The Wrong Stuff

by Sharon Fiffer

  “I know you’re a detective of sorts, Mrs. Wheel, and I think you came up here following the same trail that I am now following. Don’t you think we should share information?”

  Jane was astonished. She was quite sure that, cartoon-like, her eyes had popped out of her skull and her chin had dropped to the floor. Since she was not sure she was a detective, how could a police officer in another state lean on his elbows and act like he wanted to dish the dirt with her?

  “Don’t be coy, Mrs. Wheel. You found Rick Moore’s body. Didn’t you think we’d at least check your name through our computer? It comes up in a few other recent murder investigations,” said Murkel.

  “You googled me?” Jane asked, incredulous.

  “Police don’t have to google, Mrs. Wheel, but it’s the same idea.”

  Jane did not want to fail this test. She wanted to learn what Murkel knew without revealing what she knew, which wasn’t all that much. Or was it? Lots of worrisome questions with no definitive answers. For example, where was Claire Oh? Why had she risked so much to come up here and hide in a tree house? What was in that envelope that Rick Moore had marked important? And what was the big secret of Campbell and LaSalle? That they had built a fake Westman and switched it, or that they had provided false authentification for what they knew was a fake? Or had they simply made a mistake that they needed desperately to cover up? Was someone desperate enough to kill Horace Cutler to shut him up? Oh yeah, and now the new jackpot question: Who killed Rick Moore?

  If she could just satisfy Murkel for the time being, she could get out and put the right questions to the right people. Maybe Bruce Oh, if he’d been able to ditch Martine, and Tim, if he had been able to read her scrawled “provenance,” were already out there getting answers. She needed to be with them, now.

  “Officer Murkel, I have an idea about those windows in the barn,” Jane said, trying to think one second ahead of her actual speech. “Maybe someone saturated the air with something, poured it on cloth, and put it in with Moore while all the windows were closed. I mean if he wasn’t in there to cure wood, he might not have opened them. Then when he staggered out, that person led him to the stream, easily held him in the water, then went in and opened everything up. It wouldn’t have taken that long, and during quiet…”

  “Yes, during quiet time, I know. Everyone just disappears, and no one has an alibi for anything,” Murkel said with a sigh. “I don’t know. The windows are hinged at the top and push out easily. Maybe…” Murkel stopped and sighed again. “Maybe we should start at the beginning. Have you found out anything about Horace Cutler’s murder since you’ve been here?”

  Jane felt like she could answer with an honest no, since she certainly had nothing definitive to say; but before she could even get that syllable out, Murkel went on musing, finishing his thought. “I mean, besides the fact that Rick Moore killed him.”

  Murkel smiled when he saw Jane’s face. “I’m sure by the time you leave this office, everyone will be talking about it,” he said. “I explained it, in part anyway, to the secretary here when I stopped in this morning. An eyewitness puts Moore and his truck at the scene of the murder. Cutler was holding on to some strands of hair that match up with Moore’s. There’s a boatload of stuff on my desk that all point to him. The woman they questioned has been cleared, her story checked out.”

  Jane reeled, but just a bit. She must be getting better as a detective because her reeling time was getting shorter. Rick Moore had been murdered. Jane knew that. But perhaps it wasn’t because of his carving skills or his knowledge of furniture forgery. Perhaps it was to cover the tracks of Cutler’s murder? But weren’t they Rick Moore’s tracks? Why not just let him get caught? Jane was relieved at the convoluted thinking here. Maybe she could be a detective since the bad guys seemed to be even more confused than she was.

  Murkel was treating her like a professional. Jane couldn’t leave the office without giving him something. It was a matter of pride.

  “I have Rick’s shoes, his sandals. They were in the library under a chair. I’m pretty sure he was up there reading until something drove him outside.”

  Murkel nodded. “Anything else?”

  “I’ll let you know,” said Jane, feeling guilty that she was keeping Rick’s papers a secret from the first person to treat her like she was indeed a private investigator, not guilty enough to give them up until she’d had a chance to look them over, but guilty nonetheless.

