Chapter 16
She headed for the kitchen, determined to face this room of such mystery. She had deliberately picked up simple foods at the grocery store this morning. Everybody can make a jam and peanut butter sandwich. Trouble was, she wasn’t interested in having one now. She’d bought sliced ham for sandwiches, and also she could fix cucumber sandwiches with mayonnaise too. Or a ham-and-cucumber combo sandwich. Each, she knew, she could manage.
Just to find some success in her day had her keeping her lunch to a simple sandwich. She pulled out two slices of bread and started building. It was fun. She could see that maybe this cooking thing wouldn’t be too bad after all.
With a sense of pride, she cut her sandwich into four triangles, placed it on a plate, put on the teakettle to make a cup of tea and sat down at the table to enjoy what she had made. She took the first bite when Thaddeus landed on the table beside her.
He cocked his head and said, “Thaddeus is here.”
“Thaddeus is here,” she joined him. “I wish you would stop saying that all the time. Please.”
He opened his beak and to shut him up she reached for a piece of cucumber still on the cutting board and held it up to him. He looked at it, snagged it in his beak and laid it down on the table where he broke it off into little pieces and pecked away at the center, then lifted the food with his foot, and ate it.
But at least he ate it. So that was good. Or maybe it was not good. Were birds supposed to eat cucumbers? She had no idea. She grabbed her laptop and pulled it toward her and quickly checked. Yes, cucumbers are allowed. Good.
She glanced around to see Goliath, sitting on the chair beside her, studying the ham left on the cutting board.
“Oh, no you don’t. That is for me, for another sandwich. And I might just need a second one.” She was starving.
She hadn’t had very much to eat since she’d arrived in town. And she really wanted a full meal. The thought of making it herself was daunting. Most of her earlier attempts while at the apartment had ended up in the garbage. And she couldn’t afford to waste food then or now. When she counted that cost of ruined food against what the restaurants charged, she’d chosen the restaurant more times than not over the last six months.
But she didn’t know very many restaurants here in Mission. And, if she could just learn to cook for herself, it’d be that much cheaper. She picked up the second quarter of her sandwich and studied it with a smile. “This was easy. So surely I can find something else just as easy to fix too.”
She set up a search on her tablet for easy meals for new cooks. And she munched away on her sandwich and studied the recipes.
“They don’t look that hard.” She chose one with a chicken breast and vegetables. When she finished her sandwich, she rose, walked to the fridge and studied the package of chicken. It was too much for one meal, so she opened it, put one piece on a plate, added the spices the recipe called for, putting it in a quart-size zip-bag, placed it back in the fridge, and froze the rest. She’d done her first step to getting dinner ready. Good. Next step was to clean up her lunchtime mess. Something else she never had to do while married.
She turned to see Goliath running off, a big piece of ham hanging out his mouth. And Mugs in chase.
“Mugs! Come back.”
But the dog not only had a chance to chase the cat but ham was his prize. No way would she be able to call him back from that. She took advantage of both of them being gone to quickly pack up the rest of the ham and put it back in the fridge. As she turned around, she caught Thaddeus working away on a large bit of cheese. She lifted the package, dumped the little bits and pieces on the table for him and wrapped up the rest.
“I can see that keeping food away from you guys will be as much of a challenge as not burning it,” she scolded. “You might be cute and fluffy, but you can sure destroy a block of cheese fast.”
As she turned around after closing the fridge, Goliath sat there, staring at her with a grin lighting his eyes.
“Oh, no you don’t. You had your share, and that’s all you’re getting.”
But the cat didn’t move.
And she wondered out loud, “Unless Mugs got the ham away from you. Did he?”
Feeling stupid but unable to help herself, she opened the ham and handed down a little piece. The cat grabbed it delicately and swallowed it.
She stared at him. “Did you even chew that?”
Silence. Not even a purr.
She gave him another tiny piece and wrapped up the ham, put it in the fridge and slammed the door shut. She glared at him. “That’s it. I have to eat too.”
Resolutely she walked to the table and finished packing up the rest of the food. Thaddeus had started working on the lettuce. She ripped off a couple pieces, laid it on the table, packed it up in its bag and collected the bread too. She didn’t think he’d gotten to the mayonnaise, but who knew?
She returned with a wet cloth to the table, wiped it down, brushing the crumbs onto her plate. She surveyed the clean area with a smile. “There. That wasn’t so hard.”
She dumped the contents of the plate into the garbage, then went back to the sink, where she washed her plate. She could almost get used to this. It was kind of boring and tedious work, but it was doable.
And speaking of doable and work, she needed to phone Mack.
She pulled out his card, dialed his home number and waited until he answered. “I drove past your mom’s house today. Are you interested in having the front yard and backyard done? Or just one of them?”
“How bad are they?”
“The front isn’t too bad. It’ll take a day at the most, I’d think. And it’ll take a couple hours a week to maintain it,” she said. “The backyard, however, that’s a much bigger job. Doesn’t look like it’s been mowed in quite a while. The front needs to be mowed too. But the back is much worse. The gardens are overgrown and need pruning, etc.”
