Friday afternoon I started getting antsy. Rusty came home to get ready as I nervously paced the house, cleaning things that were already clean. When he headed for the bedroom to change I did, too. I curled my hair so it flipped out slightly. That gave it more volume. Then I applied makeup and slipped on the little black dress. I found the necklace and earrings my mom had given me. I only wore them for special occasions. They made me feel dressed up. I turned in front of the mirror wondering who this other person was. She wasn’t as foreign to me as she used to be but I still didn’t know her very well yet.
I looked outside and it was breezy so I gave my hair a good coating of hairspray.
“Where are you going to put your gun in that outfit?” Rusty asked.
“I’m supposed to be armed? At a formal dinner party? I thought you said I wasn’t supposed to try anything funny.”
“There’s a difference between trying something funny and being prepared.”
“I am not going to open fire at Hazel’s party. We’re just watching for Agnes.”
“And what if she shows?”
“Then I’ll quietly point her out and we’ll watch her with eagle eyes until she leaves, the guys will close in and that’ll be the end of it.”
“How can you be so simplistic and complex at the same time? It’s one of the things I’ve never understood about you. Put it in your purse or strap it to your leg.”
I kind of had to strap it to my leg. Since Agnes was known for making off with people’s car keys I couldn’t leave anything in my purse that she’d be suspicious of.
Rusty wore a black suit, vest and tie. I thought he looked too formal but I couldn’t think of what he should change to fit in better. Hazel’s idea of formal was a white polyester pants suit so I was sure Rusty would really stand out.
“So,” I said. “Can you find the gun?”
He ran his hand up my leg. “I hope you don’t need it or we may have some men come down with sudden heart problems.”
“Are you ready? Should we walk or drive?”
“We might need a car handy. We better drive.”
“Just don’t leave the keys where Agnes can get to them.”
Hazel and Wally’s house was a quarter mile from ours. We got there early so we wouldn’t stand out coming into a large group of seniors.
“Oh Cassidy! Look at you! I hardly recognized you! And Rusty! I’m glad you could come.”
Hazel was wearing her freshly dry cleaned white polyester pants suit. It almost buttoned in front so she wore a frilly blouse under the jacket. It made her look like a crowing rooster. Her double chin didn’t help the impression. She had gone to a lot of trouble for this party. Her house was freshly cleaned. All the clutter was cleared away and the furniture was dusted.
Her kitchen was decorated with chickens and I found a big white rooster that matched Hazel perfectly. She had platters of mini pizzas and tacos, stuffed mushrooms, cheese and crackers on the dining room table. I could smell something cooking.
“Wally! Come out! Rusty and Cassidy are here!”
“Dang, suits, why did you have to make this shindig formal? You know we don’t do formal. We barely do informal! I haven’t worn this suit since Lester Havalind’s funeral five years ago.”
I thought it was pretty good that people Hazel and Wally’s age hadn’t been to a funeral in five years.
“What tie should I wear?” Wally asked Hazel. One was bright red. One had pink flamingoes on it. And the other was blue and green plaid. His suit was blue but it didn’t match the blue plaid. The red made his face look flushed. The flamingoes just wouldn’t do. The only place I’d let him wear that would be on a senior citizen cruise to Flamingoland.
“You don’t have anything else?” I asked.
“Only a stiff black one.”
“Black is good. It makes anything look formal. If you don’t like the suit anyway, you might as well not like it one hundred percent.”
He couldn’t argue with my logic so, thankfully, he put on the black tie.
The doorbell rang and Hazel was busy so she asked me to get it. I kind of liked being the official door answerer. I got a good look at all the guests and I was able to explain my presence at the party easily. I opened the door.
“Wowie kazowie!” a man said and his wife nudged him in the ribs. “Hazel and Wally got some hot servants! I didn’t know they were that well off!”
“Good evening,” I said. “I’m Cassidy. I’m Hazel and Wally’s next door neighbor. It’s good to meet you.”
“I’m Phil and this is JoAnn. JoAnn is Hazel’s Boggle partner when they play in teams.”
“You play Boggle in teams?”
“Sure, you can play anything in teams.”
As each couple came in I greeted them and introduced myself. As I shook hands I noted the jewelry or lack thereof. People came with canes and walkers. A few had oxygen tanks on little carts.
Marsha Haskins had better watch out for Agnes, I thought as I shook her diamond-studded hand. I looked her over. Too tall to be Agnes.
Roberta Fisk had beautiful jewelry but she was too old to be Agnes.
In all about thirty people showed up. Most of them knew each other. They visited amicably. I started watching for the two undercover cops. No one had introduced themselves as Clifford or Fraser. I began watching for the odd man out. I didn’t think Agnes was here. People were milling around eating the stuffed mushrooms, ignoring the mini pizzas. All the women who were not dressed up in evening gowns were in the kitchen helping. All the women in evening gowns were socializing. I wondered if this was the difference between the Boggle group and the uppity ups.
“What brings you to Hazel’s Decked out Dinner?” Roberta asked me.
