by Lisa Bork
Cory cracked a grin. “You have a point, but we’re missing something obvious, Jo. I don’t know what it is. My advice is to come clean with Ray about the knife sheath and let him figure it out. He’s not going to arrest you, but he’s going to be mad as hell, that’s for sure.”
I sat in the office while Cory headed out to the garage to do a year-end parts inventory. Ray would be angry, maybe so angry he’d never want anything to do with me again, but I knew Cory was right. I had to tell him.
As I reached for the phone, it rang. I jumped in my chair. Could Ray be psychic? No, it was Tommye.
“Walter was here that night. He left around seven.”
“Did you make a note in the chart as to when she heard the voices that time?”
“Hold on.” Tommye set the phone down with a thunk and returned moments later. “I don’t know what time she heard the voice. She told me about it at eight and started pestering to call you. I made her wait until the next day.”
The day I found Tim dead in my showroom.
After I hung up with Tommye, I tried again to connect all the dots. Could Walter be involved in Tim’s death? Why would he want to kill Tim and blame me? The whole idea didn’t seem very likely to me. Ray would find it laughable, no doubt.
I would never figure it out alone, though. I put my pride aside and dialed Ray’s cell phone number. It went to voicemail. I dialed his number at the sheriff’s office. Gumby answered just as I heard the second line into the shop ring. I let Cory answer it and asked Gumby if I could talk to Ray.
“Ray’s testifying this morning. I’m not sure what time he’ll be done.”
“Can you have him call me right away? Tell him it’s important.”
“It’s always important when you call, sugar, but I’ll tell him.”
Sugar? I hung up rolling my eyes in disgust. Line two was still lit so I wandered into the garage to see if it might be a customer hot to buy a used red Ferrari. Cory dropped the receiver in the hook as I approached.
“That was Sarah Nelson. She needs you to stop by the house. She found some paperwork she wants you to take a look at. It was mixed in with all the estate sale stuff.”
I checked my watch. Almost noon. “All right. I took your advice and left a message for Ray. If he calls back, tell him where I am and to call me.”
The driveway at the house was empty when I arrived. I parked in the street and walked around to check behind the house. No sign of Sarah’s car. I unlocked the kitchen door and stepped inside. “Sarah? Sarah?”
My voice echoed through the house. No response. I could see Sarah had been busy at work pricing all the items in the kitchen, which were now laid out on the countertops ready to sell. The living room was in a similar state, but I spotted a note propped up on the dining room table.
It read: “Jolene, I had to run my son’s lunch over to him at school. Be back soon. The items you should look at are in the filing cabinet in the garage. Sarah ”
The garage. A feeling of dread washed over me. I walked out of the house through the kitchen and stared at the yellow-sided one-car garage that I had not entered since the fateful day twenty-five years ago when I discovered my mother’s dead body inside.
No way was I going in there now.
I stood staring at the building and the smell of the exhaust came back to me. Then the sound of the engine. I started to shiver, and not from the cold. I turned my back and squeezed my eyes shut, willing the memories away and trying to find my happy place as they had suggested all those years ago in the hospital.
“What are you doing, Jolene?”
I opened my eyes and found Ray standing a few feet in front of me. “Trying not to remember.”
He tipped his head to the side and examined my face. “Remember what?”
“Sarah Nelson is running an estate sale for me. She found some papers in a filing cabinet in the garage she thought I might want to keep. I can’t go in there. It reminds me of Mom.”
Ray lifted his head and looked at the garage. “Okay, I’ll get them for you.” He took three steps and was past me. I grabbed his arm.
“No, wait.” I took a deep breath. “I have to face this sometime.”
He turned, blocking my view of the garage, and placed his hands on my shoulders. “It’s good to face your fears, Jolene. This is not just a fear, though. This is a horrible memory, one you don’t need to relive, in my opinion. Let me do this for you.”
