Hide & Find (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

Des matched Walt’s shrug. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen it. Nor the last, unfortunately.”

I quickly became unnecessary to the mop-up operation. I signaled Violet that I was returning to the mansion so she wouldn’t get all harpy again and trudged home.

The sun was coming up, although I couldn’t see it. A thick, gray blanket of clouds had moved in low over the trees. They had the iron-metallic feel of impending snow and muted the scraping and shoveling sounds of the final firefighting efforts.

Clarice met me at the kitchen door, a pair of binoculars in her hand. “You need to see this.”

“Spying on the neighbors?” I joked. At least, I thought it was funny. I was also a little punch-drunk.

She shot me a disgusted look,  turned on her heel, and marched up to the bedroom wing and down the hall to Emmie’s open door.

Emmie was still holding vigil at her window, nose against the glass. She’d pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, but her hair was a tangled mess.

“Find a sweater.” I nudged her toward her dresser. Apparently the fire had been an all-consuming event inside the mansion as well. I hoped she wouldn’t ask me about the animals.

“Here.” Clarice thrust the binoculars toward me. “See that rock outcropping to the left of where that horrid FBI woman is bossing everyone around? Where that dead tree is leaning on that other one? The rocks right next to it.”

I wrinkled my nose and squinted through the eyepieces. I was half tempted to tease Clarice about her amazing descriptions, but the truth was that I wouldn’t have done any better. My entire field of view was composed of rocks and trees and brush. “Her name’s Violet. Where the two trunks are kind of shaped like an A?” I asked.

“Yeah. Go left a little more. See that other tree?”

“Um?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. They’re gone now,” Clarice huffed.

“You want me to look for something that’s not there anymore?” I leaned back from the window and stared down at her. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one operating on a woeful lack of sleep.

“Not something. Someone. Several someones. I saw them run away in the light from the fire.”

“A couple were kid-sized,” Emmie said. “I saw them too.”

I glanced back and forth between their serious faces. “Was this before or after I got to the shed?”

“A little bit after, and Mr. Walt was there too. But you were looking at the fire, not away from it,” Emmie said from inside her sweater as she tried to locate the correct holes.

I reached out and helped her automatically, finger combing her dark brown hair after her head popped through. I expected it would even be below a mob enforcer to bring his children along on a job — like take your kids to work day. Let’s burn down this woman’s shed, my darlings, because her husband stole my boss’s money and I want to make her very afraid. I shook my head to clear the vision. Nope.

“The food in the garage loft,” Clarice murmured.

I gasped as her meaning sank in.

What if it had been more than just one man living up there in secrecy? What if he had a family? And it had completely slipped my mind to tell Walt about what we’d found. Where else would a homeless family have gone after we’d essentially evicted them from the garage? The next most habitable and yet private building on the property — the one deemed sufficient shelter for the animals.

“We need to find them,” I whispered. “It’s too cold.”

“Not right now.” Clarice tipped her head toward all the people still milling around the burn site.

“Before dark.”

CHAPTER 11

I’d cleaned up and made myself presentable and was just finishing a grilled egg and cheese sandwich at the kitchen table when a dented, white minivan with squealing brakes pulled to a stop outside. It seemed a little early in the renovation process for a painting contractor, but I stepped outside to wave him on toward the garage worksite.

Instead, a slender woman with an acne-scarred face hopped from behind the wheel and hurried over. “Saw all the commotion,” she called, pointing in the direction of the burned shed. “Is that Walt’s pickup out there? I don’t think this old van will make it down that track. Safer to stop here. Maybe when you have some spare money, you can get this road graded.”

“Uh, yes,” I mumbled, because I’m incredibly socially adept.

“Jillian Mendez, DSHS.” Her dark eyes sparkled as she grabbed my hand and pumped it vigorously. “You must be Nora. Walt’s told me all about how you’re funding the boys’ camp now and the improvements to the facilities.” She flashed a brilliant smile. “I have the Clayborne boys in the van.”

I retrieved my hand. “You know we’re not quite ready — um, they’ll have to double up for a while. But yes,” I added quickly, “we are expanding. Most definitely.”

“No worries.” Jillian leaned in conspiratorially. “Temporarily cramped is fine. It can’t possibly be worse than where they’ve come from. Father’s AWOL. Their mother burned down one end of the apartment complex where they were living. Butane hash oil explosion. She pleaded guilty, so she’s facing at least thirty-six months. Plus she’ll need surgery for her scarring. Then she has to get clean before she even has a shot at getting her boys back. It’s going to be a long ride.”

