Hannah West: Sleuth on the Trail (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

by Linda Johns

  “Wait a second,” I said out loud. Izzie lifted her head slightly in case I said anything of interest to her. “This vase was in the dining room two nights ago.” It looked good in its new position, but it also seemed a teensy bit dangerous to have this porcelain vase in a low, open area in a house with a rambunctious preschooler and a tail-wagging dog. When Libby had seen my sketch of it the other night, she’d told me how much she’d always loved that vase and how it had been her great-great-great-grandmother’s.

  I headed toward the dining room, with Izzie padding after me, to see if maybe there was another vase just like this one. But the vase I’d sketched on Thursday night was in the family room, not the dining room. A different vase, a bit taller, was in its place. I also noticed that the dining room table had been turned 90 degrees. The chairs were placed with two on each long side, instead of one on each of the four sides, as they had been the last time I was there. People rearrange their furniture all the time, but this felt strange. I couldn’t tell if anything else was different. I scanned the hutch and the top of a dining buffet.

  Next to a glass bowl of little oranges was a small black polished rock. I picked it up, already knowing what I was going to see. This time, I could even decipher the kanji. It was a character I’d seen several times while researching the other three stones.

  This one said “energy.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I DID WHAT any top-notch private eye does in a situation like this:

  I called my mother.

  I had imagined how creepy it would be to know that someone was inside your house. Someone you hadn’t invited. And now I was feeling it.

  Two hours later, Libby and Calvin pulled into the garage. They came in through the basement and up to the family room. “We’re home!” Libby called. “All boyfriends up here with Hannah better disappear—” She stopped midsentence when she saw my mom. A look of panic instantly took over her face.

  “Everything’s okay!”

  “Rachel’s fine!”

  Both Mom and I started talking at the same time, knowing that Libby and Calvin would be obviously worried why their responsible babysitter had needed her mother to hang out with her. I could tell they still felt something was wrong, even after they checked on Rachel and kissed her while she was dreaming.

  Libby came back to the kitchen and offered us tea. She has one of those contraptions in which you heat water in the morning and it stays the perfect temperature for tea all day. I’d seen this same thing at Uwajimaya, a Japanese market down in the International District/Chinatown. (People between the ages of forty and sixty tend to call that area the International District, which is what it was called in the 1980s. But it’s really Chinatown, so now people do a slash when they talk about it. You know: a slash in the middle so that it’s both things: International District/Chinatown.)

  “Did you move the water, Hannah? It’s absolutely no big deal if you did. It must have been heavy to move, though,” Libby said.

  “Nooooo, I didn’t move it,” I said.

  “That’s strange. I guess Calvin did this morning, and I was so busy all day I didn’t even notice. Although I did make tea this afternoon …” Her voice trailed off.

  “Where is it usually?” I asked while I grabbed my sketch pad. I added “water contraption moved” to my list of odd occurrences.

  “It’s in the corner, between the wall and the toaster,” she said. She was looking at the vase on the end table. Her face was scrunched up in a look I interpreted as puzzled. I looked at Mom. She nodded to me, a signal to go ahead. I took a deep breath.

  “I don’t know your house that well yet, but I was wondering about some other things that have been moved since we had that meeting last night,” I said.

  Libby plopped down on the sofa. Calvin, who had gone upstairs to change out of his suit and into sweatpants and a T-shirt, sat next to her and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s been in our house. That’s what you think, isn’t it? Oh, dear! Was it tonight, while you and Rachel were alone?”

  I didn’t think it had happened while we were there. You’d think I’d pick up on it if someone had been moving furniture around in the dining room.

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “I was drawing Izzie tonight, and I noticed that vase was in the family room. I noticed only because I had sketched the vase last night when it was in the center of the dining room table,” I said.

  “Those pictures, the photographs,” Calvin said. “Those were in the dining room, too, weren’t they, Lib?”

  Mom and I followed them into the dining room. “I don’t suppose you and Rachel were rearranging furniture tonight?” Libby asked softly. I shook my head no.

  “There’s something else,” I said. “The rock over by the satsumas. Was it there before?”

  “Satsumas? Like little oranges?” Libby and Calvin looked at the bowl on the buffet. “We didn’t have any satsumas.”

  Calvin picked up the rock and slid his fingers over the smooth surface. “I wonder what this symbol means? I wonder if it has significance?” he mused.

  “I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure it’s Japanese kanji for ‘energy.’ I’ll look it up tonight and let you know,” I offered.

  “I guess there’s no point in calling the police, with the track record our neighbors have had,” Calvin said. “On the other hand, I really think we should call them in the morning.”

  “The parade is in the morning, too. It will be crazy around here,” Libby said.

  “What parade? Rachel was talking about how excited she was for the parade, too, but I wasn’t sure what she was talking about,” I said.

  “Antiques Caravan, that public television show, is rolling into town tomorrow. They’re filming part of their opening sequence on Fourteenth Avenue to get some shots of historical houses in Seattle,” Calvin said. “Rachel’s extremely excited to be a firefighter on the sidewalk as the caravan passes by.”

