“You’ll probably want the canning kettle to cook that quantity,” Beth said.
“I’ll get it,” Harriet offered and got up.
She had just returned to the kitchen carrying the large pot when the phone rang in the living room. She set the kettle on the counter and continued on to answer it.
Lauren and Mavis followed her and stood expectantly in front of the fire.
Harriet listened for a few minutes then said, “Good work…No, that’s great. We can’t expect they’ll tell all just because we started listening. Keep up the good work, but don’t put yourself in jeopardy. Okay, talk to you tomorrow.” She turned to the group. “That was Carla.”
“No joke,” Lauren said, and Mavis poked her.
“What did she say, honey?”
“She hasn’t heard much yet. Aiden said he wished Michelle had some proof to back up what she was saying, but neither one of them said what that was.”
“That’s it?” Lauren said.
“She hasn’t been able to place her second set of monitors yet. She said she’s waiting until everyone goes to bed; then she can put the two wireless remote units in play.”
“I’m going to take the dogs out and head up to bed,” Mavis said. “You want me to take Carter?”
“No, I’ll come with you.” Lauren jostled the little dog out from her sweatshirt.
“I’ll see you ladies in the morning,” Harriet said. “I’m going to go read.”
She truly had intended to read, but she couldn’t concentrate on her novel and instead lay awake in bed going over and over the events of the day in her mind. When she finally fell into an exhausted sleep, Duane was still dead, and she had no idea who was responsible.
Chapter 15
It was after nine o’clock when Harriet came downstairs the next morning. She had gotten up and done what she hoped was an adequate rendition of her exercise routine. It was an activity she usually did with the guidance of a muscular young man named Lars who slept in her DVD player, awaiting the summons of the remote control to spring into action.
She’d followed her workout with a warm shower, thankful that someone else must be up and feeding Fred-he’d left her during sit-ups, an activity he normally felt required his supervision.
“Where is everyone?” she asked Mavis, who sat alone with a cup of tea at the kitchen table.
“Your aunt is taking her shower, and Jorge went for a drive to see how the roads are and whether the Muckleshoot is down enough for him to cross the bridge and get to his restaurant. Lauren and Carter went with him.”
The aroma of cooking pinto beans filled the air, and a stack of handmade tortillas sat waiting on a plate at the side of the stove.
“Jorge’s been busy,” Harriet said.
“He does like his cooking. And he’s a bit of a ham, I’d say.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s been practicing his questions for the truckers. He’s changed clothes twice, an activity that was hindered by the fact he’s limited to the ones he had in his truck and we don’t have the means to either wash or iron them. He’s redone his hair three times and might have gone for a fourth, but Beth told him to stop wasting water.”
“If he goes too overboard he’s going to blow it for us. They aren’t going to talk to us if he goes in like some sort of beggar from The Threepenny Opera.”
“You can try to talk to him if you want, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.” Mavis returned to reading the week-old newspaper that lay on the table.
“I’m sure Lauren wouldn’t mind if you used her wind-up radio to hear something a little more current.”
“It’s not the same,” Mavis said and readjusted her glasses before returning to her reading.
“Okay, fine,” Harriet muttered to herself.
She was about to get her jacket and go outside when the phone rang. She dashed for the dining room and managed to pick up the receiver before it quit.
It turned out to be Carla.
“It sounds like she’s trying to talk him into going back to Africa,” she reported. “She told him that going far away was the only real way he could start over. I don’t get it. Why does he need to start over? He’s barely gotten settled here.”
“Think about it,” Harriet said. “If he goes back to Africa on a permanent basis, he won’t need his big house and cars.”
Carla gasped. If Aiden didn’t live in his big house, he wouldn’t need a housekeeper.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, but I’m thinking this is Michelle taking another run at getting her hands on Aiden’s money.”
“Can’t he see what she’s doing?” Carla asked.
“Ordinarily, yes, but she’s obviously found something to scare or intimidate him with. That’s what we need to figure out. What does she have on him?”
“She doesn’t give up easy, does she?” Carla said. “He’s turned down her calls for money a lot just since I’ve been working there.”
“She’s determined, I’ll give her that.”
“Why doesn’t she just work?” Carla wondered. “Isn’t she some kind of attorney?”
“Yes, and she works at it, but Aiden said it’s simple-she spends more than she and her husband make. He said she was like that as a kid, too. She was always trying to con him and his brother out of their allowance.”
“But she’s older than him,” Carla protested.
“You got it. He was in grade school, and she was in high school, talking him out of his lunch money, according to my aunt.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yes, it is. That’s why I’m sure she’s running some sort of scam on him, using his goodness and loyalty to get him to leave town and hand over his money. Your mission is to listen more and see if you can figure out what her angle is this time.”
Carla agreed to do to her best and rang off.
Harriet again turned, intending to get her jacket and go outside to start assessing the cleanup that would be needed, when the phone rang again.
“Oh, good, you do have a working land line,” Tom Bainbridge said in place of a greeting.
“Hello to you, too. What’s up?”
“I’m going a little stir-crazy here and was wondering if you wanted to take another ride out to the homeless camp with me.”
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Harriet said. “I’d love to go. Jorge and the rest of my crew here are planning on taking a hot lunch of bean-and-rice burritos to the homeless folks in just a while.”
“Do you need to go with them?”
“Not at all. In fact, I think a little space would help us all. I’m ready whenever you want to leave.”
“In that case, I’ll be there in less than thirty minutes. I’ll be driving my host’s pickup this time, so we’ll be a little more comfortable.”
True to his word, Tom arrived a half-hour later. Harriet met him in the driveway, a dog leash in each hand, Curly and Pamela circling and scratching in the leaves under one of the trees that lined the drive.
“Looks like you have your hands full there,” Tom said as he got out of the red pickup. The cargo bed had several cases of water and canned goods and more plastic-wrapped plates of homemade cookies.
“Wow,” Harriet said. “Is there no end to your host’s stockpile?”
“Doesn’t seem like it, does it?” Tom said. “They’re good people, but they like to be prepared for any eventuality, up to and including nuclear holocaust. And, yes, they do have full chemical/gas protective suits, complete with tanks of oxygen.”
“Wow,” Harriet repeated.
“They really are nice people, apart from the disaster preparation thing. And you sort of forget about it once you get used to them.”
“If you say so,” she said with a smile.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Jorge and Lauren and Aunt Beth are driving to the camp to deliver the burritos, and we all thought we’d see if we could help with cleanup. I already put some rakes and trimmers and stuff like that in the back of Jorge’s truck.”