Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 02 - Rekindling Motives (7 page)

We waited by the door and she joined us a minute later, her face flushed.
“I am so excited about this. I bet there are lots of super things in that attic.” She waved goodbye to Roland, the store owner, and thanked him for letting her leave an hour early.

“Did you see any dress forms?” she asked.
“I make most of my own skirts and tops you know.”

That explained how she had so many outfits that looked as if they were from the 1970s, a period she seems quite fond of.
“I think I saw one,” I said. “But, um, you’d have to talk to Gracie about it. I had the impression she’s going to have an auction or rummage sale.”

“She’d let me buy it before then,” Ramona said.
“I used to help her write her English compositions in high school. She hated to write paragraphs and stuff.”

I drove the short distance to the old house and as we got out of the car each of us stared at the top floor.
“Hard to believe Gracie didn’t know there was such a treasure trove up there,” Ramona said.

“Or a dead person,” said Scoobie.

I opened the car trunk and pulled out my donut. I planned to sit at the bottom of the ladder and take notes. I hoped Ramona’s participation would let us move faster, but I thought it equally likely that she would stop to examine each item.

After an hour, the list of attic contents was growing, but so was the pain at the base of my spine.
I was finding it hard to be interested in the whoops of laughter from Scoobie as Ramona tried on a broad-brimmed hat or draped a fox fur over her shoulders.

“
Omigosh, this is awesome,” Ramona yelled.

“What? What?” I called up to her.

“There’s a bunch of really old dolls.”

There was a clunk and Scoobie laughed.
“And now there’s a headless one.”

The parts of me that didn’t ache wished I were up there with them.
“What kinds of dolls? Like Barbies?”

“Better,” she said.
“Did your mom have any of those dolls that wet themselves? They were my mom’s favorites.”

“Betsy or something, I think.
My sister has it.” I added it to the list.

“Damn, look at this train set.”
I could hear someone pulling a box across the floor toward the attic opening and Scoobie’s head appeared. “Do you think Gracie would mind if I set this up at your aunt’s to see if it runs?”

I shrugged.
“I don’t see why not. Then if she wants to sell it she’ll know if it works.”

He balanced the box on his shoulder and climbed carefully down the ladder.
“I’ll take it out and put it in your trunk.” I tossed him my keys and he headed down to the main floor.

I jotted ‘Lionel Trains’ on my list.
Gracie might have enough in that attic to pay for a couple of semesters of college books for her kids.

“Jolie, there a metal box in the back that’s full of little…” Ramona sneezed several times.

“Bless you,” I called up.

“Thanks.” She sniffed mightily and continued, “Full of a bunch of what look like ledgers.
Hmm.” I could hear her flipping through pages. “Hard to figure out what they’re about.”

“Why don’t you bring a few down and I’ll take them home
and look at them?” I couldn’t imagine anything more boring, but it’s not like I’m out on the town at night.

Scoobie’s steps on the staircase were slow, and I figured the almost three hours we’d been here were a lot more tiring for him than Ramona and me, since he was the one who traipsed up and down the attic ladder the most.
“You want to head home?” I asked.

“In a few minutes.
I saw some old books in the back in a couple of boxes. I’ll at least look in them to see what kinds they are.” He steadied the bottom of the ladder as Ramona climbed down with an arm laden with the ledgers.

I had been thinking of the larger books with green pages that Uncle Gordon used to use for record-keeping, but these were smaller, maybe six by nine inches.

“Stop looking up my skirt,” Ramona admonished.

“I’m not.”
He winked at me. “It’s too long to get much of a view.”

He climbed back up and Ramona sat on the floor next to me.
“My nose is getting clogged from all that dust,” she said, reaching in the pocket of her skirt to pull out a handkerchief.

“We’ll go as soon as Scoobie looks in those boxes of books he found.”
I leafed through the top ledger. They were leather-bound and had several thin pieces of ribbon affixed to the top of the binding. The ribbon was a light yellow at the top of the ledger, but when I turned to one of the pages a ribbon marked I could see the portions not exposed to light were brown. Though it had some pages with figures, more contained entries in sentences, and each entry was dated.

