Broke: (20 page)

"I'm not so sure. You shouldn't stay here."

"This is my new house! I live here. I can't leave." She spoke with, she hoped, conviction. But, deep inside, she wasn't sure. Ralph might be right. She and Drew and Marshmallow might not be safe here.

"Th
ere have been two
attack
s,
attempt
s
on your l
ife. Someone wants you dead."

***

After Immy checked on Drew and Marshmallow and found them fast asleep, she returned to the kitchen. Ralph had popped a beer and was sitting at the table
sipping from the can
.

"Immy, I think I should
move in until someone finds out what's going on
."

For a fleeting second, Immy wanted to assert her independence, to tell Ralph that she could take care of herself. But in the next second, relief weakened her knees and she plopped
to a seat
at the table with Ralph. Besides, she'd always wanted to spend the night with Ralph
beside her
. His body was so solid and comforting. It would be so nice and warm in her bed.
And she
loved
the way he smelled, like sunshine and outdoors and sometimes leather.

"I'll sleep on the couch," he said. "That way I'll know if anyone comes in through the front. And
if they come into the kitchen
they'll have to come through that room to get to the stairway."

Oh, the couch.
That again.
She got herself a beer.

"You should let people know that the bull juice isn't here any more
,
"
Ralph said.

"Vance and Quentin know, but I don't think they care."

"Well, let other people know."

"How do I do that?
S
tart telling everyone the bull semen has left the building?"

"Something like that."

"Do you think other people have keys?"
Ralph asked.

"
I know they do
, but the locks are changed. Oh, we never figured
out how the vagrants got in here
, though
.
They might have a way to get in.
"

"Your Uncle Dewey, you mean?"

"Well, no
,
not him. Maybe
the one Dewey called
Grunt
,
or the other guy."

"The other guy is dead. And no one has ever tracked down the third one, Grunt."

"Abraham Grant, you said."

"Maybe."

"I guess knowing his name doesn't help if you
still
can't find him."
Immy would have to get back to work
,
tracking him down. She kept getting side tracked by ghosts and uncles and things.

A knock sounded on the door.

"It's awfully late," Immy said. She rose to answer
it
, but Ralph said, "Let me get it."

It was sweet he was being so protective.

She followed closely, though
, curious
.

The old lady neighbor, Sadie McMudgeon stood on the porch.
Immy
looked at her differently since learning that
Sadie's
family
, her husband and
her
only
son,
had perished in a fire. And that
t
he son, Carl, had been a
severely
mentally handicapped adult. Immy took a softer view of the woman.

"What are y'all doing about this here
porch? It's a disgrace, that's what it is."

"The repairs are taking longer than we anticipated," Ralph said. "I should be able to get to it over the weekend."

"Well, I should hope so. The council meeting is Saturday, you know."

"Council meeting?" Immy
squeaked.
Her view of old McMudgeon was hardening again.

"The vote on your house comes up at the next meeting
,
"
the woman said.

"It's not her house," Ralph said. "She's renting."

"Humph." The old crone stumped down the stairs and left.

"I'd forgotten they were having that meeting." Immy's voice trembled. "If they condemn the house, I'll lose my home."

"Don't worry too much about that. After they vote, it'll take a long time to do anything."

"Like tear it down?"

"More likely, make Geoff Tompkins fix it up
,
"
Ralph said, closing and locking the door.

"He doesn't seem very interested in doing that."

Chap
ter Twenty-
t
wo

Thursday, at work, Immy thought she'd try out Ralph's suggestion. Work on her wording.

As Mike was leaving for lunch, she star
t
ed in.

"By the way, there was bull semen in my house, but it's gone now."

"Should I be dialing the mental hospital, kiddo? You're not making sense."

She left it at that.
Her
wording wasn’t right yet.

Ralph had told Mrs. McMudgeon he'd fix up the porch over the weekend, but he came over
Thursday
with his tools
soon after Immy got home
from work
.
Immy thought McMudgeon's warning must have gotten to him. Ralph
got to work gluing and, when Immy
later
brought him some ice tea, he was pulling straps tight to hold the railing in place until it dried.

"Don't lean on this for a couple days," he told Immy,
after
gratefully gulping the tea.
He swiped his hand across his brow, slightly sweaty even in the cool October air.

