Murder Is Binding (19 page)

Mike hadn't bothered to leave on any outside lights, and none of them appeared to have motion sensors, leaving the yard spooky and uninviting. However, trying to lift the garage door proved it was either locked or was fitted with a door-opening system and effectively locked. They circled the garage and found a door, but it, too, was locked.

“Break the glass,” Angelica urged. “You
do
have permission to be here.”

“I'm sure the sheriff would disagree with you on that. Besides, Mike would see it the next time he came by.”

“Isn't there a window on the side? Break it.”

Easier said than done. The window was old, three-over-three panes; she'd have to break the whole bottom level in order to have enough room to struggle through, and then there were the mullions. She'd have to somehow dismantle them, too, and they'd brought no tools. The flashlight proved to be as effective as a hammer, and Tricia was grateful the next-door neighbors' windows were closed, with a good fifteen or more feet away from the sound of breaking glass and splintering wood.

“How am I going to get in without getting cut on all that glass?” she hissed.

“You'll have to go feet first. I'll help you.”

Tricia was thankful there was no one nearby with a video recorder to chronicle the deed as she and Angelica hauled a heavy trash can to the window.

“What's in here, lead?” Angelica complained.

Tricia removed the lid and shone the light inside. Paper, stuff that should have been shredded. Old bills, receipts, and…“Photographs?” An old album of black-and-white photos and lots of torn color shots of people Tricia didn't know. As she flipped through the pictures she recognized many of Grace.

“Why would Mike throw away all these pictures?” Angelica asked.

“Maybe he doesn't have a love of family. From what I understand, it's just him and his mother left.”

“All the more reason to hold on to your memories of the past.”

The thought didn't comfort Tricia, who rescued as many pictures as she could see, piling them by the side of the garage. “I'll save these for Grace. Maybe take a few of them to her tomorrow. Hopefully we'll find a bag inside to make it easier to carry them back to the car.”

With half its contents removed, the trash can was considerably lighter and easier to maneuver. But worming through the window was a lot harder than Tricia would've thought. Climbing onto the can, she poked her feet through the window and Angelica huffed and puffed to raise her derriere up high enough to push her torso through and into the garage. Next Angelica held on to her hands as Tricia bent back like a limbo dancer and lowered herself into the garage, her sneakered feet crunching broken glass as she landed. Once inside, Angelica handed her the flashlight. “Be careful.”

The bobbing light failed to give adequate illumination, and Tricia's hips bumped and banged against a number of tables haphazardly heaped with kitchen items, old clothes, and glassware, no doubt items that hadn't sold at Mike's tag sale. Tricia sidled her way to the back of the garage. Old dusty rakes, snow shovels, and other garden tools hung on the wall and she waved the beam back and forth, searching for the little flowered print Grace had assured her would be there.

“What's taking so long?” Angelica demanded in a harsh whisper.

Tricia ignored her, and restarted her search, this time painting the light up and down, noticing an old spiderwebbed set of golf clubs, aged, stained bushel baskets, and finally—a little, faded print of pansies. She pulled the framed picture from its nail and just as Grace had said, found an extra set of house keys.

“Eureka!” She replaced the picture, unlocked the door, and turned off the flashlight before stepping back outside and closing the door once more. “Angelica? Where are you?” she whispered into the inky blackness. A tap on the shoulder nearly sent Tricia into cardiac arrest. “Don't do that!”

“Well, you did call me. I take it you have the key?” Angelica asked.

“Keys,” she said, and held them up. “Come on, let's get inside before someone sees us.”

They walked to the back of the house and Angelica held the flashlight while Tricia tried the first key, which didn't fit. What if Mike had changed the locks? She tried the next one. Still no luck. “There's only one left.” She slid the brass key into the hole and this time it turned.

“Thank goodness,” Angelica breathed.

Tricia turned the handle, pushed the door open, and stepped inside, with Angelica close enough to step on her heels. “Give me the flashlight and close the door,” she whispered. Angelica complied and Tricia searched for a light switch, flipping it as soon as she heard the door latch.