June 19, 1928
. New mixer delivered. RT unpacked and read instructions. Painter finished in back room, carpenter did not come to put up shelves. Storm coming in, so left at two.

The writing was small and even, each letter written with precision.
I scanned a few more pages. I assumed that RT was Richard Tillotson and that he and the writer were preparing for the opening of a store of some sort. Maybe it was Peter Fisher who referred to Richard as RT. The cramped writing made me think of Fisher’s dour expression in several photographs.

More sneezing announced Scoobie as he came down the ladder.
“Look at this! This might be a first edition of
All Quiet on the Western Front
, and there’s a 1932 edition of
Tom Sawyer
.”

I closed the ledger, placed a hand on each side of the sewing machine stool and stood, slowly.
This was how I had figured to get up with the least pain, and it was hardly elegant. Undoubtedly Scoobie was only refraining from making cracks because I looked so sore.

“Did the doctor say when it would hurt less?” Ramona looked sympathetic as she held my coat for me.

“He said I’d start to feel a lot better after a week.” I stretched, something that was already less painful than it had been a couple of days ago.

Scoobie carried the ledgers and his books out to the car, and I drove the three of us toward the Purple Cow, where Ramona wanted to be dropped off.
Scoobie was absorbed in a book, and Ramona appeared lost in thought until she said, “You know, I keep thinking about that skeleton. When do we find out if it’s Gracie’s great uncle, or whatever he was to her?”

“Sergeant Morehouse more or less told me not to bug him about it because it would take some time.
Something about not paying for a rush DNA analysis.” I said.

Scoobie snorted.
“The skeleton’s not in any rush.”

“Hand me one of those ledgers, would you?” Ramona asked Scoobie.

“There aren’t any empty pages for you to draw on,” he said as he passed one to the front seat.

We had arrived at the Purple Cow, and Ramona stuffed the ledger into her oversized handbag.
“Sometimes numbers tell you a lot,” she said as she got out of the car.

SCOOBIE JOINED AUNT MADGE and me for grilled cheese and clam chowder.
Aunt Madge had moved a small table out of a corner near the sliding glass doors that lead to her narrow back yard. She ordered the dogs to stay a certain distance from the box of trains. Amazingly, to me, they sat about five feet away, occasionally looking at Aunt Madge and giving a short wag of a tail, as if they wanted to see if she had changed her mind.

Aunt Madge, who is always looking for ways to use her carpentry skills, was far more interested in the trains than the ledgers or albums and was soon on the floor with Scoobie going through the box to see which pieces of track went together to create the picture that was on the outside of the box.

When I pulled the third album from the coffee table to my perch on the couch I was pleased to see that it had pictures of the Tillotson house “the day we moved in.”
A photo taken inside the house also noted the date, which was in 1917. A young Audrey and Richard posed in front of a tea set and their parents in dressy attire as if they were going to a party.
You can bet they weren’t unpacking the boxes
. The real estate appraiser in me took over and I marveled at the full wrap-around porch and shutters at every window. They were stout looking storm shutters and the lattice work around the base of the porch was intricate. The album ended with Richard holding a new baby and Audrey at about age 10 standing next to him looking as if she were worried he would drop the little darling.

It wasn’t until I looked at that photo that I
realized that the fourth Tillotson child apparently wasn’t born yet, and the two youngest children were enough younger than Richard and Audrey that they might still be alive. More people to talk to. I glanced toward the corner and was surprised to see Aunt Madge on her hands and knees, apparently trying to peer under a piece of track. Scoobie caught my eye and gave me an almost imperceptible shrug.

“I saw that,” she said, straightening up.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“That piece of track is a little bent, and I want to see where I need to straighten it,” she said, as she dislodged the piece from its connecting piece of track.
She stood and walked toward her pantry, where she keeps her indoor tool box, as she calls it.

“Having fun?” I asked Scoobie.

“I am, actually.” He glanced towards Aunt Madge. “Learning a couple things, too. Did you know that the guy who invented Lionel trains tried to make the first one with a steam engine? It blew up.”

“Nope.
No brothers.”

Aunt Madge made a harrumphing noise.
“You don’t have to be a boy to like trains.” She had found a small pair of pliers and was walking back to sit on the floor next to Scoobie.

