Broke: (3 page)

Well, of course you are, thought Immy.
"
I
'
m
, uh,
Imogene,
"
she stammered.
"
You can call me
, um,
Immy.
"
She couldn
'
t help batting her eyes a little.

Then he smiled.
"
Hi there, Immy.
"
Dimples
and
a cleft chin.
She
thought, just for a moment, that she saw doves circling his head.
She definitely heard violins.

Jersey had, meanwhile, called
Mr. Tompkins
and gotten permission for Immy
to
build a fence.
"
He says you can pretty much do what you want to with it
.
He'll be around to look it over
and check out the contents
.
He sure hasn
'
t done anything
to it
. He had it for sale for years, but no one wanted it. I think he overpriced, then the market collapsed.
"
She drummed
her
nail
s
on
t
he desk blotter.
"
I wonder how many homeless people have been squatting there. You
'
d better change the locks.
"

That would be something to think about. How had
this Grunt
character gotten in? The one that Dewey
said let him
in?
They couldn't have used
the front door, with the lockbox on it and all.
Maybe this could be a case
for her to
investigate. The Case of the Mysterious Entrance.

Jersey shoved some papers across the desk and Immy, after glancing at them to make sure the rental price was as low as Jersey had said, signed her name about a dozen times.

"
I think I
'
d like to take another look at the house,
"
she said. She wanted to see if she could figure out how the guy
s
had gotten in, and maybe prevent more vagrants from entering what was now her ho
m
e.

"
Sure thing. We have to--
"
Jersey
'
s
desk
phone rang. She held a hand up to Immy and answered.
"
She what? When?
"

Immy listened with growing alarm as Jersey
'
s voice rose and her panic-stricken
expression
returned.

The agent hung up and sprang to her feet.
"
That
'
s the daycare.
My daughter ate five crayons. I have to take her to the hospital.
"
She ran for the door.
"
Vance, could you--?
"

"
No problem,
"
the god in human form
purred
.
"
I
'
ll take good care of Immy.
"

"
Extra keys are in my top drawer
.
"
Jersey threw
the words
over her shoulder as she
rushed out
.

"
What Jersey is talking about
,
"
said Vance,
"
is
that we need to remove the lockbox and hand the keys over to you. If you
'
d like to do that right now, that would be fine. I can accompany you.
"

Be still my heart,
Immy
thought.
"
Um, sure. That would, uh, be fine. Just fine.
"

She was
so
glad that Ralph Sandoval, the Saltlick police officer she
'
d been seeing steadily for several months, wasn
'
t here to witness her sudden demise. She was pretty sure she was going to drop dead
of lust
before they reached the house.

"
It
'
s the Tompkins place, right?
"
He got a couple of keys from Jersey's drawer, each with a blue plastic tag that had the company's name imprinted in silver block letters. Standing up, h
e seemed pretty tall.

Immy nodded and stood up. Yep, he was tall. Three for three: dark, handsome
, and tall
.

***

When Immy entered the house
on this
second t
rip,
it already seemed homier. She pictured Drew playing with her Barbie dolls in the room she would call, she decided, The Great Hall. Immy would select some of the furnishing
s
to keep and maybe ask the owner to remove and store the ones she didn
'
t want
, like
that stiff-looking couch.

"
Whoa,
"
said Vance, coming in behind her. He closed the squeaky door, walked to one of the pieces of shrouded furniture and lifted the cover. His eyes widened. He pulled the cover
all the way
off and stood back to admi
re a hexagonal table with what resembled
a lace fringe hanging down, but carved of the same dark wood as the rest of the table.

He ran his hand over the surface.
"
This is a fine, fine piece.
"

Immy joined him and admired the table, too.
"
Yes, I think I
'
ll keep this one.
"

The look he gave her was rather sharp.
"
You
'
re keeping the furnishings?
"

"
Jersey said I could. The owner doesn
'
t want them, she said.
"

Vance
'
s eyes narrowed.
"
Are you sure?
"

Immy shrugged.
"
You can ask her, but I
'
m pretty sure
she said that
. I don
'
t have any furniture, so I can use this stuff. Even if it is kind of old.
"

He nodded.
"
Yes
ss. Y
ou might not want this
old
stuff. You might want all new things, don
'
t you think?
"

Immy laughed.
"
I can
'
t afford to furnish a whole house. I can barely afford the rent.
"

"
Look at that chandelier, will you?
"
He was rapt.

"
It
'
s, um, big,
"
Immy said.

"
What
'
s that?
"
Vance glanced toward the stairs.

