Broke: (17 page)

"It's a little chilly in here."

Immy didn't really think it was the temperature, though.

After Ralph left
,
Immy put Drew to bed
. Marshmallow had some trouble settling down. He went to the door th
at
led to the third story stairway and grunted until
Immy
convinced him to curl up on the floor next to her. Immy knew pigs had a very good sense of smell and wondered what he was detecting upstairs. She hoped it wasn't a dead squirrel or something.

Immy kissed both of them good night and
climbed into her own
bed
. It was a little strange
,
sleeping in a room by herself, without her daughter on
t
h
e
cot beside
her
. But Drew was four years old and it was time she had her own room. The second floor felt
much
warmer than the first floor
tonight
. That cool
ness Immy felt in the kitchen
ha
d
persisted the rest of the evening. Immy wonder
ed
if Mrs. Tompkins' ghost was eavesdropping on them.
She reached down to scratch Marshmallow's head and he grunted softly in appreciation. He was such a good pig.

She dropped off to sleep easily,
ignoring the creaks and groans of the old house,
luxuriating in the feeling that it was Saturday night and she could sleep in on Sunday. When Drew came bounding in, she would see if she could talk her
daughter
into getting herself a bowl of cereal and feeding the pig. That would buy
Immy
a few extra minutes in bed. Immy had put two boxes of cereal on the bottom shelf of the kitchen pantry so Drew would be able to get to them, for just this purpose.

Long before morning, Immy heard a squeal from Marshmallow.
It sounded like he was in the hallway.
She grabbed her robe and peek
ed
out her door.
It was dark, but she could make out the pure white animal,
standing at the head of the stairs.
He was making l
ittle grunting noises
and sw
inging
his head from side to side. Was the ghost on the stairs? Could Marshmallow see her too?

Immy stole quietly down the hall to stand behind the pig. The Great Hall was inky black, but there were some muffled noises that could be footsteps on the carpeting.
Immy froze, undecided. Should she take action? Try to scare off the intruder?
Call 9
-
1
-
1?
S
hould she ignore the sounds? Maybe she had mice. She wished she had a large dog instead of a pig.

Cold air came up the stairway. Immy shivered, then sneezed.

Now the sound of running
footsteps
was distinct. She heard the front door open, then slam shut.

Immy ran first to see that Drew was sound asleep, then dashed
to her bedroom and called Ralph on her cell phone.

"Immy? Is that you? Do you know what time it is?"

"No. I haven't looked at a clock."

"It's three--"

"Ralph, someone was in
my place
. Marshmallow scared him away, I think. But I'm not sure he's gone."

"Maybe you should call the Wymee Falls police."

Oh yeah, she wasn't in Saltlick any more. "I'd feel safer if you came."

"It'll take me longer to get there. I'll come, but call
Nine-One-One
. Okay?"

She assented and dialed them. A few minutes later blue and red lights
strobed through the dusty windows,
illuminat
ing
the Great Hall. Immy didn't see anyone
lingering
there.

"Open up! Police!"
A
gruff
voice
accompanied pounding on the door.

Should she go down and possibly get mugged
by the intruder who might be hiding
? If she didn't
,
the
police would
come in, she was sure. Had the intruder locked the door?
The police way of entering a locked door wasn't easy on the door.
She didn't want
it
damaged. It was a nice door.

She urged Marshmallow down his ramp so she'd have some protection and let in a couple
of
officers, one a square-jawed guy and the other a broad-shouldered gal.

They began to search the house. They cleared the first floor, then headed for the stairs.

"Oh, no one's up there except my daughter, and she's asleep."

"Are you sure?" asked the lantern-jawed uniform.

No, she wasn't. She thought Marshmallow would have alerted her if there were someone upstairs, but she didn't know for
dead certain
. He hadn't been trained as a watch pig.
That
might be
something to consider in the future, though.

The man went upstairs and the woman went out the kitchen door to check the
backyard
and what she called the "perimeter."

While they were both gone, Ralph came in. Immy ran to him and let him wrap
his
strong arms around her. They sat on the settee until the Wymee Falls police told them no one was found on the property.

"There were some footprints under a window in the dining room," said the woman cop. "Not distinct enough for a cast, but that window is open a crack."

"No shit," said Ralph. He went to look, then came back from the dining room shaking his head. "That was the breeze you felt last night, Immy. That window was letting in the cold air. The latch is busted."

The woman took a statement from Immy and they left.

Ralph and Immy were on the settee once again.

"Do you think it was Vance? Or his friend, Quentin? Or Geoff?" Immy said.

"Why would they break in?"

"I don't know, but they've
all
sure been looking for something."

"Geoff owns the
property
. He should be able to come in and look whenever he wants."
Ralph sounded so reasonable.

"Yes, but the ghost...."

"The ghost what?"

"Drew says the ghost doesn't like him. And he does have accidents when he's in
side."

"You can't sneak past a ghost in the night, can you?"

"There's no such thing as a ghost," said Immy.

"Immy, you just said--"

"I know, I know. It's confusing."