“True, but can you imagine my mother buying Renée or me something with tires other than a baby buggy?”
My mother wanted her girls to be girls, as she put it. My sister is trying my mother’s patience by letting her girls play soccer.

“Good point,” she said, and began to show Scoobie which part of the piece of track needed to be gently straightened.

I decided to wait to ask her about the youngest Tillotsons – she would only accuse me of trying to find more people to bother, and she would be right – and went instead to the stack of four old-fashioned leather books.

Just as I was trying to decipher the titles at the top of the columns on the first page Aunt Madge shouted, “Annie Milner.
I knew I’d remember it.”

“You mean the girl from our graduating class?” Scoobie asked.

“I most certainly do,” Aunt Madge said.

I remembered Annie not from high school but because she worked in the county prosecuting attorney’s office and had interviewe
d me when the windbag attorney was planning his case against yet another classmate. During the probable cause hearing she handed the prosecuting attorney notes a couple of times, leading me to think she was the one with the brains.

Scoobie said, “She got one of the mock awards that Jennifer passed out during the reunion, but I don’t remember what for.”
He continued, looking at me. “She didn’t come until the end of junior year. Really quiet, too. You wouldn’t have known her.”

“So, what about her?” I asked.

“She’s Mary Doris Milner’s grand niece.” Aunt Madge looked as proud as if she’d finished replacing a board on the front porch.

CHAPTER SIX

I WAS HAVING A HARD TIME not calling Annie Milner. It made no sense to talk to her until we knew if the skeleton belonged to Richard Tillotson. I decided to annoy Sergeant Morehouse instead.

He made me wait
twenty minutes before he came to the reception area to get me. “Thought maybe you’d get tired of waiting,” he said as he keyed digits into the security pad and opened the entry to the bull-pen of officers’ desks and the tiny cubbyholes – they hardly qualified as offices – for sergeants and lieutenants.

“But you knew I’d be back, so why bother putting me off today?”
I smiled at him and was half surprised when he smiled back.

He gestured to the one guest chair in his small, crowded office and plopped himself in his own.
Sgt. Morehouse is about 40, and if he didn’t wear polyester pants and inexpensive looking sports coats you might not think of him as a cop. Though he can be quite curt when he wants to be rid of me, his usual expression is halfway friendly.

“I told you we wouldn’t get
DNA evidence too quickly,” he said.

I nodded.
“I thought of a couple of other things, though.” At his raised eyebrow, I continued, “Did you notice if the skeleton was dirty, or if there were specks of dirt on the wardrobe floor?”

“I’ll tell you, Jolie, I don’t know the criteria for a clean skeleton, and the floor of the wardrobe was damn dirty after who knows how many years.
Why?”

“Because I wondered if it had been buried and dug up.
I thought it might have soil on it.” I met his eye as he gazed at me, unblinking.

He sighed.
“It was dusty, mostly. But, the coroner’s office did find some white powder in the back of the shoulder socket. Someone – whether it was a murderer or someone who had a deceased person exhumed for some other damn reason – did a good job cleaning the skeleton.” He raised a finger to shake at me, “Like I told you…”

“I know, I know.
You have lots of open cases to work on.” I kept my tone pleasant. After all, he didn’t have to tell me anything. “You may find this hard to believe, but I don’t have skeletons jump out at me too often, so I’m naturally curious.”

“There is nothing natural about your level of curiosity.”
His look was direct. “Why’d you ask that, anyway?”

“Because the clothes in that wardrobe were from the 1940s, according to Scoobie and Ramona.
Seemed as if the skeleton was put in there long after 1929.”

Morehouse made a note on a small pad in front of him and stood.
“Gracie did say you could know the results of the DNA analysis. That’ll still be at least a few weeks, probably.” When I didn’t stand immediately, he asked, “Doesn’t Harry Steele have enough work for you?”

MY SEARCH FOR INFORMATION to use in appraising the Tillotson house was very frustrating.
There were tax records on the property dating to the early 1900s, and I could see the steady rise in the tax bill as the value of the property rose, especially after the late 1950s. In 1918 it had been assessed at $2,600, a reflection of the family’s wealth in times when many houses were worth far less.

