The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco (10 page)

Kerry balled her hands on her hips. “Criminal,” she repeated. “Believe it or not, though, this isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen. Once, I got a listing on a house for a bank that had foreclosed on it, and the owners had knocked holes in the walls, clogged all the toilets, and spread the contents of the cats’ litter trays all over the carpets. They had four cats. It reeked. Disgusting!”

I noticed a trail of flour-coated footprints leading from the kitchen toward the stairs. “Look,” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was whispering since the smell of spoiled dairy products told me this hadn’t happened in the last couple of hours.

“We need to call the police,” Kerry said. “I doubt they’ll be able to catch the kids that did this, but at least they can try.” She pulled out her cell phone.

“You think it was kids?”

She shot me an impatient look. “Who else? Professional burglars wouldn’t bother to make this mess. They’d have been in and out. It was probably teenagers, looking for cash or electronics or prescription meds, who got off on vandalizing the place when they were done looting.”

She was probably right, but something about the whole scene gave me the creeps. I didn’t believe in auras or any of that nonsense, but I shivered. “Wait a minute before you call the police. Let’s check upstairs first,” I said.

“Why?”

I shrugged, not really sure. “Just to see where they went.” I pointed at the flour footprints.

“I’m telling you they went straight for the medicine cabinets,” Kerry said, following me to the stairs. “When I hold an open house now, I tell the owners to make sure they take all the meds out of their cabinets because people come through and steal them, hoping to find oxycodone or Percocet. Even Valium and antibiotics have street value.”

I had no idea being a Realtor provided such a diverse education. Careful to avoid stepping on the flour footprints, we hugged the wall as we climbed the stairs. The flour prints had faded by the time we reached the top. We poked our noses into the first room on the left, a guest bedroom, at a guess, which had received the same treatment as the living room. Feathers lay in drifts where they’d been liberated from the pillows. The next room was a bathroom, and Kerry gave an “I told you so” “Hah!” when we saw the mirrored medicine cabinet gaping open and empty.

“The police took some of her meds,” I told Kerry. “They thought Ivy overdosed on something.”

She sniffed, annoyed at having her theory discounted.

The last room at the end of the hall appeared to be Ivy’s bedroom, and it was untouched except for a nightstand whose drawer had been upended on the bed, dumping condoms, pens, lotions, and a couple of suspense novels onto the crocheted bedspread. The rest of the room was pristine.

“Huh,” Kerry grunted. “They must have gotten tired of wreaking destruction.”

“Or they got scared away,” I suggested, edging toward Ivy’s dresser while Kerry poked through the nightstand.

“Could be.”

Careful not to touch anything—I’d read enough mysteries to be wary of fingerprints—I studied the framed photos resting on the polished cherry surface. There was one of Ham and Ivy as teens and another of a couple I thought might be Ivy’s parents. A third showed a group of girls lined up near a tennis net and I remembered Ivy played tennis in college. I was trying to spot Ivy in the photo when I thought I heard something from downstairs. It wasn’t a distinguishable sound like a creak or a door closing, but there was a change in the house’s atmosphere. I froze.

K
erry noticed it, too. “Ssh,” she hissed, even though I hadn’t said anything. We stood as still as ice sculptures, listening hard. I heard a heavy footstep and a muttered curse. Someone was definitely in the house.

“Now would be a good time to call the cops,” I whispered to Kerry.

“You think?” She had already dialed the number.

As she spoke to the 911 operator, the hall floor creaked and someone began ascending the stairs.

“Oh my God,” Kerry said, eyes wide.

“What do we do?” I asked. “Hide or fight?”

“He might have a gun. We have . . . a clipboard.” She held up our only “weapon.”

Of one accord, we dashed for the closet. I slid aside the mirrored door and we groaned. The closet was so stuffed with clothes that a paper doll couldn’t have squeezed in there. How did Ivy ever find anything? I wondered pointlessly.

“Bathroom!” Kerry pointed and we scurried across the room to the open door of the master bath.

Whoever was in the house had reached the upper level. I heard a strange crunching, shuffling noise from down the hall and puzzled over it until I realized the intruder was stepping on or through the debris on the hall bathroom floor. A sharp ping sounded, like he had kicked something that banged against the tub. He was angry.

Ivy’s master bathroom was small. It held a toilet, a vessel sink on a single cabinet vanity, a medicine cabinet, and a tub shrouded by a ruffled
Little Mermaid
shower curtain with a flame-haired Ariel, a cranky-looking Sebastian the crab, and a host of other fishy characters. A green towel was draped over the shower curtain rod. No linen closet or big hamper to hide in. Since neither Kerry nor I was likely to fit in the vanity under the sink, we both stepped hastily into the tub and pulled the shower curtain closed as quietly as possible. I winced at the muted jangle of the curtain rings sliding across the rod. To my nervous ears, it sounded like clanging cymbals.

