Chapter 39

“Etta Mae,” I called as I stepped into Mattie’s dark, shadowy apartment and locked the door behind me.

“Ma’am?” she whispered right beside me.

I jumped, then patted my chest. “Oh, goodness, I thought you were in the bedroom.”

“No’m, I was waiting for you.”

“Well,” I said, with a laugh to dispel the fright she’d given me, “let’s go together and find some lamps.”

“I think they’re all packed up. I found three in a box over there.” Etta Mae pointed to a corner of the room, where I could make out the harps of a number of shadeless lamps.

So we felt our way to the hall, swiping our hands against the walls in search of light switches. There was another dim bulb in the high ceiling of the hall, one in the ceiling of the guest room, and another in Mattie’s room. One of the two sconces beside the bathroom mirror wasn’t working.

“Law, Etta Mae,” I said, scanning Mattie’s bedroom from the door. “I never realized how beneficial bedside lamps are. I want both of us in beds tonight, but we could maim ourselves trying to get into them with the switches across the rooms.”

“Um, that’s the truth, ’specially with all the boxes on the floor. Let me move some around.” She began to push a few boxes aside to clear a trail. “I’ll keep my light on till you get in bed.”

“Let’s just keep the bathroom light on in case either of us has to get up. I’ll probably have to.”

She giggled and said, “Me, too.”

Using the trail between the boxes, I laid my overnight bag on the bed, then hesitated before opening it. The box with the sampler in it would be right on top, and I didn’t want to explain my reluctance to have it out of my keeping. Foolish, probably, but I felt better having it with me.

But Etta Mae was lingering beside Mattie’s bed, hesitant, I thought, to go to the guest room alone. Why was that, I wondered, and wondered why I, too, felt ill at ease in the apartment. We’d had no such qualms when we’d dashed over in the middle of the night less than twenty-four hours before.

We should’ve felt safer after foiling an attempt to steal something else. The sunroom windows had been locked, checked, and rechecked. Deputies with dogs had walked the premises, and every tenant in the building was on the alert.

So why were we so on edge this night?

“Etta Mae,” I said, straightening up, “I’ll tell you what. I think we’ll sleep better if we do something about that sunroom.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “What?”

“Let’s go see. Mr. Wheeler moved the chest-on-chest so he could lock the windows in the sunroom—and he didn’t move it back. So if anybody gets into the sunroom, he can walk right through those French doors into the apartment.”

Etta Mae shivered. “I know,” she said, nodding. Then, frowning, she said, “I don’t think we can move the chest back by ourselves. That thing is huge.”

“No, I’m thinking of moving something else—several somethings else, if need be—to block the doors. All we really need is something that’ll make a lot of noise if it’s moved.”

Etta Mae’s mouth twisted as she thought of somebody besides us being in the apartment. “You think somebody’ll try to get in? Tonight? While we’re here?”

“No, not really. I think we’re safe—I just want to feel safe. Come on, let’s go see what we can do.”

Sure enough, not only was there no furniture blocking the French doors to the sunroom, the doors themselves weren’t locked.

I walked out into the sunroom, partially lit by the light on the front corner of the building, and looked around. The wicker sofa was still there, now with two wicker chairs upended on it. Two Chippendale chairs that had been in the living room took up most of the center of the room, and a rolled-up Oriental on the floor nearly upended me. There were several taped boxes stacked up around the perimeter of the room, but, still and all, if someone broke a windowpane and unlocked a window, there’d be enough space and light for free access to anything in the apartment.

Maybe I was giving too much credit to the athleticism and determination of a potential thief, but to my mind it was the executor’s job to think ahead and plan accordingly. Mattie’s apartment was on the ground floor, so even I could’ve reached the sunroom windows from outside. For me to be able to climb through one of them was another matter, but I doubted that anyone bent on larceny would have to contend with physical limitations like creaky limbs and a stiff back.

Returning to the living room, I shut the French doors behind me. “All right, Etta Mae, let’s look around and see what we can put in front of these doors. Not anything real heavy, but a lot of small things that’ll tumble over and make enough noise to wake us up.”

“Uh-huh, okay, but what do we do if we hear a noise? I mean, just waking up won’t do us much good.”

“Well, we scream and call the police.” I stopped, recalling that I had had Mattie’s phone disconnected. “You have your cell phone, and I have mine—I think. Anyway, keep yours close, and at the least little thing, call for help.”

