Rock Bottom (Imogene Museum Mystery #1) (15 page)

I wasn
’t even sure I knew what that meant, but I nodded dumbly.

“
Are there people in there for you?” he asked, tipping the Stetson toward the museum.

I nodded.

The muscles in his lower jaw worked, and he released me. At the front doors, I looked over my shoulder. Nothing seemed real anymore. Julian was standing by his truck, watching back with those golden eyes.

CHAPTER
14

Lindsay, on the other hand, was very real, and very sick. Her nose was red and raw around the edges, her eyes bloodshot and watery.

“Hey,” she said when I came in, then coughed — a dry, hacking fit that left her wheezing. “I heard,” she gasped. “They find anything?” She blew her nose on a shredded Kleenex.

“
No. Good grief, Lindsay. You shouldn’t be here.”

“
It’s not like there’s anybody else.” Lindsay managed a wobbly smile. “And we’ve had tons of visitors already.”

I checked the clock
— just before noon. It was Saturday. “Can you hang on for another half hour? I need to change and feed Tuppence, then I’ll come back and fill in for you. You should be in bed, or at least on the couch watching daytime television.”

“
Cooking shows,” Lindsay rasped. “That’s what my mom watches during the day.” Her eyes welled up. “I’m sorry, Meredith. It must have been awful for you.”

I nodded.
“I need to think about something else for a while. Minding the gift shop will be perfect. I’ll hurry.”

I jogged to my truck which sat alone in the marina parking lot, my right knee reminding me of the pounding it had taken last night. Yellow crime scene tape still marked off the last twenty feet of the dock. It twisted and flapped in the omnipresent breeze that rippled down the gorge.

I sped home, safe in the knowledge that all available law enforcement personnel were involved in the search effort.

Tuppence was overjoyed to see me and to eat
— mainly to eat, but she did leave her food bowl twice to check on what I was doing in the bedroom. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair and put on presentable, museum-worthy clothes. I left a rawhide chew toy with the neglected hound as consolation.

I shooed Lindsay away after getting the scoop on how many visitors were currently traipsing about the museum. Standard procedure is to count how many enter and how many leave to make sure no one is locked in the building overnight.

A family with three adolescent children came into the shop to browse, and I helped the youngest sift through a container of polished river rocks for just the right one to take home as a paperweight. The image of Greg’s body skimming with the current over a bed of river rocks flashed into my mind, and I had to walk quickly away — stare out the window for a while. It was a relief when the family finally left.

The museum settled into its usual popping and creaking silence. The building seemed to exhale every time a blast of warm furnace air whooshed through the ductwork. Moldings dried and shrank a little more, widening cracks. Plaster chinked and sifted white powder down as dust. Windows whistled softly as drafts fingered their way in.

Early in my tenure, I had decided the mansion is a girl, the same way ships are always referred to as ‘she.’ I felt an affinity for the old spinster. We both needed space to rest.

I added to the exit tally as an older couple waved on their way out. I sat on the bar stool behind the counter and twined my feet around the rungs.

I thought about Julian. He had been so intense — probably his normal mode. It was the eyes. Why did he say I meant more to Greg than his own family? Did I? Surely his mother … and yet, where was his mother?

Clyde
was my only avenue for contacting Greg’s family. I should probably call him. I hoped I’d startled him enough to make him reform. Maybe now he’d think twice before bedding the next enticing female student to come his way.

No, I wasn
’t ready to talk to Clyde. I’d wait to call until I had real news, encouraging news.

A hunched man wearing a long trench coat entered the gift shop and started browsing the perimeter. People always do that
— work from the outside in. I didn’t pay much attention except to register, vaguely, that his head was too big for his body. The disproportion was exaggerated by a large John Deere baseball cap.

My stomach growled. I
’d forgotten to grab any food on the short layover at home. I wondered if Gloria had any Granny Smith apples and Muenster at Junction General. She always has cheese and apples, but special varieties are hit and miss. Maybe I could recreate Dennis’s glorious sandwich. I shook my head. How could I think about food when the dive team was scouring the river for a body — maybe Greg’s body?

“
Pusht tha monr iner.” A gnarly hand shoved a stained pillowcase across the counter. Pungent menthol or eucalyptus aftershave odor floated with it.

“
Huh?” I wrinkled my nose and looked up, into the deep twin holes of a double-barreled shotgun. My mouth fell open.

The John Deere man repeated the instruction, which I gathered to mean I should put valuable things inside the pillowcase. At first I thought he had a speech impediment, but no, his teeth slid around while he talked. It was some kind of denture fixture that he kept trying to suck back in while he was speaking. It crossed my mind that he
’d stolen the teeth too, since they obviously weren’t made to fit him. He seemed too young to need false teeth.

