Читать книгу Wash And Die - Barbara Colley - Страница 10

Following her instincts, Charlotte first tried opening the front door without using her key. Sure enough, just as she’d suspected, Joyce hadn’t bothered locking it.

Careless. Careless and selfish…. But look on the bright side. Maybe Joyce found somewhere else to live.

“Yeah, and maybe pigs fly too,” she grumbled.

With a shake of her head, Charlotte stepped inside the living room. When she saw Joyce sprawled on her sofa, sipping a cup of what smelled like freshly brewed coffee, it took every ounce of willpower that Charlotte could muster to hold on to her temper.

Joyce glanced Charlotte’s way. “Hey, Charlotte.” She held out her coffee cup as if she were making a toast. “Finally home from the trenches, huh?”

Charlotte chose not to answer, but asked a question of her own. “How was the apartment hunting?”

“I found a couple of possibilities.”

Charlotte motioned toward Joyce’s coffee cup. “Is there any more of that left?”

“Oh, sure. Help yourself. I always make a full pot.”

“Help yourself”? In my own house, she’s telling me to help myself to my own coffee?

Before Charlotte said something that she would regret, she forced a tight-lipped smile and hurried to the kitchen. A few minutes later, armed with her own cup of coffee and her temper once again relegated to the simmering level, Charlotte settled in the chair opposite the sofa. For several minutes, she tried to relax and ignore Joyce and the television while she quietly sipped her coffee.

But trying to ignore Joyce and being able to do it were two different things. There was just no way she could stop thinking about the police detective casing out her house or the pawnshop incident. Regardless of what the ill-mannered shopkeeper had said, she simply couldn’t shake the feeling that Joyce had stolen something of hers and pawned it.

“We need to talk a minute,” she finally told Joyce.

Joyce glanced at Charlotte and shrugged. “So talk,” she said, turning her attention back to the television.

Charlotte glared at the other woman, and forced herself to silently count to ten. She tried once more. “I think you’ll want to give what I’ve got to say your full attention. Could you please turn off the TV?”

Joyce rolled her eyes. Then, with exaggerated gestures, she held out the remote and pressed the power switch. “Is that better? Satisfied now?”

Biting back the stinging retort that was on the tip of her tongue, Charlotte took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, between gritted teeth, she said, “When I left for work yesterday morning, I notice a man sitting in a black SUV parked across the street. Well, he was there again today, so I decided to see what he was up to. Come to find out, he’s a police detective.”

Charlotte paused for a reaction from Joyce, but nothing in her expression gave Charlotte a clue as to what was going on in Joyce’s head. “Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why a police detective would be parked in front of my house?”

“No!” Joyce snapped, her tone defiant. “Why should I be?”

“You really don’t know?”

“No, Charlotte, I really don’t know,” she drawled mockingly, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

Charlotte stiffened and saw red. “You’ve got that right,” she shot back. “For your information, he was here looking for you. He said it had to do with an ongoing investigation.”

Stone-faced, Joyce shook her head in denial. “That’s ridiculous,” she said evenly. “There’s no reason for the police to be looking for me. No reason at all.”

“And you don’t know a detective by the name of Aubrey Hamilton?”

Charlotte could have sworn that for just the briefest of moments, something akin to fear flashed in Joyce’s eyes, but then Joyce shook her head again and averted her gaze.

“No, I don’t.” Joyce stared at her hands as she picked her fingernails.

It was just a gut instinct, but Charlotte was certain that Joyce was lying through her pearly whites. For one thing, Joyce wouldn’t look her in the eye. But other than outright calling her a liar to her face, and with no way to prove she was lying, there was nothing Charlotte could do about it…at least not for now.

Charlotte stood. “How do you feel about gumbo for supper? I’ve got some frozen and it won’t take long to thaw it out.”

“If it tastes as good as what you brought me that time when I was staying at Louis’s place, then yum-yum. Is there anything that I can do to help?”

