by J. L. Wilson
“Why would PJ start using a condom now?” I stared at Alan, bewildered. “Wait a minute. Isabel said something about—”
Alan held up a hand. “You were under the influence of pain killers at the time. Who’s to say what she said? I wonder who gave PJ the condom to use.”
“But he must have known he was allergic,” I protested.
“Maybe not. You know how he was about doctors,” Alan said. “And everybody uses those non-latex gloves now, so even if he went to a doctor, he may not have known.”
“True.” PJ’s aversion to all health professionals, medical and dental, was well known. He probably hadn’t set foot in a doctor’s office in a decade.
“Tell me about John and his idea. What’s it about?” Alan asked.
I launched into a description of John’s plan for an Organic Destination, complete with B&B, farm-to-restaurant connection, and lessons. Before I was halfway through describing it, Alan found a lined pad and was jotting notes.
“We could do cooking lessons, too,” he said, writing furiously. “How to select and use produce when it’s in season, how to use meat sparingly but to advantage. I’ll bet we could partner with the culinary college in Des Moines and have students come and work here.” His landline phone rang. “Hold on.” He went into the kitchen and answered it, but soon came back to the door, phone held against his chest. “It’s Owen. The police are done at your house. He’s going to call in the troops for cleaning then he’ll pick you up in two hours for the inventory. Sound okay?”
“Two hours? That won’t be enough time for people to get it into shape.”
Alan smiled smugly. “Trust me. We have enough people.” He put the phone back to his ear. “That’s fine, Owen. She’ll be ready.” He replaced the phone on its base. “Okay, what else do we need to do to get this idea off the ground?”
He and I spent the next hour going through John’s idea, making notes, roughing estimates of costs, and scoping out a broad outline of a plan. After that I spent an hour on the phone with my bank, the insurance company, and the credit card company, trying to verify that my financial health was reasonably intact. To my surprise, there were no charges on the credit card and no withdrawals from my bank accounts.
My insurance agent evaluated my car (totaled) and my house (essentially totaled) and we discussed what I needed to do to get the claims processing underway. I was relieved to discover it wasn’t as awful as I expected. I’d be out a bunch of money, but it wouldn’t beggar me. It was a big load off my mind.
I took a few minutes on Alan’s computer to email the files from the Angry Birds memory stick to my home email account. I didn’t want to be responsible for whatever might be in those files, but I was damned if I’d hand it over without some kind of backup.
I returned to “my downstairs suite” and checked the kittens. They were curled up in the family room, faces pressed against the patio door to view the outside world. I scooped the litter, topped up the food dishes, and gave them a good petting before I left. As Alan predicted, they appeared to be none the worse for their traumatic experience. I made a mental note to have a vet check them at the earliest opportunity.
It was almost five in the afternoon when Owen’s car pulled into Alan’s drive. At my insistence, Alan went to the restaurant to work the evening shift. I promised to join him there after going through my house with Owen, an experience I dreaded but one I knew must be done. No one else could inventory it but me. I needed to suck it up and live with it.
“The police and my office are joining forces on your case and the shooting at the Yoke,” Owen said while we drove to what I considered the scene of the crime, not home. “It isn’t any secret that Federal agents are investigating what’s happening at the factory because of the salmonella outbreak. If you’re involved in that, it’s important our department is involved, too.”
“I was going to show you the message on my phone, but it’s gone missing, along with my purse. I got a threatening text message.”
He nodded like he expected that. “Is that why you wanted me to find the phone number?”
“Yeah.” I dug into my jeans pocket and held up the Angry Birds memory stick. “My nephew Will gave this to me. I mean, he gave me these files. The original memory stick is in my purse, wherever it is. This is a copy.”
Owen made no move to take the toy-gadget from me. “When we get to your house, there will be a detective from the DCI there. Give the memory stick to him for processing.”
I lowered my hand, clutching the little rubber gadget hard in my palm. “Why not you?”
“I want to make sure there’s a clear chain of custody for it. If you give it to me now, there’s nothing to prove I didn’t plant information. You’ll hand it to an unbiased third-party and they’ll take it from there.” He glanced at me, his gray eyes intense. “I won’t have it said that my relationship with Alan biased me in any way.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, Owen. I don’t want to mess things up for you and him.”
“You won’t.” He drove in silence for a few more minutes. “Did you go through what’s on that stick? Do you know what’s there?”
“Not in detail. Some of it was so nasty I couldn’t.” I stared glumly ahead. We pulled up to my house, where a squad car and a dark van sat at the curb. “Like my house.”
“I’m sorry you have to go through this.” Owen parked in the drive behind the dark van. “I meant to ask you, Tuck. Who knew you were on the road at the time of your accident?”
I shook my head. “Nobody. I told John I was coming out, but I didn’t specify a time.”
“Somebody knew you were going there.”
“Only John.”
Owen regarded me somberly. “You might want to be careful what you say to him.”
I remembered John and the way he handled the kittens, making sure they were safe. I remembered the way he handled me, making sure I was taken care of. “You’re wrong,” I said confidently. “He would never do anything to hurt anyone.”
