“Ahh,” she nodded. “After her call to the retirement home yesterday I should have guessed that.”
“Yeah, you should’ve, but I wasn’t going to say it.”
She ignored the gibe. “Well, at least now I know you aren’t just a dirty old man with a shoe fetish.”
“Me, no, but since you brought it up, Ed Ruble over at the hardware store on Main? Now he has himself a pretty serious thing for ladies’ shoes.”
Constance shook her head and raised an eyebrow. “Stella again?”
“Nope. Figured that one out on my own. Easy enough to do.”
“I’m not sure I even want to know how.”
“Like I said, I notice things. It’s my job to.”
“It’s still uncanny.”
“Whatever. Anyhow, as far as Ed goes, honestly he’s harmless. But while you’re in town you might want to avoid him if that sorta thing makes you uncomfortable.”
“Well, I don’t think I’ll have any need for a trip to the hardware store, but it’s okay. I’ve got some experience with men who have shoe fetishes, so nothing to worry about.”
“Well I guess we’re even then.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not sure I want to know about how you’ve got experience with that,” he replied.
Without further comment, Carmichael turned and shoved a key into the lock. After giving it a twist, he depressed the latch beneath the deadbolt and pushed the now unsecured door inward. Stepping back, he gestured toward the opening. “Ladies first.”
Constance looked past him and trained her eyes on the gaping maw that was pretending to be a doorway. The bizarre conversation had momentarily taken her mind off the chill in her spine, but the sensation had never actually left. Now her thoughts returned to it, and she could feel the gooseflesh rippling at the base of her neck. Ben had told her to trust her gut, but she wasn’t so sure this was her gut talking. Of course, she also couldn’t say that it wasn’t. All she knew for certain was that she was operating on even less sleep now than she had been before, so exhaustion could still be playing a role.
At least this time she wasn’t letting it spook her-well, not completely, anyway.
She nodded then stepped across the threshold and into the dark front room. Outside it was overcast, just as it had been the day before, but at least the sun was climbing behind the clouds instead of falling below the horizon. Even so, only a dim, gray light spilled in, and it brought an eerie illumination to the interior.
Sheriff Carmichael followed her through and left the door hanging wide open so that they could see. He pulled the five-cell flashlight from beneath his armpit and switched it on. The yellow-white beam formed a bright pool on the floor, casting an ever-softening glow out from the center as he twisted the lens to adjust it wider.
“A few years back there was talk of tearin’ this old place down,” he offered. “Sorta been wishin’ they had ever since.”
“I assume it has been vacant for a good while?” Constance asked, glancing around at the empty walls and scuffed hardwood floor.
“Coming up on about seven years, give or take,” he replied. “Like I said, it has been off and on. It was empty back in seventy-five, as you already know, and what happened didn’t exactly help its value. Someone did finally buy it around seventy-seven for next to nothin’, or so I heard. I was in KC by then. They fixed it up a bit.” He shone the light along the floor, then through an arched doorway and toward the back of the house. “Re-did the kitchen, tore off the old back porch. Normal stuff.” He played the beam around a bit so she could get the lay of the floor plan. “Those folks lived here awhile, then moved. Don’t know why. After that it changed hands a couple more times. Last owner was actually living here when the first body showed up seven years ago. Well, I guess in a couple of days it’ll be eight years…”
She turned toward the sheriff. “That wasn’t in the file. I assume that owner was investigated?”
“Much as need be,” he replied. “Ida Smith. She was eighty-nine, and when she found the…well…what she found… Anyway, it didn’t do her heart much good, as you can imagine. She never was the same after that. Kinda went downhill fast, then she passed away about eight months later. Place has been empty ever since.”
“Well, that definitely rules her out.”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Who owns it now?”
“Hulis, pretty much. Ida didn’t have any family left to speak of. Town took it over. Tried to sell it, but after the second body showed up, there wasn’t much interest, as you can guess. So, they just boarded it up.”
“Why haven’t they just torn it down?”
He snorted. “Beats the hell outta me. But I’ve got nothin’ to say about it. That’s all the town council.”
“Well, it actually looks like it’s in decent shape for sitting vacant as long as it has,” Constance observed.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he sighed. “Could use some work, but it’s still standin’. Sometimes when I drive by here it seems like the place is just mocking all of us. I know that sounds kinda crazy. It’s just a damned old house.”
“With a seriously damned history,” she offered.
“Yeah…it’s got one of those all right. But it’s still an inanimate object.”
“What happened to it being haunted?” Constance asked. “I thought I was the skeptic in this crowd?”
“You mean the skeptic who’s ‘seen stranger things’?” he quipped, tossing her comment from the night before back at her.
“Seeing isn’t necessarily believing,” she replied. “Not always, anyway.”
He fell silent for a moment, then huffed, “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, what I said yesterday about the house being haunted… That was just talk. I don’t really buy into any of that supernatural crap.”
Constance thought back to some of the cases she’d worked in the past. She wasn’t going to admit it-especially now-but her skepticism was as much a hopeful optimism as anything else. Like he had just reminded her, she’d seen some pretty strange things, and there were a few she still had to take purely on faith.
Without realizing it, she muttered quietly to herself, “I guess you just never know…”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing,” she answered, shaking her head. “Just thinking out loud.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a daughter does that. Makes me nuts.”
Constance nudged the conversation back to the particulars of the case. “Is there a back entrance to the house?”
“Yeah, right off the kitchen. Locked up tight. Never been any sign of forced entry.”
“Maybe the killer somehow has a key?”
“Locks have been changed four times. Three of ‘em I did myself. Finally just gave up. So, unless the killer is me…”
“Are you?” she asked.
He snorted. “Do you think I’d tell you if I was?”
“With you, Skip, I’m not so sure…” Constance wasn’t usually one for gallows humor, but Ben had rubbed off on her through the years, and sometimes it would leak out unexpectedly.
Skip turned and played the flashlight up just far enough to illuminate the smirk on her face. He snorted again. “I see that coffee is starting to kick in.”
“Sorry,” she apologized.
“Don’t be. It comes with the job.”
She returned to the subject at hand. “Any other ingress or egress?”
“Windows would be about it, but they’ve never been disturbed that we can tell,” he told her.
“The killer has to get in and out somehow.”
“Yeah, can’t argue there,” he grunted, playing the flashlight around in the darkness. A moment later he quipped, “When you figure it out, tell me, okay? Because this’n has me stumped.”
“With you that’s hard to imagine.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. There was no hubris in his voice, just sincere confusion at why he didn’t see the answer to this riddle the same way he saw everything else.
“Well, that’s why I’m here,” she replied.
“Yeah, well no offense, but you’re the fifth Fed to tell me that.”
“So…” Constance said, allowing the flat commentary to go without rebuttal. “As I understand it, the bodies are always found in the basement, correct?”