The most recent assessment was for $380,000, but I couldn’t use the tax assessor’s value alone to come up with the appraisal amount.
Anyway, there was no guarantee someone would pay as much as $380,000 for the house, which was in good condition for its age but would likely require a lot of updating in the kitchens and bathrooms, at least. On the other hand, get the right buyer and they might be willing to pay $425,000 or more. Especially if they were wealthy Manhattanites looking for a weekend place. What I needed were comparable recent sales, and there simply weren’t any.

As I sat tapping my pencil on the binder in which the Miller County Register of Deeds kindly places information on recent house sales in each municipality in the county,
George Winters walked in. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said, as he sidled next to me at the Formica-topped counter.

“And you thought I was dying to see you?” I asked.
“Maybe I wanted my picture taken again?”

“You left yourself wide open for that, Jolie.”
When I didn’t respond he continued, “I heard you and Scoobie were going through the attic. Wondered if you found anything interesting.”

“Scoobie really likes the Lionel trains,” I said, putting my pencil in my purse.

“You know what I mean, anything related to the skeleton.” I turned toward the door and he continued, “Come on Jolie. I can’t go in there to poke around.”

I faced him squarely.
“You promise not to write insulting stuff about me?”

He dropped my gaze.

“Ha! See, you can’t promise.”

A slow grin spread across his face.
“It’s just you give me so many opportunities.” I pushed past him into the hallway.

“Okay, okay.
Nothing insulting.” He paused as I gave him a skeptical look. “For how long?”

“See,” I said, pushing the down button on the elevator, “You look for ways to needle me.”

“Aw, Jolie. Come on. You’re fun to cover.”

We entered the elevator and
the door closed. “I’m serious Winters, lay off for awhile.”

“Promise,” he said quickly.
“Now, did you see anything interesting in the attic?”

As he opened the courthouse door to the street, I told him, “It’s a treasure trove.
Lots of old furniture, clothes, games. Ramona wants one of the dress forms. She’s the only one I know thin enough to use it. But…” I considered whether to tell him the skeleton was in the cupboard with clothes from the 1940s and decided against it. “I can’t say there was anything newsy.”

His face fell.
“Nuts. My editor keeps insisting there’s a big story there. Solve that old murder somehow.”

For a fleeting second I thought about discussing the clothes and photo albums.
Of everyone in town, Winters might be my best brainstorming partner. Reporters were always trying to put pieces together. But, Gracie might not like the attention on her family, and she was paying Scoobie and me to look through the attic. Not that we had settled on a price. Instead, I said, “There might be a story there, but so far you don’t even know if the body was Richard Tillotson’s.”

“How many other skeletons would be in that attic?” he asked.

WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE COZY CORNER B&B Aunt Madge had a message for me from Annie Milner. Though I’d seen her a couple of times other than the reunion I couldn’t figure out why she’d call me.

“Jolie.
Thanks for calling me back.” Her voice was smooth as soft butter. “I wanted to run an idea by you, if you don’t mind.” When I said fine, she outlined her thoughts about running for the position of county prosecuting attorney in the spring primary. “I don’t know if you were aware,” she continued, “but a lot of people thought Martin Small proceeded too quickly in accusing a suspect for Ruth Riordan’s murder.”

“I tended to agree with them,” I said, dryly.

“I assumed you and your aunt did,” she continued. “Rushing ahead is Small’s general mode of operation. I would ask you not to repeat my opinion,” she added hastily.

“Of course,” I said, thinking she was already talking like a politician.

“It’s my opinion that the citizens of Miller County would be better represented by a more thoughtful approach to litigation. On top of the issue of basic fairness, there is the cost of pursuing a case too hastily.”

Although I thought this was probably a carefully rehearsed speech, it also made sense.
“So, what are you asking?” I didn’t know much about a prosecuting attorney’s job, and certainly knew nothing of local politics.

“I’d like you to get to know me well enough to endorse my candidacy.”

“Me, why me?”
My voice was almost a squeak.

“First, you are becoming well known in Ocean Alley, and this is the county seat.”

I snorted and made a disparaging comment about
George Winters, and she laughed. “Really, Jolie, it’s the substance of your opinion I’m interested in. I’ve talked to Michael Riordan and his father.”

