Trophies (6 page)

"If my theory is correct," I said, "there's
something inside this keyhole and it's not a pine needle — ah hah,
I've got it."

I pulled out the tweezers. They gripped half
of a toothpick, broken raggedly down the middle.

"A key wouldn't have worked very well even if
you'd had one," Caren said. "How did that get in there, o man of
many talents?"

Sore as I felt, her appreciation was a balm.
"It's a trick professional thieves use when they want to make
certain they aren't disturbed while ransacking a house."

"And it would have worked if you hadn't
picked the lock. Charles, did the burglar pick that lock, too? Why
didn't he just kick in the back door or break a window, or
something?"

I sat back and got comfortable. The porch
faced south, but the big oaks in the yard shaded it from the direct
sun and it was almost as cool as inside. "You're right, he
could've. But he didn't. He chose an unobtrusive means of entry.
And if we'd tried the knob and made a fuss when it wouldn't open,
he'd have been warned and left before we walked around to try the
back door."

"Surely he realized we'd catch onto his trick
sooner or later."

"Yes, but by then our murderer would have
been long gone. And I'm certain he wore gloves while he worked, so
this would have gone on police records as another unsolved
break-in." I tapped the tweezers against my propped-up knee.

"Perhaps someone hired a professional burglar
to search the house." She tilted her head, eyebrows up,
personifying her question.

"Perhaps, but on the phone, he said, 'They're
mine.' That's personal, not professional."

"All right, he's after something he wants for
himself."

"Something he believes Aunt Edith has." I
couldn't yet bring myself to speak of her in the past tense.

And Caren, bless her, didn't comment. "But
obviously not something she carried with her. Otherwise he would
have gotten it from her last night."

A new thought wrenched my insides like a
flashback. "And perhaps then she might not have been murdered." The
battle for self-control wasn't one I wanted to lose in front of
Caren. I fought and pushed back the raw emotions, drumming my
fingernails on the porch. "Maybe she doesn't actually have what
he's looking for."

"If she told him that, he didn't believe
her." With no sense of bedside manner, Caren slapped my noisy hand,
not gently, then raised the frying pan over it.

I jerked my hand to safety and wrapped both
arms about my propped-up knee: if they couldn't move, then they
couldn't start any more nervous mannerisms and irritate this woman
while we were getting along so well. Granted, I hadn't yet answered
my own question as to precisely how well I wanted to get along with
her. Was I subconsciously considering dating her again? Damn it,
Patty could have called someone else. Anyone else.

But even after that battle for self-control,
my clasped hands were steady about my knee. The shakes were past. I
hadn't fallen apart. Even without drugs or her little black bag,
this gorgeous doctor had taken care of me.

"Laughter really is the best medicine, isn't
it?"

"Mmm." Her eyes smiled at me again.

Impulsively, just to see how it felt, I
reached out and cradled her cheek in my palm. Brown hair, soft as a
child's, caressed the back of my hand, and her eyes glowed. Oh, I
loved her eyes. They were so deep a man could fall headfirst into
them and I usually did. Caren had this way of looking at me, not
intending any flirtation — I knew that for a fact — but with a
soulful brown gaze that was more intimate than sex with any other
woman I'd ever known. I loved that look, but it also embarrassed
me, as if I was a little boy caught doing something naughty. We'd
never gone to bed, had never gotten past casual kissing because she
wasn't going there until she had some sort of commitment from me;
and sometimes in the still watches of the night I wondered. If her
expression was this intimate during casual conversation, what would
those wonderful eyes be like in the depth of passion? During my
more honest moments, I wondered if that was my subconscious reason
for breaking off with her: in the depth of passion, could I match
her intimacy? Would I want to?

She glanced at my hand, then back to me. I
withdrew and stared at the roses. Our break-up had hurt her. She
seemed accepting, even inviting, but I'd have to earn her trust
again.

"Caren—"

"Dinner tonight would be lovely." Those
crinkle lines encircled her eyes. She'd scored again.

"Would you mind staying over for a few
days?"

