by Edie Claire
She descended the cellar steps slowly, shining her flashlight ahead and calling to the dog as she went. She felt a flicker of panic to see the accustomed spot empty, but soon realized the dog had merely moved her makeshift nest to another corner of the cellar—the area most removed from the stairway.
“Tired of hearing strange voices out there, are you?” Leigh questioned, moving smoothly to the food bag and beginning to refill the empty bowl. “I don’t blame you. You’re one smart cookie.”
The dog uttered no growls this time, but did not thump her tail, either. Given the activity outside, her edginess was understandable. Leigh finished her tasks quickly, combining what was left of the water in one pail and then picking up the empty one. But as she was turning to leave, a queer feeling stopped her. She glanced around the cellar to see nothing out of order; the few odds and ends that littered the floor were as dusty and useless as they had always been. But something was missing. Last night, she was sure she had seen a yellow plastic flashlight lying on the cellar floor. Now it was gone. Had it been here this morning? She couldn’t remember; Scotty had done too good a job of distracting her. But it had definitely been removed since yesterday.
Who would have taken it? Had Scotty been back?
“No, no, no!” she heard a man’s voice shout as heavy footsteps plodded down the stairs. “No one is supposed to—”
Lester halted abruptly when he saw Leigh. “Oh,” he said sheepishly, letting out a breath. “Sorry. I thought you were one of the men.”
The dog snarled and rose to her feet. Leigh grabbed her pail and hurried Lester back up the steps and outside.
“I know,” she told him, replacing the door behind her. “I’m glad you put the sign up. The poor dog’s anxious enough as it is.”
Lester, who was also dressed in the requisite blue wool, albeit without a hat, pulled a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his sweating forehead. His nose was still red and his skin was pale. Leigh would have urged him to go home, crawl back into bed, and let Emma feed him chicken soup until he fully recovered—but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not as long as his best bud needed him.
“I’ve got the men combing the area,” he explained unnecessarily. “If the police missed anything, they’ll find it.”
“They’re very dedicated,” Leigh praised. “It’s clear they’re fond of their captain.”
Lester’s bloodshot eyes unexpectedly moistened. “Everybody loves Arch,” he repeated. “Have you heard anything from that detective friend of yours?”
Leigh shook her head. “Nothing helpful. But I do need to ask you—” she struggled to find the right words. Knowing what information to share with whom and when had never been her forte. “I got the feeling that the police were concerned about something in Archie’s background. Something that could make them think he disappeared on purpose. Do you have any idea what that might be?”
Lester’s eyes widened; sharp peaks of color rose in his cheeks. “On purpose? Arch? That’s crazy talk! Like what?”
Leigh feigned a shrug. “Oh, I don’t know. Tax evasion? DUI? Insurance fraud?”
At her last words, Lester’s breath drew in sharply. “Nah!” he protested. “There’s no way that that— I mean—”
Bingo. “Of course not,” Leigh soothed. “But it could look bad. What happened, exactly?”
“It was nothing!” Lester protested, taking the bait. “Arch had nothing to do with it! Well, not hardly. It was this woman he was dating. Her car got hit, and she needed money, and she was coming up with all kinds of injuries she didn’t really have, and her girlfriend, too, who was in the car with her. Arch wasn’t even there, but she claimed him as a jump in. That’s what they call it, you know, a jump in. Trying to cheat the insurance company by jacking up the claims. Arch didn’t want anything to do with it, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and of course they all got caught. Arch got a fine and some probation—was lucky she didn’t land him in jail. Cost him his job at the high school!”
Leigh’s brow furrowed. “But didn’t Archie sell insurance?”
Lester waved a hand, “Yeah, but that was later.”
“He got hired by an insurance agency?” Leigh asked incredulously. “Even after—”
Lester smirked. “You wouldn’t think it, would you? Just goes to show, Arch is one hell of a salesman.”
