Slip and Go Die (A Parson's Cove Mystery) (11 page)

“I dreamt about you last night, Flori.”

“Did you really? You won’t believe this, but I dreamt about you, too.”

“You’re kidding! I dreamt that you weren’t talking to me. What did you dream?”

Flori didn’t answer right away. I knew she was trying not to burst into tears again.

Finally, after sniffing, blowing and clearing her throat, she said, “I dreamed you went into Krueger’s house and you never came back out.” With that, she let out a wail that made all the cats look up from their food dishes.

I returned the phone to my ear. “Flori,” I said. “It’s only a dream. You don’t have to get so upset.”

She sniffed. “But, it was so real. I have this awful feeling. Something terrible is going to happen in that old house. You have to promise me that you won’t ever go in there again. Do you promise?”

Now I love Flori with all my heart. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t even have a family. She is all that I have. But, on the other hand, I don’t like to make promises that I might not be able to keep. I guess I may have hesitated a little too long.

“I knew it. You won’t promise me, will you? You’ll go back in there and end up in a puddle of blood behind the basement steps.”

“Goodness gracious, you are really getting carried away. In the first place, nothing like that is going to happen to me and in the second place, I might not have to go inside. I might just be able to look through the window.”

There was a moment of silence.

“What are you talking about, looking through the window? What scheme are you hatching now?”

I love it when Flori asks what I have planned. I’d succeeded in piquing her curiosity. It means I’m on my way to reeling her in. She may protest everything that I do but deep down inside, I know it intrigues her. Well, most of it anyway. Or, perhaps, I should say a little bit of it. Besides, she would never leave me on my own. She would be worried sick. It would be harder for her to sit at home, imagining all the trouble I was getting into, than holding my hand and battling her way through it, by my side.

It was Saturday morning. The wind was still howling outside. There was no way I was going to struggle through the blowing snow to get to the shop. Although, under normal weather conditions, this was my busiest day, I knew very few people would be venturing out. Parson’s Cove folk are commonsense people.

I’d spent most of the morning cleaning my bathroom, stripping the bed and vacuuming cat hair. By eleven, I’d mustered up enough courage to phone her. I was hoping that by then Jake would be out of the house. I was right. Flori said he’d left to go fishing again.

“I don’t know if Jake can afford to do it much longer,” she’d said.

“Why?” I’d asked. “You mean it costs that much for bait?”

“No, but I noticed another empty whiskey bottle in the garbage. Booze doesn’t come cheap, you know.”

I almost said, “Tell me about it,” but decided it would be better to stay clear of that subject. One controversial subject at a time is enough.

I swallowed a mouthful of cold coffee before answering her question about my future plans. The problem was that I didn’t have a good scheme hatched, as yet. One was starting to formulate in my mind but I wasn’t quite sure which direction it was going.

“Well, Flori,” I said, trying to sound excited, “that woman was back.”

“What woman?”

“The one who’s waiting for her lover. She came back to the house.”

Flori gasped. “Are you telling me that you went back into that horrible house when I specifically asked you not to? I can’t believe you, Mabel Wickles. How could you do such a thing?”

“No, I didn’t go back. I didn’t have to. I told you, all I had to do was look out my window.”

“You mean that little hussy walked into that house in broad daylight? You saw who it was and you still haven’t told me? Shame on you.”

“It wasn’t daylight. It was pitch black out. Those kinds of people don’t do things like that in the light. They’re cheats and sneaks. Of course, I don’t know who it was. I would have told you right away, if I knew.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that you think you saw someone going into the house again, but you have no idea who it was.”

“That’s basically it.”

“How do you know that whoever it was didn’t have a very good reason for going in there? And, how do you know if the woman who was there when you were down hiding in the basement didn’t have permission to be there? Tell me that. Just because you broke into the house doesn’t mean the other person did.”

“Ahem. I believe that’s ‘you and I’ broke in, Flori.”

“All right, if you insist, ‘you and I’. But that was only once and that was just to check and see if anyone had been there. I’m sure Miss Krueger would be pleased to know that we were concerned. You, on the other hand, went in again all on your own because you can’t leave things alone. Why, Mabel, do you always think someone has to have an ulterior motive for everything they do?”

“Okay. That’s a fair question. Now you give me one good explanation: What reason could anyone have for going into an empty house at midnight in the dead of winter? And if whomever it was, did have a legitimate reason, why didn’t they turn the light on? Why did this unknown upright citizen sneak in, sit in the dark for about fifteen minutes and then leave?”

There was a brief silence. I could imagine the look on Flori’s face. She was trying hard to come up with some legitimate reason. There was none. She knew it as well as I did.

“Have you checked with Susie at the realtor’s office?”

“Why would I do that? You know very well that the house isn’t up for sale. Besides, if someone bought it, I’m sure they would turn the lights on and stay longer than fifteen minutes.”

“I know no one bought it. I was thinking that maybe Susie went to check out the house or perhaps, she sent someone over to see if the furnace was running, that’s all. They wouldn’t have to turn the lights on. In fact, she might have told them not to, in case some of the nosey neighbors started to worry and started imagining all sorts of silly things.”

