Never Buried: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (19 page)

The doorbell rang. Leigh skidded past Lydie and opened it. The young guard was there, as hoped, and his eyes were a brilliant shade of blue. Unfortunately, he failed to wink as Leigh acknowledged the man that brushed past him and barged inside.

Warren looked nothing like a politician. His hair was still wet, his jeans had holes in the knees, and his faded black
Beam me up, Scotty
T-shirt had shown only marginal taste in its prime. Leigh's eyes widened. "No offense, but I feel I ought to warn you—there are reporters and cameras all over the place."

Warren looked briefly over his shoulder, then recovered. "Never mind. Are you okay?" He put his hands on her shoulders and studied her closely.

"Of course," she said, puzzled. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He exhaled, then released her. "I know about the break-in. And Mo's mom."

"You saw it on TV?"

Warren shook his head, but didn't elaborate. He took Leigh's hands and pulled her over to the parlor couch. "Sit down. There's something you need to know."

Leigh's heart rate started climbing. She'd had enough shocks in the last few days and didn't care for any more. "Like what?" she snapped, pulling her hands away.

Warren, well versed in her tendency to shoot the messenger, took a deep breath. "When I got out of the shower this morning, there was a message on my answering machine. It was a fake-sounding voice—either a woman, or a man trying to sound like a woman. They said—" he paused. "Well, the intention was to threaten my girlfriend."

Leigh looked at him as if he'd gone mad. "Since when do you have a girlfriend?"

He sighed. "They were talking about you, Leigh. I think someone has been watching the house and saw me come over—saw us leave together."

Her brow furrowed. "That's ridiculous. How would anyone know who you were?"

"I'll try not to take that as a subconscious insult," Warren said stiffly. "You do remember that my mug was prominently displayed all over the county last fall?"

"Oh, right." Leigh said absently. "But I'm not your girlfriend."

"If you'd quit fixating on that, you'd realize that it doesn't matter how the caller got my number," he said irritably. "The point is, he or she did. And I wasn't happy with what they said."

She looked up expectantly.

"The caller said: 'If you want your girlfriend to keep her pretty face, you'll get her out of my house.'"

Leigh looked away. A generalized order to vacate was one thing. This threat was personal. Her hand rose automatically to her cheek.

Warren pulled it down. "I've already taken the tape to the police station, and they're on top of it. Nothing's going to happen, Leigh. That's what you've got Brutus for anyway, right?"

She looked up, perplexed. "Who?"

"Brutus." He tilted his head toward the door. "Mr. Macho."

"His name is Brutus?" she asked, distressed.

Warren frowned. "I don't know what his name is. Shall I ask him for you?"

Leigh ignored the sarcasm. "Cara hired the guards last night." She did her best to explain the night's events without sensationalizing, but that was a difficult task. Warren took it in uneasily.

"I assume you two are leaving now."

"Well," she answered hesitantly, "Cara is."

His voice rose. "What do you mean 'Cara is'?"

She stood up and began to pace. "Look, I've been ready to cooperate with this creep from day one. He wants me out, I'm out. But Cara wouldn't go. She held her ground, and believe it or not, I admire her for that. And now she's buckling, not because she's afraid of getting hurt herself, but because the stress is putting her baby in danger. You know how that makes me feel? It makes me mad as hell. I think this guy is a bully, and a coward! Why can’t he threaten me in person? Why does he call you? I may be the world’s biggest wimp—but right now I’m mad enough to choke the life out of this jerk myself!"

She took a deep breath. "It's hard to explain. I know that even if Cara isn't here, she's going to worry about this thing. If only I can find 'it' today and settle this, she won't have anything to worry about anymore, and maybe it will help the contractions."

Warren was not convinced. "If she's like you, she'll just find something else to worry about. You both need to let it go."

Leigh folded her arms over her chest. He studied her for a minute, and his steady gaze unnerved her. He always could read her like a book.

"I'll give you the afternoon," he said finally, rising. "I'm going to go help find Mo's mother. If you're still here when I get back, I'm going to drag your sorry butt out myself." He headed for the door. "And don't think you're fooling me. You want to solve this thing for
you
."

Leigh's mouth dropped open. "Meaning what, exactly?"

He walked back over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Some free advice from a old friend. This isn't a game, Leigh, and you're not a contestant. Don't try to be a hero. You'll live longer that way."

He released her and started walking to the door, unaware that the back of his T-shirt made a nice postscript.
There's no intelligent life down here
.

"Warren?"

He turned. "Yes?"

"I thought you got over the Captain Kirk thing in college."

He gave her a reluctant smile. "Forgive me friends, for I am a trekker. It has been six months since my last convention."