Bright white light nearly blinded them and it took a moment for Tricia to realize they'd entered the big house through the butler's pantry. Dark-stained oak shelves and cabinets lined the ten-foot walls clear up to the ceiling, with a little ladder on a track making the highest regions accessible. The shelves, however, were completely empty. No crystal, no dishes. No cans of peaches or coffee. Just an accumulation of dust. And in that small, enclosed space, Tricia was suddenly aware of Angelica's perfume.

“What is that you're wearing?”

Angelica pulled at her jacket. “This little thing?”

“No, your perfume. Do you bathe in the stuff?”

“I won't even dignify that question with an answer. Now, do you think the neighbors will think something funny is going on if we turn on the lights?” Angelica asked.

“Maybe we'd better close the blinds, just to be on the safe side.” And Tricia did.

“Where does that doorway lead?”

“The kitchen.”

“Why are we whispering?” Angelica asked.

Tricia cleared her throat. “Didn't we go through this at Doris's house?”

“It's you who keeps whispering,” Angelica pointed out.

Tricia gritted her teeth. “Come on.”

They entered the kitchen, and Tricia flicked on a flashlight.

“Whoa! Time warp,” Angelica declared, taking in the color of the dated appliances and décor.

The kitchen looked exactly as it had when Tricia had been there only the day before with Mike—with a couple of small additions. A mortar and pestle sat on the counter, along with a canister of gourmet cocoa.

“This looks suspicious,” Angelica said.

“Yeah. What do you think the odds are that if we looked through the drawers—or maybe the garbage—we'd find some empty medicine vials?”

“I'm game to look,” Angelica said and pulled open a drawer with the sleeve of her jacket drawn over her fingers. “Look, Trish, plastic gloves. I assume you didn't bring any this time. Maybe we'd better use these. We wouldn't want to leave any incriminating evidence behind.”

Having read a score of
CSI
-based books, Tricia knew they probably already had. Still, she placated her sister and donned the pair of gloves Angelica handed her. Angelica pulled open another drawer.

“The nurse on Grace's floor mentioned she had made a sudden improvement. I'll bet Mike sent her there with a supply of her favorite cocoa and they ran out in the last couple of weeks. Looks like Mike's concocting a new batch.”

“Sounds plausible,” Angelica said and shut her fourth drawer. “No sign of any little amber bottles.”

“We'll check the rest of the kitchen and the garbage on the way out. We'd better get moving in case Mike shows up.”

“It's almost nine thirty. If he was going to steal more of his mother's possessions, wouldn't he do it earlier in the day?”

“Who can fathom the criminal mind?” Tricia took off down the darkened hall, the flashlight beam guiding her way. She paused in the foyer at the base of the grand stairway leading to the upstairs.

“Can't we turn on any lights?”

“Not unless we can be sure they can't be seen from the street.”

“What do we tell the paramedics if one of us falls and breaks her neck?”

“Oops?” Tricia aimed the light up the long, dark stairway, wishing she'd taken Mike up on his offer of a house tour. Then again, she might've unwillingly ended up in one of the beds.

They crept up the stairs, with Angelica so close behind Tricia that she could feel her sister's breath on her neck. A stair creaked, Angelica squeaked, and a shot of adrenaline coursed through Tricia.

“If any vampires jump out at us I'm going to lose it completely,” Angelica rasped.

They made it to the top of the stairs without any attacking bloodsuckers descending and Tricia ran the flashlight's beam across the floor and into an open doorway. Angelica grabbed her sleeve as she started forward, following her step for step.

The prim and proper formal sitting room had Victorian furniture and décor, from the clunky marble-topped tables, embroidered pillows on the horsehair couches, to the frosted glass sconces on the walls. They found another parlor across the hall, but this was furnished for more masculine tastes, no doubt the domain of the late Jason Harris.

A computer sat on the desk, with neat stacks of papers at its side. Tricia trained the light over one of the pages. “Exhibit one,” she said, the light focused on the eBay logo on the top of the sheet. It was a listing for the online auction site, complete with a picture of a Hummel figurine. “I'll bet this is one of the things from Grace's now-empty curio cabinet downstairs. He's been listing her stuff. This is only dated yesterday. And I'll bet I gave him the idea,” she said, angry with herself.

