“I do, too,” Sandra said tartly.
She finally turned to me. “Are you all right, Georgiana? I heard the sheriff made you come to the station, or whatever it is. Gregory said he questioned my daughter like a common criminal!”
I wasn’t sure whether her outrage was for me, or for the damage it might do to her reputation.
“I was actually an uncommon criminal, Mother. I was innocent.”
Her sour expression told me my flip attitude wasn’t making things any better.
“Really, Mom, it wasn’t like that. The sheriff asked me to come down to his office and talk to him about what I found. All I did was answer some questions and tell him what happened. Then he sent me home. End of excitement.”
“But you went back!”
“Yes. I told him about Martha Tepper’s brooch and he asked if I would bring it in. I went back, gave it to the deputy, and that was the end of it.”
Something was bothering me. “Did you say Gregory told you all this?”
“Yes. Over dinner last night. We met the Gladstones at the steak house. They hadn’t heard what happened, so that was the major topic of conversation, as you can well imagine. Anyway, Gregory heard about it from an associate in his office, who has a friend in the sheriff’s office. I believe what the young man actually said was, ‘I didn’t know they made pretty plumbers.’ Or something like that.” She waved dismissively. “At any rate, Gregory told us everything he had heard. Which, by the way”—she raised one eyebrow, an expression she knew made me crazy—“was much more than I heard from my own daughter.”
“Well, Mother, I didn’t have a friend in the sheriff’s department to give me inside information. All I knew was that the sheriff asked me questions and I answered them.”
“Excuse me, Ms. Neverall,” Barry broke in.
Mother and I both turned to him.
“Yes?”
“Yes?”
She spoke a fraction of a second before me, the effect like the echo of an audio delay loop.
“We need to get back to work here, Georgie,” Barry said. “If you’ll excuse us, Ms. Neverall.” There was a glint of amusement in his eyes. He carefully avoided looking directly at my mother. “We’ll get back to work on the house just as soon as Sheriff Mitchell allows us.”
Sandra clicked back into business mode. She could sure take a hint. “Naturally, Mr. Hickey. I’ll check with the sheriff’s office and see if he has any timetable on when that might be.”
She opened the door and stepped into the hall as her cell phone rang. She tapped her Bluetooth headset and answered crisply, “Sandra Neverall, Whitlock Associates. What can I do to help you?”
She waved over her shoulder without looking back. I listened as her heels clicked across the warehouse floor, echoing in the empty space, until the outside door closed behind her.
“Thanks, Barry.”
He shrugged. “We did need to get back to work. And there wasn’t anything I could tell her that would help. Like I said, nothing we can do until the sheriff releases the house.”
We worked through the morning, finishing the faucets. By the time we broke for lunch, every tap along the sink was working perfectly and sealing tight. Like I said, a feeling of accomplishment.
Barry lowered the tailgate of his truck and grabbed his lunch sack out of the front seat. I left him sitting in the sun and made a quick drive through the local sandwich shop. I told myself turkey on rye would make up for the burger and fries last night, and I almost believed it.
I drove home to let the dogs out and stood at the kitchen counter to eat my sandwich. If I couldn’t talk Janis into giving the diary to the sheriff, there had to be some other way to prove it existed. I just had to find the proof.
Too bad I hadn’t been able to search all of Miss Tepper’s things before they were loaded on the truck. If that darned toilet hadn’t fallen on my leg, things would have been better. I could have looked in—
I had looked in the china hutch! I thought back. I’d pulled open the drawers, and there had been something in the back of one of them.
A scrap of paper.
I remembered sticking it in my pocket when I heard Sean coming back in the house, but I didn’t remember seeing it after that. What had I done with it?
Nothing. I’d gone to the clinic and then come home, dumping my work clothes into the hamper in the garage.
My dirty laundry was spilling over the top of the hamper onto the floor. For once I was grateful I’d neglected to wash it. The paper might still be in the pocket of those jeans.
