Chapter 48

As soon as Mattie’s bedroom was emptied, I began sweeping the floor while Lillian wiped cobwebs from the walls. Helen and Diane stood by the door to the hall, checking off each piece of furniture as it was moved to the truck.

When the last chest, the last chair, the last everything was gone, including the last faded oil painting and photograph from the walls, I wandered through the apartment, my footsteps echoing in the empty rooms. I glanced at the trash piles on the floor, the dusty windows, the empty hangers in the closet, and the stained wallpaper, thinking to myself, “Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

Well, I didn’t know that any sweet birds had ever sung in Mattie’s apartment, but the bare, ruined rooms gave me such a desolate feeling that I was moved to dredge up the little bit of poetry that had stuck in my mind. Poor Mattie, I thought, almost overcome by the sadness of her life. But, I thought, as I mentally shook myself, if everything that I’d set in motion went well, she would create some happiness for others—like the ten friends she’d remembered in her will, plus a lot of children, many litters of dogs and cats, twelve overheated deacons, and one hotheaded minister.

_______

As Lillian rounded up her cleaning supplies, Diane and I discussed for a few minutes her pending trip to the Smithsonian, then I thanked her and Helen again. While they took one last look around the rooms, I walked back to Mr. Wheeler’s apartment.

I could hear the sound of a power saw from within, so I knew he’d kept working while we emptied Mattie’s apartment without him. Under the circumstances as I now knew them, that had probably been a wise course.

“Good afternoon,” I said when he opened the door. “I think we’re all finished, but I need to turn in our keys and officially end Mrs. Freeman’s lease. Do you know who the owner is?”

“I sure do,” he said with that nice smile. “I am.”

“Well, good. I knew the building had changed hands recently, but I didn’t know from whose to whose. So I’ll tell you, Mr. Wheeler, Mattie’s apartment could use some rehabilitation before you rent it again.”

“It’s the next one on my list.” He accepted the new keys I’d had made, and as I started to turn away, he said, “Uh, Mrs. Murdoch, is your houseguest still with you?”

“Etta Mae? No, Sam will be home tonight, so she’s back at her place in Delmont.” It flashed through my mind that Etta Mae was young enough, if childbearing age was really Mr. Wheeler’s criterion, for his consideration. But somehow I felt that there’d been more to Helen’s breakup with him than either her ability or his desire to have children. “Why?” I asked.

“Well, I thought I might give her a call. Unless,” he quickly added, “she’s seeing someone.”

Knowing that Etta Mae had seen many someones, I said, “I’m not sure, but I think she’s in between right now. But I caution you, Mr. Wheeler, she’s as fine a young woman as you’ll find, but she has a mind of her own. I wouldn’t toy with her if I were you.”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

I nodded, thanked him again for his help, and left, thinking as I went that he’d answer to me if he did.

_______

My cell phone rang as I followed Lillian through the front door of Mattie’s building on our way to the car. It took several seconds of rummaging in my pocketbook to find the thing—it rang so seldom that it was rarely to hand.

“Mrs. Murdoch?” Mr. Ernest Sitton said. “Glad I caught you. Your housekeeper once told me that you might not answer. But, be that as it may, I have news for you. Cobb, or the man we know as Cobb, was discharged from the hospital this morning, still claiming amnesia for the events of Saturday night. Of course, he was still under arrest and appeared before the magistrate for arraignment a little while ago. Bond of twenty thousand dollars was set, and he bonded out.”

“He’s out? After all he’s done?”

“He was given notice to appear before the district judge in a day or so because of the felony charges, and a court date will be set then. In the meantime, yes, he’s out.”

“Why, Mr. Sitton, what’s he going to do? His trailer’s wrecked, so he has no place to live. And his car’s in worse shape, so he can’t get around. Is he just on the street?” I looked around to be sure he wasn’t hiding in the bushes by the front door.

“The fact that he has no transportation is probably the reason he was given bond,” Mr. Sitton said, somewhat drily. “His lawyer’s found him a bed at the mission.”

“Well, what I want to know,” I said, still hot about the whole situation, “is how did he pay a twenty-thousand-dollar bond? He certainly doesn’t appear to have that kind of money, and we know he has no property to speak of, especially since it’s all wrecked.”

“A bondsman, Mrs. Murdoch, who, I expect, is now regretting the deal. Cobb is apparently missing. His lawyer dropped him off at the mission, but he never registered with them. Now,” Mr. Sitton continued, “it may well be that he’s sitting in a restaurant somewhere or walking down Main Street or a dozen other places. I’ve been trying to contact him, but nobody’s seen him.”

“He could still turn up,” I said, although I doubted it, and didn’t much care if he didn’t. “Maybe one of those long-haired bounty hunters will go after him.”

“Yes, well, maybe so. But a warrant will be issued if he fails to appear on his court date, and the sheriff as well as the bondsman will be after him. They’ll get him, especially since we now know who he is.”

“We do?”

