Marja McGraw - Bogey Man 01 - Bogey Nights (6 page)

“What’s all that noise?” I asked.

“They’re breaking up the other slab to see what’s underneath. It seemed too coincidental that there were two slabs. We’ll be doing some further digging in your basement, too.”

Chris nodded
. “You honestly think there might be another body?”

“No telling,” she replied
. “We’ll certainly find out. Do you know anything about this house?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like who owned it before you. Or if it was ever used as a rental. Anything at all.”

“I think the previous owner’s name might be on the paperwork we received, but my understanding is that it was some guy who bought it as an investment
. It didn’t work out and the house went into foreclosure. That’s when we bought it. I don’t know who owned it before him,” I said.

“Okay, I’m heading back down
stairs. You can go home if you want to, but leave your phone number and address with Officer Small. We’ll be in touch.”

She started to wa
lk away, but stopped to turn and look at Chris again. “Have we met before? You look familiar.”

“I don’t think so,” Chris replied
. “I have one of those faces that everyone thinks they’ve seen before.”

She shrugged and headed back toward the cellar
.

“We might as well leave,” I said.

“Uh huh. You can go home if you want to, but I’m going to stay and see if they dig up another body,” Chris said.

“
Maybe I’ll just stay with you.”

Chapter Six

S
haron walked over to me with Big D trailing behind her. He was grinning, so I guessed that she must have agreed to go out with him.

“What’s going on down there?” Sharon asked.

“I have no idea. They said we could go home though, so we’re going to get our things together and head out,” I lied. “I think I left my purse in the house. You might as well leave, too. We’ll let you know what happens as soon as we know anything.”

“Sure you will
.” Suspicion laced her words.

“No
. I really will. We need you to give everything a good spin, so I need to stay on your good side.” I mentally rolled my eyes for doing some spinning of my own.

Sharon handed me her business card
after writing something on the back. “This has my cell phone number on it. Davey and I are going out this evening, so call me on the cell if you find out anything. Remember, you need me.”

Chris raised an eyebrow, but kept his mouth closed
. I almost said something, but he nudged me and shook his head.

Sharon and Big D left while I pretended to search for my purse
. “I’ll call you,” I yelled out the door of the house.

As soon as they were out of sight, Chris and I repositioned ourselves on the top stair step
. We could hear all kinds of noises and talking, but we still couldn’t tell what was happening. I left Chris keeping watch and went into the house for another look around.

I closed my eyes and tried to envision the restaurant
. It was awesome, and it had ambience. The floors had been refinished and the paint and wallpaper worked together to create a taste of the World War II years. I could almost hear the band playing. My eyes popped open when I realized there were no people sitting at the tables. My heart pounded and I hoped against hope that Sharon really could help us. I resolved to be nice to her.

Leaving the house and
returning to the cellar door, I saw Chris moving out of the way and Detective Riley coming up the stairs. My steps quickened as I hurried to see if they’d found anything – or anyone – else.

“Well, Detective?” Chris asked
. “Did you find anything?”

“No
. I can’t imagine what purpose the other slab might have served. It was simply a slab of cement and nothing more. However, the techs are going to do more digging before we leave. We did find a wallet under the body, or skeleton, as the case may be. It was well-preserved and had an old driver’s license in it.” She started to walk away from us.

“Wait,” I said
. “Who was it?”

“I can’t tell you that at this time
. We’ll have to do some research to be sure that’s who’s actually buried in your basement,” Detective Riley replied. “I will tell you there was a page from a letter folded up in the wallet, and it was dated 1942.”

“Interesting,” Chris said, nodding his head
and rolling his upper lip under again. “But, of course, that doesn’t mean the stiff was knocked off in 1942. No telling how long the letter had been in his wallet.”

“Right,” the detective said, lips twitching again
. “So now I do a lot of research and try to figure this thing out. Are you sure we haven’t met?”

“His skull appeared to have been bashed in,” Chris said
, ignoring her question.

The detective merely looked at my husband, not confirming or denying his comment.

“Well?” Chris asked.

“I’ll leave that determination up to the coroner.”

“When can we start work on the house?” I asked.

“I’ll let you know
. We’ll want to look around the house, too.”

Frustrated, Chris and I gave up and drove home, discussing what had happened
. The discussion was relatively short because we simply didn’t know anything.

Constance agreed to stay for dinner when I invited her
. Chris and Mikey settled down in front of the television, watching an old movie, and Constance helped me in the kitchen. She wanted to know what was going on, so I told her what little I knew.

“Okay,” she said, “your story is fascinating, but I can’t believe there wasn’t a second body
. I mean, there were two concrete pads.”

“My reaction was similar to yours
. Wow! How callous it is of me to be disappointed that there wasn’t a second body? I should be glad there
wasn’t
another set of bones.”

“You’re right, but I still wish there’d been more to the story
. It feels like it’s not done.”

“It isn’t
. We still don’t know who the guy was or what happened to him. Or who killed him.”

We both became quiet while we finished fixing dinner.

“Soup’s on,” I called when the food was ready.

While we were eating, Mikey finally asked why the police had been at the new house.

“There was a body in the basement,” Constance said. She made it sound so simple.

“Yeah, right,” Mikey said
. “I’m not a baby anymore. You could tell me why the coppers were really there.”

“Coppers?”
I laughed. “You’ve been spending way too much time with your dad.” Or was it me?

The mention of his dad
did it. Mikey’s attention was nicely diverted again. We finished dinner and Constance headed home while my son went upstairs to take a shower and I washed the dishes.

I didn’t call Sharon because I had nothing to report
. She, however, was persistent and called me during her date with Big D.

“Sharon, don’t you think you should be concentrating on Davey?” I asked.

“He wants to know what’s going on, too,” she replied.