It
’s weird, the things that pop into your head when someone’s pointing a shotgun at you. Like the fact that I didn’t know any men who wore aftershave, at least not the potent kind that creates an aura with a five-foot radius. My eyes watered. The stuff singed my nose hairs. I didn’t want to touch the pillowcase. It was filthy.

I opened the cash drawer. There was hardly anything in it, and the bills were so light he would think I was handing back an empty bag. I needed something heavy
— quick.

The man swiveled his neck around, nervous. I opened the drawer below the cash register and tossed a tape dispenser in the pillowcase
— the weighted kind with sand in the base. That should help. I grabbed a handful of the ladies’ name magnets and dropped them in. They clattered against the tape dispenser.

The man swerved the gun back to aim at my chest.
“Hurst ppt.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

I pulled my hand up to the cash drawer
— where he could see it, and grabbed the pennies first. They jangled into the pillowcase.

“
Bllsp.”

I removed the stack of ones from their slot. He jammed the shotgun against my sternum.

The air in my lungs went ice cold, and I pulled away from the hard metal.

Steady. Keep moving. I couldn
’t let him see me shaking. I deliberately slid my hand over to the twenties and pulled those two bills out. There weren’t any tens. Three fives.

The sound of children
’s feet hopping down the ballroom stairs punctuated the robber’s asthmatic breathing. I realized I’d been timing my movements to his raspy breaths. He stuck out his hand for the bag, and I flung it over the counter.

He cracked open the gun and shoved it inside his coat, scooped up the bag and ran. If the gun wasn
’t loaded, I was going to be furious. He hit the glass doors, shoved them open and took off through the park with an odd lope that covered ground in a hurry, his coat flapping behind him. I followed to the doors and watched until he disappeared.

I turned around to find a family huddled together, the mom and dad shielding two little boys.

“Was that a —” the dad looked down at his young sons. I realized he didn’t want to say the word out loud. “Are you alright? Are you going to call the police?”

I nodded.
“But they won’t be able to respond right away. They’re busy with a search and rescue operation. Besides, he got what he came for, so he won’t be back.” I pointed toward the parking lot. “Is that your blue car?”

The man nodded.

“I’ll go out with you, make sure you’re safe.”

The notion was laughable
— that I could protect them, but the couple seemed reassured. They took their children in hand and walked to their car. I observed the ritual buckling into car seats and waved as they backed out of the parking spot and left.

I locked the museum doors behind me and checked the tally list. Five out meant the museum should be empty now.

I thought through what I would need to tell Sheriff Marge. The man must have paid admission. $7.50 to steal about $60. I giggled. I looked at the cash drawer. The quarters, dimes and nickels were still in their compartments.

My giggling increased, bordering on hysteria. Why did he do it? Maybe the aftershave meant he was on his way to meet his sweetheart after he knocked off the museum. Would the chosen lady be impressed? I dropped to the floor under the open drawer and laughed until my diaphragm ached.

Sheriff Marge didn’t believe me.

“
When was the last time I called in a false report?” I asked, all traces of humor gone.

“
How about last night? You were clearly woozy. Any chance you imagined it?”

“
What? No. What are you saying?”

Sheriff Marge sighed.
“I’m saying we’re at the second spot Henry identified from the air, and we’ve still got nothing.”

I closed my eyes. Finding nothing was good, wasn
’t it?

“
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Sheriff Marge said. “Give me the guy’s description again.”

I complied.

“No vehicle?”

“
Not in sight.”

“
Witnesses? Other than you?”

“
Yeah, but I let them go. They had two little kids and were visibly frightened.”

“
Maybe they noticed something you didn’t.”

“
I doubt it.”

I was too tired to argue further. I hung up and sniffed
— lingering Altoids on steroids aftershave scent revived my headache.

I collected my flashlight and thermos of stale coffee from the bathroom upstairs. My chin had had no effect on the doorknob, and the floor looked pretty clean. I closed the door and returned the pillow to the bed.

The chamber pot display was still in order — every pot in its place.

I called Mac.
“Hey, have you seen Ford lately?”

“
Yeah, he’s sitting here at the bar, drinking a Dr. Pepper.”

“
He told me the plumbing at his place is backed up. Could I ask you for a huge favor?”

“
Anything.” Mac really is a good man.

“
I’m not sure he can do much cooking or washing at his place without the drains working right. Could you invite him to stay with you, maybe, and feed him until Rupert gets back and deals with the problem? I know it’s a huge request. The museum trust fund will reimburse you.”

“
Nah, it’s fine. I have an old army cot he can use. He told me he knows how to make squirrel stew, so maybe we’ll have some.”

“
Are you serious?”

“
Maybe.” Mac laughed. “It’s fine, really. How’re you doing?”

“
Waiting.”

“
I hear you. Take care.”

When I drove up to my trailer, Tuppence didn
’t appear. She always emerges from her kennel or comes loping in from wherever she’s been exploring. I called her. And called again.