In Plain Sight

by Lorena McCourtney

  I blinked at him. Physical way? “You’re suggesting … what? That I might push Leslie down the stairs? Arrange for that dining room chandelier to fall on her? Whack her with an oar from the boathouse?”

  “You’re very imaginative, Mrs. Malone.”

  For a moment I thought he might actually be teasing me. There was a certain glint in those steely cop eyes. But it’s difficult to discern teasing when a man is watching you from under an Al Caponetype scar on his eyebrow.

  “According to official reports you did send a member of the Braxton clan up in Missouri to the hospital with a concussion.”

  I mentally rolled my eyes. One little incident in my life, a purely accidental incident as I was trying to escape a dangerous criminal, and Sgt. Yates acts like I’m a major menace. “This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned this,” I pointed out. “I really don’t think it has any connection with the current situation. My life was in danger then.”

  “Maybe I’m impressed with your … ah … unexpected capabilities.” Was there a smile behind that statement? I couldn’t tell. Then he added, “My father has been a widower for a number of years now. He’s somewhat older than you. But very active. Maybe you two should meet.”

  I was astonished at this apparent indication of approval. Was he suggesting that a woman capable of sending a Braxton to the hospital and jail would make a nice companion for his father? On second thought, it occurred to me that he could be saying that his father, who presumably did not go around attacking strangers, might be a good influence on me. I murmured a noncommittal, “That might be nice.”

  He appraised me a minute longer but didn’t pursue this line of thought. Perhaps he decided he should check with his father before making any rash commitment to introductions. “In any case, you may be assured that we won’t railroad you into a prison term,” he added solemnly.

  “Good. I’d hate to be known as the Blue-Haired Book Snatcher who got sent up for twenty years.”

  I felt restless after Sgt. Yates left. I thought about checking to see if there were any bookstores in Woodston or nearby towns where the thief could have sold the books. But the thought that I might encounter a deputy investigating at those same stores, a deputy who might report my sleuthing to Sgt. Yates, dampened that idea. So I went with a different one.

  13

  I looked up the name I’d scribbled on a scratch pad when I talked to DeeAnn. The only Diedrich in the phone book was an Alton. I dialed the number, and a woman answered on the fifth ring. Not a hello.

  “Can you hold on a minute?” she asked on a frantic note. “Tricia threw a toothbrush in the toilet, and if she flushes it—”

  So I held on, intrigued by the clunks and rattles and splashes associated with fishing in a toilet. Then the sound of the phone being picked up again.

  “Okay, sorry, thanks for waiting. It’s been one of those days. Kip got hold of my stamps and pasted them in a coloring book. Lisa ate a crayon and threw up. All I need now is for the toilet to plug up.”

  “Is this Cass Diedrich?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Who else would want to be me?”

  “Uh … you don’t know me, but my name is Ivy Malone. I’ve been working as a housekeeper for Leslie Marcone—”

  “My sympathies.”

  “I understand you also used to work for her, and I was wondering … I hate to bother you, but do you suppose I could come over and talk to you for a few minutes?”

  Given her bad day and a certain animosity in her tone about my connection with Leslie, I expected a rejection. I intended to add the persuasive point that Leslie had fired me, but I didn’t have to. She said, “Sure. Come on over. I could use some grown-up conversation. But I think I should warn you about the Terminator.”

  “The Terminator?”

  “The kids’ pet rat.” As if knowing what I must be wondering, she added, “The kids named her that. Don’t ask me why. She got loose this morning. But don’t worry. She’s friendly. She just likes to crawl under your armpit.”

  I dug out a local map and looked up the address given in the phone book. Fifteen minutes later, arms protectively clamped to my body to deter armpit attackers, I was knocking on the door. I’d tried the doorbell, but it seemed to be out of order.

  A frazzled-looking semi-blonde opened the door. She was wearing old black leggings and a sweatshirt, no shoes. Red polish decorated the toenails of one bare foot, but the pedicure had apparently been interrupted before it reached the other foot. A couple of angelic-looking little blonde girls peeked out from behind her. Which meant a third child—and a rat—were on the loose somewhere.

