Stranded (9 page)

Abilene chose one of the single beds in the smaller bedroom for her living quarters. I debated between the other single in the same room and the master bedroom. The master bedroom, I finally decided. It was a bit gaudy for my taste, but what other chance would I ever have to sleep in a velvet-canopied bed with three carousel horses for company?

We found a serviceable washer and dryer in a utility room beyond the kitchen and caught up on laundry, including the sheets and blankets from Abilene’s room. Ol’ Norman, Nutty Norman as Chris Sterling had called him, apparently scorned showers as city-folk nonsense. Both beds in that room smelled of unwashed body, old smoke, and garlic, with a scattering of gritty sand in the foot area. We turned the mattresses too.

The sheets in the master bedroom were crisp and new, delicately patterned in tiny yellow roses, almost as if prepared and waiting for someone special. Lucinda? No, because after the wedding they’d planned to live in her place, not here. Perhaps just leftovers from the last wife who had occupied the room. They didn’t look as if they needed washing, but we washed them anyway.

We moved the cot from the kitchen to one of the empty rooms and dined on TV dinners from Hiram’s plentiful supply. A few minutes later I answered the unexpected chime of the doorbell and was surprised to find Kelli standing there. From the front door, town lights winding through the valley below looked fragile and insignificant beneath the black silhouettes of mountains looming against the star-studded night sky.

“I just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” she said brightly. She waved a sack. “I thought a housewarming party might be in order. I hope you like double-chocolate pecan crunch ice cream and Twix cookies? And I brought a copy of the
Hello Telegraph
. It’s the local weekly newspaper.”

Ice cream and newspaper were a sweet and thoughtful gesture, but at the same time I suspected an ulterior motive on Kelli’s part. Not a
bad
ulterior motive. Just a bit of loneliness in a town that obviously hadn’t taken her under its protective wing. I wondered if she intended to stay on in Hello after she got Hiram’s estate settled. I wondered, too, why she’d come to Hello in the first place. Maybe I could work those subjects into the conversation on the way out to the mine.

I led her through to the kitchen, by far the most homey room in the big old house. We’d turned on the electric fireplace, and it put out both heat and flickering flames, which, though imitation, added a nice aura of coziness. A scent of perking coffee rose from the old, blue-enamel pot on the stove.

Kelli lifted her nose and sniffed appreciatively. “There’s nothing like coffee from Uncle Hiram’s old blue pot. He said the wives were always wanting him to switch to some fancy coffeemaker, but that was where he put his foot down. They could change the furniture all they wanted, but his coffeepot stayed.” Again I heard that note of affection in her voice. If I wasn’t already convinced Kelli couldn’t have murdered her uncle, this settled it.

“I’ll get dishes for the ice cream,” Abilene said. Dishes were one thing in plentiful supply here. The cupboards were full of them, from a set of delicate old Meito china, with a platter just like the one my mother used to have, to a modern set of black, octagonal plates made of something I suspected could survive anything from temperamental wives to chemical embalming, plus a shelf of orphaned irregulars.

“We’re fine, settling in nicely,” I assured Kelli. I pointed to Koop, who’d already claimed as his personal domain a miniature-sized, imitation white bearskin that we’d found in the bedroom and moved out here in front of the electric fireplace for him. “Have you heard from Chris?”

“He called and said he was going to dinner with the client and would drive home in the morning. You might want to check out the photo on page 3 in the newspaper,” she added.

I did. “Abilene, come look at this!” She came over, and we stared together.

The photo was of Abilene and a little girl holding a wide-eyed cat, the caption identifying Abilene as the person who had just saved the cat’s life with CPR. The smiling little girl was Mindy Carchoun, daughter of a regular features writer for the newspaper, which no doubt explained why she’d had a camera handy for the occasion.

“You’re a local heroine now!” Kelli said.

“I’ve never had my picture in a newspaper before.” Abilene sounded rather overwhelmed but pleased.