“I just love Walt,” Jillian continued as she rounded the van and rolled open the side door. “He gives these boys exactly what they need — a place where they fit in, responsibility, a great education. He’s like the Mother Theresa of Washington State.” Her face scrunched up in a funny expression. “Well, sort of, I guess. Don’t tell him I said that. I doubt he’d think it was a compliment. Anyway, here we are—”

She helped a small boy climb out of the van. Two more clambered down behind him. They were like identical triplets but in a sort of nested — small, medium and large — set with their shaved heads and gigantic puppy-dog eyes and buck teeth. They were all on the scrawny side, and their clothes drooped on their bodies.

Jillian introduced them by placing her hands on their bald heads, starting at the shortest end. “Odell — six. Purcel — eight. Latrelle — ten.” She slung three small sports bags out of the back and dropped them on the cracked concrete patio outside the kitchen door. “I emailed the paperwork to Walt. All set?”

The boys and I sized each other up. And then I realized Jillian expected a response. “Yes. Right-o,” I said, trying to sound like a competent adult. I’d done this before. I could do it again. I held out my hands to the boys. “Do you want to know where the secret Oreo stash is?” See, I totally had it figured out.

In my work managing Skip’s charitable foundation, I’d evaluated orphanages the world over and designated grant money to them. Which meant I’d traveled extensively and seen all kinds of living conditions, many of which turned my stomach inside out. No matter what circumstances the children were in, I’d loved hanging out with them and showering them with attention and affection. But I’d always left them behind when I’d boarded my plane. Bringing needy children home to actually live with me was something new, and somewhat disconcerting.

Emmie had been easy to assimilate into our daily lives. Walt managed the boys so well I hadn’t really considered how taxing it must be for him. And his brood had just grown from nineteen to twenty-two.

And three more small boys needed winter coats and sturdy boots and new jeans.

Oreos are short-term balm for all sorts of wounds. I installed the boys at the kitchen table, and Emmie and I consumed our fair share of the cookies while keeping them company.

For all they’d been through, the boys still had a resilient silly streak a mile wide, and it was a delight to watch them wriggle in their seats and try to top each other’s stories. It was all I could do not to tell them to close their mouths when they chewed. Sugar is as effective a social lubricant as alcohol is, at least for the younger set.

An hour later, Walt stuck his head through the doorway. “Thought I saw Jilly’s van. Hey there, fellas.” His gaze took in the crumb-covered tabletop and sticky smiles all around. He narrowed his intense blue eyes at me, an infectious grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Guess they won’t be needing dinner.”

“What?” Purcel shouted. “No way. I eat gobs and gobs. You’ll be amazed.” He arched his back and made a show of protruding his stomach under the baggy shirt, although, frankly, he didn’t have a lot to work with.

“Hollow, are you?” Walt asked.

“Yup.”

Walt chuckled. “Come on, then. Eli and Mason have been getting their room ready. You’re going to bunk with them.”

“Like real bunk beds?” Latrelle’s eyes about popped out of his little round head.

“Submarine style,” Walt replied. “Eighteen inches clearance. You’ll have to put off growing until we get the garage converted. Think you can do that?”

A faint worry cloud crossed over the boys’ faces, and I jumped in. “He is absolutely joking — not about the beds, but about the growing. You can grow as much as you want.” I stuck my tongue out at Walt, and the boys snickered.

They trooped outside, Odell making a brief detour to hug me around the knees. Aww. That boy already knew the way to my heart.

Walt hung back a moment. “Your friends cleared out pretty fast. They have short attention spans when nothing nefarious is brewing.”

I squeezed his arm in acknowledgment. “Where’s Dwayne? I didn’t see him this morning. It’s not natural for a man to avoid anything pyrotechnic.”

Walt was just full of smiles today. He had to be exhausted from the middle-of-the-night emergency, but it was so encouraging to see this happier, playful side shine through. Maybe it had something to do with our being able to take in more boys.

“I installed him as the de facto foreman at the garage. He’s checking in the contractors and monitoring their progress.” Was that a tick, or was Walt actually winking at me? “He’s taking it very seriously. Clipboard and tape measure, pencil behind his ear, the works. He’s been sleeping at the site. Seemed to think the place needed a night watchman with all the power tools lying around and no functioning locks.”

I couldn’t help grinning back at him, even though this new information fit Clarice’s and my hypothesis about the fleeing figures at the fire. “I need to talk to you about some other things,” I whispered and nodded toward the boys hoisting themselves into his pickup cab, “later.”

“Anytime you want, Nora,” he whispered back. “You know where to find me.”

oOo

I found Clarice in the basement examining the linen stores. As a former poor farm and then nursing home before it was abandoned due to the rising costs of maintenance, Mayfield still had vast supplies of the things necessary to provide room and board for a couple hundred residents.

Need table service for a cafeteria? We had that. Not fancy, but a sturdy stoneware that had resisted breakage for decades. Need wash basins and pitchers for every room in the dormitories? We had those too.

The sheets and towels, however, had seen better days since mice aren’t terribly picky about where they chew, choosing the center of an item just as often as the edge. Clarice probably should have been wearing a gas mask and ventilator for the years of bug and rodent detritus she was sifting through.

