by Fran Stewart
“Messy it is,” Dirk muttered, although why he was bothering to keep his voice down, I had no idea.
“The wallpaper, though,” I objected. “I found an old dated receipt for it from 1915 in the rolltop desk. Made out to Mrs. Josiah Pitcairn. Described it in detail and gave the number of rolls, which would have been just enough to do this one wall.”
Harper ran his hand through his hair, leaving one unruly tuft sticking up, like Dennis the Menace. “They may have bought the paper a hundred years ago, but they didn’t put it up until the Sheetrock went on. I can guarantee that.”
Maybe he was right. It wasn’t worth an argument anyway. “There’s more.” I stepped away from the wall and pointed to the outline of the door—the door I’d been standing in front of. Did I have a sense of drama or what?
17
Safe Assumption
Harper moved closer, and I caught another faint whiff of citrus. He’d missed shaving a tiny patch of beard on his jaw, just below his earlobe.
“Excuse me,” he said, and I took a step backward. He ran his finger along the outline. “Does this open?”
“It lifts out,” Sam said as he headed toward the back room. “I’ll get the gloves.”
We’d left the screws in place, and the door came loose more easily this time. Harper whistled again when the safe came into view. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, placed it over the handle, and pushed down. Of course, it didn’t budge.
“It’s locked,” Sam said, and I saw a muscle twitch beside the little patch of beard Harper had missed.
“Anyone know the combination?”
Sam snorted in derision. “If we’d a known that, we’d a had it open by now.”
Harper crouched beside the safe and touched the dial very gently with a forefinger. He brushed some of the cobwebbing away, leaned closer, and placed his ear against the red-filigreed door. He turned the dial to the right a hairsbreadth at a time.
How much safecracking experience had this man had? I held my breath.
After a few minutes that seemed like an hour, he sighed and straightened up. “Old safes like this usually had complicated dialing systems for the combinations. You’d spin the dial to the right first to clear everything and stop on the first number. After that, these Barnes safes required four turns to the left, three turns to the right, two turns back to the left, and a final turn to the right to get to the last number. Sometimes the owners would dial all but that final number. That way, they could open the safe quickly.”
Oh, crapola. I’d wiggled the dial back and forth. Luckily he wasn’t looking at my face.
“So,” Sam said, “you thought you might be able to hear the number click?” He sounded dubious.
Harper rubbed his right hand along his jaw, faltered when he connected with those few stray bits of beard. “Yeah,” he said. “It was worth a try.”
“But it didn’t work,” Sam pointed out unnecessarily.
Harper gave him a level stare, and I could almost smell the increase in testosterone. “Not this time, it didn’t.”
“It wouldn’t have anyway,” Sam snapped. “Peggy played with the dial.”
Thanks, traitor.
Harper whipped his head around and narrowed those beautiful eyes at me. “Is that true?”
“Uh-huh. I’m sorry.”
He positively glowered. I lifted my chin a bit higher. “I didn’t know there’d be a problem. I only moved it a little each way.” And spun it around a couple of times.
“Yeah,” Sam put in. “Enough to ruin the sequence.”
“You don’t have to be so sarcastic,” I grumped at him.
Dirk stepped forward and thrust his face close to Sam’s. “Ye didna know either, and here ye pretend to be so learned.” Sam took an involuntary step back and wiped his face with one hand. Good for Dirk.
If Sam hadn’t been goading me, I think Harper might have stayed angrier longer. As it was, he turned on Sam, much as Dirk had done. “It was a logical error. Most people would try turning the dial.” He took a deep breath and swiveled his head back to me. “You mentioned the wallpaper receipt in the rolltop desk. There wasn’t a piece of paper with just five numbers on it, was there?”
“I’m pretty sure there wasn’t,” I said, although a shade of doubt entered my mind. “No. No, there wasn’t. The woman who owned the dress shop, the one that was here before me, said she’d cleaned out the desk when she opened her store, and that was ten years ago.”
“But she kept the receipt for the wallpaper?” Harper looked skeptical indeed.
“She didn’t keep it—she just overlooked it. It was stuck way back in one of the pigeonholes. I found it shortly after I opened.”
Harper moved to his left and studied the four drilled holes. About six inches apart, they formed a ragged line a foot or two above the floor. He pulled out his wallet and extracted a loop of thin wire, which he straightened and poked into the holes. Who carries wire in his wallet? In each case, the wire went way in with no resistance.
Harper worried his lower lip with his upper teeth. They were very white. Maybe that was why his smile was so arresting. My eyes, I swear I couldn’t help it, wandered down the length of him. Dirk cleared his throat, and I popped back to reality in time to hear Harper say, “. . . would he have drilled here?”
“He was looking for the safe,” Sam said, and the words you dope hung in the air unsaid.
Dirk threw up his hands in disgust. My sentiments exactly.
“You’re right,” I told Harper, pointedly ignoring my cousin. “It does seem strange. . . .”
“He was so close . . .”
“. . . but not quite close enough . . .”
“Almost like he was following directions . . .”
“. . . but the directions were wrong.”
Dirk uttered a couple of words I’d never heard before, but I could tell he was exasperated. “Ye sound, the twa of you, like Mister and Mistress Sinclair.”
