The Coloring Crook

by Krista Davis

  But now that I had looked at him a second time, I wasn’t as frightened. I was still shocked, but he wasn’t as scary as when I first saw him. Poor guy. At least I assumed it was a guy. I guessed it would take a doctor to make that determination. Women wore sweaters and sneakers, too.

  “Is that a skeleton?”

  I screamed again and heard two more screams behind me. Obviously, my nerves weren’t quite as stable as I thought. I whipped around to find Nolan, Olivia, and Priss standing behind me. “I’m afraid so. I lost my balance and books slid into the back panel and, well, this is what I found.”

  Olivia and Priss gazed at the skeleton with the same kind of horror that I had felt.

  Priss crossed her hands over her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She raced from the room. We could hear her rushing down the stairs.

  “Aww, rats!” said Nolan.

  “What?! I saw a mouse, but I haven’t seen any rats.”

  Olivia gasped. “Whatever you do, don’t mention the mouse to Priss. She’s scared out of her wits by them. We don’t have rats in this building.” She crept closer for a better view of the skeleton.

  “No, no. I mean it will be a problem to sell the house now. There will be a huge delay while they figure out what happened here, and then no one will want to buy it. You know, ghosts and all.” He glanced at Olivia. “You haven’t experienced anything ghostly, have you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she growled as if she was offended by the question.

  Nolan fell silent for a moment. “I don’t suppose you would be amenable to putting everything back up and pretending you never saw it?”

  “I would not! And I’m sorry to say that this is something I will never be able to un-see. Covering him up again would be almost as bad as hiding him there to begin with.” On that note, before Nolan could make more stupid and probably illegal suggestions, I pulled out my phone and dialed Eric’s private number.

  He answered immediately.

  “I have a little problem. Could you drop by for a minute? You’ll know what to do.”

  “Sure. Are you at the bookstore?”

  I gave him Dolly’s address. “The front door is open. I’m on the top floor.”

  “Isn’t this the address of Dolly Cavanaugh’s house?” he asked.

  “Exactly the same.”

  “Please tell me that no one else died.”

  How to answer that? “Sort of. But it’s way too late for an ambulance. You’d better come see for yourself.”

  I hung up and considered going downstairs to wait for him, but decided it might be better to keep an eye on Nolan. I certainly didn’t want him tossing the skeleton out a window and pretending it had never been inside the house.

  Nolan couldn’t take his eyes off the skeleton. But he spoke in a totally matter-of-fact tone, as though he saw walled-up skeletons on a regular basis. “I never would have thought Dolly had it in her. Do you think it’s one of her late husbands?”

  The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. “I hope not. It would have to be the fourth one, because she didn’t own this house when she was married to the others. But really, Nolan, I hardly think she would talk so lightly about him if he were upstairs in her attic! Besides, we don’t know how old it is. It might have been here when she bought the house.” I made a mental note, though, to warn Maisie. If it was her father, it would be devastating.

  “Florrie?” My name echoed up the stairwell.

  I dashed out to the top of the stairs. “Up here, Eric.”

  The top of his head emerged as he walked up. “Cool house.”

  He was wearing his Metropolitan Washington, DC, Police uniform. His vibrant blue eyes made the police blue of his crisp short-sleeved shirt seem positively dull.

  I showed him into the attic room.

  For a long moment, he said nothing. “Well, this is a new one on me. Hi, Nolan, Ms. Beauton.”

  Nolan nodded at him. “Sergeant.”

  Olivia simply said hi.

  I launched into an explanation of my klutziness.

  “Maybe it was fortunate that you lost your balance.” Eric walked up close to the skeleton and peered at it. “I’d have to guess that it has been here for a long time. They say you can’t take it with you,” he quipped. “Looks like that applies to secrets, as well. Too bad Dolly isn’t around anymore to explain this.” He looked over at Olivia. “Do you know anything about the skeleton?”

