Chapter 22
Upstairs Doreen went back to the job of sorting through the boxes she’d found. Mugs lay contentedly at her side. Of Goliath there was no sign. Thaddeus had been on his roost in the living room as she’d walked through but she suspected he wouldn’t be able to resist seeing what she was doing. She methodically went through every item of clothing, checking all the pockets for bits and pieces of paper, business cards, the odd candy and, of course, money. She shook her head to think that so many people left money in their pockets and wondered if she had done so too—before.
There was her life before the separation and then her life after the separation. She wished she’d saved some of the money that had passed into her hands before. But life was life, and it changed. When she’d gone through all the pockets of the men’s clothing, she reloaded the two cardboard boxes, stacked them up again, repositioned the stepladder under the attic hatchway and climbed up again.
Carefully crawling on the plywood patches, she slowly dragged the rest of the boxes closer to the attic opening, dropping two more of them to the closet floor. The ones that she’d already repackaged, she had set off to the far side so she wouldn’t get them mixed up. These next two boxes held more of the same, men’s clothes. Still, if this represented the entirety of one person’s life, not a ton was here.
Repackaged, she added these two boxes to the first two she’d gone through, and then brought down the rest of the boxes. It took her several trips because some of them were very heavy. She closed the attic access door and folded up the stepladder, just in case somebody came inside and wondered what she was up to.
“All done, Mugs.”
Woof. Then he dropped his head back onto his paws and went to sleep.
She opened the flaps on all four boxes, found another one full of men’s clothing and chose to go through that first. This one had outdoor coats, jackets and a sweater. Again a bit of money was in each pocket, plus a couple notes that made no sense and a key.
She stared at the key in amazement. A key to what? It was small, possibly a safe-deposit box key. Almost a mailbox-size key. Certainly not a house key.
She placed the key in the bowl with the money. When she was finished with that box, she closed it and moved it off to the side.
The next box was a little more interesting—books. So maybe these were his personal possessions. She carefully went through them all to find a motley selection of novels and hard-copy books. Everything from a Webster’s dictionary to the latest New York Times best seller from thirty years earlier. Studying the collection, she frowned. She didn’t understand why these had even been kept. She carefully opened and shook each book to make sure nothing important was inside any of them.
When she was done, she had a few more dollar bills, a couple bookmarks that appeared to be more like business cards and that was it. She repackaged the box and set it off to the side.
Now she was down to two boxes. She was hot and dusty and tired. But she knew she had to get through these, just in case somebody came by.
As she had that thought, the doorbell rang. Mugs barking like a loon skittered off the bed and around the corner. She went to the window and looked out to see who was on the front step.
She cautiously went back downstairs. Mugs stood at the front door, barking like a crazy man before she got there. “Mugs, please calm down.”
For somebody who’d come here not expecting to know anyone, Doreen was getting way too much traffic through the place. She opened the door to find Mack standing on her front porch, his arms across his chest and a frown on his face. Mugs stopped barking and started whining instead. Somehow he’d taken a liking to the big detective.
“What took you so long?”
She frowned up at him. “I was busy,” she retorted. “Sorry if it took me a moment or two to come downstairs.”
He looked at her clothing and darned if he didn’t hold back a grin.
She stared at her jeans; her trips to the attic had covered her in dust. And likely cobwebs. She brushed her hair back and groaned as her hands were covered in dirt too. “Crap.”
“What have you been doing? Going into the attic or something?”
She swallowed her answer, not wanting him to know—yet—what she had been doing. She opened the door wider. “What do you want now?”
He stepped across the threshold, taking her opening the door as an invitation, though her tone was much less than welcoming.
With a bright cheerful smile he said, “I came to ask a few more questions. But now I’m checking on what you’re up to.”
She glared at him, feeling her mouth pinch into the same expression after she’d sucked a lemon. “What I am doing is my business.”
“Not if it pertains to the murder, or murders, that surround this property,” he said with a hard glare. “So, you’ve been in the attic, from the evidence on your clothing. What have you found?”
She didn’t even know how to begin. She wasn’t sure she had a choice here. She upped the wattage of her glare. She only needed another hour, and then she’d be done. Darn him anyways.
He laughed.
“Do you have a warrant?” she argued but without any heat.
“Do I need one?” he asked, frustration rippling through his voice.
“I just figured I’d go through it all first. If I found something, I would let you know.”
He grabbed her shoulder. “Stop.” He gave her a little shake. “Just think about what you are doing. Remember this is a murder investigation? Everything you find concerning this case is information I need to know.”
With the animals milling around their legs and generally getting in the way, she slammed the front door shut, put her hands on her hips and said, “I found some boxes in the attic. But I’ve barely looked through them all yet.”
He snorted. “Oh, no. I want to see exactly what you found.”
She ran to the staircase and stood on the bottom step, arms across her chest. “Only if I let you. You don’t have the right to go upstairs and see what I found.”
He picked her up at the waist, turned and put her down beside him. “I can get a warrant if you want. And that’ll be nasty because then more officers will come through and make a mess of this place, and they won’t care that it was Nan’s special possessions or that anything here might be of value to you in one way or another. And the more you try to hide something from me, the more pissed off I get.” He glared at her. “Do you understand me?”
She groaned, closed her eyes and said, “Why do you have such crappy timing? I was just getting to the good stuff.” She snuck past him and ran up the stairs with him hard on her heels.
“What did you find?”
“Jeremy Feldspar’s clothing.”
“What?” he roared.