I looked around, trying to make sense of the way that Helen and Diane had sorted the furniture for the moving van. “Here’s an idea, Etta Mae,” I said. “I don’t know why Diane hasn’t already packed these things up, but let’s clear off this étagère and move it in front of the French doors.”

“Clear off what?”

“Étagère—it’s just a whatnot.”

“Oh, well,” Etta Mae said, “I know what a whatnot is.”

We began removing the decorative vases, the Lladró porcelain figurines, and the chubby Hummel child figurines from the crowded shelves. As we moved the ornamental odds and ends of Mattie’s collection, I decided that none of the pieces was of great value. Which was probably why Diane had left them for last. The same statuette of a woman in a large hat and a flowing blue gown, for instance, I had seen in several Abbotsville homes.

Etta Mae, on the other hand, seemed entranced with each decorative piece, turning them around in her hands and looking for the makers’ marks on the bottom.

“Do you collect anything, Miss Julia?” she asked.

“Ha!” I said, laughing. “Only the odd child or two. But, no, I’ve never been a collector. On second thought, though, I do have several Limoges boxes—the little, tiny ones, you know, in different shapes. What about you? Do you collect anything?”

“Barbies,” she said. “I collect Barbie dolls. I only have a few because I like the ones that’re in fancy dress, like a special evening gown or something. I have the Midnight Tuxedo Barbie, and she’s beautiful. And I love the ones with outfits for a special outing, like the Resort Barbie or the Bowling Barbie.” She studied a brightly colored Hummel figure, wrinkled her nose at it as she put it aside, and said, “They’re awfully expensive, though, because they’re to look at, not to play with.”

I nodded and stored that information away. I’d told Lillian that I’d make it up to Etta Mae for helping me keep Mattie’s apartment safe, and now I knew how to do it.

When we’d removed all the knickknacks from the shelves of the étagère, I said, “Okay, let’s move it where the chest-on-chest was—right in front of the French doors to the sunroom.”

“Miss Julia,” Etta Mae said, as she helped me slide the étagère over. “This thing is as light as it can be. I mean, it’s tall and awkward, but if that big chest couldn’t keep anybody out, how can this?”

“We’re going to put all the china things back on it. If a thief tries to push through the door, he’ll create an almighty crash that’ll wake up everybody in the building. Especially us.”

I had a moment of hesitation about putting Mattie’s collectibles in harm’s way, but I did it anyway. Better a few gewgaws get broken than a thief get in.

I felt so comfortable with what we’d rigged up that I urged Etta Mae to forgo the sofa and sleep in the guest room. That meant that I would sleep in Mattie’s bed—with clean sheets, of course—but I closed my mind to what had happened to the last occupant and crawled in. In fact, it didn’t bother me at all. I fell asleep right away, safe and secure with Mr. Wheeler at one end of the hall, Etta Mae in the next room, and our homemade alarm system guarding the only means of access.

_______

The next morning as we hurriedly dressed, taking turns brushing our teeth at the bathroom sink, a few second thoughts slowed me down. What was I doing carrying around a highly valuable object everywhere I went? And what was I doing leaving it under a pile of winter gowns or bathroom towels when I had to go out? Lillian couldn’t guard it all day every day for me, especially since she had the weekend off.

There was only one thing to do, though I hated doing it. “Etta Mae,” I said, “if we open that safe, then close it, we’d be able to open it again, wouldn’t we? I mean, the combination isn’t just good for one time, is it?”

She looked at me for a minute, seeming to understand my concern. “Let’s try it and see.”

And that’s what we did. First, without putting anything in the safe, we closed the door and spun the dial. Then, looking at the scrap of paper I’d kept in my pocketbook, Etta Mae opened it right back up again. “It’ll work, Miss Julia,” she said.

So, with great trepidation, I slid the Rich’s box into the safe, closed the door, and respun the dial.

“Lord,” I said in as prayerful a tone as I could manage, “I hope I’ve done the right thing. But it’s back where it’s been safe for years and years. I really shouldn’t have been carrying it around or trying to hide it in half a dozen different places. Why,” I said, laughing, “I might’ve forgotten where I’d put it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Etta Mae agreed, “or spilled coffee on it, or dropped it and broken the glass, or had it snatched on the street. It’s safer right where it is.”

I hoped she was right.