Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) (8 page)

She did not know that at all. She had heard from Lem only twice since his departure: once after he’d found no help in Atlanta, and again when he’d tracked down a possible translator in Minnesota, who’d not been able to help but had referred him to a vampire in New York.

She had told herself that to Lemuel, a week was like a moment. To her, it was like a week. Or two. And she had reminded herself that he did not like the telephone, though he knew how to use it. Lemuel had a cell phone, and from it he had texted her briefly at each stop. Nothing else.

The Rev looked grave, as if he could read her thoughts. But he didn’t say anything more about Lemuel. Instead, he said, “We have to get all those people out of Midnight.” He jerked his head to his right, to indicate Manfred’s house. The boy had his back to the Rev. He’d wandered to the first set of shelves to stare inside a glass case at a ukulele. It appeared to be older than any of the people in the room.

“We all want that,” Bobo said, between sideways looks at Diederik. Olivia knew they were all trying to figure out what made Diederik so special. “But I don’t think there’s a short-term way to make that happen.”

Fiji was fidgeting, and finally she said, “Bobo, do you have a brush or comb handy?”

“There’s one under the counter,” he said, and after a moment’s search she came up with a small hairbrush. She looked at it dubiously, but she took a deep breath and advanced on Diederik with a determined look.

“Come on, young man,” she said. “You and this so-called brush need to meet each other.” Diederik looked alarmed, but he reacted to the authority in Fiji’s voice and came over to stand in front of her. She turned him around so his back was to her, and then she went to work on his dark hair. Seeing how gentle Fiji’s hands were, Olivia turned a little away so she wouldn’t have to watch.

The boy did look less like a feral child when Fiji had finished.

“While you’re fiddling with the boy, we need to talk about the situation,” the Rev said. “Olivia!”

“Yes?” Olivia straightened and looked at the older man. His clothes might be ancient, his hair thinning, and his body small, but when the Rev spoke, you listened, and you listened good.

“You have to find this missing jewelry so they know Manfred doesn’t have it. Then they will leave.”

“Why me?” she said angrily.

“Because you’re a thief,” the Rev said, and there was no judgment in his voice. “You can figure out where a thief would hide such a thing.”

He could have said worse things, and they would have been true, so Olivia felt a moment of relief. But she wasn’t pleased with the way everyone was carefully avoiding her eyes, and she felt the cold feeling creeping across her, the feeling she got when everyone’s hand was against her.

“Why should I help Manfred?” she asked. “I hardly know him.”

“Olivia,” the Rev said. One word. But it was enough.

“I’ll do my best,” she said. “But I’d better be able to count on any help I call on the rest of you to give.”

“I’ll help,” Fiji said instantly. Despite the fact that her attention was apparently focused on Diederik, she’d been listening. Now she pulled an elastic band from the pocket of her skirt.

Of course she’d have one,
Olivia thought.
Of course she’d be ready
to help.
But there was no sting to these thoughts. Olivia had finally accepted the fact that Fiji was simply that kind of person.

“I’ll help however you ask me,” Bobo said.

Joe hesitated for a moment. “Chuy and I will do what we can,” he said cautiously. “And, of course, Rasta is always ready to help,” Joe added, and everyone laughed except the Rev and the boy.

Olivia nodded to show she’d registered their offers.

Fiji had put Diederik’s hair back in a neat ponytail. He looked like a different kid. He looked older.

“Rev, Diederik here needs to take a bath,” Olivia said, so Fiji wouldn’t have all the grooming to herself. “And he needs clean clothes.”

The Rev looked at the boy as if he were seeing him for the first time. “If you say so,” he said. “Diederik, I have to take care of you right. I promised your father.” He turned to look at the rest of them. “The chapel will be empty for a while. Keep an eye on it. I have a funeral today at four. A cat named Meatball.”

Mr. Snuggly froze in the act of licking his paw. He made a sound that was close to that of coughing. Olivia realized that the cat was laughing.

“That’s worse than ‘Mr. Snuggly’?” Olivia murmured. The cat gave her a disdainful look.

