Lye in Wait (16 page)

MEGHAN SAID SHE'D MAKE grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato
soup for dinner since we could all do with a little comfort food.
Upstairs, I splashed cold water on my face, feeling drained and so
tired I was sick to my stomach. The empty space on my dresser
seemed to throb like an ache. Trying to ignore it, I went back
downstairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, the image of Erin's duffle bag came
to mind. Another thought followed it, and another. I went out the
front door and around the side of the house. Picking my way in
the dark, I groped for the rock in the garden where we kept the
spare key. Lifting what I hoped was the right one, I patted the
damp ground beneath. My fingertips registered the coldness of
metal, and I was about to dig into the mud when a light flared on
over my head. I looked up, squinting.

"Erin?"

Wordlessly she shone the narrow beam onto the patch of
ground. The house key glinted back at us. I put the rock back and
stood up.

"I thought maybe we had latched the door when we left, and
someone found this and used it to come in," I said. "Guess I was
wrong.

Erin's eyes looked black in the half-light from the flashlight.
"Unless they put it back," she said. She squatted and picked up the
rock, training the light on the glittering key. Standing again, her
shoulders sagged. "And that's what he did."

I noted the male pronoun. She was thinking the same thing I
was.

Making my voice light, I said, "But we can't really know, because the key's there. If it were missing, that'd be another thing.
But since it's there, it may never have been moved. Your mom
probably didn't pull the door all the way shut."

Erin sighed. "Nice try, Sophie Mae. But it has been moved. I
know, 'cause when I put it back on Saturday, I pointed it away
from the house."

"How could you possibly remember that?"

"Because I pointed the end to where the small end of the rock
goes. I always do. I don't know why." She sounded defensive.

Stooping again, I saw what she meant. The rock in question
narrowed at one end. It had settled into a distinct depression in
the ground, a teardrop-shaped hole for a teardrop-shaped stone. I
angled the light to the side and squinted. I could make out another
imprint in the wet soil under the key; an imprint that matched the
way Erin said she'd replaced it when Dick dropped her off early on
Saturday.

The key felt gritty and cold when I picked it up and put it in
my pocket. As we walked back to the front door, Erin said, "It was
Dad, wasn't it?"

I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything.

Inside, Meghan stood ladling the soup into bowls. A stack of
sandwiches sat on the table, cheddar oozing from between slices of
golden bread. The smell of warm bread and cheese, the click of the
ladle against the bowl, the rustle of Meghan's apron, all combined
to say "home"

"Where have you two been? I thought I'd have to..." Meghan
trailed off when she saw our faces.

"What's wrong?" Her expression said "what now?"

"Sophie Mae and I think Dad came in and stole your jewelry,"
said Erin. Her voice was serious and matter of fact, but when she
finished that bald statement her elfin features crumpled. Meghan
shot a look at me.

"It's okay, Bug," Meghan said to her daughter. "I'm sure Sophie
Mae's wrong this time." Her tone barely contained her anger.

Erin shook her head. "No, she's not. I put the key back the one
way and he saw me and now it's different, and all your nice stuff's
gone and I'm sorry, Mom" She choked out the last words. "I'm really sorry."

"Oh, Erin!" Meghan hugged her, then walked her out of the
room, murmuring. She didn't even spare me a glance.

I slumped onto a chair and watched the cheese stop oozing and
start to congeal.

Disgusting.

Meghan returned to find me with my head lying on my crossed
arms, eyes closed. The cold food had become too much to look at.

"Sorry," she said, leaning against the counter. "Erin told me she
figured it out herself. Sometimes she's a little too smart for her
own good. When I suggested she might be mistaken she was quite
offended. But I told her the key being moved didn't prove anything. Anyone could have found the key."

"Maybe," I said, raising my head and sitting back in the chair.
"But it was probably Richard. You know he's always looking for
money. He either owes it to someone or thinks he's found a surefire bet. We have to tell the police."

Meghan showed an inordinate interest in the kitchen floor.

"We have to, Meghan. If he did this, we can't just let him get
away with it."

Her eyes moved toward the stairs, and I knew she was thinking
of Erin. "If he did it."

"Of course, if. But how can we know unless they question
him?"

She pressed her lips together. "I don't want Erin to think her
father is a thief."

"She already thinks he's a thief. Can it be that much worse if it
turns out he really is?"

"But...

"But nothing. If Dick stole my stuff I'm not letting it slide. I
know you want to protect Erin. But she's not stupid, far from it. It
might be better if she knew what her father is really made of."

Meghan rubbed her face with both hands. "God, I hate this."
She looked over her fingers at me. "You really think he did this,
don't you?"

"Well, I don't have a better candidate. He'd know we were at
the funeral, and he knew where we kept the key. Which we don't keep there anymore, by the way," I said, taking the key out of my
pocket and handing it to her. She dropped it in the front of the
silverware drawer.

"I could have left the door unlatched," Meghan said.

"But the key was moved. I saw the old indentation where Erin
put it."

"We saw Richard right after the funeral."

"But we didn't see him in the chapel. He could have been here
during the service."

"What about Debby or Jacob, or both of them? They didn't
like it when we were going through Walter's things the other day.
Maybe they thought we took something." She paused. "Which we
did."

I shook my head. "They were at the funeral, right where we
could see them"

"They came in late."

"Okay. You're right. Who else?" I asked. I didn't point out that
Jacob and Debby didn't know where we kept the spare key. But we
hadn't hidden it in the most original spot, now that I thought about
it, and it was possible that they, or someone else, could have found it.