Charlotte was so shocked that it took a while for her to find her voice. That Joyce even remembered the incident—never mind acknowledging it—was totally unexpected. “Why, yes—yes, of course. You can cut up a salad while I put some rice on to cook.”

Charlotte waited until after they had eaten and were cleaning up the kitchen before bringing up the pawnshop incident. She had just put the last of the dirty dishes inside the dishwasher when, as casually as she could, she said, “One of the apartments that you’re considering must be in the French Quarter.”

Joyce was wiping off the table, but paused. “No, not really. I can’t afford any of those apartments.” She resumed wiping the table.

“That’s odd,” Charlotte said, still striving for a casual, nonconfrontational tone, “I could have sworn that I saw you this afternoon. It was right off St. Peter Street.”

Joyce laughed, but Charlotte could tell it was forced and as fake as a three-dollar bill.

Joyce shook her head. “Nope. Sorry, that wasn’t me. Must have been my double—you do know, they say that everyone has one. Besides, I’ve been right here since noon.”

Liar, Charlotte wanted to scream, but when she opened her mouth to confront Joyce, she made a split-second decision against confronting her and closed it. For one thing, she’d had a long day and she was tired—not really up to arguing or confronting anyone. Besides, at this point, even if she did confront her, and Joyce finally admitted she had been at the pawnshop, there was no way that Joyce was going to admit she’d stolen anything. Better to wait until she had some proof. And better to wait until she was rested up.

With a huge yawn that wasn’t faked, Charlotte said, “As soon as I fix the coffeepot, I think I’ll go to bed and read myself to sleep. Who knows, since I’m off tomorrow, I might even actually sleep late in the morning.” Charlotte didn’t expect a response, but she’d wanted to let Joyce know not to disturb her in the morning.

Joyce’s response was a shrug of indifference, and then she dropped the dishrag into the sink and headed for the living room.

Charlotte stared at the wadded-up, dirty dishrag. The least Joyce could have done was rinse it out and drape it across the edge of the sink to dry so that it wouldn’t sour overnight.

Using the tips of her forefinger and thumb, Charlotte gingerly picked up the dishrag and took it to the laundry room. Back in the kitchen, as Charlotte filled the coffeemaker with water, she heard the sound of the television. Rolling her eyes, she spooned coffee into the basket and set the timer.

Once in her bedroom, Charlotte closed the door, then stood staring at the doorknob for several minutes, her thoughts on the lies that Joyce had told her.

Charlotte hated being so suspicious of every little thing, and she hated not feeling safe in her own home, but over the years, she’d learned to trust her instincts. She’d also learned that it was foolish not to take precautions. The one thing that she didn’t want was to wake up in the middle of the night and find Joyce burgling her bedroom, or worse. At this instant, her instincts were screaming at her, Better to be safe than sorry. Just do it.

I didn’t lock the door last night, she silently argued.

But you should have.

“Okay, okay,” she muttered as she locked the door. Then, as an added safeguard, she wedged the extra kitchen chair that she always kept in her bedroom beneath the doorknob.

When Charlotte awoke on Thursday morning, she allowed herself the luxury of simply lying in bed a few minutes, and doing nothing more than staring up at the ceiling. After months of getting harangued by her son, Hank, to cut back her hours, she had finally given in and decided to take Thursdays off, as well as the weekends. Hank would have preferred that she retire, but Charlotte had put her foot down and flat-out refused.

“Humph, that’s like ‘the pot calling the kettle black,’” she grumbled. Her son should think about taking his own advice and cutting back, especially considering all the hours that he’d been working lately.

She might not be an important surgeon like her son, but she liked what she did for a living and she was good at it. As long as she was physically able to continue working, and as long as she enjoyed it, she couldn’t see the sense in retiring…at least not yet.