“She invited me and it seemed impolite to refuse. Plus, Hazel is a wonderful person. She’s always so cheerful and upbeat. Nothing ever gets her down.”
“Huh! You haven’t seen her lose a Boggle game. Why would you want to hang out with a bunch of old people?”
“I don’t pay attention to how old people are. They are all interesting to me. In my job I deal with people of all ages.”
“Oh really? What do you do?”
Ooops, oh well. “I look for people.”
“You mean like a private investigator?”
“No like a rescue worker. I do the finding and the EMTs do the rescuing.”
She looked me up and down. Black spaghetti strapped dress, diamond earrings. “You?”
“Yeah, me. I grew up doing it. It’s the only thing I’m really good at.”
Wally came puffing up talking excitedly, “Cassidy! Cassidy, it’s what’s her name! She’s here being a wallflower.”
“Now Wally, that’s not nice. There’s nothing wrong with being a wallflower. Some people are just more outgoing than others,” Roberta said.
“I thought I met everybody when they came in,” I said.
“Once things get going people know to just come and go. Many people can’t stay out late anymore. They turn in early. So these things never have a rigid schedule,” Roberta explained.
Wally remembered he was supposed to be inconspicuous so he whispered loudly, “She’s in the den sitting on the fireplace hearth quiet as can be.”
I mingled that direction. When I got to the kitchen Hazel nabbed me.
“Would you take this to Melba Troast?” she asked handing me a glass.
“Um, sure, which way did she go?” I asked.
“Look on the patio.”
I took the glass and headed for the back door. Hazel had even strung party lights around her patio and put candles on the table out there. I glanced at the fireplace hearth on the way by. There was a woman sitting there just as Wally had said. I tried to get a good look at her without staring. Could that be Agnes? I went out to the patio and looked around.
“Is anybody out here Melba Troast?” I asked.
“That’s me,” a woman said cheerfully from behind the patio table.
“Hazel asked me to bring this out to you,” I said.
“That’s because you were the most able bodied person in there,” Melba joked. “You must be Hazel’s neighbor, the one who rescued her son. I can’t tell you how much Hazel went on about that. While you were out there she was certain she’d never see either one of you again. She can be a terrible worrier, Hazel can. The whole group celebrated when Mark was found. We had a party for him at my house, just a little one.”
“That’s great,” I said wanting to get inside and talk to the wallflower.
“Looking back, we should have invited you too, but I was just wanting to share in Hazel and Wally’s joy at having their son back. I know what it’s like to lose a son but I don’t know what it’s like to get one back.”
“I’m sorry about your son,” I said, thinking how many stories these old people held dear to them. How many joys and sorrows they had experienced. One reason I liked older people was because they were time capsules. They held a bit of history and a lot of wisdom and it was interesting to get glimpses of a time gone by. And sometimes it was heartbreaking. “That’s why I do what I do. Each person I find is important to somebody. Each life is precious.”
“Mark is a dear,” Melba said.
“You should see the pictures Mark gave to me from the rescue. I didn’t expect him to do anything except maybe stop in and visit when he was in town and then he brought me these one of a kind Mark Mireau prints. I was honored he thought of me that highly. He’s a nice guy.”
I saw an old man slide lithely between two groups of people talking on the patio and resume a stooped position. Clifford or Fraser for sure. He was looking for somebody. Somebody specific.
“I should go see if Hazel needs any more help,” I said and quickly slipped away.
Another man walked quickly, if stiffly in through the backdoor.
Hazel greeted him warmly. “My, my,” she said. “Are you new at the center? Come here, let me introduce you to my friend Winnie. I’m Hazel.”
“Mike Fraser,” he said with an urgent appeal for help.
“Ooo, so macho sounding too,” Hazel squealed.
I slipped in the backdoor.
“Cassidy!” Hazel said. “This is Mike Fraser, he’s new! I only just met him. I’m so glad to see some new people showing up at my house! Isn’t this a lovely surprise! Did you get something to eat yet? I have mini pizzas.” She looked over the table. She had a lot of mini pizzas. “Ooo,” she said, “I need to get out more stuffed mushrooms and cheese.”
Fraser quickly slipped away and I helped Hazel in the kitchen hoping she’d forget about introducing Fraser to her friend Winnie. Hazel gave me a job to do, so I was stuck in the kitchen, I had a wallflower needing observation in the den, and two cops on their way inconspicuously somewhere. Where was Rusty? I glanced around the kitchen door into the den. Okay, my wallflower was still there. Was it Agnes? A woman came over to her and spoke to her. She talked amicably enough but she didn’t make a move to join in the other groups. None of her actions made me think she was after somebody’s jewelry. She just seemed quiet. So far I’d only observed her sitting down. Hopefully, she would stand up and walk around. I had to find a way to politely leave the kitchen.
“Hazel,” I said looking for an easy out. “I don’t see many people with glasses. Do you want me to walk around and offer them something to drink?”
“No, that’s the wife’s job.”