"A stranger. Or someone who reads the obituaries and plans burglaries for when friends or family will be attending the funeral."

"They'd have to know we were friends."

"What about someone from the funeral home? I'd like to know
if there've been any other break-ins when someone was at a funeral," Meghan said.

"I'm sure the police would track that kind of thing."

"Oh, fine. Now you think they're perfectly competent."

"Sure," I said, "except when they're accusing me of murder,
arson, or stealing my own jewelry. Then I think they're damn incompetent. But seriously, in case you're right I'll be happy to ask
about other funeral-related crimes when I tell them about Dick
tomorrow."

Meghan sighed. "Okay. I can't stop you. But you won't be paying the price if you're wrong. I will. And so will Erin."

"I don't think I'm wrong," I said.

"You never do," she said, and got up to try and salvage some
dinner for Erin to eat.

I headed upstairs. Might as well haul Walter's paperwork downstairs so I wouldn't forget to take it to the police station in the morning. Oh, by the way, Detective Ambrose, here's a bunch of Walter's
stuff I forgot to mention. Now, would you mind running out and
finding my wedding ring?

Opening the door to the spare room, I flipped on the light. A
moment later I was back in the kitchen.

"I was wrong," I announced.

Meghan turned from where she was slicing an apple. "What?"

"I was wrong. It wasn't Richard. Someone else used the key.
And the jewelry they took was just icing on the cake."

"The cake being?" She looked like she didn't really want to
know the answer.

"Walter's papers. They're gone." It hadn't occurred to either of
us to look in the junk room after discovering the burglary.

Her face cleared. "Richard wouldn't want those. Why would
someone else take them, though? I thought you told me they were
useless."

"But whoever took them couldn't know that. Maybe they
thought there was something incriminating in those boxes."

"But you didn't find anything?"

I shook my head. "Huh uh. But there's something they don't
want discovered. That has to be why they burned down his house."

She took a bite of apple and chewed it slowly, swallowed. "Ambrose won't be very happy about the papers being missing."

"I'm not going to tell him," I said. "If we hadn't brought them
over here they would have gone up in flames. So it's a moot point."

"You know, I bet he'd disagree with that." She walked to the
doorway with a plate of food for Erin, then turned. "How could
anyone know we had the papers?"

I shook my head.

But I thought about it while I did the dishes. At least two people
might have noticed the files had been removed. I'd already hauled
the boxes over to the house before Debby and Jacob had shown up
at Walter's that day. They'd both seemed upset, Debby especially,
and with good reason as Walter's fiancee. But I couldn't quite get
a handle on either of them. And I wanted to know more about the
relationship between her and Jacob.

My head had begun to throb, but I made a cup of tea and went
down to my workroom anyway. I'd thought of a couple things I
could do to try and find the thief-and Walter's murderer if they
were one and the same. I had to finish the soap for Kyla to wrap
when she came after school because I wouldn't be around tomorrow afternoon.

I released the bars of glycerin soap from the PVC half-pipes
I used for molds and was slicing them into generous slabs when
I realized I'd have to check with Meghan to see if she'd be here when Kyla came. The spare key wasn't outside anymore. I'd told
my helper where it was, and she'd actually used it once or twice.

Kyla wasn't behind the theft. I was sure of it. She wasn't that
kind of kid, and besides, she wouldn't have any more reason to
take three boxes of paperwork than Richard would. And I didn't
think she'd have told anyone about the key. Or would she? I reminded myself to ask her tomorrow, just to make sure.

The soap looked good. Streaks of blue swirled in pure white in
the peppermint, and I'd mixed a little copper metallic soap colorant in with the red that swirled in the cinnamon, so it glittered
when turned in the light. If these proved popular with customers,
maybe I could add green and white bayberry, or orange and white
sandalwood.

I lined the fifty or so soaps on the clean counter to cure overnight, tossed the molds in the dishwasher, and set it going. Checking the lock on the back door, I found myself looking out the
window at Walter's, half expecting to see the light burning in the
window. Only the dark hulk of the charred remains greeted my
eye.

It was almost ten o'clock. Trudging upstairs, I could hear mother
and daughter talking in Erin's room, lower- and higher-pitched
murmurs down the hall. Erin usually didn't stay up this late, not on
a school night, and she'd probably be crabby in the morning. Light
peeked out from under the closed door to the spare room; I'd left
the light on in my haste to tell Meghan about the missing boxes.

I opened the door and went in, inspecting the floor between
the rocker and the hobbyhorse. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Then I spied
the box under the window. Either the thief hadn't noticed it, or hadn't deemed it worth carrying downstairs. I lifted it to an open
space and began pulling out the contents.

In addition to ten or so framed pictures, I'd thrown in a ceramic bank shaped like a chicken, a locket that seemed to be rusted
shut, an old Bible, a book on baseball collectibles, a field guide to
Pacific Northwest birds, and three otter figurines formed of Mount
St. Helen's ash. That was it. Sighing, I placed the items back into
the box. I'd take them by Tootie's this week.

On impulse, I grabbed Walter's baby picture, flipping the light
off on my way out. In my bedroom, I propped the photo in the
gaping emptiness on my dresser. Serious eyes gazed back at me,
strange in the infant's face.

"Sorry about all this, Walter," I said. "But I will figure out what
happened. I promise."

I SHUFFLED INTO THE kitchen Tuesday morning, still in my pajamas. Meghan and Erin greeted me with broad smiles on their
faces. So much for the ill temper I'd expected from both of them;
apparently I'd been the sole recipient of the morning grouchies.
They kept sneaking glances at each other. Whatever was up, I could
only hope it was something good.