The Rev left without any more words, taking Diederik’s hand again as if Diederik were a three-year-old instead of . . . Well, how old was he? Olivia watched the ill-assorted pair as they went to the Rev’s house, presumably to put Diederik in the bathtub. She said, “You figure he’s eight years old?”

Fiji frowned. “Last night I thought he was a lot younger. His clothes flapped on him.”

Bobo shrugged. “I think he might be as much as eleven.”

Fiji was returning Mr. Snuggly to the basket. “I’d believe eleven,” she said. “And today his clothes are tight.”

Joe said, “I wonder how old he’ll be tomorrow.” And he left without adding to his statement. They all stared after him.

“I wonder what he knows,” Fiji said.

Olivia, bored with the conversation, said, “I’ve got to go over to talk to Manfred. I’ll call him first.” She went down to her apartment to get her cell phone.

When it was in her hand, she was tempted—once again—to call Lemuel.

But she didn’t.

A
s he’d been instructed, Manfred was waiting at his back door to let Olivia in. She’d run across the side-by-side driveways and reached the door so swiftly that some reporters weren’t sure they’d seen anyone. Manfred was able to close and lock the door behind her before any of them could make a move.

“Boy, am I glad to see you. Uh, can I get you a drink or something?” Manfred’s first impression was not reassuring. Olivia the Deadly seemed irritated and tired. He had hoped for Superwoman, but he’d gotten something less. He tried to conceal his dismay.

“Yeah,” she said. “Some water would be good.”

They sat at the little table that he’d crammed into the kitchen and regarded each other steadily. “The Rev has appointed me to get you out of this,” she said, not making any pretense at sounding happy about it.

“Why? I mean, he and I aren’t exactly buddies.”

“He has this kid staying with him. Diederik. There’s some big mystery about him.” One corner of Olivia’s mouth dipped down
wryly. There was always a mystery. “The Rev doesn’t want reporters anywhere around this kid, is what I gather. So he wants them gone. The quickest way to do that is to solve your problem.”

“Do you think . . .” Manfred trailed to a halt.

“That I can do it?” Olivia smiled, not troubling to make it a socially acceptable smile. “If anyone in Midnight can and will, it’s me.” She regarded the psychic. “You know I have skills, right?”

“Ah . . . I figured. But.” He floundered for a moment. “The thing is, Olivia, your skill set, as far as I know, is kind of drastic.”

“Awwww . . . squeamish?” The shark smile was very much in evidence. Olivia was enjoying being herself.

“Yes,” Manfred admitted. “More than you, anyway. I hope we can find a way to solve this problem without doing anything . . . undoable.”

“I was never as young as you.” She looked away for a long moment before turning back to say, “I’m going to do this whether you approve of it or not. This is a town issue, not just your problem. So tell me what’s happened.”

Okay, this is what I’ve got to work with,
Manfred told himself. “Arthur Smith was here this morning right on the heels of the newspeople. Lewis Goldthorpe’s accused me of stealing jewelry from Rachel. My client who died,” he added. “And as it turns out, she might not have died of natural causes. But they haven’t gotten all the bloodwork results back yet.”

“What do they suspect?”

“Arthur asked a lot of questions about her water bottle. I got the impression that he’d been told it might have had something in it that shouldn’t have been there.”

“Something you didn’t drop in?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t make a joke of this,” he said. “You know I didn’t. And I’m pretty scared, in case you couldn’t tell.”

Manfred expected her to say something cutting, but instead,
Olivia simply nodded. “Okay, then the first step is to determine where Lewis has stashed the jewelry he says you stole. Because we’re going to assume that he’s hidden it. Why do you think he’s doing this? And where do you think he’s put it?”

“I’ve had a couple of hours to think about it. First, Lewis is crazy. But he’s also devious and shrewd, at least according to Rachel. She talked about him a lot. Lewis and his problems were the main reason she was so hung up on keeping contact with her dead husband.”

“Which you were glad to help her do.” Olivia didn’t exactly sneer, but Manfred thought it was a close thing.