“What?”
“If you walk around and offer people something to drink all the men will take whatever you offer whether it’s good for them or not. So the wives get the drinks. Believe me they know what their husbands can have.”
“I’d never tell Rusty what he can and can’t have to drink,” I said.
“You just wait. Don’t say you’d never until you get there. I bet there was a time you said you’d never wear a spaghetti strapped dress before, too.”
I laughed, “You’ve got that right. There was a time getting me in any kind of a dress was a struggle.”
“And what changed that?”
“Mostly, it was Rusty,” I said with a hint of admiration in my voice.
“So there, you see, don’t be deciding ahead of time what you will or won’t do for Rusty. You never know.”
An exotic voice beside me said, “She speaks wisely and with experience.”
I turned and it was the wallflower. I checked my reactions.
“Hazel has been right about a lot of things. I’m Cassidy. I’m Hazel’s neighbor,” I said extending my hand.
“Yes, I know,” she said shaking hands gently. She wore jewelry but not extravagantly so. The pieces she chose suited her, matched her outfit and were meticulously cleaned. They sparkled like new. “I recognized you from the news. Hazel shouldn’t have expected you to come after the ordeal you went through.”
“Trouble is my middle name,” I said. “If I let it get me down I’d never go anywhere. But I don’t. I just keep going. I have to be doing something, bruises or not. I’ve learned to ignore them. My mother told me as long as I wear a smile people will overlook the bruises.”
“It amazes me what people can do if they have to. You have been through much.”
“It’s Rusty that has been through much,” I said. “It’s him who has the tough part. I just deal with circumstances. He is left to deal with the consequences. He shouldn’t have to do that.”
“We all deal with circumstances. Your husband deals with his own. He doesn’t think of it as consequences. He thinks of it as his own circumstances. Tell me, when you are driving down the road and someone does something stupid. They cut you off dangerously or they stop suddenly causing you to react. What do you do?”
“I just react to the situation.”
“Do you get angry with the person?”
“Of course, we all do.”
“Now, if your husband were that person and you knew it, what would your reaction be?”
“I would think he was on his way someplace in a hurry or he was reacting to something ahead of him.”
“Yet you don’t give the stranger the same courtesy? Perhaps we are each reacting to our own circumstances.”
I wasn’t sure what she was driving at but she was an interesting person. She walked into the kitchen with an easy grace and got a glass if wine for herself. She went into the living room and disappeared into the mass of people. She didn’t just walk in there. She purposely vanished putting an end to our conversation.
“Hazel, who was that woman?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of the people here. They just saw the event on the calendar and thought it sounded like fun. I better get the turkey and ham out of the oven.”
I went into the living room. I didn’t see the woman there. I went down the hall and glanced in the rooms. I felt like I was snooping through the house so I didn’t go in any of the rooms but the woman wasn’t to be seen. I went out the front door and walked around in the front yard. It was crowded with parked cars. A shadowy figure slipped between two parked cars. I followed. I knew I should go get Rusty, Clifford, or Fraser but there didn’t appear to be time. If I turned around she’d be gone or, at best, invisible. I had my sights set on her, so I couldn’t let go. Keeping one eye on the dark shadow ahead and one eye on my surroundings, I slipped between the parked cars and followed her. I was one car length behind her and barely keeping her in sight when she slipped into a car and started the engine. I wondered if it was her car or somebody else’s. I couldn’t follow a car! And I couldn’t go get one of the cops without losing her. I wasn’t willing to open fire on the car. I couldn’t see well enough to hit a tire and I didn’t want to cause a panic inside. I watched as the car pulled away and headed down Lost Hills Road. I walked after it trying to keep it in sight. Suddenly the car turned off the road. The only place to turn that direction was… my driveway! I watched as the car parked and the lights flicked off. I hurried down the street by feel. There are no streetlights on Lost Hills Road and, unless there is a full moon, the hills are pitch black. It was dark and I was walking quickly, hoping I was following the pavement, when headlights suddenly appeared and I jumped out of the way. The car stopped and an officer jumped out.
“Police! Freeze! Put your hands over your head.”
I complied and stepped into the headlights, hands over my head.
“It’s just me,” I said.
“Rusty’s going to kill you,” Ben Tomlin said.
“No kidding. I think Agnes went that way,” I said pointing down the street.
“Does Rusty know?”
“No, there was no time. I’m not even sure it’s her but she was following the pattern.”
“How so?”
“She came to the dinner, scoped it out, chose a target and quietly disappeared when things got going. She headed this direction but I think she pulled off to avoid the roadblock.”
He looked me up and down. Okay, I know I don’t usually look like this but it was a formal dinner party. Give me a break.
“Nice dress,” he said.
“Not exactly my favorite for chasing down criminals in the dark. Look, I want to see where this car ended up. I can’t stay on her trail without a visual.”
“I don’t think you should.”
“Why? If she follows the plan she hits a roadblock. She gets caught. Everybody goes home happy.”
“I’m not going to count on it.”