“Don’t be so sure about it. John has a lot to gain if the factory shuts down.”
“Well, if he has a lot to gain, he’d be happy to have the contents of the memory stick made public. He wouldn’t have any reason to run me off the road.”
“That’s if he’s sure you have it and you’ll make it public. If he could get his hands on it, he could see the information is released to the media.”
I snorted. “Marianne? The media?”
“Or a newspaper in Des Moines, or any one of the national news outlets who are covering the salmonella outbreak.”
“I haven’t seen any breaking news, though.”
“All I’m saying is you should be careful who you talk to. You can’t be sure who your friends are in a case like this.” Before I could frame a reply, Owen opened his door and came around to open my door for me. “We’re going to walk through and see if anything obvious is missing. When you pack to move, either for the professional cleaners or to a new place, you’ll have a chance to really evaluate what’s here and what isn’t. So this doesn’t have to take long.”
I followed him into the garage but stopped at the steps leading into the kitchen. Owen paused, too, and waited for me.
You can do this. Hold your breath, don’t look closely, and you can do it.
I took a deep breath and followed him inside.
Chapter 15
Owen held the door for me and I walked through, steeling myself for the worst.
It was still a mess. Flour was everywhere, dark splotches were splattered here and there, and now a fine gray powder coated the fridge, the stove handle, the cabinets, the table and the chairs. Utensils were tossed around, food was strewn about, and the scrawled graffiti still splattered the wall, although it was hard to see because it was covered with a plastic sheet.
But the horrid, choking, nauseating smell was gone. The room was cool, not suffocating and hot. Now it seemed like an abandoned house, not a crack house or a torture chamber
.
I turned to the chubby little man in jeans and a lab coat standing near the sink. “Detective Saxe,” he said, nodding to me. His hands were full of brushes and tubes, various sized.
“Miss Frye has some evidence she’d like to have processed,” Owen said, coming to stand beside me.
The detective set his tools into a big black case on the floor then he accepted the Angry Birds memory stick from me, putting it into a little clear baggie and labeling it. I filled in some information and signed a form, Owen signed a form, and the detective signed a form before the memory stick disappeared into the black case and he picked up his tools again.
“We’re going to do a quick inventory,” Owen said. “Then we’ll leave it to you.”
The man nodded. “Officer Norman is downstairs taking photographs. We’re done up here. Terrible thing what happened, but don’t worry, we found several fingerprints here. I’m sure we’ll get the guy who did it.”
“Thanks.” I turned to the living room where a heaping pile of manure sat a day before. Now it was gone and the rug was covered with a sheet. My furniture was still ripped and torn, but it didn’t bother me for some reason. Today it was just a mess. It wasn’t a personal insult. I don’t know why it changed in a day, but for some reason, it did.
I walked along the hall. The spot where the guts had sat was gone, cut from the carpet runner to expose bare floor. In my bedroom, my bedding was gone and the bed remained, stripped and naked in the middle of the room. The dresser drawers hung out, damaged beyond repair, the flimsy wood showing where someone kicked through the base of each drawer.
“Whoever did this was pissed off. I didn’t notice that yesterday. I was so surprised, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Owen said. “This was personal.”
“Thanks for confirming that.” I walked slowly through the other rooms, noting what was changed, what was rearranged. When we got done, I told Owen, “The only thing obviously missing is the scrapbooks.”
“Scrapbooks?” He pulled out a notepad and so did the detective.
“Photo albums and scrapbooks on the coffee table. I skimmed through them the other night. They’re gone.”
Owen and the detective exchanged a look. “We didn’t find anything like that around.”
“Anything else, Tucker?” Owen asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, good. We need to get your fingerprints so we can eliminate them.” Owen led me back to the kitchen where the black case now sat on the table. He left to make a phone call and talk to the officer on duty while the detective briskly arrayed various pads and papers on the table. Before I knew it, I was fingerprinted and cleaning my hands with the little handy-wipe towelette he handed me.
“Thank you,” I said, wiping off my hands. “I hope we find who did this.”
“Oh, we will,” he said cheerfully. “Criminals really aren’t smart. We usually get them in the end. You don’t worry about that.”
“Of course, even if you catch whoever did it, it still means my life is totally screwed up,” I commented when Owen and I drove through downtown to the Acorn.
“True. But maybe it’ll make you feel better if you see the guy who did suffer a bit.” Owen flashed me a quick grin. “I know it always makes me feel better when I see that.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. We’ve got a good crowd tonight,” I said when we pulled into the parking lot, which was almost full.
“Alan said you should meet him in the restaurant. I called him while you were being fingerprinted.”
“It’s six o’clock,” I protested. “It’s the middle of dinner hour.”
“He insisted. And you know how he gets if he doesn’t get his way.”
“Okay, okay. Thanks, Owen, for helping me through all this. I appreciate it.”
“It’s what I get paid for, Tuck. Sometimes it’s worth it, like now.” He waved good-bye and drove off while I entered into the back door of the Parlor. I darted into the kitchen, glancing into the dining room as I went. It was a full house tonight, and Alan certainly didn’t need to take time to bother with me. I’d grab a quick bite to eat then go.
