by Jessica Beck
“You sound wistful for the good old days,” I said gently. “Do you miss it too terribly much?”
He paused in thought for a moment before answering. “What I miss is having a purpose in life, but all in all, I wouldn’t trade my time now with you for all of my tenure as a State Police inspector.”
“I’m glad about that,” I said as I turned back to the house. “Should we go in?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to start work until morning since it’s already getting dark. Who knows if the place even has power at this point?”
“I’d offer to flip the switch,” I said as I looked at the dangling on/off switch hanging by three wires near the front door, pulled three inches away from the wall, “but it doesn’t look safe.”
“That’s because it’s not,” he said. After we looked briefly around the first floor, Jake turned to me and frowned. “We really should get out of here. This place is a disaster area.”
“You know what they say,” I said, doing my best to reassure him. “You have to make it ugly before you can make it pretty again.”
“Who says that?” Jake asked with a laugh as he dead-bolted the door behind us.
“You know, carpenters and remodelers and folks like that,” I said.
“Well, as long as you’ve got concrete references to cite, how can I possibly disagree with you?” His smile faded as he pulled out his cell phone. “I need to tell your mother and Phillip what’s going on here.”
I touched his hand. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we go tell them in person?”
Jake looked at me for a moment. “That doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s nearly dinnertime, does it?”
“Why, Jake, what are you accusing me of?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.
“I’m not accusing, I’m congratulating you,” Jake said. “I love your mother’s cooking almost as much as I love yours.”
“Now I know you’re lying to me,” I said with a grin. “Come on, let’s go see if we can get another free meal. This is almost getting to be a habit with us, isn’t it?”
“Maybe we’ll take them out to dinner if your mother hasn’t cooked anything,” Jake offered.
“The thought is sweet, but if I know my momma, she’s going to put out a big meal, even if it is just for the two of them.”
“They must eat a lot of leftovers,” Jake said as we got back into the truck.
“I’m certain of it, but her seconds are better than just about anybody else’s firsts.”
Jake pulled into Curtis’s driveway instead of driving straight to Momma’s, though. “We need to have a quick chat with him first, and then we’ll be on our way.”
The truth was that in all of the excitement about getting the house back, I’d forgotten about our decision to talk to our nosy neighbor. “Let me just give Momma a call and tell her we’ll be stopping by soon.”
“Don’t tell her we got the house back yet,” Jake said. “I want to tell them that in person.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“Momma was thrilled we were coming,” I reported a minute later, “but she couldn’t quit apologizing that it was leftover night tonight, no matter how many times I told her we were excited about the prospect.”
“She’s your mother. What can I say?”
“What does that mean?” I asked him.
“Just that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re more like her than you’re willing to admit, Suzanne.”
I shook my head. “I only wish that were true. She’s a hard act to follow, you know?”
He took a moment and kissed me lightly. “I think you’ve cleared that particular bar with ease.”
“That’s sweet of you to say,” I told him.
I looked up to find that the front door was opening even as we approached Curtis Malone’s house, and from the frown he was exhibiting, it appeared that he wasn’t happy to have his visits to our place reciprocated.
“Is there something I can do for you?” he asked us a little sternly as we got close. “I’m afraid I’m a little busy inside at the moment.”
What had happened to the warm and friendly guy from the day before who’d brought Jake and Phillip cold beers? Evidently he wasn’t nearly as big a fan of drop-ins at his place as he was of popping in on other people.
“We were just wondering if we could get your advice about something,” Jake said. “Sorry to bother you right now. If it will help, we can come back tomorrow.”
The change in him was sudden. Evidently Jake had chosen exactly the right way to approach him, by appealing to his vanity. “No, it’s not that important. It can wait.” He glanced back at the house and said softly, “I’d invite you in, but I’m in the middle of a project, and the place is a wreck.” After a brief hesitation, Curtis added, “Though it’s certainly not as big as the project you all have on your hands.”
That got a chuckle from us, though it really hadn’t been all that funny, but we wanted to get along with this man, at least for the purposes of this particular conversation. After all, who didn’t like having someone laugh at their jokes, no matter how feeble they might really be?
“We understand completely,” Jake said, and I nodded as well. “We were just wondering if you happened to see anything odd going on next door over the last three or four days.”
“Do you mean even before you bought the place?” Curtis asked.
“It might help,” Jake said.
“Do you know, those police officers at the house never even knocked on my door to ask me anything,” he said. “They must have come by on one of my rare trips into town, because I found a business card for an Agent Blaze tucked behind my screen door with a handwritten message that she’d be in touch and that she wanted to get my fingerprints, but unless I’m mistaken, she and her team left not five minutes ago.”
“You’re right. They were suddenly called away,” I said. “So, if they’d asked you about what you’d seen, what would you have told them?”
“Lots. You can trust me on that,” he said smugly.
“Would you care to elaborate?” Jake asked him.
