Slip and Go Die (A Parson's Cove Mystery) (9 page)

Besides the box of doughnuts, there was an empty coffee mug, a small plate and some odds and ends of cutlery on the table. The sink was empty. I opened the fridge. It was old. The motor kicked in when the door opened, sounding like an old Model T Ford. The fridge was empty except for a very stale sour odor. I sucked in my breath and shut the door.

From the kitchen, I went into the living room. Everything looked clean and tidy as I shone the light around. I tried being as quiet as I could going up the stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor but every stair seemed to have its own unique squeak. I worked my way to each bedroom. The rooms were clean. Someone had neatly made up the beds. The closets were empty. The last room to examine was the bathroom. Since it was windowless, I shut the door and turned on the light. There had been a few renovations made since my last visit to this room; there was now a new sink, toilet and bathtub. The flooring was still old, however, and the mirror above the sink was the same old tarnished one I’d seen before.

I checked the sink and the bathtub. There was nothing to indicate anyone had been in the room since last summer.

Could it be possible that someone had come in to find shelter from the storm and then had moved on? There was a good chance that was all it was. Everyone knows no one locks their doors in Parson’s Cove. So much for your murder theory, Mabel Wickles.

I made my way back to the kitchen. There was one place left: the basement. Was there any need for me to go down there? It wasn’t as if I’d witnessed someone removing a body from the house or heard a gunshot going off in the night.

On the other hand, I was here so why not check it out?

There had been no improvements made to the basement steps. They were as narrow and steep as they had been the last time I’d ventured down them. I switched the basement light on. The light consisted of a dull forty-watt bulb at the bottom of the stairs. It hung from the ceiling by a thick wire about a foot and a half long, covered with layers of dull white paint. The bulb gave off a yellowy jaundiced glow. I descended with care.

The basement looked the same. There was still a pile of empty moving boxes on one side, the furnace and hot water tank on the other side.

I could choose to look under the steps or not. I hesitated. The last time I’d examined that area I’d found a large pool of blood. It had been two years ago but sometimes it seemed like it was only yesterday; other times, it felt like a dream that I’d had a lifetime ago. A young woman was murdered in this very house. Her body, hidden behind these steps. The stain on the cement floor would be gone now, washed clean and disinfected.

Probably my biggest weakness is my curiosity. Maybe other people would think of other things but to me, that is my downfall. Perhaps, that’s why I get along so well with my cats. We understand each other.

I walked around the stairs and shone my light under them. It’s true the stain was gone but I could still see it–dark and red. I could smell it–sweet and sickening. My stomach lurched. I shut the flashlight off and moved to the bottom of the steps. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t breathe.

As I clung to the stair rung, ready to begin my ascent, I heard a door creak. Someone was opening the back door.

Chapter Ten

It didn’t happen often but, by some miracle, this night it did; my feet, my brain and my heart all went into action simultaneously. Not that it was of any advantage for my heart to start pounding wildly in my chest but, at least, it reassured me that I was still alive. It was advantageous, however, that I didn’t stand there with my feet glued to the floor in a state of shock. I’d whipped behind the steps and crouched beside the cement wall before the door upstairs even closed.

My only concern now was that dull light bulb that hung at the bottom of the steps. Would the person upstairs, who was now stamping his or her feet by the door, come down to check things out? Could I dare hope that whoever it was might think that someone had left the light on accidently and simply switch it off? I could only hold my breath and wait. Waiting is not one of my strong character traits.

On the other hand, I hadn’t considered one other scenario: what if my hiding place went undetected? The bulb was so dull perhaps whoever was up there wouldn’t even glance towards the basement. It wasn’t as if the stairwell was glowing with light. Then, when the intruder went to bed, I could simply sneak out the door. My heart rate started to descend slightly.

My hiding place was not warm. The older houses in Parson’s Cove did not have warm dry basements beneath them, they were built with cellars–dark holes dug into the ground–cold, damp, and musty smelling all year round. About thirty or forty years ago, everyone got the bright idea that we should have basements like all the modern houses have. You know, be like city folk. We hired some city contractor to come out, raise our houses off the ground and pour cement into our ‘basements.’ Now we have small musty-smelling cellars with cement walls. I moved my washer and dryer down the summer I had mine poured. The last time I ventured down there, both were rusted so badly they were almost unrecognizable. Jake and one of his sons (Jacob, Jr., who I think was still in diapers at the time) had such a difficult time lugging them down those steep narrow steps, there was no way I was going to ask them to bring them back up! Now I wash a few things out by hand and make a trip to the Sunshine Laundromat every three weeks.

The movement above me had stopped. Whoever was up there was probably sitting at the kitchen table. Maybe he was munching on a dried out doughnut.

All was quiet for several minutes but then, the sound of a voice drifted down my way. A female voice. The interloper was talking on her cell phone. (I guess I was an interloper of sorts myself, wasn’t I?) It had to be that because I knew there wasn’t a telephone in the house. Either that or she was talking to herself. No one was answering her. The woman spoke. There was silence. She spoke again. I could hear her but she was speaking too softly for me to make out all of the words. There was, however, no mistaking the anxiety in her voice. I wasn’t quite so afraid now. I was dealing with one person who happened to be another woman. This was taking for granted that this female wasn’t packing heat. You know, a gun.

