"Mavity, I'd like to keep these as evidence. I'll give you a receipt for them."
"Sure you can keep them. What are they?"
Harper looked at her, surprised. "Didn't you know that Dora had your financial statements?" He handed one of the packets to her.
She stared at the papers, at her name and address beneath Winthrop Jergen's letterhead. "These are my statements, from Mr. Jergen." She looked at Harper, puzzled. "Dora took my statements? Why would she do that? These are none of her business. Dora wouldn't…"
She hurried to the front room. They watched her open the bottom desk drawer, removing a similar stack of legal-size papers.
"But my statements are here."
She looked hard at Harper. Carefully she examined the two stacks.
"She copied them. See where I made some little notes? On the copies, you can barely see the pencil marks."
She sat down on the couch, looking very small. "Why would Dora do that? What could she want with my statements?"
Harper handed her the other set of legal-size papers that he had taken from the Sleuders' duffle bag. These statements had a different letterhead, under the name Cumming, and were dated the previous year, detailing the Sleuders' own stock earnings.
She looked at them, looked up at him. "I don't understand. Dora and Ralph had some investment problems last year, about the time these are dated."
"What kind of problems?"
"They were cheated of a lot of money. The men were caught, and one of them went to prison."
"Is that the name of the firm that cheated them?"
"It could be. Yes, I think it is."
"You said only one of the members was convicted?"
"Yes. Dora was very upset because the other man, Warren Cumming, went free."
"Did Greeley know about the swindle?"
"Oh, yes. He wrote me all about it-he was furious. And of course Dora called me several times. She'd get so angry, with the trial and all." She looked again at the Sleuders' statements.
"Look here, at Dora's little squiggly marks beside some of these stocks. I have some of the same stock. Coca-Cola, Home Depot. Maybe," she said, "maybe Dora was comparing how much she and Ralph made on that stock-before they were swindled- with how much I've made. It doesn't really make sense, but Dora's-was funny that way. And she was so bitter about their loss. Well, anyone would be bitter!"
Harper put his arm around her. "Later today, when you feel up to it, would you come down to the station and give me a formal statement?"
"Yes, if I have to." She was very pale. "I'll look for Greeley first, and then I'll come. I-I'll need to make arrangements- funeral arrangements."
"Not yet," Harper said. "I'll let you know when you can do that. You don't have any idea where Greeley might have gone? Where he might have stayed last night?"
"No. He's a night owl. But he can't go very far without a car- he's too cheap to take a cab."
She moved away from Harper, looking up at him. "Thank you, Captain Harper. Soon as I get myself together I'll drive around the village, see if I can find him. I don't know how I'm going to tell him about Dora."
Charlie stayed with Mavity for a while after Harper left, making her a cup of tea and fetching her an aspirin from the medicine cabinet. When Mavity felt better, she drove Charlie up to work, then went to look for Greeley.
Charlie, getting back to work, kept puzzling over Dora and Ralph. They had seemed such simple folk, plain and uncomplicated, not the kind to deceive Mavity, and surely not the kind to be into drugs. That strange twist, if it was true, put a whole new light on Dora and Ralph Sleuder.
Pulling on her painting shirt and climbing back on the ladder, she was unable to stop worrying over the Sleuders, unable to stop wondering what Harper would uncover when he looked into their background-wondering how much Mavity might not have known about her dead niece.
20
YOU'D THINK he'd have the courtesy to call me," Mavity complained, "but not Greeley. Always been that way. Walk out, gone a couple of days, and then home again and never a word." She'd pulled herself from the shocked, quiet state she'd been in that morning and was herself again, cross and abrasive, and Charlie was glad to hear the little woman grousing. They were in the back apartment, in the kitchen-office. It was three-thirty in the afternoon and Mavity, after searching futilely for Greeley, had just gotten to work.
"Ever since we were in high school, he's gone off like that. Drove Mama crazy. She called the police once, reported him missing, and when Greeley found out, he pitched a fit. Left home for three weeks, no one knew where." Mavity shook her head. "Mama never did that again-she just let him ramble." The little woman was wound tight, her voice brittle with worry. She had shown up dragging her cleaning things. "I need to do something. I can't bear to stay home by myself. I left him a note, to call me up here."
"If you feel like it, you can go up and help Pearl Ann. Mr. Jergen wanted some extras, and it had to be today. Some repairs- he wants the work done while he's out. Pearl Ann has a dental appointment so she can't stay too long, then she's catching the Greyhound to San Francisco."
"San Francisco? Pearl Ann never goes anywhere. I've never known her to do anything but tramp the cliffs. Hiking, she calls it. Why in the world is she going to San Francisco?"
Charlie laughed. "This will be her first trip to the city, and she seems thrilled. It'll be good for her. She wants to see the Golden Gate, Coit Tower, all the tourist stuff. I've never seen her so talkative. She even showed me the silk pants and blazer she bought for the trip.
"She'll have time to do Jergen's extras, if you help her. He wants the refrigerator cleaned, said the ice tasted bad. Pearl Ann missed it last week. And he wanted some repairs in the bathroom, said a towel rack had pulled out of the wall and the shower is leaking. It needs caulking-these old tile showers. I told him Pearl Ann had to leave early to catch her bus, but what does he care? You sure you feel up to working?"
"I'll feel better keeping busy. There's nothing I can do about Greeley, only wait. The police are looking for him," Mavity said darkly. Finishing her coffee, she headed toward the stairs carrying her cleaning equipment, and Charlie left to take care of the Blackburn house, do the weekly cleaning and half a dozen small repairs. This was her regular work, the kind of miscellaneous little jobs for which she had started Charlie's Fix-It, Clean-It and for which she was building a good reputation in Molena Point. What her customers valued most was being able to make one phone call, have the house cleaned and the yard work and repairs tended to all at once. One call, one stop. Her customers didn't know that every repair was a challenge, that she carried an entire library of helpful volumes in the van, detailed instructions to refer to if she ran into trouble. Only three times, so far, had she been forced to call in a subcontractor.
She was urging the old Chevy up the hill when she saw two cats racing through the tall grass and recognized Joe Grey's tailless gallop and his flashy white markings. Beside him, Dulcie blended into the grassy shadows like a dark little tiger. It still amazed her that they traveled so far. The freedom of their racing flight made her itch for paper and charcoal, and when they vanished into a tangle of Scotch broom, she slowed the van, watching for them to reappear.
They came out of the bushes suddenly and sat down near the street, regarding her van as she moved slowly by. They looked almost as if they knew the vehicle, as if they were quite aware that she was at the wheel and wondered what she was gawking at.