I started down the street.
“Hold it. What are you doing?”
“I’m going to stay on her trail. If I’m seeing things right she pulled off at my house.”
“You’re not even armed!”
“Turn around.”
He turned his back to me. I reached up under my skirt and pulled out the 9mm.
“Dang!” said Ben, then turned around.
“I told you to turn around for a reason!” I told him.
“The mirror was really dark,” he answered.
I started down the street again and Ben was torn. Go get Rusty? Call in backup? I wasn’t going to tell him what to do. He was the real cop. He could decide. I only knew what I would do and that was to check out the car, run the plates, and see if it was Agnes’s or if she filched a car from someone else. Once we had a name we’d be in better shape to make a decision.
The farther I got from Hazel’s house the darker the street became. By the time I reached my house I couldn’t see a thing but I couldn’t turn on any lights without causing huge distractions and drawing attention to myself. I crouched at the end of my driveway behind a bush and listened to the darkness. All I heard was silence. No footsteps. No one moving about in a car. I crept forward inch by inch until I felt a car in the driveway. I identified it as the rental car then looked for another car. There wasn’t one. Where was the other car? This was the only driveway visible from Hazel and Wally’s house yet I knew the car had turned this direction. I made my way to the side of the house and slipped into stealth mode. I was glad I didn’t need to worry about the owners of the house getting worried and calling the cops. It was my house. I inched along the wall using the shrubs and bushes for camouflage. I spotted Agnes making her way around the backside of the house. She wasn’t worried about the roadblocks. She was trying to find a way inside my house.
I was fascinated. I didn’t want to catch her. I wanted to see her work. I wanted to see how she moved and how she got in. I wondered why she picked my house aside from the fact that the police had blocked off any other victim’s houses. I was glad to have this opportunity to see her in action. She moved like quicksilver, her movements flowing. She looked like a shadow, not a real person. She had a tool that she deftly slipped into a window crack and gently pried. If the window didn’t move she quickly made her way to the next window. I knew Chase had managed to break into the house but he had shown Rusty the way he got in so I assumed Rusty had fixed that. He was very careful to have the house secure from break-ins.
Window to window she skimmed effortlessly around the house. I followed, careful to stay out of sight. It was easy to do in the dark. I just wished I was in swat team black, not a dress and pumps. When she had checked all the windows she made her way to the back door and used another tool to slip the latch on the sliding glass door. She was in in an instant. Shoot, now she could get out any way she wanted to and I wouldn’t be able to see her. Where was Ben? Where was Rusty? Where was Shadow? A loud bark and a startled gasp confirmed where Shadow was. Maybe he would follow Agnes so I could tell where she was. She turned on a light, presumably so she could see what kind of a dog she was up against. Shadow barked and wagged his tail enthusiastically. With the lights on inside it was easy to see who I had been following. It was the foreign sounding woman. She never had told me her name.
I knew that I was supposed to arrest Agnes but I kind of felt like I should leave that to a real cop. I wasn’t sure how far the technicalities stretched. Technically, I needed a senior officer to do anything official and all my possible senior officers were elsewhere. I thought that if push came to shove Rusty could be named my senior officer but if so I definitely was disobeying orders by being anywhere near my house. I had strict orders to stay in Hazel’s house. But I didn’t have time when Agnes left to go looking for help. One second she was there and the next she was gone. When Agnes slipped into the master bedroom I silently slipped into the den and grabbed the cordless phone. I slipped back out and then into the barn hoping the phone worked from there. I had to punch the number in by feel. Rusty answered on the first ring.
“Cassidy! Where are you?”
“At home! Where are you?”
“At Hazel’s just like you should be.”
“Agnes is in our house. She’s going to figure out real quick that there’s nothing to steal.”
“I told you to stay in the house.”
“I didn’t have much choice. It was follow or lose her. Get some guys down here. Last I saw she was headed for our bedroom.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the barn but only so Agnes won’t hear me. I need to go check on her. It doesn’t take her long to vanish.”
“No! Stay put.”
“But Rusty! She’ll be gone in an instant. I need to keep an eye on her.”
“No you don’t. The roadblock will get her now that they know she’s here. They’ll catch her.”
“She’ll disappear into the hills before she’ll drive through that roadblock.”
I didn’t stay in the barn. I figured if I stayed in the barn it would only give Agnes a chance to escape and sneak around the roadblock. If she found the guns in the house and there was any shooting going on a few bullets could easily end up in the barn. So I mentally weaseled my way out of staying there. I crept back to the house and peeked in the bay window. No Agnes.
I slid around to the office. No sign of her. The office window faced the front of the house so I saw the police cars converge on the house in the reflection on the window. They cruised in quietly.
“I don’t get it,” I told Schroeder. “I watched her get in. I talked to Rusty for thirty seconds and now I don’t see her in there anymore.”
“Is she armed?”
“She didn’t look armed but then neither did I when I went to the dinner.”
He looked me up and down. “Nice dress.”
“Thanks.”
