Chapter 33

“Church business,” I told Etta Mae, apologizing for the interruption, but she was still entranced with Antiques Roadshow. Maybe that was a good thing. I might’ve spewed out my outrage at having had the onus of a broken air conditioner laid on my shoulders. And I knew who had put it there—don’t think I didn’t.

But I put a clamp on the fiery words that wanted to boil out, restrained by knowing that it was bad form to speak ill of one’s church to a nonmember. Although I had been occasionally guilty of doing just that when I’d been pushed to my limit.

“I just love this room,” Etta Mae said, sitting up and looking around as the program ended. “It’s so elegant and everything. You have real good taste.”

“Thank you, but I can’t take all the credit. I had some help from a designer, although I had to put my foot down when she wanted to paint the walls navy blue.”

“Really? It was your idea to paint the walls white and the trim this pretty green? Usually it’s the other way around.”

“The color on the trim is Raleigh Tavern Green, and it wasn’t my idea at all. It’s the way they painted rooms in Colonial times and still do in Williamsburg.” I looked around as she was doing, feeling again the sense of history that the room evoked for me. “I like to think that if Mr. Jefferson came to call, he would feel right at home.”

“I don’t think I know him.”

I almost laughed out loud, but I wouldn’t have hurt her feelings for the world. So as deftly as I could I explained that I was speaking metaphorically of our third president, and she laughed at herself. Then we had an interesting talk about the country’s early years, and she proved a rapt, but short-lived, pupil. As her interest waned, she began to go over her schedule of patients for the following day, and I decided to go upstairs to bed. But the whole episode reminded me of my intention to work with the Literacy Council, which of course I had been unable to do, my time having been wholly taken up with Mattie’s affairs.

Maybe one of these days, I thought, as I trudged up the stairs after a long day of dealing with Sam and Lloyd leaving for a week, the theft of something valuable that was under my guardianship, welcoming a houseguest with a change of clothes in a plastic grocery sack, and learning that I was to blame for a lack of air-conditioning—any one of which was enough for one day alone. I was tired.

But did I sleep? No, I did not. Well, off and on, but mostly off, for images of someone sneaking into Mattie’s apartment and emptying it out while I lay in bed worrying about it kept running through my head.

At one point, I sat straight up in bed, thinking I’d heard a noise downstairs. Etta Mae, I thought. Maybe she’s getting a midnight snack. If so, she was quiet about eating it, for I heard nothing more.

I was glad that she was in the house—I would’ve slept even less imagining somebody breaking in. I mean, a thief was out there somewhere. Any house could’ve been the next target.

Lying down again, my mind was racing so fast that I couldn’t get back to sleep. Who had burgled Mattie’s apartment? I went over again all the prime suspects—all those who had knowledge of and access to what was in her apartment. And could come to no other feasible person of interest than Andrew F. Cobb. But was that because I didn’t want it to have been someone I knew and trusted? Was he a likely candidate only because he was a stranger to us?

Lord, I didn’t know. If, however, I could find out where he’d been over the weekend, that might answer some questions. Why, he could’ve been out of town, which would take him out of the running entirely. He could’ve taken his little two-wheeled trailer up to a campsite in the Smoky Mountains and spent the weekend hiking on the trails, cooking over a campfire, and sleeping in a bedroll.

On the other hand, I thought, as the other possibility popped up in my mind, even though he’d said that he didn’t want to be tied down by material goods, those goods could be turned into cash, which had never tied anybody down. And actually that was exactly what I was in the process of doing.

Maybe that was it! Maybe he was waiting for me to do the hard work of evaluating, sorting, culling, transporting, and selling all of Mattie’s material goods, then he’d step in with a court order and an extended hand for the cash.

But here was the question: if Andrew F. Cobb was the thief—why had he bothered? If he was Mattie’s great-nephew, everything she had could have been his. Oh, he would’ve had to prove his kinship, then go through some legal rigmarole to contest her will, but I couldn’t imagine that any of the beneficiaries would go to the trouble of challenging his rights to her estate.

Well, I had to rethink that. The church might, but surely Pastor Ledbetter and the elders had more class than to attempt to override a legal heir. Besides St. Paul having had a few words to say on the subject of lawsuits, it was also quite tasteless for a church to involve itself in one. But, then again, the session might figure it was worth it. After all, the church was Mattie’s major beneficiary, and the sanctuary was in dire need of cool air. Maybe when it came to a choice between taking the high road or fighting for their rights, the elders would rather be thought tasteless than to swelter all summer.

I had just drifted off to sleep when the phone rang beside the bed. Scared to death, my first thought was that something had happened to Lloyd or Sam.

“Hello?” I quavered, then cleared my throat.

“Mrs. Murdoch? It’s Nate Wheeler. Sorry to wake you, but we’ve had an incident here, and I thought I’d better let you know.”

I sat straight up in bed, wide awake. “What kind of incident? Another break-in?”

“No, I think we nipped that in the bud. But somebody was sneaking around the building. Nothing happened because Mrs. Henderson up on the third floor saw something or somebody moving down below. She was sleeping in her sunroom and got up to go to the . . . Ah, well, anyway, she was awake and looked out the window and saw a shadow creeping around below near Mrs. Freeman’s sunroom. So she thought . . .”

“The thief! He was coming back for something else.”

“That’s what she thought, so she called the sheriff, then me. Deputies are looking around outside now, but they haven’t found anything.”

“Oh, my,” I moaned. “Mr. Wheeler, are you sure that nobody got in?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I went all around outside Mrs. Freeman’s sunroom with a deputy and we checked every window. There’s no breach anywhere, and I guess we have Mrs. Henderson to thank for that.”

