by Patricia Fry
“All for the same person?” Rupert asked.
“No,” Suzette said. “That’s what’s really strange. We saw papers down there belonging to at least four different people, right?” She asked, glancing at the others.
“Yes,” Michael said. “Maybe more.”
“How many documents are there?” Laura asked.
After glancing at Arthur, Michael said, “It’s hard to tell. Our view to the bottom of that pit was somewhat obstructed.”
Gail put down her fork. “Sounds like an identity-theft ring to me.” She tilted her head. “Were people doing that before computers?”
“What were the dates on the things you found?” Laura asked.
Suzette said, “The driver license the cat brought up expired in 1975. And one of the other papers had a date of July 1964.”
“I could see through my telescope other similar dates. The latest date I saw was 1988,” Arthur explained.
“All dated around the time the Randalls were here,” Laura muttered.
“Yeah, and it seems that someone had a purpose for storing them there—that pit was very well hidden,” Michael said.
“Only… ” Arthur started.
“Only what?” Michael asked.
“Well, it seems to me that the papers were discarded rather than being stored.” He faced Michael. “Don’t you think?”
Michael shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so—like maybe they were tossed down into that hole before it was sealed off.”
“But if the object was to dispose of them, why didn’t they destroy them?” Arthur asked. “They could have burned them in that old incinerator.”
“Could someone have kept the documents for blackmail purposes?” Savannah asked, glancing around at the others. When no one responded, she said, “Okay, so what do we know? That it was probably the Randalls who tossed those papers in there.”
“Or,” Suzette interrupted, holding one finger in the air, “someone who worked for them.”
Everyone stared at Suzette for a moment, digesting what she had said.
“But why?” Savannah asked no one in particular. “Who are these people, and why did someone have their private papers?”
“Yeah, what do these people have in common?” Arthur said.
“Ah yes,” Michael said. “Good question. What did they have in common?”
“They all must have known the person who put their papers in that pit,” Suzette suggested. “That’s one common denominator.”
“But,” Arthur said with an air of intrigue, “were those papers given over to this person or did he steal them?”
“And why?” Savannah added.
****
“I’ve been thinking about how we can get the rest of those papers out of that pit,” Michael said the next morning at breakfast.
Arthur glanced up from his meal. “Did you come up with anything?”
“I have a couple of ideas.” He leaned forward. “Do you think it’s important that we retrieve them?”
While Arthur thought about the question, Suzette responded, “They must be important, Michael, or why would someone have gone to so much trouble to preserve them like that?”
Michael chuckled. “That’s still the mystery, isn’t it—did they hide them or discard them? Maybe the answer is in the papers, themselves. I think we should try to get our hands on them.”
“I agree,” Arthur said. He grinned. “Maybe it’s the wannabe attorney in me, but I can’t stop thinking about how those documents wound up down there.”
Savannah’s eyes widened. “You still want to be an attorney, Arthur? I thought you’d given up on that.”
He grimaced. “Yeah, I don’t particularly want to get involved with the courtroom drama, but I’m still intrigued by the investigative aspect of the profession.” He laughed. “You know how I like trying to figure out puzzles.”
“Well, I’m kinda curious, too,” Michael confessed.
More excitedly now, Arthur asked, “How do you suggest we approach the project?”
“It seems to me we need to make that hole wide enough so that one of us can climb down in there. From what I could see, the pit is wider at the bottom.”
Arthur nodded. “Makes sense. What sort of tools do we need for that? Shovels?”
Michael laughed. “Not unless you want to spend the next few days digging that compacted dirt out by hand.”
“So you think we need some sort of heavy equipment?”
“Or dynamite?” Suzette suggested.
Michael laughed. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? Amateurs with explosives… we could level the whole mansion.”
“And burn the papers up in the process,” Arthur said, chuckling.
“Let’s see if we can get some sort of digging machine out here to scoop out the dirt along that narrow side,” Michael suggested.