I just looked at him, too surprised to say anything.
Harper followed my gaze, back across his right shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh, nothing.” Except for my not-so-wee ghostie.
A loud knock on the front door startled us all. Dirk spun around and headed for the front, followed closely by me and the other two. I peeked through the blinds that covered the window. “Mr. Pitcairn?”
I opened the door a crack.
“I saw your lights on, Miss Peggy, and just wanted to be sure you were okay.” He glanced over my shoulder. “May I assist you in any way?”
“That’s kind of you, Mr. P, but we’re just doing a little cleanup work.”
“I’d be happy to help you.”
He sounded so hopeful, I almost let him in, but Harper stepped closer. “Everything’s under control here.” His tone was brusque; he was a different man altogether. “Thanks for checking, but we need to get back to work now.” He nodded, pleasantly enough, pushed the door firmly shut, and turned the lock.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mr. P’s voice was faint through the heavy door.
“I’m fine,” I called. “Don’t you worry.” I pulled the curtain more firmly into place. “My neighbor, Mr. P. He worries about me.”
Before we were halfway back to the safe, another knock sounded on the door. This time it was Ethan, the owner of the Auto Shop. “I saw Mr. Pitcairn looking in the window, but he walked away when I asked him what was up.” His gaze flicked over Harper and back to me. “Your lights aren’t usually on this late. I thought I ought to check.”
“I’m doing fine, Ethan. Thanks for asking. Harper and Sam are helping me with something, that’s all.”
This time Harper closed the door with finality. “Does everybody in town keep tabs on you?”
I really didn’t think that question deserved
an answer, but I said, “They’re friends. They care about me.”
“Ye have entirely too many men”—that word came out like a growl as Dirk fingered his dagger—“worriting themselves about ye.” I looked at the knife. Wickedly sharp, I could tell. Of course, knives are supposed to be sharp. Less chance of a ragged wound—the kind created by dull blades. Or so they said.
“That’s fine,” Harper said, “but we don’t want people seeing the . . .” He waved his arm at the scene before us.
“The crime scene, now with mysterious wall safe included?”
He nodded. “There has to be a connection.”
Dirk must have felt the same way, because he nodded, stepped between us, and followed me back toward the bookcase, leaving Harper to trail behind.
* * *
We asked more questions that didn’t have answers and threw out more theories that didn’t have any chance of being proven. Eventually, though, my yawns got to be too much. “I’m going to go home and go to bed, so you nice folks can all leave,” I said.
“That isna polite. The host should stay until the last guest departs.”
“They’re not guests.” I turned majestically. I hoped it didn’t look like I was drunk. Drunk with tiredness, I guess. “You’re here at the behest of the ownership.” Good grief. I was absolutely potty. “So I give you my permission to pack up and go ’way.”
Harper just nodded and headed for the bookcase. “Sam, take that end.”
They heaved and shoved and wiggled it until the left-hand edge lined up with the seventeen-foot mark on the baseboard.
By that point, though, I didn’t care.
18
Amy
The next morning’s dawn light barely made it through the curtains. Rain. I’d been halfway aware of it all night long in that dreamlike state that recognizes the real world without fully acknowledging it.
I stumbled into the bathroom and cringed at my reflection. I was going to need major help today. For one thing, I must have slept on my left side all night. My hair on that side was plastered to the side of my head. I closed my eyes and felt for my brush. Maybe if I didn’t look, it would go away.
Usually I wore a tartan skirt with a simple blouse and a matching plaid scarf. Today I’d go full Scot—or rather full Welsh, but most of my customers wouldn’t know the difference. A quick shower first, and then I donned an off-white linen chemise, navy overskirt, burgundy bodice, and my Wynne tartan arisaidh. I added a linen kerchief so my lopsided hair would remain nicely hidden all day and wouldn’t wilt in the rain.
In a tourist town, rain could help or hurt sales. Sometimes people either stayed away altogether or else they crowded into the stores to get away from the downpour, but with no intention of buying anything.
I hoped today would be one of the other kinds of rainy days, where customers inundated the store and kept finding more and more ways to spend their money, the longer they avoided the drenching rain outside.
The books on my bookcase gave me an idea. I pulled one out and stood it on the dresser. The pages fanned open. Hmmm. That works.
Dirk stood in the front bay window, the shawl folded over his right arm. He frowned in disapproval as I walked down the stairs. I couldn’t tell if it was because of my burgundy-and-navy Welsh arisaidh or whether he’d figured out that I was leaving the shawl—and him—behind today. It was neither.
“The rain is lovely,” he said.
“Then why are you frowning? Anyway, it’s cold and wet.”
“Aye, but it remembers me of home.”
“Remembers? Oh—reminds you.”
“Ye look quite bonny today.”
I gaped at him. It was the first compliment he’d ever given me. “Thanks.” I twirled, feeling the arisaidh billow around me. Come to think of it, I felt bonny.
“Even in a Welsh plaid,” he added, and I rolled my eyes.
“Dirk, listen. I’ve decided to set up an at-home library for you.”