I rooted through the pile one-handed, the turkey sandwich still clutched in my other hand. Halfway down, I found the jeans. I dug in the pocket and felt something stiff and scratchy.
I had it!
It was the corner of a sheet of heavy paper, more like parchment. Like the paper in a fancy diary.
There were only a few words on the scrap I held, but the handwriting looked like Martha Tepper’s precise pen manship. It might be the proof I needed.
The word Gladstone was clearly written there, but the paper was torn next to the name. There was no way to know which Gladstone she was referring to, though from what I’d seen, they were practically inseparable. To think, I’d had a bit of Martha’s diary the entire time—and now it was part of an important piece of evidence.
Combined with what Janis had told me, it might be enough to give the sheriff a starting point. Now if I could just get the diary from her.
Wade had defended the Gladstones, but there had to be something he didn’t know. I was certain he was wrong.
From the backyard, I heard frantic barking and the scrabbling sound of eight canine feet dashing up the back steps. I ran into the kitchen, just in time to see Daisy and Buddha race back into the house, dripping wet. They stopped in the middle of the floor to shake themselves, then ran back outside.
My sandwich was covered with drops of what I hoped was water, and I suddenly lost my appetite. I dropped my food on the counter and ran out the door after the dogs.
Running under the fence from my neighbor’s yard was a stream of dark brown water. I stood on tiptoe and peered over the fence. The neighbor’s hose snaked through the rows of his garden, with a steady flow of water coming from the end.
The water had soaked the garden and begun to run off down the slope that led to my yard, where Daisy and Buddha were now rolling merrily in the newly created mud.
I tried not to think about what they had just splattered all over my kitchen. Especially since there was no time to clean it up before I went back to work.
The dogs grinned up at me, pleased with their new-found game. They were both a mess of mud and matted hair, and they desperately needed baths. But I needed to get back to the warehouse.
I ran next door and pounded on the door. I hurriedly yelled at Mr. Stevens, who was rather hard of hearing, that his garden was overwatered, and he needed to shut the hose off.
He apologized and said he’d fallen asleep, but I was halfway back to my front door by the time he finished his sentence.
Once inside again, I grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial for Doggy Day Spa. When Sue answered, I blurted out, “Airedale emergency, girl. They’re covered in mud and I need to get back to work ASAP. Have you got time for a couple shampoos this afternoon?”
“Sure. But you have to promise a full explanation when you pick them up.” She laughed. “And it better be good.”
“You bet,” I answered. “Be there in five.”
I hung up without saying good-bye, dragged the dogs into the garage, and wiped them down with some old towels I kept for rainy days. This was close enough.
Buddha accepted his hasty scrubbing with his usual calm manner, but Daisy was highly offended that I had interrupted her playtime. It was, she implied, a perfectly reasonable occupation for an Airedale, and I was just being mean.
“Stop pouting,” I told her as I bundled them into the car. “You’re the one that insisted on rolling in
the mud. Now you need to go see Sue.”
At the name Sue, both dogs scrambled for the backseat. “Traitors,” I muttered, slamming the door behind them and moving around to the driver’s door.
I dropped them at Sue’s, enduring her amusement at their muddy coats, and jumped back in the car. I was pushing it, and after this morning I didn’t want to be late again. Especially without a mocha peace offering.
I pulled into the warehouse parking lot with several minutes to spare and parked next to Barry’s pickup. At first I thought he must be back in the building, but the tailgate of the truck was still down.
When I looked in the back, Barry was flaked out, his head propped on his rolled-up jacket, snoozing in the sun.
I almost hated to wake him. But then he snored and I couldn’t stop a giggle. He sat up, his expression still sleepy, and looked around for the source of the noise.
“Nice nap?” I asked with mock innocence.
“You’re late,” he growled.
“Been standing here watching you sleep,” I countered. “You missed all the excitement.”