There was the distinct sound of triumph in her voice.

“Okay, you can make fun but I know something’s going on there.”

Flori was starting to melt. She can only stay frustrated for so long.

“All I ask is that you be careful. You know you have such an imagination. I’m sure that whoever’s going into that house, has a good logical reason for doing so.”

“But, if that’s the case, why was she sitting in the dark crying?”

“I don’t know but I do know one thing: this is absolutely none of our business. If you think someone is committing a crime, you should go and talk to Reg.”

Reg Smee was about the last person with whom I’d share this information but I didn’t want to upset Flori again so I simply agreed. I had no idea how soon it would be before I’d be desperate for his help.

By two, the wind had settled down to a whisper so I decided I’d better trudge my way over to the shop. In Parson’s Cove, if a person is in relatively good health with no outstanding mental problem, can walk or crawl and it isn’t storming out, you have an obligation to go to work. If you don’t, Pattie Morgan, who writes up the
Parson’s Cove Weekly News
will announce it on the front page. That is a humiliation that few of us can handle.

Now that the wind had decided to head in a different direction, the afternoon was once again warm and pleasant. There was even the slight scent of spring in the air, which was a delusion because spring was a long way off. It was, however, enough to make us feel sorry for ourselves, knowing that sometimes there’s a lull before a storm.

Instead of going in the backdoor, I walked to the post office first to pick up my mail. I must say that Bob Crackers was right on the ball. There was already a statement for my furnace, saying that I’d made the first payment of one hundred dollars. It was a good thing I’d decided to come to work. I was already ninety-seven dollars behind on my very first payment. I definitely had visions of my retirement fund vanishing before my eyes.

I unlocked the shop door and walked in. Not, however, before stopping to admire Esther’s scarf and hat in the window. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do if someone insisted on buying them. Of course, I had so much other stuff to sell that it wouldn’t be hard to talk someone into making a different purchase.

Or would it?

I gazed around the room. I blinked several times, took off my mitts and rubbed my eyes. When that didn’t work, I closed my eyes as tight as I could and then quickly opened them. That didn’t work either. I was losing either my eyesight or my mind.

Obviously, someone had made a surprise visit during the night. The shelves were empty and the walls were bare. All of Beulah Henry’s keepsakes had disappeared!

Reg told me afterwards that I didn’t even have to phone him; he heard my bloodcurdling scream all the way to the police station.

Chapter Fourteen

“Calm down, Mabel.” Reg Smee kept patting my hand as if that would solve everything. “We’ll catch these crooks. They won’t get far.”

I pulled my hand away.

“Reg, they’re probably miles away already. You’ve wasted fifteen minutes just sitting here patting my hand.”

I didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings but time was of the essence. The longer he sat in the wicker chair, trying to console me, the farther away the van or truck or whatever it was, carrying all of Beulah’s possessions, would be.

“Have you even checked the footprints by the backdoor yet?” I wondered.

Reg sighed, got up from the chair and pulled on a bright red woolen cap. He zipped up his jacket, which completely concealed his identity as a police officer and sighed again.

“Mabel,” he said, “I did that before I even came in to see you.” He stopped and stared at me. “You don’t have much confidence in me, do you?”

I reached out and tugged at his sleeve. I needed this man.

“You know I have complete confidence in you. It’s just that I’m very upset. How am I going to pay for my furnace if I don’t have anything to sell?”

I guess in all the commotion Reg had forgotten about our Beulah-sales-furnace deal.

He nodded and gave me a sympathetic look. A look like that, coming from my sheriff, was almost a miracle in itself. It’s not too often that Sheriff Smee feels sorry for me, no matter what difficult situation I’ve found myself in.

“Don’t worry about that now. We’ll make sure you get everything back and you’ll get your furnace paid for, too.”

He opened the front door and looked back at me, trying to give me a reassuring smile, but not pulling it off.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Reg: why would anyone steal all that stuff unless it was worth a lot of money? And, I mean, lots and lots of money.”

Reg stood with the door open. He stared outside as if somehow there must be an answer written in the clouds. He turned back to me.

“There’s something going on here, Mabel, that’s maybe bigger than what we think. This is no simple last-minute burglary. These people knew exactly what they were after. There aren’t even any vehicle tracks by your back door. Someone wiped them all out. I told the boys to try to get some prints from the doorknob but I already know there won’t be any. Besides, in this weather, they’d be wearing gloves anyway.”

“You realize, Reg, that someone in Parson’s Cove did this. Who else would know Beulah’s things were in my shop? Everyone knows my backdoor is always unlocked. Can you believe that someone from here is stupid enough to try pulling this off? And if they do manage to get away with it, what are they going to do? They’d have to have someone to buy it up right away. It’s someone really stupid or there’s someone in Parson’s Cove with a shrewd criminal mind; someone we’ve been friends with all along and they’ve totally pulled the wool over our eyes. Maybe for years, Reg. Maybe they’ve been living this lie for years and years. It could be someone’s father or grandfather. It could be Doctor Fritz or Sam Ketchum. Who knows? It could be anyone.”

Sam, who does tax returns and the doc were the only two intelligent men I could think of off-hand.