Shift Burn (Imogene Museum Mystery #6) (20 page)

The Nugent house was set off by itself, lonely in an otherwise empty cul-de-sac. The garage door was open, and two vehicles sat in the driveway — a beat-up brown pickup and a blue Ford Escort with its hood propped open. A dirty rag was draped over the fender, and tools lay scattered on the stained concrete near the left front tire.

Pete pulled up in front of the house, and we disembarked. The house — even the whole neighborhood — was eerily quiet. Tuppence snorted, her nose deep in dandelion dander at the edge of the yard.

I would have thought Rhonda was away, maybe planning Quincy’s service at the funeral home, except the front door was wide open behind the latched screen door. Most houses in
Sockeye County don’t have air conditioning and instead rely on the old-fashioned technology of cross breezes through as many open doors and windows as possible. Screens are an absolute necessity unless you enjoy scratching a myriad of mosquito bites.

I was standing on the sidewalk trying to decide which would be more considerate — hollering yoohoo at the forlorn house, hoping the remaining occupant was inside, or climbing back into the pickup and taking my macaroni salad to share for lunch at the Imogene — when the screen door banged open and Blaine stepped out, a can of Coors in his hand.

Blaine, the childhood friend of Will and Rhonda, the lazy worker who’d called in sick yesterday and thus missed seeing firsthand the dead body of his friend’s husband. No construction orange shirt for Blaine today. In fact, no shirt at all, and dirty jeans that rode his hips a little south of the wide elastic of his boxer shorts. He could have posed on the cover of
Muscle & Fitness
magazine, except for the expression on his face. No one would enjoy looking at that — I know I wasn’t.

His features constricted in a snarly scowl as he strode across the crabgrass to the driveway. “Rhonda’s inside,” he grunted and stuck his head under the Escort’s hood.

I shot a worried glance at Pete. He gave me an encouraging nod then tipped his head toward Blaine’s bent back. I got the message — divide and conquer, or something like that.

Tuppence followed me across the yard to the screen door. I went ahead and opened it and popped my head inside. “Rhonda?” I called. “It’s me, Meredith. Okay if I come in?”

I was in the living room by the time I finished speaking anyway, surveying a study in beige — tan wall-to-wall carpet, buff-colored couch, cream walls, wood coffee table and side tables painted a distressed white in the shabby-chic style, and a couple recliners upholstered in taupe chenille. All very proper; all very boring.

“Rhonda?” I tried again, louder.

She emerged from a narrow opening which I assumed was a hallway, clad in jeans and a baggy t-shirt, barefoot, with a giant hairball clutched to her chest. It took both Tuppence and me a long minute to realize the hairball was alive and that it was a cat. I’d been wrong in assuming Rhonda would favor the shih tzu dog breed. I guessed the mop in her arms was a Persian. Still, I’d been right about the hair affinity.

The cat took one look at Tuppence and let out a keening yowl which ended in a vicious hiss, its gold eyes narrowed to slits. It kneaded a loose fold of Rhonda’s t-shirt with its claws. Tuppence pressed against the back of my legs, and I felt like running for cover too.

Seemingly unfazed by her cat’s inhospitable nature, Rhonda turned and shuffled into the kitchen.

I took that as my cue to follow her.

She gestured vaguely toward the refrigerator and dropped into a dining chair in front of the sliding glass doors that led out to the patio. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to help myself to a chilled beverage or deposit the macaroni salad inside the fridge or both.

Since the drink on hand appeared to belong to Blaine — a half case of Coors that had been ripped open with only two cans remaining — I opted to slide the salad onto the wire rack beside it and go thirsty. Other than a squeeze bottle of ketchup with thick dried globs stuck around the rim of the cap, a Kikkoman soy sauce bottle, an orange a little worse for wear and the beer, the fridge was empty.