  Olivia’s eyes widened. “No!” She sounded indignant.

  Eric scanned the room while he called in his location and explained the situation.

  Nolan grinned at him. “No police code for skeleton?”

  “This isn’t something we run into on a regular basis.”

  Nolan shook his head. “Dolly, Dolly, Dolly, how little we knew ya.”

  At that moment, Maisie walked in and shrieked. “Is that what it looks like?”

  Eric shifted into his formal police mode, identified himself and asked who she was. His demeanor was appropriate but businesslike.

  Her hands tented over her nose and mouth, she asked, “Who is that?”

  “I was hoping you could tell us,” said Eric.

  “How on earth would I know? Oh no!” Maisie wailed. “What did Mom do?”

  “Mom?” Eric sounded so calm and personable that Maisie didn’t clam up.

  “Of course! This is her house.” Maisie staggered backward. “It’s like she’s reaching out from the afterlife and cursing me even though she’s dead. Will it never end? What’s next? What other horror will I find?”

  Maisie ran from the room.

  “I’ll make her a cup of tea,” I said.

  Eric nodded. “It’s probably better if she’s not up here when the crime scene investigators arrive.”

  “She wasn’t happy with the cops who questioned her earlier.” I scurried out, but it was too late. Police and plainclothes personnel were hiking up the stairs.

  I could hear Maisie trying to get by them in the foyer. In a hysterical tone she cried, “Excuse me. Please! Let me pass!”

  I stood aside while they trekked by me and into the attic room.

  Nolan joined me. “The sergeant threw me out. You seem to know him quite well.”

  I smiled. I still felt awkward when people asked me about Eric. Why couldn’t I get used to saying I had a boyfriend? I choked a little bit when I said, “We’re dating.”

  “Your parents must be happy.”

  I shot him a quizzical look. “I suppose they are.”

  “Don’t be so sensitive. I just meant that he’s a nice guy. Most parents would be very happy if their daughter dated him.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Did you notice how Maisie immediately assumed her mother had something to do with the skeleton?” he asked.

  “Maisie and Dolly had issues. I’m not sure it means anything.”

  He nodded as we started down the stairs. “The parent-child relationship is a difficult one.”

  “Do you have kids?”

  “Four children and three ex-wives. They all think I’m a twenty-four-hour ATM.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “But I do. Don’t get me wrong, I make a decent living. And I love my kids. My ex-wives, not so much. But they all think money magically multiplies in my wallet. They only call or come by when they need to pluck some more green off me.” He sounded bitter.

  I felt for him. “Would that have anything to do with your membership in the coloring club?”

  He snorted. “I work all the time. It’s what I like to do. That’s why I was here today. I want to land the listing on this house before anyone else does. But my doctor has been telling me I need to cut back. Frankly, I don’t think my work is as stressful as my kids and lousy ex-wives.”

  “You came to talk to Maisie about selling the house?”

  “And to see what kind of shape it was in. It’s not a bad rental property, though I suspect that Dolly wasn’t charging what these units are wor
th. And you know what they say about real estate—location, location, location. This house has got that in spades. Of course, the skeleton is going to throw us off now. It’ll draw attention to the house, but a lot of people will shy away because of that crazy skeleton.”

  From the door to Dolly’s apartment, we could hear Maisie inside crying.

  “Why don’t you go in first? I’m terrible with sobbing women.”

  Nice guy, I thought sarcastically. I didn’t mind, though. I knocked on the door as a courtesy and walked inside.

  Maisie was seated on the zebra settee. She sniffled and looked at me. “What now?”

  “I thought I’d make you a cup of tea.”

  Her cell phone rang. She glanced at it and winced. “I don’t drink tea. Besides, you have done quite enough. If you don’t mind, I would like to be alone.” She held the phone up to her ear and said, “Just a moment, please.” To me she asked with annoyance, “Is there anything else?”

