CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

"Merry?" Mom asked through my phone.

It was a few hours after the scavenger hunt. Rex had to work late, so I'd made a gourmet dinner of canned ravioli and a glass of wine. The wine made it gourmet, naturally.

"Mom! You got my message? With the picture?" I set my fork down and grabbed the copy of the photo of young, not insane Mehitable Peters.

"I did. Why did you send this to me?" she asked.

I scrolled through my messages. I thought I'd texted her, but apparently I just sent the photo.

"It's Mehitable Peters." I stared into the woman's eyes. "Mad Mimi."

There was a moment of silence on the other end. That wasn't too unusual. Mom was working on a huge summer gala fundraiser at the Kennedy Center, and sometimes she was interrupted. I'd gotten used to her having to hit the mute button now and then.

"I'm sorry, kiddo," Mom said. "Are you saying this is the woman who died in an axe accident years ago?"

"Yes." I was surprised she didn't know that. "That's right."

"Why did you send it to me?" Mom sounded genuinely puzzled.

"I was wondering if we were related. Rex thinks it looks a lot like me." That was technically true.

"Now that you say it," Mom said slowly. "I can see that. But I don't think we're related."

"What about on Dad's side of the family?" My heart sank a little. Although why I was disappointed was beyond me.

"Give me a few moments, and I'll call you back." Judith hung up.

This was crazy. I was sure we weren't related. It wasn't that long ago, and Grandma Wrath would've told us if we were. The fact that I looked like Mimi was just a distraction from the real issues of her murder and Ike's.

I traced Mimi's face with my finger. What happened to you?

The cell rang, and I snatched it up. "Mom?"

"Your father doesn't know," she said. "But he doesn't think so."

"Does he know his mother's maiden name?" I asked.

I heard her mumbling in the background. "He says his mother's name was McMurtry. Colleen McMurtry."

I sat very still, afraid I hadn't heard correctly. A doorbell rang in the background.

"I have to go, kiddo. The committee has arrived, and we have lots to do."

We said our goodbyes and hung up. Mimi's face stared up at me. She'd died in 1911. Dad was born in 1966. His mother's name was Colleen McMurtry, and Peggy McMurtry was Mimi's long-lost cousin.

Why had I never taken up genealogy? Wait! I remembered seeing an ad for a website. Pulling out my laptop, I got online and found it immediately. After paying with my credit card, I was presented with a little box for my name.

I plugged in my name and birth date, and my parents', including Grandma Adelaide and the name Colleen McMurtry. I didn't know either woman's birth date, but according to the website, I should get a little branch figure when there were hints that would lead me to answers.

Nothing happened. How long did it take to get a branch? Hours? Days? I didn't have that kind of time! Was there a way to hurry things up?

Philby jumped up on the breakfast bar and stared at me while shoving the ravioli can onto the floor with a single swipe. Why did cats do that? Martini behaved herself, but Philby was offended when I put anything on a tabletop. She'd broken two mugs and four plates and littered the floor with silverware, glasses, and in one instance, forty-seven bullets. On that day, she'd pushed one bullet onto the floor. The minute I was up from grabbing it, she'd pushed another one off. This went on, you guessed it, forty-seven times.

I could be a little slow on occasion.

After cleaning up I closed my laptop (which fortunately was too heavy for Philby) and tried to focus on Penny. Who was this woman, and why was she at Ike's house earlier? And why did Ike have two properties? And what was I going to do with that flamingo skull?

An idea popped into my head. Of course! I needed to get into Ike's other house. And by doing so, I could leave the flamingo skull there. That would take the heat off me! I'd just have to hide it out in plain sight but in a spot Rex wouldn't necessarily have looked before. How hard could that be?

Night had fallen. Besides, it would give me some time for the branches to pile up on that ancestry site.