My ears perked up.
Michael and I had briefly considered what Aunt Madge would call a fling, but we pretty quickly realized our temperaments were too different. Or maybe too similar.

“Michael shares my views about the current prosecut
ing attorney,” she continued, “but he doesn’t want any more attention.”

“Can you blame him?” I asked.

“Not a bit. You might not want to talk a lot about that case either, but your name on a published list of supporters would mean a lot.” When I hesitated, she added, “You don’t have to give money.”

“I tell you what, Annie, I am willing to
consider it.” I paused, thinking about Mary Doris Milner. “Why don’t we meet for coffee at Java Jolt this weekend?”

With her delight ringing in my ears, I replaced the phone and turned to see Aunt Madge making herself another cup of tea, probably her tenth for the day.
“Did you get the gist of that?”

“Pretty much,
” she said, taking her teabag out of the mug and setting it on a spoon rest. “I have heard she’s very bright, but…”

“Young?” I asked.

“I hate to say that.” She paused, then added, “Prosecuting attorney is a big job. Maybe one that requires more experience.”

I shrugged.
“I guess it depends on whether someone uses their experience well. I sure don’t think Martin Small’s any good.”

“You’ve got a point there.”

There was a scratching noise across the room and we both turned toward the sitting area near her TV in time to see the chipmunk run across the floor and dart under the bookcase again. Aunt Madge looked at me. “He’s been climbing the curtains again.”

“Great.
Have you figured out if he can climb the steps to the bedrooms?”

“So far I haven’t seen
either of them up there.”

THE
NEXT DAY I CALLED GRACIE to ask about the whereabouts for the deed on her grandmother’s property. Technically, that’s more the business of the attorney who handles the closing when the property gets sold, but it occurred to me that since the house had been in the family so long it might require a hunt. Might as well give her a heads up. And, I was curious as to whose name was on it now.

“Deed?” she asked.
“Oh dear, I never thought of that.”

“Maybe your mom has it,” I suggested.

She sighed. “My mom and I have a hard time talking about much more than how cute my kids are.”

I could relate to that, except for the kids part.
“This will give you some time to talk to her without having to force the conversation.”

I hung up and called Harry to see about any new appraisal work.
He didn’t have anything for the rest of the week, and thought it might be just as well for my back, as he referred to my tailbone.

“It’s getting better, mostly hurts when I get in and out of chairs.”

“Then I don’t feel too bad.
You can stay home and rest.”

I assured him I would and immediately called the library to see if Scoobie was there.
Daphne said she thought he had gone to the diner for lunch but he usually got back just after one o’clock, so I made a sandwich and called up to Aunt Madge to see if she wanted one.

AFTER LUNCH I PICKED UP Scoobie at the library with the intention of heading back to the Tillotson-Fisher house.
I let him know that when I talked to Gracie I had asked her to pay Scoobie for doing the lion’s share of the work and we had settled on four $50 gift certificates to Wal-Mart, to be provided each month for four months; that way Scoobie would not earn too much in any one month and get thrown off his disability payments. I didn’t mention that I had decided not to take anything. I’d get paid for the appraisal, and I sure wasn’t helping Scoobie much at this point.

En route to the old Fisher house, Scoobie decided we should make a detour to Midway Market, the small, in-town grocery store, to introduce me to the manager as the new head honcho at the food pantry, as
Scoobie put it.

“Why does he care?” I asked.

“Because when the pantry is really low and needs stuff right away the church passes the collection plate and the money goes to buy food at Midway. He sells it at 40% off the store price.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked as we pulled into the small parking lot.

“Because when they need someone to carry it into the pantry sometimes Reverend Jamison finds me.”

As we walked into the aging market the overcast sky began to dispense sleet.

“Maybe,” Scoobie said as he held a hand out to feel the light pelting of frozen water, “we should get you straight home.
I don’t want to be around if you fall on your ass again.”

“Look, we’re here.
We’ll talk fast.” We walked to the door and I stepped on the mat to let the automatic door open. “I wish every door in town were like this.” In response to Scoobie’s questioning look I added, “You have no idea how much opening a heavy door can make your tailbone hurt.”