“It’s not good to live alone. Remember Noah’s ark? We’re supposed to go two by two.” Bettina said this with authority, biblical authority no less.
Serena gave the older woman a sideways glance then started to hum an old song about love.
Rachel smiled. “Two by two.” She grinned at Bettina, got up to rejoin the endless talk with Maureen. All about Maureen, of course.
Serena, voice low, said, “We all know you’ve got your eye on DoRe.”
“Honey, it’s better if DoRe has his eye on me. Tell you what, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life it’s that for a woman to make sure she gets what she wants…well, let’s just say it has to be the man’s idea.”
Serena, who married at seventeen, nodded. “It’s a lot of work.”
11
January 4, 2017
Wednesday
Harry, walking along the row of file boxes, nodded. “1984. The year he moved here.”
The two, in Gary’s office, had placed the file boxes back on the shelf. All the contents had been examined, the boxes fingerprinted, scanned. The little rubber dinosaur toys, some tins, wooden boxes were replaced, not being considered important. He kept odd little things: animal teeth, old feathers, cat’s-eye marbles. Given the shock of the public death, Sheriff Shaw called other law enforcement people in for a few days’ help. The work flew along gratifyingly fast. But no fingerprints on the boxes other than Gary’s and few at that. He must have rarely consulted these papers. Whoever lifted the materials wore gloves. Given the cold surely they’d wear gloves outside but the books had been inside. Forethought.
The bad weather kept most businesses closed. The two women observed no foot traffic, not much car traffic, either. The silence was unusual.
Cooper stood scanning the inviting work space. “Nothing else was touched. The ceramic bowl on his flat work desk contained forty-five dollars in neatly folded bills. Still there. His bathroom, no medication. Of course, that could have been stolen.”
Harry responded, “The only pill I ever saw him take, ibuprofen. He hated medication. He’d always tell me if I ever had another operation the drugs could be worse than the disease. I argued back but then again, when my breast cancer was discovered, it was a small tumor. Not advanced. No radiation or chemo. I was lucky. Five years, clean.” She took a deep breath. “Sorry. This is about Gary, not me.”
Cooper waved the apology away. “Your operation affected him enough that he worried about you. And doctors push drugs. Maybe he had past experience.”
“I don’t think so but perhaps his ex-wife did.” Harry offered that thought.
“I guess I’ll drop in on the ex–Mrs. Gardner, now Hulme. Never hurts to do that anyway.” Cooper sat down in the desk chair while Harry sat on the stool in front of the impressive antique drafting table.
The dog and two cats sniffed at the back door.
“Faint. Grease. A hint of grease.” Tucker lifted her nose.
Mrs. Murphy checked out the faint line just inside the door. “Car grease or motor oil, you think?”
“Gary parked his car in the back. Could have been on his boots.” Tucker sat down. “Nothing on the door. Sometimes a door will brush against a person and you know where they were last, like, at the supermarket. Supermarkets always smell the same.”
“They use the same cleaners.” Mrs. Murphy looked at the doorknob. “If the person came in the back door, the person who removed the files, they had to leave their scent. It’s been too long. Nothing. Just nothing.”
“They knew how to open locks or had a key.” Tucker listened to the two women talking in the workroom. The back door opened onto a small entrance, a coatrack and bench against the wall. Just a small square space, a bathroom there, and then the door into the workroom.
Pewter, uninterested in their door examination, batted at the floor along the wall. “A major spider!”
The ground spider, not a web spinner, lifted its front legs, ready to fight. Pewter took a step back. The other two came over to look at the spider.
“That is a biggie,” Tucker agreed.
Pewter batted at the eight-legged creature again. It moved with speed to the back door before she could catch it. Although she didn’t really want to catch it, she did want to chase it. A small chip in the baseboard gave the spider safety. She ducked in.
“Bet she has a nest in there,” Mrs. Murphy said.
“How could Gary work here and not know he was keeping a big spider?” Pewter questioned.
“The spider could hear him walking. The floor would tremble, right? So she could always hide.” Tucker was right about that.
Pewter watched the little chip in the baseboard, tapped it, then moved a few feet to the bottom of the door.
“Here’s another little space.” Pewter flattened, squinted, fished at the small space with an extended claw. “A dime.”
Disappointed, she dropped the dime, wasn’t exciting. The three walked into the workroom. The door between the small back entrance and the workroom was kept closed to conserve heat. Harry and Coop had parked in the back, entered through the back, and left the door to the workroom slightly ajar.
Harry looked at her friends, who walked in to sit at her feet.
“Spider patrol,” Pewter announced.
Harry smiled at the gray cat as she pulled out pencils from a jar clamped on the right side of the drafting table.
“Clever. This way he didn’t have to get up and down for pencils. The drafting board is on a slant. He was always coming up with ideas.” She read the inscription on the pencil. “Sanford Design Ebony Jet Extra Smooth 14420. All the same.” She lifted each one out. One was worn down a bit. The others sharp. “This must have been the one he was using that day. He sharpened them every morning.” She carefully replaced the pencils. “Makes me sick. Just sick. And it makes me mad.”