A slow smile pulled at Charlotte’s lips. Of course once her little grandbaby was born, she might have to rethink her position on the matter of retiring, especially if her daughter-in-law, Carol, decided to resume her nursing career and needed help with the baby. And who knows? Maybe Hank would consider cutting back his hours once the baby was born.

Spotting the beginnings of a cobweb in the corner near the window, Charlotte made a mental note to dust the edges of the ceiling when she did her weekly cleaning on Saturday. Then her gaze slid to the door. The sight of the chair wedged beneath the doorknob was an unpleasant reminder that she wasn’t alone in the house.

Hmm, maybe she would confront Joyce today about all of the lies she’d told. Or even better, maybe she would work up enough courage to tell her she had to find another place to stay.

After a trip to the bathroom, Charlotte’s nose detected the scent of freshly brewed coffee, and like a cat drawn to catnip, she headed for the kitchen. Her thoughts still on the situation with Joyce, she finally decided that she would give Joyce one more day to find her own place, and if she hadn’t found somewhere else to live by then…

Charlotte sighed and shook her head. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t just throw Joyce out on the street. She walked over to the cabinet and poured herself a cup of coffee. No, she couldn’t throw her out on the street, but she could speed Joyce’s departure by helping her find somewhere else to live.

With her thoughts occupied by possible places that Joyce could live, Charlotte didn’t notice the piece of paper on the kitchen table until she sat down right in front of it.

“If it had been a snake, it would have bit you,” she whispered as she leaned forward and read the scrawling handwriting on the piece of paper. It was a brief note from Joyce letting Charlotte know that she had left early due to an appointment to look at an apartment.

“At least she had the decency not to wake me,” Charlotte muttered, her eyes straying to the Thursday Times-Picayune folded neatly beside the note. That Joyce had even thought to bring in the newspaper was another surprise. “Probably so she could look at the rental ads,” Charlotte muttered again.

For Pete’s sake, Charlotte, stop being so distrustful and such a cynic about everything.

Not liking what her conscience was telling her, Charlotte sipped her coffee. She didn’t like being distrustful or cynical. She didn’t used to be that way. So was it part of getting older, or was it from being around Joyce?

Charlotte stared out the window as she finished her coffee. She didn’t have an answer, but, cynic or not, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Joyce was stealing from her. With a sigh, she set down her cup. There was only one way to know for sure.

Charlotte didn’t have a lot of valuables, just a few nice pieces of jewelry that she’d inherited from her mother, a gold watch that had belonged to her father, and some silverware. She kept most of her valuables scattered in little hidy-holes throughout her house. That way, if a thief found one place, he might think that was all there was and leave the rest alone.

“Auntie, you really should get a nice strong safe….”

Her niece’s words played through her mind as she headed for the first hiding place, a bedside-table drawer in her bedroom that she’d lined with velvet.

When she first opened the drawer, she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her, so she pulled it completely free from the table and set it on top of the bed to get a better look.

“Oh, no,” she groaned.

Her mother’s rings were there, and her own diamond pendant necklace was still there, along with her pearls, but where was her father’s gold watch?

That watch is just the sort of thing that might bring a good price at a pawnshop. But are you sure that you put the watch in the drawer?

Charlotte’s eyes squinted in thought as she searched her memory. She was 100 percent sure that she’d placed the watch in the drawer…. Well, almost 100 percent, but just to satisfy the tiny doubt niggling in the back of her mind, she quickly checked the shoebox in the bottom corner of her closet, where she’d stashed most of the silverware. Not finding the watch there either, and with just one last place to check, Charlotte headed for the guest room.

At the closed door, she hesitated. It was her house, so why did she feel like she was the intruder if she entered the room and looked around, almost like she was invading Joyce’s privacy?

After a moment, she finally grabbed the doorknob. “Get over it and just do it!” she retorted as she twisted the doorknob and shoved open the door.

But in the doorway, she froze, her eyes wide with disbelief. “What a pig,” she whispered when she finally found her voice.

