Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 02 - Rekindling Motives (19 page)

He gave me a quick smile and we both turned to look at the wallpaper-covered wall where I thought the closet had been. “You know,” Lester said, running his hand along the wall, “there’s a thin crack here…and here.” He had reached to his left about two-and-a-half feet.

“Maybe they took down the molding around the door frame and took off the door knob and covered it over,” I mused.

Lester took a box cutter from his pocket and began to make a tiny slit in the spot where he had felt the crack. “What are you doing?” I shrieked.

Without looking at me or seeming ruffled, he said, “I thought you wanted to do this kinda quiet like.”

“But she’ll know someone’s been in here.” I said, much more quietly.

“Maybe. I’m trying, if nobody else screams in my ear and makes me go crooked, to follow the outline of what mighta been a door here.” Lester isn’t tall, but neither was the supposed door. In less than a minute he had traced its outline and gestured to me to come closer. “Your fingers are smaller. See what that feels like. If it’s not a door we’ll seal it back up a little.” He pulled a plastic prescription bottle from his pocket. “Wallpaper paste. Pretty slick, huh?” He grinned.

“Very.”
I could feel the clear, straight line of what could easily be a door. I put my nose on the wall paper to see if I could see through to anything, and immediately sneezed three times in quick succession.

“Great, get snot on the wallpaper,” he said.

I sniffed loudly and held my nose as I tried again. “I can’t see anything. I think someone put some really thin wood here to fill in the door crack.”

“Yeah that would work.”
He peered more closely. “See these little nail marks?” He pointed to a spot on the wall that was just below my waist and had a few tiny holes in an even horizontal row. “I think they had a piece of molding here, like a chair rail, to hold the door up.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Cause they had to take the hinges off the door to hide the entrance. Needed something to hold it upright or it would fall backwards.” He glanced up at me. “Unless you can think of another way to keep it standing up with no knob or hinges.”

“Nope.”

“I’m thinkin’ they just took the molding off. If they did it awhile ago, the places where the nails made holes probably woulda ripped by now.”

I nodded, thinking.
“You can’t smell it now, but when I was in here doing the appraisal I thought I smelled something that reminded me of the old rubber cement.”

He shrugged.
“Maybe somebody started to tear down the wallpaper, found the door, and glued the paper back on.”

That someone would pretty much have to be Annie
. “I wonder why Peter Fisher didn’t just plaster over it,” I mused.

“Dunno,” he said, starting to put a dab of wallpaper paste here and there.
He stopped for a second, thinking. “I guess they coulda glued the door to pieces of wood that filled in the cracks around the door, but glue woulda maybe gotten old after a bunch of years.”

“Maybe.”
I thought some more. It took a lot more effort to put up wall plaster than it does to hang dry wall today. “He wouldn’t put up plaster if he had to do it fast.”

“Or maybe whoever did it wanted to be able to get back in.
Like, to retrieve a body.” He grinned at me.

I remembered Scoobie’s comment.
“If he had a body in there wouldn’t it smell awful?” We both seemed to agree that I was talking about Peter Fisher hiding Richard Tillotson.

Lester was thoughtful, something I had not seen him be previously.
“They wouldn’t have had plastic to wrap it in. Maybe in a canvas tarp in a trunk? Put a lot of vanilla on the floor, something else with a strong smell.”

“Vanilla.
I guess bakers would have that. Scoobie said he didn’t think even lime could hide the smell.”

Lester snorted.
“He an expert?”

None of us were experts in hiding the smell of a dead body.
At least, not that I knew. “I guess there are lots of strong-smelling things in the universe. Lavender, maybe, cinnamon.”

He shrugged.
“Or use a combo of ten different things. So, now you know there’s a door here, what are you gonna do?”

My cell phone rang before I could respond.
“Annie,” was all Scoobie said.

“Crap!”
I unplugged the lamp and made sure I had both clipboards. “Run!” We went quickly down the hallway and out the back door. I hoped Scoobie hadn’t seen Annie drive toward the back of the building. Surely he would have said something. I hoped she had walked over from her office.

“Around the corner, quick.”
Lester said.

“You didn’t lock the door.” I whispered.

“Screw the door.” He walked fast toward the corner of the alley that was away from the courthouse.

When we reached the alley and were well out of sight even if someone peered out the back door, I said, “I didn’t even think of an escape plan.”
And I started to laugh, covering my mouth with my hand.

Lester just shook his head.

“Jolie.”
Scoobie’s whispered voice came to us and I saw he had entered the alley from the street. I motioned him over. “We can’t drive off in your car, she might see us,” he said.

“And she’ll hear mine if I start it.
There’s no one in any of these old buildings now, no reason for me to be driving outta there.”

“Newhart’s,” I said.
My treat.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I DON’T THINK LESTER or Scoobie liked the idea of having dinner together, but they didn’t mind me paying for it. Women truly are liberated.

I was into my second helping of fried shrimp – it was all the shrimp you can eat night – when Aunt Madge and Harry came in.
Uh oh, I told her Christmas shopping
.

Scoobie waved them toward the three of us, but they just waved back and sat at a table close to the door.
He turned to me, grinning. “You didn’t exactly tell her where you were going, did you?”

I shook my head.
“I said Christmas shopping in Lakewood.”

Lester, who was on his third helping, shrugged.
“Tell her you got done early.”

“I’m not lying to her for you,” Scoobie said.

I knew he meant it.
“I’ll think of something.”

“I’ll lie,” Lester threw in.