“I’d be happy to, if it would help. Okay, first of all, there was quite a bit of foot traffic going on over there for the past month.”
“Not cars?” Jake asked.
“No. I’m not sure where they were parking, but I rarely saw any cars. There’s a way to cut across the yards from the street next door without being seen. That’s the way they must have come and gone.”
“If you didn’t see anyone drive past, how did you know anyone was there?” I asked him. “After all, you can’t really see the place from here.”
“Not so much in the daytime, but at night at this time of year, a light shines pretty clearly through the trees. I’m up a lot during the night, and on more than half a dozen occasions, I saw muted lights at night coming from a house that was supposedly empty. How can you explain that?”
I knew the reason, but I wasn’t going to share it with the nosy homeowner. “It’s a mystery,” I said. “What else did you notice? Did you ever go over there for a closer look?”
He looked a little embarrassed. “Once. I just wanted to make sure that there was no hanky-panky going on, you know?”
“I understand completely,” Jake said. “What did you see?”
“I only went over one time. That was plenty, believe me. I was getting close to one of the windows in front when the door suddenly opened! I nearly had a heart attack right then and there.”
“Did they see you? And more importantly, did you see them?” Jake asked, his voice going into full investigative mode.
“No, I ducked back into the bushes before I could see who it was, but trust me, after coming so close to getting caught, I wasn’t about to go over there again.”
That was too bad, but I understood completely. Why should he take a chance like that merely to satisfy his own curiosity? Then again, I’d pushed my luck far past that on more than a fe
w occasions, but I liked to think of myself as being outside the norm. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, I couldn’t say.
“Did you happen to see anything more recently?” Jake asked him.
“Let’s see. The day before you and your father-in-law showed up, a man drove down the road in a luxury car.”
“Do you mean the day after?” I asked him, recalling the timeline of when Lionel Henderson III had come by the donut shop looking for me.
“Sure, he came by then too, but the first time he was there he stayed a lot longer. I thought it was odd at the time, but I didn’t give it too much thought.”
“Anything else?” Jake asked him.
“Just Maxine Halliday’s car the next day,” Curtis said.
“How did you know it was her?” I asked him.
“For one thing, her face is plastered all over every bus bench in town, but she also has a big magnet on the side of her car advertising her firm. She didn’t stay long, about the same amount of time the man in the luxury car stayed the second time he was out here.”
It was good to get outside confirmation about the presence of our suspects on our property. Then again, what if either one of them had been there not for the house but for what was inside of it?
“I’m afraid that’s about all I’ve seen,” he said. “I’d be more than happy to keep an eye on the place from now on if you’d like me to.”
“That would be appreciated,” Jake said.
I added quickly, “Just don’t take any chances on our account though, okay?”
Jake shot me a curious look, but he didn’t say anything.
“Of course,” Curtis said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve really got to get back to it inside.”
“Thanks for speaking with us,” Jake said. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card he’d had made when he’d first started freelancing. “If you see anything suspicious, give me a call anytime, day or night.”
“I’ll do that,” Curtis said before disappearing back inside.
Once we were on the road back to April Springs and Momma’s place, Jake asked me, “What was that all about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Curtis volunteered to be our eyes and ears on the ground, but you tried to discourage him.”
“Jake, the man’s a civilian and an amateur. Trust me, you don’t want it on your conscience if anything happens to him because of us. I went down that road with George Morris before, remember?” The mayor, who hadn’t been our mayor at the time, had nearly been run over by someone we’d been investigating together, and it was only recently that I could no longer see any signs of the limp that had once been so prominent in his walk.
“Suzanne, Curtis Mason is a grown man. If he wants to help us with surveillance at the property, passively of course, who are we to say no?”
“I won’t say anything more about it,” I said. “What do you think about what he told me?”
“I’d really love to speak with Henderson and Maxine Halliday again,” Jake admitted. “Their stories don’t quite add up, do they?”
“Well, we might get the chance to see them both tomorrow if you can fit some sleuthing into your construction schedule.”
“That’s true, we’re going to be busy again very soon, but I just can’t let this go.”
“Do you mean like the Secret Service did?” I asked.
“You can’t blame Blaze for that. I know what it’s like to be countermanded by a superior. Believe me, it’s no fun.”
“So we’ll keep our investigation up and running while you remodel the house and I run my business. It sounds like fun,” I said with a brave smile.
“I know it’s going to be a lot of work, but at least some of it will be part of what we’re doing anyway. Trust me, if there’s anything else to find in that house, Phillip and I will uncover it in the course of our remodel.”
“Don’t forget, Momma and I are going to help, too,” I reminded him.
“Okay, I give up. You’re going to have three jobs: donutmaker, remodeler, and amateur sleuth. That’s an awful lot on your plate, even for you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can manage it,” I said, though I wondered if I’d have any time left over for sleep in the course of the next several weeks. I had a feeling that if we didn’t make any more progress on the counterfeit case, and if nothing else happened to pique our interest, it would fade into the background until we got more evidence as to who might have been doing it.
