Mac picked up the notebook with his gloved hand and flipped to the back. The pages were filled with letters and numbers in what looked like a code. He snapped it shut and slipped it into a large baggie. I examined the metal box.
“Did she have a key on her when she died?” I asked, hoping we wouldn’t have to go to the shed and search her body.
“I don’t think so. She wasn’t wearing a necklace and I did check her pockets.”
“Now we’re looking for a key,” I said. “That’s even harder to find.”
“Let’s check the bathroom.”
We took everything out of the medicine cabinet and lined it up on the counter. No key was attached to the shelves or taped to the bottom of her face lotion. I felt another nudge. Something was wrong here, but I couldn’t place it. Now that we had taken everything off the shelves, it looked different to me. We put the pain reliever, birth control, bandages, and toothpaste back on the shelf. I still couldn’t place it. Mac took the lid off the toilet and checked inside. He ran his hand along the back. He stood and shook his head.
We went back out to the bedroom and I ran my hands along the hems of all her dresses and skirts. Mac checked the pockets of all her jackets. Still nothing.
I was systematically going through each piece of clothing in each drawer when the door to the bedroom slowly eased open.
35
“Oh, it’s you guys again,” Vi said from the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
She pulled her hand behind her back and said, “Nothing. Just thought I’d look around while your mother does her card readings.”
She’d been quick, but I had spotted the deep purple drawstring bag in her hand.
“What are you going to do with the pendulum?”
“Pendulum?” Mac said.
Vi brought her hand out from behind her back and sighed. “I wanted to see if it would tell me who else had been up here that night.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Mac said.
Vi drew herself up to her full five feet, two inches. “Detective McKenzie, just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it won’t work.”
“You’re trying to solve this case using a piece of glass on a string?”
“What are you using? Intuition and gut feelings?”
“No, I’m using my experience in solving murder cases,” Mac said.
“Well, I’m using my experience in answering questions with a pendulum.”
“We’re pretty much done here, Mac,” I said. “We might as well let Vi swing her crystal around.”
Vi pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at me. We all stood staring at one another.
“Well, are you going to ask some questions or not?” Mac asked.
“I’d prefer to be alone,” Vi sniffed. “The pendulum doesn’t respond well when there is negative energy in the room.”
I figured she also thought we’d steal her top-secret pendulum information if we hung around.
“Ms. Greer, you have to promise not to move anything or touch anything,” Mac said.
“Don’t you think the crime scene has been fully contaminated by now, what with cats and ghosts and who knows who else wandering through here—plus what do you think Clyde is doing?” She pointed at the clothing piled on the floor. “I know Clarissa left her shoes everywhere, but I don’t remember her storing her clothing on the floor.”
Mac rubbed his forehead. He glanced at me for guidance.
“I’ll put it all back and then you can ask your questions,” I said to Vi. “Just try not to disturb anything.”
Vi humphed. “Don’t tell me not to disturb anything. I know how to act at a crime scene—I’ve been Googling police procedure for months.”
I tidied up Clarissa’s clothing without finding a key, and Mac and I went back downstairs, leaving Vi and her pendulum alone in Clarissa’s room.
As soon as we exited the stairwell, Mac grabbed my arm and propelled me toward my room.
“We need to talk,” he said, “privately.”
I pulled out my key and unlocked the door.
Mac ushered me inside, locked the door, and put the chain into the metal slider.
“I need to tell you something that you absolutely cannot share with anyone,” he said. He held my gaze and all I saw were his cop eyes.
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Not Vi, or your mother, or even Seth. Don’t even think about it around that kid—sometimes I think he can read minds.” Mac held Clarissa’s notebook out and flipped it open.
I stepped toward him to get a better look.
He pointed to the column of numbers and letters.
“I think this is a list of cell phone types and numbers of units.” He ran his finger down the column.
I followed his finger and it became clear—IP, BB, NK, SS, for iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung. The numbers looked like they would correlate with what we had found in the storage room. There were way more iPhones listed than BlackBerries.
“Great,” I said. “But, what do we do with it?” I didn’t think this was any big secret—she kept a list of the inventory—if anything it just proved that she had her nose in everyone’s business.
“That’s the part you can’t tell anyone,” he said. “Kirk is an undercover cop working this cell phone case.”
“What? How do you know?”
Mac flipped the notebook shut inside the large baggie. He hesitated. “I recognized him. He worked a case in Saginaw a few years ago. I didn’t know him well, but I’m pretty sure he made the connection as well. We talked about it when we took the snowmobiles out to check the road. I need to let him know what we found without exposing him. I don’t want to mess up his case, or put him in danger.”
“Okay. It’s probably better if we don’t both go looking for him,” I said. “I guess that explains why he’s such a terrible maintenance man.”
Mac shoved the baggie-wrapped notebook into his waistband and covered it with his snowman. I noticed that his sweater had sprouted buttons. It seemed Mavis was still finishing.
“Let’s leave the box here until we find a key or can turn it over to the police,” I said. “Who knows if there’s even anything in there worth hiding. It could just be legal documents or jewelry.”
Mac nodded and looked around for a place to put it. “I don’t know about that. You’re sharing a room with Vi.”
“As far as I know, she can’t pick a lock, so she’s not likely to take much interest in it. She might try to wave her pendulum over it to see if it contains anything she would consider important . . .”
“Still, we should put it somewhere she’s not likely to find it . . .”
I pointed to the closet. The wall safe wasn’t big enough, but the top shelf was deep and we could push it to the back. Unless she really was on the hunt, she wouldn’t notice it up there.
After we stashed the box and Mac double-checked that the notebook was well hidden behind his sweater, we opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
Mavis was there. She shut her door and clicked the lock with her key.
“Oh, Detective McKenzie,” she said. She hurried toward us on her sturdy shoes, her purple pants making that zip-zip sound of polyester rubbing against itself. It was clear she had reapplied her lipstick without benefit of a mirror when she smiled.
Her jaunt down the hall had left her breathless, or maybe it was just Mac’s proximity, but she put a hand to her ample chest as she caught her breath.
“I need to speak to you,” she said. She glanced at me and added, “Alone.”
“Mrs. Poulson, if you have something to tell me about the investigation, you can speak to both of us. Ms. Fortune is a police officer as well.”