“I honestly haven’t been in the backyard in quite a while,” he said. “I’ll do the mowing. It’s my mower anyway. I usually bring it over. I’ll take a look this weekend.”
“So I’d estimate the front would take six hours initially. And that would mean trimming the bushes, pulling out the deadwood, pruning back the perennials that are more like weeds and giving it a general clean-over. The weeds should be pulled on a regular basis. You already know that. If you want, we could arrange for me to spend a couple hours every week just to keep on top of it. The backyard, well, I’d have to go in and take a closer look before I can give you a better idea on the time needed.”
“When can you start work on the front?”
“This weekend?” It’s not like she had anything else to do. Except find out who murdered a man in Nan’s garden.
“Okay, we can do that. I’ll come over with the mower at the same time.”
They decided to meet on Saturday morning at nine. Just before she rang off, she said, “Did you know that the backyard of this property ends at a creek?”
“I took a quick glance over there when I was walking the property,” he said. “But it’s sealed off.”
“No, there is a gate in the fence,” she said. “It was a little hard to open, as it’s broken, yet I slipped out earlier and found a footbridge that crossed the creek.”
“So your backyard is fairly accessible. Is that what you’re saying? I’m tied up at the moment, but I’ll come by this afternoon to take a quick look. I thought the fence was sealed, so somebody would have to climb over it, in which case the whole thing would likely fall down and leave an obvious trail.”
With the call done, she went back upstairs to Nan’s—now her—room. She wanted to unpack, but had no idea where to put away Nan’s things, currently taking up the closet.
She walked into the spare bedroom and opened its closet. It was stuffed. No surprise there. She grabbed what looked like old winter coats. None of these were her style, and surely Nan didn’t need all these. Honestly the coats looked like clothing from the 1940s. She studied the labels, and a couple of them were real fur.
She frowned. Why did Nan have fur coats? Especially at this stage of her life? They looked like they were well cared for. Or had critters gotten into them? Fur was notoriously difficult to look after.
She continued studying the labels, realizing the coats were of seriously good quality. She pulled out her phone to call Nan.
“Nan, you have fur coats in your spare bedroom closet. What do you want me to do with them?” She turned to look at the dozen hanging coats. “Do you have someone I could give them too?”
“Oh, those old things? Why don’t you take them to the consignment store and see if you get anything for them.”
“Consignment store?” She wasn’t sure people did that with clothing. She’d heard of it being done with art and furniture, not so much for clothing.
“Yes. If they accept them to sell, they’ll give you a percentage of the money.”
“You mean, give you a percentage of the money,” Doreen corrected. “This is all your stuff here. If you didn’t want any of it, why didn’t you sell it or give away some of the clothes?”
“Because I knew you needed the money, dear. You go ahead and get what you can for the stuff. In fact,” Nan said, “When you’re ready to move out some of the clutter, feel free. I was going to, then thought you might enjoy the process. Besides you might be able to get a few dollars from selling some of it. I have everything I want with me right here.”
Doreen straightened. She looked around at the roomful of stuff—exactly the same as what the rest of the house looked like—and her eyebrows shot up. “Nan, are you sure?”
Even if Nan said she was sure now that didn’t mean she wouldn’t change her mind down the road. Better to take it slow and make sure Nan really was ready to let go of her memories. As she opened her mouth to say so, Nan laughed. “I’m serious. Except for you, Mugs, Goliath, and Thaddeus, everything I cherish is in my apartment with me every day.”
At that, Doreen’s eyes clouded with tears. “I don’t know what your finances are like, and I don’t want to pry, but neither do I want to take any money that you need for yourself.” Then she remembered. “And speaking of money, you never mentioned you were paying on a life insurance policy that has me as the beneficiary. Are you sure you should be doing that?”
“Oh, dear, you’re so sweet. I’m fine for money. That policy has been around for decades. I bought it when you were still in school from a nice insurance man here in town. He sold the business years ago, but I did confirm with the new owner that everything was still in place. When I’m gone, you’ll be fine. In the meantime, you go ahead and sell anything you want in that house. And check the pockets first. I was really bad about leaving money in pockets.” Nan hung up without so much as a goodbye.
Instantly Doreen shoved her hands into the nearest pockets and retrieved several crumpled-up twenty-dollar bills. And, for her right now, that was a gold mine. Excited beyond belief, she systematically went through the pockets of the fur coats, checking both the inside and outside pockets. In each coat she found money. Then she put them on the hangers, giving them a good shake out before rehanging them in the closet in the spare room.
Deciding to be systematic, she took a picture of the fur coat against the closet door. It gave a good idea what condition it was in, then she proceeded to document all the others. She shook her head. “Dear Nan, how the heck did you manage to get away with this all these years?”
But Doreen didn’t mind. It was like treasure hunting. And, if there was one thing she could use right now, it was a bit of treasure.