Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 06 - Behind the Walls (22 page)

I smiled.
“Talked about this at an AA meeting, did you?”

I could see a retort forming, and he stopped himself.
“I didn’t go to a meeting to talk about that, but I…I’ve been trying to learn, for a long time, that the only person’s actions I can control are my own.”

I nodded, and said, softly, “I know the concept.
I think you’re a bit farther along that path than I am.”

He grinned.
“Tell me about it.” He watched the expression on my face and his smile faded.

“I’m glad, really glad, that we’re friends again.
And not just because I’m tired of it being so awkward.”

“But you aren’t ready for anything else,” he said.

“For awhile I thought I was. I guess it’s me.”

“That’s the standard line when people break up, you know.”

I laughed. “That day in the library, you told me to act like I felt before we dated.”

“My words always come back to haunt me,” he groaned.

“Especially the ones in the paper. Seriously, that felt…normal. I mean, I’m not always mad at you.”

“Okay.”
He stood. “I don’t want to grovel.”

“I might pay to see that,” I said, standing.

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Leave ‘em wanting more,” he said, and headed for the door.

THOUGH HARRY WANTED to be with me when the security people arrived, I had tried to discourage him. However, he and Aunt Madge were both on edge about me being home alone, so I had graciously given in. At least, given in with more good grace than I felt.

I pulled in front of my bungalow at the same time that an Ocean Alley Security Systems truck parked across the street.
Two guys stayed in the front seat comparing notes on a clipboard, so I walked onto the front porch, which I had decided to use again. Aunt Madge was behind the honeysuckle bush, on the porch swing.

I dropped my keys.
“Jeez! You couldn’t sit anywhere else?”

She stood.
“Put out some of those canvas chairs.”

I picked up my keys and we walked in.
Aunt Madge walked into my kitchen and turned a burner on under my tea kettle. Then she peered in it and decided to add water. “Thank you for letting us be with you when they installed the security system.”

“George told me it calmed you down.”

She simply gave me a raised-eyebrow glance and looked around the kitchen. “It’s a really cute little house. Pretty soon you’ll forget everything that happened.”

“I’m going to try…”
There was pounding on the front door.

The two guys from the security company stared at me.
“You still got the skunk?” This from the taller of the two. For all his beefcake physique his expression looked kind of like that of a little kid.

“She’s here, but her scent glands were taken out a long time ago.”
I opened the door and they walked in.

“And she doesn’t bite?”
The man who asked this was shorter and what might be called pudgy. His brown hair hung to his eyebrows, making him look about fourteen. I pegged both of them at about twenty-five.

“You’ll never see her.
She hides under the bed.” I moved aside so the men could walk in.

A honk at the curb heralded Harry, and for the next hour he talked to the security guys as they stunk up the place with the glue they used to affix sensors.
I retreated to the kitchen and mixed a bowl of brownies and felt like some kind of stereotype. However, there wasn’t a need for two sets of eyes watching the installation, and everybody likes brownies. Aunt Madge hadn’t stayed long. She wanted to get home to make the afternoon loaves of bread for B&B guests.

I took the brownies out of the oven as the taller of the two security guys stuck his head in the kitchen.
“I need to test the alarm. Don’t jump outta your skin,” he said.

“Fair enough.
Brownies’ll be ready in a minute.”

I was glad I was using a Teflon spatula to cut them, because the booming alarm made me jump and push the spatula along the bottom of the pan.

“Too loud?” yelled the guy.

“Yes!”
Harry and I said this together as he walked into the kitchen.

“Smells good.
I’m taking some brownies home. I’m not a huge fan of her cheddar bread,” he said.

“Does she know?”

“Are you kidding?”

The next alarm sound was lower, so Harry and I could hear each other as we said goodbye.
I was putting a few brownies on a paper plate when the two men came back into the kitchen. Their names were Dale and Chuck, but I couldn’t remember who was which. “All done?” I asked.

