PW02 - Bidding on Death (6 page)

I couldn’t think of a reason why she should confide in me, and lamely finished the message by leaving my phone number.

Then I hung up. Julia said, “Feel better?”

I shrugged. “It was a thought. Which is more than Luther Dawson can say right now.”

And that’s where we left it.

That evening, I showed Jack my on-line auctions. Everything had bids. One of the tablecloths was over $25 and the bedspread was at $17.

Jack was flabbergasted. “That’s the torn bedspread, right?”

“Yep,” I said proudly. “They call them cutters. Crafters want them for the vintage fabric and designs.”

“Well, I’ll be dipped…” Jack didn’t finish the thought.

I told him about the Barbies and the horses and the toy dishes, showing him a similar set that sold for over $100. “And that one isn’t even the lemonade and oxblood!” I pointed out.

Jack shook his head. “Now you’re picking up a whole new vocabulary to baffle me with. I thought the computer stuff was bad, but what with cutters and MIB, it won’t be long before I won’t understand a thing you say.”

“Ooh,” I said. “We’d have to communicate via sign language. Sounds interesting.” I twined my arms around his neck and continued dramatically, “Two people, separated by language and culture, yet brought together by fate and a passion too strong to be denied…”

Jack laughed. “Your talent is wasted on those software manuals,” he told me. “Have you thought about romance writing?”

The discussion then proceeded wordlessly, using the aforementioned sign language.

Rose never called me back, so I figured she must not have had a break-in and the motive for the other two break-ins must be something else.

And there I should have left it. But the next afternoon, I was delivering a few cases of wine to Washington House, our high end B&B. Dave, owner and chef extraordinaire, has made our Cabernet and Chardonnay their house wines. I was pleased to note that the orders from Washington House were becoming larger and more frequent, so the wine was a hit with their knowledg
e
able clientele. Validation is always satisfying.

On the way to the B&B, I noticed idly that the little house I passed on the way must be Rose Jackson’s; the number on the mailbox looked familiar, and I remembered seeing the street address in the phone book. I automatically filed the information and proceeded on to Washington House, where Dave and Bev were glad to take a break and get my opinion on a new dessert quiche Dave was trying out. Chocolate raspberry? What more could I say? Heaven!

We sat in the bar
and schmoozed for a while. According to Dave and Bev (coincidentally last-named Washington
, though Washington House is named for that famous fellow who alleged Slept Here all over the eastern seaboard
), the business was doing fantastic. Washington House is both a B&B and a restaurant and it seemed that the biggest growth was on the restaurant side. Queen Anne County is off the main tourist track, so the overnight customers were mainly people visiting relatives or getting away from it all. But Queen Anne itself was growing, and much of the new population was from more urban areas. Washington House was the only real Fine Dining within sixty miles, so they were becoming the go-to place when people wanted to dress up and have an elegant evening.

“And it’s only going to get better,” Bev predicted. “
Gene
Abernathy had dinner here last night – he loves your Chard, by the way – and he says his new development is really going to be upscale.”

“Oh?” This was new to me. “What new development?”

“It will be on the site of the old
Beaumont farm,” Dave said. “Gene
says no house lot under two
a
cres, and there will be a boathouse
and hiking trail. He’ll really be bringing in the high income resident. And they’ll appreciate good food in elegant surroundings.”

“You’ve certainly got that here,” I told him admiringly. I loved having dinner at Washington House, but Jack and I couldn’t afford to go as often as we’d like. A big wine order for Jack or completed writing assignment for me – this was where we celebrated.

I patted the Washington mastiffs, knowing that when I got home Polly would instantly realize that I’d been cheating on her with other dogs.
Then refreshed from a social break, I headed out to return home.

But as I drove back down Washington Avenue, I found myself slowing down and then turning in at the Jackson house. Call me nosy, call me interfering, but I just would feel better if I heard Rose tell me outright that she hadn’t experienced a break-in like the other big buyers at the auction.

The driveway led to the back of the house; it appeared that the common entry here was the back door. I saw Rose’s pickup in the driveway, so she must be home. Feeling foolish, but determined to get it over with, I approached the back door. From inside, I heard frantic shrill barking. So Paco was home.

I knocked on the back door, and just as my knuckles struck the wood, I noticed the door latch. It had been broken and wrenched open, just like Julia’s. At my knock, the door swung open a few inches.

“Rose?” I called out. “Rose, it’s Cissy Rayburn.”

A sound like mice skittering in the wall turned out to be tiny dog claws on kitchen vinyl, as Paco charged toward the door. I automatical
ly blocked him from darting out
and pushed him gently back into the kitchen with my foot, hoping he wasn’t in a biting mood.  He backed up and dashed in a tight circle, whining.

Pushing Paco had brought me into the house. Feeling even more foolish and hoping I wasn’t committing housebreaking, I called again. “Rose?”

There was blood on the floor.

Wait a minute – there
was BLOOD on the floor
!

For a few seconds, I stood there stupidly, staring at the large stain, now brown and dry. Then, with increasing reluctance, I followed the trail around the kitchen table, where I found Rose, lying face down, with a messy crease on the back of her head, and very very dead.

FOUR

I instinctively backed up until I backed into the kitchen counter. The table was now between me and – her? It? That was a good thing. I took several deep breaths.

Let’s see. Notify the authorities and don’t touch anything. Pull yourself together, Cis, and get over to the phone.

When I found Colonel Obadiah Winslow dead in our vineyard a couple years ago, I had felt duty bound to take a close look to make sure the man was dead. That wasn’t necessary here. There was a smell. One I remembered from the time we came back from vacation and found that the freezer had died in our absence, leaving us with a freezer full of rotten meat.