  Jane left Murkel shuffling some papers, still looking like he wanted to rest his head in his hands. Jane felt just the opposite. She was ready to put on her deerstalker cap and head for a gaggle of Campbell and LaSalle artists and fire questions. Claire Oh would come out of hiding soon, as soon as she heard she had been cleared. Jane guessed she’d send a squirrel with a message tied to his tail up to the tree house and let her know she could come out and play. The fact that she had been lurking around on the grounds might seem suspicious, but she didn’t have anything to worry about here. She was at home when Rick Moore took his last drink of water.

  When Jane went back to the lodge, she was surprised to find it empty and quiet. She had expected Martine to be organizing a séance or something. Shouldn’t everyone be buzzing about the murderer among them? No one was going to be allowed to leave for a while, so shouldn’t they all be standing around casting suspicious glances and shouting accusations? At least one of them should burst into tears and be afraid. But, no.

  It was quiet time. Jane half expected that somewhere she would find one of those small, hand-lettered, table-tent signs that would say, “We at Campbell and LaSalle respect the quiet hours even when a murderer is running amok.” Jane set off to find Oh and Tim. She was quite sure they were not keeping silent, although she knew it was possible that Tim might be running amok.

  The barn was supposed to be off-limits, but Jane thought she’d just walk by it on her way back to her cabin. That’s where Tim and Oh would be or where they would leave her a note. The barn was taped off, and she could see a uniformed policeman standing at the door. The windows, she noticed, were open. They were large windows on the ground floor, hinged at the top. It was easy to tell from far away that they were open since they were simply pushed out and held with a wooden bar. The higher windows, the ones that provided light and air to the gallery library, were open as well.

  “Officer, is it possible to retrieve a book from the library? That’s the second-floor gallery,” Jane asked.

  He shook his head, as she knew he would, and she shrugged, bit her lip, and walked on, circling around to the back as if she were taking the path to one of cabins that faced the stream. Annie was in one of those, and maybe Geoff and Jake, Jane wasn’t sure.

  When she got to the back of the barn, she looked at the back door. It was hardly noticeable as an exit or entrance because on the inside it didn’t open up to the main work area. It was at the foot of the backstairs, the ones that led down from the gallery and offices. It was the one she had left by yesterday—was it only yesterday?—when she’d wandered down to the stream and found Rick Moore. Was it possible that the police didn’t even realize that this door existed? There was no guard.

  Jane was ten feet away from the door when it opened. She froze, hoping that the man exiting the barn would not turn her way. He did not turn at all but walked quickly down the path. Jane followed at what she hoped was a safe distance.

  Just before the trail that led up to Annie’s place, he turned off the path and went into a heavily wooded area. He knew where he was going, turning left then right until Jane was quite confused about what direction she was going. When he stopped, she stopped and watched him open a door to a large metal shed. It was so cleverly concealed within the trees that one could walk by it a dozen times and not see it. However, it was so far off the path that Jane doubted anyone would happen upon it by accident. She could see at the other end of the shed that there was a roughly cleared access road leading to a kind of loading-dock door. Jane was too turned arou
nd to know whether it was the same road where Rick Moore parked his truck, and the one he used for his secret trips in and out of Campbell and LaSalle.

  The man had disappeared inside the door but left it open. He wore a baggy barn jacket, a fishing hat pulled down low, and what looked to Jane like large, blue-tinted safety goggles. There were no windows, so Jane crept up to the door and peeked in. There were several pieces of stunning antique furniture in the room. Jane scanned the space quickly to see if she could spot the real Westman Sunflower Chest. Perhaps this was where they had hidden it when they swapped it for the forgery delivered to Claire Oh. She stopped her inventory when the man pulled out a lovely butterfly table. He pulled out the delicately shaped supports that gave it its name and rubbed an appreciative hand over its surface. He knelt to feel the exquisitely turned legs. Jane noticed there was an open toolbox near his feet, and she leaned farther into the doorway to see what he was bending down to retrieve from it. When he again stood over the table, he had in his hand an old wooden mallet. Jane thought perhaps there was a peg he had to gently tap into place and she smiled, enjoying her peek at a master craftsman fine-tuning his work.

