The door behind me slid open, and I slipped inside. “Finally,” I said, immediately moving to the radiator to heat up my chilled bones.
“So what did you find out?” asked Odelia, not wasting time with preliminaries or how-have-you-beens.
“Well, we discovered that there is an animal living in Hampton Cove who’s probably the oldest animal alive. According to Kingman she might even be more than fifty years old, or possibly even sixty or seventy, so she was probably alive when the skeleton found its way into that wall.”
“Boyd Baker,” said Odelia as she put the kettle on for a cup of tea. “That’s his name. He used to live next door with his wife and two kids. He died fifty-five years ago, or at least that’s when he disappeared from home never to return.”
“Boyd Baker,” I said, storing up this information. “So we talked to Camilla, who is a macaw, but she refused to cooperate, unfortunately. She seems to have some sort of irrational fear of cats, and kept saying the most insulting things about us.”
“She’s afraid we’ll eat her,” said Dooley. “Which made it hard to talk to her.”
“Right,” said Odelia as she took a cup from the cupboard, selected a tea bag from the tin, and aimed it into the cup. “In other words, you struck out.”
“Yes, we did,” I admitted.
“Kingman said there might be animals even older than Camilla,” said Dooley,” but since they’re mollusks they probably won’t have a lot of interesting things to tell us about this Boyd Baker.”
“No, you’re absolutely right,” said Odelia with a sigh as she took a seat on one of the high kitchen stools, took her notebook from her purse, and studied her notes. Odelia is a very avid note keeper, which is probably a good thing for a reporter. Cats, on the other hand, have to carry all of our notes inside our heads, as we don’t have pockets to put a notebook, or the opposable thumbs to handle a pencil. Luckily we have a lot of brain capacity, so we simply file all the information away up there in our noggin for later use.
“We could always go back and visit Camilla again,” I suggested. “Maybe this time she’ll be more amenable.”
“Yes, maybe she was in a bad mood,” Dooley agreed.
“If you think it’s worth a shot, why not?” said Odelia, and enjoyed her tea for a couple of minutes while she read through her notes.
I wondered where Chase was, but decided not to ask. When Odelia is busy working on a case, or a story, it’s best to simply leave her be. Humans function a lot better when they’re not interrupted every five seconds.
Which is why the interruption, when it suddenly came, was so annoying.
Chapter 20
Marge was in the basement, while Gwayn was whacking away at some pipe or other. She winced at the clanging sound and hoped the man knew what he was doing and not destroying what was left of the house’s plumbing system.
“There,” he finally grunted as he gave the pipe one more whack, possibly as a parting gift. “That should do it.”
“So… it’s fixed now?” she asked, almost afraid to utter the words in case she might jinx the repairman’s magic.
“I hope so.” He moved to a corner of the basement and opened the small tap that had been installed there. And when the cool, clear stream spouted from the tap, Marge almost whimpered with delight.
Instead, she clamped her hands together and said, “Oh, thank you so much, Gwayn. I thought I’d never see the day.”
“Just a minor issue with a rusted valve,” he said as he wiped his hands on a rag then started placing the instruments of his trade back inside his toolbox. “So how about that body? They ever find out who it belonged to?” he asked as he directed a curious gaze at the hole that was still plainly visible in the outer wall.
“My brother says it’s Boyd Baker, the man who lived here before we bought the house. My daughter is looking into it, and Alec, of course,” she added, wondering why she would put more faith in her daughter’s investigative qualities than her brother’s. “Tex and I bought the house from Boyd’s widow Phyllis. Apparently he disappeared fifty-five years ago, and this is where he ended up.” She placed extra emphasis on the number fifty-five, just in case Gwayn would be amongst those who thought the body belonged to her dearly departed dad, murdered by her mother.
“The Bakers, huh?” said Gwayn with a frown. “I remember Ma Baker, of course. Didn’t she pass away a couple of years ago?”
“Yes, she did. Her daughter and son are still with us, though.”
“Yeah, I seem to remember my dad doing some work for the Bakers back in the day. Though I could be wrong, of course. Names and faces,” he added apologetically. “My mind is like a sieve. Dad was much better with faces. He could see a person once and never forget what they looked like. Amazing gift, especially in our line of work. Well, then,” he said. “I think that should do it. I’ll check upstairs and then I’ll be off.”
“Thank you so much, Gwayn. You’re a miracle worker.”
“Yeah, well, wouldn’t want you to be without water all night, would we?” he said. He moved up the stairs, Marge right behind him. In the kitchen, Vesta and Tex were still arguing about the future of mankind, or Tex’s dream of becoming the next winner of The Voice and a musical talent to be reckoned with, but when Gwayn walked in they both shut up. They might not like each other very much, but there was one thing they both agreed on: never hang out your dirty laundry for the whole world to see.
Gwayn fiddled with the tap, and when the water ran, Marge heaved a sigh of relief.
“Funny, huh?” said Gwayn, who made no indication to leave, “If it hadn’t been for your valve to go bust, I would never have had to take out that piece of wall, and Boyd Baker would never have been found. Weird how things can work out like that. Makes you wonder how many other bodies are buried all over the place, waiting to be found by an enterprising plumber.” And with these words he finally took his leave.
“Boyd Baker?” asked Gran. “Is he the dead dude?”
“Yeah, Phyllis Baker’s husband, the woman we bought the house from,” said Marge.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Gran. “I always thought there was something fishy about that couple.”
“Of course you did,” said Tex acerbically. “You think there’s something fishy about every couple. Or every single person you meet.”
“No, I don’t. But the Bakers…” She frowned. “I seem to remember hearing stories about Boyd Baker. Stories about how he wasn’t as honest as he showed himself to be.”
“You mean he was a crook?” asked Marge.
“Yeah, something like that. He was a gardener, right? Used to work for this big landscaping company, and every time he showed up to do a place things would go missing. Jewelry, money, bits and bobs. No one ever accused him of anything, but rumor had it Boyd had a buddy who worked as a fence and could sell whatever Boyd managed to lay his hands on.”
“Like that brooch,” said Marge. “The brooch they found on him.”
“Yeah, but why would whoever killed him leave that brooch? That doesn’t make sense. If he was killed by the person the brooch belonged to, wouldn’t they take it?”
“They could have been in a terrible rush.”
“Or not thinking straight,” said Tex. “Especially if this wasn’t a professional hit they may have panicked and forgotten to search his pockets. And in the fifty-five years he was stuck inside that wall, his clothes may have pretty much turned to dust, but that brooch hasn’t.”