I quickly turned away from the body and headed over to the sink. To hell with not touching anything, I decided, and grappled with the window latch over the sink. It stuck a bit and my hands were shaking. The broad windowsill was serving double duty as a bookshelf, and I managed to knock several cookbooks into the sink. Finally I got the window flung wide open.

A brisk cool breeze entered and I took a couple fortifying breaths.
Turns out that finding bodies is not one of those things that get easier with practice. Shakily, I picked up the books and replaced them on the shelf.

I turned back toward the kitchen and walked to the phone, carefully refraining from looking at the far corner. The wall phone included an answering machine; I saw there was one message. That would be me. I’m no medical expert, but I was willing to bet anything that Rose was already dead when I made that call.

I
took down the receiver and dia
led 911.

“Queen Anne County emergency services,” intoned the 911 operator.

“This is Cecilia Rayburn,” I announced carefully. “I’m at Rose Jackson’s house on Washington Avenue. I just found her dead on the floor. Her head’s been bashed in.” I remembered the house number, which was now burned permanently into my brainware, and repeated it into the phone.

The operator’s glacial calm wavered. “Ma’am, are you alone in the house? You should leave and get to a safe place; we’ll send someone right over.”

My voice cracked. “Nobody else is here!” I assured the woman. “She’s been dead for days!”

“I’m advising you to leave the house,” she told me.
“
Don’t touch anything, just leave.
Someone will be there soon.”

I hung up and turned from the wall. The operator’s concern had infected me. Surely the murderer (this must be murder, right?) wasn’t still lurking in the house.

I realized that little Paco was standing at my feet staring up at me. That answered that, as far as I was concerned. If someone else was in the house, Paco would be letting me know.

Paco. He was here in the house. Where his owner died at least several days ago. I looked around on the floor and found a tiny water and food bowl combo, both sides bare and dry. The poor little fellow! When I’m careless enough to let the water bowl run dry and too oblivious to catch the animals’ hints about it, both Polly and TS have been known to drink from the toilet bowl. Looking down at Paco, I didn’t think that was an option for him.

I violated the don’t touch anything mandate again by picking up the bowl, taking it to the sink, and filling one side with water. I put the bowl back down on the floor and Paco dived face first into it.

So there was that. Food. Where did Rose keep the dog food? I looked around and noticed a door in the same location as the pantry in our house. I opened the door and sure enough, there were shelves and there was a bag of dry dog food.
I filled the other side of the bowl with a portion of dog food, and Paco fell onto it like a starving beast, which is pretty much what he was.

There. I looked at my work and saw that it was good. More confidently now, I did a quick walk through the house. I didn’t touch anything, so I could honestly say the only crime scene touching I did was necessary.

The house was a one-story two bedroom house. The dining room seemed to have been converted into an eBuy depot. There was a table and chairs in the middle of the room, so it was still usable as a dining room. But elegant, not so much. Shelves ranged along one wall. The shelv
es were carefully labe
led and crammed with products. I examined the labels and saw that Rose had shelves for ‘to be photographed’, ‘to be listed’, ‘current auctions’, ‘relist’, and ‘to be shipped’. There was also more shipping paraphe
r
nalia than I’d seen in our little post office.

Everything here was out in the open, and it looked fairly neat. I had no way of telling if anything was missing.

The main bedroom looked
messier, but it looked like normal living clutter to my untrained eye. The guest room had been taken over by storage, and it was a wreck. I couldn’t believe that the woman who kept that dining area so organized would leave a store room like this. It looked to me more like a hasty search than random destruction, but what do I know?

A noise from the kitchen startled me. I swung around and hurried back there, to find Paco throwing up all over the kitchen floor.

It was only then I realized that I’d automatically given him a ‘dog-sized’ portion of food, forgetting that my dog weighed ninety pounds. And Paco, not having eaten for several days, had tried to eat it all.

“Poor little guy!” I cried remorsefully. “I’m sorry!” I’d meant well.

I ran to the living room to look out the front window. No sign of the authorities yet. What was keeping them? Of course, it’s a big county and a small department, so who knows where the responders were when they got the call.

I went back to the kitchen to check on Paco. He was still vomiting. Polly often vomits when she’s eaten something she shouldn’t, which is a common occurrence in the country with dogs allowed off-leash. But she’s matter-of-fact about it, like it wasn’t a big deal. Paco was doing this whole-body barf that was terrifying to behold. I was starting to worry. Had I killed him?

Back to the front window. Still nothing. Back to the kitchen. Still barfing.

After a moment’s hesitation, I plucked the phone
receiver from the wall, and dia
led Doc Harding’s office. (Why, yes, I have my vet’s office number memorized – doesn’t everybody?) But just as the phone started ringing on the other end, I heard the crunch of gravel and knew that the Authorities had arrived.

I hung up and went to the back door. First on the scene, in an unmarked car, was Luther Dawson. Luther ‘found any dead bodies lately?’ Dawson. Who else?
He got out of his vehicle and drew his pistol.

He approached the back door an
d scowled at me; with his basse
t-hound features, his scowl is dreadful to behold. “I see you disobeyed instructions to get out,” was his greeting.

“Oh, knock it off, Luther,” I said irritably. “And put that thing away. I’ve been through the house and there’s nobody here but me and the dog. And Rose, of course.”

He holstered his weapon and entered the kitchen, rocking back as he crossed the threshol
d as if he’d taken a punch
to the nose. Which I suppose he had, in an olfactory sense.