Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 06 - Behind the Walls (9 page)

“Mrs. Peebles liked to tell everyone the vet mixed up her name and wrote Pebbles instead of Peebles on her chart, so she started calling her that.”

“Nicholas…” Virginia said.

“But that’s not true.
Me and my brother started calling her that. We said when she pooped it looked like Pebbles.” His grin was catching, and I smiled back at him.

“So she went with it, huh?” I asked.

“Yep, but we weren’t supposed to tell why she called her Pebbles. She laughed at fart jokes, too.”

Virginia
looked mortified. “Your grandson?” I asked, looking from one to the other.

“Oh yes.
Visiting for spring break.” She gave a weak smile.

“Thanks for that, shall we say nugget?”
Nicholas whooped and I looked at Virginia. “I have to get back to Aunt Madge.”

Virginia
looked relieved when I walked away.

I walked toward Aunt Madge, glad to have had a diversion in the form of skunk naming protocols.
She had been watching the police intently as they moved through the yard, and I touched her shoulder. “They said I can go in in a few minutes. I want to check on Jazz and Pebbles. Do you think they’re all right with all those people in the house?”

“If not, Jazz is welcome at home, but I’m not sure about Pebbles,” she said, eyeing the medical examiner’s van as it pulled up.

“I really don’t want to watch a bunch of people peer at Mr. Fitzgerald’s body.” I was suddenly cold, a reminder that it was still April and there is no warmth when the sun gets low.

Harry walked back. “Sergeant Morehouse will come by the Cozy Corner if you want.
You can go in the back door and check on Jazz.”

“And Pebbles,” I added, as I got up.

“Pebbles?” he asked.

As I walked toward the back of the house I heard Aunt Madge say, “You aren’t going to believe this one.”

Two weeks ago, I had had the local locksmith, Margaret, rekey the doors and make them all work with the same key, except the back door. It had some kind of antique lock with a fancier key. The only copy was in a drawer in my kitchen, so I hoped the police had opened the door for me. A uniformed officer, very young, had apparently been assigned to escort me. He walked in step with me as I moved to the back of the house.

“I’m Edgar Quinn.” he said.
“We met briefly when a bunch of us were carrying in all that donated food, you know, last fall.”

No one needs to say “after the hurricane.”
We all know what we mean when we talk about things like home repairs or disaster assistance. He was referring to a truckload of supplies that the food bank in Lakewood had sent down two days after the storm.

“Oh, sure.
But thanks for reminding me.”

“You met a lot of people back then,” he said.

We had reached the back door, and I felt a lot calmer as I thought of the volunteers who had poured into the New Jersey beach towns last November. I took a deep breath. “There’s nothing bad in here, is there?”

“Nope.
The house was locked until you gave Sergeant Morehouse your keys, so we don’t think the perp went inside. But if something looks out of place, tell me. Later on you’ll probably want to go through everything to be sure your stuff is all there.”

The door was unlocked.
Jazz was on the kitchen counter and made quite a fuss as I walked in. She’s not allowed up there and she’s not much of a meower, so I could tell by her plaintive noises that she was very unnerved by the police who’d walked through the house.
Thank God I didn’t have dirty clothes and dishes strewn around.

I picked her up.
“It’s okay. Where’s your friend?”

“Who…” Quinn began.

“Did they tell you about the skunk?” From his pained expression, I could tell no. “Sam said she doesn’t have scent glands.”

His expression cleared.
“Sam would know.”

There was a soft patter of additional paws and Pebbles appeared at the entrance to the kitchen.
She looked at me and walked to the fridge.

“Got you trained,” Quinn said.

“Actually, not yet. She just showed up today.”

“Boy, you are having a day,” he said.

“Not as bad as Mr. Fitzgerald,” I said, softly. “I just picked up some food for her, but it’s in my car. Sam said raw veggies and some grain stuff.” I set Jazz on the floor, and received a quick swat in return. Tail in the air, she walked a few feet away from me.

I had some cauliflower in the bottom drawer of the fridge and pulled it out.
I had no idea of portion size or how big a piece she could eat, so I took several florets and quickly crumbled them into one of Jazz’s food bowls and set it on the floor. Pebbles walked over, smelled it, and began to eat.

“I guess I should look around.”

