The Journal: Raging Tide: (The Journal Book 4) (5 page)

April 7

I woke to the sun
streaming in through the dusty plate glass doors. The fire had gone
out and it was cool in the room. Jim was gone from the mattress on
the other side of the room.

“Are you ready for some coffee?” he said
from the kitchen.

I sat up with a start and winced at the pain
in my head. There’s nothing worse than a wine hangover, except
maybe finding four bodies in a really nice, posh house.

“I will be as soon as I find some aspirin,”
I moaned, and made my way to the door in the kitchen where Jim had
found the powder room. I opened the medicine cabinet over the sink
and found that the lady of the house was the perfect hostess. There
were two toothbrushes still in wrappers, travel sized toothpaste
and floss, plus a variety of painkillers: ibuprofen, aspirin,
acetaminophen, in generic and name brand. I set the ibuprofen on
the sink and checked the tank of the toilet. It was more than half
full, enough for a full flush. I was tempted.

As I closed the mirrored cabinet, I noticed
a second mirror, also on hinges. I opened what turned out to be the
circuit breaker box with everything neatly labeled. At the very
bottom of the first row, was one that said “generator”, set in the
off position. I took my ibuprofen in search of some drinking
water.

“Headache?” Jim snickered.

“A bottle of wine does that to me.” I washed
down the pills, and then accepted the cup of brew he handed me.

“We should probably get on the road soon,”
Jim said. “I’d like to make it to Sawyer before dinner.”

“We haven’t completely explored this house
yet.”

“What’s more to see, Allex?”

“The basement,” I said. “Those olives last
night were martini olives, yet I haven’t seen any liquor.”

“Okay, I’ll get the lantern. It’s going to
be dark down there,” he said, rising.

“I’m not sure that will be necessary, Jim. I
found something very interesting in the bathroom. It’s the house
circuit box and one breaker is marked as the generator. I’m
guessing this place is wired to run off of it. It would make sense
to put the circuit box somewhere easy to locate, and I can’t see
these people, with their upscale lifestyle, using gasoline, so I’d
say it’s hooked to the propane.”

Jim’s eyes brightened. “Let’s try it.”

I pulled the main off out of habit, and
flipped the other switch to on. At first there was nothing, then I
heard a ticking. The clock in the bathroom had come to life.

“I think we should check the tank level
before depending on it to keep the lights going while we’re
downstairs,” Jim said.

I looked into extensive backyard from the
glass doors. An elaborate oak stained wooden pergola dominated the
poured cement patio and a matching structure further back looked
like a child’s playhouse. Right behind the garages, hidden from
view to the street, sat the large green propane tank.

“It’s behind the garage,” I called out to
Jim as I opened the sliding door.

The protective cap lifted with a little
effort and exposed the meter gauge. We were in luck.

“Seventy percent? They must have just had it
filled,” Jim observed. “Why is this tank green when ours are all
blue?”

“A different company, that’s all.”

*

Even with lights shining the way, we still
descended the stairs cautiously. At the foot of the stairs was a
row of light switches, each one a dimmer. I turned them on, one at
a time. In front of us lay a parquet dance floor, at least thirty
foot by thirty foot, highly polished. Off to the left was the long
professional wet-bar in laminated cork and six bucket style stools
in burgundy leather lined up neatly. I turned slowly in a
circle.

“I bet it has a dynamite sound system too,”
I sighed while Jim explored the bar. Six small bistro tables were
at the other end of the dance floor on plush forest green
carpeting. Chairs that matched the barstools sat two each to a
glass top table. These people really knew how to entertain.

“The bar is fully stocked, Allex.” Jim
frowned. “We wouldn’t be able to take all of this with us.”

“I think we should leave it here …”

“What?”

“… for now. I suggest we stop on our way
back and take what we can.” I paused, thinking. “In a way it feels
like stealing though.”

“We’re not
looting
, Allex, that’s
stealing. We’re
scavenging
. There’s a difference. The world
has fallen apart and we know the owners are dead. Whatever we find
that isn’t already claimed is fair game.”