“
The Little Mermaid?
Really?” Kerry whispered.

We fought off a fit of the giggles, more a reaction to our scary situation than to the odd shower curtain.

The sound of the bedroom door being slammed back so it smacked the wall shut us up. Hardly daring to breathe, we listened as the intruder stomped into the bedroom, muttering curses. It seemed to be only one man. If he didn’t have a knife or gun, maybe Kerry and I could take him.
Kerry held the clipboard with both hands at head height. Her face was grim.

The man stepped into the bathroom, brushing against the door. His shoe slapped the tile. The odor of stale cigarette smoke filled the room. Could it be—? The cigarette smoke made me think it could be Ham, and it made sense that Ham would be here, but I wasn’t sure enough to step out of hiding.

Before I could decide if I should risk peeking around the shower curtain, the unmistakable sound of a zipper froze me. The toilet seat smacked against the tank and the man began to pee. Kerry and I exchanged horrified looks. After a long, embarrassing thirty seconds, the man sighed, flushed, and began running water in the sink. That made me doubt it was Ham—he didn’t strike me as a hand washer. I was beginning to think we could outwait whoever it was, but then the towel over the shower curtain rod jumped.

As he tugged at it, the shower curtain slid aside three or four inches. Not waiting to find out if he’d seen us, Kerry sprang from the tub and brought the clipboard down on the man’s head. She got tangled in the shower curtain, so the blow wasn’t too hard. Ham Donner staggered back, eyes wide with surprise, and put his arms up to ward off another blow. I grabbed for Kerry’s arm, saying, “It’s only Ham; it’s only Ham,” but I tripped on the edge of the tub and jolted forward, knocking into Kerry and Ham. The three of us went down in an ungainly pile, half-covered with the shower curtain. My knee slammed into the tile floor and I yelped.

“What the hell—?” Ham bucked and twisted to wriggle out from under us.

I grasped the counter edge and pulled myself up, offering a hand to Kerry. She shucked the shower curtain and stood, still clutching the clipboard. She looked from Ham to me to the toilet and back to Ham. “I might have known you wouldn’t put the seat down.”

“You hit me,” Ham complained, rubbing his forehead. A lump was already rising and I suspected he’d have a lovely bruise.

“We thought you were the burglars who trashed the place,” I said.

“Sorry,” Kerry said in a noncontrite voice. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people.” She ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it and twitched her blouse into place.

“It’s my house. And I wasn’t sneaking. I showed up to meet you and found that mess downstairs. I was hoping the bastards who did it were still in the house so I could rip their heads off and stuff them up their—” He cut himself off. “This is gonna damage the value of the house, isn’t it?”

Ah, dependable Ham. More concerned about the bottom line than anything else.

“It doesn’t look like they did any permanent damage,” Kerry said, reverting to her professional Realtor voice. “You might have to replace the refrigerator—”

An approaching siren cut through her words. The police. Finally.

We all trooped downstairs to explain to the same Boy Scout–age officer who’d been here when
I’d found Ivy that there was no immediate threat. As he toured the house, making notes and taking photos of the damage, Ham turned to me, suddenly suspicious. “What are you doing here anyway, Amy-Faye?”

I was glad Kerry and I had come up with a cover story. “I thought it would be nice to have a few photographs to display at the funeral. Don’t you think so?”

“Ah, um, sure,” he said.

“Do you have any that would work?” I asked sweetly, 99 percent sure he wasn’t the sentimental type who would cherish family photos.

“Uh, I’m sure you’ll get better ones here,” he said, hitching up his jeans, which his paunch had pushed down. “Ivy was more into family keepsakes than me. Of course, she had all this space to keep them in”—he gestured broadly—“while I’m lucky to have a roof over my head most of the time. Not anymore, though.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Soon as this place sells, I’m gettin’ a condo, one of those nice ones going up on the north end of town, or maybe in Grand Junction. I’ve got plans. Big plans. I could tell you about them over dinner.”

His usual leer was absent. He actually seemed eager to share his ideas with me, maybe with anyone, and I felt a twinge of guilt as I turned him down. “I don’t think so.”

“Suit yourself.” He wandered away to keep tabs on either the cop or Kerry.

I was on the verge of leaving, ready to consider the whole “search Ivy’s house” thing a bust, when the brass mail slot suddenly opened and the mail
carrier thrust circulars and an envelope through it. They plopped to the floor, the envelope sliding almost to where I stood. The address was written in what looked like it might be Ivy’s handwriting, and there was no return address. From out of nowhere, I thought about Sam Spade mailing himself the locker key in
The Maltese Falcon
, and without stopping to think about it, I bent and scooped up the letter. I didn’t have time to look at it. I heard footsteps behind me and barely had time to slip the letter under my shirt before Officer Ridgway reappeared. Pretty sure that tampering with the mail was a felony that could land me in federal prison until I hit menopause, I plastered a look of total innocence on my face and turned to face him.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked. “The bathroom’s just there.” He pointed.