“You know the house, you know the yards. Make one more circuit and try and pinpoint her before we go in.”
“Really? You’d let me do that?”
“Don’t tell Rusty.”
“Send someone around to the back sliding glass door. That’s how she got in. It’s the quickest way to disappear into the hills so she’ll probably come out that way.”
“Right. Be careful.”
I slinked into the darkness and approached the guestroom window. There was only a bed and a dresser in the room. No place to hide. If Agnes had gone in there she had searched the drawers and found nothing. The office was similarly devoid of hiding places or places to stash valuables. A computer desk and chair. An easy chair in the corner. The master bedroom looked empty. From the bay window I had a clear view down the length of the room. The closet door stood ajar. The bathroom door was open. The light was off. The dresser seemed untouched. Nothing looked odd about the things on top of the dresser. If I was a jewel thief the master bedroom dresser would be the first place I’d look.
I knew how invisible I was because there were no sounds when I approached the den door. Somebody was supposed to be watching. I crouched low. This part of the house had the most hiding places. The big brown couch curved around the fireplace. The kitchen was nearly out of sight between the den and the living room. No shadows or movements appeared in the dining room adjacent to the kitchen. Everywhere I looked the house looked normal, just like all the other houses she had broken into. I sat underneath the living room window. Something was niggling at my mind. Something felt wrong about the house, but not enough to catch my attention, only my subconscious. What was it?
I joined the group of cops again, appearing silently beside them. Jayce Thompson jumped.
“Cassidy! Don’t do that!” he said quietly.
I addressed Schroeder but it was for all to hear. “She’s in there somewhere but I couldn’t see her.”
“What makes you think she’s in there, then?”
“I don’t know. Something is just off about it. There’s only two ways to find out if she’s in there and I doubt you want to wait until morning and have me track the area. So that leaves going in.”
“And she’s not armed?”
“I didn’t say that. I said she didn’t appear to be armed.”
Rusty had joined the group. They all nodded. They didn’t need me to tell them people can be armed even if they don’t look like it.
“If she found my backpacking gear, she probably found my rifle. We can only hope she was thinking jewelry and skipped over the camping gear. I think all Rusty’s guns are accounted for.”
Rusty handed over the keys. At least there would be no doors broken in.
When the officers went in something was still off. Something was missing. Where was Shadow? There should have been a chorus of barking when the cops went in. I wasn’t worried about him. They all knew Shadow. He’d been the flower girl at my wedding. But where was he? It was very unusual for a sheltie to be quiet. And it was very unusual that he hadn’t looked for me. Shadow was a sheepdog. Rusty and I were his flock. He was responsible for us, at least that’s the way it seemed. So where was he?
“I figured out what’s wrong in there,” I told Schroeder.
“What?”
“No dog. He’s a noisy dog. He should be barking at the guys. He should have rushed out the front door when they went in.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know. If he was outside he would have found me. If he was inside he’d be barking or looking for me. I don’t see any sign of him.”
“If Agnes got away up into the hills, do you think he’d follow her?”
“Not far. He knows his boundaries. He takes his responsibilities seriously.”
We waited while the police made their way through the house room by room. There were no shots. No yells. I imagine it was a bit tense for the guys each time they entered a room but they only met silence. It was embarrassing and encouraging at the same time. I never liked to see the guys raid a house. The potential for being fired on was too high. They were all friends now, whether I had met them or not.
I remembered the days when a cop was simply a reason to hit the brakes, no matter how slow I was going. Now they cruised by my Jeep and waved. Occasionally I got pulled over just so they could ask about my latest search.
It didn’t take them long to decide Agnes was not in the house, but I wasn’t so sure. I knew they had been thorough. They had opened closets and looked under beds. Rusty knew all the places to look. Yet… nothing.
“Can I go in?” I asked Schroeder.
He nodded a go ahead. So did Rusty. Hmm, nothing felt off to Rusty.
“In the morning take a look at the area,” he said. “Wake me if you find anything, anything at all.”
“It’s what I’m not finding that bugs me,” I said.
He paused for a moment and headed for the house again. We went around the house calling Shadow’s name. Usually just a bump or a door opening was enough to bring him running. Now? Nothing.
“You’re right. This is weird. We have the car. We have the evidence that she was in there. All I can think of is that she slipped away while you were talking to me.”
“And took Shadow with her? She wouldn’t take Shadow. He’d slow her down. He’d attract attention. He’s not worth much to her monetarily. He should be here.”
It was puzzling but there was nothing we could do to change the facts. Agnes had gotten away and Shadow was missing.
Rusty called in a team to take fingerprints. We were up most of the night. We finally fell into bed a little before dawn, Hazel’s dinner party nearly forgotten.