I doubted that.

“Besides,” Sharon continued, “the sooner I can work on my story, the sooner we can try to find some kind of
good
publicity. I’ve already talked to my editor, and he’s going to give me some space on this one.”

I finally made Sharon understand that we didn’t know anything, and that I wasn’t about to make something up, and she went back to her date with Big D.

Mikey went to bed, and Chris and I fell asleep on the couch before getting up and going upstairs to our own room for the night.

***

Detective Riley showed up on our doorstep early the next day, before I’d had a chance to prepare breakfast. She wanted to see the paperwork we had on the house, which didn’t tell her a thing about anyone except the guy who’d owned the house before us.

“I’m going to have to research the house,” she said.

Sherlock and Watson were quite curious about the visiting stranger.

“Are these the dogs
who found the body?” she asked.

“They are,” Chris said
. “The smaller Lab is Watson, and Sherlock is the big one.”

“Nice dogs
. Did you know labs are sometimes used for rescue?”

“I know,” Chris replied
. “As a matter of fact, they saved a man’s life when our old restaurant burned down.” I detected a note of pride in his voice, which was not misplaced.

“Come on, kids,” I said to the
Labs. “Let’s go outside.”

“You can leave them here, if you like,” Detective Riley said
. “I have a female chocolate Lab myself. I like the breed. And I guess we have something in common. I named her Friday, after Sergeant Joe Friday of TV fame.”

I smiled and immediately began to take a liking to this woman.

“I’ve done some checking on the driver’s license,” she said, getting down to business. “If it does belong to the body we found, then his name is Charles Blakely. We’re searching for family or anyone who might remember him. Needless to say, we don’t have much to go on yet.”

I was surprised that she was sharing her information with us.

“Honestly, I don’t think this investigation is going very far. I’ll do what I can, but there are too many current cases to deal with and this one may go into the cold files for now. We’ve gone over the house, but nothing turned up.”

“What about the work we want to do?
You didn’t tear out any walls or anything, did you?” I asked.

“
No, the house in intact. I’ll let you know when you can begin construction,” the detective replied. “Just give me a little time. I’ve talked to the coroner and she’s going to fit this case into her schedule so we can move on to more current cases. In the meantime, relax and make your plans for your little restaurant.”

That sounded condescending, but I ignored it
because I sincerely wanted to like this woman. I liked the way she was sharing information with us. I glanced at Chris and felt confident that he was feeling the same way.

“Well,” she said, standing up, “I’d better get busy
. Too much to do and not enough hours in the day.”

“May I ask your first name, Detective Riley?” I asked.

“Janet,” she replied. “Janet Riley.”

My husband walked outside with Detective
Janet Riley. Sherlock and Watson accompanied them. I watched out the window and saw Janet talk to the dogs and pat their heads before she left. Chris waved as she pulled away from the curb.

“Did you find out anything else?” I asked when he brought the dogs into the house.

“The department isn’t going to give this case a high priority. She said they’re going to have to take care of the basics and then the file basically gets stuck in a drawer. Maybe someday when time allows, it will be pulled out and looked at again. And then she said that I look familiar. I wonder how long it will take her to figure me out.”

“Do you think we’ll actually see her again?
She probably won’t have any more business with us.
We
don’t have anything to do with this case.”

Chris appeared thoughtful
. “I can’t explain it, but I think we’ll see her again. If for no other reason than because she’s curious about me, and she seems to like you.”

I thought his reasoning was skewed, but I kept my trap shut.

“I’m kind of surprised they didn’t find anything under that other slab yesterday,” I said.

“I asked her about that
. She said there were scratches on the concrete that made it look like someone had used it to set things on. Like maybe they were heavy and dragged off when they were moved.”

“Huh
. Could have been furniture or something. The second slab did seem bigger than the first one.”

“Are we still going to have some breakfast?” Chris asked.

“I’ll bet you’re starving by now. I’ll go put something together.”

“Never mind,” he said
. “It’s getting late. I’ll just have cereal.”

“Are you sure?
It wouldn’t take long to fix something.”

“I’m sure
. We’ve got enough to take care of today without worrying about a late breakfast.”

“Have you asked Big D about getting the electricity turned on at the house?” I asked
. “I don’t know if that place has new wiring or not. We certainly don’t want to have to worry about another fire.”

“Yeah, one fire’s enough for a lifetime
. I asked him about that yesterday, and he said he’d have to do some rewiring, so as soon as we can get back into the house…”

After breakfast
we drove downtown to start looking at paint and wallpaper. I decided to pick out the vintage wallpaper first and then find the right shade of paint.

I looked at the floral patterns
. There was one with a red background and white flowers. It was way too overpowering for a restaurant like ours. I wanted something that would set people at ease. One was a grey background with white flowers, but it looked like it belonged in a bathroom. I didn’t want wallpaper in our public restrooms because they get so much use.

F
loral patterns on
anything
were big in the forties. I thought about looking for a wicker couch with a floral pattern seat cover to put out on the porch during the nice weather. I’d seen one in an antique store. In the meantime I settled on wallpaper with… What else, flowers and leaves, a la forties-style.

“You know, Bogey Man, sometimes I think I should have been born a lot earlier, like in the twenties or thirties.”

“And why is that?” he asked.

“Because I’ve taken to all things from the forties so easily
. It was a simpler time.
People
were simpler. Life was better. Since I met you, I’ve learned so much about that era, and I really like it.”

“Simpler?
They did dishes by hand, hung their laundry on a clothes line, no microwaves or frozen dinners when you were in a hurry, and there was a world war going on. You couldn’t use a phone on the run because there were no cell phones. No computers to pay bills online or to do research. There were so many things that you couldn’t do then that you can do now.”