A heavy feeling washed over me. I recognized the feeling as guilt. Here was Ray, once again, riding to my rescue, and I hadn’t even confided in him yet about the knife sheath I’d been hiding. “I’m afraid of the memories, which is silly. I know she died and I know how. I’m the one who found her. I should be able to walk into that garage today without any problem at all.” I shook off his hands and took five steps in that direction before my legs refused to go any farther.
Ray moved up to stand next to me again, gazing with me toward the garage. “Okay, you might be right, but be advised you may have to face two of your fears. The last time I was in the garage, I found two mice nests.”
I saw those familiar fire-engine red lips again with a mouse tail wiggling. My gaze shot to Ray’s face. “You go.”
He smiled, chucked me under the chin, and took one step before I grabbed his arm again. “Why are you always here when I need you?”
He slid his arms around me and squeezed me tight to his chest. “You’re still very important to me.”
I didn’t want to let go of him for fear he’d never take me in his arms again, but I had to know. I pushed on his chest. He released me. I gazed into his eyes. “I’m sorry, Ray. I never should have left you. We could have worked it out then. But what about now? I still love you. Do you still love me?”
He gazed over my shoulder, unwilling or unable to meet my eyes. “It’s been three years, Jolene. I waited for you to come home for two years. You never did. I tried to move on. That didn’t quite work out either.” He raised his eyes to mine. I saw the pain in them. “We can’t go back. We can only go forward. I know I want children. The question is: what do you want?”
I sniffled and rubbed at my nose with my fingers, smearing a thin film of mucus on my upper lip. “I’m thirty-seven, Ray. If I get pregnant now, not only do I have a chance of passing on mental illness but the likelihood of birth defects is higher.”
“It doesn’t have to be our biological child. It doesn’t even have to be a baby. But I’d like at least one child.” Ray released me and took hold of my collar, pulling it around my neck as though to warm me. “This isn’t the time to hash it out. Think about it. When you know what you want, we can talk again.”
He kissed me gently on the nose.
I reached into my purse for a tissue and blew my nose in a long and very unladylike manner.
Guilt enveloped me like a blanket. I had made so many mistakes, not the least of which was withholding evidence from him. Ray deserved to hear the truth about the knife sheath, even if he never spoke to me again. “Before you brave the mice, Ray, I have to tell you something.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and apparently didn’t like the change in my expression. He turned to face me head on, folding his arms across his chest. “What?”
“You’re going to be mad.”
“Just tell me, Jolene.”
“I wanted to tell you before, but I was trying to protect Erica. I think I’m the one who needs protecting now, though.”
He growled, “Just tell me.”
“Remember the knife sheath the state police found in Cory’s car?”
“Yes?”
“I found it in the Miracle-Gro box in the garage behind my apartment the same night I found the fifteen thousand hidden in my apartment and car. I put it in the baggie, then in my purse. I know Erica didn’t put it in the box, so it had to be the killer.”
Ray stared at me, then turned and took two steps away. He swung around and came back, opened his mouth, and let out a puff of
breath that formed a cloud in the cold air. His neck flushed bright red.
He turned around again and took five steps away, then circled back and opened his mouth again. No sound or air came out this time. He raised his arms in the air in the surrender position and walked all the way to the garage door this time, bending down to grab the handle and lift it upward. The door banged against the roof of the garage as he disappeared inside.
Seconds later, things began to fly out of the garage door. A plastic pail, a watering can, cans of pest control spray, a rake, a broom, a crow bar, a tire jack. Every tool in my father’s toolbox, one at a time, then the black Craftsman tool chest itself—all of these items neatly labeled with a half-inch-square price tag. Sarah really had been busy.
When the recycling bin flew out, I dodged it and watched it roll to a stop a few yards away. The garbage can followed and slammed into the basement window, shattering it. I began to grow concerned.