Leigh gave her head a shake. “Listen, Lester,” she began seriously, “I found out something last night. Something that may be significant.”
He leaned toward her, all ears.
“One of the kids found a paper lying on the ground by the creek last week. It’s a copy of a map of some sort, an old one. It’s difficult to decipher, but it appears to be a map of this area. And when we started thinking about all the holes that keep appearing in the neighborhood… well, we were wondering if the two things are related. Do you know if Archie was searching for anything? Did he ever mention—”
Leigh broke off her next question. Lester’s color had gone from ivory to gray. His pupils had stretched to saucers and he had missed at least two breaths.
“Lester?” she asked, concerned. “Are you okay?”
He stared at her, mutely, for another long moment. Then at last he sucked in a breath and, with a shake of his head, plastered an incredibly unconvincing smile on his face. “Oh, sorry. I’m fine. Just can’t quite shake this darn flu bug, you know? I was thinking about something else. A map, you say? Nope, haven’t heard anything about that. Don’t know why Arch would be looking for anything. I’m sure it’s nothing. You didn’t— Did you tell anybody else about it?”
Leigh hesitated. The fact that Lester was so obviously lying was disturbing enough, but she feared that telling him that the police already knew the entire story could literally give him a stroke. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t?” she asked.
“No,” he stammered, “I mean, you could, but it wouldn’t amount to anything and I wouldn’t want to distract anyone from finding Arch, you know?”
“Finding Archie is everyone’s top priority, I’m sure,” Leigh replied. “Lester, you really don’t look well. Maybe you should take a break? Get something to drink?”
“Yeah, I… maybe I’ll do that. And if you—” his next words were broken off with an “oomph” as a furry black missile burst around the corner of the shed and propelled two paws squarely into his belly. “Wiley, you demon, get down!” he chastised, albeit not without scratching the dog’s ears in the process. “Crazy hound,” he muttered. “Got too much energy. Hates being locked up. But I can’t let him roam around all day with Arch gone. If anything happened to this mutt…”
His thought trailed off into a spasm of coughing.
“Go home, Lester,” Leigh ordered. “You can control operations from there just as well, can’t you?”
Lester didn’t even try to answer. Still coughing, he nodded, waved her a goodbye, patted his thigh to collect Wiley, and shuffled off toward the creek bridge that led to his own backyard.
Leigh watched him with a frown. That Lester knew all about the supposed treasure map, and might in fact have been the one who dropped it, was a given. What was far less clear was why he refused to admit it. She was certain that he was genuinely concerned about Archie. Did he really not believe there could be a connection?
She turned with her empty pail and headed toward the spigot at the farmhouse. At least her curiosity was assuaged with regard to Archie’s criminal past. People had done crazier things for love, and the man had long since paid his debt to society. What could he possibly have to gain by faking his own disappearance? He had never been married, and his blood relatives were apparently few and far between. If he was attempting fraud on a life insurance policy, who would be the beneficiary? That person would have to be in on it with him, and unless the policy were huge, he couldn’t come out that much ahead after leaving behind the farm, his truck, and all his belongings. Never mind that a huge policy benefitting anyone other than an heir would be a
giant red flag from the get-go. Archie might have proven himself somewhat gullible in the past, but he was not stupid.
The police had it wrong.
Which did not make her feel any less creeped out to be standing beneath the window of his abandoned house surrounded by Civil War soldiers.
“What happened to the drywall?”
The man’s voice traveled easily from inside Archie’s living room through the single-pane glass and out to Leigh’s ear.
“Adding more insulation, maybe?” another voice speculated.
Leigh recalled how Archie’s living room walls had been open to the studs in several places. She had thought it odd as well.
“Nah,” the first voice responded. “Nothing new put in here in a long time. He just tore out the wall and never put it back.” There was a moment’s pause. “No electrical. Didn’t access nothing. He doesn’t even have cable. Weird.”
“Maybe it had a hole in it.”
