Finding the Way Back (29 page)

“Damn it. It’s happened again.”

“But who did it?” Connie asked. “That’s the
question. Could it be Saundra again, or was it a ghost?”

“If I had my guess, I’d say it was something
in bright ugly lipstick and a short skirt. But how did she get in
this time? No broken windows so far.”

We fought our way back out of the bushes,
getting scrapes and cuts along the way. Rounding the corner, I
could see the back door open as well. “And there’s our answer. I
never heard of a ghost having to kick his way in,” I said, pointing
to the broken door jamb and large footprint in the middle of the
door.

“I’m calling the police,” Connie answered,
searching through her purse for her phone.

We walked back down to the sidewalk in front
of the house to wait for the officer on duty. Ten minutes later, a
squad car pulled up to the house.

I smiled as I recognized the officer. “Well,
if it isn’t Tina Swanson,” I said, walking to meet her at the car.
In a small town it wasn’t unusual to run into people you once knew
but to see old friends was a welcome diversion. Her partner, a
short, sandy haired man, got out as well.

Dark hair pulled back in a bun, tan and buff,
she took off her sunglasses and smiled back at me. We had been in
track together in school and she still looked like she ran five
miles a day. It didn’t take much to picture her as a law
enforcement officer. “Hi, Laney! I haven’t seen you in a while. I’d
like you to meet my partner, Officer Jeff Burns.”

He reached out to shake hands with me and
Connie. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” His charming southern accent
told me he wasn’t from the area. I was sure it would make him
popular with the local ladies.

“So you had a break-in? Was it a broken
window or jimmied door? Do you know if anyone is still in the
house?” Tina asked.

“It’s been quiet since we got here but we
really don’t know because we haven’t gone inside yet. They left the
front door standing open, but the back door was kicked in.”

“You two wait out here while we check the
house,” Officer Burns told us. He and Tina placed a hand on their
weapons, but left them holstered as they went into the house.

I hoisted myself onto the back of my vehicle
to wait, while Connie paced back and forth on the sidewalk. I dug
through my purse trying to find my cell phone and found it buried
on the bottom. I brought it out to make a call and realized it was
dead again. How was that possible? Since I kept forgetting to get a
new battery I contemplated asking my mom to pick one up on her way
back to the house.

“Connie, my phone is dead. Will you call my
mom and tell her what’s happening? We don’t want her to hear it
first from a neighbor.”

Connie pulled out her phone and tossed it to
me. “Here, use mine. I’m going to talk to Louise and see if she saw
anyone.”

Connie walked up to the house next door,
while I made the call. Mom said she was coming over immediately
with Aunt Shelly. I tried to tell them it wasn’t necessary but the
call dropped. I looked down at Connie’s phone and it was dead too.
Now why would both of our phones always be dead at the same time? I
remembered my grandmother talking about accumulating energy and I
wondered if she stole it from electronic devices. I’d have to ask
Emmett about that.

The officers returned from their search
empty-handed. “No one is here now. Why don’t you come through and
see if you notice anything missing.”

I walked into the house with the officers and
immediately felt something. I stopped between the living room and
dining room and looked around, but I couldn’t see anything moved or
missing. The hutch still looked jam packed so I didn’t think there
was anything touched there. I already knew what I would find when I
went into the study. Books were strewn everywhere. They weren’t
gently put down but looked as if they had been thrown about by a
whirling dervish. The boxes that had been sorted and stacked around
the room hadn’t been moved or gone through but they did have books
on top of them also. I started picking things up as I went further
into the room then just stopped and looked. I was shaking—the
destruction really bothered me. Someone had been in our house and
did this. Would Saundra have the guts to actually break in? It was
different when she had a key. We really needed to find what she was
looking for before she did. If there was even anything to find. I
didn’t know what to think.

Tina came into the room behind me. “This is
the only room that looks deliberately ransacked. Even though the
other rooms have a lot of boxes and items, nothing else looks like
it was torn through like this.”