  “Come on out to the kitchen. I’m washing dishes. The dishwasher is on the blink.”

  The stacked dishes suggested they’d been accumulating for some time, perhaps in hopes the dishwasher would heal itself. I’ve also been known to hope some mechanical breakdown would spontaneously heal.

  “How about if I wash dishes, and you do … whatever else needs doing?” Looking around the crumb-strewn floor, empty rat cage, and scattered toys, I figured that there was quite a lot that needed doing.

  She looked at me in amazement. She didn’t brush off the offer. “Would you? That would be wonderful. Al, that’s my husband, he’s a truck driver, has been gone since last Wednesday. He’ll be getting in tomorrow, and I’d like to have the house at least halfway clean for him.”

  There was already water in one side of the double sink, but it looked a little thick to qualify as dishwater, so I pulled the stopper and started over. Cass disappeared into another room and came back with a load of dry laundry that she dumped on the table. She started folding and I started washing, keeping a wary eye out for anything furry interested in my armpits.

  “How did you ever manage to work for Leslie Marcone when you have such a … busy schedule?” I asked.

  “Al was out of work then, so he stayed with the kids. You wanted to talk to me about my working for her?” She suddenly sounded wary.

  “Actually, I’m not working for Leslie anymore either. She fired me yesterday.”

  “Ah.” Cass nodded knowingly, and the wariness went out of her voice. “Up to her old tricks, I see. What was her beef with you?”

  “She accused me of stealing some valuable books.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember those boxes of books. The only time I ever went in there was to vacuum and dust. I love to read, but …” She waved a hand in the direction of the kids, all three now playing on the floor and supplying sound effects for a trio of toys whose batteries had apparently long since worn out. “Maybe someday I’ll get beyond The Fish That Jumped over the Moon. That’s their current favorite.”

  “Were you happy working for Leslie?”

  “I needed the job.” (Honk of child imitating truck horn.)

  “You quit because your husband found work?”

  “Quit?” (Squeal of child doing skidding brakes.) “Oh, no. She fired me too.”

  Somehow this was no surprise. “If you don’t mind my asking, for what reason?”

  “There were usually leftovers from her meals. It was hard to figure exactly how much to cook, because you could never tell if she was going to eat like a pig or a hummingbird. And, as you undoubtedly know, she won’t touch leftovers.” (Rumble of toy tractor as interpreted by small girl.) “Anyway, it seemed a shame to throw out good food, and we could sure use it, so I started bringing the leftovers home.”

  “Leslie objected?”

  “She threw a hissy fit when she found out. Acted like I’d made off with family heirlooms. I suppose I should have asked first, but it just didn’t occur to me that she’d care. After all, as far as she was concerned, after she was done with it, it was garbage.”

  “I wonder why what you did with the leftovers mattered to her at all?” (Truck and toy tractor colliding. Crash sound effects.) It was a rather disconnected conversation, but I was getting a more complete, if still puzzling, picture of my former employer.

  Cass shook he
r head. “I think maybe she thought I was cooking too much so there’d be leftovers to bring home. But I’m not really sure. There were lots of things I never could figure out about her. Like why doesn’t she answer the telephone about half the time? Why is she such a fanatic about exercise?”

  I thought I knew the answer to that last question. She’d been overweight when she was married, and the husband was running around with “bombshell redheads.” She’d grimly decided to get rid of the excess weight, and she’d done it. And wasn’t about to let it homestead her hips again.

  I’d had to deal with leftovers too, of course. As carefully as I’d tried to calculate the proper amount of food to prepare for Leslie, it was impossible to figure it down to the last carrot. As Cass said, you could never tell if Leslie was going to eat like a pig or a hummingbird. I’d sometimes finished off a few bites of leftovers, but mostly I’d just tossed them. Leslie had never asked what I did with them. But maybe she checked the garbage can to be sure they were there.