Arthur nodded.
“Where’s Ruth?” Savannah asked, looking around. “Sleeping in? She must be tired after working the sale all week.”
Arthur took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know. We haven’t seen her this morning.” He set his cup down and said, smiling, “It’s strange to not see Ruthie first thing in the morning.” He thought for a moment before saying, “I think we’ve spent just about every day of my life together—and now things are changing before my eyes.”
“That’s right,” Savannah said. “She was your nanny from birth, wasn’t she?”
Arthur nodded. “And my best friend through so many… challenges. Now we’ll be going our separate ways,” he said, squeezing Suzette’s hand and nodding toward Rupert. “It’s kinda… ”
“What, bittersweet?” Savannah suggested.
He nodded and blinked back a flow of emotion.
Sensing an awkward moment, Laura took a quick breath. She looked at her watch. “We don’t open the doors until eight. Ruth will probably be along any minute.” She looked up. “Oh, here she is now. Good morning, Ruth.”
“Morning,” she said. She sat in a vacant chair next to Suzette, and patted the younger woman’s hand affectionately. “How are you all this morning?” she asked, glancing around the table.
Everyone acknowledged the greeting and began passing plates of scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast in her direction.
“No thanks,” she said, reaching for a bowl of fruit. “I’m… eating light this morning.”
Savannah studied Ruth. Finally, she asked, “Is everything all right?”
Ruth took a deep breath and let it out, then looked down at her plate. “I’m not sure.” After a moment, she said, “My sister called last night.” She took on a defensive stance. “How she can afford a cell phone is beyond me, when she cannot afford to get herself into some sort of housing.” She glanced up at Savannah. “She wanted to talk. I think she was… how do you say… strung up… or strung out… on some drug or maybe liquor.” She fidgeted with her napkin. “I don’t really know her—maybe she is that way all the time. Anyway, she is concerned about her friend.” She glanced at Laura and Gail. “… the one who used to live here. She said Miriam has been terribly upset since she came here. She cries a lot and she is drinking more. Mattie said she screams in the night while she is sleeping.”
Savannah winced. “Nightmares? I can imagine how hard it would be for someone who… lives like she does to remember nice family times in such a beautiful home.”
Arthur cringed and snickered. “What beautiful home are you talking about, Savannah?” He spoke more quietly. “Maybe she has terrible memories, too. Maybe this place is full of evil.” He thought for a moment, then said, “I’d like to know something about the people who lived here before we did—find out who they were and what skeletons they kept in these closets.”
Suzette looked at him inquisitively. “Why do you think they had skeletons?”
“Well, as Detective Craig said once, ‘People with money always have secrets and some of those secrets are dark.’”
“Maybe some of those secrets are revealed in th
e documents we found,” Michael said as he stood and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Now to find a digging machine. Do you know of a rental yard near here?”
Arthur chuckled. “Rental yard? I was going to buy the machine.”
Michael looked stunned for a moment, then he started to laugh. “That’s right, buddy, you can afford to buy one, can’t you?” In a more serious tone, he explained, “But if you don’t need one for other jobs, it’s a waste, so why don’t we just rent one for now, okay?”
Once the two men had stepped outside to make their call, Ruth said, “Savannah, my sister is coming out here this morning as soon as she can get a ride. Will you stay with me?”
“You want me to be with you when you talk to your sister?”
Ruth nodded. “If you do not mind. I really would.”
“Sure. I can do that. Do you know why she’s coming?”
“Not really. She said she wants to talk to me. I think it’s about her friend Mims.”
“Mims?” Savannah asked, looking puzzled.
“Well, Miriam. Mims is her street name or nickname, I suppose.”
****
Two hours later, just after Savannah had bathed and dressed Lily, her cell phone rang. “Savannah, it is Ruth. She is here. I am taking her out on the deck of the empty bungalow—the Lilac Bungalow. Can you meet us there?”