Apparently, my “innocent” look came across as “queasy.” “I’m fine,” I assured him, edging toward the door. “But late. Yes, late. I’ve got an appointment. With . . . someone.” I was absurdly conscious of the envelope’s corner pricking my skin. Could he see its outline through my blouse?

His brows drew together. “I could get you a glass of water.”

Stop being nice and let me out of here,
I wanted to scream. “Uh, thanks, but no time.” The envelope crackled as I turned. Had he heard it? I kept walking, pulled the door open, and stepped onto the stoop. Realizing I’d been holding my breath, I sucked in air. I’d make a terrible spy. Hurrying down the sidewalk, I made it to my van without being stopped. Kerry might wonder where I’d
disappeared to, but she was deep into Realtor mode and wouldn’t miss me immediately. I’d call her later to explain. Leaving the envelope inside my blouse, I started the van and drove off.

*   *   *

Al was at class when I got back to the office, so I had the place to myself. Pouring myself some iced tea from the pitcher we kept in the mini fridge, I went into my office and shut the door.
Paranoid.
I pulled up my blouse and peeled the envelope from where it was now sticking to my damp skin. It was a garden-variety business-sized envelope. Nothing special. I studied Ivy’s name and address, written sloppily—in haste?—in black ink. I wasn’t sure, but I thought the handwriting was Ivy’s. I flipped the envelope over and my finger traced the V of the sealed flap. It gapped slightly on one end and my letter opener fit easily into the space. Last chance. I could drop the envelope in the nearest mailbox and no one would ever know I’d taken it from Ivy’s. It was probably only a come-on from a dentist’s office or mortgage broker—one of those ads they tried to get you to open by making it look like an actual letter.

Don’t be such a ditherer.
I sliced the envelope neatly along the top seam, laid the opener on my desk, and withdrew a single sheet of folded paper. Impatient now, I unfolded it and found myself looking at what was clearly a Xeroxed ledger page. The paper was lined and slightly askew, as if the book it was copied from wasn’t aligned quite right with the copier. An orderly series of numbers made up each entry. At first, I thought the
numbers were dates, because they were grouped in threes and separated by slashes. The first two groups read 1/26/10 and 8/14/43, but then the third group was 51/2/2, which couldn’t possibly be a date. They weren’t telephone numbers or social security numbers. Lock combinations? Nobody had this many locks. As I puzzled over the page, I realized the numbers at the ends of each line didn’t fit the pattern. They weren’t separated by slashes. The last numbers on the first line were 10000 and on the second line 1550. That pattern continued down the page.
Huh.

It dawned on me that maybe the entries were written in a code of some kind. The thought made me drop the page, and it wafted to the floor. Retrieving it, I tried to think why Ivy would have a ledger page with coded entries on it. If I was right about the handwriting, she’d mailed it to herself. From where? I picked up the envelope. The cancellation stamp said it had been mailed from right here in Heaven the day she died. I shivered involuntarily. How could that be? Ivy had been home on the day she died. It made no sense that she’d mail herself something from her house.

My office door opened suddenly and I gave an involuntary shriek and dropped the page again.

Al poked his head in. “Jumpy today, huh, boss? Anyway, I’m here. Anything you need me to do for the Boy Scout picnic? I think I’ve got the Finkelstein event under control.” His gaze fell on the paper, which had landed near his foot. “I’ll get it.”

“No!” I lunged for the page and snatched it up as he reached for it.

He eyed me warily. “What is that, anyway? A bill? You’re not late with the rent again, are you? Mr. O’Donnell’s not kicking us out, is he?” Worry sharpened his tone; he depended on what I paid him to pay his tuition.

“I was only late with the rent once,” I said with dignity, “and Mr. O’Donnell completely understood. Sometimes clients are slow paying up.” I folded the page and tucked it into a file on my desk. “It’s nothing. Did you manage to get a copy of the newspaper wedding photo the Finkelsteins wanted?”

We talked business for a few minutes and my pulse gradually returned to normal. By the time Al returned to his desk, I knew what I was going to do. The idea should have come to me immediately. Surely Maud, my conspiracy-obsessed friend, would know something about codes. Didn’t codes and conspiracies go together? I left the office at three thirty, telling Al he should leave, too, since we’d be working at Ivy’s funeral and the Finkelsteins’ party tomorrow, and the Boy Scout picnic on Sunday, and drove the short distance to Maud’s.