The lawnmower rolled out with a price tag on it. The bag of fertilizer that followed split open when it landed on the ground, spraying pellets of weed control everywhere. The bottles of car wash bounced twice before splitting open, their blue contents coloring the remaining snow on the drive and mixing with the weed pellets to make a clumpy mess.
He appeared in the doorway to the garage with the three-drawer filing cabinet over his head as if it weighed nothing. He hurled it out and it crashed to the ground, slid five feet on the icy drive and came to a stop inches from the toe of my black boot.
“There’s your papers.” His voice was calm and controlled, too controlled.
“Thank you.” I didn’t dare say anything else.
The crash landing had dented the filing cabinet. I doubted it would sell for the twenty-dollar price Sarah had placed on it, either. I had no right to complain.
“I’m sorry, Ray. I know I should have told you everything right from the start, but I thought at first I was protecting Erica.”
“Erica, Erica.” Ray walked out of the garage and came to a halt with his face inches from mine, his hot breath singeing my face. “It’s always Erica. Do you realize I could lose my job over this? Do you realize the Sheriff didn’t want me on this case when he found out Tim Lapham’s body was found in your shop and that you’d been dating him? I told the Sheriff I could be objective. I told him I would solve this case. Do you realize how this is going to look?”
This time I’d gone too far. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Ray.”
“Where’s the box of Miracle-Gro now?”
“In the garage at my apartment. I didn’t touch it.”
“Is the garage locked?”
I swallowed. “No.”
“Thank you for protecting the evidence, Jolene.”
I repeated my mantra. “I’m sorry, Ray.”
“I could lose my job, Jolene. I could go to jail for obstructing justice.”
I tried to think of a way to soothe him. “Wait a minute, Ray. How did you obstruct justice? I only told you about the knife sheath today. You can tell the Sheriff when you get back to the office.”
Something akin to regret and guilt sparked in his eye.
“Ray, what did you do?”
He shoved his hands inside his jacket pockets. “It’s more what I didn’t do, Jolene. I didn’t tell the Sheriff about your argument with Tim Lapham or the money in your apartment.”
“It was not an argument. I was pointing, he was pointing—oh, never mind. Does he know about the notation in Tim’s appointment book?”
Ray’s nostril flared. He didn’t ask how I found out about the date book. “Yes, but only because Walter discovered it.”
“So let me get this straight. You’ve been concealing the evidence against me from your boss?”
“In a word, yes.”
Ray left in a fury, tires squealing. I decided against chasing after him. I’d forgotten to tell him about Walter Burnbaum’s presence at the psych center, but Ray was too mad to listen to me right now anyway.
I stood on the filing cabinet trying to pry the top drawer open with a crow bar. Sarah pulled into the driveway in her gold soccer-mom minivan. She was a petite blonde with wide dark eyes and a beauty mark smack dab in the center of her right cheek. If she were a little taller and more buxom, she might be Marilyn Monroe. In her work overalls she looked more like Green Acres today. Her eyes grew wide at the scene before her.
“What happened?”
I couldn’t tell her about Ray, because I didn’t want to taint his reputation any further than I already had. I didn’t think she’d buy a microburst as an explanation for the mess. I took the blame, instead. “I got a little carried away. It’s an emotional time for me.”
She gazed wide-eyed at the disaster. “I understand. I’ll clean it all right up.”
“I’ll help.” I took one last tug on the top drawer and it popped open, sending scads of photographs swirling into the air and me flying backward onto the corner of the filing cabinet. A shock wave shot up my spine.
“Jolene, are you all right?” Sarah rushed to my side and knelt to look into my eyes, which were now welling with tears.
Breathless, I could only nod.
“Are you sure? Maybe I should call an ambulance.”
I managed to croak out the word “no.”
She gripped my arm and waited. After a minute or so, I worked my way to my feet with my tailbone smarting every inch of the way.
“Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?”
“No, I’m fine.” I started to giggle. Sarah joined me. We both knew I was lying.
Sarah began to gather up the photographs. “Well, at least the police didn’t need to come.”
