Lye in Wait (8 page)

I mopped up the rest of the game, pocketing the eight ball in
the corner with an easy bank off the side. Blondie walked away in
disgust, but his friend grinned and offered to buy Meghan and me
a round. We'd had enough, though, so we thanked him and left. It
had begun to rain again, little spits that were just enough for us to
raise the hoods on our jackets.

We hurried down to the Beans R Us Coffee Shop and ducked
inside. The bell over the door jingled, and a woman with short spiky black hair and an eyebrow ring came out of the back, untying her apron. I recognized her from the few times I'd been in for a
double tall nonfat latte.

"I was just getting ready to close up. I've got some decaf on the
burner if you want it for free."

I looked at Meghan. She shrugged. "Sure," I said. The woman
reached for two paper cups with one hand and the pot of coffee
with the other."

"Sorry I can't get you a latte or anything," the woman said. "I
already put everything away."

"No problem. We're not here for coffee, actually," I said.

She stopped pouring. "So what are you here for?"

"Do you know Walter Hanover?"

She nodded. "Sure. He comes in afternoons a lot. Hangs out
with Debby and Jacob. Plays backgammon. Sometimes cribbage."
She pointed to a cluster of tables in the corner with games sitting
on a shelf nearby.

"Debby and Jacob?" I asked.

She nodded again. "Why? What's this all about?"

Meghan said, "We're trying to find people who knew Walter to
let them know he died yesterday. The owner of the Gold Leaf said
he'd seen him in here a lot."

The woman's hand flew to her mouth. "Ohmygod"

"Debby and Jacob a couple, then?" I asked.

Meghan gave me a look that bordered on a glare. Apparently, I
wasn't being sympathetic enough.

"Um, oh, I don't know. They just all come in here together," the
barista said.

"What time? We'd like to pass on the information to his friends."

"Oh, don't worry. I'll tell them." She said it with such relish I
could imagine her rubbing her hands together in anticipation. In
the blink of an eye, she'd recovered from the shock and was getting
ready for the gossip circuit.

"Come on," Meghan said and opened the door.

"Wait a minute! What happened to him?" the woman called
from behind us. "Hey, don't you want your decaf?"

We walked the five blocks home at a fast clip, both happy to
reach our front door. But I wasn't sure whether we should be
happy or not when we heard the message Detective Ambrose had
left on the answering machine, asking me to call him at the station
the next day.

ON SATURDAY MORNING, I got Ambrose's voicemail. I dutifully left
my name, number, and the time I called, hung up and dialed Caladia Acres. They transferred me to Tootie Hanover's room, and
she answered on the second ring.

I asked how she was doing.

"As well as can be expected, I suppose." Her voice was dull, the
delivery flat.

"I have some information from the funeral home," I said.

"You're very efficient."

"Well, Meghan is, really. And we're happy to be able to help.
But they can't have a funeral until the morgue releases..." I took a
breath "...well, releases Walter."

"It's all right to say it."
"

I know. I'm sorry" Another deep breath. "The mortuary antic-

ipates it will be at least a week and could be more than two weeks
before they can do that, so the funeral may have to wait."

"Oh, no."

I hated this to drag out for her and had said as much to Meghan
when she'd told me about the delay. She'd mentioned a possible
alternative that might afford Tootie some modicum of closure.
After determining that neither she nor Walter had any particular
religious affiliation, I suggested a nondenominational memorial
service on Monday, two days away. She agreed and said when the
time came she wanted her son cremated. That brought up another
thorny subject.

"Do you know if Walter had a will?"

"He never said anything about it to me"

"Maybe I should look for one? I can go through all his things if
you'd like. My housemate would help. Box up what's useable and
donate it, save anything you might want."
"

I don't know," she said.

I couldn't really blame her for being reticent. "I understand.
You barely know me"

"It's not that. You're a good girl. I can tell."

That made me squirm. I didn't feel like a good girl. I felt like
someone who wanted to find out as much as I could about Walter
while I still had the chance. But no matter how I felt, if we didn't
clean his place out, his landlady, Mrs. Gray, might just bring in
someone to haul everything away, including photos and other mementos Tootie might want.

"It's too soon," I said. After all, Walter had only been dead two
days.

After a long pause she said, "No, of course not. You go ahead
and take care of it, if you don't mind. I'm not as mobile as I once
was, and I'd rather someone who knew Walter went through his
things."

"If you're sure, I'll talk to his landlady and have her let me in. If
she has any questions, she'll probably call you for confirmation."

"That'll be fine. I'm pretty easy to reach." Her thin, dry laugh
sounded forced.

"One last thing," I said. "Meghan said the funeral home would
place the obituary with the local papers, but neither of us knew
what information to include. May we tell them to contact you for
that information?"

When she spoke, there was even less energy in her voice than
before. "Yes. Of course. I'll expect the call."

As soon as Meghan's client left, I checked her office. It was empty, so
I went in and sat down on the loveseat opposite her desk. Minutes
later, she came in from the massage room, rolling her shoulders.

"That," she said, "was a big guy. A big, tense guy."

"Get your workout for the day?"