  “Did she call the police?” (Word police brings trio of child shrieks of sirens.)

  “I don’t think so. I mean, Leslie can get up in arms over most anything. She jumped all over one poor gardener for accidentally cutting down some ugly old bush she liked and made him replace it. But I guess even she drew the line at involving the police with leftovers.”

  “Were you working there when the neighbor rammed the gate with his pickup?” (Little boy on knees heads for bathroom, zoom-zooming toy truck with him.)

  “Oh, yeah. We both heard this awful noise and ran out, and there he was, barreling right through the gate. I thought he was going to run us both down.” Sounding reluctant, as if she hated to say anything even minimally nice about Leslie, she added, “Next to that weirdo creep, even Leslie seemed almost normal. He really scared me.”

  “Did he do anything else?”

  “Before the gate incident he came to the house several times, haranguing her about using her boat landing and dock. Once we found red paint sprayed all over the boathouse door, and I was pretty sure he did it. But I don’t think she called the police then. She just had a guy come and paint over it.”

  Thinking of the question Sgt. Yates had asked me, I asked it of Cass. “How did you feel about getting fired?”

  “I wanted to shove her head in the toilet. And when I came home and told Al, he was ready to roar over there and do it. I think if I hadn’t hung on to the car keys until he calmed down, he would have. We had a really hard time financially for a while there, when we were both out of work. We’re still catching up on bills.”

  (Little boy returns, turns toy truck into attack plane, and crashes into small girl’s head.)

  “Are you?” I asked. “Still mad about it, I mean.”

  “Oh, a little, I guess. But I believe in the Lord, and forgiveness is part of believing, so I’ve tried to just let it go. But Al, he’s not much on forgiveness. Especially when she only paid me half of what I had coming for my last week there. He’s still mad about that. Every once in a while he mutters something about getting her to pay up.” Hastily she added, as if she wanted to make sure I didn’t get a wrong impression of her husband, “But Al’s really the greatest, most generous guy in the world.”

  “She shorted me a few dollars too.”

  “In a way I feel sorry for her,” Cass went on as she folded a raggedy towel. “I mean, she has that big house and all that money, but you have to wonder what’s lacking in a person’s life if she can get in such a tizzy about leftovers.”

  I was about done with the dishes, and I was thinking I’d thank Cass for the information and head on home. But just then one of the kids whopped the other on the jaw with the police car. A yowl exploded and then all three were bawling. Cass looked ready to cry too.

  “How about you go relax in a hot bath, and I’ll watch the kids for a while?” I said impulsively. I turned to the kids. “Hey, anyone want to read the story about the fish and the moon?”

  The crying stopped, and Cass looked at me as if I’d just handed her a winning lottery ticket. Without a word of polite demurral she grabbed a freshly folded towel from the table and headed for the bathroom. The kids stared at me expectantly, and I wondered what I’d let myself in for. Maybe they had some predetermined attack-the-babysitter plan in readiness. Maybe Cass had no intention of coming out of the bathroom until husband Al got home.

  The kids and I settled on the sofa. The Fish That Jumped over the Moon turned out to be a nice little story about a fish and the reflection of the moon in the water, and then I told them one about Jonah and the whale. They responded with a garbled version of Joseph’s coat of many colors, which they’d heard in a Sunday school class. Cass did come out about an hour later, hair damp and fresh and toenails fully painted, and by that time the kids were sprawled on sofa and floor in peaceful naps.

  And I had a rat, a big black and white one, snuggled under my left armpit. Which actually wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I gently extracted the creature and nestled her beside a sleeping child.

  I had no doubt the kids would soon be up to their live-wire tricks, but Cass looked relaxed and better able to cope now. And then I thought, Hey, I enjoyed this. Why don’t I volunteer at church to help out in the nursery?

  On the way home I waved at Hanson Watkins, out in the yard washing his mother’s motor home. It looked like an older model, not nearly as large as Magnolia and Geoff’s behemoth, smaller, actually, than Mac’s modest home on wheels as well. And a different style, with a section for what must be the bed extending over the cab. Offhand, I wondered what one like that was worth.