When the sun came up I wearily pulled myself out of bed and checked the grounds for Agnes’s footprints. Hmm. There were none. I found a few close to the house, covered up by my scouting the night before. I expected to see a trail of tracks leading away into the junipers. This was bad news. How could she have gotten out the front door, down the cement driveway and past the police roadblock? I walked the road watching for footprints leaving it. If she had gotten away via the front yard she had to leave the road when she got close to the roadblock and then hide in the brush as she went around the barricade. It didn’t make sense for her to do that. That still left a very long walk into town. It made more sense for her to go back to the party and blend in there. But I walked both sides of the road from one police barricade to the other and I didn’t find any tracks that even remotely resembled Agnes’s.
I crawled back into bed with a sigh and my head going a mile a minute. Where could she be? No tracks. No car. No Shadow. No Agnes. When Rusty didn’t stir I got up again. I called Chase.
“I’ve got a puzzle. You left one day early. Got any ideas?”
I explained the situation.
“You circled the property?”
“Of course. I found my footprints, Shadow’s old tracks. Agnes’s tracks can only be found under the windows and I watched her put them there.”
“So you know her tracks.”
“Yeah, I know her tracks.”
“None by the road?”
“Only cop prints.”
“Now you’ve got me curious. I don’t want to drive four hours back.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I know, but now I’m curious. I might have to just to satisfy my own curiosity. What’s this woman wanted for?”
“She’s a cat burglar. She steals jewelry.”
“So what’s she doing at your house? You don’t wear jewelry.”
So, I explained about the dinner party and the roadblocks and my house being a handy hiding place between the roadblocks.
“She knew it was my house because I was introduced at the party as Hazel’s neighbor.”
“Makes sense, but there’s no tracks.”
“Right.”
I could feel the wheels in his head turning all the way from San Diego to Joshua Hills.
“And she’s not in the house.”
“Right.”
“Damn. You’re right.”
“What?”
“It’s a puzzle.”
“No ideas?”
“Not from here.”
“Okay, thanks anyway.”
I went back to bed thinking the house was way too quiet. I should have already fed Shadow and run him through the agility course. Where was he?
Midmorning Rusty got up and went to work. We were both dragging. Something felt off to both of us but it wasn’t just our missing dog. Things just didn’t add up especially after I told him my findings tracking the area. He went to work to report the findings to Schroeder. I sorted laundry, just doing something that didn’t require thought. I checked the drawers, wondering what needed washing the most. I noticed the drawers had been rifled through gently. It matched Agnes’s MO. Everything was neatly put back in place except for one corner of the drawer where things had been turned over and not righted. What was in that corner? Oh shoot. The map. I dug down into the drawer looking for it. It was gone. What was it a map of? Why would Agnes want it?
“Rusty? We have a small problem.”
“Small problem is relative when you say it. What is it?”
“When we were out at the building, putting things back in the boxes before we left, I forgot I had a map in my pocket.”
“Okay, so far it still sounds like a small problem. Is there more?”
“When I got home I found it in my pocket and stuck it in a drawer until I could figure out what to do with it.”
“Okay.”
“Now it’s gone. I think Agnes took it.”
A long silence. It wasn’t too tension filled. That was a good sign.
“What was it a map of?”
“I didn’t get a chance to find out.”
“Okay, we’ll keep that in mind as we go. I’m not going to mention it unless we have to. It’s just a piece of paper until we find out otherwise.”
Whew.
I gathered up a load of colors and headed toward the washroom when I heard a yip. I stopped. That was Shadow. Where was he?
“Shadow? Come here, boy!” I called.
I listened. Nothing. I looked around the house, inside closets, inside cupboards… everywhere. I didn’t do the laundry. I wanted to be able to hear. Later in the day I heard a scratching noise but I was in the kitchen and it was coming from the back of the house. Before I could figure out where it came from it stopped.
I started doing quiet jobs, dusting, dishwashing, bird feeder filling, so I could keep my ears tuned. I didn’t turn on the TV or appliances that would cover up sounds. I was getting very bored and terribly curious. Finding quiet jobs wasn’t easy to do in a house with only two people. We didn’t do much to dirty it up. I was checking my email for the tenth time when Shadow appeared with a loud bark behind me. It didn’t startle me. I was used to it. But at the same time it was incongruous. He’d been missing nearly a whole day. All the doors were closed and yet here he was. Did I have a teleporting dog? After checking on me he ran to his water dish, then looked at me expectantly. He was hungry and thirsty. I fed him like I always did but there was an eerie feeling to all this. After he ate he wanted to go out so I went outside with him and he quickly did his business.
I did another tour of the house examining each room for signs of a doggie exit. I found it in my bedroom. The closet door was open just far enough for a dog to have nosed through. That didn’t make sense. I had checked that closet three times. If Shadow had been in a closet for even fifteen minutes he would have been barking and scratching to get out. Sheltie patience didn’t last much longer than that. It seldom lasted five minutes. A whole day in a closet was an impossibility. So, where did he come from? It was time to do some down on the ground investigation.
