Mysteries of Holt House - A Mystery (28 page)

“Don’t forget,” Josh said, thoughtfully,
“we don’t know who’s been using the passages.”

“Yes, but no one can get into my room that
way,” I reminded him. “I moved the dresser in front of the opening.”

“Right,” he said.

After a brief discussion, Mike and I
returned to my room. I threw myself on the bed and pouted.

“This is no time to be a big baby,” Mike
admonished.

“Shut up and leave me alone. I’ve got
plenty of reason to be upset.”

“Next thing I know, you’ll be crying,” he
said.

“So what? What do you
want
me to
do?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He sat down
on the rocker and folded his arms across his chest.

We were both angry, but not really at each
other. After a few more nasty cracks we quit speaking to each other. I left the
room and walked to the bathroom where I got ready for bed. Returning to my
room, I climbed into bed and turned my back on him. With some effort, I finally
fell asleep. When I awoke in the morning, he was gone and Lucy was sitting in
his place.

“What happened between you and Mike last
night?” Lucy asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because when I came in this morning, he
stomped out of here without a word.”

“Forget it. Nothing happened. He’s just a
thoughtless jerk.”

“Whoa,” she said. “Back up and talk to
me.”

“No. I don’t want to talk about it. Where
is he, anyway?”

“He said he had to go to town and he’d be
back later.” Lucy left me to my morning ritual, and I met her in the kitchen
when I was ready to face the day. She’d already fed the boarders, so I ate and
helped her clean up the morning mess. I was still coughing quite a bit, but at
least I felt better. I could tell it was going to be one of those coughs that
hangs on for a while.

After loading the dishes into the
dishwasher, I slowly climbed up to the third floor. My lungs weren’t quite
ready for the climb, but taking my time helped. I wanted to dust and get the
beds made while Lucy did the same on the second floor. We met back on the main
floor. I took a fifteen minute break before we started cleaning again. By the
time we were through, it was time for lunch.

We stood, side by side, and made
sandwiches. “Lucy, where’s Josh?”

“He’s at work. Yesterday was his regular
day to work, but since it was a holiday he had to go in today. He really likes
having this part-time job.”

“I’ll go call David for lunch while you
finish the sandwiches,” I said.

“Don’t take too long,” she said.

I found David in the garage cleaning up
J.T.’s mess. “He meant well,” I said.

He hadn’t heard me come in and jumped at
the sound of my voice. “You startled me.”“I’m sorry. David, I’m so happy for
you and Sharon. You’ve made her very happy.”

“I sure hope so,” he said, smiling. “She’s
everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman, and even a few things I
didn’t
want – until now.”

I was surprised David was opening up to
me. He was usually so quiet, and never very demonstrative about anything.

“She is a one-of-a-kind,” I said,
chuckling. “I think you two complement each other. You’ll be good for her.”

“I guess it’s like you and Mike, huh? You
seem good together.”

Tears welled up in my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking
uncomfortable. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Oh…”

“Come on, what’s up? You caught me on a
good day, so maybe I can help.”

I really liked David. I gazed at him,
thoughtful for a moment, and made my decision. “Come into the house for lunch.
I want to talk to you, and Lucy can help me explain why things have been
handled the way they have, I hope.”

He looked bewildered, but put his tools
down and followed me to the house. “It’s getting colder. It looks like it might
snow again.” He was looking upward, at the clouds.

“Yeah, it does. I sometimes wonder if it
will ever stop snowing. I think I’ll let Jem in. No one’s home, so they’ll
never know I had him in the kitchen.”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them?”

“Something like that.”

Lucy had lunch ready, and we sat down at
the table with her.

“Lucy,” I said, “I’ve made up my mind, and
I’m going to tell David everything. If you’re not going to go along with me on
this, then go eat in the dining room so Josh won’t be angry at you.”

“Well, it’s about time. I’ve thought we
should tell him all along,” she said.

“What’s going on ladies? This sounds
serious.” He looked back and forth at us, waiting for an answer.

“It
is
serious,” I replied.

While we ate, Lucy and I told him
everything, from beginning to end. We tried to be tactful about why he hadn’t
been told, but there was no need.

“I would have handled it the same way,” he
said. “Mike and Josh did the right thing.”

“I’m so glad you feel that way. Both of
them think you’re terrific, but they didn’t want to take any chances.”

“I understand. None of you really know me
all that well.” I thought I detected a hint of hurt in his expression, but I
couldn’t be sure.

“Now,” I said. “There’s something else I
haven’t told anyone about. I was going to tell Mike last night, but… Well, Mike
and I weren’t exactly speaking.”

“Oh. So what haven’t you told anyone
else?” David leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah, what gives?” Lucy tipped her head
to the side.

“I was in the library yesterday and found
a book of quotations on the shelf. It was inscribed from George to Amelia Holt.
There were several quotations underlined, including the ones in the notes I’ve
received.

“Here’s the thing,” I continued, “I didn’t
buy that book. I don’t know who put it in the library or where it came from.
I’ve never seen it before. Maybe my imagination is running away with me, but I
almost felt like it had been put there as sort of a challenge. You know, so I
would find it and whoever put it there could see what I would do about it.”

“Would you please go get the book?” David
asked.

“Sure. Be right back.”

When I walked over to the shelf to get the
book, it was gone. I checked the other shelves, but it was definitely gone. I
returned to the kitchen.

 “Someone has taken it.”

