Autumn Alibi

by Jennifer David Hesse

  “I hope you weren’t too bored in here,” I said to Josie. She flicked her tail in response and turned her head toward the window. “Right. At least you could watch the world outside.” I took a look through the window but couldn’t see much in the darkness. Discreet ground-level lights lined a curving pathway and cast a narrow glow through the trees. Glancing to the grove at the bottom of the hill, I thought I saw something—a pinprick of light wavering among the shadows, like a lost fairy. Then it disappeared.

  I found the lighted path again and noticed that it led to one of the guesthouses. The small cottage was visible only because of a winking yellow light in one of its windows. I wondered if the house was occupied by Ray or Perry and resolved to find out the next day.

  As I gazed at the partially-obscured cottage, I thought about Elaine’s belief that everyone around her was hiding something. Perhaps it was something about the manor that encouraged secrets, because I was hiding a few things, too. I’d hidden Elaine’s diary in the chest at the foot of the bed, along with the key to her lockbox. I was also hiding a protection amulet, next to my new Eye of Horus necklace, on a slender chain inside my sweater. I pulled out the amulet—a cloth medicine bag filled with dried sage leaves, red brick dust, and assorted, tiny crystals—and cupped it over my heart. Closing my eyes, I whispered my oft-repeated mantra: “I am safe, guarded in this hour, sheltered by divine power.”

  My cell phone rang. Before reaching for it, I already knew who it was. I would have called him soon, if he hadn’t called me first.

  “Hey, good-looking,” I said, keeping my tone light and flirty. No need for Wes to know about my frayed nerves.

  “Hiya, doll,” he said, sounding like a character in a 1930s talkie. “Is this Miss Keli Milanni, aka Boopsie, the dame in the pinup portrait? I got a picture here that’s making all the newsmen drool. You ever think of making a calendar?”

  “Maybe I have, and maybe I haven’t,” I said, doing my best impression of Mae West. “Know any good photographers?”

  “You’re talkin’ to one, cupcake. Though, I tell ya what, after this trip I might have myself a new career as an investigative journalist. O’ course, I’d still take your picture any ol’ day.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘might have a new career’?” I asked, dropping the goofy chitchat. “Did you find something?”

  “I did. Surprised?”

  “Not a bit.” He’d been in Chicago barely more than twenty-four hours. Why should I be surprised?

  “I found Penny Delacroix,” he said, with an obvious note of pride. “You know, the blogger who eluded Crenshaw’s P.I. firm? I noticed she reviews a lot of art shows at this studio space in the West Loop. I took a little field trip this afternoon and spoke with the manager. He gave me Penny’s number.”

  “You’ve spoken with her already?”

  “Yes, ma’am. She admitted that her Lana is our Lana. But she refused to give me contact info for our mutual friend.”

  “I suppose we can’t fault her for being a good friend. Did she tell you anything about Lana?”

  “Not really. However, she did agree to give her a message.”

  “That’s great! I’ll write up a message and email it to you.”

  “No need. I’ve already given her the message.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, you might want to go ahead and pencil in your kitchen-cleaning duties. You know, to plan ahead and all.”

  “Ha! You haven’t won yet. You have to physically locate the woman. You have to produce a mailing address.”

  “I’ll get it. Don’t you worry. So, how’s it going there? Find any ‘clues in the old mansion’?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. I found Elaine’s diaries.”

  I filled him in on all I’d learned so far. It helped to vocalize my thoughts and observations. Wes agreed Suzanne’s behavior was odd—as was everyone else’s at Turnbull Manor.

  The moment I hung up the phone, I pulled Elaine’s diary from the chest and flopped on the bed. If Elaine wrote a single word about her last wishes or the existence of a new will, I was determined to find it.

  Ten minutes and several pages later, my optimism waned. Elaine wrote about a lot of mundane things, from the current weather to her favorite television shows. So far, there was nothing about a will.

  Yawning, I stretched my arms and decided to take a break. But as I moved to close the diary, a few words jumped out at me. Something about a “valuable painting.” Quickly, I read on.

  I asked Perry about the Edward Hopper. At first he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. I had to jog his memory. ‘Remember—the one I always told Jim we shouldn’t keep?’

  It’s not that I was nervous to keep such a rare and valuable painting in the house. We’ve always had a lot of those. Rather, it was the cultural value. When Harold was alive, I left him alone about his collections. But when Jim took over I told him some of our pieces really belonged in a museum, for everyone to admire and learn from. He finally agreed to lend the Hopper to the Edindale Art Museum.

  But then it was never displayed! Jim said it was being cleaned or restored or reframed. It was always something.

  Anyway, I forgot all about it until the other day when I was talking to Perry about the collection. He said he’d check with the museum director. But I got the feeling he didn’t like me asking. I wonder if he knows something he doesn’t want to tell me.

  I stared out the window, mulling over this latest information. Josie snapped me out of my reverie by batting at my feet.

  “What’s up, Miss Kitty? Is it time to wind down?”