“They can come in through the coal room door,” she shouted through the tan-colored dust that choked the air like pollen.

I wiped grit out of my eyes. “Who?”

“Those people — the ones you’re going to find. They can’t exactly waltz through our kitchen door, now can they? Your federal friends will see them for sure unless we’re sneaky. Good thing we stacked what’s left of our cash in the icebox.”

My mind dodged through the obstacle course that was Clarice’s reasoning. She was referring to the cash my friend, Art Williams, had redirected from a charitable contribution I’d arranged for his First Nations women’s and children’s fund and smuggled across the Canadian border under the guise of wood pellet fuel. Clarice and I had shoved those bags down the coal chute under cover of darkness several weeks ago.

But we’d wanted to separate our loot from the wood pellets so Art wouldn’t be implicated should they be discovered, so we’d later moved the cash into an insulated, metal-lined room that was about the size of a generous walk-in closet. The room was also in the basement, located directly below the kitchen and linked by a dumbwaiter system to the floor above, with an access hatch and pulleys situated behind a set of cupboard doors. We called the weird little room the icebox, since that’s what we assumed it had been.

Our money didn’t grow on trees. We just kept it in the defunct fridge.

Which meant that the coal room was usable again, for other secret passage purposes. It was on the side of the mansion that faced toward the burned shed, so it provided an opening for coming and going that direction — not the chute, but a door beside it. I don’t think the FBI had ever seen us use that door, so maybe we’d be able to sneak the family under their radar.

Not that the FBI would object to a homeless family on the property per se, but they’d made no bones about objecting generally to anyone they hadn’t cleared for being near me. Given the family’s flight during the fire, it was a safe guess they weren’t keen on being observed either.

Matt had semi-promised me that my FBI surveillance team would be withdrawn, but I hadn’t seen any proof of the matter. They’d probably gotten tangled up in a snarl of red-tape paperwork and were stuck out here indefinitely. Or maybe the shootout in Tarq’s living room had changed their minds. That would account for some of Violet’s grouchiness this morning — and her speedy response to the unexpected fire.

Clearly, Clarice had been planning our campaign while I stuffed myself with cookies. I nodded appreciatively. “Emmie could come with me. We’ll pretend to be looking for the animals.” I cringed at the idea of misleading Emmie, but I didn’t want to leave her alone in the house. “It would help if we had a diversionary ploy.”

“All over that like a rash,” Clarice hollered. “Been itching to try a couple things. Just let me get these sheets loaded in the washing machine first.”

I was itching too, for other reasons, and backed out of the room. I didn’t dare ask about strategic particulars. I wanted to be able to claim innocence if Clarice’s machinations resulted in catastrophe or, at the very least — or best, depending on how you looked at it — aggrieved vexation on the part of our FBI watchers. She had that glint in her eye that I had long since learned to respect.

A few minutes later, Clarice belted herself into the driver’s seat of her Subaru, dust still silting off her clothes. She’d wiped little peepholes clear in her cat’s eye glasses, and her spiky silver hair stood at attention. She had the demeanor of a football linebacker in a proper cashmere sweater set and Naturalizer loafers.

“Take it easy,” I called, but her response, if any, was drowned out when she revved the engine.

Emmie and I stuffed marshmallows and grapes in our pockets and hightailed it in the other direction.

We scuffed around the periphery of the shed’s charred remains. Carbon. That’s what we all are, when it comes right down to it, if you don’t count our souls. Dust to dust. It was both creepy and sobering to be reminded of that fact while accumulating layers of soot and gray ash on my jeans, socks and boots.

“Wilbur. Orville,” Emmie called gently. “Termie.” She held a squashed marshmallow in each hand, extended, palms out, so the treats were clearly visible. I’d pulled her jacket hood up for warmth, and her face was pale inside.

“They might be dead, Emmie.” I forced the words out. Her young life so far had been so raw that to delude her would be a disservice. She’d suffered at the hands of enough liars already.

“I know,” she whispered back. “Do you think they were afraid?”

“Yes,” I choked.

Emmie spun in a slow circle, then started picking her way toward the leaning tree and rock outcropping that had been the homeless family’s last known location.

The forest floor was a littered, tangled mess of brambles, ferns, pine needles, twigs, and pine cones plus occasional mushrooms and black-spotted banana slugs. Perhaps an experienced tracker would have been able to identify the path the family had fled along, but I couldn’t. Instead, Emmie and I looked for hidey-holes, both high and low, places that were big enough to provide shelter for a person. Truthfully, neither of us was any good at it.

We also made enough noise that we would likely give a herd of elk a collective heart attack. Which was probably a wise safety precaution, come to think of it. I was about to start whacking two sticks together to also ward off bears when a thin figure in a blue knit hat and heavy denim coat popped up in front of me.