Slowly, I tiptoed to the bottom of the stairs. I strained to hear. The voice sounded familiar, yet I knew it wasn’t someone I talked to every day. Or, was it just that the voice was similar to that of someone I knew? It seems sometimes the harder you try to concentrate, the more confused you become.

The soft quiet talking suddenly changed to a moaning cry.

“But, I can’t,” I heard her say. “She’ll know it was me. Please, don’t ask me to do this. I just want us to be together. That’s all I ever wanted. I need you. Please …”

If she said someone’s name, I missed it. The blasted furnace kicked in. Maybe if it had been a new one like mine, I still could have caught a few words but this one started up with a bang and that was the end of my eavesdropping. I slunk back behind the steps and waited to see what my fate might be.

A few minutes later I heard the door slam. Aw, perhaps my life had been spared because of a lover’s quarrel. I counted to one hundred before I attempted to make any sort of move. When I did, I crept carefully to the stairs. I looked up. The kitchen was dark. The mysterious stranger had switched off the light and bolted out the door before noticing the light coming up from the basement. Surely, they hadn’t been blind to the tracks in the snow though. No one, not even the most grief-stricken, lovesick fool could miss those. And they didn’t have to use their imagination to figure out where the tracks came from or led to. Would this mean that I might be in trouble or did it just mean that the person using the old Krueger house for a secret love nest might search for another place? I hoped not. Not that I enjoy it when someone’s heart breaks but it could turn out to be quite entertaining for yours truly. Sort of like looking at a soap opera out my very own kitchen window. It would certainly add some spice to my long, lonely, winter nights.

At this point, I must tell you that most of the people in Parson’s Cove live happy, healthy, monogamous, married lives. That doesn’t mean, however, that once in awhile there could be problems. After all, it is Parson’s Cove, not Paradise Cove. Of course, I might be jumping to conclusions thinking that the folks involved here were married (and not to each other). It’s just that if both were single there would be no reason to sneak around, would there?

I slowly placed one foot on each step, hoping no one was secretly hiding upstairs in wait. Each step produced its own musical chord, echoing like a cacophonous bugle band through the silent house. (At least, that’s how it sounded to me.) When my eyes were level with the kitchen floor, I stopped and closed them. If someone were sitting at the table with a gun pointed at my head, I didn’t want to see it. I waited. Nothing happened. I reached the landing and switched off the light. The moonlight pouring in through the window created a silvery sheen over everything. I tiptoed to the door and breathed a sigh of relief when I stood outside on the rickety wooden step. The mercury had dipped further down the thermometer while I’d been inside. My breath made a halo around my head. I stepped down and made my way home.

Phyl greeted me at the door, purring and rubbing against my leg. Usually when the door opens three or four try to escape, but tonight none of them even bothered to lift their heads. Perhaps they thought one fool in the family was enough.

I put some water in the kettle to make a cup of tea. The water was starting to simmer when I decided to go in a different direction. After all, it was almost two in the morning; I was not only exhausted, I was cold–inside and out. I turned off the element.

I quickly grabbed a glass tumbler from the cupboard, switched off the kitchen lights and made my way upstairs. Instead of going straight to my bedroom, I veered off into my sewing room. This is actually the room in which my mother gave birth to me. She talked so often about how painful the whole experience had been that I stay out of the room as much as possible. There is one thing that I do hide in it though: my bottle of gin. Flori doesn’t know it’s there or she’d have it poured down the sink before I could count to three.

An hour later, I drifted off to sleep. My body was warm, my brain was fuzzy and my bones had stopped aching. The moment before I slipped into the depths of my liquor-laden sleep, a picture of a woman slid across my mind. It was like a movie being played in slow motion. The woman in Krueger’s house!

Unfortunately, by morning the memory had vanished. It had been replaced with a throbbing headache.

Chapter Eleven

“Mabel, you look terrible. Are you coming down with something?”

Flori rushed over to place the back of her wrist on my forehead.

“I knew it. You didn’t dress warm enough last night and now you have a fever. You go home right this minute, young lady. You’re coming down with the flu. Half the people in Parson’s Cove are sick. How many times have I said that you should get a flu shot? Don’t forget, you have people coming in here day after day, wheezing and sneezing. And, then there’s all that money you touch. It is so filthy dirty. It was only a matter of time before you caught it.” She glanced around the shop, squinting, as if she were scanning a room filled with floating micro-organisms and parasites. “You have to take better care of yourself. We’re over sixty now, you know.”

“I’m all right. And, I do not have a fever. I have a bit of a headache, that’s all.”

Flori bent down to look into my eyes.

“Your eyes are bloodshot.” Her hand went up to my forehead again. “I think you should stop in and see Doctor Fritz. It would take only a minute. He could give you some antibiotics and you’d feel as good as new in a couple of days.”

I pushed her away. She had moved from checking my fever to peering into my ears.

“I don’t need to see Fritzy. All he ever does is stare at you and swing his stethoscope around in circles. There’s nothing wrong with me. My ears are just fine and my headache will be gone in an hour or two.”

Flori stood back, her hands on her hips and glared at me.

“Aha!”

“What’s that supposed to mean–aha?”

“That means, Mabel, you’ve been dipping into the gin again. That’s what that means, right?”

Well, after fifty years, it’s hard to put one over on Flori.

“I needed something to warm my bones. You’ve got Jake and I’ve got London Dry.”

“That’s not funny. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am. I’m very much ashamed.”