Stranded (23 page)

“It’s like beauty, Mother. All in the eye of the beholder,” Chris said loftily, and we all laughed.

“I did go down to the basement—”

“You investigated the basement?” Kelli broke in, sounding horrified. “I wouldn’t go down there with anything less than an assault rifle and a chemical bomb for protection. I saw a spider crawling up out of there that looked big enough to star in one of those monster-arachnid movies.”

“It was kind of creepy,” I had to admit. “But Koop enjoyed it. He caught three mice.”

“Koop is Ivy’s cat,” Kelli said by way of explanation to Chris and his mother.

Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Does he eat them?”

“Heavens, no. He brings them to me. I’m not sure if they’re a gift or if he thinks maybe I’ll make him a nice mouse casserole.”

We all laughed, and Chris made some comment about Kelli’s cat being too accustomed to caviar to be interested in mice, and she gave him a playful punch in the shoulder.

“One time, just once, I give Sandra Day a bare smidgen of caviar, and he’s never going to let me forget it.”

The evening ended with Charlotte saying we’d have to do this again soon. We trooped out to the Bronco, where Charlotte and I exchanged hugs, and Chris kissed Kelli lightly.

To me he said, “Are you going to keep looking for that mysterious secret room?”

“Probably. When I have some extra time.”

“Be careful digging around in that old house. It could be dangerous. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a floor or ceiling collapse in that old place.”

“I’ll be careful,” I assured him.

Now, as earlier, nothing suggested he was anything other than a competent, caring son and lawyer and a fine prospect as a husband.

But I couldn’t help thinking about former girlfriend Suzy’s acid remarks about him, and, reflecting back on the evening, I thought Chris had acted a little odd when the “secret room” was mentioned. He’d dropped that fork as if he’d been jabbed with it. He’d covered what might have been agitation by taking an overlong time to retrieve the fork, and he’d made fun of looking for such a room. But I was almost certain he’d been nervous about the possibility that such a room existed.

Hmmm. Why would that be?

And on the drive home that old, definitely unflattering joke about lawyers unexpectedly dropped into my mind.

How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?

Answer: when his lips are moving.

Chris Sterling’s lips had done a lot of moving. First denying he knew anything about money in a Bahamas bank, then admitting his poor judgment about advising Hiram that it was okay to put big money there.

Although, what I should probably be doing, I told myself, was giving Chris credit for ’fessing up instead of wondering if he was up to something. Admitting to the woman he loved that he’d made such a big mistake couldn’t have been easy. And yet, wasn’t there something a little fishy about a legitimate bank taking over a non-legitimate, shyster outfit? Although the big bank could have been trying to protect the area’s reputation, not let word of a scam get out and scare off investors. But since Hiram hadn’t gotten his money back, the bank’s move really hadn’t done much for the area’s reputation.

17

The snow wasn’t melting, but the streets had been snow-plowed down to bare pavement. Abilene managed to get some bird seed, and we set up a feeder outside the kitchen window, which was immediately popular. I went to another Roaring ’20s Revue rehearsal and even had a chance to go with Lucinda up to the third floor, where the costumes and props were kept. It seemed in fairly good shape, although the hallway had a bit of downward slant.

It was an interesting place with clothing and props from various years spread out among several rooms. Movable metal racks were jammed with costumes for both this year’s performance and performances past. For this year one rack was devoted to spangled chorus-line costumes, another to chemise-style dresses with matching feather boas. For previous years there was everything from men’s knickers-style pants in a wild plaid to a somewhat moth-eaten fur coat and a rack of enormous layered petticoats.

“Every year I swear I’m going to come up here and get all this stuff organized,” Lucinda said, sounding frustrated as she searched for a hat for Stella in the street scene. “Someday I’m really going to do it.”

There were shelves of hats for both men and women, a glass case of jewelry, and several racks of shoes. Props ranged from furniture and lamps to parasols and canes, a baseball bat and bowling ball, dishes, knickknacks, and an enormous dictionary. Though I had to wonder what they’d used the stuffed skunk and the lethal-looking Chinese sword for. And why the fire marshal or some other safety official wasn’t raising a ruckus about blocking off the entrance to the nonworking elevator with something more substantial than a piece of cardboard. With the doors frozen in an open position on the third floor, you could shove the cardboard aside and use the open drop to the basement for anything from bungee-jumping to disposal of incompetent actors or unruly patrons. The elevator opening was at the far end of the hall from the stairs, not something anyone would stumble into by accident, but it still looked as if it at least needed some solid barrier nailed over the opening.

At the library, I was making progress with cataloging and shelving the books. But at night I was having problems. I’d discovered a football-sized lump in the mattress, at least that’s what it felt like. As large as the bed was, you’d think I could avoid the lump, but at some time in the night I’d invariably find myself draped over it. I uncovered the mattress, thinking perhaps I’d find a lumpy collection of hundred dollar bills or a missing clue to Hiram’s murder. But it was just a lump, probably a broken spring, and not nearly as large as it had felt against my back. I tried to turn the mattress myself, which didn’t work, so I called on Abilene for help.

Abilene is lean and strong, but even she puffed as we wrestled with the heavy, bulky old mattress. I’ve never tried to move a beached whale, but I figure I now have a pretty good idea what it would be like.

“Hey, what’s this?” Abilene asked when we finally got the thing thumped in place. She knelt to look at something on the floor, and I circled the bed to see what it was.