  By the time I got home, however, my thoughts were back to my absent whistle. I could easily buy another one, probably for less than a dollar. But this one was special. Silver-plated. Although silver plating wasn’t why it was valuable to me. I cherished it because it was a last gift from Thea, my longtime friend back on Madison Street. Thea was gone now, lying beside her husband back there in Parkdale Heights cemetery, but whenever I fingered the whistle, I felt the strength and warmth of our long, sisterly friendship.

  I wanted my special whistle back.

  I watched for Leslie on the trail, planning to intercept her and tell her firmly that I needed to come over and retrieve my whistle. I didn’t see her, but it was late enough in the day that she may have already finished her run.

  That evening I tried to call Leslie. Sandy had another gymnastics practice, but I had a few minutes before it was time to pick her up at the studio and could drive over and get the whistle during that time.

  I felt unexpectedly jittery dialing the unlisted number. Leslie wasn’t above throwing what Cass Diedrich had called a “hissy fit” over the phone. But I intended to persist. I let the phone ring five, six, seven times. No answer. Which meant … what? That she’d gone out of town again? Or, just as likely, that she simply wasn’t answering the phone. She could glance at a ringing phone and then, either less curious or stronger willed than I am, just let it ring. Another of her peculiarities was that, although she must be a technological genius with that computer—I once saw her physically open it up and do something with its innards—she didn’t even own an answering machine. She’d never explained any of this to me, of course, but I wondered now if her odd attitude about the phone was connected to the ex-husband and the failed company they’d been in together.

  I took a walk the following afternoon at about the time Leslie usually jogged. Again she didn’t show. I was puzzled. Could she feel uncomfortable enough about encountering me on the trail that she’d change her jogging route? Unlikely. She was capable of running right by me—or over me—with never a glance. Yet, as I’d already observed, Leslie was a woman of odd contradictions.

  Once more I tried calling her that evening. Again, no answer. I doubted she considered avoiding me important enough to stop answering the phone completely. So I was back to wondering if she was out of town.

  On Saturday afternoon, when I still didn’t see her on
the trail, I debated about going into town and buying another whistle. I didn’t like being without one. But I still wanted my whistle.

  And I was, I decided, going after it.

  I marched out to the Thunderbird, which, indifferent to my determined mind-set, refused to start. It had, in fact, been grumpy about starting several times lately. Battery or ignition problems? Nonspecific old-age debilities? Or just general stubbornness? I gave it a few minutes to pout, tried again, and this time it started cheerfully. I gave the dashboard an appreciative pat. “Good girl.”

  The gate at 2742 Vintage Road was closed when I reached it, of course, and I now had no remote control with which to open it. I parked the T-bird off to the side of the driveway and crawled through the board fence.

  I started out walking briskly down the driveway, but I hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps when my feet slowed. I wasn’t certain why. Because I dreaded what might well be an unpleasant confrontation with Leslie? Or because the place felt … odd? I hesitated, trying to analyze that oddness. A feeling of emptiness? Yes. Spooky? Somewhat. Scary?

  Don’t be ridiculous. I’d had a similar feeling of oddness the morning I came to the house when Leslie was away overnight, and nothing was wrong then. Nothing was wrong now.

  I resumed walking, deciding I’d go to the back door I’d always used.

  That was when I saw the flash of movement. Something … no, someone, moving fast—ducking into the heavy underbrush that separated house and road. A thud and muffled grunt as the person apparently crashed into a tree or stump.

  Then … silence.

  I stood still, frozen in midstep. The person couldn’t have continued through the wooded tangle without making noise of some kind. Which meant he was still in there.

  Who? What was he doing? Or what had he already done? I took a step in the direction of the sounds, head cocked to listen for any rustle of movement.

  Caution suddenly overcame curiosity. He could be hiding from me … or waiting to pounce on me. Whatever, his sneaky actions said plainer than words that whatever he was up to, it was no good.