“Yes,” he said evenly. “I was glad to help her. And it was easy to reach him. He was more accessible than a lot of spirits.”

Olivia’s mouth crimped in a skeptical line. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go along with that. To get back to the subject. Why does Lewis have such a hard-on for you?”

“First, because he never liked Rachel to spend money he thought she should leave intact for him. Second, because a lot of the advice Morton gave her was about curtailing Lewis’s schemes. And she followed that advice. Third, because Lewis became convinced I was angling to marry Rachel.”

Olivia raised a questioning eyebrow.

“No, of course not,” Manfred said. He tried a smile. “Rachel was a sweet woman, but she was older than my mother. Not my thing.”

“So you believe Lewis has stolen this jewelry and pinned it on you to get even. Also so he can sell the jewelry, I presume?”

“I believe Rachel hid it to keep Lewis from stealing it from her. That’s what she told me.”

“So she didn’t have it with her at all. When are you supposed to have gotten this jewelry?”

“Lewis is alleging that Rachel had it in her purse because she was
going to get it appraised. He maintains that I rifled her purse before I called the front desk for help.”

“I was in the lobby when she dropped her purse,” Olivia said.

Manfred stared at her. “You were?”

“I helped her pick up everything. Me and some other people. And there was nothing like a jewelry case in there. So I know you’re telling the truth. I’m going to assume you didn’t even touch her purse?”

“No,” Manfred said firmly. “I did not.”

“I also assume the police tested it for fingerprints and didn’t find yours.”

“I assume the same thing.”

“Since she told you she’d hidden the jewelry—what did she have, by the way?”

“She mentioned diamonds and rubies, I think.”

“Okay, so she told you she’d hidden it from Lewis. Where might she have done that? It would almost certainly be at her house. When people hide things, they want to keep them close.”

“Since she’d been sick and she’d been staying close to home, that would be my guess, too. I hoped she would get a safe-deposit box, but I don’t think she did. She wouldn’t have said ‘hidden’ if she’d put the jewelry in a bank. She would have told me it was safe.”

Olivia nodded. “So, it’s in the house. You’ve been there, I hope?”

“Yes.” Manfred clearly didn’t recall the visit with any enthusiasm. “I didn’t want to go, but after our first face-to-face session, she insisted I see where Morton had lived.”

“Surely that’s pretty unusual?”

“Oh, absolutely. Usually, people are at least a little embarrassed about going to a psychic. But not Rachel. She wanted me to meet her family. She was so excited about being in touch with her husband again.”

Olivia had a strange half smile on her face. “So you actually met the family?”

“Yeah, I told Arthur Smith about it. I met Roseanna and Annelle, the daughters. I admit I was worried about what they’d think, that they’d picture me as some kind of gigolo. Lewis made a huge deal out of not meeting me. That time.” He told Olivia about the time Lewis had come pounding on the door during his next session with Rachel. “So after I met him, I wished I hadn’t. And let me point out that while I was at her house, the daughters didn’t bring their husbands or children. Again, I don’t blame them. They didn’t know what I’d be like.”

“That’s fascinating,” Olivia said insincerely. “What I really need to know is the layout of the house.”

“It’s big,” Manfred said. That had been the thing that had struck him most forcefully. He had never been in a house that large. “It’s six thousand square feet, she told me. It’s two stories. It’s in a long, narrow, lot. There are surveillance cameras on the front yard and the backyard.”

“Gated community?” Olivia had brought a small notepad, and now she was writing in it.

“Oh . . . no. It’s in Bonnet Park, like Vespers is. But the neighborhood where Rachel lived is really old and snooty. Her house is set back from the street, with tall hedges on both sides between it and the neighbors. There’s a swimming pool in back, below the terrace.”

“Can you draw me a layout of the ground floor?”

Manfred thought about that. “I think so,” he said. “I didn’t go in every room, of course, but I did kind of a sketchy house tour. Once she got me there, Rachel wanted to show me every room. It was awkward . . . for everyone but Rachel.”