The front door opened and Sergeant Morehouse walked in. “Where is she?”

I nodded to the kitchen floor, and he stared at her for a moment and shook his head.
“We had more calls than you could ever guess about that damn skunk.”

“She got out?” I asked, almost hopeful.

“No, people just saw her and thought she was wild and could spray. “ He looked at Edgar Quinn. “You walked around yet?”

“No sir, just starting.”

“Have a look.”
Morehouse glanced at me. “You doing better?” When I nodded, he started to say something else, but then his phone rang and he answered it.

Officer Quinn followed me through the living room and two bedrooms.
Someone had closed all the blinds, for which I was grateful. It was almost dusk and every light in the house was on. I didn’t want half the town seeing every detail of my house.

The rooms were small, and there wasn’t a lot of furniture yet.
All I had in the second bedroom was a futon and the small card table with a chair in front of it. “All here, as far as I can tell.”

“Kind of what we expected,” he said.

“Jolie.” Morehouse’s voice can be very authoritative.

I rolled my eyes at Quinn and he turned slightly so Morehouse wouldn’t see him smiling.

Morehouse walked to the door of my bedroom, which I had just been inspecting. “Lieutenant Tortino said you could stay here tonight, but we both think there could be gawkers, so it might not be a good idea. Which means you will, of course.”

“Hey.
Speaking of gawkers, where’s George?” I knew Scoobie was working in the college library and Ramona worked until six, but George never missed a big story, even if he wasn’t the reporter on duty when the call comes in.

Morehouse grew somber.
“Fire down at Perch and H Street,” he said, as his phone rang again.

“Another vacant one?” I asked Quinn.

“Think so,” he said. “You staying?”

“Yes.”
It was suddenly very important to me not to be driven out of my house the first week I moved in.

CHAPTER
TEN

I DID LEAVE FOR AWHILE. I dropped Jazz at Aunt Madge’s and told her I’d be back to get her later that evening. Pebbles and Jazz seemed okay together, but I didn’t want to find out later that Pebbles was a bully if she’d been stressed. With any luck, Pebbles would remember where the litter box was.

I love Aunt Madge and Harry a bunch, but I didn’t think I could sit and talk one-on-one to anybody for awhile.
Instead, I parked on a street just off the boardwalk and wandered down to Java Jolt, now back in its boardwalk location. I knew there wouldn’t be many people in there at almost dinner time, and probably no one would ask me about Mr. Fitzgerald.

“Jeez, Jolie.”
Owner Joe Regan stared at me for a couple of seconds and then turned toward the large thermos on the counter. “Every time I turn around I gotta give you free coffee because you got into some kind of trouble.”

Word travels fast.
“Ah, the world is normal.” He looked at me, puzzled. “If you’re scolding me things aren’t totally wrong. You’re extra nice to me when I really mess up. Not that this was my fault.”

He handed me a mug.
He’d already put the right amount of cream in it and passed me a sugar packet. “It never is, according to you. I just talked to Fitzgerald a couple of weeks ago.”

“Really?
Did you know him well?”

“Nope, but right before I moved back here I asked him to look for coffee collectibles, you know, like an old grinder or mugs or something. Thought he might see something at one of his auctions and I’d head over there.”

I looked around the coffee shop, and realized that in addition to moving the counter back so there was more room for customers, he had added several decorative things on small shelves that were now behind the counter. “You’ve done more just in the last couple of days. It looks good.” I wanted to talk about anything but Mr. Fitzgerald.

“Ever since Father Teehan chewed my ass for cussing
Sandy a lot, I’ve tried to remind myself it’s worse south of here.”

Joe is known for his sometimes grumpy view of the world, and for some reason he likes to give Scoobie a hard time, so I’ve never gotten real chummy with him.

I was about to reply when the door banged open. George, followed by Scoobie, came in.

“Where the hell have you been?”
George asked.

“I went down to
Atlantic City to hang out in the casinos.”

Joe grunted and Scoobie walked over and hugged me.
It felt good.

“Sorry,” George said, gruffly.
“We were worried.”

“You were,” Scoobie said, as he gestured that we should sit at a table by the new glass picture window that faced the boardwalk.
“I told you she always lands on her feet. Unless she’s falling down the stairs, then I have to help her.”

