Coming Unclued (24 page)

The doorbell rang and was quickly followed by an insistent pounding. “What the hell?” said half-assed Nathan.

“Don’t answer it,” said the woman, sounding a little panicked. “We’re not allowed to be here.”

“This is my goddamned house. Paid for by me!”

“I know, I know,” the woman placated, “but I don’t think we’re allowed to be here. It’s really Diane’s house now. You shouldn’t have used that key.”

There was another pounding at the door and the muffled sound of someone yelling. “Open up. Police.”

“Get up!” said the woman, jumping off the bed.

“For crying out — one of the goddamned nosy neighbors with their pathetic little nothing lives must have called the police,” said Nathan. “Jesus H Christ.”

No question, he was a charmer. I could see the woman’s feet as she hustled around the room, jumping back into her clothes.

“Get down there,” she shrieked. “It sounds like they’re going to break the door down.”

“Let them,” said Nathan. “I’m not paying for it. Not my problem. Like you said, it’s not my house anymore.”

“That’s right, it isn’t,” she screeched. “Maybe that’s why the police are here.” The woman ran to the hallway and yelled, “We’re coming! Go, go,” said the woman, her voice pitching higher with every word. “They have guns.”

“Then you go,” said Nathan.

Jeez. How could Diane bear to be separated from this guy? I had the distinct feeling that the new girlfriend wasn’t going to require any further assistance from Nathan in removing her jeans. Maybe this was a nosy neighbor call. Surely the police weren’t searching every house on the street. The woman must have stared down Nathan because I heard him leave the room and call down the stairs. “I’m coming. I’m the homeowner, Nathan Moffat. I’m coming toward the door.”

“Tell them you’re opening the door,” yelled the woman. “Tell them you don’t have a gun.”

“Jesus. Shut up Tiffany,” yelled back Nathan. “You sound like Diane.”

Nate sure had a short fuse. Clearly not a man you’d want by your side in the trenches. A few cops at the door and he completely fell apart. “Tell them you have your hands up!” screeched Tiffany. “Tell them your kids live here.” I could hear Nathan open the door and if Tiffany would shut up and stop sounding like Diane I’d have been able to hear what the police wanted. I felt remarkably calm as I lay naked under the bed, Tiffany perched above me, nervously tapping her foot while the sound of muffled voices wafted up the stairs. How much worse could things get? The police could drag me out and I would be a naked, humiliated, fugitive from justice who would be handcuffed and eventually locked away for fifteen to twenty years for a crime I didn’t commit, but other than that, nothing. I was calm and ready to face the worst.

I could hear the police talking to Nathan and then the sound of the door shutting. Tiffany hopped off the bed and hustled over to the door. “Did they leave?” she yelled.

Nathan was limping back up the stairs. “The jerk next door reported a break-in,” he said. “Saw people walking around and he knew Diane was away. I explained who I was and showed him the key and they were cool with it.”

“You told me to shut up,” said Tiffany. “What kind of man talks like that?”

The kind of man who has sex on the coffee table with the cleaning lady while his wife is schlepping the kids to soccer. “Sorry honey. You know how I get when I’m stressed,” cajoled Nathan. “Don’t be mad.”

Don’t be mad. What was he, thirteen?

“The police thought it might be that woman who killed Harry Potter. She’s good friends with that shrew up the street and they think she might be lurking around.”

Julie a shrew? This guy was unbelievable. Under very different circumstances I would have jumped to Julie’s defense.

“Jeez,” said Tiffany. “Do they think she’s breaking into empty houses? What if she is here?” She sounded very nervous, like I could be hiding in a closet, wielding a knife, ready to pounce.

“If she has any brains she’ll be long gone,” said Nathan. “I don’t know why the hell she’d still be hanging around. I’d of been on the first plane to somewhere hot with no extradition treaty.”

I’ll bet he would.

“Well I hope they catch her,” said Tiffany. “Did you see those pictures? Kicking the cat? And that poor man dressing like Santa to cheer up sick kids and she kills him.”

What the hell? One time the man throws on a red suit two sizes too big for him and naturally the media has to latch on to that. And, oh yes, I didn’t kill him.

Nathan was opening and shutting drawers, clearly looking for something. “Found it,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Just need to use the washroom,” said Tiffany.