I looked at Jim and knew he was right. I
nodded my head in agreement.

“I wonder if they have a wine cellar.” I
grinned. It didn’t take long for us to find the hidden panel that
popped open to applied pressure. How Jim knew to press the corners
I didn’t ask.

“Oh. My.” I breathed. The room had cases and
cases of wine stacked, all labeled with name, type, and year. “We
would need the Christmas Truck to get all of this. Come on, let’s
close it up.” I stepped back, taking one bottle from the nearest
open case: A Cap d’Haute, 1996. It would deserve a special
dinner.

“We need to keep looking. I wouldn’t be
surprised to find guns too.”

“We really don’t need any more guns,
Allex.”

“Perhaps not, but we can keep them out of
the hands of others.”

We started at the top of the house and
worked our way down, finding only one gun cabinet with a half dozen
rifles and two handguns.

“Not what I would have thought, though at
least we found the few they had,” I said, as Jim put them inside
the wine cellar and closed the panel. I ran a towel over the
mirrors, removing any smudges that would draw attention.

“I’ve been thinking about what that Mickey
had said about the nice houses he’d found. Maybe we should scout
around this neighborhood before we move on,” Jim suggested.

I stood at the stove scrambling some eggs
into the remaining ham. We had a late breakfast with the eggs made
into sandwiches and we finished the coffee.

“I think that’s a great idea. I’ll get my
notepad from the Hummer so I can write down addresses in case we
find anything worthwhile.”

Four hours later we had covered only half of
the estates. That’s what they were, really—estates. Some had bought
two or three of the five acre lots and situated their house
accordingly. We walked back to the Hummer pulling a red wagon we
found in one of the backyards. The wagon was piled high with an
assortment of exotic canned goods, liquor bottles and wine. And
guns. We didn’t take all that was there, except for the guns, and I
had the addresses and a list of what was left.

“I say we stay until we’ve searched all the
houses,” Jim said.

“Agreed. It’s not like they are expecting us
at Sawyer, so we’ve got all the time we want to take.”

“I hate to admit this, Allex, but I’m
actually having fun going through someone else’s house. Is that
sick or what?”“I think it satisfies a voyeuristic side that is part
of human nature, Jim.

Though I
am
glad we haven’t found any
more bodies!”

“Yet,” he reminded me.

“Yet,” I agreed.

“Did you leave the generator running?” he
asked me.

“Yes, I wanted to heat the water in the
tanks. I’m really looking forward to a hot soaking bath tonight.
And a shower in the morning,” I said wistfully, missing my hot tub.
Without grid power I had to drain it right after the big quake,
right after Mark died.We set boxes on the floor and bags on the
counter in the kitchen. “We can go through these later and see what
we want to take and what we can leave to pick up on our way home,”
I said. I turned and stared out the window.

“What’s the matter?” Jim asked, approaching
me from behind.

“I feel kind of odd. We’re staying in this
really nice house and we don’t even know who these people were or
what their names are.”

“That’s easily remedied,” Jim said, going
out into the garage. He returned a few minutes later with the car
registrations. “Linda and Richard Iverson. I also found his
briefcase.” Jim opened the slim attaché. “He was an attorney from
the looks of all the legal papers.” He closed the case and set it
aside. “Does that help?”

“Yes, thank you.” I smiled with
satisfaction. One less mystery on my mind. “How about some lunch
before we start on the other houses? We have some smoked salmon,
roasted red peppers, kippers, albacore tuna, chicken breast, and a
couple cans of clam chowder.”

“I’ll take a chicken sandwich and some
soup,” he said. “Do you want me to do anything to help?”

“You could see if there’s anything to drink
downstairs.”

I set two bowls of clam chowder on the
island and two plates with chicken sandwiches. There was enough
lettuce left to put two small leaves on each sandwich. The polished
island had four swivel bucket barstools made of birds-eye maple and
deep green leather, and I guessed that this was a common and casual
place for the family to have quick meals.

Jim returned with a tray sporting two
glasses filled with ice and two liquor bottles.

“Ice?” I exclaimed.