Her gaze slid sideways, toward the roses,
away from me.

"I don't mean that," I said. "All right, I do
mean that, too, but not this time. See, he might have gotten your
license plate number. If he has any resources, that would be easy
enough to trace."

Her expression sharpened. "And you think he
might come after one of us?"

"Well, I wouldn't want him to have a hostage,
especially as I don't have a clue what he's looking for. But the
guest room's lovely. You'd like it."

Caren stared at the frying pan as if it was
suddenly important. I examined my fingernails, which needed
trimming. It would be inappropriate to say anything about my room,
of course.

"Charles," she said, speaking to the pan,
"maybe he's looking for something Edith refused to give him, even
though he threatened to kill her."

"Let's start looking." I stood and offered
her my hand. "Let's see if we can figure out what was so important
Aunt Edith died for it."

seventeen years earlier

Word of my career ambition spread like a
jungle drumbeat through the first-year crowd. By the time I settled
into bed that evening, nightlamp on and a boring science reader
camouflaging Cartier's journal, I was the class pariah. The kid in
the next bed wouldn't look at me even when I farted, which was both
funny and irritating. Being ignored in large chunks got old
fast.

Heavy dusk peered through the open window
above my bed, the late summer warmth laden with the scents of
honeysuckle and the nearby woodland. A cricket and owl argued, as
mismatched a pair as myself and my surroundings, and the last rays
of the sun lit sparks from the windowpanes above my feet.

Cartier's first journal entries were tame
stuff, probably dating back to his early days at the school judging
by the loopiness of the handwriting and no more than the comments
anybody might make about his classmates and teachers. But as the
pages passed beneath my fingers and the years passed in his life, a
spikiness developed as the content and tone changed. Enthusiasm
about Hardenbrook's soccer prowess gave way to comments about "that
ruddy bugger and his rules," and respect for Headmaster Tufton
degenerated to musings regarding his inclinations between the
sheets.

I was sophisticated enough to know what it
meant. I simply wasn't mature enough to care. Besides, it rang
blatantly false and I believed not a word of it. But one thing was
clear even to me: Cartier's journal was utter dynamite. And it was
set to explode all over him.

I slipped the journal beneath my mattress and
placed the reader openly on the nightstand, then leaned over and
tugged the lamp's chain. Darkness consumed my corner of the room.
The other first-years had already retired and the remainder of the
dorm was black and still.

But light still flowed into the room through
the window. I peered below the panes into the night. It came from
the next wing over, where a wash of lamplight escaped a set of
opened shutters and window. Two heads leaned together, a frantic
hand waving. One head glowed auburn, the other yellow, and for the
first time in my life I felt a rush of pure hate. They sneered at
us and taunted us and tried to make us fear them, simply because we
were young and small. In that moment of sudden clarity I decided I
didn't want to be anything like them, ever. I was glad Langstrom's
sister hadn't cried.

Somehow I was going to get them.

Four days later, I knew the night watchman's
routine as well as he did, even if I did nod off in science and
math (never literature or history). I waited until the bell-tower
clock boomed out two, dressed in my darkest clothes, and tugged on
a pair of thick black socks; shoe-sole prints could be traced, but
wool was wool. Then I slipped out the window into the night.

The cricket sang, a shrill soprano, but the
owl had fallen silent. Overhead the sky was awash with brilliant
stars, none of which my uneducated mind recognized but which lit my
path even in the moon's absence. A quick rush took me to the inner
corner of the building and behind some clustered bushes, not grand
enough to be termed a hedge in England. I crouched in their lee as
a flashlight beam rounded the corner of the wing. My breathing came
in shallow puffs, despite the shortness of the dash, and I couldn't
restrain a stupid little grin. The night itself spoke to me, like
an extension of my senses into something older and deeper than
myself, and it was glorious.

The watchman's beam swept across the garden
between the wings, paused on the fourth-years' open window, then
swept back. Heavy footsteps thumped across the lawn. Beneath their
tread I heard the rapid drumming of my heart as I willed him away.
Then the light and footsteps vanished around the next corner and
the night's adventure stretched before me.