“The hard part for Jolie will be figuring out a way to explain why she is with both of us.” From his grin, I could tell Scoobie was enjoying this.

Lester shrugged.
“Just say you ran into me here.”

“I should have thought of that,” I said.

Aunt Madge was coming toward us.
“I didn’t see your car, Jolie.”

The jig is up
.

“Around the corner,” Scoobie said.
“Lot was packed when we got here.”

“And how are you, Lester?” she asked.

“Doin’ great. Talked these two clowns into sittin’ with me.”

Aunt Madge smiled slightly as she turned to go back to her table.
“Jolie is very funny sometimes.”

We were all silent for a few seconds.
“You did lie,” I said to Scoobie.

“Crud,” he said, and Lester barked his laugh.

THE NEXT DAY WAS kind of anticlimactic. Aunt Madge didn’t mention she thought I got back early from Christmas shopping. I sent Renée an email asking her to cover for me if Aunt Madge mentioned Renée and I had been shopping together. Renée would probably hope I had a hot date I didn’t want to talk about with Aunt Madge.

If Annie suspected anyone broke into her building I didn’t hear about it.
Like she’d call and talk to me about it.
I wasn’t sure what to do next. As I saw it, my options were talk to Morehouse about the closet or talk to Annie. Likely neither one would appreciate my efforts. I picked Morehouse.

“You did what?!” Morehouse’s voice could easily have been heard throughout the police station.

“Do you need to shout?” I asked, trying to act as if my behavior of the night before was what any citizen concerned about a crime would do.

He walked over and shut the door to his small office.
“I could arrest you, you know.”

“Based on what?
Did you just have a tape recorder going?”

He sat back in his chair and stared at me.
“Why do you care about a maybe 70-year old murder? It’s not your family.”

I had prepared a response.
“I could let go of it…”

“Yeah, right,”
Morehouse said.

“…if it were just Richard Tillotson’s skeleton.
It’s Mary Doris.”

“As far as anyone knows, nothing in that closet relates to Mary Doris.”
He pulled a notebook toward him and took a pen out of a drawer.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Taking your statement.”

“My statement is that I came in here
to wish you a Merry Christmas.” I stared at him, careful not to blink.

He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, then tried a ‘be reasonable’ approach.
“Why are you concerned with a closet you found on 75-year old drawings?”

I outlined my thinking that it was a logical place for Peter Fisher to hide a body.
“He could have papered over the entrance, but he’d still have had access to move the body years later.”

“I could never prove that,” he said.

“I know,” I paused. “It’s like Watergate, it’s the cover-up.”

His look said he thought I was mad.
“Uh huh. Now we’re into politics.”

It came into place, just like that.
How could I not have thought of it earlier
? “Annie is running for prosecuting attorney. Mary Doris left her the building and Mary Doris dated Richard Tillotson, whose body was just found. He was clearly murdered, and now she’s been killed.” I had to choose my words carefully so I didn’t disclose Mary Doris’ secret. “Maybe Annie doesn’t want anyone to talk about all that when she’s running for office.”

“Who would give a rat’s ass?” Morehouse asked.
“It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Annie Milner – Assistant Prosecutor Milner to you. You think I’m going to talk to Annie about this? I’m not about to do anything to piss off the prosecuting attorney’s staff.”

I stood up and picked up my donut. “Okay.”

“What does that mean, ‘okay’?” he asked.

“Just okay.
I hear you.”

“Like hell you do,” Morehouse stood.
“You never listen to me. You almost got yourself killed awhile back playing detective. You stay the hell out of this.” His voice was rising again.

I could feel my face reddening.
“You asked me to come to you, if I found something. I did. I’m done.” I put my hand on the doorknob, then turned back to him as I opened it and gave him my best smile. “Merry Christmas.” I said it loud enough for anyone nearby to hear.

BACK TO SQUARE
ONE. Sort of. Maybe I don’t care.
Of course you care
. The terrible thought that had been in the back of my mind pushed forward again. Would Annie have killed Mary Doris to hide Richard’s decades-old murder and the fact that Annie’s grandfather was illegitimate? That just didn’t make sense. I couldn’t remember what percentage of today’s children were born outside of a marriage but I knew it was large. It was part of almost everyone’s family, if it had enough people in it. No one would care.

Maybe Annie thought that once Mary Doris was certain about the skeleton being Richard’s that Mary Doris would make a big stink.
The focus would probably end up on Annie. Maybe it had nothing to do with the election and unwanted publicity. Maybe she just didn’t want to be on center stage because of someone else’s action.
I can relate to that.

On most levels Annie’s involvement made no sense.
Aunt Madge thought Annie was closer to Mary Doris than her parents. Annie probably didn’t even know Mary Doris was her great grandmother instead of her great aunt.
Or did she? Mary Doris told Lance
.

I sat at Aunt Madge’s kitchen table, Jazz on my lap, thinking about the last couple of days as I had an afternoon cup of coffee.
Harry had asked me to appraise a house about ten miles out of town, someone he’d known years ago who’d found out he’d opened Steele Appraisals. I was glad to do it, but it was ten miles closer to Lakewood, and I’m still not anxious to run into people who know me from my commercial real estate days; more accurately, my days married to a gambling embezzler. I sighed and stood up, which annoyed Jazz. I had to get over those thoughts. I knew I hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of. What bugged me was the idea that everyone knew I’d had the proverbial wool pulled over my eyes.

I made a decision.
Annie did not kill Mary Doris
. It was ludicrous to even think it. No one running for public office would add murder to their resume.