A part of me was afraid of that happening, but an equal part was just as happy that this case might never be solved.
After all, contrary to popular belief, I didn’t have to investigate everything out of place that happened around me.
Then again, who was I kidding? I needed to know who had broken into our place, why there had been a scuffle, and who had been injured. I knew if I could answer those questions, I’d have a pretty good idea as to who the counterfeiter had been.
But until then, I had plenty to do.
Chapter 14
“DOT, THOSE MAY HAVE just been leftovers, but that meal still beat just about anything you can get out at the finest restaurant,” Jake said as he pushed his plate away.
“Just about?” Phillip asked him. “Why the qualifier?”
“Phillip, you hush,” Momma said. “They had lunch at Napoli’s. I’m honored to be mentioned in the same breath as the DeAngelis family. How are they, by the way?”
“Just about perfect, at least as far as I’m concerned,” I said. I studied my stepfather for a moment. There was something different about him, as though a dark cloud had descended upon him since I’d last seen him the day before. Had the troubles at the house gotten to him that much? Or was there something else going on? “Phillip, how are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” he said, not making eye contact with me. “Why do you ask?”
“You just don’t seem like your old self. Something seems to be troubling you,” I said.
“Now that Suzanne’s brought it up, I’ve noticed that you’ve both seemed subdued ever since we walked in the door. Is something going on?”
Momma looked at her husband and shrugged. He took a deep breath, moved some of the mashed potatoes around on his plate for a moment, and then said, “I got some test results back today.”
“I didn’t even know you had a test done,” I said. “I’m guessing it wasn’t good news.”
“It wasn’t,” he said.
Momma patted his hand. “Phillip, it’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this, together.”
“Now I’m really worried,” I said. I’d grown quite fond of the man over the years. “Talk to us, Phillip. After all, we’re family.”
“It’s your decision, dear,” Momma said softly, reaching out and touching his hand lightly.
“I’ve got cancer,” he said, and I felt my stomach drop.
“I’m so sorry. What kind do you have?” I asked him.
“So far it’s just in my prostate, at least as far as they can tell. I won’t know more until I have an MRI. At this point, I’ll probably have to choose between surgery or radiation treatments. It’s our call, and at the moment we’re leaning toward the surgery, but we’ll know more after the MRI.” He looked at Jake. “When was the last time you had a physical?”
“It had to have been while I was still on the force,” he admitted.
“Go get checked, and make sure they do a PSA test. Evidently it’s not the greatest indicator of cancer in the world, and the biopsy’s no fun if they find that your numbers are high, but it could save your life.”
“How bad is it?” I asked him softly.
“Three of twelve areas tested showed cancer,” he said matter-of-factly. “The good news, if you can call it that, is that they think they found it in time, unless it’s spread. That’s what the MRI is for. If it hasn’t gone beyond my prostate, then after the surgery, there’s a pretty decent chance I’ll be fine.”
“How are you feeling?” I asked him.
“If those results hadn’t come back positive, I would have said I’m the perfect picture of health. That’s the thing about this disease. From what I understand, by the time you get the first noticeable symptom, chances are that it’s too late to do anything about it.”
“Do you have any idea when you’ll have the procedure?” Jake asked him.
“No, we haven’t gotten to that point yet. Fortunately, I have some time to think about it, so it shouldn’t interfere with our work on the flip, at least not right away.”
Jake looked at him steadily before he spoke. “Phillip, that house should be the least of your worries right now.”
“Jacob, we both feel that this will be the perfect diversion for us at the moment,” Momma said. “The cancer is slow growing, so we have a little time before we need to do anything.” She patted her husband’s hand and smiled gently at him. “We’ll get through this.”
“You bet we will,” Phillip said, trying to force a smile. I knew that he’d loved my mother nearly all of his life, but they hadn’t been together for very long. Losing another husband would be traumatic for Momma, and if I was being honest about it, losing him would be tough on me, too.
“Okay. I get that. If there’s anything we can do in the meantime, let us know, okay?” Jake offered.
“Just make that appointment,” Phillip said.
“I’ll make sure that he does,” I told him.
Phillip clapped his hands down on the table. “Enough talk about doom and gloom. If it’s all the same to you, I’d really rather not talk about it anymore. And do me a favor. Let’s just keep this in the family. Okay?”
“Of course,” I said as I reached out and squeezed his hand. I knew it wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do.
“Is there anything you can tell us about the investigation so far?” Phillip asked us.
I glanced at Momma, who nodded her approval. If they wanted to get a little normalcy back into their lives for the moment, I was going to do everything in my power to help make that happen.
“As a matter of fact, we found out a few interesting things about two of our suspects,” I said.