Immy heard it too--a moaning sound.
"
Maybe the wind is getting in somewhere.
"
Surely there weren
'
t more vagrants.
She and Jersey
hadn
'
t inspected
the other two bedrooms
of the five on the second floor
.

"
We
'
d better check that out, in case there
'
s a broken window.
"
He led the way up the stairs.

Immy hoped they wouldn
'
t discover an
other
man. But
this time
they checked all the bedrooms
, the
two
hallway bathrooms,
and the window at the end of the hallway. All the windows were intact.

Another moan came from the bedroom where
Dewey
had been. Immy ran to the room, but it was still empty. A wisp of smoke, or fog, shimmered at the door
way
into the adjoining bathroom.
An arm
-like filament
appeared to snake
out
of the form
and
waft t
hrough
the door.

Immy
blinked and
shook her head and the mist disappeared. But she went to the door of the bathroom
, as the apparition had seemed to suggest
. This was the biggest bedroom and probably the master. Accordingly, it had its own bathroom. The other
two
bathroom
s
, off the hallway
,
serviced the rest of the bedrooms, five in all.

She pulled the door open
to the bathroom she hadn't yet looked at
. There was
a small
man
reclining in the tub
. But this one didn
'
t s
it up
when she saw him.

Vance
came up behind her and gasped.

T
he man
'
s eyes were open
. The man's
tongue
was
out
. The man's
head
was
lolling at an impossible angle, a
nd he looked very dead.

Chapter Four

The singlewide felt cramped that night, after
Immy had
spen
t
time
in the spacious old man
s
ion
, even if it did have an unwanted dead body in the bathtub
.

"
You have a perfectly good abode right here, you know. Are you
sure your fiduciary situation permits you to lease such a place?
"
Hortense asked.
Immy's mother had a large vocabulary as a result of having been a librarian and she used it whenever she could. Hortense
tucked her topmost chin into her others to create a stern look toward her only child.

"
It
'
s the cheapest one I looked at, Mother,
"
said Immy. She handed her mother the
listings
page Jersey had given her
for the house
.

"
This photograph is not flattering,
"
Hortense said
.

"
I wanna see!
"
Drew jumped onto the
green
plaid couch beside her Geemaw.
She pressed her chestnut curls into the soft, pliable flesh of Hortense
'
s upper arm.
"
It
'
s a haunted house.
"

Marshmallow, Drew's pure white pot-bellied pig, curled up beside the couch like a puppy dog. He liked to be near Drew, but then he liked most people.

"
It
'
s, well, it
's
very nice on the inside
,
"
said Immy
.
"
It has a Great Hall.
"
She emphasized the grand words so her mother and daughter could both appreciate th
at feature of th
e place.
"
The owner, Mr. Tompkins, will let me do anything I want to it. I can have Ralph put up a fence for Marshmallow.
"

"
Are you certain you w
ould
n
'
t become ill
in such a domicile
? Is it drafty?
"

"
No
.
I didn
'
t feel
any
openings
. And I can
'
t
even
see how those men got in.
"

Her mother gave her the Librarian Look.
"
What men?
"

"
Oh, I
haven't told
you?
"
Immy perched on the edge of the recliner
and twisted a strand of hair between her fingers
.

"
You just arrived home. You haven
'
t told me anything, except that you signed a rental agreement for this, this
...
.
"

"
H
aunted house,
"
supplied Drew.

"
Well, it does need painting
,
"
Immy
admitted
.
"
And some
porch railing
s
are missing
.
"

"
And others
precipitously
l
eaning
.
Does the roof leak?
"

Immy assured her mother that it didn
'
t, although she had no idea. If it did, Ralph could fix it.

A distinctive knock sounded on the door.

Marshmallow raised his head and focused his china blue eyes toward the sound.

"
Unca Ralph,
"
Drew squealed
. She
squirmed off the couch and ran pell-mell toward Ralph Sandoval, who had opened the door
and stepped in
side
after knocking.
Th
e pig nearly finished knocking over
the large man. Ralph, especially when he was in his dark blue Saltlick Police Department uniform like he was now, made the room seem smaller.

He used to wait for us to open
the door after he knocked
, Immy thought. He
'
s more and more like family
, w
hich
isn
'
t a bad thing.
Immy gave him a big grin. Ralph was more than a friend, but she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted him to be. He made her feel warm inside--she knew that.

"
You failed to make it in time for the evening repast,
"
Hortense
said.
Ralph was a huge fan of her cooking and often dropped in for supper.