“I have the pictures and identification that we’ve been waiting for. I think you’ll find them interesting. How soon can you get here, Mrs. Murdoch?”

_______

As quickly as it took me to drive to Delmont, which wasn’t very long. I had, however, delayed long enough to take Lillian home and tell her to lock all the doors and not to answer if anyone knocked. If Cobb was on the loose, there was no telling where he’d turn up. He obviously knew that something valuable was—or had been—in Mattie’s safe, but whether he’d known what it was, was another matter. He might’ve been sorely disappointed if he’d opened the safe expecting to find gold coins or bundles of cash and had found, instead, a piece of needlework.

_______

As soon as I walked into Mr. Sitton’s office, my eyes locked on a fuzzy black-and-white picture in the center of his conference table.

“Is that him?”

Mr. Sitton nodded. “Andrew F. Cobb, yes. Taken fifteen years ago when he was arrested for larceny and sentenced to six years’ incarceration. Released after thirty-six months for good behavior, no further contact with law enforcement.”

“Until Saturday night,” I reminded him. I approached the table slowly, being of two minds as to what I wanted to see.

Leaning over, I scanned the faxed picture, then snatched it up for a closer look. “Who is this?”

“Andrew F. Cobb, deceased April 26, 2009. Highway accident—here’s the police report.” He laid an official form on the table for me to see. “Note also his physical description sent by the warden of the prison.” Another form slid beside the first one.

“My word,” I said as I read it. “He was a big man—over six feet, weighing two hundred ten pounds, and I know these faxed things don’t give a true picture of coloring, but it looks to me as if he had black hair and eyebrows. In other words,” I went on, in a musing way, “not anything at all like the man presenting himself as Cobb. But, Mr. Sitton, this description of the real Cobb comes closer to the way Mattie looked than that short, blond, sunburned idiot who almost took us in. She was a large-boned woman, tall, though almost hunchbacked, and dark even with some graying, as you may recall. I see, I think, a family resemblance, especially in the heavy eyebrows. And I hate to say this, but in the mustache as well.”

He nodded. “I’d say it’s confirmed that we’ve been dealing with an impostor.”

“But how did he know about Mattie? How did he know what she had—that she’d be worth robbing? How did he even know she’d died?”

“Remember what I told you about sociopaths. Now look at this.” He handed me another faxed picture.

“Why, it’s him!”

“Yes, it’s William Lee Smith, or, at least, that’s one of the names he’s known as. We can be grateful to the warden where they were both incarcerated. When I explained our concerns about the man presenting himself as Cobb, he looked more closely through his files. Smith was Cobb’s cellmate for almost Cobb’s entire period of incarceration. You may not know this, but it’s quite common for cellmates to share personal information to pass the time.”

“But, Mr. Sitton, that was years ago, when Andrew Cobb, according to you and that sheriff you talked to, was a fairly young man. How would Cobb-Smith-whoever-he-is know about Mattie? And also know that the real Cobb was dead and wouldn’t be appearing as the next of kin?”

“Sociopathic behavior, Mrs. Murdoch,” Mr. Sitton said, as if such behavior were nothing new to him. “It doesn’t surprise me that he tucked away information that could be of use later on. I have no doubt that the real Cobb revealed the entire history of his family, perhaps even that his aunt Mattie was the caretaker of valuable family items.”

“Including the contents of a safe?” I could hardly believe it.

“A safe?” Mr. Sitton asked, eyebrows raised.

“I’ll explain later,” I said with a wave of my hand. I needed to first understand sociopathic behavior. “I’m finding it hard to fathom that this Smith could get so much intimate information out of another prisoner, then keep it to himself for years and years. And keep an eye out for both Cobb’s and Mattie’s death notices.”

“Perhaps Cobb’s fairly low intelligence quotient speaks to your first concern. And we don’t know if Smith actually knew they were both deceased. He may have figured he could get by as Mattie’s nephew just long enough to steal something from her, then he’d move on.”

“The cellarette,” I murmured, realizing that if Cobb-Smith or Smith-Cobb was on the run, he had money in his pocket to finance a flight from justice. “No wonder, then,” I went on, “that he had no interest in contesting her will. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself.” I shivered as I recalled how willing—even eager—I’d been to turn over Mattie’s estate to anybody who would take it—including a bald-faced liar unconscionable enough to sit as big as you please in the first pew at Mattie’s funeral service.

“Well,” I said, turning away from the paper-strewn table, “if you want to know the truth, I’m glad he’s gone and I hope he stays that way. I still have too much to do to spend time testifying in a courtroom, revealing, thereby, all of Mattie’s secrets. Some of which, Mr. Sitton, you may be interested in.”

Then I told him about finding the unreadable combination that Etta Mae had been able to decipher, the safe and its remarkable contents, and finally I told him of Diane Jankowski’s upcoming mission to the Smithsonian.

“Well,” he said, a hint of admiration in his words, “you’ve certainly been busy.”

“More than you know, Mr. Sitton,” I said, sighing as I thought of a wild Saturday night ride. “More than you know.”