At least a dozen letters lay scattered on the carpet, apparently dislodged from under the mattress during our struggle with it. There were no envelopes, just pages of yellow stationery with a row of chipmunks dancing across the top. I picked one up. It was dated June 10, but there was no year. The writing was large and loopy, feminine looking. The opening read “Dearest Hiram,” and a tiny heart substituted for the dot over the
i
. I hesitated. These were obviously very private letters. They’d been carefully hidden from prying eyes. We probably shouldn’t read them . . .

But Hiram was dead, murdered, and I decided that at this point the matter of his privacy was moot.

I read on, as Abilene was doing with another letter. We exchanged glances when we came to the signature at the end. It was just an initial, K, but it was surrounded by a heart and preceded by the words, “Love forever ’n ever.”

“Hiram had a
girlfriend
,” Abilene said. She sounded shocked.

“We don’t know when the letters were written,” I said, because I knew what she was thinking. “It may have been long before his engagement to Lucinda.”

I picked up another letter. A small piece had been torn from one edge of it, accidentally, it appeared, since it slashed through the middle of a sentence. I’d tucked that scrap of paper I’d found in Hiram’s office away somewhere, but I didn’t have to see it again to know it would have fit here. The end of the torn sentence read, “Meet me at the Nu.”

I mentally filled in the incomplete words from the scrap I’d found. Together they read, “Meet me at the Nugget at 3:30 Tu.” A continuation of the sentence here made that Tuesday.

Abilene examined several more letters. “Too bad there aren’t envelopes with postmarks.”

I glanced at the carousel horses mysteriously placed in Hiram’s bedroom. I thought about a young waitress down in Hayward with carousel-horse earrings given to her by a “friend.” I thought of numerous long-distance calls to Hayward on Hiram’s phone bills. I thought of the name of the café in Hayward where I’d had coffee. Had it been the Nugget? I looked at the signature on the letters again. K. KaySue?

Surely not. The girl had appeared to be in her midtwenties, a good forty years younger than Hiram. And even if they had known each other, it could have been simply a friendly relationship, a mutual interest in merry-go-rounds and carousel horses, perhaps, not some romantic involvement.

Yeah?
the cynical part of me scoffed.
What about “Dearest Hiram,” and “Love forever ’n’ ever”? Not exactly platonic sounding.
Hiram, from what Kelli had said, had a strong preference for younger wives. The spitfire, hot-tempered kind. You couldn’t get much more spitfire than slugging a guy in front of a police officer.

I sat on the edge of the mattress and read more letters. It had been a busy relationship. Movies, dinners, a rodeo, a county fair . . . where they’d ridden a merry-go-round, about which K. waxed ecstatic. Thanks for the carousel-horse earrings came a little later, and there were also thanks for yellow roses. “Yellow is my favorite color!”

I thought of a lone yellow silk rose in a vase on the windowsill in the kitchen. I thought of a yellow ribbon on KaySue’s long blond braid, and a scrap of something yellow in Hiram’s office sucked up into the vacuum cleaner.

“Are you going to show these to Kelli?” Abilene asked.

Should I? Probably. And yet, if the relationship was old, it was irrelevant, and bringing it to light would serve no useful purpose. But if the relationship wasn’t old . . .

“Not yet,” I said. Because what I needed to do first was get down to Hayward and talk to a waitress named KaySue.

I figured getting to Hayward again would be a problem, but the arrival of Abilene’s birth certificate a few days later solved that. Dr. Sugarman again loaned us his pickup so she could take the driving tests.

I was wondering if “Dr. Sugarman” would segue into “Mike” now that a divorce was in the works, but I saw no change. Dr. Sugarman was obviously interested in Abilene, and I felt in my bones that she was aware of him as something more than her employer. But the status quo between them wasn’t going to change for conscientious Abilene until the decree was issued and the marriage legally over.

I parked the pickup at the DMV in Hayward, left Abilene, and headed directly for the restaurant down the street. I could now see the name that I hadn’t noticed before. The Nugget, the name semicircled around a lumpy, gold-colored blob.

Inside, I looked for the waitress with a long blond braid, but all I saw were two other young waitresses. I approached one of them. “I’m looking for KaySue. Is she around?”

“She’s off today,” the young woman said. “But she’ll be back for the early shift tomorrow.”

“I’m only in town for the day, and it’s important that I see her.” I gave the waitress a hopeful smile and my most soulfully pleading LOL look. “I’m not a bill collector or anything. It’s just . . . really important that I see her.”

The girl laughed and patted my arm. “You don’t look like a bill collector. And I’m sure KaySue pays her bills anyway. Why don’t you call her? She’s probably home. I don’t think she planned to do anything special today.”

I didn’t want to admit I didn’t know KaySue’s last name. “Could you look up the number for me? It’s so hard to read the small print in phone books these days.” Another of my best LOL smiles. “Or better yet, just give me directions to where she lives, and I’ll go over and surprise her.”

“Sure.” She turned her order pad over and drew a little map. It looked like a fair distance, but I figured I could hoof it.

I was there in twenty minutes. It was a two-story stucco apartment building built around a small courtyard with an assortment of nondescript bushes, a clean enough looking place but definitely not the high-end variety. I spotted a red pickup with a big dent in the passenger’s side in the parking area. I rang the bell on 2C. A barefoot KaySue came to the door in low-cut jeans that showed her navel, and a yellow T-shirt. A towel was draped on her head.