by Lucy Ness
We walked down a hallway where the walls were lined with old family pictures and into a room that must have been Gracie’s study.
That is, before it was a total and complete mess.
Three of the room’s walls were lined with bookshelves, and each and every one of those shelves had been emptied. There were books on the floor, books on the desk in the far corner of the room. The books were neatly piled in some places, tossed randomly in others, their covers open, their pages fluttering in the breeze of a ceiling fan.
“Someone’s looking for something.” I’m pretty sure I didn’t have to tell Oz this. He was a smart guy and when it came to crime, he knew his stuff. Still, the realization settled deep inside me, and I looked around at the chaos and shook my head. “What?”
The fact that he didn’t answer did little to cheer me. I bent to retrieve a book.
“Don’t touch anything.” Oz’s voice was sharp and he must have realized it, because when I stood up, he gave me a quick smile of apology. “There’s a photographer coming. We can’t move anything until after she’s finished.”
I backed away from the books, backed out of the room. By the time I got to the living room, that uniformed cop was sitting next to Gracie on the couch. She had a cup of tea in her hands.
“How bad is it?” she wanted to know.
“Nothing that can’t be cleaned up.” I sat in a wing chair across from the couch, all set to talk to her when Oz walked in.
“What do you keep in your study?” he asked Gracie. “Money?”
She slapped a hand to her heart. “Good heavens! No! I might be old, but I’m no fool.”
“Would anyone think there was money there?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. If they wanted cash, all they had to do is look in the cookie jar in the kitchen.”
With a look, Oz instructed the cop to go and check on said cash. He sat down in the spot the young officer vacated. “Why else would anyone want to look through your library?”
Gracie’s shoulders sagged. “The library? Oh no, not my books.” She would have popped out of her seat and gone to check on the damage herself if Oz hadn’t stopped her. “Are any of them destroyed?”
“It doesn’t look that way.”
“Then why—”
“That’s what we need to find out.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Gracie, did you by any chance have any books here from the club?”
“Well, I do sometimes,” she told us. “I bring the old records home. You know, so I can scan them. I started the project long before the fire in Marigold, but after that, I realized how vital it is to get it done as soon as possible. That way we’ll have a backup of all our information in case another knucklehead like Agnes goes and lights a cigarette in Marigold again.”
“And everyone knows about it?”
“Anyone who takes a look at the minutes of the club’s meetings. It was talked about a number of times before the board gave me the go-ahead. It was mentioned in our newsletter, too. We haven’t had a newsletter, lately,” she added almost as an afterthought. “Brittany did the last one, and there was a story in it. About me. About how I’m digitizing the records.”
There was a cherry coffee table between the couch and the chair where I sat, and I looked across it to Oz. “What you’re saying is that anyone could know you might have club records here at any time.”
“Well I suppose so,” Gracie admitted. “But why would they care?”
Oz wasn’t up to date with the latest, so I told him the story of Agnes’s mother and how the minutes of that particular meeting showed her opposition to Agnes’s membership in PPWC.
“No one would care about that,” Gracie insisted with the wave of one hand.
“Then what else could they be looking for?” I wondered.
“And more importantly, was there a book here that was taken?” Oz put in.
“There are no club books here. At least . . .” Like two fuzzy gray mice, Gracie’s brows settled low over her eyes. “At least, I don’t think so. I was looking to do some work last night, you see, looking to scan some pages, but I couldn’t find the books I thought I brought home. Sometimes, well, sometimes I think I’ve done something, then I find out I only ever thought about doing it. You’ll see. When you get older, the same thing will happen to you. I think I must have thought I brought the books home. But I didn’t. I’m sure they’re still in Marigold.”
“Could you have brought them home and someone took them before tonight?” Oz wanted to know.
Her eyes clouded with confusion. “I don’t think so. No one’s been in the house.”
“And if they were taken earlier, why would someone get their hands on the books then bother to return tonight?” I was feeling more confused than ever and, as if it might actually help, I got up and did a turn around the room. I was right. It didn’t help.
“Well, whatever they’re looking for, it’s not those minutes from the membership meeting.” Gracie was sure of this. Her shoulders were steady, she held her head high. “It might have created some gossip around the club back in the day, but now it’s nothing but old news.”
I had no doubt she was right. But if she was, what was the burglar looking for?
Since none of us knew the answer, I didn’t bother to ask the question out loud. I did have another thought though, and it jolted me toward the front door.
“Oz!” I didn’t have to tell him to come along; he sensed something was up and was right behind me. “Jack sometimes takes books home from the club, too. If someone’s looking for something in those books—”
We were in Oz’s car and on our way to Jack’s before I had a chance to say any more.
* * *
* * *
Lights and sirens, and Oz drove fast. I still had enough time to envision all sorts of horrible things. Jack’s house ransacked. Jack unconscious—or worse—on the floor.
When we wheeled into his drive outside a sturdy brick colonial with (no doubt) period-appropriate shutters in historically accurate colors and I saw Jack standing outside next to his car, relief flooded through me.