“Figures,” David said.

“Wait a minute,” I said, slowly. “Maybe
he’s using it to write another note and hasn’t had a chance to return it.”

“Or he knows you saw it and hid it away.
You’d better tell Mike and Josh about this right away. My gut is telling me
this could all be coming to a head, at least from everything you’ve told me,”
David said. “I’m going to do a little detective work of my own in the
meantime.”

“What are you going to do?” Lucy asked.

“Search a few rooms, with or without your
permission.” He glanced at me.

“Oh, David, I don’t know if you should or
not.”

“Can you think of anything better to do?”

“Not really,” I said, wrapping my arms
around myself. I suddenly felt cold, and it wasn’t the weather or the
bronchitis making me feel that way.

“They’ll never know I was in their rooms.”
David stood and left without waiting for Lucy or me to comment.

“Wait,” Lucy called after him. “You’ll
need the room keys.” She pulled the keys off a hook in the cupboard where we
kept them and tossed them to David when he turned back.

“Maybe we should start locking those keys
up.” Lucy closed the cupboard door.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I
replied.

Mike walked through the back door shortly
after David left. I retreated to my room. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.

Chapter
Thirty-five

Mike threw open my bedroom door and
stormed in without knocking.

“Okay, Kelly, this has gone far enough.
You know we’re not really angry with each other. Let’s knock this crap off!”

“If that was an apology, you’d better try
again,” I said testily. “Maybe you’ll get it right the second time.”

“It wasn’t an apology, and you weren’t
exactly Miss Sweet Pea yourself last night. This has to end right here and
now.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.” One
of us had to say it, and apparently it wasn’t going to be him.

“Now. What about this book you found? And
where’s David? Lucy told me everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. Now tell it to me yourself.”

I told him the same story I’d told Lucy
and David. I found myself running out of steam and seemed to be talking in a
monotone.

Mike listened and nodded. “Again, where’s
David?”

“As far as I know David is somewhere up on
the third floor searching rooms.”

“I met with Josh in town. He talked to one
of his cop friends in Los Angeles. David is clean. Everything about him is
legitimate. Maybe we can use him to help us out now.”

“Well, I’m sure glad David got your Seal
of Approval,” I said sarcastically.

“Don’t start up, Kelly.” Mike sounded
agitated and on the edge. “Josh is filling in the local police, too. Damn it! I
wish we had more information.”

“I’ve never seen you like this, Mike. I
didn’t know you could be so – ”

“Listen to me,” he interrupted. “I’m
worried about you, and you’re not being very helpful right now, at least not
with that smart aleck attitude you seem to have developed.”

“Smart aleck attitude? Listen, buster,
you’d better take a second look at your
own
attitude.”

“Yeah.” He sat down on the rocker and
sighed before stretching his shoulders backward and rotating his head.

“Is your neck stiff?”

He nodded. “We can’t keep this up. I love
you, and I’m afraid that something’s going to happen to you, and if nothing
else we’ve got to at least try to get along with each other. We’ve got to work
together to find out what’s going on and who’s behind it.”

“You love me?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes. You said you love me.”

“Did you happen to hear anything
else
I said?” He sounded frustrated, not that I could really blame him. My head had been
in the sand for so long that I was beginning to feel smothered.

“Yes, I did,” I said.

“Can we get down to business? Please?”

“Sure,” I said, grudgingly. I wanted to
discuss the love stuff some more. “When will Josh have more information?”

“He’s working on it. Like I said, he’s
talking to the local police, hoping they’ll cooperate under the circumstances.
We’re so far out of town that we need them to cooperate with us. We’ve got more
on J.T., but nothing on Ted Fernley yet. We’re also trying to find out who was
in the hospital. If you remember, George and Amelia Holt were making payments
to a hospital. Unfortunately, putting all the information together is a slow
process. At least it’s slower than we’d like it to be.”

 “What did you find out about J.T.?”
I asked.

“He’s been in prison for armed robbery,
but it was a long time ago. He’s been clean since, as far as we can tell. Josh
is digging as deep as he can.”

“Sweet, funny J.T. was in prison? For
armed robbery? I can hardly believe it. I’m glad I didn’t know about this when
I saw him in the store buying what I thought was a gun.”

“He was young, and apparently he learned
his lesson. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find David and help him
search the rooms.”

“You know, we should have done a search a
long time ago,” I said. “I don’t care if going through other people’s things is
wrong or not.”

“At this point, it certainly isn’t the
wrong thing to do. And you’re right. We should have done this a long time ago.”

Mike went in search of David, and I
started making the rounds of the bathrooms, collecting dirty towels. It was
time to do laundry, not one of my favorite tasks, but I figured it wouldn’t be
too taxing. When I arrived at the second floor, I felt like I’d walked in on an
old Abbott and Costello movie.

I left the first bathroom, heard a noise
and looked down the hallway. David and Mike were slinking down the hall,
looking to all the world as if they were guilty of a crime, which I guess they
were, technically. I stepped back so they wouldn’t see me and watched.

They stepped up to Josh’s bedroom door and
stopped, whispering to one another. David looked stealthily over his shoulder.
Mike did the same. David started going through the keys Lucy had given him,
looking for the one to Josh’s room. The keys were clearly marked for each room
and I was amazed he didn’t notice. But while I watched he tried each key in the
lock, while Mike kept looking over his shoulder. It was obvious Mike was sure
they were going to be caught in the act.