I crawled around in the closet. It was a big closet as far as closets go. It was the walk-in variety but I could still see all the parts of it simply by sitting in the middle and glancing around. I looked at all the clothes hanging at doggie height. They were nearly all mine since Rusty could reach the higher bars easier and his work clothes needed to remain fur free. Shadow didn’t usually go in the closets. He was a herding dog and felt trapped in small spaces so any clues in the closet were surely recent ones. There was no fur on the shirts and blouses but I did find some on the jeans and gym clothes. I parted the clothing on that rack and looked behind. All I saw was a closet wall. I felt the wall. It was odd. It was not sheetrock like the rest of the house was. I stood and examined the wall closer and found it was made in panels. At the top there was a track and at the bottom it looked like baseboards. It was made to look like a wall but it wasn’t a wall at all. It could move. I looked for a button, like a garage door would have, but didn’t find anything. I tried moving it and it slid quietly along its track revealing stairs going down into a dark, dry, subterranean vault. I took one step down the stairs, there was a funny noise in my head and I was out.
I woke up bruised, battered and handcuffed to the supports at the bottom of the stairs. Agnes sat on a couch in a small room. The walls were bare dirt. The floor was dirt but somebody had spread an area rug in the middle of the room to make it homier. It was like a cellar that had been converted to be more livable. The couch and rug helped. There was a radio and television, a small bookcase full of books. A bare light bulb hung from a beam in the dirt ceiling.
“I’m sorry about the fall,” Agnes said. “I always worried about having to do that to Bernice. Gustaf said it wouldn’t harm her but I always worried about it anyway. I’m glad I never had to use it.”
“Use what?” I asked, shaken.
She pocketed a personal sized taser. That kind of explained the falling down the stairs part of this little adventure.
“What are you doing here? And where are we?” I asked.
“Congratulations. Bernice never guessed this room was here all the years she lived here. You are the first to find it on your own. I’d like to know how you figured it out.”
“Dog fur,” I answered. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to stay out of sight until the police leave, collecting a few things I left here. Gus complicated things a little bit when he died. Bernice rarely left the house after that. This was my first chance to slip back in.”
“What do you mean, ‘slip back in?’”
“There aren’t many people who remember the war. Having soldiers knock on the door. Fearing for their lives. Gus did. He dug this room when he made the house because he remembered the fear. He never had to use it but it was a comfort to him to have it here, just in case. He said it would withstand earthquakes. It was hidden from view. Nobody would find it, he boasted. Nobody, not even his wife. So when I needed a place to stay out of sight, he offered me refuge. Because he understood my fear, he said. I came here frequently. Bernice never knew. Never knew the room existed. Never knew of my presence here. I trust she won’t find out.”
“Not from me,” I said. “Let her keep her memories. She adored Gus.”
“I thought you were gone today,” she said changing the subject. “The house was so quiet. I’m glad I was cautious. I really must be going. I hope you won’t be down here too long. You can understand my need to tie you up, don’t you? I hate to leave you like this but if I let you go I doubt I’ll get home again. You have earned my deepest admiration. You are the one to come closest to catching me. I really don’t want to go to jail.”
Agnes pulled a long length of package sealing tape from a roll and put it over my mouth, wrapping it securely around my head. Yeah, right, you hate to leave me like this, I thought as I heard the sliding door close and latch. I wasn’t sure if I heard the closet door close or not. I was alone. At least she left the light on. I imagined this room would be pretty dark without the lone light bulb.
As I lay there under the stairs I looked around as much as my bound hands would let me. The room fascinated me. I had my very own secret room! It might be useful for a trouble magnet like me. If I ever got out of there I’d have a refuge, a hiding place. If I’d had this room when Stern was after me I could have prevented a lot of trouble. I couldn’t wait to show it to Rusty. The problem was getting out. Handcuffs are not easy things to get loose from and if Bernice had lived in this house for twenty years and never found this room what made me think Rusty would come down the stairs looking for me?
I tried prying my hands loose from the cuffs. It only gave me sorer wrists. I tried using the short chain on the cuffs to saw through the support, but I couldn’t keep it up for long. I finally decided my best bet was noise. I’d heard Shadow from inside the house. I could make myself heard after Rusty got home.
I wondered what time it was. Rusty had gotten a late start to his day and I’d puttered quietly around the house for hours before Shadow had finally appeared. I was guessing it was mid-afternoon. There was no telling time without clocks, sun, or windows. Time seemed to be a secret in the secret room. I tried pulling the tape loose, but I couldn’t find a good position to work in.
I finally decided to find a comfortable spot and wait. I was still sore from Gonzo’s beatings and now I had a fall down the stairs to add to my problems. Shifting around caused sharp pains in my hip and knee. I finally just lay with my arms around the support and waited and waited, thinking, feeling embarrassed, listening. It seemed like forever before I heard a faint noise and then a faint bark. A greeting. Maybe Rusty was home. I thought of a signal to attract attention. I kicked the stair support, bam, bam, bam, wait, bam, bam, bam, wait. I repeated the signal over and over again and then I stopped to listen. Shadow was still barking. Was he barking at me? That wouldn’t be unusual for him to bark at an odd sound. Was he barking at Rusty in greeting? I thought he would be done with that and on to other doggy pursuits. Maybe someone was at the door. He could bark forever if he thought someone was outside. I started up the signal again just in case it was someone who might get concerned enough to call Rusty. Bam, bam, bam, wait, bam, bam, bam, wait, over and over again.