I leaned over and picked up a few more books
from the middle of the room. “I can’t even tell if anything is
gone. We hadn’t cataloged the books on the shelves. Connie and I
just moved in to clean out my grandfather’s house and we’ve barely
gotten started,” I began. I described our recent trouble with
Saundra and explained why we thought it might have been her. Tina
nodded and made a few notes on a pad of paper. I put the books I
was holding on the desk and turned to leave. “I suppose we should
look through the rest of the house.”

As I headed upstairs with the officers,
Connie returned from next door and joined us. The weird feeling I
had when I walked in was lessening as I climbed the steps. I still
felt rattled by the feeling of invasion that someone had forcibly
entered the place I was calling home. If it wasn’t Saundra, who
could it have been? Nothing appeared to be out of place upstairs,
so we went down to the kitchen and Connie took the officers with
her to the basement. They returned shortly—all was calm and
everything seemed to be in place. Connie and I put away the
groceries as Tina and Officer Burns wrote up their report. Tina
snapped some pictures with a digital camera while her partner took
notes.

“What did Louise say?” I asked Connie,
putting away the milk and cold items that had gotten slightly
warm.

“She didn’t see anyone but then she and Ruth
were out all morning.”

“It seems like someone must have been
watching the house. Otherwise how could they have known we weren’t
home? It just gives me the creeps. Do you think it was Saundra
again?”

“I don’t know, but if there is something
she’s looking for in the house, I want to get to it first,” Connie
answered.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

As Tina and her partner were leaving, she
said they would file the report and then see if they could find
Saundra to ask her a few questions. She assured us they would have
patrols drive by periodically to watch the house.

“You know it could have been neighborhood
teenagers,” Tina said. “Saundra isn’t the only one who may have
heard stories about your grandfather hoarding money in the house.
They could have been looking for an easy buck. You probably want to
get that back door fixed before you leave the house unattended
again,” Tina said as she left.

We thanked her for coming and went to look at
the back door again. “It really reminds you that you’re only
keeping out the honest people,” Connie said.

“I guess we should have installed dead bolts,
although then they might have just smashed a window. We’ll need new
door jambs as well. I wish I knew how to do it all myself. I’ll go
call a handyman to take care of it. You get a hold of that person
you said you knew at the security place. I want this place locked
down tight,” I said.

I heard the front door open and close, and
then Mom and Aunt Shelly appeared in the kitchen. They saw us
looking at the back door and joined us.

“What happened? I can’t believe how lively it
is around here. You girls attract all sorts of drama,” my aunt said
teasingly as she took off her coat and put it on the back of the
chair.

I was grateful they were staying so calm and
taking it lightly. They probably didn’t really feel that way any
more than Connie and I, but it was nice that they were trying to
downplay any concern.

“If I get my hands on that Saundra,” my mom
started as she and Aunt Shelly moved to the backdoor to check out
the damage.

“I can have a handyman I know come over and
take a look at this mess,” my aunt said, reaching for her cell
phone.

Cheered that the task was taken out of my
hands, I made a cup of tea to help me make it through cleaning up
the study. I returned to the scene of the crime and found Connie
sitting at the desk with her computer, typing diligently.

“Hey, whatcha doin’?”

“Working on the Excel file of our items for
eBay. What are you doing?”

“I thought I would pick up all these
wonderful books.”

“Great idea. You read them off and I will
look them up right now. We’ll see if they are worth anything. Plus,
it’ll give us something else to think about,” Connie said.

I started picking up books one at a time and
reading off the title and author, then placed them back on the
shelves. Connie entered them into her spreadsheet then searched a
few websites to see if they showed up as valuable or collectible.
It was fun for about the first twenty books, and there were some
that were worth some money, but mostly it was quite dull. We tried
making it into a game. We would both guess the value then the
person who won got to look up the next book. But that took longer,
and Connie was winning way more than me so I got bored with that
also.