I always enjoyed the breaking and entering part of spy work. It was a lot less painful than physical confrontation, and you never knew what you'd find—which was proven by the bras and wigs at Ike's other house. Maybe this house was weirder with bigger skeletons and full period costumes. Or better yet, a stack of gold bars with a note that told us who killed Mad Mimi and Ike Murphy.

It only took a few minutes to change into a pair of dark capri pants and a dark T-shirt. Throw in a black backpack with a hat inside and a pair of ballet flats, and I might get away with looking somewhat normal to anyone in the vicinity.

I tossed my lockpick set into the bag and threw in a gun. After thinking about it, I added a telescoping baton. No point in firing a shot if I didn't need to. Besides, the baton was new, and I hadn't had a chance to try it out.

It took only a few minutes to get to the house. Nels, next door, had lights on, but in a room on the opposite side of the house from his driveway next to Ike's. Walking around to the alley in back, I found no fence, which was great, but no trees or shrubs or any cover, which was not.

The house and garage were dark, so hopefully Penny wasn't there. She was a big lady, and even though I thought I could take her, it was best to avoid running into her. Hugging the back of the house, I listened for any sign of life inside. After I was satisfied that the house was empty, I pulled out my lockpicks and went to work on the back door.

It took longer than I thought. Ike had a doorknob lock in addition a dead bolt a little further up. They looked new. That would take a while. For years I'd worked in third-world countries where locks didn't exist, but when they did, they were practically antiques.

New locks were trickier. The tumblers inside were harder to move, because they hadn't been used much. Why did Ike install new locks just before he died? Because he'd found Mimi's gold! My heart beat a little faster.

Had someone else noticed the new locks? People of Ike's age stuck to the simple doorknob button. They didn't like change, and those simple locks had worked for them all those years. Why switch now?

If someone had seen the new locks, had that tipped them off that finally Ike had something worth locking up? And what about Penny? My guess was that she knew about the gold. If she was his girlfriend, Ike might have told her.

Or he didn't. Maybe they were more like business partners than a romantic couple. And when he found the gold, he'd decided to cut his younger girlfriend out of the riches.

This was all speculation, I thought, as the last lock popped. I quietly put the picks back in my bag and slipped inside the house. It was hot. Whoever took care of the house after Ike's death must've had the power shut off. But then again, old people didn't always use air conditioning.

The only way to know for certain would be to flick the light switch, but that would alert neighbors to the fact I was there. The last thing I needed was Nels calling the police. No, I could work in the dark.

It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, but it was still very dim. The going would be very slow, but if I was patient, I just might find what I was looking for.

What was I looking for? The gold would be nice, and it would make the map and its confusing clues obsolete. It wouldn't solve Mehitable's or Ike's murder. It was obvious that Ike was murdered. And I was convinced that Mimi had been.

Even if I found the gold tonight, I'd still try to solve Mimi's murder. Rex had been busy lately and unable to put much time into it. But I was determined to keep going. It was one investigation he couldn't stop me from looking into, and now with possible family connections, I was becoming obsessed with the case.

And then there was Edna Lou. I felt a pang of pity. I'd definitely solve Mimi's murder for her. And Ike's—if Rex didn't beat me to it. And if we found the gold, it was going to the Historical Society. Not one of the Peters was still alive. They would probably approve.

A twinge of guilt pecked at the back of my throat. There was one thing Edna Lou wasn't going to get—the old Peters House. Her dream of turning it into a museum wasn't going to happen as long as my future sisters-in-law lived and worked there.

Randi and Ronni wouldn't give up that house. It was a perfect business for them, and besides, they'd filled every single inch with dead animals. Once this was over, I could find another way for Edna Lou to use the money.

I could see a little better. I started moving. Again I found myself in a kitchen. Only this one was much different than the one in his other house. The smell of rotting food turned my stomach. The counters and sink were overflowing with dirty dishes, and newspapers piled high on the table.