Ahhhh! My pantsuit and wig were hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She’d see it when she shut the door.

“Anyway,” said Nathan. “Harry wasn’t the guy you see in the paper. He was actually kind of an asshole. Screwed around a lot of people. Never saw that in the news. Just him flitting around pretending to give a shit. I’m surprised it took so long for someone to have a go at him.”

Tiffany let out a squeal from the ensuite. “Holy crap. What kind of pig is your ex?”

“She’s a slob. I told you. Why?”

“It looks like she puked up noodles into the toilet and just left it there.”

My Pad Thai. How I missed it.

“For fuck’s sake,” said Nathan. “Guess who’ll be paying the plumbing bill? What a pig.”

Okay, so there’s a few noodles in the toilet. Get back to how Mr. Potter screwed over so many people. I could hear Tiffany peeing. She didn’t shut the door? How long had these two been dating?

“I didn’t flush,” said Tiffany, coming back into the bedroom.

Or wash her hands.

“Let’s go,” said Nathan.

“Yeah,” said Tiffany. “It creeps me out being here if that murderer is around.”

“I’ll protect you. And like I said, he probably had it coming.”

They tromped down the stairs and I heard the door open and then slam shut, and there I was, alone again in an empty house. I shimmied out from under the bed, and even in the dark I could tell I was covered in dust bunnies. Nate was right about one thing; Diane was kind of a slob. There were huge clumps of dust clinging to my back. I had to get dressed and out of the house. Carefully out, since evidently the neighbor was keeping an eye on the place. Nice for Diane, but it put a definite crimp in my ability to maneuver. I closed the bathroom door and eyed the pantsuit hanging there. There was a rip in the knee from grappling with the slippery, snow-covered ravine. What could I do? It was as good a disguise as any. Looking old and poor seemed to be a recipe for blending into the scenery.

I needed to talk to Angie but if the police were banging on doors looking for me, clearly I had to be more careful. I could grab a cab up on Kingston Rd. but that would take most of what was left of my cash. Actually the purse lady’s cash. Heather. Heather would help me. I mulled this over for a moment. Was it fair to involve yet another person in my predicament? And could Heather be trusted? I believed she could. I was usually a good judge of character, and I knew that at heart, under the perfect hair and makeup and well-toned body and excessive interest in all things shallow, Heather was a good person who wanted the best for me. I pulled out the phone and punched in her number.

After a few rings she picked up, her voice a little hesitant.

“Heather, it’s me,” I said.

“Val? Where are you?”

I decided to skip over that one. “I need your help. And I want you to say no if you’re not comfortable doing it. I’ll understand.” I’d hate her forever but I’d understand.

“Of course I’ll help Val. I’ve been so worried.”

She did sound worried. “I’ve made a lot of headway trying to figure this all out,” I told her. Why did I keep telling people that? “I need to go see someone from work. I think she might have some dirt on Mr. Potter. Apparently he wasn’t quite the man he pretended to be.”

“Is that safe Val?” she asked. “The police are looking for you. They came to see me today to ask more questions. They’re pretty sure that you’re the killer. I tried to convince them you’re a good person, but they’re determined to find you.”

I put Heather on speaker and started climbing into my pantsuit. Unfortunately I got my bad foot caught in the little rip in the knee and expanded it two-fold. “Heather, I’m going to head out in a minute. I’ll call you when I get close and tell you where to pick me up. Does that work for you? I’ll be less than ten minutes.” I thought about this for a minute. “Are the police hanging around the building? Is there any chance you’ll be followed?”

“I’ve been in and out all day,” said Heather. “I had a date. We just had coffee but it looks promising — I’m seeing him again tomorrow. And I haven’t seen any police.”

“Good,” I said, as I squinted at myself in the mirror, using the dim light from the phone. Orange hair or grey wig? I plunked the wig back on my head and made a cursory stab at tucking in the loose hairs. “I’ll call in a few minutes. And thanks.”

“I’m here for you Val. You don’t need to thank me.”