“Nothing exciting happened here.”
“Not here, at my house. Come on, let’s get to work. I’ll tell you the whole story.”
By the time I’d finished my tale of doggy woe, Barry was chuckling. “Don’t laugh,” I told him. “You get that Jack Russell for Paula, you’re going to have plenty of stories of your own. Jack Russells are high-energy dogs.”
“I know.” Barry shook his head. “But what Paula wants . . .”
“Paula gets,” I finished.
We went to work on the urinals. By midafternoon, I could see that Barry was running down. He moved slowly and he was still favoring his right leg.
“Barry,” I said in my most innocent voice, “what did Dr. Cox say when you went to Immediate Care?”
There was a long pause, which answered the question I was really asking. Barry hadn’t gone to the doctor at all, despite his promises.
“I intended to go, Georgie. But I stopped at the office to get the paperwork, and the next thing I knew, it was after five.” He shrugged. “I was sure the doc had gone home already, so I figured I’d stop in the next morning, but then I got busy.”
It was my turn to glare at him. “You promised, Barry.” This was one of those more-brother-than-boss moments, and I propped my fists on my hips. “So when are you going to go?”
“Okay, okay. I’ll stop by after work. All right?”
I grinned at him and he gave me a sour look. “Bad enough I have a woman bossing me around at home,” he said. “This is what I get for letting one on the job.”
“And you’re Megan’s hero because of it.” I reminded him of his daughter’s pointed questions about why there were no women plumbers in his company.
The work on the urinals was complete. All that was left to do was clean up the job site. Barry’s rule.
“It’s almost five, Barry. Maybe you ought to go now, so you don’t miss the doctor.”
He opened his mouth, but I continued before he could speak. “I’ll even do the cleanup if you promise to go by the clinic. Deal?”
It was an offer too good to refuse, and we both knew it. Cleanup was always a chore, one nobody really wanted to do. And I was offering to do it all.
I was picking up tools and fitting them into the boxes when I heard Barry’s truck drive away. I smiled to myself. He was a great person to work for, but he was such a guy sometimes. Good thing he had Paula to look out for him.
As I worked, I thought about Barry’s accident. We’d made a joke about the job being jinxed, but it had me spooked; especially after we found the bloody towel.
What if the stair hadn’t been an accident? Maybe someone really wanted to stop our work on the house; maybe they were afraid we would find exactly what we did find in the basement.
Maybe the cracked toilet wasn’t an accident, either.
I felt in my pocket for the scrap of paper I’d found before the dogs’ adventure. I had intended to take it to the sheriff, but Daisy and Buddha had foiled my clever plan.
I decided I would stop by the sheriff’s office after I finished cleaning up, and show him my clue. Then I could ask about the stairs. Maybe they had already looked at it, but it never hurt to ask, did it?
I heard a vehicle pull into the parking lot. Had Barry left too late to see the doctor? Or had he been to the clinic and back in the time it took me to clean up? I glanced at my beat-up watch. Had it really been that long?
The outside door opened and footsteps echoed through the empty warehouse.
“Still back here,” I called out, bending down to put the last of my tools in my toolbox. “What did you forget? Whatever it is, it could have waited ’til morning.”
“No,” a smooth voice said. “I don’t think it could have.”
chapter 22
The voice wasn’t Barry’s. It was Rick Gladstone’s.
“We saw your little car, and thought we’d stop in to say good-bye.”
Rick and Rachel stood in the door of the bathroom.
With a gun.
Pointed at me.
Rachel held the gun in her right hand. It wasn’t a very big gun, but at that instant it was the only thing I could see.
Her hand trembled slightly, and she wrapped her left hand around her right to steady her grip.
I stood up very slowly, my hands held out to my sides. I kept my face calm and didn’t speak.
I’d learned how to defend myself. But I also knew trying to disarm a nervous person with a gun was a good way to get yourself seriously killed. Especially when you were outnumbered, and your opponent had the element of surprise.