“Very funny.”
We sat at one of Joe’s new tables.

George walked to the counter and ordered coffee for himself and hot tea for Scoobie.

“You are okay, right?” Scoobie asked.

“No.”
I wasn’t going to pretend this was like getting a tooth filled. I could still see poor Mr. Fitzgerald’s body in the porch swing.

George came back as Scoobie gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“Morehouse said you looked okay,” George said.

“Oh, I will be.
It just, well, looked like it hurt.” My voice was a whisper by the end of the sentence.

“He was a nice guy,” George said, apparently not sure what to say if I was going to choke up.
“A bunch of times a year he’d let people use him for charity auctions without charging them.”

“Hey, there was another fire?” I asked.

“Yep. Same deal.” In a low tone he gave Scoobie a thirty second summary of his efforts to see if the fires in vacant houses were linked. He turned to Joe. “If you want to hear, just walk over.”

“Try not to be too big a jerk,” Joe said, more like his usual self.
He poured the dregs from a dirty mug into the sink behind the counter.

“But no obvious link?” I was glad to be distracted for a few moments.
I thought George’s idea of a connection between the fires was a stretch.

“Not yet.”
He looked at me directly and looked away.

“Hey, your other idea was the auction thefts.”

“Yeah, but Fitzgerald wasn’t too keen on that story going anywhere.”

“That doesn’t usually stop you,” Scoobie said.

“Fitzgerald sort of implied he’d take legal action if I published something that deterred people from using his services, so I went into watch and wait mode,” George said.

“So, was stuff still being taken?” I asked.

“Don’t know. I heard about it originally from Lester, and I’ve been asking other people.” I groaned and George continued. “One of Lester’s customers had put a bunch of stuff in one of the group auctions and swore that he didn’t get paid for all of it. Fitzgerald just kept telling the guy it must have gotten stolen or mixed in with another lot, and it would be found and credited to the guy. Either way, Fitzgerald wasn’t willing to fork over any cash right then.”

“I guess Lester would have told you if it had been resolved,” I said.
“Still…”

“I know where you’re going with this, Scoobie said.
“The drawer.”

“More like the murder.
Maybe some other people lost stuff and…”

My cell phone chirped and I looked at caller ID.
“That’s Morehouse’s cell.” I wished I didn’t have it memorized.

“Jolie,” he said, brusquely.
“I think you better come back.”

“Why…?”
He had hung up.

“I hate it when he does that.”
Since he was speaking at full bellow, George and Scoobie had heard him.

“I’ll go with,” Scoobie said.
“You coming?” he asked George.

“He already threw me off the property.
He’ll just say I went looking for Jolie to get around him.”

I raised my eyebrows in amusement as we all stood and gathered up napkins and mugs.

“Okay, I did want to see if you were okay, all right?” George more or less stomped out ahead of Scoobie and me.

SCOOBIE AND I walked up the back steps and saw Sergeant Morehouse in the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is Norman Fitzgerald got killed on your front porch.” He saw my look of shock at his harsh tone, unusual even for him, and had the decency to look chagrined.

“But I called because Pebbles doesn’t seem to want to be left alone.”

I glanced to the floor to see she had her head on his pant leg.

“Isn’t that special?” Scoobie asked.

“It ain’t special. This skunk thinks it’s a person. Always has.” He scowled at me. “Anyway, you probably should take it with you, or stay here tonight.” He looked at Scoobie.

“Yeah, yeah, I can bunk here,” he said.
He looked at me. “Like when Madge and Harry were on their honeymoon. Pretty soon people’ll talk, you know.”

“Not likely,” Morehouse said, and he bent down to gently push Pebbles away and walked out.

“I think one of us was insulted,” I said to Scoobie.

He grinned. “I wonder what Morehouse would say if I spread it around that he has a soft spot for skunks?”

I looked around my small kitchen, which I had painted a bright yellow. “I’m not sure I can ever walk in the front door again.”

“I bet it’ll be awhile.
Can I use your car to get some books from my place?” he asked.

“Sure.” I dug the keys out of my purse.
“Oh, I have food and a new litter pan for Pebbles in the car. Bring them in when you come back, would you? The police already brought in the new tub of litter for me.”