  My first instinct was to defend myself. It wasn’t as though I had hidden the skeleton in Dolly’s house. But I thought better of it. Her mother had just died. She had a ton of things on her mind and now she was surrounded by boxes of books and there was a skeleton upstairs. I would probably be testy, too.

  As kindly as I could, I said, “The books in the boxes by the fireplace are the ones that could have some value in my opinion. And just so you know, I did not find The Florist.”

  “Huh? Oh, I don’t care about some stupid book my mother found in a bin at a yard sale. Close the door on your way out.”

  I had been dismissed. I would have felt slighted, but Dolly had said Maisie didn’t appreciate her yard sale hobby. Nothing Maisie was doing should come as a surprise to me.

  As I walked toward the door, I heard Maisie say, “My mother just died, and I am totally bereft. How dare you demand payment when I’m dealing with such a crushing event?”

  I glanced back at her. People reacted to loss differently, but she didn’t seem heartbroken to me.

  Chapter 14

  I did as Maisie requested and closed the door behind me.

  Nolan raised an eyebrow. “I have a kid like that. Everything is always wrong, everyone is always against her, and her parents are nothing but an embarrassment.”

  “Teens are difficult,” I said.

  “My daughter is thirty-three! I thought she might outgrow it, but she likes to blame everyone except herself. Given what Dolly said, I’m thinking maybe Maisie is like that.”

  We stood in the vestibule. I eyed Nolan. “You seem to know a lot of people around here. Have you ever met Frederic van den Teuvel?”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar. Is he selling a house?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Nolan jingled coins in his pocket and gazed around as if he was taking inventory of the woodwork. “How come it’s always the rotten kids who inherit these grand houses and sell them? This place is something special. But someone will buy it and rip out the incredible original woodwork. Pity.”

  “I hope that won’t happen.”

  He sighed. “I’m going to hang out here a few minutes, then knock on the door and see if she’ll talk to me about listing the place.”

  I nodded. “Good luck. I’m headed upstairs to let Eric know I’m leaving. Assuming they’ll let me in there. See you later.” I started up the stairs.

  At the top, no one paid any attention to me. It was fascinating to see them photographing the skeleton. It was wedged in between brick columns pretty well. I assumed it would collapse and fall apart as soon as they tried to move it.

  Eric spied me and walked over.

  “I snuck in,” I whispered. “No one chased me away.”

  “They’re focused on their jobs. This is highly unusual. I’m hoping we can get a handle on how long it has been here. What do you know about the other residents?”

  “You met them last night. They’re all members of the coloring club, but I don’t know them very well. Olivia and her sister Priss tutor online for a living. They’ve lived here a long time. Edgar Delaney is a grad student. I think he’s new to town.”

  Eric slung his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Just think, if you hadn’t stumbled into this, it could have been hidden here for decades.”

  “I suspect it would have been discovered when someone renovated the house. Maisie doesn’t want anything of her mother’s. The house will be sold, though Nolan says the skeleton will discourage some potential buyers. Not that I blame them. I don’t know how I would feel about living in a house where someone had been hidden in a wall.” I wrinkled my nose.

  “Florrie Fox! Are you afraid of ghosts?”

  Even though he was teasing me, I thought about it for a minute. “The rational part of me acknowledges that a skeleton can’t hurt anyone. But knowing that something bad probably happened to him in this house is kind of creepy.”

  Eric nodded. “But a lot of bad things have happened everywhere we go. We just don’t know about them as we’re living our lives and going about our business. I think I could get past that.”

  “How do you know Nolan?” I asked.

  “He’s sort of a fixture in this neighborhood and knows a lot about it. When a house goes up for sale, Nolan is likely to be involved. He usually lets me know when a house is empty so we can help him keep an eye on it.” His eyes narrowed. “So you’ve been going through books all day?”

  I nodded and dusted off my clothes. I gazed around at all the people working. They were so intent on their jobs.

  Eric glanced at the piles of books on the floor. “Were these books like this?”