“I wonder what made Saundra think the
treasure was in this room?” I asked, making air quotes with my
fingers as I said the word ‘treasure’. I picked up a few books and
put them on the desk next to Connie. “Do you suppose Grandfather
said something or gave her any clues?”

“You know how it is—beautiful women can get
any information out of a man,” Connie replied cynically.

“And you think Saundra was beautiful?” I
asked. “I think I threw up in my mouth a little.”

Connie laughed. “Come on, Laney, she’s
attractive in that over-groomed, fake breasts, tight skirt kind of
way.” And then we both laughed.

“Of course, we’re both a little jealous of
those boobs,” I answered, half serious.

“Unfortunately, you’re right. If we could
just wear them out occasionally without being forever saddled with
them, I wouldn’t mind that,” Connie added.

“If he did hide something in this room, where
could it possibly be?”

I started to look around the room. There were
wooden bookshelves on every wall. There were two window seats, one
on the wall opposite the door and one along the outer wall on the
left. I walked around the perimeter, scrutinizing the shelving.
There were still too many books on the shelves to see the wall.

“Maybe there’s a safe somewhere behind the
shelves. That could be why she came in here and threw random books
around. Trying to expose a safe or hiding spot,” I said.

Connie continued to look up books while I
explored behind some of the groups of books, knocking and pushing
on the backing.

“Seriously, Laney, do you even know what you
would hear by knocking on that wood?” Connie asked, picking up a
new book and examining it.

“No, but I assume it would sound different
than the other knocks, so either it’s all hollow behind the wall or
there isn’t an opening.” I checked as much as I could before
finally sitting down on the left window seat.

“She could have started in here because it
was cleaned out. She may not have any more information than
us.”

I was annoyed because she was right. We could
be totally wasting our time. I brought my feet up and sat cross
legged on the seat, picking off the polish from my fingernails.
Eventually, I noticed Connie had stopped typing and when I looked
up at her she was staring at me.

“Laney, are you helping with the books or
not? If you’re not going to help me, please go find something
constructive to do.”

“Fine, I’m going to see what our moms are up
to,” I said as I walked out of the room and made my escape.

Chapter
Thirty-One

I found Mom and Aunt Shelly standing in front
of the hutch in the dining room, discussing its contents. “I’ll
take the pink Depression Glass,” my aunt was saying, taking it out
of the hutch and placing it on the dining room table.

“Good, I would like the Roseville pottery if
you don’t mind. It would look perfect with my more modern home,” my
mother added. Putting a vase and a bowl on the other side of the
table, she then turned to look at me as I walked in the room.
“Laney, is there anything you would like? Go get Connie, she should
look also.”

I walked back to the study and stuck my head
in. “Hey, they want you out here to see if there is anything you’d
like out of the hutch.”

“Okay, just a second,” Connie said as she
finished typing something on her computer. “Let me save this.” She
got up from the desk and followed me to the dining room.

“We’re looking at the items in this hutch and
wondered if you girls wanted anything,” Aunt Shelly said.

The four of us stood in front of the hutch,
the shelves filled with old pieces from another time. There was an
assortment of crystal wine glasses and bowls, china tea cups,
figurines, a small collection of salt and pepper shakers and other
miscellaneous items someone had loved once upon a time. It felt
overwhelming to look through it all. Right now I didn’t even have a
home, how did I know what I wanted to have for the future?

“I would love to have the teacups and saucers
if no one else minds,” Connie said.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I
always chose things that spoke to me to have in my home. They had
to
feel
right. It didn’t matter what their monetary value
might be, it just had to have a positive energy. I opened my eyes
and immediately found a tiny oval shaped bowl with a castle and
sailboat painted on it. I searched the shelves for other items I
may have overlooked. More items jumped out at me suddenly—an ivory
colored pair of salt and pepper shakers in the shape of sea horses,
a green depression glass sugar and creamer set, and a tall, plain,
china coffee pot. Happy with my choices, I put them on the dining
room table.