And her call of nature, I thought, but didn’t say.

“Well, that settles it,” I said. “If you hear noises in the hall in about fifteen minutes, it’ll be me. Mr. Wheeler, I am moving in for the duration, and I just dare that thief to come back.”

Mr. Wheeler began to say that he didn’t think my coming over was necessary, but I cut him off. Mattie’s things were my responsibility, and I intended to take care of them.

Throwing back the covers—my air-conditioning was working just fine—I pulled on a robe and hurried across the hall.

“Etta Mae?” I whispered. “Are you awake?”

“Yes, ma’am. Is everything all right? I heard the phone.”

I told her that I was leaving to spend the night elsewhere because of a possible impending crime and that she should go back to sleep. “Lillian will be here to give you breakfast, so you can tell her where I am.”

“No way,” she said, swinging her feet out of bed. “I’m not staying here by myself. I’m going with you.”

To tell the truth, I was glad to hear it. She put on a cotton robe and pink, fluffy bedroomers that looked like a pair of rabbbits on her feet, grabbed her grocery sack, and followed me down the stairs, both of us still in our night clothes. I grabbed my pocketbook, wrote a quick note to Lillian, left it on the kitchen counter, and off we went.

The deputies were gone by the time we drove the five blocks, but Mr. Wheeler was waiting for us in the building’s vestibule. Thinking that I should’ve taken time to dress, I clutched my robe closer. I needn’t have bothered. It was Etta Mae for whom he had eyes—an uncommonly inappropriate reaction at midnight after an attempted criminal entry.

I didn’t linger in the hall, just quickly unlocked Mattie’s door, shoved Etta Mae through it, and thanked Mr. Wheeler for his rapid response to the emergency.

Well, of course, the apartment was unprepared for overnight guests, so the first thing we had to do was to put sheets on the guest room bed for Etta Mae. Mattie had kept it with just a spread over the mattress pad. Her bed, on the other hand, had been frequently used and the sheets looked it. As tired as I was by that time, there was no way I was going to crawl in between Mattie’s, or anybody else’s, slept-in sheets. But there was something else that needed doing first.

“One more thing, Etta Mae,” I said as we finished with her bed. “Then we can sleep in peace. Let’s block those French doors, so if anybody gets in the sunroom he can’t get in here.”

“I’d rather he not get in anywhere,” Etta Mae mumbled, but she followed me into the living room and began shoving a chair in front of the doors.

I placed a brass lamp on the chair seat, then stepped back. “That’s not going to stop anybody. Anything heavy enough to keep somebody out is too heavy for us to move. I tell you what, let’s get these boxes off the sofa and I’ll sleep on it.”

“Oh, no. Let me sleep in here, and you sleep in the guest room. I was just thinking about doing that, anyway.”

I looked at the hard-as-a-rock Victorian monstrosity, thought of what the state of my back would be in the morning, and said, “Etta Mae, you’re my guest, and I hate to put you up on a sofa. But, I declare, those sofa arms are so large I wouldn’t be able to stretch out.”

“Well, see, I’m short enough to fit, and I’ve slept on sofas before—pallets, too, which are a lot worse. And I’m a light sleeper. I’ll hear anything that moves.”

I hated taking her bed, but was glad not to have to sleep in Mattie’s, clean sheets or not. It just wouldn’t have felt right. So I agreed to the arrangement, helped Etta Mae find a blanket and a pillow, then crawled into the bed in the guest room, thankful for the comfort, though feeling guilty for ill using my guest.

And, by the way, Etta Mae wasn’t such a light sleeper. She was prone to snoring, but at least that was proof that the sofa was conducive to sleep.

_______

Etta Mae and I, hunched over, scurried from the car to my kitchen door before any early risers could catch sight of us creeping in after a night out somewhere—especially dressed, or undressed, as we were.

Lillian slewed around from the sink, her eyes wide, staring at us in alarm. “What you doin’, comin’ in here like that? Where you been? You s’posed to be in bed!”

“Oh, Lillian, you wouldn’t believe.” I collapsed in a chair at the table, as Etta Mae waved at Lillian and went straight through the kitchen on her way to get dressed for work.

“Well,” Lillian said, her hands on her hips, “I jus’ wanta know what you two been doin’, runnin’ ’round without hardly no clothes on. Folks gonna be talkin’ all over town.”

“Nobody saw us,” I said, “but if they did, I don’t much care.” And I went on to tell her of our night and why we’d been running around in our bedclothes. “I left you a note—it’s here on the table. And you know I had to look after Miss Mattie’s property, Lillian, as I am legally constrained to do.”

“Look like to me you coulda done it with some clothes on, but sound like you couldn’t much help it. What you want for breakfast?”

“Anything. Whatever you fix for Etta Mae—she’ll need a big one before she goes to work.” I stood up and pushed my chair back. “So to make you feel better, I’m going up and get dressed.”

“It don’t make no never mind to me,” she said, setting a skillet on the stove. “’Cept I gotta have something to tell everybody what asks, an’ they’ll be askin’, you know they will. ’Cause you can’t do nothin’ in this town without somebody knowin’ about it.”

“We were fully clothed, Lillian, from head to toe. And I don’t care who saw us.” I stopped and considered for a minute. “Although I don’t think anybody did—it’s too early and we scrooched down in the car.”

Lillian’s shoulders started shaking, and, trying to hold back a laugh, she said, “I wisht I’d seen you out runnin’ ’round, ’speci’lly Miss Etta Mae in them big, ole, fluffy rabbity-lookin’ shoes of hers.”

Then we both started laughing and I had to sit back down to get my breath. Besides, why hurry to dress by that time?