“I bet there’s a picture of Pebbles in the paper tomorrow.”
He left.

I wandered through the house, Pebbles at my heels.
I supposed she was hungry, so I went back to the fridge and gave her some more cauliflower. She gave me what I interpreted to be a dirty look, and started eating.

Automatically I washed the couple of dishes in my sink, thinking all the while.
Why would Mr. Fitzgerald stop by?
Maybe he found out who took the drawer.
But that didn’t make sense. He would have dealt with the thief, not come to see me. Suddenly I remembered that he said he had not been in the house for years, but Morehouse had asked me if Fitzgerald had brought Pebbles to the house.

I called Morehouse.
“Did Mr. Fitzgerald know Mrs. Peebles very well?” I asked.

“And you need to know this
now
, why?”

“Because you thought he might have brought Pebbles, and I think he told me he hadn’t been here for…maybe decades.”

“Humph.” He paused for a couple of moments. “When did he tell you that?”

I relayed Fitzgerald’s visit to return the drawer.

“You didn’t tell me that.” His tone was accusatory. “Who took it?”

“Don’t know.
Someone left it on the front seat of his truck, or van, whatever he had. Hey, where was his van?”

“Couple streets over,” Morehouse said, slowly.

“Don’t you think that’s kind of odd?”

“Maybe, maybe not.
Dana’s asking people on that block to see if he was visiting them.”

“What if…?” I began.

“Jolie, it’s been a long day,” Morehouse said.

“Oh sure.
I suppose I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He grunted and hung up.

I looked at Pebbles, who had walked to where I was sitting on the rocking chair Aunt Madge had given me as a housewarming present. “Maybe you could teach him some manners.”

She stared at me and wandered toward my bedroom.
It occurred to me I didn’t know where she was used to sleeping. It darn well was not going to be on my bed. I followed her.

Pebbles sat in a corner of the room and stared at me intently, if a skunk can do that.
I pulled a towel out of the linen closet and placed it on the floor near her. She immediately sat on the towel and rooted around for a couple of moments to get comfortable.

I sat on my bed and kept thinking.
If Mr. Fitzgerald, Norman as Morehouse had called him, parked a couple of blocks away, maybe he didn’t want it to be obvious that he was stopping by.

But it wasn’t dark then.
If he really wanted to be low key he would have come later. Maybe he was walking by and realized someone was following him and came onto the porch looking for help.

I put my hand over my mouth.
Would he be alive if I had been home?

There was a knock at the front door and I jumped.
I stood slowly and peered out the front window. Aunt Madge was standing there with a shoe box. Jazz!

I opened the door quickly.

She stooped and opened the box and Jazz ran out. She looked around the room and ran into my bedroom.

“She’s been in almost a panic.
She chased Miss Piggy to the third floor, and the dogs know not to go up there.”

“Wow.”
My eyes had followed Jazz and returned to Aunt Madge. “I wasn’t going to use that door for awhile.”

“I thought you’d say that.
There’s police tape around the swing but not on the stairs. It’s like riding a bicycle.” She sat her purse on the small table by the front door.

“What?
Oh. I get it. Well, I hated riding a bike.”

She shook her head slightly and looked around the room.
“Looks the same.” She sat at my small dinette table and I sat next to her.

“They don’t think anyone came in,” I said.

“What could he have been doing here?” she mused. “If I remember correctly, Norman’s cousin or someone used to live here.”

“I think he said his mother’s cousin, and about thirty years ago.”

“That makes more sense. She was quite a bit older than we are.”

“Mr. Fitzgerald was about your age?
I thought he was older.”

“You’re buttering me up.”
She patted my knee. “I know you’ll be fine in a day or so, but are you sure you want to stay here tonight?”

“Scoobie went to get some books, and then he’s coming back.” When she looked relieved, I added, “But why would he be here today?”
Aunt Madge always knows. I stared at her.

She shook her head.
“Norman was outgoing in some ways. You’d have to be to get in front of a crowd all the time. But in his own way he was a very private person. I don’t even think he went to St. Anthony’s all that much.”

Scoobie walked in as she was finishing her sentence. “Bet he wished he did when he got to the Pearly Gates.”

“Ugh.” I screwed up my nose at him.

Aunt Madge frowned, and then shook a finger lightly at Scoobie.