If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance (28 page)

The phone went directly to voice mail. I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t hang up either.

“Hey,” the man said to the others in the house. “There definitely is a car out here. Let’s look around.”

After more rumblings, the group decided that one of them would search the inside of the house while the other two investigated outside. I kept the line connected but hid the phone under my shirt so they wouldn’t see the light. We saw one man walk toward the Nova, and I thought another went around to the back of the house.

“We’re at the Monroe House, Cliff,” I said into my shirt.

The man came back from the Nova and, from what I could tell, headed around the other side of the house. Sally appeared suddenly.

“Come on. Hurry. They’re not right here. Get in the car and go now,” she said.

“Sally’s here, Jake. She said we need to go now.”

That was all the encouragement we needed. We rolled out from under the porch and ran to the Nova. In record time that also felt like slow motion, we were inside it. Like the old trooper it was, it started immediately, and I burned rubber as I turned it around and got us the hell out of there.

We didn’t look back. If we had, we would have seen one of the men watching us drive away.

I hung up the phone just before Cliff called back.

“There’s no one at the house,” Cliff said as he hung up his
desk phone. “It looks like whoever was there is gone, but we found the lawn chairs, and we’ll talk to Bunny about her late-night customers.”

Jake and I were at the jail, along with Cliff and two other police officers who were looking at a computer screen on a table toward the back. My call had awakened Cliff and he wasn’t in his uniform, but some jeans and a T–shirt that had seen better days. Jim had taken another officer out to the Monroe House while Cliff met us at the jail.

Damon Rim was nowhere in sight, but Sally was there, pacing back and forth at the front of the jail. She felt horrible about her disappearance but had said that she hadn’t been in control, that it was as if she’d been kicked out of the place. We assumed the same thing had happened to Edgar, but he hadn’t reappeared.

Jake and I were filthy. I hadn’t taken time to look in a mirror, but Jake was covered in dirt, a few cuts, and a number of spiderweb strings. I imagined I looked about the same.

“They must have known we’d report them,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Betts, Jake,” Cliff said.

“Sorry?” I said.

“I might have been able to prevent this,” he said. “Jake called me yesterday and asked me to check on the condemnation order for the house. There is no such order. Whoever told you as much was lying. I was going to let Jake know tomorrow, well today, but not without checking out the house first. It didn’t occur to me that there would be issues in the middle of the night.”

Jake and I looked at each other.

“Yeah, we’re sorry, too, Cliff. We should not have gone into that house,” Jake said.

At the moment, I felt too stupid for my own good. I nodded.

“No harm, no foul, I suppose,” Cliff said as he ran his hand through his hair.

Our adventure had been more than a potentially unlawful act of trespassing; it had been a source of grave concern for Cliff, our friend, not just Cliff, the police officer.

“I’m sorry, Cliff,” I finally said.

“I’m just glad the two of you are okay,” he replied with a quick, forced, and tight smile.

“Me, too,” Sally said, midpace. I feathered my fingers so she knew I heard her.

“While we’re here, Cliff, you want to tell us about Damon Rim?” Jake said quietly.

“There’s not much to tell. He escaped from prison but turned himself back in. He was brought here for questioning. Both he and his sister claim that she didn’t convince him to
come in but we’re not so sure. He has an airtight alibi, believe it or not, for the time of the murder and kidnappings. Also, considering the time it would have taken for him to get here from the prison in Kansas, it would make it highly unlikely he could have committed the crimes.”

“It’s all coincidence? Him breaking out of jail and the notes to Jake, the murder, the kidnappings?”

Cliff nodded. “I know it seems strange, but we think that’s all it is, strange timing. He escaped from prison, but he does seem somewhat reformed—either that or just grown up. I know we remember him as the bully, but we were different then, too.”

“Maybe, but he seemed almost rotten to the core, unreformable in fact. He did end up in jail,” I said.

“I know, and that’s where he’s going back to, probably for the rest of his life. He’d gotten away and might have been able to escape completely, but he didn’t go through with it. It’s a crazy world sometimes.”

The phone on Cliff’s desk rang.

“Sebastian,” he said as he answered. “Really? That’s…interesting, isn’t it? Sure, I’ll round him up and bring him in.” Cliff hung up the phone.

Jake and I looked at him expectantly. It sounded like police business that was none of
our
business, but I sure hoped he’d share.

“That was Jim,” he finally said. “They found a credit card receipt in the kitchen of the Monroe House. The food they bought at Bunny’s was paid for with a credit card that belongs to Leroy Norton.”

“The bus driver?” I asked.

“Think so. I’m going to track him down now. You two okay?” Cliff didn’t wait for an answer as he seemed to reach
for the gun that should be at his side. He glanced down at his attire and winced. He opened the front desk drawer, pulled out a holstered weapon, and secured it around his middle over the jeans, and hurried out of the building. As the door opened and then closed, I noticed light. It had turned into daytime.

“The escape of Damon Rim means nothing? I have a hard time believing that,” Jake said.

“How about some breakfast?” I said. I knew I’d be tired at some point, but for the moment I wasn’t ready to sleep. The credit card receipt was probably an important find, but I was on sensory overload and didn’t want to think about it at that moment.

I didn’t know whether Jake and I had truly come close to being harmed. My gut told me there was something wrong with the guys at the Monroe House, but maybe they weren’t really dangerous. As the minutes ticked by and put more distance between me and the event, I thought maybe we’d overreacted.

The three men had left pretty quickly after our escape, though. That must mean something, too.

Unless, they were simply squatters and knew they’d be caught if they stuck around.