"Are you staying here again tonight?" Immy twirled a strand of her straight hair. "Mother
is coming over with
a
pot pie when she brings Drew. There might be dessert, too."

"Immy, I'd stay with or without pot pie.
But I'll hope for dessert.
" His smile was so sweet.
Th
at
smile left his face as he cupped a hand under her chin.
"
Until the person who left it here knows that the canister is gone, you're not safe.
Someone wants to kill you. I'm not going to let that happen."

He'd parked his truck half a block away,
she'd noticed
, so no one would know an extra person lurked inside.
He'd done that the night before, too.

When the
glue was dry and the
straps were gone, the porch would
be
pretty nice, Immy thought. "Can we get the City Council people to come back and see the house again?"

"I think they've already made their inspection."

"But the railing was broken when they were here."

Ralph held the door
open
for Immy to enter the house. "They looked at everything. The railing was only a small part. Anyway, I've told you, it'll take time after the vote to evict you."

"Evict me?"
She faced him in the doorway. Would someone really evict her?

"
T
he vote might go your way. It's not a done deal yet."

They both
paused
at the sound of a loud
, rattling
engine.
Hortense drove up in
her
green van. Drew jumped out and raced through the house to greet Marshmallow in the
backyard
.
Ralph helped carry in the hot pot pie and the warm apple strudel.

"Are you attending the assembly on the
day following the
morrow, Imogene?" Hortense asked as they
laid out
dishes and flatware on the kitchen table.

"Everybody but me remember
ed
the city council meeting is
Saturday
," Immy said. "I don't know. Should I?"

"A
decision will be effected which may affect your future. It
w
ould
behoove you to be present."

Ralph brought a pitcher of ice tea to the table. "Do you want me to go with you, Immy?"

"Oh, would you? Yes, I think so. Are you going, Mother?"

"There is an emergency meeting of the Association for Retired Librarians
at
the antemeridian hour of ten. I believe that's the same time that the City Council
commences
."

"What's the emergency?" asked Ralph.

"An anonymous donor has gifted the library with a large amount of funds and the Library Board has asked for our input as to its dis
bu
rsement."

"That's great! Donors are always good." Ralph set glasses at each place and the table was complete.

"I
concur that
the donation is good for the library, but
not
for
the donor,
who,
I
must
believe, became deceased in order for us to benefit from his or her generosity."

Immy wondered, for a moment, whether the donor might have been murdered
. Would
this be a Case for her to solve
?
Then she decided she was thinking too much about Cases. She called Drew in and they
all
sat
together
and enjoyed the meal.

As she tucked Drew in,
taking in the scent of her clean, shampooed curls,
Immy got a
nother message from "the lady" from Drew.

"The lady wants you to keep trying, she said. To help her."

"What doe
s
she say about what happened to me? Does she like that? Did she think it was funny?"

Drew frowned. "Don't be silly, Mommy. The lady likes you and she likes Unca Dewey and Unca Ralph.
But she doesn't like that bad man."

If only there were a way to find out who that "bad man" was. The lady wasn't
specific
on that.

***

The more Immy thought about the feel of those hands in the small of her back, the less she thought it was a man who had pushed her over the balcony. Every time
the memory of
the panic of th
at
moment assailed her, she had to stop for breath. She said a prayer of thanks for the fact that the balcony railing was so much sturdier than the one on the porch.

She spent Friday at work getting almost completely caught up on the deluge of filing Mike was raining upon her. Filing kept her from having too many flashbacks to her dangle over the hard floor so far below.
That was good.

Whose hands were they, if they were those of a female? Could Jersey Shorr have pushed her? Why on earth would she do that?
Immy needed more intel on that woman.

After work on Friday, she phoned Hortense and asked her to keep Drew for a little longer while she ran some errands. She drove to Shorr Realty and saw that Jersey's Beemer was out front. A parking space opened up across the street, half a block away, perfect for surveilling. Immy slouched
in her seat
and waited.

Jersey bustled out less than ten minutes later. The Surveillance Gods were with Immy today. However, she drove to a house with a for sale sign in the front yard. Immy was about to drive on past when she realized it wasn't a Shorr Realty sign. Was she previewing a house being sold by someone else?