And I was surprised.
As I’d said to Barry a few days earlier, you choose your battles. I wasn’t ready to choose this one quite yet.
“Rachel.” Rick struggled to keep his voice level and smooth, but I could hear an edge of fear underneath. “How do we get rid of her?”
Anger flashed across Rachel’s face, and for a split second I thought she was going to pull the trigger.
“Well, we can’t just shoot her, can we? Not unless you’re prepared to dig up Martha and put them together.”
I had a sudden image of being thrown on top of Martha Tepper’s body. I shuddered, unable to help myself.
“Don’t worry, you’d already be dead,” Rachel said.
Somehow I didn’t find that very reassuring.
Rachel stood still for one long minute, clearly trying to formulate a plan. I realized that these two had come after me on impulse, without a clear idea of what they would do when they found me.
Sort of like a dog chasing a car, but with deadly consequences for the car.
I watched Rick watching Rachel, and realized that he was not in charge of this operation. I wondered if he had ever been in charge. Of anything.
Then again, Rachel didn’t seem like much of a leader.
“So,” I said, drawing her attention away from her planning, and back to me, “if you really plan to kill me, would you at least tell me why? I mean, I get that you two were stealing from Martha’s accounts. That was what this was all about, right?”
Rachel’s mouth clamped shut, her bottom lip caught between her small teeth. She was determined not to talk, not to give away anything.
But Rick wanted to defend himself.
“It wasn’t like that.” The whine I had heard before surfaced, and I forced myself not to show the revulsion and contempt I felt.
“It wasn’t?” I said.
“No! We didn’t steal anything. We borrowed some money from one of the trust accounts. Just to take care of some office bills. We would eventually have billed her for it anyway. We just got the money a little early.”
“And Martha objected?” I asked.
“We only took what she promised us,” Rachel cut in, her voice harsh. “We were having trouble, were about to lose our house. The old biddy said she’d help us out. Then she started talkin
g about that charity housing project and how maybe she ought to give the money to them.”
“But she’d already promised us,” Rick whined, “and she had plenty. She wouldn’t even have missed it if she hadn’t gotten the idea in her head to move.”
“We really were going to pay her back. We even signed a note,” Rachel said. “But she wouldn’t believe us.”
“Why not?” I said. I just wanted to keep them talking instead of shooting, until I could figure out a way to get out of the warehouse.
Rick launched into a long explanation about how they had been getting shortchanged by Martha for years, and they had been forced to pad their bills and siphon funds from Martha’s trust accounts.
“It was her own fault,” Rachel snarled. “If she hadn’t been so cheap, we could have worked it all out. But she insisted that we had to turn ourselves in even after we signed the note to pay some of it back.
“For what?” she exploded. “For taking what should have been ours in the first place? Just because she was rich, Miss High-and-Mighty Martha Tepper, did that give her the right to treat us like dirt? To make us lose our house and our business?” Her voice rose with indignation. “To make us go to jail?”
Maybe I had pushed her too far. She was trembling, and the gun clenched in her fists was waving around the room as though looking for any random target.
“This is your own fault, you know.” She waved the gun, the barrel still pointing at the middle of my chest. “If you had just left things alone, we could have taken care of the situation. But nooo. Not you! You had to keep poking around the house, and talking to that stupid housekeeper, and running to the sheriff every five minutes.”
I didn’t see any advantage in pointing out how wrong she was, so I kept my mouth shut.
“We tried to warn you,” she continued. “That first night? With the truck? You didn’t get the message. Then the missing tools. We hoped you’d stop getting into things at the house. I even fixed the toilet so it would break and you would have to stop work, but you didn’t. And we tried to fix the basement stairs to keep you out of there, too, until we’d had a chance to get rid of some things.”
I thought about the truck that had tried to run me off the road. Had Rachel been driving, or Rick? My money was on Rachel. Not that it mattered.
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