“And over here, too? And look—more in the bedroom. Maybe if it was your house. Bet you knock a few holes in the drywall every Saturday night, huh?”
“Somebody else’s walls, maybe,” the second man responded with humor. “But Arch isn’t the kind of guy you run into in anger management, you know? Some punk could stick a gun in his ribs, and he probably still wouldn’t deck him.”
“Nah, he wouldn’t. Sweet talk him out of the gun, maybe!”
The men shared a chuckle.
“Damn, this place looks terrible. What the hell was he up to, you think?”
“Looks like he was hunting for his Great Aunt Millie’s diamonds or some crazy thing, doesn’t it? Like he thought something was hid in the walls.”
Leigh sucked in a breath.
“Man tearing up his own house?” the second man replied. “I don’t know. It’d make more sense if robbers did it. But Lester said the house looks just like it did before. Maybe it was tore up when Arch bought it, and he just never put it right.”
“Sounds more likely. Got a bargain, then got used to it. Arch’d rather hang out on a battlefield than put up a bunch of damn drywall any day.”
“You got that right.”
The men’s voices drifted beyond her hearing, presumably as they climbed the stairs. Leigh’s heart thudded loudly in her chest. She had seen the missing wallboard herself, but hadn’t made the connection at the time. So it was true. Archie was searching for something. And whatever it was, Lester knew all about it.
The question was, what could one seemingly innocent treasure hunt—on a man’s own property, no less—have to do with his sudden disappearance? Could it all, just possibly, be a coincidence?
Leigh put the pail down under the spigot and turned on the water.
Coincidences.
She believed in them like she believed in ghosts.
Chapter 9
Leigh studied her daughter’s small, bowed head. Allison had been curled up in her favorite armchair in the living room for the past half hour, her nose buried in a thin paperback entitled A History of the Harmony Line. Warren had offered to take the whole Pack to the season’s last Pirates’ game, but after Lenna opted for some one-on-one time with her grandmother, Allison had also declined, ostensibly in favor of a “quiet evening at home.”
Leigh couldn’t help but be suspicious.
“Learning anything interesting?” she asked, absently stroking the geriatric black Persian that had materialized in her lap the second she sat down after dinner. Not to be outdone, her corgi had taken his favored place splayed across her feet. Too bad she had to go to the bathroom.
“Uh huh,” Allison mumbled, not looking up.
The doorbell rang. Puzzled, Leigh reorganized her pets and struggled up from the couch. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Her mother had just finished harassing her over the phone an hour ago, and most nonfamily guests had the courtesy to call first.
She looked through the peephole to see a harried-looking Emma attempting to calm Mrs. Rhodis, who was practically hopping up and down. Leigh swung the door open.
“Get your driving shoes on!” the older woman cackled with glee. “We’re taking a road trip!”
Emma’s eyes rolled good-naturedly. “I told her you might be busy, but there was no restraining her from walking over here. Once she wakes up from that medication, she’s up. Took twenty minutes, but she was determined!”
Adith shuffled in and collapsed onto the couch. Mao Tse hissed and fled. Chewie, who had trotted off on Leigh’s heels when she rose, now sat back down on her feet where she stood. “Road trip?” she repeated.
“If you’re busy, I can go home and bring the car around to pick her up,” Emma offered.
“Oh, my girl’s never too busy to untangle a good mystery!” Adith chirped.
Leigh frowned. As if. “What are you talking about?”
Adith straightened herself on the couch and took in a dramatic breath. “I found a witness,” she announced. “A real live witness to the goings-on up at Archie’s place way back when. A woman who’s seen the evil. And she’s going to tell us about it tonight!”
Leigh looked from Adith to Emma, whose shoulders shrugged. “She’s been tying up the phone for hours, that’s all I know.”
“It’s called ‘networking,’” Adith said proudly. “I learned that on the TV. You ‘leverage your contacts,’ you ‘put yourself out there,’ and voila!”