I let the door swing closed by itself and scanned the kitchen counters. No bread bags, cracker packages or cereal boxes in sight. No coffee-making paraphernalia or tea kettle on the stovetop. While uncluttered, the surfaces had a grimy, rarely cleaned look to them. The room smelled stale, as though the last time Rhonda had cooked, she’d burned something, but it wasn’t an offensive odor — at least not yet. Left unattended, the house seemed as though it would disintegrate quickly. I had a feeling everything about Rhonda’s life had suffered neglect, even before her husband was killed.

And it wasn’t going to get any better with the way she was moping. I sat down at the table opposite her, but she kept her face turned toward the glass doors and the backyard beyond. She stroked the cat absentmindedly.

The hairball, on the other hand, didn’t miss a thing, its glinty eyes unblinking. It pulled its thin lips back in a silent, warning snarl that nearly matched Blaine’s. Rhonda had her guardians, that was certain. But they weren’t offering her the kind of help she truly needed.

“You want to talk about it?” I asked.

“What is there to say?” Rhonda replied in a flat voice. “Quincy was setting fires so people would think he was hot stuff when he helped put them out. Then he did something stupid and got himself killed. Did he ever think how that would affect me? People didn’t like us before. Now—” She shifted in her seat and looked me straight in the eye. “I’m going to have to leave, live somewhere else.”

I blinked a few times, trying to get a handle on my thoughts. “You knew about the arsons?” I finally blurted.

Rhonda snorted. “Yeah, I put it together. I was trying to figure out what to do about it, you know? I mean, who do you tell that your husband’s starting fires for thrills and profit?” She cast her blank gaze back toward the glass doors. “Turned out I didn’t have to do anything. For once in his life, Quincy took care of his own problem.”

I ran the tip of my tongue over my chapped lips. How do you offer condolences to a bitter woman? I supposed now was not the time to mention that Sheriff Marge thought
Quincy’s death might be murder.

Rhonda was quite pretty. Her face could have been cherubic if it was animated. Maybe she would have a chance to start over somewhere else, lead a more content life. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for a major attitude adjustment on her part, but I preferred to think it was a possibility. I tried to imagine what it would be like to lose a husband, but the idea was too raw, too horrible to even consider. So planning on the other side of that tragedy would be practically impossible.

“Do you have other family, besides Will?” I asked.

“None to speak of.” Rhonda shrugged.

“Do you have an idea of where you would go?”

Rhonda pivoted, her eyes brightening. “
Costa Rica, maybe Belize.” Apparently she wasn’t as completely immobilized by grief as I had assumed.

“When’s the funeral?” I asked.

Rhonda frowned and angled her body away from me again. “I don’t see why they have to do an autopsy. Not until after that.”

Her long, glossy hair hung like curtains down the sides of face, shielding her. I wanted to reach out and squeeze her shoulder or even pull her in for a hug, but the glaring cat still had its ears slicked back against its skull. I had no doubt it would make mincemeat of whatever limb I extended its direction.

“Pete and I would like to attend the funeral,” I murmured. “Please call me if you need anything.”

Rhonda gave one nod of her head which ran a shiver down the length of her hair.

Tuppence followed so closely she tripped on my heels as I retreated to the relative cheerfulness and warmth of the front yard. Blaine’s legs stuck out from under the Escort, accompanied by irregular clanking noises. Pete was sitting in the pickup, arm resting on the edge of the open window.

I waited until the bleak subdivision was behind us before speaking. “I thought you were going to talk with
Blaine.”

“So did I,” Pete grunted. “Be he let me know my help wasn’t welcome.”

“But you—” I turned to stare at Pete. “You’re the best mechanic. Why would he turn down help from you?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Pete cast me a little sideways grin, but his forearm muscles tensed as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that car.”

“Maybe there will be when Blaine’s finished with it.”

Pete chuckled. “Do you know I love you?”

“Yeah.”

