby glanced at the bacon and then back at Declan, like a child asking for permission to tear into her Christmas gifts. Her body quivered with the strain of being a good girl.
“Don’t let her eat that,” said Charlotte.
“No problem. Here Abby...”
Declan moved like molasses toward the fallen strip of meat. He bent at the knees and Charlotte thought she heard him whisper something to the dog.
Abby scooped the bacon into her mouth and gobbled it down.
“Oh shoot,” said Declan. He stood and shrugged. “She was too fast for me.”
Charlotte frowned.
Something’s up.
She stood and took her plate to the sink. “Hey, Dec, could you help me with the ladder in our room? I can’t get the thing to fold.”
“That is, if you’re done juggling bacon,” added Carolina, squinting at him.
He offered a nervous chuckle. “Sure. Absolutely. I’ll be right back.”
“Can’t wait,” said Carolina.
Charlotte and Declan moved together toward the stairs and she urged him out of the room. It was clear to her that Carolina suspected something was up, and she didn’t want to give her a chance to inquire what.
Prodded by Charlotte, Declan hustled upstairs to her room and she closed the door.
“You can tell me what that was all about now,” she said.
He sighed. “Seamus was up last night. I found him in the kitchen. He made a UV light.”
“He made a UV light?”
Declan nodded. “Out of tape and a blue permanent marker. It was pretty amazing, really.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t think you could make an ultra-violet light. I thought they had special bulbs or—”
“Not why was it amazing. Why did he make it?”
“Oh. To look for blood splatter. All that talk about how the neighbors might be using this house to dismember bodies was keeping him awake.”
“Did he find anything?”
“Blood smears and blood mist. Couple splatters in odd places that a person wouldn’t think to clean.”
Charlotte nodded. “I get it now. The bacon fell on the blood-floor.”
Declan nodded. “I couldn’t let Carolina eat bacon that had fallen on invisible blood splatter.”
“Agreed. Yuck. And you couldn’t bring yourself to eat it either—hey, wait a second—you fed that to my dog.”
“Sorry.”
Charlotte’s lip curled. “Remind me not to kiss her for a while.”
“And if you do, give me a heads up,” said Declan.
Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed, mulling over the new information. “We need to see that freezer.”
“What freezer?”
“The one next door. When I asked if they had free space for our meat, Emmitt mentioned a freezer and then Dinah said it was broken. She acted very squirrely about it though.”
“Funny you should mention squirrels. Seamus chased one last night.”
“Where? Downstairs?”
“Yep. He thinks it had something in his little paws too. It shot out the hole in the wall before he could grab it.”
Charlotte snorted. “Good thing. I suspect grabbing squirrels never turns out the way you hope.”
“That’s what he said. Anyway, he followed it outside, but it disappeared near another hole leading to the Elder-Care-o-lina’s lower level. Maybe they are keeping a body in their freezer?”
“Maybe, but now that I think about it, squirrels couldn’t get into a freezer. Maybe Dinah’s strange reaction was less about the freezer and more about the lower level in general.”
Declan nodded. “Right Maybe it’s just stuffed down there somewhere and she didn’t want you near the freezer for fear you’d see the body.”
Charlotte turned to look at the clock on the bedside table. “Where is Seamus? Is he still sleeping?”
Declan shrugged. “Probably. He was up half the night.”
Charlotte stood. “Go wake him up. I need him to romance the nurse into letting him see the lower level.”
“Later,” said Seamus, pushing open the door.
Charlotte and Declan turned to face him.
“Were you out there eavesdropping the whole time?” asked Declan.
“Aye. Good thing too. You were in here talking about me.”
“What do you mean later?” asked Charlotte.
Seamus rubbed his head and yawned. “My back is killing me and I need a plan. And bacon.”
He turned and shuffled down the hall.
Chapter Twenty
Bob and Chuck enjoyed their afternoon bourbon at three-thirty. It had been a long day of touch-up paint and hinge-fixing and they deserved a break—for at least as long as Mariska and Carolina were taking showers and were unable to stop them.
“—it’s too much. I can’t work my charms on her any more or—” Seamus cut short his comment as he and Declan entered the great room. He stared at Bob and Chuck, seeming surprised to see them.
“Who ya seducin’?” asked Chuck.
Seamus and Declan looked at each other.
“You two and Charlotte have been up to something since we got here. Tell us what’s up or no bourbon for you,” said Bob.
Seamus grimaced and patted Declan on the arm. “Well there you go. They’ve left us no choice.” He retrieved two glasses from the kitchen cabinets and sat.