  “It’s not exactly a costume parade,” Libby began, “but you know Rachel. Any excuse to dress up.”

  This was the first I’d heard about Antiques Caravan coming to town. It seemed it was news to Mom, too. Maybe everyone on the street had found out before we moved in.

  Calvin walked Mom and me home, which Mom insisted wasn’t necessary. Calvin said he always made sure Rachel’s babysitters made it safely home.

  It was after midnight, but I needed to get some answers. I got out my list of things that had been changed in Libby and Calvin’s house:

  Vase moved to family room

  Family photos moved to family room

  Dining room furniture rearranged

  Bowl of fresh fruit (satsumas) appeared

  Hot water container moved

  Polished stone with symbol for “energy” added

  I pulled out Feng Shui for Your Home and began looking for any possible meaning. I wasn’t sure if the bowl of fruit was significant because it was food or because of the orange color. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I paged through the book, looking for meaningful words to jump out at me.

  Family was the first word to get my full attention. In that section I found this:

  “The Creativity and Children area is located in the West corner of your home.”

  Their family room was in the back of the house, facing downtown, the water, and the west. Apparently this was a good area for family photos and personal items.

  Perhaps the dining room was rearranged because of this philosophy: “You can change the flow of energy by moving your furniture around.” The rock that said “energy” could be a token to remind us of the importance of energy and change. It was placed in the room where the flow of energy had been redirected.

  Two things could explain the bowl of satsumas. Fruit represents abundance. I surmised that abundance in the dining room could represent a bountiful feast to keep the family healthy and nourished. I also read that the dining room should be the warmest room in the house, and one way you can warm
it up is to introduce reds, golds, and oranges. The satsumas were doing double duty: as fruit they represented abundance; their orange color helped warm the room.

  Much was written about electrical appliances. It was advised to not place water or a water source between an electrical outlet and an appliance. That could be why the toaster was moved to be right next to the outlet, and the water container was moved to remove interference.

  It was one o’clock in the morning by the time I turned off the light. Luckily, the next day was Saturday, so I could sleep in.

  CHAPTER 12

  SO MUCH FOR sleeping in.

  “Hannah, it’s for you. It’s Lily, and she doesn’t sound happy,” Mom said, handing me the phone.

  “Hannah Jade West, I’m so disappointed that you didn’t give me advance warning of the Antiques Caravan parade in front of your house,” Lily started off, without even saying “Hello,” “How was babysitting,” or “So sorry to wake you up before noon.”

  “Huh?” was the only response I managed.

  “My dad woke me up to show me the front page of the local news section. Antiques Caravan is doing a TV shoot on your street, as if you didn’t know,” she continued.

  “Actually, I didn’t know until—”

  “I’m jumping in the shower now, and I should be there in a half hour. Maybe thirty-five minutes. I need to figure out what to wear,” Lily said. “See you then.”

  I might as well get up and hit the shower, too.

  Antiques Caravan is a superpopular show on public television. Once a week people tune in to watch other people find out if their family heirlooms are truly heirlooms … or just junk. It’s pretty addictive to watch. Last week a man brought in an old map he’d found in his father’s attic after his father died. The map was a 1928 Grizzly Gasoline Road Map of Montana. Just an ordinary map that you fold up and stick in your car’s glove compartment. But this guy’s dad had kept it neatly folded and stored in an envelope. The pristine condition, as well as the advertisement for a gas company that didn’t exist anymore, made the map worth several hundred dollars. The man who now owned the map was ecstatic, even though he wasn’t going to sell it right away.

  That same week, a woman brought an ivory bowl that had been handed down through her family. She seemed confident that it was a true heirloom, worth a lot of money. Turns out it was simulated ivory instead of real ivory. In my opinion, that makes the bowl much more desirable. The thought of killing elephants for ivory is completely disgusting to me. Anyway, because it wasn’t real ivory the bowl was valued at a few hundred dollars, not the thousands of dollars the owner had been expecting. Turns out that the map of Montana and the simulated ivory bowl were worth the same amount. One person was thrilled about it, the other sorely disappointed. Kind of funny how it all turned out. I’m sure there’s a life lesson in there.

  Each episode of Antiques Caravan opens with shots of the city they’re visiting. They’re called “establishing shots” because they establish the location with images of the city skyline and landmarks. They also try to show some local color. An old-style truck trailer with the Antiques Caravan logo leads a parade down a residential street in the old section of the city. I guess this time our street was the one they were going to use to showcase older homes in Seattle. This was the “parade” that Rachel had been so excited about.

  What to wear for a parade? Let’s see. How about jeans, high-tops, and my school ultimate Frisbee sweatshirt (the one that said “Chavez Ultimate”). Cool, but classic. I pulled the sweatshirt off soon after I’d put it on. I went to the closet and grabbed my mom’s old Washington State University sweatshirt that had the cougar mascot’s head on the front. It was vintage and cute—and added a certain local flavor to the Caravan crowd. Maybe it would earn me a second or two on TV.

  I ran down the stairs when the front doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it!” I called out to Mom. I swung the door open, ready to say something utterly witty and sarcastic to Lily, but when I opened the door I saw a firefighter. A little one.