"Go back to bed. I'm spending the night on the couch."

They said a
sweet,
longish goodnight and Immy went upstairs for what was left of the night.

She lay awake until the sky lightened, hearing creaking floorboards and rattling windows, imagining hordes of strange men creeping through the house, s
ilent and without flashlights, trying to find
...what?

Chapter Nineteen

Tired of trying to sleep, Immy rose before anyone else and made herself a cup of tea. She
quietly lifted
Ralph's jacket
off the
back of the settee
where he slept
and
wrapped herself in it, then
went
onto the front porch
to sit on the steps and sip her tea
. The porch looked very different without any railing. Ralph had removed all traces of Immy's handy-woman project. It was a neat, clean look, but dangerous. Without a guardrail, a person could fall off and drop to the ground below. Not very far, but there was that pile of jagged, broken wood from the posts Immy had removed.

When the railing was
replaced
, Immy would shop around for a couple of
outdoor
rockers
for the front porch
. There were hooks at one end of the porch for a swing, so maybe she'd look for one of those, too.

The early morning air was damp and quiet. Traffic noises floated up from the distance, muffled
and almost soothing.

No one wanted her to help Dewey out. Except, presumably, Dewey. She didn't
--couldn't--
think he was as bad as everyone said he was. Maybe he'd fallen in with a bad crowd, gotten caught up in something that got out of hand.
Was she painting too rosy a picture of Dewey? Overlooking his true nature.
She still missed her father so desperately. Was she hoping Dewey could take his place?

A
brisk
breeze
zipped past and
lifted her hair
. She
took a sip of tea that had gone cold. Dumping the rest of it on the ground below, she
strolled
inside, shrugged off Ralph's jacket and put it back on the couch.

He slept on,
snoring softly
,
his face relaxed and boyish.

Immy tiptoed upstairs and, in her new bedroom, quietly slid open the top drawer of her old dresser. She pulled out the scarf that held her father
's
detective badge, unwound it and ran her fingers over the cold metal. It warmed in her hand and she could almost feel her father's
hard, strong
hands on her shoulders, telling her how well she'd done on her report card, how nicely she'd cleaned up her room, or how proud he was of her in a million tiny ways. A tear ran down her cheek.

Marshmallow squealed and Drew's voice piped from the next bedroom. "Morning time!"

Immy wiped
a
tear
off her cheek
with the scarf, rewrapped the badge and closed the drawer on it. She wished her father's ghost were around to tell her what to do about his baby brother.

She went downstairs to make pancakes.

***

After breakfast, Ralph said he had to go back to Saltlick. Immy wandered through the house at loose ends for a half hour or so while Drew and Marshmallow wreaked havoc in the backyard. It didn't feel like there was a ghost in the house this morning, but maybe she was outside with
Drew.

Immy
strolled into
her
library.
The book she'd bought on ghosts,
The Moron's Compleat Guide to Ghosts
,
lay
next to
The Moron's Compleat Guide to Missing Persons
on a side table
.
The Missing Persons book had
a chapter of
handy information on filling in the blanks about people who weren't
actually
missing, which gave her an idea. Maybe
it was time to
research the life of Mrs. Tompkins and find out why she was haunting
her old
house. She
sat on the dusty chair beside the table and
flipped through her book
, making
a note of the public records she could search on Mike's computer tomorrow at work.
She also turned to the other book
, the one on ghosts,
and got ready to make a list of things she'd need to buy for the actual exorcism.
She would still call it that, even though the book said the term was wrong. It seemed like a perfectly good term to her.
There was a section on materials needed for ghost hunting, but
finding ghosts
didn't seem to be her problem.

There
,
on page 45
,
she found it--
clearing your home of spirits by smudging.
The directions were fairly simple
, at first glance
.
She'd
first
need to buy a bundle of sage. Immy scratched her head with her pencil. Where in the heck would she buy a bundle of sage? It grew
wild
all over
these parts
, but maybe it needed to be dried in order to smudge. She'd have to look around for that.

She got up, satisfied that she had a direction. It was almost lunch time and she had a little money in her purse. Drew and Marshmallow had come inside and were both
on the floor,
eating cereal from the box.

"Would you like to go to Dair
y Queen for lunch?" Immy asked.

"Yay!" Drew jumped up, spilling the rest of the box.

Before Immy could
sweep up
, the pig had taken care of the problem. Immy put "cereal" on the grocery list that was on the kitchen counter.

Immy brushed crumbs off Drew. "Are you
too
full of cereal?"

"Not too full for Dairy Queen," Drew said.

Immy smiled at that. She'd never know
n
Drew
to be
too full for ice cream. Drew would probably eat some of
a
burger or chicken nuggets, but would also have ice cream. Why else would you go to an ice cream store?

They headed for the front door.
Immy opened it to find a
man st
anding
with his hand up, ready to knock.

Startled, Immy
jumped
back.

"Ouch," squeaked Drew. "You stepped on my foot, Mommy."