  I unpacked my toiletries, brushed my teeth, and took a shower. After getting myself ready for bed, it was time to get the room ready. I took another small travel case out of my suitcase and removed the contents—not soap, lotion, and makeup, but consecrated salt water, loose chamomile petals, and sage spray mist. I walked the perimeter of the room, sprinkling and spritzing, as I murmured my protection spell.

  Defend, protect, repel

  Defend, protect, repel

  Evil halt and danger quell

  By my power, all is well.

  By the time I’d made a complete circuit, I felt a noticeable change in the room’s energy. Everything now had a familiar cast—the bed, the mirror, the glass bottles on the bureau. It felt safer. I was no longer a stranger in a strange land. I’d made my psychic impression here and invited in my guardian angels. I could have closed my eyes and imagined I was at home.

  Then someone screamed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Josie yowled and darted under the bed. After a frozen second of disbelief, I threw open the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway, listening. The scream hadn’t come from an adjacent room, but it wasn’t far. I headed to the back staircase and started down, trying not to make a sound. A few steps from the bottom, I heard another high-pitched yelp, followed by a string of angry words. And then a man’s voice, equally agitated. I followed the voices to the kitchen, where I stopped short in the doorway. By the glow of an outdoor security light shining through the window, I recognized Celia, in a long flannel nightgown. She gripped a cast-iron skillet like a billy club. Her ire was directed at a man who cowered in the corner, one arm shielding his face.

  “Put that thing down!” he roared. “You know who I am!”

  “Intruder! Sneaking in the house in the middle of the night!”

  “I wasn’t sneaking! I was trying not to awaken anyone.”

  I decided I’d better intervene. Holding my robe closed with one hand, I stepped into the kitchen and flipped on the light. “What’s going on here?”

  The man lowered his arm and straightened to his full height. I’d thought his voice sounded familiar. It was Crenshaw, looking highly affronted.

  “That’s what I would like to know,” he said, as he smoothed the front of his jacket.

  Celia lowered her arm and set the pan on the counter. “I heard someone breaking in,” she said def
ensively.

  “I wasn’t breaking in,” he countered, addressing me. “I have a full set of keys for the manor. It may have taken me a moment to locate the correct one for the side door, but I wasn’t making a lot of noise. When I let myself in, Celia was lying in wait. In the darkness.”

  I turned to Celia. “You heard him from your bedroom?”

  “I was in here getting a glass of water, when all of a sudden a strange man comes in. What was I supposed to think?”

  I didn’t know what Celia was supposed to think. I didn’t even know what I should think. According to the digital clock above the microwave, it was after midnight. It seemed unlikely to me that Celia would come down three flights of stairs for water, when she could have kept a pitcher in her room or used a sink in one of the upstairs bathrooms. It also seemed strange that she wouldn’t have turned on a light.

  Instead of answering Celia, I directed my next question to Crenshaw. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “That’s your fault, actually. You made such a fuss about my not staying here, I decided perhaps I should spend the night after all.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off with his raised palm. “And,” he continued, “I realized it’s only fair. I wouldn’t want you to think I’d hired you under false pretenses.” He picked up the brown leather overnight bag sitting at his feet and gestured toward the back staircase. “Now then, I believe there’s a guest room already made up in the east wing. Shall we retire?”

  Celia looked from Crenshaw to me as if we were both crazy. At that point, I might have agreed with her.

  * * *

  Back in my room, I found I was too wired to sleep. Crawling into bed, I grabbed Elaine’s diary and picked up where I’d left off. It was worth paying attention. Interspersed with day-to-day trivialities were juicy tidbits that wouldn’t have been out of place in a tell-all memoir:

  I caught Celia rummaging through my jewelry again. I think she was looking for items Harold gave me. I know she was in love with him, even though he never could see it. From the very beginning, she was always so cold to me. She thinks I have the life she was meant to have. I just feel sorry for her. To let her go now would be cruel.

  I looked up from the diary. Was reliable Celia a spurned lover? Still bitter after all these years? I supposed that would explain why she wasn’t on the best of terms with Elaine.

  As I read on, I kept an eye out for other familiar names. When Elaine mentioned her gardener, I took notice. Most interestingly, she wrote:

  Ernesto is a sweet, talented boy, but so impulsive and hotheaded—not a good combination! We had a little misunderstanding over his use of my car. He thought I was accusing him of taking advantage of me, but I wasn’t. Before we cleared things up, he’d punched a hole in the garage door and tried to turn in his resignation! Some men . . .

  Yikes. I had yet to meet Ernesto, but Perry and Suzanne seemed to like him. From what I’d seen, his behavior seemed a little shady—he always seemed to be lurking or disappearing. I wondered if he was avoiding me for some reason.

  The room was growing chilly, so I pulled my covers up higher. My eyelids were growing heavy, too, but I didn’t want to stop reading. I perked up again when I read what Elaine had to say about her live-in nurse:

  Ray asked to borrow money again. His painting hobby sure is expensive! All the paints and canvases and doodads and whatnots. I’ve been telling him for years that I don’t really need a full-time nurse—he’s welcome to go back to the agency for more patients. I know he doesn’t want to do that. I also told him he’s lucky I don’t charge him rent. I was only teasing, but he got a worried look, like he never even gave it a thought.