Slowly, Manfred drew the plan for the ground floor, with many erasures. It contained the formal living room, a dining room, a family den, the kitchen and pantry, and a game room, plus two bathrooms; one off the game room, and one between the kitchen and the family
den, with a doorway onto the hall. “The terrace and pool are off the French doors in the family den,” he said, “but there’s also a hall that runs the length of the house and leads right out to it. Of course, that’s where the pool house is, to the right of the swimming pool. There’s a U-shaped driveway out front for visitors, and a driveway that goes all the way behind the house for family. I guess there’s a garage back there. I forget.”

“You have a good memory,” Olivia said.

“I’d never been in a house like that.” He could remember how impressed he’d been and how he’d struggled to look as though he took all this absolutely for granted. He remembered, too, how hard all this space and opulence had been to reconcile with Rachel Goldthorpe, who had been such a comfortable woman to be with, just like any grandmother he’d see at a church or a Denny’s.

“Okay, what about the second floor?” Olivia looked at him expectantly.

“I’m sketchier on that. I just walked through really quickly. I didn’t want to scare the daughters, so I was paying more attention to having a good conversation with them, telling them a little about my own family, trying to put them at ease.”

“Someday I’d like to hear about that,” Olivia said.

“When you tell me about yours, I’ll tell you about mine,” Manfred said. Olivia gave him a very hard look, and he knew he’d hit a nerve.

“Do the best you can with the second floor,” she said, pointing at the pad and paper.

So Manfred tried. “Okay, you go up the front stairs . . . then you reach a landing, and turn, and up more stairs. There’s the open area over the entryway, which is two-story, and the first room on the right you come to is Lewis’s room—when he was a kid. It has its own bathroom. The girls’ rooms are next, and there’s a bathroom in between
’em. Of course, they’re not being used now. The other side of the hall is kind of the grown-up side. First, there’s Morton’s office. Or maybe she called it a library? It has a little bathroom. Next to it, and huge, is the master bedroom. I just peeked in there. Some of the windows overlook the side of the house, and there’s a balcony, a big one, overlooking the pool at the back and the pool house. Where Lewis is staying now.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Two years, maybe. It was the first time I’d been to a client’s home, and the first set of one-on-one readings I’d done on my own.” He smiled, a little wryly. “And in case you haven’t picked up on it, I was really stunned by the size of the house. I’d never seen anything like it.”

Olivia’s expression was completely neutral as she looked down to the floor plans he’d drawn. Even without touching her, it was easy for Manfred to tell that she’d grown up in a house that large, or larger. She said, “The bigger the house, the more hiding places.”

Manfred gave himself a moment to feel smug. He’d called that one—her voice was the voice of knowledge. “I’m sure you can pare down the possibilities,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“When you’re hiding something, you want it under your surveillance, right? That’s human nature. As you said earlier, she’d want to keep it close. She would hide jewelry in a place she dominated. Since Lewis had moved back, that would be a limited number of places.” Manfred shrugged. “I know she liked to garden, so it’s possible she hid ’em in the yard, but given her poor health in the past few weeks, I’d probably give up on everything else before I started looking outside.”

“So noted. Her bedroom would be the most likely, since she would be fairly sure he wouldn’t come in if she was around. He’d be in the kitchen pretty often, getting a drink or a snack. The downstairs hall bathroom would be out, since he’d use it regularly. Not the dining
room or the formal living room downstairs. I’d put the probabilities in this order: her bedroom, her bathroom, Morton’s office next door, then the kitchen, then the other downstairs rooms, then the empty upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms, then outside in the yard.”

Manfred nodded. “That all makes sense. So what do we do?”

“I break and enter,” Olivia said. “If I get lucky, we’re home free. If not, I’ll do some reconnaissance. Based on that, I’ll make a plan. I don’t think Lewis would accuse you if he were in possession of the jewels. They’d be part of the estate, and he’d get at least a third of the value of them in due course, if she divided her assets into three parts. I’m sure Rachel did hide them, as she told you, and I’m also sure he hasn’t found them yet. But you can bet he’ll try, when he realizes you really don’t have them. Maybe he’s just blaming you for their disappearance so he doesn’t have to share them with his sisters.”