He cocked his head to one side. “What would that be?” His long black hair spilled over one shoulder and distracted me for a moment.
“Um, I’m going to prop open a whole slew of books so you can go from one to another and read the first three pages. Then, when I come home, I’ll switch the pages to the next set.”
“Three pages? And how would ye be planning to do that?”
“Easy. I’ll stand the books up and prop them open at the first page, leaving it stuck out a bit, so you’ll be able to look in back of that first page at pages two and three.” His eyebrows pulled down a bit, and I went on quickly. “You can tell me what sort of books you’re interested in. I still have a bit of time before I have to leave.”
“Ye were planning to leave me behind?”
“Aye. I mean yes. You and the shawl. You can keep it with you.”
His right hand came up to his chest, pulling the shawl closer against him. “What did ye intend to do if the murderer”—lots of rolled r’s in that word—“happens to come into your wee store?”
You can’t even open a door, I thought, but I didn’t dare say it out loud. It would hurt his feelings. “I’ll be okay,” I promised. “There are always plenty of customers, and Gilda and Shoe will be there.”
“Shoe? Isna he the one in prison?”
“Oh, crudbuckets. This is Shoe’s usual day. I guess it’ll be Gilda and Sam.” Making a mental note to call Sam just to be sure he was up, I headed for the kitchen. Rainy days always made me want scrambled eggs and stove toast. Comfort food. Of course, the rain also made me wonder whether Shoe could hear it from his jail cell. I needed to go visit him, but when was I going to fit it into my schedule? That was ridiculous. He was in jail for heaven’s sake. If I were the one in there, wouldn’t he have come for a visit? Yeah, said a little voice inside me, and he would have spent the whole time wisecracking.
Dirk watched as I assembled my breakfast and sat across from me as I ate it. He was good at keeping me civilized. Usually—pre-Dirk—I ate standing up by the kitchen counter. Why did I even care if a ghost thought me civilized?
“We’d best select a goodly number of books,” he said as I finished my last bite. “I read quickly.”
“Right.” I folded my napkin—yes, I’d even set out a cloth napkin.
He must have already studied the titles, because he seemed to know precisely which books he wanted to start with. I used forks to hold the first page in place and knives or spoons to brace the other pages back out of the way. After I’d used up all my utensils, I improvised with whatever I could find. Finally, I just opened the rest of the books to page one and lay them around on the living room floor. For the ones that wouldn’t lie flat, I weighted them down with crystals, the edges of flower pots, and other books he didn’t care to read yet. The living room looked like some sort of historic archive after an earthquake. I pulled the top of my arisaidh up over my head. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with this?”
He’d already started on my old British history textbook from college. “Aye,” he said distractedly. I’m not sure he even heard me leave.
The steady downpour was wreathed in fog. I dashed to the car, grateful that I never had to lock it. I set the windshield wipers on high and backed out of my drive directly into the fog-obscured path of an oncoming garbage truck. Damn. I had a split second to register that something bad had happened before the front end of my poor little car spun from the impact and slammed against the right side of the truck. I watched in slow motion as my right hand, entirely without my cooperation, lifted in a dance-like arc to the right and then headed left across my field of vision. My head whipped around, cracking against the side window. I heard glass shatter. The windshield wipers continued their inane swish, swish, swish. Didn’t they realize the world had stopped?
The truck driver materialized a moment later, pulling the door open and yelling, “Are you ok
ay? My God, you’re bleeding! I didn’t mean to hit you, lady!” Rain poured in on me, as hard as the man’s exclamations. I could feel it, but my eyes must have been closed.
“You’ve killed her.” A nasal voice that sounded vaguely familiar penetrated the fog around me.
I felt a hand on my arm and heard multiple voices shouting in the background. None of them made any sense. A door slammed. Someone’s fingers touched the side of my neck. I knew there had to be a reason why, but I couldn’t fathom what it was. “She’s alive. Move back,” this new person ordered, and the other voices receded behind the pounding of the rain. “You. Pitcairn. Call an ambulance. Now.” A what? What was an amlance?
“Can you open your eyes?” The voice was gentle. I’d heard it before. At least I thought I had. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” Somehow my hand felt warm, safe. I squeezed. That much didn’t hurt, even though everything else did.
I blinked and raised my other hand to my head. An egg sprouted just above my left ear. I felt like I’d been put through a Vitamix one limb at a time. Someone’s head swam into view. “Don’t move,” it said. As if I could. “Help is on the way.”
“Call Gil,” I croaked. That didn’t sound right, but it was the best I could do.
The face wavered a bit. “Gil? Do you mean Gilda?”
It took too much effort to answer. I closed my eyes for a moment.
When I opened them, my neck was in a brace, and I was being lifted onto a stretcher. Someone held an umbrella over my face. Good. Too much rain. The stretcher moved toward the ambulance—that was what it was—and I saw the front of my house through the swirling fog. Someone stood at the bay window, someone waving his arms and shouting. I saw a flash of metal brandished high over his head, and then the ambulance ate me.
The face at the window bothered me. There was something I needed to do, but the fog outside had penetrated my brain. I shivered. I’m cold, I said, but the woman bending over me didn’t seem to hear me.