  Had Ray overstated the nature of his relationship with Elaine? It was hard to tell, but Elaine didn’t sound quite as fond of him as he seemed to be of her.

  I was so engrossed, I lost track of the time. When I finally glanced at the alarm clock, I was surprised to see it was after 2:00 A.M. I set the diary on the nightstand and switched off the light.

  The first night in a strange bed is always hardest, and this was no exception. I tossed and turned, drifting in and out of cloudy, muddled dreams. Josie was restless, too. I could feel her walking around on the foot of the bed, hopping off and back on. Once she knocked something off the bureau, and another time she scratched lightly on the door. I grumbled at her to go to sleep and pulled the covers over my head.

  I awoke to bright sunlight and a persistent buzzing noise. For a moment, I forgot where I was. Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes and looked for Wes in the bed beside me. Then Josie meowed from the bathroom doorway, and everything came back to me.

  “Why did you keep me up?” I asked her. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  I refreshed her food and water, then checked my phone, which was the source of all the buzzing. I had seven voice mail messages, all from different, unfamiliar numbers. Perplexed, I listened to the first one. It was from a woman who had seen my ad for a legal assistant.

  “Ah. Of course.” I set my phone down, resolving to listen to the rest of the messages later. I was glad there was a lot of interest in the ad, but at the moment it wasn’t my highest priority. Recalling everything I’d read in Elaine’s diary the night before, I felt an increasing sense of urgency to read the rest. I also wanted to hurry up and get dressed, so I could find Crenshaw and bring him up to speed.

  I reached for the diary where I’d left it on the nightstand. It wasn’t there. Frowning, I looked on the floor. It wasn’t there either. I dropped to my hands and knees, looked under the bed, and then beneath and behind the nightstand. The diary seemed to have vanished.

  What in the world?

  I stood and looked around the room. Josie watched me curiously from her perch atop the bureau. “Do you know something about this?” I demanded. My cat had been known to hide small objects in the past, although never anything as large or heavy as a diary.

  Suddenly, I recalled the strange sounds I’d heard in the night, and my heart jumped to my throat. My eyes slid to the bedroom door. It was unlocked. Had I locked it the night before? I couldn’t remember. But even if I had, it would be easy to pick. It was a simple doorknob lock, with a keyhole on the outside.

  Instinctively, I reached for the amulet around my neck. Surely someone hadn’t come into my room . . . had they? Nothing appeared to be disturbed. And, of course, there was nothing as obvious as a footprint.

  I made one more search of the room to no avail. This is ridiculous. Who even knew I had the diary with me? I’d told only Farrah and Wes. I supposed someone could have overheard me. Any eavesdropper might know about the diary I found under Elaine’s mattress—and the lockbox in her closet.

  With a mounting sense of worry, I slipped out of my room and dashed over to Elaine’s. I went immediately to her closet, flipped on the light, and pushed aside the pillows in the corner.

  The lockbox was gone, too.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Crenshaw didn’t answer my repeated bangs on his bedroom door. With an exasperated sigh, I returned to my room and called his cell phone.

  “Finally awake?” he said, by way of hello.

  “Where are you? You didn’t leave again, did you?”

  “I’m in the dining room.” He paused, listening to someone else. “Celia wants to know if you’ll be joining us for breakfast. She says the grapefruit is drying out and the coffee is getting cold.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  I threw on a pair of corduroys and a cotton blouse and ran a brush through my hair. Before heading out the door, I took a last look around the room. With a thief in the house, I’d better not leave any valuables lying around. I snatched up my purse and hurried downstairs.

  When I entered the dining room, Crenshaw was the only one at the table. He set aside the newspaper he’d been reading and looked up at me. One eyebrow popped up in surprise.

  “I have the hardest time keeping up with modern fashions,” he said. “Is the witch-d
octor look in vogue now?”

  “What?” I looked down at my chest and saw I’d forgotten to tuck in my amulet and necklace. Rolling my eyes, I pushed the medicine pouch under my shirt but left out the Eye of Horus necklace. It was too pretty to hide anyway.

  Crenshaw passed me a carafe of coffee and a basket of poppy seed muffins. “Celia advised me that Tuesday is laundry day. She’s off gathering towels and such. Perry left for the museum, and Suzanne went shopping.”

  “What about Ray and Ernesto?”

  “They both headed outside. Do you have something to report?”

  I nodded and took a bite of sliced grapefruit. It was slightly tart, but still juicy. I chewed slowly as I collected my thoughts. Here it was, day two of my stay at Turnbull Manor, and I seemed to be losing things as fast as I found them. When I finished the grapefruit, I stood up and peered around the corners of both doorways. Satisfied no one was eavesdropping, I returned to my seat and leaned forward.

  “Someone was in my room last night.”

  Now both eyebrows darted up. “You saw someone?”

  “No, but it’s the only explanation.” I told him about finding Elaine’s diaries—the most recent one I’d had in my bedroom, as well as the collection of old diaries. “On the plus side, the lockbox seemed to be heavy-duty, and whoever took it doesn’t have the key. I made sure it’s still where I put it, under the blankets in the cedar chest.”

  Crenshaw stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Why do you suppose someone would take the diaries?”