A Toyota Land Cruiser sailed up and parked behind Jersey's car and out stepped Geoff with a "G".
Was he buying a house? Did he own this one? He gave a furtive glance around before he entered the house to join Jersey. No other cars were around. Immy noted the address. Something was fishy here.

***

Saturday afternoon, Ralph took Immy and Drew to IHOP to cheer them up. Immy wished she hadn't gone to the City Council meeting. The vote
on whether or not
to condemn the property wasn't any fun. They were evenly split, since one member was absent, so they decided to vote again in November.
Before the vote, t
hey discussed
her
house in disparaging terms, using words like "decrepit" and "sub-standard". One person even said it was an eyesore. Immy had to bite her lower lip
pretty hard
to keep quiet.

Sitting at the restaurant, slicing her pancakes,
Immy wondered if any of the members could be bought. Maybe Geoff had enough money to get a couple of them into his pocket.

But neither Geoff Tompkins,
who was, after all,
the actual owner of the house, or Jersey Shorr, the rental agent, ha
d
shown up. Not even Vance Valentin
, the rat
. It was better that Vance not show up, though. Immy thought it was better to keep Vance and Ralph apart as long as she could.
It would be terrible if they started fighting over her
. In case Vance ever happened to notice she was a female.

Geoff, Jersey, Vance.
Those were the
people who had a stake in the property
. It looked like they just didn't care.

"Now what?" Immy asked, swirling the last of her
butter and syrup
into a
yellowish
brown mess.

"
Now n
othing, Immy," said Ralph. "You don't do anything. It's Tompkins' house.
And the vote
isn
't even completed. We'll keep fixing it up and you'll keep living there. You have a rental agreement, right?"

"Yes, I signed it
a lot of times
."

"If you have to move,
the agency
probably has to refund some money to you.
Right?"

She didn't answer.

"
You didn't read the
contract
?
"

"Not all of it, no." She'd read the word "signature" and ha
d
signed beside it.
After she's scanned it for the exorcism clause, she'd put the thing somewhere.
She wondered where. Maybe she should read the rest of it.

***

The next day, Sunday, was Halloween. Drew bounced with excitement the whole day. She put her ghost costume on
immediately
after breakfast and wore it until dusk
, only spilling a couple
of
SpaghettiOs on it at lunch
. Marshmallow seemed very interested in the smell of the
drop cloth
, even before lunch
. Immy wondered if it retained some of the odor of the canister.

No one had come
around trying to find
th
at
canister for a few days. Vance and Quentin, she was beginning to think, really
had been
after the dresser, and only the dresser. Although Vance
had
still stared at the chandelier
the last
time he walked underneath it.
Maybe he wanted
that, too. Immy
vowed to
get inside his own home
someday and see if it was full of musty old things.
S
he'd
have to
tail him home sometime.
She'd done a good job tailing Jersey, but she could use more
practice. PIs had to tail people.

Hortense had decided
Drew should do her trick-or-trea
ting in Saltlick, since Immy hadn't met
any neighbors
in Wymee Falls
except Sadie McMudgeon
. And there was no way Immy was going to let Drew take candy from that witch.

Ralph had come over
to stay with her
, but
was
called
out
to Saltlick. A shed had blown up and
the c
hief wanted him to question the neighbors to see if it might have been a meth lab.

When Hortense arrived, Drew was waiting on the porch. She'd been rocketing
up and down
the length of it, with Immy constantly reminding her not to touch the
drying, still-fragile
railing. The pig brushed against it once
. T
he posts wobbled, but didn't fall
apart
.

Immy was relieved when Drew rode off to Saltlick and she could put Marshmallow inside.
Mother had invi
ted her to come with them, but Immy wanted to s
tay and hand out treats.
Besides protecting her house from "trickers", she would get to see all the cute costumes.
Ralph had made sure all the windows and doors were secure before he left.

She'd bought a couple bags of miniature candy bars
,
put them in a mixing bowl,
and set it by the front door. But when it
got
dark and she turned on the porch light,
there was a flash and a pop. Th
e bulb
was burned out
. S
o no kids came to
trick or treat
all night
. She didn't even see any walking past. Maybe this wasn't such a good neighborhood for Drew.
Now that she thought about it, s
he'd never seen another child
h
ere, even down the block where there were a few normal-looking houses
--n
ot ancient
like hers and
overgrown with vegetation like Sadie's.