She laughed and darted toward the spare room almost tripping on Mugs as he tried to run past her. “They were all neatly folded and stored in boxes upstairs in the attic. And then I found a box of books with his name on the inside of each one, and I’m down to the last two boxes now.”
“Anything interesting in the clothing?” he asked in a hard voice. “I want to see it all. Not just what you think I should see.”
She shook her head. At the door to the spare bedroom, she stopped. “So far there hasn’t been anything interesting, just little bits of money, little bits of paper, business cards. I went through the clothing pretty intently, and I didn’t see anything that had any information pertaining to his death or his life.” She pushed open the door, stepped inside and pointed to the boxes on the far side of the room that she had gone through and packed up again. Mugs took advantage of the wider doorway and jumped to retake his spot on the bed beside Goliath who opened one eye then closed it and continued his nap.
“Feel free to look. Everything here on the bed and in that small bowl is what I found in the pockets of his clothes.” She turned and pointed to the dresser. “That bowl is tidbits from Nan’s clothing. I kept it separate.”
He studied the stack of packed-up boxes, turned to look at the bowl in the center of the bed, breezed through its contents—the couple of business cards and some coins—picked up the notepad and realized it was more a shopping list. “Are you sure you checked each item of clothing carefully?”
She nodded. “Those boxes against the wall are clothing, but feel free to help yourself. The last box was full of coats.”
He walked over to them, opened the flaps on one of the boxes and pulled out a jacket. He held it up, looked at the style and said, “Definitely older-style clothing.”
She nodded. “From the eighties maybe.”
“How long has Nan lived here?”
“Since forever. She mentioned being here forty years. But I really don’t know the exact year she bought this place. You’d have to ask her.”
She watched as he pulled the pockets inside out, and then he did something unusual. He scrunched up the bottom of the jacket, as if looking for something inside the lining. He put the jacket down, pulled out another one and did the exact same thing.
She shrugged and opened the box in front of her. But then he walked over to the light of the window and held the jacket upside down. She walked closer and asked, “What did you find?”
“Something inside the lining.”
He turned the jacket inside out and found the seam that had been opened and sewn shut again. He pulled a knife from his pants pocket, quickly cut the stitches, and reached inside.
When he pulled out a sheet of paper, she gasped and said, “Oh my. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to hide that.”
He tossed her a hard gaze. “Most killers often do.”
“That makes no sense. He was the victim. So why would he go through all the trouble to hide this?”
Mack carefully unfolded the paper. Together they could both see a simple number and also an address.
He glanced at her and she shook her head. “I don’t know that address or the number.”
He pulled out his phone, punched the address into Google Maps, and it instantly brought up the location—a building in downtown Kelowna. “It’s a bank on Bernard Street. And that other number is likely to be his bank account number.”
“Or somebody else’s account number or a safe-deposit box,” she said. “Oh, I found a key.” She walked to the bowl and brought it and its contents back to where Mack stood at the window. The key sat among the coins. She picked it up and handed it to him.
He nodded, resting it firmly in his hand and said, “This is where I’m heading first.” He glanced at the box she’d just opened, stepped toward it, looked inside to see books and knickknacks. “I want you to stop right now. I want you to leave this room and not come back in here until I return.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “Do you hear me?” He glared at her.
She stuck her chin out at him and then considered his point. She’d tossed the suits off as not being of any more value, but he had found something epic that she’d missed.
Her shoulders sagged, and she nodded. “I’ll wait for you to come back.” She warned, “But I want to be here to go through this with you.”
He smiled at her as they headed downstairs. “Put on a pot of coffee, and I’ll be back in an hour.” He walked out the front door. Mugs milled around on the porch then came inside to slump on the floor beside her.
She watched him get into his vehicle and drive away. Would Mack make it back in an hour? Didn’t he need a warrant to access that safe-deposit box? Mack was a good ten minutes away from the bank. So twenty minutes to make the round trip alone. That left him forty minutes, including stopping off to get a warrant first, if needed, and then time at the bank.
If she stayed out of the spare room until Mack returned, he’d be more willing to share his findings with her. Yet, who knew what else she might find elsewhere upstairs while Mack was at the bank?
She walked into the kitchen, washed her hands and splashed some water on her face. Afterward she patted her face dry and wiped her hands on a small towel before putting on a pot of coffee. While he was gone, she made herself a quick sandwich. Her mind was consumed with what could possibly be inside Jeremy’s safe-deposit box.
When the phone rang ten minutes later, she knew who it was. “I knew you wouldn’t be back in an hour.”
Mack’s voice came through the phone, hard, clear, concise. “I won’t be back for the rest of the afternoon. This led to something quite interesting, and I must chase it down. I’m calling to remind you that no way in hell are you to go back in that room. If you don’t give me that promise right now, I will send over a series of officers to collect all that stuff.”
She glared into the phone. “I already said I wouldn’t.” Her voice turned crafty. “Are you going to tell me what you found?
“No,” he snapped. “At least not right now. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
He hung up, and she put her cell phone on the kitchen table, finishing the rest of her sandwich while deep in thought. Nobody knew the man was actually dead, right? Not for sure. Unless it was the murderer. Not without a body, correct? He was deemed legally dead after he was missing for seven years. What did Jeremy Feldspar have to do with the man in the garden?
It made no sense.
She stood to pour herself a cup of coffee. Facing the table again, she saw Goliath walking along the tabletop, helping himself to the bits of ham and cheese there.
And Thaddeus was busy throwing crumbs to Mugs on the floor.
She smiled. Somehow her trio of furry, fluffy, and feathered friends had become a family.
And her sneaky family knew the exact second when she had turned her back on her food.