Joyce hadn’t bothered making her bed, there were clothes on the floor, the closet door was standing wide open, the trash basket was so full that wadded tissues had fallen on the floor around it, and a dirty plate and glass…

“Oh, no!” Charlotte rushed over to the beautiful oak night table that her grandfather had built for her mother as a wedding gift. She snatched up the plate and the glass. Sure enough, beneath the glass was a huge white water ring.

Charlotte groaned. If only she’d known ahead of time just how carelessly Joyce would treat her things, she would have covered the tabletop with a scarf or hand towel, anything to keep Joyce from ruining the finish of the beautiful old table.

Plate and glass in hand, Charlotte hurried to the kitchen. After putting the dishes in the sink, she took out her special polishing compound and a clean polishing cloth from beneath the sink cabinet, then hurried back to the bedroom.

Grumbling to herself, she spread the compound and began rubbing it into the wood with the cloth. Though the water ring was slowly disappearing, Charlotte frowned when she saw the indentation in the wood.

“What on earth?” she exclaimed, staring at what appeared to be writing of some kind. Charlotte rubbed harder, but the indentation didn’t go away.

Then it came to her. As quick as the sting of a bee, Charlotte realized what she was looking at. Joyce had to have been using a ballpoint pen to write notes on the table, and of course it never would have occurred to her to put something under the paper to protect the wood. But what kind of notes?

Charlotte squinted and turned her head sideways. Sure enough, she could even make out some of the words. There was an address on St. Peter Street.

“Bet it’s the pawnshop,” she murmured.

Following the address, there was a dash, and after the dash, Joyce had written, bughouse bluebird.

“What the devil does that mean?” Charlotte murmured. “That can’t be right.” But no matter which way she turned her head, or how much she squinted her eyes, she still came up with the same words. But there was more—yet another address and another dash, then the word daisy.

For long minutes, Charlotte continued staring at the writing. What could it mean? she wondered. And what on earth was Joyce up to now?

There was one thing for sure—just standing there and staring at the writing wasn’t going to give her any answers. On the contrary, the note etched into the tabletop, along with the missing watch, and Joyce’s lies about being at the pawnshop, just fueled more questions.

Still thinking about her dilemma, and still hoping to find her father’s watch, Charlotte checked the last hiding place, a box full of more silver, which was shoved under the bed.

She knelt beside the bed, reached beneath it, and pulled out the small box. One look inside the velvet bag in the box, and disappointment, along with a sense of loss, filled her. The watch wasn’t there. She had been keeping the watch to give to Hank at the birth of his first child, and now it was gone, probably forever….

After swallowing the lump lodged in her throat, Charlotte took a deep breath and sighed. Sitting there, feeling sorry for herself, wasn’t doing anyone any good. What she needed was to find out what was going on.

She dropped the bag back inside the box, replaced the lid on the box, and then she pushed it back beneath the bed. She dusted off her hands. Yep, it was high time she did some checking up on Ms. Joyce Thibodeaux. Past time, a little voice whispered in her head.

“Yeah, yeah,” Charlotte grumbled, grabbing the edge of the bed for support. But as Charlotte got to her feet, a wave of weakness washed over her. She grabbed hold of the bedpost to steady herself. After a bit, she felt somewhat better. Even so, the incident was a stark reminder that in her haste to find the watch, she’d completely forgotten about breakfast.

As a diabetic, Charlotte knew she needed to eat regular balanced meals, and she also knew that stress wasn’t good for her.

“Oh, well,” she muttered, the two small words heavy with sarcasm as she walked carefully out of the room and headed for the kitchen. There wasn’t a whole lot she could do about the present stress in her life, but she could do something about eating.

In the kitchen, Charlotte fixed herself a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of toast. She was almost finished eating when out of nowhere an image of Aubrey Hamilton popped into her head. Her expression stilled and grew serious. She’d wondered how to go about checking up on Joyce, and now she knew. At this point in time, who better to ask than a police detective?