Turning the light on my cell down, I scanned the headlines, hoping maybe they held clues. They didn't. Just a stack of current newspapers. Was Ike a hoarder? I quickly searched the cupboards and drawers but found very little. Most likely because everything was already piled in the sink.

The dining room was next. Again, stacks of newspapers covered the table and each of the six chairs. He had several copies of the same day. Was he planning to move? There weren't any boxes. Instead, the floor was littered with books—westerns mostly. So Ike was a reader.

I moved into the living room. Every piece of furniture had been upended, like the girls had said. A coffee table had been broken in two, and the couch cushions were torn to pieces, as their foam rubber innards lay all over the floor.

Why didn't Penny tear up the kitchen or dining room? Was she looking for the gold? If so, had she found it? I poked and prodded the cushions but decided if they'd been here, they were now long gone.

The hallway to the bedrooms were littered with broken picture frames. All the pictures were missing. Glass crunched under foot, and I froze. If someone was here, they might have heard that.

Why were the pictures gone? Were they sentimental? Were they of Penny? Maybe Penny didn't want anyone to connect her to Ike. She was holding first place on my suspect list. At last I decided no one had heard me, and I moved on.

The flamingo skull was the first thing to go. I had to plant it somewhere. The map! I wondered if Penny had been looking for the map I'd found taped to the skull? It had been useless. Rex's yard didn't have anything as far as I was concerned.

It seemed to me, if you planted a treasure map in my yard, the treasure wouldn't be a hundred feet away. Was it a fake? Mad Mimi was…well…mad. She could've planted all kinds of maps as red herrings. Or just because Tinkles told her to.

I peeked into the bathroom, but it was completely trashed. The floor was slick with shampoo and soap as their crushed, empty bottles riddled the linoleum. The drawers were also on the floor, the shower curtain had been torn off, and the medicine cabinet had been emptied.

I passed it by and stepped into the first room on the right. This was the main bedroom. To my surprise, it was clean. The bed had even been made. Alarm bells went off in my head. Was Penny living here? She hadn't trashed this room. If she wasn't living here, why make the bed?

There were still two rooms across the hall. Both doors were shut. Was Penny in there? I pulled the telescoping baton from my bag and pulled my hat down a little more over my head to fully cover my short, curly hair.

There was no point in retreating. I had to check out those two rooms. Laying the flamingo skull on the bed, I stepped up to the door opposite me and pressed my ear against it. I couldn't hear anything, but that didn't mean the room was unoccupied.

Very slowly I gripped the doorknob and turned. When I felt the door give way, I stopped. If someone was in there, they might have seen the door move. Once again, I waited. Trickles of perspiration ran down the back of my neck over a field of goose bumps.

No turning back now. I opened the door a crack and looked in.

It was empty. There wasn't so much as a stick of furniture, a pillowcase, or even curtains on the window. I opened the door wide and stepped inside. There was nothing in here. Even the closet had been cleaned out.

This was highly suspicious. The whole house was. Only a couple of rooms had been torn apart. So far one room was filthy, one clean, and one empty. Ike was gone, but there'd been a lot of activity in his house recently.

I stepped back into the hall and listened at the last door. What would I find in here? Wigs? Animal skeletons? A stack of gold bars? I turned the knob and walked in.

In the corner was a dresser covered with mannequin heads wearing wigs. In the middle of the room were the skeletons of small animals. And against the far wall was a small pile of gold bars. Was I psychic? Because that would be awesome. I could anticipate anything my troop threw at me. Literally. Would it work on pets? Philby wouldn't be very happy about that, but it would save me in broken dishes.

I started with the dresser, which was more like a vanity table with a recessed area in the middle where the mirror would pop up. The faces on the heads looked a bit more lifelike than I was comfortable with (I could swear one of them winked at me), and I counted eight.

There was a space behind the vanity, and I crouched behind it, feeling the back of the dresser for something that might be attached and hidden.

Creeeeeeeeeeeaaaak…

Uh-oh.