I’d never met someone who professed to be a squatter, but those guys didn’t fit the mental picture I had of one.

“Breakfast would be great,” Jake said.

“Sally?” I looked around but didn’t see her. “Sally? Huh. She left.”

“Does she usually say good-bye?” Jake asked.

“Yes, she does.”

I heard more of Gram’s words:
Don’t get attached to them, Betts. They come and they go. They don’t have any control over any of it. Neither do you.

“Do you think she left, left? Gone until the next visit?” Jake asked.

“I hope not.” But we had put her on sensory overload, too, whatever
sensory
meant to her. We’d taxed her batteries. I truly hoped I’d see her again soon.

I’d gone from thinking her proposal to exhume her body was ridiculous, to thinking that a more-than-one-hundred-year-old diary could not possibly still exist, to thinking that maybe, just maybe, it did. And would change the history of Broken Rope forever. It was an enticing idea, something new, something different. And even if the knowledge didn’t make her less dead, knowing she wasn’t a killer—if that’s what the diary proved—could give her some sort of peace, at least.

Jake and I both ordered Bunny’s bacon, eggs, and pancakes. We each cleaned up a little in restrooms, but we both could have used a real shower or two. The restaurant was busy, but Bunny wasn’t around so we didn’t get any questions about our state of disarray. I thought she might be with the police, but I didn’t know where specifically. Did Jim have some other command center set up?

As I filled my stomach, my brain started to fire off more coherent synapses and I remembered something.

“Jake, you can search the Internet with your phone, right?”

“Yes,” he said after he swallowed his bite of syrup-covered pancake.

He pulled out his phone, moved his fingers around the screen, and then handed it to me.

“What was it that Leroy said he searched for when the group’s lodging plans got messed up? ‘Broken Rope tourism’ or ‘Broken Rope police’?” I typed in the first one.

The Missouri Travel Council was the first site listed on the search results. It was followed by the Broken Rope Old
Stagecoach Museum, which was listed three times. Other Broken Rope locations were also among the results but none that mentioned Jake Swanson, his office location, or his phone number. He might have a phone in his building, but his archives weren’t for the public, and I didn’t think he used that phone much anymore.

I searched for
Broken Rope police or law enforcement
. The jail where the real police were located was listed, but neither Jake nor his fake sheriff’s office came up. I scrolled through a few pages and there was still no sign of Jake or anything associated with him.

“Are you in the phone book?” I asked him.

“I hope not. I pay to be unlisted.”

“What about your office, or your building?”

“That line’s been disconnected for some time. I have a Wi–Fi dock set up, but all my calls are on my cell phone.”

I typed in
Jake Swanson
and found a tennis player in Virginia and a musician in Florida. At least for the first few result pages, there was nothing about my Jake.

“Did Leroy call you on your cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“How did he get the number?”

Jake thought a moment. “When you and I were talking to him, he did say that he found me via a ‘Broken Rope police’ Internet search. But if I remember correctly, when he called me he said that the hotel gave him my number.”

“Yes. He definitely told us he found you on the Internet,” I thought out loud.

Jake shrugged. “Maybe he was confused.”

“Maybe, but why would he call you? Why would the hotel give him your number? It doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s a good question. The hotel might have my number,
but I’m not sure how or why. I’m not really a business in the normal sense of the word.”

I searched for The Tied and Branded’s number and hit dial.

“Tied and Branded, Broken Rope, Missouri. I’m Kelly, can I lasso you a room?”

“Hi,” I said. “Quick question. If you’re full, where do you send people?”

After a thoughtful pause, Kelly said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Do you recommend another place for people to stay or somewhere else to call?”

“Oh, well, we recommend Springfield locations. We’re the only place in town right now, but a bed-and-breakfast should be opening soon. We’re not concerned about competition. We’re happy to welcome new businesses to our community. We’re pretty well booked all the time, especially during the summer.”

“Would you ever have them call the tourism bureau or travel council or the police?”

“For a place to stay? No, I don’t think so, but anything’s possible. I can’t speak for everyone who works here.”

I heard voices in the background; someone needed her attention. “Thanks for your time.”

“Welcome. Have a nice day.”

I ended the call and said, “I don’t get it. Why would Leroy tell us he got your name from the Internet or from the hotel, particularly when it doesn’t seem all that possible he did either?”

“Dunno.”

I dug my fork into my own pancakes, but my mind was so occupied that I didn’t taste much of anything, and when it
came to Bunny’s delicious pancakes, it was a shame not to pay attention.

“There you are! I thought you might still be at the jail,” Sally said as she appeared beside the table.

I smiled. I was pleased she was still around. “Where did you go? Sally’s here, Jake.”

“Oh, good.” He smiled and kept chewing.

She scooted onto the bench next to me. “Look, believe me, I know that it doesn’t matter one little bit to the rest of the world who murdered my parents. In fact, it’s probably better for the town if history remains that I killed them. I don’t have a memory of doing the terrible deed, but that doesn’t mean much. And I know that there’s a current and horrible situation going on, but…well, since I’m here and all. I went to the cemetery—not the one by your school, but the other one. I found Gertrude Monroe’s grave, rest her soul. There’s a plot devoted to the whole family, but Bartholomew isn’t buried there. I don’t know where he’s buried, but not in the Monroe plot. I’d like to know why.”

“You think that maybe this Bart—Bartholomew—was probably your half brother. You think maybe he murdered your parents?” I said. I’d had that thought, too.

“I’d like to find out. Is there any way he”—she nodded at Jake—“could look him up in that room with all his papers? Maybe we could learn more about him.”

“I’m sure he’d love to. Jake?”

“Mm–hm.”