And not just any old knife’s stuck in the middle of the ugly bush.
It’s a knife I recognize.
The Ginsu kitchen knife Dad ordered from TV for The Ruler. The long, pointy, never-needs-sharpening, $19.95, shipping-and-handling-extra Ginsu knife.
The stalker used one of The Ruler’s knives! From our kitchen! The stalker was in our house! Ack. Eek. Ike.
I gulp air for a few minutes, then pull myself together.
I march into the kitchen, straight to the drawer with the Saran Wrap and tinfoil and plastic bags, and grab a pair of disposable gloves. The Ruler uses them when handling raw meat. Basically, with her in the house, we’re equipped for every kind of emergency. In this case, we’re talking about picking up a piece of evidence without smudging the fingerprints. Thanks to my prior detecting experience, I know all about fingerprints.
Yanking on the gloves, I march back to the big ugly bush. Then I plunge both arms in.
Yikes. The knife’s totally stuck in the bush. With some heavy breathing and a hefty pull, I free the knife.
Then I’m stumbling and waving the knife in the air, trying to catch my balance.
Just as The Ruler and Sam and Grandma Baldwin pull into the driveway.
The Ruler leaps out of the passenger side of Grandma’s car. “Sherry! Are you okay? What’s going on?”
Grandma follows. She stops to pull up her knee-socks and slide her feet into her Birkenstock sandals.
Sam climbs out slowly, his eyes on the knife.
I lower it to my side. “I think this is what the person wrecked the tires with.”
The Ruler reaches me. “My Ginsu knife?”
Sam’s eyes are growing bigger and bigger, like those spongy figures you leave in water to expand. “The bad guy was in our kitchen.” He always makes connections freaky fast. Like he’s some kind of midget genius.
“Paula, you should call the police and have them dust for fingerprints.” I’m thinking Mom can sneak into the police station to find out what they come up with. No way we’re letting the police crack this case. Mom only gets credit if we solve it.
“Fingerprints?” The Ruler looks dazed, which is so not her style. “Oh, so that’s why you’re wearing plastic gloves.”
Grandma shuffles toward me, her arms making big circles in the air, like she’s pushing away evil spirits. “Good for you, Sherry, using your noodle.”
“I’ll call the detective who came out earlier.” The Ruler straightens up, totally in her element now that she has a task to fulfill. “His card’s inside.” She strides to the front door.
No doubt the card is in a special file folder labeled “Tire Incident.” The Ruler invented überorganization.
“I’ll get started scattering mint leaves by the doors and windows. Keeps intruders out. Snakes too.” Grandma clomp-clomps the rest of the way up the walk.
“Sherry, bring that knife inside.” Grandma opens the front door. “You and Sam can help me burn some cloves. Then we’ll mix the ashes with salt and sprinkle them around the perimeter of the rooms. To keep evil out.” She pauses, a finger on her chin. “I’m pretty sure it’s good for your love life too.”
“She gets more and more nutzoid,” I say to Sam, who’s sticking to my side.
“Just don’t ask her about this wren she thinks she has a”—he makes finger quotes—“‘special relationship’ with.”
In the kitchen, I gesture to the pantry with my shoulder. “Sam, get me a bag.”
He doesn’t even question the order, which only proves how creeped out he is.
Grandma grabs a cereal bowl, then pulls open drawers till she finds matches. All pyromaniac, she gets a rinky-dink clove fire going in the bowl.
The Ruler is already on the phone with the detective about the knife and possible fingerprints.
I wrap up the knife nice and safe in a plastic bag and scoot it to the back of the counter. I peel off the disposable gloves and trash them.
Grandma dumps a bunch of salt on top of the clove ashes, then hands me the bowl and a spoon. “Stir it up, would you, Sherry?” She starts another clove fire in a different bowl.
Next she’ll be asking me to wear face paint and beat on drums.
The phone pressed against her ear, The Ruler bites her lip, thinking hard. “Actually, my husband may have used the knife last. He was slicing food for the barbecue in the backyard. And now I’m not sure it was ever brought back into the kitchen.”
Now that she’s said it, I do remember Dad grilling last weekend before he went out of town. He was wearing his dorky chef’s apron, the one that says “Old accountants never die, they just lose their balance.” I can totally see him humming Céline Dion and slicing pineapple (surprisingly yummy when grilled) and bananas (incredibly gross when grilled).
And then I remember something else. “Sam, I was on cleanup that evening.”
“So you probably forgot the knife outside by mistake.” Sam’s shoulders relax. He’s less creeped out if the bad guy wasn’t rooting around in our kitchen.
Me too. Although, yikeserama, I basically left out the weapon.
Balancing the phone on her shoulder while she slots the paperwork back in the file, The Ruler frowns. “You won’t be out today to get the knife?”
She hangs up and turns to me and Sam. “Well, they’ll come by sometime this week for the prints. This case isn’t high priority.” And then, because she’s the master of multitasking and can listen to many conversations at once, like even an entire classroom, she says, “Sherry, if it hadn’t been my Ginsu knife, he’d have found something else.”
Sam moves closer to me. “I’d probably have left it outside too. If I’d been on cleanup.”
Which is totally not true because Sam is Mr. Neat and Tidy.
The Ruler claps. “Kids, I know exactly what’ll perk us up. Some of my homemade lentil soup and rosemary bread. First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll all make a trip to the Nut ’n’ Nut for the ingredients.”
Oh yeah, that’s definitely what leaps to mind when I’m feeling down. A trip to the health food store followed by The Ruler’s gas-producing lentil soup and her two-ton rosemary bread. Not.
But there is one good thing about going to the Nut ’n’ Nut. I look all hopeful at The Ruler.
“Absolutely, Sherry,” she says, reading my mind. “We’ll make sure you get to browse the clothes at the Rack.”
Back in the kitchen, Grandma’s rinsing out her bowl. “You’re safe now. The house was very receptive.” She beams at all of us. “I’m going home to set out sunflower seeds for one of my wrens.”
“Thanks for all your help,” The Ruler says.
“My pleasure. Nothing I like better than sharing my spiritual talents.” Grandma drops a kiss on Sam’s forehead, then mine. She gives The Ruler an iron-strong hug. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.” And she clomps out the door.
I wish I believed all my problems in life could be solved with a bowl of burnt cloves + salt.
But I don’t. No, I believe my future is crammed with problems. Problems way too serious to be solved with any combo of herbs and seasonings.