  When he brought down the mallet on the table with all his might, Jane involuntarily screamed. The smashing of the tabletop was so loud that he went on with it, not hearing Jane react as if it were she being struck. Jane watched in horror as he continued to dent and pound the once-perfect wooden surface. Has he gone insane?

  Jane was almost ready to go embrace him, make him put down the tool he was brandishing as a weapon, when she smelled something. It was sweet at first, then she took a stronger whiff and every bit of space in her throat was filled. It was if her head and body were made up of many rooms, and she actually heard the doors slamming shut. Eyes, ears closed off, clear thinking was now definitely closed for business.

  Everything was this smell, which, she realized for just a moment then forgot, was coming from a drenched cloth that had been draped over her head from behind. The cloth was not tightened. It didn’t need to be. The chemical fumes became vaporous hands that choked off every bit of air and life. She staggered backward. Air, she needed air, and water to get this out of her eyes.

  The cloth fell off, or at least she thought it did. She tried to run and maybe she was running, but she couldn’t tell. She was blinded, but she didn’t know if she was truly blind or if her eyes had closed so tightly against the fumes that she simply had forgotten how to command them to open again. Was someone following her? She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t breathe. She needed something cool, something clean. She would like someone to teach her how to breathe again. She was quite certain she used to know how, but the talent was now clearly and completely gone.

  She heard a raspy, choking sound. Was that the person following her? Horrible noise. It must be some kind of monster chasing her. She heard giant gasping. Who was this bearing down on her, retching and gulping? She heard the gurgle and sucking and death rattle and then wished desperately that she hadn’t realized that the horrifying sounds were coming from her.

  This was not fair, this breath being taken from her. She willed her lungs to fill, but they were clearly behind one of those closed doors inside of her. She wanted to breathe for Nick and for Charley; she had to breathe for Nick and Charley. She managed one tiny intake of air that did not cause her chest to cave in and felt a small bubble of hope. As quickly as it rose, it popped and disappeared when she felt two hands holding on to one of her elbows, propelling her forward. “We have to get you to the stream,” she thought she heard someone say, but the voice was so far away, far behind one of those closed doors.

  She fought being pushed, being led, or thought she did, but she knew that whoever was guiding her was in control. In one plaintive, lucid moment of thought, she wondered why it was that the last image she would have on earth was the bizarre scene she had just witnessed…a Campbell and LaSalle artist destroying an Early American butterfly table. How very odd, she was thinking, as she passed out. How very odd.

  15

  The feng shui practitioner will tell you to empty all trash cans daily so that you are not surrounded by stagnant energy. I suggest that these pockets of stagnant energy lurk on every surface, on every shelf, and in every closet. Be aware and beware.

  —BELINDA ST. GERMAIN, Overstuffed

  Just as Jane had heard and felt the doors within her slam shut, closing her off from the conscious world before she passed out, she now felt them opening one by one. Hearing came back in a rush, a roar, loud voices. An argument? Her eyes had been closed so tightly against whatever toxic cloud had chased her from the warehouse that opening them, actually seeing light filtering through the tree canopy, was painfully bright. She closed them.

  “…coming around…too late…what you do…situation…facedown…” Two men were talking, and Jane knew she should keep her eyes closed and listen. If they were trying to decide what to do with her, it might give her the Girl Scout advantage of being prepared. She was pretty certain they wouldn’t try to dump her facedown in the stream, since Murkel and his officers might be even more suspicious about the goings-on at Campbell and LaSalle if there were two drownings in two days in ten inches of water.

  Jane breathed as deeply as she could without calling attention to the fact that she could now breathe, and it felt damn good. She wanted to drink in the air, gulp it down, but she settled for small sips and tensed her muscles, hoping she would have the strength to strike out as soon as one of the men tried to touch her.