Oz was out of the car even before I was, so he walked up to Jack first. I was just in time to see him hold up his phone. “I haven’t even had a chance to call the police yet. How did you know and come so fast?”
“Know what?” My question overlapped with Oz’s.
But really, I don’t need to point out who was really in charge. Oz stepped closer to Jack. “What’s going on?”
“You don’t know?” Jack glanced from me to Oz. “But then, how—”
“Just explain, Mr. Harkness.” The snap of Oz’s official voice somehow didn’t fit his personality nearly as much as purple glitter did, but I didn’t question it. He was doing his job. “What happened?”
“Well, I just got home. A couple of minutes ago. I pulled in and that’s when I saw him. There was a person standing right outside my back door. As soon as he saw the car, he took off running.”
“Which way?” Oz asked at the same time he pulled out his phone and called for backup. He relayed Jack’s information to the person on the other end of the phone. “I’ll have some officers look around,” he told Jack once he ended the call. “But chances are, the guy’s long gone. Can you describe him?”
“It’s dark.” Jack didn’t really need to point this out, but believe me, I understood. I remembered trying to line up the facts inside my head after I found Muriel on the basement steps. “I didn’t see his face. He was shorter than me. Shorter than you, Detective. Kind of bulky, but then . . .” Jack shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “He could have been wearing a coat.”
“Not much to go on,” Oz mumbled even as he wrote everything down. “But we’ll try. Have you been into the house yet?”
Even in the dim light, I could see Jack’s face pale. “You mean he c
ould have been coming out? Not going in?”
“We don’t know that yet,” Oz said and because he didn’t tell either one of us to stay put, both Jack and I walked along with him to the back door.
It was locked.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief, unlocked the door, then keyed his security code into the pad on a nearby wall. “If he had gotten in, my security service would have been alerted.”
“Might have been better. Then we might have had a chance to catch him.” Oz glanced all around, taking in the state-of-the-art kitchen with its sleek white granite countertop, the stainless appliances, the wine cooler than hummed in one corner. “There usually aren’t problems in this neighborhood.”
“But there might be problems because of the books,” I dared to put in. “Jack, have you brought any books home from the club?”
“Yes, of course. You know that. A few over the last week. There were some that sustained too much smoke damage to—”
“Are they still here?” I wanted to know.
Jack caught the note of urgency in my voice. He led the way. Upstairs in a room that had a fireplace on one wall and the others crammed with bookshelves, everything was neat and orderly. There was a door next to one of the bookshelves, and Jack opened it and showed us into a workroom as clean and spare as an operating room. There were stainless shelves along the walls where boxes and bottles of chemicals sat alongside things like brushes and rags.
“I had books from the club. In here. I was airing them out from the smoke damage. Those were the books I took back to the club and talked about to you today, Avery.” He skimmed a glance at Oz and decided I’d probably already filled Oz in. “Old club minutes are hardly worth stealing.”
“And Gracie says everyone at the club at the time knew Margaret dissed Agnes. It was no secret. Still . . .” I looked over the sterile workroom and pictured it full of the club’s old ledgers. “Someone’s looking for something, and the only thing that connects what’s happening is what’s in Marigold.”
CHAPTER 23
By the end of the evening, we were exhausted from the useless effort of our brains going around in circles. We left Jack at home and Oz took me back to Gracie’s, where I got my car and headed home to the club. He returned to the station to fill out what he described as mounds of reports.
It was late. I was tired. Not to mention confused.
What was someone looking for? And how was it connected to Muriel’s murder?
I was too tired to drag myself up the steps to my room right away, and when I stopped to think about it, I realized I was also starving. I went into the kitchen and rooted around in the fridge for something that might possibly pass as dinner. By now, I just about expected Clemmie to pop in and out, so I wasn’t surprised when I turned and saw her sitting on top of the grill.
“Move it,” I told her, and poked a thumb away from the grill. “Making myself a sandwich.”
She looked at the supplies in my hands. “Bread, butter, cheese. Doesn’t sound half bad.”
“Not sure I’ve even got the energy to eat it.” I slathered the bread with butter, tossed on a couple piece of thick-cut cheddar, topped off the lid of the sandwich with more butter, and flicked on the grill.
I’d already turned to say something to Clemmie when her mouth dropped open. That was right before she screamed and pointed behind me. “Fire! Fire!”
* * *
* * *
Every fire is dangerous. But let’s face it, I’d worked in kitchens and restaurants for years. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
As cool and as calm as I could be, considering the back of my neck prickled from the heat and my eyes already stung from the smoke, I did what I’d been trained to do. I raced to where we kept the fire extinguisher.
It wasn’t there.
“Avery, do something!” Yes, yes, I know—Clemmie was impervious to the flames and to the clouds of smoke that were already puffing around the grill. That didn’t keep her from pointing a frantic finger toward the fire and jumping up and down. “You’ve got to put it out now, or you’ll end up here on the Other Side with me.”
It wasn’t that serious.
Was it?