Immy patted Drew's head and addressed the man. "Hello, can I help you?"

"Is this the Duckworthy household?"
He was average height, moderately good looking, and seemed friendly.
He was dressed normally, in jeans and boots, and held a cowboy hat in his hand.

"Yes, it is." Was yet another strange man want
ing
to
find
something in the house?

"I'm looking for Dwight Duckworthy. Are you related to him?"

Immy grew wary.
Not looking for a thing, but for Dewey. If he was a person from Dewey's past he might be a convict, a scam artist, or a rodeo man.
"And you are...?"

"I'm so sorry." He stuck a hand out. "I'm
F
loyd Wright, a friend of Dewey's."

Could it be that Uncle Dewey had some nice friends?
Were there nice
convicts
,
or con men
?
He didn't look like the rodeo type.

"He's not here right now," Immy said
, shaking his hand for a second
. "Can I give him a message?" She felt like she was at work, taking phone calls for Mike Mallett.

"Do you expect him back soon?"

"Um, no. Not soon. Why?"

"I'm afraid I need to speak to him in person."

"The police mans took Unc
a
Dewey away
," said Drew.

"Hush," Immy said.

"He got arrested?" Floyd Wright didn't seem surprised. "What for?"

Immy fluttered a hand toward Drew.
"She's just, just--"

"Unc
a
Dewey said he was too drunk to kill anybody."

Drew must have observed the whole arrest. Immy thought she'd been busy in the kitchen when the cops came
by
yesterday morning.

"The police man put metal things on Unc
a
Dewey."

"Drew, I forgot to feed Marshmallow. Could you go put some food in his bowl?"

Drew narrowed her eyes in suspicion
,
but ran to the kitchen anyway lest Marshmallow suffer.

"She's fee
d
ing a Marshmallow?" Now the man seemed surprised.

"He's a pet."

"So
Dewey
was arrested for murder. Is he in jail here
in town
?"

"Well...yes. Do you know my uncle very well?"

"Oh ye
ah
, we go way back."

Mr. Wright turned and left. He hadn't been
shocked
at the murder charge.
Floyd Wright probably wasn't as nice as he looked.
Had Immy misjudged Dewey? Were Mother and Ralph right? Maybe he really was a bad person, the black sheep of the family. Surely someone who knew him well should be shocked that he'd be
en charged with homicide. If, that is, homicide was out of character for Dewey.

On the way to lunch with Drew, Immy finished changing her mind about Dewey and decided to give up his case. She didn't want to try to clear someone who was obviously guilty. Even if he was family.
But she felt so bad about abandoning him. She knew what it felt like to be abandoned.
What a mess!

On the way back from lunch she stopped at the Scents and Incense store and found some bundles of sage. She brought them to the cash register. The cl
erk raised her eyebrows
.
Immy thought the clerk must get a lot of exercise doing that. The metal rings in her eyebrows
had to
weigh quite a bit.

"Smudging?"

"I'm thinking of it," said Immy. "Do a lot of people do this?"

"Oh yes. It rids your ho
m
e of negative energy."

"And ghosts?"

The young woman tilted her head and thought.
"I suppose. If the ghosts are negative."

Dropping things on people and shattering their ice tea glasses
sh
ould be considered negative. Immy bought the sage.

***

Marshmallow was especially dirty that night
. He came in from the backyard and shook
himself
like a dog, spraying the floor and cabinets with damp earth and debris.

"Ew," Drew said. "We hafta hose him off."

"I think it's too chilly out, sugar. But we have to do something. He can't sleep with you like that."

"I know! A baff!"

"In the bathtub? With you?"

"Inna baftub wif me!" Drew jumped up and down, then ran up the stairs.

Would that work? Could Immy even get the pig into the tub, let alone out again? In the time it took her to form those thoughts, both Drew and Marshmallow were in
to
the upstairs bathroom and Immy could hear the water running. She hurried up the stairs.

Marshmallow was more agile than
one would
think, looking at his build. He managed to hook his front hooves over the edge of the tub and squirm himself into it.
Drew, already stripped and in the tub, tugged
on his front legs
to get his hind hooves in.

Immy got
two
beach towels out of the linen cabinet to sop up the splashed water.

"Drew, sugar, don't put too much soap on Marshmallow. Be careful you don't get it in his eyes. Or his ears."

"Yes, Mother."
Her weary deliverance
sounded exactly like Immy
giving
Hortense a hard time. Immy backed down on the advice and let them play.

Some naked Barbies played out a complicated scenario involving climbing up Pig Mountain, cliff diving, being mermaids, and helping lay washcloths all over what used to be Pig Mountain, but was now a table, being set with placemats and napkins. Marshmallow was remarkably patient. He tried to chew the washcloths, but let the Barbies alone. After his first taste of bar soap, he left that alone, too.

Not too much
more
water splashed out onto the floor. Immy kept up with it, using
more
beach
and bath
towel
s
, in case it would tend to drip through the ceiling below. She wasn't sure Ralph would be able to fix the ceiling if it
caved in
.