“Sure,” Savannah said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Hi Lily,” Ruth said, when she saw Savannah approaching with the baby. She hurried over to help lift the stroller onto the spacious deck where she and Mattie had been sitting at an umbrella-shaded table.
“Thank you,” Savannah said. She then acknowledged Mattie, who was devouring a large deli sandwich and a generous serving of potato chips. “Okay if I join you ladies?” she asked, feeling a little awkward to have intruded.
“Yes, please do,” Ruth said. “I told Mattie I asked you to be here.” She glanced at her sister. “I wanted you to… get to know her,” she said, stammering slightly.
“Hell,” Mattie said, “I don’t even know you, Ru-Ru.” She pushed several chips into her mouth and continued talking, “Didn’t even know where you was ‘til I saw you here yesterday.”
Ruth’s smile was strained. “Yes, we just found each other.”
“Lucky break, right?” Mattie said while shoving the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth. After washing it down with a slurp of coffee, she looked from Savannah to Ruth, asking, “Got dessert?”
“Probably,” Ruth said. “I’ll go check.”
“Gee thanks.” She watched as Ruth headed for the kitchen door of the mansion, then said to Savannah. “Don’t get good food like this very often, you know.”
“I… imagine not,” Savannah said, lowering herself into a chair and pulling the stroller close. “So do you have a place to stay, Mattie?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, before chugging from her coffee mug. “I usually stay in my own tent at our camp.” After swallowing another gulp, she said, “Sometimes we crash in a shelter, but my friends don’t like the rules.” She grinned at Savannah. “Know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Savannah said, keeping her eyes on Mattie. “They want to live free—without being encumbered.”
“Encumbered?” Mattie questioned. She then let out a little laugh and said, “Oh, you mean like without rules?”
“Yes, and, evidently, stuff. The… free spirits I know don’t have much stuff… many belongings.”
Mattie smiled. “Free spirit,” she said staring up into the sky. “Yeah, that’s me, a free spirit.” She pointed at Savannah. “I like that.”
“Here’s a cinnamon roll left from breakfast,” Ruth said, upon returning. She placed the plate on the table in front of Mattie.
“Yum!” she said, picking up the roll and taking a large bite.
“More coffee?” Ruth offered.
Mattie nodded and kept eating.
“I brought a cup for you, Savannah,” she said holding the coffee thermos toward her.
Savannah contemplated the offer, then looked up at Ruth from her chair. “No, I don’t think so. Thanks, though.”
“What are those guys doing out there?” Mattie asked, pointing.
“Uh, digging a hole, I think,” Savannah said.
Mattie raised her eyebrows and stared at Savannah, then at Ruth. “Are they searching for the secret?”
Ruth looked at her inquisitively. “Secret?”
“Yeah, Mims said there’s one out here, but that’s all she’ll say.” Mattie pushed the empty plate away, put her elbows on the table, and stared across at Ruth. “Ru-Ru, I’m worried about Mims.”
“Why?” she asked. “Is she ill? Does she need to see a doctor?”
Mattie shook her head vigorously. “No, nothing like that. She screams at night and it scares me.” She wrung her hands. “It scares everyone.”
“Do you mean while she’s sleeping?” Savannah asked. “Is she having nightmares?”
Mattie nodded. “I guess so. She says she sees things in her mind that scare her. She says she doesn’t know she’s screaming unless it wakes her up or one of us wakes her up. Then she cries and cries.”
“How long has this been going on?” Savannah asked.
“Not long,” Mattie said.
“Like a year?” Ruth asked.
“No, not that long.”
Ruth tried again. “Can you tell us when it started? When did you first notice it?”
“Um, like a few days ago.”
“How long has… Mims been your friend?” Ruth asked.