“Pretty much.
We’ll show you how to set a security code and we can walk you through the instructions on how to use it.”

“I think it’s the same system Aunt Madge has.
I’ll take a quick look and call you if I have questions.”

After they took too long explaining the system and thanked me for the brownies, they left.
I sank onto my couch and flipped my legs up to lie down. Less than two minutes later, the doorbell rang. I figured the security guys had left something and was surprised to find Patricia and her boyfriend on the porch. “Come in.”

Patricia looked very nervous.
“I’m not sure you’ve formally met Arman.”

“How do you do?”
I gestured that they should come in.

Arman walked in first.
His chin jutted forward like a guy posturing when someone else threatened to throw a punch.

“Jolie,” Patricia began.

“You doing some repairs or something?” Arman asked, sniffing the air.

“Getting a security system put in,” I said.
“They just left, so you came at the perfect time.”
As if
.

“Been looking for more stuff behind your walls?” Arman asked.

Patricia looked more nervous.

“No, and I don’t plan…” I began.

“We want to talk to you about how you’re going to divide up what you found,” Arman said, in an aggressive tone.

“Those aren’t going to be totally my decisions,” I began. “Peter and I are going through…”

Arman waved a hand.
“I know what you’re doing with him. You two are looking at how to give away what you found.”

I didn’t like his tone.
“Not looking to give…”

“It should come to Mrs. Murphy, to give to her family,” Arman said.

“Arman, please,” Patricia said. She seemed almost cowed by his behavior.

“Don’t give me that.
This Fitzgerald cheated your father out of a lot of money. Money we could use for all those kids of yours. I don’t want to spend all my money on them!”

“We should go,” Patricia murmured, blushing deeply.

I looked at both of them, my gaze resting on Arman. “And before he held out on Mr. Murphy he cheated the people who gave goods to be auctioned. Those people have a right…”

He swore and moved a step closer.
“They’re probably all dead.”

It took all my nerve not to step back a foot.
“That could be. And then I think there is a strong case to be made for any income from the items going to Mrs. Murphy. We can’t simply decide on our own…”

“I want to see it,” Arman said, standing.

“It’s not here. The police have most of it.”

He moved another step closer to where I was standing next to the rocking chair.
“So get it back. It was in your house, it’s yours. You can give it to us. Patricia’s losing her summer job. You said the building wasn’t worth much, so they’re selling the place.”

I caught the pronoun, and figured he expected some of any find or money from its sale to come not just to Patricia, but to him.
I was less than one foot from him. “I’m sorry about the job. I get your anger and…”

“No you don’t!”
He was yelling now. Patricia touched his elbow and he jerked his arm from her. “Every month Patricia and Fiona give their mother money for that place she lives in. We need…she needs that money.”

“Do you want me to call Sergeant Morehouse and ask him to bring over some of the items?”

“No, I don’t want you to
call Sergeant Morehouse
.” He said these last words in a kind of simpering tone. “If it’s not here, you figure out where else Fitzgerald hid stuff and hand it over.”

“Arman,” Patricia almost whispered.

“Shut up.” He turned to me. “Where haven’t you looked?”

I couldn’t imagine Arman would hurt me, but why find out?
“The only place anything’s been found was behind that living room wall,” I nodded toward it.

“So tear down the rest of the damn wall.”

“We did. That’s how Scoobie and I found it. We took down all the walls in this room except that one.” I nodded to the plaster wall.

“So, get a tire iron or something to use on that wall,” he shouted.

Patricia started to cry.

The front door opened, and Scoobie walked in.
He glanced at all of us, finally staring at Arman. “Sounds as if you want something.” He said this to Arman in a very calm tone.

“You can help her tear down that wall,” Arman said.

“It’s not Berlin,” Scoobie said.

“What are you talking about?”
Arman was becoming even angrier.

“You know,” Scoobie said.
“When President Reagan told Gorbachev to ‘tear down that wall.’”