I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t bend over. “What are you talking about?”
“I had a sale last month for a family who moved out of town. They had an alarm system I turned on and off every time I went over to the house. The night before the sale, it went off in the middle of the night for some reason. Maybe someone was trying to break in since the house was vacant. Anyway, the next day the neighbors yelled at me like it was my fault. The police had to come in the middle of the night and shut the alarm off because the family who owned the house was six states away and hadn’t left a forwarding number. But before the police got permission to shut it off, the neighbors had to listen to the alarm for over an hour.”
“You know my husband Ray is with the Sheriff’s Department. Did he respond?”
Sarah handed me the photos. “Oh, no, it was Walter Burnbaum. Apparently any activated alarms within the town limits fall under his jurisdiction. I saw him a few days later. He wasn’t too happy to have to get up in the middle of the night either.” She moved off and got to work collecting Dad’s tools.
I’d scarcely heard the end of Sarah’s reply. I’d glanced down at the photograph on top of the pile she placed in my hands only to find my mother staring back at me. She had a broad, toothy smile and her arms were wrapped around a roughly six-year-old me. The sight took all thoughts, not to mention my breath, away. I flipped to the next picture: my mother and me on the first day of school. She’d made me a cotton print dress with pink ribbons for my hair, and I recalled feeling like the most special girl in the whole world. Maybe that was because my mother had told me I was.
I continued scanning the photographs. They covered the first twelve years of my life. Erica appeared five years in—an adorable baby with blond curls and a toothless smile, then later a rail-thin child who was forever holding a ratty old bear. I remembered packing the bear for her the other night. In almost all the photos, my mother stood smiling proudly, with no hint of the mental illness that would later claim her life. My father appeared in the remaining photos, including a picture at a church picnic with Martha and Walter Burnbaum.
My head snapped up from the photographs. “Sarah?”
She moved to my side and looked over my shoulder at the photos. “Great photos, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Thank you for saving th
em for me.”
She beamed. “I knew you’d want them.”
“I do, but I just wanted to ask you about what you said a moment ago. Walter Burnbaum responded to the false alarm at your estate sale and turned the alarm off?”
“Yes, Walter. He’s such a nice man.”
I used to think so. “You said the alarm went off at Brennan Rowe’s garage, too. Was he home to shut it off?”
“Nope, Walter did it.” Sarah picked up the broom and began to sweep up the fertilizer pellets. “I think it happens fairly often. Walter’s amassed quite a list of alarm codes.”
Walter Burnbaum. He was ever-present, wasn’t he? I tried to sit on the stoop. My back resisted. Instead I leaned against the house and thought.
Walter had been first on the scene when we discovered Tim’s body. He hadn’t even been armed. Was that because he knew the situation he was walking into? And on the night of the Christmas tree lighting when Ray and I discovered the money, I waved to Walter as he drove by me. Was he coming from my apartment where he had left tire tracks in the drive, hidden the money, and planted the sheath from the knife he used to kill Tim? Had Walter’s voice been the one Erica heard both times at the psych center? For once, had she not been hallucinating? And why had Walter suddenly decided to install a wood floor in the middle of the winter when Martha hated wooden flooring? Isn’t that the sort of thing a husband would know? And how come the police blotter in the local paper didn’t mention the robbery call Walter had been on supposedly three blocks away from my apartment the night I surprised an intruder? I laid down the photographs, pulled out my cell phone and started to dial Ray, then changed my mind and dialed the shop. I needed one more piece to solve the puzzle.
Cory answered before the phone had a chance to ring. “Hey, Jo, I was going to call you. Brennan Rowe called. He’s got the check ready for the roadster if you want to pick it up.”
“Sure, fine.”
“He said he’d be at the construction site until around two o’clock.”
“Okay, great.” I had more important things on my mind than money. “I have a question for you, Cory. Has the shop’s burglar alarm ever gone off?”