I stopped to listen again.
“Cassidy?” Rusty called out from far away.
Bam, bam, bam, wait.
“Cass! Are you home?”
Bam, bam, bam, wait, bam, bam, bam, wait, bam, bam, bam, wait.
Shadow barking again. Could Rusty hear the signal through all the dirt and the closed closet? If I could hear him, he could surely hear me, I thought.
Bam, bam, bam, wait.
Maybe a general ruckus would draw more attention. I went back to sawing the support with the chain.
“Cassidy? Where are you?”
Saw, saw, saw.
“Stop!”
I stopped.
“Can you hear me?”
I sawed.
“Where are you? Don’t answer. I’m in the bedroom. Am I close?”
I sawed.
“I’m going to list some places. Tell me when I get closer. The window. The bathroom. The dresser. The bed. The closet.”
Saw, saw, saw. He opened the door.
“Cass, there’s nothing here! Are you sure?”
Saw, saw, saw. I wished I could talk. I kicked the support some more hoping he could feel it in the closet.
“Babe, don’t play games with me. This isn’t funny anymore. Where are you? What did I do? Please come out.”
I went back to the three hits. Bam, bam, bam, wait. He was a cop. He knew a distress call when he heard one.
“I’m standing in the closet and I tell you there’s nothing here. There’s nowhere else to look.”
If only I could talk!
Bam, bam, bam, wait.
“Help me, then. Which way should I go? Left? Straight?”
Bam, bam, bam, wait.
He stepped forward, started shifting things around, tapping. The tapping was what I was hoping for. He’d be able to tell the wall was different. The tapping turned to knocking and the knocking turned to figuring. At last I heard the panels slide and the light from below drew his attention. He ducked through the two rods of clothes and onto the top stair.
“Cassidy?”
Bam, bam, bam, wait.
Hurried downward steps. A confused look around the room. Recognition as he spotted me under the stairs. He knelt down beside me then quickly stood.
“Hold on, I’ll get a key and some scissors.”
He ran up the stairs, found a handcuff key in his work clothes, pulled the scissors out of the junk drawer in the kitchen, and came downstairs again. He unlocked the cuffs and I rubbed my sore wrists as he slipped the scissors under the tape and cut it. I pulled the tape off my mouth.
“This is embarrassing,” I said. He stood, hands on hips, a smirk on his face. It wasn’t funny but I knew the story would be funny as it made the rounds of the station. He gave me a hand up but I couldn’t stand yet. “Oh! Yikes!” I exclaimed as I tried to stand. “Agnes has a taser and she used it on me at the top of the stairs.”
“You’re kidding. How would Agnes know about this place?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me. I’ve seen a lot of weird things.”
“Give me a hand.”
We tried again and I limped over to the couch.
As he felt over my leg for swelling or broken bones I told him, “Would you believe Agnes and Mr. Morgan had a thing going?”
He looked at me skeptically. “You’re kidding.”
“Well, it may not have been an affair at his age. Agnes didn’t go into that much detail. She only said that he made this room when he built the house because he remembered what it was like as a kid in World War II. He always wanted a place he could hide in, just in case. When Agnes was on the run one time he offered her refuge here. She became a regular. Not even Mrs. Morgan knew about this room.”
“Where’s Agnes now?”
“I don’t know. She said she stopped here to pick up some things. When I followed her from the dinner she was stuck here.”
“And Shadow followed her down here.”
“Yeah, Shadow got to be a pain to her this afternoon and she let him out. I tracked him to the back of the closet and found the odd wall in the back. I stepped onto the landing and Agnes zapped me. Isn’t this cool?”
“Yeah, so what do you think Agnes was looking for here?”
“She’d left some things behind. Then when Gus died she had trouble getting back in to retrieve them. When she left she was carrying a box.”
“You mean all the time I’ve been working this case I’ve been sleeping right above the stolen jewelry?”
“It’s possible. She didn’t show me what was in the box.”
“I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.”
“It’s a weird coincidence but it makes a little bit of sense that the Morgans could tie into this considering their age. Wally was very taken with Agnes. Why wouldn’t Gus?”
“So Agnes is gone again and knows we’ll recognize her. She’ll probably relocate now.”
“I don’t know. It depends on why she wanted that map. If the map contained some interesting information she might stick around and do some treasure hunting.”
I limped up the stairs.
“You sure you don’t need that x-rayed?”
“Give it a few days. All I did was fall on it.”
“People die falling down a flight of stairs.”
“Luckily, I wasn’t one of them. It was worth the fall to find the room.”
“I wonder what other secrets this house is hiding.”
I hadn’t thought of that. But how would I ever know what to look for? Anything odd, Cass, anything out of place. That’s what you’re good at, seeing things that are out of place.