Another quick rush and I peered through the
fourth-years' window. Beneath my nose stood a nightstand the twin
of my own, right down to the lamp and the reader. To the left
stretched a twin bed, the shadow of another off to the right, and
from both came raucous snores. The depths of the room were
impenetrable, but the rest of Hardenbrook's fourth-years, five of
them according to my admittedly inadequate math skills, had to be
back there. The possibility of being caught, rather than unnerving
me, only made my heart beat a trifle faster and brought that
ever-ready grin back to life.

I squirmed over the casing into the dorm. My
eyes had adjusted to the night and the tow hair splayed across one
pillow was as clear as the dark across the other. The louder snores
came from Cartier, sprawled on his back with his mouth hanging
open, and the sight aroused not a whit of pity. A clique was
forming amongst the first-years to force these two to let us alone.
I'd made no move to join; if my plan was successful, theirs would
be moot. Besides, my role as class pariah, while getting old, had
not yet worn so thin that I was in any hurry to change my
attitude.

The footlocker at the end of Cartier's bed
was padlocked. Perhaps I could pick it, but there was no need. His
slacks were tossed across a nearby chair, his navy sport coat with
its rugby pins beneath it, and in one pocket was the key. The
hinges didn't even creak.

I suppose there was some noise as I scrabbled
about inside the footlocker. Off to the right, near the head of the
room, a sleepy voice called, "Who's that?"

I froze. It sounded like Thomasson, the
prefect. To my sensitive ear there was no suspicion in his voice,
only accusation. He lived with the class bullies, so he knew all
about them. Would he mistake any noises made by my thieving self
for their latest shenanigan? If there was a hue and cry, could I
escape out the window and lose pursuit by cutting through the
greenhouse? Or, failing that, by doubling back through the bell
tower? Anticipatory tingles shivered up my spine and all the way
down my arms to my fingertips, buried in Cartier's violated
underwear.

"You bloody sods." Thomasson already sounded
half-asleep again. Bed springs creaked, linens rustled, and the
room fell into an uneasy silence.

My groping fingers closed on something hard
and cylindrical, and the push of an indented button proved it to be
a penlight. After that, it was easy. The narrow beam flickered over
tumbled clothing — shirts, socks, tightie-whities. And buried
amongst the pile was the good stuff, a spyglass and Swiss Army
knife, beneath them the crinkly pages of a magazine. I slipped
those three plus the penlight into my pockets, eased down the lid
and locked it, returned the key to its proper pocket — resisting
the urge to put it into another one for fun — then squirmed out the
window.

The security guard required thirty minutes
for each lap of the building and the bell-tower clock hadn't yet
chimed the half. So I ducked back behind my friends the privet
bushes and waited until his flashlight beam swept back and forth
across my dazzled eyes, then dogged his thumping footsteps halfway
around the building to the greenhouse. I hid the goods beneath the
piled ceramic pots and put myself back to bed, my grin bigger than
ever.

Cartier's magazine turned out to be a glossy,
full-color rendition of adults and near-adults of various
persuasions in what, even at my age, were compromising positions. I
knew sooner or later such ought to interest me, but in those days
it simply didn't draw. Saturday morning I stuffed it inside the
journal at what I considered the most incriminating entry, wrapped
both in a bit of sacking, and dropped the bundle onto the soccer
field before breakfast. First-year tryouts that day would prove
interesting enough to attend.

As luck would have it, it was Langstrom who,
while sending a graceless kick toward a ball that any fool could
tell was going to spin away from him, sprawled headfirst across the
bundle. Perhaps he wasn't utterly useless after all.

From the stands, I watched as Hardenbrook
trotted across the pitch, arriving as Langstrom scrambled up. They
conferred for a few mutually delighted moments — and I sneered at
the spectacle — then Hardenbrook lifted the sacking. He caught the
journal as it tumbled out and Langstrom snatched the magazine. My
sneer morphed into a grin. A bully I wouldn't be, but this was an
unexpected treat.