  “No. They were on the bookshelves. I went through all of them and took them down. There was nothing on the floor when I came in. But I did notice the plastic over the window. From the outside, you can’t tell that it’s sealed off. When I first saw it, I thought maybe Dolly was trying to keep out the cold, but now I wonder.”

  “Looks like Dolly had a very big secret.” He glanced at me sideways. “Makes a person wonder what else she might have done.”

  “We don’t know that Dolly killed this person,” I said without much confidence.

  “If we can figure out who it was, maybe we’ll have a better grasp of what happened. It appears that the skeleton had a broken neck. It’s in better condition than most of the bones I’ve seen.”

  A woman passing by us looked at Eric. “It depends on the microclimate of the place where the skeleton is found. This one wasn’t subject to water or sunshine, but it would have gone through cycles of heat and freezing as the temperature changed.”

  It was almost overwhelming. Dolly’s death, and now an unidentified person who died heaven knew when? I asked Eric to keep me posted and walked down the stairs slowly.

  I hadn’t even made it to the second-floor landing when I heard a muffled crash and a scream. I was ready to dash to someone’s aid, but I wasn’t sure where the sound came from. I knocked on Olivia and Priss’s door.

  Olivia opened it.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Seeing that skeleton was certainly a shock. But we’ll be fine. I can’t believe that Dolly would have done something like that.”

  “You didn’t hear a crash?”

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  “No. Not a thing.”

  “Okay. Sorry to disturb you.”

  I walked down to the first-floor landing. A door in the foyer was open, and I could hear moaning.

  The front door opened. Priss stopped short and eyed the floor, scanning it from one side to another. She looked up at me, and her face flushed. “Mice.” She shivered and her shoulders twitched. “I saw one here the other day. Are you all right? I thought I heard a crash.”

  “So did I.” I flicked the switch for a light, but it didn’t come on. “Is someone down there?”

  “Florrie?” It was Nolan’s voice.

  In a loud voice that I hoped he could hear, I said, “We’re coming.”

&
nbsp; I grasped the railing, and walked down carefully, step by step. “Nolan? Are you okay?”

  “Be careful, Florrie. One of those steps is slippery.”

  I made it to the bottom where a light illuminated Nolan on the carpeted floor.

  Priss was right behind me. “Oh, Nolan! You poor thing!”

  “I think I twisted my ankle.”

  I pulled up his trouser leg a little bit to get a look. It was already beginning to swell. “You’d better have it x-rayed.”

  “Nonsense. Help me up. Forty years of selling houses and this is the first time I have ever fallen.”

  He was tall, but Priss and I managed to get him on his feet.

  “Man, but that’s painful. He leaned against the wall and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “Whew. Looks like it still works.” Nolan dialed a number. “Of course, my daughter’s phone would roll over to voicemail.”

  “I can take you to the emergency room,” offered Priss. “We just have to figure out how to get you up the stairs to the car. I’ll get my car keys.”

  “While you’re upstairs, why don’t you ask Sergeant Jonquille to give us a hand?”

  “It’s lucky that he’s still here!” Priss walked up the dark stairway carefully.

  “They need to replace that light bulb,” grumbled Nolan.

  “I guess Dolly was the one who kept up with things like that.”

  “One of those stairs is slippery as all get out, too. Didn’t you notice it?”

  I hadn’t. “I walked down very carefully.”

  “Aww. This is just what I needed.”

  The sound of someone flicking the light switch on and off caused the two of us to look up the stairs.

  “Be careful!” yelled Nolan. “There’s a slippery step.”

  Eric loped down to us. “What happened?”

  After a short discussion, Eric called an ambulance. When Priss returned, she promised to meet Nolan at the hospital.

  The EMTs made quick work of putting Nolan in the ambulance.

  As soon as he was out of the building, I returned to the stairs. I walked up them slowly in case Nolan was right about one of them being slippery. But none of them were.