“Oh,” she said with animation, “a long time… maybe a lot of years… like ten years or twenty years.” She was quiet, then said, “I found her in the shelter on Seventh Street when she was almost thirty.” She turned serious. “She had no place to go and didn’t know how to take care of herself very well.” Sitting up straighter, she said, “I helped her and we became friends. I think that was… yeah, like twenty years ago.”
“So you know her well? Did you know she once lived here?” Savannah asked.
Her eyes widened. “No. She never told me where she lived before. I didn’t know that until a couple of days ago.” She grinned a toothless grin. “What a surprise, right?”
Mattie was silent, then she said, “Mims helped me, too, you know.”
“How’s that?” Ruth asked.
“Well… she was drinking a lot, you know. I mean a whole lot. That’s not good for anybody. Sure, it’s okay to drink, but the way Mims was drinking… that was not good. So I made a deal with her. I told her I would quit smoking weed if she would stop drinking so much.”
“Seems like a good pact,” Savannah said. “How long ago did you make this… deal?”
“The year it rained so much—remember that? We were getting kicked out of shelters because of Mims’ drinking. I told her she needed to quit or we might die from being in the weather. She got mad at me and told me I should stop… ” she glanced at the two women across from her. “… you know… getting high. And that’s when we got the idea.”
“But that’s not when she started having nightmares, right?” Savannah asked.
“Uh… no. It started on Monday—when she saw the picture in a paper we found.”
“Picture?” Ruth asked.
Mattie gestured. “Yeah, of this place. She read about the yard sale and got all freaked out. That’s when she told me she used to live here.” She smirked. “Of course, I didn’t believe her.” She leaned toward the women as if sharing a secret. “Sometimes she has trouble with truth. She can’t remember what’s real and what’s not—but not all the time. Still, I didn’t believe she’d lived here, but she kept swearing she did, so I finally believed her—sort of.” She thought. “Yeah, the screaming dreams started about that time. They are worse since she came out here yesterday.”
“So Mattie,” Ruth said, “what is it you want me to do?”
She fumbled with a button on her ragged sweater. “Well,
Shirley said we should take her to someone who can get into her head.”
“Who’s Shirley?” Ruth asked.
“A friend,” she said matter-of-factly. “Mims doesn’t know why she screams. She needs someone who can tell her why—not a psychiatrist,” she said, shaking her head. “No psycho shrink.”
“Then what do you have in mind?” Ruth asked.
“Maybe a hypnosis guy. What do you think?” Mattie asked, staring hard at her sister.
“Well, sometimes a hypnotist can help us unlock memories that are hidden in our brain,” Savannah said.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what we need. Do you know one?”
Savannah glanced at Ruth, then said, “Let me do some checking and see what I can come up with, okay?”
“Sure,” Mattie said, “you do that. Ru-Ru has my phone number. We can get rides with our friend Ralph.” Her expression brightened when she announced, “He drives a cab now. All we need is an address. Oh,” she said, squeezing her lips together, “do you know someone who can give Mims a… what do you call it… a money break?”
“A scholarship?” Ruth asked.
Mattie punched the air with one fist. “That’s it; scholarship.” She faced Savannah and Ruth. “She has some money, but still needs help.”
“What happened to the money her family had?” Savannah asked, peering into the stroller to check on Lily. She handed her a toy, then looked at Mattie in anticipation of her response.
The woman glanced around as if thinking, scratched her head, then said, “I don’t know. I don’t think she ever got any.” She leaned forward. “Maybe her father got it all.”
Honk-honk.
The three women looked in the direction of the sound and saw Mattie’s driver standing outside his cab smoking a cigarette. He gestured and shouted, “Come on, I gotta get back to work!”
“I’m coming!” she shouted back at him. She quickly put her hand up to her mouth. “Oops, I hope I didn’t scare the baby,” she said, apologetically.
Savannah smiled. “I think she’s okay.”
“Oh good.” Mattie stood to leave, but stopped for a moment and peered at Lily as Savannah lifted her to her lap. “Hey, she’s pretty cute.”