“Don't be ridiculous. Look at that stack,” Angelica pointed out. “Nobody could accomplish all that in only a day. See, there are photos for everything, too. Doesn't the background look like the kitchen counter and backsplash?”

She was right.

Tricia folded the paper, stowing it in her pocket. “I'll show this to Grace to confirm it's one of her figurines. Maybe there's a way she can recover it, or at least prove that Mike's been stealing from her.”

“We'd better get moving,” Angelica advised.

“The bedrooms must be in the back,” Tricia whispered and turned away for the doorway, still unable to squelch the feeling they were violating the house with their presence.

The two small bedrooms on the right side of the hall were connected by an old-fashioned bathroom. The first, painted in tones of blue, would've suited a boy, and had probably been Mike's. The other, a tiny guest room with a small empty closet, had only a bed, an empty dresser, and a straight-backed wooden chair.

They crossed to the other side of the hall and Tricia played the flashlight's beam across an unmade king-sized bed. “Aha, the master bedroom.”

“Now can we turn on a light?” Angelica asked.

Tricia threw a switch and the lights blazed. Unlike the other rooms that were more or less intact, the once-pretty master suite had been ransacked. What Tricia had taken as a rumpled bed proved to be destroyed—the sheets torn and the pillows shredded. The gold-edged French provincial dresser's drawers had all been dumped, with piles of woman's clothes littering the floor. She didn't see the jewelry boxes Grace had told her about.

“Looks like the result of a lot of anger,” Angelica said.

“I hope this means he didn't find Grace's hiding place.”

“And you know where it is?”

Tricia nodded. “Help me move the mattress and box springs.”

“Do I look like a stevedore?” But Angelica did help Tricia pull the mattress up to stand against the wall, and they hauled up one of the twin box springs against it, too. Grace hadn't mentioned the trapdoor would be under a large area rug. They ended up moving the other box spring, dragging away the heavy headboard and side rails in order to pull up the rug. The trapdoor was exactly as Grace had described it, although much larger than Tricia had anticipated, measuring one by two feet. Tricia knelt in front of the recessed brass ring, pulled it up, and yanked open the door. The hiding space was even bigger than the door to it, and filled with an assortment of little black velvet-covered boxes.

Angelica grabbed one and popped it open. “Trish, look.”

It was empty.

It took ten minutes of searching to find that they were all empty.

Tricia's eyes grew moist. She hadn't thought the loss of Grace's treasures would affect her so much. But anguish soon turned to pique. “That stinking rat.”

Angelica sniffed. “Maybe you were right. A man who could steal from his own mother probably
is
capable of throwing a rock through a storefront window. Do you think he's already sold everything?” Angelica asked, her voice soft.

“You saw all those eBay sheets.” Tricia picked up the first of the boxes and replaced it in the hiding place. “Have you seen his expensive little car? I'm not saying an insurance agent couldn't afford it, but it seems pretty coincidental that he bought it after his mother was put in the home—and her assets started disappearing.” She glanced around at the devastation. “This had to just happen.”

“How do you know?”

“Just yesterday morning Mike offered me a tour of the upstairs. He wouldn't have if the room was in this shape.”

“Unless he was hoping to suddenly discover a robbery with a handy witness in tow.”

Tricia frowned. “He did seem eager for me to come up here.” Maybe Angelica was right and it wasn't her feminine wiles that had precipitated the invitation.

She shook her head. No, the slimeball had made his intentions well known.

“How did he ever find Grace's hidey hole?” Angelica wondered. “I mean, this isn't exactly the easiest place to find.”

“He's been throwing out receipts. There were lots of them in the trash. He could've found one from whoever built this hiding space.”

“It's possible,” Angelica agreed, but she sounded skeptical. She helped Tricia replace the rest of the boxes before they restored the room to the way they'd found it. Hopefully Mike wouldn't notice if the sheets, pillows, or bedspread weren't in the exact same positions.