Then she looked at me, and the wonderment in her eyes changed to uneasiness, and I knew what she was thinking. This was nice, but the last thing either of us needed was publicity, not with a vindictive Boone Morrison on our trail. Yet I didn’t want that worry to spoil her joy in this.

I squeezed her arm. “It’ll be fine. I doubt the newspaper’s circulation goes beyond the outskirts of Hello.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Kelli said. “It got written up in some tourist publication last year, and orders for subscriptions poured in from all over the country. I guess people like all the folksy stuff. How many newspapers report ‘news’ such as Maude Evans chasing a skunk through her laundry hanging on the line, getting tangled in a sheet, and calls coming in to the police about a ghost running through the neighborhood?”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I repeated to Abilene.

Kelli gave us an odd look as if she wondered what that was all about, but I didn’t enlighten her.

Abilene set dishes with big scoops of ice cream for each of us on the card table, along with a plate of Twix, and I poured coffee. The card table had numerous circular burned spots in the center. Hiram apparently didn’t bother with such niceties as protective hot pads.

“Ummm, good,” I said after letting a creamy spoonful melt in my mouth.

“I’m kind of a closet ice cream eater,” Kelli confessed. “Chris won’t eat dessert, unless it’s fresh fruit, and he doesn’t think I should either.”

Commendable, I suppose, but somehow not a trait I found endearing. My friend Mac eagerly chows down on everything from my peach cobbler to jelly beans to anything chocolate. However, this was a nice opening. “Tell us about Chris,” I suggested. “He seemed quite thoughtful and concerned about you.”

“Oh, he is, a very thoughtful man. He was born and has always lived right here in Hello, except for the years he went away to law school.”

“He’s also a lawyer?” I don’t know why I should be surprised, but I was. I guess I have to admit I’ve always had a cold spot in my heart for lawyers, ever since a frivolous lawsuit about a pill-bottle lid was filed against Harley and his pharmacy back in Missouri.

“He and two other men are partners in the biggest law firm here in town. He handled all of Uncle Hiram’s legal affairs before I came.” She laughed at something in my expression. “So Chris should be furious because I stole his important client, right? He should be resentful, and we should be meeting at high noon, legal briefs drawn and subpoenas loaded, for a shoot-out on Main Street?”

“That would seem likely.”

“Well, actually, it kind of started out that way. Things were pretty tense the first few days when Chris was transferring everything over to me. But after we’d spent some time together and talked and got to know each other, we both realized there was an attraction between us that was more important than rivalry.”

“Is this a relationship that’s going somewhere?”

“I think so.” She smiled. “If it were up to Chris, we’d elope right now. He keeps suggesting it.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer a nice church wedding?”

“Not necessarily.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Well, maybe. But either way, I’m inclined to take things more slowly than Chris is. I love him, but I want to be sure it’s going to last a lifetime before I jump in with both feet. I don’t want to wind up with a track record like Uncle Hiram’s.”

Good thinking. Unexpectedly, the doorbell chimed again.

“Would you like me to get it?” Kelli asked.

“It must be someone looking for you. We certainly don’t know anyone here.”

8

Kelli disappeared through the swinging door and returned a couple of minutes later with a trim, petite lady with curly gray hair, bright hazel eyes, raspberry colored sweats, and Nikes. She walked with a jaunty bounce, and cheerful laugh lines bracketed her mouth. Kelli made introductions and explained our presence.

“I’m so glad to meet you.” Lucinda O’Mallory reached out and clasped my hand and then Abilene’s in friendly handshakes. “The old house needs someone living in it. Your bad luck in being stuck here in Hello looks like Kelli’s good luck.”

Lucinda O’Mallory had probably never been a great beauty. Her skin was ruddy, her features ordinary, and wrinkle cream would surely find her face a challenge. But sharp intelligence and good humor gleamed in her hazel eyes, and I had the feeling Lucinda was the kind of woman you quickly forgot wasn’t all that beautiful, because her energy and the charm of her personality bubbled through. She seemed to be coping well with the loss of her fiancé.