I knew what Scoobie was doing.
He wanted to distract Arman, maybe get him to realize how ridiculously he was behaving. And leave it to Scoobie to remember a more than thirty-year-old quote.

“I don’t care one bit about some stupid wall in
Berlin,” Arman said, but in a slightly calmer tone. “Just look for more stuff.”

“Sure.
But I wouldn’t start there.” Scoobie nodded at the wall. “I watched her peel three layers of wallpaper off there. There weren’t any patched areas. If it was me I’d start with the walls under the sinks. Plaster under there is always torn up, from leaks, you know. Good place to hide stuff. ”

Possibly it was Scoobie’s tone of reason, or maybe just because he wasn’t me, Arman seemed to like this idea.
“You got some tools?” Arman asked.

“Jolie doesn’t keep much here, but she’s got a tool box.”
He looked at me. “In the linen closet, isn’t it?”

How does he know that’s where the security guys put the alarm pad?

“Yep. I’ll get it.” It wasn’t as if Arman was pointing a gun at us, but I sensed that we were not supposed to do anything that would irritate him.

There was no chit chat in the living room as I walked into the bathroom.
The linen closet was behind the door. I pushed the silent alarm button on the console. The security company would call and I would not answer the phone. They’d send someone over.

I walked out of the bathroom, empty-handed.
“I’m sorry. Harry probably put it under the kitchen sink. That’s where he keeps his.”

Arman glared at me but didn’t say anything.

I walked into the kitchen, bent down and picked up the tool box and carried it to the living room. Arman took it from me and sat it on the small dining table and opened it. “There’s nothing in here we can use.”

Scoobie looked over his shoulder.
“Grab that really long screwdriver. We can bang on the plaster under the sinks to see if it’s hollow anywhere.”

He handed the screwdriver to Scoobie.
“You do it.”

“Sure.”
Scoobie said this as the phone rang. He ignored it and went into the kitchen, and Arman and Patricia looked at me.

Without looking, I said, “It’s probably Lester.
He calls me for coffee, and he’ll keep me on the phone trying to talk me into meeting him at Java Jolt.”

“That airbag,” Arman muttered.
Scoobie started digging at the wall under the sink.

Scoobie’s voice was a bit muffled since his head was under the sink.
“Do you know the size of whatever it is you’re looking for?”

“How in the hell would I know?” Arman said.

A car came to an abrupt halt at the curb and two doors slammed. The phone started ringing again. I picked up the handset to look at the caller ID. It said “Ocean Alley.” I figured this was the security company, so I said, “Lester again.”

Arman ignored me and walked to the screen door.
“Crap!” He pushed the wooden door to shut it but a firm hand slapped the door just before it closed.

“Let me in, Arman.”
It was Peter.

“Let us in!”
Fiona’s tone was frantic.

I wasn’t sure whether Fiona and Peter were here to add their demands to Arman’s, but I thought not.

Patricia began to cry again.
“I called them. Let them in.”

“Hey, I found something!” Scoobie yelled.

Arman stopped trying to keep the door closed and dashed to the kitchen. Peter almost fell into the living room.

“Where?
What is it?” Arman called.

“It’s one of those phony soup cans where people hide valuables,” Scoobie said.

Apparently Arman took it from Scoobie, because he said, “Gee, it feels like soup.”

“That’s because it is, you damn bully,” Scoobie said.

“What…?”

Peter had moved quickly to the kitchen doorway and I peered around him.
Fiona pulled me back, but not before I saw Arman in between Scoobie and Peter. He looked from one to the other and after a second, his shoulders sagged.

A police car came to a fast halt in front of the house and car doors slammed.
At least I know the alarm company calls the cops.

Fiona beat me the few steps to the front door and pushed open the screen.
“I guess you should come in,” she said.

Dana Johnson and Edgar Quinn came in, and they both looked to me and then to the kitchen door, where Arman, with Peter’s hand on his upper arm, was walking into the living room.

“You don’t want me,” he sneered to the police. He nodded to Peter. “He’s the murderer.”