He spied me when I entered. “Finally! Are you all done at the house?” He hurried over to me, wiping his hands on his immaculate white apron.
“Yep. Now I can have the insurance people go in, take their pictures, and figure what the next step is. I can’t stay in your basement forever.”
“Lower level, please. Basement sounds so middle class. Speaking of which, come with me. I decided to take a swipe at the apartment upstairs. Come see what you think.”
“But you’re busy,” I protested. “It’s dinner hour.”
He untied his apron and hung it on a hook near the door. “A few minutes won’t hurt. Come along, come on.” He took my arm and almost dragged me to the far corner of the kitchen and the tiny freight elevator located on the exterior east wall. “I checked with our insurance agent, and he assured me the policy can be expanded to include residential as well as commercial property.” He nudged me into the elevator, a five-by-five metal space with padding on the walls.
Alan touched the “3” button and the cage lurched upward, groaning slightly. “We need to oil this because you’ll be using it.”
“I can take the stairs,” I said half-heartedly. The stairs were steep, narrow and the worn wood of the risers made them treacherous.
“Nonsense. We have an elevator. You’ll use it. Now I did some tidying up, as you shall see. And there were volunteers.”
“Like the ones at the house? Whoever did it, they worked a miracle. It didn’t stink at all and I could barely tell anything even happened.”
“I put out a call for volunteers, and I have to tell you, it was gratifying.” He seemed very satisfied with himself. “Very gratifying.”
“Really?” We chugged upward, past the second floor. “You’ll have to tell me who it was so I can thank them.”
“Too many to name,” he said with an airy wave of his hand. “Now we did what we could in the time we had, so don’t expect too much,” he warned when the car rumbled to a stop.
“I don’t expect anything.” Dust, disuse, closed up smell, airless and ugly, ancient wallpaper, dirty shower. Those were my memories of the last time I was in the third floor apartment. I had retreated hastily when the aroma of stale cigarettes, old spaghetti, and disuse filled my head.
“Voila. Your new abode.” Alan flung open the elevator door and I stepped . . .
. . . into a dream world.
I walked through a small entry foyer wallpapered in a cheery yellow stripe. It was large enough to hold a table, an umbrella stand, and a coat rack on which hung two of my summer jackets. I peeked through the doorway and goggled at what I saw.
The room in front of me was once shades of brown: brown carpet, dirty beige walls, faded brown-and-white wallpaper, dusty faded white woodwork. I walked into a bright, shining, clean room.
“What the hell?” The last time I saw this space it was bare, dusty, and it reeked of old: old wallpaper, old floors, old woodwork, old dusty windows, years of disuse which settled into its cracks and seams.
Now it sparkled. A fresh coat of creamy yellow paint made the walls glow. A cheerful flowered border paper hugged the gleaming white crown molding near the ceiling. The wood floors were burnished a deep cherry color and area rugs in shades of pale green and dark burgundy contrasted beautifully with the shining wood. The woodwork was polished and appeared positively warm to the touch. The windows were so clear I blinked twice to make sure they were actually closed.
“What happened?” I walked forward into the living room. I turned, marveling at the overstuffed chintz sofa, the matching hassock, the two armchairs with high backs, the television mounted on the brick wall between two tall windows.
On the far side of the space was a little dining area where a white table and four mismatched white chairs sat, each with a different happily patterned cushion in yellows and greens. Next to it a
nd through a doorway was a tiny galley kitchen, which shared a wall with the Pub’s third-floor storage. I could hear the hum of the machines on the other side of the wall, and there was a faint aroma of hops.
The last time I saw the kitchen it screamed old, with grimy brown cupboards and a chipped countertop. Now the cupboards were all whitewashed and the counter, a dark rose color, shone with a soft glow from the lights under the cabinets. The petite fridge and stove were older models but gleaming white and so clean. At the far end of the room sat a large water dish and two kitty bowls.
“Everybody pitched in,” Alan said, laughter in his voice. “All the bars in town stocked your glassware. Isabel Fitz donated the dishes. The Dog and Pony restaurant donated the silverware. Marianne Archer gave you the desk. The ladies’ golf league bought the couch and the chairs.” He kept talking, walking around the apartment, touching furniture, paintings, an afghan, all donated by someone I knew.
“John and I chipped in on a new computer,” he said, going to the desk positioned against the wall near the elevator. He opened the lid on a bright red laptop. “If you want a monitor, we can get one and hook it up so you can have a desktop system again.”
“No, I’d love to have a laptop. I always wanted one but never thought I could afford one. But I don’t understand—when did you—how did you—why—”
“Come on, I’ll show you the bedroom.” Alan led the way through a doorway opposite the kitchen. A tiny hall led to a bedroom on the left and a bathroom on the right. The bedroom was small, barely containing a double bed, a large dresser, and a standing mirror and an armoire. “All the furniture came from the Forest and Glen antique store. It was a steal. The baseball team bought it and set it up.”
I turned slowly, taking it all in. The four-poster bed was angled in the corner, sitting on a pale green braided rug. To the right and to the left of the bed was a window through which streamed late afternoon sunlight. “I don’t believe this. It’s like night and day.”