"I'll say. Hey, I don't have any more clients until this afternoon-you want a quickie?"

Meghan's massages turned me to mush. "Love to, but I've got
too much to do"

I updated her on my conversation with Tootie Hanover.

She turned in her chair and took down two thick white towels
from the shelf behind her. "I'm still surprised you told her about
someone being over at Walter's that night."

She'd told me over dinner the night before that I shouldn't
have given his mother something else to worry about. But Tootie
was stronger than Meghan realized and certainly more interested in the truth than in being kept in the dark for her own good just
because she'd passed a certain age.

"You have to meet her."

"I hope to, soon."

"She gave me-us, actually-permission to go through Walter's things."

"Have you called Detective Ambrose back?" she asked.

"He wasn't in. I left a message."
"

"The police might not like it if we go through his stuff."

"Why? They sure as heck don't seem to be doing anything to
find out what happened to Walter."

I thought you wanted to do this to help his mother."
"

I do. But do we have to wait? I mean, is it actually illegal?"

She looked unhappy. "I don't think so. It's not like his house is
a crime scene. They may have told Mrs. Gray not to let anyone in,
though."

"Well, I'm going over there and find out."

"Now?"

I nodded.

She rose. "Sparrow's coming at one, but I guess I could help
until then." Sparrow was a regular client, a champion dressage
rider who believed in massage for her horses as well as for herself.

I'd planned to go down to the coffee shop later to see if any of
Walter's friends showed up. The day was dribbling away already,
and I wondered how to make up the time. I still had so much to
do to ensure Winding Road did well during the upcoming holiday
season.

We went to the main house to see Walter's landlady, Mrs. Gray.
The police had said nothing about staying out of the cottage, and she was only too glad to give us the key. Meghan insisted that Mrs.
Gray also get direct permission from Tootie Hanover, and I dialed
the nursing home for her. Minutes later, we were entering Walter's
cottage-this time through the front door.

Meghan went into the bedroom to start with Walter's clothes,
and I headed straight for the kitchen.

The floor was clean. The broken glass was gone, and if I stood
where the light fell at an angle, I could see the edges where a freshly
scrubbed spot of linoleum stood out from the rest of the floor.
The scent of peppermint I'd remembered had been replaced by the
nasty smell of rotting garbage coming from the overflowing pail
under the sink. Whoever had taken Walter's key had returned and
cleaned up their mess. Too bad they hadn't bothered to tidy up the
dirty dishes and food-strewn counters.

Dumping the garbage into the can in the alley, I watched for
glass fragments, wet paper towels, any evidence of the magical
floor cleanup. Nothing. Whoever had removed the broken glass
from the floor hadn't left anything behind.

Somehow, I doubted the intruder had been compulsively tidy.
Something about broken glass and peppermint had been important enough to break back into the cottage after almost being
caught the first time.

Shaking my head in puzzlement, I opened Walter's cupboard
doors until I found a cluster of cups and glasses. There I found five
more tumblers like the one he'd dropped on my rag rug across the
alley. Why had he brought his potion over there? Maybe he'd been
afraid he wouldn't be found for a while if he died alone in this
little cottage.

No, no, that couldn't be the reason. What if Erin had found him
at our house? He adored her, and I couldn't imagine he'd risk her
discovering his dead body. There had to be another explanation.

I didn't find any lye under the sink or in any of the cupboards.
Of course, the police may have taken it when Mrs. Gray let them in
after Walter died. He hadn't used any of my lye, so it had to come
from somewhere. Could that be what had broken on the floor last
night? The peppermint smell was the same.

Sighing, I headed back across the alley to raid my supply of
shipping boxes and grab a tape gun. Soon Meghan and I were boxing things up like mad. We started with every shred of paperwork
we could find, glancing through a handful at a time in hope of seeing something that looked like a will and then cramming it all in
the cardboard cartons. As soon as a box was full, I'd cart it across
to our house and come back for another. But our cursory review
revealed no will. Meghan went back to work on the bedroom, and
I started on the shelves in the living room.

"Hey! What the hell is going on?"

I whirled from where I was wiping the dust off several pictures
I'd gathered together for Tootie and found a dark-haired woman
with corpse-pale skin standing in the front doorway.

"Where's Walter? What are you doing with his stuff?" Her little-girl voice scarcely contained her anger. When I didn't respond
right away, she said, "Don't just stand there gawping, answer me!"

Meghan stepped forward. "You wouldn't happen to be Debby,
would you?"

For a moment the woman looked afraid. "Why?"

Holding her hand out, she said, "I'm Meghan Bly. This is Sophie Mae Reynolds. We live across the alley there." She indicated
the direction of our house with a wave of her other hand.

The woman's icy glare returned. "Good for you. So why are you
ripping Walter's house apart?"

"First, tell us who you are," I said.

The woman's head swiveled toward me. She came further into
the room, moving like a skittish cat, ready to leap at the slightest provocation. Meghan's hand dropped to her side, unshaken. A
man, short and wiry, followed the woman in, his mouth agape as
he took in the mess we'd made. Both wore jeans, he with a longsleeved plaid flannel shirt, and she with a black tank top.