“The bar has an icemaker that’s been
churning away with the generator on. I know it’s a bit early in the
day, but we aren’t driving anywhere so…”

After lunch, I rinsed the bowls and put
everything in the dishwasher, something I was definitely looking
forward to running after dinner later.

We took the empty wagon and set out in the
opposite direction. The casual walking felt good. Jim and I had
spent many hours talking about ourselves during our weekly cribbage
games this past winter that the silence we now shared wasn’t
awkward in the least. There was a light cloud cover and the sun
strained to be seen through the filmy gray.

The first house we came to held nothing for
us. The second house had bodies.

“Looks like a murder/suicide,” Jim remarked
as he circled the table where the bodies slumped. “From the hole in
the skull, I would say he shot her from behind, then sat down and
put the barrel in his mouth.”

I was looking around the room and trying not
to focus on the two corpses. I spotted a piece of paper stapled to
the side of a dark mahogany cupboard in the kitchen that was very
much out of place. No one
staples
notes to expensive
woodwork, not unless they want the note found.

“Jim, come look at this,” I said
quietly.

“Hmmm,” he said, reading the note
contemplatively, with his hands resting gently on my shoulders as
he stood behind me. “Pretty much the way it went down, Allex. She
was an invalid and he was sick with the flu. I say we look through
the house quickly and leave these folks in peace.” Jim picked the
revolver up from the floor where it had fallen, and spun the
chamber. “The gun is empty. I guess he knew he would need only two
rounds.” He set the gun on the island, below the note.

After the eight houses we had scoured today,
we had a working rhythm. We started at the top and worked our way
down. This house produced nothing we could use and we locked the
door behind us, taking the empty gun.

“Only two houses to go and we can call it
quits for the night,” I said as we made our way up the street to
the next McMansion. “I’m exhausted, and a little emotionally
drained.”

“I understand, Allex. If you would rather
wait here, I can go through these next two on my own,” Jim
offered.

“No, as you said before, we shouldn’t be
separated. I’ll be okay,” I murmured, trudging along.

Thankfully, there were no more bodies for us
to discover. To speed things along, after clearing the upstairs
rooms, Jim and I each took a room looking for guns, then the same
for downstairs. Our biggest finds were always in the kitchens or
the finished basements, usually in the way of canned goods and
liquor. The liquor we left behind, with me making a note what was
in each house, the canned food we took with us. We were done and
headed back to what we were referring to as
home
.

Jim had locked the garage door when we left,
so we approached the front door to let ourselves in again and found
the door ajar. Jim stopped, motioning me to stay back as he pulled
his gun. I drew mine, too, and followed him anyway.

There was an elderly man standing in the
living room, looking out into the backyard. His dirty clothes were
too large for him and I could smell him from ten feet away. “Oh
there you are, Linda! I was wondering where you were. Say, you cut
your hair, I think I like it better long,” he said, when he saw
me.

Linda?
That was the name of the lady
of the house. He must be confusing me with her. “Hi,” I said
quietly. Jim and I cautiously stepped closer. The old man didn’t
appear to be threatening, just confused.

“Rich, when did you get so gray?” the old
man said, cocking his head to the side. “I see you brought work
home. That will send you to an early grave for sure!” he said,
waving a shaky, liver-spotted hand toward the briefcase that was
still on the floor. “Where are those grandkids of mine? I haven’t
seen them since you put me in that home.” He frowned and seemed
lost in thoughts again.

Ah ha! This must be Linda’s father, and ill
with dementia or Alzheimer’s.

“Ah, the kids are… having a playdate with
some school friends… Dad,” I ventured, giving Jim a quick look.
“What are you doing here? Won’t the center be worried when they
find you missing?”

“They ignore me all the time, Linda. I don’t
like it there. When I couldn’t find anyone to get my dinner today I
walked out! That will teach them,” the old guy said angrily,
looking away. When he turned back to us, he was all happy again.
“Say, Rich, can you get me one of those fancy beers you keep
downstairs? I’m thirsty and tired..” He lowered himself into one of
the plush chairs facing the fireplace and closed his eyes.