I knew that sound. That was a door opening somewhere. And since no one had been in the house up until now, I'd say it was the front door. Which now closed with a muffled thump. Footsteps stalled in the living room before heading down the hallway toward me.

There wasn't enough room behind the vanity to hide me. And since there was a pile of gold in the room, I'd hazard a guess that this was the direction the other guy was coming. I grabbed one of the mannequin heads and took the wig off. Tearing off my stocking cap, I shoved the wig onto my own head and with the bangs low over my eyes, stuck my head up behind the dip in the vanity and froze.

It wasn't my brightest idea. I'll bet you thought spies always outwitted everyone else, didn't you? Well, it wasn't true. Sometimes we just had to go with whatever was available. And tonight, this was all I could come up with. The bad news was that I was exposed. The good news was that I could see.

Sure enough, the door swung open and a figure entered. It seemed to be a woman. My guess was that Penny was back. The woman didn't turn on the lights, reminding me that she wasn't supposed to be here. I was relieved by that because in a lit room, it would be obvious I wasn't a disembodied head.

The woman's eyes played across the room, scanning me along with the other mannequins. How well did she know these wigs? My heart stopped, and it took all of my strength not to blink.

After what seemed like an hour, but was more like a minute, the woman turned away and I was able to look directly at her. It was Penny alright. Same frizzy hair, same angry, middle-aged scowl. She kicked over the skeletons as she walked over to the stack of gold bars.

I watched as she stuffed the bars into a duffel bag. The gold clinked heavily as she dropped them in. It was clear she thought she was the only one in the house. When she finished, she turned toward the vanity, and I barely had time to resume my glassy-eyed pose before her eyes fell on me. I couldn't see them, but I felt the weight of her stare.

And this time, she didn't look away. What was she doing? I breathed slowly through my nose, eyes staring into space, and hoped she couldn't tell that I wasn't made of plaster.

To my horror, she walked straight over to me. This was it. I tightened my grip on the baton under the dresser and waited. I wished I could look at her, but I was pretty sure that even in the dark, she'd notice a wigged head staring straight at her.

Penny reached out and touched the hair of the wig next to me, while humming a song I didn't know. Crap. This was too close. The baton in my hand was extended. It wouldn't be easy to get out and use right away. I should've brought a stun gun.

Oh wait…I didn't have one anymore. That was because several months ago Philby stunned me with it. I'm still not sure what possessed me to have it on the bed, or to leave it on. But Philby came racing into the bedroom one night and pounced on me, which knocked me down onto the fully charged weapon. As I lay there twitching, she had the most curious look on her face. That was when I'd decided to get rid of it.

Penny was touching all the wigs now while humming "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Her hand was coming right for me and just about touch the curly red mop, when her cell went off.

She roughly tore the wig off my head, and as I prepared to strike, took it and ran out of the room, while fumbling with the duffel bag of gold bars and her cell. I stayed where I was in case she came back, because I couldn't decide if she'd notice that the head she took the wig off of had hair underneath, or if she'd notice that the head was now gone if I'd ducked down behind the vanity.

"Yes!" I heard her shout as the footsteps moved down the hall. "Yes, I've got them. No, not yet. But I should have the rest soon."

The door closed behind her, and seconds later I heard a car roar off into the distance.

I slowly got to my feet and stretched. Now I had two suspects in Ike's murder and the theft of Mehitable's fortune. Because now it was obvious that Penny wasn't working alone.

There was something on the floor where the gold had been. A card of some sort. I scooped it up and hightailed it out of there. I hit the back alley in minutes and shook out my sweat-soaked curls.

In a few moments I was home. I closed and locked the door behind me, leaning against it with my full weight. Philby trotted into the living room, and when she saw it was me, turned and left. I could swear that she was disappointed.

After a quick shower and putting my lockpicks and everything else away, I sat down on my bed and looked at the card I'd found. In careful cursive, it said,

Lucky Penny, Tinkles awaits…