I leaned an arm on the desk. “Nell was your aunt, right?” She nodded, barely. “Where do your parents live?”
“In Ohio. But they’re in Guatemala right now. They do missionary stuff out there. I was stayin’ with Aunt Nell for the summer.” Her nose crinkled.
I began watering the droopy plants on the windowsill. “The sheriff found your mom and dad’s phone number in Nell’s house. He’s gonna let them know you’re safe,” I said. “They’ll be here as soon as possible.”
She sat up straight, tapping the pen. “Ed’s also has Cherry Bomb-bomb,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me with the most soulful eyes I’d ever seen. They were the color of topaz, large, familiar eyes that made me forget about the step-back and the popsicle and my date with Clint. The ponytail bobbed around, and she drew a long snaky tail without looking up. “Aunt Nell’s dead, isn’t she?”
I spilled water on my shoes. “I’m afraid so, Merry. I’m sorry.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. She was drawing again. The dragon would wear a baseball cap. “I’ve only known her sometimes. My mom and dad are doctors, they go to India, Bolivia, Chicargo, places like that where poor people need shots. You know, vaccinations. When they can’t take me along, I stay with Aunt Nell at her antique shop. It’s always in the summertime.” She printed her name at the bottom of the drawing, adding a star to the end of the y.
I pulled up a stool and sat beside her. “Nell was pretty nice, huh?”
She nodded. “She let me sit by the cash register and draw. She loved all that stuff in there. I did, too. It smelled like the olden days. We played hide-and-seek in there sometimes. She’s got an ugly boyfriend who brings in all that stuff by the truckload. She made him and a bunch of other men put that big old thing at the top of the stairs, you know that big black thing that fell on top of her. She was trying to get it into her house, the back part, where she lives. When that didn’t work, she told ’em to set it at the top of the stairs for now so we could all see how big and beautiful it was. She talked about furniture like it was people. Her boyfriend wanted that big chest for free, but she wouldn’t let him have it. She said she wanted it for herself. Must’ve been worth a gazillion dollars.” Her grin was subdued, fake.
She tapped the pen slowly, thinking. “My mom and dad might let me stay here all summer. I could sleep on that couch.” She pointed with the pen to a sofa in the loft area of my office. This time, her smile went all the way up to her gums. My scowl was minor. She crossed her legs, pink from the sun, found a clean legal pad on the desk, and sketched. Baby dragons followed a big dragon across the page. “What kinda office is this, anyhow? P.I. What’s that?”
“I help—”
“Is it like a detective?” She lifted the pen and frowned at me. I sort of nodded. “Wow. You have a magnifier glass and stuff like that?” Her eyes were two melting caramels.
“Not really—”
“You spy on bad people?” She’d stopped drawing altogether.
“It’s a little different—”
“You gonna find out who killed Aunt Nell?” She swiveled the chair around.
“I thought it was an accident,” I said, cautiously.
“Somebody pushed that thing over.” She swiveled about, unnerving me.
I tried to shrug. “Aunt Nell was probably tugging on a drawer and—” She spun around, one full turn. I stopped the chair with my arm. “What happened, Merry?”
“You’ll let me stay here?”
No, no, no, no, no. The sheriff is coming to get you, he’ll make arrangements for you to stay in some other strange place until your parents can get here. I couldn’t say it. What I said was ten times worse. “Merry, honey, I have to go to the movies with somebody, a man somebody. It’s a date, and, well—” I sounded so foolish I couldn’t finish. Besides that her mouth was starting to pucker. “Okay, Merry, okay. You won’t have to leave here until your parents come. Tell me, what happened?” Now my voice was too intense.
She sighed, started another dragon, this time a tall skinny one wearing polka dots. “They acted funny when I told ’em about Aunt Nell. I rode over there on my bike, and I was pulling on Miss Rosalie’s arm to come help, and she just told that Hancil man to put the ironing board in the back of the car. I rode back to the shop, and they came after me.”
“Where were you when Nell — when the accident happened?”
“At Ed’s Dairy Cheer. I ride down there on my bike every day after lunch for a popsicle. It’s not that far.”
I stifled my urge to count the number of popsicles she’d devoured in an afternoon. “Nell had given you permission to ride down to Ed’s? And she was okay before you left?” I was walking semicircles behind her.
“Yeah.” She was nodding, the ponytail bobbing furiously. “I hid my bike under the porch, then got under a drop table in Aunt Nell’s shop, and they came in there to find me. I said a prayer, then you came in.”
I have to admit I was flattered, being an object of divine intervention and all, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the El Camino packed with boxes, a lamp, the ironing board. Rosalie had said they were going on vacation, and I’d been confused, wondering what kind of original oddball would take an ironing board and a lamp on vacation. “Are you saying they were just pretending to help Nell?” I asked.
She nodded.
“They got all interested in it the minute you walked in.” The dragon wore clown shoes.
“Was Rosalie nice to you, before?”
“Kind of. She’d come in to shop for knickknacks and stuff. Sometimes she’d buy me coloring books and stickers. I liked her okay until today. She called me a name. I didn’t like the way she said it.” She drew little dragon puppets on the skinny dragon’s outstretched hands. “Do you think I’m vinegary?”
“Nope. But I like vinegar. Used to drink it right out of the bottle when I was your age.” She laughed, high and giggly, then got back to the dragon.
I wandered around the office in the same circle, remembering Rosalie’s words after I’d introduced myself. Small world... I rifled through a couple of drawers in Jeb’s file cabinet, but I couldn’t find a file on Rosalie Sikes or anybody named Timmons, then opened the closet door in the loft area and braved the catacombs again, this time feeling nothing but a sense of urgency I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
I hoisted out a box of files containing the S’s and T’s, then shut the closet door with my foot, catching sight of Rosalie Timmons herself strutting up my office steps wearing the same pink outfit hanging off her thin bony frame. Her mouth was set in a permanent frown as she reached the top step. I continued to hold the box.
“I could cause you a lot of trouble.” She shook a finger in my face. “Taking that child off like that in that rickety old rattletrap of a truck! That’s what I’d call kidnapping.” I glanced at Merry, who’d already scampered beneath the desk.
“She’s just fine here with me, and besides, I called the sheriff—”
“Sheriff! He don’t have the right to give you permission to take an unknown child into your home!” I noticed Hancil toddling across the service porch outside. Rosalie stiffened, reminding me of her ironing board, and held her voice low. “She knows me, Miss Murdock, and I will take her home with me now. Merry? Merry, honey-pie?” She proceeded to flit about my loft like a pink mosquito. “Come to Miss Rosalie, sweetheart, I’ve got some dumplin’s on the stove. Is Merry hungry?”
I dropped the box and stood in front of my office door, propping my arms against the door casings. She actually laid a hand on me, trying to push her curly bleached head under my arm. “Merry, I am taking you home!” She shook her spindly fists in the air and stomped her pink shoes to make her point.