  She heard someone walk toward her, the rustle of leaves and twigs much louder she realized, when one is lying on the ground. She felt the sun blocked from her face by someone kneeling next to her, bending over her. As she sensed the face getting closer to her own, she balled up her fist, opened her eyes, and struck Tim Lowry so hard on the side of his head that he fell over backward. Although she had missed his eye, where she might have done some damage at such short range, she had grazed his ear, which he now held, shouting, “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

  Jane sat up, still feeling dizzy but more clearheaded with every breath.

  “Is that how you always wake up? Jeez…am I bleeding?” Tim asked, turning his ear toward Jane, then toward Bruce Oh, who stood over them both.

  “I admire someone who, even at their weakest, prepares to meet her enemy,” said Oh, bending to help Jane, who was now trying to stand.

  Jane opened her mouth to say loudly to Tim what she thought of those who cried over a little slap upside the head, but all that came out was a whispered, “Baby.”

  Jane’s head cleared quickly, and her throat began to feel better after a few sips from Tim’s water bottle. She was in such a rush to tell them all she knew that they had to keep stopping her, questioning whether it was something she’d learned from her clandestine visit to Rick Moore’s cabin and truck, her lunchtime conversations, her interview with Murkel, or her little adventure straying off the path in the woods.

  Bruce Oh and Tim told her that Murkel had been right about everyone having the information about Rick Moore. Word had gotten out rapidly after lunch that Moore was almost certainly responsible for the murder of Horace Cutler. Everyone was shocked or seemed to be. Geoff and Jake were the only residents who hadn’t known Cutler personally. Those who had dealt with him called him a fussy, meticulous curmudgeon, who often complained about their prices, but after grumbling, always paid his bills. No one seemed to be aware of any particular argument between Rick Moore and Cutler.

  “What about the Westman chest? Has anyone brought it up?” asked Jane.

  “Of course not,” said Tim. “Wouldn’t that blow our cover? Keep us from getting the inside info?”

  “Yeah, because we’re getting so much of that now,” said Jane. “I mentioned it,” said Oh, “indirectly. I identified myself, not only as the money behind a new art magazine, but I mentioned that Horace Cutler had recommended that I do an article on Campbell and LaSalle. And I told them that Horace had
recently found a special carved American chest for me. I asked if they had worked on it.”

  “Who did you talk to?” Jane asked. “What did they say?”

  “I mentioned it only to Roxanne when I checked in, and she said she’d have to check the files. She was sure they didn’t have anything of his at the moment.”

  “It wouldn’t be his piece, though. Not on paper anyway. Your wife would be their client,” said Tim.

  Jane recovered fully enough to insist that they try to find the warehouse where she had witnessed such strange behavior. Tim suggested that she might have already been attacked with the chemicals and hallucinated. “No one here would knowingly damage a good piece of furniture,” he said, when Jane described the utter destruction of the tabletop. “It had to be the rag you got smoked with.” Oh had said nothing. He shushed them silently with a finger to his lips when he parted a branch and pointed out the warehouse. The door was closed. This time they all stayed back. Listening intently, they heard a rhythmic beat. Hammer on table. Jane arched her eyebrows at Tim and nodded. “He’s still at it,” she whispered.

  As soon as she said it, the noise stopped. They heard what sounded like a garage door open in the distance.

  “Come on, it’s the door on the other end,” said Jane.

  Under cover of the trees, they circled to the back of the shed. The large door was up, and a battered pickup was parked in front of it. Two old rusty window-unit air conditioners sat in back of the truck, along with a doorless refrigerator, a few old mattresses, and some broken chairs. It was an alley picker’s truck, filled with the trash that people hope and pray someone will haul away when they get it from their house to the back. An old man wearing a filthy plaid shirt stood next to the table, which now had one beautifully turned leg cracked. Jane also saw that some kind of paint or solvent had been spilled over the entire surface. She hadn’t noticed it before, but from this angle, she could see the discoloration.