Leigh grinned as she watched him go. Maybe she
was
trying to be the hero. Maybe she did want to be the one to find all the answers. But wouldn't everyone be better off once this mess was cleared up?

She picked up her drawing supplies and headed for the attic.

Chapter 17

Leigh pushed Mao Tse's already flattened face with her toe and backed her out of the attic doorway. "Sorry, girl. I can't let you roam around up here. You might fall through the insulation or something." She pulled the thin wooden door closed, only to feel Mao Tse scratching against the other side, mewling plaintively. Leigh sighed. The cat had an uncanny knack for feeling most affectionate when it was least convenient.

A loop of string hung down from just above the doorframe, and Leigh tugged on it to illuminate a single naked lightbulb on the attic ceiling. With windows on every side, the space wasn't as dark as it could be, but a little extra light was welcome. She walked the length of the attic and back. The ceilings were high in all but the farthest corners, and the space could easily have been finished into a comfortable third floor. She wondered if that had been part of the original plan. Unfortunately, Anita's family, and the Fischers after them, had only gotten smaller with time.

Leigh ran a sleeve over her sweaty brow. The attic was hot and stuffy, but she tried not to dwell on that. She stationed herself at the far end and began sketching the layout, taking measurements of the walls and looking carefully at the floor for signs of a section that was movable. After almost an hour of steady, but fruitless work, she flipped over her sketch to see if taking notes could help organize her brain.

She made a second column.

She put down her pen, the nausea rising again. Why would anyone want to hurt her pets? The finches were gone. She had put their empty cage in her closet, and no one had mentioned them since. But every time she opened a drawer or a closet door, she flinched a little. He had used fish before. What if—

She shivered and put the pen back on the paper. There was no point in dwelling on what he might have intended. If her finches were dead now, at least they weren't suffering. She had had birds die before. Dozens, in fact. She had killed two herself once by putting the cage outside and letting their seeds get moldy in the rain. As for Mao Tse, she was fine, and that was all Leigh cared to contemplate.

She looked at the questions she had written, but she couldn't answer any of them. No matter how hard she wanted to forget what happened at the break-in, it mattered to the case. Did he really want to burn the house down? If so, why the knife? Wouldn't burning everything be enough?

But if he was only posturing in an effort to get the women out, he must be looking for something worth keeping. She made a third column.

Her pen tapped over both possibilities, pockmarking the paper. She had been convinced that money was the root of all evil, and she still was. But there was no evidence that any of the Fischers had ever owned anything valuable, at least not since Norman squandered Anita's family money. Or did he? Perhaps he squirreled away more than just the deed to the house?

Leigh's heart beat faster for a moment, then slowed. If Paul Fischer had anything valuable, what good did it do him? He spent his whole life working as a clerk, and he was hardly a big spender. What, or who, would he have been saving it for?

She underlined the first theory again. Half of Avalon thought at least one of those deaths was murder. It made sense that Paul might know what really happened, but didn't want it public. Perhaps he was involved himself. Perhaps he wanted the truth to come out only after it couldn't hurt him.

What if he just wanted to hurt someone else? Leigh frowned. She didn't care to participate in a petty scheme of revenge. On the other hand, if the person who was going to get it was the same one who hurt her pets, she didn't really give a damn.

Looking back up at the first lists, she realized she was getting nowhere. If the killer wanted to avoid being exposed, he should have burned the house down at the first opportunity—there was no point in harassing them further by hurting the pets; they were just innocent bystanders.

A thought occurred to her, and her heart started beating fast again. What if the person who wanted them out didn't know what they were looking for? What if they just wanted to know what happened in 1949?

The person would have to search the house himself, so no one else would find the evidence. The threats would make sense—they had to stop Cara and Leigh from finding "it" first. Were they worried that Fischer would incriminate them? Perhaps even unjustly? Or were they trying to protect someone else?

Leigh turned over the sheet and began to scribble again.

She stumbled over the word again. She couldn't bear to print the one that came into her head. It was silly, but she just didn't want to look at it. She wrote "Pet harassment," then skipped to the next line.

The word stared Leigh back in the face, and her eyes widened. She wasn't sure why she had written it. Mary's disappearance was certainly one in a series of stressful events, but it could hardly be blamed on this villain.

Or could it?

The attic was sweltering, but Leigh suddenly felt cold. Maura had been planning to help with the search today. All the police had been on alert. But since Mary's disappearance, Maura had been occupied, and the entire city of Avalon was distracted. Coincidence?

The walls of the attic suddenly seemed steeper, lower. The corners had grown darker. Threats were one thing; action was another. She shivered. What if
he
had Mary?