Immy's mother ha
d
resumed cooking not long ago, after many years of fast, frozen, and canned foods.
Not only Immy, Drew, and Ralph, but
Ralph's
boss, Saltlick Police Chief Emersen, were the beneficiaries of Hortense's rediscovered kitchen talents.
The police chief was developing a fondness for her cooking, but Immy thought he was also sweet on Hortense herself.

"
The Yarborough twins were taking pot shots at possums,
"
Ralph
said,
"
and managed to put out
two of
the neighbor
'
s window
s
. Had to take them in to sleep off their drunk.
"
His broad, placid face looked tired.

"
The Yardburr twins drunk?
"
Drew
said.
"
Again?
"

"
Nancy
Drew, dear,
"
said Hortense
, trying not to laugh
.
"
Would you like to show Ralph your Barbies
'
new outfits?
Run
to your room
and
procure
them, please.
"
Drew ran to get them.

Immy
gave her mother a weary look
.
"
You bought her more Barbie stuff?
"
Immy didn
'
t think Barbie was a good role model for a four-year-old, but she seemed to be the only person in the world to hold that opinion.

"
She gets such joy from them,
"
Hortense
said.

"
Yeah,
"
Ralph
said.
"
She
'
s fine. Let her be.
By the way, I think we have a relative of yours at the jail.
"

"What do you base that supposition on?" asked Hortense.
She turned her head so sharply her chins swung and wobbled.

"Well, his name's Duckworthy."

"He's in Saltlick?" asked Immy.

"The Wymee jail is overflowing this week.
Guys who are old enough to know better, pulling early Halloween pranks that they didn't think out too well, I think.
We said we could take him. He should go before the judge
soon. Bail
is supposed to be
set in forty-eight hours.
"

He caught sight of the listing page Hortense had laid on the coffee table.
"
What
'
s this?
"

Drew returned with an armful of tiny clothing
and gave the picture a glance
.
"
A haunted house,
"
she said.

"
It apparently comes pre-supplied with men,
"
said Hortense.

Ralph looked confused. It wasn
'
t too hard to confuse Ralph
. B
ut Immy
quickly took that
thought
back as
unfair
to Ralph
.
This was a confusing situation.

"
I was about to explain
that
to Mother.
"

"
Yes, please do,
"
Hortense said,
tilting her head
up
and folding her fleshy arms to
receive
Immy
'
s answer.

The situation brought to mind the chapter on Interrogation in her dog-eared, second-hand copy of
The Moron's Compleat PI Guidebook
. She had to be careful when being questioned with Ralph around.
Being
a Saltlick cop, he
knew
all the tricks. The best tactic here, she decided, would be to
use chapter four, to
turn the tables and answer with questions.

"
Why have I never known
that
I had an Uncle Dewey? And that he was in prison?
"

Hortense unfolded her arms and sat forward.
"
Uncle Dewey? D
wight Duckworthy
was in your new domicile
?
"

"
I have another Unca?
"
asked Drew.
"Is he a ghost?"

"
No, he's a real person.
He
'
s Mommy
'
s uncle,
"
said Immy.
"
Would your Barbies like to wear some of their new clothes?
"

While
Drew ran to her bedroom
for some Barbies
, Immy
quickly
told Ralph and Hortense about finding Dewey Duckworthy sleeping in the house.

"
He was hauled in for trespassing, unfortunately. That Jersey Shorr is mean.
"

"
I was there once, when I was ten,
"
said Ralph.
"
There was a rip tide or something.
"

"
Jersey Shorr
,
"
said Immy,
"
is the real estate agent that showed me the place. She didn
'
t have to call the cops. He was leaving.
"

"
How do you know he wouldn
'
t have come back?
"
said Ralph.
"
How did he get in?
"

"
I can
'
t figure that out. There
'
s a lockbox on the front door and I didn
'
t see any broken locks or windows. But
I
didn
'
t finish looking
at the whole house until
after we found the dead guy.
"

"The dead guy?" Hortense's voice rose.

"
The dead guy?
"
echoed
Ralph.
"
Your Uncle
Dewey was dead?
I thought he was the guy we have in jail.
"

"
No,
a
nother guy. T
here was a dead guy in the bathtub.
It looked like he had a broken neck.
Vance called the cops that time and they chased us outta there.
"

"
Who
'
s Vance?
"
asked Ralph.

"
Oh, just one of the other real estate agents.
"

From Ralph
'
s suspicious
raised eyebrows
, Immy figured she hadn
'
t pulled off the casual air she had hoped for.

"
I had to go back to look at the house again and Jersey couldn
'
t come with me, so Vance offered. Naturally, him being a real estate agent, too, I took him up on it. He had to get the lockbox off and....
"
She was babbling.