We hung up and I made the final adjustments to my ensemble. Heather had met someone. While my life is in the balance she’s out with a new man. Boots. I needed boots. I dug around in Diane’s closet and found a beautiful pair of suede boots with a plush lining. They felt so cozy when I put them on my toes curled in happiness. Diane had a tight and tiny body, but our feet were the same size. Might as well add stealing boots to my list of crimes. Or misdemeanors. A lot of this stuff was more of a misdemeanor.

I limboed down the stairs and crept down the hall, being careful to duck if I was anywhere near a window. I would cut alongside the ravine and get Heather to pick me up in front of the church. I stuck my head out of Diane’s back door, listening intently. It looked safe so I made a dash for the gate, slipped through it and started trotting as quickly as I could along the property lines and up the hill toward Kingston Rd. My numb foot was barely noticeable. The air was cold and crisp with a bright moon and if I wasn’t running to save my life it would have been a beautiful night.

When I got to the top of the ravine I hit redial on my phone and Heather picked up at the first ring. “Meet me outside the United Church,” I wheezed. All this exercise in the frigid air was hell on my lungs.

“Two minutes,” she said, and hung up. I picked up my pace and made it to the church just as Heather’s little black Mazda was pulling up to the curb. “Thanks,” I gasped, as I scrambled in.

“What exactly are we doing?” asked Heather, as she pulled into traffic.

“I’m following up on a few clues I’ve managed to souse out. I’m pretty sure I’m getting close to finding the real killer.”

“Really?” said Heather as she expertly wove in and out of traffic. “How close?”

“Pretty darn close,” I said. “We have quite a few good leads.”

“We?”

“Julie has been helping.”

Heather frowned a little at that one. She’d always been a little competitive with Julie, trying to be the better friend.

“So this woman at the funeral, Hilda, said Mr. Potter stole her friend David’s money so I want to follow up on that. I’m thinking Angie, the receptionist from work might know something. And maybe I could get the key to the office from her, and you know, sort of break in and look at some files. If I can even find out enough to establish reasonable doubt I don’t actually have to track down the killer. As long as I can establish doubt the police will have to start looking somewhere other than me.”

Heather nodded her head, though she didn’t look convinced. “I guess.” At a red light she gave me a good going over. “What are you dressed as?”

“An elderly woman of insufficient means.”

She reached over, fingered my pants and cringed. She may have shuddered.

“So tell me about this new love interest,” I said.

“Oh, not much to tell. But he’s wonderful. Paul. He’s an architect.”

Another one. A few months of obsession, then blame and then despair. I’d seen the whole pattern play out a number of times.

“That’s great,” I said. “I hope it all works out.”

“I think it will,” said Heather, with a satisfied smile. “Finally a good one.”

Right. I’d heard that before. But maybe Paul would be different. I hoped so.

I’d been to Angie’s condo a couple of times and was able to give Heather fairly accurate instructions as to how to find it. “Av and Dav,” she said. “Nice neighborhood. She’s a receptionist?”

“A savvy investor,” I said. “Or she may be blackmailing someone. With Angie it could go either way.”

“Where have you been hiding?” Heather asked me. “I’ve called Julie and Evan. I even stopped by Rose’s but no one had any information or else they weren’t talking. Everyone was actually quite curt.” She sounded hurt and I felt bad that I’d kept her out of the loop.

I filled her in on what had transpired over the last couple of days, though for some reason I felt the need to maintain the fiction that I had made real progress in proving my innocence. Heather listened quietly except for exclamations of horror at some of my close calls. “You took a bath?” she asked. “I could never have a bath in a stranger’s house. Ewwww. If she didn’t clean under her bed, think what was in the bathtub.” She shuddered at the thought of lolling about in a tub littered with Diane’s skin cells. Ahhh Heather. I’d missed her.

Angie’s condo was located on a leafy street just north of downtown. She had had a couple of office parties there, one of which I distinguished myself at by spilling red wine on Douglas’s leg.

“Are you sure she will let you in?” asked Heather.

“Well she believes I’m a killer,” I said, “but she doesn’t much care, so I think she’ll let me up.” I thought about it for a moment. “Maybe it would be better if you say you’re a friend of mine and you were hoping to ask her a few questions. Don’t let on that I’m with you.”

Heather managed to find a parking spot right in front of the building which I felt would come in handy if we needed to make a speedy getaway. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” asked Heather. “What’s to stop her from calling the police?”