“I didn’t mean to intrude. I just happened to see the lights on and thought I should investigate.” To me she added, “Someone broke in once, as Kelli probably told you. But don’t let that scare you! Everyone knew about all that tequila Hiram kept on hand, and we figure it was just some kids looking for it.”

“Not that they had any chance of finding it.” Kelli and Lucinda exchanged conspiratorial smiles.

“You removed it?” I asked.

“We . . . ah . . . disposed of it.” Lucinda stuck out a hand, squinted one eye, and cocked a finger. “Pow! Pow! Pow!”

They both giggled, and I looked at them, amazed, as I realized what Lucinda was saying. These two ladies, one young, one old, had dismantled Hiram’s liquor collection by using the filled bottles for target practice. I’ve never done any shooting, but with these two I could probably learn to enjoy it.

Kelli primly swallowed her giggle. “Lucinda’s house is on the hill on the opposite side of town. It sits at an angle, so even if only the kitchen lights are on here, you can see them from her living room.” To Lucinda she added, “I should have called and told you Ivy and Abilene had moved in. But you shouldn’t be running over here just because you see lights,” she scolded. “What if you ran into a burglary or wild teenage party in progress?”

“Then maybe I’d get to try out some of these karate moves I’m learning.” Lucinda punched the air with her right fist and followed with a thigh-high kick with her left foot. The fuzzy pink balls on the end of her shoelaces snapped briskly. Somehow, in spite of the huge difference in their ages, something about Lucinda’s vitality reminded me of my grandniece Sandy, who is given to exuberant backflips now and then. “I told you I’d started karate lessons at the health club, didn’t I? That’s where I’m headed now. How are things going with Hiram’s estate?”

“Slowly. Very slowly.”

I thought I detected something in that uninformative answer, although I couldn’t decide what. Kelli certainly wasn’t hinting to Lucinda that Hiram’s estate was none of her business, but neither was she actually telling her anything. Kelli had, I realized now, given Chris’s question about Hiram’s affairs a similar detour.

“Well, it’s nice meeting you two,” Lucinda said to Abilene and me. “I’m glad you aren’t letting what happened here disturb you. It’s ridiculous, the way so many people are acting as if the place has suddenly turned into a House of Horrors.”

She spotted Koop on the rug and went over to kneel beside him. Koop’s only reaction was a lazy opening of his one good eye. A good recommendation. She gave him the kind of petting he likes, long swoops from head to tail. A few orange hairs clung to her raspberry colored sweats when she stood up, and she didn’t make some fussy attempt to brush them off. I liked that.

“Oh, hey, I know who you are!” she said suddenly, a raspberry-tipped forefinger targeting Abilene. “You’re the one who saved Edie Carchoun’s cat with CPR! I saw your picture in the
Telegraph
. Such a wonderful thing to do.”

Abilene is so modest that she flushed at the unexpected compliment. “I’m working for Dr. Sugarman now.”

“He’s lucky to have you,” Lucinda declared. “How many people could or would do CPR on a cat?” She pushed back her sleeve and looked at her watch. “Okay, time to get to my class. Oh, I almost forgot. Victoria said to tell you that they’ll be sending a truck to pick up Hiram’s books within the next day or two.”

“What are they going to do, just dump them on the floor in that new room and hope the book fairy comes to straighten them out?” Kelli inquired in a tone that matched her facetious words.

“It seems there’s some money in an emergency fund that most of the Society members didn’t know about. Doris Hammerstone was hoarding it. Anyway, they’re going to dig into that to hire someone who knows how to organize books and catalog them on the computer. Although how they’re going to find anyone who knows anything and is willing to work for the pittance they want to pay beats me.”

My ears perked up. “I was a librarian back in Missouri for some thirty years. I’m not an expert on the computer, but I know a little. I’m looking for a local position, and I’d be willing to work very reasonably.”