“What woman are you talking about?” Leigh persisted. “A witness to what?”
“So,” Adith continued, oblivious to the interruption, “What I did, you see, was think about who I knew who’d ever lived up around here. And I didn’t know anybody, not directly. But my friend Barbara Jean in Bellevue, she knows everybody. And I gave her all the names Harvey had found poking around in the property deeds and such, and she didn’t know any of them, but she said her cousin Sally spent her whole life up in Ross, and I figured that was closer, so I gave her a call, and then she had this other friend whose sister used to live in Franklin Park…”
Leigh let her mind wander. She knew Adith well enough to know that everyone in the room was getting the whole story whether they wanted it or not.
“…And that’s how I found Dora Klinger!” Adith finished triumphantly, several minutes later. “And get this… she’s still alive and got all her marbles, too! At 91! So I told her we’d be up to see her this evening and she said she couldn’t wait. So…” she looked expectantly up at Leigh. “What are you standing around for? Let’s go!”
“She really lived at Frog Hill Farm?” Allison piped up excitedly.
Leigh, who had forgotten her daughter was in the room, felt a flicker of panic. The girl was invested enough in this whole mess as it was.
“For nearly two years!” Adith crowed. “In fact, they were the first owners after the soldier ghost’s family sold it off!”
Allison slid off her chair and popped up at Leigh’s elbow. “Can I go with you, Mom?”
Leigh tensed. “I didn’t say we were going anywhere, and besides—”
“Aw, let her come along!” Adith interceded. “Dora’s in assisted living, and you know how old people love to see young ones about. She’d be doing a service! What’s the harm?”
Allison blinked her dark, whip-smart eyes up at her mother. “It’s okay if you think I shouldn’t,” she said cooperatively. “I’m sure I’ll be fine here at home… all alone.”
***
Leigh sighed internally as she helped Adith buckle into the front seat of the van. She wasn’t sure what this visit was supposed to accomplish, but she wasn’t going to get Archie any closer to home by sitting around her house worrying, either. Why not help two bored elderly ladies amuse each other for an hour?
Allison slipped into the back seat, paperback in hand. Leigh studied her daughter curiously. Her jean shorts, tee shirt, and flip flops had been replaced with tan crop pants, a lacy white blouse, dress sandals, and a large, pale blue hair bow.
“What’s up with the do?” Leigh couldn’t
help but inquire. The clothing upgrade she appreciated, but her daughter had not voluntarily tied a bow in her hair since she was seven.
Allison gave a shrug. “Old people like bows.”
The ride to the assisted living facility was just long enough for Adith to give a full report on her own exciting afternoon, which had included eavesdropping on the reenactors as they made their final reports to Lester. “None of them found a gun, or a ransom note, or anything really good,” she lamented. “One of them found a baseball cap they didn’t think was Archie’s, but it looked like it had been wherever they found it a whole lot longer than a week, so that didn’t amount to much. Everything else they found on the ground outside was stuff Arch probably dropped—some coins, a grocery receipt, a pen. Nobody thought it looked like he was planning to leave. More like he was spirited off… if you ask me.”
“Did anyone mention the state of the house?” Leigh asked, thinking of the conversation she had overheard.
“Oh my, yes,” Adith replied. “Lester got real upset about that. They said it was all tore up, and they couldn’t figure out what Arch was doing. Well, Lester, he’s so protective you know, he told them Arch was redoing the place, but he just wasn’t all that good at it, and besides, he didn’t have the time to fix everything. Got him so agitated it started a nasty coughing fit, that did!”
I’ll bet, Leigh thought uncomfortably.
“He didn’t like it when a couple of them made a big deal out of the holes in the yard, either. Lester, he told them that Wiley liked to dig and it was nobody’s business if Arch didn’t mind his own dog digging on his own property! Though why he’d get his britches in a knot over that I can’t imagine, seeing as how many times he’s cursed that dog for digging in his tomatoes!”