Bob poured the newcomers two fingers of bourbon as Seamus shared their desire to check the lower level of the Elder Care-o-lina for bodies.
“You really think there’s a body down there?” asked Bob.
Seamus shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Chuck slowly twirled his glass in his hand. “You know, the weather around here isn’t great but there’s never a dull moment. The last time we had dead bodies back home, it was water skiers in a propeller, down at the lake.” Chuck glanced at the butter dish, still tucked at the end of the kitchen counter. “Come to think of it, it’s not that much different.”
“I’ll do it,” said Bob. He looked at Chuck and pointed to him with his thumb. “We’ll do it.”
“Do what?” asked Declan.
“We’ll investigate the freezer angle.”
Seamus scowled. “How are you two going to get in there?”
Bob didn’t skip a beat. “I’m going to pretend I need to inspect their HVAC system. I’ll tell them I’m working on ours and I need to compare.”
Seamus stroked his chin. “That’s actually not bad. How’d you come up with that?”
“It’s true. I was working on our HVAC and I did almost go over there. Decided to have a bourbon instead when I heard Mariska and Carolina say they were going to get cleaned up for dinner.”
“So you know how to work on HVAC systems? You can sound like you know what you’re doing?”
Bob scoffed. “Sure.”
“I don’t know. It might be dangerous,” said Declan.
Seamus tucked back his chin. “But if I end up locked in a freezer, you’re okay with that?”
Declan took a sip of his bourbon. “Sneaking around is what you do. Anyhow, if you end up in a freezer, I figure you got off easy.”
“You might be right there. But Bob has a good plan—”
Declan shook his head. “But who knows what those people are capable of or who they really are? If Bob and Chuck—”
“They’re talking about us like we aren’t here,” interrupted Chuck.
“I noticed that.” He rested his forearms on his thighs and leaned forward. “I’ll be fine. Chuck’s coming with me. He’s a black belt. Any funny business and hi-yah!” Bob slashed at the air with his hand.
Chuck nodded. “I am. It’s true. Hi-yah.”
Declan scowled at the two older men. “How much have you guys had to drink?”
Bob grinned. “Enough to think this sounds like a lot of fun.” He and Chuck hi-fived.
Seamus scratched his jaw. “What the heck. What could go wrong?”
Declan sighed.
Seamus spent the next fifteen minutes walking Bob and Chuck through what to look for, what to do and what not to do.
Bob stood and finished his glass. “Consider it done.”
Chuck rose and followed suit, down to echoing Bo
b’s words. “Consider it done.”
Chuck marched to the kitchen to put on his boots and jacket while Bob donned the spare set.
“We should probably take a roadie. Might be the last chance we get for a while,” said Chuck as his hand settled on the door knob to head outside. He made an about-face, grabbed his glass from the kitchen counter and filled it with bourbon, just short of the lip.
“You didn’t get mine?” asked Bob as Chuck returned to his side.
“We’ll share,” said Chuck.
Bob clinked an imaginary glass to Chuck’s real one and with a final wave at Seamus and Declan, headed outside.
The rain had eased, and though it was nearing evening, the sky was the brightest it had been all day. The two men sloshed across the yard and up the front steps of the Elder Care-o-lina to ring the bell.
A woman dressed in a white nurse’s uniform answered the door.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’ve had dreams that started this way,” mumbled Chuck.
Bob elbowed him.
“Oof!” Chuck scrambled to keep his glass from sloshing.
Bob smiled at the nurse. “Hello my good lady. We’re from next door. My name’s Bob and this is Chuck.”
“Hi,” croaked Chuck.
“Julie,” said the nurse.
“We’re working on the furnace next door and we need a frame of reference A quick peek at a working unit. Since your house seems to have been built in the same style and around the same time as ours, we suspect it had the same builder. We wanted to take a peek at your system and see if the sticker that wore off of ours is still there.”
Julie scowled. “I don’t know. Emmitt is taking a nap—”
“It will be two seconds and then we’ll be out of your hair. What if I promise to leave our muddy boots on the porch?” said Bob.
Julie sighed. “Fine, I guess. Just hurry.”
The men stepped out of their boots and walked inside.
“Go around the stairs and then go down,” said Julie, pointing.
“Yep. It’s just like our house,” said Chuck.
They walked downstairs and flipped on the light.
The big room was largely empty. Whereas someone had put a sofa, some rugs and a workbench in their lower level, the nursing home used the space solely as a storage area. Boxes lined one wall.