  “Hi, Hannah. Are you coming to the parade?” she asked.

  “I hope this isn’t too early to stop by,” Rachel’s mom said. “Rachel insisted that we make sure you were up and ready to go to the parade.”

  “Teenagers sleep too late on Saturdays,” Rachel said.

  “I’m up and I’m ready. I don’t have a firefighter uniform, so I decided to wear a cougar,” I said. Rachel nodded, like she was giving me her approval, so I went on. “My friend Lily is coming over, too. Do you want to come in and have some hot chocolate and wait for her?”

  Rachel nodded again and marched her little firefighter self into our house and toward the kitchen, calling for the cats as she went. “Jasmine! Sport! Simon! Reba! Dolly! Here kitties, kitties.” She’d obviously spent time in the house and with the cats before.

  Mom invited Libby in for tea, and the two of them went into the living room to talk. Rachel and I hung out at the kitchen bar counter on “the tallest stools” (as Rachel called them), sipping our cocoa and talking about different waving techniques for parades.

  “I like this one,” Rachel said, enthusiastically shaking her hand back and forth.

  “How about this one?” I moved my left and right arms in an interpretation of a stop-motion animal.

  Rachel giggled. “You look like a robot! Now I’m a princess, waving to my royal kingdom.” My little firefighter friend did a quite impressive imitation of one of those beauty queens with fake smiles and tight, sparkly dresses who always appear on at least one float during a traditional parade.

  “There’s also this one,” I said, extending my hand at a right angle and moving it in circles clockwise, then counterclockwise.

  “Wax on, wax off,” said Lily as she walked into the kitchen. We burst into giggle fits and continued “wax on, wax off,” which is funny only if you’ve seen the original Karate Kid movie seventeen times like we have. When I try to explain why this is absolutely hysterical, I usually get a polite “Oh, that’s nice” comment. This time, Rachel giggled along with us, caught up in our laughter.

  “Love the outfit, Rach,” Lily said approvingly. She looked at me, sort of smirked, and added, “Always so nice to see you, Hannah.”

  “Love your … boots” was all I could come up with in return. “I gather you’re dressing in a historical fashion today?”

  Lily was wearing a straight light brown linen skirt that reached midway down her calves. She had on dark brown tights and black leather ankle boots that laced up the front. A beige linen top was tucked in under a three-inch wide suede belt. A brown cardigan and her hair in a French braid were the final touches to her vintage look.

  “The houses on this street are mostly circa 1901 to about 1915. I believe I’ve achieved a modicum of success dressing appropriately for that era,” Lily said. Just then her cell phone rang, which kind of negated the historical authenticity of her getup. I mean, “outfit.”

  “Is it time?” Rachel asked, pointing to the clock above the stove.

  “Yes, it is! Let’s hit the streets,” I said, helping her off the bar stool.

  CHAPTER 13

  “I GUESS THAT guy overslept,” I said once we were outside. A man in his bathrobe was running down the street after what I presumed was his car, which, at that moment, was hooked up to a tow truck. The rest of the street was clear of parked cars.

  The street looked wider and more majestic without cars parked next to the curb. The lack of cars really helped show off the towering oak and maple trees, while also opening up the view to show off people’s front yards and houses.

  The sidewalks were lined with people on both sides of the street. It looked like there was a good crowd along the parade route all the way down to Volunteer Park—about a five-block length. I recognized several people from the Block Watch meeting.

  “If this had been just one week earlier, it would have been a parade to celebrate our moving in,” I said.

  “I’m gl
ad you moved here,” Rachel said, still clinging to my hand.

  “Hannah, if you have time to let Rachel stay with you during the parade, I know she’d be thrilled. We’ll consider it babysitting. Will that work for you?” Libby asked.

  “Deal,” I replied.

  “I’ll be nearby if you need anything,” she said. “Oh, and here’s a key in case you need to get into the house for anything,” she added. I could tell she was relieved to be able to mingle with the neighbors on the sidewalk without constantly keeping an eye on a child. I’ve done lots of babysitting jobs where the mom or dad is in the house or in the yard, but just wanted a bit of a break. In fact, I had a couple of jobs as a “mother’s helper” (even though it was really with a dad who ran a business out of his house, but no one says “father’s helper”) even before I took the babysitting class at Children’s Hospital.

  I looked around the small crowd, wondering if I’d see anyone from school. I saw the spiky-haired yin/yang woman, Louise, moving through the crowd, shaking hands and giving something to people. The younger woman with the apricot sweatshirt was there, too. She smiled as Louise introduced her to people. She looked across the street and waved to me and Rachel, too. I did one of those quick look-arounds to make sure she was waving to us before I waved back.

  A white Ford F-something pickup (one of the really big kinds) was driving slowly down Fourteenth. A woman stood in the back talking into an amplified megaphone. She was far enough away that I couldn’t hear what she was saying. As the truck moved closer, I saw the familiar Antiques Caravan logo on the hood and the driver’s-side door. The truck stopped in the middle of our block.