I looked at the grill and the tongues of fire that shot above it, the light of the orange and red flames flicking against the wall. I sucked in a breath—and regretted it immediately. I coughed and sputtered, but I knew better than to throw open a window. At least just yet. Oxygen would feed the flames, and I needed to get rid of them, not provide them more fuel.
My brain did a frantic inventory. There was a fire extinguisher at the top of the steps near Agnes’s office, but upstairs was too far away. There was one in my bedroom, but that was even farther. Daisy Den—on the other side of the building. Summerhouse—out of the question. Ballroom!
As fast as my trembling legs could carry me, I hotfooted it there. What with the excitement and with the rush of adrenalin that made my heart pound and my blood race, maybe I just wasn’t thinking right. I swear, the fire extinguisher was kept to the left of the mahogany fireplace mantel.
There was no sign of it and at the same time my heart squeezed and skipped over a dozen erratic beats, I saw Clemmie whoosh into the room, her ectoplasm leaving a trail as effervescent as a comet’s tail. She zipped from corner to corner, from floor to ceiling, from the grand piano near the windows to the potted palms that were bunched in a corner now, the ones we’d place on either side of the doorway for inauguration day.
“Here! Here!” Clemmie called out and I went running. I grabbed the red extinguisher from behind a potted palm and made it to the kitchen in record time. By the time I got back, my breaths were labored and the fire was larger, hotter. It licked the ceiling above the grill. Its raging heat slapped my cheeks.
Clemmie eyed the extinguisher with distrust. “You know what to do with that thing?”
“Watch me!”
I did exactly as I’d been trained—pulled the pin, aimed, squeezed the handle, swept the fire, bottom to top. It felt like a lifetime, but just a couple of seconds later, the kitchen was filled with the cold fumes from the extinguisher and my hair was in my eyes. I brushed it away before I zipped over to throw open every window in the kitchen and the dining room. That done, I went to the sink and splashed my face and hands with water and rinsed out my eyes.
“You sure are one smart tomato.” Clemmie stood at my side, watching my every move. “Grace under pressure, that’s what you got.”
Fists on hips, I assessed the damage. The grill was a mess, but that was to be expected. My grilled cheese sandwich . . . well, it was grilled, all right. Grilled to a crisp. There were black smudges of smoke on the ceiling, and the place would need a major scrubbing.
“The chemical will clear up in a couple minutes,” I promised Clemmie, then realized it really didn’t matter to her. She looked as fresh and as unrumpled as I was sure I didn’t. I gave the grill a glare. “I guess I should have had Bill fix this thing before I had him work outside. Good thing he’s coming in tomorrow. I bet he can have it done in a flash and I’ll get Geneva and Quentin in early so we can start cleaning.”
“Good thing you got until Sunday until the big shindig.”
It wasn’t like Clemmie needed to remind me. I knew I was in big trouble—we had less than forty-eight hours before the inauguration, and another disaster on our hands.
* * *
* * *
Needless to say, I didn’t have much time for sleuthing on Saturday. The flowers arrived, our beverage distributor showed up with a couple of cases of champagne, and between Bill in there fixing the grill and Quentin and Geneva trying to clean up around him, the kitchen was hopping. Me, I tried to help as much as I could.
Which would have been considerably easier if Clemmie wasn’t in the kitchen, too, offering advice that no one but me could hear.
“You missed a spot,” she
told me and pointed to a tiny smudge of soot between the grill hood and the ceiling and clicked her tongue, grinning as she did. “Fallin’ down on the job.”
“At least I’m doing a job,” I shot back, then when Bill glared at me from where he knelt in front of the grill fighting with some mechanical part, I gave him a quick smile.
He grunted in reply and got back to work.
I scrubbed the spot to Clemmie’s satisfaction and got down from the stepladder I’d been using just as Bill stood up. He was holding up a blackened piece of metal with wires sticking out of the back of it, and he shook his head.
“Weird,” he said.
“Can it be fixed?”
“Sure. Of course. I can fix anything. But this . . .” As if I hadn’t seen it, he held the part out to me. “This is weird. It’s the reason the grill hasn’t been working, all right, but there’s no way this is what caused the grill to catch fire.”
I remembered the flames, the heat, the panic that built in my chest as I frantically searched for a fire extinguisher and wondered if I’d get back to the kitchen before the club went up in flames.
“So what did cause the fire?” I asked Bill.
“That’s the weird part.” He motioned me closer to the grill, and while he was at it, he called Quentin over, too. “When was the last time you cleaned the grill hood?” he asked our chef.
Quentin crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Are you saying I didn’t?”
“I’m saying somebody didn’t.” Bill pointed up at the grill. “Grease. That’s what started this fire. The entire inside of the hood was coated with grease.”
“Hey, hey! You know me better than that.” I wasn’t sure if Quentin was talking to me or to Bill. He backed away from the grill and shot defiant looks at both of us. “I clean regular. And even if I didn’t, we haven’t cooked enough food in this kitchen lately for grease to build up anywhere.”