CHAPTER 20

The atmosphere at the Imogene couldn
’t have been more different from that at the Nugents’ house. It felt like the last day of the sixth-grade school year — a bunch of kids rambling around with infinitesimal attention spans, eager to get on with the next big thing but also viewing the unknown future with trepidation, wanting to tease our friends and pledge to adventurous activities during the summer but unable to commit to anything of substance because, whatever the grand plans were, there was the missing proviso of our parents’ approval. Awkward, unpredictable, and on the verge of something great, or at least something different — we just didn’t know what.

The FBI hadn’t absconded with Rupert’s keys, so we let ourselves in as noisily as possible. We certainly wouldn’t want to be mistaken for terrorist gunrunners.

After a couple tense minutes and uncomfortable snickers amidst our small group as we bunched together in the ballroom, realization dawned that we weren’t going to be thrown to the floor and handcuffed and that the men in black had probably known all along that we were entering the building.

Since we were closed to visitors during the foundation repairs and the construction crew was now past the jackhammer and resulting dust avalanche stage, I figured it was a good time to spruce up the Imogene’s interior as well. I’d come up with tasks for everyone.

But that might have been part of the problem, because my to-do list didn’t fool anyone. The chores were make-work, busyness, fiddle-faddle, and entirely irrelevant to the worries churning in the backs of all our minds. Consequently, I endured some good-natured grumbling, but by noon the exhibit halls on the main floor looked nicer than they had in many years.

I did venture far enough down the basement stairs — three squeaky steps — to draw the attention of the guard stationed in the shadows and request an audience with Agent Simmons.

He appeared a few minutes later and grasped my elbow, propelling me into the kitchen on the main floor. “I hope you don’t mind. We’ve been making ourselves at home.”

I glanced around at the food wrappers, coffee cups, crumbs and crumpled napkins littering the counters, table, and in several cases, the floor. A faint, but distinctly strawberry, Pop-Tart odor hung in the air.

“We’ll clean up — later.” Agent Simmons wiped his hand over his mouth and chin, making a gritty sandpaper sound as he scratched his beard growth.

If he’d slept — and I wasn’t sure of that — then he’d slept in his clothes. His suit jacket and tie were missing, his sleeves rolled up past the elbow, his trousers wrinkled in a way that no steaming would remove.

“These are actually pretty cushy accommodations for a stakeout.” Agent Simmons rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms.

“Quiet last night?” I asked.

He nodded. “Pretty soon. Patience isn’t usually one of the virtues of the criminal set. In a phone conversation yesterday, Guardado confirmed to someone, in a rough type of code, the shipment’s destination—” Agent Simmons spread his hands, “—here. Appears he did homework about you the same as you did about him.”

“Not much,” I muttered.

Agent Simmons gave me a stern look. “But enough. The person he was talking to was complaining about making a deposit on goods that were not delivered — threatening retribution, actually. It sounded like Guardado gave the potential buyer the go-ahead to collect the shipment himself as a way to deflect the heat. It’s what we were waiting for. We’ll get a bead on these guys.”

“Just don’t hurt my museum.”

Agent Simmons’ right eyelid twitched. “Don’t worry.”

“There’s an irreplaceable collection down there.” I jabbed a finger at the floor, and hence the basement below, for emphasis. “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. Given Guardado’s illicit tendencies, we all — you, me, Rupert, Greg — suspect at least some of those artifacts were obtained through back channels. I don’t like that. Who can I talk to who’s a resident expert on Near East Bronze Age finds? Does the FBI have any contacts in museums over there?”

“What modern-day countries are you talking about?” Agent Simmons asked.

“
Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey.”

Agent Simmons scowled. “That region’s a mess and will be for the foreseeable future, you know that, right? There’s no guarantee some of those governments will last much longer or be able to protect their cultural assets even if they do.
Sockeye County’s far more peaceful and safe.” He pitched one of his furry eyebrows at me with a twitch of a smile. “In spite of the operation we’re running out of your basement.”